Recently in Personal Category

Meg has an interesting post about hearing that someone she knew a while back passed away. When I was in high school I played a lot of pool. There was this one guy who was really good, always taking my money. He taught me a lot. Shortly before I left for college we played and I won, he owed me twenty bucks. While at school, I happened to get an IM from a mutual aquaintance and I said jokingly that he should remind Mike about the money he owed me. That was when he told me Mike had died in a car accident. He couldn't have been more than 18 years old.

I had another friend who graduated high school a year or so ahead of me. He was in the Pentagon on 9-11, but got out safe. That weekend he died in a car accident. When it's your time, it's your time.

It's strange how in both cases I wasn't extremely close to either person, but it reminds you of your own mortality. Life works in strange ways sometimes.

And on that depressing note, I'm out. Leave your stories if you'd like.

Hey James: Sorry I haven't posted in a while. ; )

I have to apologize for the lack of posts lately. Between spending my nights watching playoff baseball and feeling slightly under the weather (enough to make me visit the doctor, something I never do) my time has been spent elsewhere. Enough with the excuses, though. Back to the content.

So I'm back, and man did I have a good time.

The drive down was awful. Between the rain and the traffic, it took almost eleven hours to reach Baltimore; that's horrendous as it was only supposed to take seven hours to get there. Byt the time we arrived at the hotel we were miserable.

Day two: Saturday. We bought tickets to see the game from the bleachers. Ran into a friend also there for the game who happened to have three tickets for the second deck near the left field foul pole. He traded us (having scored even better tickets for himself). The game was great. One of the people with me was an Orioles fan and while I was cheering for the Red Sox, he was cheering against them. At one point he yelled "Nomar sucks!" It seemed to me that there were more Sox fans at the game than Bird fans, and our section was no different. A woman two rows ahead of us turned around and yelled back "No he doesn't!" Nomar was currently at bat and with his next swing sent one out of the park. The woman jumped up, turned, grabbed her 8x11 crayola marker "Go Red Sox!" sign with both hands and yelled in my friend's face "Nomar doesn't suck! We're number two! Number two! Where are you?!?!" Yes, that's Red Sox nation for you. We're number two, and we're ok with it. Or something.

The Sox ended up losing that game. So sad. However, the game we really showed up for was on Sunday. We started out in the very top deck near the very last row right on the edge, overlooking the pens. I was a magnificent view of the field, even if we were so high up we could see the top of the foul pole.

The game was going well, Sox in the lead, and then we had rain. And more rain. And rain after that. Thunder and lightning caused the first delay, water caused the delays after that. The grounds crew tarped the field four separate times. The first time they were fast. By the fourth time, well, lets just say the pep was out of their wet little Nike sneakers.

During the rain a lot of people left. This made for tons of empty seats. We headed around behind home plate and dried a few off with our asses. The game started up, we saw a few pitches, and then we got kicked out of that section. On of the ushers noticed we were new and told us if we didn't have tickets we couldn't sit there. This was probably the only complaint I had. There were tons of empty seats around us, no one came back with stubs for those seats, and there were only a few thousand fans who stuck out the rain anyway. Come on! With the prices we paid and the fact that we were wet and faithful, you'd think he'd let us stay. Jerk.

We moved down behind the Orioles dugout, right on the field, and watched the Sox hit a few more homers. Then in the ninth the O's almost came back. Almost, but not quite. Just as they lost, the scoreboard showed the Yankees had lost as well. It was a great way to end a long and wet day.

Oriole Park at Camden Yards is an amazingly beautiful stadium, so much though that with no hesitation I'll tell you: I plan on going back. For the most part, the Ushers were personabe and helpful. The stadium is beautiful, with neat featurs like monitors in the stands so fans can see replays. Parking was only ten bucks, could be found right in front of the park, and it took only ten minutes to get back on the highway. Had the Sox won both games I attended, it would have been an absolutely perfect weekend, but even with the loss on Saturday I had a wonderful time. If you ever get the chance to go, don't pass it up. It's very worth it.

Tomorrow I head down to Baltimore for some touristy action culminating in watching the Sox thrash (hopefully) the Orioles. Have a good weekend.

