This Christmas I am one of the most blessed people on the planet. At least that’s the way I feel after everything that has happened since the last time I posted.

First things first: I GOT THE JOB AT F&R!!!! I was sooo surprised you have no idea. I figured that since they said that they were going to do a second round of interviews and they didn’t call me. On Tuesday I was at work doing nothing and decided to run out and get a drink. As I was driving back to Whittemore my phone rang and it was a Richmond number. I guessed that it was Ken Dalton calling me back to tell me that the position was filled. But instead he asked me if I “would like to come work for them”. Silly question. He is giving me 33k per year at first and then bumping me up to 35 in six months pending a review. I was excited and scared at first. After all I don’t know how qualified I actually am for what they want me to do. The job involves ASP.NET and all the .Net platform stuff. Things that I haven’t worked with very much, and not at all recently. So I’m still kind of worried about that. It would be awful if I got in there and have them go “what do you mean you can’t do that?”. At first I offered to come up to do paperwork and orientation on Wednesday before New Years. Ken, who will be my boss, was going to be on vacation all next week but was going to come in special to show me around. After that was set up I realized that I wasn’t doing anything Thursday or Friday and emailed him to ask him if he wanted me to come up one of those days. Meanwhile I told Mom on the phone and she started screaming in my ear from excitement. Michelle and Emily weren’t all that excited but that’s understandable. Mom told everyone in the family before I could get a chance. For the rest of Tuesday and all of Wednesday I felt apprehensive about the whole thing. Especially because nobody was at the office to give my notice to. So I didn’t know when I would actually be able to start work in Richmond. I hadn’t heard much from Ox so I didn’t know if I had a place to live either. I didn’t know how much money I was going to need to move or anything. All that uncertainty slammed into place at once and it was quite stressful. Meanwhile I hadn’t had a time to really relax. On Monday John and I took Ryan out to dinner and then went and visited Mo. So that was a pretty late night after an early morning. Then on Tuesday I went over to Ryan’s house after work to watch movies. So I didn’t really have time to turn around or finish my Christmas shopping. I still had to get Troy and Sarah something. On Wednesday things started to pan out, I got an email back from Ox sayin it was ok to move in with him and to get him details etc. I emailed Mark to let him know I would be quitting. And Ken called me back and asked if I could come down Thursday morning for their Christmas party and do orientation then. I met up with Ludwig and we hung out for a while then got a movie to take over to Jen and Julie’s house. I wanted to say goodbye to them because I wouldn’t see them until New Years. Jen was the only one home so we started the movie. Julie came home a little later and I left before the movie was over. They teased me a little about making more money than all of my friends in Blacksburg. I laughed it off and left. At this point I still hadn’t told Kate. She told me she was going straight home after work on Wednesday and I could call her around 6. Well I called and she wasn’t there so I left a message with her mom to call me as soon as possible. And she called me as I was going home. I gave her the news and she was happy for me. But she wasn’t really coherent, she was super tired from working all day. I swear that girl is going to wear herself out if she’s not careful. But we did manage to set up lunch after I got done on Thursday at F&R. I went home, showered got clothes ready, ate a little bit and then went to bed. They wanted me to be there between 9 and 10, so I had to leave between 6 and 7. I had coffee so it wasn’t that bad at all. When I got there I met Ken and he introduced me to a bunch of people that I have already forgotten the names of. He introduced me to Irving his boss and my ultimate boss. Irving seemed like quite a character and a good guy to work for. The other two guys in the IT department are really cool too. They weren’t the least bit hostile and are bona fide geeks. Not nerds but true computer geeks. I filled out paperwork for a while and then it was time for the Christmas party. They had a neat way to exchange gifts. After that Irving said a prayer for our troops and our President which I thought was very cool. Then we ate the food. After that I finished the paperwork and got a grand tour of the whole facility. There were three of four different offices and three different engineering labs. Lots of people too, people that I will have to relearn all of their names because I’ve already forgotten. After the tour I hung around talking to the IT people Ken and the two other guys are really nice, it’s almost a family type atmosphere. It was a lot of fun and they told me not to worry about anything and they would teach me anything I needed to know but didn’t. I was very excited and pumped up by the time I left. I called Kate after I left and met her at Borders and we went to lunch at a greek place. It was very cool to see her again. She cut her hair again and it looks good. I can’t wait for New Years. After lunch I headed home, I was starting to feel tired at this point but I had a power drink and everything was ok. When I got home I had an email from Mark saying congratulations and we could work out when I would leave. After the meeting I felt really good about the job and it started to sink in that I had finally made it. I also realized that I would be moving out soon and I started noticing all the little family things that I hadn’t in a while. John was home, Betsy and Ryan weren’t, Michelle is cute, Emily is just like Betsy, Daniel is not to be trusted with heavy machinery, and David is obnoxious. And I really started to look forward to Christmas again. On Friday I slept in for the first time in a while and kinda moped around after wrapping presents. We went to the Christmas eve service at church, and I realized that this would be my last service here for a long time. I wouldn’t be there on Sunday and the next weekend would be the New Years party. The weekend after that I would probably be moving to Richmond. When we got home we opened a set of Christmas presents from each other for the name drawing. Daniel made me the most awesome present I think he could have. He mad a rack for me to put my swords on. He burned my SCA name into the wood with a wood burner and then stained it. It looks great. I will put a picture up here of it when I get one. It also has pegs for my hat and I think I’ll put my sharks tooth and medallion on them too. I don’t know if I’ll be able to hang it up at Ox’s, but I know I will hang it up where ever I eventually move. Christmas morning was great too, I slept on a top bunk in my old room. We got up at 6 which was a nice change from 4:30-5. There were a good many presents this year, Mom and Dad did pretty well this year, lots of overtime I guess. I got almost everything on the list I gave them. Which surprised me since they already gave me the Limbaugh letter. I got lost of clothes and all three books I asked for. I gave them links with my Christmas list to places that they could buy online. So they just clicked “buy” and were done with it. I’ll have to remember that. Everyone got some good things and everyone was happy. I feel extremely blessed and content. In a little while John and I are going over to Ryan’s to play on his xBox before coming back here to watch football and basketball. Tomorrow we are driving to Grandma’s house. Not something I look forward too because I have to drive “behind” Dad who likes to go 5 miles under the speed limit to “save gas”. Which I know it doesn’t but you try and convince him. I might just get Ryan to drive his jeep so that I can read and we can have a CD player. But I haven’t decided yet. That’s all for now I can’t promise when I’ll post again but I’ll do my best.

