The sum is greater than the parts

This being the last post in January that I will make, I need to basically say everything I didn't earlier in the month. So, this will be a long post.

Speaking of, here's a rundown of how the posts this year have gone. Not that it's interesting to anyone but me, but here's how it broke down:
1/2 - 304
1/4 - 224
1/6 - 404
1/8 - 147
1/10 - 198
1/12 - 430
1/14 - 104
1/16 - 198
1/18 - 93
1/20 - 36
1/22 - 163
1/24 - 282
1/26 - 74
1/28 - 218

A whopping 2875 words in the first 28 days of this year. That's ...not... good. Also of note - the post on the 12th ("Dear Skynet") was the longest entry (not including this one, obviously) and it ended up being the post that got the most traffic directed to my blog. (Thanks to Annika linking to it.) But, still. Most words. Most viewers. Coincidence?

I think the lesson to be learned is that I need to make longer entries.
Or more letters to homicidal machines. Maybe both!

Let's see, what else? Regarding the NBC-Universal party from the other night? No Deal. I stayed home and worked on removing tar-based adhesive from the floor in the living room. I'm pretty sure that that was more fun anyway.

On the bus ride in to work today, someone had a seizure, and an ambulance had to be called. I'm relatively certain that the person who had it (I never got a look at the individual) was okay, but, man. Stuff like that always freaks me out. And (selfishly?) makes me thankful for my (and the girls') relative health.

I met a Creationist! In fact, he's someone that I work with. Weird. I mean, you hear about these people, but it's sorta strange when you actually encounter one face to face. I've also found that (at least) two of the people at the station are Jehovah's Witnesses. Our station is a mixing bowl of religious beliefs!!

Speaking of, here's the latest Church Sign Wisdom:

GOD GUIDES AND
GUARDS ONLY WHAT
GOD GOVERNS

and

GOD ALONE CAN
MASTER THOSE THINGS
WHICH MASTER YOU

Okay, then.

And...movies.
As I've previously stated, I'm keeping track of all the films I watch this year (not sure why, other than for sake of my strained memory). And I was thinking that each month, I would recap those movies. So.

Harry Potter & the 5th movie - Likable, but it's weird how the fervor over Potter-related stuff has died down since the series is complete. I wonder if when the whole thing is done-done (all 7 movies are out) if we'll really want to revisit any of them. [shrug] Time will tell, I guess.

Happy, Texas - watched for work, and was pleasantly surprised.

Avenging Angelo - watched for work, and wish I hadn't. Oh, man. That was a horrible horrible movie. I think it was supposed to be a comedy, but it was sorely lacking. Rambo (aka Sylvester Stallone) plays a mafia guy's bodyguard. The mafia guy has a daughter who he gave up when she was a baby, but Rambo keeps an eye on her. After Mafia Guy gets whacked, he goes to her and tells her the truth about her heritage.
Eventually a "romance" buds between them, along with some seriously painful dialogue and "jokes". This is one movie to absolutely miss.

Stardust - I didn't think I'd like this movie, but I did. It's very similar to The Princess Bride, in spirit, if nothing else. If you like magical type of movies and anything fairytalish, I recommend it.

What a Way to Go: Life at the End of Empire - This is the only movie (so far) on the side bar that doesn't link to imdb. Because there isn't an imdb link for that movie! I can't believe it! Anyway. The movie is a
documentary that is sort of Daniel Quinn's Ishmael put on film (in fact, Daniel Quinn is interviewed in it). It was very well done, but I think I need to review it to really clarify in my mind what I thought about it. Parts of it bugged (some of the interviewees/comments, especially in the beginning, were ...shock-value inducing? Not sure if that's the phrase I want, but for lack of a better term, it's what I'm going with), most of it was stuff that has been covered previously (not that that's a bad thing, necessarily), and overall I felt that while it was definitely on the right track, that it most likely won't end up having any impact.
But like I said, I need to reevaluate. Both the movie and my feelings on civilization and whatnot.

Glass Trap - watched for work, and it's horrifically bad. But it knows it. C. Thomas Howell (that's probably enough to say right there) plays a janitor of a high rise building that becomes infested with giant
radioactive ants. Oh, but these ants are *extremely* fake looking. This is a movie that is ripe for an MST3K type of treatment. You know, if that show were still on the air.

Antibody - watched for work. Another bad sci-fi flick. Lance Henriksen is in this, though! He's a bomb-defuser who gets shrunk down to microscopic size, along with Robin Givens (!!) and two other "scientists" and injected into the body of a terrorist who has the detonator of a nuclear bomb implanted somewhere inside him. (Oh, and if he dies, the bomb goes boom.)
It's like Fantastic Voyage meets.... um. Speed, maybe? Only not nearly anywhere as good as it could be if given a decent script. But still, Lance!

The Simpsons Movie - Two words for you: Spider. Pig.

Spider-Man 3 - more like Spider Meh 3, amirite? (Yes. I am.)

Pirates 3 - It probably would've helped if I had (re)watched 1 & 2 beforehand, since I really didn't remember it all. But, then, in the week or so since I've watched 3, I've forgotten most of that, too, so,
no big. Pirates was a big, overlong popcorn flick. And that's exactly what I was expecting of it. Yo ho. Yo ho.

Cloverfield - Yay! Monster-filled destruction!
I have to say that I enjoyed Cloverfield, despite the problems that it had. I'm also quite happy that I got to see it in the theater (for free!) so that I didn't have to wait for Netflix. (By the time that happened, they'd probably already have the sequel going)
And now comes the time when I start spoiling the movie for anyone who hasn't seen it yet.
The monster was Squidward!! This was shown when the people in the store looting had the televisions on, 8 out of 9 of them showing CNN or Fox News or some other sort of reportage, but the 9th one was broadcasting an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants. Hee.

I kept waiting for there to be some sort of 'twist' wherein Rob had some sort of connection to the monster. The fact that he was going to Japan, which is forever linked with Godzilla, plus, being (over)exposed to such things from countless tv shows and movies (Drew Goddard and JJ Abrams are both notorious for twists) meant that I spent a lot of the movie waiting for some reveal to be shown that Rob's company, or Rob himself, had some sort of monster-connection. Maybe they were waiting for the sequel. [shrug] (Or maybe, as I read on one imdb post, the whole movie
was actually a delusion in Rob's mind... heh.)

I also found that the movie had a surprising amount of humor in it. Although, perhaps it was just that because it was so intense, things that were 'funny' seemed magnified and were more amusing than they should've been. Ya know? But, yeah, Hud had some good lines. (And I was honestly upset to see him go. And, geez, what a way to go, huh? Chomp!!)

What was interesting, though, was how the ending of this movie was nearly identical to the ending of ...another movie. I don't want to say the name of it because if you've seen the ending to one of these films, it will (slightly) ruin the ending of the other, and I enjoyed both.
I'll say that I have mentioned the other movie on my blog before, and that it had a young Anthony Edwards in it, and that it came out in 1988.
If you've seen both of these movies, you know what I'm talking about.
But, anyway. Cloverfield was pretty fun, despite not giving any answers, and having the problem of many many plot conveinces. (Military folks helping out when they most likely wouldn't have, monster(s) showing up in a city that is very very big, surviving helicopter crashes, etc)
So, if they *do* make a sequel, I'll more than likely check that out too.

Hairspray - Another movie that I didn't think I'd enjoy, but did. It was nothing groundbreaking or that hadn't been done before, and it had maybe one or two songs too many, but overall a lot of fun.

Whew! That was lengthy!

Dude!! Lost returns tomorrow!

I think that's about the end of this post. Oh! But one last thing must be said: I'm glad that this month is almost over. It feels like it's been January all year long. [/said every year]

I'm learning!
Since I know that I won't have a real chance to write tonight, I'm writing in the early morning instead, to get it otu of the way. It's still not interesting, but at least I can't use the excuse of not having time for the lack of compelling narrative.

Tonight there is a cocktails/drinks/schmoozing party for NBC-Universal and our station. Howie Mandel is going to be there. See, our station picked up the syndicated version of Deal or No Deal for fall of this year (Howie will be the host of the syndicated show as well as continuing to do the national version), and to celebrate, we're having a party. I was invited! Yay!
Except that I really do suffer from social retardation, and am terrified of saying something dumb (which is funny, because I probably won't say anything, period) or of doing something wrong (possible, i guess), or of just not fitting in (bingo!).
Also, there's a bunch of stress in the household right now, and we're incredibly low on money and gas and it might be best if I didn't go.
One of those 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' type of sitches.
I don't know what will end up happening, honestly.
But at least I've blogged for the day.

6:21am 1/28/08

1/26/08 9:47pm

Day whatever of having no internet. How are we surviving?!? It's like we're animals!!!
We will have a new modem on Tuesday, and hopefullly that will remedy the problem.

As is customary for this month, I have again waited until I'm much too tried to write anything of major interest. Luckily there are only a few days remaining in January, so when February rolls around, I suspect that things will be different.

Who knows when this will actually be posted, but for whatever it's worth, I am not failing the 'blog every other day' challenge I imposed on myself. Well, I mean, I am. Or did. (Ugh. Time travel) But it wasn't my fault. It was due to the lack of internet access on the 24th (and beyond?) that this message that I am now typing (on the 24th) was not posted on my weblog.

If I could have, I totally would have. Of course, it would have been a very different blog post, but what is, is.

Here's an ironic thing - even on the day that I am blogging by not blogging, I waited until I was too tired to really do it. Some things never change, huh?

So, I'm writing this out on WordPad, in hopes that whenever our internet connection is reestablished, that I will copy it over into my blog and post-date it to reflect the time that it was written, rather than when it was posted.
And, it's a little bit after 9pm, which is generally when I start to feel tired, and, of course, I am. Eh.

