Life of a Beta Male

Future Home?

2007-12-01T14:11:00.000-08:00

Going to San Diego

2007-08-04T08:12:00.000-07:00

Steve and I are driving to San Diego this morning to watch the Padres play the San Francisco Giants. Why are we driving six hours to watch a baseball game?
Well...
Barry Bonds may tie/break the all-time home run record. Sure, Barry Bonds is a stupid prick. But the record is bigger than he is. If Steve and I get to see this happen, it's something I could tell my kids and grandkids about (or dudes at a bar).

We'll be gone Saturday and come back late Sunday as we're catching Sunday's afternoon game too.

I'll be wearing a Penny Arcade Fruit Fucker t-shirt. Isn't that the best shirt ever for this event? (I will now explain why and ruin all the fun of it) See, Barry Bonds uses steroids but will never admit to it AND he's a fucker. And Fruit Fucker is a juicer. Juicer being a synonym for someone on steroids. Also, Fruit Fucker is indeed, a fucker.

I know you're all beside yourselves with laughter now. Feel free to take a break, get a drink of water and breathe deep before you head out to the rest of the Internet hinterlands. Adios.

New Treds

2007-07-31T08:08:00.000-07:00

I took a bold step into a new world last night. That's right, true believers. I bought a pair of Converse. Good bye running shoes of yore, with your ultra thick cushioning and your sometimes stifling comfort. Hello hip kicks with the interesting colors. I got Navy Blue shoes. I think they look all right. And my feet are getting used to the new tires.

My roommate is out in Europe for a month. Which is nice because I don't have to worry about having a roommate for a month. It's basically like I bought the house. Temporarily. Rachael's been over more often cause I don't feel bad about making Janel think she's acquired a second roommate.

We've been a lot better about eating in. I'm getting old. (Already old, Rachael would say) I'd like to start eating healthier or at least acquiring healthier habits now before I start putting on the pounds with impunity. So I'm proud of the effort we made last week.

Last Day of July. Which means August is here tomorrow. Which means the hellish long days of busy busy July will be over. I imagine August will still be busy just not AS busy. I appreciate that.

I better finish getting ready. Laters.

Life of a Beta Male: Weekend Edition

2007-07-20T08:19:00.000-07:00

With apologies to Mr. Ellis and NPR, I present to you....my weekend.

Friday:
I am the only person on my team working today. So I'll probably clock in a normal eight hours instead of the 10 I've been pulling down all of July.

After work, I'm going to the West Valley with Rachael and we're going to dinner with Jen and Casey (the aforementioned newlyweds of the Vegas story). Don't know where we're going yet.

Casey will leave us all after dinner cause Jen, Rachael and I will be hanging out until the Harry Potter release party starts. Yes, I know. A full-grown man excited about a kids book. I'm not saying it's literature. It's not. But it's fun to read. About the same level as my Star Wars books. Either way, I'm excited. I re-read Half Blood Prince to remind myself of important details prior to the new book.

At some point, sleep will occur. Probably in the West Valley instead of at my place. Because....
Saturday:
Rachael and I have a lunch scheduled with a high school friend of hers I have never met. Somewhere in the West Valley, but I don't know if they've decided on a place. I'm hoping for some good embarrassing stories from her youth. That would be great.
Later on Saturday, we're taking out Brad and Amanda to dinner. I think I'd still like to go to the Carlsbad Tavern in the East Valley. Good place, cool atmosphere, good food. Then we'll likely head back to their house and once again drool in envy over Brad's sweet ass Apple set-up. The dude works as a Genius at Apple and well.... his entertainment set up is kick ass. He doesn't get cable. He just downloads all the shows he wants to watch via torrent and keeps them on some massive Apple Mind-Hive or something.
More sleep, more likely at my house this time and.....

Sunday:
Rachael will run off to work. Poor girl having to work Sundays all the time. While she's gone, I'll either A) Finish Harry Potter if I haven't already. B) Play videogames. I'm stuck at this one boss in FFXII and I think I just need to level up/get back to a teleport stone so I can get better equipment. C) Go swimming to beat the oppressive desert heat.
Rachael gets of work and then we head out to the West Valley again to have Game Night. My hot girlfriend will proceed to cook dinner for me and her friends and serve as waitress for the evening. (she enjoys this... how great is that??!!) We will all play board games like Puerto Rico (for sure), maybe Fact or Crap, or any other games they have. I keep wanting to buy and bring Settlers of Catan since the guys at Penny Arcade speak so highly of it. Anyway it will be a great time. I'll either crash there or head home for sleep and the start of another work week.

And now you know the rest of the story....

2007-07-15T16:35:00.001-07:00

The end of Jen's wedding tale:

Scores in Vegas, a lot less entertaining than one might think. Yes the women were hot but it was ridiculously expensive and just not all that phone. Really... I swear.
There was a weird thing where some of the men in our group were basically hitting on some strippers. A stripper talked to me for a while about her life. With no asking for money or if I wanted a lap dance. We finally decide to get out of there and....

In the cab, the cab driver kept asking us if we wanted to go to a brothel. ahhh no.
Though some of the men in the group did. Since it was my job to keep Jen's future husband away from any unnecessarily snatches (or any snatches for that matter) I said no and forced the cab driver to take us home.

Jen's wedding was great. We were supposed to go to some club afterwards and they wouldn't let us in, even though Jen had reservations and was in a wedding dress. Some jerkoff was throwing thousands of dollars around in there so she got bumped for that guy. Annoying. So Jen's brother and I walked to a liquor store, bought two cases of beer and walked back. (looooong walk)

We get to Jen's suite. Everyone's tired. No one wants to party. Here's Chris and I... thinking we saved the day... alas the day... ruined. So Chris and Chrissy (chris' wife) and I walk out to go to our hotel. But we have all this beer. We can't drink it all, waaay too much for three people. So we start handing out beers for free. We were fricking rock stars. Two thug-ass gangstas said we could hang. Some people said we were the best part of their trip. etc.

Oh oh oh I forgot. The Ice Bar Story:
The night Chris got into Vegas, he met us directly at Mandalay Bay. He immediately said we had to go to the Ice Bar. He proceeds to tell us that the Ice Bar is a magical place, a bar so cold that every thing is made of ice. Where they make you wear giant fur coats and russian hats. Where shots of vodka sluce down slopes of mini ice mountains and into your mouth. Where Buddha, Jesus and Vishnu all get smashed with you. Ok not that last part. But everything else.

We go to Red Square, the bar where the Ice Bar is, and proclaim we would like to go to the Ice Bar. We have to buy a bottle of vodka to get in. A bottle of Gray Goose: $5K or something like that... not happening. So we find a really cheap (relatively) bottle and get in. They really did make us wear giant fur coats and Russian hats. I was getting excited. Then we walk inside....

The Ice Bar is actually a tiny room. With a plastic table that looks like ice in the middle. It has old, mansion-style chairs. And it's really fucking cold. No ice mountain. Nothing was made out of ice. No deities. Our server sets out our bottle of cheap vodka. We start doing shots. The vodka is horrible but it is so cold it's hard to tell after a while. We were smashed fairly quickly which was fun. Chris and I stole a Russian hat. We put it in his backpack. We got our server to do two shots with us, even though she said she would get fired for drinking with us. (Jen held her fur coat over the door.)

Our vodka=tapped. Server gets us all together. She says she has to tell us something important. "It's very cold in here. But it's not very cold out there. When you leave, the blood is going to rush to the surface of your skin. It's going to make you extremely drunk, extremely fast. You're going to be light headed. So walk slowly and don't be ashamed to grab the bar for balance on the way out."

We kinda laughed her off. Then Jen's dad walks out. Big tall man. "holy crap!" he shouts and grabs the bar. We all start giggling. And this happens to everyone. Whoa! Grab the bar. Cue giggles. So we get out to the general area and proceed to laugh our asses off. Good times. We grabbed burgers later and I took the tram back to my hotel.

Either way, best part of the wedding trip. I will end here for now but I might have a more current post later today.

Shun the Non-Believers!

2007-07-02T20:59:00.000-07:00

Shuuuuuuunnnnnnnn....

Ok I had a weird day today. To make the tale short, I'll just say I stuck my foot in my mouth real good doing something I thought was nice but obviously was not in retrospect.

Anyway... where was I.... right... Vegas.

One of my best friends in the world, Jen, was getting married in Vegas on St. Patrick's Day. It was her second marriage in two (three?) years. I know that sounds bad. It kinda is. But her new husband is a light years better than her first husband who was a jackass to the Nth degree.

I promised Jen two things: 1) I would be there. 2) I would take care of her husband and keep him out of trouble.

I don't know her husband all that well. We had really only met a few times tops. But I agreed cause she's essentially an adopted sister at this point. Family obligations and all that.

I get off the plane and see her husband and his best friend and his wife. H will be the husband. J will be the best friend. A will be the wife of the best friend. Capiche?

Within seconds of meeting J and A I was ready to slaughter them both. They're not bad people per sae. Just extremely annoying. and stupid. Very very stupid. J was supposed to call me about bachelor party details since it was his show. He never called. He told Jen he called me, left a message and I never called back. I knew for certain I had no call. So he checks the number. He got the number wrong and was dialing some number in New Hampshire. The stupid part is, he lives in Arizona. He was told repeatedly that I too live in Arizona. Why would I have some weird ass non-AZ area code? And when I didn't call back, don't you think he'd check with Jen to make sure the number was right.....

Anywho, H and I didn't check bags so we met up with Jen, her mom and Jen's brother's wife to get out of the airport. J and A rented their own car I believe.

The bachelor party is that night. H is all excited cause he doesn't drink all that much. This is a big deal. He's obsessed with the idea of not getting a hangover. He just has to buy a giant bottle of B-12. He needs it. He mentions this maybe... 20 times on the way to the hotel so we can drop of our carry-ons. And aspirin. B-12 and Aspirin.

Jen's ready to kill him. She's uber stressed about the wedding and her bachlorette party. I think it's just bride stuff. Like it's mandatory for her to be on edge. I don't blame her cause H is being pretty annoying.

She gets so mad she pulls over, gets out, makes Chrissy (brother's wife) drive. Does NOT want to talk to H. They chill out about it later but... adds to the stress for me and everyone else in the car too.

Fast forward to the bachelor party:
Me, H, J and Douchebag (H's other best friend) meet up at the Venetian. J is supposed to have a plan. His plan is (I'm not kidding) thus:
1. Go to Casino floor bar
2. Start gambling at the bar slot machines
3. Get "free" drinks
4. Get dinner
5. Go to strip club
6. ?????
7. Profit
8. Sleep

The free drinks idea does not work out at all. And I hate slot machines. And I don't have that much money to be wasting on games I don't like. I essentially paid $40 for two rum and cokes. boooooo. This blew most of the cash I had available for the night. I can't help it. I'm poor.

Then dinner is at the Luxor. At a place where the prices are waaaaay too high. The food was meh at best. more drinks were paid for. H obviously is not paying for anything. I was something like... $80 a person. God this trip sucked my balls money-wise. I'm still annoying by the dumbness of J and Douchebag. They spend the whole dinner talking about the joys of owning a Dairy Queen and whatever else J owns. I wanted to kill myself due to the boredom. I essentially texted with Rachael most of the time, who was having a much better time reporting on a story about high school musicals.

From the Luxor, we went to the strip club Scores. And I should probably make this part 1 of the Long No One Really Asked to Hear This Vegas Wedding Story. I'll try to be more concise in part two.

You've been on hold how long?

2007-07-02T08:24:00.000-07:00

I've been coerced into posting again. Granted I want to, it's just me being lazy. And then getting performance anxiety (this is btw the only time I get that I swear).
I do want to go back and make those retroactive posts and I will. But to start, I'll do a cop out and fill out the silly online survey that Rachael filled out.

Stuff that you should know about me:

1. What is the middle name of the first person you ever slept with?
Rachel (weird huh?)

2. What kind of underwear are you wearing and what color?
Not wearing underwear. :D

3. What is the song you want played at your funeral?
Oooh. Good question.... Eleanor Rigby if I die alone. Pyramid Song by Radiohead otherwise. Actually play that one no matter what.

4. Would you tell your parents if you're gay?
Sure. I'm fairly certain my parents would be ok with either of their kids being gay.

5. What would your last meal be before getting executed?
Basically what I had at Steve's bachelor party in D.C. A zillion bacon-wrapped scallops, a ton of wine, a giant filet mignon, a huge basket of bread and to mix it up my mom's good dessert she makes: striped delight.

6. Beatles or Stones?
Beatles! (I concur)

7. If you had to pick one person on earth who should die, who?
Only one? Shit. That guy who made my life a living hell in middle school. Matt somethingorother. Can't remember his last name but I still wish him a life of ills.

8. Beer, wine or hard liquor?
Do I have to choose? See, THAT makes me look bad. I think if I had to I'd go beer. More variety I suppose. Wine is a close second. I really don't have a problem with liquor either though.

9. What is the most important quality your mate possesses?

Kindness/sweetness/thoughtful. It's all kind of the same thing. For a hater, she's rarely hateful. She genuinely goes out of her way to be a good person and good to people and that means a whole lot to me.

10. What are your plans for the future?
I'm a mega planner so I'll give the cliff notes version:
Keep doing this job I have either here or for someone else
Get married
Buy a house
Have kids
Kick ass
Take names

12. Do you walk around the house naked?
I would do it more often if I didn't live with someone I'm not sleeping with. I like being naked. Not in a let's go out and join a nudist colony way but a meh clothes are annoying sometimes kind of way.

13. How many drinks does it take to get you drunk?
Completely depends. I've had one beer and been all Whoa. I've had seven or eight and not really feel it. Usually though four or five does the trick for sure.

14. Where is your best friend?
My best friend is likely in Gilbert in the condo he and his wife (and temporarily his wife's sister) live in. Need to call him.

15. Hair color you like on someone you're dating?
I've always had a fascination with redheads.

16. Would you rather be blind or deaf?
I'd rather be blind. I can't stand the idea of not being able to listen to music.

17. Do you have any special talents?
More than I can count/know.;) I think I have a very long attention span, which is a talent of a kind. I have a very good memory, which helps when I do any kind of trivia related board game. I solve problems.

