What a weekend.

Yup, that pretty much sums it up.

Okay, I’ll tell you all about it. Let’s start with when last I wrote about things going on: Monday. Monday was uneventful. (Uneventful –> For the life of me, I can’t remember what happened.). I seem to recall going to work, and odds are while I was there I did some work. Then I went home, and ate some food, then worked out/lifted weights for a couple hours while watching What Women Want. The movie itself was fairly entertaining, but I’ve got a problem with those movies/TV shows/etc… where it’s basically a jackass guy who after some bizarre incident comes to decide that all men are jerks like he was, and the only way people can be truly good people is if they turn into women.. or at least at as much like women as possible. I’ve got news for you, there are a lot of jackass women out there, and a lot of good guys. I guess that kinda thing isn’t as marketable though. For my part, I will likely always associate that movie with intense pain in the arms and shoulders.. (I overdid it with the weights I think.). Afterwards, I talked with my friend Christa for quite some time, and then spent a number of hours writing. Thanks to those people who said they enjoyed that one, that meant a lot.

Tuesday I seem to recall going to work again. I was eating leftover lasagna all week for lunch, and it was pretty good. I got home and blew a few hours playing the guitar, then it was a long shower, then off to the Pickwick. I found that Tuesday night to be especially funny, but I think I was just in one of those “everything is funny” kinda moods. Beer helps that mood quite a bit.

Wednesday I woke up late. I’m fairly certain I woke up to my phone’s alarm, proceeded to try answering it, saw that the caller id screen said “Wake Up“, assumed it must have been the wrong number, and went back to sleep. I then woke up to David calling, wondering how close to the meeting point I was. Yea. So after work, I headed home, and since it was a new Ed, Mindy and Steve came on over. Afterwards we played some cards, then they took off, and I had a new toy to play with. So this site is now running on a nice and shiny Black Athlon XP 1800 w/ 512MB yada yada yada.. It’s better than the P1-200 it was running on before, and hopefully I won’t have any more problems with the NIC fading in and out for no good reason. So yeah… a total of 6 minutes of downtime in that server upgrade. I was pleased. Then I lifted weights for a while, rode the bike for a while, then eventually faded off to bed.

Thursday was work from home day, and I had a full list of things I was hoping to attack, but little problems kept seeming to come up, which was annoying. I did get the major project I wanted to get done finished, so I called the day a success. After work I spent about 3 hours cleaning my room and my bathroom (full clean: shower, shower curtain, wet-mopping the floor, etc..) Once that was done, I went back to playing the guitar until Cathy showed up. With Cathy over, Swac, Mandace, Cathy, and I watched Caddyshack. Now I’d never seen the movie all the way through, but I’ve seen the ending a few times on TV.. and had always heard/assumed it was some sort of comedy classic. After viewing it, I’m kinda under the impression that sometime in the late 70′s there were a bunch of guys in a room smoking a lot of pot trying to come up with a great way to see lots of breasts and pay back a favor to Rodney Dangerfield at the same time… and this movie was the result. I will say that Chevy Chase was excellent, though. After that, I managed to not fall asleep for quite some time, and I’m not really sure why. Habit, I guess.

Friday was the big day. We were moving our servers from Muskegon to Grand Rapids, and Joel, David, and I had volunteered to help them out. That meant we could come in a little later than usual, but would be staying quite late. My job was mainly to take pictures and document the thing. To make things easier, I had told Joel and David I’d just head out to Grand Rapids to pick them up that morning. After picking them up, we swung by Best Buy, and I grabbed a larger memory card for my camera. They had my monitor there as well, but once again I chose not to buy it cause I’m kinda stupid, and like screwing myself over. So it was on into work, which was slightly less than productive. We kept having internal internet outages, and then Jay showed me his twelve string guitar, and it was all over. That thing is gorgeous, and makes everything sound good. Needless to say, now I need to have one. So throughout the day I popped into the server room to take a picture or 12, and then around 5:30 or so we decided to head off to Bonikis for dinner, then we’d head back to get prepared. I had brought my Genesis and Columns III to play while we waited to work on things. We would not be playing games that evening. That whole story can prolly be best told through pictures,(They’ll be up soon enough). To make a long story short(er), it was a lot of organized chaos for a long while, but I thought for the most part people pulled together and made the best of a fairly messed up situation. I learned a fair amount about our machines, and how some stuff works. I was reintroduced to why driving late at night in a snowstorm sucks. I also found out that when a lot of people I worked with were getting tired, I was wide awake… but when they hit their second wind, I was done and gone. Not so much sleepy tired as I realized that my body had had enough of being up and working, and until my body was allowed to lay down, my brain was just going to repeatedly stab itself, and purposefully cause me to do dumb things. Stupid brain. Oh yeah, and collocation facilities are really loud… and after a couple of hours, loud == bad )#(R$Q$*and headache. So finally around 9 or so, Joel, Dave, I were free to go. So I dropped Dave and Joel off at Joel’s place, and started for home. It was still really bad on the roads, but I was in a rush to get home, so I could get a couple of hours of sleep before my old roommate Adam showed up. So I hop onto 196, and I’m going along just fine for a while, and all of a sudden I’m not really going fine anymore…. my car seemed to be drifting the wrong way. I guess I reacted a little too slow, cause all the next thing I knew, I was almost perpendicular to the road… I tried straightening her out, but by then I was toast. I spun around completely once while still on the highway, and then I was off into the median, and that’s when the snow completely covered everything so I couldn’t see… that’s when I got really scared, cause I was still going really fast, and I knew I was pretty near some guard rails and cement dealies.. and for all I knew, I could be flying right into the other side of the highway, and then I’d die.. and I’ve got this thing about dying.. basically, I don’t feel like doing that any time soon. After what seemed like years, I came to a stop, and I wasn’t dead, so I was pretty pleased about that… but I was stuck in a ditch, and that wasn’t all that fun. Here’s my reenactment of the events: Avi video. (You have no idea how many times I managed to screw that stupid thing up. Outtakes:1,2,3,4)

So I’m stuck in a ditch. And I was stuck pretty good. So I called my cousin Sven, to see if he had any ideas. He was at work, so eventually he offered to swing out and check it out. As I was waiting for him, some polite people stopped, and I gave them the international sign for “i have a cell phone”. The International Sign for “I have a Cell Phone” –> Take your cell phone, hold it to your ear, then hold it in the air above your head, then bring it back to your ear, then smile and wave at the person to whom you are signaling.). Then a cop shows up on the other side of the highway with his lights on. The events unfolded as follows:

Ron [approaching the police car] : Hi there.

Cop: You were driving too fast.

Ron: I don’t really think so.

Cop: Yeah you were.

Ron: I dunno. I was going along fine, then hit a patch of something and I think I overcompansa–

Cop: Oh sure, that’s what they all say. It’s always the road’s fault..

Ron [thinking: I just said it was my fault... This cop is kind of a dick.]

Ron: Well, I don’t think I was going too fast, but I lost control, yeah.

Cop: Yeah, well, do you have a phone?

Ron: Yeah, I do. I just called my cousin, he should be coming in his truck soon

Cop: No, he’s not.

Ron: Yes he is.

Cop: No, he’s not.

Ron: Yes, he is. I just called him, like 5 minutes ago. He’s on his way.

Cop: No. He’s not going to pull you out. He’s going to get himself killed.

Ron: [thinking: Yup. All signs point to "dick".]

Ron: I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to imply that he would be pulling me out. I just meant he was coming, cuase he’s got a better idea of what to do than I do.

Cop: Yeah, well, we can’t have people stopping on the roads here, They’re just going to get themselves killed. Got on in the back of the car.

Ron: [thinking: Hrm.. He didn't even read my my rights.]

