mel my finger

Ryan: so who were those zexy ladies you were giving the eye-fuck to today?

Mel: hahaa

Mel: you saw that?

Mel: when i was outside?

Mel: i dunno but they were hot

Ryan: im talking about the ones you were meeting with, dumb-dumb

Mel: ohh

Mel: for the spanish site we’re working on

Mel: ****** or something

Ryan: iiiiiiiiinteresting

Ryan: they didnt look mexican to me

Mel: the company is ruled by white people

Ryan: hhahaha

Ryan: niice

Ryan: first we take mexifornia from them.. now we’re gonna run their spanish websites

Mel: hahah

Ryan: but they are working to subvert us

Ryan: by taking jobs in fast food and burrito joints

Ryan: and at a critical point they strike and say “give us what we want, or NO BURRITO FOR YOU!”

Ryan: anarchy will ensue

Mel: hahahahahahaa

A couple years ago, I tried the deep fried trio of snickers, twinkies and oreos. This year I noticed the deep fried menu had expanded a lot:

This year I decided to change things up and try the Krispy Kreme Chicken Sandwich:

WTF?? Raspberry filling???

So how was it? Well, the first bite I have to say was an explosion of…interesting… The combination of honey-cooked chicken with glazed donut and raspberry filling was definitely something new. The rest of the bites I was thinking “wtf am I eating? wtf. wtf. wtf.” And I have to say, I felt pretty gross afterwards.

So after the sandwich, I decided to wash it down with a side of Deep Fried Pop-Tart:

It amazes me how much stuff is on this thing. Think about it: crust, stuffed with strawberry filling, frosted and topped with rainbow sprinkles, battered, deep fried, topped with more jelly, sprinkles and powdered sugar.

Mmmmm look at all that greasy goodness…

This thing was much better than the chicken sandwich…but at the end of the day, I felt totally unhealthy and grossed out. It’s cool though, just another two things to cross off my list of things to eat before I die.

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In the competition between PCs and Macs, we outsell Apple 30-to-1. But there is no doubt that Apple is thriving. Why? Because they are good at providing an experience that is narrow but complete, while our commitment to choice often comes with some compromises to the end-to-end experience.– Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO

Even though the iPhone 3G is all sorts of sexiness in a handheld device, memory is limited to 8GB and 16GB. That’s fine for people with only 8 or 16 gigabytes worth of music and videos…but what about the rest of us? You got four options:

1. Buy a bigger iPod or mp3 player
2. Hold out a few months for a larger iPhone
3. Manually drag and drop songs you like, one by one, onto your iPhone
4. Use iTunes’ Smart Playlists feature

I’ve used that latter option — Smart Playlists — for years, when I figured out a way to cram 24 gigs of music to a 4GB iPod mini.

The basic idea is this: you set conditions on what you want to hear and the Smart Playlists will automagically build itself. For example, I may want:

R&B, at least 3 stars, that have not been played in the past week.

To do this in iTunes, just click on File, then New Smart Playlist, and then fill it out accordingly:

Cool, huh? Now whenever you add music to your iTunes, as long as it matches these conditions, it will automagically get added to this Smart Playlist.

Here’s what I did for my 4GB iPod mini back in the day:

Up to 4GB's of the most recently added songs that are rated at least 2 stars, that haven't been skipped in the last month, and haven't been played in the last week.

If you notice, I have Last Skipped and Last Played in there. These are what make it powerful; as I listen to music on my mini (and skip the ones I don’t like), the Smart Playlist will essentially learn what I like/dislike and rotate in songs from my 24 GB library.

Easy as pie.

For more Smart Playlist ideas, check out SmartPlaylists.com

// Due to my crappy internet, I’m gonna have to keep this blog post very, very short…

Thanks for your patience, everyone. It took me a few days longer than expected but 300 photos are up on my Flickr! (There’s actually a total of 853 photos and videos which I’ll make available for download soon)

What can I say? It was a very chill reunion, filled with a lot of nostalgia and laughter; it was a nice change of pace for once, compared to our past wild reunions. Once again we find ourselves as a group of people in the middle of no where, doing what we do best — chilling, drinking and finding ways to amuse ourselves.

The highlights of the reunion are all in the photos.

Randoms:

Loren: you’d think it was only us kids that were drinking and partying but really it’s just the adults were a lot better at dodging us than we were at them.

Mel: *petting the dogs*
Alan: hey Loren, do you have any peanut butter? (Reference to the movie Road Trip)

Mel: *quick, deep, hollow fart*
Samir: what?
Loren: dude, was that your ass??
Samir: oh shit! I thought he said “yo”

Re-Created Picture of the Moment:

In Closing…

In the movie Garden State, a wise Zach Braff one said:

Home is so much more than just a house to put your shit in.

The more I think about that quote, the more I realize how true it is. Home isn’t just a house. It’s not just a town. It’s a time. A moment. It’s the people around you in a certain phase of your life. It’s the world in the eyes of someone before all that real world stuff.

Home is an experience when you’re there, and a state of mind when you’re not.

Let’s face it, none of us will ever truly be able to “go back.” Even if we decide to go to that Ar@mco sponsored reunion in Saudi next year, it wouldn’t be the same. It’s not that same time and it’s not the same place.

But the people — us — we’ll always have. And that will never change.

Maybe that’s what ‘family’ really is: a group of people that miss the same imaginary place.

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