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3,650,974 | male | 23 | Student | Scorpio | 27,June,2004 | Posting this from Rusty's apartment down in Kansas City. Not a particularly long drive, but it kinda sucks when the cruise control on your car doesn't work. Oh well. Fittingly, he wasn't here when I got here - had to wait for him to clean out a poker tournament. And when he got here, he offered me a beer. Some things never change. :) Looks like I'm finally about to win our online urlLink Citadels game. About time, to. I don't tend to win very much, and the last few summers I've tended to lose HARD. Just lucky I guess. Happiness is showing up at a college dorm room with beer... and cookies. Interviewing starts tomorrow. Wish me luck. I might stick around afterwards on Tuesday evening to go see Spider-Man 2 at midnight, tickets permitting. Review here if I do. |
3,650,974 | male | 23 | Student | Scorpio | 25,June,2004 | More watching romantic films alone in the wee hours of the night. 'Amelie' this time. One of the best films ever made, in my opinion. I can't imagine anyone who wouldn't like it, so endlessly imaginative and charming. See it if you haven't. It also falls alongside 'Magnolia' for films with the following message: not all of life's little chances and coincidences are as random as they seem; and even if they are, sheer chance is far more powerful than all of our plans put together. What Man proposes, God disposes... A mystery: the film's literal title is 'The Fabulous Destiny of Amelie Poulain', but beneath it, the English subtitles proudly proclaim, 'Amelie from Montmartre'. That's the district of Paris where the film is set, and apparently the title used for it at certain festivals and such. But, I can't imagine it being particularly evocative for anyone outside France. Curious. Two of my better friends broke up, then reconciled, within the past twenty-four hours. Am I the only person who's never been through that particular dance in a relationship? I'm never sure how to treat such people; congratulate them for getting it over with? Console them and encourage them to get back together? Be nice? Be honest? It'd almost be better if people didn't tell me about these things until a week later. Shareholders' meeting tomorrow, which probably means I have to look decent at work for once. Then again, perhaps the investors assume (as I sometimes do) that the shabbier an engineer looks, the more brilliant he is. Heh. I wish. I've started telling a few people about this thing. Hello, if it's you. 'Without you, today's emotions would be the scurf of yesterday's.' |
3,650,974 | male | 23 | Student | Scorpio | 22,June,2004 | ceilidh : An Irish or Scottish social gathering with traditional music, dancing, and storytelling. Unbelievably enough, it's pronounced 'kay-lee', and from it is derived the semi-popular name for girls. In other news, men's dress shoes are horribly expensive, for reasons that are entirely beyond me. Electric shavers, on the other hand, are good, no matter what people might say. Ten page management papers are bad; fifteen page quantitative methods papers are worse. Shareholder meetings are good, but streaming QuickTime is bad. Beer cheese soup is very, very, very good, and if it were legal in this state, I'd ask it to marry me. That is all. |
3,650,974 | male | 23 | Student | Scorpio | 22,June,2004 | There were a number of urlLink interesting decisions handed down by the urlLink Supreme Court today. The scariest to me is the one that says you're required to give your name and identification to a police officer or be arrested, regardless of whether you've done anything wrong, regardless of whether he even has reason to think you have. Extremely icky. But then again, I'm a bit of a constitutional law wonk, so maybe my opinion should be taken with a grain of salt. Getting a haircut can be a rather painful experience when your scalp is sunburned. Still prepping for that job interview next week: getting my suit dry-cleaned, loafers polished, and realizing that I no longer have a decent pair of Oxfords and need a new one. Maybe I can find dress shoes that don't suck this time. Speaking of job interviews and scary legalities, the following appears at the top of the forms I have to fill out for Cerner. All perfectly standard, I expect, but still: I authorize Cerner Corporation (the 'Company') and/ or its agents to procure and obtain a consumer report, including an investigative consumer report, pursuant to the Fair Credit Reporting Act as part of its pre-employment selection process, or at other times during my employment if I am hired by the Company, and to make an investigation of my background, references, character, past or current employment, job performance, education, criminal and police records, general reputation, mode of living, credit worthiness, and to make other investigative checks, including those maintained by both public and private entities and public records, through data checks or personal interviews with those who may have knowledge concerning such information, for the purpose of confirming the information contained on my written or electronic application, Personal Data Sheet, resume, or other documentation and/or to obtain other information which may be material to my application for employment or continued employment with the Company. Should I sign such a thing? Would you? |
3,650,974 | male | 23 | Student | Scorpio | 21,June,2004 | Did you know that Lincoln is home to one of the world's most comprehensive sellers of urlLink licorice ? |
3,650,974 | male | 23 | Student | Scorpio | 20,June,2004 | Went to see the College World Series in Omaha last night with Wrenholt. Fullerton over South Carolina, 2-0. Pretty much a pitcher's duel, with only eight hits total between the two teams. I've been kinda surprised over the years how much I enjoy attending athletic events that I would have absolutely no interest in playing or watching on TV. Maybe it's the social aspect. Like going to a movie, except you're allowed to talk. Speaking of which, also saw Prisoner of Azkaban for the second time. Caught a few details I missed the first time - like the spell Hermione uses to blast open Sirius's jail cell, 'morsmordre', which is actually used in Book 4 to conjure the Dark Mark. Or the fact that Lupin, while not looking very much like our traditional werewolves, does look almost exactly like the illustrations that Snape displays for the class. I also stayed to watch the closing credits this time. There's no extra scene afterwards, as in the previous film, but they are a wonder to watch. Full of special effects nearly as elaborate as those in the film itself. Fun stuff. Unfun stuff: the Second Quest of the original Legend of Zelda is just brutally difficult. I'd forgotten just how much so; I can't even manage to finish Level 4, and I'm almost ready to cheat or give up. Yikes. They definitely toned things down for the SNES generation onwards. |
3,650,974 | male | 23 | Student | Scorpio | 18,June,2004 | Mike Wrenholt's birthday tonight. Stupid management test made me miss the burgers, but at least I think I aced it. Once I finally did get there, I mixed up a batch of radler, a German concoction I became quite fond of while I was studying there. Half wheat beer, half lemonade, it's really good stuff, particularly in the summer. Everyone else who tried it seemed to like it too. Headed downtown to Bricktop after that, a bar I'd never been to before. I'd been told by reliable sources that it was 'practically a gay bar anyway'. Now I see what they mean: besides the techno, dance floor, and actual gay men, there were lots of (IMO) straight men who dressed and acted as if they ought to be gay. Stupid cultural cross-pollenation. Stupid Queer Eye for the Straight Guy... I did confirm an earlier observation, though, which is that techno tends to put me into an ultra-relaxed, almost sleepy state. Maybe that's supposed to be the intended effect - I'm thinking of trance here, although the music tonight wasn't. Nobody else seemed to be reacting that way, though. Wierdness. |
3,650,974 | male | 23 | Student | Scorpio | 17,June,2004 | So, urlLink The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures for the GameCube kicks every conceivable variety of ass. I just got done with a six hour session with James, Sarah, and Kyros, follow-up to a ten hour session last weekend. And I still want to play more. The game works like this: each of the four players controls a different Link. You travel through a series of very Zelda-like dungeons, eight worlds of three areas each. The gimmick is that you have to use GameBoy Advances to control the game. Most of the time, you're all on screen, but when you go into a house or cave, the display switches down to the GameBoy screen, so each player is potentially seeing something different. The four of you have to cooperate to solve various puzzles and defeat enemies. But, the designers also added 'force', tiny gems that determine points at round's end, in order to encourage a bit of competitiveness as well. If you're a fan of the Zelda series like I am, then there's an orgy of things to enjoy here. The story is from Oracle of Seasons/Ages, the world map is from Ocarina of Time, the dungeons resemble Link to the Past, and many of the bosses are taken from Wind Waker. It's like they threw everything great about Zelda into a pot, stirred, and got back something even better. So yeah, it's a amazingly fun game, even if James is a urlLink dirty, gem-guzzling whore . These are the sorts of things you just have to put up with in life. |
3,650,974 | male | 23 | Student | Scorpio | 16,June,2004 | I had a telephone interview with urlLink Cerner today, the first (and so far only) company to show interest after my application blizzard a few weeks ago. Pretty standard stuff - expanding on my resume, some behavioral what-if questions, that sort of thing. I think it must have gone well, because they want me to come down to Kansas City in the near future to interview in person. Yay! |
3,650,974 | male | 23 | Student | Scorpio | 16,June,2004 | So, the other night, I watched a movie I haven't watched in a long time: Ever After. For those of you who aren't familiar, it's a retelling of the Cinderella story with an only-slightly-modern flavor. Oh, and I watched it by myself. At first, I thought myself pretty pathetic, but then I changed my mind. I like romances because they show people at their best, which appeals to my inner idealist. They show the world, to paraphrase Ayn Rand, not as it is but 'as it might be and ought to be'. They make me feel... confident, somehow. Reassured. That love is waiting for me somewhere in the future, that being in love is every bit as wonderful as I remember it, that every once in a while, we do live happily ever after. By comparison, and most of my friends can't understand this, I don't particularly care for romantic comedies. There's nothing particularly funny about being in love. Oh, sure, it's fun , but it's also (at the time, at least) the most important and serious thing in the world. Playing it for laughs somehow demeans the entire experience. For me, at least. Romances I Dig: Amelie, Chasing Amy, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Ever After, My Best Friend's Wedding, The Broken Hearts Club, The Princess Bride. Many of them don't have particularly happy endings, but they have something even more important: honesty and total sincerity. And lots of it. |
3,650,974 | male | 23 | Student | Scorpio | 16,June,2004 | So, I finally broke down and made myself a weblog. As perhaps the only neo-luddite software engineer in existance, I seem to be the last one to jump on any given bandwagon. Would you believe that I don't even own a cellular phone? But this one I just couldn't ignore any longer. More than that, though I've never kept a diary, I've always had long, literary rants pop into my head, on a variety of subjects, and usually late at night. Normally, I would simply IM them to my friends, but it's been happening later and later, so that nobody's awake by the time I need to talk. And if I wait until the next morning, it's all fallen apart. So, here I am. This will be my official place to brain dump, when nowhere else will do. But I think I'll let it sit for a while, accumulate some content, before I start telling my friends. Otherwise, they'll expect me to have something clever to say every day... |
3,650,974 | male | 23 | Student | Scorpio | 29,July,2004 | Had lunch with Ashley at Vincenzo's today; wisdom teeth aside, marriage seems to be agreeing with her. She showed me the pictures from the wedding, and I think I managed to be blinking in every last one. Oh well. The ones I'm in aren't the important ones anyway. I do believe she and I will be collaborating on a new project, though: keeping her husband from brewing biodiesel in the garage. Anything that requires collecting used oil from restaurants is just a bit too close to a Simpsons episode for his own good. Looks like I'll spend a good chunk of the weekend hanging out with (among others) my ex's new boyfriend. Surprisingly, I find that I'm fine with that, and have been for some time now. When did I become so, well, mature? And rational? And sane? It's a very Tom Hanks sort of feeling to wake up one day and find that you can be big about things. Best guess: the years have taught me that friends are rarer and more important than lovers. Or as Mick Jagger might have said, You can't always get what you want / But if you try sometimes, you might find / You get what you need... At some point this weekend, I'm also going to try to see 'The Village'. I've got a huge fondness for atmospheric horror films, and it seems to fit the bill. |
3,650,974 | male | 23 | Student | Scorpio | 28,July,2004 | I've probably mentioned it in person to most of my readers, but I did, in fact, accept a job as a software engineer with Cerner. I'll be starting September 20, which gives me a month after graduation to find an apartment and get moved, not to mention go to a few football games and exchange some tearful (really!) goodbyes with the various Kauffmanites. Come visit me in Kansas City, I'll be lonely... |
3,650,974 | male | 23 | Student | Scorpio | 27,July,2004 | Tom Rice is back! We, the living, had to suffer through three months of total radio silence that began the moment he got to Arizona, General Dynamics, and Amy. I suppose I can't entirely blame him, but I might gently remind him that he does have other friends. :) Anyway, he says he's going to start keeping up his blog again (link at right), so keep an eye on it. I do have to raise one bullshit flag, though: Tom claimed that he didn't have Internet at home all this time because he was lazy and didn't get around to it. Please. For a geek of our stature, that's like saying you forgot to eat or drink for a few months. At least come up with a believable excuse... Justin Bechtel also made his trimphant return to the Internet this week. I'd like to think it's because he missed me, but the truth probably has more to do with his wife's two-week vacation (alone) to go visit her family, and him being bored out of his skull. I wonder what it's like to reach that point in your marriage where you realize that your social lives revolve almost entirely around one another, and that you haven't really been alone in years. It seems scary, yet somehow alluring. |
