Waiting for Something

Sorry that the last post kind of degenerated into a rant. I am really in a much better mood today. It was beautiful outside earlier and I took photos of the trees off of the "porch," a tiny landing that tops the stairs Em's and I enter the house through. I also added a picture of our laundry room. That may be weird, but I always think it looks so pretty when it is sunny outside. I started this blog much earlier in the day but it was a little moody, so I deleted it. I've added a new goal to the 10,000th Day campaign; in addition to simplify, and graduate from college, I'm also going to try and be more positive. I think that is something I really need to work on. Life always seems so much easier if you look for what is good around you. I added a picture of my landlord's van that I wrote about last time. It's parked next to my Cavalier. That van looks so good to me. I miss the minivan I used to have. Also, I finally bought a new coat. Em's always gives me grief for the coat I have, which was purchased for me in 2000 by my then girlfriend. I don't think that the whole girlfriend thing bothered her as much as the faded, stained, (I'll admit it) kind of stinky old coat. We had been looking for me a coat for almost two years, but a combination of my ginormous size and incredible cheapness contributed to failure all around. But yesterday I found this sweet coat at Rugged Warehouse marked down to $60 from $200. I couldn't pass it up. The fact that it is Roca Wear only serves to make it better as it still kind of embarrasses Em's. HA!!! Here's a really cool site that compares the merits of the XO-1 to the Asus EEE PC. I've been reading a Mother Earth News Almanac from 1973 and enjoying every minute of it. It really inspires a DIY work ethic in me. So everyone get ready, cause Christmas will bring lots of homemade gifts. Maybe soon I can post some pics of my recent projects. I turned in my third school study today, so there's only one more education assignment left. I think that I'm beginning to see the light at the end of this semester's tunnel. Em's and I were discussing some cool ideas of things we could do in the future. I kept thinking about the Kerouac novel Big Sur. Isn't that the one where he stays up on the mountain as a fire/smoke watchy person? I think that would be cool to do. Head out there into the wilderness and just vibe. If anyone know if you can still do this, or if the modern techno world has replaced it let me know. One last thing. At work today I had a great conversation with an employee who had worked in the past for Operation Smile. The stories h told really inspired me to want to do more with my life. It really got me excited.

Simple

It has been a pretty good day. That's pretty surprising because I woke up this morning feeling like I had been hit by a truck. As I stumbled into the bathroom, hacking up copious amounts of phlegm (pretty right?), I realized Emily had finally passed her sickness on. She of course was finally feeling better after a month of being sick. It was kind of hard to listen to her prancing around the apartment whistling like some daft princess out of a Disney cartoon. I barely stayed awake in my History class, which is a shame because I really enjoy it. But I stared at the teacher today, stunned, barely able to keep my eyes closed. Sigh. I came home and started feeling a little better, watching the latest episode of Heroes on YouTube (that's right, screw you nbc.com--Your video streaming sucks!). Heroes has gotten pretty good. I know I said that I was sick of it, but the last few episodes have bee watched on the internet with "limited commercial interruption." Speaking of watching TV, tonight I was watching the Fit channel (looking for inspiration, but mostly to see the Namaste Yoga chicks...SWEET JESUS!) and realized who its target demographic was. On a commercial break the commercials were for 1. chocolate, 2. botox, 3. a dating website. What the hell?! Don't get me wrong, I love chocolate but to have that on a fitness oreinted channel? Maybe they were just trying to make sure they kept their viewers. I always want to scream "Here comes the bocculism!" anytime someone talks about botox, but usually I'm in public, so tonight I DID yell. It was magical. Okay, back to describing my day. After my Education class in which we had a fantastic talk from Adrian Israel (I hope I spelled that right but I'm to lazy to look it up right now) I cam home and had some chili. Now I know that all of you are saying "WHAT! Chili when your sick? That's crazy!"
But really it is fantastic. Here is my "Oh Shit I'm Sick and Need to Get Well Now" chili recipe:
1 can of Hormel turkey and bean chili
1/2 a bottle of Tabasco
1 quick squirt of Worcestershire sauce
1/2 of a finely chopped onion
Combine all ingredients in a pot and heat till bubbly. Dump in bowl and sprinkle with pepper flakes, pepper, and top with a few oyster crackers. You WILL either die (thus being out of your misery) or get better.
After this hearty meal I set out for my math class. It was boring. I came home and whined for a while to Ems about how sick I was, she went and got me a samich, I watched TV, she brought me medicine and beverages, she went to bed and here I am at the present.
I'm a little logy right now from all the medicine so I'm gonna hit the hay. Tomorrow I have to work like crazy on all my homework and