20. Favorite hateful thing to do to someone?
I don't think I do very many hateful things. I like to talk bad about children and the elderly. I like offensive humor. Not racist/sexist stuff but like... I dunno. Jokes about abortion and things like that.

My favorite hateful thing done to anyone ever though was when Fogg filled Pickard's clothing iron with urine. He made sure to drink a lot of water before hand too. So it looked just like normal water. Nothing like tricking an asshole into steaming piss into his dress shirts for payback.

21. First movie you can remember seeing as a kid?
The first thing that comes to my head is the Karate Kid but I think I probably saw movies before that one. I think I fell asleep too.

22. What do you do as soon as you walk in the house?
Put my keys on the counter. Go to my room. Sit down at computer.

23. When's the last time you went on a date?
Wednesday is right Rachael. We went to see Knocked Up. Which was funny. And also funny cause Rachael hates birth scenes in movies and I'm amused by that. Though I do sympathize. Speaking of... I need to take you out on more dates. The heat means less of those I think.

24. Do you like horror or comedy?
Comedy! I'm not a fan or horror movies. I'm a scared little bitch.

26. Person you most wish you hadn't made out with?
Lauren. My Freshman year in college. Granted i was so smashed I couldn't see straight. She certainly did not want to make out with me. Wait, does that count then?..... If it doesn't then I'd say.... Samantha. She was a bad idea in general.

28. If you weren't straight, what person of the same sex would you do it with?
I dunno....Joss Whedon? Less to do with sexual attraction, more to do with an undying affection for all he's ever written/filmed.

29. Where do you want to live when you are old?
The Tech Castle. Or an island cabana.

30. Who is the person you can count on most?
My family. I know they're not one person but as much as whine and bitch about them, they always come through.

31. If you could date any celebrity past or present, who would it be?
I'm assuming past or present means dead or living. I'd go Grace Kelly. ::growl:: so hot.

32. Where was your first kiss with your mate?
Outside of the Wildflower Bread Company at Arcadia. And she giggled during it. She is a complete dork. But I love her for it.

33. Favorite drinking game?
Drink the Beer.

34. What did you dream last night?
Last night, I dreamed Rachael and I were married and living in our Tech Castle. It was kind of like her dream she blogged about in that I had a giant group of friends over. It wasn't just the nerds though. We were clearly having some sort of party. There was barbecue. And Rachael was being very domestic blissy. No family though outside of Jeff and Katie. That was the whole dream. It was basically the party. Small talk. Games were played. Movies were watched. A bunch of people went swimming. It was a boring dream in that nothing amazing happened. It was also very happy though. Left me in a very restful state when I woke up.

Speaking of...
Shazbot... this took longer than I expected. Got to shower, put some clothes (including underwear) on and get to work.

That wasn't so bad after all

2007-03-22T08:19:00.000-07:00

After dropping off Princess at the airport, which I should say was an act of such brutal efficiency that Rachael and I should have won a gold medal in the taking a friend to the airport event, we went straight to my parents house.

At first I wanted to put off having Rachael meet my parents. I had just recently met Rachael's parents. We were both looking forward to a break from "big" couple type events. I wasn't worried my parents wouldn't like her or that she wouldn't like them. I just wanted to do things on my own schedule.

Jen called though a few days after I told my mom about Rachael and I. She ripped into me about how it's not fair that I'm not letting my mom meet Rachael before her wedding party. That it would be really uncomfortable for both Rachael and my mom to meet each other at the party. That I'm being completely immature about this and not taking mom's feelings into account.

I responded with:
A) Mom makes too big a deal over things like this
B) It shouldn't be a big deal.
C) What the hell's wrong with meeting at the party? Mom this is Rachael. Rachael this is mom. Oh look booze. And plenty of distractions.

In the end, to please my adopted sister, I agreed to talk to mom about arranging a meeting. I know it sound like I just acquiesced. I did. But it was more out of respect for Jen and her wedding party thing that I did so. Plus I talked to Rachael about it and she said it will be better just it over with too, especially if anyone was going to make a big deal about it.

We arrived at my parents house. Rachael was pretty nervous. More nervous than I thought she would be. She was welcomed by my parents' three dogs Chloe, Molly and Macey. Since Rachael was completely new, they went kind of ape shit over her. I gave her a quick tour around the inside of the house and then off to Olive Garden.

Mom chose the most crowded Olive Garden in the Valley. WTG mom. While we waited we did small talk stuff. I resolved myself going into this to tease mom quite a bit so as to take the focus of Rachael so she wouldn't feel like a bug under glass.

Basically it went well. Dad was even quieter than usual. Mom handled me teasing her fairly well. Rachael was quiet but not oddly so. She's usually shy around new people so I wasn't too surprised by that. It was good.

Rachael and I were driving back to my place. Talking about the days events. She likes my parents quite a bit, especially my dad. Knew that was going to happen. All my girlfriend's love my dad and my dad loves all my girlfriends. She said she enjoys immensely family male talk. When the men in my family start talking together, the conversation moves very quickly, very loudly with very little order. If you want to jump in you have to shout or do something to stop the hurtling train of chat. Most people find it annoying. I love that Rachael enjoys it. She got to see a good taste of it earlier on Saturday when she and my brother and I went to lunch before seeing 300.

Er...umm....ok that's all I really had to say about the parentals meeting. Check that out bitches, three blog posts in three days and we haven't even got to the Vegas posts yet. I am a golden God.

300 Spartans on a Dead Man's Chest

2007-03-21T08:39:00.000-07:00

I can't believe how many people saw this movie and had political thoughts about it. For chrissakes, it's a sword and board snuff film. It's the equivalent of Die Hard or Bloodsport. Sure it throws in some comments about honor and warrior code and yadda yadda yadda.
Xerxes may be the gayest villain in the history of moviedom. "It's not the lash they fear...." (steps behind the Spartan king...) GROSS! It has humpbacks people! Humpbacks! As a general rule movies with humpbacks in them cannot be political.
Also any movie featuring as many decapitations as this one that is NOT about the French Revolution also cannot be considered a movie one thinks about.
Furthermore, America is not Sparta. We are not a warrior nation. We go to malls. We buy things. We have a great fighting force, true. But what percentage of our population could be part of that force right now? Probably less than one percent.
So don't get your johnson all hard on the idea that America is Sparta fighting against the invading Persian hordes in Iraq. WE INVADED THEM IDIOT! If anything, THEY'RE Sparta. I don't think they are. No one is. Remember!!! This is a silly action movie. That's it. Quit thinking about it.
::takes breath::
That being said, the nerds and I and Rachael all enjoyed the movie thoroughly. Everyone had a good time. We all enjoyed the buckets of blood and had a quick nerd circle chat about it afterwards. Then Rachael and I had to sprint away to take Princess to the airport and then go to dinner with my parents, whom Rachael would be meeting for the first time.

Too Much To Handle

2007-03-20T08:36:00.000-07:00

A lot has happened since I last posted. I'm going to do my best to get to all of it. I promise. I swear. This will occur. This is prophecy.

I will detail the events that happened. Those events are:
Seeing the movie 300 w/ the nerds
Rachael meeting my parents
Heartfelt, emotional conversations that will probably make people gag
How I got involved with four different fantasy baseball leagues
Going to Las Vegas for my friend Jen's wedding (this will at least be a three part story)
Vague retelling of the reorg at work (I don't want to get in trouble people)
Me trying to start exercising again

The first retrospective post will occur tomorrow, likely in the morning.
Hold me to it dear readers (I like to think of you as the council of 10)

Splendiforous Baseball

2007-03-05T07:27:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year again internets. The time when the valiant and true turn their hearts to America's national pastime. No, not football. No, not March Madness. No, not professional lacrosse. Cmon! It's baseball time.

Spring training has officially begun in both Arizona and Florida. This means I can officially skip out of work on afternoons and hang out at Phoenix Municipal Stadium and watch my beloved Oakland A's get ready for the regular season.

There's really nothing quite like sitting out by the home bullpen and watching a game. Eating a hot dog. Drinking a beer. Squaking with the catchers, pitchers and coaches out by the bullpen. Playfully teasing the right fielder all game. Brutally bashing the opposing team's right fielder all game. Craning your neck to watch long fly balls as they soar over the fence for a home run. Smoked grounders or line drives to the hot corner. A perfectly turned double play. Dirt flying through the air as a player slides into second with a stolen base. Blistering fastballs on the inside corner. The sweet arc of a 12-6 curve. The guile of a catcher and pitcher fooling a batter for a strikeout thanks to some ingenious pitch selection and performance. Fluke flair singles over the first baseman's head. An outfielder's cannon arm turning an advancing baserunner into smoked bacon. The soft thchunk and slow roll of a well-executed bunt. A batter working the count and earning a walk. Which reminds me of my favorite baseball joke:

So a Scotsman sails across the sea to America. On his first day in the United States, he heads straight to a baseball game, being his new country's national pastime and all. Duncan wanted to learn as much as he could about this "baseball" since it was so beloved by Americans. The Scotsman, in kilt and all, takes a seat behind home plate. The first batter steps to the plate and waits for the first pitch. With a crack of the bat, the batter knocks the ball into the gap in left-center. The crowd jumps to their feet yelling, "RUN RUN RUN!" The Scotsman is confused. Duncan doesn't understand what just happened exactly but everyone else seemed pretty excited about it.
The second batter steps to the plate and waits for his first pitch. He knocks the ball right back up the middle. Again the crowd jumps up and starts yelling, "RUN RUN RUN!" Duncan looks around again. He thinks he's starting to get this crazy American game.
The third batters steps to the plate. The first pitch is way outside. The second pitch almost hits the batter. The third pitch splashes into the dirt. And the fourth pitch soars above the batter's head and is barely saved by the catcher. The batter drops his bat and starts moving to first.
Duncan jumps to his feet, yelling, "RUN YOU BASTARD RUN!!!" The crowd laughs and smiles at the ignorance of their new Scottish friend. The Scotsman, shamed, sits down with a disappointed frown on his face. The man in the seat next to him takes pity on Duncan and leans over.
"You don't need to yell run there sir," says the man.
"Why not?" asks the Scot.
"Cause he got four balls," says the man.
Duncan now understands. He jumps to his feet yelling, "WALK WITH PRIDE MAN. WALK WITH PRIDE!"

FIN

So if you live in Florida or Arizona, make sure to get your butt to a Spring Training game. It's good for your health.

Meet the Parents

2007-02-25T17:25:00.000-08:00

This edition of the Mixed CD of the Week is all about Meeting Rachael's Parents. Thus the title: Meet the Parents. Most of the songs were picked more on song title than subject so... it might not all work. Of course suggestions for more songs or amendments to the CD are always welcome and appreciated:

Yes, My Darling Daughter- The Glenn Miller Band
No Complaints- Beck
Caring is Creepy- The Shins
Neighborhood #2(Laika)- Arcade Fire
Sons and Daughters- Decemberists
Tongue Tied- Aqualung
Maggie's Farm- Bob Dylan
No Excuses- Alice in Chains
Walk This Way- Aerosmith
Mother's Little Helper- Rolling Stones
White Wedding- Billy Idol (I know this is two appearances of Billy Idol on this feature but I swear I don't like him that much! lol )
Better Man- Pearl Jam
And I Love Her- The Beatles
I Was Made To Love Her- Stevie Wonder

Vacated Premises

2007-02-22T07:31:00.000-08:00

So my awesome roommate, the female Bob Villa, is gone for the week. Won't come back till Monday. Which means I'll be enjoying this amazing house all by myself. Granted it would be more fun if I had money. Why? Well just cause. Things are more fun with more money generally speaking.

And it's Alice's Birthday weekend this week. I got her a really awesome present which I'm sure she'll love. I'm going to wrap it in printouts of a Python script I'm working on cause I'm that big of a nerd.

She's never truly been drunk before so we're going to give it the old college try Friday. And probably again on Saturday. Fun will be had by all and hopefully the most fun will be had by Alice.

Last weekend, I had a few weird freaking out moments about the whole me and Alice going out thing. Not that us going out was bad. Just not trusting my own feelings after the crater that was my last relationship. But I took a long walk in the rain with my hoodie on and talked out loud to myself like a crazy person. And I decided I'm ok and this is a good thing. The relationship that is. I also told the Ex we need to stop talking all the fucking time at work cause it's weird and not right to Alice. This is true even though there's a greater chance that my current employer will give me a raise to an 8 figure salary and buy me a personal yacht than there is of me and the Ex ever deciding to get back together.

Conclusion: Alice and I are a very very good thing that makes me ridiculously happy. I am no longer freaking out about being happy. Boy that was easy. What took me so long.

Hands

2007-02-21T07:38:00.000-08:00

So I've been fiddling with this playlist for the last two days. Still not done. And I'm now taking suggestions from those who can think of songs that fit the subject.

Hands. Songs about hands. Songs with the word hand or hands in the lyrics or title.

Here's what I have so far in no particular order:
Hands- Raconteurs
Hands Open- Snow Patrol
With My Own Two Hands- Ben Harper
Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Can See- Busta Rhymes
Palm of Your Hand- Cake
Get Your Hands Off My Woman- The Darkness
Take My Hand, Precious Lord- Mahalia Jackson
Take Me Anywhere- Tegan and Sara
I Wanna Hold Your Hand- The Beatles

The Sharpest Lives

2007-02-16T06:59:00.000-08:00

Ahh... blog I have avoided you and I'm not sure why. Time for a standard, what has Head been up to lately post.

Monday
I was going to have a run of the mill Monday but then one of my proposals actually stuck so I had to change all my plans and work on that. That pretty much consumed my work day on Monday and Tuesday.

After work, I went over to my Mom's to go to dinner with her and my brother. Dad's out of town on business. We went to Red Lobster. I had steak and shrimp. It was ok. Not a fan of the Lob. Boring food and a boring place to eat it. Anywho, Mom's birthday is coming up.... shit... it's tomorrow actually. Shazbot! Still no present for her. Fuck me. Ok well... we asked her what she wanted and she said a Nano.

