well, once again it's been a while since i posted. the good thing though, is that during the interim time, i've been having some enjoyable times with friends and family.

the christmas vacation was spent primarily in Virginia with my grandmother and other assorted extended family members. as usual, that was a pretty crazy time with 30+ people at the house on christmas morning. if any more cousins get married and/or have babies, i don't think we'll be able to fit them all into grandma's living room. amazingly enough, i didn't do as much hiding out in the basement as i did over the thanksgiving holiday despite the fact that i did manage to read 3 books between christmas day and the day after…

well, it's 2:30 in the morning, and i've been half-heartedly trying to write this post for about… oh… 4 hours now. i think i'll just let this one go and try to come up with something better tomorrow.

suffice it to say, i had an enjoyable little vacation, and i'm hoping everyone else did as well.

well i'm back from the visit with the fam. to answer brian's hope that i enjoyed myself, i'll just have to say that my soul enjoyed the trip, my brain was a bit impartial, and my body is really really pissed off at me.

i've come to realize over the years that i have very very little in common with the majority of my family except genetics. this thanksgiving didn't make that whole thing any easier, since the majority of the extended family that showed up were the ones who don't normally come for the yearly Christmas festivities, so it's been years since i've seen most of these people for any extended period of time. i didn't even recognize one of my cousins. to top it all off, of course, i'm generally an anti-social person, not good in situations where i'm surrounded by lots of people. so i pretty much just went down to the basement as soon as i got there, and stayed there for the majority of the visit. so, while i think it was good for my soul to be surrounded by family and people who love me even though they don't know me, and it was good for my soul to be able to see my grandmother again and to crack jokes with her, i think my brain was fairly impartial about the whole affair, just kind of doing what it knows needs to be done, but not seeing any rational inherent benefit in it. maybe i'm still stuck in kid mode within the family unit… no kids, no wife, not even a girlfriend has ever been brought for a visit with me. so i sit downstairs with my 14 year old brother playing computer games, reading the week's comic books, never hanging out with the "adults" except when they call us to dinner…

ok. well. that line of reasoning is going to lead somewhere i don't want to go right now, with you. i think i can successfully avoid the "gorge of eternal peril" for a while yet. though i'm sure you armchair psychologists can name the tune i was singing in three notes.

as far as my body being really really pissed at me after this trip, well, on Friday, my dad, my little brother, a 2nd cousin, and i all went for a hike up a mountain—a 10 mile hike up a mountain. we're talking about a mountain where you look down from the edge of the trail (that's just looped back around) and you see the part of the trail you just came from 50 feet directly below you, not at some angle away from you, but directly freakin below you. and you've maybe gone 100 steps. ok, so we're not talking scaling the face of some cliff or anything, but this mother was steep. when you consider the fact that for almost the past two years, i've been sitting in front of a computer for 8 hours a day, then coming home and sitting in front of the computer for a few more hours, basically never getting any form of exercising, and smoking until my lungs are ready to spontaneously combust… well, it was hellacious. luckily, i think my body adjusted after the first 30 mintues or so, and my breathing was heavy but steady. we made it to the top of the mountain and were treated with a wonderful view of the valley below, all the little farm-houses spread out, and the horizon as distant as any i've ever seen. we got some pictures of the view from the lookout point, hopefully they'll turn out decent and i'll throw 'em online here for you guys to check out.

our main purpose for the trek was a visit to hensley settlement where my dad told us they measured the corn harvest not in bushels per acre, but in gallons per acre. the settlement was peaceful and antiquated. my dad took great pleasure in pointing out where things were not quite as they should be "these fences would have been made from cherry" i believe was one comment he made. and my dad would know. when he grew up, things were still being done the old ways. he grew up in the mountains of virginia himself, away from most of the modern conveniences.

ah. well. i gotta run now, perhaps i'll finish this story later. needless to say, this was one time where my dad talked quite a bit. and by the time we got off the mountain, i was barely able to move well enough to drive us home. it was quite an experience, and one that i'm still paying for.

