well, tonight I went out to the bar (which was a big surprise to brian, since i'd told him about an hour earlier that i wasn't interested) with paul, neil, & lisa, and we met up with brian there and hung out for a bit. at some point, i ordered a large sampler (mmm… sampler platter) only to come back to the table and find that neil & lisa were pretty much already on their way out the door. well, not that that really matters, 'cause between a hungry brian, a semi-hungry me, and a not-really-hungry but unable-to-resist-the-sampler paul, we finished the thing off without much trouble. shortly before the last morsels were yanked by greedy hands from the platter, brad and dave came over to join us. paul offered brad a won-ton, and brad's first reaction was to ask me which of the many sauces went best with them. (of course, the answer is "honey-mustard") brad then proceeded to dub me the "king of condiments," a declaration he even repeated later when his girlfriend joined us. so, apparently, either through pure obsessive behavior or a history of good advice, i am, at least in our little circle, the King of Condiments. thank you. you may rise.

another thing i've realized though, is that i could be in the running for a totally unrelated title. i'm pretty sure i could make a strong showing in a contest for the "king of work avoidance." not that i avoid doing the work i get paid to do, that is, not my actual job job. but my god, when i get home, there are literally 10 to 15 things i could be doing at any given moment. 10 – 15 projects i've started that i really need to finish. and what do i do? well, of course, as i recently explained to paul & brax, i've only got two weekday nights that are really worth anything–personal project-wise. Tuesday is band practice night (band-practice from ~7:30 to 11:00pm). Wednesday is geek night (trip to comics store, dinner at Denny's, then Enterprise at 8:00pm, and DS9 at 10:00pm). Friday is… Friday. That's socialization day. Friday is the day matt comes down from the mountain to carouse with friends and other assorted real living people. Friday is the night (typically–unlike tonight, which was an aberration) where matt goes to the bar to look at the few hot girls and (as noted in another post) not speak to any of them. Saturday is much more open, and should be the day where i get all kinds of shit done, but it is usually the day where i sleep a whole lot, then laze around the house. Sunday's another sleep day, and then also another band practice day, which accounts for at least 14 hours. So, i'm left with Monday & Thursday after work, and whatever hours & can squeeze out of Saturday & Sunday to accommodate all those things that i need to do. Needless to say, not a whole lot is accomplished usually.

I have to say though, that this past week/weekend has been pretty decent so far. on thursday, i went out to the hardware store and picked up this neat toolbox and some other bits & bobs, and constructed (what will be) a nice guitar effects pedalboard. so, i had quite the productive day on Thursday. today, after doing the normal saturday sleeping 'til 4 after a night at the bar thing, and lazing for a couple good hours once i got up, i actually managed to do a few productive things. i got the velcro strips placed on the plywood base for the pedalboard, broke out the guitar for 30 – 45 minutes and played around, then checked email for a little bit. oh, and i also sketched out some ideas that i had for a logo for My Favorite Martyr (no, it's not just you, that site is so horribly out of date, it's almost funny again. BUT! it does have the first mention of Old Man–paul & neil's band–on the web!), and for a flyer design for Old Man (which i was going to try to mock up & post, but i haven't been able to find any appropriate imagery yet). of course, there were several other things i needed to do (as i told brian when he asked about going to the bar), but after about an hour of sitting in front of the computer avoiding them, i realized it was a bit fruitless for the time being.

y'know, perhaps i'd get more done if i spent less time avoiding work and more time doing it. but my biggest problem has always been not so much finding things to do, as deciding between the things that i need to do. so, i'm going to ask for your help on this one. (realizing wholly that the majority of my pleas for public response have brought few in the past–but now that we have the comments system in place, perhaps that'll be different now…)

here's the list:

votes   project
_1__ finish 2nd poetry book
____ finish & submit short story(/stories)
____ write new poems
_3__ write screenplay
_2__ continue working on novel
____ redesign coffeemonk.com
____ design separate myfavoritemartyr.com
____ today/tomorrow mixed 2 CD set
____ mixed cover songs CD
____ learn to play bass for Old Man
_1__ put together (personal) media server
_1__ design new bipolar theme
____ finish playing computer games i'm in the middle of
____ put unboxed comics in boxes

and here's the plea: help! help me figure out which of these things i should attempt to do first. if you wanna go crazy, put the whole list in order of "importance." but at least tell me the one thing you think i should focus on until it's done. this is the struggle i'm presented with every time i enter the door to my house from work or being out on the town or whatever. and i've yet to reach a decision on my own. so, give me a hand. there are no prizes to be awarded, but if it's something that either exists or can be translated to the web-medium, i'll be sure to post it here first.

