CRUSHTHEMALL

2009-06-09T22:42:00.000-05:00

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

from a co-worker today

2009-04-09T11:17:00.002-05:00

I usually don't forward emails, but this is too funny and true to not pass on, especially if you're a golfer, which I'm not:

Many of you may not know it, but I have been very busy over the last 2 years putting my thoughts and ideas together in a book.
I am very proud of the results and to assist with the marketing, I am asking friends and family to help me out.

I believe my new book on GOLF gives the reader valuable playing tips and insider information that I have gained through my years of struggle and experience. I'm hopeful you find this a useful tool to help you enjoy your game that much more as you enjoy the great outdoors.

The cost is only $9.95. Don't wait until they're all gone !!!!

Chapter 1 - How to Properly Line Up Your Fourth Putt.

Chapter 2 - How to Hit a Nike from the Rough, when you Hit a Titleist from the tee.

Chapter 3 - How to Avoid the Water When You Lie 8 in a bunker.

Chapter 4 - How to Get More Distance off the Shank.

Chapter 5 - When to Give the Ranger the Finger.

Chapter 6 - Using Your Shadow on the Greens to Maximize Earnings.

Chapter 7 - When to Implement Handicap Management.

Chapter 8 - Proper Excuses for Drinking Beer Before 9:00 a.m.

Chapter 9 - How to Rationalize a 6 Hour Round.

Chapter 10- When Does A Divot become classified as Sod.

Chapter 11 - How to Find That Ball That Everyone Else Saw Go in the water.

Chapter 12 - Why your Spouse Doesn't Care That You Birdied the 5th.

Chapter 13- Using Curse words Creatively to Control Ball Flight.

Chapter 14-When to Let a Foursome Play through Your Twosome.

Chapter 15 - How to Relax When You Are Hitting five off the Tee.

Chapter 16 - When to Suggest Major Swing Corrections to Your Opponent.

Chapter 17 - God and the Meaning of the Birdie-to-Bogey Three Putt.

Chapter 18 - When to Regrip Your Ball Retriever.

Chapter 19- Throwing Your Clubs: An Effective stress-Reduction Technique.

Chapter 20 - Can You Purchase a Better Golf Game?

Chapter 21 - Why Male Golfers Will Pay $5.00 a Beer from the Cart Girl and Give her a $3 Tip, but will balk at $4.50 at the 19th Hole and stiff the Bartender

reminded

2009-04-08T09:39:00.000-05:00

I was just reminded of two of the dumbest things I hear on a regular basis. Unfortunately, I say them, too...but that doesn't mean I don't hate myself afterwards:

"What can I do ya for?"

Ugh...that just makes me vomit in my mouth every time I hear it. It's like the sly, clever sex pun that is neither sly nor clever.

"It is what it is."

Really? Is it? What exactly is what it is if it is what it is?

fruit stripe gum - a love letter

2009-04-07T12:44:00.001-05:00

Dear Fruit Stripe Gum,

I love you. You are the metaphor for the perfect woman. It starts with your included tattoos, which are very sexy. Then, you are lightly dusted to prevent sticking (I'm not quite sure how this relates to a woman. Yet.). You are the sweetest tasting thing I have ever known. Your flavor is unique, yet tantalizing. I think about you all the time.

Then your flavor runs out, the uniqueness is gone, and I spit you out, and move on to the next piece.

It doesn't get much better than that.

Love,

Geoff

you know who else ate everybody he killed?

2009-01-30T15:40:00.001-06:00

From the Fark headline:
Eliza Dushku: "I like bow-hunting. I eat everything I kill." PETA: "You know who else ate everyone he killed?"

http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=4179377

I didn't get much further in the comments, but the first one is the best. I chuckled.

I learned something new today

2009-01-29T16:08:00.001-06:00

I learned that no matter how hard I try, I cannot jam a Dum-Dum brand lollipop up my nose.

Unless I suck on it for about 20 minutes.

do you know what's loud?