Well Kate has gone home for the semester. We had a nice time on Thursday with Jen, Julie, and Thomas. We went and helped them pick out a Christmas tree for their apartment and then hit Macado's afterwards. The guy who sold them the tree was really nice, he gave us free cookies and apple cider. Macado's was fun, I really like their black bean con queso dip. After we were done with dinner I dragged them over to the coffee shop next door so that I could get some coffee. There was a parade going on in downtown Christiansburg that we had no idea was there until we walked out onto the sidewalk and a huge cement truck blew it's horn. I'm not sure why there was a cement truck in the Christmas parade. But there was really nobody to ask about it. Much to my dismay they didn't have the Red Eye special at the coffee shop anymore. That was my favorite coffee drink. I'm going to have to find another place that serves it. I got a white chocolate mocha which was very nice. After that we went back to Jen and Julie's to put up the tree and decorate it. When the tree was finished we watched I, Robot and an Eddie Izzard show. In between them Ludwig came over with pizza. His LAN party had been FUBARed when they couldn't get the computers to link up. So he brought us some double melt pizza. Thankfully he didn't do anything crazy to it like put barbecue sauce on it. I had to work at 8 the next morning so I took Kate home relatively early, around 12-12:30. Which I guess by this time isn't early for us, we've been calling it a night earlier and earlier all semester. Maybe it's because Kate has a roommmate this semester or maybe it was because she had so much more studying to do, or maybe we just kinda ran out of fun things to do. It's probably a combination of all of those things. Oh well, maybe next semester will be better. Assuming I'm going to be here, I'm supposed to hear something from the Richmond job on Monday or Tuesday. It's been nice, I haven't thought about it much at all, so the anticipation isn't doing anything weird to me. Like making my hair fall out or giving me indigestion. I'm not even hoping at this point. But I do know that I need to get out of Blacksburg soon.