3,650,974 | male | 23 | Student | Scorpio | 25,July,2004 | It occurred to me that I haven't said much in here yet that was overtly political. I guess I assumed that most of my friends are pretty familiar with my views already. But with the Democratic National Convention going on, and the silly season winding up, it's started to be on my mind. So here goes nothing... 'For every complex question, there is a simple answer, and it is wrong.' -- Oscar Wilde. If anyone from the Kerry campaign is listening, it ought to be one of his slogans. I've seen him get a lot of flak for giving long, complex answers to questions. More power to him, I say. Anything like a honest answer to the sorts of questions we ask our politicians is going to be pretty complicated. I think it's mainly the (any-wing) media itself that comes down on him for this, because it makes their life difficult when you can't be easily reduced to sound bites. The only other possible the explanation is that the electorate is mostly idiots, and doesn't like it when the smart man uses big words, which I don't believe is the case. I also get pretty testy whenever someone points out that Kerry has been on many sides of various issues during the course of his career. You know what? So have I. It's called learning. Show me a representative who's voted totally consistently, on every bill, on every issue, and I'll show you a representative who's never had a conscious thought in his life. If he can explain to me why he voted the way he did on any given question, then he has my full support. (All of this, of course, presumes that a given bill only encompasses a single goal which, guess what, is rarely the case.) Is there really someone out there (cheap shot: other than George W. Bush) who believes that the world is a place of black and white and simple solutions? Please, tell me their address, that I might go and smack them over the head with the frying pan of moral complexity. It's sure as hell not the world that I live in. I don't want my president to be a man whose job it is to gloss over the messy details of messy situations. It's not good vs. evil or us vs. them, and it's entirely possible to be both with us and against us. Bring on the ambiguity, I say. It has become increasingly clear to me over the years that a president's greatest influence, and greatest legacy, is the stamp they leave on our nation's culture. They set the tone for us all, for years at a time. I'm a bit of an idealist, I guess, but I need to vote for the candidate whose ideal country seems closest to my own. Because, in no small measure, they will push the country in that direction. In that light, for me, it's an almost laughably easy choice... More than anything else, though, I fear the results if the popular vote and the electoral college go separate ways again. I think it would be disastrous, undermining the already shaky confidence of an apathetic populace, on both sides of the aisle. Nothing could be more poisonous for a democracy than the impression that your vote doesn't matter. Random tidbit: rumor has it that the Arab network urlLink Aljazeera will be broadcasting more of the DNC than any of the American networks. Good for them. I daresay that the average Middle Eastern citizen has an even more urgent interest in the results of the election than we do. It's not life and death for us, but it might be for them. He'll slay me for this, but I'm going to link to a few of my friend Derrick's urlLink various urlLink sketches . I think he's a really, really good artist, and that he should hear that from more people than just me. |
3,650,974 | male | 23 | Student | Scorpio | 25,July,2004 | Spent the evening at urlLink James Arthur Vineyards with Whidden, Holley, and the Elder Holleys. I hadn't been there in a long time, back when it was little more than vines. They've come a long way since. Twenty-one different varieties of wine, sold all over the state, not to mention a very posh store and gorgeously landscaped grounds. Oh, and resident kittens too! If I ever managed to get a date, it would definitely be a place I would go. Five bucks gets you sample glasses of six different wines; they've also got cheese, bread, chocolate, etc, and live music on the weekends. I think my favorite was the Edelweiss (also their biggest seller), with the Vignoles being a very close second. Both semi-sweets, even though I usually go for semi-dry. We also tried a bottle of the ice wine, which is extremely expensive, extremely sweet, extremely alcoholic, and extremely good. What else did I do this weekend, anyway? Last night seems like last week. Oh, right: Animal House. I realized that my reaction to it is probably pretty common: if only college had actually been like that, and, college occasionally was like that. I mean, to me, everything that happens in the movie seems perfectly logical and straightforward. Kinda scary. Kinda cool. |
3,650,974 | male | 23 | Student | Scorpio | 23,July,2004 | A nice evening at Ghettowood with Whidden and Holley and the Selleckites (Johnson and Stolee). Pizza, swimming, drinking, and Stargate. What more can a man ask for in life? Also, hot tubs rock . I hadn't been in one in forever and had almost forgotten their orgasmic wonderfulness. Need to find an apartment complex that has one... I found myself getting into that nice, relaxed, among-friends groove again, as discussed a while back. I know I must come off as recklessly blunt and honest sometimes, the things that come out of my mouth, but really, my guard doesn't go down all that often. Were I to go around saying the things that were really in my heart, there'd be far more compliments than the usual, sarcasm. But it turns out that the vast majority of my friends don't respond well at all to any sort of admiration or praise. A pity. By and large, I think they deserve it. ...and just when my own life is going so well, reviewing other blogs I see that one of my best friends' life has just exploded into a million pieces. Time to go be a friend, I think. |
3,650,974 | male | 23 | Student | Scorpio | 21,July,2004 | Out of the blue today, got an email from my very first ex, whom I hadn't seen or heard from in at least six years. Stranger still, instead of updates about life (or at least location), the bulk of the email is devoted to anime recommendations. I... well, I don't know what to think, I guess. But I did reply. Theory: highly competitive people instinctively recognize and focus on their own kind. I won all the board games we played tonight, and it wasn't skill, but it wasn't just dumb luck either. While I largely ignored the other players, they spend a good deal of time and energy on obstructing one another, and ignored me. And all of a sudden, I'd won. Fool you once, shame on me; fool you twice, shame on you. urlLink July Jamm is this weekend, and I'll be volunteering on Friday and Saturday. Come by and see me, why don't you. The food is good, the music is good, and admission is free through the afternoon. Looks like it'll be a little cooler, too. If nothing else, you must try the Jiffy Burger: bacon, monterrey jack... and peanut butter. |
3,650,974 | male | 23 | Student | Scorpio | 20,July,2004 | OK, so I know that by now there are at least a half-dozen people reading this thing on a regular basis, yet I hardly ever get any comments or feedback from any of you. Am I talking to myself here? |
3,650,974 | male | 23 | Student | Scorpio | 19,July,2004 | How much do your office's elevators suck if you've actually planned out what to do in the event that the cable snaps and you find yourself in free fall? I've been on a buying spree lately, snapping up quite a bit of merchandise from various favorite movies and television shows, not to mention purchasing a realization of a mathematical joke for a friend's birthday. Don't ask. I must be feeling wealthy, because I really don't need any of this shit. Though, I think it comes with aging, the wish to crystallize certain memories in a physical form. A talisman to recall the things we know we're going to forget. It was suggested to me today that I shouldn't be friends with a certain someone simply because we happen to disagree on nearly every political and social topic imaginable. What nonsense. Those are the people I most need to be friends with, because that's how opinions are changed and compromises forged. The only way for this country to become a lost cause is if we start to believe that we have nothing in common with those who see the world differently. I firmly believe that I've changed a lot of people's minds simply by being honest and open about who I am, what I am, and what I think is right. Nor am I the only one. It is my great hope for my generation that we will improve the world simply by having clearer visions of one another. Unrelatedly, I was called today on my bad habit of asking difficult philosophical questions of my friends that I haven't thought through myself. In the interest of spreading the love: do you want to have children someday? Why or why not? |
3,650,974 | male | 23 | Student | Scorpio | 19,July,2004 | Wow, so it looks like this thing is already paying off. Tonight I received an email that's the nicest thing, written or spoken, that I've ever gotten in my life. Any attempt at a similarly lengthy reply would only belittle, so I'll leave it at: Thanks. And call. |
3,650,974 | male | 23 | Student | Scorpio | 16,July,2004 | So, I saw I, Robot on Saturday night; somewhat against my will, since the trailers totally turned me off, but I'd sorta promised, so whatever. As expected, it wasn't the best movie, and dragged whenever Will Smith was onscreen. The first half hour or so, particularly. It felt like what might have originally been a thoughtful, philosophical sort of film got action scene after action scene tacked on until it was almost recognizable. The film does shine, however, whenever the titular robot ('Sonny') is onscreen. He's easily the most interest character in the piece, and when the others interact with him, you can finally hear the words of Isaac Asimov coming through. It says a lot that the humans ultimately, grudgingly, come to respect him as the conscious being he is. I like the occasional hopeful vision of the future mixed in with the usual dystopian fare. But please, if you see this movie and it intrigues you at all, go back and read Asimov's original stories. They'll satisfy you far more. So, in other news, Russ was up this weekend, so we had the usual gorge-and-guzzle fest. In other words, it was a blast. Converted a couple of new people to the joys of Four Swords, which is rapidly becoming my favorite game of the moment. Rewatched Bourne Identity, which wasn't as awful as I remembered it and actually makes me consider seeing Bourne Supremacy this weekend. And, learned that the Imperial Palace is closed only on Saturday afternoons. How bizarre is that? |
3,650,974 | male | 23 | Student | Scorpio | 16,July,2004 | A new series premieres on the SciFi Channel tonight: urlLink Stargate Atlantis , a spinoff of the absurdly popular Stargate SG-1. For those of you who've been living under a rock, it's a really, really, really good show. Now in its eighth season, it still pulls in upwards of three million viewers a week. Not to mention it's already been on longer than any Star Trek series ever was. So somebody must like it. :) Obviously, I haven't seen Atlantis yet, but since it shares the same writers as SG-1, it's almost certain to be excellent. It'll be on at 8:00 and again at 10:00. If you've never tuned in before, give it a shot. |
3,650,974 | male | 23 | Student | Scorpio | 15,July,2004 | Spent last night over at James's house, first watching The Amazing Race, then playing cards with the Selleck boys. It felt good. Really good. I missed it, and them, a bit more than I realized. It's a sobering though that, in the not-too-distant future, I might not get to play for a long while. My only hope (cough, cough) is that I'll be able to do so electronically... Thought: I wonder if an element of chance is an essential component of a game played among friends. It lets you be competitive and yet shrug off the actual outcome as unimportant. Most card games share this property, but some others do not. If nothing else, I've noticed that purely strategic games (chess comes to mind) don't seem to encourage conversation, and in my opinion, that's the reason you're playing in the first place. The preliminary designs for the urlLink Nebraska state quarter are out; they'll be narrowed down and opened for voting sometime next month. Some pretty cool ones in there, not to mention the hilariously awful. Not sure why, but I've noticed that I have next to zero libido this summer. (Yeah, yeah, TMI, cope.) I haven't so much as thought about going on a date, much less tried to meet someone. Maybe I'm not getting enough sleep. More likely, I don't feel right about getting involved with someone when my life is in a huge state of flux and I can't even be certain where I'll be in a few months. But I also have a feeling that if I do go to KC, I'll be so absurdly busy for the first few months (year?...) that I might neglect that part of my life there, too. Not to mention having no clue where the good bars are and that sort of thing. There's the workplace itself, but I've found out the hard way that dating someone you're going to have to see every day regardless isn't exactly the best idea on earth. Or maybe I just need to take my own advice, given to plenty of others, that love happens only when you've completely given up hope of it ever happening. |
3,650,974 | male | 23 | Student | Scorpio | 12,July,2004 | First off, welcome back to all the kids over at Selleck. We missed you. Just got back from Kansas City, after an unexpectedly eventful trip. As we were leaving town, Jesse decided we should take the scenic route - that is, the Kansas side instead of the Missouri side. Sounded good to me. And it was pretty scenic; lots of green rolling countryside. Saw Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary for the first time, a monumentally imposing structure that reminded me of nothing so much as the Smithsonian. And we made a lot of unexpected detours onto dirt roads to get past accidents or missing bridges. Then, as we neared the Nebraska border, we noticed a nasty-looking storm looming dead ahead. Seemed like a good time to pull off, have some dinner, and wait for the storm to pass. And not a moment to soon. As we got out of the car outside a McDonalds in Hiawatha, KS, we realized that the town's tornado sirens were going off. And moments after we walked in the door, all of the power went off and stayed off. And moments after that , lightning struck the gas price sign directly across the street. Then it started raining, horizontally, in 70+ mph winds. Turns out that a tornado was indeed passing only a few miles to the south. We only got sideswiped by the edge of it, but that was nasty enough that I don't want to think about the eye. Between the storm and the detours, by the time we got home, a normally three hour trip had taken over five hours. Now that's pretty damn scenic. Otherwise, a pretty darn relaxing weekend. We drank a lot, slept a lot, lay around uselessly a lot. Rusty was perhaps a bit more energetic than the rest of us. Jesse and I suspect we enabled him somehow, and we're not sure how we feel about that, but all's well that ends well. Second session starts tomorrow, which means that I'll be in Advanced Finance, 11:00 - 12:30, Monday through Friday. If your schedule is compatible with mine and you ever want to do lunch, just let me know. |
