On the Events of a Saturday Evening

Yesterday evening we had a delicious dinner of black beans and sweet mexican cornbread, all lovingly prepared by my wife.

We were invited to Lance’s for pipe smoking, card playing, and drinking throughout the night. We attended and it was grand. It was nice to see Nick again. It seems these days I only see him a few times a year, but he’s always in high spirits and makes me laugh.

The poker playing was a bit unsteady and hilarious. Every possible joke about seeing cards and knowing hands was made, especially by Nick. I could tell he knew what he was doing, even though Lance won the all-in.

After fourthmealing to the max, we purchased some ping pong balls, and we returned to Lance’s garage for my first experience with this classic game of the broseph variety. My first experience with beer pong was probably not one of the best. After Staci’s delicious dinner, of which I partook after not even really being hungry (for I had consumed the delicious $5 foot long only a few hours before), and then snackingly fourthmealed on a chicken burrito dipped in jalapeno sauce, I was painfully stuffed to bursting before downing many half-cups of beer. Mason and I managed to lose the first game, and we became painfully aware of how bad Coor’s Light tastes after being forced to consume the rockies over and over. I realized at one point that I had managed to fill any crevaces left behind in my stomach after all of that tasty food with beer, and one more drink would probably not stay down. So I sat for a few minutes, and thankfully Lance called a great forfeit based on the beer tasting so awful.

And drinking all of the beer that I had very fast, after already having a few while playing poker, I managed to get a fairly decent buzz going. It didn’t last very long, but it was a decent buzz.

All of this is sort of embarrassing, only because I find the phrase beer pong to be somewhat disgusting. Not to mention that I’m really one of the furthest cries away from being a broseph. But, dangerously, I’m down for almost anything to spend time with a few of my very good friends. I mean, I wouldn’t do hard drugs for anybody, but you understand, right?

I had some delicious tobacco last night as well.

After all of this raucus activity, at some point Lance, Staci and I ended up on his front lawn, sitting and eating some watermelon. This is something I haven’t really done since I was a small child. It was nice. Cats mingled with us, at one point Mason was being chased by Michael in a circle around us, and we talked.

Lance came on over to our place to cap off the evening. We sat out on the deck, and enjoyed Todd’s vast knowledge of tricks with a lighter, most of which Lance knew how to do - just not as well. Todd is just too gifted. Todd is a real street-smart people person, and is bound to know all of the most interesting things in life before anyone else. And endless beer-bottle torch, throwing fire from the palm of your hand, the blow-torch from his own mouth. And these are just tricks from a lighter. His wisdom is boundless on many matters.

So, as you can see, it was a real evening. The things that matter. People and tangible things. Memories that feel tangible.

Important things.

Harry Potter Week and Changes

Tonight was the first night of many in Staci's "Harry Potter Week" event. It went over pretty well. Everyone had one of those licorice wands she made. Those were cool. I think I liked them the best. I ate about 4 of them. For some reason the white chocolate just mixed well with the black licorice to me.

So yeah, that was fun. I hadn't seen the first movie in some time. I didn't remember that there were so many one-liners in there. "You're a wizard, Harry". Or actually, pretty much anything Hagrid says. As well as some of the cheesy lines they forced those budding actors to say as children.

But I guess that's half the fun of watching those movies. To see the kids grow up. I remember reading a review of the fourth movie by Roger Ebert, at which point he stated that the lighthearted tones are completely gone by then. I would have to agree there. That first movie is one of those kid movie classics, while by the fourth one, they seem to be trying to achieve a "Star Wars - esque" status of series. I think they pretty well achieved it and all. I just think it's an interesting switch from enchanting and fun kid tale to dark and lengthy slamfest.

Speaking of dark and lengthy, I'm ready for George R.R. Martin's 5th book already.

Staci and I spent a lot of time cleaning up today. Justin and Grace are moving out tomorrow I think, and hope. It's not that I don't want them here. I'm just tired of always having something to clean up. No really. That sounds crappy, but it painfully true. I miss the way most of everything looked when we moved in. I'm going to do my damndest to get it back that way and better. Staci at least deserves her dream home.

No more roommates ever. Never.

And dear lord, I can' wait for my own gameroom! I'll be able to play vidyagames whenever and however. A seperate room for all my messy man-boyish stuff. Magic cards, posters, vidyagames, wires, music... ect.

I love Deer Tick. "I I I, I am the dotted line"

and Boom Blox 2. Love it.

Thems the updates.

The Fourth and After

Well, the 4th was awesome. Even though it ended up almost raining us out (we spent much of our time getting very slowly soaked while shooting off bottle rockets), we managed to make the most of it, and still successfully have a show. Tony's food was great this year. The burgers and dogs were top notch. Much better than last year's. Even though last year's wasn't bad or anything :). Can't call free food bad anyway.

So we shot off many bottle rockets. I managed to take some great photos of them. I was pretty impressed with myself, actually.



There are many that I'm pretty proud of.

And today, well, we went to a new place for pizza, Pizza Warehouse, and it was pretty good. I wish I would have been in the mood for pizza, though. It sure seemed like an awesome place to go if you are in the mood. They had an extensive arcade there, but most of which I've seen before and it was mostly boring. Arcades seem to be getting more boring. Except in Japan. Man, I bet their arcades are slammin'. They sure look slammin' in "Lost in Translation".

Later on in the day, Cody and I took off to meet up with Lance and Morgan at Lance's dad's place to shoot off the rest of our fireworks. However, the punk situation saw otherwise, as we ran out of punks after shooting about 25% of what we had left. So we hung out on the grass laughing as their dog drank my Red Bull, and then went and stared at some of the biggest damn goat testicles you've ever seen. This goat was majestic, man.

Then we went to Jonesy's. The best shaved ice station in the four-state area. Best everything.

And that's pretty much it!

We've been playing way too much of that damn farming game on Facebook lately.

Happy Fourth!

Made it to another 4th of July. I'll have a post tonight or tomorrow about it. :) Hopefully some pictures as well.

A True Saturday Night

It's 2:43am, and I probably have to get up early.

Rock Band 2 is blazing in the living room. A pretty classic Saturday night around here tonight. The smell of Justin's tacos and talk around the table outside.

I got new Bowerbirds and some Deer Tick on my Zen now.

I went running tonight, only to find that if I run a lot (which for the first time in a long time I felt I could) I get a massive tightening of the muscles in the front shin of my left leg. To the point where I can't really move my foot and I must quit running. I was really disappointed because I was getting a real workout tonight before I had to submit to walking the rest of the time.

I wish Dennou Coil had more episodes. I already miss it.

Well, I've managed to waste another three days off, and I'll probably continue to call it "wasted" until I actually go down to the school to see about financial aid and classes. Don't know what is hindering me.

I will go on my next day off for sure.

We played a lot of Magic today. We've discovered that Two-Headed Giant format is actually pretty fun, and a much better multiplayer format than free for all or rotate. The interesting thing about Two-Headed Giant is that no matter how slow your strategy is for your deck, it seems that you can get it out eventually. At least once. There are bad decks for two-headed giant, however. Like how most of my artifact cards ignore the "target" word, so I can't really cast instants and sorceries on other guys. It doesn't really help that almost every card in that deck is a creature either.

