Lexus LFA: Not as pretty as an Aston, but still awesomeness in a bottle!

This is the 2011 Lexus LFA:

I took this picture from an article on Jalopnik.  The article can be found here: Lexus LFA.  So, I'm wicked excited about this car, not because it looks cool, or is wicked fast, or as an awesome engine, or even because it is uber exclusive, but because it's from Toyota!  WHAT!?  Toyota!?  When have they produced a car that wasn't a big pile of boring beige?  Well ... the last thing I can think of that even close to counted was the Celica, and that was front wheel drive.  So I guess then the Supra would be the last awesome car from Toyota.  Then they had to go and get all obsessed about the environment and sucking all the fun out of driving.  Okay, I'm glad they make efficient cars, but do efficient cars have to be lame?  Apparently not.  Supposedly, this 500+ V10-powered car is in the Euro 5 emissions category (the lowest one they have!).  0-60 mph in 3.6 seconds, 202 mph top speed, 9K red line, 3200lbs.  Yes please.  Moral of the story: when I have $400,000, I'll be buying one of these.  Then I can be exclusive AND have a badass, fast car while being environmentally conscious.  Okay, if I had $400K, I wouldn't buy this thing.  I'd get my dream car:

That's an Aston Martin V12 Vantage.  (Picture taken from this article.)  I could  get this and still have about $100K left over.  I would definitely get a Prius for all my long trips and everyday errands, but then I could bust out my V12 Vantage!!!  Plus, the V12 is faster around the Nurburgring, only .2 seconds slower to 60 mph, and looks about um 840275984026 times better.  Then if I got this AND my Prius, I'd still have enough money to finish school, AND a nice down payment on a loft in downtown Dallas.  See.  I just need to find a way to get $400K.  No big deal.  I'll just start selling drugs as well as selling my body, hahahahahaha!!!

30 Rock!!! PS-free zone.

I just bought this:

So I finally got around to getting the 1st and 2nd seasons of 30 Rock and my life just improved by about 480573984710 fold.  Yeah.  THAT much.  I effin love 30 Rock.  I think if all the world watched it, not only would most people miss the awesome jokes affirming my superior intelligence, but everyone would be happier!!!  I'm slightly joking about my superior intelligence.  The happiness is the important part ... right?  Anyways.  I have decided to watch the WHOLE first season today.  SHOCK!  Jovan not going out and drinking?  No parties?  No work?  No studying -- that's the REAL shocker.  I'm just gonna spend a huge chunk of time with the roomie laughing.  I'm very excited.  Of course since I'm a master of multi-tasking, I'll be Facebooking (see random rant about Facebooking, Myspacing, Googling, etc.) the night away as well.  I've also decided to make biscuits and sausage gravy!  See what 30 Rock can do?  It's Tina Fey.  She's a genius.  C'mon, Mean Girls and Baby Mama anyone?  "Bitch, I don't know yo lifeee!!!"

Side rant:  FBing, MSing, G-ing(?), and TEXTING!!!  I definitely use all of the aforementioned words in everyday life, but I've noticed that they're all verb forms of a noun.  As in, it's crazy incorrect to just add "-ing" to them.  Does that mean since they are being used more and more that they'll eventually end up in the dictionary like "ain't" or other random slang words!?  And will "texting" become an actual word that breaks yet ANOTHER English grammar rule?  Psh.  I don't know, but I felt it necessary to call them out!

AT: Why do people use "PS" in electronic form when you could easily delete something or add it in by pasting it there?  Hahaha, that was another one I liked.  Maybe we should start calling it "AT" for After Thought?  I like that one!!!  But then you could always add that too, or you could say you felt too lazy to insert it somewhere else and didn't want to be grammatically incorrect.  I guess either one then technically works, eh? Dangit.  I'm gonna start using "AT" and watch how well it catches on!  IT WILL CATCH ON!!!

