Tuesday, May 31, 2005

How I spent my Memorial Day Weekend

by
the P@


This Memorial Day Weekend I did lots of fun stuff. [/monotone of child
reading report in front of class]

No, seriously, I did. Granted, most of it was on Sunday, but even so,
I'll now bore you report all the details to you.
Friday

May 27th


Friday afternoon I was allowed to go home early. By half an hour ^!!!^

Alas, on that day I did not have the car. Not that big a deal, as I have
become quite adept at riding the CAT bus (heh. It's too bad that the CAT
bus is not like the cat-bus from My Neighbor Totoro)

So I leave work at 3:45, get to the bus stop around 3:50 and sit down to
wait. The bus arrived at 4:01, but it was the 202, not the 807. The 807
is the "express" - which means that it doesn't stop at every bus stop
along the route, only some of the major stops. The 807 is what i prefer
to take to work and home, as it gets me there MUCH faster than the 202.
However, I didn't want to keep sitting at the bus stop since I didn't
know when the 807 would be arriving, and because it was really fucking
hot that day. Long story short (too late!), I got on the bus at 4pm. I
got home at 5:45. Man. What was the point of that? Seriously. If it's
going to take almost two hours to get home, why bother even leaving
early? I was so irritated.

Oh well. It was the weekend. And a long one at that.

After I blogged about how hot it was (and it was hot), I was going to go
to the store and pick up some groceries. (See the end of the post on the
27th, about how I had to go hunt and gather) Turns out that I didn't go
at all. Stephanie went instead, and ...I think we had pizza that night
for dinner once she got back. That sounds right. Yes. We did. We had
Pizza Hut pizza, along with a Full Description Pepsi. Heh. Full
Description Pepsi. "Well, it's blackish brown. It's liquid. It comes in
a plastic two liter bottle with Darth Vader printed on it. It's the
nectar of the gods, and it contains: Carbonated Water, High Fructose
Corn Syrup and/or Sugar, Caramel Color, Phosphoric Acid, Caffeine,
Citric Acid and Natural Flavors. For more information, visit our website."

We may have watched one of the Star Wars movies that night. Tina lent me
her copies of the original trilogy, and I know we viewed most of them
over the 3 day weekend, but I don't know exactly when.

Anyway, Friday night ended, and then it was...

Saturday

May 28th


You know, I really don't remember what happened on Saturday.

I guess that's because it was not Memorial Day. Heh. Immemorial Day. Or
perhaps I mean Unmemorial Day.

The girls played outside with their friends. I read the rest of my
library book (mostly. It got boring near the end. So for parts of it I
simply skimmed. When did reading become so bromidic? [sigh])
Steph made brownies (yummy!) and pasta salad (yummier!) with olives (eh)
for the Pool Party that was to take place on Sunday.
I want to say we ate chili dogs, but I really don't know for sure what
we had for dinner. Oh! Mac and Cheese. That's right. Because I watched
part of the season finale of Lost (again) while eating dinner.
And now it's time for my Lost tangent.
I have had two Lost dreams so far. (You know a show has become
...something when it gets into your subconscious.) The first one I had
the night before the season finale originally aired. (Odd that it took
that long to finally get out of my car and into my dreams.) That dream
went pretty much thusly:

Dr. Jack was seated at at large throne-like ...throne? Seat? I don't
know. It was a big seat, but it looked to be made of concrete or rock.
Also, his arms, which were resting on the armrests, were strapped in by
concrete. It looked like huge cinder blocks were holding his arms down.
Criminal Kate was there beside him and began to saw the concrete blocks
with a saw. As she was doing that, the concrete armbands holding Dr.
Jack down began to glow blue.

Opening credits.

Which Lost doesn't really have. But in my dream, it did. The opening
credits that the show had was typical of Buffy. It showed clips from
episodes with a bunch of scary, cool, weird stuff going on. Including a
giant bird that should have been much smaller, and that Walt had some
control over. And something else (I don't remember) that should have
been really large that was very small instead. And the opening credits
had the Rolling Stones "Paint it Black" as the theme song. (I think that
might have been playing on the radio alarm clock and was incorporated
into my dream.)

At that point in my dream I turned to Steph and said, "Why'd they change
the whole format of the show?? I mean, it's still watchable (it was),
but it's so ...different now."

The second dream I had over the Memorial Day weekend, and I think it
might've been Friday night/Saturday morning, although who knows. For the
sake of this blog entry, we'll say it fell on this day. Because it works
that way, and doesn't interrupt the narrative flow. (HA!!)

So, yeah. Second Lost Dream:

Me, Col. Orange Peel, Dr. Jack, and Criminal Kate were heading up a
hill. We could hear the monster.

As we climbed, Col. Orange Peel (aka Locke) produced a black and white
blanket that exists in our house in real life from out of nowhere, and
he strung it up, pretty much like a curtain. This was so that the
monster would not see us. Once he was done, we peeked around the edges
of the blanket to peer down at Lostzilla, which seemed to be in some
sort of makeshift cage.

