Fruit Flies... I kill you!

I HATE FRUIT FLIES. That's right I said it. I hate Drosophila melanogaster!!! (I'm sure all my genetics friends are all muttering reasons why Drosophila are scientifically beautiful specimens and I shouldn't hate them so much.)

Partly because I like fresh air, and do care a little about the environment; but mostly because I'm cheap, I've been living without AC for most of the summer. Therefore my windows are open most of the time when I'm home. I leave the balcony door cracked open at night too. (I do use a stick to keep it from opening too much. But now that I look at it, I can probably get through... Shh, nobody has to know.)

Anyway, I do have a screen and everything but these damn little creatures still get in. I wouldn't say my apartment is infested but when I'm drinking beer, the little fuckers drive me nuts. It's really annoying because I don't have fruits sitting out, and I take the trash out every morning. And I rinse all my bottles before I put them in the recycling bin. And my sinks are clean... WTF!

So I had to go to the tubes for a solution. I ran into this article on wikiHow. I decided to go with method # 5: the wine trap. They said to use sweet wine but I don't have sweet wine. So I used wine that went bad. Probably tastes like vinegar by now. But it's working!!! 3 down. I have no idea how many more to go. I think they keep coming in from outside so probably infinite. I should probably just set the trap on the balcony...

So here's my plan. Such a sad Friday night. But whatever. I'm going to set TWO more traps (different methods) and see what works best. :) hehe. This is going to be fun. Scientific experiment all on my own. Maybe it's the 5 beers I had that makes this so much fun.

To be continued...

No prize for me.

I went to this Oktoberfest event with a few people from work yesterday. It was held at the "Holiday Inn Near the University of Michigan", which happens to be behind the building I work. I guess it was some sort of a customer appreciation thing. We were invited because we refer a lot of our visitors to that hotel. (BTW, I think I'm supposed to say Friendliest Hotel in Ann Arbor.)

I didn't really know what was going on, but I decided to go. And it's a good thing I did! FREE FOOD AND BOOZE. All you can eat and all you can drink. For food, they had bratwursts, käsespätzle, sauerkraut, German red cabbage, German warm potato salad, pretzels, and 3 kinds of mustards. They had apple strudel and doughnuts. They had two types of beer: Warsteiner (I think pilsner type of beer) and some sort of Oktoberfest ale. They had hard liquor but I decided to stick with beer.

When we got there, we each got a ticket. It was like a raffle, except I didn't have to buy the ticket! It was free! There were several gifts that were given out. Our group had 2 winners! VN won a $50 gift certificate to Metzger's and AB won a 2 nights stay at the Holiday Inn Cambridge, ON! Me? Nothing. I was 4 numbers away from the grand prize: Lufthansa round trip ticket to Germany! But instead, Kenneth Gunther is going to Germany. I don't even know him. I just thought he has an awesome last name.

But that's okay. One of the prizes was a 1 hour hot tub gift certificate from Oasis. And I definitely don't want that!!!

Here's the good news. I got lots of good food & beer all for free!!! I had 2 dinner plates, a plate of desserts, and 5 beers in the course of about an hour and a half. But the beer glasses must have only been like 8 oz. (It's like drinking a 40!) The bartender guy was pretty close to giving me a pitcher of beer but he didn't because he didn't want other people ask him to do the same. So I just double fisted. Good times.

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There's nothing like burnt frozen meal from Lean Cuisine. Mmmm.

Creepy Amazon Find!

I didn't have anything to blog about until I went to Amazon.com to look at the Camera I want to purchase. This is one of the search result items!!!

Obviously you have to click and see the larger view... But WTF!!

I don't know. I thought I would share my disturbing find. This is how I lose sleep. Just when I think I've reach the end of the intertubes (I really do feel that way sometimes when I REALLY don't want to do anything (at work) ), I find crap like this that pulls me back to the dark side.

BTW, I'm like a polygon. I have many sides. (I had to throw something random in there.)


You can only read ahead if you looked at the picture.
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Another random note, I've been spelling highlight "hilight" (not hi-light either) to see how long it takes certain someone to correct me. So yes, certain someone, I'll be disappointed if you STILL haven't noticed. I'm just keeping you on your toes. Or am I just that retarded? To another certain someone, I guess you'll never know because I have many sides. To the rest of you who are reading this: yes, I only have TWO friends.

Random... Boring... Thought...

I don't have anything interesting to write about. I guess that's good. There's been a lot of drama lately that I don't care to discuss (ZOMG, you really don't want to know anyway). Today's been pretty drama-free, I must say.

