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31 Jan, 2011

L Stortz donating material

By |2011-02-15T09:07:28-05:00January 31st, 2011|My Brain|0 Comments

I’m not going to change her writing. The caps and the yelling for effect is what really gets me.

“Tom. You need to write about this only if you experience the same anger I do. I can not STAND when I am walking and someone is walking from the opposite direction and they either 1. don’t move AT ALL or 2. do not move to their RIGHT. You are supposed to pass on the right. I just don’t understand why people don’t automatically move right when they see others coming from the opposite direction. I refuse to move to the left because it just doesn’t flow with the way our society works (ie cars drive on the righthand side of the road). Does this bother you as much as it does me??”

Are we passing by another or am I speed walking passing? I assume it’s when we are heading for one another and the opposing traffic isn’t moving over and she doesn’t want to move to the left to bypass. To this I agree and it’s a pretty simple solution, DON’T BREAK STRIDE. If the idiot doesn’t understand that we drive / walk on the right hand side, they should be decked by oncoming traffic. Come to a complete stop if you have to and make the person walk around you. What I like to do is mutter under my breath as I walk by like “completely oblivious moron.” What really pisses me off is the groups of on comers who don’t move. They will be lined up 4 across and rather than form a 2×2 square, they act like you should move to their march. Have some common courtesy.

Her point doesn’t nearly bother me as much as the slow walkers who take up the sidewalk. I’m 6ft tall and probably a faster Johnnie walker then most so I come across this fairly often. Usually I’m OK with the one person pass, I just speed up and overtake in one fell swoop, but when multiple people line up and are engaged in their day to day convo, they force me to walk on the street or grass to pass, that annoys me. Obviously everyone is entitled to walk as fast or slow as they want but if it’s a crowded walk way, at least maintain a reasonable pace.

31 Jan, 2011

Bball and Rut

By |2011-01-31T08:49:01-05:00January 31st, 2011|Music, Sports|5 Comments

We played a Manayunk Bball game last night w/o our usually best player, CK4 would resent that, and ended up winning by double digits. Chad probably fired up close to 25 shots but he’s obviously our best offensive weapon so no one really cares. I think that’s one thing about our team and maybe the reason why we win, we just let our best offensive players takes the shots. There’s no complaining about not getting shots and everyone just goes along swimmingly. Jkash even busted a J right in some big oaf’s eye which was a rarity (no offense). He even fouled a guy who was coming down into the lane and the guy’s comment was “I think he raped me…).” Once again though we were out sized and came away with the W to go to 3-0 in that league with a game on Tuesday in the Ambler league.

In other news, I don’t have much going on. Just to give a brief update on things and what I’ve been doing. I’m halfway done the first season of the Soprano’s and I’m really enjoying it. If you have the 2nd season, and want to help me out, I will pay to have you ship it to me because it’s running $31 bucks. I’ve also been playing a ton of poker with mixed results. I fancy myself pretty good at heads up and jump started my bankroll that way. Then I won a 12 dollar 45 man on Saturday night at 3am after coming back from the bar. I have about 400 in my account and am really just waiting to breakthrough with a multi-table tourny win. I got 36th of 617 and have made runs in bigger fields but just can’t walk away with the W. Playing sort of makes me lazy but I’ve been hitting the gym and am still active. Until I go busto again, be prepared to have me periodically update my poker situation in the blog.

One unusual thing that has happened to me is that Dunkin Donuts raised their price of the combo I get to 4.17 instead of 3.86. Most people would just move on but this throws a huge monkey wrench in my daily routine. I like to have change in my car for various reasons but what this new price is doing is making me use a quarter instead of getting .14 cents back. I don’t have an unlimited supply of quarters and it’s starting to worry me that my change supply is going to dry up. Things like this are what really bother me. Now you might say, use a 5 dollar bill and get the .83 cents and problem is solved but it doesn’t work this way. If you have a change amount <.15 cents, you should try to use change so you don't have to make the cashier count out the change and fill your pockets with nickels and dimes. The sad thing is that every single day this event transpires, it's going to bother me until it gets to the point that I'm just going create a dept with rows and rows of .17 cent increments. Problem solved.