3,650,974 | male | 23 | Student | Scorpio | 10,July,2004 | Welcome to what will likely be my earliest blog post ever. Down at Russ's place in KC again; went to the bars and got totally smashed last night. Crashed out on the futon, woke up around 7, and now here I am. Nobody else'll be up for hours. But I did get 5-6 hours of sleep, which is just as much as I get in a normal evening. And this hangover headache won't let me sleep again any time soon. So yeah. |
3,650,974 | male | 23 | Student | Scorpio | 09,July,2004 | Just got back from watching part of urlLink The Mysterious Cities of Gold with James. It's by far my favorite cartoon series ever, and possible my favorite television series, period. A joint French-Japanese production, it aired several times on Nickelodeon back in 1985-1987. For people of a certain age, like me, it was our first introduction to the world of anime. And what an introduction. The show is set in Peru at the time of Pizarro's conquest of the Incas, circa 1532. It follows the adventures of a Spanish boy and an Inca girl searching for El Dorado, the City of Gold, to which they alone carry the key. The plot of the show is pretty fanciful (sometimes echoing Stargate, even) but the settings are very much grounded in reality. All of the historical figures are real, and the backdrops are accurate reproductions of famous lost cities, including Macchu Pichu, Palenque, and Tikal. Each episode ends with a short, live-action documentary about the history and culture of South America. True, the series was aimed at children, but I find that it's held up remarkably well over the years. The whole genre of 'historical-mystery-adventure' is alive and well, and still very much appeals to me. It got me interested, not only in anime, but the musical styles of the Andes that it features prominently. I'd recommend it to you if you dug, say, Castle in the Sky, The Fifth Element, or even Indiana Jones - there's a lot of trapped temple raiding going on here, too. It has never been released on DVD, but I've got a very high quality set on VCD. If you ever want to borrow, let me know. I'd be more than happy to share. |
3,650,974 | male | 23 | Student | Scorpio | 08,July,2004 | I've become fond of using LOTR as a metaphor for my feelings towards a lot of my classes, and truth be told, software projects too. Even when I'm really enjoying myself, there comes a point when it needs to be over with. It's as if you've been lugging the Ring of Doom up a mountain for weeks and you finally toss it into the Crack of Oh Hell With It All Let's Go Have a Beer. An immense weight is lifted from your shoulders. Or to quote from the new Stepford Wives, 'I Love You But Please Die'. |
3,650,974 | male | 23 | Student | Scorpio | 07,July,2004 | Regardless of what you might think, I don't usually write take-home finals the night before they're due. It's not my preferred way to operate, and it doesn't result in my best work. Still, this one is turning out pretty decent, and I'll probably maintain whatever grade I had in the course anyway. I've been getting back into BitTorrent again, to catch up on missed episodes of favorite TV series. It works a lot better than I remember it. Either they made some major improvements to the client, or the university was throttling my connection all along. Things I didn't know: it would appear that the concept of bankruptcy is somewhat peculiar to American law. An article I read on the BBC tonight identified it as such, and explained what it was for the benefit of its British readers. Since I haven't heard of debtors' prisons lately, what exactly do other civilized nations do when people can't pay their bills? It's an enduringly odd experience to spend most of your life considering yourself a realist at best and cynic at worst; and then, one day, to realize that you're rather more upbeat on humanity than most of the people you know. There's my new bumper sticker for the day: People Don't Suck. PS: If you're going to comment here, for heaven's sake don't bother doing it anonymously. There's only a handful of people you could be anyway. |
3,650,974 | male | 23 | Student | Scorpio | 07,July,2004 | The following post is about what the following post is not about. If you're not familiar with them already, the history and theory of urlLink memes would be a useful prerequisite. Right, then: anyone who knows me has probably read the book Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, or ought to. To summarize briefly, it revolves around a 'metavirus' that is both biological and informational, and can therefore be spread either through sexual contact or by seeing it in digital form. Among its other effects, it exposes some otherwise deeply buried linguistic structures within your brain and, as a result, renders you more vulnerable to infection by memes. Think of it like AIDS for the mind; your natural defense system is slowly stripped away. This is all a perfectly good description of the Internet; as the linked article above suggests, 'the ultimate meme vector'. Ideas that are silly, wasteful, misleading, unfunny, or just plain stupid spread across the minds of the world with a speed and scope that would cause the CDC to swoon. Our poor minds, with their prodigious yet limited resources, are forced to spend more and more time filtering this tidal wave until they collapse of exhaustion. Which brings me back to my original point: I've made it a conscious effort not to use this journal to spread other people's memes, and I wish more would follow suit. No collecting all the links I've read all day, no quizzes, no 'which are you?', etc. I think of it as doing my part to boost the Internet's immune system. Otherwise, we get locked into an echo chamber, where the same ideas circulate over and over again. Just ask anyone who relies on (usually only liberal or only conservative) blogs as their sole source of news. Though, I suppose I might occasionally try to start my own memes, as in the previous post. But that's another matter entirely. :) Regardless of whether you believe any of this is literally true, it can be a useful metaphor. Unfortunately, I've just gone and spread the meme of memes themselves. Recursion joke, old: see recursion joke, old. Back to more usual mundane matters. Got a final on Thursday, after which only one more class stands between me and a master's degree. I think I'll enjoy being called Master... Off to Kansas City again this weekend, to visit Russ, go to the Boulevard Brewery, and generally debauch. So yay to that. I posed this question to a friend the other day without having an answer myself, which is hardly fair: if indeed we are reincarnated, do we keep meeting the same soul mate in lifetime after lifetime? And if so, is that a good thing or a bad thing? |
3,650,974 | male | 23 | Student | Scorpio | 06,July,2004 | Everybody should watch the season premiere of urlLink The Amazing Race , tonight at 8:30 on CBS. It's easily my favorite television show, and the only reality series that I really get into. The premise: ten teams race around the world, Phineas Fogg style. There's none of this 'voting people off' business; the only thing standing in their way is the usual hazards of travel. People who've traveled the world will recognize many of the problems they face and the places they visit; people who haven't, will want to. It's kinda like the Travel Channel on speed. Entirely awesome. Give the first episode a chance, at least, or you're really missing out. |
3,650,974 | male | 23 | Student | Scorpio | 05,July,2004 | Spent all day yesterday with several of my fellow JDE alumni: Mark, April, Alan, Matt, and Christy. I found it... relaxing, in a way that's difficult to describe (but I'm obviously about to try). A cliche: they say that as you grow older, you come to appreciate ever more the people who knew you when you were young. True, I think, because the changes we go through in life matter as much as the person we are at any given moment in time. Or, to put it another way, shared experiences are the foundation of most friendships, and there are few people I've shared more experiences with than these people. So... yeah. I can unwind around my oldest friends because, well, I feel normal. I don't have to worry about what they might think or say, because I already know perfectly well, and it's nothing to worry about. In fact, I get so laid back that they probably think me downright socially passive - I mostly listen, and rarely talk. When really, I'm just appreciating their company. On that note: Mark and April are in Minnesota and doing well, apparently settled in to a truly blissful marriage. Alan is still in Lincoln, still erratic, inscrutiable, and brilliant. Matt has a job in Omaha but seems to be looking for a better one. Christy will be graduating with me in August and heading off to a job in England. And Drew, Alan's (and my old) roommate is still either completely without judgement or completely without fear. In other news, I somehow found time to make it through two of the three papers I needed to finish this week. At this rate, I might actually manage to graduate. Again. |
3,650,974 | male | 23 | Student | Scorpio | 03,July,2004 | I should really stop underestimating my own skills at bullshit. This paper that I have to write for my quantitative methods class is a good example. 'Applications of Game Theory to Ad-Hoc Networks'. It's not my area of expertise or my best work, but it's clear, coherent, basically accurate, and not plagiarized, which is ahead of a lot of term papers. And it's proving surprisingly easy to write. Now all I have to do is get it done and turned in by Tuesday, so that I can graduate next month... Got a call from the lady at Cerner yesterday, needing a clarify a few items they need to do their background check. Which is a good sign, I suppose, since they probably wouldn't bother if they weren't interested. Geek Trivia: the Taco Bell near my house turns out to be store #404. I'm off in a few to a party at Clay's house (a kegger, even). He wouldn't let me bring food or drink, so instead, I'm bringing fireworks that I bought from James's stand. I know for a fact we're going to have some definite pyros in the crowd, so they should enjoy themselves. |
3,650,974 | male | 23 | Student | Scorpio | 16,August,2004 | Watched Kill Bill Vol. 2 with James and Derrick tonight, the first time I've seen it since the theatre. I must say, it's held up better than I expected. I realize that Tarantino is very much an acquired taste, but I honestly believe there's a lot to like in this film. The first one is mostly about images, but the second one is mostly about dialogue and ideas. I was also reminded that there's a lot of room for sequels, should Tarantino ever choose to make one. And he's hinted he might. These are the unanswered questions from the first two films, as I see them: * What happened to Vernita Green's daughter, whom the Bride told 'When you grow up, if you still feel raw about it, I'll be waiting'? She might come after the Bride, but she might also come after her daughter, who would be the same age. * What great crime did Bill commit, in Hattori Hanso's eyes, that would make him break his oath in order to forge a sword to kill Bill? * Now that O-Ren is gone, who is the leader of the Yakuza, and how do they deal with those who slay their leaders? * What happened to Elle Driver; did she survive the trailer with the black mamba? If she did, she'd certainly have it out for the Bride. * Did Bill see through Elle's lie about the nature of his brother's death? If so, would he have put a price on her head before he died himself? * Why did the DVAS apparently disband shortly after the Bride's 'death'? Vernita, O-Ren, and Bud, at least, all apparently went their separate ways. Bud alludes to an argument and falling-out with his brother, but that's all we know. * At the time of Bill's death, was his organization still in operation? It could be that he disbanded the DVAS and retired to raise his daughter; but it's also possible he went through new batches of them on a regular basis, a bit like Charlie's Angels. If so, are there more students of assassination (or even ex-lovers) out there who might have it in for the Bride? * Did Bill also know the Five-Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique? If so, who else might Pai Mei have taught it to? |
3,650,974 | male | 23 | Student | Scorpio | 15,August,2004 | Among the many, many reasons I love Stargate SG-1 is this: in how many other series, even sci-fi series, would you get to hear a 100-year old alien warrior discuss his love for Def Jam Vendetta? And that's just the beginning of an episode that features a character becoming trapped inside a VR simulation which, for the benefit of those observing from outside, is rendered using the Half-Life engine. I shit you not, a goodly amount of the hour is spent looking at polygonal versions of the actors. If it isn't a real mod yet, I expect that it will be very soon. Edit: I shouldn't speak before I google; there are, of course, several such mods out there. Also, it was pointed out that the characters claim it's the Doom 3 engine, but it simply doesn't look it to me. |
3,650,974 | male | 23 | Student | Scorpio | 14,August,2004 | Graduated today (again, again). I love this whole summer commencement thing: 800 people instead of 2,300 makes it surprisingly tolerable to sit through. I started to tell a friend today that he could call me Master Beermann now, before realizing that he already does call me that on a semi-regular basis. It's just never really registered before. I'm flattered. I think. Two of my cousins, brother and sister, both had baby girls arrive recently. One has the first name Regan; the other, the middle name Marin. Am I the only person who's seen The Exorcist? On my drive home from work, I pass a field where a fellow has been camped out for the last few days. Above him is a large, handpainted banner reading, 'CANCER SUCKS!' You tell the man, buddy. |
3,650,974 | male | 23 | Student | Scorpio | 13,August,2004 | So, Alan mentioned to me yesterday that he'd found and fixed a bug in the ISIS GPS code, dating from when I originally wrote it, nearly two years ago now. It caused all latitude/longitude measurements to be off by around 20 miles. It was probably caused by a combination of coding error on my part and/or my sketchy understanding of the NMEA protocol and/or the sketchy documentation for said protocol. Normally, this sort of thing would really bother me; I'm supposed to be a professional and all, which means being methodical and testing your work thoroughly. But in this instance, I just have to laugh. I find it fucking hilarious that not a single developer or user, some of whom are much smarter than I am, noticed such a huge problem in a system that's been in heavy production for over a year. It's just... wow. |
3,650,974 | male | 23 | Student | Scorpio | 12,August,2004 | Tomorrow should be a good day: besides Ribfest again for lunch, the evening brings the Olympic Opening Ceremonies and new episodes of both SG-1 and Atlantis. Alas, I'm likely to miss the latter because of a thrice-accursed reception at CBA for graduates. Bah. It's a good thing I have BitTorrent or I might be really pissy. I'm a bit torn over Gov. McGreevey's resignation, though at a personal level I can sympathize with him. I can't decide whether he made the right decision for the wrong reasons, or the wrong decision for the right reasons. I also question just how much honor there is for a man in upholding a dishonorable and dishonest wedding vow. It doesn't excuse an affair, but it might be high time for them to go their separate ways. One of life's small pleasures: introducing your boss to Rejected. Do you ever get the feeling that you're living your life backwards? The best way I can sum up my overall mood lately would be: The Elder Days are gone. The Middle Days are passing. The Younger Days are beginning... |