I'll be going away for a few days. I know posting has been light, but you know how it is. No comp access on the road unless you bring your own, and I can't. Have a good mid-week and I'll catch y'all in a few.

So how do you know when you're posting has slacked off? You realize you only have one post left on your page. Sheesh. Been a slow month.

In any case, the move into the new apartment has been completed. Unpacking has begun and is in progress, but you know how that goes.

In the meantime, as June rapidly approaches, my blog has/is/will become a year old. I had a soft launch so there's not a firm birthday. Who cares, though?

In the time that I've been working on this, I've learned a little, kept track of more, and not figured out a lot. That's the breaks.

One thing that concerns me in thinking back about the posts here is that many of them say nothing at all. I look at the searches that bring people here and they either a) think American Idol sucks and was rigged or b) would like to build a model warship/web server or c) view nude pictures of Kelly Clarkson (which I still don't have). I wonder if I've written anything that people care about. And truthfully, I know I haven't.

One thing I have used my blog for is meeting new people. I've made a few friends from it, and in the end that's more important than any useful content. I mean really now.

Ah well. Like many of my other posts, I don't really know what I'm trying to say here. Coming up on a year of blogging. At least it proves that I can stick with it. Thanks for reading. I love you all.

If your life was turned into a book, which sections would be noteworthy? The time you won the class president spot by write in vote in eleventh grade? How about the day you met Tom Ridge? Will the time you got in the dryer at the laundrymat on low heat and tumbled over and over be in there? Maybe the time you almost got in a fight with one of your best friends while they were in a vodka bottle? Then there was that time your girlfriend walked in while you were talking bad about her and your back was to the door and your friends knew and without even skipping a beat asked about the Mets/Sox game to keep you out of trouble. Then again, it might be the time you snuck into that building to print out pictures of some guys face pasted onto a gay porn scene cause he pissed you off and he was so much bigger than you and it was the only way you could get back at him...

Man... Books can only be so long. What would be in yours?

One of my more memorable moments in Providence: we (my sisters and I) were with my dad, travelling back to his apartment when we stopped at a light. On the corner was an amputee in a wheel chair. As we waited for the light to change, he dropped his unit out one of the empty legs of his shorts and peed on the corner. As I pointed and my sisters innocently looked out the windows, the light went green and my dad sped away.

I know I've been away a lot lately, and I promised myself none of these "I'm sorry I haven't posted" posts, but I wanted to let you know to stay tuned.

I have a couple things up my sleeve for this weekend and next week. A new T story, a new web app, and a new tutorial are all in the cards. I also want to test out the pre-dated/post-dated options for articles to see if I can post a lot on the weekend like usual, but have it trickle out over the upcoming week. This will help keep fresh content up when I don't have time to write it.

Stay tuned

(this is) Sour Bob

And like that, you can feel the door finally closing. You have trouble breathing again, but the hurt doesn't last--not because of the loss of them, but because the life you'd planned on has died. You're free now, but like an astronaut on a spacewalk is free. You worry that the wrong move might send you drifting forever.

I typically don’t write about personal things, or personal occurrences. Today is different. Depressing and morbid material ahead.

Man, I have nothing to say tonight... Nothing at all. I'm going to drink a beer and chill out. You should to. If you're into that kind of thing.

So what did I do to ring in the first weekend of the new year? I painted my mom's living room. And today, I was a sore and hurting bastard. That was her giftmas present because she wanted it done and couldn't do it herself, and she's really happy with it, but I'll try to stay away from painting living rooms in the near future.

I played some more Metorid this weekend as well, and again, I have to say, I'm quite impressed. Managed to obtain the thermal visor and almost peed myself with excitement. Also got the wave beam. The graphics, once again, are incredible. The attention to detail is what really gets me going, though. When I played on the PS2, one of the things that really annoyed me was the awful load times. Metroid doesn't seem to have those. Enter the game and play. You have access to huge amounts of the environment without pause. When you do move from one place to another and new things need loading, you don't get a status bar and a loading message, you get a wonderfully animated animation, with Samus looking around nervously, blinking, and breathing.

With all the other stuff going on in my life, I won't beat this one soon, but I'd like to ask. Anyone got any recommendations for what my next game should be?