On Friday I got to work at 8 and basically just sat around being sleepy for a couple of hours. Even a nice cup of coffee didn't wake me up much. I started chatting with random people online just to stay awake. Then I did some dubbing and worked on an encoding that looked like it had gone bad. The video quality looked like the tape had been run through the dryer a few times. It turns out that encoding to realvideo format from an DVCPro player just looks like shit. After that I had lunch(enjoyed Nancy not being there). In the early afternoon I went over to Durham to check the 261 room. Apparently one of our student workers left the mics and podium set up all week. Who knows who might have played with it. I had called Sarah at lunch time because her Livejournal had said that she would be home making cookies. But it turns out that when she said "tomorrow" she meant Thursday even though she posted after midnight on Wednesday. So when I called her she was at work and didn't have time to talk. I felt pretty bad about it at first but then she called me back later and it was ok. She called me just as I was finishing 261. So I talked to her for about an hour and we got caught up. Her life has been really busy and interesting. They have a new friend who is basically staying with them now. I'll get to meet her when I go up for New Years. Her name is Audrey and I'm having such a hard time not making Little Shop Of Horrors jokes it's not even funny. She sounds interesting though and it'll be fun to meet her. After work I went to Souvlaki for some dinner after renting a movie to watch. As I was leaving Souvlaki Troy called me. We talked for a long time about his job/jobs. His trip to Shanghai and lots of other things. Every time we talk he tells me that I should just move up there and look for a job. The problem is that I haven't been able to save near enough money to move up there. Every time I start to build up my savings account something bad(or really expensive) happens that I can't avoid spending money on. It's very frustrating. And Troy is a great friend, but him acting like I don't want to move or that I haven't done anything as far as looking to move hurts sometimes. But that's Troy, he will always assume that everyone is like him and if they aren't.....should be. Talking to the two of them made my life around here seem really boring. My life isn't really boring at all. It can just seem that way sometimes. But hey anything can seem boring compared with someone who poses nude for almost 40 hours a week, right? That's all for now.