All This Environmental Talk and Then Some

Okay, so lately, I've been talking to a lot of people about the environment, and how to mitigate our effects on it.  It's a little funny how my inspiration for doing my part comes from being a boy scout.  Yes.  I was a boy scout.  Don't judge me!  Moving on.  The thing that I always try to remember is "leave no trace."  It's pretty much pack out what you pack in.  Other than poop, haha.  I'm not saying I poop outside then cover my hole with dirt and a stick, but I have been trying to be all green and such.  I did a few cheap, but highly cost effective things to lower my impact (and my bills even reflect this!).  I replaced all the incandescent lights in our house with some custom-made LED bulbs (created by me with some soldering advice from fellow engineering students).  I also filled up a glass vodka bottle (yay for drinking a ton in college!) with sand and water and put it into my toilet tank.  My roomie and I have started a recycling program--we sort paper, aluminum, and plastic with colorful bins (gotta make it easy on the eyes!).  We also set our air conditioner to 76.  Yes, it's not 78, but we live in Texas, get off me about it!  Finally, we have been using our power strips' switches prodigiously.  Seriously, we pretty much haven't spent any money, but have saved a lot.  It also makes me feel better that we are doing little things that when added up really make an impact.  I even started walking everywhere and making use of the horrendous Texas A&M bus system.  Now, I will say that I'm going to blow it all to hell when I fly to CO for Thanksgiving, but I'll make up for it sooner or later, right?  Heh.  I'm not doing/saying all these things that I've done for the feeling of smugness, but more because when I think of 10 years from now, it scares me.  I'm scared to think of what our planet will be like.  We aren't doing enough and it's not happening fast enough.  You know, gradual changes now are better than a huge change when fossil fuels run out.  They ARE finite and we are close to peak already.

I've been thinking about oil and gas very often as of late.  I can thank several blogs and Planet Green for that. What I want to know, is why so many people are content with just going on like normal and ignoring that all these things are happening.  Hello, Texas just had a mini-monsoon season in the fall.  It doesn't typically rain like it has been raining.  At least not here.  I'm happy though because just before our "mini-monsoon" we were in a drought.  Imagine that.  Texas with wacko weather.  Just like 2005 being the biggest hurricane season on record and then 2006 having none make landfall.  It just seems like there's a new "storm of the century" or "greatest natural disaster in 50 years" every few months.  Obviously something is up, and Mother Nature is not happy with us.

Oh, and then there's Planet Green.  Man, sometimes I wish I was some giant world-influencing policy-maker *cough* Obama Llama *cough* so that I could actually force things to happen faster.  If you haven't watched Split Estate on Planet Green, you should.  It's awesome and infuriating.  Freaking oil and gas is excluded from every major environmental policy in the US: the Clean Water Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, Clean Air Act, Resource Conservation & Recovery Act, Superfund Act, and the Planning & Community Right-to-Know Act.  Holy eff.  Remember when the meat packing industry was as seemingly untouchable?  Then books like The Jungle came out.  People started questioning all the health effects of living in meat packing districts.  Things like Love Canal happened, and finally America reacted and created all these checks and balances for several polluting industries.  I'm not saying we have a comprehensive system that addresses all industries, but it seems to do well for the ones it actually regulates.  Why have the oil and gas industries stayed immune for so long?  I think it's because they're so wealthy.  They do supply a large amount of American Taxes, but it's not like we can't regulate it more.  Maybe use some turbines on those giant smoke stacks to generate electricity?  Just a random thought.  In fact, we are definitely addicted to fossil fuels.  We should put some wind turbines on the coast like by Corpus Christi (since they don't get very many crazy storms).  According to Discovery, there's enough wind power on the coasts to power the world 10 times over.  Nice.  Silver lining to living in Texas?  We are the largest producer of green power AND were're on our own power grid!!!  Take that America!  Hahaha, I always love telling people how Texas really could be it's own country (but that's a different story!).  We also have deserts that someone should figure out how to put solar collectors in.  There's also a lot of tidal estuaries that could be used for tidal hydroelectric power.  Too bad most of Texas doesn't have enough of a terrain difference to justify hydroelectric power.  I like the fact that water can be used in so many ways.  Why can't we use huge rivers like the Mississippi and Missouri to drive water wheels like back in the day?  Or use all those dang locks we have to drive some turbines?  I dunno.  I could go on forEVER about all this schtuff, but I'm hungry.  And I wanna eat some non-organic fatty foods, haha.

Hey, I have to have SOME pleasures in life!!!  I think I'll have some fried rice, mmmmmmmm.

I Think It's About Time for Some Snow, No?