I’ve also been listening to a lot of Anberlin and I just think that this might be the best band I’ve heard in a long time. How can you tell if a band is good? If you play their CD and you don’t have to skip songs because they are all good. Gusto gave me all their music and I just start it and let it play through. I may post some of their better songs to give my readers a taste. That is all.

26 Jan, 2011

BBall and Snow

By |2011-01-26T07:47:41-05:00January 26th, 2011|My Life|5 Comments

We played are 2nd game in the Ambler BBall league last night and came out with another W against a pretty decent team. With Ck4 back in the lineup we had a little extra offense compared to last week. Bake carried us in the first half hitting shots from all over and Ck4 (who keeps exact stats) had 20 in the 2nd half. We were up 18 or so at one point and ended up winning by double digits. Their team had 3 decent players and then a bunch of role players but just didn’t have enough fire power to beat a team where everyone on the court knew what they were doing. It was definitely a good team victory and gives us a bit of momentum moving into the next game. At the foul line I managed to airball the first shot, short and left, and then not catch iron on the second. It was really embarrassing. Honestly though, after airballing the first shot, it’s hard to have a whole lot of confidence about the second.

The snow is coming down now and it’s going to make it difficult to head into work. It’s just not worth the risk of getting stuck, especially if we are going to be getting more this afternoon. To quote Ck4 and his weather geeks, it seems to me that the weathermen are always “out to lunch.” Where are the people who are letting you know that it’s going to be coming down as hard as it is at 7am. I read late Wednesday evening. Anyway, it gives me some time to think about my next site project. I worry that it might be hard to maintain two sites but I don’t have too much extra going on. The to and too is so annoying. Every time it’s also, I think too. If it’s I’m going to do something, it’s to. So if you see me doing it wrong, point it out. Like is there a comma after wrong there?

25 Jan, 2011

Last Post

By |2011-01-25T08:33:01-05:00January 25th, 2011|My Brain, My Life|0 Comments

I’m not a total moron and when I write the post about the books I just read, I’m well aware that in such a small audience, most people probably have no interest in reading that type of post. I’d actually be surprised if you read the post and had no idea what the books were about. That would just be weird. My basic idea is that this site avg’s about 30-40 people a day depending on the day and if say maybe 2 people have read those books, it’s relevant to them. So for my site I create posts that maybe <5% of the people who read care about. What I'm doing is describing why a personal blog, at least mine, isn't going to get any significant traffic. I'd have to find a theme and then concentrate on one area and generate traffic from a specific group of people. My plan in the next week or so is to buy another domain name and basically start a new website with the aforementioned idea. I haven't really given this idea too much thought but I think it might be something fun to do and maybe even give me some direction. I'll try to pick something that is constructive and hopefully entertaining to the select crowd. I think I just have to come to grips that rnningfool.com isn't really going to get me anywhere.

This thought process sort of stemmed from Laura telling me that my life isn’t that much more entertaining then most and widespread attention isn’t going to happen. It isn’t even the attention I’m looking for but just the fact that if you create something and it generates interest from people, that’s fine by me. I know that is pretty much what attention is but I have no desire to be famous, just to have people who care about information provided. I completely understand too because when I put myself in the readers shoes, why on Earth would I want to read a blog about some random person and the life they lead. They must have something seriously unique with them to maintain a blog that random people would want to read. So unless you personally know me, you aren’t going to spend your time on my site. I, unfortunately, am pretty normal aside from my ability to get way too hammered and do stupid stuff. I’m not really going to change anything in the way I write this blog and will continue to do so. I know the title is misleading but when I started writing this I meant for it to be about the last post I wrote below. Nothing will be different and I will keep rnningfool.com viewers updated with anything I do.

24 Jan, 2011

The Girl Who… Trilogy

By |2016-11-03T15:21:52-04:00January 24th, 2011|Books|1 Comment

I’m going to dedicate an entire post to this series because I just finished the final installment and wanted to sum up my thoughts. First off, Laura, I’m going to have to disagree with your assessment that the last novel wasn’t very good. I just spent the last 3 hours, uninterrupted, finishing the last 150+ pages. It was the first time in a very long time I read a book, finished the last line and said “I liked that.” The ending really brought the books together and aside from the mystery of her sister, I liked how it all came together. It’s funny too because in the last couple pages I was thinking what ever happened to…

The books had you had you genuinely liking the protagonists and felt the relationships among them. The first book was an introduction to the characters and a story. The 2nd got more personal amongst the characters and set up the 3rd book which really tied things up in entertaining fashion. I can’t think of a more satisfied feeling of a book then finishing that series. I don’t know how the series is geared to but the as a 27 year old guy, I was captivated throughout. I found the reading to be really easy, basically a page a minute with nothing difficult to understand. Sometimes character names were tough to identify, Ekstrom and Edklinth come to mind. It wasn’t a real issue but not American names just took some getting used to.