Long Post

Well it's been a while since I've blogged here or at fedora-pundit. On Thursday I got a phone message from a guy who works for FandR in Richmond. Brianna gave my resume to her boss and he gave it to the IT guy. He talked to me for a while and then asked if I wanted to come for an interview on Friday. I said sure no problem and he told me he would email me directions. I got all nervous and didn't know what to do. I had to rearrange my plans for the weekend. Instead of daytripping the event on Saturday I would go up on Friday and spend the night at Ox's. Then hit the event on Saturday. I got up early on Friday because I couldn't sleep. I found a good suit, actually the one I wore for the wedding. He still hadn't sent me the email at around 9 so I called him. He appologized and gave me verbal directions. Traffic was surprisingly high driving up there, lots of trucks. On Afton mountain a truck decided to change lanes right on top of me, I had to jam the breaks and pull partly into the median. Pretty scary. I found the place no problem, I only had to double back once because he gave me the wrong road name. But I figured it out by comparing his directions to the ones from MSN maps. Around the time I started coming in to Richmond proper the battery light on my car lit up and my windshield wipers started to slow down. And the car started to run really really ragged. I thought that the alternator had gone out, not good news but I had enough battery juice to get to FandR. The interview went ok, I really liked the guy I would be working with. I don't know that I am exactly what they are looking for....but it wouldn't take me long to become that. When the interview was over I asked him for the name of a car place that I could take my car to get it looked at. He called a place that one of the secrataries husbands works for and they said to bring it over. He wrote down directions and I took it over. It turns out that it wasn't the alternator, it was the belt that comes off the crankshaft and powers the air conditioner and the alternator was gone. But what was even worse was the reason it was gone, one of the tensioners was messed up, bent sideways. They guy typed everything into the computer to see how much it would cost. The computer said that it would be $230 for parts and labor. And worse it would take 2 and a half hours to fix. It was almost 4 at this point and I really didn't expect them to stay past five just for me. But they said they would see what they could do. Long story short they got it fixed in an hour thank goodness. Because I didn't want to call and see if Ox could come pick me up, that would have sucked for both of us. Thankfully they got it done in an hour, they still charged me full price for the laber though. It kinda sucked having to pay that much this close to Christmas. But that's what I have a savings account for. It's not very big mind you. It's kind of depressing that I struggle to keep a net worth above $1k. On one hand I enjoy my life as it is now, but on the other I don't want that to mean that I have lost motivation to succeed. I am not working a full time job and I'm not working in my career field. Those are two things I need to correct. Last year I sort of made a new years resolution to fix those things....but nothing has happend. Maybe I'm just too lazy about it. Something to think about. Anyway I finally got to Ox's around 7. He was playing a game with Nick and Danny online. They quit shortly after I got there. We talked for a while and then watched Hellboy. That could have been a great movie if not for one thing: Hellboy didn't act like a hero. Basically all he did was get kicked around by the monsters. Yeah he has a stone hand and he can jump really high. But it seemed almost an accident when he killed the bad guys. In the end he killed the monster/villain thing by getting eaten by it and then setting off grenades inside it. Pretty lame. Anyway as we were watching Brianna showed up she was in good spirits, better than I would have been after a 6 hour car drive. I got a phone call a little bit after that from Julie, she said that she was coming with Jen up for the event. I told her to go find Kate and make her come but they had already left, I was sad. It would have been nice to have Kate around after such a long day. We went to bed pretty early, around midnight. Julie and I had the beds in the back room and stayed up talking for a little while then hit the hay. The event was a pretty cool one. Our team of "Do not Emulate Us" consisting of Dante, Kenji and I wont the tourney. As a team we fought 22bouts and we each lost only one. I didn't really have any difficult fights. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Dante handled the provosts and Kenji and I would take the lower two fighters. I owned Belpheobe, and Cat(the Queen's Champion), which were my two most notable fights. It was fun to just hang around with Dante and Celric. Who by the way got his Sea Dragon and AoA at the second court. He's been waiting 12 years for that, or any kind of recognition for that matter. It was nice to win again, I'm getting spoiled I've won something in the last 5 events I've attended. I still think I have a little anonymity though. Maybe I should change outfits. After court was over Bri, Jen, Julie, Antonio and I went to a local country resturant. It was some really good food. Down home cooking is great when you are exhausted. Only one problem was that it made me sleepy. Not a good thing when you are driving for three hours. I decided to pretend like my car was still broken and not go home. I went over to Kate's instead and spent the night with her. We needed some time together. I had to take two breaks on the road so I didn't fall asleep at the wheel. I made it back and Kate and I crashed. The and her ugly boyfriend were in the room but I'm used to sleeping with noise. I woke up the next morning and I was really really sore. I was supposed to call Antonio for practice but I didn't feel like and it was freaking cold out. Monday I was supposed to hear something about the job so I worke steadily and tried not to think about it. I got a call saying that they were going to slow the proccess down because the manager had the flu. And that I might have to come back for a second interview or something. That's not good news, it means they probably have found someone that is truly qualified instead of me who would take longer go learn the ropes. Who knows. Tuesday Kate and I went on a mini date. We got chinese food, and went Christmas shopping. I want to get my Dad something special because he gave me some money to help me for Christmas. I don't like that he felt it was needed, but I can't turn down his generosity. So it was sort of bittersweet. I'll get him and Mom something nice. And maybe something extra for John. John gave me a pair of Harley Davidson gloves to use while fencing. I still need to call him and thank him. They are really really comfortable, and they look awesome. Tomorrow we're having a going away thing with Kate. They are going to cook oriental food, I might steal some venison from the freezer and bring that to use instead of beef, couldn't hurt. Kate said she wants to dress nice.....and then she said she wanted to wear the wings from halloween. That's kind of strange but it's not like I need to understand anyway. Well that's all for now, hopefully I won't go so long between posts again. Hopefully.