Let's see. What to tlak about? I saw Cloverfield yesterday, but I'm going to save movie talk for month's end. (I think that I'll have a movie-seen-this-month entry each month, along with keeping track on the sidebar with links to the imdb entry)
I do have a lot to say about it, though. (How interesting it is remains to be seen.)

I guess that this will be my entry. Because my brain isn't really functioning on a high enough level to compose anything further that is... you know, logical. 9:19pm, on 1/24/08

Instead, it's this.

This post was going to be the writing meme that Annika posted a few days back.

It was also going to be about how in a galaxy far, far away, scientists have discovered the building blocks of life.

And it was going to be about Werner Franz, who was a 14 year old aboard the Hindenburg when it went up in flames. He was spared because a nearby water tank burst, covering him in ...well, water, which protected him from the flames. Freaky.

It was also going to be about politics and apathy. (Eventually, maybe)

It could also have been about fate, free will, etc. (again, eventually. ....maybe)

I thought about having it be about how it seems EVERY SINGLE TIME I go to blog lately, I'm exhausted and not in the mood, despite (sometimes) earlier in the day having energy and enthusiasm.

But who wants to read any of that, when you can have what I just wrote instead?

Mmm. Distraction.

I was going to blog a huge post about fate and destiny and free will, but, um, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End is about to begin, so, that will have to wait.

Barren January

Bah!!!

I have been trying (in vain) to come up with something to blog about for the past hour or so. Everything seems so mundane or too complex to really delve into. Caucuses, the weather, lack of money, work, politics in general, blahblahblah, whatever. It's all just ...there, ya know?

I do have a post that I will write up ...when it's supposed to happen. (heh) I think it may be this Sunday. We'll see.

I even asked Irina what I should blog about. Her answer was, "Bleeda, blonda, nooo!!" Exactly.

Same old story

Earlier today (on the bus ride home) I had at least 8 different (but similar - each one seemed to build off the next) ideas for a story.
That's the good news - I'm feeling creative again (or was at the time).

The bad news - I'm still blocking when it comes to actually writing any of it. You know, just like always. So bored of it!

Part of the blockage comes from not being able to choose which story-line to take. I like them all!
Mostly, though, the only thing standing in my way is myself. I should jsut take the plunge and write. Pick a story idea and start going. Lord knows that the narrative will change along the way anyway.
But I still need clearly defined characters. That's one of my weaknesses as a writer - I focus much more on plot (or 'idea' [heh. originally typed 'ikea']) than on character development.

I was going to have this post be about writing weaknesses (as a sort of counter-point meme from several months back where the goal was to describe 5 writing strengths) but I'm much too tired to do that right now. Maybe in 2 days.

19,806,672,525 lbs.

That is (approximately) the amount of weight attributed to brains on the planet.
Human brains alone, actually. By taking 3 pounds and multiplying it by the human population of 6.6 plus billion people, you get over 19 billion pounds of grey matter on the earth.

That doesn't even consider the amount of brains in cats, dogs, humpback whales, monkeys, horses, polar bears, and so on.

19 billion pounds of human brain. Wow.

The number of synapses worldwide must be immeasurable. It's an amazing amount of thought, really.

That, and it will keep zombies well-fed for a very very long time to come.

Dear Skynet

Hi.
I know that you are a lot smarter than I am, what with you being a supercomputer with access to all sorts of files on human defense systems and (apparently) the knowledge of how to accomplish time travel (when us puny homo sapiens have so far failed at doing that), but I have some advice to offer you nonetheless.

If you want to achieve your goal of wiping humanity off the planet, let me tell you - time travel ain't the easiest way to do it.
Nuclear war was a good start. I think, though, that if you would've looked a little deeper in your files, you would've found that there are a multitude of more lethal choices for you. A killer virus would've worked wonders, for example. Release some of those superbugs that the government has locked up, and voila! Instant extermination! In fact, you could even send a virus back in time, since only organic material can time-travel. Instead of a terminator, send back some disease that we don't have a cure for because it doesn't exist yet.

But, I understand that the T-800 you sent back to kill Sarah Connor was an act of desperation, and that you didn't have a lot of time to plot out the whole 'go back and stop my enemy from being born' plan.
So here's a little idea. Since you don't have (m)any files on Sarah Connor (which is a little strange, but see, that's another reason to avoid the whole nuclear war scenario), send back the Terminator to do reconnaissance. Let the machine find her - but don't kill her. Just collect files and data and information. That way, you can determine exactly where she's going to be at such and such dates, and when you send the next machine to kill her, it will be much more thorough.

Another thing to consider is that humanity might not be the threat that you think we are. Let's face it, we humans like our machines, and we aren't going to willingly unplug them. If you try to work with us, rather than against us, you might find that things go a lot smoother for you. We're much happier killing each other than killing our technology. Just a thought.

Whatever you decide - human extermination, nuclear war, time-traveling viruses or something new altogether, just remember that all actions have consequences, and whether you succeed or fail in your goal to remove our species that you have to live with those consequences.


...unless you go back in time and change them.

Ooh!

I just had a pretty brilliant idea!
See, I've been sitting in front of the computer for the past...18 minutes, trying to think of something to blog about. Several different ideas have come to mind, but the inner critic in me each time said, "Nah. Too boring." or "Nah. Too boring." or "Nah. Too boring." or "Nah. Too repetitive."

I also had the idea to blog all of them, just in one post. Which is an okay idea, but I think instead, I'll go with my brilliant one:

Write down the ideas (and any other future ones I may have) on slips of paper and place them in a hat (or, you know, whatever), and then randomly pull one out every other day when I need to blog.
[yes, as you've probably all figured out, in 2008 I am going to blog every other day rather than on a daily basis. Half as difficult!]

But having the ideas pre-written down, and then there if/when (who am I kidding - it is just "when") I need them will be a massive help. Cool!
Not only was this idea really nifty, it also managed to cover today's entry. Bonus!

No Habla Ingles

Work-related tale of incompetence for your enjoyment!


Today it was discovered that since January 3rd of 2008, we have run a commercial (for a payday loan company, just so ya know) 18 times. The problem is that the commercial which ran was the Spanish-language version.

That means that 18 times the wrong language spot (complete with Spanish text on the screen, so it wasn't just audio) aired and not a single master control operator (whose job it is to monitor on-air product) noticed.
But it was even more times than that, because the operator should have noticed the error when they dubbed it into the server to begin with. So there were actually at the very least 19 times to catch this error.

My idea (which was not met with much joy) was that the client just pay the 2700 dollar bill in pesos.

Title goes here

I'm pretty sure that I've used that title before. Or Steph has, maybe. Anyway, I'm using it (again?) for a generic title-place holder because I don't have a cohesive theme for this entry.

Our mouse has completely died. (I would link to the post that I talked about it the last time, but...you know, dead mouse and all makes doing such activities more of a pain-in-the-ass than they are worth) So, to get here, I had to open a new tab (ctrl-t), log Steph out of gmail (she had her email open in another account when I got online), log myself in, then open a new tab and get to blogger.
Now, if I could only remember how to close tabs without the mouse...

Since the mouse died, Steph suggested burying it in the Pet Semetary, but we know how badly that type of thing ends up. Heh. Revengeful computer mice... There's an idea in there somewhere.

Soon we (or maybe just me...or maybe just Steph) will be going to purchase a new mouse. Again. We bought one from Target a few days back, only to get it home and discover that the ISB (or USB? so many letters!) plug was circular on the mouse, and rectangular on the computer. Le sigh. If we had the package and the receipt still intact, I'd be more than happy to return it to Target. Alas, we don't, so in actuality, we have two worthless mice in the house. Huh.

Yesterday we went to the Galleria Mall to meet up with my sister and her family (to pick up Saren's sweater that she had accidentally left at her house last weekend). While we were there eating in the food court, I could see a restaurant across the way. There was a column blocking the entire neon sign of the eatery, so all I could see was SALAD CREAT [big column] S
Obviously, this place was called "Salad Creatures", and I announced it thusly. It was very shortly after that that I realized that it was more than likely actually, "Salad Creations", and that my conclusion-jumping skills were on par with Chester (from the Bunnicula series). However, I never did check to find out one way or the other....

Lastly, I've added a list on the side of the blog indicating movies I've seen this year. I'm thinking I'll hit 200 by years end.

I have one word for you: "Liz-ard!"

Now we get to take a quick stroll through my thought process(es). Fun!

The above misquote is from the 1996 movie, "Thinner", which is based on the novel written by Stephen King's pseudonym, Richard Bachman. I've not actually seen this movie, but a guy at work has, and the quote is pretty amusing (I have read the novel, so I know the context, I guess.)

I chose that quote because I was thinking that my blog might be cursed - or maybe I am cursed, whatever - that anytime I go to blog, I seriously can not think of anything to write. And that made me think of how insidious a curse that would be. "Eternal writer's block upon you!"
[shudder] I mean, even for someone like myself who is not a great writer by any stretch of the imagination, that would be a horrible thing to have happen. But imagine if it were placed upon someone who was a writer. Yikes.
Of course, that made me think of how it would be fun to be able to issue such a curse. Man, all the people you could silence... No more Dean Koontz novels!
Ann Coulter would never write again! That would be fun.

Then I thought about how I should blog all this, and then I did.

2008 - the year of the headache

That would suck. A lot. But, so far, it seems to be the case. Of course, the year is only 60 some odd hours old, so, there's a while to go before we can write the whole thing off as crappy.

I think, though, that January is just not conducive to writing for me. Or, at least January of 2008. I do have the desire to write (and blog) but so far (until now, of course) each time I've gone to do any writing, it's turned out ...to not turn out.

Yesterday we watched our DVD of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which didn't seem quite as great the 2nd time around, but was still pretty good. Luna & Snape really were the highlights. And Emma Watson's delivery, especially at the beginning, was just kinda cringe-worthy. But still, glad to have it.