2009-01-23T15:29:00.000-06:00

the goddamn click wheel on my mouse at work. Seriously. It sounds like I'm toppling dominoes every single time I scroll down a webpage. They need to make a "stealth mouse" or something.

I know I read somewhere that you can actually take/remove/modify the click mechanism, but that involves tools, time and patience. At the same time, and I usually run at two out of three.

I swear...it echoes.

surfer's guilt

2009-01-22T10:50:00.000-06:00

I just recently (2 minutes ago) took into consideration the fact that some people out there have nicely added my blog to their list of blogs the enjoy reading. Then I realized that I don’t even have the common courtesy to update it on a regular basis. For that I apologize. For everything else, I make zero apologies. NONE.

I’m not even going to say that I’ve been busy, because I really haven’t.

There really hasn’t been that much to write about, and then I’ve been trying to be better at being on the internet at work. Less internet means less time available for posting stuff, which means more time to do, um, my job. Surfer’s guilt.

I’m on the last legs of having a cold though, and with a great cold comes great responsibility. For instance, if you have a beard that includes a moustache, as I do, you run the risk of difficulty while blowing your nose. Since the hairs of the moustache lie directly below the nostrils, the chance of snot catching in those hairs is HUGE. It’s gross, I know, but it only lasts for a week. But gals…think about that before you lick your man’s moustache. Or grow your own.

LOST

I’m so glad this show is on. I was worried that I wouldn’t have anything to do on Wednesday nights anymore. Seriously. Could this show be any more intriguing and well written?

Accident Orange

2009-01-13T13:25:00.000-06:00

I usually make it in before the sun rises, so it was a nice bright treat to see the sun before I got into work. What was really cool about it was this flare that rose above the sun. Where the sun was a bright yellow, the flare was “Accident Orange”…and rose what seemed like miles above the sun.

Also, there were 2 flares, equidistant from the sun that looked like a broken version of a rainbow. It only had 2 colors, orangish red and yellowish orange. It looked like it was formed from the billions of snow/steam/ice/rain particles that were floating very close to the ground. Close is a relative term, as I actually mean maybe at the highest point it was 200 feet high.

If I wasn’t already late for work, and filled with road rage, I probably would have taken a picture. If I had my camera with me, of course.

I’m including a drawing, which doesn’t even come close to what I saw:

it's official

2009-01-09T08:19:00.000-06:00

website domain has been purchased. blog's been set up (but we all know that it will barely be updated).

Pretty soon, Fossil Fuel Lad will be alive and well and thriving on the internets!

Oh...don't bother clicking the link quite yet...there's nothing on it, save for a link back to this site. Ha.

the first modern shopping mall

2008-12-22T11:12:00.002-06:00

Here is the link. It's Southdale Shopping Center in Edina! Who'd have thunk?

Via Gizmodo.

it's been a good winter

2008-12-22T08:44:00.002-06:00

There's a few things about this winter that I absolutely don't miss, compared to last winter.

Last winter, I lived in St. Paul where parking permits were needed to park anywhere I needed to park except for Target, Cub Foods and work. There were secret places I would park to circumvent that ultimately ended up being not-so-secret places because most of the time they were always filled.

But, the worst words to hear/read/see/think/know were, "Snow Emergency". Bullshit operation...park on the correct side crap. I don't miss it. And I especially don't miss the parking tickets. I sure hope that the $400 dollars I donated to the cause went to something good, because I have a feeling that my money ended up funding their stock of bulk coffee and trips to Krispy Kreme.

The hierarchy of Chex Mix ingredients.

2008-12-19T10:11:00.001-06:00

This list goes from least greatest to greatest piece of Chex Mix (storebought...original flavor).

7.Rye Crisps:

Rye Crisps are pretty much the worst thing ever. From their unnecessarily hard composition, to their inability to absorb any of the flavor offered by the spices in the mix. They are little brown objects of hate, and can be easily eliminated from the mix without anybody in the general public missing them.