So Christmas has arrived. I'm not sure how I feel about that. Time seems to go by so quickly lately. One second I'm thinking about something months away, the next thing I know I'm remembering it. When do we get to slow down and enjoy things?

I finished my shopping last weekend to the tune of... Well, since I'm trying not to think about it, let's just say I spent what I needed to and it was more than I would have liked, but less than I would have wanted. I gave my first gift today and it went over really well. That kind of made the whole thing worth while. And that's what it's all about right?

As you can probably guess, like most everyone else in Blogaria, posting will be light over the next few days. I do, however, have some neat things in the works: at least one longer post and some cleanup around the old toybox for the new year.

Best wishes to you and yours this Christmas.

Day one of being 23 didn't go so badly over all. I tried to do some Christmas shopping, but walking through the mall was so depressing I didn't end up buying a single thing. On the upside, though, my mom made me Birthday cake and put candles on it.

Thanks to everyone who wished me a happy birthday. It's appreciated. Catch you all tomorrow when hopefully I'll get my final birthday present: a win over the Titans.

Well, my birthday is rapidly drawing to a close. It felt like just another day. When I was at college we had a party one time to celebrate Joe's, Jake's, Cory's, and my birthdays all together. After not going to a party since school, it would have been a fun way to celebrate. Makes me miss the good old days. Man, I even sound old (however, according to a woman I work with, I'm just a "baby", having not even been born when she had already been working for the company for ten years).

I got up this morning, did the same stuff as usual (shower, shave, blah blah blah), vacuumed the house, cleaned the bathroom, stuff I shouldn't do on my birthday but had to be done. I went to Foxwoods and came home up ten dollars, having hit for over a hundred in order to put my up fifty, and then having blown forty of that in less than ten minutes. Easy come, easy go. I then came home, ate some pizza, and watched TV. Aside from a few phone calls from well-wishers, it might as well have been any other day.

And I guess, basically, that makes it all kind of depressing. Sixteen, you get your permit. Eighteen, you're an adult. Twenty-one and you can drink. After that, it seems like it all goes down-hill.

Over the last year, a lot of things have changed. I got my diploma, I returned home, I'm a working slob now, I've started down the long long path of repairing my relationship with my father, and in so doing have learned a lot about myself. I've grown up a lot. I feel so young and so old all at the same time.

I don't know where I'm going with this. Basically, between the holidays, winter, and my birthday, I've got a nasty case of the blues. Although this wasn't a birthday that I'll try to forget, it wasn't one that will forever stick out in my mind having been spent exactly the way I wanted (whatever that is, anyway).

The highlight of my day, though? You'll find it here.

Well, another Thanksgiving has come and is nearly gone. Here in New England, as in most of the Northeastern US, we received a good deal of snow on Wednesday. I like to look at snow, but I hate shoveling. Man, what a pain in the ass. I'm out there sliding around the driveway, shoveling away, and I go to toss this one big shovel full of slush, ice, and wet snow and the handle pops right off my shovel and it goes skittering into the yard. It was cold as hell, the wind was blowing, yeah... Shoveling sucks.

In other news, the Patriots played today and won. It was definitley some sloppy football. Lots of penalties, too many unfinished scoring opportunities. I mean really, a field goal to cap their first drive? Bullshit. However, a win is a win, and at least our kicker didn't have his nose splashed across his face. Beating the Lions isn't the same as beating the Packers or the 49ers, though, and until we get a few good teams smacked down into our win column, I'm going to continue to be a little worried about our post-season potential.

Overall it was a good day: I saw my family, everyone was safe and accounted for, and we ate turkey and watched football. Compared to today's happenings in the Middle East, we lucked out, and we have a lot to be thankful for.

I've noticed that as the holidays approach and real life becomes more hectic, readership has been down a little. Now this probably isn't the case for cool people like Zelman and Mark, but for little old me I have to go with the flow. Because of this, I've been spending a little more time with my little digital camera and I've been trying to come up with some posts worth reading. We'll see how it goes.

A note: Are you using Movable Type's bookmarklet? Are you having trouble posting about Mark's site? If you're using a gecko based browser, the MT Bookmarklet fix is here. Thanks Phil.

