the good: tomorrow is the day the puffin and i go up to st. louis for my much anticipated Amiga convention… amazingly enough, the first i'll ever have attended. i've always wanted to go to the st. louis con, but never seemed to be able to afford it. well, now i'm in a little better place financially, though i still seem to have a non-paying roommate on my hands. so anyway, big announcements are expected, but mainly i'm going up there to have a little fun and maybe get some new computer equipment to finally fix up that Amiga 1200 i was bragging about a few months ago. i'm not sure if we'll have net access up in the hotel up there, but if we do, we'll try to keep you posted on our blood/alcohol level.

oh, and as paul mentioned in his blog, he's burned an MP3 cd for our trip, so i've basically got a 10 hour puffin mixed tape to look forward to hearing. i've never known him to build a bad mix tape.

the bad: well, it's official. she's moved in. we got home from dinner tonight and lo and behold there's a moving van out front of the house of the formerly ugly orange doors. we had the pleasure of seeing "idiot jerk" walk out of the house to the moving van… er, well, brian and paul had that pleasure. i was trying to just kind of ignore the whole thing, lest i do something rash. brian however, took great pleasure in glaring menacingly at "idiot jerk" until we got the front door open. i'm pretty certain that without any of us doing anything outright, the guy will certainly know that he's not welcome in my neighborhood.

but, as i said, i'm trying not to think about it, and though i did feel that little pang of… i don't know… maybe jealousy… or something, and though i do know that at some point, i am most certainly going to freak out about this, i'm doing fine right now.

quick update to the people i resemble list from 12.11.2000.

this is a new one. according to a co-worker, i look like a young, blonde will riker. (for you non-star trek people, will riker is "number one" from star trek: the next generation).

and for your enjoyment (since i looked it up) here's a comprehensive Star Trek drinking game.

i spent much of the day browsing this site, and you know what, i really want one!

brian asked me the other day if i was "freaking out" because of her return. my response was that, no, i'm not freaking out right now, but i will most likely be freaking out in a big way if/when she moves in next door and i'm forced to see her (or even just her car) on a regular basis. i already find myself glancing up to the porch of that house, or glancing toward the windows to see if there're any lights on inside. thankfully, i've noticed no moving van outside, and haven't seen her car yet. plus, she hasn't called me back, so the possibility exists that she may not have actually signed the lease, and may not be moving in. we can only hope.

this past weekend was actually a fun one for me. a friend from my old job (hawley-cooke, whose web site i created and maintained for almost a year before they kicked me off the project and let it go to complete and utter shit by hiring someone who has no clue what he's doing) came by on Saturday evening, i guess around 6pm to drag me out up and down bardstown road, and into various drinking establishments. we walked up and back (probably 2 miles or so), then stopped in at a little bar near my house and had appetizers and microbrewed beer (probably one too many). then we set out again, walked even farther down bardstown road ('til it turned into baxter ave.) then turned around and walked part of the way back until we got to another bar, where we went in to warm up and… drink more beer.

at this point, she was pretty drunk, and i wasn't exactly straight sober either. we walked back to the house (mind you, this is like 6 hours later) hoping to find paul and brian still awake so that we could all make the traditional saturday drunkfest trip to the twig. fortunately for us, we showed up just as paul was getting ready to go home, and he happily obliged us by driving (even though he complained that we only wanted him for his soberness and ability to drive). needless to say, we were all having a grand time (despite the fact that ms. nicole seemed about to die from hypothermia), and the louisville paul brown (that's the food-stuff, not the person) never seemed so satisfying.

after the twig, we decided to extend the evening at paul's house (since nicole still had to sober up enough to drive home) and paul stopped for some spirits in hopes of joining us in our altered state. we all gathered in the upstairs living room and talked and carried on for a while with nicole falling asleep after about an hour. paul & i continued our normal drunken philosophizing and meandering conversation until she finally woke up and paul decided it was time to send us on our way.

all in all, it was a very nice, enjoyable evening spent with friends.

then sunday was laundry day. mmm, clean clothes.