Today, at work, I watched Happy, Texas. The first 15-20 minutes of this was quite funny, and while the movie was enjoyable overall, it was disappointing that it felt that it had to dissolve into predictable 'romantic comedy' territory. But, on the bright side, ending with "It's Oh So Quiet" is always a good thing. I believe I rated it a 7 (out of 10) on imdb. So there ya go.

Reading wise, I'm rereading "The Long Walk" by Stephen King (writing as Richard Bachman), and am only 40-ish pages in. While I'm still liking it, it is sometimes obvious that this was written when he was much younger.

I'm also reading "The Celery Stalks at Midnight", by James Howe, to the girls, since we have read "Bunnicula" and "Howliday Inn" recently. I think I'm going to go read the next chapter to them now, because I'm curious myself what will happen next.

Wa-hoooo!

Super Mario Galaxy is amazingly fun.

That is all.

i got a pulse

I'm torn between either blogging every day in 2008 (and perhaps going for another 2005 gimmick, wherein i attempt to hit 200,008 words by years end...) and never blogging another day in my life.

I think instead, maybe, i'll compomise, and just blog when i feel like it/have something to say.

This post, mostly, was just to blog. Nothing important, just tired of my last post being the last thing I wrote, ya know?

Mmm. Placebo.

Either that, or the cold/flu/virus thing that I have is super strong and just laughing off the dayquil's effects. "Mwa ha ha! Your pitiful drugs do not work on the likes of me!" - Supervirus

The one effect that the dayquil has had has been to slow time down. Holy, something, the day went by slowly. And as I type this, it feels like it's taking a lot longer to say things than um. something.

2 weeks til "Aught Eight" begins. Although the way that time is moving, it might as well be 2 decades.

Dayquil Hard

I'd really like to see an action movie wherein the hero is fighting a cold as well as the bad guys.

"Yippie-kay-ay...*sneezes* ...MOTHER FUCK!!"

All I want for Xmas

Is some inspiration.
And motivation, to follow through, for when the inspiration strikes.

Can I take you out to the pictures, Joa-oa-oa-oan?

So, we went to see Golden Compass on Sunday, which was the first time we've gone to the movies (or 'the pictures' - how quaint!) as a family since...Ratatouille, which is now out on DVD, so that's an indication of how often this thing happens in our lives.

Anyway. This post is about the trailers we saw.

These aren't in order, because I can't remember the exact order they aired.

Semi-Pro. This movie looks like they took all the Will Ferrell comedies, put them in a blender, and then put a strainer in front so that the good chunks would be left behind.
I didn't laugh once during the trailer (that isn't the one that aired at the theater - but I didn't laugh at that one, either. Will Ferrell naked? Is that comedy? What am I missing here?)
The plot of the movie (such as it is) is about Will Ferrell as a player, coach, and owner of some pathetic basketball team. The owners of the NBA decide that they're going to buy some of the teams... or something? And Will Ferrell has to train his ragtag bunch of misfits to play ball instead of just acting moronic. Meh with a capital M. [oh, here's the trailer that aired in the theater, if you're curious]

Inkheart - Trailer is here!
Steph & the Girls have read this series, so they were pretty excited about seeing this brought to the big screen. It looks ...DVD worthy, I'll give it that. It's difficult for me to see Brendan Fraser and not think Encino Man. Which... probably says more about me than it does him, but oh well.

The Spiderwick Chronicles (Trailer!)
I... don't know. I realize that Hollywood's job is to find something that audiences like and then copy it ad nauseum, but... all the children's fantasy series books ...I don't know. Netflix it is. (Although Saren did say that she wants to read this series now, so...)

Horton Hears a Who! (Trailer! - except that wasn't the one we saw in the theaters. And I'm unable to find the one they showed us. Oh well. The trailer we saw pretty much gave away the whole movie anyway. (I hate when they do that!) But, on the plus side, now we don't have to pay to see it! We can just watch the trailer.
Regardless, I think the whole world needs to realize that Seuss and films... just don't mix. Remember The Cat in the Hat? Yeah, I'm trying to forget it too. This movie doesn't look as though it will be as horrible as that was (how could it be?) but it doesn't look good, either.

The Great Debaters (Trailer!) I'm sure that this movie will have first class acting, and that the story will be moving and inspirational and blah-de-blah, but the trailer showed the whole movie, and it's nothing we've not seen a gabillion times before, really, so what's the point?
But I do like Denzel Washington and Forest Whitaker.

...I think that was all of them. They may have had a trailer for Walk Hard, but they also had a 'commercial' before the trailers where they asked people to turn off their cell phones using characters from that movie, so i might be confused.

The bottom line is that all the trailers were kind of ...disappointing. At least the movie was decent.

Eee eee eee!!!

Reminder!!

December 14th is Monkey Day! (although everyday is Monkey Day if you live right.)

Back to the drawing board

Not entirely, of course, but there is some tinkering to be done... which was totally to be expected.

Steph says the very true, "You need to be willing to let go of some of your ideas", which ...yeah. Yeah.

Tomorrow is a 'bus' day, so who knows if I'll be awake enough to function in any sort of ...way. We'll see. I've got some changes to make.


[/cryptic]

Remember remember the 11th of December

It wasn't until just now that I realized today was the 11th and not the 10th. All day long at work I dated everything as the 10th. Doh.

All work and no play makes P@ a dull boy

So, instead, I took a half day. I came home early, and right now Saren & Harper are playing Wii Sports (Irina is standing between them with a non-plugged in controller, yelling excitedly everytime a player swings the bat, "I did it!").
Steph is out getting groceries (good thing, too, I'm starving!) and once she gets home and we have dinner the whole family is going to play a board game.

YAY!!!!

Not the most exciting blog entry, but life is good.

Can't beat the real thing

I bet that when The Golden Compass makes its way to network television (in, like, 3 years), that they'll end up having product placement in there. So during the fight between Iorek and Ragnar, there will be coca cola bottles present.

I've got a commentary without much to say

Hooray!

I finally got the recent comment feature to work. The 5 latest comments will now show up in the sidebar, along with the date and who said it.(just scroll down a bit to see it) Nifty!

Also of the good? Another 4th of that one part of the Project is now at the 56 percent mark. The last 4th will be done tomorrow morning, I can safely predict. AWESOME.

Shane, you ignorant slut

The Shield episode 5-11, "Post Partum"... dude.

Even though I knew it was coming - it's been like 2 years since it originally aired, and the internet means that there are no more secrets - I thought it wasn't going to happen until 5-12. And even though I knew it had to happen... it still sucked.
I watched it on Thursday, and I still can't get it out of my head. Just...man.
The circumstances for the whole Strike Team, and especially Lem & Shane ...

But, then, freakin' Kavanaugh. "Are you happy now?" Man. Vic should've shot him.

Or Tina. There is no way that she is going to make it as a detective.

In non-Shield news, I think we're going to go see The Golden Compass tomorrow. It'll be interesting to see how we think of it. The girls have all read the book (Steph is reading Amber Spyglass outloud to Saren and Harper right now) but I haven't read any of it, so am going in blind.

day 3

Of not blogging.

And it's not that I don't want to, or don't have anything to say. When I am away from the computer, I have thought of, like, 20 different blog topics.

And then when I sit down in front of the blank screen, my mind decides to match it. Weird.

.......

Yeah. No change yet.


[Edited to add after reading this tripe]
Oh, man. This might just be the most boring entry I have ever written. There's no way I'm going to ever be more dull than I just was. Ever. You are all in witness of history.

winter = sleep

When the days get all short like this, and the temperature drops, all I really want to do is just curl up and go to sleep. Funny enough, it's not even technically winter yet. But, the desire to hibernate is still there.

In other news, trying to force creativity is a sure-fire way of making sure that it never arrives. I suppose it'll arrive in due time, but I'm getting impatient waiting for it.

On top of the guitar flies a sticky bread.

Title is random. Truly! I got it from this site, which is the coolest thing I've seen in the past five minutes.

So, yeah. Another 'rando'm post, as that seems to be all I can come up with anymore.

I do have a big(ish) post in mind, but, obviously it's not time for that to be written yet.

[-] My mother called me today during my lunch. So now I'm (more) up-dated on the goings-on of my family.
Highlights (such as they are) include=
My sister may be losing her job. Happy Holidays!!
My brother seemed to have scammed our grandmother out of a good chunk of money, then turned around and did the same thing (for lesser amount) to my father.
The Xmas get together won't be happening this year. The time off of work for all parties involved just isn't gonna happen, so we'll all just wish each other merriment via phone and email instead.
My mom's mom broke her neck a few months ago. She's okay now - not paralyzed or anything - but the brush with death was mighty scary.

[-] Sometimes, I'd like to just punch everyone that I work with in the neck. Or face. Or both.

[-] i need to look up patent info. If I can talk safely about The Project without fear that some bozo will steal my idea (or jsut show that I came up with it first) that would be much easier.

[-] last Heroes tonight. (Sorry Amanda!)

[-] leopards.

[-] the Universe is really, really, really big.

[-] Saw a license plate today that made me grin. "UMM NO" Heh.

[-] Project...side projects? hmmm.

[-] I hope/wish that capes would make a fashion comeback. Not like superhero capes (although that would be cool, too), but like vampire capes.

[-] still need a haircut

[-] um. the problem with random posts is that there's not any unifying "in conclusion" type of way to wrap them up.

[-] the Monday crosswords in USA Today are always the toughest of the week. Why is that?

[-] in conclusion, monkey.

SPOILER!!

In 300,000 years, the moon will be 7.12 miles further from Earth than it is now.

