30 Minute Meals ... Yeah Right

No, I am not starting a cooking show and no my girlfriend's last name is not "Ray," I am not America's Top Chef and I am not an Iron one either. Instead I am part of a group that takes the longest time in the world to decide where and what to eat.

Imagine yourself sitting at your computer, nearing your average dinner time. Since you and your "roommate" are not cooking, it means another night hunting for a meal to satisfy your hunger. Sure, you can go to the regular places and you always seem to.

My group has what I like to call the trifecta. The list includes, Wendy's, Taco Bell, Iguana's, Wing Stop, Little Caesers and don't forget Quiznos. I know there are more than three there, but when I started calling it that, that's how many places we seemed to go to.

So your sitting in the common room of your place discussing with your house mates the places you would like to go to eat. Everyone chimes in and a vote is taken to figure out which places is more desirable.

Well that is how, in my head, it should go. Instead, I ramble off a bunch of places that we haven't been to in the last ... three days, and my room mates sit on the couch in front of me playing Street Fighter II Turbo, ignoring what I am saying.

Sure this doesn't happen all the time, but in the last seven days I have been back with them, that has been the pattern. So when I call my girlfriend at around nine each night, I am starting to think that she thinks I just pick a time at night to call her back. So this post is here to describe the average time wasted, using tonight's outing as an example; discussing, looking, picking and getting to a place to eat.

The following example works for all possible meal times for college students.

1. Everyone gathers in a common place to discuss the level of hunger and the possible places to satisfy said hunger. (Time recommended 5:00 minutes.) Actual time taken 20:00 minutes.*
*Note: Time does not include bathroom trips, exiting World of Warcraft or hearing the initial summoning.

Instead of discussing what places they want to go, I hear a bunch of, "I am not all that hungry" and "Lets get something different," instead of hearing suggestions that would meet these criterion. More Street Fighter is played and no decisions are made.

2. A general location is picked and the group makes its way to the vehicle, where they take off for their destination. (Time recommended between 5:00-20:00 minutes depending on traffic.) Actual time taken 60:00 minutes.

We drove around the mall parking lot looking for places to eat inside. Seeing lines in most places still open we keep circling, mainly because the roommate driving can't drive worth a damn and doesn't understand verbal directions. They have to come from his female navigator in his car. We circle and eventually I get frustrated and end up picking a place that would have met the recommended traveling time.

3. The driver promptly drives his passengers to the desired location and successfully navigates the vehicle back to the place of residence. (Time recommended including time to eat at a casual restaurant 45:00 minutes.) Actual time taken 80:00 minutes.

The thing about one of our roommates is, he just can't drive, navigation or not. It baffles the rest of us that he even obtained his driver's license. He goes up one-ways and makes u-turns in intersections clearly marked with no u-turn signs. He doesn't use his blinker or look over his shoulder and also can't drive at night without using his high beams. That is all for my next post, but really, he should not be driving.

All in all, lunch or dinner, out, should not take more than an hour at the most. Instead, trips with my roommates always end up being a minimum of two hours without a maximum time. It drives me crazy, but I know it drives my lady up a wall, so I had to explain.

So tonight after driving almost 20:00 minutes from our house in search of a place to eat, we ended up eating in a Jack in the Box less than a quarter of a mile from our house. Then it took our wonderful navigator fifteen minutes to get us back home because he missed a right hand turn in the parking lot, putting us on a painfully long detour.

Tune in more often, I am going to be going back to school in about a week and plan on posting on a regular basis.

Why Don't We Do It In The Road

In the last week I have traveled more than eighteen hours in a car on my mid-summer vacation. Last weekend, my younger sister and I went up to Nevada to visit my brother and spent a few days hanging out and catching up on things. Not to mention eating big meals and playing 36 holes of miniature golf.

I had the pleasure of driving that adventure; four hours on the way up and six hours on the way back down. Sure I had a good time, but I will never drive to Nevada again at night, especially when I am tired. The trip was fun and I had a good time hanging out with my siblings and my brothers girlfriend. You know, just us kids. I guess it was a treat because the following weekend I would find myself traveling South through California for a weekend at the lake with my girlfriend and her family.

We left early Friday morning ... well early for my standards. We packed up the SUV and headed on our five hour trip through Yosemite National Park and toward the city of Mammoth. We climbed the windy road through Yosemite and avoided campers and bikers haphazardly stopping in the middle of the road to take pictures and sightsee.

We made it to Mammoth and planned out the next few days with my girlfriends family and cousins. We went horseback riding up the rocky side of a mountain, one my hind quarters did not take kindly. Two hours of a sun-hardened saddle keeping you on top of a bouncing bronco. OK, it wasn't a bronco to my knowledge but it was a horse, that I am certain.

Today we met up with some friends of my girlfriend's cousins and spent the morning and afternoon skimming across Crowley Lake, trying to wake board. I had only been once before, about seven years ago, but had never managed to get myself out of the water.

It turns out I was told the wrong things to do when I went my first time.
This time was better, I was able to get myself up and balance for a little while before taking a head-first dive into the chilly lake. There were complication with my equipment, since my size thirteen feet didn't want to hang out in the bindings.

Other than that, I had a fun time and am sad that my vacation is ending with tomorrow's drive back to the Bay Area. These last two road trips have really made my summer and are helping me keep my mind off the lonely semester to come. I have had a great time and am definitely considering convincing my family to purchase a boat. Oh well, like this vacation and this post, all good things must come to an end.

Title: The Beatles, "Why don't we do it in the road" on the White Album

Safe Drive

So in California we have this new cell phone law. You can't have your phone next to your ear or be visibly text messaging, otherwise you get a ticket. This sounds like a wonderful idea ethically but like most people I have seen, people just don't seem to care.