ok. so it was a moderately interesting weekend. er, well, saturday wasn't much to write home about, but sunday was a lot of fun. i got up (gasp!) early and ran out to the grocery to pick up a few things. then, after waiting about an hour and a half for the dishes to wash, i began preparing a breakfast (lunch, at this point, really) that would have made Shamu cry. oh, it was a bountiful feast… homemade venison sausage (thanks dad!), omelets with ham & cheese, crispy strips of bacon, and biscuits (thanks Pillsbury!). why do i think you will find this interesting? i dunno. but i was really proud of myself for pulling all of this off, and wanted to toot my own horn a bit. it's funny, i don't do it very often, but i really enjoy cooking. paul's dubbed me Iron Chef Kentucky for my skill on the grill (though i'm sure 90% of the grillmasters out there could put me to shame…), and i think everbody just enjoys watching me work the grill because i enjoy it so much. likewise with the breakfast thing. i had a blast getting everything together, and was thrilled that it all turned out so good (granted, i forgot the biscuits in the oven and they got a bit too brown and crispy on the outside…).

then, of course, last night me & the boys picked up a boxed thanksgiving dinner from K-Roger, heated that sucker up, and went to town. it was actually really damned good. of course, we were all expecting pre-cooked, piping hot from the box dinner, so the hour & a half we had to wait while the food was (re)cooking really stoked our appetites. now, of course, we've got probably 3 or 4 pounds of turkey meat in the fridge that we'll have to finish off in the next few days.

basically the past two days were the "days of gluttony" for us, but do you hear me complaining? hells no.

now, i'm getting ready to head to virginia tomorrow on an alteration of the traditional family thanksgiving. normally, my folks stay in their hometown and have a big breakfast social party thing they throw every year. then we usually have thanksgiving dinner there at home. this year, they've decided to go spend the week at my grandma's house. normally, we go to grandma's for christmas, so this year it'll be a bonus to get to visit her twice.

on to another topic… if you guys have been by today or yesterday during the day… you may or may not have noticed a slight difference up there where the pics of brian & i are… i made a neat little tweak to the site over the weekend that provides a webcam activity indicator of sorts. i've been wanting to implement this for a while now, and finally got around to it. basically, if one of the webcams is active, the picture changes color a bit, and the rollover tooltip changes to "webcam active!" it really was a little simple tweak with the help of php, but since i'm in a my-own-horn-tooting mood, i figured i'd tell ya about it. of course, since brian's home computer is kaput, his cam won't be on much until he gets a new one, and since i'm heading out of town, mine won't be on again until next week. not that anyone would really want to see my silly ass sitting and staring at a computer for 8 hours, looking bored. but it's there anyway.

well, happy thanksgiving, folks.

since i didn't have a whole hell of a lot to do today at work (besides research & study), i took a few moments to make a couple minor changes to bipolar:

1. i finally figured out why cookies weren't working on the themes page in Netscape 4.x browsers. so that's fixed now. you netscape 4 people can now go to the themes page and set your themes cookie to your heart's content.

2. i added a bunch of DVDs to my new wishlist today, and have replaced the old amazon wishlist in the bipolar link menus with this new one. so everybody out there that would just love to buy me some stuff, get on it. now i just gotta remember to send the link to my dad (ie. someone who'll actually buy me something off of it.)

that's it for now. nothing real exciting happening.

well, i took a couple days off work last week (thurs. and fri.) for a little post-birthday mini-vacation at the ol' homestead. had a nice visit with my parents, and managed to not do a damned thing for two days straight. never even got dressed. i happily wandered about the house in my ratty robe, watched a little (ok, a lot of) TV, helped my little bro get his computer back in working order, and also taught him some guitar exercises to help hone his skills. of course, this is not to say that my skills are anything to write home about at this point, but i have picked up a few things here & there. altogether it was a very nice, fairly mentally healthy visit… my parents and i didn't get into a single argument. of course, we didn't talk about any "controversial" subjects either, but that's beside the point.

