I went to my fraternity’s yearly fundraiser dinner last night. My intentions: eat some food and hang out with the guys. I look forward to this event for another reason as well, chatting with the guys’ parents. I was talking with one of my brother’s dad, who is about as cool as they come, when he dropped a pretty good nugget of wisdom in my lap.

A man who does not read good books is no better off than a man who can not read. –Mark Twain

Having recently started reading again, or rather reading things other than techie stuff, I found the quote rather profound. Think about it for a second and let it sit a while.

In the end we had a good time chatting about recent books, my recent learning experience starting a business, and my girlfriend.

I’m a big guy. 6’5” and about 240 to be exact. I often joke with Lo and tell her I’m a “petite little flower.” I sit right on the edge of either shopping at the “normal” stores or being banished to shopping at the big n’ tall stores. However I didn’t know that the average male waist size was a skimpy 28/30 inches. Who is A & F and Hollister kidding? My roommate is only 6’0” and built and HE wears a 36. Neither of the companies aforementioned MAKE a 38 – I couldn’t even order the damn things. I had to slum it at A & E for shorts and fell back on the ever faithful Express for Men for a few pairs of jeans. It’s like these companies are willing us to lose weight. I’m here to tell you that if I lost weight I’d look like a friggin bean pole

In other news Best Buy is officially on my shitlist. It’s a big joke in my fraternity that when I get in your shit I’m all up in it, screaming at meeting and all that. Well BB is going to get some serious Joe action tomorrow and it ain’t gonna be pretty. Why, you may ask. Because I took in my truck to get a stereo installed. They said they’d call when it was done. I call at 7:00pm to check on the status (I dropped it off at 1:00pm) to find out the store is closed! WHAT THE FUCK?!? No phone call, no voicemail, AND they still have my truck! Oh boy, they’re toast.

I’ve noticed some drastic changes happening in my life recently. For starters I’m hagning out with “the guys” less and less and hanging out with Lo more and more. Why? Mainly because beer pong and talking about recent dates isn’t something I live for anymore. Another thing I’ve noticed is that the friends I used to hang out with all the time are changin as well. We used to talk about beer, girls, TV, computers, etc. and crack jokes about everything. Now we come home from work tired and cranky with distorted views of the world. I’m starting a company and talking about business models, business plans, loans, merchant accounts, etc. Who in their right mind wants to play beer pong and talk about their recent frustrations with Bush’s plan for the economy?

Within one circle of friends this trend is becoming alarmingly apparent. A long tradition within this circle was “bros before hoes”. Being a more recent addition to the circle I’m able to play a more objective role in this whole debate.

A little background: The circle is made up of two smaller circles one each revolving around a younger and older brother. The older brother is conservative and has always maintained long standing relationships. The younger has a flare and maintains his bachelorhood like oxygen. All of the older brother’s friends, for the most part, have no direction in life, and to small extend are a little jealous that the older brother is the only one who “got out.” The younger brother’s friends are all at college and working their way through $1.50 pitchers and various courses. With the older brother recently becoming engaged I think it’s causing an unrepairable riff between within the greater circle.

I’m no class warrior, but the truth is when the brothers come home from work and talk about 401k, configuring highly available networks, etc. they aren’t going to be interested in what new flavor crust the old school friend is now serving up at the local pizza place.

The truth is we grow old, we change, and we grow apart. What we should realize is that this isn’t a horrible thing: cherish the time you had together and move on to exciting new things. Or, a more cynical approach, in the famous words of Dennis Leary, “Life sucks get a fucking helmet!”

I went to Taco Bell for lunch today and ordered my new favorite, the Zesty Chicken Bowl with no beans. I sat down to find four clowns. Yes clowns in full clown garb chatting it up eating lunch at Taco Bell.

What I found so odd about this was the topic of their conversation. From what I could gather they were clowns who went around to churches preaching the gospel to youngsters. Futhermore, they were having a discussion about their sex lives. The hilarity of listening to a bunch of bible thumping church clowns talk about their first kiss was enough to make me burst.

Of course my gutter mind starts to wander about the given sex crazed church clowns and I’m soon picturing clowns, in full clown garb, having intimate relations. Maybe this explains why there are so damn many clowns in those cars. It’s hard enough to manage in a regular car, much less a mini. Needless to say I had a shitty grin on my face the whole time I was eating.

I was looking over my formula below and realized there was a fatal flaw that could leave welldoers out in the cold. If B > P then you have serious problem. In fact, you most likely are a prime candidate for debt consolidation. I’m calling this “PF v1.0” and consider this the current stable release:

@@@SMARTY:TRIM:PRE@@@

I hope this helps somebody out there. Moving on now…

I was going through the car wash the other day when my antenna broke off. Somebody told me that I shouldn’t worry about it. Today I went and purchased Sirious sattelite radio. I got a Kenwood CD player with MP3 support. It should make the long trips a lot more bearable. Much to the disgust of my girlfriend Sirious comes A & E, History Channel, and NPR.

A local radio station talk show had a great topic on today. They were talking about how some states are proposing that the ban on purchasing alcohol with food stamps be extended to include junk food as well.

The idea struck me as genius right off the bat. And the argument to justify it makes so much sense: You are using MY money to sustain life’s necessities – a twinkie is NOT one of life’s necessities! I believe that welfare serves a purpose and many people have benefitted greatly from it, but I also think it should have restrictions.

This goes right into another topic I’d like to talk about – people who run up credit or rely on mom & dad to live a live beyond their means. Havine recently rid myself of 90% of my credit card debt I’m happy to say that my spending habits are becoming more and more responsible. I may not be able to have the best, but I live quite well compared to most 22 year olds. It’s simple people – look at your paycheck, take 10% off the top for savings, pay your bills with whats leftover. I’ll break it down into an equation for the math heads in the crowd:

(P * .90) – B = FC

P = Amount on Paycheck,
.90 = 10% to savings / investments,
B = Bills, and
FC = Fun Cash

I usually dump more into savings depending on the value of FC. I’m releasing this formula into public domain with all rights reserved. Feel free to distribute freely.