Long Overdue

I'm sorry I haven't posted on here for a while. I was planning on posting every day of the break, seeing as I have Igor up and on the net now. But this is the first Thanksgiving ever that I don't feel like talking about. So I"m not going to talk about it.

I will however talk about the awesome concert that I went to with Kate on Tuesday. I was extremely excited to hear that the Trans Siberian Orchestra was coming to Richmond. I have been a fan of theirs for about three years now. Ever since I first heard them I guess. First a few words on my musical tastes(not that they are important to anyone...except me...and it's my blog so.....NI). People sometimes ask me what kind of music I like, and I really have no answer when they do. Mostly because the kind of music I truly enjoy doesn't exist as a definitive genre. Let me explain. I like songs from all different kinds of music. I like certain songs by Duke Ellington, Eminem, AC/DC, Boston Pops, Kylie Minough, or movie scores. But I don't really have a favorite genre of music. There are things I like in music though. Energy, I love songs with energy and passion. Like the Smashmouth song "All-Star". I know it was severly overplayed and is a little simplistic. But I can connect with the energy of doing my best and being an all-star in well whatever I'm doing. I used to use that song to get psyched before going on stage. But my favorite kind of music is the kind that is an energetic song arranged for an orchestra. And preferably performed with some non-traditional instruments. So combining orchestra sounds in electronica would be a good example(Manheim Steamroller is good for this).

Or I think my favorite is using an electric guitar in colaboration with an orchestra. And that is exactly what the Trans Siberian Orchestra has done. They have a strings section, two electronic keyboardists, a trap set, an electric guitarist, bass guitarist, jazz guitarist and opera trained singers. Paul O'Neil, the rock producer who started the band describes the it like this:

With Trans-Siberian Orchestra, first the music is created with no artificial limitations, and then we seek out within the classical, rock, Broadway and R & B worlds, the very best singers and musicians to bring each song to life. This also in many ways forces us to operate on a higher level. This environment has the additional benefit of causing a cross pollenization of musical ideas, creating hybrid forms of music that normally never would have occurred, such as an R&B singer doing a classical style melody and bringing gospel touches to it that causes it to glitter in ways that even the creators could not have predicted. Another very important aspect in the creation of the band, is that there could be no limits on the members; we mix all races and ages.

So this is my favorite band and favorite music style. Unfortunately there is no term for it that I can use when someone asks me what kind of music I like. They have done three Christmas CD's and CD of a rock opera called Beethoven's Last Night.

So anyway when I heard that they were coming to Richmond I knew we had to go see them. I didn't order tickets right away because I wanted to wait until paydyay. I ordered them online at Ticketmaster.com and was able to get seats that were pretty close to the front. On Monday I worked for 8.5 hours and then left for Kate's house on Tuesday around noon. I called her when I left sheets to let her know that I was on my way. And we ended up talking for over an hour. I don't think I hung up until I got to White's. I made it to Kate's and we had dinner while I talked with her Dad about how to get to the Colesium in downtown Richmond. Apparently that area has a pretty high crime rate, Kate's parents talked about nothing else than all the muggings and things that had taken place out there. I was a little bit paranoid by the time we left after dinner. But we found it easily enough, parking was close to the entrance and no suspicious characters were around. As we were standing in line to go inside I started to notice that most of the people were older and were dressed pretty nice. I realized that these people probably only knew that it was an orchestra playing a Christmas concert. And had no idea what kind of band TSO actually was. We finally found the right door. The Richmond Colesium ias a big place with multiple levels and entreances. We found where we were supposed to sit. We were on the stage right side four rows from the front!!! Right in front of us was this HUGE bank of speakers and amplifiers. And the people around us were definetly not expecting a rock concert. Well in short it was one of the best performances I have seen in any genre. The combination of the trapset and rock guitarists with the strings, jazz guitar and keyboards was simply inspired. They performed their show "Christmas Eve and Other Stories" my favorite as it happend. And then they took a small intermission to introduce all of themselves. My favorite was the rock gutarist. His name was Chris Caffery. He made Rockstar-In-Tails thing well....rock. Exactly the kind of vibe I wanted to have back when I was doing my magic act. The Bass guitarist was cool too. Whenever he would come over to our side of the stage I would throw up devil horns or point with the music so to speak. And he actually remembered Kate and I when we went through the autograph line. The pyrotechnics and the lights were just something else, perfectly timed and choreographed with the music they made the experience that much cooler. I truly had the time of my life and was extremely sad when the show was over. I wanted them to start over and play it all again. Kate was excited too, she hadn't ever been to a concert before so even the format was new and exciting for her. She was really geeking out after it was over.

