I’m Hearing: Die Trying - Oxygen’s Gone

I guess a lot has happened in the last while, but I’ve been either too tired or too occupied to be bothered updating. For some reason I feel really light-headed right now so I can guarantee I won’t be doing any DDR tonight.

Speaking of which, this weekend our friend Jeff (who got married a month ago) and his wife Erin had a housewarming party. Being the sneaky little fox that I am, I brought DDR with me and got a whole slew of people addicted to the game. :-D At one point Jeff landed funny on the hard plastic part and cracked it, but it’s no worry because I won a new and better one off ebay this week. Jon’s pad was acting stupid half the time and simply not working the other half, and mine was going even further wonky, so we’ve kind of decided that we’ll hack them apart and try to mount them on plywood or something…after all, they were only $20 pads, the cheapest kind that’s produced. But mine kind of took a header because of the number of people who were just learning the game (and not doing so well). But it was great…I was able to get a bunch more A ratings and even a couple AAs. :-D I can’t wait till the new pad arrives.

The DDR session among however many people were around the place lasted until somewhere after 10 PM, and we tore ourselves away to visit jetfuel, who showed us some of his new video games. But it was so gawdawful hot in there we decided to go to IHOP for some chow (if only for the air conditioning!) We didn’t get to hang out with him for very long because we were all pretty tired not to mention both he and Brian had places to be early the next morning.

I played Dark Cloud up until the final boss on Thursday night, and after two failed attempts got frustrated at hell when I realized my characters were nowhere near as leveled up as they needed to be to stand a chance against it. I was swearing up a storm and Erin offered to take me out for a drink. I turned her down in favor of reading some, and that felt pretty good. I finished American Gods on Sunday afternoon. Great book. I’m almost done with The Dead Zone (finally). Not sure what I’ll tackle next.

The last two days have been interesting. My boss took my coworker and I to a web development conference in Fond du Lac (town about 1/2 hour drive from here) both Monday and Tuesday. Basically the participants were the webmasters for all (or most) of the Wisconsin public universities. They talked about a lot of stuff involving new things they’re trying to all the politics that they deal with. It was really cool seeing how the web development departments are structured in the different institutions, and the many differences among them. Some schools have a team of 2 full time faculty members with 5 or more student assistants whereas others have only one part time faculty and no student help. Things are very different from one school to the next. It was one of those things that I truly found interesting and despite sitting for hours on end both days, I was not bored or sleepy through any of it. My boss was really happy to have people to talk with about the things that were discussed and I think both my coworker and I got a lot out of it. Plus it was fun getting away from the daily routine of the "office" (if you can call the workplace an office…) Those people really know their stuff and it was really interesting to see ideas I’ve never even considered before. The thing I found most intriguing is the campus that has switched ALL their development to table-less CSS. Their pages look good, and the code is very organized…they really know what they’re doing. I still think it’s far too soon to abandon tables altogether, but someone has to take the step forward I guess.

I pigged out on Chinese food last night and had stomach cramps for the rest of the night to remind me. I use "pigged out" lightly because if you looked at my dish, you would swear to god I hadn’t eaten anything at all. That may be part of why I still feel icky-ish today.

The EAA started today. deep sigh This means 10 days of airplanes buzzing constantly in the sky, crazy tourists from all over the world driving too slow while they try to figure out where to go or stare at the sky while trying to keep from crashing…in a word: YIKES. Once a year the largest airplane convention in the world comes to our city and turns our airport into the busiest airport on the face of the earth (no kidding) sponsored by the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) and it makes this town crazy. I am not fond of this convention for the fact that there’s thousands of tourists taking it over, but it goes beyond that relatively small annoyance. You see, in order to accommodate all these aviation enthusiasts and their planes and vehicles, they need a LOT of field space. So bit by bit the airport has bought out all the farmland around the airport for use during this convention. For these 10 days the land gets used well.