I can drive around and still see people holding their phones up to their ears while driving in their cars. They are usually the ones I have to swerve around and pass on the freeways because they don't realize how slow they are going. There also the ones who drive too fast and typically are the ones causing accident.

I don't mind using my Bluetooth headset but I can see where people who are not tech savvy are had a predisposed hatred for the new cell phone law. In an angry moment toward her new piece of required technology, my mother gave me her Bluetooth headset, saving me the trouble of having to go out and get one for myself.

In her disgust she said,"These stupid things shouldn't be required. They don't even WORK!" As she handed me it, I snagged her phone and began going through the useual procedures. Options -> general settings -> Bluetooth -> (Enter Passcode). Presto change-o, it worked.

I showed her how to connect it to her phone and like the response I was expecting she said, "That is too difficult!", "Why make something this complicated required?"

I had to laugh only because it was simple to me. A person who has explored the functions and read the manual on my phone. But I can see where people would be upset with the new law. For one thing, not every device is easy to setup. Also, for older people who don't really gell with new technology, finding the Bluetooth section, (and more importantly remember where it is and remembering to shut it off), can be a hassel.

The only thing I don't like about my particular headset is that the blue light blinks fairly bright at night. The light blinks to let me know it is on, shining against my driver-side window and reflecting off of everything in my car. It is kind of distracting. But, hey, if someone got a red blinking one and sat in my passenger seat we could signal people like airliners in the sky.

On the other hand, I am glad that this law is in place. People will now use their phone less, because it is too difficult to use your phone with the headset. (You still have to look at your phone to dial, set up the headset and see who is calling you.) Maybe this law will make people realize how un-important using your phone in the car is.

Before this rule, I seldom used my phone in my car. I would pull over and use my phone if I needed to, or I would just wait to use my phone until I arrived at my destination. I don't use my phone more now that the law is in place, but I don't find it any more difficult.

It makes me happy in a way to see older people struggle with the technology in turn curbing their desire to use their phones. But at the same time there are even more people out there using their phones anyway. I hope the police strictly enforce this law, that way more people will take it seriously. This law is a great way to protect the lives of people behind the wheel.

Next stop ... putting on makeup and shaving while driving.

Title: "Safe Drive" by Cute Is What We Aim For off of "Rotation"

I'm No Da Vinci

I skipped going to work today to sleep in and the only real thing I had to do was go get some RAM for my great aunt's computer. So as I was sitting at home after all of that waiting for my girlfriend to get home from work, I picked through my comic books and decided to whip out the old pencil and paper and see what I could do.

I used to draw quite often, but as I began writing more, I stopped drawing and did other things. So I picked up the issue of the "Invincible Iron Man." If you read my review of the recent movie, you might understand the recent fascination with the character.

Anyway, I started off real well, but then I got to the legs and I decided to erase it and save it before I made it a disaster. So here is the original and what I ended up drawing.

Christine Everheart: You've been called the Da Vinci of our time. What do you say to that?
Tony Stark: Absolutely ridiculous. I don't paint.

Irony of Dying on Your Birthday

I am sitting in a cluttered office, pilled to the rafters with booklets filled with tiny pieces of sticky-backed paper. No, not a sticker factory, but my fathers Stamp and collectibles business. What am I doing here? Procrastinating of course. In all honesty I am helping him create an inventory of his stock so that he can put it on his website.

I just scan the object and save them onto an external hard drive which as of last week, only seven days of work, became half full. Time to lower the resolution and start over... I know. Exciting.
As I sit here and wait for the scans I did this morning to finish moving to the external hard drive, I was thinking about the idea of a birthday.

A day of celebration in honor of the day you were born. Seems simple, by why is it that parents these days just don't get them. My parents have double duty, because my twin brother and I obviously share the same day. My mother struggles to come up with things to get for us, as I am older know and my hobbies and interests no longer make sense to her.

My birthday is nearing a month over now and it is funny how little interest there is one year after my 21st. The last big birthday I had was for my 21st, some friends and I got together and tailgated before an Oakland A's game, then sat in a outfield luxury box.

But before that, and much like this year, the day passes by with a celebration and apathy from my parents, chalking up getting a simple gift to, "You didn't ask for anything." How I see it is simple. I am 22 and my rent and utilities are paid for by my parents. My jobs can't afford them yet. I don't ask for anything because, what I need, they give me.

I thought I was being selfish for even wanting to go out to dinner. That was until my brother stepped on the face of being polite and in the midst of moving into a brand-new, four-room, single bedroom apartment, asked for his birthday gift.

When my mom got home from helping him move into his new apartment she asked me, "What would you like for your birthday?" I simply shoved off the question. A few minutes later it dawned on me that my brother probably asked for something and got it ... warranting the question from my mother.

I went downstairs and asked my mother, "What did (Brother's name) want for his birthday?"
He is currently basking in the glory of 48 flat-panel inches of high-definition television. Since then I have been looking for things that I "want" for my birthday and to this very moment can't think of anything that I couldn't buy for myself.

I don't know, maybe I just want fair compensation. My older sister totals her car and gets a new one. My brother causes an accident that leaves his SUV totaled then gets the truck he has "always wanted." I would just like fair compensation.

I drive a 13 year old car with 90k miles on it that runs like it has 590k on it. I don't want a damn TV, I just want my parents to see that on the balance scale of sibling fairness, my amount has flown off the other side from the wait of the others.

This is a selfish rant, discard if you have made it this far.
"Irony of Dying on Your Birthday" by Senses Fail off of Let It Enfold You.