I found them making Blomkvist a little too suave but I just pictured him as Daniel Craig and everything worked out. I think they gave Lizbeth a little too much physical power but it comes with the novel. All the other characters were pretty much secondary and the Figuerola-Blomkvist love interest at the end seemed completely unnecessary. The truth of the matter is though that in the last two books I spent straight hours finishing them because I didn’t want to put it down. Not only that but now I get to feel like a part of popular culture because I’m in tune with Steig Larsson and the Girl Who… Chicks dig it.

24 Jan, 2011

Another Weekend

By |2011-01-24T09:32:24-05:00January 24th, 2011|My Life|0 Comments

I have nothing of real interest to write about as this weekend was just sort of blah. I played a fair amount of online poker which led to virtually nothing. I was up a couple hundred and finished with nothing worth talking about. The weekend in terms of partying was pretty bland too. Nothing really happened on Friday and Saturday we had our football team banquet and there really aren’t any stories worth noting. Our Bball team blew out another team in the Manayunk league which we are beginning to see might be a bit of a joke. It’s really hard to tell what kind of a league you are signing up for. Ambler is just right in terms of skill level but the Yunk league seems ridiculously weak. When compared to the Springfield league when he went 0-8. I’m starting to get the impression that the Manayunk Sport and Social is just not comprised of very talented athletes when season after season us above avg athletes are winning league after league. By no means I’m I writing that we are so good we are unbeatable but to win league after league, with mainly just athleticism, is just a surprise. We aren’t that athletic.

I’m not feeling 100% but probably better than past Monday’s. When I compare the Thursday-Saturday drinking to not drinking, obviously the not drinking is the better route in terms of health. Not to mention that I haven’t been to the gym since Wednesday and being lazy completely gives up the hard work I put in last week. The poker really sets me back too. I understand how people who grind tables get completely out of shape and useless. It’s not a healthy recreation but to make any strides, you really have to put in the hours. So I’m sort of trying to balance exercise, with poker, with being healthy and if this weekend was any indication, it’s going to be difficult. I’ll go to the gym today but this it’s not going to be a good workout because I feel dehydrated and lousy.

Sammi from Jersey Shore is coming to Mad River on Tuesday and I’m 100% considering a pass. I get the feeling that not that many people are buying tickets because they are trying to give them away. I like making guesses like that because I honestly have no clue how many people would buy tickets to do what, look at Sammi? It’s like when we see the owner of a bar bartending, to guess that the business isn’t hugely profitable seems reasonable. Guessing on things like this is how rumors get started, which you have to be aware of.

JKash alerted me that my writing is usually filled with poor grammar and I never got A’s in English so that doesn’t surprise me. I just throw commas in if I think there should be a pause. I honestly found that section of my schooling to be quite boring. I think it’s amazing I can form sentences as I do. I think it would be a good idea if I took a creative writing course and then shared the ideas with this blog. Yeah, that’ll happen…

21 Jan, 2011

Katy Perry Say It Ain’t So

By |2016-10-28T15:22:17-04:00January 21st, 2011|Music|0 Comments

I came across this picture and I have no idea if it really is Katy Perry or not but that’s what the caption said. I read it was on her twitter page or something like that. I’m scared.

21 Jan, 2011

Are you paying too much for Verizon? (or Comcast)

By |2012-10-25T11:52:31-04:00January 21st, 2011|My Brain|2 Comments

If you do not check your monthly bill and are paying something outrageous (200+ for internet and cable), I’m going to give a quick write up on what you should be doing. Ck4 spent almost 2 hours yesterday negotiating with these people and although I don’t think he does a fantastic job in the people end of things, he does get the job done. I want to share with you a couple of smart things to say to these greedy money whores at these big companies. Generally these conversations take place when they try to raise the prices on your current bill or if you’ve never negotiated with them before.