End of November

I can't believe that there's another month under my belt. Geez, I just keep getting older. One thing that me and my buddy Jed were talking about before turkey day was about how many days we'd been alive. We decided that we should have a celebration on our 10,000th days. As of today, Nov. 26th 2007, I have 784 days until my 10,000th. I know that seems like it's a long way away, but it is really just a little over 2 years! I am not sure what all I will want to do before then, but I think I want to change lots of stuff. Whatever I end up doing it still would be cool to celebrate it. I just feel like it's a good idea to have some weird future date to look at and say "By then..." Maybe thats silly but I don't care. If you look at the bottom of the page you will see that I added a countdown clock for my ten thousandth day. My first goal is: graduate from college. Sweet. As December kicks off I think that I have some new focus in life. Mostly though I'm procrastinating doing my homework. I was shocked this afternoon to realize just how little time there is left in this semester. It wont be long before I'm workin' full time and hangin' out with my (soon to be) re-Greensboro-ized bud Jed. This coming semester will hopefully be a little less stressful (and hopefully I'll get better financial aid!). I will be taking some really fun sounding courses. In the blog previous to this one I embedded a video for the XO-1 featuring Masi Oka (check out his wiki to see how crazy this guy is!). I don't think that OLPC could have chosen a better representative. Masi Oka gets huge props. Hopefully he donated his time. This post I've included some photos that I would like to share. The top photo is super sexy me from our beach trip earlier in the year. I just thought i looked good, so everyone should see it (those ARE Playboy brand sunglasses, I IS a Playboy!). The next pic is a really cool puzzle that Em. put together on that same beach trip. Scrolling through some pictures in my computer that survived the great computer migration of '07, these two just stood out. The only birthday pics left from this Sept. that survived are the ones on the blog so I thought these two would kind of be safe here. The third photo is my sweet new Ubuntu set up on the old computer. This computer was pretty good, but I really wanted to see what Ubuntu was like. Unfortunately, it will not recognize my wireless network (or if it does I'm too dumb to figure it out). From what I can tell though Ubuntu is great and I think I would rather have that then Windows (especially Vista), unfortunately Windows is pretty ubiquitous. The final picture is from the time three of my robots went back in time to capture a stegosaurus (see background). Pretty sweet.

I've included here the most amazing and inspiring commercial of all time. Watch multiple times and enjoy.

End of November

I can't believe that there's another month under my belt. Geez, I just keep getting older. One thing that me and my buddy Jed were talking about before turkey day was about how many days we'd been alive. We decided that we should have a celebration on our 10,000th days. As of today, Nov. 26th 2007, I have 784 days until my 10,000th. I know that seems like it's a long way away, but it is really just a little over 2 years! I am not sure what all I will want to do before then, but I think I want to change lots of stuff. Whatever I end up doing it still would be cool to celebrate it.

