Where can I get some of THIS stuff!?!?!

I just went to check the US population (to measure it against the “six hundred million” that Jo from Boca Raton Florida quoted) and in doing so I ended up checking the population of the county I live in verses that of Minnesota as a whole as well as that of other states. What I found was a bit staggering.

 

As you may or may not be able to see here (click the image for full size) Hennepin County, Minnesota has more people that eight states and DC have total. Unbelievable. I also found that Hennepin County is home to about 25% of the states total population. I’m sure you’re completely bored by now, but I found it interesting.

     I just want to take a minute and sing the praises I have for this keyboard. It’s entirely rubber, flexible, and (most importantly) spill proof and washable. As a customer stated in a review on Newegg.com, “The feel of the keys does take some getting used to, but once you’re used to it a normal keyboard is annoying.” The only problem I have with it is the SHIFT is really poorly designed. There are two press-points under the rubber, one on either side, and I press the SHIFT key in the middle, so I often find myself trying to type capital letters multiple times. Other than that, I absolutely love this thing. I’ve had two of them now, because they do wear out after three or four years (another con other reviewers have mentioned), but from what I’ve seen the people (myself included) whose Adesso Flexible Keyboards have worn out have purchased another one, time and time again. Buying a new keyboard every four years (for around 20 bucks) is no big deal anyway, right? From what I’ve heard people buy new computers every two to four years anyway. And before I came across this thing (which was at a “going out of business” sale at a local computer parts superstore) I was going through two or three keyboards a year due to food and drink spillage. Unfortunately one of the space bars on this one ripped at the hands of my girlfriend’s children, but it still works just fine. Luckily I haven’t spilled anything in that particular spot since it happened. Don’t be fooled by negative reviews stating that this keyboard is impossible to type on, or takes precise keystrokes, or cannot be quickly typed on; these people are just stubborn regular keyboard users! I’m typing at about 140 words per minute right now, without issue, and I’ve had no trouble typing that fast or faster on this very keyboard for the past 5-6 years. The best feature of this keyboard is that it’s silent. It’s totally rubber, so there’s no clikity-clackity when you’re typing. The 50 decibel springing sound put out by regular keyboards while someone’s IMing or messaging (or farming) on Facebook (I won’t name any names) makes sleeping fairly difficult. My computer has always been worlds ahead of the curve, and my mom used to come into my room to use my computer for emailing while I worked nights at Entegris, and she types over 300 words a minute. Once I got this keyboard, my sleepless days were over! haha

     I’m not sure why I’m still typing. I just meant to post a link and a shout out. I think the shout out part is taken care of, so here’s the link: Newegg.com

The following is a transcript of a conversation between a radio show host and a caller (keep in mind, this person is allowed to VOTE). Press play and listen, read the transcript, or do both and follow along!

Host: Let’s go to Boca Raton Florida (she’s on the other side) Jo in Boca Raton, welcome. You say the Arizona law is wrong, is that correct?

Caller: Yes, I think it’s absolutely racist that they’re telling illegal aliens that they can’t come into Arizona. They can do what they want to! I mean, we’re America. This…We have to have open eyes…..

Host: Wait, you’re saying too many things at once. They’re saying what?

Caller: That we need to….

Host: You’re saying, wait ma’am, are you aware of the fact that a country has borders? Are you aware of that?

Caller: I’m saying that we need to get rid of our borders so can welcome all forms and walks of life.

Host: [long pause] Of course your pulling my leg….

Caller: I’m serious. Just look at how your ancestors got here!

Host: Well they didn’t come here illegally, maybe yours did. How did yours get here, did they come here illegally?

Caller: I don’t know, but they got over here somehow. And now I’m….

Host: Well apparently they pulled from the lowest level of the gene pool from where you came from, that you don’t even know how a nation is defined. How many people do you think this country could sustain with open borders? Is there a limit? An upper limit in your mind?

Caller: I think we could sustain so many people because there’s capital….

Host: I said how many? How many people are in America today, how many millions?

Caller: Six hundred million.

Host: Oh my god. Oh boy. We’re in trouble aren’t we? So you just guessed at that I can see, because that’s not the correct number. Ok, we’ll give you another chance. How many people do you think the United States of America could sustain if we had no borders and anybody could just enter the country? How many people?

Caller: We need to put limits on people’s income, because people are making way too much money, and they need to….