The first smart thing Ck4 says when he gets on the phone with a representative is that he can’t afford the rate increase. His rent is X amount and how is he supposed to pay 1/3 of his rent for cable and internet. This is such a good comment to make because it’s the best reason for why you need a lower bill if they want to keep you as a customer. The funny thing is that if they were smart they would say if you can’t afford it why do you “need” Showtime and Hbo. I also want to add that getting to the retention dept is more effective than the initial person you speak with. So usually after telling them that you can’t afford the bill they say they can’t do anything for you and you have to tell them you wish to cancel your service and that you want to be transferred to the retention dept. People in initial customer service don’t have the authority to make any changes. Ck4 and I like to say that they are like a wall between you and the people you need to speak with. Their job is to stop you from speaking with the appropriate people.

Once you get retention you explain that this is not what I was paying before and if we could just go back to the previous rates, everything is fine. The comment that “You are willing to give new customers these promotions but you are looking to screw your existing customers” works well. Also it’s not bad to know what the competition’s rates are because you can use that as leverage when negotiating. The goal is to never cancel your subscription because that is just a complete hassle but to have them lower your bill. This works on cable and phone and universally everything. With some common sense and the willingness to not accept their offers, you will lower your bills and keep more money in your pocket. Ck4 if you have anything to add, just comment or send me some text and I’ll input it.

21 Jan, 2011

Mad Fun

By |2011-01-21T09:39:27-05:00January 21st, 2011|My Life|0 Comments

So Ck4 was real excited to go to Mad River last night after a stint in Seoul. We got there at 9 or so and I probably drank 8 or so bud lights before 11. I was pretty buzzed when the band came on but the crowd was average at best. So I just stand there trying to act cool and I was approached by a couple girls. The first girl was maybe a 5 and she basically started grinding up against me and being weak willed I obviously obliged. So after a few minutes she turns around and does the head tilt going in for a make out session. Well there’s hardly anyone around and I’m not completely wasted yet so I just kept standing there and she eventually left. Towards the end another girl, probably a 7, asked me why I have my hands in my pockets and I had no idea I even did but I started talking to her and after a little bit that eventually went no where. Laura said that I talk a big game about picking up random floozies at the bar but I think we all know that the amount of girls that come home with me is negligible. Even though I say that I’m trying to pick up girls at the bar, which I am, that doesn’t mean I’m any good at converting them back to my room, just to clarify. So after the night CK4 and I got a taxi back and now I’m at work on Friday feeling like shit because of last night. When I compare how I feel now to the fun I had last night, I’d still pick the fun but days like these I just wish would end soon.

After proofing this last entry, I know that was an abrupt ending but I think I just got tired of typing about nothing.

20 Jan, 2011

Parc

By |2011-01-20T10:59:33-05:00January 20th, 2011|My Life|2 Comments

Laura and I went out to dinner last night which was nice because we tend to go periods of time without seeing one another. It’s one of those things that if no one makes an effort, nothing happens. I met her in the city after work and let her choose the restaurant. We went to Parc which unbeknownst to me was a Steven Starr restaurant. I thought the atmosphere was good because it had an upscale feel to it but had no problem with casual attire. Being my sister, we know each other fairly well and conversation isn’t really an issue. Somehow conversation led to her to telling me I’m cocky and insecure which at first, like anyone, I go into defense mode, but maybe she had a point. Her reasoning was that my cockiness was a defense mechanism because of my lack of long term female relationship. Every once in a while it’s useful to talk to someone who is completely real with you and will give you an honest opinion so I appreciate any input from her.

So we ate a steak and some fish and the meal was pretty well done and tasty. I went straight to the gym afterward which is always difficult to work out after eating a big meal, but I did the best I could. I’m still in pretty good shape and am getting ready for the Frostbite 5 miler which is a pretty fitting name for me. I’m looking to break 29 minutes which with good training I should be able to do. After the gym I went home and played some poker. I went 0-7 in cashing and then final tabled a 12 man 180 with a 6th place. It was the 2nd time I final tabled it in 3 days and the 3rd time I got it in ahead (AQ vs KJ) and had my opponent flop trips AI PF. If I won that pot I’d be looking at 2nd in chips and one of the better players at the table (cockiness…) I’m really playing well and it’s just bad luck of going 0-7 with no cashes but once my luck turns I’ll see better results.

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