A Tribute to a Man with My Same Name
My name isn't very common so it was interesting to see another William Gallahue. Sadly he passed away but after reading his obituary, I think he's worthy of a blog post.
GALLAHUE, WILLIAM J., 85 of Louisville, passed away Friday, January 15, 2010 at the St. Matthews Manor Nursing Home.
He was the former owner of the old Crider's Tavern and Restaurant and was a former employee of Kosair Charities. He was an Army veteran of World War II, and a member of St. Louis Bertrand Catholic Church.
He is survived by his wife of 66 years, Mary Bills Gallahue; a son, William J. Gallahue Jr. (Lotis); a daughter, Darlene Jecker (Al); a brother, Carl Gallahue; two sisters, Mary Agnes Spencer and Anita Williams; four grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.
The funeral will be 10 a.m. Monday at St. Louis Bertrand Catholic Church, 1104 S. Sixth St., with burial in Resthaven Cemetery. Visitation will be 2 - 7 p.m. Sunday at Ratterman's, 3711 Lexington Road.
Expressions of sympathy may be made to Hosparus of Louisville.
Wow ... married for 66 years that's an amazing accomplishment. If I got married tomorrow, I'd have to live to be 90 and stay married until 2076. He also gets bonus points for naming his son William and being a WWII veteran and tavern owner.
If I measure my life against his let's see:
- Kids ... 0 so far
- Love ... not married
- Veteran ... I like guns but the military isn't my thing
- Tavern owner ... one day hopefully ... Will's Bar and Grill sounds good
William J Gallahue 1, Regular William Gallahue 0
No More Getting Mad at Other Drivers in 2010
I've made one actual resolution for 2010 and that is that I won't get mad anymore when I drive.
Instead of getting mad ... its time to get even.
I came to this conclusion today while at the intersection of Bee Caves Road and Walsh Tarlton. The left turn lane tends to back up during the afternoon and I was the second car in line to turn left behind whatever Honda calls their Scion xB ripoff (Element?).
Green turn arrow appears ... waiting waiting waiting ... okay quick 'hey light's green honk' .... honking again ... okay for the love of god this horn is going to break if you don't turn left ... ok give up honk because the lights now red and cross traffic is moving. While I'm honking ... everyone else behind me is honking as well as if to say "Your honking isn't doing anything but our honking is going to somehow going to fix everything."
I start to think maybe this person is having a medical problem or maybe they are having an argument with a spouse or maybe they learned Snape killed Dumbledore. As I'm thinking this over, the green turn arrow appears and they turn left like no big deal. I don't take it personally but the driver behind me speeds up and passes both of us then suddenly breaks in front of the Hon-tard and nearly causes a wreck just to try and get back at them.
But trying to cause a wreck just to prove a point is even worse than that HonDUH driver. I mean seriously when was the last time someone honked at you and you said "You know what ... that honk was the wakeup call I need to fix my bad driving habits. I'm going to go to the library and read as much as I can about protected left turns and what these large red signs at intersections mean."
In reality honking only makes the other driver mad especially if they are so unintelligent that they don't realize their offense. It's a waste of time and I've come up with a better solution.
Rather the next time someone messes up while driving, I'm going to get even but not in a violent confrontational manner.
Step 1: Person really messes up while driving. I'll forgive rolling stops, minor delays at lights and cutting me off in difficult merging situations. But if you don't stop for a stop sign, fail to turn when you have a giant green arrow telling you to do so or attempt to merge onto Mopac at 20 mph ... you will invoke step 2.
Step 2: I follow the person to their final destination be it a home or business or park. I'm not going to act in a creepy, vindictive manner but in a subtle fashion so as not to evoke suspicion.
Step 3: Mess with the person:
Scenario 1: If they go to a business because they are running errands (getting dry cleaning, buying gifts) I'll pretend to be a news reporter and ask to interview them for a special report we're doing. I might need a big camera but I'll probably just use a notepad then I'll tell them the following:
Me: "Hi I'm Will with the Austin News Network. How are you? ... We're doing a story about an automobile mechanic who works at the (insert the person's car brand here) dealership and was arrested earlier today."
Driver: "Really? Which dealership was this and why did they get arrested?"
Me: "I don't remember which one, I'll have to check with my editor but apparently this mechanic was performing scheduled maintenance on cars and wasn't wearing any pants and was found to be spreading herpes into vehicles of unsuspecting motorists. A bunch of Austin residents are now suing the dealership and I wanted to see if you would care to comment on the story."
Scenario 2: If they are going back to their office
A: If they work somewhere with a large handicap parking area, I'll have a portable handicap parking sign (pole and all) in my trunk and then plant it in front of their vehicle and get them towed.