we (that is, the band and i, that is, lucifigous prick) attempted on sunday to get a recording by just mic'ing the practice room using a single mic and jim's crappy tascam 4-track cassette recorder. needless to say, the setup was sub-optimal. right now, we're hoping to copy-cat Old Man (that would be our dear blog-departed paul's musical concern with family funny-man neil) and rent a multi-track digital recorder so we can… i was about to say "do our songs justice," but i hardly think that applies… i'll just say "get a decent recording," and leave it at that.

but, at the very least, we do seem to be happy with the songs we've got so far, and everyone we've played them in front of has enjoyed them (at least, they've told us that…). we're thinking it's time we got out there to strut our stuff a little bit. we're also very seriously considering duping out whatever eventual "good" recording we can hack together, with the intent of supplying our friends with copies, sending them off to a bazillion independent labels, and possibly sneaking them onto the racks at the local record stores. perhaps i'll upload some tracks here for your listening pleasure as well.

but enough self-promotion and acting like i'm some silly rock star.

i've been attempting to motivate myself today (having nada to do at work) with getting a new (non-amazon-specific) wishlist together for the upcoming holiday season, but i can't think of a damned thing that i want and that anyone would be willing to purchase for me. not only that, but i can't think of any damned online stores to go to to even find the stuff i might want. i'm drawing a total blank. i'm never good a this sort of thing. but, i have installed the wishcentral.com bookmarklet in my browser, so now, whenever i find something i want, i can just click a little button and add it to my wishlist… wherever i am. ooh! i just thought of something! TDK Mojo MP3-CD Player. there's one thing.

anybody got any suggestions? what cool cheap stuff do i need?

ah well.

the puffin's gone now, it was fun while it lasted. if you do as brian says and , perhaps we can convince him to at least keep the a-go-go going as a record review repository. the man's got a taste and a knack for music, and his reviews to date have always been enjoyable reading in themselves. anyway, sad to see paul hang up the blogging hat, but sacrifices must be made sometimes in the interest of things you're more… uh… interested in. yeah.

fortunately, immediately after he wrote his last post, and shortly before i read the damned thing, i spent 15 or 20 minutes getting his archives fixed up real nice so they're accessible again. so, (and since i'm the proprietor of coffeemonk.com) we'll probably keep puffin-a-go-go up as long as we can, so you can all continue to visit and seek its wisdom.

anyway, i've given my assurances to the concerned mr. hall that i have no intention of turning bipolar into an unbalanced "unipolar" (his words, folks… well, i added the "unbalanced" part). i won't lie. i may be sporadic as fuck, as i have been in the recent past, but i'll keep doing it until my stalkers finally corner me and chain me up in their basement (or, y'know, i really get sick of the whole thing).

boy. what the hell kind of post was that?

what a crazy week this has been. i realize that i tend to think of myself as someone with little to no "real" life, a layabout, a lazybones, an anti-social bastard. for the most part, that's probably true, but the events of this past week have hammered home to me just how active my inactive lifestyle really is… throw one wrench in the works, and i'm struggling to hold on.

my parents let me know somewhere around the 21st or 22nd that my sister would be home (their home in Princeton, KY, not mine in Louisville) that weekend and would need me to pick her up and to take her to the airport. unfortunately, her arrival and departure schedules were timed just poorly enough to potentially interfere pretty seriously with my work week. now at work i've been just busy as hell. i can barely take time out to chat with my friends, though i do try. and we've got a couple projects i'm knee deep in that have semi-unrealistic deadlines so i really can't afford to take off work for an extended period at this point. my sis was trying to get me to take off a monday & a tuesday, then a half day on thursday to take her to the airport. i managed to convince her to get in touch with some friends and make arrangements to minimize my time away from work, but of course in the process i was really just compressing three days worth of activity into 1 and a half.

on sunday (when i had been planning for and looking forward to a cookout at a friend's house) we decided to cut the day's activities down to just band practice so i could leave at a decent hour. practice ended up running a little long, but it went pretty well so it was worth it. i think i finally left town around 6:45.