Mom doesn't own CDs. Actually I think she owns three. And one is a recent Lionel Ritchie CD. Lionel.....Ritchie. Now that someone has woken you with smelling salts I'll continue. I tell Mom that she doesn't like music and therefore doesn't really want a Nano. She says she does like music. I say who's your favorite band. ::blank stare from Mom:: I tell her that a Nano is a STORAGE DEVICE. It STORES MUSIC. and if you DON'T HAVE MUSIC, there's no point in owning one. "Oh I'll just listen to the radio then." Mom, the Nano doesn't HAVE a radio. "It doesn't?" No mom. It doesn't. "Oh well that's stupid." (thinks to himself, No Mom it's stupid to want a Nano when you have zero interest in music. Music to you is the noise that filter into your ears that stops you from thinking. You don't listen to the words. You don't know or care who plays the songs. SO WHY WOULD YOU WANT A NANO!!??? AGHHHH!! ::breaths::) I'll get you a radio Mom. Maybe a nice handheld one or something. But you don't need an Ipod of any kind. It won't make you cool.

Wow... that went a lot longer than I thought. Just drives me insane when Mom tries to be hip or something or keep up with her rich friends. It lacks in the logic.

Tuesday
Work was my project that assigned to myself.
Normally I'm supposed to play WoW on Tuesday nights. But we were essentially doing the same exact thing we did the week before. And I didn't want to do that. And since I can't see Alice much on weekdays I decided to hang with her right after work for a little bit.
We met over at the Wildflower by my house. We talked, drank soda, ate cookies of varying quality. It was fun. I'm still ridiculously retarded over Alice. And I really enjoy the feeling. She's a good thing. We part ways and I think I played Children of Mana till I got sleepy.

Wednesday
Valentine's Day. Work was a blur. Catch up work from having to do my project on Monday and Tuesday. After work was fun though.
Alice and I met up at my house. We exchanged gifts. She got some lotion and lip gloss and a book from me. She bought tickets to take us to the MCR show coming up. Which is really cool. We're going to pretend to be emo kids. Dress up and everything. I think we might even get to do field research at a local starbucks. Find out what the emo types are wearing these days. Don't want to accidentally look goth or something.
After gifts, we went out to the lake to hang out. It started pouring down rain which sucked and rocked at the same time. Rocked cause.. I love rain. It turns me on. Kinda like catnip or something. And sucked cause we couldn't walk around at first. Luckily the rain stopped about 15 minutes after we got there. It was chilly but I think we still had a good time hanging out and talking and visiting Karl The Krakken.

Thursday
Boring work. But at least I got to chat/see Alice. Went home. Ate some food. Told Jenny about me and Alice. She seemed pleased but we'll see. Jenny has really unrealistic expectations about my girlfriends. She claims that she just hated the Ex cause she was a bitch. But sorry, Jenny was the bitch in this situation. Jenny has this capacity to rewrite history in her head to suit her own desires. Whatever. She'll like Rachael. It's almost impossible NOT to like her.
I then drank some beer, played Children of Mana and passed out early.

Friday
Oh wait... that's this morning. Shit. Got to go to work. Laters.

Scintilating

2007-02-11T22:25:00.000-08:00

I'm reading this new book, Love is a Mix Tape. It inspired me to make a regular blog feature: Mixed CD of the Week!

This week's entry is Scintilating. That's the title of the CD. So say we all.

Here's the tracklist:

Kissing the Lipless-The Shins
This Modern Love-Bloc Party
Think I'm in Love-Beck
Summersong- Decemberists
Still in Love Song-The Stills
And It Raind All Night-Thom Yorke
Juxtaposed with U-Super Furry Animals
Cradle of Love-Billy Idol
The Passenger-Iggy Pop
My Doorbell-The White Stripes
Sharp Dressed Man-ZZ Top
Party Lights-Junior Brown
Dance with Me-The Sounds
Somebody to Shove-Soul Asylum
The Sharpest Things-My Chemical Romance
Dirtywhirl-TV On the Radio
Happiness is a Warm Gun-The Beatles
Jenny Marie (Don't Go)-Cowboy Mouth
Girl Inform Me-The Shins
Underglass-Frames

Tell me what you think people.

Why I'm Better Than My Brother

2007-02-10T07:43:00.000-08:00

See Jeff thinks he can impress the interwebs with his poorly thought out, grammatically incorrect, misspelled arguments about why he's better than everyone. I'll admit, Jeff is better than almost everyone. Everyone....except me that is.

He points out that he gets fan mail. Well, my fans love me so much it goes beyond mere letter writing. They want to spend every waking moment with me. It's the truth. Just ask Alice.

Jeff does not have Hip Slang Spelling, as he puts it. He has incorrect spelling. Jeff misspells so often that you can't even figure out what the fuck he's talking about. It's like a third grader crapped their pants and tried to make a blog post by smearing the poo on the monitor. If Poo-Smeared Monitors = Hip Slang Spelling, then I don't want to be hip. I'd rather NOT smell like poo.

Don't even step to my Street Fighter skills. Jeff used to cry and throw the controller because I'd beat him too many times. Some say you should let your little brother win a few. I say you should let your little brother know he's your bitch and always will be. Your M. Bison stays up at night having nightmares of my Ryu beating the living shit out of him.

Jeff may be an athlete now, but it was me who saved him from the bully that tried to beat him up. Jeff was playing basketball when some punk ass tried to fight him. Lil' bro was getting his ass handed to him but no worries. Dr. Johnny Waffles was on the case. I came in, pulled the guy off Jeff and proceeded to light the kid up like a Christmas tree. I left marks. Lots of them. Beat the kid so bad his parents called to complain about the whooping. When my parents told them their son had it coming, they understood. After all, they didn't know it was ME who did the beating. When they found that out, they apologized and thanked my parents for giving their son the honor of getting the crap beaten out of him by someone like me.

I don't kill Noobs in WoW. I'm the founding member of Al-Anoob, an organization dedicated to stopping the wanton slaughter of noobs. I gently guide the noobs in the world to safety.

Jeff would like to say that reading is overrated and that this fact is proven by science. Since Jeff is barely literate and only knows enough about science to say that stove=hot and hot=burn, I think everyone can agree he doesn't know what he's talking about. It's the illiterate ramblings of my younger sibling that are aligned with the god-fearing types, the knuckle-dragging creationists and the mouth-breathing Bible thumpers.

Jeff says he's kinder than me. But when was the last time he bought a homeless man a sandwich? Huh? Cause I do it everyday on the way home from work. I give homeless people warm hot meals and drive them to a safe place where they can sleep and take a hot shower.

Jeff, he says he helps horses. I help people. Do you love horses more than people Jeff? DO YOU? I bet you cried when they had to put down Barbaro. But I don't see Jeff crying over the poor, the homeless, the meek of the Earth. I do. Every day. Cause I care.

Whenever Jeff can pull himself away from using horses to stomp homeless people to death, maybe he can come to grips with the fact that I am clearly better than him.

Billy Idol=Not Simple Minds

2007-02-05T07:48:00.000-08:00

I had quite the amazing weekend. Rachael came over around 5 after work on Saturday. I led her on a quick tour of all the webcomics I regularly check out. Then I slightly reluctantly showed her World of Warcraft. Showed her how it works, what you do, all the various doodads and whatzhits. Then it was off to Werner's b-day party.

The nerds all seemed to approve of Rachael, which while unnecessary, still a good thing. I ate a few handfuls of carrots from the veggie tray and had a soda but that was it. No chili or dessert for me cause my stomach started acting up again. Still, lots of fun was had. Malone brought over Guitar Hero and we all rocked out on the Werner's projector screen. I think it's basically Malone, me, Shaun and Freeman when it comes to GH-Rock God Status. Malone is like Hendrix on that shit.

Cute thing that happened while the boys were rocking:
Werner's little boy Rand walks over to Rachael. Rachael was sitting in a chair watching us all be silly nerd boys. Rand just hops onto Rachael's lap and proceeds to chill out for the next hour or so. Totally out of the blue. He's about a year and a half old and just started walking. He's a button. No one could explain Rand's love for Rachael but it was palpable. He even fetched her little toy balls and then go right back to sacking out on her lap. Adorable. Reminds me that I need a digital camera.

Example of Me being Me:
I don't know how it came up but someone tried to say that Billy Idol sang Don't you forget about me on The Breakfast Club soundtrack. So not true. And I knew it. I said so but duder (think it was Will) refused to believe me. Said he knew that was Billy Idol. So I whip out my crappy cell phone, pull up the web, google "Don't you forget about me" and find a wiki article about the song. It says that Simple Minds NOT Billy Idol played the song on the soundtrack. Billy Idol covered the song but I knew that cause sadly I own the Billy Idol's Greatest Hits CD. I win. AGAIN!

Anyway the nerds all started playing poker and I didn't have money and neither did Sugarpants so we hit the road. The night concluded with Rachael's first time seeing Rear Window. She hearts. Which duh of course she does. It's amazing. As was my weekend. Sunday was sleeping and super bowl and that's about it. But when Saturday was that good, it pretty much doesn't matter what happened Sunday.

Silly and Anxious

2007-02-03T10:09:00.000-08:00

I've been sick the last few days. Really stinks. I'm still in that phase of a new relationship where everything is amazing, awesome and wonderful. And I've had to spend the last day not enjoying it. I'd say last two days but Rachael was sweet and came over Thursday night to watch a movie with me. (Almost Famous)

Today she meets the Nerd Clan, none of whom have blogs. At least that I know of. It's Werner/Reqk's 30th birthday bash. It should be a blast. The nerds are very kind even if they think they're mean.

Before that though I have to go shopping at Safeway. I need a few things food/toiletry-wise. Then I have to shower and probably should shave my stubble. Felt lazy the last few days since I was sick and decided not shaving would be my reward for feeling like crap.

Hopefully my roommate goes out again tonight. Would be nice to have the place to myself again. mostly.

The Rear Window Theory

2007-01-30T21:38:00.000-08:00

Ok since it's related to the more interesting news as of late, I will explain the Rear Window Theory on relationships.

First, Rear Window is a movie by Alfred Hitchcock released in 1954. It starred Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly (::swoon::). Stewart played a photographer for a magazine who is laid up in his apartment with a broken leg. The insurance company sends a nurse to his place every day to make sure he's doing ok. (Kinda funny to think about something like that now) Stewart is dating Lisa Carol Freemont (Grace Kelly). She's a socialite and drop dead gorgeous. She's obviously crazy for Stewart's character.

The plot of the movie surrounds Stewart's character peeping on his neighbors when he
sees one neighbor acting suspiciously. Action ensues. (don't want to ruin the movie)

Anyway, the Rear Window theory is based on something the nurse says to Stewart.

Stella: Look, Mr. Jeffries, I'm not an educated woman, but I can tell you one thing. When a man and woman see each other and like each other, they oughta come together--wham!--like a couple of taxis on Broadway, and not sit around analyzing each other like two specimens in a bottle.

It's so simple! And so true! I've thought a lot about how men and women muck up relationships and/or dating by making it to complicated. You like a girl? Yes. She likes you? Think so. Then say something you idiot! Don't just spend hours on end analyzing all the possible outcomes.

So the theory is essentially keep it simple when it's simple. Don't let irrelevant reasons outside the connection between two people stop you from action. And don't fret so damn much.

Now do I even follow the rule? Hell no. But I'm working on it.

I am a Wicked Child

2007-01-29T20:49:00.000-08:00

I'm now officially dating Alice/Rachael. Discuss.

Ok now that's out of the way and I'll talk about my weekend in San Diego. I left work about 3 p.m. and arrived in San Diego like... 9 p.m. or so. Steve's dad bought the group (being Steve, his mom and dad and the weird friend of his dad that Steve and I did not like) dinner.
Dinner was good but I was exhausted so Steve and I went back to his place and talked then crashed. It was cool though. We had the adult version of the conversations we had in high school. We really bonded again. It was awesome. I'm glad he's my best friend in spite of all the years and different experiences we've had between the two of us.

Then Saturday was spent all day on the Princeton, the guided missile cruiser ship he's on. We got to see a lot of cool stuff such as:
A navigation briefing
A submarine coming into harbor
The USS Reagan aircraft carrier at close range
Helicopters and Prowlers (a plane that engages in electronic warfare) flew by
And my favorite, the combat control center

We also had a "Steel Beach Picnic" which means a BBQ on the ship's helopad. It was fun. A great time was had by all. Steve's dad tried to get me to hit on some cute lieutenant, which annoyed me. I hate when people tell me to hit on women. It really annoys me. Plus I don't get to spend that much time with Steve since he's in the Navy and all. I didn't want to spend a few hours with an (admittedly cute) stranger instead.

That night we went out to dinner at this Italian place on Coronado and it was great. I had a lamb shank and the meat was so tender, I let it melt in my mouth instead of chewing it.. mmmmm. Next morning, we all went to brunch at this cafe near Steve's apt. Awesome Omelette! Following that I hit that road.

Made it back into town around 6. Immediately left for Malone's house for a nerd council viewing of Idiocracy. Great movie. I highly recommend it. It made me laugh. It was depressing. It made me want to have children.

That's the weekend my peoples. Goals for this week: Finish Breakfast Song, Submit Oath of Office to BS Council members, see Rear Window with Rachael.

Keep it real all ya'll.

The Apocalypse and Other Sundry Matters

2007-01-22T17:09:00.000-08:00

So it snowed in the Phoenix-area. Snow... in the desert.
I saw it myself too. Driving from my parents to my best friend's parent's house. Snow clearly coming down. I wanted to pull over to the side of the ride and freak out.

Clearly this means the end is very seriously nigh. Should I be sad the world is coming to an end? Did anything really get accomplished? Way to go humanity. We had thousands of years to get something done and instead we drew on cave walls and watched videos in the internet.

Still can't find my DVDs from the move. This is really frustrating. I wanted to watch Rear Window or Philadelphia Story tonight but nooooo! Fuckers!