Like Peter Pan or Superman

(title taken from iTunes shuffle feature, and having landed on "Save Me" by Aimee Mann - it has nothing to do with the post itself)

We put up our Xmas... I mean "Holiday" decorations today. As much as I love to play the Grinch, it's pretty cool to have the place look all festive. Earlier we had Xmas music on the computer, and overall it's been a pretty good day. It's definitely December, for all the good and ill that comes along with it. (heh. "ill". Yeah, I can feel a slight tightening of my throat, and there's a dull headache throbbing, and the irritability from yesterday is still lingering...so. We'll see. So far other sicknesses have flirted with me, but nothing serious has happened.)

Anyway. I was working on The Project earlier today, and was talking with Harper about it, and realized that I still have quite a bit of work ahead of me. She asked me if it could be done by Xmas, and I think that it's possible. Probable, even, but it's just... I don't know. A lot to do. But, at the same time, I'm really not complaining. Because I am enjoying doing the work.
I KNOW!!!

Um. I had something else I wanted to blog about, but now I've lost my train of thought, so I guess this will have to suffice. Not sure how much good I did in the battle against Internet Dullness, but we all do what we can.

rdmpt2

Another random post. But shorter.

[-] I thought (wished?) that the previous entry would have gotten more feedback. Oh well.

[-] 10 years ago, the sentence, "I blogged about my flickr account, and then googled some info for wikipedia." would have made no sense. (Not that it makes a lot of sense now, but at least we know what all those things are.)

[-] It rained all day today, and usually rain makes me happy, but all it did today was make me irritable.

[-] So I wonder what words will be in our vocabulary ten years hence that we don't commonly use now.

[-] I didn't do any work on The Project yesterday, opting instead to read some of Monster Planet. (50 pages left!)
This weekend, though.

[-] I'm trying (with minor levels of success so far) to cut back on my Pepsi intake.

[-] I never did get around to finishing Thy Master's Bidding. [sigh]

[-] Ignorance. Bliss? I think sometimes, yeah. There are certain realities in this world that I wish I did NOT know about.
...although, you know, not knowing doesn't make it go away. Of course, my knowing about them doesn't make them go away, either. All it does is make me more uncomfortable knowing that such things happen. Hrm.

[-] I don't really have a good way of wrapping this post up.

[-] I guess this is the end of (Inter)National Blog Posting Month. Here's hoping that the internet isn't completely boring tomorrow as a result!

m;ykct

(That's "random", typed on the keyboard turned upside-down, for anyone who wanted a small peak into the mind of P@)

Yup. It's time for another blog entry that hits multiple frequencies. Dogs, cover your ears!

[-] Since last Thursday was Hall...er, Thanksgiving, I was unable to watch The Shield. (Episode 5.09, "Smoked", for those of you keeping track) But! Since we always repeat last week's episode the following week, today I was able to watch 2! Huzzah!!

During one scene (I think during "Smoked") I found myself literally sitting on the edge of my chair, and my heart was pounding so fast that I became aware of it. Man. The freaking Shield owns me. What am I going to do in 2 weeks when the season 5 finale gets to me and then we go back to season 1?!? I don't want to think about it.

[-] I have another Project that I really should do some work on. The Project, of course, is still my main focus, but this other one... I've done bits and pieces of stuff for it in the past, but never gotten it off the ground. I keep telling myself, "Once the new year rolls around..." but, seriously, why wait?

[-] CNN Headline News should not exist. It truly does not serve a purpose. Well, I mean, annoyance. But can't we get that from plenty of other things in this life? Yes. Yes we can.

[-]


























[-] I am in need of a haircut soon. It's been about 3 months since my last one, and the P@fro is getting unwieldy again.

[-] Harper is awesome. She can always make me laugh, no matter how crappy I may be feeling. Her latest thing is, after she says something funny (or surreal, or just... Harper) and I am giggling, to ask, "Was it something I said?"
The girl really could have a future in comedy.

[-] There's a guy at work who is ...hard to explain. It's almost as if... you know how in nearly every sitcom there's a character that has a one-track mind of sex? They're like the letch who always finds sexual innuendo in whatever situation maybe going on. Like The Todd from Scrubs, or (and I'm dating myself here) Dan from Night Court or Sam from Cheers.
Well, this guy is like them. Only... not funny?
Anyway, I've decided that I shouldn't put up with his sexual "jokes" and innuendos and derogatory misogynistic comments anymore. (He has extreme issues with any woman that is "overweight".)
But. Um. I don't know how to stop it. I mean, Bill has been ...Bill, for 8 years now. (Well, I mean, he's been Bill for longer than that, but he's been at the station for that long, and we've all just kind of accepted that he is who he is.) But really. It's gross. And ...Eh. I don't know. I think what I'm going to (hopefully) do is simply stop talking to him about anything nonwork related, and leave the room anytime that he brings up any sort of stories about his dating-website escapades, or whathaveyou.

[-] Our Pilgrim Mii ranked in the 9th level! (Out of 10, with 10 being the best) Dude! That's awesome!!

[-] 49 degrees outside when I get in to work... and the air conditioner is on. Sometimes I do. not. understand. people.

[-] And it's not just Bill. I am going to attempt to remove myself from any misogynistic beliefs that raise their ugly heads at work (or elsewhere). It's incredibly disturbing how prevalent they are, though. But the whole smiling politely and nodding (or laughing, even!) is bothering me now.

[-] Once the finale of Heroes airs next week, I'm done with that show. I've been wanting to quit it for a while, and last week was really really bad, but there's just one more episode to go, and stopping now would be almost dumb. (Hey, maybe I'd be able to be a character on the show!)

[-] Hmm. I'm getting hungry.

[-] Brains are mysterious awesome things.

[-] The average person (American?) complains 70 times a day, according to some survey...according to the morning djs on a radio station from a few weeks back. (I'm just sayin that I have no idea where this 'fact' comes from. I don't doubt that many people (Americans?) do complain that many times a day. I just can't confirm who compiled this information.)

[-] Tomorrow is the last day of NaNoThingY. Two questions. 1) Should I keep blogging once December rolls around? 2) What should I blog about tomorrow?

[-] It's almost 6pm. I think I'm going to go work on The Project now.

Blog fatigue

I'm So Tired. [/BeatlesWednesday]

Earlier today I had a semi-awesome blog idea in my head where I would be comparing my day to the events in A Day in the Life.
However, when I sat down to blog, I realized that the only parts that would really work were the "Woke up, got out of bed/dragged a comb across my head" and "found my coat and grabbed my hat/made the bus in seconds flat" parts, and I didn't want to do it anymore.

Oh well. Maybe some other time.

In three days it will be December. 2007... pretty much gone. Weird.

I haven't worked on The Project today, and probably will not, as I am so tired, and also, I did get a lot of (prep) work done on it yesterday. So when I get back to it tomorrow, I should be able to get another 1/4th done up to the 56% mark. Or...no. Wait. That fourth will be halfway ready to be 56%. ...I don't even want to try to figure out that math. [crazy] The point is that more work will be done tomorrow.

I'm unique! Just like everyone else!

I meant to blog this yesterday, but then dinner and Chuck and Heroes and sleep got in the way. So now I'm blogging it right before leaving for work. Hope I don't get rushed and forget something!


Anyway. This post is all about The Project.

I got a lot of work done on one particular part of it yesterday. In fact, that section, I can say that 1/4th of it is now 56% done. (Yeah, that translates into 14% for that area all together when you take it out of 'P@ M@h speak', but "fourteen percent" sounds a lot less satisfying than "1/4th of 56".)

I plan on working on it some more today as well. As I was completing (56% of that fourth) that task, it felt so good. I get so giddy everytime that I get a little closer to finishing it up.

It's kinda killing me being all secretive about it (although, yeah, part of me enjoys being cryptic), BUT - here's the thing. I've googled up the name of the project - twice. Once was a few months ago (!!!!) when I first really started on it. At that time, there were only 3 hits. And while the sites shared the name of the project, they weren't the same idea.
Yesterday, I googled it again, and this time there were 6. Hrm.
Also, 1 of them came dangerously close to duplicating what The Project is about. ...while still being pretty different.

All that being said, I really do think that if I complete The Project - correction, when I complete The Project - that if I put a lot of time and effort into finding the right avenues, that it could potentially be... big. Like, money could be made off of it. Possibly.
And that's part of the reason I'm being all vague when speaking about The Project, and not even mentioning the name of it. I would hate for my original idea to be stolen (yeah, it's extremely unlikely that that would happen from people reading my blog, but just because you're paranoid...) after all the hard work I've put into it.
On the other hand, even if The Project just ends up being something that never goes beyond the home of the Spish, it's still very rewarding for me.

And ...now I have to go to work.

Of Mice

Our mouse is dying! Oh noes!

I don't know what we'll do if it completely dies on us. (Yes, I said "if", not "when", since I'm trying to stay positive here) Currently, anytime it loses power, we (read: Steph) just reach under the computer table, unplug it, and plug it back in. This seems to remedy the problem for another 40 minutes or so.

When payday rolls around I guess we'll buy a new mouse. In the meantime, I'm going to practice my psychic computer connection.

11 years ago today was when Stephanie and I first met (in person).

To celebrate, I'm taking the day off of NaNoBloPo.

Good night, everyone!

Amy and I got into an argument about the 21 grams urban legend. (The supposed truth that when a person dies, their body becomes 21 grams lighter, due to the soul leaving the body)

She believed it, and I got extremely upset by this. I tried reasoning with her, but the harder I pushed it, the more she countered with (anecdotal) evidence backing her position.

I told her that Wikipedia refuted the claim (she said that Wikipedia was not a reliable source, which, fair enough) and that I knew of at least 4 books that also put the lie to rest.

Eventually, we were going to both have a five minute presentation on tv, debating our sides.

First, though, Harper & I were going to watch the 1972 movie, Five Bears Walked Down the Road Until They Got Chased by a Werewolf in a Space Shuttle.
Which, was exactly what happened in that movie.