I hop into the back of the car, but leave the door open

Cop: So, what wrecker do you want me to call?

Ron:Yeah, I don’t care. I don’t know any, so whomever is closest is fine.

Cop: [does some radio talk involving numbers (715) and gets a tow trick sent, making sure to mention how they are to enter the high way (the Arby's entrance) and how they are to get the car back on the road (take it from the back end and bring it up that way)].

Cop: So were you headed to or from work?

Ron: Home, from work.

Cop: Ah, so you work 3rds?

Ron: Sigh.. No. It’s been a long day.

Cop: [Notes the speed on his radar gun for passing traffic] [expletives deleted] These people are going to get themselves killed. Look at that! 71! That’s above the speed limit if it were sunny out!

Ron: Yeah. Wow.

I decide to call my cousin and tell him he needn’t come anymore. I got his voice mail, so I left a message.

Cop: You can shut that door.. I’ll let you out when the time comes.

Ron [shuts the door.]

Cop: So what do you do?

Ron: I work with computers

Cop: Yeah? So where’s a good place to buy a used computer in Grand Rapids?

Cop and Ron: [Pointless banter about technology, and how it's hard to figure out unless you need to use it all the time, yada.]

We see some truck slowing down near my car, but the truck doesn’t look familiar to me at all.

Cop: This anyone you know?

Ron: Nope.

Cop: [Motioning for the truck to just keep on driving] yeah, we can’t have anyone stopping. They’ll get themselves killed.

Ron: [Seeing inside the truck that it was indeed my cousin, Steve, as the truck pulls back onto the highway] Huh. Yeah, that was my cousin. He must have borrowed a different truck.

At this point I think I’d decided that the cop wasn’t all that bad, and we passed the time waiting for the tow truck by clocking the cars that passed, then made comments about how they were all horrible people. Eventually, the cop calls in another cop to help out. My phone rings.

Sven: That you in the back of the cop car?

Ron: Yeah. I’m all set. I’ve got a tow truck coming.

Sven: Oh, okay, you do? Yeah, we wouldn’t have been able to pull you out anyway.

Ron: Yeah.

Eventually that other cop shows up, and parks about a mile behind us, with his lights on as well. The traffic all slows by about 30 MPH at that point. We continued to sit and wait for the tow truck to arrive. Eventually it does, speeding along in reverse on the left lane’s shoulder on the wrong side of the highway.

Cop:Oh, you [expletives deleted]. You’ve got to be [expletives deleted] kidding me, you [expletives deleted]!

Cop [rolling down the window, shouting at the tow truck guy]: Get on the other side!

Tow Truck Guy: No, You’re fine.

Cop: No, get over here, in front of me!

Tow Truck Guy: No, you’re fine right there, I can get it.

Cop: But if you take it from the back, here in front of me–

Tow Truck Guy: Don’t worry about it, it’s fine. I’ve got it.

Cop: [rolling up window.] [expletives deleted] [expletives deleted][expletives deleted]

Cop: Okay, I’ll let you out here. We’ve got to get on the other side, or he’s going to get himself killed.

The cop lets me out, and I walk over to the Tow Truck Guy, who is pulling chains over to my car.

Tow Truck Guy: Hey! How are you doing?

Ron: [thinking: This is why there's a waiting period when purchasing handguns.]

Ron: I’ve been better.

Tow Truck Guy: Ah. Yeah, this isn’t too bad, I’ve seen way worse.

Ron: Ah. okay. [? um.. Thank you?]

Tow Truck Guy: So how was that cop to ya?

Ron: Not too bad. He gave me a lecture, but that was about it.

Tow Truck Guy: Heh. Gotcha.

So the Tow Truck guy attached the chains and the hook, and started winching the car back to the road. I was in the car, with it in neutral, steering it back onto the road. Then we got to the point where I was supposed to start up the car, and drive it up onto the road while he pulled, but the car refused to start.

Ron: If you do not start this instant, I [expletives deleted] I’ll roll you off a [expletives deleted] cliff you [expletives deleted] piece of–

Car: Click, click.. Vvvvvvvvvvvvvvrrrrrrrrrroooooooooooooommmmmmmmmmmm

So the car is back on the road, and I go to pay.

Ron: So what’s the damage?

Tow Truck Guy: Hundred.

Ron [thinking: Son of a--]

Ron [grabbing credit card] Here you go.

Tow Truck Guy: [writing down information on the bill slip] So… were you going too fast?

Ron: Heh. Yeah, probably.

Tow Truck Guy [handing me the receipt] : Here you go, you’re all set.

Ron: Thanks

So that sucked. On the drive home, whenever I got about 40 MPH the front driver side wheel started shaking a bit. I’m not yet sure if something is messed up, or if there’s just a ton of snow packed in there or something. Hopefully I’ll get that checked soon. I made it home by about 10:30 at the latest, and after cleaning up my room a bit, I finally got into bed and fell fast asleep.

At around 1, Adam came, and so he and Swac headed on into my room. I told them that Steve was coming over around 1, and they could wake me up then. They informed me that it was 1. I told them my story. Eventually steve showed up, and we went and grabbed some Wendys, then headed back to my place and played bid euchre for a while, until Adam had to leave. Sven took off as well, and I fell asleep, waking only to answer phone calls on occasion. I knew I needed to actually eat another meal (a resolution is a resolution), so I told Swac to wake me up at 8, so we could grab some dinner. At 8 we headed off to Max and Ermas. Tressa was working, and so we got to talk to her quite a bit, which was good. We finally left around 10:30 or 11 and headed home. Eventually, Robb, Mandace, Swac, and I watched Reservoir Dogs, which I hadn’t seen in a while, and is really an excellent movie. After that, I was officially “done”, so I fell into a deep, dark sleep.

Fun stuff from today: My parents were in town, so the whole family (Mom and Dad, Jeff, Rebecca, and Steven, Amy, Kristin, and Me) met up at Max and Ermas for lunch at around 12:45. That was good stuff, as I hadn’t seen many of them for a while now (things seem to have gotten really busy for me lately.. partly by design, and party by coincidence). Kristin, Jamie, and I saw A Guy Thing, which was pretty good. I like everything Jason Lee does, and Julia Stiles is a goddess. Afterwards, I got a hold of Mindy, and she headed on over. We talked for a while, ate some pizza, played Upwords, then watched K-Pax, which is a charming movie. (Screw the super bowl, cause I really just don’t care) Then Mindy took off, and I started writing this. Now it’s past two, and I’m noticing that tired feeling again, so I’m calling it a wrap. All in all, the weekend was one of those that I can look back on and laugh, just because it was so messed up. I didn’t die, though for a few seconds I honestly believed I would. That doesn’t happen all that often (thankfully), so I don’t think I’ll be shaking this feeling any time soon.

Throughout the past few days/weeks I’ve had conversations/daydreams/etc. that have led to certain trains of thought inside my own little warped head, so I wrote some of them down, and figured I’d write about them here.

8-bit Nostalgia

Playing Metroid Prime, and now more recently Contra on PS2 has triggered a feeling of nostalgia, a longing for the way things used to be, with fairly simplistic but fascinating games where the graphics were average to mediocre, and it was the game itself that made you want to play over and over again. Andy and I have had a number of conversations about the good old days, playing Nintendo to the wee hours of the morning during a sleepover, constantly taking turns while praying to the god of video game mercy that the machine wouldn’t overheat or reset itself anytime soon. I still remember the panic feeling I’d have coming home from school and heading to the Nintendo to make sure the red light was on (and not blinking… man I hated it when it was blinking.). Back in the old days when games wouldn’t save, and passwords, if you were lucky enough to get those, rarely seemed to work right anyway.

