The Jardine Motel

Let me write an ad for the place I stay:


Welcome to the new and improved Jardine Motel! We have recently doubled the amount of motels in the area so there will be a few changes. First let me just point out how nice all those other motels we just built are, if you would like to move to one of them you may do so for a sizable moving fee and twice the current room fee (don't worry, your fee will also increase too!).

The first change that you will notice is that we have stopped all service of your reliable daily (half price) city newspaper. Starting immediately everyone in the Jardine Motel will get a free newspaper. This newspaper is hand copied by us, so is nowhere as good as the daily newspaper, plus it is only delivered half the time. But it's free. Also, to read the newspaper you must wear special glasses that you may not take off once you put them on, of course unless you know the password, which only we do, and we will not tell you it.

Another change is in the way your bill is paid. Instead of checking in at your motel you will now check it at a convent central location in another town. This way everybody the in area has a chance to meet you as you check in each day. Also remember that we have your messages each day there, and if you want to send a message you must go there now too. So that 1 minute errand is now an enjoyable 20 minute trip. Just another new service we offer here at the Jardine Motel.

As in the past you are allowed to have a guest visit while you are staying, but instead of just having your guest visit they must first travel across town to get a permit to be there. And no, you may not pick it up for your guest ahead of time. Also we can only let your guest stay for six hours. Also we will randomly check for guests in the evening just to make sure you don't have any unregistered guests.

As if those changes weren't enough just remember that we still have the features that you know and love about the Jardine Motel experience:

You must still remember when your bill is due because we will not remind you when it is. And if it is even half a day late we will charge you extra and put a freeze on all of your assets (which will take days to get unfrozen). Just a reminder that you will be charged automatically through our network, even though we can not send out any reminder of when a bill is due.

We also still have food detectors in all of the rooms that will beep constantly whenever food is present in your room. You are allowed, and encouraged, to have food, but you will have to live with the noise. It is for your own safety.

Also, you will be able to take free communal showers until we get them upgraded. A disclaimer: if you become more dirty from washing in the showers that is not our fault. We are, after all, building new Jardine Motels. Any damage to self from the water during washing is not our fault. We recommend that you find another place to pay to take a shower if you think that you might get dirty from taking a shower. And please be patient with the other patrons in the shower, do not ask for them to leave if they have been using the shower for over half a day.

Also we have stopped all phone service, all your need destinations are a quick 15 minutes away, and we still offer the smallest rooms in the business. You may not redecorate at all, we will have the cleaning lady come by at any time we choose, and you must clear all modes of transportation through us. We are glad that you chose to stay in Jardine Motels, we will try to find anyway possible to make your experience more annoying.

At Jardine we used to be for families, now we are for brats.

Harry Potter and the Curse of the Orange Traffic Cone

Guess what:plus

plus

equals?

If you guessed a 3 year old with a traffic cone stuck on his head because he was tiring to be like Harry Potter you win! Read the story here.


spoiler alert: it turns out ok.

The Downlow.

Alright I'll let you in on a little secret that I have been sitting on for a while now: most things that people want you to buy suck.

Most movies that people want you to go see suck, most music that people say sounds good does not, and most restaurants are not that good.

The problem starts when there are more people trying to make money than there are good ideas. So some ideas that are not that good have to get squeezed so that even the people that do not have a good product can still make money.

And this kicks off a bigger problem, because then some people start believing that the over hyped product is actually better than the actual good product... Paris Hilton anyone? So then the crap that gets the buzz starts to get the bucks and the good stuff starts to lose out because they don't fit the mold of what is "good" (critics walked out on Moulin Rouge... what is one of the best movies ever made). It really should matter how many times an ad for American Dad is appears. Even if you get tricked into watching the show (which I did fall for) after the first 10 minutes you should have an idea if it is worth your time or not (it's not). But I think people think that since it is being sold and hyped it must have some worth.