I watched more Dennou Coil today before responding to Casey's call about Hawghead Comics. So I rode with Mason over to Hawghead and bought some commons that I wanted. I'm working on a Domain deck. Should be fun.

Wish I had tomorrow off. I'd go to the waterpark. I'm sure Mike would love to go with us. Maybe next week. I am off next Saturday.

I want Boom Blox: Bash Party. I swear, the boxart for that game is the worst. You can barely tell it's a sequel to Boom Blox, or that it's even a Boom Blox game.

Hey, that BASH PATY game looks pretty cool. Oh well, it is still awesome. Seriously. It is.

Dennou Coil and My Bike

Yesterday was a pretty fun day. I spent most of it alone, and cleaning, but that's not all it was. I got to spend some time watching my current anime, Dennou Coil, and hung with Casey for a small bit.

I really like Dennou Coil. I don't think I can power-watch anime at all like Steve and Mason do to One Piece. I think doing so, or at least trying to force my way through something, really makes me lose interest. If the only forcing I do is about one or two episodes per day, then I really enjoy an anime, it seems. And I don't seem to miss any details. And I can get through an anime fairly quickly - at least compared to powerwatching seven or eight episodes and losing interest altogether.

Anyway, I had meant to write about Dennou Coil.

I believe the full title reads "Dennou Coil: A Circle of Children", and it seems fitting enough. The entire anime revolvies around many very likeable and very different characters in a very interesting city. We aren't given any hints as to what the time period is, but the technology - at least the personal technology - is very advanced. Everyone, mostly the children, it seems, has a pair of glasses that gives them access to the cyber network or server, and they can just about make anything on the server using those glasses if they have "metabugs", which seem to appear around "obsolete" or broken space. This broken or obsolete space is the name for an area which may be out-of-sync with the server, or out of date, thus when you look at it through the cyber glasses, it appears pixelated and broken. The story works off of this in the most interesting of ways, and mostly has to do with the origins of the "Illegals", which reside in said space.

Anyway, that's what I've been watching and enjoying thorougly. I might pick up One Peice next, but I don't know. Maybe in conjunction with another anime.

I'm finally getting my bicycle fixed up. Steve brought over his pump yesterday, and it seems my tires are still good. After jogging last night, we went to Wal-Mart, and I picked up some new pedals. I hope they aren't extremely cheaply made. I really wanted metal ones. I only need to replace the left pedal. But I did ride on it yesterday, and even with no pedal on the left side, everything seemed to be in working order. Now I just need a nice basket and a new seat to put on it. You know, so I can run over to the stores and stuff.

I Swear One Day We'll Get the Money Straight

After having four days off in a row last weekend, and spending them pretty well in my opnion, I've begun another three day run.

Staci's new job starts today at Ulta Beauty. I hope she likes it. I'm probably taking her to work in the morning. I might go to the college afterward to see what kind of hoops they'll make me jump through in order to attend again. I'm undecided, but I may not go back this fall if I can't get financial aid. I just don't see how we could do that again. But I don't really know yet. I would really like to go back. Maybe I'll just deal with the money stress in order to do so. I don't know. I want it real bad, though.

Last Saturday, we went to the water park over in Alma that almost nobody around here has been to or even knows about, it seems. It's both surprising and unsurprising, really. It's only got four water slides, but I think they're well worth the five bucks it costs to get in. I really did have a blast going down the toilet bowl. We immediately called it the toilet bowl, feeling all proud of our wit, and heard, pretty much right away, from the kids running past us in line up the stairs, "hey, are you guys going down the toilet bowl?" Supposedly, based on our answer, they would run past us, thinking it was okay to do so. I didn't really care. But I still thought it was hilarious when Casey sort of confronted a not-so-small boy about it.

I've been walking and jogging for the past two weeks. Last night, I jogged for the longest I've been able to do so for quite some time. I'm pretty proud of myself. It took two weeks of fairly consistent walking for almost an hour a night for me to get to this point. I still can't jog far, obviously, but if I were to attempt something like that a few weeks back, there would have been a good chance I would have ended up in the hospital. I have been feeling a lot better about myself lately, though. I think less negatively, I think.

Next up on the agenda towards being more active is to fix my bike, which is incredibly hard when every last bit of your money, and then some, is spent before you get it. It's also incredibly hard to spend money that a pending transaction at a gas station has kept tied up for almost 4 days. How the hell is that legal. And I'm asking this in all total and complete seriousness. If it isn't posted for the correct amount soon, I'm approaching somebody about it. Though I can't imagine the kind of wall I'd run into there.

Oye, I should'nt be up this late.

We've all had a late night here at the Holloway residence. Friends sitting around the table outside talking about religion and philosophy. Playing some Magic. Crazy singing my voice out of commission on Rock Band right alongside Lance. God I love singing Journey and other random songs you wouldn't think I would love to sing. Guess I just gotta be in the right mood.

Staci's sis Kindle (spelled wrong) and her friend Katie have been down for a visit the last few nights and will be until Sunday. I think they've been having a good time, even with Staci and I's especially rough money situation lately. We sure risked more than usual for the A-kon trip this year.

But the last few days, as I said, have been very fun. I somehow managed to get 4 days off in a row this week not asking for it, and I feel like I've used them for the best. We're actually all planning on going to the Alma water park that we haven't visited yet. Looks like they've got some awesome slides. I'm down.

I'm running out of deck ideas with my Magic deck. But I still love artifacts.

I guess I never really posted those A-Kon pictures, so I think I'll do that tomorrow. It was a fun A-kon this year. It's always fun and memorable. I would go so far as to say this year's was indeed better than last year's. It's not really hard for that to be true.

I'm glad that Lance has come around and has been open-minded. Not just about his beliefs, but with people. And in particular, Staci. For the longest time it seemed I would have had to officially say goodbye to seeing Lance on any sort of a regular basis, but he sure seems to want to be around and do stuff here lately. Plus, he just feels more relaxed. More relaxed than even our roommates right now. Which, that shouldn't be too hard considering the awkward situational and disrespect problems we've been having.

They're moving out at some point in the future. We know that much. I guess it doesn't really matter. I'm good with it, of course. Actually, I am excited about getting my own room for a study, video game, and card room. It's going to be a blast. And Staci gets her craft room, making the house totally and officially under our complete control. Don't get me wrong, it hasn't all been bad, it's just that here lately things have been annoyingly awkward and disrespectful with some people around here...

Well, that's all for now. It is ridiculously late.

The more I listen to John Vanderslice's new album, Romanian Names, the more I like it. I give up. I love everything he does.

Approaching A-Kon, Money, Respect, and Poo

A-Kon is just a few days away. We're both a little worried about money, of course, but it's nothing new. We are, indeed, used to being worried about money. I think we probably waste half of our life worrying about damn money.

But I always feel like we'll be fine. And it's because it's the truth. We're always slightly a step ahead. Everything will work its way out.