And...the creature wound up being ....an ostrich. A really huge ostrich.
Like 80 feet tall. And it was running around in circles, making the
noises that it does on the show. And then suddenly it stopped, and faced
one of the walls of the cage, where a super sized wall calendar was
hanging. It then pulled out a magic marker (heh. emphasis on the
"magic"?) with it's wing, and begin to write numbers (oddly, not the
Numbers) on certain dates of the calendar.

End dream.

It is weird that both dreams had oversized birds in them. I don't know
what (if anything) that means, but there ya go.

And I could go on about Lost, and how the current theory I'm holding on
to now - not my own, but the one I like the best so far - is that the
'security system' is a swarm of (out of control?) nanotechnology (ala
Michael Crichton's book Prey), but I think I've talked about Lost
enough for now.
[/Lost tangent]

I think we did watch Star Wars Episode 4: A New Hope that night
(which is why my blog entry for that night was a Star Wars quote) after
the chilling raft scene from Lost. And then we went to sleep until...

Sunday

May 29th


8:00am. The phone rang.

I answered, somewhat groggily. The person on the other end said, "Pat?"
and I swear it sounded like Steph's dad, but it turned out to be one of
the newbies from Master Control. Apparently the rundowns for the backup
programming for the game that day were not where they should've been.
(This is partially my fault. I should have double checked to make sure
that Traffic had put them there.) Anyway, I instructed Newbie to make
his own time sheets since the game wasn't going to start for another 5
hours. Newbie agreed he'd do that, and then I hung up.

I tried to go back to sleep. But it just wasn't happening. As my brain's
synapses slowly started firing, I realized that Newbie didn't have to
create his own time sheets, since they are stored in the Traffic
department, he could go get them. I picked up the phone and dialed
Master Control...only to get a "This number is not in service" error
message. Huh?

I hung up and tried again, and got the same result. Well that's
odd
. I thought.

Then I went back to sleep. =)

We woke up, got ready, and in the afternoon, we drove to the pool party
that i mentioned in a previous blog entry.

A good time was had by all, I believe. Evidenced by our staying there
for 9 hours. Woo! I don't want to name names of our friends (I've been
bitten by a small case of paranoia lately, and have even thought about
taking out all mentions of the names of the girls from my blog. I know
that M reads my blog (Hi, M!!) so if I get M's okay, then eventually
you'll learn M's name. Not that it means anything to any of the other
Internet Weirdos out there, but...)

Anyway, the point is that M, M's spouse C, and their two children are an
unschooling family, and they are a giant inspiration and a lot of fun.
They're really good people, and my only wish is that we could spend more
time with them more frequently. The same goes for the newlymet P, R, and their DD C. (heh. Initials.)

Also, I wish that I were less socially retarded.

I mean, seriously. Even in instances when I'm around people that I like
(as I was for all of Sunday), I don't interact enough. I'm far too quiet
and don't bring enough to the table. [sigh]

So, yeah. The party. I swam with Saren and Harper, for several hours. I
think my shoulders got a little sun, but nothing too painful. The girls
don't burn at all, they just get more and more tan.

After swimming, we ate hamburgers and hot dogs which were cooked to
perfection. And the girls played and played and played. Yay!

Eventually, the time came for us to leave. Everyone was tired, and it
was nearly midnight by the time we got home.

The two youngest girls were asleep when I pulled into the driveway, and
Saren was soon passed out on the couch. Steph and I stayed awake into
the first few hours of

Monday
May 30th, 2005
Memorial Day (observed)


watching a bunch of nonsense on TV. I don't know why, but neither of us
were tired, despite having had a super long day. Around 2 am, though, we
finally called it a day and went to sleep.

We woke up around 11, although I had no energy for a good portion of the
day. We finished watching Empire Strikes Back - ("How can Vader be
Skywalker's father??" Saren asked) and near the end of the day we
watched the beginning part of Return of the Jedi. ("I'm glad that Solo
is okay." Saren said after he got out of his carbonite tomb. It's funny
that she likes to call the characters by their last names.) We still
have about 30 minutes to go, and will most likely watch that tonight.

During the day, the only real "excitement" was when the girls found an
injured pigeon in the backyard. Apparently Tripod (aka Tiger aka
Se-Beasty aka Sebastian) attacked a small pigeon and left it in our
backyard before the girls chased him away. Poor little time traveler!

Steph helped the girls put it in our shed, with the door opened enough
that the bird could get out (hopefully) but the cat could not get in
(hopefully). I have no idea what the status is on the bird now.

For dinner, we ordered Pizza Hut pizza (again!) along with another Full
Description Pepsi. Which was forgotten by the delivery driver. But! He
came back. With the Full Description Pepsi. And cinammon sticks! So
everyone was happy.

And then it became Tuesday. And I went back to work.