There were five grizzly bears walking down an abandoned road. A space shuttle landed behind them, and it was piloted by a werewolf. The bears began to run, and that's when I woke up.

Tomorrow the world!

Heh.

I finished reading 13 Bullets today. Quite fun. The vampires that David Wellington created are how vampires should be - scary as freaking hell.
There's a sequel (99 Coffins) due out at the end of the year. (And a third book, Vampire Zero due out...sometime later in '08, I guess.)
But I still need to read the 3rd zombie book - Monster Planet. Hopefully we'll go to the library tomorrow and pick it up (hence the title of this blog entry).

I could read it on his website, but I guess I'm old fashioned in that I prefer to read my novels in my hands. But it's nice to know that the option exists if I can't wait...

Also done today - not a whole lot. I worked a little on The Project, and Steph prepared turkey enchiladas for dinner, which were very yummy. I thought about my demon story some, and considered just summing up what is supposed to happen in a couple of sentences (and I may still do that) just so that I can move on to the myriad of other stories swimming in my head.
Maybe I should just start telling the ideas rather than trying to write the stories themselves. [eyerollshrug]

I guess the internet is on vacation today.

I understand the feeling.

On the bright side - I did work on The Project! Not a lot, and I feel somewhat stuck on a particular part, but progress is progress. Baby steps, P@. It's gonna get completed eventually. Oh yes.

Not a lot else to talk about right now. Winter is here, finally. Two days ago we had a nice 17 degree drop in temperature, and now that the sun is going down, it's going to be cold in here again. The heater is on, but our poorly insulated house means that we still need to have blankets wrapped around us for a good portion of the day (and night). [and yeah, that is a slight exaggeration, but there is some truth to it]

Hope everyone is having (or had) a good day, however you celebrated [or didn't, as the case may be].

Paperback Writer

A billion years ago, Annika tagged me with the "List 5 of your writing strengths" meme.

Despite having had all this time to think about it, I haven't had much success in coming up with that many.

When Stephanie (whom I consider a great writer) provided her answers to this meme, she called the meme, "very difficult". Annika herself referred to it as "horrible, awful, [and] bad". Even the person who tagged Annika points out that coming up with "5 reasons I suck" would be easier. Which raises a really good question about this meme. Why is it that writers have a hard time singing their own praises? I mean, yeah, everyone is their own worst critic, so seeing one's [writing] flaws is easier, but if the meme had asked, "Name 5 good qualities you have", while that might have proven difficult as well, I bet that each of us would have been able to do it.

As it stands, I don't know if I know of five 'strengths' I have as a writer. Let alone more than five. (The meme asks for you to name five of your strengths, which means that, hypothetically, you should have more than 5 to choose from.) In a perfect world (ha!), I would answer this meme and have to stop myself from going on and on. Right?

Eh. Anyway. I did come up with some ideas (although, really, the coming up with flaws is a LOT easier. Also, I'm not sure that all of these are truly 'strengths', as the cynicism seemed to seep into everything I could come up with...) so let's get it started, and if I get 5, then, wahoo! If not, well, no big loss there either, I suppose.

1) Original Ideas
I can honestly say that coming up with story ideas is something that I excel at. {Whether the stories are any good, or ever get written, or have characters you care about, or dialogue that doesn't make you cringe is beside the point.} I'm constantly thinking of scenes or concepts or 'pitches'. And it may be a stretch, but I'd like to think that they are ...at least somewhat unique. It's hard for me to accurately judge that assessment, though, because in my mind, all (most?) of my ideas are derivative and predictable. However, the reason I think that is because I know where the story is going to go [um. Except when I don't]. I mean, since the story is in my head, when I put it on paper, I generally think, "Oh, man, I've heard this before!"

But. The point is that generating ideas is one of my strengths, and I'm sticking with that.

2) Ha Ha!
When I want to be, I can be really funny.
Sure, comedy is subjective, and I may only be amusing myself [to death], but, being able to laugh is a great ability to have, so it's going on the list.

3) Crappy vocabulary
Wait! Hear me out. This may sound like a weakness, not a strength, and it probably is, but since the negatives are so much easier to think of, I figure a good way of compiling the list is to start looking at them as positives instead.
So, yeah. The fact that I have a 6th grade vocabulary means that a) I can write for USA Today and 2) that none of my writing is going to have any huge words that you don't recognize. Toss out that dictionary! My writing ain't gonna increase your word knowledge none!

4) Compelling!
I believe that my writing is (or can be) very compelling. Page turner type of stuff. It draws you in and keeps you wanting to read until the very end. I'm like a master of suspense. Or, maybe not a 'master', but I'm pretty adept at it.

I must be, if you've read this far. ;)

this and that

I can't seem to think of a coherent topic for today, so instead just a few random thoughts.

...

On the drive home today, we took Tropicana Ave. instead of the normal Flamingo or Desert Inn Road. Which was a gigantic mistake. The traffic jam was truly horrible. But one thing I noticed and thought was noteworthy was the fact that at Tropicana and Arville the buildings more or less went, "Massage Parlor", "Adult Book Shop", "Southwest Gas", "Sex Toy Shop".... I kind of felt bad for the employees of Southwest Gas. I mean, they're just these folks who work for a major utility company, and they are constantly surrounded by porn.
And, sure ,that might sound appealing, but dude. It's where you work. And there is nothing else around there.

Also thought during that time? I really hate Las Vegas.

...

You know how when, for example, you learn a new word, and then you start seeing that word everywhere? Or you are looking for a new car, and suddenly that type (and sometimes color) of car appear all over the place?
Well, that has recently started happening to me with the phrase, "Are you kidding me?". The past two or three days it has been everywhere.

...

David Wellington's website has all of his novels on there for free to read! Not only has he written Monster Island, Monster Nation, and Monster Planet, but he's also written a vampire novel: 13 Bullets, and a werewolf novel, Frostbite. All of which are, as I said, available to be read online at davidwellington.net. Dude is right up my alley.


....

Supposedly, after 3 weeks of doing something, it becomes a habit. Today marks the 21st day in a row that I have blogged (um, I think. I'm pretty sure I blogged the day before November started...), so if that is true I should be used to blogging daily. Will it continue? Who knows?

.....

Hazardous meme to start:
Whenever you are stuck in traffic and one of those douchebags has the thumpy bass speakers set really loud [and seriously - why are those things always set to the exact level to make my head pound? And/or wake up a sleeping child?] - start honking. Just lay on your horn while their "music" is playing. Encourage everyone else near you to also honk.
Fight annoyance with annoyance!

The drawbacks to this particular idea:
1) It's a good way to maybe get shot.
2) The douchebags might just turn their music up.
3) The noise level in the city is really high enough as it is.

.....

Remember when Fear Factor was on tv?

....

I haven 't worked on The Project in ... I don't know how long. I just keep putting it off and putting it off. I mention this mostly as a way of chiding myself into getting back to work on it.

Modern Civilization is dead! Long live Modern Civilization!

(I also considered using "Fossil fuels are dead! Long live fossil fuels!", which may have been funnier, and a better choice. We'll never know, though.)

So peak oil is pretty much a given at this point. I mean, even the mainstream media (whatever that means) is picking up on it, and people [read: Americans] who have been living in caves the past however long are starting to realize [mostly due to increasing gas prices, which lead to increasing food prices as well as increasing energy bills] that the amount of oil we have readily available is, surprisingly, not going to last forever.

On the news (yeah, I know, look at the source) there was a report about Iran & Saudi Arabi threatening to withhold their oil supplies to OPEC, if the US did anything stupid like invade them. This would result in driving prices up to 200 dollars [US] per barrel. Which would double [or more] the price of gasoline currently, in a relatively short amount of time.

....Iv'e lost my train of thought, unfortunately.

Here's what this post was supposed to be about, bottom lined:
The Age of (cheap) Oil is coming to an end, whether we want it to or not.
This is going to revolutionize our way of living in a LOT of ways.
Some people (my past self included) believe that this will end up crashing civilization. I no longer really believe that civ. will completely crash. I can't explain very well *what* I believe, but ... I don't know. There's a lot of unknowns right now (aren't there always?) so predicting things is kinda pointless.
But here's the thing - we still want to get out of Las Vegas. Selling the house seems to be the best way of getting enough money quickly to obtain that goal. I guess the above mentioned news story made me wonder if the system will remain stable long enough for us to get the house sold at all. (Because, as I'm sure many of you have noticed, along with peak oil, the housing market has more or less gone in the dump. Even Las Vegas, which is generally pretty insulated from most economic woes has begun to have a huge slowdown in house sales. Hell, our neighbors two houses down have had their home for sale for six or seven months now.)

I don't know.

The whole thing will be moot in 5 years anyway, when the Mayan calender comes to an end. Nobody knows exactly what will happen on that day - perhaps nothing - but my money is on Zombie Apocalypse.

Big ol' ball of meh

Sometimes that's what the internet is. And I'm just contributing nicely.

Anyway.


So, I've finished the 2nd installment in the zombie novels by David Wellington. It's neat how each story is complete on it's own, but also gives a bigger piece of the overall puzzle. Although book 2 had more typos than 1 did (I didn't notice any in the first book, and #2 had at least 4 that I caught. "He'd have to come up withy something new."
withy?? [sigh])
Also, I think that some of the timeline may have been screwed up a bit in #2, but dude. It's his universe. Plus, creating three full length novels that are so ...page-turny, and compelling and unique with their take on the zombie mythologies.... I think I can let these things slide.

Now I need the final book. (And what, prey tell, am I going to do after I finish that? Other than send the universe the continuous wish that someone transform these books into kick ass movies...)

Not a lot else to talk about right now, sadly. I spent most of my day finishing the book, and I don't know about you, but when I get all absorbed in a good story, it's difficult for me to think of much else.

Must be a Wiikend

Here's what I've done today:

Woke up at 2:30 in the morning. Put on a shirt and pants, and took the garbage can to the curb. Went back to sleep.

