FTL: spewing grey matter for your enjoyment.

I am weird.

2004-08-03T20:00:00.000-04:00

One of my clients is a German company. One guy there is very German, thick accent and all.

While I'm there, I find my "yeah" turning into almost a "ya" when I say it... like he says. Is that bad?

I am also thinking of making followthislogic.com into kind of a young right-wing kinda site. This idea stems from me listening to 770AM a LOT lately. I find it interesting, and except for the opinions that have their base in religion (gay marriage, abortion, etc), I agree a lot.

Wow.

2004-07-25T22:56:00.000-04:00

I finally feel like blogging! But if you think it's about anything cool or interesting, HA!

Second season of Dead Like Me started tonight! Holy fuck, was that ever a good episode. Either they got new writers, or the writers got much better.... cause it was frickin amazing. And a ton of interesting things happened... and things that will make you laugh your ass off. Of course, I'm the only one who saw it, cause no one else has Showtime.... so go download it already. Some shit is still making me laugh just thinking about it.

Umm, as far as everything else.... yesterday was 1 year with Krystyna.... didn't do a thing for it, because she's in Poland right now, on vacation. She's got family there. When she gets back, we're doing a concert and whatever else I may be able to come up with. I've always been bad at these things.

That's it. See ya in two months, heh.

Message board drama is just like high school drama.....

2004-05-23T22:01:00.000-04:00

How do I know? Cause I spent the weekend with a bunch of drama-crazy fuckin high schoolers!

Yeah, it was prom weekend. And actually, when the drama wasn't going on, it was a damn fun weekend. Lots of cool, down the shore kinda fun. So all in all, I'd say it was more good than bad. Funniest drama of the weekend was when Aaron saw some dude wearing a uniform to prom, about 50 feet away, and said something like "damn, I could have kept my Marine uniform [from ROTC] and totally showed him up." The girl with this random dude has to start shit, "umm, just so you know, he didn't like rent this uniform......" - this is where I cut her off.... "oh please, we really don't need your fuckin drama, just shut up." And she did. That was cool. :)

You know how vanity license plates are never, ever, EVER funny? They all fucking suck.... EXCEPT ONE!

Somewhere out there, there is a Toyota Prius with a license plate of "F OPEC".... and THAT is fucking funny.

Holy shit...

2004-05-16T13:12:00.000-04:00

Blogger has sure changed a lot, wow. So different.

Anyway, I saw a movie last night! It was Van Helsing! It.... SUCKED MONKEY BALLS!

It was really boring, and really frickin long. Or at least, it felt reeeeeeeeally long. It tried to be action-packed and tried to have some humor but it didn't do either very well.

Don't go see it, don't rent it... and hell, if you see it on HBO, you may not even want to waste the time.

Ummmmmmmmmm........

2004-05-03T23:06:00.000-04:00

So, I don't go to the movies much. But I just downloaded both volumes of Kill Bill.

Didn't come close to the hype. It was good. Just good. Wasn't great. Wasn't awesome. Wasn't what everyone said it was. Just good.

Is it just me, or what?

Spoil away in the comments. If you haven't seen it, you've been warned.

Yeah yeah.

2004-04-28T06:39:00.000-04:00

I'm just too busy to update. I'm barely home anymore, and when I am, I'm just tired and I go to sleep. I guess it's good that I'm keeping busy, but I really do miss the 12+ hours of sleep.

Weeeeeeeeeeeeee......!

2004-04-05T20:30:00.000-04:00

So I motherfucking finally GOT A JOB!

Well, actually I didn't want to say anything as it's only 90% official. But today I found out that it's really more like 99% official. When the owner of the company (the guy who'd hire me) says things like "the guys who are interviewing would need to be gold-plated to beat you out", it tells ya something....

The story goes like this... I had an interview on Tuesday afternoon, 4:00. After that interview, I was told to show up Thursday morning for a "working interview", which meant I'd be going around with the other tech guy during the day, to client sites, doing work. Testing me out. At the end of that day, the boss talked to the tech guy alone for a bit..... the first words I heard from the boss after that conversation was "needless to say, we're interested..."

Only thing is, they had more interviews scheduled. One this afternoon and one tomorrow morning. But he said that in the meantime, I could keep showing up. So I went Friday, and today, I'm going tomorrow.....

Another thing I was told today (after asking how today's interview went) was "You've got nothing to worry about. If I didn't think you were the right candidate for the job, you wouldn't be here right now. After the first working interview, I would have just said 'we'll let ya know' and that would be that."

Sooooooo.... I feel good. :) It should be official by tomorrow afternoon or Wednesday morning.

----------

In other news, DEEP SPACE NINE IS ON SPIKE TV!!! Sure, it may not be as important as me getting a job, but I fucking love DS9.

Bullshit!

2004-03-25T03:26:00.000-05:00

Holy crap! Penn & Teller: Bullshit! Season 1 on DVD, March 30! GO BUY IT!!

And while you're at it.... buy one for me? :) I'm poor.

Wow.

2004-03-23T00:02:00.000-05:00

Went to check out Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Official Site or IMDB).... and damn, it's an excellent movie! I had heard a little bit about it... my friend asked me if I wanted to check it out today, so I found the official site, checked out the trailer, and said sure, why not, could be interesting.

There was a lot of trippy digging into the mind, which was done really well. I remember thinking in the theater that it reminded me of Being John Malkovich in how it was done. When I came home and checked out IMDB, I figured out why... they share a writer.

I also saw (after I saw the movie) that The Diva highly recommends it, and I must say that I agree 100%. Go check it out.

....eh?

2004-03-21T03:51:00.000-05:00

Two and a half weeks... heh... hi. See, I'd blog more if anything of any interest was going on. But it isn't.

Had yet another interview. There's an interesting little twist to the job, but I don't want to get into it until I know for sure whether I get it or not. Superstition I guess.

Picked up XIII, and let me tell you, it fucking ROCKS. You just can't go wrong with voice acting from David Duchovny and Adam West. Well, until Eve is in the scene. I could do without her. But she's tolerable. So if you're looking to pick up a first-person shooter that's actually DIFFERENT from others of the genre, check it out. I dig the comic book style a lot.

I guess I'll sleep now. I'm bored.

Done!

2004-03-04T15:29:00.000-05:00

Well, I finished season 4 last night! Now all I can do is wait for Sunday! Dammit, I want it to come already. I've even resorted to searching for a torrent, y'know, try to get it early... heh.... hey, it works for Enterprise. Usually the torrent for Wednesday's episode is up on Tuesday night!

Sooooooooo.... not much more to say really....

Except that I saw Club Dread! It was pretty good, definitely funny, BUT as far as quotable quotes go, I think Super Troopers has it beat.

So there. :)

What a BUM!

2004-02-26T01:08:00.000-05:00

Wow, I really wanted to make that blogsite. Well, I still do, and I will. But right now I have another project eating up all of my spare time.

THE SOPRANOS!

As it's been so fucking long since season 4 ended, and I own all 4 seasons on DVD, I have decided to watch every single episode by March 7, the season 5 premiere. So far, I've completed 2 seasons.... so Pussy just got whacked. considering it took maybe a week to get this far, I'd say I'll hit my goal. Of course, I have to get season 4 back from my aunt, but that should happen this weekend. This is actually fun, I'm enjoying it a lot. Highly recommended if you can find a shitload of free time in the next 10 days or so. Doesn't everyone have 52 hours of spare time? Maybe only the bums like me. :)

Coheed and Cambria: In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3. Wow. Fucking amazing. Get it.

I suck!

2004-02-22T04:45:00.000-05:00

I'm so broke, dammit!! I haaaaate this.

The job result was... well, weird. Apparently this guy is "picky"... the consulting company is throwing different kinds of guys their way, even higher level guys than me, and they say that these guys don't know anything, or don't know what they need. Like, BS responses. My "downside" was that I had no multiple-domain experience.... now anyone who knows what they're talking about, knows that's BULLSHIT.... not only is multi-domain not very different from a single domain, but as I'm MCSE-trained, the knowledge to back it up is there without the experience. Easy to pick it up and go.

My THEORY is..... this guy is Arab or Indian or whatever he is, and he's trying to get a guy in his race. But since he can't just say "send me Indian guys only", he finds any nitpicky shit wrong with every candidate. Fucking shame too, that would have been a great job.

Overall a disappointing weekend... Krystyna's Rutgers audition wasn't what she expected....

But we finally watched Say Anything all the way through, that was good.....

V-Day!

2004-02-15T03:52:00.000-05:00

Well, damn good V-Day. Krystyna got me Say Anything (sweeeeeeeeeeeet!), plus a bear and some candy in a lil heart box. She wants me to display this WHITE AND PINK bear prominently on my desk.... I'm thinking it ain't too likely.

Anyway, due to my lack of creative gift thought and shitty funds, we decided that instead of a gift, I'd control the night's activities. First stop, Little Italy. Aww yeah. We went to Paesano, cause Paesano is fucking cool. Come to think of it, I didn't test to see whether the old O&A glass o' wine trick still worked... oh well, I don't like wine that much anyway. So that was good.... then we went to Ferrara, a pastry shop around the corner... she said that her parents always loved to get stuff from there, so we had to check it out. AWESOME. We got cannolis and other assorted stuff, and it all kicked very much ass. Highly recommended. Mulberry & Grand.

Next, we drove around the city, looking at a bunch of different somewhat interesting sights... O&A related, former job related, things randomly related to other things.... whatever, it was cool. The original plan was to WALK around midtown, but that fell through due to the nightmare parking scene - and I park in GARAGES.... it was impossible. But driving around worked out better for us.

Then, since my NYC comedy club plans fell flat (Ralphie May at Carolines was sold out, Comic Strip was just no-names), we went back to NJ. The comedian was actually my first choice to see, but going to Jersey was not.... ever heard of Jim David? You've probably seen him if you watch Tough Crowd, or heard him if you have XM Radio. BUT NONE OF YOU DO. Fuckers! Anyway, we went to Bananas in Hasbrouck Heights, which isn't so much a comedy club as a hotel confrence/meeting/big ass room... but it BECOMES a comedy club on the weekend. It's cool, though. The openers were actually FUNNY.... and Jim David is killer. We met him and bought his CD after it was over, cool guy.

Then we went back to her house.... she wanted to watch Ever After, I didn't. Soooo we ended up putting on Say Anything. But, halfway through, she started falling asleep, so it was time to go..... dammit, I want to finish it now, but she wants to see it, I guess I'll wait. Don't want it to be like "eh, I just saw it" when she wants to start it up again.

Anyway...... fun shit...... umm.... WWE PPV tomorrow, weee....?

Wee.

2004-02-13T13:59:00.000-05:00

Interview today. I think it went well, but then again, I thought that about the last one too. But this job is so much better. Higher level position, mostly server rather than desktop, 90% of the requirements are things I do very well. The guy was kinda hard to read, but I find that most Middle Eastern guys are. Well, he looked and kinda talked Indian, but his name was Mohammed Khan. So I'm guessing.

Anyway, yeah, he was hard to read, so I have no idea how it went. Hopefully he'll go by merit and not affirmatively act within his own race. Affirmative action is bad, kids. Don't forget it. And don't disagree with me..... if you feel like disagreeing on this, simply write "I'm retarded" in the comments, and be sure that your name is clearly stated.

But this ain't about liberal bullshit. It's about me getting a job. A job that I could do well, and that would pay me well - like as well as I used to be paid, back in the day. Ugh. I hope..

And to top it off, my interview day was Friday the 13th. Lucky me!

New entry!!

2004-02-11T01:13:00.000-05:00

New super cooooool game to play! It's online and it's FREE!

