Zibblog

Have you ever had one of those days where you just feel like screaming at the top of your lungs? Not at someone or about anything in particular but just screaming at the world in general. I’d sit in my cube and do it, but my coworkers would probably look at me funny and I’d have to talk to HR. I really don’t feel like talking to HR. In a totally unrelated note, they made our ESPP (employee stock purchase plan) at work less nice. The way it worked before was probably illegal or something. In a slightly more related note, Julie rescheduled our dinner that was supposed to be next Monday night. If I keep telling myself that we’re just friends, at some point I’ll believe it.

I need categories so that I can file blog posts under “rantings”.

If you don’t read thecoolhunter.net, you should. I know what you’re thinking, “This is from the same guy that tries to convince us to watch JAG.” Well, JAG was great show once whose time has come and gone, but at least we still have NCIS. How can you not watch a show that has Illya Nickovetch Kuryakin in it along with Mark Harmon and a former star of Dark Angel? Anyway, I’ve now seen this pic on both coolhunter and gizmodo. It’s a lamp that responds to hand waving. Now that is cool. I know I’m buying one. The other interesting news item was about the book Good Advice for Young Trendy People of all Ages. Who wouldn’t want to buy a book about being young and trendy? Bonus points to the person who goes to the trouble of finding the link that doesn’t belong and knows why I linked it.

The other day, Cryztal made the mistake of offering to take me shopping sometime to revitalize my wardrobe. I figured why not, so we scheduled the outing for a Wednesday after work. Helen was convinced to come along and before long, the three of us were at Valley Fair at Kenneth Cole. At some point in my life, I realized that places where people work on commision are inherently evil. I never feel like I can take anything that they say seriously because they are trying to sell product and I could swear that I get evil looks when I decide to not purchase anything. I remember checking out at Eddie Bauer once and having the girl at the checkout comment on the fact that perhaps the shirt I was buying was too expensive (we ended up agreeing that the shirt was really thick and perhaps more of a jacket, thus worth the money). That’s the kind of service that I want. Similarly, with Helen and Cryztal I have no fear of them telling me precisely how I look in whatever I’ve got on. I tried on a vast assortment of clothes in at Kenneth Cole and we came to a group consensus that none of the jeans fit me that well (arguably, I probably could have come to the same conclusion myself, but it probably would have taken longer), but I did find a shirt.

At some point, we ended up in Sephora having come to the conclusion that I need cologne. I’ll admit that I wasn’t 100% on board with the idea, but I decided that since the whole thing was my idea perhaps I had best go with the flow. One of the problems is that I come from a long line of people with very sensitive noses, so I ended up looking for as understated a smell as I could find. In the end, Zibbler’s new scent is Allure Homme Sport by Chanel for Men. I’m still not sure that I’m convinced about the cologne thing, but if it’s what the ladies want, it’s what the ladies will get.

Further on into the evening, we arrived at Banana Republic. At this point, we were still in search of the perfect pair of jeans (well, I was prepared to settle for “jeans that don’t suck” or even “jeans that make Zibbler’s butt look good”). It all started to get a little odd when we started having conversations that went.

“Nope, too loose.”

“You sure? These are what I normally buy.”

“Oh yeah. Those are too loose.”

It was then that I decided it was worth sacrificing a little bit of comfort to look good on a date. This conversation was repeated a couple more times until I ended up with a pair of jeans that was probably a good 3 inches smaller than what I would have bought otherwise. After some more wandering, I ended up with some hair stuff, shoes, and various other items.

The epilogue to this story is that I was having a conversation with Chris and JB today about the fact that JB needs to come speed dating. There was even talk of the zibblog and awaken.com sponsoring him and covering any incurred costs, so what I think we need now is to find women to take JB on a shopping spree with the Awaken corporate card and a digital camera to get some runway photos for the zibblog. That way, JB can be ready for speed dating. Wow, this may be my best idea in a long time (take that however you want).

So I bought the new Harry Potter book yesterday. After reading the first three, my mom got me to read them and they turned out to not be too bad. Personally, I don’t think they are as good as the Dark is Rising books by Susan Cooper but there may be a nostalgia factor involved there. Anyway, that got me to thinking about skit on the first MC Chris album where John Bowie is reading Harry Potter at a birthday party, so I went to the MC Chris site and it turns out he is going to be touring. However, the only stop he is making to the west coast is the Penny Arcade Expo which would require me to go to Bellevue, Washington just to see MC Chris. Anyway, if you haven’t tried his music, you can download the first album and let is play for awhile. If you give it a chance, it will grow on you (unless you can’t stand the fact that he sometimes sounds like a 10 year old).

I recently got an email about race photos from the Jungle Run, so I took a look to see if there were any that were good. Surprisingly enough, there was this photo that I believe makes me look very sporty.