Host: So, in other words, it’s not the number of people here, it’s the amount of money people are making.

Caller: Yes, it’s the greed in America. We need to….

Host: I see. How much money do you make a year, Jo?

Caller: Nothing. Right now I’m on a welfare check. But that doesn’t matter anyway.

Host: Ahhh, you’re on a welfare check. That’s why your so benevolent with other people’s money. So you’re telling men like me who work for a living, who pay your welfare check that I should be limited on how much I make so you can make more money doing nothing?

Caller: Well, I think that you don’t pay my welfare check, I think Obama pays my welfare check, and I….

Host: Wait, what? Do you mean Obama pays it out of his pocket? Where does Obama get the money from, Jo?

Caller: I dunno, his stash. I don’t know where he gets it! But the thing….

Host: What do you mean you don’t know where he gets it from? It’s called a public treasury! Where does the money come from into the public treasury Jo?

Caller: Illegal aliens who work for a living and then they pass the money to the government!

Host: Jo, you’re a very sick person. I really pity you Jo, and you never should’ve been able to get on the show because a man once defined Hell as a place where there is no reason; and you just dragged me into Hell, Jo.

vwagenjetta: I cannot believe this guy kept himself together while talking to this lady. It is absolutely astounding that there are actually people out there who think like this, and even more unbearable a thought that they are allowed to participate in the public election of the person who will more or less be running the country for the next four to eight years! It’s people like this that really make me wish there were some sort of voter qualifications that needed to be met before one could cast their vote into a political election. I’m sure there’s someone out there who voted for Obama, or McCain or whoever throughout the years that did so at the promise of, I dunno, free candy for life. If you know nothing about politics whatsoever; if you know nothing about economics, or taxes, or government in general, your input should not be admissible in an election. What do you think?

     Things have been pretty crappy lately, for me. I busted my foot and was out of work for three days and only got paid 2/3 of one day’s salary from work comp, I lost my job, my car broke down and fixing it cost me over $350, and to top it all off I tossed my future-step-son on my glasses, breaking them in half. Yikes, what a bad run. But despite the less than promising outlook of my immediate future, today was a great day.

     Last Friday was my best friend’s 25th birthday, and today (since my car junked out last Friday) he and I celebrated at the Chuck-E-Cheese for adults more commonly referred to as a cigar lounge. The place we chose to visit is all the way out in West St. Paul, and the drive out there is a long one involving crowded freeways and stop-and-go rush hour traffic. Once you get there, however, the nostalgia makes the pain of the long and frustrating drive completely worth it.

     When the freeways come to an end, and you finally make the exit off of the “main street” drag and into the neighborhood area, you totally forget you’re in the downtown area of our state capital. Green grass, a canopy of trees, a playground or two and a windy two-way street make you feel completely at home, at peace and away from it all. I didn’t realize I was going a few miles per hour below the posted speed limit of 30 until I reentered reality for a moment to glance in my rear view mirror where I found a long lineup of cars following me bumper to bumper. Apparently some people are just too impatient to slow down and take in the sites they most likely take for granted.

     Several miles into St. Paul through the neighborhoods lies an oasis known as Grand Avenue. It’s a main street drag laid out in the middle of a never ending sea of West St. Paul homes. The buildings are rustic, some are old Victorian Era homes converted into shops or restaurants, and the diversity of the people who blanket the crosswalks and sidewalks is quite impressive. There are young people, old people, those out for business and those out for pleasure, and somehow everyone manages to go about whatever it is they’re doing without disturbing the peace of anyone else. If you ask me, Grand Avenue is one of the most beautiful places in Minnesota.

     Towards the end of the strip lies a renovated Victorian Era house with a small parking lot where the driveway used to be. The awning over the front door reads “Stogies on Grand” but I prefer to call it my home away from home. Upon entering you’ll find a number of patrons you can count on one hand enjoying cigars and hearty conversation in one of the three comfortable and decadent lounge areas, and a couple employees all happy to see you and happier to help you find the exact cigar you’re looking for (whether or not you’re looking for anything specific) all together in one completely relaxed and friendly atmosphere. The humidor is packed wall to wall with cigars of every shape, size and color imaginable, and with the staff members cigar smoking experience ranging from 15 to 30 years worth, any one of them can tell you facts, stories and even a few jokes about every single one of them.