3,650,974 | male | 23 | Student | Scorpio | 12,August,2004 | Tried two new games tonight, which I'd purchased based only on sales rankings and the recommendations of the good folks at urlLink BoardGameGeek . The first, Mü & More, consists of an unusual deck of cards (12 each in 5 suits) and rules for five different games. One is like hearts, one is like pitch, one is like speed, one is like go fish, and one (the titular Mü) defies description. Nearly all of them are more complex then they seem at first, but they also tend to be mercifully quick. Not a bad value for $10 if I do say so myself. The other game we tried, Acquire, is apparently a classic that dates back to the '60s, but is still in print and still played in tournaments. None of us had ever heard of it or played it before, though. You place tiles on a city-like grid, causing clusters of tiles ('corporations') to form and eventually merge, netting you shareholder bonuses and capital gains. Pretty interesting stuff, though I don't think I quite have the strategy down yet. As if I ever do... Ribfest starts tomorrow! Barbecue is awesome, and a choice of a half-dozen vendors is even more awesome. Also met Tracy's long-mysterious boyfriend, Eric, over dinner at Lazlo's tonight. Seemed like a pretty nice fellow, a film studies major, maybe a bit on the quiet side. But there's one lesson I've learned over the years, often and well: the ones who seem quiet, very rarely actually are. In fact, they often have the most interesting things to say. You just need to figure out how to get them talking. |
3,650,974 | male | 23 | Student | Scorpio | 10,August,2004 | ...if I implied in my previous post that Myst IV was pretty nifty. It's absolutely fucking amazing. Proof: when you start the demo, stay put, but spin the camera around so you're looking up, perhaps in the direction of the moon. Leave it like that for a few minutes. I've seen a lot of things in video games before, but I haven't seen anything look quite that good, and for a throwaway detail, no less. It makes me want to fly to Ubisoft Studios and hump the animator's leg. Also, a hint: once you pick up the only item in the demo, go back and revisit the earlier areas. Some will have changed. So, it seems that I'm having lunch with Eric Graber (!) and his girlfriend (!!!). What exactly she's doing in Lincoln, much less in the United States, remains to be seen. |
3,650,974 | male | 23 | Student | Scorpio | 09,August,2004 | I have a strict policy of not using beta software from Microsoft, but when Service Pack 2 reached RTM I couldn't avoid it any longer. It took forever to download and install, but has otherwise been painless. In fact, I can barely notice the difference, even though I know perfectly well what all has changed, and I suspect most normal users will feel likewise. It is a bit surprising how often I've been hitting the security warnings about programs trying to connect to the Internet, considering that the new Windows Firewall (AFAICT) only actually blocks inbound traffic. Makes virus activity easier to detect and stop, I suppose. The new wireless networking definitely seems stabler, and less apt to switch channels just because it detects someone's random peer-to-peer connection. Launching applications, opening menus, etc, feels a bit snappier but that could be purely psychological. The layout of the Security Center seems to have changed a bit since RC2. I wish I had a newer processor so I could test the NX security. All in all, not bad. We'll see how this affects virii in the coming months. Spent most of the day playing with the urlLink Myst IV: Revolution demo which, astonishingly, runs like a dream on my oldish Dell laptop with its 1GHz chip, 256MB of RAM, and 16MB graphics card. They must have done a pretty decent job of optimizing it. And massive props for releasing the Mac version simultaneously with the PC. Don't see that much anymore. Also took my brother out to dinner for his half-birthday, since his actual birthday got missed while he was at school. Outback Steakhouse is yum, particularly their Bloomin' Onions, even if they do have something like 2,000 calories each. |
3,650,974 | male | 23 | Student | Scorpio | 09,August,2004 | So yeah, one of our cats died while I was away this weekend. I can't say it comes as a total surprise - she was sixteen years old and had been sick for a while. But it still sucks. Even more so for my brother, who actually had to bury her himself since the rest of us were out of town. Other than the news waiting for me at home, a pretty good weekend all around. Definitely leaning towards a loft now; need to call them tomorrow and snap one up before they get rented. A second night of drunken debauchery at Rusty's; this time, drunken computer assembly! I think we must have done something wrong, though, because he can only get Doom 3 to run at 5-10 FPS, despite having a really nice graphics card, plenty of memory, and the latest versions of everything. Maybe he'll have figured it out by the time he reads this. This week is the last week of summer classes, meaning that in a few short days I'll have a degree. Another degree. I swear, they're starting to seem like baseball cards or something... |
3,650,974 | male | 23 | Student | Scorpio | 08,August,2004 | Back in Kansas City this weekend, this time looking for an apartment. I find myself attracted to the lofts downtown, as opposed to the various apartment complexes out in the suburbs. There's such a mind-numbing identicalness to seemingly every complex built in the last twenty years. Little beige boxes, all of them. A few high ceilings and exposed brick walls do more than you can imagine to raise my spirit. Also, by the time you get done considering utilities, parking, etc, their prices are really quite similar. Other things to figure out: which banks have branches both in Lincoln and in Kansas City? Precious few, as it turns out. Not quite the orgy of debauchery of past weekends, but I'm still having a good time over at Russ's. I keep meeting new faces in addition to the ones I've meet in weeks past. It's quite the little harem Rusty has going. Keeps life interesting, anyway. Even I must admit that Doom 3 looks pretty sexy, though I still can't imagine playing it myself. I need a good excuse to buy a new video card (if not an entire system) in order to play something or other. Suggestions? |
3,650,974 | male | 23 | Student | Scorpio | 07,August,2004 | But I’m not crazy, I’m just a little unwell I know right now you can’t tell But stay awhile and maybe then you’ll see A different side of me |
3,650,974 | male | 23 | Student | Scorpio | 05,August,2004 | For those of you who haven't yet had the pleasure of graduating, here's a primer on academic attire: Bachelors' tassels are the school colors, doctors' tassels are gold, and masters' tassels depend on their discipline. Since I'm an MBA, that means I get to wear a tassel and hood that are a putrescent salmon-like color. I believe it's officially called 'drab'. And for the privilege of being drab I get to pay $50. Yay... |
3,650,974 | male | 23 | Student | Scorpio | 03,August,2004 | The Games of the XXVIII Olympiad of the Modern Era begin next Friday night. I plan to watch them religiously, as I do every two years. It surprises even me; I've never participated in any athletics, nor do I usually enjoy watching them on TV. Why, then, do I have such an attachment to the Olympics? Mostly to try to understand myself, here's a list, in no particular order: * The Olympics absolutely reek with symbolism, ancient and modern, from beginning to end. As an example, this year's marathon is being run along its 2,500 year-old original course, from Marathonas to Athens. How often do you see such old traditions being observed today? (More than you think; ask me about Reagan's funeral sometime.) I've got a huge soft spot for rituals of all kinds, even when their original significance has been forgotten. They make you feel connecting with the past in a way that simply reading history never can. * When you see someone compete at the Olympics, you know without doubt that they are among the best in the world at whatever it is they do. There's a peculiar thrill that goes with that, even when you wouldn't otherwise be interested in the activity. I enjoy watching masters at their craft, basically. World Poker Tour is another good example of the same phenomenon. * They only happen every two years. Well, duh, but it means that I don't have a chance to get sick of them. I can watch anything once, but these days it seems like most of the professional sports somehow manage to go year-round; they're always on. The games are not. * There's a huge variety of things going on, and you can never hope to see them all. Maybe I've just got a short attention span, but it's kinda cool to be able to flick on the TV and have an equal chance of seeing dozens upon dozens of different sports; some featuring people you've heard of, and many that you haven't. It feels like serendipity. * It's a travelogue. The Olympics take place all over the world in historic and, let's face it, often gorgeous locales. I like The Amazing Race for essentially the same reason. Also, the host cities spend years and millions of dollars to look their absolute shining best. It's probably a worthy goal in its own right (urban renewal), but it also gives them a fairy-tale quality that can't ever be replicated in a later visit. I think that's the gist of it. So yeah, I'll be watching. Anyone gets bored, invite me over and we'll do so together. (Oh, and also: I got to hold an actual Olympic torch once, back in 1996. So awesome.) Finally, of course, the obligatory news tidbits: I finally got Jesse to go to the Oven, which he enjoyed; the long delay was apparently due to his inexplicable theory that the place was only for dates. Strange, Jesse, strange. Everybody help me think of something to get/do for his birthday, which is coming up very soon. Ribfest starts next weekend, and I can hardly wait. Still need to see the Village, about which I've been getting mixed but not wholly negative reviews. A new batch of games is on the way from GameSurplus, an entirely awesome site with really good prices. Rsync might be one of the most Unix-centric programs ever written. Alan's site is down, due to his altruistic and slightly silly gesture of sacrificing its innards to revive his employer's server. Google's initial public offering will raise e billion dollars. That is all. |
3,650,974 | male | 23 | Student | Scorpio | 03,August,2004 | So I got a form letter today from Chuck Hagel's office. (Are you listening, Tom?) I had contacted them to register my opposition to the Federal Marriage Amendment. I would assume, or hope, that all such contacts get a letter in reply, but I'd have to imagine they had more than usual on this issue. A urlLink press release is attached to the letter explaining his position on the matter. 'Americans and Nebraskans have been presented with a false choice between amending the Constitution of the United States or allowing same sex marriage across our country... Over our nation's history, social and policy issues have been best handled by the state... Amending the constitution, the founding document of our nation, should always be a final option, not a first.' Brilliantly put, Chuck. I couldn't have said it better myself. But then he goes off a cliff. The matter never made it to a vote; instead, senators voted on whether or not to continue debate ('cloture', if you're curious). He voted to keep the issue alive. 'There is much misinformation about this amendment. I believe the American people would have benefited from continued debate and a further understanding of this deeply complicated and important issue.' Excuse me? The proposed amendment was one sentence long. I'm pretty damn sure I understood exactly what it said. Further, the debate I heard was doing precious little to combat misinformation; if anything, there were senators throwing more into the pot. Perhaps more importantly, had the amendment come to a real vote, how would you have voted, Chuck? Your press release implies 'no', but your beliefs and voting record on related issues implies 'yes'. Since it's certain to come up again, year after year, it's something that I, the represented, urgently want to know. For goodness sake, stop trying to talk around it. Please. On the plus side, though? Franking privileges are awesome. |
3,650,974 | male | 23 | Student | Scorpio | 03,August,2004 | Is there a substantive difference between love and trust? Aside from the abortion crowd, why don't right-wing nutcases protest things as often as left-wing nutcases do? If the saying 'the good ones are always taken' is true, and you're not taken, are you therefore not a good one? Considering it takes so much more energy to hate someone than to get along with them, how do so many people around the world manage to hate so many without becoming exhausted? Why do we depend on, or even expect, others to make us happy? How often is someone's opinion changed by what someone else says, rather than does? Am I channeling Rusty right now or what? |
3,650,974 | male | 23 | Student | Scorpio | 02,August,2004 | This is an interim I'm-not-dead post on my parents' computer, since my laptop is currently hosed. Sometimes even I wonder what use a computer science degree is, but I can't do a thing about it until at least tomorrow. |
4,041,806 | female | 26 | Transportation | Taurus | 30,July,2004 | I'm mildly down today. Yesterday's lunch was a downer, then I get home and a close friend of Mickey's parents and my grandparents (remember, we live in a small town) died of cancer yesterday morning. I'm still in a funk today. That and Mickey worked late again for like the 4th night in a row. Work is beating him down right now. Anytime I call, he's in a funk or really busy. That and this nasty weather has led me to believe that I need to go shopping during lunch. The mall is about 5 minutes from here and I think Collin needs some new, cute, fall clothes, in addition to the 'Wee-Elect Bush' shirt I bought him online earlier. More to come... |
4,041,806 | female | 26 | Transportation | Taurus | 29,July,2004 | Every morning, upon arriving, my friend Theresa and I call each other to find out the day's most pressing question, 'Did you bring your lunch today?' Work sucks bad enough that upon arriving, we're already thinking about our first opportunity to leave again. Today, she reminded me that she was planning on picking up a friend of hers who was diagnosed with cancer in March, and taking her to our favorite Italian dive. She said I was more than welcome to come along. At first I refused, part out of my thought that she needed to have some quality time with her friend, but mostly because I didn't think I could handle it. In ways I thought the wounds from my mother's cancer experience were too fresh, but after her continual prodding about it, I agreed to come along. When faced with the threat of your parent being terminally ill, a lot of soul searching goes on, in my case anyway. You stop worrying about things like when you're going to get your yearly bonus. Suddenly, you don't care that your mom may not be around to see you climb the corporate ladder, and you start caring about the fact that she may never see you get married, or have babies. It will always be a mystery to me regarding how my mom miraculously overcame her cancer. There's really not even a good scientific explanation for it. By all accounts, she should've died, but she didn't. She's here, 3 years later, hoisting Collin up to the window above her front door so he canwave goodbye to me in the morning. She saw me through the first few weeks of adjusting to motherhood, complete with the tearful, exhausted phone calls, and has continued to be a source of guidance and wisdom since. Once we arrived at Theresa's friend's home, I was immediately taken aback. It was difficult for me not to break down and cry for this woman I didn't even really know, except through a friend. She looked so gaunt, every word was whispy, airy and labored, her baggy clothes were hanging off of her where feminine curves once existed. She was hopeless, ready to die. It broke my heart. She said she probably has about 2 months. That's what the doctor said, anyway. Theresa immediately told her about my Mom and I damn near lost it. I could barely talk to this poor woman about my mom without breaking down. The rest of the lunch consisted of her and Theresa talking about how she wants her funeral, and who's going to take care of her husband, etc. So now I sit here at my desk, facing the rest of the afternoon in a huge funk, an eyelash away from a total crying fit. I can't wait to get home to my baby, and my mom. |
