well, i don't even know where to begin at this point. i barely touched the computer here at home over the past week. usually, i'm on here two hours a night, at the very least, but i've spent most of my time glued to the tv as i imagine most of you have. i attempted to write a post talking about my feelings and opinions of the tragic events that have taken place. of course, about halfway through it, IE decided to get crazy and open a link from one window into my blogger window. now i'm writing this entry in notepad first.

normally, i don't watch much tv at all, and i almost never watch news programs or read the newspaper. this week, of course, was totally different. i just immersed myself in the news reports from new york and washington. for once, it seems, the news media has devoted the bulk of it's efforts into something that actually matters. the sad thing is that, after all the coverage of Clinton's various media-hyped problems, the Elian Gonzales inanity, and the Gary Condit crap, it seems like the coverage of this genuine tragedy has been cheapened somewhat. i seem to recall hearing about a time when the media had some integrity, when they actually did search out the truth and report the facts. nowadays it seems that there is more conjecture and opinion in the mainstream news than actual facts. even during this crisis, i heard certain reporters (dan rather immediately springs to mind) saying time & time again "we don't want to jump to conclusions", while bringing in guests who'd already done so, or asking leading questions to the ones who hadn't. i can't even count the times over the past week that i've heard things like "no one knows for sure, but" afghanistan, taliban, osama bin laden.

and who is it that pays for media that reports the news in this way? i think one of paul's recent posts sums it up pretty well. the racial backlash is completely abhorrent. the people who perpetrate these crimes against innocent people just because they look or dress a certain way are just as bad as the terrorists who orchestrated this horror. if one person kills another, they are just as evil as those who killed thousands.

which brings me back to the points i wanted to make when i attempted this post the first time.

despite the fact that this attack occurred on american soil, and involved innocent american citizens, it is not just an attack against america. it isn't an attack against freedom or democracy, it's not an attack against the flag or any of the other countless things america supposedly stands for. perhaps it was intended to be simply that, but in the end, this is nothing more than an attack against all of humanity, against all the citizens of planet Earth.
in the few days since i first attempted this post, i have heard more voices raised advising caution, and i have to say i'm glad. i was concerned that the only voices we heard were going to be like the grocery store i heard about who put the following words on their sign–"Bomb Afghanistan Tonight!" it is this type of ignorance that feeds the arrogant, self-serving media that i was ranting about earlier. and it is this type of ignorance that makes most all foreign countries look down their noses at us culturally, despite our physical strength.

i have also taken heart in hearing the reports of the leaders and citizens of many foreign countries voicing their horror, sympathy, concern, and support for the people who were affected by this tragedy.

but another thing that we must consider are the ultimate reasons for these attacks. what, aside from insanity, would drive anyone to commit the heinous acts against their fellow humans? we have to consider the fact that our troops have been in their lands for many years now, doubtlessly committing unspeakable crimes of their own. an attack like this doesn't just happen. our government has made enemies. our government has sanctioned actions that have ended the lives of innocent civilians in foreign lands. we are not innocent.

but this does not excuse these actions. this is not justice, just as an indiscriminate attack again afghanistan or another nation would not be justice. i want justice. i want the people who did this to pay. i want to make an example of them to the rest of the world to say that this type of attack against humanity will not be tolerated. but killing innocent people would not be justice, it would be terrorism.

i really needed this. it's been an incredibly relaxing weekend so far, and there's one more whole day to go! hell, maybe i should call in on Tuesday and just make this a mini-vacation… nah. i got too much work to do.

anyway, friday after i (finally) got home from work, i spent a couple hours hanging out on the couch watching t.v. with our kitties. i hardly ever actually just veg. out in front of the tv anymore, and usually only if someone's already watching something interesting that draws me in. i've generally just gotten so fed up with the amount of total crap the networks attempt to pass off as entertainment, that i've just given up on watching tv altogether. but you know, at times it's just like watching a train wreck. you're sitting there, half zoned-out, flipping through channels trying to see if the next channel could even possibly be worse. usually, it is.

what i would love to see would be a group of really good, really challenging directors and writers join forces with a talented group of actors and start their own cable tv network. can you imagine scorcese, david lynch, david fincher, and others of their ilk creating all the programming for a network? sitcoms, drama, soaps, news programs… man, i would pay $50 a month just for that one channel. "screw digital cable, just hook me up with that one channel please. in fact, here's an extra $40 a month if i can get the 'no commercials' version of the channel."

of course, then you'd never get me away from the tv, i'd gain about 300 pounds in two weeks, and i would die from a massive brain hemmorhage from trying to figure out what the fuck was going on in each show.