Staci keeps getting more and more excited about A-Kon, too. To the point of scaring us all.

Just kidding. But seriously.

I do feel like all of her planning and work for this trip had gone under appreciated, however. I almost wish that next year she would let someone else take the slam for the whole trip. I don't remember people turning down Matt's itineraries, for example.

I just get really sick of people not giving a shit about anything. Like they're too goddamn cool to feel anything. I get so sick of it. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one trying to avoid a fight or awkward, annoying situations. I'm not really trying to point fingers, it's just how I feel about a good chunk of my friends at times. Just a complete lack of respect.

Brahhg, respect. Not that I or anyone really deserves it.

The biggest accomplishment recently has been figuring out how to keep the dogs from poo-in all over the carpet in the dining room. Slam, take their food away from them after 11 or 12. And put them out one last time before bed every night. That was easy. Too bad it took me a year to figure it out. Too late for our dear, clean carpet.

Deanna, Brandi, and A-Kon Preparation

I've called in the past few days to visit family and friends since Deanna's been in the hospital. It's really helped my mood to do so. And it also gave Staci and I a chance to clean up before Brandi's family came to visit. It really needed it... we had been neglecting it from being fairly busy the past few weeks, what with getting ready for A-kon, many new Magic deck ideas, and just general partying. Nonstop partying. Well, not really... but the usual.

By the way, I thin Deanna is going to be just fine. It was a double bypass, and she is stable. :)

I did a lot of yard work the day before yesterday, and every time I do so, for some reason, I think of King of the Hill. The way Hank takes such great pride in lawn care. He looks at lawn care and general hand-man-ness the same way I look at a great sci-fi movie or video game. Thing is, I kind of feel that way about yard work, too. It's just a lot harder for a 25 year old to find time for all of his hobbies, I suppose. I know it's kind of silly to get ideas like this from an animated family, but I don't really think it's that strange. I think your brain finds and grasps whatever ideas it can from anything, no matter how potentially silly it may seem.

So I think I want to do much better this year in lawn care. I need to take better care of my lawn equipment, always have plenty of gas and gas mix on hand, and and build up a decent tool box for around-the-house work.

A-Kon is but a mere 1 week away. I've got 5 days off next weekend to attend, and I think this year will be the best and most memorable one yet. I'm going to be taking a ton of pictures and video. I'm bringing 2 SD cards and my laptop, as well as plenty of extra and rechargeable batteries. I'm definitely going to nerd out with the other nerds, take in all of the sights, sounds, and otherworldly nature of things that A-Kon provides. This year also holds a different spectrum for me and possibly a few of my friends. I might actually play Magic with a lot of different people, and see how well my artifact deck does. I really don't know why I had such an obsession with artifacts. I just thought they looked cool, and suddenly I'm hoarding all of the cards. I feel like my interest might be slowly waning a bit now, though. I think there is only so much you can do in the way of cool combos and strong plays in a standard artifact aggro deck. Though they are, indeed, strong combos and plays.

Well, that's all for updates for now. Tomorrow I'm off. Brandi's taking Staci and I out to breakfast first thing, and then I pretty much have a free one. I'm hankering for some Wii time. Excitebots and Zelda. I'm going to go for 100% on Twilight Princess. Wish me luck.

Deanna, and Music

My sister Deanna is having an operation today. I randomly get to see my brother, which is a great thing. The surgery is not a great thing, but we all believe she'll be fine. So does her doctor.

I really enjoyed getting to talk to my bro again, though. He's exactly the same. Didn't realize how much I missed him. I hope in a few years he's around so much that I can't stand him.

I'm calling in to work tomorrow to go back over and visit and see how Deanna is doing.

So far today I've listened through Say Hi's The Wishes and the Glitch a time and a half and through their new one Oohs and Aahs once while driving. I'm listening now to Romanian Names again, however. It's all sounding good to me now.

What does D.I.A.L.O. mean? Let me look it up... Defense Intelligence Agency Liaison Office

Well, that's interesting. And it's more likely than Urban Dictionary's definition, which says it's the equivalent of a typo on a telephone.

I've had the chance to listen to John Vanderslice's new album multiple times now. It's the album entitled "Romanian names". I think it's pretty good stuff. It is, indeed, a lot slower than even his past few efforts, but the good melody that I've come to love about Vanderslice is still there, and I don't think that it's something that could change about his music. I'm not sure if the sounds that highlight the melody would seem strange to a new listener or not. To me, they sound too familiar to be strange at all. Although I believe some of the sounds through his masterpiece "Pixel Revolt" ring strange till this day to me, but in an amazing way.

A-kon is just a few weeks away, and everyone, especially my wife, is getting pretty excited. I think this year may turn out pretty great. Almost anything could be better than last year, with its angry people and sour, awkward internal struggles. It was mostly terrible, yet I still missed it when I left.

Work has been killing me lately. I'm not sure if my back is hurting more or just the same lately, but I think it's really dragging me down. And my feet hurt immensely. And I'm so angry so much of the time from what I feel is unneeded stupidity. So much shit just directly aimed at me because I'll put up with it.

May 9th, 2009. Friday. Holden Village.

Lightning flashing in the night sky. Driving through the Oklahoma countryside. Visiting family. People that eventually accepted me. People that accepted me right away. People that make you too sad to think if you think about too many of their possible outcomes.

Aliens. Star Trek. Magic the Gathering. Say Hi. Modest Mouse. Andrew Bird.

Lightning continuously flashing in the night sky.

I want to progress. I want college. I want a career. I want to feel the music. I want to lose weight. I want a house to be proud of.

Tornado watches. Warnings. Nickel and dime sized hail.

Lightning continuously flashing in the night sky.

the truth is, i want to do too many things. a no caps special.

worked today. played videogames. magic the gathering. stayed up way too late. still up, in fact.

i'm writing in no caps to express how much i feel that it is hard to write something of worth for me anymore. is it working? did that sentence make any sense at all?

nacho keeps rolling in dead shit. my study smells like dead shit. maybe i should move that nasty sleeping bag out of here.

i keep watching that mark gormely video. why does that tune get stuck in my head?

i keep trying to think of a new niche to tackle in building a website that makes money with adsense. i'm not putting much effort into it yet... i will though. i will.

4:44am still not really ready to go to bed. thats what i get for sleeping till 12.

my usefulness goes in phases.

i decided today that i wanted to continue my zelda fanfiction. i posted it. got a good first review. a review that consisted of "good first chapter". i said thanks. shortly after that however, i took a look at other 'ocarina of time' specific zelda fanfictions. there were too many to count. a good number of which who were doing exactly the same sort of thing i was doing. a personal retelling. a novelization. a walkthrough, basically, with their own specific twists. some of these people are good writers, too. i'm not so sure that my version was any better...

so suddenly, don't feel like continuing that. doesn't mean i won't. just means... it was a much less original idea than i thought. why didn't i realize that before?

and why do i want to write my own sci-fi? i want to have technical knowledge, though. i guess i could just create my own technical knowledge.

the truth is, i want to do too many things.

