Alex Vernon.com

The other day I went to my local liquor store to get my fix. As I was checking out the guy behind the counter asked if I was still at Comcast. I’ve had this discussion many times before and it goes something like this:

Liquor guy: Do you still work at Comcast?

Alex: No, I have never worked there, I work for…

Liquor guy: Oh, what do you know about DVRs?

Alex: Not much, I don’t have one.

Liquor guy: Well I’m trying to blah, blah, blah…

Alex: Hmm, try blah, blah, blah…

Liquor guy: Ok see you later.

Alex: Cya.

Since this has happened numerous times before I decided to play along. “No” I say “I’m at … now”. “Oh” he says “What do they do?” “Make enterprise software” I respond. “Wow, better than Comcast, huh?” he declares. “Yep” I remark as I smile and walk out the door.

I was bored today so I decided to go through Creative Loafing’s 99 things to do To call yourself a true Atlantan to see how I measured up. Most of my selections are dead on, although there’s some truthiness in a couple for example number 1. I have run into Clark Howard, just not at Costco. I figured it was close enough for a quiz though. My grand total was 54 which rates me as a “true hipster” according to the Loaf. Not sure if I agree but I digress.

My winning lotto numbers:

1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 19, 21, 23, 26, 27, 29, 30, 32, 34, 36, 40, 44, 45, 47, 48, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 66, 69, 71, 72, 75, 76, 77, 78, 81, 82, 84, 85, 86, 88, 92, 93, 95, 99

I quit smoking again yesterday. So far it hasn’t been as bad as previous attempts. I have stopped for over two years before so hopefully this will be the last time. To help me succeed I have hired the woman below to kick me in the balls everytime I think about a cigarette (no you can’t, only her). If it works I plan to patent the method and start spamming you so keep an eye out.

“Of all the stratagems, to know when to quit is the best”

-Chinese Proverb

Seattle Pride Parade 7

Originally uploaded by Rob Gruhl.

Check out Rob’s shot from the recent Seattle Pride Parade. Killer makeup.

Looks like I’ve been kicked off the Metroblogging Atlanta Team. I received no notice, my account was just unceremoniously deleted. Not that I blame them, considering I was barley posting as of late. It would’ve been thoughtful to send an email though.

The problem (for me at least) is the lack of interesting Atlanta based material. Yeah you could post about concerts or events but that got boring real quick. Plus inevitably someone received the same email as you two minutes prior and already posted about it. Numerous times I would plan on posting about something for the upcoming weekend on a Thursday before but someone else would post about it a month in advance. This got much worse when the started offering money to the top posting cities. However LA seemed to always come out on top. Atlanta was usually in the top three before the money incentive though.

I guess a lot of it is my disenchantment with this city. I could care less what the Braves did last night or what Shirley Franklin said. Also there’s no point to post another traffic bitching post. All in all I found the blog very boring, however I do like some of the authors personal stuff and read their sites on Atlanta Bloggers. On a positive note it has allowed me to delete the feed from my Bloglines account. For a more entertaining Metro blog check out Metroblogging Seattle, or even better along the same vein Seattlest.

A couple of weeks ago I was heading to Landmark to watch Factotum presented by the Atlanta Film Festival. I got off on the 10th, 14th, 17th, 27th, 156th street exit and was at a dead stop almost immediately. I figured it was left over traffic but it was so bad I decided to take a right on 10th and work my way around it. Finally I made it to Charles Allen and was again met with a massive line of cars and people walking all over the place. I then realized something was not right and remembered Screen on the Green was happening.

Apparently it gets a lot of press, I’m assuming they advertise it on the radio or TV. I saw something about it when it was first announced for this year but didn’t see anything that particularly interested me so I forgot about it.

I finally was able to turn on to 10th and see the mass of people all over the park. I couldn’t believe it, the last time I went to Screen on the Green there were maybe 100 people tops (it was raining at the time so that probably didn’t help the turn out). It looked like thousands of people and they were still piling in (to see Ferris Bueller, go figure). At this point I knew I was fucked. It’s hard enough to find a parking space in the Landmark’s parking lot with nothing going on and everytime there’s an event in the park a bunch of dickwads park there. I decided to make a run through the lot just to check but my suspicions were confirmed. Needless to say I was pissed, at least they booted some of the fuckers in the front lot. I wanted to slash some tires but I didn’t want to accidentally get a paying patron who actually went to a business connected to the lot. Anyway enough ranting, I’m over it now. Although it would be fun to buy a bunch of boots to stick on people’s cars that park there tomorrow, with Turner’s phone number on them of course.

I heard a great commentary on NPR yesterday by an ex Naval History teacher at the Citadel. It’s an interesting take on the strengths and weakness of American society. He also mentions how we do not have a strong history or at least not as long as most other nations or cultures, which is a discussion I’ve had numerous times with my friends. I also believe this is the cause of lot of our obsession with consumerism and people’s tendency to dismiss conservation. Since we do not have a strong culture to hold us up we have latched onto Capitalism as a substitute. This has allowed us to become the number one superpower of the world but at what cost? And how long can we hold onto that position?

You can here the commentary here: Shaping Military Leaders