     With a love for cigars like mine, choosing one out of that many is more often than not an arduous task to say the least. But with the help of the guy behind the counter whose knowledge of cigars, and “I’ve known this guy for years” friendliness (and whose name I forgot to get) my friend and I selected a few cigars, and headed to the back lounge to enjoy them. We sat together in the lounge talking away and puffing through our first cigar for a solid two hours, the guy behind the counter occasionally coming back to empty ash trays or stow a newly emptied cigar box which gave him an excuse to hang out with us, and let me tell you, for those two hours I didn’t have a care in the world.

     Happy Birthday, Adam, and thanks to you and to Stogies on Grand (and it’s employees) for giving me a much needed break from life.

     I’ve enjoyed a cigar from time to time (and believed myself to be an “aficionado”) for a good four or five years now. But it wasn’t until I watched a video on StogieReview.com about how to cut, light, and smoke a cigar properly that I actually tasted anything when smoking a cigar. I watched this video for the first time all the way back in May of 2010…..wait, that was like three weeks ago. Well, after watching the video I could not contain my excitement. I have watched hundreds of videos, read thousands of reviews, and smoked scores of cigars in years past, but this one takes the cake. It was a couple of guys who knew exactly how to train someone in cigar smoking, and knew their stuff when it came to the various methods of cutting and lighting a cigar. Over a period of about 30 minutes, they brought cigar smoking down to a science. I made a mad dash for the smoke shop after watching the video, where I purchased a NUB Cameroon 460, and commenced the art form described in the video one step at a time. It was at that moment I experienced the maker-intended flavor of a cigar for the first time in my life, and let me tell you it was an intensely jovial moment for me.

     This morning I stopped by the local tobacco shop and picked up another NUB Cameroon 460 (this will be my third), a Rocky Patel Sun Grown (Rocky Patel cigars are highly praised by every reviewer who gets their hands on them, and I’ve enjoyed my fair share), and, the cigar I always get if I can’t decide, an Onyx Reserve No. 7. After a full day of fishing with Rachel and my brother, running errands with our old neighbor Bill, and playing with the kids I plopped down on the deck with Rocky Patel (the cigar, not the man himself, unfortunately) and had some R&R time.

     That cigar was fantastic. Right out of the gate it sent a robust peppercorn flavor surging into my mouth which dissipated almost as quickly as it came. As I rolled the smoke around in my mouth and nose, a strong coffee taste coated the inside of my mouth. As I began to release the smoke, a blast of creamy milk chocolate saturated my taste buds. I felt like Violet from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory did when she grabbed that three-course-dinner gum. “It’s tomato soup! I can actually feel it running down my throat!” Remember? Well, the cigar didn’t taste at all like tomato soup, but in the same way I could actually feel hot coffee and melty milk-chocolate morsels in my mouth. It was truly amazing. Each draw brought a subtle increase to the coffee taste and a blast of milk chocolate flavor. I totally forgot to check the time when I started, but my guess is it burned for a good ninety minutes, and the flavor remained mostly the same throughout the smoke (although there was a very brief mixed-nuts flavor somewhere between the first and second third). If you like a good frappuccino, you’ll probably like this cigar, and if not I recommend you try it anyway.

    Once everyone was in bed, I couldn’t sleep, nothing was on TV and the internet became boring, I decided to go ahead and have my Onyx. In the early days of my cigar smoking escapades, the Onyx Reserve No. 7 struck a chord with me. I tried many cigars of all shapes, sizes and colors, and when I reached for a black cigar the Onyx was the one I grabbed. Maybe it was the great conversation my friends and I shared while smoking, or maybe it was the crazy girl that walked up to us asking for weed, but that cigar tasted so good that first time I immediately decided that it would be my go-to cigar when the situation required a grab and go cigar run. I’ve had this cigar many times since then, and I’ve always enjoyed it. But tonight when I cut, toasted, lit and smoked this cigar correctly for the first time, I hated every moment of it. When I slid the cigar out of the plastic wrapper and took a whiff, it smelled like poop from a dog who’s diet consisted of water and fish food. I wrote it off, though, because some cigars just smell funny. After taking the first few puffs I couldn’t help but wonder what I had seen in this cigar before. It tasted terrible. I decided to tough it out for a while, with high hopes, and about an inch into the cigar all I could taste was lighter fluid. The kind you start a campfire or fill a Zippo with. I didn’t light the cigar with any fuel of the sort, so it had to be one of the cigar’s flavors. This flavor lasted through most of the cigar, although it did gradually fade as the the cigar burned down, but it was without a doubt the primary flavor. With this cigar I “could actually feel the lighter fluid in my mouth.” It was off-putting to say the least. I don’t think I’ll be getting one of those again.