Weekend matters:
Friday I went with Alice and Rachel to the movies. We saw Pan's Labrynth. I think we all agreed it was quite the enjoyable movie. That makes two for two on good movies I've seen with Alice and Rachel. Three for three if you count the Friday Alice and I saw the new Bond, also awesome. I'm getting perilously close to saying I should only see movies with one of the two or both at the same time. Cause.. so far the record is exemplary.

Saturday I went to my parent's house to pick up laundry my mother insisted on washing for me. I also took Dad to lunch cause he was lying on the couch watching TV. He looked bored. I felt like being a good happy son. We went to a Chase's Diner in Mesa/Chandler. I hadn't been since I lived in Gilbert with the Ex. It was just as good as remember it.

Sunday I was supposed to see Steve and Heather. But dude forgot to tell me he wasn't going to be at his parent's house till later in the afternoon. I arrived at noon and was told by his dad that was the story. So I hung out with his mom and dad for a bit. They're like my second set of parents anyway. Even though they're raging conservatives and sometimes I think his dad wants to kill me cause I'm so liberal, I still enjoy their company and had a good time. I watched the first half of the Bears Saints game and then went to my parents.
Once at my parents, I raided their fridge. I pretty much made a pig of myself which I rarely do. I ate the rest of their ice cream (out of the carton no less), finished the box of English Muffins, had a sandwich, drank a bunch of their milk/water/juice and had some chips. My stomach hurts just reading that.
At five I went back to Steve's to sign the waiver agreeing not to die of a heart attack while partying on a naval vessel. I had to take off quickly though to make Jen's birthday dinner at her house.
Dinner was great. Steak was tasty. We watched Dodgeball afterwards cause it was on. Jen was sick so she was kinda of bitchy/cranky. But I totally understand and know that she gets like that when she's sick. I still had a good time. Even though her house is out in Buckeye and I feel like I should get on a plane to get there.

That's it really. That's the weekend and the apocalypse and other sundry matters. If the world is still spinning and orbiting the sun, I'll be around.

Like the corner of my mind

2007-01-19T08:22:00.000-08:00

An ode to my previous home (I like my new place much better but figured it's a good idea to remember what I left)

Oh Park of Hayden
How I will miss
Your many facets

The constant traffic
Both mechanical and pedestrian
Like a polluted stream

The first night; auspicious
The drunk, woman beater upstairs
Shattered the front window

Two cars broken into
In two years
Why steal cell phone accessories?

What better way to wake at 2 a.m.
Then to hear drunken girls peeing
Outside my bedroom window

The Betos, ever present
Greasy taco smells
Greeted me every morning and evening

Goodbye temporary home
I shared with my cold-hearted Ex
May you be burned to the ground
And your foundations salted and radiated
As a warning to future generations

LOL, I think I may be a bit bitter. Or maybe the new place is so cool that the old place really does feel like a place where war crimes were committed.

Stop, collaborate and listen.

2007-01-18T07:03:00.000-08:00

I will fill everyone in on the move, of which there is plenty to inform.
But first I have business to take care of on ye olde blog.
My brother Jeff over at IambetterthanU.com tagged me. This means I have to tell five things about myself that most people do not know. Which will be hard. Cause I kinda share the intimate details of my life with everyone. Hence... blog. Anywho, here goes:

1. I was scared of the dark until like sixth grade... maybe even longer. I lost track honestly. It all stems from seeing the movie Poltergeist at age five. Life long trauma people. I just now am capable of watching the crappy sequels without breaking out into flashbacks. Still haven't seen the original all the way through since that first time.

2. I cannot straighten my right arm out all the way. I also cannot touch my right shoulder with my right arm. I broke my elbow in seventh grade in a tragic family tackle football game. My favorite cousin tackled me while I was reaching out with the ball to cross the "goalline" Since Brian was much older and heavier than I and since his entire body landed on my elbow, something had to give. In the process of breaking, a piece of cartlidge slid into the joint of my elbow. Every time I tried to straighten or flex my right arm, the piece of cartlidge would pop up like a door stop, preventing my progress. I had surgery to remove the cartlidge. Now scar tissue is mainly what prevents my full range of motion. Over time it's gotten better but it's still not 100%.

3. I was once quite the accomplished singer. And by accomplished I mean adults would praise Child Head for his pretty voice. My elementary school choir teacher picked me to sing a solo in the Xmas pageant/play/revue. Granted I came down with a brutal case of stage fright and ran away crying. But I got back on the horse and sang. I sang cute little boy solos in almost every elementary school choir performance the school had. Then my voice changed and I just have an average man's singing voice. I mean, I think I sing in tune better than most people. But I'm not going to be trying out for American Idol anytime soon.

4. I was stalked and had my life threatened by a convicted child molester when I was in fourth through fifth grade. The creep started by sending letters to my school to me. The school/teacher was really stupid and gave me the letters without looking at them. They were pretty graphic descriptions of what he wanted to do to me. I was little and didn't really get it thank god. I just knew it was weird. Long story, slightly less long: He kept sending letters, the police got involved, I couldn't go anywhere without an adult with me and I do mean anywhere for about two years. He threatened to kill me (didn't find that out until I was much older). I am always grateful to the post workers who caught him. He was arrested and put on trial for molesting his two nephews and threatening harassing me. I think by this time he's out of jail. If for some reason I ever ran into him in person, I'm fairly certain the amount of rage and violence I would be capable of is close to endless. Thankfully I don't think it scarred me too bad. I don't think about it very often.

5. I've totaled two cars. The first was my little Honda Civic, which I slammed into a parked car. Yeah. A Parked Car. The second was my parent's Ford Aerostar. I was making a left. I checked. I was clear. Then a speeding driver swooped around and smashed into the front bumper of the van. The Fleetwood Mac song, The Chain, was playing at the time. I haven't had an accident since then. I kinda drive like a granny now. Or at least not like a reckless bat out of hell, which is how I drove as a teenager.

Ok who to tag now:
Alice
Rachel
Amanda
Allie (though I don't even know if she reads this blog or keeps up her own blog anymore)
and............
Wynn since Matt Waite passed on tagging him last time.

Posts on the move will be forthcoming. Feel free to harass me if I don't follow through on that.

Once more into the breach

2007-01-13T09:47:00.000-08:00

One final post from my soon-to-be former abode. So yup, everything worked out with the new place. Outlaw does not make new roommate break out into hives or watery eyes.

Other events that have happened since then:
My car got broken into. Items stolen include: my work badge, an expired membership card and my charger for my cell phone. Cost to replace my window: $185. Cost to replace charger: $20. Cost to replace badge: $8. They didn't even take my cds... which means they hated my taste in music. Well fuck them!

I finally got a python script to work that will do something cool and useful. Huzzah! Granted it took three days and lots of begging for help from some awesomely generous individuals. But it works! It's alive! I can now download the 2004 presidential results for each county in the US in about 15 seconds or less. ::does the snoopy dance of happiness::

Finished the Star Wars book I bought. It kinda dragged for a while but the last 100 pages or so were awesome. Some seriously dark and twisted stuff. Very heady. I liked it and am looking forwards to the rest of the books in this series.

Rachael burned me the new Decemberists CD and the Wolfmother CD. Wolfmother is fun but not something I would listen to all the time. The good songs though are really good. The Decemberists are amazing. Very confident band. The songwriting is exemplary and I really like the lead singer's voice. I'd like to make a mixed CD of them and Arcade Fire. They're very complimentary I think.

Ok... I'm going to eat but then I have to get packing for the move. I've avoided it as long as humanely possible. Starting with putting old clothes in trash bags to give to Goodwill. Mom and Aunt come over tomorrow to clean. Dad/Jeff/I will be moving the furniture I can't fit in the new place.

Next time: New Head HQ.

Home?

2007-01-10T07:29:00.000-08:00

The "Find a Place to Live" search is going well. I looked at a cheap but kinda dingy place on Monday. $500 a month, which is a lot cheaper than what I'm currently paying. It would be a room in a four bedroom condo. I put my foot in my mouth though when I met the owner. She said she had all these papers she needed to file from when she owned her own practice. And since she's younger than me I thought and said out loud, "Oh are you a paralegal?"
To which she replied (and without a hint of piss) "No, I'm a lawyer. A prosecutor actually."

Oh... well don't I look like a sexist fricking jerk. But she's got me all wrong. I'm an ageist fricking jerk. Honest!

Either way, the place was ok but the price was right.

Last night, I looked at a place that was $550 a month. It was also closer to my job which is nice. Less commute=better commute. This place looked amazing though. The room was bigger. It was just really cool. Plus I didn't offend the owner. And the owner likes Buffy and knows some people from my work. Which is great on both counts.

I'm pretty settled on picking the place from last night. I have to bring Outlaw over to the place tonight to make sure the owner isn't allergic. She has a cat but apparently she's allergic to some breeds. She said she would know right away if she was or not. Outlaw better not screw this up for me. Or it's dingy $500 place I go.

That's really all I have for now. I'm stressed out and probably will be till this whole living situation is resolved.

I Have A Hard Time Taking the Easy Way

2007-01-07T08:14:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the lack of a hangover post. I think I slept through my hangover. I normally don't sleep in but I didn't get out of bed yesterday until 11 something. Which is definitely sleeping in for me.

So my life is a whirlwind of turmoil right now. I still need to figure out why the fuck Qwest thinks I owe them money even though I canceled my phone service ages ago. Yet another potential living situation fell through. This one really pissed me off. Just to recap:

1) Living with my fiance.
2) Fiance leaves me. Live with my parent for a month while she gets her shit together.
3) She never gets her shit together so I kick her out and force her to move to SF.
4) Living in my apartment which is now just barely affordable by moi.
5) Find an apartment near my job that I can afford cause I'm poor.
6) My brother suggests I move in with him and his GF. We go house/townhouse shopping and everything.
7) Brother tells me the option will no longer work.
8) I find out that I actually am not poor enough to afford the apartment near my job.
9) My cousin tells me a friend of hers from work needs a roommate.
10) I talk to cousin's friend. She is amiable to the idea. Her ex hasn't moved out though so... I have to call her and find out when that occurs.
11) After a week of calling her everyday and becoming more frantic when I haven't heard back from her, I call my cousin. Cousin tells me that her flaky ass douchebag of a friend has decided she doesn't want to live with a guy after all. Fucker. WHY NOT FUCKING TELL ME THAT BY RETURNING ONE OF THE FUCKING CALLS I MADE TO YOUR CELL PHONE!!?!??? JEEBUS!
12) Work on breathing and not going into a murderous rage. Wish I had a metal broom handle to bash into a defunct playground like I used to do when I was a teenager and I got really angry.
13) Sign up on roommates.com cause I've come to grips with the fact that I'm too poor to live alone. Damnit.
14) Place responses to a series of ads. Arrange to see some places today and this week.

So that's where I am right now with finding a roof over my head for me and Outlaw. There's a place I really really want. But because I'm me and because things never work out I won't get that place. Noooo I'll have to live FARTHER away because I have no choice. I wanted to get rid of my commute not make it longer. But at this point I will settle for more money by getting cheaper rent. I refuse to pay more than $500 a month before utilities. Cause otherwise it's not enough of a savings from my current place. This should be possible.
But the place I really want (which, again, I won't get because I'm me and I don't get what I want) is this loft downtown. Right by work. It would be sweet. It was just bought by this guy who travels a lot and just wants someone who he won't have to worry about trashing the place when he's gone and can keep the place up. That's me. But like I said, it's not going to happen. I don't get the things I really want. With the exception of my current job. That was total shit luck though.
Things I've wanted that I don't get to have:
1) Enough money to not be considered poor.
2) A cool apartment near where I work so I don't have to commute a ton.
3) Sex
4) An attractive girl who enojys my company and enjoys sleeping with me and whom I feel the same way about. (heh not going to happen)
5) A Wii.

Feels better to get that out. I think I'll take a shower, brush my teeth, get dressed, throw some laundry in the machine and play FFXII till it's time to check out my first potential new place.

Warning Signs

2007-01-05T19:01:00.000-08:00

oooh it's going to be a weird, sad night. I'm drinking all my beer and singing along to Itunes and blogging. There's a lot of bad places this could go. But fuck it. I feel like doing this. Silly self-indulgent behavior.

Go see Children of Men. Fantastic movie. I want see it again tonight but that's really silly behavior.

The fricking phone company is charging me for a service I cancelled two months ago. Fuckers. I'll call them tomorrow and straighten them out.

You know... drinking and singing is a lot more fun when I'm not blogging nonsensically.
See you tomorrow for my hangover post.

Voices in my head

2007-01-03T20:08:00.000-08:00

I've spent a lot of time recently thinking about this idea I have for a book. The theme is about reality vs. fiction and how the line is a helluva a lot blurrier than people think. This is especially true lately because of the web.
On the one hand, things like blogs. youtube, facebook, myspace and such give tons of access to the personal and public lives of millions of regular individuals.
On the other hand, how do we know those are actual people, not just made up fictional characters?
Or even fuzzier, how much is person X in every day non-online life similar to person X online? Does person X even know?

And when fiction, reality, and psuedo-reality combine, what's up and down? Black or white? Doesn't the rules for everything go haywire?

There are a few examples of this kind of clash actually occurring. Most recently with Lonleygrl15 on youtube. It was a fake yes. But to the viewer who's not paying hyper-attention to things, it's believable to a degree. After the fakery was revealed, quite a few viewers said who cares that it's fake? It seems real and that's the important part.
::whoa::

Then there's JenniCam. Probably the first 24/hr webcam. Not porn either or at least if that's what people went there for, they would be really bored. It was just some girl and a webcam. On. All the time. Kinda like the Truman Show but without actors. Or was it? Her stated aim for the cam was to just let it run and ignore that it exists. But is that possible? Really? What about everyone who wasn't her that crossed paths with one of her cams? If they knew, can you really forget about it? I dunno. I really don't. I suppose it's possible. Maybe it's like absolute zero. The act of measuring it causes too much heat and makes absolute zero go away.

So what if a group of people decided to create fictional characters but instead of doing a traditional story, movie or tv show, they BECOME the characters. They blog as them. They make video blogs as them. They eat and breathe and sleep as them.