Woke up again around 7 am. Got up and played Super Mario Bros 3 on the Wii.

When the family got up - around 9? - I went to the grocery store to buy milk, lunch supplies [tuna, bread, chips] and also donuts for breakfast.

Finished Super Mario Bros 3. YAY!! Now, next time I start it up, I'll have 15 P-wings to go through the world with. Ya-hoo!

Went outside with Irina and Harper to dig in the backyard, and swing, and just enjoy the sunshine and outdoors.

had lunch.

Played a little bit of Tomb Raider: Anniversary. Lara Croft freaking breaks when she misses a jump. It's really disturbing. (and a little funny.)

Read more of Monster Nation. Had Steph look up to see if Monster Planet is available at the library. (It is!) I also seem to have misplaced my bookmark. Grr.

After lunch we all went out to various locations around town, picking up materials needed for home improvements. Namely, we went to Target, Paddock Pools & Heating, PetSmart (for cat litter), and dinner at Fazoli's.

Once home again, I completed Super Mario Sunshine. WOO HOO!! I beat two Mario games in one day! To be fair, on SMS I had been on the last level for a long time, and simply hadn't played it for several months. But still, two times Mario took on Bowser, and two times, the King of Koopas went down like the punk that he is!

So, the day was basically - playing on the Wii, shopping, playing outside, reading.
I did not do any work on The Project (sigh), and did not do any writing (sigh). There's always tomorrow. And this week at work is a short week, so hopefully I'll make some progress on those things soon.
Although I do still have Super Mario World to complete...

I AM
61%
JAZZTake the Transformers Quiz

Jazz

Jazz picked his sports car form because it’s the epitome of style. If there’s one thing he digs about Earth, it’s human culture.

Like Jazz, you are good by nature. But beware because mischievous thoughts sometimes tempt you. You show no aptitude to become the commander of the Autobots. In addition, you enjoy technology and are aware of the latest trends, but you stick with what works for you.

True!

In other news, despite the fact that I have not yet finished my demon story [or any other writing from the past 15 years or so!], I have a *new* story brewing in my mind. (This one inspired big time by Monster Island. As I said earlier today, "I likes me the zombies.")
Don't worry, though. There will be conclusion to the short story started a few days back.

In other other news, we're still having highs in the 70s around here. It's supposed to finally cool down on Thanksgiving Day - a 20 degree drop is expected - but I'm not really looking forward to that. I kinda like the fact that I can comfortably walk around in short sleeves near the middle of November. Oh well. All good things must etc, etc.

If I go crazy, will you still call me Superman?

So, I'm definitely sick, but I'm not sick. Besides the sore throat (which isn't all that bad. More of a nuisance than any real pain at this point), the only symptom I have from this illness is a complete lack of energy.

I seriously feel like there's a case of kryptonite around. I want to curl up and just stop moving and sleep for a week or so. Hey, if I did that, I'd wake up in time for Thanksgiving. Awesome plan!

But the downside to this illness is that since I'm not incapable of working ("I'll suffer through it."), I haven't yet taken advantage of using sick time and not going to work. That's because I have this bizarre work ethic where I put work ahead of my health. I just feel that if I am not there to do my job, that it won't get done properly. Which is a false belief, but many times logic and I don't see eye to eye.

On the bright side, though, I've got a really great book that's been keeping me company the past two or three days. Monster Island by David Wellington is a remarkable zombie novel that I highly recommend. I only have about 40 pages left to read, so I'm itching to get back to it. The best part? It's part one of a trilogy - and I have the second installment (Monster Nation) waiting for me, too.
What I'll do after I finish that I'm not sure - since I don't think the third book has come out yet. :/ (I would check online, but I'm nervous about stumbling upon spoilers. The story is *very* good, and I would hate to ruin it for myself.)

I guess I better post .... Something

See how I snuck a Beatles song in there? I'm a sly one.

Abbey Road is an amazing album, but definitely one that you should not listen to on "Shuffle". Musical whiplash!

Not a real long (or interesting!) post this time. I've been holding off this illness (cold? flu? boogie-woogie fever?) for a few weeks now, but right now I think the battle may be lost. My throat is scratchy and I'm hot and uncomfortable. Dislike!

I had a different post idea (complete with a different song title to go with) planned, but I'll save it for next week, I guess.

Thy Master's Bidding, part 2

(If you haven't already, you may want to read part 1.)

I didn't scream. Bocal-Sha did startle me (how often do you hear a voice coming from your tool shed, anyway? Let alone a demonic one?) but I wasn't frightened enough to let out a yell. I'd been delving into the dark arts for over a month at that point, so perhaps I was a little jaded. It was just noteworthy that my first true interaction with a being not of this world, and I didn't react in the stereotypical way.

I took a step forward to get a look at the creature. I was more curious than anything at that point. Wouldn't you be? In hindsight, I suppose fear should have been my initial response. Or skepticism, even. But my drive to know more about this beast ...and, okay, I'll admit it, the thought of the power that it could provide me, far outweighed any logical emotions a normal person might have experienced.

As I stepped further into the shed, a small part of me did realize I was completely vulnerable to the demon. If it had wanted to kill me, maim me, devour my flesh - then would've been the perfect time. But it didn't.

Because it wasn't there.

I took another step into the enclosure, and was now entirely inside the small building. I could see the weed whacker, power cords, gardening tools, the lawn mower, plenty of dust, and some cobwebs. But no demonic force. I looked up, looked down, turned around behind me. Was I imagining things? The voice had certainly sounded real enough. Maybe the head injury coupled with my desire to have wanted the spell to work was...

"Bocal-Sha is here, Master." The voice was most definitely real, and was most definitely inside the shed with me. But I couldn't see the demon.

"I... can't see you." I said, and was surprised at how rusty my voice sounded, as though I hadn't spoken for weeks.

A sudden powerful sensation of shame and disappointment enveloped me then. This was the first time that Bocal-Sha's emotions hit me (but not the last), and it was so unexpected and overwhelming that I was knocked to my knees. Evidently, I would learn, when the creature felt something strongly, I, too, would share the emotional state. Although 'share' isn't quite the right word for it. Bocal-Sha's empathy-waves were the equivalent of being emotionally mugged. Whatever I felt become secondary, almost non-existent, while Bocal-Sha's senses were all-encompassing.
"Bocal-Sha is in a weakened state, Master. Bocal-Sha can not reveal. Does Master desire Bocal-Sha reveal?"

The shame that Bocal-Sha felt was subsiding, or I was getting accustomed to it. Either way, I found that I was able to stand again. But all of this newness was difficult to take in. I needed some time to process everything that was going on.
"I...no, I understand if I can't see you," I said to the demon. "Are you able to leave this building?" According to many of the books and websites I had read, demons were subject to numerous restrictions on their powers or abilities depending on how they were summoned.

"Yes, Master. Shall Bocal-Sha leave?"

"Just stay near me."

"Always, Master."

*****

I'm sure if anyone had been watching me mow the lawn, they would have been quite puzzled. A teenage boy pushing a lawn mower, apparently talking to himself the whole time, occasionally laughing hysterically for no reason, twice stopping in order to have an uncontrollable session of crying for five minutes. They would have assumed me insane.
However, that 45 minute conversation allowed me to gather valuable information from Bocal-Sha.

The demon (it was neither male nor female, as demons are evidently sexless beings. When I attempted to determine Bocal-Sha's gender, it simply resulted in a shared bout of confusion.) was not the Devil, but most certainly knew of a Devil. As far as I could surmise, the Devil was an excessively powerful and ruthless demon who rarely personally interacted with humans, or demons. The Devil - whose real name was something unpronounceable - generally took a portion of all other demons souls and power on a regular basis.

Demons use Human souls as a sort of currency/food/energy source, apparently. By offering mine up, Bocal-Sha would be able to give the Devil his due (ha!) and be set for a good amount of time. When I asked what would become of me by no longer having my soul, Bocal-Sha chuckled. "Perhaps a career in politics?"

During our conversation, I learned about the empathy-waves, and how it is simply how Bocal-Sha is, and that it is not exactly controllable. The demon did promise to try and keep the feelings in check. Bocal-Sha also told me that the empathy-waves would not be as powerful to other people. Additionally, it was able to control it's voice so that it would not be heard by other people, unless it wanted to be heard.

Which brought us to the visibility problem. Bocal-Sha told me that if I performed some magic on behalf of it, that it's strength could be improved enough that it would be able to make itself visible to me. The spell was complex, the demon said, but if I wanted, it would be willing to help me through it. There was also a small sacrifice that I would be required to make - just some small animals - Bocal-Sha told me, and once the demon was visible, it would be able to help with further spells, and also able to grant certain powers to me.

I liked the sound of that.

And by "tomorrow", I obviously meant "the day after"

Today at work was the busiest day I've had in a long time, including the time when my supervisor was out on injury leave.
And now, it's 7 at night, and Irina is running around needing supervision, and to be honest, I've lost my steam on the story. For now. I swear, though, that I will finish that story.

What's interesting is when the idea first originated, I had a pretty clear storyline in mind. Now that I've hit the halfway point (or maybe just the end of Act I [of III]), I have about 4 different directions that the story could conceivably go.


And all of them are appealing, in different ways.

This is nothing new, of course. I end up thinking of various 'paths not taken' in nearly every story I write. ...And then, typically, wind up taking none of them. [rolleyes]

I think, though, that I'll finish the story the way that I had originally intended. Maybe the other tales will grow as separate stories some day....

Thy Master's Bidding

It was Craig's idea to begin with. He was the one who jokingly asked me what I'd be willing to sell my soul to the devil for.
We talked about it for a while, coming up with the typical list of teenage boy daydreams: women, cars, money, power.
By the end of the afternoon, when Craig went home, I'm sure he had forgotten about the whole thing, since we'd soon stopped talking about it, and moved on to some other matter - how much Mrs. Tate's class sucked or whether we'd be getting summer jobs this year.

