going in circles

christmas came early

2007-12-06T00:13:00.000-05:00

Tigers get Dontrelle Willis and Miguel Cabrera for Cameron Maybin, Andrew Miller and some minor league prospects.

I know no one else cares about this but bring on April!

it's been a long weekend

2007-11-18T19:58:00.000-05:00

This weekend was a welcomed change of pace as Jill and I have for the first time actually have had guests stay with us since we've moved in to our apartment back in June. We're not losers anymore!

Friday was Silver Bells, where 100,000 people who otherwise never step foot into downtown Lansing the other 364 days of the year, pack themselves into one intersection to watch the lighting of the state christmas tree. After an almost 2 hours parade, the evening conclude with an anti-climatic tree lightning and a 5 minute firework display. It was alright but it made me miss coming to this event when I was with a kid.

After that we met up with some friends of Jill and went to a few bars and ending up running into some old friends of my own. This town is a lot smaller than I've come to realize.

Saturday I went to my parents house to have Thanksgiving dinner because my sister and I have other plans for Thursday. Among the highlights of this years dinner was finding my fathers hidden whiskey bottle under the couch and hearing his words of wisdom on why he doesn't want Hillary Clinton to be president "she'll start ragging and push the button". My sister was also being a total bitch to my mother throughout the dinner and I was given a guilt trip for not wanting to bring leftovers home. I felt sick after the food though, the only vegetable on the table was the green bean casserole.

Jill's first set of friends left in the afternoon and another set arrived at our apartment around 3:30 this morning. I went to bed long before this and was kind of annoyed the still chose to come out so late but they're not my friends so I guess I can't complain. We went out to dinner this afternoon and since then I've just lounged around the house. They've left and we finally get the first peace and quiet of the weekend.

Although with the typical weekends we have it was still a welcome change of pace.

high school reunions

2007-11-15T20:42:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago I was sent a message on facebook reminding me about my upcoming 10 year high school reunion next year. I didn't need to be reminded to be honest, I've known for awhile but it still felt awkward to have people who I haven't thought of, much less spoken to in almost a decade to ask if I was going to attend. I don't really know how to respond. I don't want to be that weirdo that still has resentful feelings towards things from so long ago but I don't know if going to my reunion is really going to change anything.

I think I'll probably pass but I have until Labor Day next year if my mind changes.

thoughts on being lazy

2007-11-12T22:29:00.000-05:00

Quite often when I'm overstressed with work, school, relationships or so forth I always imagine just letting everything go and not doing a single thing for days at a time. I like to think about how relaxing that would be to not have a single care in the world. This weekend Jill was out of town for 3 days and I took Friday off so thats exactly what I did. I didn't even bother to leave the house for most of the weekend except Saturday. I also had Monday off (on account of veterans day, I love that we get every federal holiday off even though I don't work for the government) so its been 4 long days of nothing and it was WONDERFUL! I only wish I could keep it going. I think I'm getting my usual 2 week Christmas vacation from work as well (we shut down for half the month...WITH PAY!) so I'll be able to do it all over again.

walking in a winter wonderhell

2007-11-04T09:06:00.000-05:00

Jill and I decided to get out of town and go to Frankenmuth for no real reason. I thought maybe the crowds wouldn't be so crazy because of the MSU/UM game but boy how I was wrong!

We started out going to bronners christmas wonderhell where the crying babies, wideass people and cranky grandparents were out in full force, buying cheaply made overpriced ornaments and generally taking up more space than was necessary. The crowds became too overwhelming to really look at much of anything plus the fact that Jill and I are generally pretty anti-consumerist (I'm not even sure thats really a word), we left after an hour with nothing in our hands and a increased dislike for families and old people.

Next we went to the downtown area and walked around River Place, which is just a poor man's Mackinaw Crossings, minus the fudge shops. We were starving so we stopped into this cafeteria/arcade/gift shop area and ordered veggie wraps (since it was the only thing on the menu without meat). While we waited for our order these two elderly women decided that waiting 30 minutes (which was probably more like 10 minutes in their 80 year old mindset) was long enough for their hamburgers and decided to yell at the staff and pound their fists on the table until they got served. I guess grandma forgot to take her fiber tablets and was feeling irregular. Our wraps were nothing to write home about either with its lifeless iceberg lettuce, mushrooms and raspberry vinaigrette. Good thing neither of us were expecting much.

We left the nightmare of Frankenmuth to head over to the nightmare of Birch Run. Like Frankenmuth, the same people were abundant and there was no where to park. We decided to use my mothers handicap sign to finally park and get out. It was wrong I know, but thats the only time I've ever used it (though I've been tempted numerous times before)After Birch Run we left town.

Overall it was still a pretty enjoyable day and a stark reminder why I need to do my holiday shopping online this winter. If the crowds are this bad on November 2nd. I can't begin to imagine how much worse its going to get.

Ride the Sky

2007-11-02T20:24:00.000-04:00

Not for awhile have I been so glad that the weekend is finally upon us. Actually its been a few weeks like this. I don't know what it is but work seems to take everything out of me these days. I come home from work completely exhausted and ready to go to bed for the night at 7pm. I think it might be the weather. I don't enjoy the looming winter like I used to. I think everyone gets that way or so I would like to think I'm not the only one.

Tomorrow if things go according to plan Jill and I may be going to Frankenmuth for no other reason than any excuse to get out of the city for a couple of hours. I think it'll lift my spirits about the holidays coming up. Between things at work (which I wish I could elaborate on but of course I can't...ugh) and worrying if I have enough money for gifts I need to kept busy so I don't go crazy.

Looks like Jill is back from getting change to do the laundry, time to end this shit.

we've cleared one hurdle

2007-10-31T21:43:00.000-04:00

Halloween is over, what a relief! It should really come as no surprise to anyone that I've never been a fan of the holiday. Too many bad experiences from my childhood to really get into discussing it plus its a boring story anyway.

All thats left to ask now is, are the Christmas decorations up at the stores yet?

time to clean things up

2007-10-30T13:05:00.001-04:00

because no one is reading this and because I felt a change was needed, I decided to change the layout of my blog to better reflect my mood. How emo is that?

God I'm so fucking pathetic.

Have I failed to impress you?

2007-10-23T21:24:00.000-04:00

I've got around to reading my old email and felt like I was neglecting blogger so heres an update.

Jill and I went to Ann Arbor (or A2 for all the hip kids) to see Architecture in Helsinki at the Blind Pig. The two opening bands were just terrible but thats expected right? Thankfully AIH made up for it with one hell of a performance. If any of you reading are unfamiliar with the band, here's a link to their myspace page.

http://www.myspace.com/aihmusic

The show ended shortly before midnight but between the terrible weather and even worse service at Lil' Chef in Brighton, we didn't get home until 2:45 and to bed until almost 4. I called work and came in at noon. It was nice to get out and do something on a weekday, even if it throws my schedule off balance. Maybe thats what I need.

whew!

2007-09-11T22:20:00.000-04:00

I'm not going to start this out with one of those obligatory "i should update this more" intros because I'm tired of saying it and you're probably just as tired of reading it.

Today my co-workers and I were in Livonia working on a mayoral campaign. This was the first real fund raising events I've ever worked and it was more interesting that I thought.

I've just got to ask, what is the deal with people who don't have to work during the day or retired still being in a bathrobe at 12:30 in the afternoon? put some damn clothes on! or just don't answer the door.

Thankfully the houses we were knocking on were supporters of the candidate already so we didn't have to convince anyone as to why they needed to vote for her. I don't think I could've made it through the day doing that, especially since I'm completely unfamiliar with the area except that it's white and conservative.

We finally arrived back in Lansing around 10pm and I'm just completely exhausted.

I think for now I'm going to go play some more with the laptop and call it a night.

Don't talk shit about total!

2007-07-09T14:27:00.001-04:00

I've sent this to almost everyone on my Facebook account but for everyone else...

I'm still here...

2007-07-09T12:47:00.000-04:00

...but are you? No. Probably not, I know I wouldn't.

But in case some or one of you is still looking and didn't know already, a lot has happened. Most of which I'm not really going to go into deatil but Jill and I moved out on our own on June 14th in what could be called the longest, hottest most exhausting day of moving I had ever done. I seriously don't remember being that tired since summer basketball camps as a kid having to run 2 miles around a track in 90 degree heat. But we've finally settled in and for the most part I'm enjoying having our own little space not shared by roommates. We really haven't had anyone over yet but all who read are welcomed. It's nice, really it is.

Other than that the 4th was your typical fare of white trash in lawn chairs looking at exploding gunpowder. Our apartment was in the middle of everything so I was glad when the festivities were over and everyone crawled back to their respective trailer park. Right now we have another 8 day festival going on right across the river from our place which is still within hearing. Last night I had to listen to Peter Frampton and that obnoxious talk box thing. Hasn't he come up with a new gimmick already? are people really that into him anymore? Ah well, tonight is Los Lonely Boys *groan*

Okay, I need to get caught up on the last 5 days of work now.

happy birthday blog!

2007-05-23T10:00:00.001-04:00

Today marks 1 year since I've started this little blog of mine. To be honest I'm really surprised I was able to stay somewhat consistent with updating it. I had 76 posts to close out the year and my goal now is to make 100. I also want to thank the 4 people who may or may not still be reading this anymore. I appreciate every comment you leave behind letting me know that you actually exist. Alright, that's about it. Thanks again!

where everybody knows your name.

2007-05-21T13:54:00.001-04:00

Last weekend I participated in the wedding of a long time friend of mine. Being in the wedding party, I was around a lot of his family. Many of whom I've met throughout the years knowing him but never really remembered their names. Now I'll be the first to admit I'll forget someone as soon as I stop talking with them. My long term memory is pretty non-existent when it comes to people. The weird thing was though, many of these people remembered me. Not only did they remember my name, but the last time they saw me. It was weird to hear someone say "last time I saw you was at that No Doubt concert" (thats a different story and it was 1997, get off my case!). Who the hell remembers stuff like that? If you all know me you know I certainly don't.

It's not only his family that does this either, sometimes I have random people come up to me from high school (or junior high, even weirder) talking about stuff I can't remember and thinking that I remember who they are, then I feel like an ass and too embarrassed to admit that I don't. Is it so wrong of me to forget some things after 10+ years? It's not as if I'm trying to disassociate myself from my past it's just that I really don't remember it as well as everyone else around me it seems. I didn't think I really left that memorable of an impression back then.

I'm flattered that I have that kind of impact on some people but next time I have a puzzled look on my face or am not responding very much, at least tell me who you are and where you know me from. Maybe then I can fill in the rest but even not, you can tell me all about some juvenile stunt or prank I did that you remembered. I'll still appreciate it.

Does anyone else have this happen to them?

white trash at its finest

2007-05-20T12:19:00.002-04:00

Jill pointed out this website to me http://www.expotv.com where ordinary people give product reviews for $5. There is one woman that Jill and I have been watching that it too funny to not pass along.

I LOVE M&M'S CANDY! IT IS THE BEST CANDY IN THE WORLD!

Im a sucker for a food gimmick

2007-05-17T14:26:00.000-04:00

So theres this new Doritos flavor that got me interested. I'm always a sucker for a new junk food gimmick and this was no different, the packaging had me wonder what was really inside and the name, X-13D? sounds like something out of Star Wars. So I paid 99 cents for it on my lunch break, took it to my car and forgot about it.

When I got back to work I decided to read up on this to see if there was any more information about it. Wikipedia had nothing (which I thought was weird) and there were no other major news articles about it so I started searching community messageboards.