     Now here I am, blogging about my experiences. I’d review the NUB, but I haven’t lit this one up yet, so I’ll save that review until after I burn this one. It tastes much like the Rocky Patel Sun Grown, but with a much creamier coffee flavor, and without the chocolate. The coffee flavor in the Rocky Patel wasn’t strong, but it tasted like espresso or really dark coffee, and the coffee flavor in the NUB tastes more like regular strength coffee with a little sugar in it. I’ll leave it at that, I guess. Maybe I’ll post a full review (with a third by third flavor break down and pictures) of the NUB when I’m done with it. That’s all for now, thanks for reading.

     Ok, I need to take a moment. Please bear with me.

     I have not commented, messaged, pulsed, or uploaded anything original to my Xanga site in a long while. I recently lost my job and I’ve spent the extra 40 hours a week I now have reading and commenting on various posts under which the comment discussion involved my personal beliefs or standpoints, or were on a topic to which I could offer argumentative input. I’ve commented back and forth with a select few intelligent people, which has been a wonderful experience, but the majority of my comments were seemingly ill-received. These past few weeks have been an eye-opening experience into the world of public-post commenting.

     I’m not going to name any names, or quote any comments directly, but say for instance the post at the top of the front page was entitled, “Does 2 + 2 equal 5?” Now, after watching the front page articles closely for a few weeks, I honestly wouldn’t be surprised to see a post with such a title up there, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see a mindless battle of idiots raging in the comment section beneath it, either. Sure, there are plenty of trolls out there (people who write outlandish or offensive comments beneath a post for the purpose of pointlessly pissing people off), but I’d be willing to bet that 80% of the comments under a post are not written by such people (unless we’re talking about the comment section under Theo’s posts or the Revelife blog, under which 90% of the comments are jokers or atheists, respectively).

     So the title of the post is “Does 2 + 2 equal 5?” and the first comment says something like, “ZOMG, srsly!?!? MATH FAIL!!!” My reply to such a comment would be something along the lines of “Xanga requires it’s users to be 13 years of age or older. Go ask your mommy what that means, okay sweetheart?” If you’re going to post a comment, for heaven’s sake at least try to sound intelligent! It’s obviously a bait and switch title, so any comment regarding the statement “2 + 2 equals 5” is no doubt written by someone who didn’t even read the post.

     The atheists on Revelife need to think before they comment/reply. I mainly commented under Revelife posts in my endeavor to find something productive to do with my time, and I was always bombarded with atheist jargon. I have no problem with people who decide to believe their lives have no purpose or meaning; it’s their decision and they’re old enough to know what their deciding. But when your argument is “[Christians] need to be more open minded, and close their minds around that which is evidentially logical” you sound like a babbling fool, and your argument gets neither you nor the person you’re arguing with anywhere. If you’re an atheist, and you’re commenting under a blog post on a Christian website, you’re trolling. Go do something useful and vote for your atheist -ish site.

     The reason people are so hostile in the comment section of the “top blogs” and “featured blogs” is because whoever’s putting these blogs up there tries too hard to drive their site-traffic to comment. These controversial, bait-and-switch titles do bring people in, but it’s the aim of such a title to upset someone enough to click on the link and vent in the comment section. Such titles actually encourage mindless bickering! Are the users of Xanga so mentally destitute that they require that much incentive to put forth the effort of commenting? When I opened my Xanga account some five years ago, there were people here who actually cared about each other, commented on each others posts (regardless of whether or not they were offended by the contents of said posts), and were genuinely friendly overall. Now all I ever see on my personal page, the front page, and the comment section of just about every post I visit is world-wide-web-WAR. It’s almost as if Xanga has become the UFC Octagon of the bloggosphere. If you’re here to wage war, please shut down your account and return to Myspace, or Facebook, or wherever the hell else you came from.

Good day.

Won’t love a world where my God is mocked. I DEFY.

Awesome.