L-Dawg Online

So today marked the first BBQ I’ve been to since I started at my job. Sweet! Rian and I drove way out to Battleground (which I guess is in Washington) to Matt’s house, which is ginormous (not a real word). Nice work, Matt! Anyways, we were supposed to bring a dessert or a salad, so Rian and I stopped by the natural foods market and bought a little chocolate cake and put raspberries on top to make it look expensive. Thanks to Rian’s mom for the idea! We saved $$ and didn’t lose any street-cred. I think our cake was a hit except for BJ/Amber’s ice cream cake. HOWEVER, their cake had a Shrek theme, which I think is a totally B.S. gimmick to lure in kids. Anyways, here are a few highlights:

BJ/Amber

The lovely Salman being manhandled by Matt

Some kid and a dog (thanks Salman)

Nice pic…but gross.

FYI, Amber was pretty good about not saying “Luke how could you not like kids!?!?” the whole time. Which isn’t surprising, because she saw what I saw and shouldn’t have needed to ask. One kid kept sneezing/coughing on the food. Nine out of ten of the kids there were walking around with food all over their faces the whole time. Every time the “adults” tried to play a game, the kids would grab all the crap and take over themselves. One kid was touching all the desserts:

No Amber, these kids didn’t make any progress towards converting me… =)

Also, you can check out ALL the pics in their full glory on myPicasa.

One of my pet peeves is when people use the English language incorrectly. This (to me) includes things such as punctuation, word choice, etc. I don’t ask for perfection, but there are some mistakes that really get on my nerves. Here are a few of them:

Lesson 1

Their, They’re, and There
THEIR refers to a group’s possession. THEY’RE refers to a group’s action/status (what are THEY doing?). THERE refers to a place in space (it’s over there!). Pretty simple.

It’s vs. Its
Apostrophes indicate one of two things: possession, or a contraction (i.e. two words joined together/shortened). With “it’s”, however, it ONLY indicates a contraction. So when you’re talking about your dog, and you refer to ITS bone, there’s no apostrophe. When you’re referring to how the dog is eating ITS food, you say IT’S eating. By the way, the apostrophe goes where the missing letters are!

Too, To, and Two
Another easy one! Two is the number (duh). TOO refers to sort of an amount of something, like too much candy, or too many cows. It can also mean also, TOO. Get it? TO is for the rest.

TV’s, DVD’s, PC’s
Wrong, wrong, wrong. There shouldn’t be apostrophes in these! They are NOT possessive and they are NOT contractions. They are plural nouns. TVs, DVDs, PCs…thumbs up.

Then vs Than
THEN is used to describe a sequence or order. THAN is used to compare or contrast. First I said blue is better THAN yellow, THEN I said I liked all colors.

Lesson 2 coming soon. Learn lesson 1 first. =)

P.S.
One of my grammatical weaknesses: periods and commas in quotations.

I can’t stand riding the MAX to work. BJ, you said it wasn’t crowded and that you almost always get a seat! Psh. Probability of sitting? 15%. Here are the top 5 worst things about the MAX:

1. All surfaces are greasy/dirty/disgusting. Yuck.
2. When someone smells, you smell it.
3. When someone talks on their phone, or talks about their hand-made Indian shirt, or says how “freakin’ sweaty” they are, you get to hear every word of it.
4. People who bring their bikes on. Dude, you realize there was barely enough room to squeeze YOU on the train, and now you’re moving 4 people out to fit your BIKE? Here’s an idea: RIDE IT!
5. The people who will squeeze in, NO MATTER WHAT. I do not want your crotch all up against my body, let alone your stinky smoky breath!

That’s it for now.

Because I’m bored, here are two pictures not taken for photography’s sake, but rather for conversation’s sake.

The first legitimate piece of business software I’ve ever purchased (I think). Price you’d pay: $419.99. Price I paid: $60.

Some things to notice: little Brent, little turtlenecks, lots of hair. Oh, and one of those pictures isn’t of me.

Two things: first of all, Rian from work was nice enough to share with me some of [what I think are] the funniest videos I’ve ever seen on youTube. If you don’t know who David Blaine is, don’t bother watching these:

WARNING: Strong language! Maybe be unsuitable around family and/or co-workers!

Volume 1
Volume 2

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