Maybe they have a set period of time every day/week/month where they get together and work on shaping a story. But if the goal is realism within a dramatic construct, it couldn't be too dramatic. At least not for a while otherwise people would see through it. There would have to be some direction to it though. Maybe not though.

Anyway...

What happens to who they were before? What happens to who they are in the act? Could people tell the difference? Could they tell the difference? When do the lives start merging? Or would they always remain separate? And what about shaping of the story? The person/persons doing that would have a lot of power. And they might have to throw in events that some members of the "cast" wouldn't be aware of to maintain spontaneity or fresh, real reactions.

I'm just musing... I need to start writing something. The actual story itself. I want to have a general direction for it though. hmm...ponders....

No tags for this entry until I think some more.

Bad Kitty

2006-12-29T16:03:00.000-08:00

So my beloved Tigers played in the Sun Bowl. They were winning by 10 with less than 6 minutes to go... and they choked. Fucking chokers. Oh well.... it's the life of a Missouri fan for you.

On a bright note: Rachael let me buy her old Ipod off her for $40. Yay! I have a working Ipod again. Life is good.

Also I got a raise. Well I'll get a raise in April. Either way, more money. And I'll still get my regular raise in August. How cool is that?

Speaking of money, it looks like I'll be moving in with my cousin Jessica's friend Cat. She owns a three bedroom townhouse and needs a roommate to help pay the rent. She's only charging me $300 a month. Score!

To summarize:
Tigers Suck
New (to me) ipod is awesome
Raises are awesome
Paying only $300 a month for rent is amazingly awesome

For New Year's Eve it looks like I'll be going out with Jessica and her friends. She's DDing and offered for me to come along. I really wanted to go out but all my ponies are out of town so I happily accepted her offer.

Speaking of partying... I'm going to solo party tonight. Bought me some beer and am going to drink it while playing FFXII...or FFIII for my DS... which by the way is amazing. The graphics are awesome. Couldn't believe a DS could pull that off.

Alright peeps. Later.

Smelling colors

2006-12-27T17:21:00.000-08:00

Sorry about the delay in posting. I didn't even wish my loving audience of say...10 people tops... Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays and all that.

My Christmas went as follows:
Realized Friday night I had yet to purchase the only Christmas gift I had to buy. All the adults on my mom's side of the family drew names so we could minimize holiday expenditures. So I had to buy two CDs for my cousin Jessica. Luckily she told me exactly what she wanted so I just headed over to the nearest record store, purchased and left.
Saturday I went with my dad to the tire shop to get new wheels for my Corolla. My 30,000 checkup revealed I needed new ones and I had no money. My parents were nice enough to pick up the tab. Not even a loan. Whew.
Dad and I ate lunch at Chilis while they worked on the car. It was a good time. We talked sports and had a beer. A very male lunch.
On the way home, I popped in to say hi to my best friend's family. He wasn't quite in town. Well he was but he was busy. Either way shot the shit with my second family and then made my way to my humble abode a few hours later.
I was supposed to go out with the Flutist Saturday. She called and said she just got off work and had Xmas shopping to do. She said we could meet for dinner but warned me she was in a shitty mood so might not be the best of company. I told her if she's in a bad mood she certainly doesn't have to entertain some random dude (being me). She made sure I was ok with that idea. I reminded her it was my idea and she should just take care of herself tonight. There are always other nights to go out.
Sunday I got a panicked call from my mother in the morning. Apparently the giant TV my mom bought dad for Xmas could not be delivered by Xmas eve. They wanted to give her a different TV and a $100 gift card for her inconvenience. I told her BS. Told her to get over there and get a ton of free shit and do not let them give you another TV. She did and ended up getting the TV at cost, free delivery and a $200 gift card. Not bad return. We took Dad over to the electronics store to see his present since he wasn't getting it that night or on Xmas. He was pleased. Dad never gets cool presents for Xmas so it was a big change.
I stayed at the parentals and played my brother's 360. I decided to stay the night. It would be easier than having to drive back home that night and drive back in the morning for Christmas.
Christmas morning was cool. My haul included both seasons 1 and 2 of Battlestar Galactica, a Shins CD, Clerks II, V for Vendetta, Final Fantasy III for the DS, a Barnes & Noble gift card, a Fruit Fucker T-shirt and some money. Not bad. Not bad at all. No Wii but I can't complain :)
Jeff got a Wii though... fucker.
Since then it's been basically all work no play. ::sigh:: Money has been tight but things are looking up. Let's hope 2007 won't be nearly as weird as 2006. I certainly don't plan on going to Japan, getting engaged, having my said fiance leave me and start dating all over again.

Here we go again

2006-12-19T19:10:00.000-08:00

The Grand Taking All My Ex's Crap To Her New Home Trek of 2006 is over. It all began with me driving my ass over to my friend's apartment. They took me to the airport, where I picked up my fine automobile: a Kia Serrento. I drove this silver chariot back to my apartment.
I had approximately 40 minutes to pack the car and get the hell out of dodge. Right away I knew there would be a space problem. A chair that seems little in a living room is HUGE in a smallish SUV. So little chair has to stay home. The dresser was the next biggest item and it fit ok. But it also made it impossible to then pack the filing cabinet. So I had to empty the contents. The rest went inside the car fairly easily. Off I go! Woo!

Thanks to the new love in my life, Sarah Vowell, the first six hours just flew by. I had bought her book, The Partly Cloudy Patriot, in audio form for the ride up. If it wasn't illegal to stalk people or if it wasn't generally viewed as an activity of the insane, I would totally stalk Sarah Vowell.
For those of you wondering to yourself, "Who the FUCK is Sarah Vowell?" Well....
here
or here
or here
(specifically listen to the music episode found on the Our Favorite Shows link)

Anywho the rest of the trip... boring. I made fantastic time though. A little less than 12 hours. Pulled into the Ex's new apartment. Unloaded all the crap. Set up a shelf for her. Got the hell out. No hug, no kiss, no hand shake. I barely looked at her. She fawned and giggled and was extremely complimentary. I made sure to leave as soon as possible.

Then I hung out with my family for the rest of the weekend. My cousin's daughter Amanda was adorable. She's four and she is such a fricking ham. It made me giggle. I gave her piggy back rides, shared war stories about little brothers (hers is almost 2, "He can't help it. He's a baby," she said.), and she used me as a pillow cause she didn't want to use her big girl bed for a nap. And besides, "I'm just sleepy. Not nappy."
Kids. So damn cute. And totally germ factories. I caught a cold from Matt the little brother. It's not a big deal. I'll nyquil and VapoRub myself tonight and hopefully it will get me better as soon as possible.

I also hung out with my aunts and uncles and grandparents. My grandparents are getting on in years and I want to make sure I spend as much time as possible with them. We talked about work and how to advance in the world and about football and how two teams we really didn't care about were really playing a great game. Right before I left, we hit a Mexican place for dinner. I think pretty much any time I've visited the area we've gone to this place. It's ok. Not quite sure why everyone is so ecstatic. It's a thing.

Then it was off to the airport and back home. My friends picked me up and got me back to my car. I got back to the apartment where my cat was waiting to meow it me mercilessly for leaving her alone for a weekend. She's nuts. The cat.

That's it. That was the grand weekend. I have an appointment with my over-the-counter medication.

On the Road Again

2006-12-14T19:46:00.000-08:00

Turns out the Teacher didn't mean to stand me up. Really does look like a case of miscommunication. We're going to try to hook up later when I get back.
Get back? From where? you might ask.
Well I'm hauling the rest of the ex's stuff to her new locale. I have a bunch of family up where she is now so I'm using the annoying trip as an excuse to visit with them, most of whom will not be down my way for vacation.
Ex is paying for the rental and the flight home which makes it a bit more palatable.
Either way... hauling is what I will be doing. 13 hours with nothing but me, my favorite CDs and the road.

Sit down.... Stood up.

2006-12-10T18:39:00.000-08:00

So this is what it's like to be stood up. I'm actually more confused than upset. The teacher seemed psyched about dinner. And I gave her my cell if there was some reason she couldn't/didn't want to make it. Hmmm.... very curious.

Welll whatever. I'll just eat at home and play more FFXII. I was tired of all this "activity" anyway.

Round Three: Beg for Pain!

2006-12-10T17:09:00.000-08:00

Last night with the Flutist was great. We just did dinner and a movie but I felt really comfortable with her the whole time. She's really cute and it was fun to talk to her. She had work not long before the date so she wasn't glammed up or anything but she still looked great. Granted she thought she didn't but isn't that what women think most times? Did I mention she wears glasses? ::pants::

Today Jeff and I checked out the townhouse owned by one of my co-workers. It was a great looking place. Quality neighborhood, a little small but the bedrooms were of a good size. I hope Katie will approve when Jeff tells her about it. As long as the rent is under $1400 I'll be really happy. $1400 would probably be ok but it would suck until May. And I really want to have money again.

Shortly it will be time for the third date this weekend. The Teacher and I will be going to a brew pub at 7. So far things have improved with each date. If things continue in this fashion I'll be very pleasantly surprised. I gotta say though... pretty tired in general.

Same as it ever was

2006-12-09T15:37:00.000-08:00

Last night was a pretty busy night. Finished work. Headed over to a now former co-worker's going away party. Had a beer. Sounds like the dude's going to land on his feet, which is always good to hear. Took off and headed home.
I ate dinner and chilled out basically till 9. Then texted girl#3 to see where she was at. The plan was to meet her and her friends and have a few brews in celebration of her semester being over.
So I headed over to the bar.
Her friends were pretty decent people. Girl#3 was kind and I don't think I embarrassed myself or pissed off her buddies in any way. She had work in the morning and this was clearly a non-date/I still want you in the game kind of event. So around midnight we went our separate ways.
Went home. Went to sleep.
So busy but relatively uneventful.
Today I've played FFXII most of the day. Pretty soon I have to get ready for my date with the Flutist at 7:30.

Today is my birthday!

2006-12-07T06:55:00.000-08:00

Happy birthday to me! Today is my birthday. I'm going to have a good time. I'm glad it's my birthday. Happy birthday to meeeee!

Done. Sorry.
Two new ponies in the dating stable , officially. First up is the Flutist. We we're going out on Saturday. Next is the Teacher. We'll be going out Sunday.. well likely. I still need to work out the details with Teacher.

Time to eat breakfast. And shower. And dress. and go to work. boooo.

Presents! Cake! Booze! Woo! Birthday!

Mass Hysteria

2006-12-04T18:49:00.000-08:00

Jeff and I checked out some places to rent this weekend. Found some good places to check out more indepth. So it looks like Jeff, Katie and I will be living together soon.
As I was falling asleep last night, I realized how big a deal this was going to be to Outlaw.
She's already a pretty neurotic cat. Outlaw is scared of everything that doesn't smell, look or sound like me. That's only a slight exaggeration.
How the heck is she going to deal with a big black lab puppy? Jeff's dog is cute and a good dog but I have no idea how the dog will react to Outlaw. And I know Outlaw's going to have a rough time adjusting to the dog.
My plan is to give Outlaw till May to get used to the dog. After all the time, if she's still spending all of her time being utterly terrified, then I'll have to move out. I could ask Jeff to have Macey (his dog) stay at my parents house. But that's mean to Jeff to make him move his dog again just cause my cat is insane.

Girl#3 is still being weird. Not a lot of communication and what not. No big. She's probably just not that into me. In the meantime, I'm talking to two other girls. No dates yet. Getting past that is he/she a psycho or not stage. One is a teacher and one is still in school getting her degree. They'll get official blog nickname designations once a date happens.

I'm kinda cranky about my friends lately. No one calls. I have to initiate all contact all the time. Even then, people don't call me back. It's fine when I'm with them but I dunno...
Considering I'm a pretty good friend, it's annoying that I feel like I'm rarely thought of to be included when my friends go out. (Nerd circle excluded from this, well usually)

It's frustrating.

Ghosts with voices

2006-12-02T18:40:00.000-08:00

At last the weekend has arrived. Yesterday, Jeff and a friend of his from work came downtown to pick up tuxes for their company Christmas party. Not just any tuxes. They ended up renting the tuxes from Dumb and Dumber . Either way, Jeff asked if I wanted to get some drinks when I got off work. So I walked over to Chase Field and met them at the TGI Fridays inside the stadium.
It was disconcerting to be in there when it wasn't baseball season and there was no one in there essentially.
Drank some Kiltlifter and ate a quick dinner. Then I had to go cause I was meeting Rachael from work at the movies to go see Casino Royale. She had already seen it but she was being nice. We were talking at work about our weekends and I was whining about how my weekends are usually pretty boring. While I love my friends, for some reason I'm not on their lists for someone to do something with. I call, they don't call back until it's too late. And they don't call me. Usually.
Anywho yeah so I was whining and Rachael said she'd go with me to the movies on Friday so I could at least said I did something other than play video games and play with the cat this weekend.
It was really kind of her. That and the movie fricking ruled. See Bond isn't supposed to be some tony playboy. He's supposed to be a spy, a hired gun, a cloak and dagger man. Bond is a darker creature, a hard brutal figure. A sociopath. I loved it. Best Bond movie I've seen in a long time. I actually enjoyed it as a standalone movie.
Dude I'm hungry. Nothing to eat in the house though. Which means I'll have to go out. Which means I'll have to put on something remotely presentable. And go outside.... blech... I'm way too lazy.

The Show That Never Ends

2006-11-29T19:17:00.000-08:00

Today's topic: Music, particularly music that gets stuck in my head. Like most people, songs tend to get wedged into my brain. So when this happens to me, I create a playlist of all the songs that fit that category. These are my Brain Drain playlists. I listen to them enough times and it's like the songs are drained out. They no longer hold that odd thrall over me.
I've been listening to a lot more new music. Well it's new to me. Either way, new music=new songs stuck in my head=new brain drain playlist.
Here are my three Brain Drain Playlists with notes on certain songs where necessary.