BUT…

When the convention ends, the planes and Winnebagos (motorhomes) all leave and the land sits empty for the remaining 350+ days of the year. Absolutely nothing is done with this land during this time, save for the few times the grass is mowed during the summer and fall. This is, of course, fertile farmland they bought for this purpose, so it’s probably no surprise to you to know that all the farms surrounding the airport have closed up shop and have either downsized considerably or simply sold it all to the airport. Everything up to the crossroad next to our farm has been considered as a fucking golf course for the tourists to use for those 10 days, and they’ve even talked to my parents about selling them our farm for use for…whatever the hell they decide would be interesting for less than 3% of the year. This makes me extremely angry as you can imagine, but there’s nothing that can be done. I mean, yes, my family could refuse to sell to the airport, but that would mean that our farm would be surrounded on all sides by airport, golf course, or whatever the hell it is. They would be strongly urged to sell. And I know they like their privacy so they wouldn’t want public land right next door to them. They first started talking about this maybe 10 years ago, and nothing has been done, so it could be that nothing will happen while my parents are still farming. Actually that’s quite likely. But it’s still a topic worthy of anger in my opinion.

Speaking of anger…a topic came up on IRC on Sunday morning that got me so disgusted and upset that I cried for a good while. It was nothing that I was involved in, nothing that affected me directly, and nothing that I could do anything about, but it bothered me immensely. Those who were in the situation kept telling me not to feel upset or guilty about it, but damned if my sympathy wasn’t totally overwhelming. :-( Sometimes being able to place myself in the shoes of others so easily is just a heartwrenching and painful "gift." I don’t wish it away, but it takes a lot of strength on my part not to fall to pieces sometimes.

I’m Hearing: Chevelle - The Red

I played fricken Dark Cloud all of last night. I only have one area to finish before the main part of the game is over…I can’t wait for the game to end so I can move on to something else (I could put it down and play something else, but I’m really close to the end and I know if I don’t finish it now I prolly never will) because I’m almost 44 hours into the game and it’s getting old. The game doesn’t have much in the way of replay value like other games that I’ve invested that kind of time into have.

Our hot water heater is doing dumb things…I think that may be the culprit for our astronomically high electricity bill this month. :\

Must remember to upload moooosic for Ross…

My design professor sent a mass email out saying one of the younger graphics students died this week. She must have been like 19 or 20…man. I didn’t know her, or even recognize the name, but it still shook me. That’s frightening. People that young shouldn’t die.

This may come as a surprise…but I ate my first package of ramen noodles last night. I found them rather yummy. Quite a value too…an entire meal for 12 cents. I will definitely be investing in more of those in the future.

This morning I was talking to someone about resumes. I don’t often think of myself as having accomplished a whole lot (being a perfectionist of course means you are always looking for ways to outdo yourself)…but when I consider that I’ve already had to start cutting important things out of my resume because it was too long, I guess that’s saying that I have done some impressive things for someone of my age. It’s kind of cool to think about that…yet I’m still dissatisfied with myself often times because I don’t feel like I’m doing enough. I know I have the potential to do more than I’m doing now but on the same note, I’ve taken on so many projects I don’t seem to have enough time in the day to accomplish what I want to. I find myself getting frustrated with my body when it gets exhausted by 2 AM…there is just so much more I want to work on but my stupid physical form is too tired. :\ Meh.

Doing web design full time at work doesn’t really make me want to work on my own pages when I get home, so sadly a lot of those things have been on hold for awhile. Mostly I just want to crochet, read, and play video games, which is what I do until I basically pass out. Going to bed before I’m dead tired seems like a really ridiculous idea, hence why I’m tired so often. But there’s just so much to do.

I’m Hearing: some goa/psy/trance streaming internet radio station

I’m finding it difficult to stay awake this week. Yesterday was really bad; I was so freaking tired by the afternoon and today is no different. I went to bed reasonably early last night (around 12:30) so I got more sleep than usual…wtf? True, the project I’m working on at work is not exactly stimulating in any way but still…

Last night Brian and I took my painting over to the gallery. There was about an hour’s leeway between the time we got there and the time the drop-off ended, and the woman in charge told me my piece had to have a hanging wire on the back. NURGH. So we ran over to a hardware store across the street and bought some eyelets and wire (which came to a grand total of less than 2 bucks, which I charged to my credit card due to lack of cash) but it turns out it was the wrong kind of wire. Luckily another guy was in the same situation as me, except he had the right kind of wire. I offered to buy some off of him but he was nice enough to give me some free. Sheesh. The woman there said she had sent a large number of people over to the hardware store for supplies…it sure would have been nice if they’d told us in the instructions that we were supposed to have that ready. But then again…I have never hung a painting with wire before; I’ve always just rested it on nails or screws.

