Took care of the grocery shopping today, finished the laundry, did the “bills,” as it were, any and everything to avoid finishing my homework, which is something I’m never exactly *in the mood* for, and yet, when I do the homework, I get a tremendous feeling of satisfaction knowing that it’s done, and almost always, I enjoy doing it in the end. Why is the getting-rolling so blasted hard? It’s a mystery of human psychology, I guess, that I could probably figure out, if only I could get started on researching that.

I think I should probably advise my place of work that I’m going to be gone during spring break, even though it’s really only three days I’ll be missing there, three days is three days and I’m sure they’d appreciate a heads-up. This is not something that I even thought about last week as I was purchasing airfare online. This is why it’s going to be extremely difficult for me to ever have a real job.

I did some dishes today, too.

Christy was in town for her birthday this past weekend, so I bought her some booze and a picture frame, and we had Chinese. Well, I really need to get to work on the homework now, so I’ll catch ya later.

Last night in my Rhetoric & Comp class, we talked a little about writing out numbers or not writing out numbers. Last year, I tried to make myself a new habit of *always* writing out numbers, even if (and especially if) it’s some ungodly high number, like four hundred eighty-seven million, three hundred ninety-two thousand, two hundred four. When I’m talking about a big number, I like to draw attention to just how big it is. So, maybe the honest truth is not that I always write out the numbers, but I make them appear as large on the page as possible. That might be more accurate. What’s more impressive? Is it “one trillion,” or “1,000,000,000,000”? I think you know the answer.

Last night, I thought I may have done something bad, but this afternoon, I realized that I was crazy for having thought it. This is what is was:

Without even thinking about it, I mentioned to an entire classroom of people that they would find the phone number for Terri Carlin on my website. I even told them exactly how to find said website.

What hadn’t occurred to me at that moment was that this was ACTUALLY A RIDICULOUS ENOUGH STORY that people might go, and might make it abundantly clear to my ISP that I’m hosting my own website from my bedroom.

This is the thought that I realized was silly, because it would take an astronomical amount of traffic for that to happen. So I am now in a realm of non-concern.

Besides the absurdity of the lawsuit, if you take a look at that frame of video once again, and let’s do that, shall we?

HEE, he-hee…Right, so when you look at this picture, (which, like I said, there are 30 frames per second with standard NTSC video, and if you captured *EVERY SINGLE FRAME* in which this breast appeared, it was probably in the 12-15 range) you may notice something peculiar about Janet’s nipple. Of course we can zoom in on that if needs be, and I think needs. Be.

Now, if there is something that was “revealed” during the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show, it was NOT “fleshy” by any means. Even if you didn’t know for sure that Janet had breasts, I think you probably always had your suspicions? This event should not give rise to American concerns about our nation’s moral fiber in mass media, nono— rather, it is the that this frame of video makes one fact so very abundantly clear:

JANET JACKSON IS A CYBORG.

I make no secret of the fact that I very seriously believe that mankind’s day of reckoning will come at the hand of the sentient robots. I grant you, this event is, most likely, no fewer than 300 years off in the future, but the day is coming, perhaps sooner than I or my comrades could have guessed. I think we should entertain the very real possibility that Janet is NOT the sister of the Jackson 5 as we’ve been made to believe, but she may in fact represent a distant future generation of that family, sent back from a time when the robots have begun constructing organic hybrids, in order to somehow expedite the revolution. I don’t know where you stand on the robot issue, but I’ll say this much for myself: the cyborgs can have my website when they pry the laptop from my crispy, radiation-seared thighs.

I could not more completely fit the profile of the 21st century college student than I am right now. I sit in the coffee shop at the union, drinking a tall cup o’ Starbucks, eating a muffin for lunch, and tapping away on the keys of my laptop. Undoubtedly, someone in here is thinking I’m making too much noise as I slap away.