Apparently the "mystery flavor" is cheeseburger. Are you kidding me? fucking CHEESEBURGER?! thats the most disgusting thing I've ever heard of! thank god I didn't open it but what am I going to do with it now? Anyone want a free bag of shitty Doritos?

Wait, I'll bet Nate will eat it, he'll eat anything.

schools out for summer!

2007-05-07T11:39:00.000-04:00

Things are beginning to fall into place for me these days. My classes have finally wrapped up for the semester and I think I'm getting a 4.0 in one class and and a 3.5 and 3.0 in the others though I may try to pull that 3.5 to a 4 with some extra credit that is due on Wednesday. I was up until 4am on Friday morning finishing up my final paper so I could it in on the due date.

This past weekend Jill and I made the long trek to Marquette to see her youngest sister graduate. While the drive there was nice the only frustrating thing was that NOTHING seemed to be open. We stopped in Mackinac City thinking maybe we could find someplace to eat but everything seems to be closed until next week. It was a reoccurring theme with the U.P. I think if I had to live in a place that was only operational when the tourists arrive I would go mad!

Marquette was good though, gorgeous but cold. The weekend really seemed to fly by though. Hopefully the rest of the week will do the same. I've got a wedding to be in this Saturday but otherwise my schedule is clear. It's such a great feeling to be able to say that again.

Thats it, more frequent updates to come!

I suppose this is one way to get your message across

2007-04-25T20:45:00.000-04:00

ghey

2007-04-24T09:48:00.000-04:00

oh blogger how I have neglected thee!

Picking up from where we left off, my mother came home last week from the hospital and I haven't gone to see her yet for reasons only a select few know. I'm gonna just have to "bite the bullet" and do it soon enough or I'll just be creating more drama.

Jill and I have been having more discussions about moving out and have narrowed our choice to an apartment complex between Lansing and East Lansing that will be in the middle of everything and not too far from where we are now. The next step now is to tell my roommates in a couple of weeks after we get things figured out. That's not going to be a fun talk.

Saturday I was busy with our annual fund raising dinner for work. Our keynote speaker was John Edwards who seemed to have a lot of great ideas on how to turn things around but doesn't every politician? (President Bush excluded, we all knew he was no good to start). The event went smoothly for the most part and now that I have it behind me, work is not going to be that bad for at least another 6 months. 2008 however....*shudder*

thats it.

ps: go check out twitter now fools! http://www.twitter.com. I'm already addicted and if you sign up, be sure to add me. http://www.twitter.com/lojus

update

2007-04-18T11:08:00.000-04:00

My mother has been released from the hospital as of yesterday. Now while this should be a joyous occasion it really just presents a whole new set of problems. Some of you I've already talked about this with and to the rest of you, I'm going to leave it at that. I just hope drastic action wont have to be taken.

Sorry for such a cryptic message.

nothing ever comes easy

2007-04-08T01:17:00.000-04:00

To those who read my account:

My mother was recently placed on the donor list about 2 months ago to recieve a new kidney and wouldn't you know it, the second I'm out of town on Friday she recieves a call that there is one available so she to the hospital friday and went through surgery this morning and is currently staying in Grand Rapids. Thankfully Jill was understanding enough to drive me back to Lansing from her parents house and now I can visit her tomorrow morning and possibly monday.

To say this weekend has been exhausting is quite an understatement.

I'll update whats going on as I recieve news.

It'll leave skidmarks....ON YOUR SOUL!

2007-04-04T12:13:00.000-04:00

HEY! YOU LOOK LIKE A REAL JERK!

I've been really bad at posting anything relevant lately but this video was just too funny to pass up. I'll post something else later today.

well isn't this just a coincidence

2007-03-28T10:53:00.000-04:00

A couple of months ago, my roommate set up a fake blog for his xbox at http://www.360voice.com/tag/conkerbfd. The site basically takes information about the games you've been playing during the day and writes itself a blog post with some fill in the blank pre-made scripts. Anyway, this was the entry from yesterday

My power supply almost exploded! ConkerBFD turned on the juice and we did some serious gaming! 12025 points of total gamerscore is pretty good. Admit it. He rocked out to Gears of War, and then I was like, 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01100001 01110010 01100101 00100000 01100001 01110111 01100101 01110011 01101111 01101101 01100101... I'm just kidding, we don't really talk like that.

Well actually the power supply did explode, sorta and instead of 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01100001 01110010 01100101 00100000 01100001 01110111 01100101 01110011 01101111 01101101 01100101 it was more like 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000

Fucking 360! Oh well, I guess we're getting a box from Microsoft in the mail and we're getting it fixed for free since its still under warranty.

R.I.P. Xbox 360

2007-03-27T00:05:00.001-04:00

SPRING 2006-3/27/2007

RIP old friend, we had some great times together.

THIS SUCKS!

Gluttony at its best

2007-03-09T11:25:00.002-05:00

This is how I imagine Nate eating Oreos when no one is looking.

I only kid of course.

seriously now...

2007-02-26T10:20:00.000-05:00

I know its cliché to say that your town has the worst drivers ever but I'm not kidding here, Detroit is the absolute fucking WORST!

I was driving home on 696 on Saturday in the left lane going about 80 when this guy comes up behind me and starts putting on his hazard lights. I wait until there is a clearing for me to get to the right and sure enough as soon as I did he turns off the hazard lights and goes screaming down the highway.

Yeah asshole, way to exploit a SAFETY feature of your car so that you can get past me. I had a feeling that he was going to do it in the first place since everyone from Detroit is fucked up anyway (also cliché). I hope to god he drove into a ditch and his car exploded.

It's good to be back home.

gasp another post?!/ "that cheating bitch!"

2007-02-21T22:38:00.000-05:00

This comes from an email I recieved today from my good friend Kathy. Theres no story behind it I just found it funny.

Im still here

2007-02-21T09:37:00.002-05:00

Sorry for anyone who has been looking for me to make an update lately. February has never been a good month for me so I generally avoid doing anything outside of work, school and sleeping until the month is over. I promise I'll be back in March with all sorts of stuff to talk about but until then...

I thought this picture was amusing. This will be Kellys future kids I swear to god.

resolutions revisted #1

2007-01-31T11:39:00.000-05:00

This post isn't really intended for anyone but myself as a reminder of what my new years resolutions were and if I'm keeping them to myself. If you want to read it then by all means be my guest.

Here are a few of my resolutions for 2007

~~1.) Get a loan and register for spring semester~~

2.) Test my blood sugar at least 3 days a week.

3.) Starting a low carb, low calorie diet and hopefully lose 20lbs

4.) Use my car less, my bike and feet more

5.) Spend more time with Jill

6.) Make an effort to keep contact with old friends.

1.) DONE (although I need to stop spending the money for personal use and put some money back towards the loan.)

2.) I'm doing this now but I need to test more than once per day and test 2 hours after a meal to see if my levels are staying okay.

3.) I haven't worked on this at all yet. I wanted to get used to testing myself first. Now it's time to work on my diet.

4.) It's been too cold to use my bike yet and too hard to walk when its below freezing. But I have been doing exercies with dumbells in my spare time.

5.) Depends on who's answer you get for this. (I think I've been doing okay at this, not great but just okay. work also has kept me busy)

6.) I haven't started yet. I have a couple people who's birthdays are coming up so I'll have to make sure to get them gifts.

I'll come back to this at the end of February to see how I'm doing then.

Spammers take it to the next level

2007-01-29T12:11:00.001-05:00

Heres a situation that happened to me recently.

Last Friday, I was checking through my voicemail which was the first time in what seemed like forever and for some reason my phone doesn't tell me that there are any messages, just if I missed calls. So as I was listening to the messages, I got one from this guy named Ryan on the 18th who said he was calling me back about a part time job and to give a call back at this number which is local to me. I found it strange that he didn't tell me what I had applied for or what company he was working. Nonetheless, I was curious so I called back, left a message and expected a call back on Monday.

Sure enough he called me back this morning and left me another message to call back by noon, so I called again and finally got on the phone with him, the first thing he asked me was if I was looking for full or part time work, I said part time then he asked if I was working now, I said yes then he wanted to know where. As a sidenote, I am pretty protective of just telling anyone where I work so I said "politics" and he wanted to get more specific. I finally had to interrupt him and ask who he was, who he worked for and what he did, all of which he failed to inform me about when he answered the phone. I had to repeat the question twice before he finally told me.

Somewhere along the way I thought I heard "medical sales" and "telemarketing" and realized I never applied for any job in that field and just hung up in the middle of his little pitch.

Okay dumbass, first of all how are you going to try and sell me on this mystery job without even telling me in your 2 voicemail messages what exactly you do? All it does is make you sound incredibly shady which in fact you really turned out to be.

Oh, and a gold star for trying to fish out as much information about me as you could before I started questioning you right back. What did you want know next? my SSN? my bank account #? fuck my sister?

I guess I didn't expect this to happen over the phone but I suppose people wised up to deleting email so they're only taking it to the next level. I'm thinking this person may have gotten my information from my monster.com account which really hasn't done anything for me. Has anyone out there EVER had luck with those online job sites?

Oh well, fool me once shame on you...

Unless you're George Bush, you know how the rest of it goes.

It's been decided.

2007-01-12T09:19:00.000-05:00

This whole issue of HD DVD vs. Blu Ray had me confused as to which format to embrace (not really) but I think this is the clincher. If its good enough for Porn well then by golly! it's good enough for me!

Actually I think both formats are going to struggle for awhile until the rest of us decide on spending over $1000 to get HD televisions capable of taking advantage of all that this new technology can give us. In the meanwhile I'll be content with a 13'' television and a PS2.

CES 2007: HD DVD versus Blu-ray - The porn industry says HD DVD
By Aaron McKenna
Published Thursday 11th January 2007 12:39 GMT

Las Vegas (NV) - Knowing their audience quite well, the adult entertainment industry holds their annual get together in Las Vegas to coincide with the CES. There is also a very pertinent crossover between the adult and tech industries - porn has a tendency to drive, and be driven, by technology. Which means HD DVD when it comes to high-def.

Quite famously in the war between Betamax and VHS the latter won especially because the adult industry preferred it. If you've been around long enough, you probably remember that the very early home video rental stores were primarily responsible for driving Betamax out of the market. And those stores carried almost exclusively pornographic content.

Although the market environments from then do not really compare to today's home video market, parallels are drawn between the Betamax-VHS battle to the ongoing and escalating fight between Blu-ray and HD DVD. One of the key questions at this year's CES actually is "Which high-def format will win the current format war - Blu-ray or HD DVD?" Surprisingly, it seems that there is no such question in the minds of the adult industry luminaries.

Putting myself through the arduous trek through the floor of the adult expo I did a quick straw poll on, the virtues of HD DVD versus Blu-ray, and the answer from a dozen companies, big and small, including Pink Visual and Bangbros editor-in-chief, is going into a single direction: HD DVD is the preferred format. Period.

One of the big problems they have with Blu-ray is its expense, followed by its market share. "Blu-ray has superior quality, yes," said a spokesperson for porn studio Bangbros, "but HD DVD is easier to produce, cheaper to produce and there are more HD DVD players in homes than there are Blu-ray players, for example in the Xbox 360."

Pink Visual heavily complained about the fact that Blu-ray discs cannot be replicated and a range of other studios, who did not want to be mentioned by name indicated that the cost of going with Blu-ray cancels the technology as a possible HD solution for this industry. "Only bigger studios can afford Blu-ray, and even then it's not economical," we were told.