K, this is from January.  And it's October now.  I want this again.  I LOVE snow.  This is one of the only times it has ever snowed here.  Not sleet (we get tons of that), not freezing rain (all of TX closes down when this happens, haha), not hail, SNOW.  It was amazing.  I felt like I was a kid again, as I have a huge affinity for winter/snow/cold.  It snows about 3 days a year in my hometown (which is in rural NE Texas).  But this snow was the only times in the history of ever that it has snowed in Bryan/College Station, Galveston, and even Port A!  I like wearing my winter clothes, walking through snow, having hot chocolate, ice skating, etc.  I was NOT made to live in Texas.  I love it here, but a REAL winter is one thing I am lacking here.  The reason I say all this is because it has finally been getting "cold."  By "cold," I mean below 55 degrees.  Woo Hoo!!!  So, now, I'm pretty much praying for it to get so cold that I'll actually wear a jacket, and maybe it will snow again!?  I do see snow every year, we go skiing every Christmas in Red River, and I spend Thanksgiving in Colorado.  The big deal is that it snowed HERE.  Hahaha.  So, Canada/Upper Midwest/Alaska, send me some of your snow!!!  :)  I want to wear my parka!!!!

Piano Stairs!? Only the BEST Invention Ever.

So I think I've found one of the neatest things in the world!  It's so fun!  These guys from VW turned a stairwell in Stockholm into a giant WORKING piano!!!  I already use the stairs whenever I can, and this would just make it even cooler.  What I wanna know is if the sharps and flats work?  I can't really tell.  Also, I want someone to get some friends together and recreate an actual song!  How stinkin fun would that be?



I've decided that playing the piano with my hands is no longer enough.  I wish to use my feet now!  So I've either gotta go to NYC or to Stockholm.  Easy.  That's either an 8 hour trip (if I fly out of CS or drive to Houston/fly to NYC) or a 17 hour trip (if I fly out of CS or drive to Houston/fly to Stockholm).  So it's $750 vs. $1400.  Kill me.  The price to Stockholm actually isn't too horrific!  I HAVE always wanted to go to Sweden.  In fact, I want to live there.  It's pretty much my dream country.  I think I just want to live in ANY of the Nordic countries.  I mean, they do have the highest quality of living and cleanest air,water, etc.  Plus, they are all gorgeous.  And then, I'll be part of the EU in most cases.  That means I'll also be able to go to a tons of other countries using actual working public transportation, haha!  It's okay.  For now, Dallas is my closest option.  Plus, hooray for DART actually going places, and being one of the major light rail operators in America and the largest in the South, now if it could just be more pedestrian friendly...with some canals maybe?  Too much?  :)

Emo Ranting, Chicken, and Cinnamon Quills ... huh?

Okay, so hello all again.  Or to whom it may concern.  I am soooo over life right now.  Not like in the I wanna kill myself kind of way, more like in the I’m sick and tired of getting screwed up the ass with hard, sandpapery things (thanks Kelly).  Also not literal.  I’m just waiting for bad things to stop piling up on top of each other, but I suppose that’s how life is.  I’m sure someone would likely chime in, “life isn’t fair,” blah, blah blah.  But when someone says that to me, I wanna punch ‘em in the face.  It’s annoying.  In case you haven’t noticed, some people REALLY do have it better than others.  Sometimes, life is more kind to some people.  Fortune smiles upon different people in different ways.  Then that leads me to wonder, maybe I haven’t had fortune turn its back on me so much as have it bless me in another way.  I’m not poor (yet, hahaha), I’m healthy, decently good-looking, smart, etc.  So, it seems I have been given a lot of seemingly great gifts and many things to be thankful for.  My only qualm is that I don’t get to use my talents.  I haven’t yet had the opportunity to capitalize on my abilities.  I’m stuck in a stupid college town for the time being, and at a dead end job.  I pray that when I graduate, my degree will actually mean something in a world of escalating political, social, economical, and emotional warfare.  I want to be someone that leaves a mark; someone that won’t become just another person in history.  I guess I’m not the only one that feels this way.  It seems to be a common driving force behind some of the most successful people of all time.  But then you have to ask what exactly counts as success.  Most people would agree that an awesome family, financial security, and some pretty things to show off pretty much define success.  I won’t lie, I want all those things--who doesn’t?  A lot of my friends and I pretty much have the same thing to say about life at the moment, “I’m just ready to start my real life, with a real job, and a real impact.”  I think, at the moment, that I have an impact on quite a few peoples’ lives, and I’m thankful for that.  I guess I just really don’t want to end up like my parents--afforded many opportunities, and threw them away.  The part that scares me most, is that a huge majority of children that wish to be different from their parents turn out to be eerily similar.  I don’t want that.  I also don’t want to marry someone like my mother (or father or however that works).  I love both of them, but I know that my soul mate would be hard pressed to convince me to be with him/her if he or she was like either of my parents.  I expect drive and discipline from a person.  I expect kindness and a willingness to learn, all things neither of my parents possess.  I also don’t want to settle.  Like them.  I won’t settle.  I suppose if it takes my entire life bettering myself, if only to be better than my parents, then so be it.  Thankfully, the bar has been set preeeeeetty low.  I think they’d both agree that I have practically achieved as much if not more than them by getting into college.  Still not enough.  I want an awesome job, some pretty things to show for myself, and at some point a less dysfunctional family.  Not to much to ask, right?  I feel like I’m repeating myself and being emo.  Oh well.  That’s what rants are for.  Whew.  I feel better.  This is somewhat therapeutic.  Is this why people blog so much about random stuff!?  HECK YEAH!  I just talked myself through on the interwebz, hahaha!