Go get GUNBOUND!!

Add me to your buddy list in there, too. I'm using FTLrocks.

Hey, I didn't say this would be a GOOD new entry.

Whew...

2004-01-29T14:22:00.000-05:00

My geekdom was in question! That computer I was talking about, with the mad lockup problems... my dad noticed that the CPU heat sink was really dusty. Could that be causing the CPU to overheat? He rebooted and it was fine. Did a bunch of Windows Updates, rebooted... and pow, locked. :) So the owner of the computer just bought a new one, and will ask me to come up and help him transfer data from the old computer to the new one. Good deal.

Kicked some mad crazy ass on Initial D on Tuesday. I rule. Then I got to see Krystyna for a bit, and have some Chinese food, before the snow forced me the hell out of there. Glad I left when I did, too.... even though I only got like 3 inches by me, she said she got more like 10.

And on Monday..... Raw was actually........ GOOD! Incredible.

And the winner is....

2004-01-25T05:26:00.000-05:00

Tony, with my new screen name, WhatTheFTL!

Works for me.

Today was 6 months with Krystyna.... hoooooly crap. That went by really fast. No sign of letting up any time soon, sooooooo good! :)

I'm fuckin TIRED. But I get to sleep in.... the only task I had for tomorrow (diagnose a problem on a computer), I completed tonight. Problem: Lockups a-plenty. Result: not 100% sure. Seems video related, but even after trying a different card in the AGP slot, and yet another card in a PCI slot, it would still lock. Tried a different hard drive, so software is ruled out. Disconnected everything but the hard drive and video card(s), no dice. Must be the CPU or motherboard - RAM is unlikely, as one of the RAM chips is brand new, and I've tried every new/old/slot config possible. Weird.

That is all. That is more than I expected to write. Wee.

Weird day...

2004-01-22T01:27:00.000-05:00

You know, today actually started off well. Yesterday, I found out that one of my former companies was in an interesting situation...... the pharmaceutical company - which I now live virtually ACROSS THE STREET from - second-guessed my replacement. (Way too late, IMO. He's been wasting their money for years now.) Anyhoo, their quest is to add IPs to their network. They said they needed about 20. His estimate? $50,000.

Now, granted, I've been out of there for over three years. Things can change a lot in that amount of time. But that estimate put me on the frickin floor laughing. I don't see how it's even possible, unless he's trying to fix the network with a new BMW. So they wanted MY estimate. I had lunch with my old buds from there, the ones who came to me with this.... I told them flat out - first off, I highly doubt they're SO CLOSE to 254 IPs in use, that they would even need to change ANYTHING. When I was there, they had maybe 120-150 tops in use.... I really doubt they've doubled it in that time. Second, even if they did need to change things, it would probably be a matter of reprogramming. Either switch the netmask on the network, or add VLANs. If they didn't have hardware able to do that, it would probably be 2-3k, certainly no less than 5. Nowhere near 50..

So that lunch was fun. The rest of the day...... not so good. Mostly me.

Today I decided that AOL is not worth paying for anymore. As some of you may know, I was keeping it in order to keep my screen names, which I stupidly registered on AOL rather than AIM. Now, along with the depression over just how poor I am, I CAN NOT THINK OF A NEW NAME. Or at least, not one I like. I registered two today.... FTLrocks and FTLstinks. Way opposites, heh. Also in my head are FTLisaGEEK, FTLisaDORK, FTLisaNERD. I only want one, but I don't know which to pick, if any. I'd like to keep FTL in there somewhere.

Whoa. CrescentFreshFTL just came to mind. I tried adding Crescent Fresh before, didn't work.... I think I threw "is" in there, as in "FTLisCrescentFresh".... over 16 chars. Is Sifl & Olly too long dead to go for that name? I registered it. Should I use it? I know one S&O fan who would enjoy it.....

Do you guys ever read these long, rambling entries?

Hurry your ass up!

2004-01-21T15:59:00.000-05:00

LAST DAY to sign up for FREE WEB HOSTING, BITCHES!

Interviews... goooooood.

2004-01-14T16:54:00.000-05:00

So yeah, I had an interview today. and it went really well. I think so, anyway. Only annoying thing, is that I have to have 2 references fill out these sheets about my performance...... they're supposed to go to past boss kinda references, but they're not going to. :) I hope these stupid sheets aren't a pre-requisite for employment, cause the people in IS that I'd actually be working with seemed to really like me, the sheets are HR crapola.

It's a low-paying job anyway. Hopefully, given that they know I have much more ability than the job requires (meaning I can help them in higher projects), they can bump it up.

My mom also found out TODAY that a decorator pal of hers works in personnel for Rutgers.... *forehead smack!* How cool would THAT be?! Working at Rutgers.......

Two... TWO!

2004-01-10T02:51:00.000-05:00

Krystyna and I left the arcade tonight, and my car's thermometer said it was TWO DEGREES. Two!! Ponderous, f'n ponderous... and fuckin cold!

Last night I was completely unable to sleep, I have no idea why. I had to reschedule the interview for the job I don't really want. I got in bed at 11:40. I didn't sleep until at least 6:15, and that was only for about an hour and a half.... got up, called in to reschedule, saying I had been sick all night (not sleeping from being sick, or just not sleeping, what's the difference?).... I felt really horrible, calling in sick for an interview. But it can't be THAT out of the ordinary.... you don't want to go in there looking and feeling like complete shit. Right?

I didn't sleep much after that either.... I was still in bed, trying to sleep, I think I finally passed out around 11:15 and slept REALLY well till 2. And somehow I managed to function today.....

Arcade was fun, as usual. I got my aura on my FC, my second "main" car. I feel accomplished..... I started the night at battle level 8 or 9, and ended up at 11. Dat's a lotta wins. Even though the RX-7 took most of my attention tonight, I did use the Subaru near the end.... that was fun. Even though I usually kick ass off the line with the FC, it's just so much easier in the Subaru. Against one guy, on Akagi, I just took off... I looked like Bunta.... but I think he either screwed up his shifting, or the machine was fucked.... most likely the latter.

:( So few people who read my blog know the JOY that is Initial D... get yer asses over to Willowbrook Mall some night! There's one at Rutgers too, if you live kinda by me, but that requires risking a parking ticket.... actually, except for lately... for the holiday break, they moved the machines to a pool hall in Milltown....

Anyway, yes, Initial D rules. Now it's time to sleep... and I better fuckin sleep.

Who cares?

2004-01-07T15:04:00.000-05:00

I know there are people who visit this blog out of habit, it's another blog to read.... not lately, cause I don't write that often. I'm at a point where I really don't give a crap about my life, so I don't see why anyone else should bother either. Seriously, it's a fucking joke. I spend as much time as I can out of the house. I do this so I can avoid thinking about how shitty things are going for me. Unfortunately, this makes me spend too much of the money that I don't have. This week, I'm staying home, all the way till Friday, when I have an interview for a crappy job that won't pay me enough, but it's better than unemployment. But all this time in the house gives me way too much time to think about how COMPLETELY FUCKED I am.

There's this other job dragging their feet, which is the job I really want. More convenient location, more money, better job (higher level position). I think it would be pretty stupid to take that job I don't want, only to leave after a few months for something new... kind of a dick move. It would also be stupid to turn down the shitty job in case I don't get this other job, even though they seem very interested. Both jobs seem very interested.... I think if I interview at both, I have a decent chance of getting both. but I don't HAVE an interview for the one I want. Sooooooooo it's all fucked.

Holidays were cool, got lots of neat stuff... Star Trek seasons, DVDs, games, a DVD±RW (coooool), 2 more Wavebirds (cooooool too), an air hockey table (super coooooool)..... of course, the one thing I needed, a winning Mega Millions ticket, wasn't in there. Santa's such a tease.

Spent a lot of time with Krystyna while she was on break, that was good.... my wallet thinks it was a huge mistake, but it was fun anyway... met her whole family on New Years Day, which was cool, I was well-accepted. Mostly cause they're all geeks, and I jumped right into the conversation easily, heh.... and then there was the surround sound debacle.... after 2-3 hours and 2 calls to the cable company, the TV was back on and all was sorted out...... it wasn't my fault. Blame her uncles.

I haven't done shit on my blog site yet, maybe I'll work on that today.

Change is coming...

2003-12-20T02:53:00.000-05:00

....well, it probably is. And it's because I'm bored.

Whenever it's ready, I'll start using blog.followthislogic.com... it's not really that I don't like Blogger, Blogger is fine. But I'm bored out of my mind and I want to program something, so hosting my own blog will be my lil' project.

Might as well plug my web host while I'm at it, since it's freeeeeeee..... 1and1.com rocks. 500 megs free for 3 years. No commitment - you don't even have to give them a credit card number. Except if you want to register a domain, which is only $5.99 a year.... that's a fuckin sick price for a domain reg. Things like dynamitediva.com and mattyfridays.com are available, you know..... :) And the free offer end January 14. When the 3 years are up, it's 29 bucks a month, but hey, you can cancel and get some other web host if that's too much for ya in 3 years.

Okay, enough plugging. I just figured that I should let everyone know... again... cause the offer's gonna end soon, and they seem to be a pretty decent host.

In other news, hit the arcade today. As I am waiting for a fucking unemployment check to clear, I had to play on "borrowed" money..... borrowed meaning lots and lots of quarters that Krystyna yoinked from her dad's boxes full of loose change. I tore some ass up at Initial D.... awwwww yeah. Beat this one chick who always challenges lesser players to the ONE track she plays constantly, Irohazaka Reverse. I, of course, did not take her to Iro Reverse - that would be like a guaranteed loss. No, instead I took her to MY home course, Akagi Downhill. And I won. Awwwwwwww yeah. I also got 2'23 on a Time Attack on Akagi DH, which is pretty damn good, at least for me.

Like you all fuckin care about Initial D. :) But it's about the most exciting thing that ever goes on with me.... and you wonder why I rarely blog anymore.

Woo!

2003-12-15T15:38:00.000-05:00

Spider-Man 2 trailer is out!

Another crappy, wasted snow.

Another REALLY crappy PPV. Oh man. The redeeming quality: Lita's repeated spread-eagle shots. That's about it, and that ain't much.

And another boring, dumb blog entry. Heh.

Oh yeah, the RF party was pretty decent. The whole thing with the mutual avoidance of people I really have nothing further to talk about, kinda sucked. Tough to walk around people who used to be your friends, but stabbed you in the back, and pretend you don't know them. Oh well.

Waste of a snow....

2003-12-06T17:51:00.000-05:00

Wow, it's been so long since I blogged, that Blogger lost my name/password cookie.

So yeah, I said it, this is a waste of a snow. Snow's fun and all, but when it interferes with a weekend, IT SUCKS! I was gonna go up and see K last night. I was gonna go to the Meyersville Inn tonight to celebrate my mom's birthday, and have a big-ass blackened prime rib.

TAKEN FROM ME! ALL OF IT!

Well, actually, the Meyersville Inn thing is just gonna be postponed till tomorrow. So I still get my 2-inch-thick slab of cajun-spiced beef. Hell yeah! As for K... I'll probably head up there sometime during the week... not like I've got anything else to do during the day...

Good thing about living in an apartment: I only have to shovel snow off my car.

Bad thing about living in an apartment: The parking lot is apparently prone to snow drifts. This wasn't such a hassle today, but when that huge blizzard hit earlier this year, the entire front of my car was buried in 5 feet of snow. Up to the mirrors. I just dug out a little, then backed the car out. :)

Woo hoo!

