Hottie?
I think this pretty well speaks for itself. I snuck this photo on the train the other morning and then forgot about it until now. It brightened my day all over again. Am I a terrible person?
4 comments May 18th, 2009
Where we’re going, we dont need roads
Jen got me the Back to the Future DVD for Valentine’s day. There’s not a more romantic gesture that I can think of. I’ve always been fascinated by the concept of time travel, and I suppose this movie may have been the start of it. I think it may be one of my favorites of all time. Ironically enough, I think it’s extremely timeless–despite the Ronald Reagan and Pepsi Free references scattered throughout. I think anyone can relate to the desire to travel to a different time and experience first-hand what their parents used to be like before they got all lame.
I also want to watch Back to the Future II soon (the third one I can probably skip). By my calculations, we’re only about 6 years away from flying cars, hover boards, and shoes that lace up automatically. I can’t wait.
1 comment February 16th, 2009
Beautiful rose arrangements
My wife’s old boss, Kevin Sharkey was on the Martha Stewart program today. Perhaps you saw him making beautiful rose arrangements. I was hoping maybe he’d mention how he recently laid off a woman who was five months pregnant, leaving her without health insurance during the most critical time in her pregnancy. I thought maybe he’d explain that even though her clients loved her, she was grossly underpaid, she worked her butt off, and her department is one of the few in the company that makes money, she was the one that had to go—not someone from one of the many money-losing departments at Martha Stewart. I thought he might also mention how a few months earlier he did the same thing to another pregnant girl under similar circumstances. He also forgot to mention how just a week earlier, even though she was visibly pregnant, he made her carry huge, heavy bins to a storage unit on a different floor while he sat on his skinny, bony butt and watched. I also thought he might bring out failed-Donna-Karen-CEO, Patsy Pollack, my wife’s other boss, so she could explain how neither she nor Kevin had the balls or shriveled ovaries to tell a pregnant woman to her face that she was fired.
But nope. He just talked about roses. I guess they ran out of time.
5 comments February 12th, 2009
Breaking news! Obama’s on a train!
It’s possible that while watching TV over the past few days that you missed a little tidbit that’s getting buried in the headlines. We’re inaugurating a new president tomorrow. A fellow by the name of Barack Obama, I’m told.
I like Obama. I honestly think he’s the best person for the job right now. He seems smart and competent, and I’m hopeful that he’ll do the country a lot of good. But seriously? Is he superhuman? I think at any given time, an objective media is probably an illusion, but right now they’re not even trying. CNN spent all day Saturday covering Obama riding in a train. That’s the sort of hard-hitting critical analysis that will really get people to take a close look at his policies.
I realize that swearing in the first African American president will be a (an?) historic moment. And during these hard economic times, I’m glad that people are optimistic about something right now. But after all the confetti settles, I hope the media wakes up and does their job. I seem to remember another president that got a free pass from the media after 9-11, and we all know how that turned out. Okay. I’m done being political. Sorry.
Add comment January 19th, 2009
I miss my fingers
I can see that they’re still here, but I lost feeling in them about an hour ago. In fact they are typing this post entirely on their own. I wish I could control them. They seem to be outraged. This picture is of me sitting at my desk. And no, I don’t work outside. They just decided to work on the heat today–the coldest day of the year. They could let us go home early, or provide electric space heaters, or work on the heat during the weekend. But instead, we get complimentary hot chocolate. That we have to make ourselves. Oh well. At least I HAVE a job right? Assuming I don’t die of hypothermia soon.
1 comment December 8th, 2008
There’s another post directly behind this one.
When I left the apartment this morning, I knew I was in for a long ride. Shadow Traffic’s Megan Meany (best name ever) warned me that there might be some trouble on the A train. When things are running smoothly on the A train, it’s usually a miserable experience. So I figured the mere mention of trouble by Miss Meany meant that my life was about to be ruined.
I’m no expert in train traffic management, but I feel like I have a fairly good grasp on the basic laws of reality. Before a train can go downtown, it must first go uptown. They don’t just magically appear at 207th street. Well, I happen to live just a few stops from the end of the line, so when I am waiting on the downtown platform for 20 minutes, and in that time I see no uptown trains, I assume that there will also be a shortage of downtown trains. This is also evident by the fact that I’ve been waiting for 20 minutes.
So now to my point. Why, when the train finally comes, does the announcer ALWAYS say, “if it’s too congested, there’s another train directly behind this one.”? Allow me to present two possible scenarios:
1. That depressed Eeyore-sounding conductor is a dirty liar. There is no other train. This is it, and if you don’t get on now, you’ll wait 20 minutes for a train that is just as cogested.