I can't wait for their next album to come out, it has songs in latin and is calle "Dark Castle". In my next update I think I will try to list the songs that I like the best from different genre's. I don't know if I can get it done but it will be fun. That's all for now. I'm breaking out of my funk and should feel like posting more from now on.

This hasn't ever happend to me......yet.

Well it's officially the Holiday season! I could almost say Chirstmas season because it seems to come earlier every year. But that's ok....I like the Christmas season. But next week is thanksgiving. It will be an interesting week. I only work on Monday and I go to Richmond on Tuesday, coming back Wednesday. On Thursday we have the annual Turkey Bowl at church. I wasn't sure if it would be held this year but it is. So Dad, Me, Ryan, Daniel and David will probably head over there at 10. Then come back for Thanksgiving dinner. I don't know if we'll play much football once we get home but there's always the chance. Dad is going to come play also, which kind of worries me. The last couple of times that we've played football with him he's gotten hurt. It's flag football so it shouldn't be that bad. But I don't know if I trust him not to over extend himself.

On Friday was Kate's last day here. We were supposed to have a nice long night. She wanted to model my boots for me which I thought would be awesome. We played around a little early in the evening, something we haven't had much of a chance to do this semester. Maybe it will improve next semester. Then we went and saw the Incredibles again. And I am happy to report that the movie was just as good the second time. That's a must buy when it hits DVD. Then we went to Shakers for dinner. It was good food and Kate was in a good mood and very good company. While we were there we saw in the TV a brawl that was taking place at an NBA game. After dinner we went to Squires to play some pool. But they were closing early because of the break...bastards. We settled for playing a guitar game that was reminicient of DDR. I completely sucked at it. I couldn't wait for the chords to come up, I kept playing them to soon. And I ran in to the problem that I had when I try to play piano, I have trouble doing different things with different hands. We then went back to Kate's dorm, she went to the bathroom while I turned on the tv to see what the deal was with that brawl. It turned out that the brawl was one of the worst brawls in US sports. It involved the crowd in what could legitimatly be called a riot. One of the guys was suspended for the season, another guy got a 30 game suspension, and someone else got 25 games. I started to watch another game while Kate finished her book. Kate finished her book at about halftime, I was ready to go upstairs if she wanted too. But she said that I could watch some more of the game and she layed down on the couch using me as a pillow. I was only going to watch til the end of the third quarter but she went to sleep and looked so peaceful. A couple of times I almost got her up and took her upstairs. But she was REALLY asleep. She got up and went to the bathroom and came back and fell just as deeply asleep. I let the game end and I couldn't decide wether or not to get her up. In the end I just let her sleep. When I finally checked the clock it was almost 3. And I needed to go home. She said it was all right and that she had some good sleep. But I still kinda felt like a bad boyfriend considering that it was our last night for a while.

She called me today and she said that she had a good time. I posted the Iowahawk satire on my livejournal to see what the reaction would be. And sure enough it was pretty rude. Little Jon commented on my blog even though he said that he wouldn't anymore. And I replied to him and surprisingly Corry responded. I knew Corry was a pretty liberal guy from some of the comments he'd made on the trip to an SCA event this past summer. But I had no idea he was this much of a moonbat. He believes all the silly accounts of the election being stolen by Bush. Then he compared Conservatives to Nazi's calling the Nazi's "not all bad". I was pretty shocked. And stupid me, I told Kate about it when she called. I was just so shocked I didn't think about the fact that Corry had helped her with her math and stuff. I felt like an idiot when I hung up. But all should be better when we go to the kick ass concert on Tuesday. She still souned tired, I hope she gets a chance to rest a lot this week. Well I'm going over to see Bri now. She's in town to meet with profs about coming back next semester. We'll probably watch Ed Wood which I haven't seen in a long time so that will be cool. I need a good shot of Tim Burton, Jonny Dep and Randy Eldelman.

So apparently when you install carpet you do a lot of banging on the floor with hammers. And no that is not supposed to be erotic in any way you sick freak. It means that after staying up pretty late on Monday night I got woken up to very loud pounding. At first I thought it was a joke, Mom wanting me to get up or something. But no, it was the carpet installers making the noise. I tried to sleep through it and actually dozed off a few times. I know that it was probably worthless to try but I was too tired to get up. It made for an interesting day.