So here I am now, playing games like Metroid Prime, and all of a sudden I run across an enemy that looks vaguely familiar, and I try to think why… and it begins to dawn on me that it’s the 3d incarnation of an enemy from the old 8-bit game… and I get giddy. (I’m easily amused at times.) The best was when I got Ocarina of Time for N64, and I got too see all my favorite villains in their newfound splendor… and now that the gamecube version is drawing near, I’m getting excited yet again. I guess you could look at it one of two ways: Either it smacks of unoriginality.. Here is essentially the same game, the same characters, more or less the same plot, it just looks prettier, and you could cast it off as being not worth your time, or you could see it as an opportunity to reenter a world you enjoyed so much ages ago, and you’ve got all the benefits of familiarity coupled with the joy and excitement of this new incarnation… It’s like a quality movie made from a TV show you really enjoyed (Note I said quality movie.. Scooby-Doo and Charlie’s Angels fans remember that… I’m thinking more along the lines of a Star Trek TNG movie, or the X-Files movie). You’ve got the characters you love in a storyline you already familiar with, but finally with the budget to do something really kewl with it. Sigh, it’s grand.

I Write a lot

A few people have pointed out that the posts are getting longer… to the point of being too long to read, if you’re a huge whiner. Truth be told, I’m more accustomed to writing long-winded and rambly things like this than the shorter “A funny thing happened the other day” kinda quips. The emails I enjoy writing are long… though it’s rare to find someone willing to write something equally lengthy in reply. I’ve been writing as long as I can remember, actually. Well, at least as long as I knew how to write. First it was letters, then later emails, lots of poetry, etc. I tried the journal thing, but could never really get into it… it just stuck me as kinda pointless… What’s the point of having thoughts and feelings if you’re not sharing it with someone. I’ve come to realize in the last few years that I use my writing a lot of the time to figure things out, to better understand what’s going on in my life, and how I really think/feel about things. It’s a bit harder to do that here, because there are a bit more people reading this thing. If I wrote about how I hated my roommate and hoped he died a hideous death, odds are life at home would be less fun. (Actually, I know for a fact it’d be less pleasant. Thanks, Keen, for proving that hypothesis true.) But anyway, there you have it. I think I write different than I talk much of the time… but perhaps a bit closer to how I think. Yeah, I know. I’ve got some problems. Honestly, I try to find a way in which everything is funny, and it makes much of life much more bearable/enjoyable. I run into problems when I start taking things too seriously. I’ve got this notion inside that I have some sort of control over things which I really have just about no control over. It’s that .05% that I do have a say in that makes me think I can suddenly act like the tiny rudder on the giant ocean liner, steering everything my way… problem being, I’m not up front to see that line of icebergs I’m turning the thing directly into. Wasn’t that a great analogy? I thought so.

The 2 Year Lag

I have the belief that for at least the last 10 years, I’ve been about 2 years behind where I ought to be.. or at least where I really wish I was. So if I was the person I am today 2 years ago, I’d be a lot better off. I feel like I wasted a lot of my college life not really realizing what was going on, and by the time I caught on (Senior year) it was too late to do much about it (well… besides sell myself out to a girl that very nearly drained my soul of life.) Seems like by the time I have the confidence to be the person I want to be, it’s too late for it to really be useful. And sometimes thinking about it really pisses me off. Cause I have no clue who I’m supposed to be today, but odds are I’ll know in a couple of years, and it’ll be too late. I know we’re supposed to be content whatever the circumstances, but honestly, I’ve never bought into that jazz. If I were content, I think I’d get lazy and just kinda fade. I think I’ll always be striving for things.. it’s just the urgency and the feeling in the meantime that I think will change. I can see myself striving for certain things.. well.. more like feeling internally motivated to accomplish things while still feeling happy with what I’ve got… that feeling like “I don’t want to die today, but if I did, I could be happy with the life I lived.” I don’t have that yet. Right now, if I died I’d be pissed… well, no, not really, I’d be dead, so I wouldn’t care. But there’s just too much I still have to do. It’s like everything so far has just been building up to this, and now I’ve got to do something with it. So far I feel like I’m just fouling pitches off, with the occasionally big swing that completely misses.

Linking things

I tend to link to a lot of things in my posts. Usually it’s relevant: Movies, video games, other people’s site, etc.. but sometimes it’s just kinda random.. like communism or something. The real reason: I think the colors make the site look more interesting.

Rejection

I’ve been thinking about rejection a lot lately. Rejection sucks, there can be no doubt, but there seem to be varying levels of rejection. And the more I thought about it, the more I’ve come to believe that the potential pain of rejection is inversely proportional to the potential joy in a situation. It seems fairly obvious, right?: The more you invest, the greater the possible reward or loss. But knowing that that phrase is true, and realizing what it means are two different things… at least they are to me. The obvious example is relationships: I’ve had my fair share of rejections, and I’ve gotten dumped more than once. And it wasn’t really the amount of time I had invested in the relationship that equaled the pain experienced, really. Rather, it was how much of who I really was I had [chosen to reveal |been allowed to reveal |somehow by accident revealed]. If I felt the person had rejected an image of me that I didn’t really feel was accurate, it hurt a lot less than if I felt they truly knew me, and had rejected me for who I really was. So there’s High School… and I don’t think anyone really knows who they are in High School… so getting dumped sucked, sure.. but looking back I can say “I was 16, and a complete jackass who knew nothing. Of course she’s going to break up with me.”, and be okay with it. For me, I was still messed up in college, and was dating someone even more messed up than I was… so her flaky on again off again crap hurt, but I could still pass it off as not too bad, because I never really got to be me.. I was always on the defensive, waiting for her to flip out and berate me for wearing gray pants on a date. Man she was messed up… Anyway, it’s like that.. The relationship is never going to reach it’s full potential if you can’t be fully and completely yourself, but that opens yourself up to a world of hurt if the thing turns south. I guess that’s all kinda obvious, but thinking about it for long stretches started to scare the hell out of me.

Loneliness, and the Tenuousness of Friendship

Cathy was over the other day, and made an interesting comment. She was talking about our friendship (mutual friendship between Robb, Swac, Cathy, and myself), and said “We’re agreed that [romantic relationships] trump everything else, right?” (Meaning that it was understood that a romantic relationship was going to receive the higher priority every time). We all [well, I know I did anyway] agreed. I think that’s one of my biggest fears… I’m going to end up alone. And I can see it happening. I’ve got many friends right now, and I am very grateful for them, but when push comes to shove, there’s going to be someone more important than me in every single one of their lives. There’s a very powerful feeling that goes with knowing there’s someone out there that would rather be with you than anyone else on earth… or knowing that there’s that one person you can’t wait to tell about every single thing that’s happened to you. A best friend, be it your spouse, or significant other, or just your closest friend. To not have that sucks. To have that for a while, then lose it sucks more.. which is another big reason why breaking up with someone hurts so much… It can be like cutting off a limb. This part of you you relied on is suddenly gone, and learning how to go about daily life without it is quite hard… even if you hated the limb, and it took you 6 months to get rid of her.. err.. “it”.