2. That depressed Eeyore-sounding conductor is a complete A-hole. There IS another train directly behind this one. And since no uptown trains have been seen recently, it means two perfectly good trains have been sitting at 207th street just waiting to leave together–for reasons that could only be spiteful.
Well, I’ll never know for sure since I decided to cram my way onto the first (and most likely only) train and try my best to think non-murderous thoughts down to 59th St. Either way it looks bad for the MTA.
3 comments September 17th, 2008
Ain’t ain’t a word
As I was returning to work from my lunch break, I found myself behind two rather large women who were walking at a pace far slower than I normally prefer. As I formulated a strategy for how I might maneuver around them, I overheard this little gem:
“You prolly woulda forgot if he ain’t told you.”
Admittedly I’m a bit of a stickler when it comes to grammar. I suppose it comes with the job. And I realize that greater language injustices have probably been uttered within my earshot before. But there’s just something so perfect about the way she switched tenses like that mid-sentence that really caught my attention–and she did it using an improper contraction–improperly. Amazing.
Well, I’ll never know what it is he ain’t tell her. But I do know this: I’ll ain’t get that phrase out of my head for awhile.
1 comment August 21st, 2008
Don’t try this at home
So I had the bright idea to update my blog software the other day. I figured I should at least have the ability to put pictures and video on my blog without having a computer science degree. Anyway, it turns out that if you don’t know what you’re doing, you can do a lot of damage. i.e. you can delete your entire blog. It turns out that restoring your blog after deleting it can be just as hard as the original process that deleted your blog to begin with.
Well, it was a fun learning experience anyway. For some reason, my subdomain blog.collinbennion.com isn’t working, but you can access everything at the original address www.collinbennion.com/blog. But I guess you already know that. So bear with me while I try to restore everything to its original state. Let me know if something isn’t working quite right. I actually haven’t even checked the rss feed yet. So it’s possible if you read everything that way, that as far as you’re concerned I just dropped off the face of the Internet.
Lesson learned that I probably won’t apply: don’t pretend you’re smart. Because you probably aren’t.
1 comment July 26th, 2008
My iPhone
I’m posting this from my brand new iPhone 3G. So far so good. I have to get used to the touch keyboard since I have fat fingers. It was sort of like Christmas this morning. I couldn’t sleep so I decided to get up and stand in line. I was 7th in line at the Park Ave AT&T store. Check me out on Fox News. You can totally see me. It’s a good thing I was there so early (5am) because it took 25 minutes to activate my phone. I felt sorry for the suckers behind me. Anyway, I’m completely ashamed of myself. I’m a huge nerd. But I love my new phone.
1 comment July 11th, 2008
Kool-Aid on my face
I’m getting an iPhone. Hopefully Friday, but if not then, soon. I’ll admit, I’m pretty excited for this purchase–probably more excited than a normal person should be for an electronic device.
I keep reading these reviews about the iPhone that talk about “drinking the Apple Kool-Aid” and “the Apple bandwagon” and then proceed to list devices that do comparable things to the iPhone at a fraction of the cost. To me these reviewers are missing the point, but that’s a discussion for another day. I’ll admit that I could possibly be classified as an Apple “fanboy” (it’s an official word now according to Webster’s), although I’ve calmed down a bit in my later years. Allow me to explain this so-called phenomenon from my perspective:
My first real experience with Apple (aside from playing Oregon Trail in elementary school) was in 1994. Up to that point, I was fairly familiar with Windows 3.1, but when I first used the Mac, I knew it was a better way. Keep in mind at this time, it was not “cool” to use a Mac. Bill Gates was the richest man in the world, Windows 95 was coming out and people couldn’t predict the demise of Apple fast enough. For those of us who couldn’t imagine using Windows for the rest of our lives, Apple became a cause–and thus the Apple fanboy was born. I wasn’t annoying all my friends and family because I had fallen into some cult-like trance. I was doing it because I knew that if people didn’t start buying Macs, I was going to be forced to use Windows. And that was a world I didn’t want to imagine.
Needless to say, Apple is no longer struggling. I don’t need to tell everyone I know how much better the Mac is in order to enjoy it myself. I’m fairly certain it will be around for a while longer. But I would be lying if I said there wasn’t still a nagging thought in the back of my head that’s afraid Apple will be gone if I don’t work to save it. I believe it’s the same phenomenon that causes my Grandma–who grew up in the depression but has plenty of money now–to wash out and reuse Ziplock bags.
So please excuse me if occasionally I’m loud and obnoxious about my Apple products. It still just baffles me sometime that an Apple bandwagon even exists. Maybe my preaching over the years played some small part in that. Or maybe Apple is just the only company that understands that technology should make your life easier and be a joy to use. Either way, I’ll see you in line at the Apple Store with Kool-Aid all over my face.
Add comment July 9th, 2008