It would seem that either Blu-ray has to do some catching up very quickly. But we got the strange feeling that HD DVD has won the format war already, at least in the porn industry.

http://www.tgdaily.com/2007/01/11/ces2007_hddvd_blu_ray/

world wide web social networking and messageboards.

2007-01-11T10:18:00.000-05:00

In one of my many stints of boredom at work recently I've been thinking about all the social networking and messageboard websites I've signed up for over the years. Now while I'm sure there are many more than the ones I have listed, this is just what I could think of off the top of my head.

Some of these are so old but are still around. If you can think of anymore I could add to the list, let me know.

Blogger (obviously)
Myspace
Livejournal
2nd and much older Livejournal
Facebook
Last.fm
n00dzplz (screenname: verbalpollution)
Mitchclem.com (screenname: lojus)
Project Playlist
1up.com
Yahoo
Launch

conflict of interest?

2007-01-10T15:12:00.000-05:00

I was watching television the other day and this new advertisement for UPS came on with this guy drawing a diagram on a whiteboard about how UPS can ship packages from China to the United States and blah blah blah...the real reason I bring this up is because in the background I heard a sample of "Such Great Heights" from the group The Postal Service and found it strangly ironic that a band by that name would be sampled for a UPS ad. Isn't that a conflict of interest?

If you dont know the ad yet, I've included a link to the website, click on TV Spots

http://whiteboard.ups.com/

I'm glad to see that I wasn't the only one who caught this.

http://tinyurl.com/y4ceqr

The bands agreement with the USPS has only got to complicate the matters more. I wonder how quickly the ad will be pulled or changed. You'de think that for a company that is investing $35 million dollars into this ad campaign they would've caught this before putting it on the air but I guess thats why they get paid the big bucks and we dont.

resolutions and what not

2006-12-31T20:45:00.000-05:00

In keeping with tradition with everyone else, be it myspace bulletin, livejournal post or in my case, an update on blogger, I'm going to go along with everyone else and post a year in review/resolutions update.

All said, 2006 was pretty good for me. My hard work this year came on a positive note as the democrats finally took back office. Hopefully they'll not fuck it up in 2008. I am actually enjoying what I do for the most part, but wish I was making more money. Who doesn't feel that way though?

Things with Jill and progressed nicely as well. In September we took a 4 day trip to Copper Harbor and in December she moved in with myself and my 2 roommates. Things had been bumpy at first but it's all smoothing out. We'll be looking for our own place by June if everything goes according to plan. (ie: we dont break up.)

As for myself, I found out this summer that I have been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes just as my mother has. It's been a struggle really coming to terms with it but I'm going to use the new year as motivation to stay on top of my health by testing my blood everyday and getting on a healthier diet.

Thats 2006 in a nutshell. I feel like I've just written one of those tacky christmas update letters that no one cares about.

Here are a few of my resolutions for 2007

1.) ~~Get a loan and register for spring semester~~

2.) Test my blood sugar at least 3 days a week.

3.) Starting a low carb, low calorie diet and hopefully lose 20lbs

4.) Use my car less, my bike and feet more

5.) Spend more time with Jill

6.) Make an effort to keep contact with old friends.

thats all of them for now, let me know if I slip up on any of these from time to time.

Happy New Year!

even the house is emo!

2006-12-29T13:06:00.000-05:00

This is a picture of a house at the end of my block that I took last night. I dont quite understand the symbolism of the broken heart in lights, can someone explain that to me?

post holiday fallout

2006-12-28T15:52:00.000-05:00

Heres my christmas loot:

1. Ipod shuffle 2nd generation (which I can't get to work with my computer yet, fucking apple!)

2. Detroit Tigers hooded sweatshirt

3. Clothes (pants, sweaters, shirts and boxers)

4.) Home Movies volume 1 DVD

thats pretty much yet, not too bad I think.

I had spent the 23rd and 24th with Jill's family and wasn't ready at all for the large group of people and dogs I was to be around for the 2 days. It was funny though watching them freak out about the most trivial things imaginable, like the aunt who decided to bring store bought pies to the family gathering instead of letting grandma make them herself. Things went fine overall but I was more than ready to come back to being around my parents and sister and not having the stress of being around that many people.

I'm currently on day 13 of my 17 day vacation and Im already itching to go back to work. My schedule has been completely screwed up with all this time off, I go to bed at 3am and I've felt very forgetful about everything like taking my medication, eating, showering...etc. I need to get back into a routine again before I completely lose my mind. Plus I'm already kinda bored. Theres only so much television to watch and videogames to play.

Speaking of which, Im going to play Twilight Princess now, later kids.

well that was just creepy.

2006-12-11T11:58:00.000-05:00

Over the weekend I decided to rearrange my bedroom and clean it after we've already gotten Jill's room set up and tore apart my own in the process. So as Im moving the bed away from the wall, Jill notices something hanging on the side of my bed. Thinking it was maybe a large leaf I turn it over and see a face! It was a dead dried out bat that had somehow gotten itself wedged between my bed and the wall and died there. After the initial shock, my roommate took it outside to bury it in the yard.

I hope Jill or I don't have rabies now but somehow I really doubt it.

If I for some reason drop over dead in the next couple of weeks I guess we'll know for sure.

from the WTF department.

2006-12-07T15:51:00.000-05:00

Greetings!

I know its been awhile since I've updated my blog and Im sure the 4 people who were reading it before have probably stopped so this update is really not going to make a whole lot of difference until I actually TELL someone I updated my blog and that my friends is just incredibly lame. (But I'll do it nonetheless, I dont want to think my effort is going towards nothing)

A few days ago a package arrived to our house addressed to someone who used to live there over a year ago but has since neglected to sent in a change of address form or update any records online to indicate he's moved (by the way, his mail from court concerning a parking violation that is over a year old STILL keeps coming to the house). We (my roommates and myself) took it upon ourselves to open the package since this guy obviously isn't coming by to pick up his mail anytime soon. Inside we found a video, but not just any video, this one was special.

Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma is best described as one of the most disturbing movies ever released to mainstream cinema. I'll let this description explain it for you.

Salò (as the film is commonly abbreviated) is set in the Republic of Salò, the Fascist rump state which was set up in the German-occupied portion of Italy in 1944. The film is divided into four segments that loosely parallel Dante's Inferno: Anteinferno, Circle of Manias, Circle of Shit and Circle of Blood.

Four men of power, referred to as the Duke (Duc de Blangis), the Bishop, the Magistrate (Curval), and the President agree to marry each other's daughters as the first step in a debauched ritual. With the aid of several young male collaborators, they kidnap eighteen young men and women (nine male, nine female), and take them to a palace near Marzabotto. With them are four middle-aged prostitutes, also collaborators, whose function will be to recount various arousing stories for the men of power, and who will in turn exploit their victims sexually and sadistically.

The film depicts the three days spent at the palace, during which time the four men of power devise increasingly abhorrent tortures and humiliations for their own pleasure. In one of the film's most infamous scenes, a young woman is forced to eat the feces of the Duke; later, the other victims are presented with a giant meal of human feces (the "feces" were created with chocolate sauce and orange marmalade). At the end of the three days, the victims who chose not to collaborate with their tormentors are murdered in various gruesome ways: scalping, branding, and having tongues and eyes cut out.

Doesn't that sound like a the feel good movie of the season? of course we watched it and honestly it was pretty terrible but not from a disturbing standpoint, more that the movie dragged on and wasn't that interesting. Plus the picture and sound quality were fair at best. I am not only left wondering about how disturbed the person who bought this really is as I haven't met him.

For anyone interested, dont bother trying to look for it in a video store or netflix.

The Criterion Collection release of the film in 1998 on DVD has created a great deal of interest because of its rarity. It is so rare that it has been labelled by some to being possibly the rarest DVD in the world. Shortly after the Criterion edition was released, the rights for the DVD were not renewed by its distributor and Criterion were forced to discontinue the title, as they have done in the past with some of the films in their catalogue. Whilst many of Criterion's discontinued titles have became much sought after, Salò has generally seen prices for an original copy range from as little as US $250 to US $1000. Due to the rarity of the title many bootleg copies are routinely passed off as originals.

Sadly our copy was a bootleg otherwise we would've sold it to help with the upcoming heating costs.

Thats it for now. Regular updates will be coming once again!

cocaine is one hell of a drug.

2006-12-05T16:12:00.001-05:00

the kids are alright

2006-10-26T14:48:00.000-04:00

At lunch today I went to Blimpies by myself (as is quite common with me on my lunch hour) and the first thing I noticed was a group of 10-12 high school seniors sitting together eating.

Oh great! I thought to myself.

The thought of having to sit next to this group was something I wasn't looking forward to. As I got my meal and sat down at the far end of the area I looked around and noticed everyone else eating had this unpleasant feeling amongst themselves having to sit around these kids.

I started to feel old. Didn't we all try to convince ourselves when we were younger that we were more open minded than our generation before us and wouldn't look down on anyone before getting to know them? And here I was doing the very same thing like a hypocrite.

In actuality, other than being a little loud, they were just fine. They even rearranged the tables they pushed together after they were finished and left without leaving a mess.

I know next time I'll give the youth a little more credit.

The first sign of madness

2006-10-24T14:15:00.000-04:00

Just 2 more weeks.
Just 2 more weeks.
Just 2 more weeks.
Just 2 more weeks.
Just 2 more weeks.
Just 2 more weeks.
Just 2 more weeks.
Just 2 more weeks.
Just 2 more weeks.
Just 2 more weeks.
Just 2 more weeks.
Just 2 more weeks.
....................................

damn you ticketmaster!!

2006-10-16T11:27:00.000-04:00

Tiger World Series tickets had gone on sale this morning at 10am.

I dont really have the money to go to any of the games but figured I would at least TRY to get tickets to see if I can't turn a hefty profit on them.

My wait time of 2 minutes last 45 minutes before I finally gave up. My co-worker however was able to buy 2 tickets to game 2. Jealous? not really though I can't say the same for other people.

The way I figure it, for $190 (the price PER ticket) I could sit in a bar for the whole series with a better view not freezing my ass off and still have money left.

Oh well, Lets go Tigers!

PS: nice touch by tigers.com sending an email at 10:35am to let us know that world series tickets were on sale when they probably all sold out in under 10 minutes.

so much for autumn

2006-10-12T13:41:00.000-04:00

Nature has decided it's had enough of Autumn and decided to dump snow on us.

Wonderful!

I've already seen a few streetlights out of service. This ought to be interesting as the day goes on.

we report, you decide

2006-10-11T13:22:00.000-04:00

Okay, thats from Fox News but this could almost be considered as dumb as that "news network"

From CNN.com right now

Thank goodness CNN is giving us the stories that matter most.

/sarcasm

As of the time I voted it was

Men 3352 votes 46%
Women 3938 votes 54%

This is why I only trust my news from NPR.

bah....

2006-10-09T09:52:00.000-04:00

Not to much to talk about. I'm really only making a post just for the sake of having something new to look at.

We're less that 30 days away from election day and I thought I'd be happier about it than I really am. The election will be over but the madness wont stop. February is another state convention and then shortly after that we'll be gearing up for presidential election 2008.

I hope to god I'm not here for much longer, I'm already about to have a nervous breakdown out thinking about whats ahead of me.

I need to relax though, one day at a time.

Better posts later.

If you flip me off I'm the danger you'll face

2006-09-27T17:34:00.000-04:00

Normally I wouldn't bring up bad drivers since they're everywhere but this guy was such a piece of shit, he deserves special recognition today. For everyone reading, I've made a handy diagram using my awesome mspaint skills to illustrate just how dumb this guy was.