*shrug* Whatever.

I wasn’t too impressed with what I saw around the gallery. Many of the pieces were mediocre at best. A few of the pieces I recognized from my classmates, which is cool because it means I will know people at the opening. But most of it was pretty bland and uninteresting. I hope what I saw was just a couple of boring pieces and the rest of them are a lot more exciting. Though…if the work is mostly blah, mine will stand out more. :-)

Brian and I were going to play Neverwinter Nights last night but we were both having trouble installing it. Then once I had mine installed, I couldn’t join Big Brian’s network game because of some stupid cd key error-type-thingie. Meh. I guess it’s a sign, Rosey.

Can’t think of much more than how freaking tired I am right now… *yawn*

I’m Hearing: Ozzy Osbourne - Crazy Train

So last night I exchanged my shitty Netgear router for a Linksys. Had some odd troubles with staying on IRC…not sure what’s up with that. Hope to figure that one out.

I sucked at DDR last night. I was just totally off, no rhythm at all. Ah well. Big Brian and Erin took some pictures of me though… :-)

That’s about all that happened yesterday…nothing too exciting.

Picked up my painting from the photography studio before lunch and got a couple postcards advertising the event. I recognized a couple of the paintings there as belonging to some of my classmates, so that was pretty cool. Now that I think about it, I’ll probably know a bunch of people in the show since this really isn’t that large a community (our city has about 62,000 people) and a lot of the artists around here are affiliated with the university in some way. Hmm.

Had an interesting experience today when I got into work…when I walked over to my desk, my computer was gone. In its place was a clean rectangle surrounded by a carpet of dust. I looked in my boss’s cube and someone else was there. He said, "oh, they moved you…" o_O ohhhkay… So I found the place where they moved me to and my moved the rest of my stuff. Heh. They said they were thinking of moving us, but it was a little surprising to come in and have my computer just….gone.

Wow, I’m pretty tired right now. =_= Not sure what’s up for tonight. Prolly video games though. A nap would be really nice right about now.

I’m Hearing: Twelve Stones - Crash

Oh so much stuffles to report. It’s been an eventless but exciting couple days.

Friday I got a package from Australia from one Julian Lancaster. :3 Whee! My mom e-mailed me to tell me it had arrived, so I had to endure the entire day at work knowing it was waiting for me (which was torturous, let me tell you!) When I opened it, I broke into giggles. Jules and Rosey had sent me a box full of Australian souvenirs and memorabilia. Heehee!! Never in my life did I ever expect to get a pair of socks with the Australian flag on them. :-D :D I was quite tickled by that. <gives Julesenrosey Annyhux> Sankyuu guys, it meant a lot to me!

Also quite worth mentioning is…last night I got my new LED fans and grills, so I tore apart my case and installed them (with the assistance of Brian)… that took somewhere around 7 hours to do (I finished wrapping and tidying my cables as well.) All I can say is O_____________O !!!! It’s just…absolutely gorgeous…and so BRIGHT! I took a bunch of pictures so all you can see what I’ve been drooling over for so long now. Yes, it’s incredibly bright at night, so much so I have to put something in front of the plexi windows so I’m not blinded while I’m trying to sleep. >_< But that’s okay.

And now that my good computer is all up and running the way I want it, my stupid-ass router is giving me more trouble than I can handle. It lost my ip address twice yesterday and once by 10 AM this morning. For chrissakes! I did a firmware update, but that only seemed to make the problem worse. I’m going to see if I can take THIS one back for a refund or store credit or something and get a Linksys router. Stupid Netgear.

So yeah, this weekend was pretty much…nothingness. The guys came over on Friday night and we watched some stuffles. Saturday Jon left for Chicago with Dave and Matt for a NASCAR race and they were there till sometime Monday. Brian and I went shopping in Appleton and I got The Dead Zone season one on DVD. :-) We spent the night playing DDR. I’m getting a ton better at it now, and even beat hachi’s score on this one song he kept doing over and over when we first got the game. My pad is starting to go wonky or something…the sensors are not registering the steps accurately in menus anymore. Oh well, what can I expect with a cheapo pad? I may invest in a hard pad sometime in the future, but those are beyond $100US so that won’t be anytime soon.