I've managed to survive another rainy weekend. Tomorrow is suppoed to be cloudy, but dry, something that although not great is better. I normally don't mind the rain, however I've learned to hate it during the week because of the commute and on weekends because it's the only time I'm not at work and it's not dark outside. I understand this summer was rough and we had a drought and all, but come one: do we need to make up an entire year of below average rain in one month? I personally don't think so.

Anyway, it was a slow weekend as fas as things to write about and I don't have anything stored up worth going into. Usually, I file away a few interesting ideas or links so that on days like today I'm not just babbling along. Oh well.

And by the way: Go Pats, Go Pats, Go Go Go... Or something like that.

Sun's rays to roast Earth as poles flip
Here I am working a full time job, and look what happened...

Day two was much better than day one. However, I'm quite tired tonight. It's going to take a few more days of commuting to get used to this. Nothing interesting happened on the T today, so I have no wonderful stories for you. Tomorrow, though, I plan on bringing my camera so I can bring back some pictures for you, my scrigidies. Until then, keep on scrollin or something.

I think I already got most of you, but to those of you that I missed (for example, Dawn, thank you for your congratulations on the new job. I appreciate it, and all of you. Thanks again.

Some days, you just can't win...

I got up for work early today, got dressed, got ready, and prepared to leave. I didn't sleep well last night due to pre-first day jitters. Not true nervousness, just that "I don't want to wake up late and look like an ass on my first day" kind of thing.

I left a little after six and started driving towards Boston. Two lanes of traffic moving at 80 miles per hour or faster with no where to go if that's too fast for you. In my new car, I ran over half of someone's muffler. At approximately 75 miles per hour. No damage done, but not the best way to start the day.

I got to the T station (the subway, for non-Bostonites), purchased my tokens and waited for the train to arrive. It did, but not before I was freezing my ass off. I got on and rode into the city. Arriving at the Park Street stop, I got off and switched to the Green line, missing the first train out of fear that it was the wrong one and I would end up somewhere bad (read HELL). It was ok though. I didn't need to be at work until 9 and it was currently a little before 8. All was good with the world.

I walked towards the building keeping my eyes open for a Dunkin Donuts. No luck there, but there's a Starbucks kitty corner to my office building (what the hell kind of phrase is kitty corner anyway? should it be kitty korner? how about citty-corner? geesh). I went in and marveled at the menu. Truth be told, I'd never been in a Starbucks before, and enjoying my coffee cold (as in iced), I didn't really see too much that was getting me excited. I opted for the hot chocolate and headed down to the bottom floor so I could drink it and read the free newspaper I had been given in the T station.

At 8:45 I went over to my building, went in, found my manager and began the day. Lots of proprietary systems that are very confusing to a new comer, and I began to feel more and more depressed as the day wore on. I eventually got to go grab some lunch and I returned to my desk. As luck would have it, my cube (yes, I now am a card carrying member of cube-land) has a window that allows me to look down on the people six floors below. It's actually really depressing. The wind blows down the street so hard that the little sidewalk trees are permanently bent in one direction, all their branches pointing in the direction of least resistance. The people hustle and bustle back and forth, occasionally diving out of the way of a crazy taxi driver. Very few people travel with a companion, most are alone. Grey concrete, lonely people, twisted trees, it almost makes you want to jump.

I finally left work around three because I didn't have a computer to work on and therefore couldn't work. I walked back to the train station, waited for the correct train, and boarded.

Now here's where the story starts to get interesting, as I knew it would when I passed the tuba player who was trying to get people to drop money in his case. His tuba really did sound nice in the big hollow arteries of Boston, but come on: a tuba? Did he have to buy extra tokens to get it down there?

So I'm thinking about the tuba player as I stand on the train, holding the bar, riding along. There are people in the seats on the left and right side of the train and an old man sleeping down near the end. I'm riding along. Riding. Riding. Riding. I look over, and I notice the front of the sleeping man's pants are wet, and getting wetter. He begins to cough, hacking up some wet and chunky lung pieces, covers his lap with his bag, and tries to feign sleep. Meanwhile, he has filled his seat with piss. As we rounded the next curve, it poured onto the floor, splashing and forming little rivers in every direction. As I try not to laugh at the idiocy of it all, I notice a construction worker dancing on his tip toes trying to avoid the tricky urine that was attempting to entrap him. He looks at me disgusted and I look back, shrugging my shoulders and giving him the "What the fuck?" stare. At the next stop he got off.