another odd thing that i've noticed is that it seems like every single time i go home, it always manages to be during a storm of some point. it always rains on me either on I-65 south, or somewhere along the first half of the western kentucky parkway. this time it managed to do even better than that. it pretty much rained on me down the majority of I-65, and all of the first half of the wk parkway. it was a very impressive storm system that stretched the entire length of that parkway, from Elizabethtown to Princeton, and i really enjoyed trying to catch some good looks at the huge, breathtaking lightning that was going on. i really wished that i had a camera and more time… i would've loved to just pull off the road and try to get some pictures of the sky.

i finally managed to make it home around 9:00pm. the drive through the old hometown was pretty surreal. i go home so infrequently these days that it's just very odd to see all these familiar things from which i'm so far removed. but i did make it home, and hung out with my parents for a little bit since my little brother and big sister were out at the moment providing me what would most likely be my only opportunity to really talk to them. (my little brother tends to monopolize my time when i'm there, which i assume is just a normal little brother thing). almost the first thing out of my mom's mouth was her asking me if i'd permed my hair. i explained to her as i pointed a finger at my dad that no, unfortunately i had, in the genetic crapshoot that is human reproduction, inherited it from him. this got us started talking about other things i'd inherited and from whom, and about family and family history. as it turns out, it is generally believed that i have some melungeon blood from my mother's side, and that my… is it great-great-great grandmother?… was Native American…. there may be another great in there, i obviously don't have any native american features…

anyway, so i helped my little brother (once he got home and i had to quit talking to my parents) dismantle some pieces of his old computer in preparation for the computer parts he was expecting on Monday. another reason for me to go pick up my sister was so that i could help him put his new system together. he showed me his fish which had spawned two separate broods, so there were somewhere around 100 barely macroscopic little fishies swimming around one of his tanks. he played me some of the songs he was writing with the little band thing he's doing, and i showed him a few tricks i'd picked up recently (namely simple things like the blues scale, and how to know what key you're in…) as well as some older tidbits of guitar knowledge.

the next day i took my car to the local repair shop to get the front brake pads replaced and ended up tooling around town until the work was done. i walked up and down the courthouse square area and ended up in front of sharon's parent's business. i went in and had 15 or 20 minute conversation with sharon's mom, and found out that i'd missed seeing sharon by about an hour. i didn't even have any idea she was going to be in town, or i'd have forwent band practice on sunday… ah well. i guess that's the way things work out sometimes, but sharon, if you read this, i'm sorry i missed you.

once i finally got home from that outing, i helped my bro set up his new machine (thankfully, all the parts had arrived.) of course, we ended up having to run out to radio shack twice to pick up some extra parts that he hadn't known to buy beforehand. but we did finally get the beast up and running at around 7:30 or 8:00, and i got the windows installation started for him.

sara and i left town much later than we should have, and ended up getting into Lexington around 1 in the morning on Tuesday. she gave me some crazy directions to get back home to louisville that i ended up screwing up briefly, and i ended up getting home around 3:30. i slept a couple hours then went through most of the day at work pretty much zombiefied. then that night i had band practice again. nice little bookend to the trip home since being at work for 8 hours didn't really help me feel like the whole weekend ordeal was over.

my bandmate's wife had brought home the kittens she'd told us about, and he surprised us with them (since they hadn't told us they actually HAD them yet…). we ran out after practice and got the necessary things, litterbox, food dish, food, litter, and then took them to their new home. we'd called paul to let him know we were bringing them, so he was still up to see them and play with them a bit.

it was amazing. after climbing out of the carrier, the little things were just wandering all over the house, in full-on explore mode. of course, brax and paul were waving their toys around effectively forcing them to postpone their explorations for some play time, but it was all alright. they adjusted so well and so quickly it was just really surprising. no accidents, no complaints, not even any hiding under the bed. they were just kind of walking around like "ok, let me figure out where the hell i am and what all this stuff is, then i'll come hang out and play with you all." they went to their litter box like it'd been in this house in that location for all 12 months of their lives, and they found the food and water and ate with no hesitation. and boy are they cute.

so i ended up staying up with them until around 3:30am. another night with little sleep. yipee.