4,041,806 | female | 26 | Transportation | Taurus | 28,July,2004 | Quitting is so much fun. Just the sheer realization that I'm out of here in a few weeks really puts things in perspective. Last week, while observing my replacement do some training I used to do via webconference, I was sending her chat messages about the pure stupidity of this MANAGER that was on the call. He showed up like 15 or 20 minutes late, was confused, had the wrong dial in information, just a bunch of stupid shit. I was going on in chat about how stupid he was, when she accidentally shared the chat. Ordinarily, I would've been mortified, but all of the sudden, I had this I-don't-give-a-shit attitude. He needed to hear what an ass he was, and I was just the girl to do it. Today, I got to give a guy I forgot I loathed, a much needed piece of my mind. It felt good. What are they going to do, fire me? I love the ability to take the PCedness out of things without the risk of being fired. It's a lot of fun. Perhaps I'll have something more profound to say later. Maybe not. |
4,041,806 | female | 26 | Transportation | Taurus | 27,July,2004 | Well, the time has finally arrived. I will break down and go procure a cell phone today. I've dreaded this day for a long time. So long anonymity. Last night I arrived home to find Mickey reading a AAA advertisement. He asked if I thought we should get a AAA membership. At first, I thought AAA was for old people, but I think I was thinking of AARP. Whatever, I just knew it had a lot of As. Anyway, he mentioned what all it covered and I said I didn't think it would help me, as I don't have a cell phone. That was not a bitch about not having a cell phone, it was just a statement of fact. I would never use the membership as, if I had to walk to a gas station to make a call to AAA because I ran out of gas, I sure as hell am not just going to walk back to my car from a gas station and wait for AAA to rescue me. So, we debated the pros and cons of getting a cell phone for me (Mickey already has one) and I finally caved. Besides, I'm going to school next semester and if Mom needs to get in touch with me about Collin, she'll have to have a means for contacting me in an emergency. They vibrate anyway. Woo-hoo! Speaking of going back to school, I'm so glad I'm out of here in a few weeks. I'm not being given any large scale, long term projects to work on at this time for obvious reasons, but just got called upon to help complete the writing of a training manual for a system I know nothing about. Talk about the blind leading the blind. Oh well, it's a paycheck for the rest of my time here. What will drive me crazy before my end here is this chick with the loudass mouth in the office next to mine. Shut the hell up already. She reminds me of MiMi on the Drew Carey show, except her blue eye shadow isn't quite as dramatic as MiMi's and her hair is brown. I can't concentrate effectively with her running her trap non-stop. Actually, speaking of the office, we have quite a mix of people in our department. There's Mimi the loud mouth, there's Petunia the Pig (looks just like Petunia in human form), Marge Simpson's twin sister's missing triplet, complete with bad attitude, cheap cigarettes, fried hair and raspy voice, the 5th Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle (again, looks just like a Ninja Turtle personified, his skin even looks green), and Jaba the Hut. Where are all the pretty people? Help! I go to the oral surgeon today for a consult on my wisdom teeth. I'm actually amazed I kept up with my referral form this long (nearly a month!) without losing it. I believe that calls for a celebratory ice cream. Maybe not. I'm kind of skeered of going to the surgeon today. They're not even going to be doing anything today and already I feel a big knot in my stomach. Oh well, worse things have happened. |
4,041,806 | female | 26 | Transportation | Taurus | 26,July,2004 | I started this blog so I could respond to Hooni's messages, but now that I'm in this, it seems like fun. GOD I'M TIRED! I've gotten 8+ hours of sleep the past few nights, but I still feel beat by about 9 AM. I was nodding off at 8 Saturday night. What a loser I am. I bought school supplies today at Walgreen's, which included some cool, gel pens. I think I would've done better in school had there been gel pens back then. Gel pens make taking notes fun, so many pretty colors. I had a set of gel pens a few years ago that had glitter in them. I remember signing some kind of travel document at the airport in San Salvador and the young woman at the counter freaking about how damn cool my glitter pens were. I gave them to her. They were brand new in America, so by my estimation, I guess they'd hit the markets in El Salvador around 2012. She was more than appreciative and I felt good to do such a good deed. Anyway, back to the school shopping. I also purchased some 3 subject, college ruled notebooks. I'm picky about the college ruled paper. Wide ruled paper and my handwriting goes to hell, that and I figure I save a few trees by compacting my writing while using college ruled. They also had a neat pencil box that I quickly procured. I think I'm good now. Between this small shopping trip and hording office supplies, I'm doing alright in the school supply department. I even labeled everything with a Sharpie like a dork. I feel like such a Mom.. I looked for the Trapper Keepers, but was unsuccessful. That's all for now. |
4,041,806 | female | 26 | Transportation | Taurus | 19,August,2004 | This place is even more wacked out than I originally thought. I was coming out of the women's restroom today, which faces the door to the men's restroom, and there was a sign on the door: 'Candle found. Please see receptionist.' What? Why? Do I want to know? |
4,041,806 | female | 26 | Transportation | Taurus | 17,August,2004 | So I had my wisdom tooth removed on Friday. It was alright. The scariest thing was when the dentist was in my mouth with something sharp poking and prodding at it. I was scared he'd slip and the sharp instrument would go through my cheek or something. It was kind of freaky. Afterwards, I was sent home with a script for an antibiotic and Vicodin. My tooth continued to bleed like a bitch for a few hours. It was nasty. The gauze that I had to shove in my mouth was damned near my gagger and nearly caused me to upchuck in the car en route to the pharmacy. Anyway, a trip to the pharmacy later, I take my meds and then take another Vicodin before I go to bed. I wake up a few hours later in a cold sweat, my vision is blurry (couldn't see or distinguish the numbers on the alarm clock), heaviness in my chest, puking my ass off and I'm itching like a freaky freak. I called my dentist the next day and they said it was possible that I could be allergic to Vicodin. Maybe I'm just allergic to not chasing it with a vodka tonic or a few beers, as was done often in college. Apparently, they were right. Darvocet did not produce the weird side effects. Thank God. I thought I was going crazy. Mickey has decided that I shouldn't have my other 3 wisdom teeth removed. Apparently I'm too big of a baby. They weren't impacted or anything, I only had that one removed because it bothered me immensely. I felt better on Saturday, so much so that I did yard work all day. I paid for it Sunday. My Grandpa said I'd probably get a dry socket from bending over all day picking weeds. I didn't know being upside down caused dry socket, but so far, so good. Sorry this was boring, but it's my fucking blog. :) |
4,041,806 | female | 26 | Transportation | Taurus | 16,August,2004 | He keeps me endlessly entertained during my last couple of weeks in this corporate hell hole: A man died and went to heaven. As he stood in front of St. Peter at the Pearly Gates, he saw a huge wall of clocks behind him. He asked, 'What are all those clocks?'St. Peter answered, 'Those are Lie-Clocks. Everyone on Earth has a Lie-Clock. Every time you lie the hands on your clock will move.''Oh,' said the man, 'whose clock is that?' 'That's Mother Teresa's. The hands have never moved, indicating that she never told a lie.''Incredible,' said the man. 'And whose clock is that one?' St. Peter responded, 'That's Abraham Lincoln's clock. The hands have moved twice, telling us that Abe told only two lies in his entire life.''Where's John Kerry's clock?' asked the man.'Kerry's clock is in Jesus' office. He's using it as a ceiling fan.' |
4,041,806 | female | 26 | Transportation | Taurus | 11,August,2004 | It absolutely boggles my mind how 'English' speaking people that talk like shit expect to be taken seriously in a professional workplace. I'm not insisting upon perfection, but my God, use some proper diction. Quit slurring all of your words together. Sometimes I'm embarrassed when I hear how some of the people around here talk, and I'm out of here in about 2 weeks. Not only that, but this loud ass that sits next to me talks so loud I can hear her through the wall. STFU. And her voice is shrill. I got sent home on Monday for violating the office dress code. I'd gone to Kohl's this weekend and took advantage of the tax free weekend by dropping a wad of cash on some new, back-to-school clothes. Capris were recently added back into our dresscode with the stipulation that they have to be no higher than 6 inches from the ground, if you're standing flat footed. I bought some pretty, magenta colored capris and a cool black shirt. I thought I looked pretty hip and professional. I got sent home. Ruler toting, hem measuring Nazis. Funny thing was, somehow they thought this was punishment for me. I got 'charged' a vacation day. OOooooo. I enjoyed my unexpected day off. What gets me, is they're worried about the length of capris in August in Texas, yet the restrooms would be what would leave me with the worst impression, should I be a customer visiting this office. The fronts of the stall doors are black. I don't think they've ever been washed. I avoid using the restroom at work if I can help it for this very reason. It's unsanitary, and unsightly. On another note, I'm getting one of my wisdom teeth pulled tomorrow. That's right, one. They want to pull all 4 of them, but it takes 4 - 6 weeks to get insurance's approval (Aetna). The one on the lower right is really bothering me, so they were able to get approval for just that one over the phone. It's nothing complicated. They've all erupted, they're straight, they just need to be pulled. I'm kind of scared, but I figure if I can shoot an 8 pound baby out of my cooter, I'll be fine while they extract a teeny tooth. |
4,041,806 | female | 26 | Transportation | Taurus | 04,August,2004 | ...and I don't give a footyfuck. I'm on FIRE. I was thrown into writing parts of a training manual on a project that, from the start, I indicated I know NOTHING about. The girl working the project is swamped and I hate her anyway. So, I get handed this project, and she bitches about what I wrote saying it wasn't complete enough. NEWSFLASH: I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THE FUCKING SYSTEM. So, I just wrote an e-mail to God and everyone about how I would not be helping out on this project, and that I wouldn't buy a cookbook written by Paris Hilton if my life depended on it, why should someone with no knowledge of something write a TRAINING manual about it. GMAFB. I'm beyond pissed. What an ungrateful bitch. |
4,041,806 | female | 26 | Transportation | Taurus | 03,August,2004 | Aren't they great? I could've used another day off, truth be told. I didn't really do much of anything, aside from hanging out with my guys, going to a playdate at a local water park, and hanging out with my family... Ah, my family. My Grandad's 80somethingth birthday was Sunday. He actually almost died in late June of heart failure. He flatlined twice en route to the hospital. It's amazing that he's still here. He was very different on Sunday. I'm by no means his favorite grandchild (or if I was, I never felt that way), but he was completely and totally fixated on Collin a good part of our visit. You could look through the crowd of people and see him on the other side and he'd be looking at him, just smiling, grinning from ear to ear. It was kind of cute. My whore cousin was there with her new FOTW (fuck of the week). I guess that was what he was. In my mind, she owes me for bringing her several FOTWs ago boy toy to my wedding, saying they were 'serious.' Until she found out he didn't have a job. How serious can you be without KNOWING that someone doesn't have a job? GMAFB. My beef with her is not only that she's a total skank, but she's constantly up in Mickey's business when we're around, which I find totally disrespectful. Mickey gags just thinking about it, so I suppose the upside is getting a good laugh at his faux barfing noises. Anyway, she was there with her new FOTW, and from what I could gather, his teenage daughter, her boyfriend, and his younger daughter. Who brings all those people to a first time family meet? I thought it was pretty bold. As she does any time Mickey is not there for whatever reason, hunting/working/whatever, she asked where Mickey was. No greetings to me or anything like that, just a 'Where's Mickey?' Next time, I think I may just reply with an 'In my pants, eating my cooter,' just for shock value. I also ordered Collin's first political T-Shirt on Friday. I can't wait for it to come in. I think it will be a cool keepsake - a piece of his place in history. I plan on finding a lot of dated type t-shirts for him and then recycling them into a jersey-knit quilt of sorts when he gets older (I know, high ambitions). I'd love it if I had a quilt that said 'Mondale in '84' and other similar musings. Wouldn't that be great? |