So I rode on, exchanging looks with the other passengers. Eventually Mr. Pissy Pants got off, the man across from him lifted his satchel (which had been on the floor) and placed it in his lap, only to realize it too had piss on it, and then he started muttering about how *great* it was after we informed him he was now covered in piss. The longer I thought about it, the harder it was not to laugh.

My stop finally came, and I got off. Who should come up behind me? Mr. Construction worker. "That was gross. I had to switch cars," he said. "That shit ain't right," I replied.

I drove home without much incident. Since I was home early, I figured I'd go get a haircut. The girl faded my hair, took the guard off, straightened a line, and then proceeded to buzz right up the back of my head. Realizing what she had done, she let loose this little yelp and said "No charge... I just buzzed your head." I asked to see it, and sure enough she buzzed my head. I told her not to worry, it was only hair, but told her I was glad she wasn't charging me. She did her best to make it look normal, but it's not. It'll make a great impression on my second day of work. Really, though... At least I didn't piss myself on the T, right?

I fixed some of my categories, the links to which you can find on the left. I also fixed the display of pottymouth so that it's not so tough to read. I wish I could do more around here, but until I establish a more regular schedule with less errands and crap, it's going to have to be this way.

In the meantime, check out Strong Bad. Let me know which episodes you think are funniest. Right now my favorite is Butt IQ, because your butt is at least as stupid as your head, if not stupider.

As mentioned previously, I have a new job. Step up from Macy's, still a step below optimal and a few below where I want to be. Putting it in perspective, though, a job's a job, and this one isn't too bad.

I'll be working in Boston for a publishing company. I am technically a contracted consultant working for a technical consulting/placement firm. The contract lasts three months starting Monday. My job will consist of creating some Power Point presentations (some with 1800 slides which I can't even fathom) and working with a little bit of html. The majority of my work, though, will be in a project management capacity. I'll be overseeing some projects, making sure they're on schedule and under budget, sending things to the freelancer as required, and dealing with people who we've got contracts with.

Drawbacks? The company is currently for sale (bet you know how that feels, eh Dawn?) so there's the potential that I might be asked to take up a permanent position in the future, but at the same time there's a good chance I'll be out of work again come February. The pay is horrendous, especially when you take into account the commute which will cost me between $100 and $170 a month depending on what combination of driving and public transportation I decide to take. Less expensive = stress. More expensive = quicker and more stress-free.

In other news, my car is a 1993 Nissan Sentra. Front wheel drive, 5 speed manual transmission, meaning I should be able to get myself out everything except the most nasty New England weather. Extremely clean interior, ne leaky windshield. Almost a step up in the world, minus those damn loan payments...

The camera is nothing fancy or exciting, just a camera for me to take some pictures. At 2 x 2 inches and sporting a maximum resolution of 640x480, I won't be taking pictures suitable for Playboy's glossy pages, but I will be able to take pictures to put on my website. It's enough to get me by for a little while. And who knows, maybe I'll be able to get something better for Christmas. Probably not though, as I've asked Santa for a Game Cube in preparation for the new Zelda soon to be released in the first quarter of 2003.

So that's where I'm at right now. Pretty much where I've been, just a different color paint on the walls.

Well, I've landed a new job. I am now officially a contracted consultant for a technical consulting and placement agency in Boston. I'll be posting more details as I get them, as I work through the start-up paperwork, etc, and as I get to be not quite so tired.

I've also bought a new car and a new digital camera. Again, more details soon. I love you all, more than life itself, but you're all fucking mad. I still love you though. I'll write more as possible, and please, do the same.

honduh
With the cars I've owned, I've never had one that didn't leak profusely through the winshield. Screw the seats, just keep me dry!

via Jasmeet

Once again, I have a cold. My eyes hurt, my throat is sore, and I can't think straight because of my sinus related headache. Damn it: when the hell will we have a cure for the common cold?

Related: gregstorey.com: This Big.