but anyway, it's been a nice weekend. had our normal sunday band practice, which was interrupted by jim's in-laws coming in with his wife's grandmother in tow. we felt like we had to turn down the volume quite a bit lest we severely offend not only her elderly ears, but her elderly moral sensibilities as well. playing our songs just isn't quite as fun when we can't crank it up. but it was a good evening anyway, paul & neil showed up shortly after jim's in-laws, and we continued to drink and play music until we just couldn't play (or drink, since the beer was all gone) any more. we then moved the mob back to our house, where neil soundly whipped all our asses in a drunken game of trivial pursuit.

tomorrow, i think i'm going to pick up the new printer i've been wanting, buy a laser pointer to drive the cats absolutely insane, and do some more serious relaxing.

in other news… in case you hadn't noticed, something that our man at themes to work properly once again… so, if you already had a themes cookie set, you should now be seeing your chosen theme again (and, would have noticed this like… a week ago), and if you hadn't set a themes cookie, or didn't know about our different themes, you should check out the themes page to see what it's all about.
and, finally, it would seem that my webcam is cooperating again. i was having some weird issues before, but have had it running now for about a day & a half without it breaking, crashing, or otherwise not working. so, check out the cam page to get a glimpse of either my (and brian's as well) lovely visage, or the wall behind my chair.

oh, hey, i've been finding it difficult to think of things to write about considering the general banality of my existence, so if anyone would like to send me a topic to discuss, .

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.

so, like paul mentioned over on puffin-a-go-go a post or two ago, he, brax and i went to see a sneak preview (much like brian did monday night…) of "jay & silent bob strike back," double-billed with "the others." it was altogether a great four hour block of movie watching.

i'd have to say that J&SBSB isn't my favorite of the view askew movies, and at this point (prior to a second viewing) it actually comes in third. nah, wait. i don't want to commit to that, i'll have to watch the other contenders again before i can say that. i'm pretty certain that my favorite of all of them is "chasing amy," which, if you take into account my predilection for falling in love with bi-sexual (or even straight-up lesbian) girls, isn't all that surprising. and i've just got this huge thing for Joey Lauren Adams…. boy oh boy. she's incredibly cute, and her voice (which seems to turn many men off after extended exposure) just adds an extra touch of uniqueness and enhances her overall cuteness in my eyes. joey, if you're reading this, i'm a really great guy… call me!

anyway, back to reality. i liked the movie overall (we're back to j&sbsb now, for those of you trying to keep track). there were some places where they went a bit overboard with the going overboard, and a few places where the comedic bits seemed a bit forced. will ferrell was awesome, as usual, but then, so was everyone else. hm. i don't know what else to say, other than that. i'm at a loss… how 'bout this: "it was good."

the others was also quite good. i'd pretty much figured out what was going on (or going to happen) before the midway point i guess (not in the first five minutes, like paul claims…), and was actually able to allow myself be taken by the story. it was told well enough that it did make me doubt the conclusion i'd reached, and i happily followed the director down the path he wished the audience to go. don't worry though, whether you figure it out or not, you'll enjoy it. i didn't really think it was all that "scary," but there were a few pulse pounding seconds here and there. i do believe that at one point, the entire audience hopped about four inches out of their seats…

earlier that evening, after running to pick up brax from work in the general area of the theatre, and having to rush home to get his glasses (pretty much all the way across town, mind you) and still needing to stop for dinner before the films, we decided to stop at a new place called the "blue moon diner." we figured "hey, it's a diner. and not only that, it's a new diner we've never been to." we thought we'd be able to run into this little place, grab a quick cheap meal, and get to the theatre in plenty of time. a word of warning: the blue moon "diner" is not really a diner at all, it only looks like one. this place was fancy, or certainly fancier than we'd expected. they had cloth napkins! what the hell business do cloth napkins have being in a "diner"? the food was a bit expensive, but really really tasty. and, of course, the service was a bit slower than we'd hoped for, but we did still make it to the theatre on time. i think we definitely want to go back there at some point, so that we can appreciate it for what it really is… a restaurant.

blah. well, i was hoping all that stuff would be better than it seems to have come out, but hey, at least i posted, right?

it's late. i know i've said this a hundred times, and i'll probably say it a hundred more, but i have GOT to start getting to bed at a decent hour.

for all of you, our dedicated readers who have shown extreme patience in continuing to visit us here in lovely lovely bipolar land of the decrepit finicky servers… here's your reward. this is an email exchange with one of the guys at our web host.