Sunday I slept most of the day away, read a bit in American Gods, and played a ton of Dark Cloud. Big Brian and I ordered Chinese for supper, and he drank a hard lemonade too fast and ended up with a stomache ache. Later in the evening David came online and I got to catch up a bit (he’d gotten a virus that infected his documents and chat programs so he’d been offline this past week.) I’m getting really excited to start editing.

I went home for supper last night because my mom was baking. She does that about once or twice a month, and it’s always a nice treat to have that for supper. When I say "baking" what I’m referring to is a traditional Bohemian recipe for yeast dough. Her mother was 100% Bohemian (by ethnicity, in addition to spirit) which makes my mother 50% and me 25% (the rest is German, in case you care). At any rate, she makes these rolls that look like crescent rolls but much weightier called rolicky (roh-lick-ee) and chocolate chip cinnamon rolls. They are soooooooooo good….and so filling. I don’t really give my ethnicity a whole lot of thought usually but in a way it’s kind of cool being part Bohemian by birth…makes my outlook on things feel appropriate in a way since the Bohemian way of life is that of a free spirit, romantic, and artist. :-)

My car is so stupid. The driver’s seat has begun to rust off its base…*again*. I already had that fucking thing re-welded once before. And it’s still leaking antifreeze. Gah. That thing is gonna die soon and I’ll have to invest in something else. Gahhhhhhhhh.

I’m Hearing: The Gathering - Analog Park

Hmm, that sounds like a toy for a toddler or something. (re: subject) Heh.

In any case…last night I played DDR for somewhere beyond 4 hours…I pretty much played until I could no longer stand and was tripping over my feet. Then around 6:30 AM this morning I stretched in my sleep and got the most painful charley horse in my left calf. I woke up about halfway…just enough to massage it out and promptly went back to sleep. But holy mother of god, that hurt! It is still incredibly sore and tense, and I’m having difficulty ascending and descending stairs. Regular walking is okay because I can favor my other leg. The worst part is, though…all I feel like doing right now is playing more. >_<

Some people on IRC were talking about how people play certain types of video games to look cool or because they’re popular. I admit, I tried the game out because of the hype…I mean, I wanted to see what it was about…but those days are long gone. I don’t care why I tried it out in the first place, it’s so damned addicting… I suppose that’s how it got popular in the first place…

And I noticed last night that a quick way to make DDR a lot easier and more fluid to play is to put it in "workout" mode. From what I can tell, it takes the default moves from the regular game and removes the cah-rayzee stuff so the moves are a lot more natural and you aren’t hopping all over the damned place trying to get the steps right. >_< Don’t get me wrong, in the regular workout mode, it isn’t super easy or anything, but it’s just less erratic. Plus the workout mode is nice because it doesn’t kick you out of the game if you suck. (and the announcer doesn’t heckle you either!) :-)

Playing a bit of Dark Cloud here and there of course. I dunno why, but the fishing part of the game is really fun. You’d think that virtual fishing would be stupid or boring, but it’s actually not. Especially when one of the types of bait you can use is called a "throbbing cherry" mwahaha :-)

Just got an email from my mom saying a package has arrived from Australia. :3 wheeee!!! I can’t wait to get home now!!!

(baby steps to 5:00………)

I’m Hearing: Incubus - Nice to Know You

Yesterday was torture for me. >_< My mom wrote me an email to tell me that a package had arrived from Australia…so I had to sit there at work for the rest of the day knowing it was waiting for me. :o

Turned out to be The Gathering’s if_then_else CD from Ross (and Jules too, I later learned)! :-D :D I listened to it probably 10 times or so last night…my god, it’s fantastic. I’d never heard any of their music before so I didn’t really know what to expect…and I must say, it was a pleasant surprise. So thank you Ross, it was a very well-chosen gift. :-D Also, I don’t know if you knew this or not, but on the end of "Analog Park" there’s a section where a British-sounding guy is reading part of Alice in Wonderland. :-D How perfect is that?

So I had that on last night while I was playing Dark Cloud (which was muted). The two didn’t really mix but ehh, that’s okay…it just adds to the mess of odd contrasts that make up Anny.