I have a bunch of things to say, but I'm too tired. Look for stuff tomorrow, since I have the day off.

I've had a low bio-rhythm lately. On top of that, messed up things have been happening. That leads to a good deal of morbid thinking.

There's a woman at work who's 80 years old. On Friday she got dizzy and collapsed. Having heart problems, she immediately asked us to give her one of her nitro pills. We did, she got better, we sat her in a chair, and she passed the fuck out.

I'm not talking a little faint here, I'm talking swallow her tongue, roll her eyeballs, and then go completely still like she had died. Face was green and everything. We're talking to her, saying "Stay with us! Come back! It'll be ok!" and she's acting all dead. I was pretty freaked out. I mean, I'm no EMT, I'm a friggen dock worker for Christ sakes! If I thought for even one second I could save lives, I'd go flunk a CPR class or something. I have no business giving old women nitro pills and calling them back from the Great White Light.

Anyway, she proceeds to lurch forward spewing vomit in all directions and then to sit up and stare at us like nothing had happened. Being rational individuals (if five people running in circles and screaming around a woman in a wheelchair who looks dead is rational) we called 911. The cops show up with the paddles, she's ok by now and talking to them, and they take her to the ER for observation. Pablo the janitor (I don't think that's his name, but he is Mexican) cleans the puke and the manager tells us all to go back to work. Yeah right.

This whole episode made me realize a few things. First, people are like my car. They run ok most of the time, but you don't always no when they're going to break, and don't open them when they're hot cause then they spew liquid everywhere and you have to wash it away with the hose. Second, you never know what's going to happen next. You could die at any second of any day. That's right, Fuck You optimism. Three, EMT's, medics, and other emergency personnel are way under appreciated and taken for granted. We assumed that as soon as we dialed 911, heroes would come flying through the door seconds later, dropping everything they were doing and coming to our rescue. On Friday they did, but what if they'd been busy? Thank you EMT's. I love you.

Couple of posts today, maybe some more tomorrow. The stupid part time job I took has me working almost full time hours. Plus side? Office Max is hiring a desktop publishing position that might actually almost be a decent job compared to this one... I can shepherd copy machines with the best of them, if I do say so myself.

You might have noticed a few changes... I love stylesheets.

Anyway, again more time than usual between posts. Work has been screwing me up, forcing me to adjust to a more normal schedule, making me get up early and go to bed early as opposed to staying up late and getting up late (I much prefer the latter).

In any case, to show you I cared I changed the colors around the joint. I also have a few links to share. You can learn to build your own Mac using cheaper parts or you can check out some badass Lord of the Rings legos.

The odds-makers finally got it right this week, favoring the Pats at home. It's a damn good thing since even ESPN is finally claiming the Patriots are a good team. I'm glad they got it right, finally...

So, if you visit frequently, you'll realize that I've been absent lately. "Why?" you ask. Well, let me tell you. As I said earlier, I got a job at a local department store. I interviewed and was hired on Wednesday, I showed up to do paperwork on Thursday and started work right after signing on the dotted line that I wasn't an immigrant. Friday I worked 5:30 to 2:30 in the morning, Saturday the same shift, and Sunday (today) from 9 to 6. Other than today, those aren't exactly nice hours to work. At 5:30 in the morning, not even the Dunkin' Donuts is open (at least the one on the way to work). It's dark, the stars are out, and it's very apparent that you are a stupid sucker for being awake at that point in time. By the time I got home I crashed, and again on Saturday. I worried that without checking my email and making a post I might cease to exist, but it didn't happen and now I'm back.

Where to start? How 'bout football. The Patriots went into the game against the Jets as underdogs (at least at the last time I checked). Underdogs? What the fuck? The Jets barely beat the Bills last week while the Patriots demolished the Steelers. Had the Jets played the Steelers this week, the Jets would have been favored, yet the Super Bowl Champions, the New England Patriots are underdogs. They seemed to take it to heart a little, handing out an incredible ass whooping, defeating the Jets 44 to 7 in Giant's Stadium. Hey you, yeah you... Quit giggling.

Then, tonight I watched the kicker for the Bills boot one 54 yards, bouncing it off the bottom goal post and through to take them into overtime and subsequently win the game. Yes, I believe Drew Bledsoe still has the juice.