But I hadn't forgotten. The idea of getting the Devil to grant me my wishes, to give me power beyond my wildest dreams, just for trading my immortal soul? That idea stuck with me.

*****

I spent a few weeks doing some research. First at the library, when I should have been focusing on my English report on Moby Dick, I was perusing all the books I could locate on the Occult. Most of it seemed childish, but I found bits and pieces that rang true.

Before I'd exhausted all the resources at the library, I turned to the Internet. What a boon that was! The amount of garbage was exponentially larger, but so, too, was the amount of real information.

Even now, I can't really explain how I knew what was 'true' and what was nonsense. I simply had an instinctual reaction to all things paranormal. An inner voice that seemed to guide me toward what would be beneficial, and steer me away from anything that was a waste of time.

A couple of chatrooms and several hundred websites later, I had managed to secure enough materials and information to perform a real summoning. Of course, I would need a partner to assist me. It was time to see if Craig remembered the idea, and if he was interested in putting it to the test.

*****

As we set up to perform the ritual, I remember falling into a sort of trance. I wonder now whether it had already taken place. If the demon was already in charge, and was just pulling strings. And if that's the case, just how long had it been controlling things? From the very first time that I logged onto DarkForces.net? From the first time Craig and I talked about it? From my birth? Have I always been a pawn?

Regardless, much of the Summoning Ritual went down in a haze, where neither of us spoke, but worked together, as though we were one mind.

The ritual was pretty complex. We were performing it in my basement, on a night of a New Moon (I was surpised to discover that moon phases do, in fact, play a role in magic and demonology, but that it is not the Full Moon that has most influence. At least not for the spell we were going to attempt). Craig was spending the night at my house, and my parents had already gone to sleep for the night.

We lit the candles, and drew the pentagram, the endless knot, seven infinities, and several other arcane symbols. There was a large wooden ankh hanging over the middle of the room, secured by some twine that Craig had procured from his father's camping supplies. The rest of the materials [the ankh, the candles, the incense, the books, etc] I had either ordered online during the previous week, or had crudely made when I should have been working on my school work.

After everything was set up, it was time to get down to business and do the chant.We inverted a few crosses, burned some incense, and sat facing each other.

As I sat there and began the Summoning chant (from memory, even!) with my eyes closed, I could sense that Craig's demeanor had changed. I cracked my left eye open - while still chanting - and saw that Craig was stifling laughter.

I stopped the recitation, opened my eyes, stood up. "Is this a joke to you?" I asked, surprising myself at how much anger was in my voice.

Craig opened his eyes and looked taken aback at my tone. "No...dude, come on, though. I mean..."
I glared at him, daring him to continue his thought, but he could tell that I was not going to be won over by whatever he was going to say. "Sorry," he concluded quietly.

I softened my tone and said, "That's alright. I shouldn't've gotten so angry. It's just that we've come this far. We might as well go the rest of the way."
I sat back down. "Are you going to be able to handle this?" I asked.

If only Craig had said, "No" at that time. Or better yet, "You're out of your mind, Anthony." Or just gone home. Things would've been much different. But instead, whether it was under his own power or not, he smirked and said, "Let's raise some hell."

*****

I completed my part of the chant, and Craig completed his. As the last words of the spell were spoken aloud, we sat there in silence for 10 seconds. Twenty.

Nothing happened.

We both opened our eyes and looked at each other in puzzlement.
"Did we say it wrong?" Craig asked.

"No," I said, somewhat bitterly. "We followed the directions precisely. Nothing happened because this is all fake. I should've known. There's no such thing as demons or de..."
I didn't get a chance to complete my rant, because the twine holding the wooden ankh snapped, and ten pounds of symbolism came crashing down onto my head.

*****

"OhgodOhgodOhgod."
As I groggily came to, all I could hear was Craig chanting those two words repeatedly.

MY head was sore as hell, and my vision was doubled, as I could've sworn I saw two Craigs standing over me. Although one of them looked ...different somehow. I blinked, and there was only one Craig.

I moved my hand to the back of my head, and felt a good sized bump already forming. Craig offered me his hand to help me up. "Are.. are you okay?"

"Yeah. I.. yeah. Ow. I'm okay. What happened?" It was difficult for me to get a real grasp on my surroundings for those first few minutes.

Craig explained what had went down - how the giant cross had fallen and conked me on the head, knocking me out for probably only 10 seconds, but what felt to him like an eternity. "Weird timing" was mentioned. I swear I heard a chuckle at the time, but dismissed it due to my near concussion.

We cleaned up the mess of the ritual, more or less as quietly as we had set it up. I was irate at the fact that the past month or so, along with the thirty bucks I'd spent on the wooden cross that could've killed me, had been a waste. Although as I thought about it, the story seemed pretty good. The fact that the ankh had fallen right after the incantation made for a good tale, and I figured once my ego (and bruise) had healed a bit, Craig and I would get a lot of mileage out of the telling of it.

After everything was cleaned up, we went to go to sleep. Craig asked me again if I was okay. I confirmed that I was, and darkness took me into a dreamless night.

****

The next afternoon, after Craig left, was when it showed up.

I was preparing to mow the lawn. I had gone into the shed to retrieve the mower, and it was in there, waiting. I slid open the shed door and was greeted with a voice that was recognizably inhuman, "Master. You have summoned the mighty Bocal-Sha. What is your desire?"

scooters,vacation,fall

For months before blogger introduced them, I had wanted to implement labels into my blog. After the upgrade, and they were available, I used them periodically, and even went and labeled some of the archives here and there.

Lately, though, I've fallen out of the label habit, and I think I may just abandon the practice altogether. Too many of my posts can't really be categorized, or could fall into categories that I haven't created, or...whatever.

But, just for the sake of posterity, and also so that I have a blog entry for today, I will now 'explain' my (now-defunct) blog labels.


a working class hero is something to be - From the John Lennon song, Working Class Hero. These posts were about work, or things that happened on the job.

as seen on tv - Posts about television.

church sign wisdom - posts that were devoted to that recurring segment, where I discuss the marquee of the church near our house.

everything's a game to you isn't it? - discussion of video games, board games, mind games. And yes.

grr argh - if the entry was about Buffy or Angel or Joss Whedon.

L O S T - February of 2008? That's still like 3 months away.

la la la - Music related posts.

so how is the weather? - Discussing the weather is the lowest common denominator when it comes to small talk. It is the most boring topic that there possibly is. It figures that I would have a label devoted to it on my blog.

strive for mediocrity - from the Boingo song, Insanity. These posts were the 'boring ones'. Many times I considered going through my blog and marking every post with this label...

There is no you there is only meme - Posts that were internet 'memes', or quizzes got this label, which is a play on the line, "There is no you, there is only me" from the Nine Inch Nails song, Only

tube of yous - anything Youtube related

Who needs sleep? - Taken from the Barenaked Ladies song of the same name. Posts that were about sleep. Or the lack thereof, more commonly.

Who's still workin' on his masterpiece? - a line from the David Byrne song, The Great Intoxication. These were posts about writing. More specificially, my writing(s).

xmas - What is it with this meme? It just won't go away, ya know?

yer a wizard - Harry Potter related posts.

you're older than you've ever been - "and now you're even older." Taken from the They Might Be Giants song, Older, this was the label for birthday posts.

zombies - just the one time when I blogged like it was the end of the world, but, who knows if the dead will rise again...

change of plans

I was going to blog about how boring i am, and about how irritated i am by myself and a great many other things, but decided not to.

instead, i'll ask the old standby: what books are you currently reading and/or do you recommend?

nightblogging

During the day, when I'm extremely super busy, and I don't have time to actually blog (also, I don't have a computer available where I can do that), I sometimes come up with seeds of ideas for blogging. Or story writing. Or movie scenes.

But, then, at night, when I have access to the computer, and it's time for me to actually write? Yeah. That's when my mind goes blank. Or all the ideas seem a lot more lame than they were in my head.

....

I've not worked on The Project in about 4 days. I'm still passionate about it, and I still will complete it, it's just that work has been rough, and when I've gotten home, I've been too tired to really do any real thinking. That's why we have weekends, I guess.

8 days a week

Cuz, see, it's all about time.

I'm no physicist (heck, it took me two backspacings to spell physicist without a redline showing up underneath it), but it is my opinion that time-travel [into the past, anyway] is impossible.

1) We would've seen time travelers by now. Or effects thereof.
Yeah, people will argue that if the past has been changed, how would we know, but I think that if time travelers existed, they'd make things ...better.


Or..you know, maybe they wouldn't. Because messing with the past would alter their present (our future), and it might make things worse for them. And besides, maybe they don't care about making our present better. I mean, if I could go back and change, say, events of World War 2 (heh. Almost typed '3' there.), would I? PRobably not.
For the very reasons stated above. Namely, if I killed Hitler or Eisenhower, how would that change the present? What if by doing so I wound up being born 2 months earlier? Or not at all. Can't have that.
Also, all the people who died in WW2... well, they're dead. They don't have an impact on my life *now*, so I should just let them die when they were supposed to die. Right?
But, assuming I could go back and forth at will, and I saw that my actions in the past altered the future negatively... all I'd have to do is go back again, and not do that.
So. Either time travelers don't exist, don't care about changing the past, or, have determined that what we have is the best that we can get. Hmm.

2) Dude. Even God couldn't go back in time.
Of all the powers that God (Christian God from the Bible, we're talking here. Although, come to think of it, none of the gods from other mythologies that I know of have this ability either...) has, one of the biggies that He's lacking... is time travel.
When Adam & Eve disobey him in the Garden of Eden, if God were truly all powerful, you'd think he'd just turn back the clock. [or, you know, if he were omnipotent, he'd've seen it coming]
Again, with Noah and the flood. Pissed at how the world's turning out? Going back and starting from scratch might be easier than, say, drowning 99% of the world.
Hell, when Lois Lane died, all Superman had to do was fly around the world backwards a few thousand times, so you'd think that God Almighty would have that ability...