It Was A Quiet Morning

Remember!

Yesterday was a very nice day. Dad woke me up with a cup of coffee at 10 so we could decorate the Christmas tree. It was a good time, even though T was there. We actually got some good adult conversation which surprised me greatly. I had lunch with the family too. But that wasn't so cool, it was just a sill little sandwich. Well it was the kind I've eaten at home ever since I was really young. What sucked was that I was hungry about a half an hour later. Work was ok, I talked to Ludwig and there's going to be multiple chances for jobs over at the NOC this coming spring I just have to stay on top of it.

Kate and I finished watching Usual Suspects. She guessed the secret about halfway through. It made me so proud. She was in a very calm mood. I don't know if it was because she was exhausted from studying or if she was just burnt out, or if she was done with the test on monday was was relaxed. Anyway it was a nice change because she didn't seem to be stressed. We went to Wal-Mart so she could get some ink for her printer. We looked around for Christmas gifts for random people. And actually left the store after 1:30. I was really tired but I don't know why.

Today was on ok day at work. It's the last regular day of the semester. So tomorrow and for the rest of the year my schedule goes crazy. I'll have to remember to print off my schedule and take it home so I know when to come in. This weekend could either be really crazy or really relaxing. I'm daytripping an event in Charlotesville area on Saturday so that could be crazy. But Kate has lots of studying to do so that will cut down on things on Friday and Sunday. Practice will be in Richmond because Jen wants to go up there and attend a practice that will have a lot of bigwigs there. I can't go because I have to drive the little ones to church on Sunday. Good thing about that is I won't have to get up early for Sunday school.

The event on Saturday should be great. William of Glencoe has been talking up a storm on the listserv. It may be all in good fun, but I think he's making a fool of himself. And I'm having trouble not going down to his level and baiting him. Or bashing him outright. But I'll resist. Dante says that if our team goes up against his that I can have him. I will wear his ass out. That's all for now.

Well it's been a while since I have posted and a lot of things have happend. On Friday Kate, Ludwig, Kate's friend Chris(sp?) and I went to Roanoke to shop and catch a movie. I managed to get a tool set for my dad. And we figured out that the Mall didn't have the gift we wanted to get for Julie. And we went to to see a movie called National Treasure. It was an action adventure type of movie that had a healthy dose of quirky humor, supplied mainly by the computer geek. It was severly over the top, which actually helped a good bit with the overall entertainment value. And good fun movie, pretty clean too. Then because we didn't feel like going to bed or home we watched Oscar in the lounge. Always a fun party movie.

On Saturday I slept late and didn't really feel well. I have been slowly getting sick for the past month. I'm afraid that it's really going to kick in at some inoportune moment. But I watched the game in Kate's lounge. Excellent game, I think this team has come together like no other team I have seen. Usually in the NFL when a team clicks like this they will win the superbowl. But we are going to the Peach Bowl, which is waaaay above any expectations that I had for this year. After the game we picked up Julie and went over to Sean and Janna's for a sushi party. All of the usual characters were there. The sushi was good but the party itself was kind of boring. There were usual hijinks of someone getting a leash put on them. And basically everyone just sort of sitting around talking about how edgy they were. We left kind of early to go and went to squires to play some pool. I managed to upset Kate. I didn't do anything really bad, but it did managed to embarass her. She kind of withdrew and went over and sat in the corner when it wasn't her turn to shoot. She kept giving me this look which I thought was "stay away from me" when it was really "why aren't you holding me?". It was a simple mistake that I corrected. Things were better after that. We took Julie home, talked for a while, went to Joe's to get some food, found Joe's really crowded, went home. Things are better with us now. Or will be when she is done with school. She's been hovering somewhere between exhausted/cuddly and stressed. And I've just been bored and understimulated. That combination doesn't make for very exciting dates. But things are getting better.