The end.
*looks up from reading the paper*

*sheepishly returns to his desk*

Sunday, May 29, 2005

Attention, people of the future!!

Please make sure that you get to Perth, Australia (I KNOW!) on May 31st, 2005, for Destination Day.

For fun, check out the pics under the "Post Destination Day" link. Especially the third one down.

It all makes sense now! Pigeons are time travellers!! Of course!!

Saturday, May 28, 2005

But, I was going into Tosche Station to pick up some power converters!!

[/whine]

I was going to make this post a whine-fest of my own, but I've calmed some since I first fired up Blogger.

Ironically, I have nothing to actually blog about.

Tomorrow we're going to a friend's house for a barbeque/pool party. That should be fun.

I can't believe it's almost June. JUNE!! I have plans to write a NaNovel during that month. Of course, as of right now I don't know what it will be about. You'd think that I'd start to get to work on my Perth story - especially since it's just a year away from when it supposedly takes place. However, I have no spark for that particular tale. Huh.

Instead, I've got a beginning scene in mind. But nothing beyond that. Eh. We'll see.

Zokutou word meterZokutou word meter
25,747 / 200,005
(12.0%)

Friday, May 27, 2005

SWEATY!

God, it sucks. Stupid, stupid, stupid heat. Ack.

Okay. I have several posts that I kept meaning to make, and keep not making them. (Ugh. That was a grammatical mishmash.)

I don't have time (of course!) right now, but I can briefly touch on what they were to be about. (And may yet be. Who knows what the future would...future will be)

1) Saren's Karate class. About how her teachers are crappy. Except for one of them.

2) The WB Upfront Presentation. That was done on the 17th of this month, and I totally meant to blog about it then. I still have not, over a week later. Go team procrastination!

3) A weird question I have. This is not really long enough to be a post on it's own, so I'll just ask it here now: If you wanted to get arrested, but hadn't committed a crime, could you? I mean, if you simply walked into the police station and you are a innocent citizen, could you request that they lock you up, or do you have to have broken a law first? (I told you it was a weird question)

4) LOST. Dude. [/Hurley]

5) Jebus, it is fucking hot.

Okay. I must go hunt and gather for the family. Sigh. Such are the duties of the modren man. (Note: Modren is not a typo.)

Tuesday, May 24, 2005

Hi ho

Today is my 10 year anniversary at work. A full decade. I suppose that
means something. Last year I listed all the WB programs that have ever
aired on the Frog Network. This year, since I'm at my new job, I think
I'll just point out the highlights of the day. It's not quite 7 am, and
I'm alone in this building. I've got my computer up and running
(obviously) and I have the following windows open: WordPad (duh),
Microsoft Excel (wherein I'm working on the Worst. Project. Ever....2.
[long story]), Microsoft Internet Explorer (which is currently at
palas.sbgnet.com. PALAS is the main program I use through the day.
Without it, I doubt seriously that I would get my job done at all. In
essence, it's a programming grid that can be manipulated by yours truly.
Fun!), and Mozilla for my emails (I have no new messages)

I still need to watch Catholic Mass. Well, not exactly "watch". I'll pop
it in the machine and make sure that it has audio, video, and that the
length is 28 minutes and 30 seconds, but I'm sure as hell (heh) not
going to sit through an entire half hour of church.

Also today I will be screening The Maury Povich Show that will be airing
on Thursday. Turns out that will be (checks PALAS) ...episode #011003.
Huh. Repeats again, eh? Guess that's what happens when sweeps ends.
Which it does. Tomorrow. Which means "book" ends tomorrow. (Heh. Book
ends.) From all reports thus far, it's been a bad sweeps for us. Nobody
watches our station(s). I don't understand why. I mean with such
^quality programming^, you would think more people would be tuned to us.
I guess the Las Vegas citizens simply don't have good taste.

And HEY!! I just saw Danny! I haven't seen him in months! Cool. He came
up here to fix some log errors (anytime Master Control makes a mistake
on the log, it needs to be corrected - by the person who made the error.
Even if it's some simple little change of one number, it must be done by
the person who signed on. Because the logs are [important voice]
OFFICIAL FCC DOCUMENTS [/important voice], so anyone else
altering them would be a [important voice] Violation of the
Law!! [/important voice].) Anyway, he had a couple of Log Errors
to correct, and since the logs are stored up here in the cubicle next to
mine, I got to see an old coworker. Groovy.

[sigh] I decided to check and see what the episode of Maury I'd be
screening today was (I figured it would be a paternity test episode - 9
times out of 10 it is - but it isn't! ("You are NOT the father!") Heh.
Instead, I'm getting...well, let's let the listings speak for themselves:

100% OPPOSITE AND MADLY IN LOVE! TVPG
AIR DATE 5/26/05 SHOW # 0110-03R
They are complete opposites – but they are madly in love! Richard was so
blown away when he met
Kim – he asked her to move in after three days together! They were
married shortly after – and three years later, they are still smitten.
Let’s just say there is a lot of Kim to love! When Brian first met his
co-worker Kay, he says he fell for her instantly. He worked up the nerve
to confess his feelings to her and found out she was feeling the same
sparks! It’s been nine years and their love is still going strong. They
both say the three decades between them is no big deal for them, so it
shouldn’t be a big deal for anyone else! They may be head over heels in
love but you won’t believe your eyes when you meet the odd couples on
today’s MAURY!