2003-11-19T19:01:00.000-05:00

Don't skip the post below this - cause I want comments 'n thoughts 'n shit..... but check it out.... possible Family Guy return!!!

Daniel Libeskind is a fag.

2003-11-19T18:57:00.000-05:00

Yeah, you heard me. I hate him, and I hate his WTC rebuild design. I bring this up because the memorial plan was in the news.

Maybe it's just me - I doubt it, but maybe - but I really hate that Libeskind, and the Lower Manhattan planning board, and anyone else who believes they're in their right mind, could POSSIBLY think that this:

...is a suitable replacement for this:

How fucking stupid.

Hell, I still think the best design was #3 from the crazy folks over at WTC2002.com....

I'd even rather see the tribute put back up, and left on for good:

Cast your vote in the comments!

Stupid fucking car.

2003-11-13T12:43:00.000-05:00

When are the automakers of the world going to finally make a car that doesn't include the rape-procedure that is presented as "routine maintenance"?

There are a few things on my car that are busted. All of these things are due to wear, just because the car is 4 years old and has 100,000 miles on it. Granted, I know that moving parts cause wear.... but I think there should be a way to make a car that doesn't wear, cause this is fuckin bullshit.

I guess the only way to do this is to have moving parts that don't actually touch each other, and that only happens with magnets.

Fucking cars.

Matrix Revolutions!

2003-11-06T03:15:00.000-05:00

So, of course, I went to see Matrix Revolutions tonight.

Y'know, I saw a LOT of people online (mostly Slashdot and RottenTomatoes) saying that it sucked.

WHAT THE FUCK WERE THEY SMOKING?

The short answer is, I thought it rocked - but you had to PAY ATTENTION in order to enjoy it, you have to understand it, in order to think it's good. I don't think it's too much of the Wachowskis to ask that you GET the movie, that you actually WATCH and COMPREHEND. There, that's my little bit for all the morons who say that the Wachowskis had the potential for a great trilogy, but pissed on it.

But, I will say, that even though the movie makes enough sense without them, everything is MUCH clearer if you've watched the Animatrix (particularly Final Flight of the Osiris) and you've played through all of the Enter The Matrix game, which is basically a mini-movie in itself, centered around Niobe and Ghost. It's actually pretty awesome, I'd recommend it as a rental... cause if you play it a lot on easy, you could probably get through it all in a few days.

Anyway, here's the spoiler section, if you want to see what I think about actual points in the movie. I will also warn you that I expect the comments on this post (if there are any) to include spoilers, so you're warned. Shade the white space below for the spoiler talk....

Basically I think that people are mostly pissed off that the humans didn't BEAT the machines, they just made a peace instead. It's anti-climactic, and a lot of people probably hate that. But they're not thinking about it at all..... I mean, did you see the fucking machine world? The humans can't beat that. NO FUCKING CHANCE.

Neo had a bargaining chip. Smith had taken over the Matrix, completely. Everyone in the Matrix, was a Smith. And Neo said that next, he would go for the machines. So, Neo used this... said that if Smith could be stopped, he wanted peace. As Smith was a threat to both machines and humans alike, peace was worth it, rather than losing both worlds.

And as for HOW Smith was actually beaten, I look at it like your average antivirus software works. I'm thinking that the machines didn't have control over Smith directly, cause he was like a virus....... but they did have Neo jacked in directly. So when Neo got a copy of Smith in him, then the machines had a copy of Smith to work with, and basically just deleted all copies of him. It makes sense.

What doesn't exactly make sense, is why they couldn't take this copy from any of the billions of other people jacked in... the explanation, I'm guessing, is that because he is a virus, he blocked that somehow, blocked it from getting to the "brain" that runs the Matrix. But Neo was in the heart of the machine city... effectively in the brain, rather than jacked into one of the pods that everyone else is in.

Second thing I don't get - where are the machines gonna get power from, when they set everyone free? Their power is derived from human body heat.... if everyone's free, they have no power. From the first movie, we know that the machines used to use solar power, but the skies are still scorched.... we know that there's sunlight above that, but only Neo and Trinity went there, and they're both dead, and Neo was blind anyway.

Last thing I don't get.... as difficult as it is to free a mind, as far as the mind accepting that everything they've ever known in life was a computer simulation...... how do you free billions of them at once? My only guess is that this solves the previous problem in itself, they can choose to stay jacked in. But then again, it would then only be fair to establish a rule that the next generation of people are born outside the Matrix, or that the machines are not to grow any more humans, therefore the power problem comes back when everyone from the current generation dies.

But now I'm just thinking way too far into it.

Whew, that was fun!

Yay for addiction!

2003-11-03T14:10:00.000-05:00

I am seriously addicted to an arcade game. The game is Initial D, it's a driving game based on an anime/manga of the same name.

See, you purchase a card - this card will store your info on it. The type of car you have, your score, what stages you've passed, your battle record, everything. I drive a Subaru WRX STi (GC8). Not the newer body style that's out here in the States, the old one.

I haven't been playing very long, but I'm getting pretty good. A big key in the game (because it's key in the anime) is drifting around turns - for you defensive drivers out there, this is when you throw the back end of the car out, making your car slide around a turn almost sideways. Of course you need to be able to control the drift, so you don't hit a wall, spin out, or generally fuck up coming out of the turn.

Soooooooo much fun.

Krystyna has an addiction too, she's really getting into DDR. She has an Initial D card too, but doesn't like playing it as much as DDR.... even though she has the game's really cheap-ass car, the Integra. Fuckin thing barely loses any speed when it hits a wall, and that makes it cheesy as fuck, especially on a course with a bunch of hairpin turns.

I just want to someday be able to beat Uli and his RX-7....

List maintenance.

2003-10-31T13:41:00.000-05:00

You know, it's amazing how many people can pile up on your buddy list that you never talk to. And some that you can't even fucking stand anymore.

Today I decided to trim the fat - mostly message board people - and I cut my buddy list from 185 to 116. And even that 116 is padded with a bunch of real-life friends who I don't usually see online or talk to when they are, but I *might* want to someday. The difference with the message board people is, I know I'm not gonna talk to any of them, any time soon. That list dropped to 15, from something like 72, I believe.

Originally I was going to do this upon making a new name, but I really can't think of a good one. The only real reason I'd need a new one is that I want to cancel AOL, and stupid me, I made all my names on AOL - so if I cancel it, they go away. Any name ideas? I think "FTL dot com" is about all I can think of... and I'm not doing "FTLneedsSN".

Edit - don't ya love my HOMSAR?

Birfday.

2003-10-30T12:21:00.000-05:00

Wee. 24. Sure, it feels different from yesterday. But that's because yesterday, I had to wake up at 7am to get to an interview in NYC at 10am. I had nothing to do on Monday except going up to visit K... so it feels like Monday. Heh.

So yeah, wee for me, I made it around the sun again. :) And what does it do for me? Explodes frickin solar flares at me! Why I oughta...

Rants vs. life story in blogs...

2003-10-27T02:07:00.000-05:00

Soooooo Krystyna is annoyed at my ranting taking precedence over the life-story-telling here.

I find that the life stories get boring. Partly because I don't find my life to be that interesting, partly because I basically do the same few things all the time. I see her, and we either come here and watch TV/movies, or we stay by her, and usually hang with her friends. When we do that, we either go to the arcade, play pool, or go bowling. The only other things I do... going to my parents' house, hanging with the wrestling guys, or with Amy and Maria. Anything outside of that list is pretty rare.

So since K will see this, that is why I have gotten bored of wiritng that kind of stuff. It's not that the things going on have any less value to me, but I do think they have less value to my blog.

I guess the question really, is...... which is better, ranting on topics, or keeping a journal of events? Or maybe both? Or keep two blogs, one for rants and one for events? I don't actually know the answer, just looking for opinions.

Great Adventure goodness!

2003-10-26T01:43:00.000-05:00

Holy fuck, was that a fun time. My body is tired as crap, but somehow I'm still quite awake. I think I'll go to bed by 3..... 2.... yeah, whichever. Silly time change, fuckin everything up.

Superman kicked much ass. My brother said Nitro was better, though. Hmm.

But the really important thing is, beware of the Dark Cloud. Scariest thing at the park all day - I can only imagine the carnage of that free fried chicken prank. Poor bastards at Granny's would probably have to start giving out free shit anyway, to stay alive.

If you don't understand any of that (except for the fact that I kinda explained it), then you are a deek for not going today. Or a bigger deek for leaving early.

More religious nonsense.

2003-10-22T02:24:00.000-04:00

While hanging with the Amigos tonight, we happened to catch a news story on NBC about..... yeah, get ready to slap your fucking forehead..... people who think they saw the Virgin Mary..... in a TREE STUMP.

::SMACK!!::

I couldn't find the story on NBC's site, but CBS was nice enough to cover it.

Wow, yep, that does it for me. I'm a convert. My life is changed. I'm a holy man now. It's a miracle. It's amazing. I'm gonna go on a pilgrimage to Passaic to see it.

::SMACK AGAIN!!!::

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? It's a STUMP. Just a stump! Undoubtedly some old Catholic Hispanic lady was walking by, caught it out of the corner of here eye, and immediately clasped her hands together and said a prayer, right before running to tell all the other little old Hispanic ladies on her street. Actually, I just re-read the article, it says her name. Nilma Ruiz. DING! (But excuse me, she was driving, not walking - I have a feeling that proves she must have been old, because she had to have been driving slow to notice it, right?)

The problem is, this happens all the fucking time. And quite often, it happens to Hispanic people. Lots in Mexico, I think. Hell, even the article mentions another nearby Mary hotspot. It's always a miracle. It's always a sign. It's always an act of god, god's sending a message.....

Reality stepping in. IT IS A TREE STUMP.

If religion gives you strength, gives you direction, has a positive effect on your life, without you causing a negative effect on others' lives (i.e. you try to push it on people), then that's great. Good for you. You're happy, that's cool.

When that religion has you worshipping a tree stump, it's time to re-evaluate your life. Fast.

(Quick edit - it should also be noted that as I'm in Clifton all the time, which is right next to Passaic, I heavily considered moving all the religious items off to the side, and destroying the stump... with a hatchet, or a fire, or something. Does that make me a bad person?) :)

OK, stop the world, I wanna get off.

2003-10-20T14:30:00.000-04:00

The insanity of the world (and I don't just mean my last entry about the stupid names) is really making my head spin.... I feel like I'm gonna turn into Lewis Black.

I just saw a story..... oh man, is it ever a WHOPPER of a story, too. Apparently the "Science and Rationalists' Association of India" is trying to dispute the validity of Mother Teresa's miracles.

DISPUTING THE VALIDITY OF MOTHER TERESA'S MIRACLES.

SAYING THAT SHE SHOULD NOT BE MADE A SAINT.

Now....... I don't believe in god, or religion at all, never have, never will. And I certainly think I'm one for science and rationalism. But I saw this article and felt my blood trying to squirt out my eyeballs....... WHAT ARE THESE PEOPLE THINKING?! First off, if they're religious AND belong to the Science and Rationalists' Association, they're full of shit. You can't have both. You just can't. Because religion is the LEAST SCIENTIFIC and LEAST RATIONAL thing that man has ever created - yes, man created religion as a method of controlling the masses, and religion is a crock of shit - and if you don't believe those two things, then throw away your computer, television, cable modem, PDA, cell phone, stereo, game console, VCR, DVD player, lights, heat, air conditioning, indoor plumbing, refrigerator, and go live in a fucking cave in the Middle East - because you DO NOT DESERVE anything that's been invented in the past 2000 years. You deserve to live like they did back then.