B: If they work in a strip mall I'll go into their business and say "I'm really sorry but my son has swine flu and threw up all over the hood of your car. I tried to clean it off but instead I spread it all over the hood. I'm really sorry."
C: If they work in a restaurant or something like that, I'll go in and get a meal then when they walk by I'll say "Man, I hope the restaurant has cameras monitoring the outside, I can't believe that truck completely took out the side of that (insert their car type & color here). What a jerk, that's gonna cost thousands of dollars to fix."
Scenario 3: If they are heading home
Get their address then write a post on Craigslist in the man for man casual encounters (sex) section.
"2010 North American Gay Man Orgy Tour comes to Austin
Alright big beefy studs the man orgy you've been waiting for has finally arrived and this time its going to be bigger and better than last year. If you've been dreaming of doing gay stuff with gay men in a discrete location then stop on by. This year's theme is "Home Wrecker" which is why we're holding it at a private residence (insert their address here). Men ages 21 to 40 can do their gay thing with other play things and have a gay ole time.
So stop on by (insert their address again) at 9PM sharp. $20 cover gets you booze-y and loosey for juicy caboose-y if you know what I mean. Look up directions on Google Maps (its the third house on the right with the McCain / Palin yard sign). Oh and there's a costume contest. CYA THERE!"
You can wait around or leave but I'd stick around to see what happens.
Sure this won't stop bad drivers but it will make for awkward and entertaining moments. (oh and I take no responsibility for anyone who gets ideas from this)
Going to Church to Pray for My Fantasy Team
Every time a game comes down to the final seconds ... when a long field goal is needed or when you have 4th and 5 with the national championship on the line ... they always cut to people on both sides praying for their team. One person wants the field goal to be wide right or the passed to be dropped while the other person wants it right through the middle of the uprights or an amazing game winning play. Sometimes things work out, sometimes they don't but God doesn't care if you aren't praying in his house.
You see, God doesn't build churches to cause traffic delays on Sundays ... he builds each and every one (except the weird religions) with the idea of providing a haven for people's misguided prayers.
Which is exactly what I did tonight.
Now I know what you're saying "You went to church just to pray for your fantasy team?" ... Well yeah what did you do? Heck I bet you didn't even go to church, you probably spent Sunday listening to Bon Jovi and clipping your fingernails. So at least I went, jerk. Oh and it isn't my team, its a certain member of my team, Hakeem Nicks who needs 10+ points tomorrow so that I can beat Corey's team.
I realize you might think its selfish. After all the world is filled with war, famine and other major geopolitical problems but you know what God is tired of opening his inbox everyday to see another email saying "Prayer for Middle East Peace" ... heck I bet his spam filter automatically catches messages asking for peace, cures for ill relatives, an end to hunger or new bicycles.
God wants the good stuff which is what I was put on this earth to do. I think if the 6pm news has taught me anything, God only provides bizarre miracles. You know what I'm talking about, everyone with cancer who makes an appeal for donations always dies before surgery or treatment can be performed but when some stupid kid's dog runs away ... the dog always comes back and sometimes with lasers.
Now you might say what about people who prayed for the Red Sox, or people who continue to pray for the Cubs? Well to answer your question, God doesn't answer prayers in weird accents.
God, we're cool. Make it happen.
My 10 Resolutions for 2010
Every year people come up with some goal for next year. 90 percent of them are bullshitting so that they have something they can bring up at a New Year's Party when someone asks the inevitable question. But this year I'm really going to set some honest goals for myself.
1) Find Osama bin Laden. Think about it this way, buying a ticket to Pakistan, paying some guards and guides to help you navigate the area and purchasing some serious firepower will probably set you back $40,000. But if you find bin Laden, you can get $27 million. Think of the return on investment for that one.
Of course everyone will be saying if the United States can't find him after 8+ years, what makes you so confident. Well I've got an idea. I'll buy full page ads in all of the local newspapers saying "Osama bin Laden is gay." Mr. bin Laden will obviously not approve of esteemed Pakistani publications calling him gay and publishing rumors about gaycations to Uzbekistan. I bet he'll be so mad he'll march right into the headquarters of any one of these newspapers demanding an apology then I'd come out with a Taser and some cameras and say "You just got Punk'd"
2) Quit smoking. I don't smoke now but if I start in 2010, I better quit.
3) Start calling out people that retweet their own tweets. Hey did you get the memo the first time? If not I'll be retweeting it throughout the day to make sure you check it out.
4) Buy a next generation console. I'm still stuck between Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo.