Sunday practice was a lot of fun. I hadn't been out in a while but picked right back up where I left off. Mom, Daniel and Michael were there for a little while to watch. Dion took me on while they were standing there. He used his cloak against me with my cane, he had no chance. Then as we were fighting Costanca came up and joined him to take me on. I cranked it up a notch and killed them both three times before getting water. I fought for almost three hours straight. I did get a little pissed when Andrea took Ludwig off and started "teaching" him. And when I say teaching him I mean lecturing him on things he already knows and then getting beaten by him. In addition she managed to teach him some bad habits like only attacking by rushing your opponent, and only defending by running away. Things that I'm trying to keep him from getting in the habbit of doing. That's also the kind of mentality that I'm trying to beat out of Thomas. Anyway it was reallly really good to be fighting again. I was in the best mood that I have been in for a long time. I was laughing and joke at dinner like there was no tomorrow. I managed to hurt Kate's and Julie's brain a few times. But they didn't seem to hold it against me. After that we went over to the lounge to have a Riddick marathon. We watched Pitch Black and Chronicles of Riddick. I had a damper put on my mood however. Before the movie started Ludwig told me that there was a chance of VBS making a full time salaried position instead of Jenny coming over. And then he told me that Nancy was pushing for it to be Taikara. That pissed me off for obvious reasons. But we watched the movies and had a good time. David was there for a while but he left when he saw Kate and I kissing. Julie was using Ludwig for a pillow which was interesting. They would make a decent pair, but Julie is obsessed with Aldemere right now. I honestly don't know what she sees in Aldemere, which is why she's obsessed with him and not me I guess. I just want her to be happy.

Monday was an interesting day. I slept really well for some reason. I think my body might be telling me that it's about to do one of it's weekend shut downs where I just haven't slept well for too long. Work was ok, I managed not to get pissed at Nancy. Kate came in to sit on Candle's lap for a while randomly. When I got off we went over to Beanery for some dinner. I was just going to get something cheap to save money but they had half priced appetizers...damn them. We rented Usual Suspects and were going to watch it. But Kate remembered that she had things to do today so she had to go to bed pretty early. Now that I think about it we were teasing each other pretty hard last night. I'll have to make sure she knows it was all in fun. We watched about the first third of the movie before we took her home to bed.

She did make a strange comment last night that I'll have to think about. She said "you need a hobby". I'm not sure what she meant but I will think about it.

Today

Today has been a pretty good day. I was up late last night(4 am) working on a piece for Fedora-Pundit. I wish I could write faster. I'll just have to work on it. But I did manage to get some good sleep thanks to the new body pillow I bought. It was only 9 bucks. I'm still working on the best way to sleep on it, but I did manage to get more comfortable than I have been in a while. But obviously since I was sleeping well I didn't get up as early as I have been(9 am). I turned the alarm off and went right back to sleep. I woke up when Dad came in to talk to me. He gave me some great news. Even though I still owe him $300 on my car, he's going to make this month my last payment. I was still pretty groggy, but that's a great way to wake up. I love my parents sometimes. Although I don't know if I'm going to let them do this. I will probably pay off the rest of the cost of the car. Talking about the car reminded me that I had to go to the DMV. The registration on my car ran out....in November. Good thing I remembered because the last thing I want to do after Mom and Dad help me out with my car is do something irresponsible with it. I was expecting to be at the DMV for at least a half an hour. So I had something to read and a 24oz Pepsi(best cola in the world)and was ready to wait. Well everyone has to go through an initial line where they tell you what paperwork you need to fill out. Then they call your number like in a deli, and you go up and they actually do the work you need them to do. Well it took 14 minutes to get through the paperwork line. I only needed to sign and date one form. But as I sat down to do it they called my number before I could get the date written. I went up to the counter finished it, paid my money and left. Whole thing took about 16 minutes. I was blown away. I have never spent less that 45minutes in there. I had time to run through the thrift store, grab a cool black polyester shirt. Then I went to Rugged Warehouse and got Daniel some jeans for Christmas. Apparently he has such big legs that jeans that actually fit him are very tight in the thighs. So I found a good pair of baggy loose fitters that are tough enought take some punishment. I also figured out what to get Kate for Christmas. It's something that she can enjoy with me, or her other friends. I just have to go back after work and get it.

