Ups and downs, and some possible changes

Yesterday was not exactly the best day I’ve ever had — not the worst overall, but certain moments may have some fairly large impact on days to come.

I’ll start with the good stuff, though. First off, my bowling continues to improve, which is cool. After last week’s run I brought my average up to 113, then surprised myself by managing to pull off my best series yet — 142/168/140! Not just my best series so far, but that 168 is my best score so far…I’m hoping to be able to get at least one game where I break 200 before I stop bowling.

Secondly, I got a chance to swing by Suncoast and picked up Love’s Labours Lost, and watched that after I got home from bowling last night. It turned out to be a really fun film, though it takes a little getting used to at first. Since Branagh combined Shakespeare with a 40’s style musical for this production, it opens with a ‘newsreel’ to give you some background information, then moves into some expository Shakespearian dialogue…then breaks into “I’d Rather Charleston”. Really caught me off guard at first, but after one or two numbers you just get caught up in the spirit of the experiment, and it just becomes a whole lot of fun. The only real downside I found was Alicia Silverstone trying not just to act, but to sing — luckily, she only gets a few verses completely on her own. I found her character to be this film’s eqivalent to Keanu Reeves in Much Ado About Nothing — an essential character who is unfortunately really badly miscast. Aside from lil’ miss Clueless, though, it’s a wonderful little romp, once you get past the initial shock.

Unfortunately, those were the highlights of the day. Not that they were bad highlights…just that the rest of the day kind of overshadows them.

Did my taxes — I owe $146. Bleah.

The big thing, however — if I’d had any more money in the bank than I do, I would have walked out of my job at TimeFrame yesterday. This is a really major thing for me — one way or another, I’ve always had an almost overdevolped sense of responsibility to whatever job I’m working, and will stick out some really uncomfortable situations when I deem it worth it, and I’d been doing my best to deal with all the little things at TimeFrame that bug me for a while now, as I didn’t want to either lose the paycheck or throw away the four and a half years I’ve got there just a few months before I leave state. However….

It just isn’t worth the headache anymore. While it’s not the job itself that bugs me, and I still enjoy the actual work I do, the work environment is so screwball that I’ve finally reached my breaking point. So, today I’ve called in to take a personal leave day, and I plan on running around to some of the temp agencies in town to take their placement/skills tests and see if I can find anything upwards of $10/hr for the next few months. I figure if I can find some data entry position — the kind of thing that often pays $12-$15 an hour because nobody wants to deal with it (usually a night position, shoved in a hole somewhere typing numbers in for hours on end), then as soon as I’m confirmed there, I can turn in my notice at TimeFrame and lose a fair amount of the stress in my life at the moment.

It’s really kind of bizarre for me to have gotten to this point — I’m still kind of amazed at myself for being willing to do something like take a day off to go job hunting. But, things have been going steadily downhill for me in regards to my job there, and there’s really only so much that I can take. So, today begins something of a grand adventure, in seeing if I can find something else to do for the next few months until I can afford to bail state. Should be interesting.

Of course, what’s going to be really interesting is if someone from TimeFrame actually ever stops by and checks my site and reads this….

Of blogs, site content, and something funny

So it appears I’ve (without really knowing or planning it) become one of the growing number of ‘bloggers’ on the web. Blogger? Well read on…the following text is from Blogger, a service for helping people create and maintain their blogs. While I don’t use them, the definition was useful:

What is a weblog/blog?

A blog is a web page made up of usually short, frequently updated posts that are arranged chronologically — like a what’s new page or a journal. The content and purposes of blogs varies greatly — from links and commentary about other web sites, to news about a company/person/idea, to diaries, photos, poetry, mini-essays, project updates, even fiction.

Blogs posts are like instant messages to the web.

Having realized while websurfing today that I’ve joined the blogger community, I went ahead and retitled this column on my page to reflect that, and added a couple of blog-related links to the lefthand sidebar on the page.