The Red Sox won yesterday while the Yankees lost in a last ditch effort to keep their fans from considering them a lost hope and making the conversion to football fanatic 24 hours a day on the basis that the Sox' season is over.

In other news... Screw it. There is no other news for now. I'm going to go drink some beer and watch some more footballs. Tomorrow I'll post the wonderful pic I have of some Patriots sacking Kordell from last week as well as whatever great pictures I find in tomorrow's newspaper. Hopefully I'll even get to post some other news, stuff that might make Dawn come back more often. I miss her when she doesn't say hi once every few days... Poor me...

Yesterday I got a job the local branch of a national retail store. Today, I went in to fill out the paperwork. After filling it out, they asked if I wanted to start immediately. I had nothing better to do, so I said yes. Then they asked if I wanted to work tomorrow, Saturday, and Sunday. Not thinking, I again said yes. Then I remembered the Patriots don't play on Monday every night (although they should). I'll end up missing their game as well as the Bills game (I'm still a Bledsoe fan after all). The only complete game I'll see (if I'm not asleep by that point) will be the Steelers|Oakland match. I hope the Steelers lose.

Anyway, even thought starting a new job is a little nerve-racking, meeting the people is always fun. I happen to be an on call support staffer, meaning I unload freight from the trucks and move it onto the floor for sales associates to put away. I met one guy today who was showing me around the store and he said "if you go this way, you can look at all the young girls working cosmetics". I smiled and nodded. I'd already noticed that, as well as the fact that most of them weren't young. Oh well.

As of late my mantra has been "people are assholes". In gerneral, it's true. However, after speaking with Dawn tonight, Maddie by email, and hopefully getting a phone call tomorrow night, I've come to the conclusion that there are definitely some exceptions to that rule.

The people who come here from google looking for Kelly Clarkson's ass though, are not exceptions.

Tomorrow is September 11th. Tomorrow could be the end of the world. In retrospect, though, I could have said that yesterday as well. Friday is the 13th. If you hadn't noticed, this is a pretty fucked up week.

Like many others, I've spent a lot of time dwelling on tomorrow's meaning, on what might happen, and on the numerous changes that occured a year ago tomorrow. It's truly depressing and I find myself wondering if we've seen the worst or if the worst is yet to come.

Unfortunately I think it's the latter.

I have a cold. Not one of those lame ass take a day off and sleep and it's gone colds, but one of those reach into your own throat and scratch it cause it feels better kind of colds. The ones where drilling a hole into your own sinus cavity with a craftsman drill sounds like a good idea. That's the kind of cold I have, the ones that make you all paranoid thinking you have the flu, or better yet, West Nile virus.

So now you're grossed out and you're saying "WTF? Why the hell do I care?" Well, actually, I'm pretty sure you don't, but it makes a good lead in to my day.

I got up this morning and I didn't feel good. In fact, I felt miserable, but since I have no job, and therefore nothing to do, I figured I broke even so I shouldn't complain. I cleaned the house, walked the dogs, checked my email [side note: Dawn commented on my blog, which means I'm now big time. She also didn't sound pissed about the fact that I said she had her head up her ass when it came to American Idol, and to top it all off, she added me to the potential stalkers list!], and then went out with my mom to help her do some errands.

Cut to my little sister coming home from school, needing to go out and get some supplies for school. My mom had been lecturing her about the new school year and such, so I tried to get her out of the house and help end the lecture. No luck. Lecture continues, sister cries, time elapses, and finally she was saved by a visit from my grandmother. She and I left to get her stuff.

So I give her the big brother lecture: I'm older now, if I could do it again, sure I would, but you can't always do things again. Do it right the first time, its better that way. The whole time I'm talking though, I can see myself getting the same lecture from my mom, nodding my head, and the whole time thinking "Shut the fuck up already. You don't know everything and I don't feel like listening to you. La la la la la la". Now, don't get me wrong, I never said any if that cause I still wouldn't have been able to find all of my teeth even after six years of looking. I still thought it though. And now, being older and "wiser" I know I was wrong and I should have listened. So I try to share that with my sister. But, deep down, I know she won't get it until she grows up more. That's how life is.