Now. Today was something else entirely. As I have a habit of doing, I took a small and insignificant detail and blew it all out of proportion and got myself all worked up over nothing. So…it started with the fact that I needed to decide on a price for Femscape for the art show (it’s one of the things they asked for). Of course, the idea of selling work always gets me angsty, but this time I was under a deadline…of noon today. I had absolutely no idea what to put down for a price…I mean…judging the value and worth of art is such a subjective thing…*especially* for the artist (me) since I’m overly critical of my stuff as well as being uber attatched to it. Anyhow, it’s been about 6 months since I finished that piece and I’ve had some time to distance myself from it, so I don’t feel the same panic about selling it that I would have a couple months ago. I talked to some peeps on IRC about pricing, which really didn’t get me anywhere since everyone kept telling me "add the cost of materials to what you would be happy with" and similar things…which is good advice and all…but I don’t know what it’s worth to me! (Peet suggested thinking up a cost based on some type of electronic gadget I want to buy :-D) >_< I talked to my boss (who is also an artist) and we came up with the figure US$1200. I would be plenty happy with that and would be okay letting my piece go for that, but dealing with that got me angsty. I mean, really…what kind of a price would YOU put down for a piece done by an unknown artist in a small town? <shrugs>

I want to stress here that my piece is not necessarily being sold at that price, or at all. That’s just a figure they wanted so they could print up a catalog. In fact, the art in the show can’t be sold during the show, the transaction would have to occur later on. But anyhow…

In order to get photos for the catalog, they are having a professional photography studio take them. (for free!) The thing was…I didn’t know where this studio was. The address listed in the phone book was different than the address they sent along with the instructions so I got confused. Because I was already angsty over the price stuff, this just made my stomach start churning. I got all upset and started ranting like a loony.

Just my luck that Jules was online…he was able to get me calmed down and thinking rationally again…so I could see how idiotic I was acting. >_< He said something to me that I found very interesting: "it’s funny how you seem to get the most upset when you are peeking over the hill of something great" Hmm. Food for thought.

I called the photography place and confirmed that they had just moved this week to a new location, which is why it is so confusing. I took my painting down to the place (which only had a small sign that isn’t visible from the street) and it ended up not being a big deal at all of course. <inhales deeply>

So anyhow, I feel much better now…I know I get all silly sometimes about dumb stuff, and I know I can help it…I just have to make up my mind to push those thoughts aside. Make no mistake…I make no claims to understand myself…

So yeah, I’m pretty exhausted right now. I went to bed at like 12:30 last night, which is relatively early, but I was just wiped out all day and all I did was play Dark Cloud so there wasn’t a whole lot of stimulation to keep me awake. I’m still tired now…getting up this morning was just torturous. Oh well.

That’s really about all…my entry from yesterday highlighted the more important things that have happened recently.

I’m Hearing: Mushroomhead - Solitaire Unraveling

Another weekend that just kind of slipped past me. :-) Once again, it’s hard to recall exactly what happened when, but I’ll do my best to remember. It’ll be good for my memory. :-)

Last Wednesday was just freaking wonderful. It’s without question the best birthday I’ve ever had. I was astonished by how many people remembered it and offered me kind wishes. :-D Jon and Brian came over to my parents’ house for a chicken dinner and my new computer case had arrived! :-D After supper we went back to the apartment and spent the night assembling my new computer in the new case. Big Brian (roomie) and I spent several hours rounding our IDE and floppy cables. Since this was the second time I’ve tried that, mine turned out pretty well, and I was quite pleased. After the guys left, I spent a huge chunk of time organizing and wrapping various cables in the case…till about 4 AM. I soooo did not want to go to bed at that point, but I knew I had work the next day.

My replacement video card arrived on Thursday, so I installed that successfully as soon as possible. First thing I did was throw in Dungeon Siege and check out the nice framerates! I messed around with Morrowind and Unreal Tournament, and it was just sooooo nice. :O~~~~~~ I can finally play all my games now, without chunking or low resolution graphics! :-D I’m so glad I didn’t get a dud this time with the card…I was really nervous that the manufacturer was just selling shitty cards.

Thursday night my roomie Erin took us out to eat at Victoria’s (my fave Italian restaurant) as a birthday treat. Awww. :-D The food was just fantastic. Then Dave, Jon and I went to see Terminator 3. It was so mindless I kept falling asleep so I couldn’t tell you if it was any good or not. (3 hours of sleep the night before with no nap is hard on one’s ability to stay conscious!)