From: "Justin Ramsey" <[email protected]>
Reply-To: <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Subject: x13design.com
Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2001 17:12:02 -0400

Real traffic: 8096603999183.844 MB

—

and my response…

—

Justin,

thanks for your reply.

wow. that is a completely inconceivable number. according to my server stats, we only get around an average of 120 visits per day. And, again according to my stats, we've done a maximum of 98MB over the past nine days. i don't see how this can tranlate into that impossibly large number.

Eric indicated that the server we were hosted on was experiencing Denial of Service attacks. I would tend to think that that might be the ultimate cause of this outrageous number.

If you can point out exactly what's being downloaded from our site that is causing this unbelieveable amount of transfers, please let me know, otherwise, don't try shifting blame for your inability to control malicious users from hacking your servers.

thanks for your time, and i look forward to your reply.

m@
—
Matthew Rasnake
x13design.com

as you might imagine, i really do look forward to his reply.

and…

life remains interesting.

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.

i'm really beginning to think i'm cursed. i seem to have some type of effect on things around me that causes them to break or stop working. as i mentioned in my last post, i did a number on my new computer's BIOS chip so that it doesn't boot up at all now. i'm still waiting for that replacement chip… hopefully it'll come in today. well, yesterday, as my other computer (the smaller beastie that's serving up the internet connection for both my (defunct) and paul's machines) was processing the x:13 design web server logs to update our stats pages, something untoward happened and just completely spazzed out the system partition on the hard drive. it was still running and happily serving the internet connection when i got home, but as soon as i attempted a reboot, it wouldn't go through with it. after running scandisk and finding over 21MB of lost data and "fixing" an obscene amount of corrupted files, it still wouldn't boot… surprise, surprise. so, last night i… once again (7th time's a charm, maybe?) began reinstalling windows. i can't wait til the new Amiga motherboard and OS come out. as soon as i'm able, i'll buy two of the fuckers and forever rid myself of this windows CRAP.

to top the night off, brax and i went over to our friend jim's house for band practice (our first in several months… we're such slackers…) and, of course, my guitar has gotten to the point where you just can't tune it properly any more, and if you can, it won't hold it for longer than… oh… two seconds. so, practice was a bust. i guess i'll be going to the guitar shop sometime this week to price a new one and maybe slap some money down on one (assuming my BIOS chip comes in so i can balance my checkbook… aaarrrggghhhh…)

otherwise things are pretty status quo for me, though it sounds like brian had a bit of an adventure with the cat and bug person yesterday. and he asked if i'd like to go see radiohead in New York with him, and i'd love to, but can't really afford it… so it's good that Guy is excited about the possibility and will most likely go.

ah, paul found some pics of the actress who'll be playing the part of the Vulcan in the new Trek series. can anyone say "HOT!"? and actually, i think i'll go ahead and put up my breakdown of the hottie-star-trek-chicks that i laid out for paul the other day. it's interesting to see how, women in star trek, aside from becoming more powerful characters, are also getting better looking with each series. here's the breakdown of the progression: (oh, and this is frequently recurring or main characters only)

Original Series: Uhura, Yeoman Rand
Next Generation: Tasha Yar, Deanna Troi, Beverly Crusher
DS9: Kira Nerys, Jadzia Dax, Ezri Dax
Voyager: B'Elanna Torres, Seven of Nine, Capt. Janeway (hey, she could be pretty hot at times…)

and it's also funny, as paul pointed out, especially since Next Gen anyway, there's always a tough one and a pretty one, though the lines do blur from time to time. Tasha – tough/pretty, Deanna – pretty. Kira – tough/pretty, Jadzia – pretty/tough, Ezri – pretty. B'Elanna – tough/pretty, Seven – pretty/tough.

anyway, that's enough on that topic.

i've been to hell and back. i was overly optimistic about my moving experience. thursday we got the u-haul with no problems–if you don't count the customer in front of us in line who was cursing and yelling up a storm and in turn getting cursed and yelled at by the guy behind the counter…
it was quite an experience. and made it all the more fun to walk up to the counter and respond to the question "may i help you?" with a big smile and "i'd like to rent a truck!" while barely containing my laughter. really, i think a normal person (read: normal being the average joe human with force-fed christian morality) would have probably walked out and made a big scene; i just thought it was funny.