Brain Drain 1:
Clint Eastwood- Gorillaz
Yesterday Never Tomorrows- The Stills (I'm fairly certain I started liking these guys after hearing them at Coachella)
Title and Registration- Death Cab for Cutie
Ziggy Stardust- David Bowie (LOVE this song)
Get Your Hands Off My Woman- The Darkness (The hardest core song sung in falsetto ever)
Since U Been Gone- Kelly Clarkson (....It's a good pop song! I can't help it.)
Jetsetter- Morningwood (These guys are awesome live)
Let Go- Frou Frou
Soul Meets Body- Death Cab for Cutie
The House That Jack Built- Aretha Franklin (I got the car, I got the house, I got the rack but I aint got Jack... great song)
Rio- Duran Duran (One of the most incomprehensible set of lyrics, still a pop masterpiece)
You're the Best Around- Joe Esposito (ROFLMAO)
In Da Club (Benny Hill mashup)- 50 Cent (ditto)

Brain Drain 2:
Supernova- Liz Phair (When she decide to start sucking?)
Dance With Me- The Sounds (Also great live, also started my love affair with them at Coachella)
Hey Ya!- Outkast (One of the best pure pop songs in decades)
Bad Cartridge (E-Pro Mix)- Beck (Funny, the song is called E Pro on Guero.... so should it really be E-Pro the Bad Cartridge Mix??)
Orange Crush- R.E.M. (One of my all time favorite songs)
Take It All Away- Cake
Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, pt. 1- The Flaming Lips (She's got to be strong to fight them so she's taking all her vitamins)
Pink Bullets- The Shins
Go to Sleep- Radiohead
Braggidocio- MC Frontalot (The Finest in Nerdcore HipHop)
Gigantic- The Pixies (My Big big love, heh)
New Slang- The Shins
Living In America- The Sounds
Do the Evolution- Pearl Jam (Great video for this one)

Brain Drain 3:
Human Behavior- Bjork (the main melody is in percussion, how often can you say that)
Beetlebum- Blur (They're more than just Song 2)
Helicopter- Bloc Party (Girl #3 turned me on to these guys. They're pretty good)
Prophecy- Remy Zero (Yeah...still digging this one)
Dry The Rain- The Beta Band (I need more of their albums)
I Better Be Quiet Now- Elliott Smith (So sad, the dude killed himself by stabbing himself in the chest... that's depression)
True Love Waits- Radiohead
Set the Fire to the Third Bar- Snow Patrol w/Martha Wainwright
Hoppipolla- Sigor Rus (Don't know what they're saying since it's in Icelandic but it's a great song)
Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk- Rufus Wainwright (First appearance of siblings ((I think)) on a Brain Drain playlist where they are not on the same song or in the same band)
Analyse- Thom Yorke (Best song on his solo album)
The Middle- Jimmy Eat World (Someone I know from HS was in this video, she's a whore)
The Trickster- Radiohead (One of my favorite B-Sides)

Feel free to post your Brain Drain playlists in the comments. Hasta.

The Collapse of Thought

2006-11-27T21:17:00.000-08:00

Weekend Wrapup:
Slept in on Saturday morning. The fuzziness of waking up eluded me for far longer than usual. By the time I rolled myself into alertness, the Tigers had essentially finished beating the snot out of the hated Jayhawks.

Saturday afternoon I went over to Steve's parents house and hung out for the rest of the day with Steve, Heather and Steve's little sister Anne. Anne's boyfriend Tim asked Anne to marry her. Very sweet and also good news. Tim's a great guy and Anne seems very happy with him.

Steve can't drink for six/nine months. He's taking medication because he was exposed to TB at some point in his Navy tours of duty or what not. If he drinks, he risks giving himself chemically induced Hepatitis. Sucks to be Steve and for this weekend, sucked to be me. Can't very well go get drunk with your best friend if he can't drink without giving himself the hep now can we?

Went home around 11. Saw an email from Girl #3 arrived. She apologized for the delay but I didn't really care anymore anyway. Not about her. Still think she's pretty cool. I just don't care about all the scenery. Do I want a relationship? Do I not want one? Should I be happy when someone responds or calls back? Frankly, it's quite tedious and it wears me out. I'm happier just being me and let the chips fall where they may. I remember now that's the point.

Work today was odd. I got things done. I just didn't feel all there. Hours floated by. Ideas keep drifting through my head. Stories I need to write and I don't mean for work. When I imagine writing out the stories, they become cliche or pat. Sentimental or boring. Not as interesting as when they're just ideas. The confident part of myself tells me I need to write them.

My birthday is rapidly approaching and emotionally I'm closer to 7 than 27. Does anyone ever grow up? What does it mean to do so? How can we tell when we've crossed the line?

The Morning After

2006-11-24T17:50:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving is gone. Hope everyone had a good one. Had to work today. Boring....
Zombie project came back from the dead. Will try to kill it one more time on Monday.
Saw Borat after work. It was funny. The scene with his producer and him fighting .... whoa. That was pretty gross. But funny.
Feeling kind of lonely today. I want to see Steve and Heather since he's in town. Haven't heard from them though it's pissing me off a bit. I am being a bit selfish though. They do have a wedding to plan and all that. Either way, I'll try their cells tomorrow.
Sorry nothing interesting to say today. Think I'm going to play Final Fantasy VII and try to finish it.

The Song Remains the Same

2006-11-22T20:19:00.000-08:00

Happy pre-Thanksgiving everyone. Today's post is more of a random collection of thoughts. (shut up those who say that's what this whole blog is all about)
*****
I had a great day at work today. I did about a million things. I felt like a superhero, jumping up out of my chair, running off to fix something, plopping back down, fixing more things... I felt useful, powerful.

Not that I don't normally feel useful. I just felt particularly useful today.
*****
Rachael I don't know was wondering about the "Women I'm Dating" naming conventions. It's not that I can't remember their names. I'm just trying to keep things mainly anonymous. Besides it's like changing names to protect the innocent. Or the guilty. Or the ambiguous.
*****
Still waiting to hear back from Girl#3. Should I have called her instead of emailed? She said last time I called her that email was working better since she was so busy. Whatever... tired of even thinking about it. If being a doofus and asking for a kiss instead of taking one was all it takes to get someone to lose interest, then she's not worth it. I need to be like Fonzie and be cool. Quit worrying about stupid crap.
*****
Girl #2 or MP or whatever is officially out of the picture. I talked to her on Tuesday. Turns out she found someone who is ready for a relationship now. That's good though. I knew I was never going to be interested in that with her. I told her I'd still like to hang out as friends. She was/is cool. I just didn't feel the same way about her.
*****
I told Marcia today at work that since MP is out I need to get a new pony for my stable. I was joking but I think it's a good idea. Seeing multiple people allows me to manage my feelings a bit better. I fixate too much. Or at least I have that tendency.

Delayed Reaction

2006-11-21T06:44:00.000-08:00

God damnit I can't keep to my schedule for even one week. Anywho, consider this Monday's post.

I think I've been overreacting about Outlaw not eating. I talked to the ex about it. She has more experience with kitties than I do. She said she's probably just weirded out by me being gone for a weekend. She also suggested that perhaps Outlaw is stockpiling food in case I take off again. This idea amuses me greatly. I can just imagine what the thoughts in my insane cat's brain must be like.

The date on Saturday with Girl #3 went well. We went to a cool wine bar. It has a very date-ish atmosphere. Low lights, good music, good wine, partly indoors, partly outdoors. Date started at 7:30ish and we talked till almost 11.

She's gorgeous. She's funny. She has interesting things to say. She's intelligent. Oh and she's a giant nerd. We commiserated over the death of Chewbacca in one of the extended universe Star Wars books. She just had finished Vector Prime so the loss was fresh for her.

Apparently, I'm the first "good" guy she's gone out with in a long time. She said she has a long history of dating losers. Guitar players, drummers, pitchers, interesting but generally jerk-like individuals.

Maybe I'm too good of a guy. Example: end of the date essentially. We're standing in a parking lot, again, talking still. I know I want to kiss her. I've been looking for the right moment or whatever. Kept not finding it. So I put on my "lame guy" hat and asked her if it would be ok if I kissed her.....
.....
Not my smoothest of moves. Anywho, yeah she said it was ok but she giggled and said, "You really are a nice guy." ugh... It's true but I don't want her thinking that. I want her feeling something a bit more visceral. Simple kiss, not much to it. We both knew we were going separate ways at the end of the night so that didn't surprise me. As we walked to her car, she joked I need to get some mojo. Ack! See! It is a problem...maybe problem is too strong a word.

We did talk about seeing each other again soon. She even suggested a place. So maybe I'm overreacting. The problem is I obviously really like her. The more I like someone the more I overanalyze every thought every feeling every action. Besides, I'm trying not to go crazy over someone again so soon/ever.

I'll try to be a bit more smooth next time though. Maybe not rely so much on my Bruce Lee of Dating style... you know.. the game of no game. (Bruce Lee's fighting style is the style of no style..get it?.. ::sigh::)

Sad kitty

2006-11-18T06:47:00.000-08:00

Ok.. I'm a day late on this but I have a good excuse. My computer was really loud and I was worried something was wrong with it. I switched it off last night and switched over to worrying about Outlaw.

Since I have returned from Mexico, Outlaw has hardly eaten anything. She's had maybe a little more than a half bowl of food since Sunday. It makes me think something is wrong with her health.
The odd thing is she is still going both #1 and #2 in the litter box. Where the heck is she getting the fuel for #2 if she's not eating??

I decided to monitor more closely how much she is eating this weekend. If she is still barely touching her food, I'll take her to the vet on Monday.

Oh and date#2 with girl#3 tonight. Here's hoping I don't screw it up.

The Trickster

2006-11-15T20:11:00.000-08:00

Almost forgot my new posting schedule. Whew.. that was a close one.

Been talking to the ex lately. It's not weird.... well not most of the time. I want to be friends with her. I just don't want to devolve into talking to her all the time. That would be bad.
We talked about friendly type of topics like her brother shooting himself in the leg and the very high rental prices in the Bay Area. Then I overreached. I mentioned my struggle with making date plans for this weekend. She wigged out completely. Said she didn't want to cry at work. Whoa...

The whole breakup was her idea to begin with. Why's she crying about me dating someone else? Either way, I don't feel the same way about her regardless. I'm 100% positive I would never get back together with her, even if she threw herself at me. I just wouldn't be able to trust her feelings again.

She eventually chilled and conversation returned to normal. Again, would like to be friends. Can't imagine us not being friends. Constant chatting would be bad though for all parties.

On happier news, I'm dating another girl. Some of my fellow co-workers like to tease me about this whole dating thing. That's ok by me. It is a bit bewildering. I have a lot of lost time to make up with dating. I didn't do a lot in high school and even less in college. Right now it's fun so I'll roll with it.

New girl is pretty cool. She's cute. She's funny. I feel completely comfortable around her, good for a first date. Her taste in music is exemplary. She asked me what my favorite Radiohead song was: Let Down. I volleyed the question back to her. Talk Show Host.
Whoa.. a B-side. She really does like Radiohead. soooo hot. She could have had me right then. But you know... she could have had me before that too, I'm just making a point.

Gave me her number, she's cool with something this weekend. I said let's try this cool wine bar I went to before with my friend Jenny and her husband. Stay tuned for further details.

Oh and I just like the Radiohead B- Side The Trickster. Doesn't really have much to do with the content of this post. Athankya.

South of the Border

2006-11-13T18:46:00.000-08:00

First, some house cleaning:
To make sure I keep a regular updating schedule, I will now update on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. I need to make sure there is an incentive for me to keep writing. That's all.

Ok on to Mexico:
My parents know someone who owns a house in Rocky Point. My extended family all went out there for a long weekend. I took Friday off and spent Thursday night with my parents so we could leave early in the morning. Four hours later, I was on a beach in Mexico, drinking beer.
Most of my younger cousins were there. This means babysitting for Head. I took each of the kids kayaking. We played frisbee and bocci.
Because there's only so much time you can spend on the beach and because I'm insane, I brought my PS2 and Guitar Hero 1 & 2. I played it so much my thumbs are still sore from the effort. The fast songs are just brutal on my strumming thumb.
I got about 200 pages through the newest Pynchon book. It's good so far but it's slow going. Kind of like Dostoevsky in that there's a lot of characters and a lot of plot lines and they all swoop and dive around each other.
I really wanted to sleep out on the back porch as I could hear the waves crash onto the shore and the cool breeze come off the horizon. Instead I had to watch the kids in the guest house. Boo.
Either way, it was a very relaxing time. We pulled back into Phoenix at 3 p.m. and I got back home a half hour or so later.

Perchance to Muse

2006-11-06T18:37:00.000-08:00

Last week, Rachael was telling me how much she liked the band Muse. I had heard a bit of them and had thought they sounded a fair bit like Radiohead. Granted I had only heard two or three Muse songs but I thought it was enough. There's no doubt their lead singer is trying for a Thom Yorke vibe.

Rachael told me she thought Radiohead sucked. ::gasp:: Yeah I was shocked too blogience. It turns out she had only heard Creep. Not exactly a song representative of Radiohead's greatness. So I told her I'll burn her some Radiohead if she burns me some Muse. This deal works out great for yours truly because I just wanted some Muse. I had already decided I would probably like them. Rachael on the other hand could be getting two CDs she doesn't even like. Honestly though, what are the chances that would happen?

I've listened to most of one album and I've moved to the newer one. My thoughts so far:
They are very Radioheadesque. I think they need a better producer sometimes though. The snare is too loud and intrusive and they don't take advantage of volume and tone contrast enough. Their singer sounds great but on the first album I was listening to there was some annoying use of distorted voice. His voice is so clear and cutting, why ruin it with distortion? Especially since it would provide a great contrast to the thrashing guitars, at least on the song I'm thinking of here
They do have their own identity. They're not just a cheap Radiohead clone. Muse has a strain of metal band in them on some tunes. Sometimes to great effect, other times not as much. At times they've got an almost hiphop/triphop? kick underneath. It's like only 10% of the songs but it's noticeable and kind of cool.

I also got a bonus Interpol CD I need to listen to as well. Sweet. Ok.... that's all I have for now.