i seem to have returned to a semi-regular practice of actually turning on my webcam, turning on the chat client, and maybe… if you're all really lucky (or not, depending on your point-of-view) of posting to ye olde bipolar.

had a fairly fun weekend (except for the Sunday that wasn't) hanging out and being social. paul and i chilled most of Friday night watching various incarnations of Trek until it was time to go get our drink on. we did the normal friday thing at the bar, meeting up with neil and BRIAN and SCOTT and their friend chris. we did have quite a bit of fun, as usual, looking at pretty girls, screwing up our courage, and… completely ignoring them. woo-hoo!
at the end of the eve, BRIAN and SCOTT and neil came over to the house so i could play that "jive" delta airlines sound clip for SCOTT, and so we could all laugh our asses off for a while. i think at this point, i was on coffee, but neil & paul were still drinking. by the end of the night, we nearly had to bury poor neil.

saturday was a lazy day, woke up and got some "kefk" (that's KFC to you phonics impaired people), and did some more chillin at the house. we (that is, my roommates and i) briefly toyed with the idea of going out for a fun night of bowling, but instead opted for a somewhat-less-fun-but-still-enjoyable evening out at the rud watching two bands we'd never heard of, looking at pretty girls, screwing up our courage, and… (you guessed it) completely ignoring them. well, except for Rachel, but she doesn't really count since we already know her and she's just really friendly anyway.

i stayed up way too late Sat. night/Sun. morn doing god knows what tinkering around on the computer, ended up slinking off to bed about 6:30 or 7 AM, and ended up sleeping until the sun was down again. boy what a waste of a perfectly good day. but nevertheless, two hours after i woke up, we had our normal 8:00pm sunday band practice, and though it got off to a slow start, we did make some progress, making the day not end up a total waste.

today at lunch i finally broke down and bought a turkish coffee set (sort of) from a Russian grocery near a place my work crew frequents, so hopefully, once i get off my ass and down to the "real" grocery store to buy some sugar (note to self: add sugar to grocery list, you moron.), which we've not had since we moved in back in May of last year…. well, then i'll be able to have some real turkish coffee, just the way Arslan used to make. now if i could only make Baklava and kebabs (A.K.A. gyros), i'd be set (and fat) for life. I do have a recipe for Sarma, which i hope to break out here sometime soon… perhaps that'll be turkish coffee & sugar night as well.

oh, anyway, i've got shit i want to do tonight, and at this point, i think i'm using this blog as a crutch to avoid "work." hep me jeebus. i thank i just self-revelated.

g'night.

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.

to finally conclude the bloomington story series here on bipolar, i invite you to join me on a trip back in time… imagine it's a mere four days ago, a saturday, and you've been having a great time so far all weekend. you're at a party, and since it is halloween there are many strange things happening. stay with me as we imagine that throughout this night, many beers have been consumed by these freakish apparitions who have in fact grown ever more freakish as the night progressed. now, imagine that one of these strange creatures is dressed as Space Ghost, while his companion is dressed as blossom the power puff girl… strange strange. late in the night, as you unsuspectingly enter a room, you are forced to witness this horrible scene…

for those of you who didn't scream at the sight of that, you have more resolve than i.

(sorry nate, couldn't resist throwing that little gem in there for the world to see!)

and please, forgive the strange, probably half-assed "b" horror movie/twilight zone feel of that first bit… it is halloween, after all.

in other news, i had to rush to the bookstore straight from work tonight in order to catch the inimitable Bruce Campbell at a speaking/signing event for his new book "If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a "B" Movie Actor." it was a pretty good event, though horribly crowded since they held it in the bardstown road Hawley-Cooke–a tiny little store unsuitable for such a well-known (well, well known for a self-proclaimed "b-list" actor) personality. Bruce started out with a brief chat, and threw out some one-liners and current-events jokes to liven up the crowd ( i have to assume). one thing's for certain, Bruce Campbell is a ham. 90% of his responses to questions were sarcastic half-answers, and he tended to interrupt the questioners often enough for me to take notice. he did stay up there for a good amount of time answering the questions, and was fairly witty the whole time.

