Here is how to properly start and put out a toaster oven fire:

1. Put bread in toaster
2. Set it to toast
3. Go to remove finished toast from toaster
4. Knock piece of Toast through the rack on to the heating element.
5. Ignite toast on fire
6. First piece of toast should ignite second piece of toast on fire
7. Close door and hope it puts itself out
8. Realize it needs to be put out.
9. Unplug toaster from wall
10. Spray with fire extinguisher
11. Air out apartment
12. Enjoy huge mess
13. Take photos, spread story on internet
14. Put off cleaning up huge mess

I am guessing I should just throw out the toaster over, since it is now covered with fire powder.

When is the last time you lit something on fire?

Also just as a note… if you rent/own/stay at someones house with a kitchen, you should spend the 10-20$ on a fire extinguisher so you do not burn the fucking place down "When Good Bread Turns into BAD TOAST!"

It seems like I am no longer in control of my days. They just come and go and stack a large pile of whatever it is in front of me. Enough to keep me busy or annoyed and with my "eye no longer on the prize".

At this point I do not even know what the prize is. Is there even one? It seems like the harder you work, the more you get fucked over. At least as far as taxes are concerned.

Speaking of taxes, where is my refund? This is the first year I owned a home. If you can call it that. More like a money trap, but aren't they all? Buyer beware. Do not buy a condo. Why did no one warn me? Thanks a lot pal.

As far as the recession is concerned (can I call it a recessions?), what is really going on with that? I followed the markets and gave up. I made some quick money (like $200 – go me) and got out while it was still liquid. Unemployment is at an all time high, but it seems like spending may be only slightly lower. I wish I owned a credit card company.

Beyond this stuff it seems like it is finally starting to warm up. I guess that is a good thing. I will miss the weather as my excuse to be anti social. I guess I will need to resort to being fat, old, bald and lazy

Since we are talking about age, happy birthday to my grandma and gramps… 93 and 95.

Outside of that, I am going to Europe for a 2 weeks in May- June, anyone want to come with or meet up?

Thinking of extending things longer and doing some traveling. Figure I may as well go for longer since I will taking the time off, and probably taking on a pretty large new project/business in the next few months. So it may be some "well deserved" rest until the next stressful part of my life.

I also got an iPhone. Lol.

Loyal reader, what is up with you?

Have you seen this f'n thing yet? Big Dog:

It is more or less a completely amazing robot that looks like some sort of animal. Here is what they say at Boston Dynamics:

The Most Advanced Quadruped Robot on Earth
BigDog is the alpha male of the Boston Dynamics family of robots. It is a quadruped robot that walks, runs, and climbs on rough terrain and carries heavy loads. BigDog is powered by a gasoline engine that drives a hydraulic actuation system. BigDog's legs are articulated like an animal’s, and have compliant elements that absorb shock and recycle energy from one step to the next. BigDog is the size of a large dog or small mule, measuring 1 meter long, 0.7 meters tall and 75 kg weight.

BigDog has an on-board computer that controls locomotion, servos the legs and handles a wide variety of sensors. BigDog’s control system manages the dynamics of its behavior to keep it balanced, steer, navigate, and regulate energetics as conditions vary. Sensors for locomotion include joint position, joint force, ground contact, ground load, a laser gyroscope, and a stereo vision system. Other sensors focus on the internal state of BigDog, monitoring the hydraulic pressure, oil temperature, engine temperature, rpm, battery charge and others.

In separate trials, BigDog runs at 4 mph, climbs slopes up to 35 degrees, walks across rubble, and carries a 340 lb load.

BigDog is being developed by Boston Dynamics with the goal of creating robots that have rough-terrain mobility that can take them anywhere on Earth that people and animals can go. The program is funded by the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA).

The things that blow my mind are when the guy plays a little chin music on Big Dog, and Ol BD takes it better than Mc Mahon.

I just re watched the video and big dog knows how to jump… it is right near the end… it is really Impressive and scary as shit.

What are your thoughts on technology like this? When he is skidding on the ice I am half hoping he goes down and half hoping he stays up. He really works my emotions. I kind of want to see this thing destroyed, but I kind of want to see how far they take this technology.

I would not mind if this lil slut gets a few makeovers and accessories:

Seriously though… the way this stuff is going it looks like terminator or transformers is right around the corner… luckily big dog runs on gasoline which is in limited supply.

Hopefully they will make one of these that runs on Ethanol so it eats all of our fucking corn.

This also IN, Rae drunk dialed me at like 2pm central time a few days ago in between a round of body shots and tried to convince me to come party with her!

 This just added

When I first visited Canada like 5-6 years ago my dollar was worth 1.47 canadian. When I lived in Canada 2 years ago it started at around 1.21 and would have lows of about 1.17 when I finally moved back to the US. A few months ago I emptied my Canadian account when I visited and it was at around 1.05. Today it is at 99 cents. WTF?

The US dollar has been going to shit for a while it seems, and I do not think most people notice because they still can eat of the dollar menu at McDonalds/BurgerKing/Wendys, and actually never have to spend their money in a foreign market… I have traveled a bit and it seems like ever time I go abroad it gets more expensive to eat/drink/sleep. This will be my first trip to Asia so I have never really been watching those conversion rats, since we pay our foreign staff in USD.

Just the current observations:

USD vs CAN (canada) = us to shit

USD vs YEN (japan) =US was pretty strong, but dropped in july by about 10%

USD vs CNY (china)= steady decline in the last year. This will be a fun one to watch.

USD vs PHP (philippines) = steady decline in the last yea, means our staff has gotten a steady paycut month over month.

