January 2005 Archives Pictures from Last YearJanuary 02, 2005 — I'm a little late in posting these December activities, but better late than never.
January 03, 2005 — It's time for my annual year in review. 
January 03, 2005 — Here we go again. Just when I thought I was safe from talking about my Thanksgiving, it's now time to talk about "the holidays." Once again, to cut down on the number of times I need to go through this, I will include a summary of "my holidays." To be completely accurate, "my holidays" should actually refer to Hannukah, which was in early December. But since I didn't do much then and since "holidays" is really just a more PC way of saying "Christmas," here's my side of the conversation about the last week or so. "It was really good. You know, relaxing. How was yours?" "Oh, that's nice." "Well, I went to New York for a few days and saw my family and friends. Then I took a trip to Portland." "Christmas was good. Ate some chinese food." "Yeah, Portland was cool." "Just chilled out. Ate out a lot, went skiing, checked out the city, watched a bunch of movies." "Sure, I'll post the pics on smandel.com soon." "New Year's Eve was good. We went out for a nice dinner, partied a little at Sara's place, then hit a local bar. It was a lot of fun, pretty low key, definitely one of my most successful New Year's Eves in the past few years." "Yeah, I can't believe it's 2005 either." "It does seem like it was yesterday." "Time sure does fly." "I know, back to the old grind." "I'll catch you later. We'll have some meaningless conversation about the next holiday." The (Uncool) Sound of SilenceJanuary 06, 2005 — While I'm certainly not an expert on what is cool, I do have an opinion on what is rather uncool. It's uncool when artists try to be cool by including extra long silences, blank tracks, or "secret tracks" on their albums. Besides the fact that it's just plain stupid, this is quite inconvenient when using shuffle play, as I prefer to do (I like the surprise). If I were interested in listening to silence, I would not purchase a CD at all. Silence is free*. I buy CDs because I like to hear music. While I'm certainly not an expert on what is art, I'm pretty sure silence is not art. It's silence. A big thorn goes to the following three albums which were the first to come into my head and which are exceptional by all other measures. That's why it's such a shame. Dave Matthews Band's "Under the Table and Dreaming." You wrote a song called #34. Cool. You made it the 34th track. OK. You left tracks 12 through 33 blank. Uncool. I think it's funny that you can preview the silence here. Counting Crow's "Hard Candy." "Holiday in Spain" is such an incredible song. Why do you annoy me by awkwardly throwing "Big Yellow Taxi" at the end of the track? How am I supposed to make a mix CD now? If I wanted all my songs on the same track I would just buy the cassette. Also, the "This Desert Life" album ends with a similar track of silence with a hidden track. Double thorns for Counting Crows. Travis's "The Invisible Band." It's such a good album. Several minutes of silence and then some hidden track in "The Humpty Dumpty Love Song" is annoying. Were you getting paid by the minute or something? * Silence is free, except for when achieving it through the use of Bose QuietComfort2 Acoustic Noise Cancelling headphones. Then it is $300. No Loss for FlossJanuary 10, 2005 — While I've never considered myself easily manipulated by advertisements, the recent Listerine commercial that claims it's just as good as flossing has really gotten to me. If it were just four out of five dentists saying it, I wouldn't have even given it a thought. You can get four dentists to say just about anything. But this time it was different. It was "clinically proven." I'll admit I had some reservations. I mean, it seemed pretty far fetched that swishing some colored liquid in your mouth would do the same work as repeatedly sliding a sturdy cord between each tooth to employ friction and force to scour away bacteria, food, and plaque. Still, it was "clinically proven." So there I was, flossing my teeth before rinsing day after day, wondering whether or not my actions were redundant. While I had not yet given up flossing, I had been considering it. If only one of the two was necessary, I'd stick with the mouthwash because it doesn't involve sticking your fingers in your mouth and getting them all dirty and gross. Well, all that changed when I read that a judge cleared things up. And it didn't even take four out of five judges. Just one to set to record straight. So for now, I'm going to continue rinsing, flossing, and brushing. And I'm going to stop believing what I hear on TV. Besides, I liked their old commercial better anyway. But not reallyJanuary 12, 2005 — This weekend I rented Dodgeball, which definitely had quite a few funny moments. I'm not sure why, but there's this one really subtle part that I found hysterical. Ben Stiller's character says something kind of ridiculous and then says, "Just kidding. But not really." I'm not sure why but I just think this is one of the funniest things I've ever heard. Maybe it's because most of the time when I say "just kidding" I'm really not. Ever since I heard that line I've been wanting to try it out. But I'm just not really sure if it's appropriate for work. "You're lazy, stupid, and annoying. And you smell bad. Just kidding. But not really." This also makes me think of what happened while renting the movie at Blockbuster. The girl at the counter asks me if I know about their new "no late fees" policy. I said I'd heard about it in the media but don't really know the details. So she says this, "These movies are due in a one week. But not really. Because you can return them up to a week after that with no problem. If you don't, then we charge you the full price of the movie. But not really. Because you can return it and get your money back. But not really. Because we charge you a restocking free." So I just looked at her and said, "That's probably just about the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Just kidding. But not really." But not really. Because I'm just not that clever in real life. I should fire myself for even having you aroundJanuary 15, 2005 — It took a little while to put these pictures online but now here they are. Contains all the usual craziness plus our encounter with Donald Trump.
January 21, 2005 — I found myself in the middle of a rather bizarre experience at the end of a haircut today. When the girl was done with all the cutting, she asked if I wanted any gel in my hair. Since I've grown accustomed to having my hair look nice after it gets cuts, I answered affirmatively. She put gel in my hair and "OK, well you can just take care of it from here. Do you just want to run your fingers through it or should I give you a comb?" I was so taken aback by the insinuation that I should style my own hair that I said the first thing that come to my mind. "No, you do it." Can you believe this? I mean, what's next? At the end of a dental exam is my dentist gonna throw a toothbrush at me and tell me to brush? Will I order a meal at a restaurant and the waitress will return with some raw meat and a frying pan? At my next client meeting maybe I'll just carefully listen to their business requirements and then hand them my laptop and say "OK, why don't you just code it now?" Let's all celebrate and have a good timeJanuary 31, 2005 — Yahoo!
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