Confusion, Fear, Frustration, and Ignorance

My life seems to churn through a cycle with 4 parts: Confusion, Fear, Frustration, and Ignorance. This applies in many different areas (work, church, home, relationships, etc..) First I have no clue what’s going on, though I try to either act like I do, or convince myself that I really do. This inevitably leads to massive amounts of thinking about it, cause my subconscious is masochistic, and my conscious sucks, All that thinking leads to fear… lots and lots of fear. I don’t like not being in control of a situation, and lots of life is that way.. especially at this point in a person’s life, I think. Before, there was a certain amount of structure that would hold me in place: i had my parents there to make sure I didn’t get too far out of line. School was there constantly ahead of me, so I knew where I was headed, and what was expected of me. I was constantly surrounded by my peers, and life was more or less following the directions given to me. Now I’m on my own. I can really screw myself up. And if I screw up, I’m the one who’s screwed… there’s no letter home to the parents for them to ground me and take away my TV privileges for a while. It’s all on me. There’s no real guide to what I’m supposed to do. I figured out pretty quickly that I needed a job in order to get money to buy food to not die of starvation, but beyond that, I really don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing. So that fear leads to frustration, cause the efforts I make either don’t work, or don’t work how I thought they would, or I just don’t know what to do, and that makes me angry.. or things beyond my control seem to screw me over. (I hate that). Eventually this all fades into what I’ve pessimistically named Ignorance, but I think could more accurately be labeled something like “Acceptance” or “Resolution”. The idea being that I either forget what it is that’s gotten me so worked up, or I’ve come to terms with certain limitations, and chosen to focus on all that I have accomplished rather than what I haven’t, and begin regrouping for the next struggle.. which inevitably confuses me, cause I’m still not sure what it is I’m supposed to be doing…. you see how this goes. I’m not sure if I’m the only one who gets this way, and reading posts from/talking to people like Tuuk, Adam, Steve, Jplant, and Joel make me believe I’m not, and that is comforting.

The Silver Lining

With a few exceptions that were due mostly to my own idiocy and impatience, things have been going remarkably well for me, and have been for a long, long time. Looking back, the things that seemed so horrible and so important at the time seem like little more than funny anecdotes to whip out at social occasions. I know I’m not alone in fearing the future, and ironically, I know I’m not alone in feeling alone some times, for whatever that’s worth. The bottom line is that I like who I am more now than at any point I can remember since I started actually caring about that kinda thing, which I think is a very good thing. Despite all my efforts, I still really think that the good things in this world come to those who seek them (and a fair amount of those who don’t, it would seem). I know I’m constantly raising the demands on myself, setting goals at the seemingly impossible, only to see them become more and more possible in time…

Sorry if this post wasn’t very interesting.

Hey there, I’m tired. So right to it. Friday morning I did indeed show up early (7am) to the meeting point, and promptly fell asleep… and woke up about 40 minutes later, and we headed off to work. Work itself was fairly uneventful: a meeting where we all held hands and told everybody what they already knew, hours spent trying to do in an a day what other companies managed to bungle up for months, lunch spent in a “war of the song lyrics/titles” with Jay while at Fazoli’s (Which, by the way, was one of the funniest things I’ve taken part in in the longest time. Thanks Jay.), some heated games of Tetris, where I managed to prove my complete lack of foresite and space management (it’s a wonder my room doesn’t look more disorganized, as furniture placement is essentially 3d Tetris.). Throughout the day, I was also thrusting my will upon my fellow man, creating from nothing a lan party at Adam and Joel‘s place on Saturday. It was kinda slick, actually, just being able to say “We ought to do this”, then after about 5 IM conversations it was a go. Sweetness.

Friday Night. Tuuk had invited us all (the Pickwick crew) to a metal show at the Intersection. Tuuk, JHo, and I met up at Tuuk and Mark’s place. (In the meantime, Tuuker and I played Contra : Shattered Soldier. That game is hard! But man, did it bring back 8-bit memories.) So finally we jetted, and after grabbing some money from an ATM, and JHo’s shocking announcement, we headed off and met up with Alan near Kava. The 4 of us then proceeded to the Intersection. Alan did a good job of describing the event, but I’ll try to pick out some highlights of the evening. First off, the wank at the door really was a wank. He looked like one of those kids who was constantly looking back with sad nostalgia at his high school days, spent picking on the weakest in the herd while avoiding those for whom the roles would be reversed. Long story short, he was a wank. The bartendress was lovely, with a smile that superseded even the fact that she was giving me massive quantities of beer to carry back to my compatriots. So anyway, we were there, looked around a bit, then Tuuk got us a pitcher, and we managed to snag a table after some time. We talked for a while, and then a band started up whose name I can’t (and have no desire to) remember. The band looked like your typical college aged group of guys, dressed in jeans and hooded sweatshirts, etc.. Then there was the lead singer, solidly tattooed from the waist to his neck, and clad in short, short hotpants and a sheer woman’s nightie, with some veil over him for a minute or two. This singer’s specialty seemed to be singing off-key, off-tempo, and showing off his ass. Was I impressed? No. Was I entertained? Very. Was I amused by JHo’s fascination with this guy? Absolutely. :) Honestly, I wonder what we must have looked like. There was JHo, dressed quite nicely in a lavender(? Plum? Light Purple? Dark Pink) sweater and classy tan coat. There was Alan with dreads, Tuuk in standard hooded sweatshirt, and me, an obvious poser with Swac’s jacket and standard black hooded sweatshirt.(Poser –> One who does all he or she can to appear as though they fit in with a certain scene, without accepting or holding true to any of the ideals of said scene, or truly grasping what it is they are trying to be a part of. See Also: 75% of my High School life.) The group there was eclectic. You had your typical metal fans, your druggies, your artsy smoker types, then what I can only assume are the girls dating someone from one of the previous groups, or girls who got lost on their way to Old Navy. Either way, it made me feel less out of place watching them walk through the place.

So freakshow cross-dresser tattoo guy is playing, and lo and behold, Dave shows up! I had written him off as a no show about 5 minutes prior, so it was kewl to see him there. Alan brought forth another pitcher, and we did a little magical disappearing act with it fairly quickly, and then it was time for Cephalic Carnage. At Tuuk’s prompting, we headed up to the front to see these guys. I am not exaggerating when I saw that every song was prefaced by explaining why “the next song is about weed” and either its legalization, its ability to make you not do things your supposed to, or how some weed was better than other weed, and you really ought to go for the good stuff. It’s fortunate that he explained this, because it wasn’t quite clear at the outset what chemicals it was that made the guitarist look like such a dork. I assumed it was just the fact that he was born looking kinda dorkish, and overcompensated by trying to look tough/mad/constipated on stage. Not laughing at him would have taken almost all of my strength. (I say “would have” because I ended up laughing at him anyway, he looked ridiculous). I also picked up fairly early on that this guy didn’t care at all what chords he was playing, unless he was the only one playing. Then he’d stop his manic jumping and thrashing, play a fairly simplistic chord progression or single string riff, then flash the devil horns in celebration as though he had single handedly just performed all twelve of Hercules’ labors. That having been said, they were a lot better than the previous band, and I was entertained yet again. Worthy of special mention was one of their last songs, when they all put on masks (some looked like KISS masks, while the lead singer had some sort of hooded monster type thing going on). This seemed to anger the drugged out stoner girl who had spent much of their set walking around in a drunken ambling circle, occasionally stopping in front of the stage to flick them off, explain why they were both great and completely sucked, and then mumbling incoherently as she headed back off in her circle, seemingly more determined than ever to kick the ass of the invisible person she was chasing after. Her time would soon come, when she threw her beer at some guy, and a bouncer instantly nabbed her and tossed her to the curb. I hadn’t seen anything that kewl since I saw a shoplifter get leveled at Meijer: (Short story time:)

I was at Meijer with Sven and Adam Young, my Junior year of college. We had already gone through the checkout and bought our stuff, and I was at the services desk buying some stamps. The two ladies behind the desk were talking about some lady, and were pointing her out as she walked back and forth in the middle of the store. Then one of the ladies explained that this girl had come in to the store earlier that day and stolen an expensive jacket. Then just recently she had returned, and returned that jacket for cash. Once she had done so, the returns desk notified the manager, who notified security, who had discretely moved to the exits, and were waiting for her to try to leave. So I got my stamps, and as I headed towards Steve and Adam, who were sitting at a bench I think, the girl tried to leave the store, and security stopped her… or tried to anyway. The girl made a break for it, and they jumped her, tackled her, and she started struggling. After a few seconds they had her pretty well taken care of, but there was blood all over the floor, and she did not appear to be enjoying herself at all. About a year later, Josh and I were at this same Meijer, and we saw a guy get tackled in the parking lot. We assumed it was security again, but it could have just been a roving band of hooligans. Either way, we were more amused by the 3 people ahead of us who managed to walk into the wrong door: They were on their way in, and the first walked toward the Exit door, and slowed slightly when it didn’t open for him, but the two people behind continued walking, eventually resulting in all three of them walking right into the door with a fairly audible “Thud”. Only in America.

