rebelpeon.com

Category: life

  • Bling Bling

    I just got my vacation pay from the University today and it’s over $1k more than I was expecting.  Talk about good times!

  • Chicago Residence

    Well, I picked up my keys to my new place on Friday.  Unfortuantely I won’t be moving all my goodies up there until next weekend.  However, I am happy to report that Erin is completely moved out of the dorms, and is in her new apartment.  It’s just a slight improvment.

    Aaron is actually pretty much all moved in to the new place.  Granted, he doesn’t have much right now, but that should change on the 25th, since that’s when he’s getting a rather large load of furniture delivered.  Today we actually met at the apt and did a little bit of cleaning.  Man, we’re gonna need more “stuff” in order to fill it.  I knew that I didn’t have much at my apt in Champaign, but I think it’s going to be even more noticable here.

    Anyways, I was looking at how much renting a Uhaul costs.  Man, they really want you to not move on Saturday’s don’t they?  First of all, their website actually uses some fairly effect propaganda to get you not to rent on a Saturday, and then they go and charge you $50 or more.  It’s not really a big deal for me though, since next weekend is a three day weekend, or at least it should be, I actually haven’t found out about that at work yet.  Oh yeah, and for some reason, I never thought it’d be that much.  It makes me wonder how much hiring people to do it would costs, though (little late now, and I won’t be around all week).

    Oh yeah, and getting my furniture up the four flights of stairs in the new place could be interesting.  I actually took a look at it today while I was cleaning.  Should be a good time.  Thankfully I don’t have stuff that’s incredibly heavy, but the couch and stuff are fairly large, so manuevering them could end up being interesting.

    I’m very excited about the new place though.  We’re thinking about making one of the rooms into a “music” room of sorts, since Aaron has a lot of guitars (plus amps) and a Sax, and I have a guitar and a trumpet that I can bring back from my parent’s place.  Should be good times.

  • Moving Again

    Well, it’s been another two years, so it’s time to pack up and move again.  Man, and I thought it was bad when I lived with my parents and we moved every four years or so.  As you know from previous posts, I’m moving up to Chicago.  Aaron and I actually signed a lease yesterday for an awesome apt, that’s within walking distance of work (but not in a high rise).

    The place is the top floor of a 4 floor walk up.  The first floor is actually the landlords office, and the other two floors are singles (each floor is divided in two).  The landlord actually used to live in the apt we’re renting quite a few years ago, so it has a lot of amenities: jacuzzi, custom cabinets, stainless steel range (viking exhaust that raises out of counter, just like my parents had a few houses ago), dual ovens, Sub-Zero fridge.  The landlord has a bad hip, too, so he installed an elevator;  a private elevator for only the 4th floor.  Plus, I’m getting a garage spot, which will be very nice.  I don’t think my car will know what to do, not being parked outside in the elements.  The place has gorgeous views of the city too, since it’s only 11 blocks west of downtown.  There is a shared patio on the back for all tenants.  It has a gas grill and a small fish pond.  I can see many summer evenings spent out on the porch with beers and burgers. 

    All for under 1900 for the two of us.  We both saw it as a great deal and jumped on it.  I’m glad we did too, because apparently the guy showed it to a few other people after us. 

    I pick up the keys on Friday, and Aaron may start moving stuff in this weekend.  However, Erin (oh wow, this is gonna get fun, eh?) is also moving to a new place this weekend, so I’m going to help her, and then, come Memorial Day weekend, head down to Champaign and rent a Uhaul to truck my stuff up.

    To all my faithful readers, you know you wanna help 🙂  Beer and pizza may be provided!

  • Bling Bling

    Last night Erin and I were watching some Adult Swim, when we saw the most hilarious commercial.  At first, both of us thought it was a joke, like what the Geico commercials are.  But, it turns out, it was no joke.

    The product in the commercial was called “Bling it On”.  Essentially, all it was, was the holographic metallic stickers from the 80’s.  It was incredibly funny though, especially when the woman playing the mom interjected that even mom’s can use some extra bling.

    I don’t think they actually gave a price for this special product, but I’m sure if you ran down to your nearest hobby store, you could DIY.