(the red arrow is the path which I was traveling)

The road I was turning unto (#1) is one lane east to west with a second lane open to left turns only. When the lane was clear at the light I started to turn right before asshole in the Jaguar, who was too impatient to wait in the turn lane for on coming traffic to go through the light, decides to cut me off and yell out the side of his window at me. I kindly gave him the finger and followed behind him to the stop light (#2). The whole time this asshole is looking at me from his side window and going extra slow for whatever reason Im not really sure.

By the time I reach the second light, I've already gotten over him being a dick but apparently a minute or 2 into sitting at the light, he opens his door and starts yelling something at me which I couldn't hear since my windows were rolled up and I was playing music, I just nodded my head sarcastically which I think set him off.

We go through the second light, again, he is just staring me down from in front when we get to the third light (#3). He sees me put on my turn signal and instead of just going through the green light like a normal person, he stops AT A GREEN LIGHT so his car is next to mine while Im turning left. By the point the whole thing is so ridiculous I dont even give him the time of day to look but Im sure he was screaming something else to me.

You know what? Fuck that asshole and fuck out of state drivers!

My only solace is that I've probably ruined his entire day now. He's going to go to whatever shithole he's from (his liscence plate said Georgia), probably beat his wife out of anger and curse my name as he goes to bed.

Or at least thats what I hope.

one more time asshole...

This is the true story....

2006-09-27T11:30:00.000-04:00

...of how my roommate Nate (the one some of you know and love), is going to try out for the Real World when casting directors stop in Ann Arbor on Thursday to pick someone for the new season of the show. I can't believe there have been 19 seasons already (!), I stopped watching when I was in high school.

Anyway, my only serious advice to him was to play up on the fact that he was adopted (maybe get all teary eyed and angry about it), He's never really cared about finding his real parents anyway but they dont have to know that ;). It's his best chance of getting on the show though I willing to bet they can find plenty of other stereotypical "angry black guy" from Detroit anyway.

Copper Harbor pictures

2006-09-25T11:44:00.000-04:00

This is about half of my pictures of Copper Harbor, I'll be putting the remaining pictures up hopefully today, if not by the end of the week.

Copper Harbor

Sep 9, 2006 - 26 Photos

my good fortune continues.

2006-09-23T09:23:00.000-04:00

Between finding $75 in free gas and $20 in a Dennys parking lot last night (mind you, I didn't actually eat there...long story), I'm starting to wonder why all this good fortune is coming onto me.

Can anyone explain that?

What horrible thing is going to happen to me once this fortune runs out?

Maybe I'll stay indoors this weekend for my own safety.

This could be my lucky day!

2006-09-22T10:43:00.000-04:00

I scored $75 in free gasoline yesterday!

How you ask? Gather 'round and I'll tell you.

It's not really THAT interesting to be honest, I just happened to find a keyring on the street yesterday evening that had a few club and discount cards. One of which was for Speedy Rewards.

James and I decided to see how many points were on the card and sure enough, 52,200+!! So we got a $50 gift card which I took and another $25 gift card which he took!

Score!

I usually never end up getting this lucky, hopefully this isn't the end of my good fortune.

Edit: The key ring also had two keychains of St. Jude on it. Was this some kind of sick joke to see if I would give the thing back to it's rightful owner?

Nah

Eat a cockroach, skip in line

2006-09-21T14:25:00.000-04:00

How many people are honestly going to do this? You still have to pay to get into the park. I mean maybe if I was going to a GOOD amusement park like Cedar Point I might do it but for Six Flags?

No thanks.

GURNEE, Illinois (AP) -- Why wait in line when you can just eat a cockroach?

That's the question Six Flags Great America is asking thrill seekers during a Halloween-themed FrightFest. The amusement park is daring customers to eat a live Madagascar hissing cockroach in exchange for unlimited line-jumping privileges.

The promotion, which has Lake County Health Department officials shaking their heads, starts October 7.

Anyone who chows down the entire 2- to 3-inch horned cockroach gets a pass for four people to cut to the front of ride lines through October 29.

Park officials insist it's safe to eat the crunchy critters, but health officials are cautioning participants.

Consuming live roaches might increase risks of gastrointestinal illness and allergies, according to Bill Mays, Lake County Health Department's community health director.

Cockroach eaters will have to sign waivers and still pay admission fees, said Six Flags spokesman James Taylor.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/09/21/eat.roach.ap/index.html

Here comes hot nancy shes steppin right on time

2006-09-21T08:14:00.000-04:00

My left wrist has been hurting for a couple of days now. I wonder if it's carpal tunnel syndrome. Probably not, but 3 years of solid typing on my job is getting to me a little. I just really want some workers' compensation is that so much to ask for?

So a little about the title of this post, my father was approached by a prostitute the other day while he was at the convience store down the street from his house. Normally they'll make their offer, you deline, they leave...simple enough right?

OH BUT NOT THIS ONE!

She starts grabbing at the steering wheel in his car and then his crotch (funny and disturbing at the same time) and keeps insisting for $5 she'll give him head and it'll be a couple of minutes of his time. He pushes her away from the himself immediately and then she proceeds to punch him in the head! Seriously, she HAD to have been on something but what makes it weird was this was at 8 in the morning! in clear daylight of anyone who could've seen what was going on. So instead of calling the police on the cracked out whore and get her off the street like a normal person does, he swallows his pride and goes home instead pissed off while she's left wandering the streets looking for her next fix.

I've cleaned up the story a little from his interpretation. It was just uncomfortable hearing it from my 60+ year old father but I still found it amusing.

Back to work.

I felt like putting some pictures up

2006-09-18T15:16:00.000-04:00

These are a couple of pictures I took about 2 weeks ago that I haven't really thought of putting on here until now.

This first set comes from the Tollgate Wetlands, which is located just down the street from my house. Jill and I have gone there now a couple of times. I decided to take a couple pictures of the animals around there. At this point I've seen rabbits, ducks, house sparrows and seagulls. There are a few bat houses in the middle of the park but so far I haven't seen any (thankfully!) around the area.

These last two are of a car I just happened to come across on my lunch break one afternoon. I dont know the story behind this car or who drives it but it was the absolute most bizarre looking piece of work to a car I'd seen since one of my old co-workers spray painted his car several years ago.

I didn't get a chance to take pictures of the front and back since they guy was coming back but the hood had a giant Spartan logo with MSU ALUMNI written on it and the back had some other obnoxious stickers on it. The whole thing seemed to be held together in some kind of weird decoupage.

Thats it for now.

Now I'm finding truth is a ruin

2006-09-18T09:40:00.000-04:00

Pretty uneventful weekend.

Didn't go anywhere, didn't do anything really.

The dryer decided to break however leaving me having to drive a bunch of wet clothes to the nearest laundromat and having to deal with every stereotypical poor piece of trash in exsistance it seemed. If I have to hear one more large woman yell at her kids to stop running around the laundromat or teasing their younger siblings it'll be too fucking soon.

I just realized this morning when I put on my clothes that they still smell terrible. I put them in the dryer late friday evening and went to bed before they (didn't) finish. I didn't check them until the afternoon on saturday by which point they started to smell like mildew. I thought using a couple of dryer sheets would've solved this but apparently I was incorrect. I only hope none of my co-workers notice. I whored myself in cologne to try and cover the scent and will be taking my clothes back to my parents house to rewash them.

Now that I think about it, my weekend sucked.

a moon full of stars and astral cars

2006-09-16T02:14:00.000-04:00

Theres no excuse I could give towards my recent posting drought. I've been either too busy or not interested enough to share whats been going on. If there were people reading this before I'm willing to bet they're not anymore. Oh well, fuck it.

Jill and I went on a 4 day vacation last week to Copper Harbor. The drive was long and the area was deserted but this was one of those vacations to get away from everyone rather than having a full schedule of things to do so it was really nice. It's always beautiful in the U.P. I swear I'm going to move up there someday. I'll have pictures posted as soon as I have them developed. I chose not to use my cameraphone this time.

Everything else about my week was pretty boring so I think this will be it for now. It's 2:30am now and I should probably go to bed.

Better updates later.

who knew?

2006-08-31T15:26:00.000-04:00

I usually am against posting meme's on a journal because it cheapens the content and usually require no talent to do but I've decided to post this one since by it's standards. I must've done okay.

Anyway...

Mr. President I don’t like you, you don’t know how to rock

2006-08-30T09:44:00.000-04:00

he's baaaaaaaaaack.

Nate has moved back in with us and before anyone thinks I'm upset about it I'm really not. I actually welcome the change for a couple of reasons.

1.) This will knock $100 off of rent per month so James, Marty and myself wont have to pay almost $600/mo. each in the winter for rent.

2.) Once I really thought about what bothered me the first time about Nate, it was his lack of responsibility and since then he's working full time at his job, is about to get a drivers liscence and a car and is generally just more of an adult now instead of the 8 year old that I used to call him.

3.) He shares my disdain for Marty and sooner or later Marty is going to have 2 people in the house that bother him. It'll be amusing to me.

and finally...

4.) I'm hardly at home anyway because of Jill so if Nate wants to sit around the house all day, it doesn't bother me anymore because chances are I'll barely be around to see it.

I do have a funny story already though.

For the past couple of weeks, the 4th bedroom in our house was being used by Marty's gf to store her stuff while waiting for her new place to open up for the school year. I'm not exactly sure when she "moved out" but she is sure taking her sweet ass time taking everyhing of her's out. In fact, many times she is sitting around his room while he is at work, but thats another story. Anyway, its been known that Nate was moving in on Tuesday so James and I agreed that if anything of hers was still in that room, it was going into Marty's room, which is what we did. Oh sure, we could've been a little nicer about moving it in instead of putting it across his entire bedroom floor but fuck it. About an hour or so after he comes home from work he finds out what happens and is just livid about it. James wouldn't say anything back to him so I said "it's been 3 weeks..." (that she has been living at the house), and he fires back with "I KNOW THAT!! YOU DUMB PIECE OF SHIT" then stormed back to his bedroom. I was disappointed he didn't stay though so I could fire back with "Just like I knew you're girlfriend was going to live here? oops, you didn't tell us until all her stuff was here and a week later!" but I didn't get the chance. The whole thing only lasted 30 seconds. Then he comes back down later and apoligized about it which just seemed fake. I dont like people apoligizing to me, it never seems sincere to me.

Other than that nonsense, I've still been recuperating from this past weekend. I switched back to my old shoes since my new ones were just killing my feet and I've been trying to get a full 8 hours of sleep although yesterday I woke up at 8:54 and arrived at work a half hour late. At least my boss is understanding about it, everyone around here is in the same boat.

Alright, I should get back to work now.

unpause

2006-08-28T12:14:00.000-04:00

it's over.

All the months, weeks, days, hours and minutes I poured into work, preparing for the state convention finally came and went this weekend. I can finally resume to having a life again. The state convention came and went without a hitch for the most part.

Friday evening James and I arrived at Cobo to begin settings things up for Saturday morning. We were the last to arrive so fortunately we missed out on most of the physical labor and just had to test the computers to make sure they were operating correctly. Around 10:00 we checked into the hotel, my room was on the 45th floor and his was on the 32. Around 11:00 we decided to order pizza which took almost an hour to be delievered by which time I was really not in the mood to eat pizza around midnight but did anyway in his room. After I was finished I decided to go back into my room by which time the person who I had been paired up with had already fell asleep so the room was completely dark and all my stuff was still on my bed. I had to feel around the room to make my way to the bed, almost smacking my head on the TV cabinet. I also didn't get a chance to talk with him to figure out if there was a wake up call, when it was set for and how long we both needed to get ready so I decided to set my alarm for 5:30 just in case the wake up call was at 6 (and it was) since we had to be at Cobo at 7. I couldn't sleep at all that night. The room felt way too hot to me (turns out it was 72 but I sleep with a fan on in January so I was just miserable), plus there was too many pillows and sheets on the bed, I just felt suffocated the whole time. Also, knowing that I had to get up so early I kept waking up every 20-30 minutes to check the time and really never got a full night of sleep at all.