I went to Macado's in Christiansburg for lunch. It was time for my traditional expensive lunch on payday. I got a cheese/mushroom/olive sandwhich type thing. It was really good, but looking back I probably should have gotten somthing with meat. I went and had coffee with Dad after I had lunch, and we actually had a nice talk. I don't know what was different about it but it was nice. A couple of times he started off on the choir preaching that he normally does but he didn't keep it up for very long. He asked me about Kate, and I told him we were good friends and had talked about dating. But that we basically didn't have room for romance in our lives at this point. Me, because Kate wouldn't be seen as a devout Christian by Mom and Dad. And Kate because of her being in school etc. It was nice to be able to actually tell him at least some of the truth. He didn't pry to much about how I felt about her or vice versa. And after talking with Kate about being a Christian last night I am really tempted to tell Mom and Dad that we are dating. Obviously I wouldn't be able to tell them everything.......hehe. But that's not really serious thinking. Mom and Dad have enough on their mind with Betsy and Ryan. Thankfully Betsy's cyncism doesn't seem to have rubbed off on Ryan as much.

I had a red-eye while we were talking and then some more soda before going to work. So I was tired and over caffeinated. And my stomach started to bother me a good bit. I couldn't wait to get off. Kate went over to hang with David and said that she would meet me around 10. Thankfully she actually did get back at 10. I picked her up and we went to BW3's and got wings! Finally got wings I'd been craving them for almost a week but hadn't had the chance to get some. Of course there were a couple of times I could have blown people off and gone by myself. But it worked out better this way because Tuesday is $.35 wing night. We were going to watch Chronicles Of Riddick. But the video store didn't have it. So we went to Wal-Mart to buy it. It was on sale so I didn't feel that bad about it. But I could get squeezed once New Years rolls around. Especially with Christmas presents to buy. This is one time that I am thankful that my parents are simple and frugal. They don't want expensive stuff they want functional stuff. I still have to figure out what to get Kate. I have a number of ideas, but it should be something really special. Especially when she is getting me something pretty substantial.

We watched the movie, and it was different from the original. Some parts were added back in for this version. Nothing incredibly world changing, but enough to make it a little different. Kate and I flirted and made out during the whole movie. I have been in much more of an flirty mood lately. It's easier for me to get turned on for some reason. I don't know why, or what happend. I guess all the biterness and inconvenience from Halloween is wearing off. Or maybe it was the return of the opportunity. Kate kinda scared me last night: we are planning to have some fun on Friday night. And she made the comment "we have to be careful, I'm not on any kind of birth control". Now in a normal situation that would mean that we have to use other methods of protection. But in our case it could have meant that she was ready to cross a previously uncrossed line. Neither of these is what she meant of course but it did make my head snap around pretty quickly. It was kinda funny now that I think about it. Lately she's been saying different things like she might be hinting she wants to go all the way. She probably doesn't realize that she is giving off that vibe though so I'm not worried or going to make a big deal out of it. She doesn't know how much of a tease she is I'm sure, so this is probably just her way of ramping up the flirting.

These next few weeks are going to be interesting. On Tuesday I'm heading up to Richmond so we can go see TSO in concert which should be great. I tried to find some reviews of their current concert but didn't have any luck. Then on Wednesday I'm picking up Grandma and bringing her back down here for Thanksgiving. Hehe, I wish I could leave my car up there and user her car. She has a 2001 Saab that is super sweet. I'm not sure how we're getting her back up there though, I'll have to find out. Ryan will probably take her. Also next week I'm planning to teach all the guys how to play football. Or at least how to be recievers and quarterbacks. When John and I were their ages we knew everything about how to get open, run different routes, adjust a route, etc. The little guys now just kind of run around. So I'll teach the clinic either Thursday or Friday. And by Saturday or Sunday I'll probably be super stir crazy. On Sunday I'll probably go up to Roanoke and have a mini practice with Antonio. Which will be good for both of us, I need to get my schlagher fighting up to par. I am in Celric's Dragoon's now. At this point I'm only going to fight with them a little bit and I'm on their mailing list. I talked to Troy about it and he said that there wouldn't be any negative stimuli around my joining. But he also said that I am a good leader and that I would do better to start a group of my own. It was a nice compliment to get obviously. But I have to start somewhere and I guess associating myself with Celric, Dante, and Kenji is a good place to start. On December 11th there is an event that requires 3-man teams. Dante recruited me to be on his team along with Kenji. It should be good, I hope to surprise some people, so I'm going to work really hard on my technique right up until then. That will probably be my last event until Ice Castles in January. But I should be able to get in a good bit of fencing in at New Years. Which is once again at Troy's, it would be nice to get up there for a weekend without there being something going on. But that kind of thing would also probably have to wait until January some time.

