what a couple of weeks. it seems like i've been too busy to do many of the things that i began enjoying on a daily basis. like blogging, for example… and not just writing this one, but reading the many blogs i enjoy reading from day to day. i'm hoping once this big project i'm working on at work is finished, i'll have a little extra time every day to get back to my blogs.

it's nice to see nanette again, though I really haven't had a great deal of time to actually hang out with her & brian since she got here. thursday, the delayed but much longed for comic day saw me at work for an extra two hours (or more) so pretty much as soon as i got home brian & Paul were bitching profusely about my tardiness and their overwhelming hunger. we introduced nanette to the (usually) wednesday tradition of comics & denny's, where we were informed a major travesty had occurred and they were out–completely out–of ranch dressing. no ranch dressing?!? how can we possibly eat a meal a denny's with no ranch dressing!?
…
well, angrily, of course.

since my Christmas present for Paul had arrived, we popped it in immediately on our return home and proceeded to laugh hysterically for over an hour.

Next came Friday, which found me, once again, staying late at work, except that this time i was there an extra 5 (that's five, f-i-v-e, 5) hours, bringing my total for the day up to a whopping 13!. i stopped off to grab beer, cigarettes, and food on the way home (since brian had informed me that both paul & guy were present, that they were going out to eat, and would be imbibing a bit… well, except for guy, who doesn't drink. then once home i proceeded to drink a little and whup both paul & brian's asses at a healthy game of timsplitters deathmatch. i'm sure this was all very amusing for nanette, who sat reading on the couch, and who'd occasionally attempt to assuage our egos by politely laughing when we silly boys tried to be funny.

then, after the drinking and the killing, we decided to do the eating. we took nanette to the infamous, legendary Twig & Leaf for a bite of the ol' Louisville Paul (oh, i mean hot) Brown. we settled comfortably into our booth and reviewed the menu. even i had planned to try the hot brown, since i've either never had one, or can't remember having had one. much to our surprise, when nanette tried to order, we were informed that they were out of the alfredo sauce that is used to make the hot brown. apparently there has been some conspiracy regarding nanette's visit to Louisville. our two traditional restaurants were both understocked on crucial elements needed to make the dining experience a complete and successful one. fortunately, they hadn't run out of their regular cheese sauce or twig taters (ie. tater tots). we finished our "meals" and headed back home clutching our protesting stomachs.

today has been an interesting exercise in "speed moving." one roommate, the unfortunately hippie-fied and constantly delinquent bob, is being ejected from this house. to our dismay, even having been given two months notice, (and a few random reminders) he had made no effort to pack or begin moving any of his (enormous amount of) stuff. so, Brax came over, he & I went to hawley-cooke to grab an assload of boxes, and we began packing bob's things for him. by the end of the evening Paul had also arrived, and between the three of us, we managed to compress what traditionally has been a two or three day affair into the miniscule space of 5 hours. bob's things are almost completely removed from his former room, and waiting for him in the basement. i can't wait to see the look on his face when he actually returns home to an almost empty room. hehe.

now it's time for bed. my body is tired, my brain is tired, and i have to rest up for what will surely be a record breaking drinking bout tomorrow night. (for me anyway).

well, after almost 10 days of chaos, it would seem that the planets have aligned closely enough to allow me a moment to do an update. i'm sitting at home right now, wrapped in my comfy bathrobe, alone alone alone. for the first time in i don't know how long.

took my yearly trip to visit my grandmother and assorted family on my mother's side for christmas, and fell further into this bad habit of mine. it seems like every year i get more and more disconnected from everything that's supposed to mean the most to me–my family and friends. almost as soon as i got to my grandmother's house, i went down into the basement, picked up the awesome Batman: Black & White that Paul got me for Christmas, and read half of it before people realized i was missing and started coming downstairs to convince me to come up and hang out.

part of the thing is, there is so much not happening in my life, nothing of real importance anyway, that i rarely have anything to talk about. and, as Paul pointed out, pretty much everyone in my family is blindly Republican, so i really don't have anything more in common with them than blood and a little history. and despite what people try to say, that is just not enough.

so, i'm hanging out at my grandmother's house for four days, being almost totally anti-social, getting depressed about the fact that i seemingly can't connect on a human level with anyone anywhere anytime, and the fact that it's christmas and the joy and happiness i used to feel as a child just isn't there anymore. the excitement at waking up in the morning and seeing what "santa" had left in my stocking and under the tree is gone. it's just another day in a repeating series of 365 that never seems to end, that just constantly loops.

