A well executed inside joke can be a beautiful thing, but I often find that most people don't really get the true purpose of the device. Inside jokes are meant to breed a sense of community, not celebrate the exclusion of those not "in the know". That is why I simply don't understand why people constantly use the term incorrectly or attempt to misappropriate the inside jokes of others. An inside joke is essentially one whose humor is only truly understood by those within the group the joke was intended for. To those outside of the group, which can range from a social clique to an occupation, the humor of the joke doesn't make any sense. Because of this, it's completely wasted on "outsiders". This means, that without the clique or community group, THERE IS NO INSIDE JOKE. You wouldn't believe how often I hear people spouting off inside jokes when they know full well that they're the only ones within the situation that get it. The simple futility of this behavior annoys me to no end. But this isn't even the worst infraction...

A person's home is sacred territory. At least that's the way I look at it. I mean just think about it. When everything is said and done, the home (or the room if you live with roommates) is a person's only real place that belongs just to them. The only place that they can exercise complete dominion over. We choose to believe our homes are safe because it's comforting, but it's not always the case. Sadly, a lesson one of my roommates and I had to learn the hard way...

You know, I thought it was common knowledge, but I was completely wrong. Apparently a good portion of the driving public needs me to drop a little bit of knowledge on them. So here it is: Do you know what traffic lights, road signs, painted lanes, center dividers, shoulder barriers, and other common driving indicators have in common? They were all put there by the people who built the roads, freeways, and parking structures to help indicate to drivers where they were actually supposed to be driving their vehicles. I know it sounds obvious, but as the experience in my local Trader Joe's parking lot has shown me, it's not really common knowledge...

When it comes down to it, I've never really been a huge fan of the holidays. First, they're really just an excuse to take time off of work to spend time with those you've failed to make time for during the off season. Second, the monotonous daily grind of life doesn't recognize them (i.e. the stresses of the world don't stop so you can stuff your belly with turkey). And Third, any an all significance inherent in each holiday has all but died off over the years...

If you've ever purchased (rented) a domain, you know that pretty much any name you'd want is usually already taken. Which is why when you find one that you like, whether or not you have any use for it yet, you tend to want to hold on to it. Unfortunately, while domains are pretty cheap, the more domains you have the more expensive having them gets. Which is why sometimes, you're forced to just let them expire. Now I'm nothing close to a domain squatter, but at one point in time I had built up a small cache of domains to deploy at my will. Some of them were for failed projects, some for possible future projects, and some I just thought were clever and hoped I'd one day have a use for. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of 'conveniently' consolidating all their renewal dates at the suggestion of the company I buy them from. As it turns out, this is one of the least convenient things I could have done. If you pay for all your domains at once, it can be very expensive...

Last night I attended the wedding of some old high school friends (grats! Ben & Kim). Interestingly enough, it was the second wedding I've attended this month that joined together a couple that had been a couple for over eight years (grats! also to James & Nancy). When I woke up this morning I began reflecting over the wedding, the duration of the couple's relationship, and my own past relationships. After a while, I stumbled on to an obvious, yet really interesting, fact that I hadn't really thought of before. If you've ever had a relationship in your life AND you're currently single, you effectively have a 100% failure rate for relationships...

Go ahead and take a quick look at your alarm clock. If you're not  home right now, close your eyes and visualize it for a moment. Don't worry, I'll wait. Now that you've got it, try to remember the alarm clock you owned before that one. Now the one before that. If you think about it, the alarm clock hasn't really changed much over the past several years. With all the technological progress we see every day, why have there been no significant advancements in alarm clocks...

I'm not sure if everyone in the less traffic-heavy parts of the country have them too, but here in Southern California we have these intersections where you can't make a right turn at a red light. It's not every intersection, it's just these specific ones. And I do get it. I understand that there are certain intersections which, due to heavy traffic during specific parts of the day, might not be the safest places to pull into traffic. The problem is that I've begun to notice these "no turn on red" signs showing up everywhere with little caveats attached to them, designating when you have to actually pay attention to them. This really annoys me...