On St. Patrick's Day I had the immense pleasure of seeing Andrew Bird live at Cain's Ballroom in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I went with my wife and some friends. I really hadn't been to a concert that great in a while. I mean, I did see The Mountain Goats and John Vanderslice the last few times, but this kind of concert is quite a bit different from the 'hole-in-the-wall' intimate admiration sessions at the Opolis.

It was just beautiful. He's an amazing musician.

I've begun smoking a pipe while sitting on my back deck. We have new deck furniture. Or I should say, we've had new deck furniture, and I just finished building it on Sunday.

I'm working and getting closer to understanding how to build websites that turn a profit. I really need to work on content.

Staci quit Sam's Club a few days ago. I think she needs a lower stress job. We're both thinking Movie Gallery maybe.

I finished Burnout Paradise last night. I've been having a lot of fun with it.

I'm up too late. Work at 9.

Magic: The Gathering and Geocaching: The Gathering

I know it has been a bit since I've updated. I've actually been quite active in my interests... just about everything too. Photography, gaming, music, and Magic: The Gathering stuff. As I said before, everyone around here has gotten into it along with me, and we've built ourselves quite the collection. We all really love building decks around specific strategies, and then countering everyone else's strategy with a whole new deck. I'm seriously considering joining some tournies soon, too. Well, maybe not online. Something turns me off about paying a lot for online cards. I mean... maybe it shouldn't. I use them just as much if not more.

But anyway, today Lance gave me a call as soon as I woke up and told me his car battery was dead, so I grabbed some cables and drove to where he was... which was just down the road, actually, from where he lives. We ended up spending the next 3 hours hanging out and he showed me Geocaching, which could be a fairly big and fun part of our lives in the near future. It's very simple, and very fun. You look up the coordinates of places near you where people have hidden small items and a logbook or paper that lets you write down that you found it, and what date. You can even leave small prizes or items where you find something for the delight of the next person. Seeing that we kind of lived in a podunk sort of place, you wouldn't think a lot of people would be interested in that sort of thing (you know, with that newfangled innernette), but apparently, when they did a search for our area it listed literally hundreds. You should go check it out, seriously at http://www.geocaching.com . It's a hella-awsome way to get out and about, get a little sun and excercise, and you get the reward of finding something out there somewhere... you really can't explain why it's so fun until you do it. There's something about standing in an abandoned alleyway or walking through some public woods and finding something that is shared among an almost secret society of people.

It was actually pretty cool when we found this one today, because we noticed the last date that someone had found it was today, and as soon as we noticed it we heard a car honk on the highway across the way and the guy was waving at us. It was a delightful moment.

Welp, back to housecleaning. I'll give more later.

Stimulating the Economy

Well, it's been a zany past couple of weeks. But, for the most part, it has been really fun and enjoyable.

Staci and I got the biggest tax refund we've ever gotten, due in no small part to the fact that we filed together and married for the first time, and that I paid for college last year - so that's also a write-off. So, today was spent spending. "Stimulating the economy" as it were. We bought lots of stuff, and I've still got around 600 or so left. I got me a 1TB external for my lappy.

My Magic: The Gathering craze continues a bit, but it now seems like it's just going to be one more of my hobbies. This time, though, I'm not going to quit. I think I'll just keep on the lookout for cards, and play online. Online play is pretty fun, and the recent update made the system seem more stable. It was a bit laggy and unpleasant for a while. And, as far as Magic goes, I really need to start looking at some good deck builds. Finding out which cards are worthwhile and so on.

In addition to my re-interest in MTG, almost all of my friends jumped on the bandwagon full-force, right along with me. This was a pleasant surprise for me, seeing as I thought it would be more along the lines of a friendly game against Justin or Staci here and there. And maybe some random people at A-Kon. Actually, the latter was my original plan. And now, everyone, including Steve and Lance, are card-buying machines, with Steve going in together with me to buy another lot off of ebay (this time, two of the 500 card lots). Thing is, I don't know if Steve holds any interest in playing. I think he still has yet to play a game, which seems a little strange to me. But he seems targeted more at eyeing abilities and working out what would be horrible combos. The one deck he built sure seems to work very well against what I've thrown it at so far.

I'm still torn as to what to purchase with the remainder of my refund. I'm fairly sure I want a new camera, since I got a new hard drive and would like to document the passage of time on digital photography like the past few years. Used to be, not a month would pass without another album from Adam on Facebook or his current blog. I might go for the gold again. Speaking of cameras, I saw an 2GB SD card at Sams for 5 bucks. Media's getting cheap, my friends.

Staci's getting into gardening. Awesome. I really would like our living area to be spruced up. She's going to deck out the deck with plants, and grow an herb garden out front. I'm thinking of fencing off the front yard in some way or another at some point. Maybe widening the parking space over to about where our sidewalk/walkway begins, to give it just enough room to fit cars side-by-side. This would make it to where we would have at least a small front yard and Staci could put some pretty color to those two front small-flower-garden-type areas.

I guess that's it for now. It's 4am.

TAEASGJS4 Premiere

Oh and Tim and Eric's Awesome Show, Great Job! Season 4 premiered tonight. I thought it was pretty good. I don't think Staci did. :(

MTG and Staci's B-Day

Well, you'll notice that my updates have slowed down considerably since this month began. Well, I don't plan on making a habit of it, but it was only because I've been knee-deep in re-entering the world of MTG. I've ordered a set of cards from a cheap retailer on ebay. Staci has gone with me to Hawghead comics and was with me when I bought my first few tourny packs. I went home, made some decks, trying to balance them out pretty well. I did get an ultra rare, which is cool. I've played games against Staci and Justin so far, and a few on the online version of the game. It's cool that some of the traders on there just give away free cards every month. I made my first deck from it and made my first friend online while using that deck.

So yeah, like I said, knee-deep in yet another nerdy endeavor. Well, this is more like a trip down memory lane, in addition to picking up something again that used to bring us all together. Man, it has been long. It does feel different playing. Because I'm so different. And there are a lot of new rules involved. Well, not really rules, just so many new abilities. But it has all been really fun. I'm glad I decided to play again. I might even play with some people at Akon this year. Magic online works pretty well, too. Although it definetely helps if you know the game irl beforehand. There are a lot of options. But playing it online will help your real life gaming as well, as it follows the rules and phases of gameplay staunchly.

Well, enough about Magic, I suppose. We've also managed to get Staci her b-day present, which was a new camera :). It's a cool little blue Fujifilm. It'd be the one I would get. Maybe I will, when I get my huge income tax return this year. I kid, but I hope it is huge. I got plans. Space plans.

Justin started a Captain Falcon group on Facebook and a few people went crazy on it.

The house has been a horrendous mess, since I've been doing nothing but working the past 3 or 4 days (I don't bother trying to remember how long it has really been) and have been completely stiff and more interested in MTG when I get home.

Dad's been in CA. Not sure when he's coming back, or if he already has. I need to get his number in my new phone.

The last few days have been warm. I miss the cold already.