On the bright side, at least it shouldn't have any OBIN issues. (OBIN is
short for OBsecnity and INdecency, and basically means anything that
would be upsetting to our nations puritanical viewpoints. You know,
boobies or words that rhyme with duck.) We shall see in an hour or so.
In the meantime, I think I'll get back to work on the Worst. Project.
Ever. 2.

Nearly 9 now. Still going strong on WPE2, and just got off the phone
with Matt, who wanted further input on editing a movie (The Fourth
Floor with Juliette Lewis, for those that are curious). I told him
that it doesn't really need editing (it doesn't!) because we got a
secondary email from corporate about this movie saying to "edit at your
discretion". And since nothing "taboo" is shown in the scene (Ms. Lewis
is in a bathrobe, sans bra), I say we let it go. Besides, it's aired
once before without having any blurring added, so why do it now? All
editing will do is draw more attention to it.

Woo! 10:04 am, and I am now done with Worst Project Ever 2!! Well,
except for the last 3 days of sweeps (yesterday, today, and tomorrow)
but that's because those logs aren't done yet. So I guess it would be
more accurate to say I'm up to date with it. Even so, work was
accomplished! Hooray!

Well, time to go see what's going on with Connie Chung's husband.

11:08 am, and Maury is OBIN free. Fooking great!

1:24 pm, and I just got back from lunch. I watched part of the
penultimate episode of Buffy. Dreck! The promos for "Oilstorm" were
better then that crap. And Oilstorm looks hilariously bad. Man, I miss
cable for the bad b-movies. For those not in the know, Oilstorm is a
made for TV movie that FX will be airing sometime in June. And it's
about Peak Oil! You know it's too late when Hollywood starts
making movies about it. Anywhat, the hilarious tagline for this movie is
"America's lifeline has been severed." Heh. If anyone out there has
cable and watches Oilstorm, let me know how it goes.

Also, Raynette just played her kazoo to the tune of Happy Birthday in
recognition of my anniversary date. (Yeah, don't ask.)

Baseball game on the 2nd!! Which means we need to pre-empt the news.
Fired off an email to the news manager to remind her, and made the
changes in PALAS. Now to email TV guide and Tribune and Nielsen to let
them know. Wow. Work blogs are boring! Um. I don't know why I
ended that with an exclamation point. I guess I thought that if I added
some exciting punctuation, it would spice up the words around it. Or
perhaps I was being sarcastically enthusiastic in an attempt to make
this worth reading. Or just trying to wake myself up.

Failed on all those accounts, didn't I?

It's 2:55, and I'm feeling drained. I think it's due, in part, to the
coldness of the cubicle I'm in. Nowhere near as cold as master control
was, but it is pretty chilly. Maybe I need to take a walk outside in the
triple degree heat.

Wow. It's 4:36 now, and aside from Linda and Raynette, nobody has said
word one about my 10 year mark here. I guess 10 years doesn't really
mean much. I mean, not even cake. Or a mass email? [shrug] Oh well.
Maybe they're saving the celebration for when I hit the 20 year mark.




So, yeah. I guess I'm kinda bitter about the whole ordeal (or lack thereof?) but whatever. I shouldn't let it bother me. But dude. 1/3 of my life!

Okay, moving on.

I still want to make a post about Saren's karate class - I was going to do that yesterday, I think I'll save it for tomorrow - and now I'm getting all this internet interaction stuff going on: Emails, PMs, and questions in my comments. ^Stop taking up my free time, internet weirdos!^

Um. Yeah. I don't have anything else to add right now. More tomorrow.

Monday, May 23, 2005

Ba dum dum dum.

I'm just blogging until I leave. Leave to get dinner. Whatever that may be. But I have no idea how long I'll blog. Or even what I'll say. I'm kinda UTP@ right now, so I'll probalby be all rambly, which helps with nothing. But there ya go.

I decided today that Club Fed is one of the WORST movies I have ever seen. And I've seen some really bad movies before. So, as I am wont to do with movies after watching them, I went to imdb to see how badly it got trashed.

The reviews there were disheartening. Very very disheartening.

Okay, Stephanie wants to eat the cat, so I suppose I should go.

This didn't turn out as whatever as I had planned. Or planned. Heh. But later today (or tomorrow, maybe) I'll blog again.

Sunday, May 22, 2005

"I am the law."

Imagine that Jesus Christ were alive today. I think he'd be a lawyer. The question then becomes, would he be a defense attorney or a prosecuter?

