Cole slaw is the devil's fuel

I've been working like I mean it lately. Holy cow it's been busy! I've submitted so many TPS reports, I'm dizzy. I miss blogging. Literally.

Since the weather has been better, sometimes at work we'll take a break and shoot some hoops for 20 minutes. I've never done that before, and it's a great diversion from driving the desk all day. It's funny, but for most of time, "work" was mostly physical hard labor type stuff. Now, it's been distilled to moving your finger slightly to type or click a mouse and moving your arm a little.

I haven't been working ALL the time of course. In between, I've helped Merima move, Ann pick out drip irrigation accessories, shopped with Cathryn at Target, went to a party or two, and played a video game or three. It really has been a whirlwind of a week or so, but it's been good. I even found time for a few trips to the gym!

Intergalactic Planetary

Here's a shot of me and Cathryn in Pontiki form hanging out underneath my computer. I was going to put in a sample conversation (written in screenplay form), like:

SQUARE: "Hi there! My name is Walter."
[says with anticipation]

EGG: "Ummm...hmmmm..."
[looks off into the distance]

...which is better than I used to do in real life. But I think it would be more fun to mad lib it yourself (let your imaginations run wiiiiiilllllllllddddddd!!!!).

In music news, the power of Google once again prevailed as I found out the cool song that's being played in the Jaguar XK commercial. The song is called I Turn My Camera On by Spoon. I think Spoon must be a cool band, because I did an iTunes search and they showed up on the OC and Veronica Mars soundtracks - two shows that I don't watch, but I know are popular with the kids these days (actually, I caught an episode of Veronica Mars once and it was pretty good - but I still think the OC sucks big donkey ass... or maybe it's just because I can't relate to trust fund whiny anorexic white chicks).

Whoops! I gotta cut down on the vitriolic commentary... since Jack Johnson just started playing on my iTunes I feel instantly more peaceful. Not that I'm a fanboy, but after finding out about how he got started and listening to the calm nature of his music, he's a performer that's easy to root for. Speaking of peaceful music, I've noticed lately that not only 80's style music has come back, but so has its happy poppy lyrics. Happiness is a good thing :) Next purchase hopefully: The Lovemakers Times of Romance.

Snoo Snoo for my Woo Woo

So I need to write this for no reason except for pure catharsis. I tallied up my cholesterol the other day and it was 205. I've never even been close to borderline, much less slightly above it when it comes to cholesterol. And of course, I'm feeling fat and very much out of shape. And my forehead broke out in a lot of pimples because I scarfed a bunch of those Reese's peanut butter and chocolate eggs. And try as I might, I cannot help poking around on eBay for good deals on DVDs. Even though I have plenty to entertain me. Even though as far as collections go, mine isn't too shabby at all. Speaking of eBay, it's the one thing that seems to be consistently displayed on my browser in the foremost window whenever my boss decides to pay a rare, but sudden visit to my desk. Lovely. Just lovely. I also feel badly I can never seem to find enough time for everyone I want to have time for. I think I'm too mean, too obsessive, and too neurotic. And lately, my memory is leaking worse than, um, some clever analogy that I could make if I could remember it. I say things like I'm sure I know it because I think I do, but then the person I'm talking to tells me I'm full of shit. Of course, I'm full of shit! But normally I know it instead of just forgetting it and then realizing that I'm wrong. Sucks! I know things can be worse (so much worse!!), but I just wanted to write this down and publish it so when things ARE truly tough, I can read this and think, "What the hell was I thinking that this stupid shit was making me feel down about myself???"

Drink the wine and save the water

I found some really cool beer drinking glasses (pilsners?) at Ross for cheap and I've never really found myself craving a beer before until now (vodka yes, beer no). I don't know if it was the excitement of drinking from a cool glass instead of one of my hand me down cups, or if its shape really did make a difference, but the beer tasted tastier than usual. Add some smoked almonds to the mix, and I'm in my own bar! Granted, it would have been better with some friends around...

My war with spiders continues. After gardening on the weekend, I got an itchy kinda painful welt behind my left ear. Pimple I thought. Nope! I looked in the mirror today to see two tiny puncture wounds. DAMN SPIDERS!!!! After all those years of catching and releasing, I'm now gonna mercilessly kill you and all your kind! (only the small surburban kind mind you - any of the ilk that I see that were featured on the Discovery channel's report on animals of the Amazon basin I'm backing away from very slowly and then running in the opposite direction from and shouting something along the lines of "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!!!!!"). Please click here to see what I'm talking about :)

My hands are HUGE!!!

Ha ha! I suppose that's what I'd really believe if I were high as a kite, but this is just a clever shot by Cathryn which artfully captures the magic of foreshortening. That glazed over look in my eye is from eating far too much and then drinking too much water afterwards because I was thirsty. I felt like I ate about two dozen dried sponges and then immediately drank a gallon of water. Shoot me now... (I'm glad no one did, though).