after the Q&A session the line up for the autograph table was organized. being in the third group called (i think there were around 11 groups, total), it took us probably about an hour to an hour and a half to get up to the table. the autograph table was set up in a little cordoned off section of the store, and the fans were let into the section one at a time. there were actually chairs sitting to Bruce's right where you could (were expected to) sit as he signed your book(s). the lady who would walk you to the table asked you your name before you went up so she could tell Bruce so he could greet you by name. "very… fancy." (read that in a Sean Connery voice to get the intended effect.)

of course, since i used to work at Hawley-Cooke as their webmaster (their current site is NOT MY FAULT. i swear. i haven't had anything to do with it in over a year!!!), and i knew the name lady from my tenure there, she introduced me as "matthew the webmaster." boy did that spark some interesting conversation from old brucie, neh. "the webmaster, eh? master of the web?" … it's nice to see that even he in that high-pressure situation where you're talking to a few hundred different people in the space of a couple hours and are expected to be witty… was not. to bruce's credit though, he did know enough about the internet development world to infer the word "design," and to work it into the comment he wrote with his signature.

all in all, it was an enjoyable time. luckily, a friend we met there had a camera, and allowed us to use it to take pictures. perhaps when i get a copy i'll link it in (as i seem fond of doing lately… oh, if only i had my own digital camera…). and, joy of joys, the one night when it counted, our local UPN station decided to air the first UofL basketball exhibition game, and in so doing, to delay Enterprise by the length of the game. of course, if they ever do it again, i'll be pissed.

(or, the playa strikes again.)

continuing the story of our trip to bloomington, let me first explain yesterday's "hey, is moves there" thing. it's a kevin smith reference. basically, when kevin and jason mewes were first hanging out, jason was still a 15 year old virgin, whereas kevin had had some "exploits." when kevin told jason that he had, in fact, kissed a girl, jason from then on called him "moves."

anyway, after the thoroughly enjoyable visit with Kevin "moves" Smith, paul, nathan, and i grabbed some grub at the Bell, some refreshments at Marsh, then headed home for a relaxing rest of the evening (it was already close to, or later than midnight) of playstation 2 and some Batman Beyond on DVD. Since i'd never gotten to see the first few episodes (or any episodes, really) of batman beyond, i enjoyed the pilot movie and first episode quite a bit.

we did crash before too long, since we'd all had full work days, a moderately long drive, and a four hour sit in a crowded auditorium.

the next day, nate and his wonderful girlfriend heather took us out to lunch, then to the comic shop and little kids toy store (heather had to buy some gifts for her little nieces.) in the toy store, nate and i had a great time playing with magnets for more than a half-hour. i think i'm way too easily amused. i also ended up buying one of those little balsa wood wind-up rubber band planes.

after all this fun stuff, we went back to Marsh to gather groceries for dinner, then back to the house to chill for a while. nate and i (primarily) played quite a few rounds of Gran Turismo 3, with paul jumping in occasionally. we watched the rest of the batman beyond episodes (four in all, i think) and "Mask of the Phantasm" (yet another batman animated movie…) while we were all in the living room, doing our guy things heather was working up a storm preparing some delicious chicken enchiladas and (makeshift, but very tasty) spanish rice. we also spent quite a bit of time outside in their huge yard winding up and tossing around the little airplane. it as actually a lot more fun, and lasted a lot longer than i expected it to.

all the while dinner was cooking, heather was putting the finishing touches on her and nathan's costumes (blossom and space ghost, respectively). finally after dinner had been eaten and all the preparations had been made, we hopped in the car and headed for the party.

now, the people who's party we were going to, were (pretty much) all grad students and all psych majors. fortunately, the party wasn't nearly as weird as i thought it would be. despite the fact that i was pretty much in neanderthal non-talking matt mode most of the night, i had a good time. the crew had gone to great lengths to decorate for halloween, and pretty much every room or available space was decked out in gory halloween fright-fare. zombies in the front yard, a mad scientist in the living room, pitchforks mounted on the drum kit, and all sorts of other things, including a (motion-sensitive) skeleton hanging in the bathroom that sang "bad to the bone" every time you went to take a leak. they'd even built a maze in the back yard by hanging black plastic tarps or garbage bags or something and putting scary things in the nooks and crannies of the maze. it was, needless to say, a big to-do.