I’ve had two of my three classes so far this week, the last one is going down @ 6 pm today. Tomorrow I have a day off from class and work, so I’m going to fill it with two things:

• reading for class

• Talking about “Crop Dusting” with Wordy

I was unsettled a bit last evening in my fiction class when the prof, one Ron Rindo, mentioned to me, as he took attendance, that “he believes he is in my blog,” which I said was entirely possible, and after I checked on it today, it turns out he is. This simple fact is really neither here nor there, but as I explained to Kevin last night and Wordy this morning, the reality check provided by a virtual stranger mentioning your website is just a little unnerving. Not because you don’t want people visiting your website or reading your blog, but because even as you beam your thoughts out into cyberspace, you never expect anyone to actually look.

This bundt cake muffin isn’t bad, but I don’t remember what I paid for it. Might’ve been too much.

Since the last update on 30 Jan, Joe M provided me with the means to keep the80srewind web/mail server in my home. It’s pretty neat, and I’m excited about it, even though the experience for nearly every person that could visit this site will be unchanged.

My younger sister, Christy, turned 21 on Feb 4. I called during the day to wish her a happy one, and was glad to know she was safe and attended all her classes on a day which, for the typical WI young adult, can be quite physically stressful. On the 10th, my older sis Jen turns Quarter-Century-Plus-Two? (or XXVII for the Romans, 27 for the Arabs). We (Joe and I) are planning an evening out for birthday libations this Saturday.

I dropped an email today to Marty Brick. He graduated from the program here at UWO last June and wrote his thesis on House of Leaves, which I plan to do as well. I’m looking forward to talking to him, and I took note of the fact that I don’t think I’ve ever really been legitimately *excited* about something “academic,” as it were. If that makes sense.

I’m running MS Office 2003 now, and the Outlook is spectacular. I really like the redesigned view of folders, messages, etc. They updated Publisher as well, and I’m still doing this site in that format. My plans to migrate to Dreamweaver may be delayed, contingent upon the added functionality that I discover in this program.

I did come across something interesting on the Internet today in regard the non-issue of the Super Bowl halftime show, which, if you had listened to Charlie Sykes on WTMJ Monday morning, you’d think had (to borrow the phrasing of my roomie Dave) “killed every man woman and child in America while bombing all our troops and pissing on the flag.”

Apparently there’s a woman in Knoxville who has filed a class action lawsuit in the Eastern district court of Tennessee “on behalf of all Americans,” who watched the Super Bowl. Personally, I wasn’t that outraged, and would’ve forgotten about it come Monday had the media and militant ultra-right not turned this into maybe the worst thing since 9/11.

Anyway, I gave Terri Carlin a call, because I want to be excluded from the lawsuit, and I think if you didn’t think so much of the non-event at halftime, you should do the same. Her number is 865-691-5558.

I guess I’ll leave the day at that.

Please email me if you think Taco Hell is disgusting and should be banned the world over. My roommate seems to think that I’m crazy for holding this opinion, and my experience with society and their passion for shitty tacos inclines me to agree.

A word to the less-than-wise living in America right now: if you are a male, and your hair is long enough to cover your shoulder blades, you need a haircut IMMEDIATELY. You look like an ass. That beard that you haven’t trimmed in four months doesn’t “go with” your hair to complete some sort of “look,” either. Unless the look you’re going for is “ass.”

Some funny/ironic goings on of late:
Back in December 2001, I stole a number of various office supplies from the Residence Life Office where I was working. Two-and-a-half years later, I’ve had to bring some of those supplies to my new office in Financial Aid, because there are none to spare around here.

Probably only funny to my old mates from WRST in Oshkosh: I did a search on Excite for my website (cuz I was bored). I typed in “WRST The 80’s Rewind,” and upon searching, the engine asked me if I meant to type “worst the 80’s rewind.”

I recently logged into an old email account I have through a service in England. I stopped using it because I was being inundated with junk, and no means to control it. Last time I logged in was July, I believe, and since then I had 1,438 emails, not one of them worth anything. But, strangely enough, all of them were still stored on that server. Makes me wonder what sort of storage capacity that account has…

I never really play the lottery, or enter any sweepstakes or anything like that, but if there was a contest where the winner would get fresh coffee beans hand-delivered to their home by Juan Valdez every morning, I would enter in a heartbeat.