    Update:
    To see a video of said commercial, please view the comments, since Bree was able to find it and link to it for us.

  • PT Party

    Friday, after work I met Erin, Bree, and some of their friends at Ballydoyle’s.  They had had a stressful week at school and wanted to have a good time.  I got there a little bit before 7 and Erin and two others showed up at 7.  Then Bree and Eric showed up around 7:30.  A few more of their friends showed up around 8:30, and then we left around 11-11:30 (their stuff is actually the individuals at the bottom, and wasn’t that much).  It’s not good when the waitress says, “It’s quite a lot!” as she hands you the tab.  As you can see from the receipt (don’t mind the marked out entries, that’s just me figuring out what’s been paid back), the damage was steep, but a good time was had.

  • New Job

    Much like Travis, I too have a new job.  I start up in Chicago on Monday.  For the time being, I’ll be crashing on people’s couches until I can find my own place.  Who’s looking for a roommate for a downtown apt?

  • Lottery

    Damn, none of the $168 million is coming my way.  This is very unfortunate.

    Edit:  Apparantly I wasn’t the only one not to win the $168 mill, since the Friday drawing is now up to $205 mill.

  • Public Restrooms

    What is with the people that don’t flush the toliets?  I mean, do these people not flush at home?  If so, why do they feel the need not to in public?  If not, good god that’s gross.

  • America’s Growing Threat

    This weekend, while my rear-end was recovering, Erin and I needed to kill some time so we visited the mall up in Oak Lawn (wow that website sucks).  Neither of us are really “mall people”, but there is a movie theater there, so we thought we’d see if anything decent was playing.  Turns out there wasn’t, so we needed to waste time some other way.  Now, the rest of this entry isn’t meant to bash these people, but more of an observation of what we saw.  Some people may get upset with what I’m about to say, I can’t help that other than inform them that they shouldn’t read what follows. 

    Both Erin and I like to people watch.  It’s interesting to see what kinds of people are around us and just to watch them go about their days.  Having a camera to photograph these moments is also fun, but alas, no camera this time.  So, this time, Erin and I decided to play a game of sorts.  Both of us are quite disturbed by the growing trend of obesity in America.  Be it from fast food lifestyles or just plain laziness, the trend is getting quite disgusting.

    For those of you who know me, know that I’m quite skinny, but that’s because I work at it by doing things I enjoy.  I’m usually do some sort of physical activity (for more than an hour) five or six times a week.  I also don’t eat fast food, nor drink high caloric beverages (soda, choco-moca drinks, etc) multiple times a day.  However, that doesn’t mean that I don’t eat high fat foods and instead only eat nasty health foods.  Erin also is a skinny person.  She also is active (though not as much as I am), and eats well.  She is also in school to become a physical therapist, so she sees this all the time.  Yes, we both have biased views on the subject, but at the same time, it’s hard not to see what’s going on.

    Our game was to see what kind of ratio we would get by seeing if people were overweight.  This was in no way a scientific study.  To begin with, we were watching people at the mall.  The mall is not known for people that are highly athletic.  Also, we were just judging people on how they appeared with their clothing on.  Granted, we did give many people the benefit of the doubt when it wasn’t obvious.  Also, do you include old (>65)?  For our “study” we didn’t.  We also tested two different areas of the mall to see if it made a difference (as far as we could tell, we didn’t include the same people twice). 

    Our findings came back with a staggering >60% of the people we saw were overweight.  This is being generous too, if Erin was reporting our findings, she would’ve said around 75%.  Now, from my rough calculations, I’d say of those, more than 50% were “grossly” overweight.  One case in point was a woman in a motorized wheelchair.  Erin asked me if I thought the weight was due to the motorized wheelchair (broke a hip or something and couldn’t walk), or if the wheelchair was due to the weight.  Other observations seem to point out that this is not gender, race, class, or age specific either. 

    What really saddens me is that it’s not age specific.  It’s the largely overweight kids that scare me.  These kids aren’t doing it to themselves as the older adults are.  The parents are effectively killing them off by influencing their food decisions and activities (or lack thereof).