I ended up getting an assload of DVDs and games and whatnot for my birthday, which totally rocked. Got 3 Farscape DVDs from the guys, X-Files season 7 from my dad, and Dark Cloud (PS2) from my brother. That, plus Harbinger, has just been overwhelming me because there’s just sooooo much I want to watch/do/play I can’t find enough time to do it all! At least there’s no danger of me being bored anytime soon! hehe.

Friday was Independence Day so I had the day off from work. I spent the day gaming….soooo fun! Played several network games with Big Brian. I suck terribly at fps games, but it was still fun! I also watched the most usless and horrible movie on earth and regretted it immediately. (Jackass) Makes me embarrassed to be American…we produce morons like that. :\ Went to Pizza Hut with family, then the guys came over. We finished watching Family Guy then watched some X-Files. Jon was working on some anti-spam email project and he kept getting distracted (big surprise) so he didn’t get much done that night. :o

Saturday I went shopping in Appleton with my brother. I got the newest Kare Kano DVD (disc 4) as well as a Matrix Reloaded poster and a new mouse. Jon’s dad was grilling out so we had supper over there, then played a bit of DDR. Went home and started assembling my old shit machine back into a computer.

Sunday was more gaming. Then Jon, Brian, Brian’s sister, and I went to see Evanescence at Summerfest. (Photos and movies courtesy of hachi, who is much taller than me and could actually take pictures of what was going on up on stage) They sounded absolutely fantastic, but we didn’t have a very good spot so we couldn’t see too well. With our luck, the concert was at 10 PM, so lots of people were leaving by the time we got there, and we got 3 of our tickets (general admission) free just because people wanted to get rid of them! :-D When I got home I messed around with my shit machine and got Win2k installed on it. I had some issues with the BIOS until I realized the CMOS battery wasn’t on the board. >_< Whoops. Had to dig around for it, as it had slipped behind the motherboard. After that, all was fine. I have yet to see if I can isolate the freezing problem. That would be awesome if I could cos then I would have 3 working computers, but if I can’t, it’s no big loss. It’s as good as dead anyhow.

As for games, I’ve been messing around with Harbinger and Dark Cloud the most of all. Harbinger has been called "Diablo in Space" and it’s a lot like that. The main character talks an awful lot like Gary Oldman’s character in The Fifth Element and the dialogue subtitles are written in Comic Sans (UGH!) but aside from that, it freaking rocks. Dark Cloud was really easy to get into…I got annoyed at first by how easily the weapons broke and other things but I realized that I was overlooking a whole bunch of stuff and suddenly the game took on a whole new life! Now I’m so addicted to that game I don’t want to go to bed at night. In fact, if I didn’t have to go to work, I’d probably just play it till I fell over. I really really really want to play Silent Hill 3 but that doesn’t come out in the US until August 8. It’s already been released in Europe and Asia so Sean has already beaten it. :-O He said there’s a shitload of Easter Eggs in it too. Waaa, I can’t wait! I’ll prolly get Dark Cloud 2 before SH3 comes out though. :-D

Last night my roomie Erin rented How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days so I watched it with her. Bleeeech. It was bad. Usually I tend to enjoy chick flicks, but it was too planned, too predictable. Plus, Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey both bother me like you wouldn’t believe. I was glad when it was over so I could get back to Dark Cloud. I stayed up waaay too late playing that and therefore I’m exhausted today. I woke up feeling really ill, but that may have been from lack of sleep plus the alcohol and week-old Chinese food I had before bed. >_< In any case, I feel better now, aside from being tired. More gaming tonight I’m sure. :-D

Oh, I almost forgot to mention I’m going to be in another art show. :-D Or have I mentioned that? I can’t recall right now. Anyhow, I got my confirmation letter on Saturday. They’re having all the pieces professionally photographed for free cos they’re making a catalog of the work. That should be really cool. Now I just have to figure out where this photography studio is so I can drop off my painting. (Femscape) I drove around looking for it (the studio) last night but couldn’t locate it. >_<

I’m Hearing: gentle hum of fans in a dark and warm bedroom

Kent (Nitroblaze) wrote me this at about 3:30 AM this morning. Made me cry a bit. :-)

