so valentine's day was a bust. but you knew that already, didn't you? paul and i both opted to sit at our respective homes, basically deciding that if the both of us got together, we would most likely start drinking uncontrollably. if it hadn't been a work night, this probably wouldn't have been a bad idea.

having just dropped out of a relationship, i guess i really have no room to bitch about my current state. especially since i was the one that broke it off. but valentine's day has just left me pretty down and feeling more alone than ever. i don't think i ca remember ever really having a good valentine's day. nothing ever tends to work out the way i wanted or planned. i guess that can really just be applied to life, in general, but you get the point.

kerry was asking me what i really wanted in a girl, and, to tell the truth, that's a pretty tough question to answer right now. she definitely has me thinking about it, though. i know i want someone to hang out with. someone to have fun with, as well as share those quiet moments of whatever. i am not going to get into a long-winded emo dissertation right now, but i think you get the point.

scary chance valentine's day encounter: i ran into the girl i liked my entire grade school career last night. this is the girl i wanted to marry from kindergarten straight through to 6th grade. we became really good friends after all of that, and even used to hang out when i was 18 and she lived close to the communal house i was taking up space in. we fell out of touch (mostly due to her being a little, how you say, "crispy around the edges"), but i still end up seeing her in the most unexpected places every year or so. last night was no exception. i was at our local little mart thing, walking out, when she kinda blindsided me and was like "hey! give me a hug!" i tried my best to give a nice, kinda shocked, very distant hug. you get the point. she showed me a picture of her baby (said baby is about all that pops up in our little 5 minute conversations over the past few years), and then pointed to a clever looking fella that was walking out of the store. she said "that's the daddy." which caused the gentleman to turn around, look at me, and say "fuck her. i did." like i said…really clever fella. needless to say, i extracted myself from that situation very quickly. i'm sure a good time was had by all.
meeting time total for this year: about 2.5 minutes.

it's valentine's day, and i'm sitting at work. basking in the clacking of keys and the hum of machines. no love for me, ladies and gentlemen…just the joy of work.

i'm glad to know that my friend ben is doing alright since he moved back to new york city. he's got a job doing web design for atlantic records, and it sounds like things are on an upswing. witness this recent exchange:

b3nlord: i like tv.
Transmission3000: i hate tv.
Transmission3000: it makes me do things like watch New Jack City at 2am.
b3nlord: i love shit like that.
Transmission3000: true.
Transmission3000: i just hate it when i have to work the next day.
b3nlord: i have to go update Rod Stewarts website now. (how weird is that?)
Transmission3000: awesome.
b3nlord: weird.
Transmission3000: definitely.

so…yeah…things seem to be going well. hopefully he's keeping it real on the rod stewart tip.

while i was out on lunch, i swung by the record store to see jim and pick up a copy of the clerks uncensored dvd. it has all six episodes of the animated series, complete with commentary, on a two disc set. talk about handy.

now i need to get back to being a bitter, loveless asshole.

here it is, the day before valentine's day. it looms over us single people like an ominous black cloud. waiting to send some devious fork of lightning straight into our hearts, striking us dead from sheer patheticism.

or something like that.

i spent the day deciding not to buy the guitar i've been planning to get all weekend. i'm not worried about the price or anything, it's just that the place i'm getting it is in san diego and i get sketched out about stuff like that. nothing but a conversation on the phone and a mailed check? nah…i'll take something here in town.

so about town i was. i went back and looked at the exact same guitar, at the place where i originally saw the model. it's $200 more there, but i actually gave it some serious thought, knowing the deal would be kept in town. i then decided to hit up all of my other favorite guitar haunts, looking for something comparable. i've been thinking about the "staying in tune" factor of a tremolo bridge, so i've kinda been leaning toward a standard bridge. i ended up not finding anything i liked at any of the places i checked, but i think i've got some leads.

so on the "brian making big purchases" scoreboard, we still have brian standing at a big fat goose egg. thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen…it's been a hard battle. i couldn't have done it without your help.

