Well, my rides on the way. Don’t know if I’ll be updating at all while I’m in Fairbanks, so this may be my last post for a few days. If so — see y’all (whoever you may be) when I get back!
How Hollywood sees us
…all of you are just simple-minded dumbasses with tiny brains and limited exposure who are so used to ‘checking your brains at the door’ that your gray matter has devolved into a state of gummy disuse. You are no longer even capable of appreciating anything a notch above ‘stupid’.
— Al Brown, on the Home Theater Forum, hypothesizing on how Hollywood sees the American public
I can’t chicken out now…
…I’ve got a serious inquiry on the car, and I just turned in my two-week notice at GCI and CNTS. So, June 1st will be my last day employed with GCI. I’ll probably turn in my notice at Suncoast fairly soon too, so that my last week there is either that first weekend in June or soon thereafter (if I sell my car early in June, getting around is going to be somewhat problematic). More and more it looks like my target date for leaving really is going to be June 15th — I’m (quite intentionally) making sure I’ve got all my loose ends tied up here, and that it’s difficult for me to back out, just in case I get a last minute case of the heebie-jeebies.
Getting things ready
I realize I haven’t been updating all that frequently lately. Most of my time when I’m not at work has been caught up in two pursuits: sorting through everything I own and determining what to keep, what to get rid of, and what to try to sell; and kicking back for an evening of watching DVD’s when I can’t deal with my room. Going through six years of collected stuff is not the easiest thing in the world to do.
Anyway, the moving sale continues to progress — things are appearing and disappearing at a fairly decent rate. I’ve also added a bit more information on the Ford Escort I’m selling.
It’ll probably be a couple days before I update again — I’m heading to Fairbanks this weekend to visit with my brother Kevin, his fiancee Emily, and a few friends (definitely Kirsten and Jaime, and we’ll see who all else I can find while I’m up there). Hoping for a fun weekend…I’ll be back in town Sunday afternoon.
Until then….
No more home theater
Yikes…the sacrifices we make in order to do something that’s important to us. For years I’ve had three ‘boy toy’ areas that were important to me — my music and DJ’ing equipment, my computers, and my home theater. It may not have been much of a home theater, but I was pretty proud of it, and considering the budget I’d put it together on, it was pretty decent.
Well, to further my goal of getting down to Seattle next month, I put pieces of the theater up for sale — and one of my two receivers, the DVD player, and the 46″ rear-projection TV just drove away from me. (sigh) Very wierd feeling, in a way, but at the same time, it’s getting me out of here, and I’ve got the DVD player in my computer, so I’m at least not cutting myself off from my movies. Sure, a 17″ monitor isn’t a 46″ TV…but it works for now.
Sister Machine Gun ‘This Metal Sky’
You sit collapsed as an empty mind, last bytes dissolved into your last breath and the droning sound of hollow places pulse with ache. It is lonely here, living in the hazy moment between the alarm and the awakening where the dream precipitates madness as its encore. You are only half here, the other half erased to be brushed from the paper by the same hand that fingers your ache like a fresh scab until you bleed a river of ridiculous.
I see now it’s not the vision that’s attraction, you peddle your pieces to a man called Compromise for a place in the greater scheme until the only thing left standing is the place where you once stood. You have just reduced yourself from static to dead air droning.
Or it could be the other way — take the wire to the other side of this metal sky and you will see these stars are just projections. This is not real, which means their thunder is merely a threat.
Do you want to know the truth? They need you. They are mechanical, maniacal, derived, you couldn’t drown in their gene pool if you tried, but they’re all made up in brilliant disguise selling the very thing they most want but cannot possess — you. And magic is the key to their success as simple slight of hand steals your autonomy leaving you believing you are in control.
Tell me, do you trust your judgement? My friend, your id’s been tricked.
Welcome…
…to Metropolis.
— Sister Machine Gun, ‘This Metal Sky’
Ugh…now what?
Dammit — no matter how well things are going, something always seems to come along to trip things up.
Got word from my boss at GCI today that the temporary position I’m in is ending as of early June. I can either apply for the permanent spot, or let CNTS (the temp agency I’m with) know and hope that they can find something for me.
It’s tempting to try and stay with GCI — I’m enjoying it, and the fact that I’m getting props on how I’m doing there makes me think I’ve got a fair chance of landing the permanent spot. On the other hand, I’m certainly not gauranteed the spot — there’s always a chance that someone from one of the other call centers with a few years experience will want to take it. The pay would be slightly less, but that’s because I’d actually be getting benefits, so that’s not too big of a hassle.