wednesday is the traditional comics/denny's day, which was good, as usual (it's nice to have those routines, sometimes). and a little later (like around 9:30pm) my sister finally showed up. she stayed with us that night so that i could take her to the airport on thursday. i think i finally got to bed around 3:00am. (keep in mind, i have to wake up at around 7:45am every day…)

i worked straight through until 2:00, left work early and picked up my sis at home. we grabbed some lunch and then headed out to the Cincinatti airport (near Florence, KY and at least 30 minutes outside of Cincinatti). after nearly falling asleep throughout most of the drive, we finally got to the airport and i helped her carry in her bags and kept her company for a while. we stopped and had drinks (coffee for me, diet coke for her) at the "cafe", and just kind of hung out and talked for a while. we said our goodbyes and she headed back to france for another good year. me, i headed back home. thankfully the coffee had done the trick and i didn't have as much of a struggle with sleep on the way back home.

once i got home, i took a little time to relax, then called up brian to see if he still wanted to hang out. he came and picked me up and we headed out to fazoli's for some italian fast food. he had to show me his new musical equipment, so i got to play around with his nice new Gibson and his crazy pedals for a while. and, as he pointed out, we hung out for a while on the back porch (the main feature of the old apartment that i really miss) drinking bourbon and just chatting. a pretty pleasant night, overall.

and that was pretty much the entirety of my week thus far. so much for not having a life, eh? now, it's friday, i've got a three day weekend, and i've been sitting here at work for an extra hour to write this blog entry… i've gotta get out of here and start the maxin' and relaxin. i feel like maybe this time, i actually deserve it.

it's been a very busy few weeks at work with a few big projects landing on my desk, or threatening to land on my desk simultaneously. in fact, i went the entire workday today not logged onto AIM or jabber, not chatting with friends, as i am prone to doing throughout the day. i've developed this bad habit where i come into work and take the first hour or so catching up on news sites, or getting sucked into really involved IM conversations with paul and nathan. my work ethic has seriously suffered from these several months (since around February) with very little to do while at work.

right now, i'm actually having trouble trying to remember all the things that have gone on in my life recently. it seems like i've just been going pretty steadily since my last post. we've had several band practices (we're actually managing to get together not just once, but twice a week now!), several nights spent drinking at bars and hanging out with friends.

i actually had enough presence of mind to write last-minute emails to some friends of ours that we'd sort-of lost contact with, and they ended up hanging out with us over the weekend at the big 30th birthday party we threw for brax. so, it was really cool to get to hang out with our friends again, and it really helped to elevate the birthday party above our usual run-of-the-mill cookout get-togethers we've been having infrequently. and, of course, it also helped that payday fell on that week just before the big party weekend, so i could afford to have as good a time as i could handle.

and my sister ended up swinging through town on her way to language camp in (or near) minneapolis. so we were able to have lunch together before she went off to spend a couple months with a bunch of american kids speaking bad french.

oh, and another fun thing was going to see Final Fantasy on Friday night when wug came up. the movie really was pretty good, if you (as paul mentioned) can deal with the cliche'd plot, story, and characterization. but really, the animation was amazing. i mean, it's still obvious that it's computer generated, so flesh and blood actors needn't be afraid quite yet. in fact, probably the best part of the whole movie was getting to see the spider-man teaser on the big screen. i tell you, that helicopter scene just sends shivers of joy up my spine everytime i see it. the shots of spidey swinging through the city still look a bit too CGI, but i think that the effects in the movie are going to be excellent. now, cross your fingers and hope for a decently written story.

well, i think that's done me in for tonight. i'm looking forward to taking a half-day tomorrow, and taking monday off, making this a nice extended weekend. hopefully i'll be able to motivate myself and get some stuff done. wish me luck.

well. i never did manage to write anything about that dream that i had… or anything else for that matter. another week has slipped by with me, once again, thinking about writing a post every day, but never quite managing to pull up blogger and actually do it. and what a strange week it's been as well. right now it's friday night, but it feels like a tuesday or thursday except that my belly is full of Denny's and there's a bag full of comics sitting on my bed in my room downstairs, so it kind of feels like a wednesday too. i'm just all messed up. the past couple of days have been fairly depressing.