So I just came home from the tax guy and while the whole process was painful and costly, it wasn't horribly painful and costly, so I'm jazzed (yep, I just referred to myself as being "jazzed" because that's how I feel). On Monday I return to their office and sign papers/drop off the check. I still can't believe that considering how inept I perceive the government to be, the only way to hide from them to avoid taxes is to live in a cabin in the woods with a banjo and a squirrel as my only friends.

One last note, we finally did enough taxi missions in GTASA so that they now all have NOS! Hot dawg!!! Yep. I'm a geek and this is me embracing it :)

If it weren't for TV, I'd have nothing to vegitate my mind with

I saw an advertisment for a show hosted by Trya Banks - the next one is going to be about phobias. They showed some dude who's deathly afraid of clowns and then they're going to march out scary clowns in front of him. Same goes for some woman who's fear is spiders - they're going to let a giant spider crawl on her. Then, to make things ridculous, they're showing some woman who's afraid of styrofoam. I turned the channel.

Last night I saw some hunting show with an annoying blonde woman as the main hunter. I've seen other hunting shows though and they always have this ironic (to me anyway) shot of the hunters going, "WOW! This is SUCH a beautiful animal!", right after they've just turned it into a corpse.

Getting back to the phobia thing. Last night while I was in the shower, I looked over on my left shoulder to soap it when I was surprised to find a spider there! Yes, it quickly got rinsed down the drain - but wwhooo-yaaaaa-yikes!!! I haven't a clue where it came from, but I do know it's now swimming in the SLZ sewage system.

Maybe meditation would help

So it's late and I'm up. Not unusual I suppose, but what's making me not able to sleep is thinking about personal problems. My brother recently pulled some uncaring shit on me for the nth time and I've basically wrote him off. I'm done. I think I've reconciled me feelings about that and I'm okay. But today I saw a really shitty response in my movie night evite from a friend I've known since high school.

Last week his daughter had a first birthday party and it was a big deal with catering and lots of people. I forgot about it, missed it, and phoned later in the week with an apology. He never called back and instead wrote something nasty and really passive aggressive in the "no" repsonses. Mind you, I've sent him at least a half dozen evites for various things and this is the only time he's ever responded.

So basically I wrote him an email that outlined the fact that it would seem that it was okay for him to be too busy for my stuff, but not okay for me to be too busy for his events (which are large family and friends gatherings which just suck for me). And I finished by stating that if an apology wasn't enough, to not to bother sending me any more invitations in the future.

So now I lay awake and ponder: am I too harsh? Am I too full of myself? I think I'm a decent fellow, but god fucking damn it if some people just piss me the fuck off sometimes. Being a little fellow and soft spoken around strangers, I've experienced a lot of people trying to push me around or try get their way because they don't think I'll push back. So I've been pushing back, but just once. Then I'm gone. Am I being over zealous in utilizing such a tactic?

I don't know. It bothers me, but in a way I don't care. I'm feeling so much happier with my life lately that when people try to pull bullshit like that with me it feels like poison, and I can't get far enough away from it. I'm still working on not getting walked over by strangers, but by family or friends? I won't tolerate it. They should be nicer because it's me. They should forgive me because I'd forgive them. Moreover, we're supposed to be on the same fucking side >:(

Food makes the poop

So... I'm having trouble expressing myself through words lately. Or at least I think so. I probably normal, so I appear, to people mostly. Damn. I'm sure you know what I mean. But it's like that. Maybe my brain is waterlogged. I mean, I enjoy the rain as much as the next mushroom, but fuck! Enough with all the rain all in a row with no sun and warmth already! There is an upside to all of the weather, though. My lavender is growing like crazy and the jasmine vines are pretty happy too. I think I'll plant some ferns to see if they'll survive the summer.

Oops, sorry for seguing into a boring suburbanite! How about talking about my latest fun ebay score? I bought some JBL Creature Speakers for a mere $45 buckaroos and now I'm jamming with a nice bass thump while I work :) I never invested in computer speakers before because I thought of them as being too much of a luxury item - but seeing as I'm pretty much chained to this thing day in and day out, I've been pretty happy ever since! Aenema never sounded more like the energizing anthem that it is (that's music that MUST be listened to at the loudest level tolerable).

Speaking of which, I was out this Saturday eve to catch Kid Koala at the Independent. He was very good, but the DJ before him, Mike Relm, was AMAZING! Some of his stuff went on a bit long for my taste, but his syncing up of his scratching with video was nothing short of brilliantly entertaining

{ This photo taken on Divisadero in front of a convenience store. We bought Chicklets, Listerine Stripes, and Peanut M&Ms before the show. }