Black Friday

Oh Lordy! So here I am, rockin' you like a hurricane. Last night I went to work at 11:15 and left this morning at 8. When I got home I stumbled into the shower and went to bed until 12:20. By that time E. was already at work at Old Salem. I dragged myself into the kitchen and ate some leftovers that E. had brought home from her family. I got two family's leftovers this Thanksgiving. Ray Ray came over last night around 8 and brought a beautiful plate of food for me. She's is such a sweetheart, and Emily and I really miss seeing her and being her neighbor. After gorging for a bit I went BACK to the mall to get my check. I'm normally pretty happy about payday but I didn't really want to be back in the mall. Poor Andrew, one of the shift supervisors, was still there. He's working from 11:15 PM Thanksgiving night until 4:30 PM today. Frankly I think he's crazy. Last night went pretty well. There's a big difference in having 6 people working and having 3 people working. I debated bringing the new vid camera and recording the stampede (I'm not shittin' you, people run in), but decided that it wouldn't be worth it if the camera got messed up. I made a lot of fraps in the morning, handlin' the frap station all on my lonesome. It was weird because it seemed less busy than last year, but we were making more drinks and more money. Maybe it was just so psychotic last year because we were unprepared and understaffed. At one point my left arm went totally numb from doing the same repetitive motion for so long. Luckily just at that moment Andrew accidentally frogged me and the arm woke up. At around 5 AM it seemed to really die off on the cold bar (where I was) and I stood there dazedly for the next couple of hours. I don't mean to say that I wasn't still making drinks, but they just were not coming as frequently. It was a relief to know that no matter how I have to work it I have decided NOT to work on Black Friday next year.

I just picked up "The Umbrella Academy" last Wed. at Acme. I really didn't want to try it because the writer is the lead singer for My Chemical Romance. It's not that I don't like them (in fact I don't think I could name even one of their songs) it is just that I see certain types of little urchins walking around the mall with the band's t-shirt on. But my most reliable comic shop guy comic pimp told me that it was a great book, and compared it to "Royal Tannenbaums (sp) meets Hellboy." Just a side note, I'm never sure if I should italicize or put parenthesisaround movies. Maybe one of my faithful readers (ha) could inform me. Anyhoo, the book is pretty great. I will definitely finish off the miniseries and see how it goes.

If anyone out there knows where I can get some Apple, Spearmint, Ginger, or Licorice Altoids tins please comment with the info! I don't know why but I've been obsessed lately with collecting all of the tins. Also, if anyone has any old portable flash drives (no matter how small) that you just don't use anymore because you bought a bigger newer one or you just plain don't need it, hook a brother up! I'll be willing to pay you something, just name a fair price and we'll have a deal.

I just started reading this book I got out of the Ed Mckay's free bin about a month or so ago. It's The Mother Earth News Almanac: A Guide Through the Seasons. The book was published in 1973. I know that I have TONS of other stuff to do for school, but I wanted to read something I didn't have to that was longer than a comic book. Today as I sipped my soup and ate my sandwich I read the first part of the winter section which gave me some really cool ideas. But the part that made me all warm and glowy was the introduction to winter (the time of rest). It says:

"...a small boy in North Dakota will be taken for his first ice-fishing trip; a young girl from Greenville, South Carolina will be kissed under the mistletoe; at least 6,000,010 snowball fights will be fought on the North American COntinent; the cat and dog will spend a lot of time sleeping under the kitchen stove, and grandma will read the seed catalogues and dream of the coming spring."

For some reason that just makes me happy!


Here are some cool links for people that have wondered what the heck I'm talkin' about. The XO-1 is from the OLPC program (here is a link that might provide more info) and has just extended their buy one give one program until Dec. 31st. Hurray! I have passionate dreams about this computer. Actually I've had dreams about it for almost two years. I really really really really want one. Hopefully I'll get enough moola together to get it. The Asus EEE is a microcomputer that was hyped as being similar to the XO-1, but the price point just kept jumping higher and higher. The EEE has had some issues in delivering what they said they would deliver, but it is still pretty awesome. If I don't get the XO-1 than the EEE is what I'll end up with. The Amazon Kindle is a sweet ereader that with enough improvement could be the wave of literary future.


Here's Ray Ray telling a story about a roach.