ANYWAY....... that little diatribe wasn't the point... the point is this - okay, so the miracles might be a crock of shit. They're MIRACLES. What do you expect? Of course they're a crock of shit. Of course there's a scientific explanation, as there probably has been for EVERY OTHER FUCKING SAINT THAT EXISTS. Regardless, YOU MAKE HER A SAINT. She probably did more for other people than those protestors, COMBINED, will ever do..... fuck miracles, you make her a saint.

Either you make her a saint, or dissolve all of Catholicism, because all the saints are bullshit too.

Of course, that leaves a tough choice in my head.... make her a saint or destroy Catholicism..... I'd be happy with either one, really... probably happier with the latter. :)

Fuck the media.

2003-10-20T02:35:00.000-04:00

Fuck them up their stupid asses.

I am officially declaring my hatred and flat-out disgust for the "first initial, shortened last name" trend. I want the person who dreamed it up to die horribly and painfully.

I think "J. Lo" was the first one to really be big. "P. Diddy" was one of the dumbest things I had ever heard in my life - that was until I heard Allen Iverson referred to as "A. Ive".

Today was the end of it, though. The fucking end. It needs to die now. I heard Jeremy Shockey referred to as "J. Shock"....... THIS WILL NOT FUCKING FLY.

Kill it, and kill it now.

More for you wrestling fans...

2003-10-19T16:11:00.000-04:00

I've made a little wrestling rant kinda page, for no particular reason. Sometimes I like to write a rant, and it might be enjoyable.

You'll notice the same style as this page, because I'm not really that original. :)

I plan on doing some actual code, to make it interactive, allow comments and such...... but for now, it's just the rant itself.

Have fun!

I wanna get drunk.

2003-10-19T02:46:00.000-04:00

I really do. I've wanted to get drunk all weekend. Ain't gonna happen, but I want to.

Probably next week, at Uliween. At least, I hope so.

Maybe the unemployment is behind my yearning for alcohol...... big shocker there.

I thought of this on Friday while hanging with the posse. Fun, as always. And I'm down to $9.50 in quarters, from 21 bucks. Gotta dig the arcade! Before that was pool (we didn't stay long) and Dunkin Donuts....... Piano Man - Manda says I rock. If the others didn't actually know the words, they fucking should! And if they just weren't singing, then bah on them, that's just a song that if you know it, go for it.

Today was an unexpected family dinner.... my mom just called me and invited me, I said I was hanging with Krystyna, she said to invite her too.... and sure, we went. K got to meet Grandma and Grandpa, awww. Loved her, of course. Then we came back here and watched Anger Management, which we borrowed from my folks. Good stuff!

Tomorrow is football! Hell yeah! Giants better fuckin win, because the Eagles are THE SUCK. Then I'm going to my folks' for dinner... and for laundry... and to return the movie. And then it's off to Matt's for the ever-so-fun WWE No Mercy! And judging by the matches on the card, the people getting no mercy from the WWE are the fans!

Seriously. They put Eddy against the Big Show? Brock vs. Taker? Benoit vs. A-Train? And the real fucking kicker..... VINCE VS. STEPH IN AN I QUIT MATCH?! Vince thinks that people want to see him fight his own daughter, in an I Quit match. It's time to call it, folks. The old man has fucking lost it. The show does have two potentially good matches though, if they're given enough time.... Rey vs. Tajiri and Cena vs. Angle.... I actually want to watch those..... the others will be MST-fodder.

At least there's no match between ANNOUNCERS this time.

Remember this guy?

2003-10-17T01:40:00.000-04:00

Father Guido Sarducci!

XM Comedy played an old Father Guido album in its entirety. Actually, they played it on Friday night, but replayed it Tuesday morning, and earlier tonight.

And of course, I recorded it!

So if you want to check it out, click that link above. Right-click and Save Target As to save it.

Stupid Halloween!

2003-10-16T19:00:00.000-04:00

Costume ideas are hard to come by this year. Last year, it hit me, and it was easy.... the Slash thing worked, and about 10 people got it, as planned. Perfect.

This year, I finally came up with something..... I need to buy a few things, but it'll work. Probably isn't what everyone is expecting of me..... and yet... well, you'll have to see.

I fucking hate costumes that don't make people laugh. The worst costume ever, is one that when someone asks you what you're dressed as, you tell them, and they just go... "oh." - well, if they know you. If it's just some random stranger, well who cares? But someone who knows you should at least get it, and chuckle. "Oh" means YOUR COSTUME SUCKS.

I like characters. I don't want someone to find my costume to be amazing or accurate or beautiful....... just funny.

So... if you're reading this, I don't want to see your costume, ask, and have to say "oh."

And by the way... store-bought costumes? You might as well just stay home. WORST. COSTUMES. EVER.

Dear readers....

2003-10-13T01:53:00.000-04:00

I have two questions to pose to you.

1) Now that I have registered followthislogic.com, what the hell should I do with it, other than hosting stuff?

2) Does anyone know a good spot in Jersey to check out the stars at night?

I'm looking for a source that's a good distance from major light sources, therefore as free from light pollution as possible. Look at this picture. It says that any areas in orange or red (or white, too) are places where the band of the Milky Way is no longer visible. I was thinking - it's SUPPOSED to be visible?! I think I've seen it. Once. Ever. This annoys me, and I'm now on a quest for a good stargazing spot - that and I want to see M31 - the Andromeda galaxy. It's the most distant object you can see with the naked eye, at 2 million light years.

Comment away......

Big weekend...

2003-10-13T01:48:00.000-04:00

Friday, I actually did work at work. On my last day. SUCKER! Nah, actually, it was something I had been pushing for months (new backup software). When it finally arrived, the next task was to install it on the email and database servers - ahh, but the new database server had no SCSI card, nor did it have a tape drive. So, we had to steal that stuff from the old database server. But the new DB was already switched to production, so this had to be done off-hours. So I was in at 8am to do it.

Good part is, I got out at 4pm, quietly, only saying goodbye to the people that I gave a crap about, and would give a crap about me leaving.

Off to get K. We hit the mall (which somehow gets more annoying every single time, except for the arcade), then went to my place for a bit... then it was off to Applebee's for my bud Marc's birthday. Fun time. K was bored as fuck at the start - that all turned around, though, in a weird way. She's taking sign language in school, and she was signing stuff to me. Across the bar, a guy is looking at us, and shoots me the sign for sign language (which I didn't know till that point).... I shook my head no and pointed at her, then pointed her in his direction. Turns out the guy was actually deaf, and she had a little conversation with him. Some shit. Anyway, after Applebee's, we went bowling, which is always a fun time.

Saturday, hoo boy, homecoming. Dating a girl in high school comes with high school obligations, and this was one. So I got dressed all spiffy-like, went to K's, had some pizza, she got dressed, picked up her friend, went to Manda's to meet an assload of people.... pictures pictures pictures all over.... then off to the school.

The first half-hour to hour were boring as all fuck. Andy and I were just like... why the fuck are we here? Between the ghetto music and Spanish music, it was a mess. Slowly though, things turned around. I think we just hit a point where we didn't care anymore, it didn't matter what was on, we were just going to act crazy and have a good time..... so we did. I'm sure that many incriminating photos of me dancing with Andy and Uli will surface. If they're scanned, I'll probably even post 'em.

Whatever, all in all, it was a good time. Then we went to IHOP afterwards, which was also a good time. Parted ways, then I got to take K home overnight - wee! Little detour on the way home, to see if the Scenic Overlook out on 78 (by exit 29) was open after dark. It ain't. (Star talk moved to next entry.)

Anyway, enough of the star detour..... sleeping in the same bed is a chore. Mostly because my body is a fucking furnace, and any heat source other than myself tends to really make me uncomfortable. It makes me wonder how I slept in the same bed with The Bitch every night and managed to get a fairly decent night's sleep.

Today, I tortured K with football. She kinda likes it, but it has to be a good game in order to hold her interest. Today's game was certainly not good..... Big Blue got an ass-whuppin'. And Gang Green handed out the ass-whuppin'. Not really exciting on either side. So, anyway, she cooked me dinner and stuff, we watched TV.... then she went home. She's sick again. Aww. She got it from me. Oops.

I have a question to pose the group, but I will make it a separate entry, as I want it to be visible.

Another shorty-but-goody for today....

2003-10-10T15:57:00.000-04:00

Tired of the annoying fucking quest to find a free web host?

Thanks to Steve (Hybrid to you message board dorks) - he showed me a webhost offering 3 YEARS FOR FREE.

Just visit 1and1.com. You get 500 megs of webspace, 5GB of transfer per month. And even better still - domain registration is $5.99 a year. No commitment, cancel at any time. Hell, you don't even have to give them a credit card number, unless you're purchasing a domain name.

Being the uber-dork, I had to register one.

:)

Love hurts - literally.

2003-10-10T12:36:00.000-04:00

I just saw a story, on Slashdot as usual... about how emotional pain registers the same way that physical pain does in the brain.

If you've gone through a bad breakup, this may not come as a shocker, but it's interesting to see it scientifically proven.

(By the way, nothing happened to ME, I'm still quite happy. It's just an article.)

Holy fuckbeans...

2003-10-07T01:17:00.000-04:00

The people who programmed PHP-Nuke were SMOKING CRACK. Lots and lots and lots of it. There's just an amazing amount of duplicate code and conusing file structures.... I spent hours just trying to figure out which file holds the displayed text (the language file).... and it turned out that the value I was changing to test it out, HAD A DUPLICATE LATER IN THE FILE... hence cancelling out the value I was changing.

Gotta love Open Source!

(Yeah, I realize that hardly anyone will get this.)

From the I-fucking-told-you-so department...

2003-10-06T11:31:00.000-04:00

(Sorry, this wasn't supposed to be long, but it is. Even if you don't read it, check out what the various links are, and click them. The one at the bottom is kinda the point of all this.)

Back in January, I revamped my company's website. It originally looked something like this monstrosity. Actually, everything there is *just about* correct, except I forgot how to re-create the upper-left corner "Logan & Company", though it wasn't much better. Oh, also, I was too lazy to put the sub-pages back how they used to be. But everything else on the main page is exactly what used to be on our site.

When I re-created the site, it looked like this. A definite improvement over what was there, though the basic format was still the same. I was never big on design, really, especially as far as what should go where - but still, it was a better site. It was also driven by PHP, and a SQL Server database. What this allowed was something great - ANYONE COULD UPDATE IT. Anyone with the proper rights, that is. To add a client, or edit one, or edit a link, whatever you wanted to do - it was all driven by forms. Easy. The other guy's site? He made it with MS FrontPage. So for EVERY SINGLE CLIENT, he had a separate page. The result was no uniformity, and only he knew how to change stuff and publish it.

So, I showed the president of the company, and she loved it. Loved the color, loved the updating capability. She told me to show a few people, including the guy who did the original website.

He was PISSED.

Now, he is a corporate, political, bullshit guy. He knows a little bit about a lot of different things, enough to make him dangerous. Dangerous means that he knows enough to SOUND like he knows what he's talking about, by throwing out a bunch of technical terms, and upper management believes him. (If you actually know what the terms mean, though, you know he's fucking full of shit.) So he obviously threw his bullshit at the president, because my website never came to be.

As I mentioned on Sept 28, I was told that we didn't need marketing, and we relied on word-of-mouth. I also said that we're losing business from the lawfirms we used to trust, and our solution is marketing.... and that a new logo and new website were on the way (being done by a consulting firm that's getting paid way more than I am).

Well, now the new website is up.... AND THEY STOLE MY FUCKING BACKGROUND COLOR!!!!

Go ahead. Look at their site, look at mine. Click back and forth. It's a few shades away from fucking identical.