Either way, it would be an entertaining television series. It even has a built in name. "Jesus H. Christ, Attorney at Law"

Saturday, May 21, 2005

Status:

Freeway on ramp: Still (STILL!!) closed. (What has it been, like a decade? Jeez.)

Car mileage: 133014. Tomorrow (most likely) it will hit 133331. Neat.

Days until I turn 30: 24.

File under "Kids say the darndest things"

S: "She was just a funny, crazy woman."
H: "Woman!?! She was a lady!"


H: "Mom, can we re-do the world?"

H: "Saren, what do teenagers do?"
S: "Well, I know they shop all day. And...I don't know yet. I'll tell you when I am one."
H: "I know something teenagers do. Well, I don't know if I'm right, but I think I am."
S: "What?"
H: (whispers) "Kidnap."
S: "I don't think they do that. Well, maybe the bad ones."

30 seconds later

H: "What is kidnap anyway?"

Friday, May 20, 2005

Three ...is a magic number.

Pity that this is not the 3rd post I'm making today. That would please my inner geek. I suppose my outer geek wouldn't find it too upseting either.

Anywhat. Guess what I did at work today.

Give up?

I went to see Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. With a bunch of coworkers. For free.

Man, my new job rules.

So, yeah. The promotion manager decided to treat his department and the programming department (which includes me) to see the third (er..sixth) installment of the George Lucas saga. Yay!

It was pretty cool to get out of the office for 3 hours. Although when we got back, I spent the remainder of the day hustling to get my work done for the day. But still. Free movie. Can't complain. (Well, okay, I can, but morally it makes me uncomfortable to do so. I mean, there are starving children on Tatooine. Or something.)

So, now for some thoughts on the movie going experience, along with some thoughts on the movie itself (undoubtedly nothing super original nor ground-breaking will be said, but I'll say it anyway).

I like Century Theaters. They have a policy of "no TV commercials" before their movies. Finally, a company has a rule that makes sense!
They did, of course, have trailers for other movies before SW3 started, but there were only 5 of them, and trailers are always a great part of going to the movies.

The previews:

War of the Worlds - It's a Steven Spielberg movie, and part of me wonders if at the end it will be revealed that the alien invaders are E.T. ....you know, just really really pissed off.

Cinderella Man - Bored now.

Mr. and Mrs. Smith - Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie in a remake of some movie from the 50s about a married couple that are both spies, and neither one knows it. Um. Yeah. I often times just don't *get* Hollywood.

The Fantastic Four - You know what I would go see? A comic book movie that did NOT use CGI. Can such a thing even exist? The world may never know. I suppose someday I might actually add The Fantastic Four to our Netflix queue, just because.

Stealth - Heeeeeeeeee! Mary Camden grows up to be a Navy pilot slash sex-kitten. AND!! A computerized fighter plane turns eeeevil after lightning hits it and "malfunctions the computer brain". Because Mother Nature is the most diabolical terrorist there is. And the terrorists will win.
Anyway, this looks like campy, brainless, stupid fun. Defintely going on the queue. [up]

And the actual movie we went to see...
[Begin spoiler for -Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith -highlight to view]
I think a large part of the appeal of Star Wars (for me, at any rate) is the music. Despite the fact that all three of the 'new' trilogy were ...not so good, when the opening theme starts up, goosebumps happen.

So. Some interesting things I noticed about Revenge of the Sith: Anakin does all his killing before he dons the Vader suit. In fact, Vader doesn't even seem that scary. Indeed, I felt rather sympathetic toward him. Anakin is lied to (or was he??) by the Emperor and the Jedi Council did try to use him as a spy. The only one who seemed to care about him genuinely was Padme. Oh, and Obi-Wan.

Why were the Wookies in this movie? Yeah, cool to see them - always like to see Chewie - but really, they didn't add anything. Um. You know, except for the coolness of being Wookies. (Grrraaaaarrghh!)

Heh. C3PO's memory gets wiped at the end of Episode 3. If only that could be done for us as well. (Smithers, get the memory eraser.)

CGI!Yoda was novel in Episode 2, and gets some good laughs/coolness factor in Episode 3, but eventually it's overdone.

Also about Yoda. If you're going to have a hero deliver a rousing speech, you should probably have it be done by someone who has less ...grammar issues. I mean, "Not if anything to do with it, have I!" just doesn't have the same impace as "Not if I have anything to do with it!"

Also - did the Emperor use a Jedi (I mean Sith) mind trick on the members of the senate, or are they all just really stupid? I mean, they all just take his word for it that the Jedis are revolting? NOBODY protests or asks for proof or says, "But, the Jedis are our friends!"?? Meh. Whatever.

In conclusion (because I've been blogging for almost an hour now, and I can't seem to think of everything I wanted to say), the movie was about 20 minutes too long (or maybe that was just because I had to pee), and George Lucas is a Sith-head. Hee.
[end spoiler]

No time, long blog.

Scratch that, reverse it, as Mr. Wonka would say.