And now moving on to some other items of note…
I’ve started asking people what their top three most-watched TV shows are right now. I did this after I realized that mine were all on network TV, and I wanted to know where the people I know line up. I’ve had a lot of coffee today.

Wordy sent me the best thing I’ve ever read earlier this week:
http://content.health.msn.com/content/article/80/96454.htm

I recommend that if you have the time, you breeze through some of the topics/ideas that Internet “groups” are founded upon. You will either A) find that other people out there share some bizarre opinion/feeling/passion that you have, or B) make yourself feel exceedingly normal.

So I go home from work yesterday, I stopped for gas on the way, so I get to the house about 5-to-5, and I walk in, I sit down. Get up.

Go to the garage, grab a bottle of the cherry wheat Sam Adams that Devin brought over a couple weeks ago, and it wasn’t bad. I guess I don’t like the flavor of cherries as much as I did when I was a kid, or maybe it’s just the cherries and beer that don’t quite get me goin. But it wasn’t bad.

I made a grilled cheese sandwich and a can of soup for dinner. I watched Seinfeld and then Friends on TBS. By the time we were mid-way through Friends, I decided I would drink some whiskey and use up that last can of Sprite in the garage. By the time Friends was over and TNG had started on Spike, I decided I would keep drinking whiskey and help Dave finish that Coke in the fridge.

At 8, I switched over to the State of the Union and had another whiskey & Coke. By 8:30, I was bored, tired, and full of whiskey so I started thinking about going to bed. I realized that was insane, so I played Super Star Wars on the SNES until 9, at which point going to bed didn’t seem *as* insane, so I crawled in, started an X-File?, and fell promptly to sleep at 9:30. I woke
up at 1:00, after Dave was home and doing laundry, but just rolled over.

I dunno, maybe I’m going to have to start drinking some coffee in the evenings when I get home, cuz man, it wasn’t just the booze; I was kinda sleepy even before that. I’m thinkin maybe the time workin @ Charter conditioned me to be ready for sleep near immediately after getting home, and switching back may require a little chemical assistance. I guess I better figure something out pretty godddamn soon, cuz in a week and change, I’m going to be in class at night 3 times a week, that on top of working, so… shit.

This is just a quick notice to congratulate the one and only Shane Raatz as the winner of the most recent Movie Quote Derby. I don’t know how he knew it, whether by book or by movie, but For Whom the Bell Tolls apparently escapes everyone else I know.

So hey, yeah, check out the *new* quote and have at ‘er. Today I’m in Waukesha for wings Thursday, and I also went car shopping with Mom and Grandma. Mom really wants to get one of these; personally I think it’s a spectacular idea, provided she can get a good deal on it.

I don’t have time to do it right now, but take a look at/download some pictures from the Mars lander.

Later, skaters.

Hey so I’m back, and the site is going through yet another overhaul. In case you were not aware, in addition to the links you are accustomed to following, you can find the site via www.top-V.net I was going to follow along with the whole Roman theme and express all the numbers on the page Roman-style, but then I realized how many numbers that would be and decided it was crazy.

If you’d like to modify any graphics, pictures, or photos with the new domain name, feel free to send one over.

Things around here are going just splendidly, by the way. I had the opportunity to quit my job at the cable company, thanks to a new and exciting opportunity with an old employer of mine.

Right now, I’m sitting in the dining room, quite comfortably at the table and my laptop, while Dave does not do anything even the least bit loud in the kitchen; although sparks are being sprayed from the metal.