Situation resolved

2006-11-06T07:49:00.000-08:00

I've reached an understanding with MP now. Went out Saturday night, a dinner and movie date. I told her since it has been a relatively short period of time since I was in a relationship, I'm not looking for another one now. She asked when that might be. I honestly told her I have no idea. She seemed ok with it. Or at least she understood it. And since the date continued as planned without any problems, I'll assume we're all good.
Backtracking a bit, I finally got the work crew to go out together. We had a good time Friday night. We started with drinks at Mi Amigos and had some very funny conversations. Finished there around...7:30 or 8. Then Diana suggested we all go to this place called Padre's that she frequents.
Everyone but Amanda (boo Amanda, you would have had fun) went. More drinks. More fun. Diana is quite the dancer. The rest of us stayed glued to our butts and watched her do her thing. It was cool. Around 10:30, we called it a night. Marcia had to undo her braids and get her new hair installed. The rest of us.. well I dunno about everyone else. I just went home and crashed.
And Mizzou lost. Again. Fricking chokers. They played a good second half but the first half was horrible. And the playcalling... abysmal.
Ok time to hit the morning shower, get ready for work, pick up my new glasses and acutally go to work.
Go to wvrk...go to wvrk... hehe

Whoa there.. where's the fire?

2006-10-31T20:13:00.000-08:00

I reaffirm the belief that dating is a difficult process. So on Sunday, after date #1 with MP, I saw she had sent me an email telling she had a great time. Standard stuff I believe.
I responded, said I had a great time too and would love to go out again sometime next week. I said I had some ideas and she could feel free to call me if she liked.
She called me. That night.
Luckily I was driving to my parents house and I had an excuse not to talk. It weirded me out to have her call so soon after I left her my number.
(For those wondering the reason she didn't have my number before this point: my phone was broken and thus I had no phone for her to call. Phone replaced on Sunday.. thus phone number provided)
I assured myself I was overreacting and it would be no big deal. I told her I would call her back. I didn't specify when.
I decided I would call her on Monday. Maybe I should have waited. I dunno. I just wanted to lock down plans so it wouldn't be all floating around there and what not.
Got a hold of her that night. We nailed down some plans. Movie.. probably dinner, a good time estimate, etc. Talked a bit longer afterwards about general nonsense. Getting to know you kind of stuff still.
The conversation was quality-stuff I'll admit. I felt like I was being myself the whole time. That's important to me. I don't want to change who I am for someone else.
Today she sent an email. For those keeping track, that means she's communicated with me in some form every day since the date. On the one hand, clearly she's interested and it's enjoyable being pursued for once. On the other hand, I'm not looking to jump back into a relationship any time soon.
I joked with Marcia at work today that I think I should at least go on 7 dates with 7 different women before I decide to start getting in monogamous relationships again. You know, one for each year I was with my ex. Really, it's being conservative I think.
I'm not saying I want to sleep with seven different women. Just go on some dates. See what's out there. I don't know if MP understands that. I'll have to be more clear I think. I said I didn't want to get into a serious relationship any time soon. Maybe I should just say I don't want to get into a relationship, i.e. boyfriend/girlfriend style, at all.
And yes I'll do that before I sleep with her. C'mon. Did you really think I was that kind of guy?

There's another girl that's responded on Match. Someone who didn't say the last book they read was anything by Dan Brown. I swear to God... if I talk to someone or read someone's profile that says Angels and Demons or the Da Vinci Code is the last thing they read or it's their FAVORITE book...GEEEEARGHHH! Speaking of reading, I need to remember to bring the new Pynchon book I bought home from work. I keep leaving it on my desk. It's actually going to be out in stores by the time I remember.

That's more like it

2006-10-29T07:51:00.001-08:00

Different girl, different first date. But before I go into details about last night, I will explain how it happened in the first place.
At some point I realized my friends are not the most proactive people in the world when it comes to setting me up on dates. Considering my own inability to approach women at a bar or some such place, I decided to do something I never thought I would do: sign up for an online dating service.
::cue organs, a woman screams::
A week or so after I joined, I got an email from someone. We chatted via email for a few days. It turns out this girl graduated from the same high school as me. We even graduated from the same class. Now I have no recollection of her, try as I might to remember. She remembers me though. A scary thought because I can't imagine what about me was memorable in high school.
Anywho, for the sake of anonymity we will call her MP from now on.
The emails were good. A quality mix of getting to know you stuff and light hearted banter. I asked if she wanted to go out this weekend. She agreed. I suggested the State Fair which I had never been to before. She agreed.
Breaking online dating protocol, I picked her up at her house. MP was ok with that since she knew me from high school and was fairly certain I wasn't a psycho killer. I got there a little early so she wasn't quite ready yet. I was happy cause she looked cute. Her house is really nice. Tiny for a house but certainly much bigger than my apartment. It's also cool she owns her own place. While she finished getting ready, I snooped around her house, picking up ideas for conversation later that night.
I didn't have to wait long before she was ready. We talked while I drove us to the fair, bouncing around from topic to topic, pets, family, work, etc. We were both shocked at how much one had to pay for parking. One place was charging $20!! For parking!! We paid half that. Still highway robbery as far as I am concerned. Tickets were $10 each. So to get into the door cost $30 for both of us. Is ok though. I really only paid slightly more than your average dinner and a movie night.
We walked around a bit, just taking the place in. Ate corn dogs and sodas for dinner. Went on the sky tram thing, then the giant ferris wheel and finally a mini roller coaster that had spinning cars. We walked around a lot too and talked. It was good. I enjoyed it. She was interesting, didn't seem crazy or annoying. A little scary that she didn't seem bored about my stories. Ripped off a few Fogg tales from college which are always amusing. After two hours or so we decided any more time at the fair would require more money and she was kind enough to say that wouldn't be necessary before I even had a chance to lament my wallet's status.
Drove her back to her place. Then, she asked me in. wait... she actually asked if I wanted to come in. I said yes, of course. I wasn't planning anything more than a good night kiss and a drive home. But heck.. why not?
We got inside and we talked some more. She had a weird water container that seemed to defy gravity. There has to be a reason why that thing didn't work. It kinda distracted me. Then we talked a bit about how not being able to know certain facts can drive me crazy until I get the answers. I brought up another example and she actually pulled out her laptop and helped me find the answer. Most people would find this weird. I found it hot. She popped in The Incredibles because I had mentioned that I loved that movie. Kind of her.
Then movie on, sitting on the couch together. Time to make my move right? Wrong.
My stomach starts hurting something fierce, like that corn dog was seeking revenge on me for eating it. I excused myself to the bathroom. I couldn't go a full-fledged deuce at her house. Not on the first date. Realizing my personal situation was going to require medication, a few hours in a bathroom and other unfun things, I had to call it a night.
I went back in the living room and sat down. I told MP that I was going to kiss her but I really feel sick to my stomach and I thought that it might be best for me to go home for the night. She was very understanding. Walked me out to my car. We kissed goodnight. And it may be because I haven't had any physical contact in a while, but the kiss was extremely good. I hope she felt the same way. She definitely is a cool girl. I cursed the heavens for making me ill and drove home.
I'll definitely call/email her today or tomorrow to let her know what a good time I had. Hopefully we'll go out again soon and my stomach won't betray me. The date made me happy for other reasons too. I didn't have any crazy thoughts like wanting to get into a relationship with her right away or insanely thinking I loved her already. Very good. I'm a bit emotional and tend to jump ahead before I should. The fact that I didn't do that makes me feel better about the whole dating thing.

Nerds!!!

2006-10-24T21:30:00.000-07:00

Ok here's a little something I've probably spent the last 12 years of my life or so thinking about. It's still a work in progress :)

It's my definitions of the various terms for social outcasts.

Nerds
Nerds are individuals with above average intellect and an obsessive devotion to any subject or topic. For the typical nerd this means video games, comic books, science fiction, computers or technology or any variation/combination of these general areas. Nerdiness as a trait is spreading more into the mainstream. Fantasy Football and fantasy sports in general is an example of this. It's the nerdification of sports.

Nerds tend to overanalyze and overthink most situations. It's what makes them nerds. The same trait that enables a 26 year old male to follow the geneology of the Summers family in the X-men comic books allows him to suss it out why the wireless network is down in the office.

Nerds can associate somewhat with others. They usually find their lives handicapped in some way due to their lack of social acumen. There are exceptions but they are rare.

Perfect famous person example: Al Gore. Dude... what a nerd. He basically didn't win the presidency of the United States cause he was a giant nerd.

Dorks
Dorks, in most cases, are mutually exclusive from nerds. Dorks are the guys you knew in high school who were involved in athletics but were always on the JV team, even as seniors. In college, they usually joined the lamer fraternities or snuck on as hangers on of cooler friends. Dorks are usually of average intelligence. They lack the physical presence to be athletes. Dorks do not have winning, compelling personalities. They're not pure losers though. They have some talents.

More than any other social outcast class, they wish to not be an outcast. So they will do almost anything to be part of the normal non-outcast world.
Dorks tend to have guile. They excel as the people behind the scenes. Since they're always on the edge they tend to know the ebbs and flows of the popular crowds better than the popular people themselves. This skill is simultaneously what keeps them out of but near the circles of power. They're necessary but dorks are hard to trust.

Perfect example: (sorry to go political again but most political advisors are dorks) Karl Rove. Complete dork. There's no way he was athletic enough to be a star athlete. He's not attractive enough to skate by on looks alone. And while he's good at manipulating opinion, there's not a lot of people who go around bragging how he's their good friend. More like they brag that he's a weapon that can be used.

Geeks
Geeks are SuperNerds. They are extremely intelligent and completely lacking in social skills. Many geeks are afflicted with symptoms of autism or Asperger's Syndrome. Geeks are the people nerds go to if they can't find the solution to a technical problem.

You know the geeks in your workplace. It's the IT guy who never becomes management cause he can't handle people as well as servers. He may have problems with personal hygiene because he doesn't see it as important. Most people avoid them or fear them cause they're hard to understand and may be kind of stinky. Nerds will describe geeks with many laudatory terms but secretly are happy they're not that far gone socially.

Famous geeks: Stephen Hawking? Even then he may have too many social skills to be a geek. It's hard to find famous geeks cause most geeks are too immersed in their own world to be famous in the first place.

Losers
Losers lack social skills, are of average or below average intelligence, aren't attractive and possess few physical talents. The utter lack of redeeming traits doesn't necessary make them losers. It's the result of those traits. Losers are easily led from one task to the next. They're easy to fool and coerce because they lack the social skills or intelligence to see through most ruses.

The biggest thing that makes losers who they are is a lack of drive to accomplish or do anything. Even people who have few redeeming qualities can make something of themselves through effort. People who are more likely to become losers have to put more effort into life than most to accomplish something, to not be losers.

In some cases, people become losers by squandering gifts they do have such as good looks, intelligence, exceptional talents or the ability to get along well with others.

Famous Loser: Ryan Leaf- dude could have been a multi-millionare stud as a starting quarterback in the NFL. Gave it all up to be a colossal loser. He had all the phyiscal talents but no drive to do much with it or his life in general.

That's it for now on definitions. I've given it a lot of thought but I'm still not sure how people enter most of these catagories in the first place. Are you born a dork, nerd, geek or loser? I'm almost positive that losers are made not born but what about the other three? I'd love to hear people's thoughts on this one. I'll probably spend a lot more time thinking about it on my own anyways.

I think no matter how much you change as you grow older, being a social outcast as a child or adolescent stays with you. It's something that is intrinsic to who you are as a person. Being on the outside changes your perspective. It changes what you value in life, your goals and how you go about achieving them. This is not a value judgement. It is what it is.

er... this is gone on pretty long. I'll stop for now, chill out and listen to the rest of Takk.

How do you like your steak?

2006-10-21T23:30:00.000-07:00

I went to a concert tonight. The main attraction was a Japanese punk bank called Peelander-Z.
It may have been the most fun I've had at a concert since.... 2 Skinny Js back in Columbia my freshman year in college.
Doors opened at 8. I was there around 8:30. It was sadly empty. Maybe 5 people other than the band or Modified Arts staff. There were discussions about changing the take the band got of the door due to the low turnout. This had the stink of failure all over it. Some arrangement was made that the band would play two shows, one at Modified and then another at the Trunk Space? at midnight.
Anywho...
Bored bored bored waiting to hear the band. Then finally... things start happening.
The band members wear these insane outfits that are essentially like something out of the Power Rangers but no helmets.
It's clearly punk music cause they barely know how to play their guitars. But what they lack in musical talent they more than make up for with raw enthusiasm.
Audience participation is necessary. At some point everyone in the crowd of like 25 people were pounding on pots and pans that were passed out by the band. During the bowling song/event, the band gave their instruments to audience members who fumbled around playing while the band members set up bowling pins and then had one band member use the other as a bowling ball.
It was a ton of fun even though the crowd was so small. The band was really cool and totally sold this ridiculous concept. For $6, I had more than my money's worth.
So to the ...4? people who read this blog... if you find out that Peelander-Z is playing in your area, go. Bring tons of friends. Cause it may be the most ridiculous/insane/childish/giggle-worthy concert you've ever attended.

The correct answer to the post title is Medium Rare apparently. We had to shout this numerous times during the Steak song. Yes... the steak song.

You're Just Playing the Part

2006-10-19T08:23:00.000-07:00

Tried to start running again this week. That didn't work. I'm so out of shape it's pathetic. I'll go back to lifting. I might do stationary bike instead for a while. I need some kind of cardio.
Starting writing again this week. It's going ok. I have some ideas in my head that I need to get out. As long as I get five pages done a week I'll feel good about it.
Outlaw's been driving me crazy lately. Very ADD. Though at least the last two nights she let me sleep. On Monday she woke me up at 5 a.m. On Tuesday it was 4 a.m. She's lucky she's still among the living after Tuesday.
Friday is payday. Thank Jeebus. I can pay my parents back for the loan they gave me and I can buy groceries and go out or what not. This two week a paycheck thing is going to take some getting used to.
Got a forwarding address for the ex. I have to buckle down and get a box of her stuff out to her. She asked for me to make sure I include any correspondence from her previous employer. I don't remember seeing anything. I'm slightly worried that I may have tossed it by accident.
Well I'll send her what I have. Not looking forward to that task. Just getting the email from her put me in a funk for a day or two.