I found this today. New Female Sex Drug Raises Safety Concerns. So in addition to having the contraceptive patch, and the quit smoking patch. We are going to have a horny female patch! Greaaaaaaat! I'm going to start a list of people who should never be allowed to wear that patch. Any ideas for starters?

Oh Happy Day

Don't let the title fool you. It's not really all that happy of a day. Not that days can be happy anyway. But I have had an epiphany. Or a change of heart, or an attitude kick in the ass, or whatever you want to call it. Amber had a super long post on her livejournal yesterday that I read. And it was one of the most whiny selfish things that I've read in a long time. It was all self absorbed doom and gloom. And I got to thinking, how much of my blog is like that? I asked Kate and she said that mine wasn't as bad but it did bear some simularities in tone. I went back and read a few posts, but it's kind of hard for me to be objective considering I wrote it. And honestly, I really don't want this to be "Jeremy's bitching page". This blog should be uplifting and amusing, to me and anyone who reads it. So to that end I have made some personal resolutions. Along with using the words "shpadoinkle", "hoochie mama", and "bong" more often, I will do my best to write in a positive manner on this blog. Even when I am not in the best mood. Because if I'm not in a good mood and I start writing fun things then it should help me out of the bad mood.

Right?

Right.

At least it should. It might make me not want to blog at all.

Well I'll just have to make myself do it anyway.

OMG! I'm talking to myself on my own blog.......I must need more coffee. Ahh, that's much better. So for today's uplifting and entertaining post I will review the CD that I've been listening too. It's the new U2 CD that the wonderful Kate got me for Christmas. I've never reviewed a CD before, so here goes nothing.

U2 - How to Disarm an Atomic Bomb
Atomic Bomb was the much anticipated latest from U2. Their last disc called "All That You Can't Leave Behind" was probably their most successful disc. It won grammy's for album and song(Beautiful Day - my favorite pop rock song ever), and the acompanying "Elevation" tour was one of the most lucrative of all time. Bomb is similar in tone to "Leave Behind", but it bears more resemblance to their older albums such as "Auchtung Baby" or "Joshua Tree". Thankfully the Irish band seems to be completely over the electronica/disco fetish from the 90's(run away). I don't know if this is their best album ever, only time can tell that, but it's definetaly very close.

There is quite a wide range of sounds on this disc. Ranging from the rock-out energy of "Vertigo", to the emotional lamentation of "Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own". There are more slower pondering songs than high energy songs. And for that reason I think they may not have as many successful singles from this album. My favorite track is Vertigo the single that's being played all over the radio. It has an energy that reminds me why I like rock music. "Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own" is a song that Bono wrote for his father's funeral. It's hard not to feel the raw emotion in this song as he describes a strained relationship that never the less is full of love. The last song on the disc is a return to their 80's tradition of giving a shout out to the Big Man Upstairs with "Yaweh"(Yaweh is one of the many Hebrew words for God). Yaweh is an interesting song, it really lets Bono stretch out the pipes a good bit.

Overall it's a great album. I've listened to it around 8 times all the way through. It really flows together and blends in to the background when I'm concentrating on something else. It will probably be a good disc to put in on long car trips and let my mind wander(that's what I do with Auctung Baby). Throughout the album they seem to be saying "look how good we are" and you can't help but answer "dammit you are good". We'll see if this album is as successful as their previous ones. But at this point it's fair to call U2 the kings of rock.

Well that was my CD review. It was fun for me, and if you buy the CD you can enjoy it too. Or if you know me and want to hear it just let me know(wink wink).

Lileks Bleat was good today. Yesterday's was pretty funny too. Gnat is just hilarious.