3,702,688 | male | 24 | Arts | Taurus | 02,August,2004 | I'm amazed. Somehow, not quite sure, I managed to acheive the change from 'highly employable' to 'not sure there's a place for you here' in record time. Twice. In as many weeks. I was holding down two jobs, one at a bar, one as a receptionist at a yoga centre. Things were going well. The yoga centre told me they were promoting me to 'yoga manager'. But things went tits up when I had to leave at short notice twice and go abroad. The most recent was a trip to New York to do some photography. Paid phenomenally well, as I earned as much in 3 and a half days as I would have done in 9 months at the bar. When I had to let them know I couldn't do the two shifts the next week, they said that my commitment was in question (commitment is, apparantly, essential in a part-time barman). Fine, i figured. I was sad to leave, because i liked it there. Decent people to work with. A manageress that wasn't nearly as bad as the other bar managers I've worked for. Anal, but show me a manager that isn't. New York was fantastic. Flew out business class, put up in a nice hotel opposite the Met on 5th Ave. Caught up with some friends. It was great, but I flew back to a frosty reception at the reception. I even flew back earlier than i would have, in order to make a shift on Friday, but was told that there was someone covering it. OK. Fine. I'm not pissed at that... much. But I went in for my shift today, and thats how I heard the news that I was fired. I guess i was getting slack anyway. I was meant to be there at 9, but i kinda overslept, having had a bit of a heavy one last night. My 9 o'clock shift ended up beginning at 11.30. oops. No worries, i'll explain it in an honest way. But when i got there, I see a sign up telling all that yoga is cancelled today. I phone around, and the word is that I am a bit persona non grata, that someone else has been hired. Finally, i get through to my boss, and she tells me that i'm fired. she just neglected to tell me before I do half of todays shift. what next? |
3,702,688 | male | 24 | Arts | Taurus | 01,August,2004 | urlLink http://capetowntolondon.co.uk |
3,702,688 | male | 24 | Arts | Taurus | 01,August,2004 | urlLink 'Indiana Goldberg' Ethiopia '03 urlLink |
3,702,688 | male | 24 | Arts | Taurus | 01,August,2004 | urlLink Once again, no-one wins the 'point to the white guy' competition. Mozambique '03 urlLink |
3,601,621 | male | 23 | indUnk | Gemini | 14,June,2004 | My first impression was: is it the session voting page the longest page in the world? I've just got an email message, informing me that urlLink The Attendee Web site is up and running. It took me nearly two hours just to prepare an alpha version of my schedule. For those of you, who haven't done that so far, I suggest you to do that as soon as possible, since it might be far more time consuming than you think. Yeap, there are zillions of different sessions you can choose from and mostly all of them extremely interesting. Again, there is one more blog article that I would suggest you to check. It's urlLink Tim Sneath's article with a short list of tips for making the most out of the TechEd. Here's the list of sessions, that I will probably attend at: Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005 : Exciting New Roadmap To The Future Visual Studio 2005 & SQL Server 2005 : Come get the details on an exciting new product announcement! Visual Basic 2005 : RAD Development for the VB Developer eXtreme Programming: the alternative way to building high quality systems Visual Basic 2005 : Language Enhancements SQL Server 2005: .NET Framework-Based Programming in the Database SQL Server 2005: What's New in Replication .NET and Diagnostics Visual C# 2005 : IDE Enhancements for the C# Developer Visual Basic: Tips and Tricks for Optimizing Your Applications FrontPage 2003: Designing Customized SharePoint Services and Sites RAD Data Access with Visual Studio 2005 – the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly ASP.NET: Best Practices for Performance .NET Architecture Clinic Migrating ADO to ADO.NET SQL Server 2005: Web Services ASP.NET: Tips and Tricks for Building Server Controls Windows Forms: Controls Tips and Tricks I will probably be changing this list thoughout this two weeks before the grand beginning of the TechEd. |
3,601,621 | male | 23 | indUnk | Gemini | 11,June,2004 | Right now I'm dealing with the following TechEd related dilema: to bring a laptop or not? I've found an interesting blog post by Bill Evjen who has prepared urlLink list of things that one should bring to TechEd . I know it's been originaly written for the San Diego TechEd Event, but I guess it doesn't really matter as they're probably all pretty much the same (my guess though). I've never been to TechEd before, so I was just wondering about the laptop thing. I'm not quite yet sure either I will get a laptop (don't have one of my own yet) by that time or not. So I was thinking: will you guys have your own laptops as well or not. And why? Thanks for your comments (if I get any ;)). Other than that, I do completely suggest anyone who hasn't seen Bill Evjen's list yet, to follow urlLink this link and check it out - I found it extremely informative and especially loved his suggestions such as the one related with the business cards and writting messages on the backs of them. |
3,601,621 | male | 23 | indUnk | Gemini | 10,June,2004 | Yupee. This is my first blog post. I must say that a few months ago I didn't have any idea what blogs are and would probably completely dissagree with anyone saying that I will have one of my own someday. Since the last couple of weeks I have come to the conclusion that it would be worth to try having my own blog where I would discuss things that I love and have passion for. Therefor I have decided to discuss my work and things that are related to it one way or another. There are definately two subjects that I will be dealing with in the near future...first is urlLink my own HTML editor (which is now getting completely rewritten from VB6 code into the VB.NET and C# code) and the second is the urlLink Microsoft's TechEd event in Amsterdam . As it goes for the TechEd event, I hope I will be able to share my reflections from the event with the rest of you and give at least some useful information about some of the interesting stuff where I will attend at. And as for the HTML editor goes: most of all, I hope you will be able to give me some useful comments and suggestions throughout the process of developing, which will help me accomplishing the goal of creating a user-friendly and innovative HTML editor using the latest Microsoft's development tools. I guess I should also tell you a bit more about myself at this point: I am a student in Ljubljana, Slovenia (which is one of the new EU member countries), but usualy spend most of my time developing all sorts of software. One of the major projects, that I have actually started years ago, is urlLink my own HTML editor that I have mentioned before and will be the source of many discussions here. Besides that I have one lovely 21 months old daughter with my lovely girlfriend that are together truly the greatest source of joy and fun for me right now! Photos of both of them will be posted somewhere in my blog soon... Okay...that's it for now...it's 2a.m. here and I guess it's time for me to go to bed. Good night everyone, and read/write you soon! |
4,015,330 | female | 15 | Student | Capricorn | 12,August,2004 | In my search for new and inspiring ideas, I came across urlLink this little fellow . This guy is the coolest and most awesome guy I've ever seen. I hope my child will grow up to be just like him. Anyway, back to the inspirational. 'Who wants to see Lil' John and Barry Manilow collaborate (because they both have cool hair( i.e. urlLink awesomeness A and urlLink awesomeness B ) ). ' Note to nick ball: could you possibly morph those two images using your godly photoshop skills? please? The ingenious last line to my poem, wow, i can tell I'm going to fail this class already. |
4,015,330 | female | 15 | Student | Capricorn | 08,August,2004 | For some awful reason that quote from Pride and Prejudice has been running through my mind all day long like a Britney Spears song.... whoa... that rhymed. lol. Anyway, so today was the first day of public school and I have to say it was the strangest group of people I've ever seen in my life. I mean that in a good way, diversity is key. I think. Well, I totally botched first period because no one told me we had to pick up our locker numbers in another classroom. I didn't even get to use my locker by the way, ok maybe I got to walk by and say hi, but that's about it. I walked into the wrong classroom a couple of times, and that was kind of embarassing. I had a group to sit with at lunch though (the cheerleaders..ooo... yeah whatever), and despite how stressed out I was I actually managed to make friends. I didn't meet anyone cool until I had my smart classes. I'll tell you, that's where its at, yo. So, all in all, it wasn't horrible. My assignment for english is to write a poem, a non-rhyming poem. (i think reason that quote above has been running through my head) I'm probably spending way too much time and putting way too much effort into this simple 'getting-to-know-you' excercise, but I just can't get past it. I don't know what to finish with... Nicole, Very observant, quick to laugh, quirky habits, Sibling of no one, Lover of music, movies, and mozzarella, Who feels the need to always improve, Who needs only a nice place to sleep and some neopolitan ice cream, Who knows not what I’m doing in this poem, Who fears large crowds and furry spiders, Who would like to see... the world inundated in molten candle wax? Neubarth ok, so it's retarded at best, but its a work in progress!!! ok?!? Insight much appreciated, thank you. Love, nikore |
4,015,330 | female | 15 | Student | Capricorn | 08,August,2004 | FYI, completely disreguard any titles because there is no corelation between them and the entries themselves. Most people will find them annoying and well, stupid, but hey i try. So anyway, I was just having a normal sunday today. Yesterday I had Kassi over, and she saw my new room. I got that warm fuzzy feeling because she thought my room was so cute and was throughly impressed with my guitar playing. You don't get those kinds of compliments everyday, you know. It keeps me going. As of late, i've been sitting in my rope swing for hours at a time, as many of my friends know...lol. It's a great place to think. So...I was thinking, in the great scheme of things it really doesn't matter if you have a boyfriend or not. The grass is still green, the sky is still blue, you still have to wear sunscreen, still have to finish your homework, do the laundry, etc. so i ask you, why do so many people my age have boyfriends/girlfriends, many of whom are completely dependent and obbsessed with their significant other. Some have come to the conclusion that everyone is just horny, but if that is the case then why not just find some random person... i don't know. I don't think I'm going to waste my time anymore. By going to camp, I saw that there are definitely 'more fish in the sea', so really I have no other concerns in that department until I'm much older. If I do meet a guy next year and he's 'soooo perfect' , then I guess I'll consider it, but otherwise... bleh. lol. Ok, enough, I know, I'm sorry. I won't even get into the other things I've been thinking about. Soo, yeah, I'll leave you with this disturbing joke... 'Your daddy is so dumb, he thought I was a hooker!' Really think about that one...doesn't it creep you out?! nicole |
4,015,330 | female | 15 | Student | Capricorn | 07,August,2004 | Well, well, well. I see you have stumbled onto my masterpiece, my highly anticipated blog! ... You get excited easily, there's absolutely nothing here. calm down. See, I started one about 2 weeks ago, and I recently read one of the entries I had made and I had noo idea what I was talking about. I figured if I thought it was crazy then everyone else would think it was. Now, you still think I'm crazy, but to a lesser degree than say, before when you would have told me to see a physcologist... or something. yeah, ok im an idiot. This being my first entry, I've decided to only let you read a tiny morsel of what's to come... so.... here it is.... 'Today when I woke up, I saw that my wall was still white, thank goodness. (I was afraid it was red, can you imagine?!) Anyway, I made myself a pancake, i use the singular because the first one I made looked like a dying rabbit and I try not to eat anything with a face, so yeah, i ate my one, lonely pancake.' OMFG! That's only about 15 minutes into my day, and I'm already blown away by how captivating it is. Until next time my friends, make sure your pot is free of harmful additives. nnnicole |
2,961,655 | male | 35 | indUnk | Aquarius | 24,March,2004 | A potential Democratic candidate against Crapo? Man claiming he's God arrested in Buhl 11:04 AM MST on Wednesday, March 24, 2004 - Associated Press BUHL -- Buhl police say an armed man -- accompanied by his five children and saying he was God -- demanded 40 dollars from convenience store clerks. Forty-two-year-old George Crider of Castleford was charged Tuesday with felony injury to a child. Authorities were considering additional charges. An affidavit by Detective Karen Trent said the man, wearing a gun on his hip, walked into the Oasis Stop 'N' Go Monday night and asked two clerks if he could have 40 dollars. He said it was O-K to give him the money, because he was God. They didn't give him the money and he left. The affidavit says his five-year-old son, carrying unpurchased toys, tried to follow but was stopped by a clerk. The detective said the man returned, slammed the door, demanded that the clerk give the items back and again demanded 40 dollars. The clerks said they would call the police and the man left and was arrested a short time later. The five children were turned over to family members. |