And yet..... I AM THE ONE GETTING FIRED.

Am I the only one who sees a problem with this?

THE CURE, baby!

2003-10-05T13:24:00.000-04:00

Holy shit! I just saw an HP commercial (for their digital photography products, I guess), and the music playing was The Cure's "Pictures Of You"..... that fucking RULES!!

Cause, if ya didn't know, The Cure are like, one of my faves. Ever.

Anyway, while I'm here, might as well 'splain the weekend.

Friday, we went over to Garden State Plaza... again... her dress still wasn't at that store, she returned her small shirt (marked as XL) for a real XL, had some Nathan's.... then it was off to the arcade, and of course the posse was already there. Amanda and Stacey were walking around the mall somewhere, so it was just Uli and Andy for a while, and of course, that was still the rockage. Krystyna and Andy ended up finding the girls, and yeah, wee. I wanted to get on Initial D, but didn't get the chance. Too many people. We did, however, get on DDR. K went with Manda, and I was with Andy. We both sucked some major ass. It sure ain't StepMania.

Yesterday, I got K and brought her back here..... not a whole lot to tell, really.... did some stuff, got some KFC, some ice cream, Krispy Kremes.... mmmm... and we watched Memento, so that rocks ass.

Right now, I'm watching the Giants. Aww hell yeah. Still no score. Gonna head over to my parents' house after the game. Fun.

Too close for comfort...

2003-10-03T10:38:00.000-04:00

I just read an article (from Slashdot) about an asteroid that just passed within 88,000km of the Earth. As noted in the article, the geosynchronous satellites that bring us pager service, or satellite TV and radio, orbit at 42,000km (that's about 22,000mi from the surface).

They only detected the asteroid after it had passed.

Granted, the thing was small (10m wide), but this does not give me confidence that if a global-catastrophe-causing asteroid was on the way, we'd be ready for it.

More like, "holy shit, look at that huge fireball-" BOOM.

Once upon a time....

2003-10-01T17:03:00.000-04:00

...I created a website.

That decision was a mistake.

That is all.

The concert deserves its own entry...

2003-10-01T13:00:00.000-04:00

....even though I never stopped writing since the last entry. Actually, it was going to be a part of that, but I decided to break it up.

Anyway...

I ducked out of work early, cause it was time for MOTHERFUCKIN' THURSDAY!!!! The show was nothing short of fucking amazing, of course. Amy couldn't go, so that really sucked for her. In her place, I took Krystyna's (and now my) friend Uli. I didn't know he even liked Thursday till then. So I got him, stopped home, changed my shirt and grabbed the tickets, got Maria, and we were off. Two bucks for parking... bastards. We found Dennis and Steve inside, by the stage, front-and-center.

The first opener, a band called Boys Night Out, kinda, well... stunk. Not incredibly horrible, but not that good. You could tell that there were people in the crowd who knew of them and liked them, but they were the only ones actually reacting for them.

Next opener, Murder By Death, got the crowd going a lot more. (Not much on their site, btw, but it's there.) I liked them a lot. So much, in fact, that I purchased their new CD there, which I dig - and am willing to share if anyone wants to check it out. The band itself was interesting.... the lead singer also played lead guitar, a bassist, a drummer, a keyboardist, and the most intriguing part - a cello player. And let me tell you, that girl was fucking AMAZING to watch in action. Have you ever seen someone completely rock out on a fuckin cello? Probably not. But we did. Fuckin awesome. It wasn't a regular, big wodden cello either... it was like.... could you call it an electric cello? I guess.

Then it was time... THURSDAY! We stayed front-and-center through the openers.... before Thursday came on, Dennis ducked out (who knows where he went, we didn't see him again)... Maria did the same, as it was getting very hot and very packed. Uli and I stuck it out. Well, for a while anyway. After about 7 songs (I think), the heat, combined with the fact that I hadn't eaten since my very small lunch, and my singing along, finally got to me.... I started to feel like I was gonna pass out if I didn't get out of there. So, that's what I did. I pushed my way out of the crowd, toward the side, carefully avoiding getting sucked into the mosh pit.... at one point I was standing there, trying to figure out where the closest place to sit would be, and I actually whited-out. Being blind in the middle of a crowd is very uncool. It passed before I passed out, and I continued toward the back. The second I found a step, I sat there for a little bit, then made my way to the bathroom, to occupy a stall and cool out. Then I got a bottle of water, and Uli appears. Not long after that, Maria showed up too. We stayed in the back for the rest of the show....

Next time I will be prepared.. :)

Tickets are still available for Thursday / Thrice / Coheed & Cambria at Roseland Ballroom, November 17. If you like them, and you can go, GO. (It's on a Monday.) Get tickets NOW before they're gone.

Stuff happened.

2003-10-01T12:33:00.000-04:00

Yeah, time to go over the weekend... on Wednesday.... yep.

I guess I could be super-clever and do the lil change time & date thing, but I don't wanna.

Anyway, Friday, K. She got all dressed up nice and sexay-like, then cooked me dinner. Chicken parm. Come on, super-hotness plus cooking. Can life get better? I submit that it can NOT. And tons of leftovers too!

Saturday we took a trip to the Garden State Plaza again, to see if that dress she wanted had come in. It hadn't. Why didn't she call first? I dunno. Then we grabbed some Orange Julius, which fucking rocks, she ate at Sbarro, then had to spend an annoyingly long amount of time in Hot Topic. But let's be honest here, any amount of time over 5 seconds in Hot Topic, is an annoyingly long time. That place fucking pisses me off. Royally.

Sunday, it was time for her to meet the folks. So, she did. Mom talked a lot of shit about one of my ex's, who was a goth... wore a lot of black. Or, well, pretty much all black. K wears all black as well, though she wasn't that day - because I knew Mom hates that. She didn't know exactly how much Mom hated it, but I think she gets it now. I'm sure that won't stop her from eventually breaking Mom into the fact that she wears all black, thus tearing down the idea in Mom's head that K is good for me. That's okay, I can tell that she already doesn't like the fact that I'm dating someone so young (no matter what she SAYS), why not throw that on the pile.. sure..

Monday, I went to work. You know, I have no idea why I continue to waste my time here. I should just get the next four work days paid in a severance deal. This is bullshit. I know I'm done here, why waste my time?

From the behind-the-times department....

2003-09-30T20:02:00.000-04:00

How the hell had I never seen this before?

Tonight on The Screen Savers, they had a special on innovations. One section was on crappy, odd, or annoying inventions. One of these was the Flowbee. I think I've heard the name "Flowbee" before, but I had never actually seen the thing. When I did, the realization was chilling....

IT'S THE FUCKING SUCK-CUT FROM WAYNE'S WORLD.

Someone must have seen the movie, and thought it was a good idea. There's no other way. You can't think of that crap on your own.

And not much has changed since 1992.... it still "certainly does suck".

Decisions, decisions....

2003-09-28T23:58:00.000-04:00

So, in the process of laying me off, I was told that I would probably be called in the future for contract work. In other words, wait for the shit to pile up, then call me to do it all at once.

But really - why am I being laid off? I know that answer, and it's NOT all about the company's current state of affairs. We used to have a great Controller (Finance Manager), her name was Kathie Horne. Kathie was awesome. See, in the bankruptcy biz, everything is billable back to the client, including reports that are run, hours people worked, amount of paper that was used, phone calls, everything. Kathie was ruthless in getting this money back into the company. As you might understand, a company going Chapter 11 might be a bit hesitant to pay ANYONE, even if it's the company handling the bankruptcy paperwork.

Kathie left about a year ago. The company was doing great. She was, of course, replaced. Her replacement's name is Nancy Carlino. From what I gather, Nancy is extremely bad at hounding the clients for money. So bad that the company has been spending 6 months to a year trying to cut costs, and now firings have become the last resort.

Though it's not ALL her fault, she is a major part of it. There is another, though. The company is basically in the dark ages, and can't handle major jobs. Two parts, I'll explain each. One.... LOOK AT THIS FUCKING WEBSITE. Please click. You NEED to know how AWFUL it is. They hired a consulting firm do make a new one though, because our major competitors (one and two are obviously kicking the ever-loving shit out of us.

--It should be noted that near the end of 2002/beginning of 2003, I redesigned the website myself, severely pissing off the utter moron who made the current site, which looks like it was done in 3 minutes, by a five-year-old, in 1996. After an impressive demo, I was told by the same moron that our company gets no business from marketing. All of our business comes from word-of-mouth from the lawfirms that we deal with, so we don't need marketing. The company has recently found that those same lawyers are now referring clients to our competitors. The solution? Marketing. They've already changed the company logo, and the new website is on the way. I really hate being so fucking right, and stuck in a position where I can't do a thing about it.--

The second thing is much shorter to explain - the company can't handle major jobs. Why? There are about 35-40 employees in the company. Nearly ALL - and by that I mean 95% or better - of the decisions made in the company, are made by the president/owner, Kate Logan. Kate also does an even higher percentage of dealing with the client. Probably close to 100%, if not 100. I've been at a few companies who do many millions of dollars of business, and I have NEVER seen a CEO as busy as Kate Logan. She's on the phone ALL DAY. When she isn't, she runs around the office like crazy, then back to her office for more phone calls. She makes every deal happen, gets every client to file with us.

No company can be big without delegation. It just doesn't work that way. Her reason for not delegating is that she has done it in the past, and been burned with a lawsuit when something got screwed up..... which I don't see as being enough to justify it....

Anyway... I was going somewhere with all of this... THE DECISION! If you've gotten this far, you deserve to see the whole point of this mess of an entry.

Do I accept the not-so-often contracting jobs, at a substantially steeper hourly rate, or do I just completely torch the bridge by sending a manifesto (including all the the points above) in a company-wide email, sometime in the middle of the day, when most people will read it before an announcement goes out telling them all to delete it? :)

You're FIIIIIIIIIIRED!

2003-09-26T18:00:00.000-04:00

Well, laid off, actually.

I guess the bankruptcy biz is pretty slow, and after the next two weeks, my services will no longer be required. I am officially a "cut corner".

The president of the company was the one who did it (as she makes every single decision here).... she told me that I would "probably be the first of many". Does it make me a bad person if I find some comfort in that?

So I gave it a shot...

2003-09-26T16:05:00.000-04:00

And it's pretty accurate, I guess...

Conscious self	Overall self

Take Free Enneagram Test

Ha ha, my blog is so cool (or so weird), it fucks the link up. At least, till my next entry anyway.

Mark your calendar....

2003-09-26T12:11:00.000-04:00

11/5. Matrix Revolutions.

The theatrical trailer just came out. Either take your chances getting the high-res version from there, or ask me nicely (read: beg) to send it to you via AIM. :)

Shoot me.

2003-09-24T13:11:00.000-04:00

I need to get out of this fucking job. There is so little to do here. If anyone reading this knows of an open IT position, let me know. This three-days-a-week crap - with nothing to do, even for those three days - is sucking the life out of me.

Monday night was...... uncomfortable. Highly uncomfortable. Lesson learned with K: I have been out of high school long enough that being in a high school is wildly uncomfortable. Hanging out with her friends is one thing. Hanging out with her friends, in her school.. no. Especially when the night's task was.... tech. If you don't know tech, tech is construction of the set for an upcoming play. I did that in high school. I did that when most of the people there had no clue what tech was, as they were busy on the playground or doing whatever else your average elementary school kid might do.

I don't enjoy questioning the age gap, but I did, that night. AWFUL. She will not be convincing me to try it again. Ever.

Last night, Amigo night, werd. A little Dead Like Me, a little Chinese food, a little Roger Rabbit, and some TechTV just for fun.