So this girl got taken out… but I’m pretty sure she reappeared later on. The final band was Sadomasochism, and they were quite good. The guitarist was attractive, and her ability to play the guitar as well as she did made her even more so… though I’m quite certain Tuuk would have had no problem sacrificing me on an alter if it meant getting to her, and I can accept that. Alan was quite right in pointing out this band’s exceptional ability to swing their long hair in synchronized circles to the music. I wonder if they practice that… and I’m forced to believe they do. JHo and Dave took off midway through, so it was Alan, Tuuk, and I. They played a Slayer cover that was seriously kewl. These people obviously had talent, and though it’s not music I’d ever buy, I did appreciate the fact that they were talented, and played real chords, real progressions, and the songs didn’t sound like uninspired chaotic dissonance coupled with incoherent screaming. (yes, for those of you reading behind the lines, I’m saying I think a lot of “Metal” musicians lack talent, and the unintelligible screaming, lack of rhythm or tempo, and absence of any real chord progression or established guitar presence behind garbled, loud distortion are just thinly veiled covers for the fact that they suck. Can people listen to and enjoy that kind of music? Sure. Same way people can listen to a crappy boy band and believe them to be talented musicians. Turns out a lot of people are stupid, so none of this should surprise you… unless you’re one of them… in which case, just crank up your Backstreet Boys album and forget all about all this… odds are you already have.) By the time they were done, the inside of my skull was bleeding. So Alan and I took off, and Tuuk remained, planning on heading off to Mulligans. Alan and I were feeling a little dazed still, so we headed on off to Joel and Adam’s place for a while, where we managed to sleep with our eyes open for a while, while still taking part in conversations. I’d say that I’ve mastered this skill at work, but it would seem I’m still occasionally actually falling completely asleep in meetings, which doesn’t go over so well. So thanks Joel and Adam. After a little while, Alan and I took off, and walked in the bitter cold (Cold sucks) to our cars.

I made it home, and it was late. 2 or 3, I really don’t remember. I was exhausted, so I did what most normal people do when they’re exhausted and it’s well past when they should go to sleep: I started cooking dinner. My roommate, Swac, was in the living room “watching” This is Spinal Tap. He was fast asleep, managing to drown out the DVD with his explosive snoring. Thankfully I was only about 5 minutes into my conversation with him when I realized he was asleep. Swac is usually capable of carrying on a decent conversation while asleep, or at least his light sleep… and this has led to problems in the past when I’ve woken him up and convinced him that he’s supposed to be at work.. only to find him still in bed hours later, completely unaware that any conversation about work ever took place. So anyway, I made some macaroni and cheese, and was able to eat it. This marks the first time since graduating from college that I’ve been able to eat Mac and Cheese. (I overdid it big time on mac and cheese my Junior and Senior years, and haven’t been able to stomach the stuff since.) I then watched some Malcolm in the Middle episodes, because sleeping is for suckers.

Saturday was the lan party at Joel and Adam’s place. Basically, Adam 0wnZ0rd us the entire day, though when Tuuk and I teamed up, we faired pretty well. It was good fun, and I thank Joel and Adam for hosting the thing. Around 9 or so I took off, and made plans to meet up with Robb at Max and Erma’s. I made it safely there, after an adventurous ride through the snow.. I pulled more than my share of “Dukes of Hazard”-esque turns. (Dukes of Hazard-esque turn –> The turn where the back end of your car swings out wide one direction, then overcompensates wide to the other, then manages to straighten out when you floor it. This is seen as something mildly impressive when done on dry ground, and nothing short of terrifying when done on sheer ice.) So I showed up, and got myself a table for 2 in Tressa’s section. A few minutes later, Swac shows up and sits next to me. I was confused, as I didn’t think Swac was even home. Turns out Swac went home, and saw a note from Robb mentioning that he and I were at Max and Erma’s, and wouldn’t be back til 10ish, so Swac had headed out to join us. This brought up the question: Where in the world was Robb? So I started looking around the restaurant for him, but no dice. Eventually, Robb did show, and he hadn’t gone anywhere else, just went straight from the house to the restaurant… so we were kinda confused as to what sort of temporal rift he had gotten himself lodged in, but oh well. (Maybe he had gotten directions from Andy. Zing!) Anyway, we got the Sundae bar, and Tressa hooked us up with a head start, as there was a table of at least 10-12 people who had all gotten the sundae bar as well. Once again, Tressa rules, and once again, the sundaes were on the house. Membership has its privileges.

If you’ve never listened to Great Big Sea, you ought to check them out. I’ve been listening to them for the past few hours, and really like them. I appreciate music that would make good poetry, and many of the songs I’ve heard thus far have that quality to them.

We headed back to our place, right as Cathy showed up, so we all hung out with her for a few hours. After she took off, I did a little prep work for my Sunday school class, then biked for a while, watched some more Malcolm, then eventually drifted off to sleep… which leads us to today. I headed off to church while still very tired, which is nothing new. After the service, there was a short fellowship time, because a family from our church was moving back to Japan, so that was nice, but sad. I talked to my friends Brad and Heather, who had recently gotten engaged. Brad is a year younger than me, and he and I used to double date when we were both seeing girls from GR (Beth and Kelly). He always seemed to have good luck with women, which was frustrating, because on more than one occasion we held an interest in the same girl. Add to that the fact that I suck, and you pretty much know the result of every #_)*##%)(*$)*(@$)@ one of those situations. But I digress… for the last few years he’s been with Heather, and she’s great, and they’re great together, so it’s good to see them excited about this next step. But then you start thinking “wait a minute.. he’s younger than I am, and he and I used to double date, and now he’s getting married, and I’ve got nothing. [expletives deleted]”

Afterwards, it was Sunday School, which went alright. Our new books basically suck. It’s a study on Acts, which is good, but the lessons are all way too short, and I think they’re from the 70′s, and yeah.. they aren’t great. Top that with the fact that my 8th graders had this book last year, and I’m totally screwed. It was hard enough getting them to pay attention when it was something new, now I’ve got pretty much no shot. Nevertheless, it went alright. I don’t understand why the teacher’s manual will write out page after page of exactly what the lesson is supposed to be about, then the kid’s books have next to nothing in them, besides some stupid cartoon and an activity that involves kids doing a bunch of things we all know full well these kids aren’t going to do, like discussing a 2 paragraph story for more than 30 seconds. Finally, I had the kids read parts of the teacher’s manual to the rest of the class, and that seemed to help quite a bit.

I got a hold of Kristin on the way back home, and she joined me at my place, where we had some lunch and watched movies. First up was The Good Girl, which was not at all what I expected. It was quite good though. It has Jennifer Aniston (from Office Space and some TV show) and Jake Gyllenhaal from Donnie Darko. Our favorite line: “You’re just a hooker… you hooker!” Next up was About a Boy, which was also very good. Significantly less heavy than the previous film, this one had Hugh Grant, whom I know some of you don’t care for, but I like him. After this, Kris and I cooked up some dinner, and watched some more Malcolm. Then Kristin took off, and I cleaned up a bit, headed to my room, and promptly fell asleep. When I woke up, I started up this thing… so there you have it. I have more to say, but I’m exhausted, and have been told to go to sleep, so I think I will.