You know it's a nice, short commute when you don't even have to get out of second gear for most of the time! (Unless you're stuck in traffic then that SUCKS, dude.) My commute takes about 5 minutes door-to-door. Turn right out of my complex, the street will bend left, make a right at the stop, pass park, take left at the end of the street, take another left and go to the end of the street, make a right. Then you turn right into the office park where my work is located. I usually only get to hear 1.5 songs on the radio.

So yeah. That's about all I have to say. I will leave you to this song. (Only 2 of you know why I put this up here today. Sorry, everyone else.)

News

There are a lot of worthless "news" out there. Buried in stupid articles about Halo 3 and iPhones, were these two stories that made me sad. It's difficult have faith in a world filled with so many evil and heartless people.

More Deaths in Myanmar, and Defiance (NY Times - 9/28/2007)
There is a picture of a Japanese journalist down on the ground; photo taken immediately after he was shot through the heart by a soldier. It was originally reported as an accidental shooting but there was a video that proved otherwise. He was quite a famous journalist in Japan.

Mistake costs dishwasher $59,000 (CNN.com - 9/28/2007)
An illegal immigrant from Guatemala worked for 11 years as a dishwasher in the US only to have his life savings taken at a way at the airport because he didn't know that he had to declare the cash to customs...

I'm sure people have opinions about these two stories. But guess what, I don't care to hear them so I'm turning off the comment option for this post! My only point is that the frickin' articles made me sad. You can't argue with that.

PBR Nutritional Facts

Quite a few number of people seem to stumble across my blog by doing a Google search for "PBR nutritional facts". So, I feel like I should post the information here.

PBR has 5.0% alcohol, 153 calories, and 12.01 grams of carbs.

There you have it.

Amazon - Book Recommendation

I wonder what I've purchased in the past to get this recommendation!

Now available: "Modern Canonical Quantum General Relativity (Cambridge Monographs on Mathematical Physics)" by Thomas Thiemann on Amazon.com

$140. Pretty hardcore!

My Own Heartbeat

So this is a bit depressing, but oh well. I'll make fun of myself later.

I feel most forlorn in the morning and at night, when I hear my own heartbeat. I hear my neighbors, I hear birds, I hear squirrels, I hear cars. But the sound of my own heartbeat reminds me that I'm all alone.

My Strengths?

I read this book (well, only the required 3 chapters...) titled "Now, Discover Your Strengths" because my boss decided we should read it and talk about it. Basically, it tells you that everyone's got "talent" and you're better off working your "talent" into "strength" rather than improving your weaknesses. It's an interesting idea, and it gave me new ways to look at certain things but I can't say that I bought into the sales pitch.

You take this test called StrengthsFinder after reading the first 3 chapters. They give you a series of paired statements and you have 20 seconds to pick the statement that describe you more accurately. (They want your initial reaction or whatever and don't want to give you time to think.) I had to choose between the two statements, indicating that one or the other ''strongly'' or ''moderately'' describes me. Or I could choose a ''neutral''.

Some sample statements:

• ''Starting conversations is an effort for me'' or ''I get a rush from striking up a conversation with a stranger''
• ''I prefer intellectual discussions'' or ''I prefer to talk about sports''
• "I am a very private person'' or ''My life is an open book''
• ''I push others to succeed'' or ''I make other people happy''

I felt like there were more bizzaro ones in there but I can't remember.

After you go through ass load of these, they spit up my top 5 "themes of talent". (There are 34 of them, BTW). Here are my top five:

1. Analytical (People strong in the Analytical theme search for reasons and causes. They have the ability to think about all the factors that might affect a situation.)
2. Arranger (People strong in the Arranger theme can organize, but they also have a flexibility that complements this ability. They like to figure out how all of the pieces and resources can be arranged for maximum productivity.)
3. Achiever (People strong in the Achiever theme have a great deal of stamina and work hard. They take great satisfaction from being busy and productive)
4. Learner (People strong in the Learner theme have a great desire to learn and want to continuously improve. In particular, the process of learning, rather than the outcome, excites them.)
5. Developer (People strong in the Developer theme recognize and cultivate the potential in others. They spot the signs of each small improvement and derive satisfaction from these improvements.)

Basically, I am a cold hearted bitch. And I tend to over think things. And a workaholic.

I still think I would make a great prostitute with these traits.

Egg Donation

I've decided to give up on having any sort of meaningful relationship with anyone. I figured NSA fling here and there is probably the best thing for me. Then I was thinking to myself shit, that means I won't have kids. But I want to do something about not letting trash take over the world...
Then I thought to myself, I should donate my egg. Brilliant. Couple of G's in cash won't hurt either.

But dang, apparently I am too old for that already.

So much for that idea. Back to thinking how else I can contribute to this world...