So we finish her errands, and we come home. I still don't feel good, but you know, there are people a lot sicker than me and they don't complain, so I suck it up. Eat dinner, and then get ready for American Idol.

It comes on, and I'm impressed. It seems that since being elimination meant getting your voice box removed and having it replaced with a bionic voice box capable of keeping even Nikki in tune with everyone else. I found myself thinking, "Who the hell are these people and where'd they come from? Good Lord!" We finally get around to the announcing of the winner, it's Kelly, and I'm pretty happy for her. She deserved it. I'm looking forward to her career. Maybe I'll join blogcritics so I can write a review or something.

The bad news? The Red Sox lost game three against the Yankees. Bastards.

So I'm done watching TV, and I reach into my pocket and find the phone number of this girl who I met last week. I give her a call, she's busy this weekend, but she'll be free next week. I'm pretty excited cause it'll be nice to get out of the house for a while and to hang out with someone my own age.

Overall, it turned out to be a good day. No exploding diet cokes, no offended people emailed me, Kelly Clarkson won (and even though google thinks so, I still have no porn featuring her), and I'm going out next week. Now if I only had a job.

Ok, so I'm looking through the logs and I see a reference to the whois database. That's a little bit scary since it has my name and address and other personal information. A little while later there's a reference from www.addresses.com/links, which is a broken url (I couldn't get it to work like that, but that's exactly how it was in the logs).

What the hell is this all about? I feel like I'm being tracked. This better be Dawn stalking me, cause if not that's kind of creepy... I'm going to go shut the shades... Br right back...

I just reread my last post. I apologize for sounding like a blubbering teenager, but while I'm at it and before I forget, let me repeat:

GO KELLY CLARKSON

It was a pretty slow weekend around here. Dawn posted a picture of her "J Lo" ass for all to see, requesting that if you liked it you leave a tip. The original link was broken, so I fished around until I found the pic. In the process, I found some others of her and photoshopped them a little. I was a little worried; I mean I only sent her a single email and here I am photoshopping her pants off (literally!). She could have just as quickly wrote back and told me not to contact her ever again, but instead she said she loved them. She aso said she hadn't tried the boomarklets I told her about, but the way I see it, between the photoshopping, the tip (oh yeah, I didn't mention: I sent her a tip), and the bookmarklet, hopefully I'll end up in her good graces. ::dances:: Go me, go me, go me...

Umm yeah. So in other news, the Patriots won last night. Forst game in the new stadium, first time the enter the field announced as the defending world champion New England Patriots. I wasn't very impressed with Brady's performance: he seems a little off. It is pre-season though, so he has some time to get his shit together.

Oh yeah, the Red Sox won last night too. However, one game does not a pennant win, so they better shape up or ship out. Bastards.

Update: The BoSox lost today. God do I hate them (but I really love them)...

I'm back from my trip to PA. I had a good time, got to see some friends, and overall enjoyed the trip. It was worth the driving. However, I do feel as though I lost touch with the world (and I was only gone for three days)... So, here goes a flurry of posting, starting with this:

I think Lance (creative mind behind Glassdog) is an extremely talented and humorous writer, and I look forward to reading his stuff, no matter what the subject. Check it out.

I'm off to Pennsylvania. Hopefully, this time I have the right weekend. In any case, I'll see you all on Sunday.

Hopefully, by then I'll have the new database packages installed on my web host so I can move to mySQL. I was planning on releasing my rdf parser over the weekend, but I realized it's an RSS parser (the schemas are different). So, when I get back look for that, and if I get to it, maybe an MT plugin as well (my guess is someone has already done that, though).

Have a good weekend.

Well, I was wrong. All my preparations were in vain. The wedding is next weekend, and through my own stupidy and absent-mindedness, I almost went to PA the wrong weekend. Gees.

The good news is that I was contacted by Sapphire Technologies and Sears. The first wants my resume and a meeting next week, the second would be a part time salesperson job and I interview tomorrow. If I hadn't been here, I'd have missed the phone calls. Funny how life works, huh?

Anyway, its nice to know that all of my job-searching work is starting to pay off. I can't wait to be working again...