A birthday gift for a friend of mine,
whose age of birth has reached a splendid prime
her creative arts is envy to some
her heart is bright that challenges the sun
her warmth of friendship is second to none,
she makes my heart as soft as a bun.
this friend say hello whenever i’m online
that makes my virtual experience so fine
i wish i had a personal DSL line
to see her again and again through time
my only wish that she would receive
this poem of thoughts that i am trying to conceive
please accept it as a gift from me
for we are too far for our eyes to see

I’m Hearing: Disturbed - Stupify

Hehe…yeah, so technically I’m 22 today, but since my mindset has still not left 19, I’m going to stay comfortable right about there. :-D :D

So, lots of things have happened in the last while. I can barely recall this weekend, not because I didn’t do anything, but because so much has happened since then. On Friday night my parents came over for supper and we ordered a pizza. The pizza place got the order wrong not once, but twice! They were nice enough to give us the second one for free and a coupon for money off our next order, but sheesh! :-)

Then later Brian and Jon came over and we watched the Cowboy Bebop movie, which was okay…but kind of loooooooong. I think we might have watched…oh yeah that’s right…we watched some Family Guy episodes while I crocheted. There was one scene I was trying to find in an episode where Brian (the dog) chases the Chuck Wagon into a cupboard…it was so stupid but it caught my fancy…and I really wanted to show my dad because we had an ongoing joke about Chuck Wagon (not really worth getting into…) So anyhow, we found it.

At one point during the evening my roomies came home and we showed them DDR (Dance Dance Revolution) on Jon’s laptop. He was using a PS2-to-USB adapter to connect the dance mat to the computer and for some reason, it could only take one input at a time, so when sections came up that required you to hit two arrows simultaneously, it would only register one step. This was getting a little annoying after awhile so we decided it was time to buy the PS2 version (and by PS2 I of course mean Playstation 2, not the keyboard/mouse connector). We made a trek to SuperWalMart (the only retail store open past 10 PM, ugh) and of course they didn’t have it, so we bought milk and Teddy Grahams instead. (Jon also got some expensive mint cookies which he was already eating before we reached the car!) Heh. It’s funny…I buy a gallon of milk on Friday and if the guys are over, it’s already gone by Saturday night…that’s Wisconsin people for you. :-D

Lessee…then Saturday…I ran to my parents’ house for a bit. While I was there, Dad came home with my brother, who apparently is going to be home for the next week. It was cool to see him again. Later on, Jon and I got some Chinese food for supper, then Brian came over and we hung out. Now I’m starting to question which of this stuff happened on Friday and which on Saturday, but I guess it really doesn’t matter. Jon was messing around with some stuff on his server and I was talking to Stormer (David) on ICQ about the novel…I think we must have had a DVD in, but I can’t recall for sure. (Kiki’s Delivery Service maybe? I know we watched that at one point during the weekend…) Dave (not to be confused with Stormer) kept calling and trying to get us to go to a bar and do karaoke with him. He didn’t seem too pleased when we kept turning him down.

Anyhow, Sunday I decided I’d go to Best Buy and get the PS2 version of DDR, so I called Brian to see if he wanted to go. We ran up there and guess who we saw coming out of the Best Buy parking lot–Jon. He was holding a bag containing an item about the size of a DVD. "Is that what I think it is–?" "Uh huh" heh. Brian had a coupon for 10% off and I wanted to buy a copy too, so Jon went through this whole ordeal of returning his copy and getting mine and his plus another DVD for 10% off…it’s far too confusing to even attempt to describe! >_<

At any rate, I bought that game plus The Animatrix and The Breakfast Club. I had some store credit at GameStop so we went over to the mall and I got a DDR mat and found a new copy of Suikoden III for $30US!!!!!!!!! (That game is nearly impossible to find, and I’ve never seen a new copy since they stopped manufacturing the game!!! What a fortunate circumstance!) I ended up paying $15 for the two items because of the store credit, which totally rocked. :-D Hehe. Jon and I had subs for supper while Brian ate with his sister, then the three of us played DDR for somewhere beyond 2 hours. We were all dripping with sweat by the time it was over, and despite having sore and exhausted legs, we still wanted to keep going. :-D The most fun was having 2 dance mats hooked up so 2 people could play simultaneously. What a fun time!!!! Jon also wanted to show off Rez because he’d finally gotten to Area 5. He’s so addicted to that game it’s hilarious. But it’s a freaking awesome game, especially when you’re playing it on an entertainment system with a decent stereo (I think that’s why he likes playing it at my place!)