5) Be a more considerate motorist. On second thought, no.
6) Single-handedly reform health care. Imagine opening a pharmacy that only gave placebos ... You'd treat your patients correctly 48 percent of the time for less money than making them buy name brand drugs.
7) Delete songs on iTunes I would be embarrassed to let other people find. If anyone knew I had one song each from Lady Gaga (Just Dance), Bubbles (Bidibodi Bidibu) and Madonna (Ray of Light) on my computer I would be ruined. At least I don't have Creed on my computer because that would really say a lot about me.
8 ) Buy a puppy just to get girls. You know what would be an awesome service? A company that rents dogs for a day to guys just to get girls. Then when the girl asks where Fido went, just tell them he got a back massage from a Ford Explorer. Then they'll feel so sad for you and go way out of their league to get involved with you.
9) Buy health insurance. Well on second thought I'll pass. There's nothing Neosporin and Whiskey can't cure. Would I rather throw away money expecting to get sick or throw my money at stocks, beer and buying drinks for girls who want nothing to do with me. I think we know that answer. What kind of person actually pays money expecting to get sick? That's like people who don't succeed in life because they think they will lose.
10) Eat healthier. I'm going to cut back to one Triple Meat Triple Cheese a week.
Will’s Advice for Moms and Expecting Moms
I'm at the point in my life where some of my friends are pregnant or are new parents. The one line I've always heard when it relates to parenting is that people without children always think they have the best advice but that you can't give advice on the subject unless you have kids yourself.
Well since I don't have any kids (at least to my knowledge) I would like to offer some helpful tips that moms and expecting moms can frown upon:
1) Teach your kids that being good at video games is very important. No one wants to be known as a 'noob' or pushover when it comes to Halo or Super Smash Brothers. Kids get made fun of for a number of reasons but if the neighborhood bully calls them fat or stupid, at least you know your child can pwn them in Counterstrike.
2) Let your kids drink a little gasoline here and there. I'm not being cruel, this is to let their stomachs get used to all the bad / ridiculously cheap beer they are going to drink in their college and post college poverty years.
3) Dont go the organic route. If you are one of those parents that only wants to feed your children organic food and nothing containing preservatives ... that's going to go out of the window once they learn about McDonalds. Save the money and feed them whatever is cheapest at the supermarket.
4) Teach your kids how to read at an early age by having them fetch beer from the fridge.
5) Teach your children the difference between lying and effective lying and that effective lying is very useful in the corporate environment. Lying = Fido ate my homework ... that's lame, no one is going to believe that. Effective lying = I finished my homework but didn't bring it to class because its still waiting to be approved by my homework manager but she's been out sick the past two days and just emailed me saying she has a bunch of stuff to finish but will get to it by Wednesday at the latest. I'll have her cc you on my long division worksheet.
6) Don't let your kids believe the biggest lie perpetuated by parents around the world. Be honest and let them know that wrestling is fake.
7) Be a hipster about your child's musical choices. Make sure to act really rude if they want to listen to Raffi or Hannah Montana and put them down if they want to read about Clifford the Big Red Dog instead of Vonnegut. Teach them early that if something has the words "Disney" on it, it means not cool.
8 ) Have your child learn about the difficulty of American foreign policy by having them act out our policy decisions in school. If your child is in a classroom with an Iraqi or Afghan student, make sure your child removes them from the class by force and installs a friendlier Iraqi or Afghani but not before giving them some harsh rhetoric first. Also your child will want to bring $5/day to school and pass the wealth to a Pakistani, Israeli and then a student from a developing nation of their choice. When those students refuse to honor commitments and agreements ... watch out for other liberal and conservative students passing notes around the classroom calling for your child's removal from class.
9) Teach your children that Comedy Central has multiple channels including MSNBC and FOX News.
10) Tell your children that Sesame Street does actually exist and that they can find all of their favorite characters in real life if they walk the downtown streets at 2am. But remind them that Cookie Monster has two prior convictions for Grand Theft and that Oscar the Grouch is actually pretty friendly if you give him a quarter to buy some Bud Ice.
Tiger Woods Has Some Serious Skills
First of all, to any female readers or people who have been cheated on, this entry isn't about sticking up for Tiger Woods. In fact Tiger Woods is an idiot. Anyone who is so unhappy with a great family and a supermodel wife that they bang an unattractive waitress earning $8/hour has some serious issues. I'm not sticking up for Tiger Woods but I'm recognizing his amazing achievement of being able to hide romantic excursions with 10+ women.
