Kain's Domain

Well, today was an absolute bust. Happy 29th birthday to me... Whoo... Bleh.

Let's see, I get into work today, and the day starts off fine. I step away from my desk momentarily to ask a co-worker something, I come back and find an envelope on my desk with my name on it. I open it to reveal a birthday card, signed by four people. It meant a lot to me, especially since I'm shy and making friends is always hard for me. Though, I have to admit that it made me feel a little unusual that the four people who signed it, I've never really spoken to before. I mean, other than the passing "Hi, how's it going?" things. But I definitely appreciate that they put some thought into it. I was rather disappointed that the one girl in my office who I'm attracted to and wish would notice me, didn't sign. I'm hoping that it was because the card never got around to her to sign, as three other people in the office noticed my card and that it was was my birthday, and was totally surprised. I think the card didn't travel far before it make it back to the start.

A friend of mine, the workaholic I mentioned a few posts back, had the day off, but told me that she was going to come in so we could meet up for lunch on my birthday. I call her at 9:30 to find out if we're still on, and nope, she's caught up in work, and has to miss it. It figures, that's why I brought a lunch just incase. She then said she'd call me when she got out of work from working overtime (at 7:00,) but once again, it's now almost 11 and nothing...

I get home, and I have nothing to do. My family members called and wished me a happy birthday, but other than that, I'm sitting here alone in a silent room, eating a birthday brownie, and wishing I was more outgoing and could actually grow a spine and learn how to take the initiate in making friends, and more importantly, ask this girl out. But I just know I'll be rejected, and I can't handle that, so I sit alone, I sit alone...

Then, my ex-girlfriend messages me and wishes me a happy birthday, which made me really happy. The fact that she remembered and would do that lifted my spirits no matter how down I was feeling today or this week combined.

Unfortunately, though, the happiness is not to last long. We used to always be able to talk to each other whenever we're feeling down about something, and the other person could cheer them up. But now, it's like discussing our problems with each other is like bringing a spark to dynamite. If I discuss what's bothering me, then I end up inadvertently "dumping my problems on her", bringing her down, and she gets upset with me. If she discusses her problems, I listen and try to be there for her, but she gets upset because according to her, I'm wrong, and I don't know anything. I mean, what the Hell am I supposed to do?

So after snapping at me about discussing what's bothering me and "dumping my problems on her", she decides she better leave, but first, she has to ask my advice about the problem she's having. Okay, fine... I told her I would always listen to her.

So she tells me what her problem is, and asks me what I think about it.
*Hears the ticking begin...*
I give her my reply, and then I'm relieved because she actually doesn't have a problem with it this time.
*Hears the ticking slow down.*
She asks another question.
*Hears the ticking speed up.*
She doesn't have a problem with this response either.
*Hears the ticking slow down.*
She makes a joke.
*Hears the ticking go away.*
I make a joke...

*KABOOM!*

She explodes, blasting away at me because what I said was "rude and insulting." What?! First, I should explain something; About a year and a half ago, she brought the subject of the joke to my attention, and made a joke about it. We laughed. I made a joke about. We laughed even more. It was a grande ol' time...

So now, I make the same type of joke that she got a good laugh out of before, and suddenly it's like I started World War III. I expected her to laugh, just like she did before. Does she laugh? No. It wasn't even about her, so the fact that she found it insulting is way beyond my understanding. And I try explaining that I was just trying to make a joke, one that she found funny before and even brought to my attention to begin with. But she doesn't care. She tells me she's ticked, and I'm a pain in her *ss, and it was a mistake to even talk to me, and then she blocked me.

There was a time when all I had to do was make jokes and goof around, and no matter how bad she was feeling, it always cheered her up. She even told me that before, that I had the power to put a big smile on her face no matter how bad she was feeling, just by joking around. So this is what I do. I make jokes, every chance I get. Yes, of course, because I'm trying to cheer her up and make her smile, but also because it's my nature. I like to make jokes, and almost anything is fair game to me. Even if it has to be self-deprecating, I'll go for it if it makes someone smile. The only thing I'll never joke about is her, because if I ever hurt her feelings, I would feel terrible.