I want to write, but I’m not sure what to write about, so this one may come out a bit disjointed as opposed to the well constructed, thesis-worthy posts you’re now accustomed to receiving from me. I’ll start by catching you up on what’s been going on lately, cause my life is so horribly interesting to you that you can’t help but check here 4 times a day to see if I’ve written anything or gained any more weight or something.

An aside

(that didn’t take long at all did it? I’m not even on a subject yet and already I’m interrupting it for something else)

I’m currently listening to Jimmy Eat World. I like them quite a bit. But hearing Jimmy Eat World – Sweetness reminded me of a thought I had while at work the other day: I instantly link things to situations or events, and those links are sealed in my head forever. It’s the worst with music, as pretty much every song has some story to go with it about “this one time, when this song was on, and yada yada yada”. And every time I hear the song from that point on, it’s that memory flashing through my head. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. I guess it depends on the memory, eh? It reminds me of this time back when I was in college, and I had some people over to play Settlers of Catan, I believe (I think we watched Office Space afterwards). Anyway, Steve was over, and some R.E.M. came on (from Automatic for the People, I think), and Steve was transfixed. The music reminded him of events from his past… and I sat and watched him, and it was like looking in a fun-house mirror: Here was this song that meant something completely different to Steve and to me, and yet it had this similar effect on us both. And it made me feel good to know that others shared in this power that music had, and it wasn’t just because I had some sort of chemical imbalance. But then there are those albums and songs that I can’t listen to anymore.. not because I don’t like them, but because the memory is too powerful, or painful, or I’m just not feeling emotionally prepared to deal with it… Story:

When my family was set to move from Cleveland to Zeeland, we had our farewell service at the church my dad preached at. The last song we sang was “Lead Me, Guide Me”. Now I did not want to move at all, and I was pretty pissed about the whole thing. Anyway, the song starts, and we get through about one verse and then my mom started crying, and after about 2 seconds, I completely lost it. To this day, I can’t stand that song, I hate singing it, and I loathe the days when it’s part of a service. When my Grandpa was in the hospital, shortly before he passed away, my family, and my Grandma, my cousins, and my aunt were in the room with him, and we sang “How Great Thou Art” together. I still love that hymn, but it’s hard to sing now. Very hard.

Those aren’t the norm, obviously. “Mr. Jones” reminds me of working at the greenhouse with Tim Vroom, and just the two of us slaving away for hours at the tray filler while trying to figure out what it is in life that’ll finally bring us happiness. It might seem like less powerful a memory, but it still feels so real. I’m probably not going to break down and cry to “Mr. Jones”, but I can’t hear that song without drifting back to those days, and wondering if me from back that would like who I am now. And you know what? I think he would. Thanks, Alan, for helping me figure that out. So yeah, “Sweetness” is long done by now, and I’ve stopped thinking about it (“Pillar of Davidson” is on now, with a whole new event to relive), but I know it’ll be back, and I find that both comforting and annoying. The price of a memory is the memory of the sorrow it brings

Aside over

So I was going to tell you about all that has happened since I last posted, which was Friday. Saturday I had great difficulty getting out of bed, due largely to my great desire to remain in my bed forever. Eventually (3ish? it was at least 3:30 I know) I got up, and cleaned for a while. I then returned to my bed, and watched 2 Weeks Notice, which was quite good. Later on, Robb and I headed off to Max and Ermas for dinner, as Tressa is now working Saturday nights. Dinner was good, and I drank a lot of beer. I heard on NPR a little while back that the more often you drink, the lower the risk of certain heart and cardiovascular problems later in life. (well, nevermind the whole liver problem). So I felt nice and healthy. (heh, mix that with Brian’s advice on how to keep from getting colds, and life would be more or less perfect.) After dinner we returned home, and I returned to my bed for a while, then chatted with Alan for a while online, leading to us meeting at Fridays out by me at around midnight, which was a blast. Thanks again, Alan. Our waitress, Suzanne, was a gymnast, apparently (this, and the phrase “keg stands” came up in rapid succession. Yeah, you had to be there.) Anyway, Alan and I hung out til about 2:15, when we were told to leave. Here’s something to remember: If you’re rude to someone, you can’t then in the next sentence pretend to be nice. Just stick with the rudeness, and call it good. Example: If you tell someone to leave your establishment in a less than polite way, don’t then follow that with “Have a good night”, cause you just sound like a dick. Instead, just say “thanks” or nothing and call it good. Anyway, I stumbled home, and slept quite soundly, and had some messed up dreams.

Highlights from Sunday… I got some good Metroid Prime hours in, and like that game a ton. Josh came over at night, and he, Robb, and I played some games, then watched some Malcolm in the Middle episodes. Afterwards, I hopped on the bike and put in some time there.

Monday I woke up late, I think, and drove in by myself to work. Work continues to be quite good, especially now. UTF-8 is the kewlest thing since me. I love designing something, then coding it, and see it actually working better than I had planned or hoped, and thus far, bg3 has done just that. Let’s hope that’s a trend that continues. Lunch was an adventure. First off, BDF tried to burn the building down with his crazy frozen pizza. Second, my hand continued to show signs of being demon-possessed. Imagine a cross between Tom Hank’s hand in Saving Private Ryan and George Costanza’s arm in that episode of Seinfeld where he fakes having that odd spazm all the time. It’s not good. For a little while I was really freaked it might be Parkinson’s disease or something, but then I figured I should at least check out what other symptoms I was supposed to have before jumping to that conclusion, and that sounded like a lot of work, so I went back to the demon-possession hypothesis. The rest of work was fairly uneventful, though Tetris seems to have found a nice semi-regular home at our 3pm Frisbee break time-slot. The drive home was quite enjoyable.

Monday night Cathy came over, and Robb, Swac, Mandace, Cathy, and I headed off to Fridays for dinner. After dinner we headed back to my place and watched 12 Monkeys. I had forgotten how much that movie rules. After the movie, Serita called, and I talked to her for a while, which was good stuff as well. Then rather than sleeping, I worked out til I could no longer see or stand, then watched The New Guy (“Who’s the bitch now?”). By then it was about 4, so I fell asleep long enough for my alarm clock to giggle with glee, and I was rudely awakened by its buzz.Who needs sleep?

Tuesday was more of the same. Woke up, headed to the meeting point, fell asleep. Woke up, got in a different car, fell asleep. Woke up, got in my cubical, fell asl— began working. Tuesday evening Kris, Julie, Sven, and I headed out to Best Buy and bought each other DVDs. It’s a Christmas thing we do, where we pick out the movies we want, and get someone else to buy them for us. I got Minority Report, The Good Girl, and bought myself The Last of the Mohicans. Then it was off to Max and Ermas for dinner. Kristin began working her magic on our server, (Katie H, I think), and scored us free ice cream sundaes. And there was much rejoicing. Apparently, you have to ask for the “free desserts” and they give them to you. Hand it to Kristin to figure that kinda thing out. Danke, Kris! After dinner it was off to the Pickwick, which was good, as always. After dropping a few people and things off, it was back home, and eventually off to sleep.

Wednesday was a new Ed, and it was excellent. Mindy came over, and we got some pizza and watched Ed. For those of you not watching, they’ve got this new girl, Frankie, who’s working with Ed now, and she seems quite good. (She’s Wade, from Sliders, Sabrina Lloyd). Anyway, it’s good, and Dr. Jerome was/is back, which is excellent I think. After Ed, I got a hold of Kris, and she headed over, and we watched Minority Report, which was just as good as I remembered it being. Afterwards, people took off, and I cleaned up for a while, biked a bit, worked out until I loudly requested death, then headed off to sleep.