Anywho, moving on to something different.  I love Paula Deen.  I watch Food Network all the time, and I’m slightly obsessed with her.  She is so adorable and her food is awesome.  The whole point of mentioning this is because I made her Chicken Georgia (which is dangerously similar to something my grama makes) today.

This is hers:

It is amazing.  And after my rant that I had earlier, making this made me feel better.  Oh the joys of food.  Of course I didn’t copy her recipe exactly, I HAD to add my own flair, right?  I mean, I am a wicked awesome cook.  I'm also a very humble person (I promise! hahaha!).  Pretty much, the key to cooking savory is … ready? … CINNAMON!!!  Not powdered cinnamon from the store either, that’s not even real cinnamon.  Neither are the quills that look like cinnamon bark.  That’s fake too.  Chances are, you’ve probably never had real cinnamon in your life.  CRAZY!  Trust me, the difference is insane.  Anyways, I went to a spice shop, and got real cinnamon.  A real quill of cinnamon bark.  It was very large, btw.  Maybe like a thin baguette.   Pretty much, you add some grated cinnamon to the chicken while its cooking then turn it and add it to the other side.  My grama is a genius.  She uses cinnamon alllllllllll the time.  I guess it’s the Italian.  I dunno.  Moral of the story: try this recipe, and add cinnamon to all kinds of things (it’s extra yummy in marinara sauce or in a onion dip/Worcestershire sauce hamburger).  Oh, I also add a massive amount of cheese … and garlic.  Can’t ever go wrong with garlic or cheese, haha!  Talk about random posts!

The Big First One (Sounds kinda dirty, eh?)

Okay, So I've finally decided to catch up to the rest of the world and start a blog.  I figure if people that are less interesting than me can have interesting blogs then I can have one too!  Hopefully, I am awesome, I mean, I kinda suck at writing my thoughts out (well, typing for that matter).  I read a lot of blogs thanks in large part to Google-fuhrer, so I guess it was only a matter of time before I got sucked in too!  I'm pretty excited, I don't even have to have a billion friends, I just think it's kind of nice to sit down and let some random stuff out on the interwebz.

Today seemed like a great day to start blogging: I woke up without the aid of an alarm, the sun was shining through my window (a rare sight lately), I felt ridiculously rested, and Facebook altered me to several comments and friends requests.  Ah, the little things in life.  Everyone will agree that logging into ANY service and having lots of friend requests/comments make you feel SO cool!  Anyways, so I checked my ritualistic sites, Jalopnik (to satisfy my witty car-related thirst), Facebook, Myspace, Dallas Morning News, My e-mail, and YouTube.  Woot.  Seemed like any other day?  Well ... it was.  Except, for some reason while googling anything related to a Dallas Space Needle (I PROMISE it makes sense in context), I stumbled upon this blog: Durango Texas.  Weird right?  Well, this guy is awesome, too bad he's stuck in Texas (MWAHAHAHA! - I happen to love Texas).  That's where this whole blogging thing comes in, I wanted to make a comment and NOT be anonymous.  So there.  Blogging story done, if you can follow it.  I told you.  Random.  Alllllll the time.  Imagine being me, or someone that hangs around me all the time, whew!