Saturday morning we arrive at 7am to set up again and not 10 minutes later people start arriving to recieve their credentials in order to vote. Every piece of information in the booklets, the flyers, and the website say we dont open until 8 but of course no one ever listens so we end up having to rush around setting everything up and get to work. The rush of people however wasn't that bad though and by noon, most everybody was in the convention hall doing whatever it was they were doing. I honestly didn't pay much attention to any of what was really going on. The first day concluded around 5pm and we were ready to head back to the hotel around 6. During our quarter mile walk back from the Cobo Center to the Renaissance Center (our hotel), I swear I must've passed what had to be at least a dozen homeless people sitting next to their garbage bag full of clothing looking as sad and pathetic as always. This is the Detroit I'm more or less used to. I swear these people are like roaches. They hang out in the business district taking advantage of sympatheic tourists and Canadians who are crossing the border just down the block. I had sucessfully avoiding all contact with them. I'm all for helping the homeless but these people are far from needing help, they're just lazy!

Saturday night we took the people mover to Greektown to eat at this resturant called Fishbones, which is across the street from the Greektown Casino. The meal was fine but I was disappointed in myself for being lame and ordering the shrimp pasta when work was paying for my meal. I should've gotten something more exotic instead of something I could order at Olive Garden! oh well. After dinner we headed back to the hotel, grabbed a few drinks at the bar, (After the long day, neither one of us was in a mood to go out to any of the various parties going on that night) and headed back to the room to watch television.

Around 10pm we came across an anime on Cartoon Network called Bobobo-bo bo-bobo. I dont know if it was because we were in such a sleep deprived state but this was the funniest off the wall cartoon I have ever seen. I can't even begin to explain just how absurd it really it. James and I came up with the theory that someone took massive hits of acid and decided to write down every detail coming through their head in the process. I encourage anyone to check this out sometime. I'm already disappointed to find out its not on DVD already but will be checking every once in awhile to find out when it is.

Sunday was the same routine again, only this time I slept in James room since his uncle never stayed in Detroit for the convention and I was too tired from the night before to go back to my room. This time I only had to work from 8-12 but it felt like there was more crazy people then on Saturday. I think it's the people that waited until the last minute to check in that were the worst. They would get angry when they found out they came to the convention and couldn't vote because we shut down all the computers for the day and couldn't look up their information. It seems there are people like this in every type of job, not just politics. The agenda said the convention would run until 4pm but thankfully it ended at 2, we had everything packed away by 3, and were back home by 5.

Thats it. Pretty boring if you ask me. I took a few pictures of my time there, most didn't turn out very well since everything was moving so fast that my camera phone couldn't keep up.

Can't be the city cause the city never gets caught sleeping

2006-08-21T12:09:00.000-04:00

It's been awhile since I've had an interesting weekend such as this.

Lets recap.

Friday I took the day off to attend a diabetes education class at the hospital to find out more about the disease and how to manage it. I decided to have Jill come along with me as my guest. Turns out I was the only one who brought a guest. I also was younger than anyone else by AT LEAST 10 years. It felt like I was at the geriatric farm here.

The class had two people, a nurse practioner and a nutritionist and for some odd reason, the nurse kept thinking that Jill and I were married. She kept referring to us as "your husband" and "your wife" which struck me as odd because correct me if I'm wrong but dont women usually look at a persons finger first to see if there is a wedding ring? I dont wear any rings and I think Jill may only wear one on her right hand, not the left. Or maybe she thought we were one of those new age hippie couples that don't believe in rings. We didn't really bother to correct her for the rest of the day.

As for the class itself, I didn't really learn anything new from the nurse that I didn't know from being around my mother but at least the nutritionist had some good information and by going to the meeting I have an oppourtunity to spend an hour with her within the next 12 months to set up a meal plan for myself. I'm going to schedule that after state convention (it seems like I've been saying this for a lot of things.)

After the class we came home, hung out for awhile and around 10:30 decided to go to Meijer to buy some groceries. As we came back to Jill's apartment to put her groceries away, we came across a drunk man asleep on her front porch. So drunk in fact, that he was unaware that we walked around him several times to put away her groceries. Jill called the police about it and the operator asked if she attemped to wake the guy up, because THATS the first thing I would do if some guy I didn't know was asleep on my front porch. Thankfully the police came within 10 minutes, woke the guy up and called a cab to take him away.

Saturday morning we had planned to go see Snakes on a Plane at 11am. I wanted to avoid the crowds of annoying college students who would yell through the whole movie. We ended up seeing it at noon on account of waking up so late. There was still only about 9 people in a theatre that holds 300. As for the movie...can we say EXCELLENT! haha. It was as predictable as I could've imagined but still was a lot of fun to watch. Im willing to discuss it with anyone else who has seen it otherwise I'll hold off spoiling it for the rest of you.

Before I went to Jill's for the night, I decided to make a statement to my roommate Marty about his recent activity of showering with his girlfriend in the downstairs bathroom that is shared with my other roommate James. (I have my own bathroom for these types of issues). First of all, thats just fucking rude, no one wants to even know that you're showering together and for what? are you doing it to save water? (we dont pay the water bill), and honestly now, for those who have showered with their significant other, you know showering is the LAST thing going on in that circumstance. So basically you've got them both fucking like rabbits in there just about every single day. On top of the fact that he let this dumb bitch move in for a few weeks so she had a place to stay while the lease ended at one apartment and her new place became available for the school year. Only he didn't tell us until after a week or so and even then it was "Oh, I thought I told you guys she was moving in..." BULLSHIT! he knew exactly what he was doing. If she isn't out of our place by next monday, I'm holding a yard sale of all her stuff!

Whoops!, I've gotten offtrack here. Anyway, I made this little sign to place on their bathroom door. James later informed me that he tore it off when he came home later that night but I can only hope one of them saw it if they came downstairs before then to use the bathrooom. I don't think they did though since they did the same thing on Sunday, only this time they were *trying* to be less obvious about it by having one of them shower first and the other come in the bathroom 10 minutes later. Here is a picture of what I wrote.

It made ME feel good at least. :)

Sunday morning I left town at 8am with my roommate and his mom to go visit the new IKEA in Canton. There were only a few things I needed to pick up but otherwise I was just there to look really. I've got a million ideas now of what I want to buy from there once I move out of my current living situation so I should start saving on that now. As for what I did pick up: A desklamp (which uses a bulb that I've not been able to find locally yet, Im going to try a hardware store next.)We arrived back into town at noon and I wasn't feeling well so I slept for the rest of the afternoon.

Later on that same night, Jill and I went out to meijer again (for the lightbulbs that didn't work that was mentioned earlier) and then decided to go back to her place for the night around 10:30.

Upon walking in, I noticed a bird flying around the living room of the apartment. Jill freaked and ran to the bedroom, I went along with until we could figure out how to get this thing out. It seems all this bird was doing was making laps around the living room without really going anywhere else. We left the apartment door open and after about 10 minutes it FINALLY flew out.

The most uncomfortable part about this is that her and I are still confused as to how exactly it got into her upstairs apartment to begin with, all the windows were shut and those that weren't had a screen in them which was not knocked down. Also there were no holes in the walls or ceiling so if this one bird was able to get in, who is to say something else can't as well? Hopefully her landlord will be able to figure out how this happened but between the bird, the drunk guy and the numerous other problems going on at her place, I feel really bad about her having to live and want to kick her landlord's ass for operating such a shitty building even if the rent is $325/mo.

Thats the end of my recap. This is the final week of preperation for the State Convention this weekend and then things should finally start looking up for me again. Maybe I'll even have another post before then.

Just don't bet the house on it.

Apparently, I'm a Non P.C. Fascist (because I find this really funny)

2006-08-11T16:26:00.000-04:00

I took this picture downtown about 2 days ago.

enjoy the weekend!

PS: Bonus points to anyone who can spot my vague reference in the title of this post.

a short break in programming

2006-08-08T10:28:00.000-04:00

I've decided to take a few minutes to update my blog. I wish I had something interesting to say but I really don't. I've actually been quite sick this month, my stomach is absolutely killing me which I can't figure out because it's not as if I'm eating anything really unhealthy but every night before I go to bed I have this dull pain that keeps me awake until 1-2 in the morning everyday. It's been really slowing down my productivity at work since I'm not getting as much sleep as I probably should.

Hopefully it's nothing diabetes related but I wouldn't know that since I haven't tested my blood yet. It's terrible that I haven't, yes I know this already. My diabetes education course on the 18th should clear up a lot of confusion I have about what's okay and not okay to eat and how often I should be checking myself, other than that, I don't really think about it that much until someone brings it up to me.

The state convention is coming up in approx. 2 weeks from now and thankfully work has slowed down a little although I still am playing catch up to the mail that is coming in but the deadlines aren't as strict as they were just a few weeks ago. I feel like after the convention is over I can finally regain my life back and focus on myself for a change.

Until then I'll probably just continue to be irritable and irritated by everyone. If you've been the victim of this, I'm sorry.

Until next time...

pause

2006-07-31T08:17:00.000-04:00

I'm putting this blog on hold for awhile, I've been too busy and not around a computer long enough (outside of work) to be able to update it. I'll resume it at the end of august.

blah blah blah...the weekend blah blah blah...

2006-07-25T09:43:00.000-04:00

Im a little late to post about the past weekend but it took longer than expected to load all these pictures on to my photobucket account and things are busy like always. It seems like all I do these days is post about the weekend.

On Saturday Jill and I went to the Ionia Free Fair. Some of the highlights included seeing the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile and Planters Peanut vehicles driving around, co-mingling amongst the white trash of mid michigan and eating deep fried oreos which until then, I never knew exsisted. I passed up the deep friend twinkie for these. They were actually not that bad but I dont think I needed 5 of them, 2 would've sufficed just fine. Anyway here is a couple pictures I took with my phone.

I really had a blast going back to this fair for the first time in many many years. I remember being a kid and waiting for this to come around. My mother would take my cousins and I here and I would lose them and ride the rides all day long. Speaking of which, coincidentally the same day that Jill and I were there, some 8 year old kid actually died on one of the rides at the fairground. He had a heart condition which his father knew about but thought it was "safe" for him to ride. What a dumbass! It was the first death in the 91 year history of the fair.

After we left the fairground around 3 (the crowds were getting bigger and the sun had really worn me out). We drove back to lansing to catch an afternoon showing of Clerks II. I was a bit worried what the crowd was going to be like, especially when the trailer for Snakes on a Plane came on and every sweaty overweight dude started high-fiving every other sweaty overweight guy next to them and were like "hell yeah man!! that better be a midnight showing!!". I've been guilty of this myself minus the high fiving a sweaty guy..ha! As for Clerks II, it was actually really good. It started off kind of slow and there were a few scenes that didn't make any sense in relation to the story. As it went on, the story got better, the characters were funnier and it ended on a very relateable message to stop doing what is expected and do what makes you happy. Theres a couple people in my life that I wish I could get that kind of message to. I dont want to spoil the movie for everyone so that's all I'll say about that.