6. Bread Twists:

Pretty much falls into the same category as the Rye Crisps in terms of absorbing any of the flavor of the spices. I feel like I'm eating the dry turd of the Pillsbury Doughboy when I eat this. This piece can also be eliminated without affecting the rest of the bunch.

5.Bagel Chips:

Only slightly less annoying than the Rye Crisps. It's Spice Absorbability Factor, or SAF, is much greater than the two above, but not what it should be. I seriously think that these three pieces are added into the mix after the spices are added. It's durability when being smashed between my teeth is much less than the Rye Crisps, which is how it attained the number 5 spot.

4. Round Pretzels:

Pretty much a tie between these and the Windowpane Pretzels. I mean...they're preztels. Everybody loves pretzels. The round ones are great because they roll, and you can put them on the ends of your fingers like tasty, tasty rings. Plus, you can use them to play tic-tac-toe with them and the Windowpane Pretzels. The only problem with these, like the pieces above, is that there is no flavor absorption. NONE. They taste like pretzels.

3. Windowpane Pretzels:

Much harder to put on the ends of your fingers, but you can bite the corners off, and use them as the letter X in a game of Chex Mix-tac-toe. And they don't roll.

2. Wheat Chex:

Ahhh...the namesake of the product. It would be a shame if the top pieces of the mix weren't what the mix was named after. It'd be like saying that your favorite piece in the game of Monopoly was the hotel piece (kind of...). The Wheat Chex takes the number 2 spot for many reasons. It's like a miniature pillow of crunchy, hollow goodness. Its design makes for total absorption of 99.97% of the spices, which can leave some pieces almost FILLED with spice (which can be good or bad, depending on your outlook of saltiness). Wheat Chex only lost out to Corn Chex for one reason, which I'll touch upon next.

1. Corn Chex:

Here we are. The number one spot on the lists of lists. An ingredient of a mix of party tradition, dating back to the 1950's, the Corn Chex is a staple of almost every variety of Chex Mix you'll ever have. Its light, crunchiness, backed with its ability to inherit the spice of the mix and make it its own. It's that crunchiness that give it the top spot. It's just light and crunchy enough to be slightly better than the Wheat Chex, which is a little more firm, and harder to chew. I think that if mice were given an option between the two, and they really liked salty spices, they would prefer the Corn Chex over the Wheat Chex.

So, that's it. Corn Chex for the win! Do you agree?

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gift time is fast approaching

2008-12-16T10:08:00.000-06:00

and what to do, what to do.

I have shopping to do. It should get done this week.

I have a present to make. That itself is going to be a lesson in tolerance. What's nice is that it has levels of difficulty. I can make it be a hard project, or an easy project. I have to be hush-hush about it, though...who knows who reads this?

I resolve to post more, and I think I should start before the end of the year.

I need to design/refine my superhero/comic. I've had this idea in my head for so long, it's starting to leak out, and I'm afraid that if I don't jump on it and take advantage of my time, that it's going to be a lost cause.

And then I have other ideas. Ideas where I need to sit down with myself and write them down, because they're all in my head.

This morning:

2008-12-08T09:11:00.000-06:00

I woke up to my alarms, as usual. On one phone (no phone service set up on it, strictly used for the alarms), I have 3 alarms set up: one at 4:30, one at 5:30 and one at 6:30. They went off perfectly. I use these alarms to gradually wake up. I don't always remember them going off, especially if I'm tired.

My other phone, however, is a different story. It usually plays the first 20 seconds of Edgar Winter's Frankenstein (YouTube)...I love the song, and it's strong and powerful enough to wake even the most soundly sleeping giant. The phone's been glitchy lately, and it hasn't fixed itself, even after a complete recent restoration of the software on it back to factory settings. This morning was evident of that. About 7-8 notes into the song, it decided to freeze up, and proved a 1/2 second loop. Power button doesn't work to turn the phone off, so I have to take the battery out. Of course the battery doesn't easily come out, and I have to pry it out with a knife or the multi-tool on my keychain. 3 minutes later, the problem is solved, and I am completely awake.