Growing More Nerdy Every Day

Nothing too special today. Had a long day at work. 1-close. Didn't do much there, as usual. Well, I did what my job is. Only today it felt like I was teaching entire lessons about computers and televisions to people. It's actually pretty amazing how much people do not know about these things. It's even more amazing when people are adamant about something being true, when it is completely false. I didn't even want to bring up, to this one man, how Monster cables were ridiculously overpriced - and for no good reason. He just knew that he was right already. He knew that Monster cables are the best ones because they have "speed ratings". Yeah, okay. Doesn't an HDMI cable have to be a certain speed to even be called an HDMI cable? Isn't the "speed" processed within the units you are connecting? Don't tell this man that.

Or don't tell this other lady, looking at laptops, that 2 gigs of ram for a laptop that she will only be using for school and internet is more than enough. But she just had to have at least 4 gigs. I didn't stick around for long. She gave me the "wife of Tom Peters" vibe. You know, that terrifying woman on Tom Goes to the Mayor. Oh well...

We're closing in on a new season of Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, and I'm excited. I can't wait to experience some new underlying quirks, meanings, and subtleties. Boing Boing once called them 'Connoisseurs of Fine Funny'. I like that, and I think its fitting.

We had spaghetti (with meat!) tonight. Staci was worried that she burnt the meat, but it turned out delicious.

We made a new friend who lives in CA on Animal Crossing tonight. I'm going to get his friend code tomorrow.

Oh man, I'm excited. I purchased a 'lot' of M:TG cards tonight on ebay. I bought a Lot containing 500 cards, no fillers (lands), rares and uncommons included, and no more than 4 repeaters (if any, it says). Sounds like a pretty good deal. You can only have 4 of any certain kind of card in your deck anyway. And I also bought a Lot of 200 basic land cards, so that I can actually build decks when I get them. These were all extremely inexpensive. Considering theme decks and stuff only have 40-60 cards and cost 10 bucks. And I spent 15 for 500 cards. I can't tell you how nerdily excited I am. Just to touch them. Smell them. Remember them. I hope I get a lot of my old favorites, but I don't really know if I will or not. I'm going to be such a n00b player for so long. I just love to play. I'm hoping to have a decent collection together and maybe understand a few things better before we go to Akon this year. I want to see if I can join in on some of that. Maybe even enter a tournament and get slammed.

I can't wait.

Things are looking up. Or more like... things are starting to look very fun.

It's 3:34am. I'm listening to Andrew Bird, and a song by John Darnielle called "Warm Lonely Planet".

this may be the night
our bodies fill with light
we may hover above
the surface of
our warm, lonely planet

2 Days Off and Some Anime

Well my laptop cord went out last night to where I couldn't write a blog (unless I used the other computer, which I really didn't feel like doing).

But yesterday was pretty fun. I watched Skip Beat, Akikan, and Choas; Head. I've been a bit in the mood to watch a few animes recently.

Skip Beat is about an aspiring actress with strange motivations. I've actually really been enjoying this one. It tends to be very funny and at times have some very touching moments.

Akikan is, and this is scary, about a girl who is a soda can... and materializes into a girl when it's juice is drunk. After the first episode, I actually feel like watching a few more just to see where they go with this story. So far it seems to be taking the traditional anime route. The main character now wants the girl to go to school. And the antics ensue. Let's see how cliche it can be... before we dismiss it. It is pretty funny, after all.

Choas; Head is a psychological anime about delusions and their interactions with reality. I've watched quite of few of these so far, and it has had its moments. But I think I haven't made up my mind about the series as a whole yet. Well, I guess I can't do that seeing as how it isn't over yet. Sometimes it is very good. The first few episodes were everybody's favorite, it seems, since it involved just him and his very anti-social, hyper awkward behavior. Very interesting for a main character. Though the fact that he is the main character hasn't changed, it seems like the whole focus of the anime has changed a bit. I don't know. I just have problems with villians like to explain their whole plan and idea. Wouldn't it be more appropriate to keep your enemies in the dark? Plus you get the joy of figuring out the plans along with the main characters. Eh, who knows. I think it is still going to be good series. I might post more thoughts on it later.

So last night Steve and I went to Wal-Mart to try to find a new adapter for my laptop. A puppy chewed it a long time ago and I've been fitting and tying it off with electric tape since. I had noticed that Sam's Club had a univeral adapter for 30 bucks. If I'd have known it was such a steal I probably would have dropped the ball and bought it. Because the one we found at Wal-Mart was around $100 after tax. Yeah, I resolved that I would never pay that much for an adapter. So today, this morning, I cut up the cable, connected and spliced the correct wires (it took about an hour to get it correctly), and taped it off again.. and it worked. I don't think I can use it on my little modulating surge protector however. For some reason.

Meh, so the rest of today has just been watching some more anime, watched a bit of tv with Grace. Oh and Staci has been really into playing online with Animal Crossing. That's been fun stuff. Met some people online that were from Europe yesterday. Why is everyone's accent so much cooler than ours? Our hick accent. But yeah, Staci's been all over animalcrossingcommunity.com. It's a really cool site.

I just ate a meatball sub. Yay, five dollar footlongs.

I'm ready for a big tax return.

Well, been pretty busy and missed a few days. Happy Feb 1st! Today is Stacki's birthday. We had an awesome night last night, actually. We went out and ate at Joe's Pizza Pasta and then we were gonna go to Bowling World, but everybody and their dog's niece was there. So we went home and did some other fun stuff: Smas Bros, Champagne, and smokin' some pipe tabacco out on the deck. It was good times.

I've worked the past few days. Fairly easy, of course, but the most notable thing about work the past few days was that everybody was purchasing a TV. This was due in part for may reasons, including Super Bowl weekend, and people are using their tax returns already. Everybody seems a tad bit richer, that's for sure. We've had a lot to explain to people about TV's. Lots of practice learning more about warranties and whatnot.

I'm going to go ahead and finish up this post, seeing as I left it as is and left before publishing. So, this gets dated Feb 1st, and then I'll write another tonight. :) I think this may have been a pretty good catch-up post as it is.

Magic: A Return, Perhaps

I'm thinking about playing Magic: The Gathering again. Every time I think about it I get a little more excited. I almost can't wait to get some fresh cards in my hand and smell that new card smell once again. I think I'm ready. I've even been watching some of the noob videos to get a brush-up. I kind of forgot some of the smaller details, but it was helpful to watch those.

I might try finding some other noobs/returning players to play on Apprentice. Should be fun. I hope I can get Staci interested in playing with me. That would be really fun.

Masonic Things

Wow, I need to stop waiting until the last moment to start writing. It is now extremely late. And I have to work early tomorrow.

Yeah, the last few days were spent in a tiny box they call the 'gas station' at Sam's. It's the attendants box, and it is strange spending that long in one spot alone during icy, cold, wet, weather. Nobody came in at work for the past few days, so I had to cover for them. The truth is, however, it was kind of nice. I already had five days off before that point, and then it seemed like I had two more, since all I did was stand there listening to Andrew Bird and reading my books. At one point it was so slow in the store that they only had Ron Gibby on the floor and sent everyone else home. There was only one cashier, too.