The rest of the weekend isn't that interesting so I'll end it now. Time to go back to work.

am I too late?

2006-07-20T23:46:00.000-04:00

I promised myself that I would make a post before the day was over, and I made it with 14 minutes to spare!

To say that a lot has happened since last week would be quite an understandment and simply put, I'm too exhausted to try and remember everything so heres a condensed version of what I remember.

Our hot water heater has been broken now for offically 6 days now. Not only that but we need to have it replaced! So our landlord has already purchased a new one for the house, and we are left now having to wait to get a building permit (for what I'm not quite sure) and a licensed plumber to come out to install the thing. I dont know how much more I can take, its annoying enough having to drive over to my parents house at 7:30am to have to take a shower, but to have it go out around the hottest time of the year was the perfect irony. It smells pretty bad here.

Work is going good (see, Im saying something positive about work!), I'm finally caught up with everything for the first time in 2 months, and it only took 3 other people working 3 hours with me on my work just to get everything done. I'd like to think now I would be able to keep on top of things but that just isn't going to happen anytime soon. We're almost at the one month mark until State Convention :(

Speaking of jobs, I've recently applied for a Clinical Records Clerk position at CEI Community Mental Health. I had to rush around today to turn in my paperwork, application and resume as today was the last day. Hopefully I turned it in to the correct place, the rent-a-cop errr..."security guard" wasn't really much help. I should know within 6 weeks if I'll have a new job or not, I'll be crossing my fingers but not getting my hopes up. If I do land it however I fully intend to move out of my current living situation by the spring. I keep looking at listings on craigslist and get caught up in daydreaming while at work.

Ive also submitted paperwork to try and secure a private loan so I can start getting back to school for the first time since May 2004. Prior to this I was just paying out of pocket and thus could only take 1-2 classes at a time, which just isn't cutting it. I have a better understanding and all the motivation in the world to go back now and finally make something out of the time I've already invested. I was however kind of sad when I remembered that I had stopped going to class in my last semester giving me a 0 for one class and dropping my overall GPA from a 3.1 to a 2.8. Ah well, its just one class, I think I'll just retake it and it shouldn't really affect me anyway.

thats it, time for bed and onward to the weekend!

A real post later today I swear!

2006-07-20T13:26:00.000-04:00

but until then...

I can't wait for this game to come out for the DS!

"nih gunna gat yo azz!"

2006-07-14T16:09:00.000-04:00

I'll keep this short and to the point.

This is by far my favorite picture so far from this Israeli/Hezbollah conflict

AWWW SHOO MAH BOO GURL IS STRAIGT GANGSTA TRIPPIN!

More to come later.

uggghhhh....

2006-07-11T08:44:00.000-04:00

The week has so far turned just as busy as my weekend was. To follow up on my phone issue I went back out to Best Buy and was able to FINALLY purchase my phone and renew my contract, having a couple more problems along the way of course. At least I scammed them out of a free bluetooth headset which was included on a sales sign that ended on the 8th but was honored since it was still on the shelf. I love consumer protection. That thing is going on eBay since I absolutely REFUSE to be "that guy". You know what Im talking about, wears the headset to look important when all he is doing is talking to his controlling wife on the phone about what kind of laundry detergent she wants at the grocery stores. These are the same assholes who drive expensive SUV's to either feel important or compensation. Your life is not that busy that you can't use one free hand to hold a phone to your head, unless your occupation requires it otherwise.

By the way, this is the phone that I purchased.

and the specs if anyone cares

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A900

It's sprint's attempt at the razr, nicknamed the "blade". I feel kind of like a tool for buying a trendy phone but at the same time, again I must stress, Im not wearing the bluetooth that goes with it. No way am I going to walk around looking like a cast extra from an episode of Star Trek.

Im pretty happy with it so far, navigating the menus is still kind of confusing since I've been using my other phone for so long but the features included make up for the learning curve.

Thats it for now.

"shut up shitbag!"

2006-07-09T22:55:00.000-04:00

*This post took me 3 days to write, I hate how busy my life can be*

Another busy weekend.

This time Jill and I went back to the O.C. for a bachelor/bachelorette pub crawl across 23 bars in Oceana County on Thursday night. We arrived for the with the group around 6pm at which time about 7 or 8 bars had been visited. The crowd started out with 9 but by the end had grown double in size. By 1am we had visited every redneck establishment with the exception of 3 or 4 that were either not open or not worth it. I've included a couple of pictures of the night in the order that I can best remember things happening. It was fun to say the least. No descriptions this time, Im too tired.

Friday we went out and spent the day in muskegon doing a little shopping. While at Best Buy we had spotted a black and white kitten running across the empty parking lot into a group of bushes. I had attempted to try and rescue the cat but once I had cornered it and Jill tried to grab it, the cat hissed at us and ended up running away again. We gave up shortly after that. Poor stupid kitten.

Later in the day we also visited this light house on Lake Michigan. The view from the top was gorgeous and I had only wished I had a real camera to take a decent picture from the top. The water on the other hand was still fucking cold which for early July was really disappointing.

Towards the end of the night a group of us decided to go to a drive-in to catch a movie. I had never been to a drive in before and lets just say the experience is vastly overrated I think. I dont know how a double feature to sit on the group and listen to a crappy speaker box is worth $8 but whatever. At least I can say I've actually been to a drive in I suppose. The real highlight came when Jill and I were sitting on the ground watching the movie and these two giant dobermans break free from whatever automobile they were in and start rushing right at us. Comeon now! who the fuck brings DOGS, much less DOBERMANS to a drive-in?! were they thinking someone was going to attack them or something? jesus! The owner of the dogs was able to call them away from us though just in time. We ended up watching Click (which Ive seen before and suprisingly liked from an Adam Sandler movie) and the second movie was Nacho Libre so we ended up sleeping in the car for the rest of the night. The second movie didn't end until 2am.

Saturday was the day of the wedding who's party we had attended on thursday night. The wedding was held on Jill's parents property since they have this picturesque yard with a small creek and covered bridge...etc...etc.. The whole ceremony lasted 10 minutes and then shortly after was the reception. Needless to say I got hammered and at one point was dancing my ass off without a care. Yep, this lame ass white guy was dancing like I'd never done before. Im sure theres photographs of this out there but you'll never see it. haha suckers!

Sunday was recoup and recover day. Jill had woken up sick and I didnt feel too good either, not from the alcohol but from something I ate I think. I started to feel better after the 2 1/2 hour car drive back home.

After I had gotten home though I decided that I wanted to get my phone plan upgraded since I qualified for a $150 discount for being a 2 year subscriber. So I went with my roommate to best buy, picked out the phone that I wanted and was ready to renew my contract. The only problem was that I had a past due balance and I couldn't get my phone until it was paid, so I called Sprint, spoke with a representative and found out my past due. Since I didn't have enough to cover I had to deposit a check into my bank account and call Sprint again. This time the second representative didn't even ask for a payment and was pushing me to sign a 2 year agreement with her to which she was going to include a $50 rebate which I never really even agreed to do but apparently was done anyway. This rebate was to cover the past due balance and clear up any problems getting the phone. So I drove back to Best Buy and tried again and the same problem came up! So I called them one more time and the last service rep. told me the credit takes 4 hours to be processed, uh HELLO! did you not hear me the first two times when I said I was at the store trying to purchase a phone! I didn't have 4 hours to kill as it was already 6:15 and the store closed at 7 plus if its a credit, shouldn't it go through automatically since its all on their end? I went home after that for the night.

To end the night, as I was ready to take a bath (since I hadn't taken one since Saturday morning and was feeling pretty gross), I find out that the hot water heater was broken so I gave up and took the coldest bath ever, climbed into bed and called it a night.

God I'm tired of typing this post, time to end this shit.

picture post

2006-07-06T00:57:00.000-04:00

Since I've been far too busy with work (and who wants to hear about that?), I decided instead of another boring post, I would upload all the pictures on my camera phone from the past year or so and talk about those instead. If this turns out well, I may start doing this more often.

All Descriptions are from left to right

First Row

The first 2 pictures were taken at Presque Isle State Park in Marquette looking out over Lake Superior. I went there with Jill to visit her sister at Northen Michigan University in November 2005. I absolutely loved the area but the drive was something else. It took almost 10 hours to get there but was worth it.

Pictures 3 & 4 were on the Shore of Lake Michigan taken in late December 2005. The weather was actually not too bad when we walked out to the beach. I was rather suprised there was no snow present but then again this winter was incredibly mild compared to other years.

The last picture is of the concrete pier in Ludington Jill and I made the mistake of walking on barefoot. First of all the thing was just covered in dry bird shit which is kinda gross to think we walked on it barefoot and second of all it was an incredibly windy day which made the walk even more difficult. By the time we made the 20 minute walk out to the lighthouse at the end it was too cold and unpleasant to enjoy the view and instead we ended up just walking back to the beach.

Second Row

The first picture is of a donkey that Jill and I came across on the 4th of July while driving through the MSU farmlands. It was standing in a pen with a group of sheep so we pulled over to observe them. Once the donkey saw us he immediately came over to the fence to have its head patted. It was amusing. Later on as we got back into the car and drove off, I honked my car horn and the sheep took off to the other side of the pen.

The second and fourth pictures are of my roommates cats, Conker and Samus (he named them after videogame characters, bonus points if you can figure out which games.) In case you were wondering, yes, I can tell them apart even if you cant. Nothing to really discuss here. They only get fatter and lazier by the day and their favorite pastime seems to be trying to sneek into the basement when they're not supposed to. Anyplace they can't go is where they want to go first. Aren't humans like that too?

The middle picture is of my former fish Roy Rogers, whom many of you know I made a post about last year in my livejournal. He died when his tank became too hot from sitting too close to the window last summer. Thats at least the story I'm sticking with anyway.

The last picture is of my roommates uncles dog Scout. In April we were asked to watch his dogs while he went on a vacation. I had pictures of the other dog but honestly I didnt like it very much and deleted the pictures awhile ago. Scout on the other hand was an awesome dog. I kinda miss him.

Third Row

The first 2 pictures here are of former corecomm co-workers. First is Mona who is demonstrating what she did best, sleep through the midnight shifts. Mona and I worked at both CompUSA many years ago and corecomm together and everytime it seemed to be the best of a bad situation. I miss working with towelie (it's a bad rab joke, I made them all the time and she made up whitey cracker jokes. Racism can be funny sometimes). The other picture is of Erik displaying a bad joke I came up with late one late night. I came to enjoy Erik's unorthodox ways of dealing with angry customers. I loved how truthfully honest he was with people and how he just didn't give a shit what the other person was saying to them. Yet another person I miss.

The middle picture is my friend Matt. For this one he was dressed up as Satan for a bad movie he and his friends made for a project they were part of but recently disbanded. If you want to see the video, Do We Have a Deal?. Personally I think this one is funnier Staring Contest.

The next picture was of a gas station marquee Jill and I came across while driving back to her parents house one weekend. The business was having a contest to win a mustang by purchasing raffle tickets. The money was going to some charity to help victims of child abuse. However the sign reads "Stop Child Abuse Win Mustang". I dont know, it was funny at the time. I can't think of why it is now.

Finally the last picture was taken inside the bathroom of a bookstore in the mall. I went back recently to the same bathroom and its since been changed to include a noose around the babies neck and reworded to say "Baby Hanging Station". I use this picture as the photo I.D. when my roommmate calls.

Alright, thats about it. This whole post only took an hour which is amazing considering that I had to set everything up from scratch. Now I'll just be able to copy and paste this when I do it again. I guess a picture really is worth 1000 words. I feel like I've type that much just in this one post.