I mean seriously, how else is Applebee's and Chili's still doing it? They are overpriced, over flavored, and under whelming, while really good places like Rumbi grows slower than molasseses. It is because the general public gets tricked into thinking that they want to go spend their money on the hype -mistaking it for quality. These people mistake a company that has loads of money to blow on ads for a company that has a worth while product.

The key to fixing this is simple. When something is not worth spending money on, don't buy it, and warn others. Music that is uninspired and not true to itself (the third John Mayer CD for starters) should not be bought. Don't go to restaurants where it takes forever to decide what to get because everything sounds bad. Don't watch TV shows that are crap, just for something to do. And don't say that movies are OK, when in fact you think that they sucked. It doesn't do anybody any favors to keep things in business which are subpar. Because the answer most companies have for slumping sales is to advertise more, not to fix their product... well except for movies and music, they think they can fix slumping sales by calling their customers thieves... The quicker that we all are true to ourselves and realize that we should expect something good for our money the quicker companies will start to offer it.

Lemon Jelly - Nice Weather For Ducks

I found a music video from one of may favorite bands, Lemon Jelly. It looks to be a bit drug induced, but still rocks hard:

Colbert '08?

Seriously, if you had a chance to vote for Colbert for president, would you?

My answer is in the the comments.

Yes. Fall

Friday Fun

I know what you want to get done today; alot. And I also know how much motivation you have; none. Let these powers combine to form "the great time waste of Friday." To help you along a bit I have found an update to an old favorite, called Bubbles 2.

The point of the game is to make your bubble get as large as possible without getting popped. There are power ups along the way to making things a bit more spicy. The arrow keys move the bubble, and all the other keys on your keyboard cheer you on.

It sounds simple, it sounds easy, don't be fooled, it will consume you. Or something like that... click to play. My high score is 1501.

waffles and custard

In my search for a blogging topic I looked up on Google what I had for dinner last night- waffles and custard. It returned only three hits, so I guess this wonderful food pairing isn't as prevalent as I thought it was. So if you haven't heard of waffles and custard then you need to give it a try. Just make some Bisquick waffles (if you have a waffle iron that isn't a Belgian waffle iron it is better), and a batch of soft custard recipe (see below, because the internet also fails when it comes to a good soft custard recipe) and then you will have a awesome breakfast style diner -also cook some eggs and bacon and make some orange juice to finish off the meal.

Soft Custard (because the internet doesn't know how to make it... yet)
Ingredients:
3 eggs
3/4c sugar
4Tbs cornstarch
pinch of salt
4 1/2c milk
1tsp vanilla

Mix the eggs, sugar, cornstarch, and salt in a pan, add 1/2c of milk and stir until mixed. Heat under med-low heat. From now on you must stir the custard until it is done, if you don't you will make scrambled eggs. While the pan mixture is heating up you should microwave 2 cups of milk until very warm but not boiling (nuke for 2 minutes or so). Add the milk to the pan, then microwave 2 more cups of milk and add that to the pan as well.
Now that all the ingredients are added except the vanilla it is just a matter of stirring until it gets thick, you may turn the heat up to medium, but the higher the heat the faster you have to stir, so heat according to how much you want to work. When the custard starts to get thick... a little less thick than pudding, you can turn off the heat and add the vanilla (error on the side of too runny rather than too thick... if it gets too thick that means it is getting to hot which means the eggs might clump together). Let the custard stand for about 5 or 10 minutes to thicken up more and then serve on the waffles that someone was making while you were making the custard... you did have somebody make waffles while you were making the custard right?

Enjoy.

Lines of Skates

The skates that were in a pile are now in many, many lines. There are about three times as many skates in the background as there is in the foreground.

Liquid Bread -Hays, KS

It took over an hour to get our food. Luckily we met up with a friend there so we had someone new to talk too. Also they make their own root beer, which was pretty good.

But still, an hour to get food is just too long.