Black Friday

Oh Lordy! So here I am, rockin' you like a hurricane. Last night I went to work at 11:15 and left this morning at 8. When I got home I stumbled into the shower and went to bed until 12:20. By that time E. was already at work at Old Salem. I dragged myself into the kitchen and ate some leftovers that E. had brought home from her family. I got two family's leftovers this Thanksgiving. Ray Ray came over last night around 8 and brought a beautiful plate of food for me. She's is such a sweetheart, and Emily and I really miss seeing her and being her neighbor. After gorging for a bit I went BACK to the mall to get my check. I'm normally pretty happy about payday but I didn't really want to be back in the mall. Poor Andrew, one of the shift supervisors, was still there. He's working from 11:15 PM Thanksgiving night until 4:30 PM today. Frankly I think he's crazy. Last night went pretty well. There's a big difference in having 6 people working and having 3 people working. I debated bringing the new vid camera and recording the stampede (I'm not shittin' you, people run in), but decided that it wouldn't be worth it if the camera got messed up. I made a lot of fraps in the morning, handlin' the frap station all on my lonesome. It was weird because it seemed less busy than last year, but we were making more drinks and more money. Maybe it was just so psychotic last year because we were unprepared and understaffed. At one point my left arm went totally numb from doing the same repetitive motion for so long. Luckily just at that moment Andrew accidentally frogged me and the arm woke up. At around 5 AM it seemed to really die off on the cold bar (where I was) and I stood there dazedly for the next couple of hours. I don't mean to say that I wasn't still making drinks, but they just were not coming as frequently. It was a relief to know that no matter how I have to work it I have decided NOT to work on Black Friday next year.

I just picked up "The Umbrella Academy" last Wed. at Acme. I really didn't want to try it because the writer is the lead singer for My Chemical Romance. It's not that I don't like them (in fact I don't think I could name even one of their songs) it is just that I see certain types of little urchins walking around the mall with the band's t-shirt on. But my most reliable comic shop guy comic pimp told me that it was a great book, and compared it to "Royal Tannenbaums (sp) meets Hellboy around movies. Maybe one of my faithful readers (ha) could inform me. ." Just a side note, I'm never sure if I should italicise or put parenthesis. Anyhoo, the book is pretty great. I will definitely finish off the miniseries and see how it goes.

If anyone out there knows where I can get some Apple, Spearmint, Ginger, or Licorice Altoids tins please comment with the info! I don't know why but I've been obsessed lately with collecting all of the tins. Also, if anyone has any old portable flash drives (no matter how small) that you just don't use anymore because you bought a bigger newer one or you just plain don't need it, hook a brother up! I'll be willing to pay you something, just name a fair price and we'll have a deal.

I just started reading this book I got out of the Ed Mckay's free bin about a month or so ago. It's The Mother Earth News Almanac: A Guide Through the Seasons. The book was published in 1973. I know that I have TONS of other stuff to do for school, but I wanted to read something I didn't have to that was longer than a comic book. Today as I sipped my soup and ate my sandwich I read the first part of the winter section which gave me some really cool ideas. But the part that made me all warm and glowy was the introduction to winter (the time of rest). It says:

"...a small boy in North Dakota will be taken for his first ice-fishing trip; a young girl from Greenville, South Carolina will be kissed under the mistletoe; at least 6,000,010 snowball fights will be fought on the North American COntinent; the cat and dog will spend a lot of time sleeping under the kitchen stove, and grandma will read the seed catalogues and dream of the coming spring."

For some reason that just makes me happy!


Here are some cool links for people that have wondered what the heck I'm talkin' about. The XO-1 is from the OLPC program (here is a link that might provide more info) and has just extended their buy one give one program until Dec. 31st. Hurray! I have passionate dreams about this computer. Actually I've had dreams about it for almost two years. I really really really really want one. Hopefully I'll get enough moola together to get it. The Asus EEE is a microcomputer that was hyped as being similar to the XO-1, but the price point just kept jumping higher and higher. The EEE has had some issues in delivering what they said they would deliver, but it is still pretty awesome. If I don't get the XO-1 than the EEE is what I'll end up with. The Amazon Kindle is a sweet ereader that with enough improvement could be the wave of literary future.