The one that’s actually getting to me, though, is that if I do go for the permanent spot — and get it — I’d just be turning in my two week notice a month and a half later for the move down to Seattle. This really bugs me — I’ve inherited something of an overdeveloped sense of responsibility to my job from my mother, and doing something like that just seems kind of underhanded, even if it’s in my own best interests. Yuck…I hate situations like this.
Besides, if I let CNTS know that I need a new position, who knows how soon they’ll find one, what they’ll find, or how much it will pay? Makes me very nervous…admittedly, this is the kind of situation that can crop up when you’re doing temp work, and I knew that when I signed up — this is just the first time I’ve had to face it, and I can’t honestly say it makes me too comfortable. I’m so determined to get myself out of state at the end of the summer, that I hate seeing anything pop up that might jeopardize that — and losing this paycheck is really high on the list of things that can jeapordize the move.
So…I’ve got some pondering to do, along with a lot of finger crossing. Should be interesting.
TV time…kinda
As always, there have been a couple additions to my movie collection over the past few days. Rather than actual movies, though, I’m catching up on some of the watchable shows that I miss due to the fact that I don’t watch television.
At the recommendation of Adri, a good friend and co-worker of mine, I picked up the first season of HBO’s Sex and the City. Actually quite an entertaining little show — well written, the four main characters are all quite nice eye candy, and since it’s an HBO production, there’s even some gratuitous nudity every so often. Sure, the shows more along the lines of a “chick flick” style, I suppose, but that’s certainly never been a problem for me, and I trust Adri’s opinions — her tastes and mine, while not identical, do tend to mesh the majority of the time.
The one that’s going to keep me busy for a while, though, is today’s prize — The X-Files: Season Three. I’d never seen the X-Files before I picked up the first season box set, but am now quite hooked — and the cliffhanger end of the second season had me wishing I had the next set that day to keep watching. Well, I didn’t then, but I do now, and made it through the first four episodes tonight. Such fun stuff…should make it through the rest of this set within the next couple weeks — then it’ll just be counting the months until season four hits the shelves!
Told ya I’d get more in here
I just didn’t figure I’d wait until this late to do it. Ah, well, at least I’m here, right?
Friday was fairly uneventful for the most part. Had a good evening dj’ing for the spring formal for the UAA Greek organizations, though, which was fun. Not much more than that for Friday night.
Saturday I ended up having a blast. After I got off work at Suncoast I headed out to Studio 99 — and funny, there was no one there. Hung out for a bit, then headed home, to find a message letting me know that they weren’t going to be opening that night, as they didn’t want to try and compete both with a rave out in Eagle River and the various Cinco De Mayo celebrations around town. Understandable enough, so instead I headed out to the Last Frontier to meet up with a bunch of the chatters that I talk to in the Yahoo! Chat Alaska room. One of the other regular chatters has her birthday on the 1st of May, and mine was the 3rd, so we had a pretty good sized birthday party going on there. Got myself fairly nicely buzzed, and only had to pay for one of the four drinks I had! I bought one, one of the chatters bought me one…then a couple girls I met (Barbie and Barb, believe it or not) bought me two because they liked the way I danced. Rock on…sat and talked with them for a while. Unfortunately, they disappeared before I was able to get any numbers from them…(sigh)…just my luck. Maybe next time. Anyway, switched from alcohol to soda and water in time to be sure that I was safe to drive home, gave one of the chatters a lift home, and came home and crashed — all in all, quite a nice night.
The last couple days have been pretty uneventful — pretty much just work and day-to-day life. Have had some good conversations with my friend Erika, who’s thinking it might be worthwhile to hook me up with her friend LouAnne before I leave state…I’ve only met LouAnne a few times, but she seems like a very nice girl, and she’s certainly attractive enough…who knows?
Had a meeting at Studio 99 tonight to discuss the future of the club…looks like things are going to be going through some changes there. I’m not sure I want to say much more than that just now, but hopefully things will be looking up there pretty soon.
Anyway, so that’s it for the past few days. Nothing too earth shattering, but there’s very little of that in my life these days anyway. Right now it’s mostly a matter of counting the days until I visit Fairbanks in a couple weeks (weekend of May 18th), and until I finally leave this state to see how things are living in the lower 48 (sometime in mid-August). Can’t happen soon enough for me.
Happy birthday, Kev!
Can’t believe I almost forgot to say anything about this — my little brother turns 25 today! Wow…that’s kind of frightening. But cool, too.
Happy b-day, bro.