Wow this got really long. That's all for now

Weekend

The weekend was an interesting one. I can say that I had a good time. Although it was kind of long and had lots of driving time. On Friday Kate and I headed up to to Dante and Djinn's house. We got there and about a half an hour later Antonio got there. Kate and I slept in the sewing room on an air matress. Antonio slept on the couch.

I rode with Antonio to the event while Kate Dante and Djinn were in the van. It was interesting to ride in his Honda Civic. It reminded me of all the years I spent driving a miniscule car. We had to crack the windows every now and then to keep them from fogging up. The event itself was cool, I've never been to an event like it before. It was set up like a tavern, complete with wenches. Kate couldn't be a wench because she wasn't 21. I was happy about this because this meant that I didn't have to watch ugly, old, drunken men fawn all over her(although she did get a little bit of that). But all it really meant was that she couldn't serve booze. She went and volunteered in the kitchen and as a server of food. So she still managed to disapear for almost the whole day. The fighting was interesting. I wish I could have warmed up more, because when I'm facing people like Celric and Dante I need to be at the top of my game. Celric has a group of melee fighters that he calls the Dragoons. He said that he was thinking about letting me join. But I don't know if I want to at this point. I have a lot of different friends, and I'd like to avoid conflicts of interest and loyalty on the field. Although it might be cool to belong to a group that is recognized. But as much as I like melee fighting, I like to be on my own when in a melee. I run around pretty fast, shift positions/angles of attack etc, and having to stay in a group or try and have a group keep up with me isn't always that fun. But I should probably learn to be a good melee fighter instead of just a good single fighter that disruptes the other teams melee plans. Anyway I didn't win any of the melee's, I was one of the last four in each fight though. And I won best death for being the first to actually keel over and act dead. After the melee's were over we went outside and did some pickups. I got to usher a reauthorization too. I didn't think the girl should have passed but Djin(who was being a marshal) sounded like she was looking for something specific in this person's fighting talked a lot about something she was doing wrong. And her trainer was there too so I just thought that they were going to let her in and then tell her trainer what to work on. But I would not have passed her, she wasn't ready, she could move ok but when she would throw shots she wasn't in control. But Djin and Duardo over-ruled me. The dinner was good and there was all kinds of games to play, board games and darts etc. Celric is a really funny drunk man. I am amazed that he is still alive because he says some of the most outrageous things. He is fun to banter with and talk to though. Dinner was very nice, I really need to get a mug of my own though. Maybe there will be some vendors at Caer Maer. I hope I can make that event, even though my parents will be out of town. I'll probably have to daytrip it.

On the way home Kate fell asleep in the car and Djin was really tired. Kate went to bed and passed out while I took a shower and then went to bed too. On Sunday we went to the mall so that Djin could drop of an application. She's a nice girl and can be very sweet. But if I was a boss I would not want her working for me. She is waaaay to high strung and headstrong. The sad thing is that it's probably a reaction to all the medication she is on. They kicked us out when we got back to the house. Dante and Djin are fun to go to events with but they aren't as much fun to socialize with. But oh well to each their own. We got back right at 9, we had talked about going over to Julies to watch a movie and taking Kate's laptop so that she could get her homework done. I think she did manage to get some work done. About the time we rolled up I started getting a craving for some hot wings. But it was best just to go along and watch the movie like we planned. It ended up being an interesting night.

Hi from iGor

Well iGor finally has his lifeline back. We are surfing on a 50kps connection oh yeah! We have PSKnet which is a good service. We had it before but for some reason Mom thought Wal-Mart was a good place to go for internet service. There are a lot of cool things to buy at Wal-Mart, internet service should not be one of them.....ever!