I've since fixed the problem with getting the battery out, but that doesn't solve the fact that the phone is a piece of crap.

Anybody got a nice Sprint phone they want to get rid of? Cheap?

Oh...by the way...watch this....this is the new hype:

Because none of my friends would appreciate this...

2008-12-02T23:30:00.002-06:00

But goddammit, i wish i was 10 again, because Target is selling an exclusive Sarlacc Pit from Star Wars, complete with Luke, Lando, and an edible Boba Fett (i hear he escaped, though...). There's also a sky skiff. I. WANT. THIS.

no excuses

2008-11-24T09:52:00.000-06:00

Other than I've been keeping myself busy, I almost forgot that I had this blog. I mean, isn't that usually how it goes? You start a blog, and you post like a motherfucker in the beginning because you had so much to write about that you had to start a blog so you tell the world.

So you post and post and post. At that point you don't care how many readers you have because you're not writing for them. This is your own personal diary, but it's public because you don't care. You swear, and give out the most intimate details about everything in your life. You write about the syrup you put on your pancakes and Eggo brand waffles. You write about who you had sex with, who you didn't have sex with, and who you want to have sex with. You write about presidental elections and then you write about disappointment.

You tell all.

Then you install a statistic "widget", or tracking code or something because at some point in your blogging career, you get curious as to who is really looking at your blog, and what keywords they're using.

Then you realize that you care about those things. You care that you only had four page views yesterday. You care so much that you register your blog to endless blog registries, and you blatantly shill your website address (www.crushthemall.com) everywhere you go on the internet. You post it as your signature, and put it on your Xbox Live account.

So, you finally get to see how many people are visiting your site. You get excited. Knowing realistically that there aren’t too many people out there who probably know about your site, but you’ve added some blog links to yours, hoping whoever you’ve linked reciprocates. You hope that the shameless plugging you’ve done has garnered some page views. You hope that maybe 100 people read your blog. Not 100 people total…. 100 people a day. So, imagine your surprise to find out that only 1 or 2 people a day visit your blog. Knowing full well, that one of those visits a day is probably you. The other is probably your mom or the government. If you’re lucky, you’ll see a spike in visits, with the numbers reaching 3, or even 4.

Thoughts race through your head. “Am I really writing anything that’s relevant? Do people even care about the random things I do or see?”

Then the blogging depression sets in. You think to yourself, “Why bother blogging? Nobody reads it.”

So you stop writing. And you’ve set up your blog as one of the first pages that you go to during the day, so you constantly remind yourself that you haven’t been writing. Pretty soon you ignore that reminder and then you kind of forget about it for a little bit.

A random amount of time passes. Some things happen. Some things don’t happen. You travel somewhere, you meet someone, you experience something fantastic and you need to tell someone. You’ve already told all of your friends, and your family knows too. Who else to tell but some strangers? You decide to fire up the blogging engine and write some random crap that you think is totally relevant to whatever situation, but completely pointless to the reader. You pour your little heart out, typing all of the biggest, useless words you know. You express yourself openly, including every little detail that won’t get you incriminated in a court of law.

All for what? 4 page views a day.

But you don’t care. You blog because you miss it. You blog because it’s the only diary you’ve ever known. You blog because it’s a way to look back on memories. And every once in a while, someone who knows you, or wants to get to know you, will read your blog, and finally learn that one piece of information they can one day use as blackmail.

And it’s all your fault.

history

2008-11-04T08:10:00.000-06:00

I'm probably going to cry tonight. I'm either going to cry because we voted for the right presidental candidate, or I'm going to cry because I'll be forced to leave the country.

Ok...not forced, but I'm not going to want to live here anymore.