Which is why she drives me up a wall. Because practically 90% of the jokes I make lately, she doesn't seem to understand that I'm joking, so she gets upset, and yells at me, and then gives me the silent treatment. Her tongue is constantly dripping with enough sarcasm to fill a swimming pool, but my jokes sets her off. And these are the same type of jokes that she used to love a year ago.

And the whole thing confuses me and hurts me beyond words. I don't understand what I'm doing wrong... I try to do one thing, it gets her upset. I try to do the other thing, it gets her upset. I can't ever win. I'm damned if I do, I'm damned if I don't. I mean, based on my own interpretation, here's her rules as I see them so far:

1. "Don't talk about your problems, because it's not fair to dump them on me."
2. "Give me advice when I talk about my problems, but know that in most cases, it's going to upset me and I'm going to yell at you."
3. "I'm going to flirt with you sometimes, but don't even think about flirting back because I'm in a committed relationship with another guy whom I don't even consider my boyfriend, and you have to respect that."
4. "Don't ever tell me how pretty I am, because your opinion doesn't count; the only opinions which count are from all the guys who apparently don't know I exist."
5. "I love your jokes, they would always cheer me up, but be aware that a joke you might tell me one day could have me in stitches, but the next day they may need to stitch your head back on."
6. "Don't tell me you love me, think about me, care about me, or worry about me. And don't read my public blog that I gave you the url to. Because those are obvious signs of obsession, not romance or love."
7. "When we have a fight, it will always be your fault. Don't try to apologize, because it's not going to do you any good, I'm still going to yell at you, tell you how horrible you are, and then give you the silent treatment."

Okay, not really... I admit, that money may be important for such things as food, clothing, and shelter, but when you get right down to it, I'm not all that interested in money. There are a lot of other things in life that are worth a whole lot more than the almighty cent. Which blows my mind as to why someone would want to work overtime and on weekends, to sell all their free time away, just to make more money...

However, I am happy because I got paid today. It's only for one week, due to the fact that I started in the middle of a pay week. And they take out one day from your first five paychecks, which they give back to you in one paycheck once you stop working there. I guess the logic behind that, is so you'll have an extra paycheck coming in after your job is over.

So there I was. At my desk, eating lunch. A delicious, Chicken Fajita Lean Pocket. Yum! Just like the hundreds of others I've eaten in my lifetime. But today...one decided to get revenge on me....and it did.

I'm beginning to chew on my tasty Lean Pocket, when I felt a crunch. At first, I thought it was just that the side of the Lean Pocket was kinda burned really crispy (I'm not used to the microwave at work) and that I had bit into a burned part. But that was not to be the case. I spit out what I was chewing, and continued to eat. At some point, I happen to run my tongue over the front of my teeth, and...gasp!...I was missing a tooth. Well, most if it anyways. I felt the tooth still in there, but it was really high up, as if it was a baby tooth next to a normal tooth...

So I stood up, walked to the bathroom, and checked out my (normally nice) smile, to find a big hole where a tooth should have been, right next to my two front teeth. The tooth had broken in half, the bottom half apparently in the spit-out piece of Lean Pocket back on my plate, and the top half up in my gums protecting me from feeling the most horrid pain I can imagine of exposed nerve.

The rest of the day was basically avoiding letting people see me open my mouth, which usually consisted of holding my hand up in front of my mouth, or a clipboard, etc when I would talk. One of my co-workers and one of my supervisors were rather entertained by the different lengths I would go through to. I'm here to please. Make 'em laugh, make 'em laugh, make 'em laugh...

Almost forgot to update the blog today. Been working so hard on my project, and now it's totally burned me out. And I've got work again tomorrow... *sighs*

I decided to shave off my van dyke last night. Not the best decision I've ever had. I guess I was just curious how I'd look without it, since it's been something like five years since I last went without it. Thankfully, my facial hair grows fast, so I don't have to look this hideous for long... It's funny, it's not even been 24 hours, and already I can see the new hairs coming in.

Anyways, I must head off to bed now and prepare for my next day at work. 'Night all.

Well, kinda...