two of my younger cousins are married, one already has a new baby and the other is expecting. i'm not alone in the singles arena, but these cousins are like 5 or 6 years younger than me. i always, growing up, figured that i would get married around 21, have a child by 25 and be able to spend christmas at grandma's with my loving wife, making goo-goo eyes at her and basking in the warmth of her interactions with my aunts and female cousins while the entire family gathered around and gushed over my adorable baby. i never expected to be the 27 year old, single, anti-social deviant of the family. the basement-dweller.

then christmas day comes, we're all gathered around in the living room, all… christ, like 25 – 30 of us, unwrapping presents, talking, laughing, carrying on. i get more boxes than i really expected too, which is nice, i suppose. but then i look over at my mom & dad, sitting over there in a corner of the room, mom holding (my cousin's) new baby with a big motherly smile on her face, dad sitting in the floor next to her, and i notice that there is only ONE bag, only ONE present of any kind in their vicinity. i looked more closely at my mother's face, and thought that i could see–through the happiness at watching her family's joy–a little sadness, a little dissapointment, a question. i felt like i could see the same emotion that i'd felt on a few occasions as a child (or a teenager) when i felt like i'd not gotten quite enough presents to really know that i was loved. (which was really silly of me, but we all know how that goes). MY PARENTS had only gotten ONE present. three children, mom's seven sisters & brothers, their wives, their children, and only ONE present. once i came to this realization, whatever joy i had was no longer there. i focused on the look in my mothers face, the look that was deeper than the almost eternal mask of happiness she carries. i looked at my father and saw the same look that i must have had on several different occasions throughout the years, saw the same body language, the same almost unnoticeable indication of dissapointment. the same struggle to maintain the masks of joy that are required on christmas day.

after the christmas wrapping carnage was over, i carried my new things down into the basement, threw on my coat, and went out for a smoke. the one place i was sure i wouldn't be interrupted. i thought about my parent's one present, i thought about the fact that i'd had to call my parents two weeks ago to ask for my christmas money early just so i wouldn't overdraw my checking account. i thought about all the other times i've had to call on my parents to bail me out of some self-inflicted financial hardship or other, and how they've always come through for me. i thought about how i was able to buy presents for most of my friends (whom i love dearly) but i wasn't able to buy a single thing for my parents.

next year will be different. i'm going to make an effort to save money throughout the year so that, when christmas rolls around, i'll have a nice little stash set aside for transforming my parents falsely joyful faces into faces of real happiness. into faces that say that they know they are loved.

next christmas will be different.

just found this interview with mark arm — you remember, that guy i drove 6 hours to a little dive in chicago to go see? — anyway, read this and you'll understand part of the reason mark arm is my favorite rock'n'roll frontman of all time.
i mean, aside from the fact that he just simply fucking rocks, that is.

i'm generally not a violent person, but every once in a while, if the wind is right and the planets are aligned, certain people–just by their being within my sphere of perception–cause me to imagine bashing their head forcefully & repeatedly against the metal corners of my cubicle until their blood stains the fabric walls and bits of bone and brain collect on the floor at my feet.

mind you, this doesn't happen very often.

i came across a link today that reminded me quite a bit of brian, & some of the online shenanigans i've participated in or been privy to. shauna of flaunt.net (along with a friend) has recently created whowouldbuythat.com which is dedicated to uncovering the strangest of online auctions.

in other news, i spent a few minutes last night (or hours, really) helping paul with the puffin-a-go-go. he's added a few links to his "go-go-to" section, and I managed to get his archives up and running, so all you puffin readers run over there and check up on any posts you might have missed.

well, i suppose since i'm here at work, i should probably do some.

how pretentious is that title… oh well.

it's nice to see that some people have gotten into the spirit of my last post. kinda makes me feel special (in a egotistic kind of way, not a short-bus kind of way). perhaps i should post more often?

you'd think that now that i've got a workable new system all for my lil' ol' self at home, that i'd be more conscientious about it, but i can't seem to actually get anything done. i'm trying to catch up on all the email that's been neglected for the past several months, to all my friends who are probably pissed at me for not writing before now, expect to hear from me soon.