The Game of the Name

2008-10-24T12:22:00.000-05:00

I get a few weird looks from people when they see "crushthemall". I'd say the majority of looks are looks of confusion.

"Is it crush them all, or crush the mall?"

I reply, "Yes."

When I first came up with the name, I was inspired by what is now one of the oldest Firefox extensions I use, DownloadThemAll. I always read it as something that downloads all of something, but I also had it in the back of my mind that it was also something that downloaded the mall, and it always made me smile and think to myself, "Why would someone want to download a mall? Ridiculous, if you ask me."

So, circa fall 2006, a little after the release of the Xbox 360, I decided that I needed a new moniker for my online exploits on their Xbox Live platform. I hadn't played on Xbox Live for a long time, and my last handle for that was "Pep-X", which was short for Peppermint Extract; the highly flammable, highly minty, all-purpose flavoring agent that we used while making minty shakes and malts at TGI Friday's. It was the focus of my attention waaay back in 2002, when Xbox Live first launched. I decided it would be a cool name, until it was found out that:

A) it looked like POP-X on the tv screen, so people were calling me that all the time
and B) I barely played Xbox Live games, so that fell to the wayside.

Fast forward back to 2006 and my new name choosing scheme. I ran some potential names past my roommate. I'm sure they were ridiculous, like "Capt. Coolguy" or "TheKiller8833". I included "crushthemall" as an option and he said that out of the bunch, that one was the coolest. I agreed, and crushthemall was born.

If someone asked me the definition of the name, I'd have to tell them that it's the two following things: it looks super awesome when I kill someone in a video game, and it says, "crushthemall has beaten you" (unfortunately, that never happens very much), AND, I'm not a super huge fan of shopping malls (especially those outdoor plaza-type malls where you have to walk outside to get to any of the stores you want to go to. What kind of bullshit is that? It's friggin' Minnesota. The busiest shopping season of the year is in the wintertime. I know...let's make everybody walk outside to shop. Asshole mall planners.

Since then, I've registered a website, started a blog, created tens of online accounts with the name crushthemall and it's pretty much the new name of the day for me. I like the ambiguousness of it and what it implies.

Can't wait for the next alter ego.

nut-buttery goodness...

2008-10-15T13:00:00.000-05:00

Did someone say peanut-butter machine?

To quote Linda Richmond, this this is "like buttah!"

Holy crap. I want one. It's only $50, plus shipping and handling. And it's from one of my all-time favorite catalogs I loved reading as a kid (true story), the Lighter Side Catalog. That, along with the Johnson-Smith Co. catalogs always had the craziest shit in them. I always thought that they were related to each other, somehow, and by visiting the Johnson Smith Co. website, it was pretty much confirmed.

Lovely reader(s)....feel free to buy me one! I will make you all the crazy peanut butter you desire!!!!

posting!

2008-10-13T08:08:00.000-05:00

yup...that's right, true believers! Another fine edition of "Let's post once a week or so!".

This week's edition will have such stories as:

"I'm getting internet this week! The only problem is that I'm not going to be there for the setup, and I have a feeling that my roommate is going to get taken for a ride."

and

"I don't hate my job, I just hate everything else."

Also, look for an editorial from my darker side, pointing out the finer aspects of road rage, and over-cooking Spaghetti-o's.

Today's short story is entitled, "I didn't get a lick of quality sleep last night, and I'm pretty ticked about it."

I didn't get a lick of quality sleep last night, and I'm pretty ticked about it.

What's really funny, is that I'm so lazy that I didn't even want to lift my hand from the keyboard to select the text so I could copy and paste it again. How bad is that? Right now I'm debating whether re-typing it was being lazy, or if copy/pasting would have been lazier.

Brilliant.

remember when I used to blog?

2008-10-06T08:15:00.001-05:00

It's been so long. The newest excuse is: I don't have internet access. Plain and simple. I mean, I have pseudo-access through my phone, but it's mediocre at best, and my battery gets all drained to shit when I use it with internet, so I try to keep it at a minimum.