2,961,655 | male | 35 | indUnk | Aquarius | 09,March,2004 | THE BUILDUP The buildup to a campaign is a time of great intrigue, gossip, parlor games, and speculation. Generally speaking very little of it is accurate. Potential candidates, political observers, journalists, and political hangers-on are all engaged in a game of determining who has the best, most current, and most outlandish gossip. While the residents of “political gossip world” ply their trade, real potential candidates are lying awake at night contemplating the rather incoherent and mixed feelings they are having. Potential candidates each day are shaving the face of the next governor in the mirror and applying their lipstick in the rearview mirror to the face of the next U S Senator. But the ones without delusions are also nauseous at the prospect of giving over the next months or year of their lives to a cause that will be uphill, demeaning, and embarrassing on the best of days. Both attitudes and activities are valid. A successful candidate needs a healthy mix of outsized ego to withstand the brickbats and humility to keep the fear of God coursing through them so they knock on the doors needed and make the fundraising calls to pay for the barrage of letters and advertisements that will hopefully “move numbers”. At this point in the process a small group of people who make their living (or who derive life’s meaning from politics if they are unpaid) are sitting in fluorescent lit conference rooms going through lists of districts around a state and trying desperately to come up with the right name to fill a slot on the ballot so the unwinnable seat in East Bratslovia won’t go uncontested. Or they are trying to find the candidate who can run and win in the primary to knock out the extremist who won despite all odds and logic in the last election. Now that the pros have been proven wrong and a formerly discarded district has proven winnable, the pros spring back into action to orchestrate the right person into the race. Most of this never works. But it is delicious fun to watch the machinations. Now is the time when fairly unpleasant people summon all their unctuous charm and work the phones to convince candidates to put aside long-held goals and dreams in favor of pursuing a better seat because another person with more time in the trenches wants to run in that slot. This process isn’t about good governance – it’s about making sure that the slots are filled and the annoying fundamentalist is pitted against the sainted chamber of commerce director to ensure they don’t have a chance of winning and embarrassing the party in November. The pitch is always the same: “I’ve been looking at Smith’s voting record and I think you stack up better against Jones because your strengths and Jones’ weaknesses are a better contrast.” “The truth is that Marcia is going through a really rough divorce and she shouldn’t be running, so she will be sufficiently distracted and will be an easier candidate to beat.” “I’ll tell you that damn district is difficult to win – I don’t know why you aren’t throwing your hat into the Commissioner’s race – there’s a much better chance of winning that seat than this one.” Until a few days before filing deadline, and then the script changes: “Jane, please. This primary will be so divisive – would you consider an appointment to the state Dental Commission in exchange for not running? I know we can get the Guv to buy off on that.” “Mark, dammit. You’ll never get the party to back you if you run against Claude. I know he can’t hear, collapsed on the House floor twice last year, and mistakenly voted twice to cut off all funds for kindergarten, but he’s an icon and no one wants him to go out this way.” And my personal favorite: “What’s your price to not make this race?” And the filing deadline comes, and all members of the party committee trudge to the bars to drink heavily and assess how long and intense the shower will have to be to cleanse them of their candidate recruitment sins. Journalists wait at the Secretary of State’s office, getting the updated printouts of the candidate filing lists and laughing at the harried party volunteers racing with faxed, forged forms and $50 checks to pay fees to ensure the single strongest slate of candidates we’ve had in years is put to bed. Hapless candidates from the hinterlands inadvertently file for seat A when they needed to run for seat B, thus setting up primaries in one half of a district while the other goes unopposed. Place holder candidates begin wondering if in fact they really should run after all instead of bowing out - even though the deal was cut weeks ago that they would step aside when Kim Marshall was ready to run just one month after the filing deadline, because she will be the strongest candidate and just needed time to take care of a few work issues before moving forward. Consultants pull the names of the new candidates to do some background checks to see which ones have money and are targets for getting some “message work”. Lobbyists go through the lists to see which districts they are going to get screwed in, which ones they will have to pick a side and play ball, and which ones they’ll have to begin the process of buying themselves new votes all over again due to retirements and ambition leading their wholly-owned subsidiaries to the siren-song of higher office. Potential campaign managers call through the list trying to schedule breakfasts, lunches, and coffees to suck up to an entirely new group of targets for work. Journalists retire to their bars to find out which candidates have the best scoop and place bets on how long before the election the goods will get dumped. And most pathetic of all, newspaper readers scan the names of the candidates for a total of 16 seconds on their way to reading Heloise or the local college game wrap-up, not caring even remotely about this list of people who will be determining how much their kids schools will get funded and how much of their taxes will shift to the ag subsidy caucus in the house revenue and taxation committee without so much as a recorded vote. The campaign season officially begins. |
2,961,655 | male | 35 | indUnk | Aquarius | 22,June,2004 | If you're from the Northeast and anywhere less than 45 or so, you grew up with Bruce Springsteen. I'd do this just to have him give another concert. I finally saw Springsteen in concert in Portland, Oregon in 2002. Broke my hand at the concert tripping UP a flight of concrete stairs, but had to stay to the end. Worth every pain-filled, self-anesthetizing (beer only) moment. Check out this site: www.draftbruce.com or click the Bruuuuuce headline above and sign the petition! |
2,961,655 | male | 35 | indUnk | Aquarius | 21,June,2004 | A Matter of Faith By DAVID BROOKS Published: June 22, 2004 When Bill Clinton was 8, he started taking himself to church. When he was 10, he publicly committed himself to Jesus. As a boy, he begged his Sunday school teacher to take him to see Billy Graham. And as anybody watching his book rollout knows, he still exudes religiosity. He gave Dan Rather a tour of his Little Rock church, and talked about praying in good times and bad. More than any other leading Democrat, Bill Clinton understands the role religion actually plays in modern politics. He knows Americans want to be able to see their leaders' faith. A recent Pew survey showed that for every American who thinks politicians should talk less about religion, there are two Americans who believe politicians should talk more. And Clinton seems to understand, as many Democrats do not, that a politician's faith isn't just about litmus test issues like abortion or gay marriage. Many people just want to know that their leader, like them, is in the fellowship of believers. Their president doesn't have to be a saint, but he does have to be a pilgrim. He does have to be engaged, as they are, in a personal voyage toward God. Clinton made this sort of faith-based connection, at least until he sullied himself with the Lewinsky affair. He won the evangelical vote in 1992, and won it again in 1996. He understood that if Democrats are not seen as religious, they will be seen as secular Ivy League liberals, and they will lose. John Kerry doesn't seem to get this. Many of the people running the Democratic Party don't get it either. A recent Time magazine survey revealed that only 7 percent of Americans feel that Kerry is a man of strong religious faith. That's a catastrophic number. That number should be the first thing Kerry strategists think about when they wake up in the morning and it should be the last thing on their lips when they go to sleep at night. They should be doing everything they can to change that perception, because unless more people get a sense of Kerry's faith, they will feel no bond with him and they will be loath to trust him with their vote. Yet his campaign does nothing. Kerry talks about jobs one week and the minimum wage the next, going about his wonky way, each day as secular as the last. It's mind-boggling. Can't the Democratic strategists read the data? Religious involvement is a much, much more powerful predictor of how someone will vote than income, education, gender or any other social and demographic category save race. Can't the Democratic strategists feel it in their bones how important this is? After all, when you go out among the Democratic rank and file, you find millions of Democrats who are just as religious as Republicans. It's mostly in the land of Democratic elites that you are likely to find yourself among religious illiterates. But of course this is the problem. Forests have been felled so people could publish articles and books on the religious right's influence on the Republican Party. But as the Baruch College political scientists Louis Bolce and Gerald De Maio have suggested, the real political story of the past decade has been the growing size and cohesion of the secular left, and its growing influence on the Democratic Party. According to the American Religious Identification Survey, the number of Americans with no religious affiliation has more than doubled since 1990. There is now a surging but unself-conscious power bloc within the Democratic Party. Like the religious right in the Republican Party, the members of the secular left are interested primarily in social issues. What unites them more than anything else is a strong antipathy to pro-lifers and fundamentalists. While 75 percent of Americans feel little or no hostility to fundamentalists, people in this group are far more hostile to them than to other traditional Democratic bête noires, the rich or big business. They don't like to see their politicians meddling with religion in any way. Just as Republicans have to appeal to religious conservatives but move beyond them, Democrats have to appeal to the secular left but also build a bridge to religious moderates. Bill Clinton did this. John Kerry hasn't. If you want to know why Kerry is still roughly even with Bush in the polls, even though Bush has had the worst year of any president since Nixon in 1973 or L.B.J. in 1968, this is one big reason. |
2,961,655 | male | 35 | indUnk | Aquarius | 21,June,2004 | From the Idaho Falls Post Register - by Marty Trillhaase Idaho's democracy: 1890-2004 Idaho's democracy, born with such promise on July 3, 1890, passed away on May 11. It was just shy of its 114th birthday and had been in failing health for most of the past 10 years. An autopsy revealed the following: * Idaho's once-robust electorate had atrophied. Only half of the voters bothered to show up. Last month's primary had one of the lowest turnouts in recent years. Voters were also less informed. They didn't read newspapers as much. Weakened by well-meaning reforms, political parties engaged in less voter education. Money took over and much of it came in big chunks from special interests. In Idaho's last election, for example, just 73 contributors provided 20 percent of the $7.85 million spent on campaigns. * Competition disappeared. The supply of sacrificial lambs and millionaires willing to spend their own money to create the illusion of campaign contests ran out. Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, became the first Idaho incumbent re-elected by default since the 17th Amendment to the Constitution set up direct election of senators in 1913. Democrats failed to come up with an opponent by the May 11 deadline. For the moment, 1st District Congressman Butch Otter, R-Idaho, also has no opponent. Democrat Naomi Preston intends to withdraw. If that stands, it would be the first time since Idaho got its two congressional districts in 1918 that an incumbent won without a fight. Democrats plan to name a replacement in a couple of weeks. And the campaign for Idaho's Legislature is all but over. Of Idaho's 70 House seats, 34 are already decided - for lack of serious opposition. Of the 35 Senate seats, 15 are essentially uncontested. * Politicians started giving Idaho voters the brush-off. Last week, Crapo and his fellow Republican Sen. Larry Craig voted against Idaho's interests, their own governor and their fellow Idaho Republicans in the House to back the Department of Energy's ploy to leave some high-level radioactive wastes - and thereby save money - in South Carolina. It's a precedent Gov. Dirk Kempthorne said could hurt Idaho's ability to get its wastes cleaned up and removed from the INEEL. State Senate Majority Leader Bart Davis, R-Idaho Falls, and Senate Pro Tem Bob Geddes, R-Soda Springs, pushed the state to cough up an estimated $50,000 to $60,000 to overturn the voter-passed tribal gaming initiative. Davis did so even though his own constituents supported the gaming pact. When Kempthorne appointed his former chief of staff and Republican Ÿber lobbyist Phil Reberger to the council responsible for nominating and policing judges, nobody stopped him. And nobody seemed all that upset about high-level appointees trading on their political connections. Kempthorne's natural resource adviser, Scott Turlington, went to work for Tamarack Resort near the Cascade Reservoir. The resort needed and got a 49-year lease of state lands during the time Turlington advised the governor. The State Board of Education's chief academic officer, Randy Thompson, signed up as vice president for marketing and business development for the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence. Before that, he helped the outfit get State Board approval so it could sell computerized tests to certify Idaho's public school teachers. Idahoans aren't condemned to this fate. They could allow parties to fill ballot vacancies more easily. And public financing of campaigns would yield a dividend of real choice at the ballot box. But without that, this corpse is headed to the morgue. May our late democracy rest in peace. Marty Trillhaase |
2,961,655 | male | 35 | indUnk | Aquarius | 19,June,2004 | There's a lot of concern within Democrat circles that Naomi Preston, Idaho's 1st CD Democratic candidate, isn't proving to be a person of her word. Many Democratic insiders tried to talk her out of quitting the race initially (more than once) when she began to have misgivings about her decision to run. But she decided to quit anyway for theoretically legitimate reasons - at least the ones she gave publicly. The party went out and recruited another candidate, who would have been terrific. Yet here comes Naomi to change her mind - again. And unfortunately many of the people that initially supported her aren't now. Wayne Hoffman of the Idaho Statesman wrote a story from the Demo State Convention that addressed some leadership concerns. The media is starting to pick up on the dissension... The following is from Dave Oliveria's online blog at The Idaho Spokesman Review: ''She's in, she isn't, she's in' Dunno how I missed Wayne Hoffman's report about the state Demo convention at Pocatello here. But one insider tells me that the grafs toward the end about Naomi Preston are pregnant with understatement. Preston? She's the cowgirl who planned to take on U.S. Rep. Butch Otter in the 1st Congressional District race. And then dropped out. And now wants back in. And has gone thru a campaign manager or two already. With or without a cooperative wannabe, the Demos have little chance of winning this seat. But they have enough problems trying to make gains in the Legislature without having to fight their own wannabe in an important race.' Find it at: www.spokesmanreview.com/blogs/nhb/ |
2,961,655 | male | 35 | indUnk | Aquarius | 08,June,2004 | A Good Northwest Political Site Randy Stapilus, longtime Idaho newspaper reporter and author has expanded his political monitoring and commentary to his new home in Oregon. He's an informed observer of Northwest politics and his site has good insider political chops. Here's a link to his site: urlLink www.ridenbaugh.com |
2,961,655 | male | 35 | indUnk | Aquarius | 31,July,2004 | urlLink Local10.com - News - Woman's Dying Wish: Bush Defeated |
2,961,655 | male | 35 | indUnk | Aquarius | 27,July,2004 | When not obsessing with the feet of paid ladies of the evening, Dick Morris has been known to have some good political sense. This is his take on his former boss's speech last night. July 27, 2004 -- THE master returned to center stage last night as Bill Clinton showed how to address a convention and use issues to win elections. Facing a national consensus that terror, Iraq and homeland security are the key issues, Bill Clinton dragged America back to the domestic issues on which Democrats retain a strong edge. Long after Clinton's recitation of his own achievements has faded, his effort to reinject health care, Social Security, Medicare, drug prices, education and crime into the national debate may endure... urlLink New York Post Online Edition: postopinion |