so, we get back to the old place and, according to plan, start trying to get the couch downstairs. brax and i fought with it for almost an hour, trying every different angle we could think of, but for some reason, despite the fact that it fit through the door to go UPstairs, it just wouldn't go out the door trying to get it DOWNstairs. we decided to postpone the couch until we could get paul over there to help us with his superior spatial reasoning skills. of course, at this point, we were completely bushed having basically held up a 300+ pound couch for almost an hour. we got a few of the smaller things moved… some bookshelves, the chair, my filing cabinets, the mattresses. then we took a break and went for sodas. as we were hanging out on the front porch, paul drove up, and we almost immediately put him to work helping us with our 2nd attempt at the couch. after another hour of struggle in which the walls of the stairwell were even further gouged and maimed, they finally convinced me to give up. feeling frustrated and beaten by an inanimate object, they finally convinced me to just accept brian's offer to buy the couch from me. that couch has been with me for over seven years. i'll miss it, but brian's granted me visitation rights. in fact, i think i'll go visit it tonight, under the pretense of getting the last few things i inadvertently left in the house.

and, of course, thursday wasn't the only day. we also spent several hours friday, and saturday lugging things out by the carload. sunday we spent a few more hours in a last mad dash carrying out the bulk of what was left. thankfully getting done and home in time to then go for our first grocery shopping excursion and still make it home in time for Iron Chef.

we've managed to organize our living room to some extent excluding unpacking of books, videos and cds. our kitchen is on it's way to organization, again with some minor unpacking. but unfortunately, my room is still a big pile of boxes. i'm still not sure how the furniture layout will go, and i probably won't figure that out until i get those boxes out of the way. but it is very nice to have my own room. i can now walk in my room, shut the door, and prance around naked without fear of someone barging in on me. naked time to me is important time. everyone should enjoy a little naked time every day. and i don't mean just getting in and out of the shower, but lazy lounging around naked time.

of course, because of the move, i've been without DSL since Thursday. I spent the entire weekend without internet access (though i could have used paul's computer if i'd wanted) since i don't have a regular modem in my computer. it was actually kind of nice. it seems that the net has somewhat taken over my life lately. so, i didn't get a chance to check email, read any of my daily sites, or, of course, update bipolar (though i did get the itch a couple times). i'll still be without for at least a few more days, but i'll try to keep up from here at work.

brian's comments in his post from thursday were touching. over the past year, brian and i have spent quite a bit of time together and gotten to know each other quite well. i'd say i've pretty much gotten him figured out. it's probably those fundamental similarities he mentioned that have made it possible for us to not kill each other, and the fundamental differences that made it just dynamic enough for us to not die of boredom with each other.

i imagine that bipolar will probably change and grow again, with this new chapter in our lives starting. it should be interesting.

i hate moving. i'm sure i'm not alone in this, since pretty much every person with whom i've ever had even the most rudimentary conversation regarding moving has agreed with me. i've never mentioned moving to someone and had them say "oh, i love moving!" i think if i had, i would have shot them.

really though, i think when all is said and done, i'll have gotten all my personal belongings (not including furniture, of course) into a total of about 15 boxes. so far, i've gotten 8 of them packed up and moved. thursday will be the big day though. we'll be renting the u-haul and lugging all that furniture down two flights of stairs (three if you count the 10 front porch steps) then back up one or two flights of stairs. i'm really dreading it. especially the couch, which in the past has been the bane of my existence. but we've already chopped the legs off of it, so hopefully that'll make it easier this time around.

not much else to say. at this point, moving is my life.

(does the word "moving" look weird to anyone else… maybe it's my disheveled state of mind, but for some reason after i finished writing this, it just didn't look like it was spelled correctly. that is just one of the strangest feelings in the world, when a simple word that you know you're spelling correctly just doesn't feel right… bah.)

OH, and, since i didn't get to post about him "behind his back" this weekend (since our server was apparently down again…), a hearty welcome home to brian. hopefully his several days without a net connection haven't scarred him for life…

one thing i neglected to mention last night was that, as i was sitting on the couch enjoying a hearty salad and flipping channels on the TV, i came across a program where pretty much every word out of all of the participants mouths was a giant load of crap.

I am always flabbergasted by the hoops that the so-called "believers in god" jump through to disprove scientific findings with their own half-baked and glossed-over "scientific" findings. i was able, at the age of 10, to incorporate both my religion and the science i was learning, and nothing i have learned since then has shaken or challenged that combination. yet these people are so closed minded that they can't see the contradictions in their own logic while they're attempting to refute the contradictions in other's. they take what they've been taught, and when that is challenged, they hold on to it for dear life, in fear that if it's taken away, all these teachings they've built their life around will simply cease to exist. they apparently have an overwhelming desire to place limits on the capability, imagination, and omniscience of the god whose limitlessness they're trying so hard to prove.

the existence of programs and establishments such as this one, are yet another symptom of the illness and desperation of our society. it's something i've been thinking about for a long time, but have yet to come up with a succinct explanation or terminology.

needless to say, there were several times during the course of this program where i laughed out loud and nearly choked to death on a piece of lettuce.