things at work are kind of slow right now, and it's sapping my energy and inspiration. we're in a "lull." at least, that's the word that's been used. i had a much better ending to this paragraph, but the link that it hinges around is apparently dead. if it "resurrects" itself soon, i'll come back and replace it. ( how're you supposed to do a weblog when the links spontaneously combust? )

oh, and don't worry too much about brian over there, he's just not getting enough sleep lately–it's affecting his mind.

and paul, tell dennis to send some MY way. i think we can afford a san-fran trip between the two of us.

james hetfield — ( i get this one quite a bit, so there must be something to it )

brian johnson — ? ( lead singer of AC/DC — i've gotten this one once, and i really don't see it. )

christopher walken — ?? ( again, once. again, HUH? )

i don't know how i feel about all this…

well. first post from my new computer haven at home. i've finally managed to get everything set up, all my old files transferred from the crappy old laptop i've been borrowing from my dad for the past year & a half, and am beginning the process of installing all those applications that i don't (but should) use on a daily basis.

it's been a rather uneventful day here at casa de bipolar. didn't get a glimpse of the puffin until late in the evening due to the alcoholic stupor he found himself in after last night's festivities.

thanks go out to tim for the link to the nocturnes he sent me. there are quite a few really good pics in the different exhibits there, check 'em out. oh, and as tim pointed out, it really isn't a goth site.

also, from the nocturnes, i found this little gem. what can i say, i'm a sucker for anything science related.

kerry blessed us with an update today, and while i've been enjoying her cryptic little two to four line posts, it's nice to see something more substantial.

and finally, here's a nice little rant on rockout.org about the enraging practice of video & DVD publishers who try (often, successfully) to sell us the same thing over & over again.

yeah.

the dull ache that is my life continues to suck the inspiration from projects i thoroughly enjoy–such as this oh-so-lovely blog.

scott over at erasing.org has posted some recent photographs that have been somewhat inspiring to me today. most of them are very good, some of them are moderately good, and a few of them just look like snapshots.

i have to say that i really enjoy photography, though i know very little about the technical aspects of it. i enjoy candid photos–not "snapshots", but carefully framed candid shots where the subjects aren't posing, and the photographer has taken time to find a good composition. of all my little projects that have fallen by the wayside, i probably regret my neglect of photography the most, probably because it would be the easiest thing to do while doing everything else that occupies my time. i could theoretically carry a camera (even a disposable!) around with me everywhere, and never have to say "if i only had a camera" like i currently do almost everyday.

if anyone knows of some other online photo galleries, collections, personal stashes, or whatever, .

hopefully either this weekend or sometime next week, we'll finally get the trip log and photos from our chicago trip up like we promised weeks ago, and maybe–if you're lucky–we'll actually finish the new bipolar as well. now that i've got this (sort-of) new computer and blazin 'net access, i'll actually be able to devote a little time to it.

it would appear that we've achieved a paltry 69% rating on bloghop.com. all you regulars do us a favor and:

Rate Us on BlogHop.com!
      help?

c'mon now, be honest. you love us, don't you.

well, for lack of something better–more meaningful–to post, i'll post some news items that're probably only of interest to me.

Amiga's about to release version 3.9 of their classic OS, and there's a petition to attempt to convince Amiga to give the nod to the development of a PowerPC native version 4.0.

in other Amiga classic news, Cloanto has released Amiga Forever 4.0–a classic Amiga emulation suite, complete with everything you need to emulate a classic Amiga from the workbench 1.0 days to workbench 3.1. for those of you now toiling away on your PC, Mac, or Linux boxes who long for the days when an OS didn't require over 200MB just to install, and when computers were actually fun to use, get yourself a piece of computing history.

in modern Amiga news, Amiga has released version 1.01 of their new SDK for linux and windows systems, as well as specifications for official AmigaOne systems.

there. now that that's all off my chest, on to other things.

yes. i failed to meet brian's challenge to post every day while he was gone. but i did get our home network setup, complete with that blazin' DSL connection that he's been gushing about since getting home.
it's good to have him back though. i'm relieved that his plane didn't fall out of the sky on his very first flight ever.

can't wait for paul to bring that dune tape over for a marathon viewing. i loved the Lynch version, and paul seems to like this one, so i'm sure it's gonna be great. (or was great, depending on your point of view)

i'm tapped.