Back to work. Save me from this rotten place.

Another weekend down... you know what that means....

2003-09-22T13:19:00.000-04:00

It means I'm being pestered to blog. :)

But actually, this time, I just opened Blogger because I'm bored at work, so I figure, might as well.

Friday... Underworld. It was okay.... I mean, it wasn't the best movie ever, but it certainly beats the piss out of things like Queen of the Damned - of course, that's probably not saying much, is it? Hell, Star Wars Kid beats that movie, and I mean the original SWK, before the special effects were added.

Anyway, yes, Underworld, not too bad, but you can wait for rental.

It's kinda cool now, to be able to hang at K's house. Her parents love me.

Saturday, went with K and a group of her friends - a few of whom I think I can consider friends now, though I've never actually talked to them outside the context of hanging out as her boyfriend - to the Garden State Plaza for shopping and food and stuff. The girls wanted homecoming dresses (yes, it's weird hanging out with youngins, I know)..... the rest of us were kinda... well, dragged. I'm not sure, but I don't think a single one of the five girls walked out with a dress. Maybe one. Tops.

After the mall, we split by gender.... guys went to the arcade, girls kinda screwed around, dropped one off, then joined us. They dig when I drive my car hard in Tiptronic. Come to think of it, so do I. :)

Yesterday, went up to my folks' for dinner. The fucking Giants ALMOST blew it. When 21-3 at the half turns into 21-21 in OT, you know there's something wrong.

If there was any doubt in your mind, WWE Unforgiven STUNK. I find it harder and harder to believe that they think they're putting out a quality product.

Still no progress on the site situation. Outlook: still grim. I'm thinking the new name thing might be refreshing though. A cleansing of sorts.

Long one today. I hope I have appeased all of you silly bloggers who come looking for updates every day. ;)

Sickened...

2003-09-19T08:29:00.000-04:00

I am absolutely disgusted at the recent events on YMB. Shunned from a place I fucking made happen. Depending on how a certain mod thread goes toward solving YMB's modding problems (which I am somehow said to be most, but not 100% - maybe 99% - of), I may just decide that it's time to say fuck the message board world and all the cunts trapped in it. I'm very close to cancelling AOL (hence killing all of my current SN's), and creating new ones. If you don't find out the new name from me, then sorry, but you're just another one of the douchebags.

I think most people - especially those reading this - should be able to figure out where you will stand when that judgement day comes.

Isn't it a bit late...

2003-09-17T00:39:00.000-04:00

...to blog about the weekend?

No, fuck you. :)

Frriday was, as usual, fun with K. Dead Like Me, Caddyshack, MXC, other stuff. Dead Like Me was kinda disappointing, actually. Montage clips of the other 11 shows made up about half of the episode... the actual story, though, was good. And K loooooooves MXC. That's cause MXC fuckin rocks.

Saturday, JIM NORTON @ THE STRESS FACTORY! He frickin ROCKED. And he was taping a new CD during the show, so that kicked some ass too. Afterwards, Norton and Club Soda Kenny were selling CDs and signed Norton posters, so we picked 'em up. Opie was even hanging there.... oooooo.... I think I only typed that so I'll get lots of search engine hits. Thanks Yahoo and Google!

Matt Bryant isn't too bad, but when he stinks, HE FUCKIN STINKS. Cost Big Blue the game. Fucker.

Today was also awesome, of course that means - zing! - I was with K all day.

What really pissed me off today though, was that FYE, the only record store in the Willowbrook Mall, decided to put their plastic security cases around Thursday's new CD (which is INCREDIBLE, by the way)..... normally, for a plastic jewel case, this isn't a problem. But no, War All The Time comes in a cardboard case, and apparently this is a tad too big for their plastic security case. Instead of finding a way around it, THEY JUST JAMMED THEM IN THERE. I was staring at 30 completely destroyed cases.... bent edges, bowed in the middle, nothing I'd even think about spending $14.99 on. I'm buying it to support the band (I already have the damn MP3s), but if I'm gonna buy it, I'm not gonna pay for something that's already DAMAGED.

End of rant. End of entry. Night.

Dreaming of... what?

2003-09-12T11:11:00.000-04:00

First of all, ooooo, look at all the neat new Blogger features. Thanks, Google!

Anyway, I've been having some dreams lately that are just fucked up. This can probably be attributed to my inability to sleep straight through the night lately. I've been getting up at least 3 times through the night, and each time, I've had a fucked up dream to show for it.

The one truly strange recurrence (besides the Risk dreams last night - I blame K) came in the form of two dreams of mock Dead Like Me episodes.

I was not George, but I followed her, as any episode does. The major feature in both of these dreams was that she took the soul of someone who was setting up a nuclear bomb, and would die in the detonation. Which they did, both times. Apparently she took the soul long enough before the bomb that she was able to get far enough away (not that a reaper could die from it anyway, but it'd sure hurt a lot)...

Two dreams, completely different scenario, completely different person, doing the same thing, and having the same result.

Told you it was fucked up.

I promised...

2003-09-08T05:33:00.000-04:00

Blog before bed. I forgot. Now I woke up in the middle of the night and thought about it, so I'm here.

Geez, I'm really spacing on details here. Probably because of the time.

Friday was Dickie Roberts (which was... eh, okay I guess) then hanging with the crew, fun as always.. Andy jumped on me for the grand finale hug and broke my cell phone case, heh...

Oh yeah, crap, met her dad on Friday. Told you I was spacing. It was fairly awkward, most of that was K's fault. :)

Saturday, picked her up from work, but she had to run home for something.... that quick run home turned into me and her dad talking for half an hour about geeky shit.. haha. :) It's good that we get along, though.

Then we came to my place and watched Queen of the Damned (Dickie Roberts was better, I'll put it that way), Dead Like Me (VERY "awwwwwwww" episode), had a little food adventure, and some other stuff....

And yesterday, I broke my mom in to the idea that K exists..... meeting forthcoming, I'm sure.......

Okay, I fulfilled my obligation. :) Back to bed, dammit!

I am all that is man.

2003-09-04T16:02:00.000-04:00

Today I ordered the coolest shirt in the world.

Go ahead, you can order it too. But I ordered it first, therefore you are simply a copycat.

Thanks to Mr. Labia in Diva-land, his Stash Bash entry led me to the store...

So little going on....

2003-09-03T22:00:00.000-04:00

Okay, so Saturday I hung with K and a bunch of new friends I didn't know. These friends were even younger than her (I didn't find out they were children until I told her they were childish), that kinda annoyed me a bit, especially the girl... heh... anyhoo, overall it was a good time. Men In Tights and Super Troopers were on the movie menu. I hate people who won't shut the fuck up during movies, even if I've seen them a million times. And I don't mean quoting lines, I mean having long, loud conversations that have nothing to do with anything.

Anyway, Sunday was dinner with the folks.... it was soooo... dinner with the folks.

Monday was the last day with K for a while... aww... met at the mall, and she decided it was time to meet Mom, so I did.... that was fun.... then I ate, and we popped over to the arcade to find Amanda, Andy, and Uli already there. So we hung out there a while, then came to my place, watched Dead Like Me and The Two Towers, which I hadn't seen before.... frickin awesome. Definitely gonna have to find a theater participating in the special LotR re-releases!!

Yesterday, it was the Amigos... catching up on Dead Like Me, and playing video games... weeeee...

Today, work, and uh, that's it.

Yaaaayyyyy...

2003-08-30T00:57:00.000-04:00

Tuesday... did nothing, nothing at all. It was great.

Wednesday... Kentucky Fried Movie! ROCK!

Thursday... also nothing, but did that nothing with K. Heh.

Tonight... a little TV, a little pool, a little arcade. K's getting sicker. Aww. :(

Ketchup.

2003-08-26T03:10:00.000-04:00

Time to catch up a bit.

Saturday.... picked up K early... we wasted some time at the mall, then more at my place, because I forgot how to get to Pt. Pleasant, and cause we weren't sure that we'd be able to get in. In an email from Flock, it seemed like it wasn't gonna happen, so we tried the contingency plan... Vos. Booked solid. Dammit. In trying to decide what ELSE we could do, I managed to get a hold of 420.... he reassured us that we'd get in fine. Glad I listened, because we did get in and stayed in without a problem. Saw a bunch of people I hadn't seen in a long time... the Moosens, Buttmunch, Gooch, Moron... we ended up staying the latest at Martell's, with Wookie and the Moosens. Probably the best fucking conversation ever. I haven't laughed that much and that hard in a long time. And, as with any conversation like that, we left with a ton of in-jokes. :) So we stayed at the Tiki Bar until they kicked us out, around 2. Then we hung for a little more, then made our way back home... we were beat. Turned in.

Slept like shit. We're gonna have to work on that same bed thing. I think the proper side choice was resolved and next time, whenever it may be, should be gravy.

Sunday... I had to go to a family thing. She decided to stay at my place and wait till I got home, only to run back out to the PPV... and that's exactly what we did. PPV sucked, commentary was fun, as usual.... she enjoyed it. Really hard to part ways that night.

Today... ALMOST bought F-Zero GX. I really don't have the kind of money to be dropping 50 on a game right now. Luckily for me, even though the official release date was today, no copies were expected until tomorrow, in two stores. I figure that's enough of a hint for me, that I shouldn't be blowing that 50 bucks. But I will make no mistake about it... F-Zero GX and Soul Calibur 2 are on my list.... I will get them sooner or later.

Hung with K, watched Empire Records. I liked it. Classic lines, none of which I can remember well enough to make into Away messages just yet... I'll have to see it a few more times. Plus, most of the best lines were multiple-line interactions between characters... I dig the one-liners.

That's it then. I figure I've got a few more days before she insists that I blog again. :) Actually, this weekend was quite blog-worthy, but my previous entry was useless. Tomorrow is guaranteed to be useless, I just know it. Wednesday it is then... maybe. :)

Oh, and I beat Super Monkey Ball 2's Story Mode. Yay for me. Challenge Mode will whoop my ass.

Why am I blogging?

2003-08-23T03:02:00.000-04:00

There's really not much to say. I feel very forced.

Hung with K. Watched Fight Club.... hell fuckin yeah. Monkey Ball, and other stuff...... and uh, that's it.

Heh, I would have forgotten...

2003-08-22T01:29:00.000-04:00

K reminded me. Probably just cause she likes to read this. Even though she experiences most of it.

Like today. I did nothing, played more Monkey Ball, then went up there to go bowling with her and some friends. Amanda challenged me, but somehow I beat her in both games. That's what she gets for runnin' the mouth. Werd.

I am poor, and I fucking despise being poor. I used to basically make more money than I knew what to do with, but after that job went away, it's been difficult, and I fucking hate it. Stupid market. Sucks.

5 days a week in Montclair seems, well, not very likely. I'd really like it if it could happen, but I'm not holding my breath.

I knew this would happen...

2003-08-21T02:23:00.000-04:00

I'm regularly behind now...

Sunday - family celebrated my brother's 21st. Immediate family, so only Dad, Mom, Mike, and myself. After the onion burgers for dinner, we cracked open the little gift I got my brother. That would be a little bottle of Jack and 4 shotglasses (a set from Spencer's). Two disturbing words: family shot. Well, 3 shots, and maybe a third of a shot for Mom. And she complained the most about how awful it was when it was all over. Dad and I weren't affected. Mike was okay, for his first Jack shot (he said it was).... though he did have the "damn, that shit kicks your ass" look on his face for a minute.

Monday - caught K up on Dead Like Me.... she is now up-to-date.