Anyway, the second day that I went out there to gas station, I talked a little while to the guy who was attending in the morning. His name is Ray, and he's a Mason. I think he maybe a Shriner, too, but I know he's a mason. He told me about the Masonic symbols, and some of the symbolic things embedded in the way the country's monuments and stuff is arranged. It was kind of interesting. I thought it was more interesting, however, what these people do. He said that they look out for eachother in a few different ways. If someone is having trouble (I assumed financially or something), or someone dies - they take care of the widow, that kind of stuff. Looking out for eachother. They also hold breakfasts and other type fundraising things and help people, but make sure not to make it public that they are doing so.

Not sure why I thought that was interesting enough to post, but I did.

Today, however, was a normal day at work. Robert's a bit of a lazy bones. He's my co-worker. He gives me the walky, then talks to people all day while I help the customers. Members, sorry, members. Lots of people needed help today, though.

I did get my W-2 today. Looking at a pretty good return it seems. Might see that PS3 after all. That'd be cool. I want a blu-ray player. I want to play little-big-planet. I also want a new harddrive, a new camera, a good computer chair, and maybe even that cool electronic drum set. It'd be cool to hook up some awesome headphones with that while you practiced. Wouldn't bother anybody or nothing while you were honin' your skills. Or you could hook it up to a big sound system and drive lots of people batty.

Everyone is going to a Brawl tourney tomorrow. It looks like Mason may have cancelled because of a happening tonight, though. Doesn't look like he will go now. Something about stuff bothering him. Sam taunted throughout a teams game. Mason left dramatically. I didn't know how serious it was. But apparently it was serious enough to cancel going to the tourney. Sam came in while I was playing Animal Crossing shortly after all that and said that he probably wasn't going. Hrm, my friends need some happy.

Been having trouble with Steve hurting my dogs. wtf?

I'm excited. Boom Blox 2 got announced today or yesterday. Awesome.

Short Update. Cold Wednesday in a Box.

They did it to me again, with the spending 8 hours in a small box.

Staci went to see a movie when I got home, and I played Smash with the guys. It was pretty fun.

Ah, I don't know. More happened, but I don't have much time to write. I'll update tonight.

Wet Tuesday in a Box

Went to work today, and within the first hour got sent to the gas station... for the entirety of the day. The weather made it insanely slow. Dead. I was stuck in a small box by myself for 8 hours.

It was pretty cool. I read and listened to music.

The weather is getting pretty bad out there right now. Icy. Slick. Rough. Awesome.

Big 'Ol Food-Filled Weekend Update

Well, I missed updating on the weekend because I wasn't really here that much.

Staci's grandma Sue was here to visit, and she bought us a lot of food during that time. We went out to eat for every meal this weekend, and I must have gained 15 pounds. I don't know. Maybe not.

On Saturday night while we were waiting for her to show up, we went to Chile's with all the friends, I think that's where I was updated to.

On Sunday morning Sue took us to Cracker Barrel, where I got a big 'ol chicken fried chicken meal. Cracker Barrel always impresses me with just how good everything, down to the loaded mashed potatoes and grits tastes.

All day, I was obsessing over music, and me having my headphones on constantly was probably making Staci a little annoyed. For some reason The Presidents (PUSA) sounded amazing, though. I really enjoy a lot of songs off of their new album.

We went to Academy Sports, which kind of feels like a bro-filled yawn-fest to me. There are some interesting things in there, and they have a wide selection of work-out stuff and sports stuff, of course, but when you're running on about 3 or 4 hours of sleep and you're walking around a place...

Wait, I think we went to Target before Academy, though. Yeah, we did. (Yeah, that's the kind of day I had. I mean, I enjoyed a good chunk of it, but I guess, in the end, one guy can only take so much shopping. Especially if he's not procuring some awesome stuff.)

Man, I truly am finding it hard to remember in what order we did things. I think after Academy we went grocery and 'the rest of Staci's b-day' shopping. She had gotten some things at Target she liked, but most of the things she really loved at Target had been sold out - which made her very sad. So at Wal-Mart she found the rest of it. Some cool stuff. We got an ass-ton of food. Well, it was an ass-ton to us. We did try to find the best deals on stuff, though.

While I was there, I re-affirmed my resolve to get a new George Foreman Grill.

Staci also got new cellies while we were there. I somehow feel more connected again.

Right now I'm a little confused as to what order we went out and ate. But I know that over the course of the night and the next morning we went to Chile's and ate out at Ihop twice. I had the most delicious rack of ribs ever at Chile's, though. I mean, I haven't had that many ribs, but they were great. Memphis rub, man.

I spent all night trying to figure out how to make the audio files that I put on my Razr be recognized as ringtones. It eventually took some voodoo magic, with a solution that I wasn't finding on the internet. But I got it to work. Even for full-length songs. I never understood the limit anyway. I mean, why the hell? Anyway, my solution eventually involved 4 seperate programs. Lame. But I got it down to an art now. The solution didn't actually come to me until the next morning.

Yesterday turned out to be a nice day of kickin' it. Playing Brawl with Casey on his class-break. Messin with phones. Watching crazy stuff on youtube with Casey and the fam later on. Watched "Inside the Actor's Studio", or something like that, because it had Conan O Brien on. It was pretty amazing.

We watched "Religulous", which turned out to be really good. Most of which I've heard before and agree with, but it is still good to re-affirm all of that hope.

Everybody started freaking out about the ice storm. It never really got that bad here, though they say that it will be getting worse later on. We'll see. I do have to work today, though. 1-close. If anything is going to happen, it is going to happen on my shift, and I'll be up a creek. Or "up a road" as it were.

I stayed up really late playing Brawl against Justin, working on my Samus and Ganon a little more. Had some good games. My character spectrum is widening.

Woke up this morning and both Staci and I were a bit confused about whether or not to call in to work because of the whether. It was mostly just rain right now, but we don't know how bad it is going to get. We decided on going and being really careful, however.

And that's the weekend update. Pretty long, but it covers almost 3 days.

The Soup: It's Me or the Dog

Scrub, Scrub, Scrub...

Spent almost all day cleaning up. It was kind of a 'two steps forward, one step back' type of thing. I've noticed that I really hate that expression when used in a country song. Except in the country song it would be the negative version (1 step forward, 2 steps back). Negativity is a peeve of mine.

So yes, lots of cleaning. Scrub scrub scrub all the floors in Hyrule. Don't ask.

I did read another chapter in the Golden Compass book. The bear fight one. Almost done with that one. If I dedicated one more hour to it, it would be read.

I was excited to see that my Zen charger and usb connect devices came in. Paid 59 cents for the usb connect and 79 for the wall charger. The only problem is that it was bout 7 bucks after shipping. Oh well, that's pretty cheap for good connectors, I suppose. And I was really missing my music. My brain begins to suffer after a bit.

I think I forgot to mention that Lance came over last night and played some Smash with us before we all left to see Slumdog. That was pretty cool. He played some Beirut on the keyboard. Simple and pretty.

I still really like Modern Guilt.

I want to listen to Noble Beast more.

I want a sound system, a real one, in my car.

Dad is in CA. He must have left in a hurry.