later in the evening, paul, nathan, and one of the house residents picked up the musical instruments and jammed a little. at one point, paul took off and handed me the guitar. we jammed for a little bit and kind of hit our stride on a song or two despite the fact that i was feeling uncomfortable about my lack of really rockin guitar playing ability, paul eventually came back, picked up the mic, and started to sing.

if you notice in the first paul pic, his little cowgirl's right there in the background… which leads to the next part of the story (of which, paul would have more to say than me…). apparently, paul was feeling a bit frisky that night (way friskier than me, anyhow) and after talking to several girls, got invited to go run around town with them. they were headed to a different party, then to a bar. from the story heather told, paul was uncertain at first, but heather insisted… "go. go! we'll find you." so, at heather's prompting, paul took off to parts unknown with girls unknown. go puffin go, indeed. i, for one, enjoyed living vicariously through paul's ability to throw caution to the wind and take off with strange, beautiful (drunk) women.

we were still jamming when paul left, so i got a great kick out of heather whispering in my ear "paul took off with a girl!"

myself, i stayed right there, sat for a couple hours (in between warm-up visits to the indoors) out on the front porch listening to psych majors talk about bloomington or Indiana things, smoking cigarettes, and freezing my ass off.

we went back home late late late and nathan made the "concerned fatherly" call to his friend who'd run off with paul, to make sure our boy was being taken care of. in the morning, through a series of phone calls, heather located him and brought him back while i drifted in and out of sleep.

most of sunday was another lazy day, punctuated by a good lunch and the eventual necessity of saying goodbyes.

all in all, as i've said before, i had a great time, and i look forward to the next time i get to visit. even if there won't be Kevin Smith or a hottie psych major halloween party.

well, it's time for my bi-weekly post to what was once my daily obsession…

i've been so disconnected for a while… between a few months of hell at work (which are now thankfully starting to slow down and normalize) and the "free time" that seems to be slowly dwindling away from me through some unknown time vortex, i've barely been on my computer in a communicative, productive capacity at all in the last several weeks anyway.

of course, i spend 8 hours a day on the computer, and perhaps that's part of it… perhaps i'm finally starting to burn out on the whole computer thing. i really don't think that's the case, but i have to entertain it as at least a possibility.

really, though, after the events of Sept. 11th, the aftermath of that, and between buying DVDs, PS2 games, and not one, but two games for my PC, i've basically been doing the late 90's teenager thing of vegging in front of the boob tube or drooling in front of a 3D computer gamespace.

maybe i'm due… i never got into this stuff all that much in the past… was never much of a computer game player. of course, occasionally a couple days of my life would get sucked out by the PS1 at a time, but that was usually a rare every three or four months thing. it's just been happening a bit more often lately.

but yeah, so, we saw the series premier of Enterprise last wednesday, and it was pretty damn good. except that opening theme music which was utter crap. in fact, it was worse than that. the opening theme to Enterprise is so bad that i can't even conceive of the words to adequately describe level of disgust i feel for it.

and i bought the V mini-series DVD a weekend or so ago. it was just as good though even more cheesy than i remembered. the scene where the alien 2nd in command swallows the gerbil, or whatever it was, was just laughable.

and i've been having weird dreams lately. the first i remember was one i think i had the night i watched the first half of the V DVD, which apparently was my mind combining the World Trade Center attacks with the V story. we were up in a tall building some 200 stories up, and all of a sudden the building just leans over and falls to the ground. we're alive but scrambling to get out and to find people with our high-tech devices. we eventually make it to a house, but it's quickly taken over by what is apparently a human militia group and we're kicked out on our ass.

not sure what that all means, i guess it was just my subconscious trying to come to grips.

other dreams have come and gone, but this morning it was dreams about my ex-girlfriend and her boyfriend (previously dubbed "idiot-jerk") who were being nice if not overtly friendly towards me. i'm guessing that this dream was trying to tell me to forgive "idiot-jerk" and get over it and on with my life or whatever, but i don't think i can do that. forgive him, i mean. i think i'd like to hold onto that for a little while longer.

otherwise, i've been happy and healthy (a little too healthy if my expanding waist-line is any indication…) and apparently never without something to do.

and now, it's time for me to get out of here a little early so the systems guys can rape my machine and infect it with the Visual Studio .NET virus. apparently, i'm going to have to learn to deal with even more Microsoft crap. bah. bill gates, i spit on thee.

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.