Today is Wednesday, which means Ed. It just finished. It was good. (and no.. there wasn’t really any doubt.) BUT, next week’s is going to be better. So, in the off chance you’ve not yet seen the show, or haven’t seen ALL the episodes, give me a call, and I’ll bring you on over to my place, and we’ll watch them all. Sound good? Seriously, if you can watch the whole first season and not love the show, you have no soul, and I don’t want you coming around here anymore.

Hey, kids out there: If you find yourself thinking something like “I wonder how much this would hurt”, stop, take a deep breath, and don’t do it!. My brain hates me. (My Brain –> That bitterly divided force inside my head that seems constantly battling between self preservation and self annihilation.). So I was sitting there, watching commercials , waiting for Ed, and I found a box of matches… So.. yeah.. You know those movies where the tough guy holds the lit match in his fingers until it goes out? Yeah, I burned my finger really bad, and it’s blistering up now.

My sister got me those word magnets that you can make phrases/poems/etc. out of, and I’ve been kinda obsessed with them ever since.. I guess I have the belief that if given enough time, effort, and motivation, I could write something worthwhile. Well, lacking at least 2 of those things, I just whipped up a script to write poems using the magnets I have. I kept trying to get it to come up with something good, but finally stopped when I got please pass away.

In the off chance you didn’t know, Dennis Martino represents all that is soulless and evil in this world.

And to my Pickwick clan, I think I’m here, but if feels like here.

I think the random phone call is one of life’s ways of telling you you did the right thing by getting out of bed in the morning. Now I don’t mean something like Tuuk’s crazy call, though I’ve gotten one of those, and that was kinda interesting too. I’m talking about the quick, random call just to say hi.

I had within me this belief for the longest time that I could purchase things that would then make me a happier person. And to a certain point, I think I still believe that that is true. It’s just that the things that it would require to achieve this are horribly expensive now, and most are rather illegal. That having been said, in the recent past, I’ve still purchased a number of items with the sincere belief that my life would be noticeably altered for the better because of said purchase. So for this little post, I thought I’d rate how these purchases actually faired:

1. Handspring Visor

   I bought the Visor thinking that with it I would organize my life, and consequently be more on top of things, be more organized, aware of things going on, and thus miss less important dates/happenings, and therefore be happier. Seems sound enough, no? So I bought the thing, and felt pretty good about it. The first problem was quickly encountered… where and I supposed to put the thing? It doesn’t fit in a pants pocket very well. I’m not going to add it to my belt like I’m Batman or something. If I just held it in my hand I’d decrease my productivity by around 50%, and that’s unacceptable. It was winter, so it did fit nicely in my coat (speaking of which, my coat is one of the 3 redeeming features of winter. I love my coat.) So anyway, I solved the ‘where do I put it’ problem with a clever schedule of cargo pants and coat wearing.

   Figuring out how to use the thing was easy. Getting phone numbers and lists, etc.. into the thing was easy. At the time I didn’t have a home computer with USB, so I never synced the thing. So come one fine morning when I find the thing refusing to start up.. and realizing the batteries had just zapped themselves to death, erasing everything I had put in there, I was less than pleased. Considering the only time I actually used the thing was when I was given a new phone number, or when I was ordering pizza, the thing was not really proving itself worth more than a handy piece of paper. But, nevertheless, I pressed on. My brother used his religiously, so I figured I just had to get used to having it, and I’d find more uses for it. Turns out I eventually did. It is currently propping up my computer’s microphone an extra inch almost. Certainly worth the investment. I guess when it comes down to it, I just like using a piece of paper better, and there are better places to store phone numbers… like on a phone.