Staci got insanely stressed about her Grandma being quite late to show up. We didn't really know what was happening. All we knew was that she wasn't here and should have been, and wasn't answering her phone. She could have been in a wreck, you know?

We need new cellies.

We all went out to eat at Chiles. I had the southern smokehouse burger or something like that. Quite filling. They asked me how I wanted my burger cooked. Hmph? Maybe I just haven't there enough. I chose medium-well.

Then Staci's grandma showed up and we went to IHOP with her. We ate a hot fudge sunday that wasn't a hot fudge sundae. It was a 'lots of chocolate syrup' sundae. I was actually pretty disappointed at that. But not as much as Staci.

After that, Sue went straight to bed, Staci read some more Twilight, and I played some very, very fun matches of Smash against Mason. I even worked on a future character of mine: Samus. Don't know why I feel so giddy about that.

Messed around with Ocarina codes to show Annette and Justin some of the cool camera stuff.

Why do so many light fixtures look like boobs?

Slumdog Millionaire

Yesterday started off as a bang, as I scrambled to get some stuff clean in preparation for my Grandmother-in-Law's visit. It was one of those huffin and puffin clean jobs, since I had to bend over about 20,000 times to pick up all the clothes. It wasn't that it was an emergency, but I did want to get done, or at least mostly done, so that I could enjoy the rest of the day.

My Ganon is getting pretty good.

And enjoy the rest of the day, I did. Lots of hangin' and Brawl. And I even got to take care of Staci, since she came home early from work not feeling well. Actually, I'm starting to worry that her stomach-ache is something a little worse, like an ulcer. She is constantly putting stress on herself. I hope it isn't because of me, though.

After much brawlin' and laughin', last night we all went to see "Slumdog Millionaire". And it was very good. Just a well-thought-out movie. Mason and Angel, Casey, Sam and Grace, Staci and I went.

Now we're about to have to get the house even more clean.

A Long Day

Was a bit of a long day. It started off with us finding out (somewhat in relief) that Staci's grandma wasn't coming down until Saturday. So that gave us a bit more time to prepare, seeing as our bedroom and a few other things are not in order (horrible).

We went out. We ate at a new Mediterranean restaurant that was very good. I've never had a falafel plate before. It is full of about a thousand flavors. I told Staci that it kind of tasted like what I would expect if I were to eat a cuisine on a different planet sometime in the future.

Stopped at Hastings. Purchased "Christmas on Mars". Got Staci's check At Sams. She went and deposited it while I went home and played Smash with Steve for a little while.

After a while, Staci went to see a movie and I went to eat chinese food with Steve, Casey, Lance, and Morgan. I brought Staci home some food.

Played a bit more Smash. Watched an episode of 'Soul Eater'. Watched Tim and Eric at midnight. Tom Goes to the Mayor. King of the Hill.

It was a long day for different reasons.

I Hate the Lame Stuff.

I woke up sort of late today. I really hate working shifts that start in the early afternoon. Its not like you can do anything of value before you have to go to work. Those mornings are always the most depressing.

So this morning I just messed around with the latest batch of books I downloaded on my computer. I saw perfect copies of "2001: A Space Odyssey" and the other three books of that series. Perfect for my Sony Reader, anyway. Speaking of which, I'm almost done with the first book of "His Dark Materials", and it is very good. Much better than that sad excuse for a movie. Anyway, while I was reading the descriptions to 2001 and the rest, I was getting sucked in. There is nothing else that fits so exclusively to my interests than what I feel like mankind needs to eventually accomplish. We have to find out where we are going. We have to find out what all of this is. And space is... is... just ridiculously curious, strange, and explosively mind blowing.

Went to work at 1. Ate some Taco Bell (again) beforehand. Made me feel crappy for a good chunk of the day. There was somebody always needing help today. I kind of like that, though. It is okay. I like talking about electronics. And now that's my job. I don't like how my back pops and gets kind of uncomfortable after 8 hours of hard, flat surfaces.

Came home, asked Steve and Justin to move the Smash into Justin's room so we could at least think about cleaning. Did the dishes. About to have to do another load. I mean, really. When do these people think I have the time to do these things? While they aren't here? When is that?

Goddamn, I hate money, btw. And the lame stuff.

My grandmother-in-law is coming to visit for the weekend. Should be a nice visit.

Growing Up

When you're young, you spend all your time looking forward - working (seemingly) so hard on what you want to become. It seems like as soon as you start looking back you lose something extremely valuable. I think you lessen the importance of the "today" - and I'm still trying to figure out if there's something you can do about it. From all outward appearances it seems you can't. Maybe 'growing up' is just us learning to deal with this.

Inaguration Day and My Day Off

Today I woke up and watched the inauguration of Barack Obama. I spent most of my time discussing the little nuances with Grace, and with Staci before she had to leave. Everything seemed pretty straightforward. We all agreed that George W. looked a bit upset. And we all stated our reasons for why this might be. We also all agreed that the prayer was a bit too long and awkward. And that it was more of a speech and not really a prayer. And that you could tell which members of the audience were athiests and which ones weren't. It was as clear as night and day.

And then I played a bit of Animal Crossing. Got lots of presents from Mason.

Fell asleep after reading a few chapters of "The Golden Compass".

Woke up, listened to some more of Andrew Bird's new album "Noble Beast". So far it is very good. I'll probably post more later on this, though. "Like the words of a man whose spent a little too much time alone..."

Found some great copies of Cormac McCarthy (No Country for Old Men) novels after getting a registration with Demonoid.com

Most of the day, however, I was supposed to be cleaning the house in preparation for my grandmother-in-law to visit. I just couldn't get motivated. I don't know what's wrong with me lately. I can't feel excited about things I should be. Maybe that's nothing new for me.

Watched some Animal Planet. That "Growing Up" show. It was about a baby walrus.

Payed the water bill. Ate some Taco Bell.

Started cleaning the bedroom. Watched some of the Inagural Ball. There was some horrible entertainment involved, but watching Barack and Michelle dance was actually pretty touching. I think poor Barack is running out of speeches, though. I would be. But his speeches are still good after so many.

Might be using this "list" format a little more. It seems to drag comments out of me, and I've run out of imaginitive power in order to create a more interesting blog format introduction. And I want to remember these days in my own words.

I might watch some more "Skip Beat" here shortly...

I haven't done anything today... yet.

Woke up around 10. Played some TimeSplitters. Told some friends about my hacking of SSBB. Infinite time for replays and whatnot. Un-hindered camera on pause. All this means fun stuff.

Andrew Bird's "Noble Beast" is coming out officially tomorrow, but I've listened to a ton of it already on the free cast of it alone. It sounds great. Just as good or better than previous ones. Of course I loved Armchair Apocrypha. I almost named my last blog after it. Well, I say "almost" because I never actually continued that blog. That happens a lot with me.

Janoa and Mulholland Drive

I've been well entrenched into work and house management lately. Working through the bills and finances over and over throughout the day can drain the life right out of you, and everyone around you notices it quite well.

