For years I've considered myself a creature of the night. I would regularly go so sleep after 2:00am and I'd always set my alarm for the last possible second I could safely wake up without completely destroying my schedule for the following day. This seemed like the perfect plan because I could enjoy whatever I wanted till as late as I wanted and just get up at the last second and rush to work (or whatever I had going on). Over the last several months, however, I've completely overhauled my sleep schedule to switch from a night owl to an early riser. So far, I'm absolutely loving it. Before I move on, let me first clarify what I consider "early riser". To me, the term is completely relative to the time at which you're required to wake up. For instance, I'm currently waking up at 5:20am every morning. I know there are several of you our there who have to be up earlier than that, so you don't consider it that early. But here's the important part: 5:20am is 2 hours and 40 minutes before I'm supposed to be at the office. It is the mere fact that I'm not required to wake up at this hour that makes it "early"...

With the exception of lunches at the office, I do all of my grocery shopping at Trader Joe's. I generally shop their once a week and buy exactly 1 week's worth of groceries. I have this perfect system where in I will only ever grab a hand basket and once I've filled the basket I know I've got enough. Unfortunately, the one basket being filled so full turns out to be pretty heavy. Additionally, the checkout lines at the Trader Joe's I go to don't have the little conveyer belts or really any sort of table top to place your goods before the checker begins to rung you up. Instead there is a cart path behind the register and I tiny hook off the side that allows you to hang a hand basket. So here is my question, what is the most appropriate way to facilitate getting my hand basket on the hook when I'm dealing with a female checker? To most of you (who am I kidding, to all of you), this is probably a stupid question. It's probably something that only I, being the over-analytical guy that I am, would even worry about. The truth is, that I don't really "worry about it", but it is something I ponder every time I walk into Trader Joe's (which is at least once a week). Anyways, the way I see it I really only have three choices of how to handle the situation:

Just about everyone has experienced something in their life that they regret. Whether it's the way they acted in that relationship, their decision to go that that party, their unwillingness to talk to that girl, or any number of things, there is always some huge event to look back on and wish you could take back. Strangely, I am somewhat immune to the"larger event regrets". It's not that I've never experienced regrettable situations (quite the opposite, actually), it's just that the universe and I have a little understanding that I am define by all these events and changing any one of them would drastically change the person that I am now. For me it's the little, inconsequential things that I regret the most. This morning, for whatever reason, I woke up in an extremely reflexive mood. As I showered and thought back on past experiences, I was transported back to the summer between Junior and Senior year of High School. For some reason my memory fixated on something I wrote in another guy's yearbook*. I had just endured a summer long trip and grown really close to a group of people I hadn't even met a week prior to the trip...

I don't know about you, but when it comes to driving, a majority of my frustrations and intolerance towards other drivers come from sitting at traffic lights or attempting to cross through intersections. Whether it's annoying drivers who take cuts and can't obey the "keep intersection clear" rules or the guy who blasts his poor excuse for music at an ungodly volume, there are just far too many opportunities for annoyance at an intersection. Of all these things, I think what bothers me the most is the uncomfortable feeling I get from awkward car alignment. For the most part, awkward car alignment isn't much of an issue. With all the permutations of car designs on the market, vehicles stopped at an intersection always seem to stagger themselves. One driver will stop a little short, the next a little long, and pretty soon no single vehicle is perfectly aligned with another...

I may not be a fan of sleep, but since I am a being that requires it, I do like to take full advantage whenever I can. The thing I hate more than anything else in the world is when someone, or some thing, wakes me up within minutes of my alarm going off. You see, if I'm woken up in the middle of the night, I can go back to sleep. Not true if I'm woken up too close to my scheduled time. Instead, I'm forced to sit there angrily staring at the alarm clock until it actually goes off. Not only was this morning's experience one of the worst yet, but the almost suspect timing of it truly added insult to injury. This morning I awoke suddenly, laying on my side, eyes open, staring across my room to the far wall. There was a strange noise that I couldn't quite place. It wasn't especially loud, but it didn't belong in my room. That much I was sure. It was a weird, almost sticky tearing noise. My anger (at being woken up) quickly turned to confusion as I lay there trying to decipher the strange noise...

I'm a huge fan of both Netflix and Gamefly. I love the convenience of rentals being delivered to my door and I love that these services afford me the ability to sample everything without breaking the bank every time I want a new game or film. The systems work beautifully and it's incredibly simple to manage your queue. Unfortunately, as I recently discovered, both services become huge inconveniences when you want to downgrade to a lower tier...

So I have a huge cache of legacy video games just sitting around collecting dust. Sure some of them are great games, but if I'm honest with myself I can see that I'm never going to play any of them ever again. To put it another way, these games have effectively become a trading card, serving little more purpose than to show that I own them. Well, in these troubled economic times (drink) it would be nice to magically turn the 'cache' into... well, 'cash'. Thankfully, Amazon has made this possible with their recently started video game trade-in program...