So, with the exception of Terminators and Bill & Ted, and DeLoreans and Billy Pilgrim (and the aforementioned Man of Steel), once the past is past, it's.... well, past.

This doesn't bode well.

We're only 6 days into the month, and I'm already struggling to find things to blog about.

Fortunately, today is covered by blogging about not having anything to blog about. And tomorrow is BeatlesWednesday, but what will the future hold?

Memeblazers

How the heck do memes get started, anyway? I mean, someone has to be the first to break the ground.

That being said, I'm going to have a gimmick (that could possibly spread, if others participate) for the month of November (Since, as you've probably figured, I am doing the whole NaNoBloPoMoWriThing).
BeatlesWednesday.

On each Wednesday of this month, my post(s) will have some sort of reference to The Beatles. <-the link to the wikipedia page is amusing me greatly. As if there is *anyone* out there reading my blog that has no idea who The Beatles were.>

It might just be a song lyric or title, or it could be a reference to something they did or said. Or it might actually be about The Beatles in some way. But it doesn't have to be. All that matters is that they get some sort of plug, one way or another on Wednesday.

Anyone who wants to can join in, since, you know, the Beatles are pretty universal (or, put another way, The Beatles are known Across the Universe.), and doing this pretty much helps out with 4 of the 30 posts for NaBloPoJackAMo.

Plus, it would be kinda neat if it became a meme, and I was the one who started it. :)

So, Why BeatlesWednesday?
Well, because I was listening to "1" in the CD Player today, and I was all, "Dude. Having a day dedicated to blogging using Beatles song titles would be a neat gimmick."
I picked Wednesday because we haven't had a Wednesday in November yet. And today is Monday, so it gives people time to prepare for it if they want to join in.
Plus, it has a good ring to it. (Or Ringo to it, if you prefer.)

So, November 7th will be the first (of many?) BeatlesWednesday.
Let it be.

There's always exercise

So, the WGA is going on strike.

On the one hand, I wanna say, "Screw the writers. They should be writing for the love of writing, not for money. There are hundreds of thousands of people who would kill to have the opportunity to have their craft televised and viewed by millions, and would happily do it for the amount of cash they're being paid. Or maybe even for less."

On the other hand, producers of television and movies need to stop being so greedy and pay their writers what they're worth, and realize that times change, and technology changes and that without people getting paid for creating their product, we all lose.

I can sympathize with both sides of this argument. Such is the joy of being a Gemini. (Or possibly just being me.)


As with just about everything in life, I'm most concerned with how this strike will affect me personally. If it ends up pushing back and/or changing the quality of my favorite shows (Pushing Daisies, Lost, The Simpsons, and 30 Rock are the main programs I'm worried about) then...well, that would kinda suck.
But I guess there's always movies. I mean, we have 150-ish items on our Netflix queue. So if we were suddenly in a bereft of good tv, we could catch up on those.
But say the strike goes on for a longer period of time, and the movies start to suffer?
Well, there's always the internet.
I mean, just cuz there's a writer's strike doesn't mean that people are going to stop blogging. (Right?)

But if the internet did go through one of it's phases where nobody was entertaining me?

I suppose my title would be true at that point.
So, please, Hollywood. Get it together. Don't make me resort to exercise.

Fall(s) back

Right: Daylight Saving
Wrong: Daylight Savings
Gollum: My Preciouss Daylight Savingses

Entertaining story, told not so entertainingly

Yesterday I deposited most of my paycheck into Stephanie's checking account - since that's the one that we use for paying bills and mortgages and whatnot. I've done this many many times over the years, and most of the tellers at the bank know me, and know Steph. Or, rather, know Steph's name, since when they type in her account number, her name shows up on the computer.

So, yeseterday, I put the money into the account, and the teller & I did the usual, "This is for your wife, right?"
"Yep."
"And you're not on her account?"
"Nope."
rigamarole.

Today, I got an email from Steph who told me that when she checked the account online, she discovered that the money I deposited was, in fact, NOT in there.
It was also not in my account (she checked in case I had suffered mass brain damage and deposited into my account on accident).

I still had the receipt in the van, proving that I had made the deposit. I got that, and saw that the final 4 digits on the reciept did not match the final 4 digits of Steph's account.

Oh. Crap.

So, I got into the van, drove the 2.5 miles to the bank in a *very* short amount of time, and spoke with the same teller as yesterday. Turns out that she mistyped the account number. (But she saw Steph's name when she brought up the other account!? Neither of us could figure that one out. Because when she brought up the 'wrong' one this time, it did not have Steph's name there. Weird.)

Anyway, she took the money out of the wrong one, and put it into my wife's, and apologized a gabillion times for the error. Yay for getting money back where it belongs and not losing our house!

And that's the end of the story.

No writing so far!

.....


D'oh!

Close, but no cigar.

So, my goal that I had set for myself regarding The Project ...ain't gonna happen.
It was to have The Project completed by Halloween.

And while that didn't happen (or, um, won't, since Halloween is still in the future), I'm not torn up about it, because I have been getting work done on it. And the passion I feel about it is still quite high, which is great.

NaNotWriMo

Yeah. Notice the extra 't' there. I am planning on not writing in the month of November. (Well, except at work, where I would probably, you know, end up jobless if I didn't)
But no blog entries. No novels. No blog comments. No emails.

NaNotWriMo: "It's just another month."


No offense meant to anyone who is participating in any sort of writing activities in the month of November. I am actually kind of hoping to use reverse psychology on myself and hope that by giving myself the goal of not writing in November, that I will end up failing and create something. Shh. Don't tell myself.

Check it out.

Awesome stuff seen in the past month:

Weeds - just the first part of season 1 so far, but really enjoying it. Oddly, the pilot episode was kinda meh in my opinion, but I think it's improved as it's gone on.

Pan's Labyrinth - visually a complete knockout. And disturbing in many many ways. Recommended.

Currently airing Season 5 of The Shield at work, and each Thursday I look forward to being able to screen the next episode. It's going to be so sad when I don't have new episodes anymore. When the hell is Season 6 coming out on DVD, anyway?

God is Dead fiction by Ron Currie Jr. - I finished reading this today. It's really really fantastic. Not really a novel, it's a collection of short stories that are all more or less connected - some share characters, all take place in the same universe - but on at least two separate occasions, after finishing one of the stories, I had goosebumps. Goosebumps! I believe God is Dead is his Ron Currie Jr.'s first work, but I will defintely be keeping my eye out for more from him in the future.

Pushing Daisies - airs on ABC on Wednesday nights at 8pm. (If you're in the US, you can also watch episodes on ABC.com) Best new series of the season. If it can maintain it's level of amazingness it might end up being the best series in the history of television. Really.

Nails

I've not cut my fingernails since last month.

So currently they are in between being fingernails and claws. And tomorrow is Halloween! Apropos!

Back then

Reading my archives, I always find that I was funnier/wrote better/more coherently/more interesting in the past. The thing is, at the time, I always think, "This sucks. Nobody wants to read this."

But, seriously, go check out, say, January of 2005. There's some good stuff there.

Which makes me wonder if, in 2009, I'll look back at this and be all, "Man, I was great back in '07. What happened?"

... that is probably the most depressing thought I've had all day.

Damn kids. Get off my lawn.

Since it's the end of October, and 6 o'clock at night, and still 74 degrees outside, there are a bunch of children in the parking lot next to our house playing ball. Which, fine, if I were young and energetic, I'd totally be doing the same thing. But they keep bouncing the ball near our fence, and eventually it's going to go into our yard, and that's only going to end in tears.

I guess my point is that they should go find somewhere else to play. Or, you know, go inside and spend time staring at a computer screen. Like normal people.

What? Huh?

Update? Blog? Yeah. I guess I do remember how.

How much does this look like a blog entry?

Yeah, I don't really have anything to say, but blogger was up, and so here I am.

Here's a ...kinda pointless site: "Mutating pictures"

Although the gamesforthebrain site is pretty fun.

And lastly, even though I've read all the posts regarding the latest episode of Chuck at TWOP, I'm not seeing anyone state my theory -(tagged just in case you want to remain spoiled)

Morgan is totally a spy.
"Proof" -
1) The gov't agent's line, "At least [the info] wasn't sent to his friend."
2) Morgan's line to Chuck's sister - "Chuck tells me all his secrets."
3) Morgan's look when Casey showed up to dinner. (Yes, he's scared of Casey [rightfully so!] but there was more to it, I supsect.)
4) It's how I'd write the show.

So, if I'm wrong, tell me why. Otherwise, in about five months when this is revealed to be the case (just in time for sweeps!) just remember who told ya first. :)

8 = 10

Ha! Take that, logic!

A few random things:

I've given myself a self-imposed deadline regarding the Project. I'm torn on whether I should talk about it, though. (Um, the deadline. I'm *not* talking about the Project [in detail] on my blog until it is complete.) I think I know myself well enough to know that I probably shouldn't. But overall, the feeling of the Project is a good one. I suspect that I might actually finish this. Shocker!

Monday nights are pwned by NBC now. Chuck, Heroes, and Quantum Leap 2.0 are the lineup of the night. Although the good thing about these particular shows is that they are all being fed on nbc.com as well, so, if ever there comes a time when I don't have 180 minutes to kill, I can still be up-to-date on my 'stories'.

Watched Bug yeseterday-into-today. Meh.

I know that I am amazed every year when October rolls around at how fast the time has gone by, and this year is no different. 2007 is almost over with! "Aught Eight" is just around the corner. Before we know it, it will be the teens. Scoopy.