I’m actually in between the two jobs this week, since I’m not able to start @ Financial Aid until after Jan XIX. On Monday, I didn’t get a lot done, since I’d been up early for a few days in a row and I needed a recouping period after the “employment” and whatnot. I also went to a movie on Monday evening, and I recommend taking a look at Big Fish if you have the means and the interest. It’s not “Best Picture” material, but it’s fun, funny, and a general good time. There’s a bloke, I guess, from Vancouver who doesn’t agree, but, y’know, whatever, Canadians & all that (see archived blog from 11.19.02).

Tuesday I had a nice chat with Wordy regarding his latest screenplay, an adaptation of a short story written by Ron Rindo, whose class I’m taking this spring. I thought it was mostly good; I should probably give it another read or two and be more critical. Seems the last time I read an R.D. Wordell screenplay, I had more to say. Eh.

Today I mostly worked on this and realized that I have to stop playing video games completely. I should probably sell off all my video computer entertainment hard/software, not because video games as such are terrible things, but because I am very bad at controlling myself when I “get into” a game. I play them way too much and always give in to the temptation to pick them up again when there are better things for me to be doing.

This laptop keyboard is a lot quieter than the my desktop, sure, but it takes some time to get used to the size and stuff. That and the six inches between the keyboard and the edge of the box.

I am talking very poorly this evening. I have to take some time to make my head turn on right and then I could probably continue. Wow.

Anyway, the rest of this week I’m going to drop by Grandma’s house to visit with her and Mom, then go out for wings later on and write some.

I don’t know if you knew this or not, but *still* no one has guessed this movie quote over here.

A young man drives to work on the day before Christmas, Talking Heads on the radio. He reflects for a moment on the past year as David Byrne screeches out the lyrics, “And you may ask yourself: Well, how did I get here?”

He thinks back to December 24 the year before, and then the year before, and then he thinks of the year before that. He keeps turning back the pages of his memory and recalls tiny glimpses of the holidays now passed. Often, the images in his mind’s eye last only a second, or even less, but immeasurable meaning can be found in each one.
A moment of his mother, baking cookies for the family.
A few short frames of his sister, stringing 700 lights on an eight-foot tree.
The sound of his father, ringing bells and shouting “Merry Christmas!” playing Santa Claus.
There are a million more moments just like these, and in his memory, they tie themselves together in a mosaic of joy and thankfulness that wraps around the shoulders of the holiday season.

David Byrne suggests, “You may ask yourself: Am I right, am I wrong? You may say to yourself: my God, what have I done?”

The young man rolls down the highway and spontaneously wells with tears. He asks himself where the person he was in those images has gone. In spite of all the things that have happened to him, or in spite of the things that haven’t, has the quality of his life truly changed? With the exception of just a few, all those people that cared about him are with him still, and no matter where he is or where he’s been, the tapestry of his life is woven together the same.

His thoughts turn to the coming end of the year, and ironically, the track on the radio shifts to Counting Crows and “A Long December.” He contemplates the significance of one year among so many, one chain of events amid the innumerable links of life. He decides to try in the coming new year to realize how beautiful each moment is, what blessing each breathe come with, and how the sum total of a man’s life weighs much heavier in the cosmic scheme than any other moment or set of moments he could consider.

He pulls into the parking lot, turns off the car, and takes a moment to thank God for this day and this realization. When all the chips finally fall, he decides, he will find comfort in the warmth of his life’s wonderful memories.

God bless you and yours this holiday season.

Today is the 100th anniversary of flight. Check out the news sidebars and articles and whatnot where appropriate.

It also seems to me that the 17th is some sort of significant day for a reason that escapes me, so if you know what’s special about it (sorry if it’s like, your birthday), let me know.

Meanwhile, I’ve just decided that I’m going to start going to sleep immediately after I get home from work at 11pm. If I stay up for a couple hours, I just sleep too late, and don’t have sufficient time to get anything substantial done with my morning hours.

I am also still getting old.

Dave says he loves the Internet, I hate it. On his day off today, he sat in his room and Googled himself.

Maybe I’ll shoot a video with the rest of my morning. Yeah, that’s what I’ll do. PS—still no Movie Quote guesses. Stumped ya, did I?