I'm back, but not right now. Right now I must get ready for work. However! I do have some 'lost blog entries' that I typed up during my online hiatus.

And so now I shall post them. Please ignore (or mock, whatever) anything that no longer has credence. Okay, old entry time!



Got to get you out of my mind, ba dum dum dum dum dum.... I was born and
you were small and we were wrong and you were right there, ba dum dum
dum dum dum....

I really should be blogging. It's been AGES - Mr. Ages, the old mouse
who helps Mrs. Frisby - since I've blgged. I keep wanting to write
fiction - work on a NANOWRIMO type of thing, but I really don't have the
inspiration to come up with a story. Especially one that could be
sustained for 50,000 words. And especially not 4 of them. (Which is what
I would have to do in order to fulfill the Project '05 criteria.)

I'm thinking if Steph a nd I ever play Scrabble again, that I'll make a
Scrabble Story (tm) and post that. I mean that'll be something, right?
Again, though, it's the inspiration part that's lacking. I mean, really.
No desire to create fiction whatsoever. [sigh]

I had sent a blog entry to myself from my work email, but it had sat in
my AOL inbox for so long that it got deleted. Apparently AOL only holds
emails for one month. Even if you have not yet read them! ^Very
considerate, corporate behemoth!^ Anyway, maybe someday I will retype up
that entry. It was [depressing, thought provoking, interesting, jejune,
funny, clever, wordy], so it may be worth revisiting in the future. If I
can remember it all.

So what's new in my life? I dunno. Nothing, really. You'd think that
after not having been online for almost two months, I would have more to
say. You would think wrong. But at least I'm blogging again, right?
Right. That is the important thing. Speaking of important...no, I guess
that wasn't. Never mind! Ha! Nice fake out!

Speaking of fake outs! Lost. Dude. If we don't start getting answers to
this myriad of mysteries...yeah. I don't know either. However, I know
that Jess mentioned the Mysteries of Lost a while back (even though
I haven't gone online, I've occasionally peeked over Steph's
shoulder) and I thought I would add my own.

1) Why is Claire the only Australian on a plane coming out of Australia?
Perhaps some of the red shirts might also be, but until they decide to
pay those extras to provide them with speaking roles, we may never know.
1a) Is the ClaireSpawn Australian? I mean, what determines one's
nationality? Where you are actually physically born or what your
mother (and or father?) are? Where you grow up and learn to speak?

2) Why do none of the passengers remember seeing John in a wheelchair on
the plane? One would think that that would be something you'd take
notice of while boarding...

3) If Danielle can speak English (and she obviously can) then why
broadcast the distress signal in French? Granted, French seems to be her
native tongue, but she doesn't seem to have a problem carrying
conversations in English. And one would think that English is a wider
spoken language than French.

Ah well. It's still a hugely entertaining program, but really, answering
a question or three would be a very nice thing for the writers to do.

Heh. Writers. I used to want to be one. I used to, at least in theory,
be one. God, it's been so long since I've even logged online. So
much has changed. And yet, not really.

One thing that will change now, though. I will start to update my blog
once more. With feeling.
4/14



Mental Illness Rate Increasing Say Crazy Scientists
4/18


This will be #3 in the series (ha!) of "Lost Blog Entries!" Only, you
know, I won't be talking about Lost. With the exception, of
course, of this sentence. Yay for meta-...stuff.

So. What should I blog about?

As previously noted (note to self: include link to Steph's blog's
comment thing here), I believe that the new Pope (note to self: edit in
a link to a picture of Pope Palpatine) bears a resemblance to Emperor
Palpatine (note to self: edit in a link to a picture of Emperor
Palpatine). (Imperial Death March now playing in my head. And, most
likely, yours as well.) Um. What else? The whole death of Pope John Paul
George Ringo the 2nd along with the whole escapade of choosing his
replacement has left me with the absolute confirmation that the Catholic
religion is WEIRD. Not judging it, or anyone who has that belief, just
saying that it is weird.

Currently at work. Heh. Periods. Um. No. Let's try typing a sentence
longer than one word, shall we? Okay. Doh! Doh! DOH!!!!

Okay. Loop over. Right? Yes. Or not.

Well, I guess I'm accomplishing the Project '05 goal...one word at a time.

So, like I was saying, currently at work I'm in charge of the Nelly
contest. (Note: I had to look Nelly up on the interweb to determine who
Nelly was. In fact, I had originally thought that Nelly was a female. I
think this was because my brain was confusing Nelly [male] with Nelly
Furtado [female, who is like a bird])

Anywhat, here's the scoop: Nelly is coming to Las Vegas. Our station has
(somehow) obtained 3 pairs of tickets to this event. When stuff like
this happens, more often than not we will have a drawing to give away
the free prizes. This time around, I am the grandmaster (heh!) of this
contest. I'm the one who is holding the tickets (they're locked away in
my desk drawer). I'm the one that has issued the memo(s) to everyone,
and I will be the one who draws the names and determines who gets the
valuable scraps of paper. Thus far, 22 people have signed up. We employ
(*grabs the phone list, counts*) 72 people. Whoa. Seventy-two?!?
Really? Jeez.