Seriously being able to keep that many women 'hidden' from your wife takes some serious effort. For the longest time, I thought Bill Clinton was the ultimate master of hiding women from his wife. In fact he was so good that he convinced Hillary that it was a vast right-wing conspiracy. That definitely earns some serious points in the douchebag or YEAH! department (depending on your gender) but his position on the all time list has been usurped by of all people, Tiger Woods.
Think about it like this, most people who cheat on their partners have a hard time managing one person. Heck, even the trashiest guest on any one of MTVs filler reality shows maybe boasts of five or six like it's some kind of accomplishment. But the sad truth is, they're only half way to Tiger's level.
So yeah, his life is ruined and now everyone looks at him like he's Latrell Sprewell in golf pants. But to be fair, Tiger Woods again proves that he is the best in the world at a difficult game. Not golf but cheating.
Messin with the Scammers
This was originally posted as Facebook note on 10/27/2007
I have a hotmail account that gets alot of junk mail because I use it when I have to sign up with classes or services that sell my personal information to anyone willing to buy it.
I always get emails for online drugs and porn but I decided to have a bit of fun with one of them.
I looked at my inbox the other day and got this email
---------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Daron Escobar" daronescobar9527@hotmail.com
RE: s3x ashin p5ssy wash
Click Here for my FREE pics!
-------------------------------------------------
I decided to do some investigating so I sent Mr. Escobar a reply:
Hey Daron,
I don't remember sending you an email saying that any of my female Asian friends required any washing or maintenance but I appreciate your email. I imagine the FREE pics are examples of your highly regarded Asian genital washing service and I will take your word for it.
In any case please sign me up for 3 services a week (1 basic wash, 2 platinum packages) and if I can get a free towel that'd be great.
------------------------------------------------------
No reply. I felt left out because after all, most ethnic cleansers are very successful and this lack of service was growing out of control.
I figured hotmail canceled the account but then I got a second email from "Mr. Escobar"
--------------------------------------------------------------
Hello Ben Igans (thats the fake name my email uses, Bennigans get it?)
After receiving your last email I put you into a lottery drawing and YOU WON! They sent me the confirmation email that I am forwarding to you.
We happily announce to you the draw of the Euro-Afro-American Sweepstake Lottery International Programs held on the 8th September
2007 in Essex United Kingdom. Your e-mail address attached to ticket number: B956475604545 188with! Serial number 97560 drew the winning: 01/10/11/18/19/46, which subsequently won you the
lottery in the 2ndcategory.
You have therefore been approved to claim a total sum of £420,000.00 (Four Hundred and Twenty Thousand British Pounds) in cash credited to file KPC/9080118308/02.This is from a total cash prize of US £1100,000,00 Million pounds, shared amongst the first One Hundred and thirty (230) lucky winners in this category world-wide. Please note that your lucky winning number falls within our Afro booklet representative office in Africa as indicated in your play coupon. In view of this, your £420,000.00 (Four Hundred and Twenty Thousand British Pounds) would be released to you by Absa Bank South Africa.
Our African agent will immediately commence the process to facilitate the release of your funds as Soon as you contact him. All participants were selected randomly from World Wide Web site through Computer draws system and extracted from over 10,000,00 companies. This promotion takes place annually. For security reasons, you are advised to keep your winning Information confidential till your claim is processed and your money remitted to you in whatever manner you deem fit to claim your prize. This is part of our precautionary measure to avoid double claiming and unwarranted abuse of this program by some unscrupulous elements. Please be warned.
To file for your claim, please contact our corresponding agent in South Africa immediately you read this Message for quick and urgent release of your fund, contact information is as follow: -
ADAMS ZUMA (lottery agent) .
E-mail:< zuma_adams14@yahoo.com
Direct Line: + 27 73 605 7318.
Please be informed that all winning must be claimed on or before 30th October 2007. To avoid unnecessary delays and complications, please quote your reference/batch numbers in any correspondences with our designated agents or us. Congratulations once more from all members and staffs of this program that has successfully won this competition. Thank you for being
Part of our promotional lottery program.
Sincerely,
Mrs. MONICA MARTINS.
United Kingdom Zonal Co-coordinator.
Mr. Alexandra Davis
United Kingdom zonal Secretary General.
Thank you for your Co-operation
------------------------------------------------------------
So I contacted zuma_adams14@yahoo.com about claiming my prize:
To: Adams Zuma
RE: My s3x ashin p5ssy wash Lottery Winnings
Mr. Zuma I was informed by the wonderful genius of Asian genital washing (Mr. Daron Escobar himself!) that I had won some money through the Euro-African-South Carolina Lottery Drawing.