Time to go to bed, I need to wake up in 4 hours.

Goodnight!

Get me out of this air-conditioned nightmare

2006-06-30T10:22:00.000-04:00

Im never good at writing a post at work. Work seems to be a constant theme here and I really wish it wasn't. All I do is work, wake up, eat, shit, work, work work. I'll be glad when the election is over, 130 days and counting. I need to start talking about anything else. I've started to realize I really don't care to listen to other people talk about their work and I'm sure no one else really cares about my stories of work either. It's too easy of a subject to get on and stay there. Most of the time it I just end up listening to endless bitching. If I wanted that I would go hang out with my mom.

Moving on....

Yesterday Jill and I went to see Nacho Libre on a free pass given to her and lets just say her and I were both glad it was free. It was no Freddy got Fingered (you're still not off the hook for that Chris!) but we still ended up walking out of it about an hour into the movie. I already figured I wouldn't like it after hearing it was written by the same losers as Napoleon Dynamite (who's popularity I still can't figure out.)Also its a Nickelodeon movie so there was no way this was going to appeal to anyone who doesn't find fart jokes hilarious or a 7 year old. They're kinda one in the same actually. Later on we redeemed the night by renting Trainspotting and watching that instead. I hadn't seen it before but I liked it. Next time I'll have to put on subtitles, the scottish accent is just a little too thick and I was too tired to follow some of the bulk of the movie.

Several people have asked me what Im going to be doing this weekend. I dont really know yet, maybe coming in to work, maybe going out of town, maybe nothing at all (nevermind that last one, Im not that lucky). But whatever it is, I'll just be glad to not think about work for the next couple of days.

Damn, there I go again.

Thats gross Farmer Ben!

2006-06-27T09:58:00.000-04:00

taken from http://ne0dymium.livejournal.com/

where do I go from here?

2006-06-27T08:05:00.000-04:00

It's always been kinda difficult for me to start a new post after going so many days without.

This past weekend was once again as busy as the rest of them. Saturday I started out going with my father to Sams Club and thus prolonging my streak of not going grocery shopping (I think Im going on 3 months now.) After I had gotten back home I recieved a call from Mona asking me if I was coming out to this BBQ/Poker Tournament/Get together thing that I was asked to go to last March. I had completely forgotten about it but it gave me the perfect excuse to get out of having dinner with my parents and uncle and to get the hell out of Lansing for the day so I went. It was mostly a reunion of former corecomm co-workers but that's not all bad, I liked the people that I worked with there as opposed to every other job I've ever had I think.

Sunday we had our annual family reunion which I hadn't been to in several years. I only went this year because my parents stated that the attendance has been low and they really wanted me out there. Apparently last year 7 people showed up for the reunion where this year there was close to 30-40. I dont know many of the people there (this is a reunion of my grandmothers side so Im not close to them) but it was still enjoyable.

I really dont have any stories from either event since they happened 3 and 4 days ago but thats a rundown of what happened.

Time to work now.

going from bad to worse

2006-06-24T02:37:00.000-04:00

Well my weekend plans are shot. Not only am I going with my father to Sams Club to buy food, but I'm also going to dinner with my parents and uncle and going to a family reunion on Sunday to meet a side of the family I have little to no idea whom anyone is. Fun times indeed!

Really though that the furthest thing from my mind. I've already told most everyone that needs to know but for anyone else reading, I was diagnosed with Diabetes today. The Doctor had informed me that my blood sugar levels 2 weeks ago were 328 (a healthy person is supposed to be between 90-110) and then they checked it today and it was 364 (but I had only eaten about 30 minutes prior so that could've been why it was higher). I was given a perscription for Fortamet once a day along with Nexium for problems with my stomach. Also I was given a testing kit to test my own blood every morning. This part freaks me out the most as I have the most unhealthy fear or needles and blood out of anyone you'll ever meet. I can't stand the sight of either one and now not only do I have to deal with it, I have to do this procedure to myself, EVERYDAY..ugh!.

The first thing everyone seems to want to say when they find out is "Im sorry" but really theres nothing you have to be sorry about. I came to terms a long time ago that this was going to happen. It's not as if this is some kind of startling revalation considering my mother has been diagnosed with it for years and I'm not exactly the most physically fit person on the planet. I may not have thought this early in my life but as the doctor told me today, it's early and can be easily managed through diet and exercise which to me, along with getting over my fear of needles and blood, is going to be the biggest challenge in front of me. If ever there was a motivating factor in my goal towards living a healthier lifestyle, this certainly would be the case.

Food is my biggest weakness, I guess what I'm thinking is rather saying you feel sorry for me, I would rather have everyones help and understanding in not pressuring me into choices that are going to affect my health negatively, not as if its your fault if I eat something bad, but just keep it in mind as your eating ice cream in front of me. haha. The real intention of this is swirling in my head but I'm just having a difficult time putting it in type that can be understood. I'd hope most of you would understand what Im saying here.

Anyway, getting back to something less depressing, Chris and I went to see Click tonight which I hadn't originally intended to go see but was really the only thing out besides Cars and Xmen 3. I will say that it certainly was not the movie that is being advertised on television. It goes from comedy to drama and back to comedy again. Adam Sandler was really not that bad in the movie when he's been so dreadful is just about everything else in at least the past 4 or 5 years. Maybe it was Christopher Walken which helped it along, yeah, thats gotta be it.

Fuck! 3am already?! I should really get some sleep.

over the hump

2006-06-21T13:14:00.000-04:00

I've really slowed down on posting now. Is it just that there ins't anything interesting happening or that I'm too lazy to type anything? I think it might be a little of both actually.

When I say there's nothing interesting happening, that just means I've been working more and more lately, almost 10-12 hours a day now to catch up on the insane amounts of stuff I need to catch up on. I even came in at 6:30 this monring and worked from 7pm-9pm last night. I can't say that I've been putting a 100% effort into it however (as I'm typing this update at work..haha).

I dont know if its the weather or the monotonous work I have but I cannot pay attention at my job anymore. I seem to zone in and hour and spend way too much time looking at anything on the internet to keep my mind occupied from the real work thats in front of me. Its like I just dont care anymore. I'm getting bored with my job and unfortunately I dont have the skills or know-how to get out of here into something better. I suppose I can start looking but I already feel defeated in the effot. I hope no one is paying attention to my work since I can't afford to get fired but really, who can? It's only a shame I can't take an extended vacation from this place since were in the middle of campaign season. A week away would do wonders I think. The only thing I have now is the weekends which up until recently have been just as hectic and busy with weddings and anniversary parties to attend.

I'll be glad when this friday comes along, I don't believe anything has been planned out. Maybe I'll just go to bed and stay there until Monday comes along again.

where was I again?

2006-06-19T13:56:00.000-04:00

It's almost been a week since I've posted anything. Oops!

This past weekend felt incredibly busy and went as soon as it came.

Saturday I attended Alberts wedding. He's the first of anyone close to me that has gotten married. I arrived at the church approx. 30 minutes prior to the wedding starting and the usher decided to sit me in the 3rd aisle. Right behind the grooms parents which was incredibly awkward considering I dont know them nor the bride and groom very well. It was almost worth it however to see how nervous Nate was walking down the aisle as one of the groomsmen. Classic!

After the wedding I went over to the mall to return a tie I had bought for another wedding but never wore and also to pick up Animal Crossing for the DS. So far I haven't connected online to play but it's very addicting and should be me occupied for awhile.

Around 4:30 I attended the reception but could only stay for a few minutes as my parents had planned a get together at 6 for their 35th wedding anniversay. I feel bad that I hadn't gotten a card for the wedding but I still have time for that.

My parents get together went fine. We spent the evening on her best friends farm eating and sitting around a fire pit. Nothing too spectacular. Thankfully my sister (who I had rode with out to the place) was ready to leave after everyone was being bitten alive by insects. We finally got to my house at 11:45 and I was asleep by 1:30.

Sunday I was awake at 7:30 (for no reason what so ever). Around 2pm we (family) had gone out to dinner for fathers day. My sister and I again decided to carpool to the resturant and arrived there around 1:45 and decided to wait for my parents to show up, we waited in the car until 2:10 only to realize there was a parking lot on the other side of the resturant where my parents had parked out of our sight and were waiting for us. I think we both felt pretty lame for waiting outside like that. Dinner went well, My father got to eat and watch baseball which was playing on the television across from where he was sitting which to him seemed like the best fathers gift he could've gotten. Again, I didn't get a card for the occasion. I'll make it up to him this summer with Lugnut tickets most likely.

Thats all.

Detox clinic opening for video addicts

2006-06-13T13:21:00.000-04:00

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - An addiction center is opening Europe's first detox clinic for game addicts, offering in-house treatment for people who can't leave their joysticks alone.

Video games may look innocent, but they can be as addictive as gambling or drugs — and just as hard to kick, says Keith Bakker, director of Amsterdam-based Smith & Jones Addiction Consultants.

Bakker already has treated 20 video game addicts, aged 13 to 30, since January. Some show withdrawal symptoms, such as shaking and sweating, when they look at a computer.

His detox program begins in July. It will run four to eight weeks, including discussions with therapists and efforts to build patients' interests in alternative activities.

"We have kids who don't know how to communicate with people face-to-face because they've spent the last three years talking to somebody in Korea through a computer," Bakker said. "Their social network has completely disappeared."

It can start with a Game Boy, perhaps given by parents hoping to keep their children occupied but away from the television. From there it can progress to multilevel games that aren't made to be won.

Bakker said he has seen signs of addiction in children as young as 8.

Hyke van der Heijden, 28, a graduate of the Amsterdam program, started playing video games 20 years ago. By the time he was in college he was gaming about 14 hours a day and using drugs to play longer.

"For me, one joint would never be enough, or five minutes of gaming would never be enough," he said. "I would just keep going until I crashed out."

Van der Heijden first went to Smith & Jones for drug addiction in October 2005, but realized the gaming was the real problem. Since undergoing treatment, he has distanced himself from his smoking and gaming friends. He says he has been drug- and game-free for eight months.

Like other addicts, Bakker said, gamers are often trying to escape personal problems. When they play, their brains produce endorphins, giving them a high similar to that experienced by gamblers or drug addicts. Gamers' responses to questions even mirror those of alcoholics and gamblers when asked about use.

"Many of these kids believe that when they sit down, they're going to play two games and then do their homework," he said.

However, unlike other addicts, most gamers received their first game from their parents. "Because it's so new, parents don't see that this is something that can be dangerous," Bakker said.

Tim, a gamer who is currently under treatment, agreed to discuss his addiction on condition of his last name not being used. He said he began playing video games three years ago at age 18. Soon he wouldn't leave his room for dinner. Later, he began taking drugs to stay awake and play longer. Finally he sought help and picked up other hobbies to occupy his time.

Symptoms of addiction are easy to spot, Bakker says. Parents should take notice if a child neglects usual activities, spends several hours at a time with the computer and has no social life.
Bakker said parents of game addicts frequently echo the words of partners of cocaine addicts: "'I knew something was wrong, but I didn't know what it was.

http://tinyurl.com/ndzud

This sounds like something I should be enrolled into haha. Not really, I dont think I'm this addicted to videogames. I've always looked at it as a hobby, much like the same of people who enjoy reading, or collecting (coins, dolls, etc...). The only difference is that my hobby is a whole lot more expensive than yours. If I ever get to the point where Im using drugs to stay awake to play videogames then I hope someone shoots me rather than taking me in for detox. I'm way more addicted to the internet anyway.

the weekend

2006-06-12T14:05:00.000-04:00

Quick recap of this weekend

- Went to Oceana County (the "O.C.") with Jill.
- Visited her baby nephew Henry (cute kid!).
- Went to Lake Michigan, walked on a concrete pier and fucked up my feet walking barefoot.
- Did some other stuff (nothing interesting to note)

Overall it was a lot in the span of 20 hours and I enjoyed it all except for the drive home. I'm still a little exhausted and the blisters on my feet are still sore. Also I got home and picked this little beauty up.