2. Nintendo Gamecube

   Ok… I don’t know if this is particularly fair, because really, I bought the Gamecube for Zelda, which doesn’t come out until February of next year. I can assure you that next February you’ll not be hearing from me for a while. (For the record, as far as my employers need to know, I have Mono.) But even so, I’ve had the Cube for almost a year now, so I can give at least a little grade to how it’s done in its mission “to make my life happier”. I’ve got a number of games, including Star Wars Rogue Leader, Super Monkey Ball, Super Smash Bros. Melee, and Starfox Adventures. No denying that the games look amazing. Some of the scenes in StarFox are downright breathtaking. And the games are fun. Monkeyball was the highlight of many a long, late night gaming session back when I got it. But as happens with many games, it fell out of the rotation, and now sits, collecting dust. Star Wars was exactly what I wanted it to be… Fun, gorgeous, true to the movies, and hard as hell… but then I beat it. And once you beat a hard game, there’s just no real reason to play it again. Besides, if you aren’t playing it every day, then when you try picking it up again a short time later, you just realize that you suck at it again, and it’s not worth playing anymore. So the game itself gets a big thumbs up, as it served its purpose, but only for a while. (The purpose of Video Games –> To take my mind off of all other stresses in my life, including, but not limited to: Work, Money, War, Crime, Women [woman] and what the hell is going on inside their [her] head.) So as I said, Star Wars served this purpose, as did StarFox, for a time. I’m 50% through StarFox, but was forced to take a break a break, and I lost interest.. and now it’ll take a little work to get back into it. But between Star Wars and StarFox there was a giant chunk of time where there wasn’t a game to take my mind off of my so-called life, and my complete inability to live it correctly. Were it not for the fantabulous Jedi Knight 2 for PC coming along, I don’t know what I would have done. So far I guess the gamecube passes… but just barely… and based mainly on its promise of shiny Zelda goodness in the next year.

3. My Cellphone

   I was long overdue for a cellphone, and my repeated inability to keep myself, my keys and my car locks all in the right locations finally forced me into getting one. Once I got it, I instantly loved it. (though not in a sexual way.) The best part was that people called me. Suddenly, having a phone was actually a good thing. It was grand. If you’re reading this, than odds are you’ve seen me spring to life when the thing started ringing on at least one occasion. As the weeks went on the thing continued to prove useful, and I grew to treat the thing like one of those eggs high school kids have to take care of like it was a child, much to the amusement of my compatriots. But time went on, and the thing stopped ringing. So that now it just sits there, mocking me like the Raven perched on the pallid bust of Pallas. (and my phone shall ring Nevermore…) Anyway, the thing is useful, but it just seems like yet another way to be ignored, ultimately. Sometimes it’s kinda nice having a decent excuse why no one is trying to get a hold of you. But then again, sometimes I think it was one of the best purchases I’ve ever made.

Thankfully, despite everything, you always know there’s something you can count on to get you through the day.

Today is my birthday. I’m 24. I have very little desire to be twenty-four, but there appears to be nothing I can do about it. As for the birthday itself, it was just dandy. Church, (plenty of people wished me well, which was nice) then a big steak dinner at the Veldhof’s, which was also quite wonderful.

My good friend from high school and beyond, Kenton, (aka “Dino”) gave me a call a few days back, and invited me along to a U of M football game. The game was saturday. A little rainy, a little cramped, and in case there was any doubt, U of M completely sucks at football, but I had a great time. It was my first time in the “Big House” (Big House –> When in reference to U of M football, the large stadium, capable of seating about 80,000 comfortably, or 100,000+ horribly uncomfortably. Otherwise, I’m quite certain “Big House” means prison, which is also fairly cramped and full of deranged, violent people, so I guess there’s some aptness to the naming.) Anyway, U of M got slaughtered. As I was leaving the stands I heard a particularly observant fan mention that other teams “were always so happy when they beat us.” (“us” I took to mean the University of Michigan football team, which this elderly woman was apparently a member of.) It got me wondering which team or teams would be unhappy when they beat Michigan, or any other team for that matter. Perhaps Pete Rose, if he bet wrong, but that’s about it.

