Keep My Composure When It's Time To Get Loose

TMQ (aka Easterbrook):

There is something deeply spoiled and selfish about an affluent American pausing at the door of his luxury SUV to announce outrage over paying $2 a gallon for fuel he will proceed to waste by nailing the accelerator to cut others off in traffic. This is particularly true if he just ran into the gas-station minimart to buy a Dasani for the SUV cupholder, since status-brand bottled water retails for about $8 a gallon, and no one has to drill it, refine it, or fight over it. Americans pay less than half what Europeans do today for gasoline, in addition to paying less in inflation- and buying-power adjusted terms than Americans of the 1950s paid. All the political complaints--and the news shows and talk shows hyping "record" prices without perspective--are the product of a spoiled culture.

I signed up for The New Republic Online a while back, and it was one of those things where you have to give your credit card info, so that if you don't cancel they will start charging you. I normally don't go for those kind of sign ups, but for some reason I caved. Well just the other day I got a letter saying my credit card had been denied! I'm a little surprised that would happen, but hey.. it's the best possible outcome as far as I'm concerned. I wonder if that could be a feature of my credit card? If not it would be a sweet feature, deny stupid auto charges.

April Fools

One of my coworkers is leaving to go hike the Appalachian trail and yesterday was his last day. This morning when I came into work, I saw hundreds of little yellow peeps all over the office. They were everywhere. I mean everywhere. Peeps lined the cubicle walls and were sitting in every cubicle, on chairs, computers shelves, etc. There were sooo many peeps it actually kind of brightened up the office. With hundreds of soft marshmallow treats lying around, we did the only logical thing; we picked the peeps up and started throwing them at each other while ducking and hiding in the cubes! There was an email from the hiking coworker addressed to the whole company that read:

2000 Peeps to the first person to put a name to the following quote:

If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth writing.

And in a puff of smoke, he disappears under the cover of night.

I thought that was pretty cool. Props and enjoy the AT!

Are Birds Free From the Chains of the Skyway?

If you go to Costa Rica then you'll be flying in and out of the capital city San Jose. I highly recommend looking up Tropical Bungee. They will pick you up, take you to this 265 foot high bridge, tie a big rubber band around your ankles, and tell you to jump off. They say it's the highest bungee jumping bridge in all of North/Central/South America. The first step is a little scary, but it's good fun! I even have a video.

Fallen

I just saw the video for Fallen by Sarah McLachlan. I guess maybe it's been out for a while, but where do you see music videos these days? I guess you have to watch MTV 2 or something, but that seems like a lot of work to me. I kind of miss the music video. It used to be that you could and typically would watch them for hours at a time. Now it's just all real world, road rules, and making the video. If you want to see the Fallen video I think your best bet is to check it out online at Rollingstone.com. Sarah sings a good portion of this song from a bathtub with just her face poking up out of the water, and I think it looks really cool. Not a bad song either!

Costa Rica 01

Hello internet world... I'm back! Did you ever have one of those vacations that just didn't live up to your expectations? Just wasn't as cool as it looked on the internet or in that glossy ad? Maybe the weather was bad or you got a sunburn on your first day. The attractions might have been too touristy or campy or just non existant.

Well my trip to Costa Rican was NOT one of those vacations!! In short, just about every part of it ruled and I had an incredible time. Perfect beaches, awesome surfing experience, good times, great adventures, the trip had it all. I'm not gonna give every detail on this blog, but I will post some pictures later on.

If you surf around Boston send me an email, caus I'd definately like to get back out some more.