Tonight, though, the computer gets transported from old place to new place. I don't really have a place to put it, but I'll figure it out. Can't be any worse than my old roommate putting his tower on the floor, the monitor on top of that, and sitting on a pillow in the living room, next to the couch. Worst desk ever.

I went to Fallcon '08 on Saturday, and was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it. Caroline came with, and my brother showed up, too. The $10 admission ($11-$1 for a canned food donation. Caroline supplied re-fried beans...I'm sure the kiddies will be thrilled)
for 2 hours spent there was WELL worth it. I saw Ghostbusters, Spider-Men, Superman/Superwoman, Green Lantern, the Flash, Thor, Wonder Woman (va-va-voom!) Elasti-girl, the original Batmobile, the Bat-Cycle (complete with Robin's sidecar, WITH the go-kart accessory...brilliant!), and a slew of other things. My friend, Dan, of bewilderedkid.com had a table there and was selling his wares. He was also sporting the best ~~handlebar~~ horseshoe moustache I've seen since the 70's.

All in all it was a really good time. I'm so glad I went. And I wasn't even looking for anything in particular. I just wanted to go.

The worst thing about the con? No camera. Seriously, my freshly re-charged batteries...not fresh...not recharged. Soooooo upset.

edit: It's horseshoe, not handlebar. Poster is a big dummy.

Fallcon!

2008-09-25T13:41:00.003-05:00

I'm going to my first comic book convention next weekend. I'm pretty excited for this.

My hopes:

-Spandex-clad women
-Awesome superhero costumes
-Hand-shaking and signatures from industry giants

My expectations:

-Spandex-clad men
-cardboard versions of my favorite heroes
-30-40 different versions of Iron Man costumes
-very smelly people (we can sense our own kind)
-industry midgets

I'm sure it will be a good time.

MCBA FALLCON COMIC BOOK CELEBRATION
October 4 & 5, 2008 - 10AM to 5PM Both Days!
Minnesota State Fairgrounds - In the Grandstand!
1265 Snelling Avenue - Saint Paul, MN 55108
20th ANNIVERSARY 1989-2008

Admission is just $11.00 per adult. Good for both days! Children 9 & under are FREE!

really?

2008-09-23T08:26:00.003-05:00

I opened up the blogger webpage, hoping I'd be inspired to write something of relevance. Nothing popped for 30 minutes, so I decided to close the window.

As soon as I close it, I overhear my co-worker talking to another about "how radioactive cell phones really are. Watch this video. They pop popcorn with 4 cell phones."

Man...I know I'm on the internet 23-6, and I try to keep up with all of the relevant viral videos and bullshit phenomina, but really? You're watching these videos for the first time now? Maybe you should stop watching TV and start downloading the internet more.

The popcorn scam is almost a year old, if it isn't already.

All I'm saying is, hit up Snopes before you involve everybody in the office, and get everybody chattering about something that isn't even real. This place is starting to feel like church at times.

under the bridge

2008-09-18T08:29:00.001-05:00

Hm. Sounds like a bridge has been opened. I wouldn't know it because my commute isn't affected by it one bit. I'd be interested to see what my drive home is like, being that I usually take 280 from University Ave. to 35W, but I won't even find that out until next week.

I never saw the bridge in person. I never saw the damage that happened. I was curious, but I don't think I'm one of those "needs to see it" kinds of people. I hate gawker slow-downs while driving for the same reason. It's an accident. Leave the poor people alone.

boat trip

I was on a paddleboat on the St. Croix last night for work. It wasn't a bad time at all. I got a fist bump for being a member of the singles club, had a few drinks, ate some good food, got a little drunk with my co-workers on a Wednesday night...who could really ask for anything more? I mean...for a Wednesday, that is. In a perfect world, this would have been on a weekend, a hotel room would have been gotten, and much drinking would ensue. But beggars can't be choosers, can they?