THEN! Monday night totally rocked, literally. The three of us went to Summerfest in Milwaukee to see the Foo Fighters! :-) This was the third time I’ve seen them live, and it was absolutely the best performance yet. Dave Grohl really knows how to play to a crowd, and they have such amazing energy when they perform! I let myself go, singing and dancing and whatnot, and man was it fun! It was freaking loud of course, but what decent rock concert isn’t? :-D I wasn’t sure if Jon was enjoying it cos I don’t think he knew very many of their songs and he wasn’t really moving much during the concert, just kind of standing there taking it all in, but at the end he headed straight for the tshirt vendor, so I knew then he’d had a good time!!! :-D I was very glad for that too, cos it seemed like a hit-or-miss kind of thing. As I suspected, he’d never been to a concert that made him semi-deaf for the following day, but he seemed pretty happy as we left, so that made me happy too (even happier than I was because the concert was freaking awesome)! I knew Brian would like it cos we’ve been going to Summerfest together for the last couple years, and we’d already seen Foo Fighters play there 3 years earlier. It was a great time (even though I had an extra ticket that went to waste…oh well…they played well enough that I would have paid double the ticket price to see that concert anyhow) Brian called me last night to let me know that Evanescence is playing on Sunday night, so I think we’re going again :-D :D

So lessee…Tuesday was mainly a night of rest…I went to my parents’ house for a bit (had supper there) then ran to Fleet Farm and got another box fan for my room (which heats up like a sauna in the late afternoon). I played a few video games and crocheted a bit, trying to take it easy…my back was spasming painfully most of the day (I guess I got a little too crazy at the concert, hehe). I actually watched Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course and it was quite enjoyable despite its silliness. XD The new fan was really helping to keep the air cool so by the end of the night I was very comfortable. Then Erin came home with frozen custard (Strawberry cheesecake!!) and after eating that I was very cold. So I did a little DDR to warm up…well, it did more than warm me up; in fact, I was sweating heavily by the time I quit, and my back was preventing me from doing anything to my full ability. My roomies Brian and Erin both tried it…Brian is just a natural at it, despite his size (he’s a pretty large guy!) so it was cool to watch. Erin just needs some practice, and I’ll make sure she gets it. <evil grin>

By that time it was already past midnight, which meant it was my birthday. :-D I took a shower then chatted for a bit on IRC before going to bed. When I woke up, there were a bunch of cool people on IRC so I got to begin my day with a giant grin. That fabled grin has followed me through the day, as I found myself amazed by how many people remembered it was my birthday. The day was made even better when I saw on the UPS website that my new case had been delivered at last!!!! My replacement video card should be arriving tomorrow, so I’ll wait until then to set everything up. My new machine has been up and running since Thursday without freezes or reboots, and it’s like heaven! I really hope I don’t have trouble with the video card this time.

Work this morning was good…I had plenty to do. After a bit of gentle nagging, my boss got ahold of a PC for me to test out web pages (in an OS and browser that most people use…you see, we develop our sites on Macs there…) so I got to format the hard drive and install Win2k, which is always kind of fun for me because it’s like starting anew…there’s something about that idea that I really enjoy…I like customizing settings and installing updates. XD

I went and did my timesheets today cos they’re due early since Friday is the 4th of July, then headed to my other job. My boss pulled a fast one on me, which I found rather clever. He wished me a happy birthday then asked how the concert went. Once he had me distracted like that, he asked if I had any whiteout. After searching through my desk, I found Harbinger in one of the drawers with a post-it on it that said "Huppy Birfday" Hehe! w00t!. I was so happy I wanted to jump up and down, but instead I just squealed a little! :-D Kick ass.

Tonight Mom’s making chicken for supper…she invited Brian and Jon over and now Joe’s home so it’ll be a full house! :-D Not sure what’s happening after supper, but I’m sure we’ll do something fun. I’m going to show my brother DDR because the song "Sandstorm" is on there, and he gets a kick out of making fun of ravers when he listens to that! :-D hehe.

Oh yeah, I forgot that actually I turn 34 today. My cousin Teresa has the same birthday as I do, and a couple years ago she said she was tired of getting older so I told her I’d trade ages with her (since I’ll always be 19 and therefore my chronological age means nothing!) So happy 22nd birthday Teresa. Hope you have a great one! :-D

Heehee.