2,961,655 | male | 35 | indUnk | Aquarius | 13,July,2004 | This book ('Father Joe - The Man Who Saved My Soul') and its author, was profiled on National Public Radio in June. I was taken by the author, Tony Hendra, who is a completely irreverent former editor of Spy Magazine and National Lampoon, classmate of several of the Monty Pythons (Cleese and Chapman), and screenwriter of lots of classic comic sketches. As proof of the six degrees, I bought the book recently and the acknowledgements thanked a priest in Boise, Idaho who shared a name with a long-time priest friend of my wife's family that I've gotten to meet a few times. I tracked down the author Tony Hendra by email and he responded rapidly that in fact the two Father Tom Fauchers were one and the same. Turns out Fr. Tom was equally impacted by Father Joe as was Tony Hendra, and they struck up a friendship. Anyway, enough blather - go out and get this book. It's good for the soul. mk |
2,961,655 | male | 35 | indUnk | Aquarius | 04,July,2004 | We may not have many Nobel Laureates in the faculty, but we know how to count cards! urlLink Resources for Journalists - News & Media Relations - SMU |
2,961,655 | male | 35 | indUnk | Aquarius | 03,July,2004 | Since a college fraternity brother of mine (Rick Powell) is the Managing Director of Quinn Gillespie I watched this one with more than detached amusement. Rick's one of the smartest and clearest-thinkers I have ever had the pleasure of knowing, despite his rather unfortunate party affiliation (two guesses). Enjoy this hypocrisy a la mode. Mike urlLink The Seattle Times: Local News: Murray, Nethercutt spar over links to lobbyist |
2,961,655 | male | 35 | indUnk | Aquarius | 01,July,2004 | Almost nothing warms the heart as fully as a sweep of the Red Sox. Perhaps the only thing better is when it happens in October. Jump to the New York Times here: urlLink The New York Times > Sports > Baseball > Yankees 5, Red Sox 4, 13 Innings: Dust Settles in 13th, and Yanks Have a Sweep |
2,961,655 | male | 35 | indUnk | Aquarius | 05,August,2004 | Having grown up with Springsteen and gone to college contemporaneously with two Dixie Chicks, this hits close to home. Springsteen asked a valid question on the Ted Koppel show tonight - why is it that only entertainers are challenged on who they think they are by getting politically active? Republicans don't question business leaders who weigh in. I for one am glad to see these folks speaking out and using their talents in service to a cause. urlLink CNN.com - Springsteen, Dixie Chicks stumping against Bush - Aug 4, 2004 |
3,715,101 | female | 17 | Student | Leo | 28,June,2004 | Her blue eyes would watch As people passed her by. She could read their emotions, But they were unaware that this beautiful girl Should have a problem of her own. For years she was abused, And her mind was at war. Through her eyes you could see her soul, Tormented. Sitting on the broken wooden bench, She would contemplate for hours, The severity of her pain. One time, I remember, she lifted her sleeve, And gasped as she saw her arm, A mass of cuts and scars, A war zone. People walked by, never stopping, Not even when she cried. Her best efforts went into silencing her sobs, She didn’t succeed. She passed a window on her way home, And stared in at herself, The reflection was me. |
3,715,101 | female | 17 | Student | Leo | 27,June,2004 | This is how you have left me. I have no reason anymore, No reason to remove myself From this darkened pit. You had chances, and many, But I just don't have the patience To sit, sit and wait for nothing, Nothing at all. Contrary to belief, I am not happy, Nor am I lament with greif. Beneath such facades I feel... Like an emotionless void. |
3,715,101 | female | 17 | Student | Leo | 23,June,2004 | Im not romantic. romance is like as different from me as anything opposite could be. Maybe they do romance courses at college. *ponders* I should be romantic and thoughtful and all roses and love and hearts and shiney things, but I must have missed obtaining that gene, take after mother then. 'Loaded, I've loaded up this gun, there's a killer in me, hoping you're the one, but you always run away when I come around, I dont mind the day, I'll track you down, and TERRIFY' Liking that song at the moment, a lot. Suave voice, for a guy that is. Seeta has a suave voice, she has a gig on saturday however Im not going. My plans for this weekend so far: Friday - nothing Saturday - nothing Sunday - KD come here (no choice) and stay over Monday - 'period pains' No school. Apart from that I have work, but not too much, so Im worried about the amount I will get next year when we have to rush through the course, not that I am complaining! Holiday in 2 weeks and 3 days! whooo. JD |
3,715,101 | female | 17 | Student | Leo | 22,June,2004 | Wow. Two posts in one day. This will never happen again. Isn't it amazing how things can change totally the other way round and when a day starts of bad it can end up good. I made friends with them (elephant juice), I'm allowed to go to Leeds fest. No news on the house, and Joss is going as of tomorrow (fingers crossed). And Im happy. I finished my work. I played a game today hah yea im sad, where you have to name all the things you love. I love my friends who tell me what is right instead of what I want to hear. I love potential adventures and I love people who demand me to be my best because they know I can do better things than what I am doing. Mainly, I love my friends... in a friendship way :P:P:P |
3,715,101 | female | 17 | Student | Leo | 22,June,2004 | Well, probably not the BEST day ever to start a blog. I feel down. Like really down. Although my problems are not even significant in comparrison to those of the rest of the world, and although I have a lot going for me, everything seems wrong. I dont like the constant invasion of privacy. I dont want secrets, I want confidentiality. I want to be able to say something without it all backfiring. I want to go to Leeds fest, I want to move house and I want Joss to go. Basically for the last 3 points, I want my mother to stop taking the easy option. But then again, its not all bad, it can't be. I'm going to Paris on Tuesday with the people who dont understand not to shout how Im feeling to the world. Then I'm going to an interview at Oxford on the Thursday, and I dont know what to do. All good. All shiney. All smiles. All the time. JD |
3,715,101 | female | 17 | Student | Leo | 02,July,2004 | I'll just run through: Monday - school, Joe, Ben n Seeta came here, was fun. Food *mmm*. Slept at Seet'as, late night, early morning, but again fun :) Tuesday - Paris. Was quite good, made me want to go back so I can look round my way. 5th wheel - in a non conventional way, which wasnt so good but proved some things to me. Wednesday - School, SACRE - which was quite good, some good contacts from there Thursday - Oxford. Very good, I'm impressed. I love the city and the university and Im definately going to apply! I was on my own most of the day but it was still very good, I managed to saunter sufficiently, get lost and go to bed at 9 - just what I needed. The other theology candidtaes are so well informed, well read and clever - *decides to read more* - where can I find the time? Friday - Home. Yay. No plans! I need a day off LOL. Got caught in the terrential rain and my feet are wet but all else is shiney. Madam Wolfie shall be adjoining me at the hip on Tuesday, which shall be good also, fun and she drinks the same drink as me from starbucks, which, considering the range is relatively spooky. Anyway - bored now :P JD |
3,370,275 | female | 17 | Automotive | Aquarius | 17,May,2004 | well .. i think some people try to be nice because others are nice to them but deep down they just wanna die .. if everyone could be as supportive as my friends then there would be world peace and all the starving little children .. would be .. ahh non-starving and i could sleep at night knowing theres no crime no war no hunger that cant be fixed ... but no thats not real its only fantasy... the truth is people starve to death everyday people get shot down in the street but I live my life acting like i dont care But I do... i sponsered this little girl her names Ileea she's really cute and she writes me letters she started school this year YAY for her shes doing well.. she has 3 brothers and her mothers very sick .. but they can eat.. err sometimes what else.... oh and im wondering why everyone acts like im this big slut... well i guess i do flirt a lot but not enough to be called a slut what does the word slut mean anyway? its just cruel ... i think everyone on icq should grow the hell up and. im just talking away not that ANYONE will read this lol... hmm what to type .... what to type... My Sister Had her Baby :D she called it Joshua William ... he's so cute!!! she let me hold him im like aww .. then she's like bree maybe you should have one so i gave him back... i dont want no kid .. as much as i love them i dont want one |
3,370,275 | female | 17 | Automotive | Aquarius | 17,May,2004 | Your Homocidal Rampage! by urlLink crash_and_burn Your name: Weapon of Choice: My Voice Your Favorite Target: Innocent Kittens Your Kill Count: 100,000,000,000 Your Battle Cry: 'Die Kitty DIE!' Years You Spend in Jail: 48 How Much Money In Damages You Cause: many broken mother kittens hearts Your Homocidal Insanity Level:: 99% Created with the ORIGINAL urlLink MemeGen ! |
3,370,275 | female | 17 | Automotive | Aquarius | 17,May,2004 | my real mother got killed by some Italian Mafia dude... and yeh dont know much about her... only that she was really nice she died when i was 9.. not that anyone cares what happens to me :( |
3,370,275 | female | 17 | Automotive | Aquarius | 17,May,2004 | Naz : shes really funny... and umm.. a good... friend ( naz would run out in front of a truck to save a cat) lol sorry naz had ta Amy : umm... shes just my friend OK Kate : kate is the BESTEST gurl In the world I love Ya Kate!! lol Nick : he's funny.. and nice.. AND he likes car ' STYLE='text-decoration: none; border-bottom: medium solid green;' HREF='http://search.targetwords.com/u.search?x=5977|1||||cars|AA1VDw'>car s :) Nene : well.. haven't known nene that long but she's really nice .. and doesn't like guys who treat girls like shit.. none of my friends do come to think about it.... |
4,094,991 | male | 17 | Student | Aquarius | 31,July,2004 | umm, work is hard, I was expecting it to be much busier though, so that's good i guess... found out that i will be paid, but it gets done a week in hand so i'll be paid for this weeks training stuff at the end of next week... hmm, I need to find clothes to wear |
4,094,991 | male | 17 | Student | Aquarius | 31,July,2004 | This is my new blog, since bolt is being an asshole and taking ages to sort out the journals, I'm moving here. If bolt finally sort out the journals then you can probably find my old one at www.bolt.com... look for someone called dcbio and the journal is there. I've got work later at 12:30, well, sort of work, i'm not sure if i'm getting paid for it because i'm still in training really, I guess i'll find out today (saturday is pay day i think)... Rag Freak... which is a pretty damn cool job if you ask me... the owner's a bit of an asshole and nobody likes him which is kind of funny, the manager is always drunk, which is funny... Wes (scary gothy guy) is great, Mike,Charles & Bin all seem really nice too. I finally convinced Kayleigh to straighten my hair yesterday, looked quite good in my opinion... but sleep made most of the effect go away, still, it's straighter than it was... I think i need to buy some of those straighteners... cost a lot though, they were like the best ones on the market at the moment and they're 130 ish i think she said, so possibly will have to keep borowing kayleigh's until i can afford some... Been listening to rammstein lots again recently... it's so cool, I don't get why people don't like it... it's really great to dance to, compared to other rocky type music. I heard a really cool band that sounded kind of similar to rammstein in rag freak but i've forgotten there name... apparently one of the members came in and told the staff about them and they went out and bought the album, apparently they're rammstein's favourite band so i think i'll have to buy the album. umm... dunno what else to say really. Worrying about someone right now... and hoping they're ok. B.C. |
4,094,991 | male | 17 | Student | Aquarius | 03,August,2004 | yay, my 5 ball juggling is getting good(or at least, better)... don't think i'm quite good enough to enter the 5 ball endurance at the crawley conv. yet... i think i'll have to go next year. (Juggling convention in crawley) |
3,553,969 | male | 17 | BusinessServices | Cancer | 12,June,2004 | Even thought this may seem like a story line...It's not! There is a deep thought involved... You will see it. Today, after 'Garage Sale Shopping' with Alanna and her mom, Linda; her sisters; Alexis and Stephanie; and our friend Naomi...I came home to find a message on my answering machine. A girl, whom I went to school with in 1st and 2nd grade, found my number in the local phone book and called me. I found this intriguing, yet odd. For one, Why did she all of a sudden think of me, and decide to look me up. (At the time, I did not know that she lived in Valparaiso.) I decided to call her later, so that Alanna, Naomi, and I could go somewhere this afternoon. After returning from Alanna's house, I called her. Unbelievably she knew a lot about me. She spoke with one of my friends about my current lifestyle, my accomplishments, and where my life was headed. Now that the story part is over, I can go into thought with you. Why did she call ME? Out of all the people I went to school with.... What stood out about me in 1st and 2nd grade.... And that now she is interested in knowing me again. On the phone earlier... She asked me who my friends were.. (I told her John, Alanna, Rachel, Naomi, Ronnie, etc. Which she didn't know most of these people... But I had do explain some of my relationships to her...)... She asked me where I lived, what I drove... Etc. Again, this is all very odd. But, for the sake of acting in good faith... I decided to meet her @ Strongbow's for desert and refreshments. I will later log what happened at this meeting. |
3,553,969 | male | 17 | BusinessServices | Cancer | 07,June,2004 | Yesterday I received one of the greatest honors of my life. I was presented with the Student Leader of the Year award; for exceptional leadership, service, and commitment to The Cause Youth Network. This is the highest award in our Youth Ministry. I was completely blown away by receiving this great honor. I was in no way expecting this award. I received a standing ovation by both services. I want to thank all who gave there input for nominating me for this award. Even though it was one of the best days of my life, there is always a downfall. Yesterday I thought that I had wronged a friend and almost tore myself apart with worry. Then I find out from another person what really happened and I felt really bad. I also had friends that pulled me through it and I thank them for doing so. Today my best friend, urlLink John W.J. Staub had a song from his album played on Shine 89.7. It was so awesome. After the first playing, I called in to the radio station to give a comment, but after I talked to the announcer, he let me share some of John's heart and his posting as the Worship Leader at the Cause. Well, God bless all who read this and I will write again soon. |
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