Some interesting things about Texas, the state my girlfriend likes to identify with :)

There are apparently cities by the following names, among others:

Men are from Mars, women are from Venus , Texas 76084

Cut n Shoot, Texas 

Gun Barrell City , Texas 

Hoop And Holler, Texas 

Ding Dong, Texas and, of course,

Muleshoe , Texas

THIS is how large Texas is:

 

1. Beaumont to El Paso : 742 miles

2. Beaumont to Chicago : 770 miles 

3. El Paso is closer to California than to Dallas

4. King Ranch in South Texas is larger than Rhode Island

What a reeeedickulous place.

Random Stuff. But No iPhone.

This is a short and scattered entry.  First, I decided that in the theme of my blog about my parents, I'm gonna write a series of entries about important people in my life- who they are, what they mean to me, what kinda person they.  I suppose I already did that sorta with my grandma.  Or maybe not.  But people like my siblings, Josh, Tiffany, etc.  So some of you will get to read about yourself.  Everyone loves getting recognized, right?

Second, DO THIS.  ING Direct opened up the gates so that you can invite more people.  I can make $10 per person that joins through my referral, and you get $25 in your account!  I mean seriously its worth opening the account just to get $25.  ING Direct is an online-only bank account where you can get a 3% return on your money.  Used to be more like 4.5% before the market tanked.  You can directly transfer money to other bank accounts, or from other accounts (without the transfer fees that people like Chase charge) and if your money is just sitting in your bank making no money, might as well be making 3%, seriously.  Email me and I'll send you an invite.  Josh and Chris have accounts.  They're sweet.  I forget if my parents got accounts yet...

Also, my mom got a Mac.  ROCK.  She's computer savvy like that.  Learned it in no time.  Right mom?

Also, I want to complain.  I have a thousand different websites that I have usernames with.  Some important and financial, many not.  Of course I have multiple different passwords.  But these days, when you sign up and it tells you it hasta be six digits, or six digits with a number, or six digits with two numbers, or six digits with two numbers and no dictionary word longer than three letters (seriously this is true) how the HELL am I supposed to remember the stipulations they gave me for my password I entered almost a year ago for my student financial services, that I use about once a semester?  Couldn't you at least tell me what the password is supposed to contain so I remember which of 10 passwords I used, before my five-login max is exceeded and I'm locked out of the account for 24 hours?  SERIOUSLY.

Next I'm going to write about some stories that illustrate ridiculously how small the world really is.  Or how that six degrees thing is really true.  Or something like that.

Movies to See

Here's the master list of movies to see.  First, stuff to see this summer:

Incredible Hulk

Wanted

Get Smart

Dark Knight

Rolling Stones- Shine a Light

X-Files

The Happening

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Last Call For Planet Earth

Batman: Gotham Knight

Second, the rest...new and old alike.  69 movies.  If you want justification for why on Earth I'd wanna see such a movie or how in the name of Ba'al I haven't seen a particular movie uh...ask.

2001 Space Odyssey

All the Real Girls

Alien Series

American Graffiti

An Inconvenient Truth

Babel

Because of Winn-Dixie

Bodyguard

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Collateral

Dark Knight

Deception

Desperado

Dick Tracy

Dr. Zhivago

Fantastic Four

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer

Fatal Attraction

Fearless

Finder's Fee

First Snow

Five Senses

Flatliners

Fracture

Ghost

Godzilla

Harvey

Indecent Proposal

Melinda and Melinda

Mystery Science Theater 3000

Pirates of Silicon Valley

Platoon

Proof

Psycho

Ran

Reign Over Me

RoboCop

Rocky Horror Picture Show

Rushmore

Saturday Night Fever

Schindler's List

Scoop

Shopgirl

Sketches of Frank Gehry

Southern Comfort

Superman Returns

Taxi Driver

Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny

The Blue Lagoon

The Cell

The English Patient

The Films of Charles and Ray Eames

The Great New Wonderful

The Illusionist

The New World

The Program

The Secret

The Smartest Man in the Room (Enron)

The War of the Worlds

Thirteen

Thumbsucker

THX 1138

Timeline

Trois Couleurs (Red, White, Blue)

Trust the Man

Wanted

What the Bleep Do We Know?

What Lies Beneath

Books. So many books.

In lieu of always saying what I'm reading, like my sister does, I'm going to print my list of books to read.  This list will probably take the next few years at least to get mostly whittled down, because unlike my movies list, it grows faster than it shrinks, and I'm also continually  coming across books not on the list that I read because well, there are here.

Books to Read:

--------------

Heavy

Out of Control- Kevin Kelly

Simulacra and Simulation

Moral Animal

Dark Star Safari- Paul Theroux

Tertium Organum- Ospensky

The Elegant Universe- Brian Greene

What We Believe But Cannot Prove

Roman Catholic Controversy: Catholics and Protestants

-Practical

Total Money Makeover- Dave Ramsey

Thoughtless Acts? Observations on Intuitive Design- Jane Fulton Suri

Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things

-Novels

Next- Michael Crichton

The Innocent Man- John Grisham

To The Lighthouse- Virginia Woolf

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Love in the Time of Cholera

The Turn of the Screw

The Things They Carried

Once and Future King

The Fountainhead- Ayn Rand

100 Years of Solitude

On the Road- Jack Kerouac

-Interesting

Tipping Point- Malcolm Gladwell

The Future Beyond Brands: Lovemarks

The Apple Way

The Hinge Factor

History of God- Karen Armstrong

Origin of Wealth- Eric D Beinhocker

The Puzzle Palace- James Bamford

Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Love is a Mix Tape- Rob Sheffield

Deep Survival- Laurence Gonzales

Fast Food Nation

Naked Lunch

How to Taste: A Guide to Enjoying Wine

The Cult of the Amateur

Wikinomics : How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything

Brands and Branding

Microtrends

The Design of Things

The Design of Future Things: Donald A. Norman

How I Write- The Secret Lives of Authors

Predictably Irrational- Dan Ariely

Success Through Failure- The Paradox of Design

-Life

Ageless Body Timeless Mind- Deepak Chopra

How to Lose Friends and Alienate People

Always Talk to Strangers- David Wygant

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Why Most Things Fail- Paul Ormerod

The Secret

Fooled By Randomness (or other "Randomness" books)

-Psychology

Creativity- Flow and the Psychology of Discover and Innovation

The Nuture Assumption- Judith Rich Harris

This is Your Brain on Music- Daniel Levitin

Regret: Janet Landman

Men Are from Mars Women Are from Venus

Um: Slips, Stumbles, and Verbal Blunders- Michael Erard

Musicophilia- Oliver Sacks

The Woman Who Could Not Forget

-Anre

In the Name of Identity- Amin Maalouf

Culture, Self, and Meaning-  Victor de Munck

Psychology and the Human Dilemma- Rollo May

Life, Death, & Personal Identity- Daniel Kolak