That brings us to Thursday, my work from home day. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again now, working from your own bed is pure joy. The only thing better would be removing the work part, and possibly adding a female… you get the picture. After work, I headed off to Meijer and bought a TON of food, then after swinging by Sven and Julie’s place, headed home to try my hand at Lasagna. Expecting disaster, I took pictures. It turned out quite good, and Swac agreed, so I’m not just lying to make myself feel better. So there we have it, I didn’t completely screw that up, so on to the next cooking challenge: Chili. Seriously, though, cooking takes for-freaking-ever. I went shopping for stuff at 5, and finally got to eat at 9:30. That’s too long. I prefer things of the “instant” variety.

Speaking of 9:30, Good Morning, Miami was on today, and the show is getting better. I’m going to like it no matter what, I think, but they’ve actually done the things I’ve said they ought to do, like ditch the Nun, and the jokes there were barely funny in the 80′s, and just focus on the crazy love Square they’ve got going on (Penny has joined the triangle, changing it’s shape by one side and one corner. Anyway, It was really good. And as always, Scrubs was excellent.

I’ve got more to say, but it’s past 2, and I told Joel I wanted to go in to work early tomorrow to get some stuff done as soon as possible, and I’m betting I’m going to sleep through all of my alarms tomorrow anyway, so I’d better go to sleep now. But here’s hoping it won’t take me a week to post again.

So it’s been a little while… Friday sucked, as usual. Saturday I headed off with Sven, Julie, Becky, and Mindy to a Christmas party on my Mom’s (Johnson) side. Was good fun. The pictures pretty much sum up the day: Lots of Euchre, some pet rats, some excellent pizza, and allergies. Sunday was church, then Kristin and I headed off to Max and Ermas with Robb. Tressa wasn’t there, though she said she was going to be. We headed back, and they watched Donnie Darko as I cleaned the house in preparation for Serita‘s visit.

Serita showed up Sunday evening, and shortly thereafter, Jplant showed up. We talked for a while, played a bizarre game of Settlers of Catan. (Bizarre –> I built on 11′s and 2′s, and 11 got rolled about 60% of the time… consequently, the scoring was quite lopsided.). Meanwhile, Kristin and Robb watched Malcolm in the Middle episodes. Afterwards, we (Jplant, Serita, and I) played cards (nerts, I think), then Skip-bo. I managed to sink quite quickly into a nasty introverted downward spiral of stupid thoughts and mental masochism, and proceeded to ensure that both Serita and Jeff had a lousy time. Way to go, me. We sat around and talked for a long while afterwards, which was good, but again, I was out of it. Sorry Serita. Sorry Jeff. It was really good seeing Serita again, though. That evening it snowed a ton, and Serita had to drive back to Ann Arbor, and the roads were horrible… so it was slow going for her, and we ended up talking on the phone for a while that night as she drove. I told her to call me when she got home, so I knew she had made it safely.. She ended up calling again around 3ish or something mentioning that she was close to home, but stuck in a traffic jam. She didn’t get home til 5 or so. That would suck. Anyway, I was up all that night, not really feeling tired, and my brain still grinding itself to small pieces. I think I may have gotten a little sleep, but I honestly don’t remember. It didn’t matter, I wasn’t that tired Monday.

Monday was work. Nothing all that exciting except I got a decent amount of sleep in the Home Depot parking lot. I said I wasn’t that tired, but man, there’s few things better then getting a quick nap in your car with the heat at full blast. Let’s see. Work was uneventful, save for the return of Tetris, the worst tasting Creme of Broccoli soup, and the discovery that my hand is possessed by a demon. Like I said, uneventful. Monday night I came home, watched some TV, took a nap, biked for an hour, worked out for a long while, an generally just wasted away the evening trying to decide what I should do.

Tuesday was work… fairly uneventful. Then after work, Joel, Tuuk, and I headed off to Bennigans on Alpine. Joel and I got there first. And the story goes like this:

Our waitress shows up (Nikki, I think.. It was one of those names that ends with “EE“. She wanted to know what we wanted to drink. Joel asked what was on tap…the rest of the conversation went something like this:

Nikki: We have, like, 20 beers on tap, so pretty much anything you want we have.

Joel: What Founders do you have on tap?

Nikki: What?

Joel: Founders. What Founders do you have on tap?

Nikki: I don’t know what you mean.

Joel: Founders Beer.

Nikki: You mean like Budweiser?

Joel: No, Founders Beer. It’s a type of Beer.

At this point Nikki turns to me with a confused look on her face. See seems to grasp the concept that Founders is the name of a beer, but she’s still having a hard time.

Ron: Yeah, I didn’t know what he was talking about either.

Nikki: Yeah, I thought he meant like -

Nikki and Ron simultaneously: the founder of the brewery!

Joel: No. Founders is a type of beer.

Nikki: Oh, No. We don’t have that. I’ve never even heard of that

Ron: Me neither..

Joel: I’ll have a Newcastle.

Ron: Me too.

Nikki writes down our order, cards us, then leaves.

Joel: You’ve never heard of Founders before?!

Ron: Yeah, I have.

Joel: You just completely sold me out?

Ron: Yeah, I did.

So you can look at this story from one of 3 ways (I’m sure Andy would agree, there are always III Sides to Every Story):

My side

The girl was confused and felt kinda stupid, and I was just making her feel a bit more comfortable/at ease by making a joke about it, setting Joel up as the crazy beer snob and us as normal people. Joel could take pride in his vast beer knowledge, and she could feel comfortable knowing that she wasn’t just completely ignorant or really supposed to know about some special kind of beer.

Joel’s Side

The girl ought to know about a beer made in GR, especially at a restaurant that boasts having so many beers on tap. (It became increasingly obvious as the evening continued that she knew of 4 or 5 beers tops.. Heh, they probably had Founders there…) I (Ron) was just out to a) make Joel look like a snob. b) make the cute waitress like me more. c) Make Joel look like a snob while making the cute waitress like me more.

The Truth

See Joel’s Side…. Nah… It’s a mixture. Honestly, I was confused for a second, then felt bad for the girl (whom I hope was new, cause she wasn’t really that with it as far as what they had), then saw a grand opportunity to zing Joel. (Remember those Database Relationship zings, Joel? Yeah, that’s what I thought.)