I am going to be able to work on my website more now. I have space on Scott's server. I should probably throw up a "coming soon" page. But it's not like there will be a big demand to view the site anyway. I am mostly going to use it to try and keep my web design skills sharp. Even so it will probably be pretty simple. Ludwig helped me come up with a good name for it: The Percolation Zone. With the tagline being "Dedicated to coffee, yellow pants, cool hats, muppets and other random coolness". It should be fun to put together. And yes there will be yellow pants on it. Well that's all for now, I think iGor wants to look for desktop backgrounds.

I was late to work today. I got up at 11 and took a lazy shower and shave(nice close shave). Dad had gone to town so we didn't get coffee like he wanted to. They had venison steak for lunch so I stayed around for that. Mom was happy that I stayed. She really wants to be my friend. At least I think that's what she wants. But I don't really want her as a friend. I want her to be my mom. I don't need to be mothered anymore, I'm almost 24. But I do love her and don't mind her caring about me but she needs to chill out and not force the issue every time she sees me. Anyway I went to B&N and read a few things. I read a cool article about U2 and their next album which I will probably buy. For some reason I thought it was Thursday and I forgot that I had to be at work at 2 instead of 3. I remembered at 1:50 while I was sitting in Starbucks. I was only ten minutes late becuase of traffic and having my stuff all spread out on my table.

I got to work and had a nice conversation wtih Ludwig. It turns out that I still might be able to get the job over at the NOC. But he said something that kinda pissed me off. He said that Sam thought that I didn't do anything and mentioned that Taikara and I were never busy just and just sit around surfing. I admit that I do my share of surfing, but I also do stuff with the website for Joe. I set up web pages for the encoding ad hoc events. I update the instructor computers from my desk. Taikara and Nancy are the only ones who do the surfing and game playing. I guess I'm going to have to look busy all the time. I thought I was doing a good job of it, but apparently not. I went over to the Math Emporium to do some inventory suff for Joe, and I was able to talk to Sam and get take some monitors over for Sam. So maybe that will help. I'm also looking at a lot of the IP stuff for Ludwig. Maybe I'll be able to ask Sam about that too, I'm sure he'll be able to tell me everything I could need to know.

Mom finally got the internet changed from Wal-Mart and it should work fine on my Mac downstairs. I can't wait to get home and try it. It's been a long time since I've been looking forward to going home. But I'll be able to blog from there and I'll be able to work on my website. I can't decide how high tech I want to make the website. I think I've settled on a name too. I'm not going to tell yet in case I want to change my mind. Any suggestions would be welcome. Well that's all for now, I'll blog from my Mac tonight...just because hehe.

Well so much for posting every day. I need a laptop I think. Or else I need the internet to be dialable from my bedroom iGor. If I had internet down there I would be able to post updates before bed. But I doubt that will happen, Mom is the one who is in charge of getting us out of the stupid stupid Wal-Mart internet service. Hopefully we'll get on a Mac friendly network.

Things haven't been going all that great lately. I don't know what it is but I can't seem to break out of this funk I'm in. It's like I'm bored and undermotivated to have fun. Which makes it easier to be brought down by stuff. Stuff like having an idea for a website but not having the time to build it. Stuff like watching your younger brother make more money than you and move out before you. Stuff like realizing that you at this point don't have even the basic requirements for an entry level IT job. Also makes me a lot less patient with silliness and childishness. And for some reason I seem to attract those things, or maybe inspire them in people around me I don't know which. But it's hard to put up with sometimes, even though I've been doing it all my life. But enough with the stupid self pity.

I am going to concentrate on things that I've been enjoying. On Friday Kate, Ludwig and I went to Roanoke. We went to Best Buy so Kate could look at iPod's or PDA's I'm not sure which. Since she didn't do a whole lot of looking that I could see. But oh well. We went and watched The Incredibles which was....well incredible. It is THE best Pixar movie and is right up there with Shrek 2 as the best computer animated movie. I clapped and laughed out loud a lot during the show. Which considering my mood was an acomplishment. I want to watch it again except with a bigger group of people this time. We went to Olive Garden too which was good food. But I stepped in it while I was there. Kate was tired and feeling left out the day before. And so when I made a joke about sleeping with someone else she kinda got mad. Or just in a bad mood for a little while. But she got better over the weekend.

I fenced almost the whole time at fighter practice. I didn't take that many breaks at all. And most of the people I fought were asking for water before I was. I don't know if I just wasn't fighting as hard or if I'm getting some actual endurance. I do know that my fighting has backslidden from where I was a couple of months ago. I'm pretty sure that's from fighting newbies ALL THE TIME. I'll try to knock some of the rust off this weekend.