Make that 23. I'm so popular!

I was toying with entering the contest myself - and selling (or more
likely, giving away) the tickets if I won. But with there being so many
people already clamoring for them, I think I'll just sit out this one.
Besides, today I signed up for 2 tickets to see the prescreening of The
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Yay! I should probably read the book
beforehand, no? Yes, sad to admit that I have not read the Douglas Adams
books. I've started to several times, but for one reason or another,
just never completed them. Doh.

I was talking to Steph earlier about how this summer a lot of the big
movies will be Made From Books. We have the aforementioned Hitchhiker's
Guide, War of the Worlds, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Harry
Potter and the Goblet of Fire (although I don't know if that's coming
out this summer or not, so there goes that theory.). And...well, I guess
that's not really that many. Which just goes to show that one should
really think before talking, no?
4/20

4/21/05
Thoughts through the day.

Today is the 111th day of 2005. It's currently 8:02am, and I am really
hungry. I skipped breakfast. No, that's not entirely true. I did have a
banana, but is that going to sustain me until I can eat again? I suppose
it will have to.

Life is fucking weird.

24 people in the Nelly drawing now. One week until the drawing happens.
The suspense must be killing ...no, wait. There is no suspense. The
boredom must be killing you.

Allergies!!!

The Arizona Diamondbacks are playing the San Francisco ... somethings
today. And we are broadcasting the game. I suppose I should get the
backup programming ready. You know, do my job.

You know what's weird? People who take the time to call television
stations. Seriously. Get a freakin' life. Sigh.

So. Hungry. Can't . THnk. Need. Sustenance.

Burn, baby, burn. Fire makes the magic fire keeps the skies in line.
Fire . Blah. I yeah. Need to stop for a bit. Stupid symbols and words
and nonsense. BORING!

HEre in Vegas the Superintendent (SKINNNER!!!) of the School District
has recently retired. Or resigned. Anywhat, the Fucking News today
announced that the School District will have two people temporarily
replace him while a search for a permanent replacement commences. I say
that to choose the new Superintendent, they should have all the teachers
get locked in a big chamber and cast secret ballots. Once they decide
and the votes are tallied, a puff of white smoke should appear and
they'll ring bells and angels will get their wings and it will be a
wonderful life. Just a thought.

I wonder if I should be putting some sort of divisionary indicator
between each writing. I mean, it's 1:28pm now, and I've come back to
this particular "entry" several different times throughout the day. Oh well.

Whoa. Mike (note to self: link to past talkings of Mike in the P@rix,
since I have no doubt mentioned him before) just called me! Freaky cool.
It's freaky cool because I was thinking of calling him today. Vibey!
Anyway, he's doing well and that's good. It was nice to hear from him.
I was thinking about friends, and about how I suck as one. Or suck at
keeping them. Whatever. Probably a combination of the two. It's not that
I don't want friends, it's just that I'm socially retarded. Also, I have
a good dose of misanthropy that makes making new friends difficult. And
I'm lazy, and friendships (or any relationship, really) takes work. I
need to make sure that I don't throw away any relationship I want to keep.

I need a haircut. And a shave. Two bits.

Speaking of "bits", I learned today that the original minimum wage was
25 cents. I'm assuming that that was 25 cents per hour, but since they
didn't state that, it's pure speculation on my part. I gleaned this fact
from the television during the 12 noon newscast. Every weekday the
weatherman (John Fredericks) has his "Fredericks Fact" - a trivia
question wherein viewers are urged to call the station if they have the
correct answer to win valuable prizes! Sadly, the Fredericks Fact has
become part of my daily routine, and I look forward to seeing it. The
question is asked at 12:15 and the answer is given around 12:45. Other
things I've learned (and remember) from the Fredericks Fact:

[-] The first neon sign said NEON
[-] The original title of West Side Story was East Side Story
[-] POSSLQ, a term used by the Census Buerea, means People of the
Opposite Sex Sharing Living Quarters

Thanks, freaky weatherguy!

Oh, hey! Neat. The WordPat HEEE! I mean WordPad program has a
date/time stamp. See?
3:03:39 PM
4/21/2005
Cool. Maybe I'll start using those at the end of each entry. Or not. I
don't know. Blah. Oooh, email! Let's see who it's from...Oh. Michelle.
She's amusing. Sadly, I was the bearer of bad news for her. Seems that
the WB has decided to run an episode of Living With Fran after
the 90 minute season finale of Smallville (^Yeah, WB, that
will draw viewers away from Lost or Alias^). This program
change means that she has to call every rep that ordered spots in the
original program (which was Blue Collar TV. [shudder]) and let
them know. Sad. But not my decision. I'm just the messenger (in this
instance, anyway). Plus, programming changes keep all of us employed. Yay.