A Dark Night

The title of this post is a little over dramatic since..well all nights are dark. But last night I went home from work without going over to see Kate. She had some studying to do so we really couldn't go out or anything and I didn't want to distract her. So I was going to go home, do a little work on my website. Read a book or something and basically just relax. I got the room cleaned up pretty good so it feels nice to be in there now. And when the Christmas break hits Kate will be gone and I'll have plenty of time to spend down there. Anyway last night I heated up some curry chicken in the nuke machine. And I took it downstairs to eat it while sending an email. When *bam* power went out. I waited for it to come back on and it did after a few seconds. And then *bam* again. This time it stayed off. I had to feel my way upstairs(no moonlight in the basement) and find matches. And then I found a candle and then used the candle to find a flashlight finally. I found a phone book and called the "Utilities Emergency" number which turned out to be the Sheriffs office. They said that AEP was already aware of it. So I doubted there was anything I could do more that night. I waited a little then went back downstairs to try and eat curry chicken with rice by flashlight. Not as easy as it sounds. I read for a little while but got bored so I decided to work out. I did some dumbell curls, pushups, and ab wheel.....reps. I don't know what to call the exercise of rolling forward and rolling back using a wheel with handles. It probably has some fancy workout name somewhere, but hell if I know what it is. I did three sets of reps and felt pretty good. So I went to bed, it was actually easier to fall asleep now that I think about it. I'll have to start doing that every night. But that would make me stronger and more muscular hmmmm. The power came back on around 10am. I had actually gotten up about an hour earlier because I had gone to bed so early. The news people said that it was because of the wind. But when I got home last night, about 20 minutes before it went out there wasn't any wind outside. I remember because I stopped outside my car to admire the moon(it was big and bright). I think it was evil leprechauns with radio-active bananas. But nobody will believe me.

I made up a joke yesterday while we were discussing worthless degrees you can get. It's not all that funny but it amused me.
Q:What do you get when you double major in Math and Philosophy?
A: relevance<=0
Well I thought it was funny anyway.

Speaking of funny, here is the list of things that I am not allowed to do:
1.Lick Kates truck
2.Buy Kate the book of naughty flowers
3.Taste dead babies
4.Happy White Man Dance
5.Talk about anything having to do with bunny spooge

I've only actually done the last two. The others I've just talked about to get a reaction.

I ran in to Caitlin last Saturday as I was going to rent a movie. She was back for Thanksgiving from NYU. They had just watched a movie at the Lyric and were going to the Cellar. And they invited me to join them. It was Caitlin, and Gillian who has grown almost as tall as me, and two of their friends who were obviously dating. The girl was wearing an anti-Bush punk-button, but I didn't feel like getting in to it with her. I talked to Caitlin about studying theatre in NYU. The way it is set up is that she takes what's called "Workshop" which is three hours a day and can include anything from African dance to lighting design. She told me about some of the people in her group, typical theatre people. Then she started talking about her directing class. Some of the stuff that she talked about was facinating. They have to come up with an original piece, direct it, without using any words. Basically getting down into the total nitty gritty of directing a scene. We talked for a solid 30 minutes on how to apply that concept to real directing. It actually made me start missing theatre. I wish I had a group of thespians my age that enjoyed working on theatre stuff. I didn't realize how much I miss it, or how much I'd soured on it. Directing the show for NRCC was just a bad bad time. And then the fiasco with the improv group. The improv group had potential, but there were just too many people there for the wrong reasons. But I still love to act. I just wish I could have had a decent roll to play. The biggest roll I had was in Come Blow Your Horn. And I got that when I was very inexperienced, basically before I knew what I was doing. I was typcast as the innocent little brother. I worked backstage and in minor rolles in the rest of ths shows I did. I learned a ton about performance, technical aspects, and directing. But got very little stage time. Until The Letter which I directed and then took up the main roll halfway through. From there it was only directing and improv. Oh and doing lighting for the church pageant for Yooni, ugh! Oh well no use crying about it now. I did learn a very important lesson: Don't mix your girlfriend with your theatre project. It's just bad news all the way around.