Other things that I've been having fun with are the Street Fighter Movies. I picked up the box set at Best Buy on Friday and I've been watching them bit by bit since then. Just a couple of minutes here and there on my iMac at home. It's fun to see how cheesy these movies are. Sonny Chiba does what I call the luggy halking style of kung fu. When he does his focus he makes a noise like he's getting ready to spit. But the action is very good even by today's standards. And back then all of that blood was truly hard core. Also I picked up a DVD of Dick Van Dyke show for $1 at Wal-Mart. That man truly was a comical genius, that kind of original humor isn't around these days. It's hard to watch a comedy today without tons of dick and fart jokes. This is really witty stuff. Especially Fred his fellow writer. Also from the $1 bin I picked up a few episodes of Dragnet. Talk about over-use of a theme song, geez. And the crimes aren't that dramatic. But I guess for back then it was probably pretty extreme.

That's all for now.

Last night Kate, Julie and I went to see the movie Friday Night Lights. It was a movie about highschool football in Texas. And as much as I like football....I was very unimpressed.....to put it midly. It was basically a rehash of plot devices from Hoosiers, The Rookie, Rocky, Remeber The Titans, and Miracle. It wasn't a very deep movie. It almost seemed to be relying on those other movies for it's plot and character development. And something that really annoyed me was the excessive use of the hand held camera. They went for the NYPD Blue look to make the movie seem edgy I guess. It didn't work at all really. The plot and outcome were completely predictable for anyone who's seen more than two of the movies listed above. The only redeeming thing about this movie was the hits. They filmed some bone jarring hits for this movie. They weren't very realistic but were entertaining in a WWF sort of way. Otherwise even the football action was very poorly filmed. And the "game story" was very poorly told. The Quarterback was shown doing very well all of the sudden without any explination. But I guess it was entertaining to some extent, Kate and Julie got really wrapped up in it. And it did seem to play the heartstrings well to an extent. After the movie Julie left for a conference in NC. She was going to take a nap then get up and drive the whole way, getting there around 7am. I hope she stayed awake the whole time. Kate and I went back to her room. When we got there Kate found an IM from David, apparently a Grandmother he was really close to had passed away. And him being not the most emotionally stable person in the world she decided to go see him. I decided that he did not need our relationship on display in front of him. So I stayed in Kate's room waiting for a CD to burn before going home. She was burning Beethoven's Last Night for me. I really like it, although I think I like the Christmas stuff a little more. Kate is totally in love with it, it's kind of funny. We may go see them in concert, they are coming to Richmond on the 23rd. And I was able to swing it with Nancy to get the 23rd and 24th off from work. We'll probably end up going with her parents. Unless she can find some more people to go with us. Tonight we are going to the mall in Roanoke. And probably go see The Incredibles up there. Right now I need to get some food in my stomach.

Oh yeah I wrote a piece over at Fedora Pundit that I am really proud of.

Way to long

It's been way to long since I've done an update. But the past couple of days have just been a blur. I stayed up really late on Tuesday night watching the returns. Tuesday started really early for me. I couldn't sleep very much knowing what was going on that day. So I got up early, went and voted, picked up Kates bow, and went to get my tire fixed. The people in the outfitters store loved the NRA tshirt that Kate's Dad had given me. I'll probably let Dad wear it to work once or twice. I had to get a new tire, it was another 40 bucks down the drain. I wonder when my car will be paid off. I've been paying $100 a month for a long time, since before Christmas last year I think. And that's on top of the $500 I put down on it. All of this is with my father of course. I came to work and studiously ignored the exit polls, not wanting to hear any news until they were actually counting the votes. It turns out that was a good idea because the exit polls all pointed to a Kerry landslide. The blogsphere is digging in to what happend with those and are trying to figure out if it was an attempt at manipulation by the MSM. We'll see, but as of now the MSM is blaming the blogsphere. Should be an interesting war.