As far as site content goes, I’ve taken down the link in the Contents bar to the Ak Events side of my site, as I’m planning on going ahead and discontinuing it in the near future. It just isn’t getting the traffic I was hoping for…a good idea, but others are doing similar things, and I’d rather let someone else a little more into the idea play with it.

And finally, an amusing link I found while bouncing around the ‘net today: Pornolize! Warning: don’t follow the link if you’re underage or easily offended (or both) but if you’re neither of the above and have a good sense of humor, it can be all sorts of amusing. Don’t say I didn’t warn you….

Bleah

I so don’t enjoy being sick. Came down with a really nasty flu virus a couple nights ago that has just knocked me for a loop…no fun at all. Worked all of about 3 hours yesterday, made it through 7 today…but am feeling better, though, so hopefully will be back to normal (whatever ‘normal’ is defined as in my case) by tomorrow. The worst part about the whole thing, though, was on top of battling the flu and feeling like crap, plus I spent all of today battling really strong hiccups too. Not a combination I’d recommend.

In other news, I picked up the 2-disc collector’s edition release of Disney’s Dinosaur today. Should be fun to play with. The only question will be how much of it I can make it through before the NyQuil kicks in.

Why I collect movies

Every so often I get people expressing amazement, wonder, or just shaking their heads in confusion when they see my DVD collection, either by checking the listing here on my site, or coming by my house and seeing the bookcase full of discs. I just found a page on the ‘net that had a really well-written explanation of why I (among other people) enjoy collecting movies, so I’ve added it to my site. There is a link to it in the contents listing on the home page (underneath the heading for my DVD list), or if you’d rather, you can just start reading.

Bowling

Had a good night, tonight. Got picked up by my friend Airy, and we went out to La Mex for dinner (one of the few places left that you can get dinner and enjoy a cigarette, if you’re so inclined) and then headed out to Jewel Lake Bowl to meet Bill and Rich for midnight Neon Bowling. I got a 148 my first game (great, since my average right now is 108), and went steadily downhill from there. Not that much of a surprise, though, as we didn’t start until right around my normal bedtime! Afterwards we came back here, and Airy passed out for a bit while Bill and I talked…but, once it hit 4:30 in the morning, I figured it was time to get them home and get me to bed.

So after this quick site update, I’m off to bed. Gotta make it to work tomorrow….

Words of Wisdom

I normally nuke just about every piece of random e-mail I get (and I get a lot), but I got one today that I actually thought was worth sharing…however, rather than send it out to everyone on my e-mail address book (which, to be honest, I find incredibly annoying much of the time), I thought I’d just post it here. So, here ya go!

Read more

Babies are so darn cute

Guess I get one more post for the evening. Miranda had a beautiful little girl on Christmas Eve, and she just sent me a picture of the little munchkin! Unfortunately, the link to the baby pic didn’t stick around forever — but take my word for it, she’s a cutie!

Insomnia

I’ve been having some real problems sleeping for some reason lately — last night I went to bed and crashed out at 10pm, then was awake again at 1:30am, and couldn’t crash out until around 4am. Really, really annoying…so, in honor of my own sad state, I found the lyrics for “Insomnia” by Faithless (one of my favorite dance tracks).

I only smoke weed when I need to,
And I need to get some rest,
I confess, I burnt a hole in the matress,
Yes, yes, it was me, I plead guilty,
And on the count of three I pull back the duvet,
Make my way to the refrigerator,
One dry potato inside, no lie
Not even bread, jam,
When the light above my head went bam!
I can’t sleep, something’s all over me,
Greasy, insomnia please release me,
And let me dream about making mad love on the heath,
Tearing off tights with my teeth.
But there’s no relief,
I’m wide awake in my kitchen,
It’s dark and I’m lonely,
Oh, if I could only get some sleep,
Creeky noises make my skin creep,
I need to get some sleep,
I can’t get no sleep.

© Faithless (Maxi Jazz/Sister Bliss/Rollo)

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, everyone, and welcome to 2001 — the real new millenium. Woohoo!

I rung in the new year at the Future Impact rave. That’s about it for now…been a good weekend, mostly just relaxing and watching X-Files.