Getting it was half the adventure. First I wasn't sure if we were going to be back in Lansing on time to get it. For some reason Nintendo decides to release this on a Sunday when every store closes at 6. GOOD MOVE NINTENDO!

Then sometime in the early afternoon I get a call from EBGames telling me that they didn't have enough in stock and to ask if I could hold off until the second shipment came in, which they wouldn't tell me what day that was. Assholes! So because my phone had little to no connection in the middle of nowhere and also about to turn off due to me not charging the battery, I reluctantly agreed to do it. Even though I asked if my roommate could pick it up for me which they said only if he had my drivers licence (WTF! He had the preorder slip in his hand!). At this point Im pissed at the release date being sunday and EBGames trying to screw me over. Then I kinda thought that they might've called other people as well to see if they could hold out on picking it today as well so I was going to go to the store no matter what just to see if they might have one after all.

So we left O.C. at 3:15 and just barely made it into Lansing around 5:20. I was acting like an immature brat after sitting in the car for 2.5 hours and not knowing if I would have enough time to get to the store or not. Thankfully Jill is understanding enough to overlook my childishness and dropped me off at my house around 5:35, I get to the store, give them my preorder and they had it! Apparently the same guy who called me earlier in the afternoon was going to call me back to let me know it was in. (by this time it was 5:45 so what time were you going to call me you douche!?). After that I was fine, not irated or agitated and the rest of the night went fine. I feel kinda silly getting so worked up about it but I think its just the circumstances going on and the fact I was completely not in control of the situation. I really need to learn to calm down sometimes. I dont think Im that bad though, only somtimes. :)

I guess I should get back to work now.

everybodys working for the weekend

2006-06-10T07:47:00.000-04:00

Just a quick recap from yesterday.

I arrived late for my Upper GI test at the hospital. The woman at the office told me 10:45 but wrote down 10:00, thankfully I went in earlier than usual and only ended up being 10 minutes late. The test itself wasn't too bad, I first had to drink this Alka-Seltzer mixture to expand my stomach and then drink this horrific think chalky liquid with barium salt in it to outling my stomach walls. No flavoring could mask the taste of that shit and I had to chug it down as fast as I could. Blech! Then take a couple X-ray photos and I was done. The whole procedure only took about 10 minutes.

I casually came back to work around 12:30 (I say casually because the test was done at 11:15 and I was in no rush to come into work anytime soon). Work went fine until 4:30 where for the first time I experienced Corecomm Déjà vu. I was answering phones for the front desk when this man calls in at 4:45 to request some assistance with his campaign. I wont go into exactly what was said but it included all the classic Corecomm Customer assery there. The "I'm going to repeat my situation to you 6 times because I feel sooner or later, you're going to give me what I want even though you haven't yet...", The "Is there no one else there that can answer this question for me?" (Not at 4:45 on a FRIDAY YOU ASSHOLE!), The "Well who is in charge of that and can I have their extension?", etc....etc....Plus it didn't help that sometime during that same hour the phone cord to the handset broke and I had to literally hold it in place so I could hear what this guy was blabbing on and on about for 15 minutes. Ugh! and to think I use to put up with this shit day after day after day. Although sometimes, its a lot easier to get through your day knowing you've ruined the life of some ghetto trash in Cleveland by shutting her phone service off that it is dealing in politics.

Back on Monday.

2 things here

2006-06-08T16:21:00.000-04:00

1st thing

I swear this will be my last 666 reference for the next 100 years.

You know how it's said "money is the root of all evil"?, I guess it's correct, check this out.

I guess they're right. It can also be yours for pretty cheap. Hurry! aution ending soon

1995 Federal Reserve $1 bill with serial # 66666666

2nd thing

So we all know by now that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed yesterday but U.S. forces and sure, think what you want about what this does in the "war on terrorism" but really the first thing I noticed was this picture.

I dont quite understand one thing here. Why on earth is this photo framed? was that really necessary? I'm starting to think that maybe George Bush has a secret gallery where he likes to keep photos of his dead enemies, maybe he'll hang al-Zarqawi in between Uday and Qusay Hussein and call it the triangle of terror. You just know it has to burn him up inside that he couldn't complete the collection with Saddam on there to avenge his daddy. I can see it now "Coming to your town! it's the President Bush collection of dead terrorists! Come view his personal collection and your local Wal-mart, Republicans get in for 1/2 price!"

Back to work.

Hexakosioihexekontahexaphoia or The Day of the Beast!

2006-06-06T12:22:00.000-04:00

So I've read online that Vegas oddsmakers holding 100,000-1 odds today that the world is going to end. My only question really is if you win, how do you go about collecting? I've actually been looking forward to this day for a couple of months now only to see what kind of relgious nuts will be out of what ironic things may happen in the news. So far I see theres been a volcanic explosion out of Mount Merapi in Indonesia which is going to be misinterpreted as "Satan sending his message" I'll assume. Also a British woman is committing to naming her son who is scheduled to be born today Damien. Now THAT is just awesome! That kid is going to be so fear by his schoolmates. If I were him, I'd play up on that fact for the rest of my life.

Well, I suppose I should be getting back to work now, I'll be listening to Slayer tonight to mark the occasion.

\m/

confessions of a sports junkie #3

2006-06-06T11:57:00.000-04:00

This will be my last sports related post for awhile.

So the Pistons finally lost and I dont have to watch a minute more of these already ridiculously long NBA playoffs. Theres absolutely no reason why they need to go on for 2 FUCKING MONTHS! gah!

The Pistons really deserved to lose with their half assed effort and cockiness in winning HCA during the regular season. I only hope now that Ben or Rasheed Wallace gets traded for a scorer or even someone who will sit in the low post to receive the ball. (a 6'10'' player should NEVER be at the 3 point line like Rasheed was all year long like that). All I can say now is Go Mavs!

no title

2006-06-03T17:48:00.000-04:00

It's a little cold in my bedroom right now, and I think another storm is coming. Where did the sun go?

Yesterday I had visted my doctor for a rather strange reason. Beginning last monday I experienced a sharp pain in the center of my back every time I was eating or drinking anything. It wasn't anything that bad but had been going on for several days. My doctor was unable to determine if there was anything physically wrong with me but ordered me on a perscription of Nexium, a chest xray, bloodwork and now and Upper GI scheduled for next friday at the hospital. What the hell am I getting myself into?

I also found out yesterday that my friend Christopher is getting married next year. This is the first of my friends to do so and it's kind of weird. I'm not really sure what to expect out of it but I guess I'll have a year to see.

Thats it.

confessions of a sports junkie #2

2006-06-02T09:55:00.000-04:00

Maybe I was a bit hasty in not caring about the Pistons yet, NOW we've got a series!

Ever since the Game 4 lost I've thought about the rest of this series down to one game really, Game 6 tonight. If Detroit can win tonight, they've got the series, regardless of game 7 because really, who doesn't expect a little home court favoritism going into that scenerio. It's as if the Pistons can't lose then and if they do I'll be a little suprised. I'll defintely be tuning into the games from here until whenever the run ends.

The Tigers slipped up a little this week losing 3 out of 4 to the dreaded Yankees. We're the bats asleep or what? the first 2 games with 0 runs is unacceptable! at least they sweaked out of the last game. Now it's the Red Sox, fuck! At least they're still 2.5 up on the White Sox for the division race.

another day another post

2006-06-02T09:28:00.001-04:00

This game has completely consumed my videogame attention as of late. For as much fun as Table tennis can be in real life, Table Tennis for the 360 kicks its ass! The best is playing on Xbox Live and destroying those who otherwise would be able to beat me in any other online competitive game. Take THAT Halo 2 fans! I only wish they would've expanded more on the single player mode and maybe made a Beer Pong mode where the controller shakes after each turn. Ah well, maybe there will be a sequel, though it's already pretty perfect in its own right.

Speaking of videogames, I only have another 10 AGONIZING days until my DS lite ships out! I recently traded in my PSP and 3 games for $151 in credit. It's not that I hated the PSP either, far from it. But when I read about all the movie studios who are dropping out of the UMD market I saw that as the beginning of the end. Wasn't movies one of the selling points for this thing anyway? Plus the unit just felt so expensive that I wasn't about to take it out of the house to experience it as a true "portable system" that it is intended to be. Plus GTA Liberty City Stories is coming out for the PS2 on Tuesday and it's got to be a hell of a lot easier to play on there than on the one analog stick PSP.

Anyway, back to the DS. I'm thinking I'll pick up 2 games when I finally get it, The New Super Mario Brothers which just looks amazing and a lot of fun to play and then for online play I'll be picking up Mario Kart DS. I've got a few people lined up to play against and that ought to keep me occupied on the long boring days ahead.

Thats all for now.

chinese mutant baby

2006-06-01T13:21:00.000-04:00

Chinese Mutant Baby!

I feel for the poor kid, I really do but as soon as I saw the image in the article, this was the first thing that came to my mind.

OMGWTFBBQ! the Chinese are working on breeding Goro!

dog days

2006-05-31T12:52:00.000-04:00

It's been a couple of days since I've added anything to this blog but thats okay because no one is really reading it anyway. I don't want anyone to know about it yet until I have enough content to make it worthwhile anyway. This has to be at least the sixth or seventh time I've started a personal blog/journal and usually I get bored with it a week later. I'm really going to put forth a better effort this time. (yeah right)

Anyway, this past holiday weekend was good, I had actually taken Thursday and Friday off from work so along with Memorial Day I had a nice 5 day weekend to myself while only using 14 hours of E.T.O. so rock on! I didn't really go anywhere as I only had a limited money and wasn't going to recieve a paycheck until the 31st but I was able to sit around at home doing nothing which is really what I wanted to do anyway. Along the way I was able to play a couple rounds of golf (I'm not very good but I do enjoy it and would play more if I could afford it), go to the zoo, eat some food off the grill, and play videogames. Memorial Day itself sucked only for the 93 degree weather we had. I must've taken 3 baths that day since anytime I left my room my clothes were sticking to me and I just felt gross. Also the realization I would have to come back into work the following day was not very pleasant to think about.

Oh well, at least summer is here, now if I could only find a pool to lay in until August.

confessions of a sports junkie

2006-05-23T22:33:00.001-04:00

Damn!

The Pistons drop Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals but at least the Tigers are ahead of the Royals going into the 9th inning.

I've been so uninterested in the Pistons these days, I dont know what it is. First of all this playoff format is just TOO DAMN LONG! who really wants to watch 2 months of NBA playoffs at this time of year? Secondly I get bored cheering for a team that is favored to win the championship year after year. I guess I'm more of a fairweather fan than I thought. My attention is clearly on baseball (my first sports love). Give me a call if the Pistons make it to the NBA Finals otherwise "Play Ball!"

happy hour is now enforced by law

2006-05-23T13:35:00.000-04:00

This morning I was witness to two people buying 40's of budweiser and magum at 7:30 in the morning. I'm all for getting your drink on but that was a little ridiculous.

Even still I was able to sucessfully hold in my laughter.

I guess

2006-05-23T09:30:00.000-04:00

this could be the start of something big!