she's back. again.

what do i see when i get home from work and check the caller id but "idiot jerk"'s name. i still haven't checked to see if she left a message, but she unfortunately called again just as i was finishing dinner. apparently, she's been apartment hunting, in my neighborhood. she was just calling to let me know that she was possibly signing a lease tomorrow for an apartment in the house next door to mine. the conversation was merely polite, i didn't offer anything more than answers to her questions even though the tone in her voice suggested she wouldn't mind a more in depth chat.

now, if only may would hurry up and get here.

this will be hell.

here's what i was going to post last night, before that whole Mir/Taco Bell discovery.

update: go here, to voice your support (in an official Marvel forum, no less) for one of my favorite titles. (of course, i've just realized that you have to be registered for marvel's forums to post a reply, so perhaps one of the other options below would be better.)

Marvel Comics is getting ready to cancel one of my favorite titles–Spider-Girl. having heard that the EIC Joe Quesada is trying to figure out a way to save the book from the accountant's axes, it would really mean a lot to me if all of you could spare two minutes to respond to his post on marvel's boards. just write something simple, like "please don't cancel this awesome book!" or something along those lines.

you can also go to fandom.com's spider-man domain and take the little poll about halfway down the left-side column. be sure to choose "that sucks! it was a good title." (or, one of the other positive responses.) it would mean a great deal to me, and you can take pride in the knowledge that you have helped to make this crazy guy happy.

and again, you can go here for an online poll that will be submitted to marvel at the end of the month.

c'mon, do it for me. please?

well, i was thinking of posting something completely different from this, but now i've completely forgotten what that was.

in case you haven't yet heard, taco bell has set a 40' x 40' floating target in the mir station's proposed splashdown zone in the south pacific. apparently, if the space station's core hits the target, taco bell will offer one free taco to everyone in the u.s. read taco bell's own press release.

but really, the thing that struck me as truly hilarious was the idea that there's this huge tarp floating in the south pacific with these words.

well, it's getting late, and i've been attempting to straighten out my sleeping habits a bit. time to hit the sack. but more tomorrow.

where to begin?

the last week at work has been rather… interesting, to say the least. the roosters are crowing while the little chicks and hens are just kind of nervously clucking and hopping about. top that off with my aforementioned bout with near-deathly illness (that being a rather nasty head-cold), by the time friday rolled around, i was ready to just kind of kick back and enjoy the weekend. i got an invitation from some co-workers to go out and wind down with a little drinkage after the workday, and, for once, had actually agreed (if somewhat reluctantly) to go. so, 10 minutes before i'm getting ready to head out, brian finally pops up on AIM, and i tried to find out if he and paul had any immediate plans for the evening of which i should be made aware. in other words, if they were actually planning on going out and doing something fun, i was going to ditch my work buddies and tag along with my homies. if, on the other hand, it was friday business-as-usual–no defined plans, except just taking the night as it comes–i'd go ahead and get my drink on with the corvus crowd.

so, here i am, wanting only one thing — a definitive answer as to whether or not he and paul had anything planned. what i got was some half-baked crap about "having something good planned" for me specifically, and that i would "definitely like it." i'm not sure if they could tell by my snappy responses, but i was actually getting very frustrated at them for being so damned evasive. i got this vague idea in the back of my head that maybe this had something to do with sharon, as i vaguely recalled some conversation we'd had almost a month ago about the possibility of her coming through town in the near future. and also, i figured that both brian and paul know how much she means to me, and that she'd pretty much be the only person for whom i'd consider changing my plans. their mutual assertions that it would be "worth it," and paul's "trust me," pretty much cinched it for me. (of course, i think that until they read this, they're still under the impression that i was completely hoodwinked.)

