Ancillary Adam

Was snooping around Reddit.com, as I so often do, and saw this linked. It pretty much sums things up:

TheWeek.com: "By Golly, they really *are* whiter"

I bought OxyClean when I was in school, and proceeded to flood my dorm room with 2 gallons of water/OxyClean mix. It took forever to dry and ended up causing more damage than it was supposed to fix. Oh well. Screw you ERAU.

As I approached the E Street building on the GWU campus for class this evening, my senses were assaulted by a series of loud police sirens. One cruiser and two motorcycles scream past me and it wasn’t until the second cruiser and suburban did I notice “Secret Service” emblazoned on the door panels. That caught my immediate attention. Just a few seconds later, with more motorcycles and suburbans, the presidential limo and a series of chase cars pass right in front of me; 15-feet to be exact. Like a nerd, I waved. And “he” waved back. That’s the closest to a personal connection I’ll ever make to our President.

I went inside, beaming from my recent brush with greatness, and was approached by a young lady inquiring if I was here for “the reception.” I think the puzzled look on my face gave away my answer. I asked “reception for what?” She said “for Carlos Slim.” I said “is he really here.” To which she replied, “yes, if you like you can meet him.” Like a dolt I said “no” and that I had to “get to class.”

I went to the 6th floor to regale everyone about the past 10 minutes of my life. But, like a nerd, I was the second one there. So I waited. And forgot.

After class we all piled into the elevator like it was a Tokyo subway car. As we spilled into the lobby a collective groan came over us as we realized it was raining cats-and-dogs. Since I just too sweet to consider getting wet, I waited in the lobby for the rain to let up. As I was standing there, a somewhat portly (or rather, “rubinesque”), slightly balding older gentleman walked up on my left and stood looking at the rain as well. I looked over and notice that he had quite the entourage and that I was standing 15 feet from Carlos Slim himself. This is the closest I’ve ever been to any form of “celebrity” (or person with his net-worth). I didn’t know what to do. That’s okay because he was whisked outside, under cover of a GWU umbrella, before I had time to come up with something stupid to say and ruin the whole encounter.

Apparently Sr. Slim was there to receive some honorarium for something. I didn’t really pay attention. It must have been something important enough to use his armada of private transport to depart. That, or he was already in town and this was just a single port-of-call on his whistle stop tour of D.C.

One thing did strike me as strange. As he stood there, he had only one measly security person. There could have been others, but the only people around him were a gaggle of Carlos Slim groupies (all seemed to be rather hefty, middle-aged women), a couple of suits, and one rent-a-cop. I suppose since he’s not a Mexican state official he doesn’t get the Secret Service escort, but I would imagine a man of his stature (at least in his own country) would have more security. But, I could be wrong.

Picture:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Carlos_Slim_Hel%C3%BA.jpg

More on Carlos Slim:

http://money.cnn.com/2007/08/03/news/international/carlosslim.fortune/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Slim_Hel%C3%BA

Dealings with the NYT:

http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/jan2009/db20090118_331081.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index+-+temp_news+%2B+analysis

I was bored this past Sunday evening and I popped over to Hulu to see what’s new.  All my standard Sunday-Evening Fox cartoons are in summer reruns so nothing new there.  So I headed over to the “movies” section and found this gem.

It’s called “Wine For The Confused” and it’s presented by John Cleese. It’s not your typical John Cleese-esque slapstick or Monty Python schtick; it’s actually very entertaining and informative.

Enjoy!

After 5 long years, I have all-but canceled my Netflix subscription.  I say “all-but” because I haven’t *technically* canceled it yet; it’s just “on hold”.  Around the end of February I started an experiment to see if I can actually live without my beloved movie-addiction feeder.  I put my account on hold for 90-days, which would have come due at the end of May.  I have since pushed that date until the beginning of August.  At that point I’ll finally make a decision.  I don’t think I’ll end up canceling altogether.  I’ll probably hold onto the 2-at-a-time plan so I can a tleast stay somewhat current with new releases.

The days (and weekends) of when I would sit, zombie-like, in front of an entire season of Magnum, P.I., Scrubs, Dexter, or whatever, has come to an end.  I’ve realized there are *much* more productive things I can do with my time.  To that end, I haven’t really missed my subscription.  I’ve been so busy with work, errant classes, and other business-realted stuff that I haven’t had the time to even think about Netflix.

Stay tuned for more updates.  Words of encouragement or criticism are always welcomed.  Comment below.

Sorry for the lateness. Other life-events have taken priority from posting trivia, let alone anything else. Enjoy!

• 4/13/2009 - Mel Blanc, who voiced Bugs Bunny, was allergic to carrots.
• 4/14/2009 - During his entire life, van Gogh sold only one painting, “Red Vineyard at Arles”
• 4/15/2009 - Karaoke means “empty orchestra” in Japanese.
• 4/16/2009 - The only contemporary words that end with “-gry” are “angry” and “hungry”
• 4/17/2009 - Sigmun Freud had a morbid fear of ferns.
• 4/19/2009 & 4/18/2009 - The name for Oz in “The Wizard of Oz” was thought up when the author, L. Frank Baum, looked at his filing cabinet and saw A-N and O-Z, hence Oz.

• 4/20/2009 - The expletive “Holy Toldeo” refers to Toledo, Spain, which became a Christian cultural center in 1085.
• 4/21/2009 - The only “real” food U.S. astronauts are allowed to eat in space are pecans.
• 4/22/2009 - It takes a plastic container fifty thousand years to start decomposing.
• 4/23/2009 - Hrand Araklein, a Brink’s car guard, was crushed to death when $50,000 worth of quarters fell on him.
• 4/24/2009 - Three consecutive strikes in bowling is called a turkey.
• 4/25/2009 & 4/26/2009 - The correct response to the Irish greeting “Top of the morning to you” is “And the rest of the day to yourself.”

• 4/27/2009 - The avocado has the most calories of any fruit.
• 4/28/2009 - Colgate faced a big obstacle marketing toothpaste in Spanish-speaking countries. Colgate translates into the command “go hang yourself.” (Ed.: No, it doesn’t)
• 4/29/2009 - Thomas Edison had a collection of more than five thousand birds.
• 4/30/2009 - Napoleon Bonaparte was afraid of cats.
• 5/1/2009 - The term “mayday” used for signaling for help (after SOS), comes from the French “m’aidez”, which is pronounced “may day” and means “help me”
• 5/2/2009 & 5/3/2009 - Tweety used to be a baby bird without feathers until the censors decided he looked naked that way.

• 5/4/2009 - A “walla-walla” scene is one in which extras pretend to be talking the background - when they say “walla-walla”, it looks like they are actually having a conversation.
• 5/5/2009 - The color of a chili is no indication of it’s spiciness, but size usually is - the smaller the pepper, the hotter it is.
• 5/6/2009 - Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison were all twenty-seven years old when they died.
• 5/7/2009 - Every day more money is printed for Monopoly than by the U.S. Treasury. The most money you can lose in one trip around the board (normal game rules apply, going to jail only once) is $26,040. The most money you can lose in one turn is $5,070.
• 5/8/2009 - Daytime dramas are called soap-operas because they were originally used to advertise soap powder. In America in the early days of television, advertisers would write stories around the use of their soap powders.
• 5/9/2009 & 5/10/2009 - Buzz Aldrin’s mother’s maiden name was Moon.