Jesus.

Anyway, I should probably type something, huh? It's been forever. I did
some calculating, and I need to type approximately 808 words each day
for the rest of the year in order to meet my completely unrealizable
goal. [sigh]

Apparently I've fallen out of the habit of typing or blogging or
whatevering. I haven't even gone online ('cept for at work, which
doesn't count) since ...when? Oh. March. Right. And then there were the
times when I logged on to check my mail and/or change my blog
description. [sigh] I'm so tired and not in the mood to do this. I just
want to go home and go back to bed. Or to have something to say, because
for whatever reason, part of me DOES want to accomplish the stupid
200,005 words goal. Huh. FIgures. I get excited about a goal, and it's
something trivial and pointless. That's Patypical.

I know I'm nowhere near 800 words yet, so I'm just going to leave this
email open, except that if i do that, it won't work. Mozilla - that's
what is used here at work - has issues with messages being open too
long. Or maybe it's just this computer. Whatever, it doesn't matter.

I'm hungry, shocking! It's only 8:42 in the morning, and it's way too
early for me to be hungry already. I mean, I won't be having lunch for
four more hours. Jesus Christ. Four hours. That's so stupid. Work is
stupid. Not my work, just work in general. [/covering my ass. Badly]

Nine Inch Nails were in town the other day. I didn't go - tickets were
85 dollars (85!!!), plus the show sold out in, like, five minutes. But I
did attempt to win a pair off the radio. I failed, but that's beside the
point, no? Anyway, it sounds like it was a good show (this based on the
reviews I've read in the alternative papers in town) and I'm sorry I
missed it, but no big. I mean, I have seen NIN twice previously. And I
touched Trent Reznor's fingertips. [/homoerotic overtones]
I will, eventually, I'm sure, get the new Nine Inch Nails album - With
Teeth - and find out if it's any good. The first single, 'Bite the Hand
That Feeds You" (or perhaps it's just "Hand that Feeds" - I'm so out of
the music loop that I don't even bother to learn the actual titles of
songs anymore) is nothing wonderful, but it IS running through my head
now, so I guess maybe it's grown on me.

Heh. Today is 5/10. Or 1/2. And as of typing this word right here there
are 441 words in this entry. Which means I'm half way done. Over half,
technically, but let's try and overshoot, shall we? Yes. We shall.

I think that perhaps the problem (or part of the problem, no way of
knowing the entire story) is the environment in which I attempt to
write. Sitting in front of a computer, while at work, or at home, in my
mind equals blankness. Boring. Jejune. Dull. And, so, self fulfilling
prophecy. I don't know that anyone would want to read this dreck. Myself
included. But, hey, that won't stop me. Doesn't stop anyone else online.

Gah. I just keep having the question of "Who cares?" run through my
head. Everything I think to type of, the inner critic simply asks,
"Yeah, but who cares?" And it's a good question. When I can't bring
myself to care, why should anyone else?

Bah. I'll send this now, and hopefully come up with something later to
add to it. Because, obviously, this just isn't working right now.

Another 800 words today? Doubtful! Doubting Thomas. I should look that
up. Actually, I shouldn't. [just between us]I've spent a little too long
online lately at work.[/just between us] Don't get me wrong, I still get
my job done - which is what matters, right? - but not all of the
internet surfing I've done recently has been "work related".

Anyway. We watched disc one of Frontier House last night. I fell
asleep..ish near the end of the 3rd episode (the wedding was boring, and
it was nearly 1am) but overall I enjoyed it. That means that the total
now becomes:
Netflix DVDs watched in May: 2
Yay! I guess. I think we're averaging about 6 a month. Not bad, although
we never will get to the bottom of our queueue (too many ues?). But
that's cool. I'm not complaining. Not like yesterday. Jeez, Louise, what
was up with that?

There are 234 days left in this year. Le sigh. The time just keeps on
flying past me. Although I still think like I'm 16 sometimes. Most
times, even. Make what you will of that information. I'm going to make a
giant snake out of it.

Um. What else? Steph bought a cell phone yesterday. As I believe she
said in her blog. (note to self: link to Steph's blog) I have not yet
thrown it at anyone's head, but I've thought about it. And it's
the thought that counts. I think. (ha!!)

I wonder about the origin of laser eye surgery. "Gosh. I bet we could
make people see better if we shot a beam of light into their cornea!"

It took 3 months, but I finally got spam delivered to my work email.
Excellent! It's all pharmacy and investment spam. So far! [/ominous]

Grumble, says my belly.

New episode of Lost on tonight. I can't even remember what is sup...oh,
right. The Hatch o' Mystery. Rivet me, television series!

Aaaaand, I should get back to work. Nowhere near 800 words this time. In
fact, not even half way like yesterday. Sad. Oh well. Duty calls.


Hooray! Now we're up-to-date...ish. Much more to come. (Of course, I must also do a hell of a lot of catching up on other blogs, too.)