But I do know that it makes me feel better. It makes me feel better to be caught up. And we are on the verge of doing that. On the verge of catching up and finally being able to enjoy our paychecks once again. For the longest time it has been nothing but pay the bank back for our overdraw charges. I wish there was some way to find out how much we wasted on that.

Actually, I'm sure there is, and I'm sure I don't want to know.

Janoa Taylor, a long lost friend from church and church school (from around the 5th and 6th grade, and a few years after) added me on Facebook today. It was fairly strange to see her again, even in social networking form. Although most of her pictures are where I can barely recognize her. I remember a long time ago when I hadn't seen her for probably a few years, and she came back to church to visit a few times. I remember being completely perplexed and uncomfortable around her, because within those two years she went from friend to 'this supermodel person I barely knew'. I remember both Matt K. and I being perplexed. Not him, so much as me, I suppose.

Anyway, while looking at her profile I was hoping to catch a glimpse at what kind of person she was or had become. Nope. Not one inkling of info except her email address and a few photos. No interests. No quotes. No favorite music. Maybe that's what seperated her from Matt K. and me and the rest of us. She was always a clam. Always cut off and loving it. Well, seemed to like it that way at least.

Staci and I watched Mulholland Drive last night. That David Lynch film. And I'm with the rest of the world. I still don't really know what's going on. I wonder if the director had an idea of what was going on. Some of the scenes felt cool. Like the face behind the wall. That feels like the real thing. Like a real bad dream someone might have. And can you imagine going to visit someplay in real life to find that it exists? The movie captures a sense of being alone in your own skin in that way. Terrified, though not sure why except a dream told you to be. Sure it's a scary face, but all it did was come out from behind a wall and look at you. The only reason you're scared is because the dream has you in such a state to feel that way.

I don't know. A lot never seemed to connect in the film. It seemed like it tried, but a lot didn't seem to. There's an entire website about it, I hear from Staci. They help, but I bet you would proabably still feel lost while watching the film after reading their long explanations. But maybe that was the point of the movie. To feel lost. I just wish some parts of the movie didn't feel like a 90's cop show re-enactment scene. I think that was just the film quality, though.

I've really gotta catch up with Matt King. We haven't seen eachother in a while. We were supposed to be brothers!

Good Morning, Jan 13, 2009

Having lots of days off has been pretty nice.

Staci and I are actually pretty close to getting our money all straightened out. I don't know how, but we are.

It is incredibly late. 3:20am. I don't really know what I'm still doing up, but I felt like writing something.

As I said in the previous post. I've been reading a lot more lately. It helps to have my Sony Reader. I think my mind was always so clustered (strange word) so I would keep losing my place in a dead-tree version of the books I like to read. I spent most of my time before just trying to find my place. I remember at one point trying to read George R.R. Martin's series on my Creative Zen. It was a strange little program that turned your texts and ebooks into images that it could understand. It worked. I say try, but I read at least most of the 3rd book in that series on my little mp3 player.

I digress. The Sony Reader is cool. It's a PRS-505. The PRS stands for "Portable Reader System", but I don't really know what the 505 means, except that it's 505 and not just 500 like the previous version. Apparenlty these devices just go up in 5's.

The rice cooker we got from Steve for christmas is awesome. I've used it the past few nights to make delicious and (compared to our normal fare) somewhat healty meals. I fancy myself a good cook.

My electronics department job at Sam's rocks. Almost zero stress, and I get to talk about stuff I kinda like, you know? It is pretty awesome.

I need a new hard drive.

It may sound cheesy, and maybe a little bit fake of me, but ever since I got my Sony PRS-505 I've been reading a lot more. I've only had it since shortly after Christmas, and I've read around 4 or 5 books already. Although they've been short stories, I feel fairly proud nonetheless.

What I've finished so far:

• Sandkings by George R.R. Martin
• With Morning Comes Mistfall by George R.R. Martin
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by Francis Scott Fitzgerald
• The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells (only a few pages left, actually)

Yes, if my list is any indication whatsoever, I love some good sci-fi, and especially some good old-school sci-fi that kind of shows us how much our species has grown in the scope of the future. H.G. Wells has been one of my favorites for a long time for this specific reason. Although there is no intelligent life that we know of on the planet Mars, The War of the Worlds still has sufficiently believable and terrifyingly detailed technology. Technology that is actually quite future proof as far as what we can see as actually being possible.

I also kind of get the idea that if Wells had been writing today, his stories would have been much more gruesome.

New Years and Benjamin Button

Well, we actually had a fairly good turnout for our New Year's party. A little over 20 people showed up. There is a pretty good picture that I want to post that shows almost all of them. Even Cody came down for the party, which was pretty cool. Things seem like they've been getting easier for everyone lately. I'm not sure what I mean by that except exactly how it sounds. People have been seeming less uptight. I hope that doesn't change.

New Year's Day was spent eating at Cracker Barrel (something I haven't done since the last day I ever saw Samantha. I didn't really bother mentioning this to anyone, however) and watching the Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

The most interesting thing about the Benjamin movie is how the book was completely ignored except for the 'getting younger as you get older' theme. This is perfectly okay, seeing as, after reading it for myself, the book seems to be almost a joke. It was 69 pages long in ebook form, which is probably about half that in real book form. Nothing else was really the same. Comparisons definitely do not need to apply.

I wish I could pay better attention to lots of things. I don't really know how best to explain what I mean. For example, there was a time in my life where making a new friend such as Sam Parker would be at the top of my list of 'one of the most awesome things that happened to me this year'. But within the last few years, I've tended to focus on different things. I still think it is awesome that I've made quite a few new friends and basically a new 'gang' since moving into this house, but I don't tend to notice them quite as much anymore. I just feel so 'busy' even when I'm not. As if I don't have time for the little things anymore. As if I'm going to be in trouble by someone if I take too much time for myself. Is that really all in just marriage? Hard to say, actually. I don't know if that's the way I feel, but I have told Staci on more than one occasion that I was beginning to feel that marriage is mostly a bad institution. This changes nothing about how I feel about Staci, of course, but marriage is just one of those things that I feel needs to be reworked somehow. After a while, it needs to mean more than just financial stability. Somebody somewhere needs to come to an understanding.

I'm still unsure about whether or not to go ahead and get in on some classes this semester. I'm not sure if we'll get help financially. I mean, I'm pretty sure if we ask we can get help from Staci's grandparents, but we hate to do that. They said they would, but we still abhor the idea. And I'm still unsure about the possibility of a pell grant. I hope it's not too late in the game. I still have a chance to register, but do I still want to?

We may get to see Tim and Eric Awesome Tour Live this month. We're looking into it. It would require us going to Kansas City, but that would be fine to see such a thing. Speaking of which, I believe their new season starts this month.

ATM I love MegaMan 9, Smash Bros. Brawl, Beck, Interpol, Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, and Animal Crossing: City Folk. Yep, never a shortage of things to fill of your entertainment around here.

Oh yeah and The Mountain Goats "Satanic Messiah" is one of the best things ever. Go check the website. I'm pretty sure its satanicmessiah.com. I'm pretty sure I was amazed at that domain aquisition.