Date #1

2006-10-13T18:25:00.000-07:00

Getting back into the whole dating scene=difficult. That's the lesson I learned from Date #1.
It's not that it went bad. I think it went well. Girl #1 was cute, I think conversation came easily, she seems interesting and we're looking for the same thing. Why did I think it was difficult?

1. I was nervous
2. While she was attractive, I wasn't really turned on at all...
3. I'm finding it difficult to strike the appropriate balance between being friendly and wanting to get into her pants/dress.

Not that I made a fool of myself. Heck I don't think I did anything risky at all. Maybe that's why #2 never happened. I played it very safe.

The problem is this:
I'm not the kind of person who's going to sleep with someone he just met. At the same time, I don't want a serious relationship. So how/when do I get physical? I don't want to mislead women who want a relationship just to sleep with them. I don't want to hit the bars and sleep with random women. I don't want to end up in the friend zone either. grrr...

That and girl #2, who I really think is hot, hasn't responded since I asked her out. Meh..
This shit is hard work.

Bored bored bored

2006-10-10T22:02:00.000-07:00

At times I hate being idle. Today is one of those days.
Tuesday night is World of Warcraft night for me and the guys. It's the only night I play. Even though I'm completely burned out from the game I still play because I want to hang out with everyone. It's basically a $15/month interactive chat room.
Tonight I got on a bit later cause traffic was horrible. This made me miss out on the group finishing this quest I needed to complete.
Then the A's lost 5-1 to the Tigers in Game One of the ALCS, while I was waiting around for another group on WoW. Which never happened. Or at least not until it was too late for me. I don't like starting big deal instance runs at 9:30. I'm a wussy and like to be in bed around 10 or 11 on work nights, with the occasional exception.
Also I missed Veronica Mars, or at least 95% of it. Again because of WoW. This is going to be an issue for me. I need to find a reliable source to download episodes of this show. It's really one of the few shows I really try to watch. WoW night is Tuesday cause that's the only time everyone can get together. So Stealing TV it is!
But now I got out of WoW because of the time and I'm not sleepy. And I'm bored. Thus mindless blogging. I say mindless cause there's no real point to writing any of this other than it's giving me something to do.
Quiet you who say that's all blogging is anyway. Ok I give up. I'll go read a book till I get sleepy.

It helps to pay attention

2006-10-10T08:09:00.000-07:00

When using personals on Craigslist and age is a factor, it is important to notice the age of posters before responding to their ads. I did not follow this rule. Apparently BOTH women I'm dating are considerably younger than I am (five or more years). Now.. the deeper question is this: Why is this a bad thing?

With younger women it will be far too easy for me to slip into some.. superiority complex. Which is ridiculous of course. Why does my age make my superior? It doesn't. In fact when I was younger I used to get pissed when people did this very thing to me. Ok. I will not do that. I'm aware of it and can thus supress it.

Also though it is only five years there could be less to talk about. Are they in school still? Probably. Whoa.. dating college girls. That kind of makes me feel lame and cool all at the same time.

It could be a good thing too, dating younger women. Besides the ..ahem... obvious benefits. I'm not ready to jump right into a relationship again. I want to see what's around first. I think more women my age are looking for a relationship (of course, this is generalizing and I could totally be wrong here because honestly what do I know about women as a group? Not much)

Why stress about any of this? This is stupid on my part. I just want to have fun. No pressure. No worries. No making long-term plans. No sitting by computers or phones waiting for responses.
Take it as it comes. All Zen and shit.

Alright. I feel better now. Thanks blog!

Not going on upstairs

2006-10-08T15:06:00.000-07:00

So one of my best friends talked to me last weekend. She told me that her fiance is graduating from college soon and would like me to attend. She also says she has to email me the information about it. "Call me on Tuesday if I haven't told you be then. Otherwise I'll forget," is what she tells me.
Considering how urgently she wanted me to receive the info I assumed ( yeah I know, this is where the problem comes in) that it was THIS Sunday.
I rush around to get ready, putting on a shirt and tie and what not, then hustle my ass over to Glendale. Apparently the Cardinals have a home game today. I kept telling cops there was this graduation thing I HAD to go to and they just didn't know about it. (Boy am I dumb?) Then I finally weasel my way into a parking lot near the arena. Walk up the arena, pull on the doors. They're locked. I call my friend and ask her where I need to be. She says at home dummy. The ceremony is NEXT Sunday.
This moment of idiocy brought to you by my scatter brain.

Oh but good news:
I have a real live actual date on Thursday. And I'm talking to a different woman who is pretty cool so far as well. Hopefully a date will be happening with her soon too.
Thursday is with a 20 year old blonde. Taking her to a Japanese place that sounds pretty cool to me. Crossing my fingers that it will be fun.
The other woman is 28 and a brunette. She's really interesting to me so far. Very pretty as well as easy to talk to.
More as this develops.

Doom Vanquished?

2006-09-30T13:40:00.000-07:00

Speakers were plugged back in this morning and no squee. Watched a few Youtube vidoes... no squee. Perhaps time defeated the squee. God willing cause that sucked.

Felt a bit down Thursday and I blame Marcia. Talked to her Wednesday about the whole break-up thing and I said I don't feel sad about it most of the time. She seemed surprised I was taking it so well. Others have mentioned this too. I've been feeling odd physically lately. Maybe the two things are connected. Consciously I feel ok about it all but subconsciously I feel horrible so I get these painful headaches and my back hurts and just feel weird in general. It definitely does not feel like an illness.

To explore that theory, I tried really hard Thursday to let myself feel sad and depressed if the thoughts came up. No avoiding sad songs, no avoiding sad thoughts. It worked. I definitely felt worse emotionally today. But all the physical symptoms are still there. So it didn't work. Except now I feel like butt emotionally and physically. There goes that theory. If only Marcia had not sounded so surprised when I said I was doing ok. :)

Went out on Friday again with my old high school friend. It's homecoming weekend and she was going to go check it out but didn't want to go alone. All weekend the big LAN is going on. So I'll be out pretty late with the guys, killing each other in Halo and other FPS and maybe we can squeeze in some non shooters since I can't hit the broad side of a barn.

Maybe I'll bring my PS2 and Guitar Hero. That game is so fricking cool.

The Squeeling Sounds of Doom

2006-09-27T08:34:00.000-07:00

I was all ready to go for a fun WoW night with the guys. I'm logged into Vent, we're getting our little ducks in a row for a run at Lower Blackrock Spire and all of a sudden.....
SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Ack! WTF was that!? Apparently my speakers made an attempt on my life. At first I thought it was Vent so I changed my settings to no avail. Then I thought maybe the speakers were just plugged in funny. I wiggled and jiggled said plugs and cords (BTW this is very similar to how I fix any automotive issue, wiggle wires and pray)
It stopped for a little bit. Then 10 minutes later the SQUEE of doom comes back. I tried switching to headphones, no difference. Is it possible for a sound card to develop emotions.... Homicidal emotions?
The rest of the night was spent playing WoW with no sound which means no vent which means relying on people to tell me what to do in text form. If you've been doing voice chat for as long as our guild has, it makes it very difficult to type in tasks.
Around 9:30 I called it a night. I didn't even gain a level. ::sigh::
I read this Running With Scissors book my aunt got for Christmas last year that I've been avoiding. It's all right. It's a memoir but the guy's childhood seems too insane and thus not as interesting to me.
Anywho... I'm running late. When my family cleaned out the apartment they also took my deoderant and my razor. I have to make a trip to the store before I can even start getting ready to go to work. blech...

Tabula Rasa

2006-09-25T21:21:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was quite eventful. My ex officially moved out of my apartment. My parents and my aunt flew into the same space on Sunday and turned the apartment into a surgical room it's so damn clean. I went out with an old friend. My cat spends a lot of time looking for said ex. Loudly. In Meow form.
Today was spent recovering since I didn't get any sleep last night and was pretty stressed out anyway.
So where do I go from here? Why is the path unclear? (ok ok I'll stop the Buffy reference)

Basically, I'm ready to do something else now. Time to start meeting new people, going out on dates, learning cool new things for work. I can't say I won't be spending a few moments or days missing the hell out of my ex and the life that was. It was a good life and worth a few mournful mornings. Or evenings. Still, it's time for me to take some steps forward and live life again.

Now if only I can manage my bills....

Where is my mind?

2006-09-22T20:28:00.000-07:00

Ok... I need to think here for a bit so I can remember the blog posts I was thinking of writing at work.
....
....
....
Now I remember. I had to do that mental VCR thing. Rewinding my day and thoughts until I could recreate where the ideas came from in the first place. Anywho... on with the post.

At what point do high standards=becoming a flaming jerkwad?
I recently got out of a seven year relationship. I want to move up to the next level of competition. In other words, while I don't want a relationship now or any time soon, I would like to be spending time with women who are very attractive to me and also are interesting to me say... conversation wise. Not to say my ex wasn't any of those things. I just want better. The next step up. Whatever that may be.

When does this desire cross the line into me being a jerk? Like thinking I'm better than other people. I'm worried about that. It would be easy to slide into, that mindset.
I guess if the thought even floats through my conscious than it's likely not going to happen. Also I have friends that I hope will tell me if cross that line.

So tomorrow, going out with a friend and getting my ex out of the apartment. A big day to be sure.
I like the clothes I have been borrowing from my brother. Unprincipled me says to take them.
HAHAHAHHA I am indeed an evil mastermind.

Taking care of business

2006-09-21T21:02:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy but productive week of work. I finished all my work this week a day early thanks to a request for the population of downtown Phoenix being impossible. Apparently most of the downtown populace is in prison. Statistics about them is not exactly going to give insight into urban living patterns huh?

Bought a CD this morning. The soundtrack to The Last Kiss. To those who like indie rock it's pretty good. Those who hate Zach Braff and all he touches.... I'd say you should pass. Unless of course you're trying something new.

Either way there's this Remy Zero song on the album that is really awesome. I normally don't like Remy Zero. Aren't they the band that does the annoying Smallville theme song? Uch. Apparently they decided to write at least one awesome song. It's called Prophecy. I predict it will worm its way onto many a playlist for me.

Which brings up a habit of mine: I get hooked on certain songs and then I make playlists and 2/3 of the songs are the same. I have to fight to put new things on the playlists. I'm like a crappy radio DJ or something. Or whatever the title is of the person at the radio station who selects the playlists.

Songs that are on more than one playlist:
Artist- song:
Liz Phair- Supernova
Aretha Franklin- The House That Jack Built
David Bowie- Ziggy Stardust
Marvin Gaye- Mercy Mercy Me
Marvin Gaye- What's Going On (Two Marvin Gaye songs cause I have a soul playlist and a protest song playlist)

Ok... I guess it wasn't that bad. Maybe I just listen to certain playlists a lot. Those are all good songs too. I have no ending for this rambling post that probably should have been two or three seperate posts....
Oh and I know I'm late to this party but dude... Rufus Wainwright is fantastic.

Weekend fun

2006-09-18T07:33:00.000-07:00

So sadly I did not do much this weekend.... again.
Friday, I went to a Diamondbacks game with a co-worker. He had free tickets and offered so, what the hell why not? I guess that was fun. I should have gone out drinking afterwards but I chickened out.... again.
Saturday I played video games and watched/listened to college football. Again I should have gone out to the bars but I chickened out and watch 40 year old virgin on dvd which I had never seen. How's that for lame? I don't go out and I watch that particular movie...
It was funny though. I'm glad I got to see it finally. But I do wish I had gone out instead.
Sunday I slept in, ate breakfast, took a shower and then went to an early movie.
Saw The Last Kiss with Zach Braff. Pretty good movie. I really didn't like Braff's character but that's good for a change. He got what he deserved for his actions though and not in a lame morality play kind of way. In a more like real life kind of way. Nice to see that in a movie too.
After that I hung out at Barnes and Noble for a few hours. I almost hit on the Starbucks girl, but i was worried she might be in high school. That's a good general rule to follow: If she looks like she might be in high school, walk away.
Then I drove over to Target and bought a present for my friend whose birthday dinner was last night.
Went back home. Chilled out till it was time to go. Watched some Kill Bill and fed the dogs.
Birthday dinner was fun, but I talked to fricking much, again. And the single female friends of friends who I hoped would show did not. Sigh... instead just pretty wives of good friends. Everyone was fun to talk to but I gurantee people driving home complained about how I would never shut the fuck up. I wish I could control that better. Afterwards I always feel like crap because of that habit.

Not quite crash and burn

2006-09-13T20:04:00.000-07:00

In the last three weeks, my fiance/girlfriend of the last seven years dumped me, I've temporarily moved to my parent's house until she moves to California and my cat's gone nuts.
Considering all that, I'm doing pretty good.
So good in fact that I tried to get back in the old dating saddle again. Granted I feel like I'm 15 and I have temporarily lost what little social acumen I have. But even attempting to start dating again, to me, is a pretty cool.
There was a cute girl at work. Thanks to some basic googling I found she has a lot of the same interests as I do. I had another co-worker find me a mole from which to get info. I'm feeling good, thinking this might actually work out.
Then.... my mole gets back to me. Cute Girl has a boyfriend already. Apparently, it's pretty serious.
Oh well.
At least I didn't have to ask and then get shot down. And.... I personally didn't get shot down. She already had a boyfriend. She's not rejecting me. She's stating the circumstances. Not too shabby. I turned a loss into a win. I think...
So watch out cute girls who are at least a little bit nerdy.. I'm free and I'm apparently crazy enough to ask people out on dates again. (Do people even date anymore? what's this "hooking up" thing I've heard so much about on the interwebs? kidding) The world may never be the same.

Huzzah

2006-09-13T11:50:00.000-07:00

Public blog... Gooo!
If you are here, I either told you this address or you randomly came across the site.
Those who know me... it will just be me blabbing.
Those who do not know me.... maybe you will find it interesting, maybe not.