as i mentioned before, tomorrow is valentine's day. so please excuse me…i have a date with some radiohead and a few too many cold ones.

i could go on and on about how some aspects of my day were too retarded for words, but i think i'll keep that to myself for now. let's just say…yeah. something or other.

on the bright side of things, i got to sit in a meeting that was nothing more than well over an hour of attempted corporate brainwashing. ha ha! i tricked them! i browsed the web and played on instant messenger the entire time. you can't suck my brain out, you bastards! i will resist you at every turn…

i also got a pretty good promo cd in the mail from girlie action media. they're the pr firm that handles such class acts as el tigre and rainer maria. the promo is the new album by gwenmars and i'd have to say that it's pretty damn good.

and i got to have an amusing three-way internet chat with matt and paul earlier. on the company dime, of course. if this keeps up, it may very well end up being the highlight of my day.

i do believe, ladies and gentlemen, that is all.

another day, another mind-numbing day nipping at "the man's" heels, chasing that paycheck. i actually feel somewhat rested after going to be close to on time. let's see if i can keep it up…

we're still waiting on some entries to this here contest we're running. you've had all weekend to think about it, now get to work!

for those of you that have been keeping tabs on all the contests, lately, kenoki has added an entire new category to her contest: songs. i would just like to go on the record as stating that this was entirely my idea. sort of.

i'm off of work tomorrow. i don't have much to take care of, so you'll probably see me puttering around on the cam. we actually left them both on last night and all day today while we're both at work. this is a grand experiment in ridiculosity. no light = no entertainment value whatsoever.

well, helped out paul a little more today, and it seems like he's well on his way to becoming a computer geek just like brian & i. he's catching on to some of the more esoteric aspects of owning your own computer, like file/directory organization, and desktop maintenance. he's a quick learner, that one.

while paul was playing around some more, checking out the napster thing and installing some more software, i headed out to compusa again today and took back that piece of crap Kensington web cam. (really, though, the Kensington had much better picture quality, it just wanted to crash my machine). the logitech (same exact type brian has) hasn't crashed my machine once, so i guess i'll take the quality hit. so, bipolar cam3000 is now truly bipolar. there are two separate portables right now, but we're working on a dual portable (most likely with a smaller image size) as well… it's not going to be that hard, we're just lazy.

speaking of being lazy. don't forget about our contest!

geh. that's my word of the day. after doing my part to help paul set up his computer and burning a couple of cds, i was finally able to scoot off to bed for a whopping 4 hours of sleep. actually less. more like 3 hours and change. needless to say, i'm frickin' tired. fit to die. but paul is now well on his way to having a kickass computer, so i guess all is well. i hope he's still around by the time i get off tonight so we can play that delayed network game of dune 2000.

in the "oops i forgot to link to this site again" category: homestar runner. it's one of the funniest flash cartoons i've ever run across, not to mention very well animated. click and enjoy.

once again, don't forget to enter our contest. we're gonna keep drilling this thing home until we get some entries (yes, i know this is a time consuming contest that takes a bit of effort…), so start entering now to try to get us to shut up about it.

i don't know about you, but i'm gonna take a nap…

as in, "i reckon that'll work…"

of course, if you were really observant yesterday, you'd have noticed that i made the last post around 3:30 AM… so, despite the fact that i was almost falling asleep at the wheel on the drive home from work on Friday, i ended up staying up until almost 4 in the morning.

it's been a pleasant day today. got up around 1 or 1:30, went out for lunch at KFC, then ran over to compusa primarily for kicks, but also so i could buy this year's version of TurboTax deluxe, and so Paul could debate buying a new computer. Well, he didn't, but i did manage to get my software, and picked up a new webcam for 30 bucks, to boot. Though Paul didn't get his computer, he did get approved for a credit card thing, so (looking at it one way) he walked out of the store $2400 dollars richer than when he'd walked in.