After dinner, Joel and I headed back to Joel’s place, where Adam and I played Mortal Kombat V for PS2. I’ll say this right off: I’m not a fan of the PS2 controller, because I don’t like having two top buttons on both sides. I just don’t like it. And I wouldn’t even say it’s because I’m not used to it, because I played a LOT of Tekken Tag back in the day, but I hated it then too. Second thing: I liked the Mortal Kombat franchise a lot. I was an arcade addict with MK1 and MK2. I had MK2 and Mk3 for Genesis and Snes respectively. I thought the game was set up well: Special moves were powerful, but not too much so. Each character had a style, and you could use basic moves well consistently with each player (eg. A jump kick, then quick mid kick, then sweep kick would work well with any player). Thus you could fight effectively without using any special moves, and no one player was obviously the most powerful. (though some, like Johnny Cage, did seem to suck). They were all fine 2d fighters, and I played them a lot. Being able to actually kill people was a nice addition as well. Now MK5. First difference is that it’s 3d (ala Virtua Fighter or Soul Caliber). That’s fine with me, as I loved Soul Caliber. (Though that did have the addition of Sophitia…). MKV just seemed to lack something, and I didn’t like it. The fact that I got my ass kicked repeatedly was annoying, sure, but I got my ass kicked in Tekken Tag for a long time and continued to like it… and eventually got better. So what didn’t I like? First off, it’s all about special moves. Don’t even bother with kicks and punches unless you know a 5 hit combo that’ll do any sort of damage… and even that will be made null by one decent special move by your opponent. I’ve already mentioned I hate the controller, but the default position of the block button really pissed me off. It also pissed me off that blocking did next to nothing for me most of the time. I finally switched it, and did a bit better, but by then I had significantly cooled on the game. One thing that I thought was kind of kewl was the weapon idea. You can switch your fighting style (which, honestly, I thought was dumb), and one of them equipped you with a weapon. If you had a sword or knife, you might be able to stick it in your opponent, and it’d stay there, and their health would drop slowly down the rest of the match. I thought that was kinda kewl… but ultimately pretty cheap. The game felt slow to me too. I don’t like a game where if you get caught not blocking (or blocking but the game decided not to care) you have the next 5 seconds to just sit and watch as a series of moves happen that you can’t do anything about. It just felt like you’d have to wait for things to happen.. I’m used to a faster paced fight. The 3d aspect was fine, but it just didn’t seem as fun as it did in Soul Caliber. There was always the threat of getting pushed off an edge, or moves that actually did 3d-esque things in that game… This seemed more like a 2d fighter within a 3d atmosphere. And finally, the special moves in the game have gotten stale. None of them struck me as being new or interesting… in fact, most of them were the same as they were in MK1. Sure, Subzero should have his Iceball, and he should still have his slide kick, but how about something new.. his decoy in Mk3 was clever, why did we lose that? Why not give him a move involving his sword? I dunno… I’ll just hold out for Soul Caliber 2, I think.

After MKV, we headed to Tuuk and Mark’s place for a bit. Joel and I fired up Zelda: 4 Swords, and made it to the last guy, and killed him once. We were proud. Then he came back, and we had to leave, cause it was almost 10, so we just shut it off. Then we headed to the Pickwick. It had been 3 weeks since the last Pickwick get together, and we all (Joel, Tuuk, Adam, Mark, Jplant, and I) had mentioned how we missed it, and were looking forward to it. Alan was a no-show. Turns out he fell asleep. Sucker. Anyway, it was fun. The Founders story was told, beer was consumed, and we stayed til we were more or less kicked out. If I haven’t said it already, I’ll say it now (well, I’m saying it now regardless, so deal.) I’m forever thankful for the Pickwick Crew. You guys make the bad weeks livable, and the good weeks that much better. There’s just something satisfying and reassuring about knowing there’s that day when people you know and care about are going to get together and hang out, no matter what else might be going on. Everyone ought to be so lucky.

After the Pickwick, we walked back (I had my nice coat with me, and I didn’t want it smelling all smoky, so I left it at Tuuk and Mark’s place. The walk to the bar was cold, but the walk back was strangely warm.) to Tuuk and Mark’s, where Tuuk fired up Jak and Dexter, and Mark, Joel, and I started up a grand 3-player game of 4 Swords. We got a ways into the game when Mark’s batteries died. After a little battery scouring, we were up and at them again, and ripped through the levels, and returned to the final level. (All 3 of us needed all the keys, so we had to go through a few old levels with Mark.. very fun.) The thing with this game is that it’s a competitive cooperative game. You need to work together to get further into the level, but the whole time you’re trying to get more Rupees than your opponents.. this leads to odd situations where you must trust for a few seconds that your teammate won’t kill you, and then instantly grab them, and toss them into a pit right afterwards. Crazy, eh? Yeah, and a ton of fun. Anyway, after some work, we made it back to the final guy, and after a bit of impressive cooperation, we beat him. So chalk up another Zelda game beaten. Woot! We then headed to Joel’s place, I took a much needed shower, and got a decent amount of sleep for the first time in a number of weeks on the couch.

Joel woke me up Wednesday morning, and I was confused…and not at my house. Grabbed some clothes from Joel, hopped into Dave’s car, and fell right back asleep. I woke up in the work parking lot. I made it to my cube, and fell asleep while my computer was booting up. (if ($reader eq “bcp”) { =~ s/fell asleep/worked diligently/g; }) Anyway, after a big mug of Hot Chocolate, I was ready to go. This week of work has actually been very productive, and very fun. I’ve been planning and working toward this project since… well, I was hired in May of 2001. But at least the end of 2001/beginning of 2002, when the newest iteration of The Bible Gateway went live, we’ve been thinking about the next iteration… and after the redesign, we had a full plate of ideas of things that would be grand to do, and it honestly is exciting to get to a point where we can make some of these a reality. I can’t describe the giddy feeling I got when I had code rendering John 3:16 in Chinese, Korean, Russian, Bulgarian, and Arabic on the same page properly. I dunno, maybe that doesn’t sound all that exciting.. but when you spend pretty much every day on this kind of stuff, seeing something like that actually working the way you had dreamed it would months ago, it’s a reason to celebrate. The next weeks/months are going to be action packed, but for the first time in a while, I’m really, really jazzed to do it. Well, that, and Alan pretty much demanded I don’t screw this thing up. I will say that I’m really fortunate I’ve got the people I do to help me out on this. Not only are they a joy to work with, but they’ve all got their specialty, and it seems to gel together nicely to help form a direction. (yes, even BDF and his crazy number obsession… the more I think about it, the more I like it.)

So anyway, Wednesday night Mindy, Sven, and Julie headed on over for the new Ed, which was good. There’s a new girl on the show. She’s got a boyfriend, but she’ll end up with Ed pretty soon, I’d say… that line of thinking has proven wrong before though… Afterwards it was Skip-bo, then 15 miles on the bike, then I started up my fast workout routine. (Fast Workout Routine –> Invented in High School, this workout involves 100 knuckle push-ups, and 200 crunches, all done in time to Losing My Religion. The idea is to do it so fast that you don’t have time to realize you want to die, and can’t feel any part of your body. ) It went fairly well, until I finished and was unable to move for quite some time.

Today was a typical Thursday: Worked from my bed all morning, got my laundry done, cut my hair, cleaned the kitchen. After work, I figured out how to burn VCDs from avi clips, which is excellent, cause now I can watch TV shows in avi format on my DVD player… TV shows watched on TV! Only in America! (Thanks to Robb for pointing out the irony ). Then Kristin came over, and we headed off to Mindy’s, then got some food, then headed to my place to watch The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Extended Edition with Swac and Mandace. After that, they took off, and I put in another 7.5 miles on the bike. Then I started up on this thing.. that was a while ago. And now It’s 3:30.

I’ve decided my first cooking project will be lasagna. I’m looking forward to giving that a shot. Any suggestions for the 2nd meal?

It’s already 3 am, so I’m not going to add the third part to the New Year’s Post now. Tomorrow, I guess. But I wanted to say a few things. First, pictures from New Years are now online. Check them out. Next, the New Year’s Resolutions are going well, thus far. And Thirdly, today was a really good day. I worked from my bed much of the day. I cleaned my room and got my laundry done. Dinner with Christy at Max and Ermas was really, really good. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: I love spending time with people that I can just talk to for hours without there ever being that awkward silence where you’re frantically searching for what the hell you can talk about. Christy and I burned through about 3 hours before I even realized time had passed. Then back home, and on to the bike for a while while watching episodes of Scrubs. Later on, Cathy came over, and we all watched Sneakers (My voice is my passport. Verify Me). We had Cathy convinced that we were actually watching Like Mike for a little while, which was quite fun. Anyway, I should sleep, but in closing: The day was good, the new year doesn’t suck (yet), the bike is excellent, and bedskirts don’t make a guy gay. By the way, if you’re reading this, and your name is Nicole, and you work at Logan’s Roadhouse, and you were, in fact, winking back at me, I need your phone number. Thanks!