Tuesday - ~~Three Amigos~~ Nope, just me and Amy. Someone decided to get pissy. But she missed out on the rare moment of a lifetime..... Amy buying GIRL CLOTHES. A SKIRT! Then it was all about the Taco Bell, Dead Like Me #8, and Super Monkey Ball 2, and MLB SlugFest '03. It seems that one of the SlugFest commentators is reminiscent of Ron Bennington, with his randomness, and just some of the things he says.

Today, more K, more K, weeee, can't get enough. Although school will be starting soon, and then it gets really crappy. Friday night and Saturday will probably be it. Oh well, we'll be fine. We watched Swingers - she really needs to learn to control her ADD for movies with great dialog, because most of my favorites are that way. Afterwards, it was all about the Monkey Ball. Well..... mostly, anyway. Heh.

Indoor pool idea may be solved tomorrow, possible YMCA membership. That'd work.

Falling behind....

2003-08-17T02:08:00.000-04:00

Dammit.

Thursday - power outage. Not for me! HA-HA! I lost my power for about five seconds, then it came back and stayed on. It did, however, knock out my internet until 9pm and make me unable to hang with K that night, but oh well, ya live.

Last night - wow, was it only last night? Seems like fuckin ages ago....... anyway, after work, went with K to the mall, hung out, bought myself a bahting suit in case a swim opportunity came up, which it did. But before that, we went to the arcade, which seems to be a Friday ritual.... then over to Amanda's for swimmings in da pool, which was a blast. I wish I could find some indoor year-round pool, at a price that would somehow be affordable to me.... then maybe I could lose my fuckin mega-poundage.

Anyhoo, today was RF.net softball (link on the right cause I'm too lazy to link it)... fun, fun shit. Field was fun, after-party was better. Had a blast. Almost everyone reading this was there though, so hi.

I just hooked my GameCube back up, and I'm debating..... Super Monkey Ball 2, which I purchased yesterday and played once tonight, or sleep because I'm frickin tired.......

Werd!

2003-08-14T03:09:00.000-04:00

Soooo... first it was a night with the Amigos. Dead Like Me, random crap, Unscrewed with Martin Sargent, X-Play with Morgan "SUPER HOTNESS" Webb (oh yeah, and Adam Sessler too). Nothing of real note comes to mind, but it was good to hang again.

Tonight, more Dead Like Me...... weeeeeeeeeee.... K's almost caught up, only 2 to go.

My watch attacked her. Nearly ripped out a nip barbell. That's what she gets for fuckin' with it. :)

Sometimes a kick in the ass is needed....

2003-08-12T17:09:00.000-04:00

...to start you in the right direction.

I think my mini-funk was cured last night. Actually, it wasn't a kick in the ass. It was more like Fight Club. I hit bottom. But.... it's only when we've lost everything, that we're free to do anything.

I seriously thought a major problem had come up, and I really didn't understand it, but it made me sad. Then I put on Disintegration, which pushes me further into it. I was in the same state I hit at the end of Chasing Amy when Last Dance, track 5, came on. I'm sure only about one person knows that song - suffice to say, it's fucking sad, and it gave me the last push to hit bottom.

After I did, though, I felt refreshed. And even more so today. Feels pretty good.

Anyway, before all this, K was over, and I introduced her to Dead Like Me, which she definitely got into. We watched episodes 1 and 2 - werd, mad props to Carmen for the idea to download 'em, and of course TVTorrents helped a bit.

Blogger without a cause!

2003-08-10T19:23:00.000-04:00

Seriously, there ain't much point to this one.

Donnie Brasco. Fuhgeddaboutit, awesome movie.

I feel that I'm in some kinda funk today. I sometimes get like this on weekends where absolutely nothing happens. It's funny, I can never win with weekends. Either a lot of shit happens, and I feel I didn't get to relax and enjoy it, or I have a weekend of absolutely nothing, and I feel like a loser.

This may seem funny, as we've been a bit more distant lately, but I think the return of The Amigos will help me today.

Speaking of them, I'm reminded of this week's Dead Like Me, which they haven't seen, along with last week's. Anyway, this week was fuckin cool, and next week looks hilarious. And I'm warming up to Laura Harris (Daisy, the new reaper) already. There's a running gag with her that you just can't help laughing about.

Blogging with a gun to my head!

2003-08-09T02:08:00.000-04:00

K needs to go to bed, but she wants me to blog first. Sooooooooo I'm bloggin'.

Need new job now. Fucking hell.

Got K, went to play pool. For sucking as bad as I do - I kicked some ass. I'm about as confused as she was.

Then there was this debacle that made her think she might be in trouble, but it all turned out cool.

And ahh, the arcade. Uli is so gay for me, it ain't funny. Okay, it IS funny. Watched DDR, check. Ass handed to me in MvsC 2, check. More upon more DDR, check. Spanked Amanda in air hockey.... okay, enough of a check. 7-6 counts.

In conclusion, firemen know when they're being douchebags on purpose, and cops apparently don't know when they drive past a chance to be - but they put on their fuckin brakes enough to look like it. Stupid interruptions, fuckin up my little show.

I do odd things...

2003-08-08T01:45:00.000-04:00

I'm trying to save money, because I don't have much of it till my next check... but I went up to see K anyway. I figured it all out, I can afford the gas till Thursday.

So, I went straight to Amanda's, and met her there. Uli and Andy again, as well. Fun shit. I broke Amanda's brother's Snood high score. I am all that is man.

Oh, and it was quite possibly one of the best car rides home ever.

Time to install StepMania.

Some people post lyrics in their blogs.....

2003-08-07T03:32:00.000-04:00

I'ma post a link to lyrics instead.

Ka-pow. The Cure - Home.

K made me ziti tonight. Ziti, dammit. Hell fuckin yeah. Complete with buttloads of leftovers, for ziti goodness over the coming days.

She is the BEST. Every moment just gets better.

Other crap - I'm fucking glad that the O&A party planning is finally over. It's just too bad that if I'm understanding the double-talk correctly, we shouldn't even bother going. We're spending that weekend together, party or not. I could kick myself for getting involved in the fucking awful argument that surrounded it all.

Apparently, I am losing my mind. This may be a sign that I need sleep, which I plan to do right about....

Now.

Slacking on my slacking....

2003-08-06T13:52:00.000-04:00

Didn't blog for the last two nights... dammit... the downward spiral begins!

Monday - Back to my place, as usual. Watched The Crow. I don't like movie talkers, really... and she knows this.... but she is one. :) She can be controlled though, to a degree, so that's good. Enjoyed the movie, but I'm probably going to have to watch it a few more times for everything to really sink in... plus I need to grab screen caps of the possible Trent Reznor mini-cameo.

I also burned two CDs for K, which included MP3s of every Cure CD, plus a few other random ones. Good shit.

Yesterday was my parents' 25th anniversary. Went with them, my brother, and my grandparents, to the Garlic Rose in Madison for dinner. Good stuff. Assloads of garlic, obviously. Although I must say that I liked the Garlic Press better - even though that was 5 years ago in Eugene, Oregon.

I almost want to visit Eugene sometime. Almost. I'd really like to see my friend Ben, and his family - especially his daughters... they were 4 and 1 when I left. 9 and 6 now. Dayum. Also, it might be interesting to check out the new Symantec building in Springfield. Maybe go to the coast. But other than that stuff, Eugene is pretty much a black hole of boredom - and more than anything, that's why I left to come back here.

Oh, and they've got TacoTime. We don't have TacoTime here. TacoTime fucking owns. Fuck Taco Bell.

Gotta love the MILF guys...

2003-08-04T02:06:00.000-04:00

So I picked up K and we went to see American Wedding. Good theater choice too - instead of Loews, we went to Hadley. They have those cool seats with the arm rest that goes up for that oh-so-cute movie-cuddling action, which we took full advantage of...

The movie rocked. Definitely in line with the other two. I guess I can't say too much here because not everyone reading this has seen it. Go see it, fuckers. And then we can talk about it in my YMB thread. That's what we call "useful whoring".... it's whoring with an actual purpose other than the whoring itself.

The more I'm with K, the more I'd like to stay with her. There's just something about us that you don't often find. Even with the shorter timeframe, it's on par with what some of my friends also have - at least what I've seen anyway. I'm sure there's all sorts of nifty behind the scenes crap I'm not in on, but generally, the vibe seems similar to me.

I see this genuine, awesome side of her that no one else ever gets to see. She's just herself around me, because she's comfortable enough - and we're so similar - that she can be. This is why I have the utmost confidence in her, while everyone around me refuses to trust her at all. If I'm right, hopefully you guys will warm up to her within a few months, and we'll be able to hang. If I'm wrong, then somehow this whole thing is a huge lie, and all the cries of "I told you so" in the world could never compare to the pain I'd already be feeling anyway.

But screw that, I'm way confident, and I hope you guys are preparing to deal. :)

Missing a day stinks.

2003-08-03T03:11:00.000-04:00

That means I've gotta write more in one entry.

Soooooo, Friday, after work, went to meet K at her school for this summer school graduation thingy. Got to see all the cool techie shit, which was way cooler than my school was. Also met one of her buds, drove her home. Then it was off to lovely Long Hill Township to show K where my folks live.... I dunno, I thought it might be somewhat interesting, heh. In showing her where my friend Marc lived, we ended up stopping by, then just staying there for the remainder of the night, watching The Spy Who Shagged Me with DX.

Sidenote - "DX" or "The guys" refers to a separate group of friends, my buds from high school. These are the guys I watch wrestling with.

Anyhoo, that was fun. Then today was the softball game. Much thanks to Carmen for being late so I could get an extra hour and a half of sleep. :)

In classic FTL fashion, I sat and watched. The heat and humidity was exhausting, even though I wasn't doing shit. (Make your cute "fat guy" comments, but I wasn't the only one.)

Most interesting part of the day: HOLY FUCK, WHERE DID HYBRID GO? Fucking amazing. He ran every day in college, and lost about half of his mass..... he's a fuckin twig now.

Ummm.. I'm done.

I'm tired...

2003-08-01T02:51:00.000-04:00

But K reminded me to blog. So I's bloggin'.

And it's all about her today...... not like that's different from any other day lately, but today I did nothing else.

So I decided to take the ride up there, even though I had no work today... fuck it, it's fun. Went to Willowbrook Mall, ate, arcade for a while, then off to her friend's house. Friend, friend's boyfriend, and other guy friend. That was cool, they seem like a good bunch. I was relatively quiet, and sticking with K cause I know her, as I do when I hang with anyone new. Few more times and I'm sure I'll be perfectly comfortable.

Also, things that have been recently realized, were said tonight. The details will remain ours - only we know what's happening here, and I'd rather not be labeled crazy for the things running through my head. Well, our heads. We're always thinking the same damn thing.

Y

For entries like this one....

2003-07-31T03:11:00.000-04:00

...I have created a new disclaimer. So you can quit yer bitching. :)

On with the show.

Shit, I just realized all the catching up I have to do.

I think the job interview went really well. They were presenting "what would you do in this case" scenarios, and I was knocking them out of the park. They would present the scenario, and then change it up to accomodate my answers, or as one of the guys put it, "we change 'em up as you get more and more right." Now that felt good. By the way, I say "they" because I was interviewed by two guys. Ha ho, two guys, shut up.

After the interview, there was apparently a black hole in my day that lasted until I went to sleep at 3:45 or so. Hmm, must have slipped into a coma, or been visited by the MiB.

Work today was.... eh, fuck work. Nothing ever happens there.

