My Newest Year Yet

A Short Story of My Agonizing Experiences

When I got back to Los Angeles I realized that I didn't have my keys. Some time in the previous two weeks I had lost them which meant that I had no access to my car or my house. None of my roommates were back in town yet.

So I rented a car. ($109)

I knew my window was unlocked and my room is on the second floor of my house. So the logical thing to do was to climb up on the first floor roof and break into my house where I could find my spare key.

I pulled my rental Prius up next to the house and tried to climb from the roof of it on to the first floor roof. The idea was far worse in practice than it even sounds right now.

So I decided to just scale the side of my house. I'm not very strong so this was pretty hard. But after scraping up my right arm pretty nicely, I was on the roof. I pulled off the screen to my window and break in to my house. I searched for my spare key.

I cannot find my spare key.

I went to get my luggage out of the rental car and when I got to the front door I saw that I had unlocked the dead bolt but not the little twisty on-the-doorknob lock. So I'm locked out again.

I broke back into my house.

I WILL NOW ACCELERATE THE REMAINDER OF THE STORY

- Extend car rental. (another $109)
- Call five Nissan dealerships. (lots of cell phone minutes used)
- Go to get key made at dealership. They need my car to be physically there to make a key. (wasted gas)
- Get friend to drive me to John Wayne Airport in Orange County just to drop off rental car because dealerships are closed on New Year's Day. (1 hour drive)
- Get friend to drive me back to John Wayne Airport so I can find my car because I don't remember where I parked. (another 1 hour drive)
- Get AAA to tow me to dealership. (dealt with towing service's bad attitude)
- Get spare keys made. ($250! 2 hour wait)
- Suffer endless mockery. (7 hours and counting)

Coversation of the Day

After taking out the Christmas tree, my mom noticed sap on her pants.

Mom: Crap it's sap. I hate that word.
CC: But you said it.
Mom: I had to because it rhymed. Don't tell anyone. I'm breathing like a tornado.

2008 Best iPhone Apps

Here are the apps that I think are most rad this year:

1. Mint.com
If you use this online financial service, this application is fantastic. It's completely intuitive and lets you check all your finances that are linked up to Mint in a matter of seconds.

2. Now Playing
If you go to the movies, it's a must. It searches for theaters close to where you are and displays the critical review rating beside the show times. Complete with links to imdb.com and YouTube trailers, this has made making last-minute movie trips a breeze.

3. RTM (Remember the Milk)
Another app that requires the use of a website, rememberthemilk.com is my favorite for organizing "To Do" lists. I think the app requires that you are a premium user of their services (maybe $20-25 a year?) but if you want a single list of things that need to be done, Remember the Milk is hard to beat. And it integrates with Gmail through a Firefox Add-on (called Remember the Milk for Gmail).

Other Favorites

Sportacular
For live sports updates in almost any category, Sportacular has an interface that makes it easy to check scores, stats, and schedules. Satisfy your sports cravings with a quick glance if you're stuck in a business meeting during your team's bowl game.

Twinkle
I'm learning to be a better user of Twitter, but so far, Twinkle is far and away the interface that I prefer.

Pandora
Internet radio could not be sexier. If you don't know Pandora, visit pandora.com.

SnapTell Explorer
Snap a picture of the cover of a CD, movie, or book and instantly compare prices with a broad database.


Others worth checking out:
Woot On!
Facebook
Google Earth
eBay Mobile
Urbanspoon

Also the Joost app sucks right now, but it might be a really great mobile media platform once they fix it.

WOW: Wow

So I sold my World of Warcraft account today ($325!!!!) and after the money came into my Paypal account, this was the response I got from the guy who bought my account:

lol
nice try scammer
the secret answer is fake
ill contact paypal and get my shit back ,wish you die on christmas fucker

Technology, Education, Design - TED

One of the coolest sites you can ever experience is Ted.com. The gist of the site is to show video clips from a conference where they get a bunch of really cool and really brilliant people together to discuss things that are interesting. Yes, this may sound vague, but that's because it covers everything from art and architecture to the future of the internet to quirks of evolutionary psychology to the structure of the universe.

The following video is one I watched today in which Steven Strogatz explains spontaneous synchronization.

Also, Merry Christmas eve!

The Onion

Typo In Proposition 8 Defines Marriage As Between 'One Man And One Wolfman'

Tom Cruise Cake

I just ate some of Tom Cruise's cake.  He sent a coconut cake to Tony and it tastes good.