Here's Ray Ray telling a story about a roach.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I can't think of Thanksgiving without thinking of John Irving's The Water Method Man. In the end of that book the characters all finally come together in this weird familial way to celebrate "thoksgroving" (or something like that). That always seemed like such a beautiful idea to me. Being surrounded by the family and friends that you wanted to be with. Everyone would pitch in making things, there would be little babies running around and dogs trying to get at all the food. Oh well, I know it's just a stupid fantasy. This Thanksgiving I am all alone. My sister had to work, Emily's in Durham, Mom's doing something with Jim, Dad's in Wilmington, and Jed is in Ramsuer with his family. I don't particularly mind being alone for Thanksgiving since it hasn't seemed like a "holiday" in years. I work from 11:30 AM to 8 AM today. Black Friday sucks. I tried to write a blog leading up to this one the other day at the school library on the trusty DS, but I got booted off of the network and the blog was deleted. Needless to say I was pretty frustrated. The gist of that blog was that I missed hanging out with my Eng. partner (since our presentation is done), and that Ems needs a new car. I have had the chance today to write this blog slowly (which means i started writing and lazily stopped and started multiple times). Here's what has happened today: I woke up extra early with Emily so I could bid her safe travel as she set out for Durham, spoke with my lovely sister about how Thanksgiving is no longer a real holiday for either of us, chatted with Pops about how his boat is doing while comparing K & W cafeteria Thanksgiving meals to Boston Market's, and made deviled eggs. I have never made deviled eggs before, and probably wouldn't today, but I noticed this morning (around 2:30 PM) as I made breakfast that my eggs expired in the next couple of days. This normally would not be cause for concern except that there were 8 eggs left! There is no way I could eat 8 eggs in two days. So I decided to try deviled eggs. I looked up the recipe online, and found zillions. Most sounded pretty funky, so I improvised. Hopefully anyone that tries my deviled eggs will do so before they read this! I boiled the eggs and took off the shells. I scraped the yolks into a mixing bowl and added: 1/4 of a finely chopped onion, a liberal squirt of yellow mustard, salt, LOTS of pepper, a splash of rice vinegar, some dill, about 1/4 a cup of mayo, a dash of cumin (I didn't have paprika so I improvised), two basil leaves, and (here we go) the final ingredient was the remains in the bottom of my pickle jar. I'm not sure what that stuff is but it made the eggs taste a bit better. They turned out alright, but not as good as Mom makes. I was proud of myself for trying though. Ra Hel said she may come by later with some delicious Thanksgiving food her delightful mother made along with some pecan pie. I'm quite excited by the prospect of beautiful women bringing me delicious food. I tried to stay out pretty late last night so that I would sleep longer today, and thusly not be so damn tired tonight. I managed to stay up until about 4:40 AM before the old-man genes kicked in and made me fall asleep. Hopefully I'll do better tonight. Jed has been in town and helped me with the staying up late last night. We had the chance to hang out a few times while he was home which was perfectly enjoyable. He graduates in Dec. and I'm quite proud of him. I've never been friends with anyone as long as I've been friends with Jed. When he moves back to G. Boro we'll have lots of fun adventures. I'm still pretty torn on whether of not to get the XO-1, I desperately want it but still can't justify it. The way I see it is it will never be made public again so I should get it, but if I procrastinate to long and miss getting one, it will always seem like magic i didn't snatch up. That could be a good thing though because what if it sucked? The other techy device I'm fascinated with is Amazon's Kindle. I know that I don't need one, but how cool is that shit? If Amazon would give you the free download of all the books you bought in the past off of Amazon I would buy it in a heartbeat, but I don't really want to try re-buy my library like I had to do for DVD. The device is pretty sweet and whispernet is awesome.