Got back somewhat late, last night, but was not all that tired, so eventually I got a hold of my sister, Kristin, and her friend, Jamie, and we headed out and saw The Ring. For those of you who haven’t seen it, I won’t ruin it, but I’m going to die in 6 days. It’s one of those grand movies where you’re most scared when nothing is happening, and right when everything finally seems good, you’re totally screwed again. I’d recommend it.. but late at night, to get the full effect. It was fun watching fellow movie patrons (your average 16 year old mallrat/fluff-chicks) run to their cars in the midnight darkened parking lot afterwards, trying not to look scared and failing miserably.

Apparently I’ve now reached the point where when I receive a call others around me can tell exactly who the caller is by the level of my reaction/facial expression. Not sure if this is a good thing, an inevitability, both, or neither. Thankfully, I’ve also chosen not to care…much.

if you’ve not yet heard Guster, do so now. One of the best ever.

Well, I think I’m going to attempt to do something fun and exciting now. I just finished watching The Hudsucker Proxy while I was writing this (I love the transparent TV overlay.) Thanks Joel. Speaking of which, the whole syndicating our weblogs thing seems like a kewl idea. Would be another reason for me to learn XML, if we did it right.

So I’m back. Evening was great fun. I ate a cow, and downed two beers that were the size of Rhode Island. So a round of applause to my sister, Kristin, for getting all of it set up and so forth. (clap, clap). So yea, good stuff. Lots of food that I didn’t have to pay for, lots of people that knew me and didn’t avert their eyes and pretend to be urgently headed in the other direction when I made eye contact with them. Always a plus. My thanks to Sven and Julie, Mindy, Jodi, Erin, Kris, Jamie, Robb, Swac, and Mandace for coming out. I believe it took at least 15 minutes before they all realized that I’m completely retarded, so I’m making some progress.

So after dinner, we hung out at my place for a while, then headed out to bowl, but bowling was packed, so we played cards for a while there, then headed back to my place and played Fluxx, and by then it was late. Afterwards, I talked to Deedre on the phone for a while (which is always a good thing), then had to fix some stuff on this site, cause I completely lack foresight, but now it’s fixed, and I decided to post again.

I’m a big fan of the book Jurassic Park, and I think it was probably the 2^nd or 3^rd time through the book when I really got into the whole Chaos Theory thing. At the time I was “seeing” this girl: Sarah. (Seeing –> What you call it when you’re pretty much dating, but the girl doesn’t really want to have the kind of relationship where she’s not allowed to just ditch you at a moment’s notice cause she’s no longer quite as bored or lonely… but still expects you to come running in 2 months when she is again. See also : “Completely and Utterly Screwed”). Anyway, I was seeing Sarah, and my relationship with her seemed to follow Ian Malcolm’s predictions about the inevitability of complete devastation there at Jurassic Park. So I started trying to track how my days were going in the hopes that it would match one of the drawings in the book: (yea.. I can’t find my book, so I can’t scan the image. Basically things slide slowly down from okay to bad, then all of a sudden things get really good… just before they all crash down to the very bottom.) Anyway, I started tracking my days, and they followed almost exactly for a while there. I don’t know how much self fulfilling prophecy there was in there, so I may have tainted it a bit.. But from that point on, I chose to believe that beneath all the apparent randomness and chaos going on in my life every day, there is an underlying order and structure, and dare I say direction/destiny? No? okay, I won’t say that part then. But there’s an order, certainly. Problem being, by that point I was so disillusioned with everyone and everything I came to the conclusion that that underlying order was this: “No matter what happens, it’ll eventually screw me over.”