we came back to the house and i started trying to set up the web cam. it gave me some weird problems trying to install and update the software, but i finally got it working. then, i tried to change a simple little option in the controls of the software, and it locked up. in fact, it pretty much locked up the computer every time i stopped using the camera. so, when i'd exit the program, it'd lock up the computer. i even tried a different webcam program, and it had the same problem. so, needless to say, i'm taking the damn thing back tomorrow and trying a different cam. (if you're interested, the first and only pic that actually made it onto the site is here

while i was busy fighting with the webcam, paul was apparently busy convincing himself to buy the computer he'd looked at. he and brian went back out to compusa, and about an hour and a half later, the puffin came back with a kick ass new Sony VAIO. his new machine kicks brian's and my machine's combined ass. after setting it up, we debated for an hour or so (as we played around with it) about whether or not we wanted to strip that Windows ME crap off there and put on some Win2k. We finally decided that we couldn't stand the thought of a machine actually running ME on a regular basis, so we ended up reformatting the hard drive. and since then (almost 6 in the evening) brian and paul and i have been diligently working to bring the new beast to full working order. i've had fun, but now, it's time for bed.

oh, and don't forget the contest.

i've finally paid off my sleep debt for the week. like matt has mentioned previously, i have problems getting to bed on time. i always get home saying "i'm going to hit my mark. i have a strict bedtime tonight," and it never happens. hell…i was off yesterday and i had to get up early. waiting on a cable guy that didn't come until damn near 2pm. when they say "anywhere from 11-2," that means "as close to 2 as you can imagine. maybe later…"

we ended up not going to the hockey game last night. we were all fired up about it, but some personal differences came up, so we decided not to. my friend scott called and after talking to him, paul and i decided that we should go see hannibal, instead. so we waited for scott, and once he got here, we headed out. we got to the theatre and got a bitchin' parking spot, only to get into the place to find out that the damn thing was sold out. not wanting to wait another two hours to catch a movie that we can see any time, probably in less cramped conditions, we opted to head back home.

cable really started kicking our asses when we got back. gary oldman was on the dennis miller show…we watched some good comedy special…and then we watched cruel intentions. it's amazing…i've lived for so long without television that anything with the slightest interest value sucks my ass to the couch like a vacuum. damn the man and his time killing inventions…

argh. thank god the weekend's finally here. i've been so damned tired all day today. i could barely keep my eyes open at work, and i think i was grumpy and uncooperative occasionally. sleeping 4 – 6 hours a night just doesn't cut it, and i seem to do the same damn thing every week–get home from work, and have the best intentions of getting into bed and asleep at a decent time. but, like i said in my last post, i have been making great strides with personal projects, so i guess it's not as bad as it could be. though really, i'd be much more accepting of my inability to get to sleep at a decent hour if a female was involved…

which, at least on thursday night, was almost true. i got a call from mi amor and we had a wonderful long conversation. it was so nice to hear her voice again… she and i have been away from each other for many many years, after i went off to college, then she went to college in a different state, and now… she's moved all the way over to the (as brian likes to say) "left coast." needless to say, it's a rare treat for me to actually get to talk to her. and the sound of her voice and her laughter still resonates within and lifts my spirits.

my sister has been so busy with her new duties at work that we've hardly had a chance to IM each other over the past couple weeks, and she's apparently had very little time to update multiliterate as well. i'd kind of gotten used to being able to talk to my sister across the ocean, and to read about her interesting experiences in the city of love, i really miss it now. well, here's hoping that she hits her stride with the new job and manages to wrangle some time to update.

in contest news, paul has answered the "redesign bipolar before we do" challenge. he hasn't told us his ideas yet, but i'm sure they're going to be good. but don't let that sway you from entering… paul may be one of my bestest friends in the world, but that don't mean his redesign's going to get any slack from me come judgement day. and we're even talking about the possibility of setting up multiple versions of bipolar… if we get enough good designs, we may eventually set it up so you can choose your favorite. rest assured, we will declare a winner even if we have to drag a wino in off the streets to break a tie.
so… enter the contest damn you.

oh, and i've added a "judging" section and a parenthetical statement to "rule" #1 on the contest page. if you're planning to enter, or are already working on a design, you might want to check the additions… they aren't changes, just clarifications.