now, don't get me wrong, first off my sister did come into town (from FRANCE, no less) and spent the first few days of her American vacation here at the house. i love my sister to death, and i'm really glad that i got to see her. unfortunately, visiting with her was probably the happiest part of the past few days. we all had a grand time hanging out on Tuesday night; me, my sis, paul, brax, and mr. norman (not sure how he feels about us using his name on these blog things, so i'll just leave it at that). we all sat around (as described in paul's blog) and played a game of drunken trivial pursuit until the attack of the evil succubus. after that, the party kind of devolved into bitching, whining, pissing, moaning, laughing, chatting, and generally haphazardly carrying on. of course, brax and his cancerous growth were arguing on the front porch (which is my only smoking area) so i had to interrupt them and then walk around the block while i smoked. nothing like not being able to enjoy your only refuge to really twist your spine.

then, of course, came the 4th of july. big plans for a big party with a bunch of our friends, some good food, drinks galore, and fireworks spectacularrr. so i got up around noonish figured i'd have a lazy kind of day until around 3 or 4, y'know, relax and enjoy my day off, which i did. of course, this entire time, brax is locked in his room having his soul ripped away. around 4 my sis started complaining about being terribly hungry, but i was hoping she could hold off until we got the grill fired up at jim's house around 6. i mentioned to paul (who'd already gone out and gotten some grub himself) that we should probably start gathering up the troops for the trip to jim's. his response was that it was "too late." so, seeing my big plans effectively dashed against the rocks by brax's disappearance and paul's bad mood (we could have done the cookout without brax, and perhaps that would have served to point out the stupidity he was subjecting himself to…), i got dressed and my sis and i went out for dinner. we didn't get to go to several of our first choice restaurants because they were closed for the 4th, but finally settled in at Mark's Feed Store for some good Barbecue. after getting back home i called up jim to tell him about the failure of my plans, and to suggest we might have a more intimate little gathering to watch movies or something. i also tried to call my former roommate jess to be sure she was aware of what was(n't) going on, but didn't actually get to talk to her. a few hours later, jim called back and said that she and her beau were already over there. i woke my sis from her food and jet-lag induced slumber, grabbed some movies, and hit the door. we stopped at the grocery and picked up some ice cream, then got to jim's.

after we got there, we chit-chatted with jim, jess, and john, the polite conversation eventually turning into an enjoyably heated discussion about stereotypes, homosexuality, religion and religious fundamentalists, theology, and philosophy. lori (jim's wife) got home and jess and john left shortly thereafter to go to another friend's party. so the four of us hung out and chatted a bit longer before settling on "Heathers" and plopping ourselves in the living room to watch it. after the movie we just came home and called it a night. not quite the fun, enjoyable time i'd been looking forward to, but at least it wasn't a total bust. at least i was still able to get sara out to socialize a little bit. the day had pretty much pissed me off, because my sister had decided to spend her time with me on the 4th of july rather than with her friends who were also planning (and probably actually did) some exciting things for the holiday. i'm glad i got to see her and hang out with her, but i think she'd have had a better time with her friends.

and of course, the other reason i was in an ill mood wednesday and thursday, is the conversation that my father & i had had on the phone on wednesday. i know i've talked about it before, but a bad familial relationship isn't something you can just sweep under the rug and forget about, it just keeps coming up, each and every time you interact with that person. as i said, i've already talked about it in this forum, so i'll not drown you with the details. if you're a glutton for this type of thing, you can freely search through the archives for it. but i did eventually take off from work an hour early on thursday so i could be home when dad got there to see him and so i could tell my sis bye. hanging out with my dad was worse than the phone conversation. we hung out, we talked, he made jokes, i made jokes, but when he left i was just completely depressed. i almost just shut myself in my room to read a book, but instead i immersed myself in a game of bridgebuilder.

anyway, i'm not so depressed today, it's actually been a decent day. i'm a little tired. i'm very broke. i'm going out for a smoke.

gah. i am such a putz. i have no game whatsoever. none.

the girl here at work that i've got a crush on was out having a cigarette break when me and my buddies were out there, and when she left she left her lighter and smokes where she was sitting. my group manager picked 'em up and brought 'em to me. stuck 'em in my pocket and basically told me that it was up to me to return them to her. he said that she "left them on purpose."