I know you'll need to get in touch with me ASAP to confirm my winnings so here is my pertinent contact information:
Mr. Ben Igans
(202) 324-2000 (Ask for Mueller he's my personal secretary)
935 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington D.C. 20535
Email (again my secretary but he'll forward it to me) r.mueller@ic.fbi.gov
With any luck they just contacted FBI Director Robert Mueller, LOL.
Industry Wish for 2010: Stop Using the Term Rockstar
I don't understand why people in tech industries need to use the term Rockstar to make it sound like they do something cool. For instance, in search marketing, we tend to use the term to make it sound like someone 1) actually knows what they are doing and 2) is so good at it that they are miles above everyone else.
That's not the case of course. All of these so called rockstars offer up the same tired advice "Write good content and you'll get links. Oh and have good page titles." In fact to be completely honest how can anyone in SEO refer to themselves as a rockstar in an industry that is all about timing and guess work. Furthermore, I've discovered that people who refer to themselves as "rockstars" in the industry are just self-serving wannabes who are more "one-hit wonders" than rockstars.
So I propose that all tech industries drop the term. Honestly, what sounds better?
"I'm Joe, I'm a rockstar at SEO"
or
"I'm Joe, I have a proven track record of optimizing sites and generating leads and revenue for clients"
The first line basically says "I'm never getting laid" while the second line says "I'm good at what I do ... oh and the shiny Benz, that's mine too. Let's get a drink"
I mean come on, the closest any tech rockstar has come to doing a speedball is downing a red bull and vodka.
I liken the fascination with the terminology to people who become good at Guitar Hero and think they can actually play. The truth of the matter is that you can't, but don't let that take away from the fact that you can ace the game at the highest level of difficulty.
LinkedIn: Now 90 percent worthless
Linkedin recently began adding nofollow to outbound links on profiles. This essentially makes it nothing but an online repository for your resume and nothing else.
Some people use it, some people don't but the main value of the service to me was the dofollow links that passed anchor text to my sites. That's the only reason I have a profile on the site and the only reason its worth putting up with MLM/Contact Raiders/and all the other self-important people that are on the site.
Then all of a sudden LinkedIn decides that in order to curtail spam they should add nofollow to prevent people from creating fake profiles.
Big mistake.
I'd like to send their dev team a little email that goes something like this:
"Dear LinkedIn development team,
Rather than develop an algorithm to remove profiles based on very "spammy" keywords, you've made the incredibly stupid and shortsighted decision to add "nofollow" to profile links.
Have you ever googled the following strings:
site:linkedin.com viagra 10,500 results
site:linkedin.com levitra 7,920 results
site:linkedin.com cialis 7,090 results
site:linkedin.com online gambling 10,900 results
site:linkedin.com online casino 7,420 results
Look guys, I can't program to save my life and I don't want to knock you too much over this decision but whoever thought this was a good move (whether it was a person or team of people equally out of touch from reality) they should be fired immediately and their own Linkedin profiles need to have a big red disclaimer that says "DO NOT HIRE ME."
Sincerely,
The Internet"
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Lexus: Only Douchebags Can Drive Our New Car
Lexus is releasing a new supercar dubbed the LFA (or ALF if you rearrange the letters) and they are adamant that not just anyone with $350,000 will be able to drive it ... only douchebags with $350,000 will be allowed to get in the drivers seat of a vehicle that looks like a modded Nissan 350z.
Lexus LFA, a Nissan ripoff for $350,000 (Flickr HaveFunSVO)
So where does the douchebag part come from?
Wow. Hey Lexus, if you want to be taken seriously as a high end car company, don't put out shitty cars like the IS200. Second since when has a company so brazenly requested its car owners be douchebags ... seriously Lexus I'm sure this Nissan ripoff is going to look great when its pulled over for speeding in a school zone.
Look, right now the luxury car market / douchebag mobile driving demographic isn't doing so well. The Ferrari California has seen some cancellations and Hummer is now owned by a Chinese company (irony?) ... in fact if anyone is looking for an '08 or '09 used Lambo on ebay and has the cash, you can pick one up for 50% of what the original owner probably paid.
God forbid I park this $350,000 car in a garage (especially during a hail storm where Lexus apparently wants me showing off the LFAils handling). Is someone at Lexus going to have a heart attack if the car drives through a zip code where the median household income isn't in the top 50 nationally. I mean I guess driving this car east of I-35 would cause the poor thing to self-destruct (which isn't saying a lot about the vehicle's reliability).
Lexus, get over yourself. Your company's sole mission is to build nicer looking Toyotas and sometimes you can't even get that right. Good luck with the ALF.