I held on to that mantra for 4 years, and it proved true most of the time. Me being fairly retarded, and remaining with Sarah for 3 years probably didn’t help out that much. But things eventually changed, and that small seed of optimism crept in, and slowly but surely things suddenly didn’t seem that bad. So now, here I sit, feeling very much like I did way back then. I assume that no matter how hard I try at anything, it’s just going to come back to screw me over in the end… and I’m not sure why. Things have actually been going fairly well: I’ve got a great job, nice place to live (100% Keen-free©), good friends and family, etc… And the majority of the bad things that have happened in the last long while are either my own fault (car keys are stupid), or just random enough to not be worth getting upset about. So now I wonder: have I just become so accustomed to being kinda pissed off/depressed that I just choose to be that way now? And if so, what should I do to switch it over to something slightly less pessimistic? Thus far, the best answer I’ve come up with is : Eat a cow, and down 2 beers the size of Rhode Island.

First off, I like Thursdays. Well, that’s not even it. I like Wednesday from about 6:30pm – Friday about 2:30 am… There’s a couple of reasons. First, Wednesday at 8 is Ed, then at 9 it’s The West Wing. Do I find it at all sad that one of the highlights of my week is TV? Shut up. Anyway, Wednesday during the summer (reruns…) I had one of my softball leagues, and softball rules. So Wednesday nights are good.

I’d add the fact that I can stay up late, but I do that regardless.. I guess I can stay up fairly late without any regrets the next morning, and that counts for something, so I’ll say that: “I can stay up late without any regrets the next morning.”

Now, the staying up late dealie is because I work from home on Thursdays, which is just plain good. And I better set a few things straight lest I get fired or something. 1st off, it doesn’t mean I don’t have to work at all. That’s called a “vacation day”.. and that’s different. I don’t get [many of] those. What makes working from home great is the complete absense of “the commute”. (The Commute –> Imagine the entire journey of the Lord of the Rings, delete everything remotely interesting [e.g. wizards, magic, swords, and women], and add a giant landfill by Coopersville. Don’t forget to add the snow, the darkness, and the constantly trying not to fall asleep parts.). So without having to drive an hour to and fro, that’s 2 hours added to the day. To no one’s surprise, the first freed up hour is spent sleeping. (and there was much rejoicing). The 2nd is usually spent doing laundry. (Chopped into 10 minute snippets. just sitting there waiting for it to be done would be a waste, cause there’s no window into our dryer.. I’d just be staring at the door.) The other grand thing about working from home is that I can do much of my work from my bed, much like I am now. It’s like being wrapped inside pure joy. (I think they’re called blankets, actually.)

Thursday nights are good simply because I’m not already too tired from work to do anything fun. Granted, that rarely makes a difference one way or another (i.e. I do fun stuff Tuesday nights even though I’m tired, and some Thursdays are spent lying on my bed in a fetile position staring at a wall and praying that the ceiling collapses and leaves no trace of my body.). But this Thursday is a good one. My sister, Kristin, has gone and grabbed a few of my friends, and we’re headed out for dinner as a lil birthday type deal. Good stuff. And since she just showed up, I should stop typing.

Welp, Tuuk complained that I didn’t have any actual content, so I felt the need to add something worthwhile.. instead you got this. I’ve been pissed off all week, and there appears to be no reason not to be today, so I still am. Odds are, 9+ hours of Nine Inch Nails a day isn’t helping the mood much, but it is keeping me awake at work (well, except yesterday.. stupid meetings.) There’s just something about hearing a guy scream “Kill me” repeatedly that makes my life seem not quite as bad, I guess.

I was watching TV the other day, while I was at my computer coding up some of this webpage php magic stuff, and this commercial came on. This kid about my age sitting at a computer, I think, and the narrator asked “Are you depressed? Have trouble getting sleep? Loss of appetite?” I answered yes to all three, and I thought perhaps TV had come to fulfill its destiny (TV’s Destiny –> to transform my pathetic life of drudgery and despair into something worth getting out of bed for.). So I turned to fully embrace TV’s wisdom. The response: “Come to Damons, the place for Ribs!”. Well, I’m now officially boycotting Damons, and my TV got its ass kicked.

Anyway, that’s all for now, cause I gotta start up some NIN and loathe myself for a couple more hours.