and sure enough, moments after i got home (having noticed that the front door was suspiciously unlocked), who should come up the stairs but sharon herself, in all her radiant beauty. i don't know how many of you have ever actually had a "frown turned upside down" in the space of two heartbeats, but i can authoritatively say that it does happen. we spent the next few hours just hanging out and talking, having a good time. i finally got to meet the boyfriend that i've heard so much about, and having met him and gotten to know him a little, i have to grudgingly give him my approval. well, you know, not that that really matters. but it's like i told him as they were leaving… "you better take good care of her, 'cause i don't want to have to hurt you."

sharon and i shared a couple whiskey shots, chased with some really flat coke (which, i realized, is one way that i can actually do whiskey shots, lord help us) and chatted briefly down in the kitchen, before rejoining the rest of the boys upstairs. all in all, it was a low-key visit, but a very welcomed one. i'm always happy to talk to sharon, and obviously so much happier to actually get to see and spend time with her. but i'm greedy, i wish she (yes, and grant as well) could have stayed a little longer, hung out, maybe had a big crazy night drinking, bowling, and carrying on. maybe we'll be able to do that when i go visit them in sunny cali. we'll go show those little hollywood bums how to really party.

as brian pointed out in a post yesterday, i've spent the last couple days recuperating from my first (and hopefully only) real cold of the winter season. funny how these always hit me when winter's on the way out. anyway, i was fairly miserable on Tuesday, but went to work anyway. by about 10:30 i realized it would be nearly impossible to remain lucid at work for the next 6 hours, so i decided to cut and run at lunchtime… hoping, of course, that going home and lounging on the couch and napping for the rest of the day would speed me on the road to recovery and make it so i could go to work Wednesday and be productive. unfortunately, by the end of the evening, i was probably feeling worse than i had earlier in the day, and i was debating on calling in before i even went to bed. but i hoped that a good night's rest would fix me right up, and after downing a few cups of hot tea, i hit the sack intending to figure things out in the morning.

long story short, i ended up taking off the whole day wednesday, lounging around the house most of the day watching reruns of classic star trek and quantum leap. i'd forgotten what a fantastic show quantum leap was.

well, now i'm back at work. and lovin every minute of it. oh, and yeah, i'm feeling quite a bit better.

well, this has been a rather pleasant weekend (plus Monday). sometime friday my federal tax return finally posted to my account (thank god for e-file and direct deposit!) probably making this occasion the one time in my life where i've actually been pleased with our "government." of course, i still think income taxes should be done away with in favor of a federal sales tax, but that's another topic for some other forum.

my plans all along (since figuring out that i would be coming out of the tax season much better off than paul, who unfortunately had to pay taxes this year) have been to utilize this bounty to considerably improve my financial state by paying off all the various and sundry little petty debts i'd gotten myself into over the course of the past two years. little things like unpaid doctor bills, vet bills, cd club subscriptions, etc. all told, it amounted to a little less than $700 of debt, so i've not been doing as badly as some, but i'd never been able to catch up long enough to actually take care of these things. well, now that i've had this groovy tech job for almost a year, and have gotten rid of one deadbeat roommate and replaced him with two lesser deadbeat roommates (sorry, brian, couldn't resist… brian's actually the only one of the two new ones to be fully paid up), i've actually been able to place myself on a little firmer financial footing. all our bills are being paid on time, and once the newest roommate pays up, i'll be doing much better. SO, i'm out of debt. which, as brian would say, is what we'd call a "good thing."

i'm on a bit of a high right now, having just phoned the last collections agency that i was concerned about and finding out that… somehow, outside the bounds of my memory, my account with them had been paid in full back in 1997. i don't recollect it, but i sure don't mind finding it out four years later!

top that off with the fact that i'm planning to head out to a local computer retailer today to pick up a secondhand Dell branded sony trinitron monitor for the low low price of $168.00, and coupled with the fact that i've just purchased a 256MB stick of RAM for this fabled machine i'm planning to build in the next couple months, and you can understand my elation. i may, finally, have a system i can actually use to do the types of stuff i like to do. a machine that won't complain when i run more than three programs at the same time. a machine with which i might just be able to take over the world. oh, wait, i'm still going to be running windows, aren't i?

anyway, enough gloating. suffice to say, right now, this matt is a happy camper.