USD vs UAH (ukraine) = not sure

USD vs PKR (pakistan) = this one has actually been pretty steady

USD vs EUR (Euro) = 10-15% drop over the last year. WEAK BALLZ

So who of my readers have noticed their dollar is worth shit or is going to shit against any other country? What are you doing to help protect you from this?

Have any of you started to diversify your affiliate sites to hit foreign markets where you get paid in the euro or other currency?

Besides bitching about it, what can be done to secure a US business against an ongoing weakening dollar?

I like the sound of feedback when it is controlled. I recently got a land line phone and called my voip with it, put them both on speakerphone and started and endless loop of noise.

My favorite part about the feedback is how it seems to take on a life of its own while still displaying various patterns within it.

When a noise was made on one of the handsets it would be heard on the other and repeated to itself, changing just slightly each time. Within a few cycles of this, the original noise was lost and a new one was made purely with itself as the main ingredient.

Tonight on my way back from the gym I was stuck at a train crossing with the rare double train…one in each direction.

The train closest to me was all lower empty cars…the kind that carry shipping containers. Since they were all empty they must have made the train extra long. It seemed to have gone on forever.

It was warm out, I had the windows down. A friend once mentioned a train being 3 miles long. It did not seem possible to me at first, but I think tonight it was. It seemed to have gone on forever.

With 5+ minutes to kill I sat and I watched and I thought. I wondered when it would end. I asked myself what if it went on forever. Would I try and find away around the track or would I just sit and watch it. I took great comfort knowing that if it went on forever that it would still be there when I returned…and it would always be there when I was interested in seeing it again. Then I wondered how much energy was wasted as the empty train goes by for miles. My car idling.

An interesting quote I heard today: "it is easier to become dark than to make others light"

I sat in my house today looking out the window. An endless stream of cars went by. Every one off to work. They work so they can live. Life used to mean cheating death by survival. The tools needed for survival, or so I was taught, were water, food, shelter. Later I heard they added love.

There are artificial worlds that exist within our own. Many have their own form of currency. People are now "fighting" for online survival. A woman recently became an offline millionaire from "land" that she bought, developed and sold in these secondary worlds. Niches pay.

Millions of hours are spent staring at a screen while a world passes people behind them. The fact people are now working a real job to make ends meet, and a second job in a fantasy world makes me sick.

I am now making good money and am wondering what I need to do with myself. I contantly question things. THings such as the world around me that seems to be more focused on buying and selling of merchandise than the well being of the people in it. Kind and sick and sad.

I really do not want to pay taxes this year.

Lately something has seemed to change in these birds, and they start singing at 5am, 4am, 3am and a new and improved 2:45AM. WTF is going on?

My possible theories on this are:

1. The light pollution from the city has them messed up
2. This is a new breed of "the early bird gets the worm ALL AMERICAN song birds" who no longer sleep in like the birds of yesteryear.
3. The world is seriously fucked and this is just one more of the side effects.
4. I should get to bed before midnight and avoid these annoying insomniac birds.
5. Maybe this bird was sent here to get me to go to bed. When the bird starts singing I need to get to bed?
6. My mom suggested that maybe the babies are hungry and waking the parents up. I don't buy it.

Since my mom has heard this, I am guessing others have as well. Is it isolated to the Chicagoland area? Is it happening by you? WTF is going on and how do I stop it?

Last weekend I received a Good Housekeeping Magazine (april 2007 issue) from my sister as some sort of weird surprise. There is a woman on the cover who lost 102 lbs and I thought my sister was trying to hint that I am a some sort of fat fuck… which I don't deny.

Baffled, I look through this high quality publication with disgust flipping through page after page still not getting WTF my sister was trying to get at. So she tells me to turn to page 91. There I find an article called "Google for free repairs". I think my sister turned into my grandma and started to snip articles of anything related to Google. She tells me to read… I do. I get to the 4th paragraph, or 3rd bullet point and see the following:

Be Clear And Concise
Recently, my son's video iPod appeared to be dead. But before buying a new one, I decided to bring the old iPod back to life. After Googling "my iPod froze", I was directed to WERTY.NET (caps added for dramatic effect), a blog that includes tech information (but also – fair warning – some four-letter words). The blog's two-step thawing trick: "Toggle the Hold switch on and off. (Slide it to Hold, then turn it off again.) Press and hold the Menu and Select (center button) buttons until the Apple logo appears, about 6 to 19 second." Voila! The iPod revived, and so did my bank account. Savings: $249 (cost of new iPod).

So how flipping brilliant is it that my shitty blog can wear this sweet baby:

If you don't believe me, RUN over to your local grocery store and flip to page 91 and you will see this:

Anyhow, thank you Richard Eisenberg for showing the trose some LOVE. <3

It has been a week and I am still waiting to get some sweet milf /housewife action out of this name drop.

Update: Now on their website for those naysayers!

I got a call the other day at about 9:30 am which was way to early for me to deal with some lame ass Godaddy employee trying to sell me domain renewals. Seriously they call you pretty much 3 days after you let any of your old domains expire… if they had customer service they may call a few days in advance of an expiration to prevent you from losing the domain.

“Hey this message is for George, this is Sammy calling from Godaddy.com… calling from the ????….”

He goes on until for 28 seconds, then goes “it can be done”. There is awkward silence for the next 20 seconds with some coughing in the background and then some other noise and ends with a “huh huh I’m Still”.

I have never used drugs, but I would imagine I would sound like that if I did.

Click here to listen to a Wav file of a GoDaddy Employee who may be on the weed.