    Many people will complain that it is genetics that causes them to be this way.  I throw a large BS in their direction, because if that were true, then why the sudden upturn; why isn’t the rest of the world experiencing this same problem?  I think it more comes down to the fact that as American’s we have become lazy, and with the proliferation of junk food (and it being easier to obtain than non-junk food), we, as a nation, have just let go.

    In my mind it’s disgusting what people have let themselves go to.  However, it’s not only disgusting, but incredibly bad for them in the long term.  Just the added weight on their joints will wreak havoc later one, let alone what their blood vessels look like.  It’s not just average-joe that’s overweight either.  It’s the medical doctors, the ones that should be setting the examples for average-joe, that are just as bad.  And don’t even get me started on the “American fix” to this problem: Gastric Bypass Surgery.

    It would be interesting to further this “study” some more, at various other places.  I think it would also be beneficial to actually keep more scientific tally, than just yes, no.  Maybe we can move down to Michigan Ave sometime soon and try it again.

  • Paid Programming

    Usually during lunch, I watch something that I’ve downloaded on my xbox.  However, today my xbox was in pieces, so I was forced to watch what was on during the noon hour.  Now, mind you, I don’t have anything but basic cable (stations 1-22, I should just an antenna and be done with it, for as little as I watch), so this greatly limits what I can view.  For those of you that watch TV during this time frame, you know that there are soaps, “news”, children’s shows (which I’ve also watched), and infomercials. 

    Ah yes, the bane of the TV watching experience, infomercials.  What really makes the infomercials horrible during the noon hour, are who they’re marketed to.  These are definitely not the same programs that are run at 3am, assuring you that you need this product in order to make your kitchen complete.  Instead, these uber-long commercials are directed to the stay at home, sedentary mom and the retiree who’s looking for more to life. 

    From 12-12:30 CST, it is always for some weight loss type product.  It seems as though Beach Body has permanently purchased this block of time on the WB.  Today’s commercial was for Yoga Booty Ballet (I can’t even make stuff up that good).  Now, aside from the name and the fact that you get a kick out of watching these TV shows, why on God’s Green Earth would you actually sit down and watch this, let alone take it seriously?  Let’s look at the typical components of a fitness related infomercial.

    • Celebrity Spokesperson (probably not anyone that’s really in their prime currently)
    • Real-life Customer Results (remember, these results aren’t typical, or so says the fine print)
    • Catchy Name (it’s got “booty” in it, it must be cool)
    • Unbelievable Deal Only Good for Next XX Minutes (only, online you get the outrageous deal ALL the time)
    • Upsell, but no additional price (oh, we get a squishy ball AND 7 day diet book)
    • Compare to Competing Products (I’d have to buy how much for a home gym?)

    From 12:30-1 we have a different demographic to attempt to seduce.  This time we always start off with some business-type person talking about the wonders of this herbal supplement.  Or, maybe it’s an older couple that have tried said herbal supplement, and it’s changed everything about them.  To contrast the fitness infomercial, let’s admire the components of the herbal supplement commercial.

    • Medical Doctor (I can take an M.D. after my name too, but that doesn’t mean it’s real)
    • Real-life Customer Results (remember, these results aren’t typical, or so says the fine print)
    • Catchy Name (in our case ViTal, for, I guess, vitality?)
    • Unbelievable Deal Only Good for Next XX Minutes (only, online you get the outrageous deal ALL the time)
    • Upsell, but no additional price (oh, we get an extra two months supply absolutely free?)
    • Compare to Competing Products (Botox is how much?)

    Alright, lets be honest, who sees the similarities between the two?  Maybe I’ve cracked the infomercial code and could be come a millionaire?

      1) Come up with crap product
      2) ??? Use above formula
      3) PROFIT!!!1

    I mean, are consumer’s really that dumb that they are easily swayed by someone sounding excited?  Apparently they are, since these commercials wouldn’t be around if they didn’t work.  But they are fun to watch, to see all the other techniques they use to sway people in.  Things like black & photography for the before results, vibrant colors for after; sad faces on the people before they’ve lost their weight, jovial faces for after, etc.  It’s quite scary how people must be easily swayed.

    Oh yeah, and why do they always state that this has been a paid program?  Are not all commercials paid, or is this something the government has put in place?