catching up

first things first, i guess. it's been seemingly an eternity since i got a chance to sit down and projectile-vomit these words onto this page. i've been incredibly busy getting the track bike's engine rebuilt, painting it (ahem - assisting in the prep work and watching it get painted), and with some projects at my actual job.

so my friend Marshall linked-back an interesting article on fruit juice to one of my HFCS diatribes. here's the link. very interesting, and it seems that fizzy colored sugar-water may not be the only culprit in the fattening of our society...

in the "this can't possibly be for real," department, this crazy bitch is actually allowed to spew her misinformed, bigoted, vile hatred in public. i hope she is writing from prison, but i know freedom of speech is one of those inalienable rights that we're so proud of in America. still, more than a few need to just shut the fuck up. if i were a Republican, i might consider a lawsuit against the idiotic whore for misrepresenting the tenets of the party so egregiously. i dated a girl named shelley oh-so-briefly when i was a sophomore in high school. i really hope that's not her.

Australians crack me up. check out this guy's blog for non-stop wry wit directed at just about everybody. it gets my vote for "possibly the funniest website ever."

from the "what a dork" headlines, i've become a crack 'berry psuedo-hacker. my friend David mentioned that he was surprised at how technologically savvy i am, to which i responded, "i like gadgets." these little handheld computers amaze me. i can get up-to-the minute emails, facebook alerts, instant messages in several different formats, surf the web, take pictures or video & store 16 gigs of media on a device smaller than my handy TI-30 calculator. oh and it's got one of those, too. i can also consolidate all that data so i remember when to pay my credit card bill or what to get Laura for her birthday (while reminding me it is her birthday.) blows my mind, man.
so recently, i was doing a little surfing & found some resources for updating my workhorse Blackberry Curve's operating system to the one found in later models, hybridized yada yada because it's technically "not supported." i did this because when following the carrier-sanctioned "auto update" like the rest of the sheeple, i ended up with a PDA that was suddenly glitchy and unstable. and the bugs were known, but sent to market anyway. in researching how to downgrade, i ended up learning how to really upgrade, so now i'm hooked on the potential performance these little machines are capable of. plus it's neat having esoteric knowledge that doesn't impress anybody. here's a couple shots of my screen right now in case anybody cares:

OS5.0 hybrid w/Bold icons:                    Same hybrid OS with "hidden dock:"