I was going to go to the CR party. But after work Candle stopped by to talk. For some reason he was in a chatty mood that night. We discussed lots of things. Well I say discuss, I mostly listend. He has some libertarian viewpoints that I disagree with just a little bit. Or disagree on the solution to the problem. But very few times did I actually out and out disagree with him, and very few times did I completely agree with him. Rather frustrating, but no animosity was left between us. By the time he left it was late and I started watching the websites and Fox News for the results. I took a break to go give Kate her bow. She was up doing the same thing I was. I wish she would have been over here with me doing it but oh well. It turned out that her county was more republican than mine, I'm still a little bitter about that. But the good news is that Montgomery did go for Bush. I was up until after 4:30 sometime. And I didn't sleep very well because there was a chance that I would wake up to lawsuits and quagmires from the Kerry campaign. But when I logged on to Drudge it said that Kerry was going to concede. So I was very happy! It was very gratifying to see that a sizable majority of the Country shares my views. It was hard not to gloat. I called my brother and we did some gloating to get it out of our systems.

I was really exhausted yesterday and by the time I got off from work I was punchy. I think I may have offended Kate and Julie a little bit. So I shall appologize today when I see them. Today Kate and I are going to catch a movie after work. And hit a bookstore I believe. I need to look some things up on computers while we are there. I'm planning my own website, Scott finally gave me the space. I'll probably end up moving this blog there. But maybe not, I haven't decided yet. Well that's all for now, I am going to try and do a blog entry each day for the rest of the week since I haven't been keeping up.

Dubya Rulz!!!!

I think I need a laptop. I run around a lot on the weekends, so these updates are killers. I'm just going to keep this one pretty short. Friday was probably the highlight surprisingly enough. Despite Amber being in town and Kate going off to join her at Rocky. That brought a flood of pain and bad memories back that kind of lingered over the whole weekend for me. But Friday we had a practice on the drill field which was good. I didn't feel like teaching as much as I should have so we just had fun. We had a bearpit to warm up. Then we fought some more, and then we played the tree game. The tree game is where one person stands with their foot against a tree and can't move that foot. They get 10 'lives', if they pull their foot away from the tree then they loose a life. If they hit their opponent then they get a life back. I was playing this game with them because Thomas and David really need the practice. Almost all of their fighting is done from out of range, lunging in range and then back out of range. This seems to be their only attack sometimes. I've gotten sick of bending my blade double on them because they are out of control. So we played this game where they had to stay by the tree. It's a very very different fight when you can't back out of range. And I love it!!! It actually seems like a real fight. I can use the quickness of my hands to punish people. I killed Ludwig, Jen, David, and Thomas 10 lives each. And then did Thomas again and got halfway through David before I ran out of gas. I guess the advantage really is for the guy who's not against the tree. So this coming Sunday I will play again and be on the tree myself first. After that we went to eat at More Than Cofee. It was a fun dinner, it was nice not to be the outnumbered gender in the group. In the middle of dinner Kate left to go to Rocky :(. She almost took Julie with her, but Julie stayed and hung around with us. Ludwig, Thomas, Julie and I went and played pool until late. Then I went to the office to burn CD's for the trip on Saturday while waiting for Kate to call me and tell me that she was done. I wanted to leave pretty early so as not to miss much. But when the alarm went off Kate was still sleeping soundly and seemed exhausted. So we rolled over and slept until noon. We got up to Ox's around 4:30ish. The party was really tame this year. Kate's costume looked wonderful. She had a lot of fun with the bullwhip. Julie looked nice. Sarah was dressed as one of the mimes from Cirque de Soleil and honestly she looked pretty weird. I drank more alchohol that night than any other night that I have been drinking. And honestly I didn't feel anything. Not even tipsy. People seemed to like my costume once I put it on. I had to wait for Sarah to get there so she could draw a cat face on me. When I walked downstairs after getting dressed people yelled at me to do a lap dance for Big Kate. Apparently Thomas was attempting to give a lap dance before I came downstairs and....was failing. I did a dance to the Ghostbusters song and ended by taking of my hat and running the feathers across Kate's cheek. It was fun. Sunday was really relaxed. We went to Ihop and the bookstore then headed for home. We stopped in Salem to get gas and ran over a bolt or something so we had to change a tire. Tomorrow I have to go and get a new tire probably. Gaah more money that I have to spend. I spent a lot of money over the weekend for food and gas and such. So overal it was a pretty tame expensive weekend. But it's over now, I have another paycheck and Amber is gone.

The election is tomorrow. Part of me will be sad because I enjoyed the discourse on the blogsphere. But on the other hand I think that I will be happy when all of the vitriol boils off. And it'll be fun to see half the East Village commit suicide if Bush wins. But seriously it's been pretty bad this time around(short article).