so, what do i do when i find her, i walk up to her with the cigarettes held in front of me like a shield. her response, "oh, did i leave those? i guess i was in a hurry to get out of here." i think i paused for a half-second after she said "thank you," and i'd said "you're welcome." then i turned around and walked back up the stairs. so much for that opportunity.

guess i'll have to locate those balls i seem to have misplaced. i know they're around here somewhere.

meanwhile, thousands of miles away from the hall of justice, our hero's gentle chiding seems to have paid off. the lovely sharon has posted not once, but twice. and, she's also gotten a comments feature set up as well. s'funny cause just the other night, brian was telling me "hey, we should try to put dotcomments or blogvoices or something on our site" (which, of course, doesn't mean we at all, but me). well, it's an interesting idea, perhaps i'll get to it when i have a spare moment.

oh, and my sister has officially laid claim to all my "cool" stuff in the event of my death. hate to tell ya sis, but i don't think paul's going to be able to kill me with a little weekly run. now, if he tried to make me run for two hours straight, then yeah, we might have a problem. but i think i'm doing pretty well, considering i haven't exercised on any kind of regular basis since like '92.

well, another day goes by without revealing myself to my crush. of course, my manager also revealed some information he'd dug up unbeknownst to me, but on my behalf. she apparently "has a boyfriend," but would "be interested" to hear that i'm interested in her. what exactly the hell all this means, i don't know. the big question would be, do i have a shot, or not. why the hell would i even approach a girl who has a boyfriend? do i want another female friend? no, not necessarily. i'm quite happy with the friends i have, and they're hard enough to manage (that's in a good way, guys). i don't need another. i'm definitely looking for more than a friend.

ah well, i'll work up the courage eventually. i hope.

i think we all know the feeling, that moment that we all have experienced at least once, where you just feel like everything you do is not enough, where you feel that your life is completely worthless, and where, just for a moment, you really really wish that there was some way to just give up. well, about 4:15 this afternoon, i walked out on one of the loading docks at the back of my building, and this feeling just washed over me. i was soaked with it, drowning in it, but there was no reason for it to be there. it was the strangest thing. i sincerely felt, for that moment, that every little struggle that life throws at us is completely, utterly pointless. in fact, it was such an odd thing, there being, as i said, no real reason for it, that i pointed it out to my buddies who were out there with me. of course, by the time i was able to articulate it, the tide itself had passed, and i was only feeling the little substance that remained as it drained away from me.

don't look for me to explain it, or to launch into some great exposition about how it's not true, life's not pointless, things aren't as dismal as they seem, because though i don't really believe it, i also can't firmly deny it. if there is a point to life, it's as i explained to a friend the other day… our one and only purpose for being here, alive in this universe, is to reproduce and continue the cycle of life and death. and lest you misunderstand me, i'm not talking from a spiritual perspective at all here, i'm referring merely to our biological imperative and reason for being. the spiritual or even theological side of the argument is an entirely separate side of the coin.

anyway, the past weekend was very enjoyable. spent some time with some friends i don't get to hang out with much, and had a great time. paul's drinking buddy (and music playing buddy, and just general all-around buddy, i guess) neil showed up ,and when told that paul was with us, his (somewhat tongue in cheek) remark was "Alright! Paul's here! Now i can DRINK!" maybe that's too much of an inside joke to really be funny here, but believe me, it is funny.

that bad bad girl sharon still hasn't updated her page, since even my last update, so everyone be sure to visit and tell her to write something. i mean, really, if i've updated twice since her last update, something needs to be done.

finally, my sister finally finished her self-described NC17 story (which started here) which turned out to be as funny as the first part suggested. my poor naive little sister. of course, i'd have been had just as easily.

well, gee, i guess that'll do for today, don't wanna overwhelm anybody. i really need to post more often so i don't have to play catch up every time. oh, and speaking of updating more often, our illustrious former web-host and all-around systems brainiac just chastised me for not having updated my web-cam in almost a month. i'll see if i can't get 'er up and running tonight, and at least get a fresh picture up there.