After work, like clockwork these days, I hung out with K. [random thought] Just this second, I realized how hard this is going to get in a little over a month, when school starts up again. Fuckbeans. We'll figure it out. [/random thought] Little mall trip, which was our first time out in a public place together, then I introduced her to the GREASE TRUCKS, showed her a little bit of Rutgers, 7-11 for drinks, and back to my place.

We decided to put on Chasing Amy, as she hadn't seen all of it. Those of you who know me well, may know that this is the one movie that drags a bigger emotional response from me than any other movie. You may also know that with other people around, I tend to hide it well. With K, I pretty much let it all go. Now, I don't cry outright, but I do breathe quite irregularly, as I'm pretty choked up. I'm like this through entire comic con at the end - Banky scene and Alyssa scene. What I didn't realize is that if I try to talk in this choked-up state, I really sound like I'm fuckin bawling. K said something and I responded like that..... even did manage to squeeze out a tear, mostly from laughing at my own reaction while I was still experiencing it.

Seriously though, am I the only one affected by that ending? I couldn't be.

Last bit of this novel for today - in an hour (less by the time I'm done writing), K and I will be "official" for a full week. For a relationship to be as fucking incredible as this one is, after one week, you've gotta figure that something is really right about it. To anyone who isn't myself or K, I know this sounds insane. You just don't understand the feelings involved here. I do. I'm fairly sure of it. Remember, I recently had a different opportunity at something, and it just didn't happen..... if I was somehow "tricking myself" as I've done in the past, I would have done it there first, and I wouldn't even be where I am now.

This isn't forced. This isn't fake. This is special. This is awesome. I can't even begin to explain.

"...and I hate you all."

2003-07-30T17:10:00.000-04:00

Yeah, each and everyone one of you fuckers that DIDN'T show up at Bar 9.

WORST BAR 9 EVER!

A side of me *extremely* rarely seen popped out of its cave last night. Not cool, but not unprovoked either.

Oh well, tonight will wipe that from my mind, I'm sure.

So happy, it's gonna make you puke.

2003-07-29T01:52:00.000-04:00

Yep. I am. Don't like it? Fuck you then. Cause I haven't been this happy in a long fuckin time.

"Sammy, it's time for my shot." Double up on that insulin, folks.

Another boring day at work, followed by another outstanding night. It seriously just gets better every time. I can't even describe it..... and that's not only because I like being vague here. It's better than Happy Gilmore's happy place, even with the midget.

She just... gets me. And I get her. Never an explanation needed between us, although we're both kinda neurotic enough to do it anyway... but it's endearing.

It's funny that the person most responsible for us meeting, is probably one of the people who hates it the most. I don't really believe that anything bad has to come of it.

Hey, who the fuck is going to Bar 9 tomorrow? Apparently, I am. I think that's the plan, anyway. I'm driving, but I get the plans last. :)

No SB email today, but if they're really making a CD, I'm all over that shit. Looks like I'd be grabbing the CD, figurines, Homsar shirt, and maybe Trogdor, all at once. You know what that means.... I get the super bonus package again!

Time for bed. Interview tomorrow. After some research, it looks like they're a consulting company - BUT, within the last few months, they scored a contract with a major chemical company, so hopefully positions are open right now....

This weekend was such a.... weekend.

2003-07-28T01:17:00.000-04:00

Werd!

So I already covered Friday. Saturday, Lucky & Carmen (sorry, gotta stick with the theme) came over, then it was off to get Ned, and then to the Outback. Mmmmmm, big prime rib. Garlic mashed. Bloomin' onion. Cheese fries. Fuckin' A.

Then back here, where we watched some stuff, including Dead Like Me.... I was rudely texting K, the cute couple was being all cute 'n stuff, and Maria was rightfully pissed off about it all. I'm not speaking for anyone else... I was a dick. And as she said, it wasn't about who I was texting, just that I was. She's right.

Afterwards, I stayed up a while, talked to K online then on the phone.... for a little over two hours. Bedtime came just before 7am. Worth every second.

Then today, I woke up at 2, she was already up... so of course, we talked till I had to leave for dinner at my folks'. Come to think of it, the fact that we're talking is coming to be just an assumed thing - if neither of us are sleeping, or out, we're talking. I like it. A lot.

So, dinner with the folks, then off to the PPV. Actually, it wasn't bad at all... I actually enjoyed it. Smackdown still puts on a good show. Raw frickin sucks. Tomorrow I get my 6-week Raw chip. :) I plan not to fall off the wagon until their ratings go through the roof, as proof that the show is actually good again.

Came home, then back with K - like I said, kind of assumed - actually, I'm only blogging now cause she's somewhat.... incapacitated... for a little bit.

Shit, the second I typed that, she came back. Connected brains, I swear...

I'm having so many good days....

2003-07-26T02:25:00.000-04:00

...that it's getting scary. All I can do is continue to hope the wave doesn't crash.

Let's see... I got into a relationship that makes me very happy. I got a phone call today about a job, so I have an interview on Tuesday at 2pm. Then, not too long after that call, with my beef & broccoli combo lunch, I got a nasty, chewy fortune cookie (normal from that restaurant, unfortunately) - but the fortune inside was this:

"You emerge victorious from the maze you've been traveling in."

Rest of the work day goes by - then the night was just amazing.

With a few (large) exceptions, it's been raining shit on me since December 2001. Life hasn't been so bad in general, but there's definitely been a string of awful events, coupled with this shitty job that I'm lucky to have (beats nothing).

Things may finally look up after all. Knock on wood, and any other jinx-avoidance tactics.

Oh, and I found my glasses yesterday. A stupid little item in the plus column, but a plus nonetheless, as I'd been looking for them for a while. As for where they were, I'm fucking retarded. But as hard as I'd looked at least 3 times, it took being on the phone with my someone special to find them. Funky.

Fuck, edit #2 - I forgot about Dead Like Me! I got home just in time to catch it on Showtime West, and all I can say is that it fucking rocked, but it was confusing. But it was intentionally confusing, so I guess it did its job. The Amigos will fucking kill me if I say more. But one thing I will say, from the scenes of next week's episode, it seems to me that the new reaper - who did NOT appear in this episode but was all over the scenes, so much for a surprise, Amy - is not as good a fit in the show as Rebecca Gayheart was. Grr, I want to say more, but I'll end up spoiling episode 5, and I will be killed. You fuckers need Showtime. :)

drama. fucking. sucks.

2003-07-25T03:08:00.000-04:00

I'm supposed to be sleeping. I tried. I can't. Not until after I write this.

So my stumble has coaxed the black could of RonFez.net drama to rest over my fucking head. This isn't regret, though. This is just me being pissed off at drama.

I know that Lucky and Ned are looking out for me. I know they're protective of me, and of our collective bond. I am too.

The only problem is, it's way beyond protection. I want to be with someone, they don't want to see it blow up in my face, and I get that. But there's more, a certain animosity toward her, over things that have happened to other people. True? Misunderstanding? Exaggeration? False? I don't know. I don't care. What I do know, is that what's happening to me is nothing short of stellar, and until that changes, neither will my mind.

If I may put it into perspective, what seems to be blossoming is a connection with strength, speed, and depth that I've only truly experienced with three people before, and you are two of them.

Take that for what it's worth. And trust that if I was forced to make a choice, I would choose you - unless you're doing the forcing.

So like, yeah, wow.

2003-07-24T03:35:00.000-04:00

Sometimes it's amazing how you can think you want something, really push yourself into wanting it...... then you accidentally stumble onto exactly what you wanted, somewhere else completely.

The pushing really doesn't work... didn't work.

The stumbling began a few days ago, and really came to fruition tonight.

Just goes to show that you never know when or where you might stumble, but the guarantee is that it always happens when and/or where you least expect it.

And all the rational parts of your brain, that tell you all the possible reasons not to run with it, just shut down.

Life is one weird fucking roller coaster ride. Mine is headed uphill.

Yay!

2003-07-23T02:48:00.000-04:00

Hangin' out. Three Amigos style. Woo hoo! Been a while. Dead Like Me, Puzzle Fighter, Joe Rogan, Taco Bell. We fucking rule.

Oh, and throwing a bottle at Maria's head. Heh.

Stupid comments.

2003-07-20T21:33:00.000-04:00

Enetation had one chance. Enetation blew that chance. Enetation fucking sucks. Long live HaloScan, thanks to Matty for using it instead of this Enetation shit, which allowed me to find it.

Whew...

2003-07-20T21:20:00.000-04:00

Well, I got through that one alive.

It wasn't as bad as it could have been. That was because I stayed upstairs, either playing video games with my cousins, or C&C: Generals with my brother. Full family interaction was limited to dinner and dessert.

I did find it funny, though, that my dad's side of the family, except for one, ate outside, on the desk... while my mom's side, except for one, ate inside. I made some comment about segregation, but I think I was the only one who saw the humor.

I also found this funny - my mother is very into gathering the immediate family (namely myself and my brother) at the door to say goodbye to someone as they leave. The old gay fellas and the trashy family left earlier than my mom's family. We weren't called down for it. We were, however, called down when everyone else was leaving.

Now, I didn't even realize that this had happened, until my brother asked where they all went. Then we had a good laugh over the realization of who the family we really like is...

Separate thing completely - I recently got acquainted with someone from one of the boards, who I just never really knew. Granted, it's not a board I participate in much. But yeah, this someone is way cool.

That is all.

Strong blogging start, hope I don't fall flat.

2003-07-20T00:23:00.000-04:00

So, I've had two IM conversations with a DIFFERENT ex today. This one is the insane, annoying one.

I thought she was insane when I was dating her, but it's much, much worse now.

She is considering marriage with - get ready for this - someone who does not fucking speak English.

And she doesn't really speak Spanish, but she's "learning". Let me repeat, because I think it's important - SHE IS CONSIDERING MARRIAGE.

I'd ask myself "where the fuck do I find these morons?", but I know the answer. Stupid internet. Which is not to say that you can't find someone good over the internet, it's just that I have personally found quite a few of the "fucking nutjob" variety.

In the words of the King of Town, my life is a joke.

You mean I've gotta make real entries too?

2003-07-19T22:00:00.000-04:00

I just got a really awkward phone call, funny that it should happen at about the time I open up Blogger to make my first entry.

It was my ex. The one I lived with in Trenton. My last call from her was much more interesting, as I learned that she had recently had a child (!), was engaged to the babydaddy, and living with him. And yeah, he's the babydaddy, not me. Between the timing and other shit I'm not getting into, I'm 100% certain.

Today's call was not nearly as much of a learning experience. It started as the last one, with a computer question. Then chit-chat, catching up and whatnot. Guess she got married, she mentioned her "mother-in-law", though that could be used in a "we know we're gonna get married, get used to it" sense. Anyway, it ended with a screen name exchange, whichi I hope wasn't a stupid thing. I figure she doesn't want anything from me anymore, so conversations will probably be kept to an awkward minimum.

Sooooo, what else? My dad turned 50 yesterday. Wee. Dinner last night, party tomorrow. I am not looking forward to this, because along with my mom's side of the family (the very normal side that we're very close with), some of my dad's family (the dysfunctional-as-fuck side) will be there, including the gay 70-something great uncle (dad's dad's brother) with his "friend", another uncle (dad's brother) with his uber-white-trash wife and formerly-demonic-but-now-calmer-yet-not-completely-calm kids.

Luckily, this time, I do have the normal family to fall back on. Usually I have to just... deal.

So ends my first venture into bloggingness. Maybe with this one, unlike my LiveJournal, it'll be less than a year before the next update.

2003-07-19T18:16:00.000-04:00

Nickname or real name? Good, that answers that one.

2003-07-19T18:10:00.000-04:00

So, I need a post in order to do... anything. This is that post.