Yesterday, my cousin graduated high school. So today was his graduation party. We got there around 3:00, and the whole family is there (Italians, so you can expect that it's a big family.) The party is outside, in the 100 degree heat... I, of course, stayed inside where it was air conditioned. So after I got there, I started working on recovering his sister's PC, which seems to be a tradition of it's own. It's constantly got adware/spyware/virii/etc. all over it.

Eventually, I went down and got some food, brought it back up to the computer and began working on it a bit more. At some point, my cousin and his band began playing outside, loud enough that I could hear it while in his sister's room, but it didn't really bother me, until I had to go down and get some snacks which were outside, and had to walk directly behind where the band was playing. I got what I wanted to eat and retreated back inside, though.

Somewhere around 9:00, after I had got her computer back to a usable state, I headed home, and here I am. Worn out, and still with a limited time to work on my own projects, but I need sleep so I better head off. I think I may shave tonight first, though...

I must apologize for having some entries that aren't very interesting to read... I just hate missing a blog entry. I always end up letting things drift off into nothingness. I've had three websites in the past, one hasn't been updated since 2000, one has been updated extremely sporadically (like, once ever six or so months), and the third one I ended up really only updating when I first started it, and never again.

So I try to post an update here, even when I just don't have anything to write about, because if I start drifting away, it may get harder for me to come back. And then the next thing you know, the updates suddenly go poof! I have to say that I'm pretty happy to have posted now 22 entries since I started this blog 22 days ago.

Hopefully, once things settle down some and I'm trying not to take on so much at once, I'll make longer entries with much more substance. But for now, I need to get some sleep, so 'night all.

Tired. Bad night. Must have sleep. *zonks out*

Well, I woke up this morning a little late, I decided to get some extra winks in since I didn't have work today, and I was having some interesting dreams (which I can't remember now... Grr...) A friend of mine, we'll call him "Ed", called me around 1:30, wanted to know if I wanted him to stop by later today. I said sure, and he said he'd call later. I did some work on my computer, and sometime around 6:00, my cousin, let's call him "Richard", called me and wanted to know if I wanted to go with him to the mall.

So about 45 minutes later, both Ed and Richard showed up at my house about five minutes apart, and we get into Richard's car and head to the mall. First we stop at the food court, so Ed can get something to eat (Taco Bell) and then Richard and I wander around the arcade for a while watching the goofy people play DDR. After Ed's done eating, he comes in and let's us know, and then we head to FYE so Richard can get what he wanted to pick up. Afterwards, we swung by Best Buy, where I was able to price-match Northern Exposure Season 3 (on sale at Best Buy for $37.99, on sale at Circuit City for $26.99.) I'd rather have the cheaper price.

Afterwards, we came back here and played some three-player ChuChu Rocket, and then three-player Virtua Tennis. Yes folks, I actually own a sports game. Though I hate sports, Virtua Tennis is actually pretty fun. Anyways, Richard left first, and then Ed hung around to play a bit of Crash N' Burn, which he brought along with him, while I played more Mario DS.

He just left a little while ago, and it's been a rather busy day, and it's late, so it's time I head off to bed. 'Night all.

Yup, yet another day comes to an end... It feels like it just began, and already it's to say goodbye.

Woke up this morning while it was just getting to a good part of a very strange dream I was having. I wish I could remember it, but it had already started drifting away as soon as I woke up. I just remember wishing that the alarm hadn't gone off so soon...

I need to start going to bed earlier and work off some of this need for sleep. Then maybe I can keep my mind straight long enough to write some more entertaining entries than just stopping in to say hello...

So last night, I managed to fall asleep sometime after 2 in the morning, giving me less than five hours of sleep before my alarm miraculously woke me up. I got ready, made it to work, and practically half the day was spent in the mail room due to the fact that we always get loads of mail on Mondays.

Finally, the day was over and I get home, and it kinda depresses me that the one thing that I'm looking forward to is going to bed early so I can wake up on time tomorrow morning. What happened to all my free time? My life is going to be completely over before I make anything out of it, and all I'll have to look back on is the fact that I spent 10 hours a day/five days a week of my life making my employer's dreams come true in spite of my own. *Sigh*

So last night, I head off to bed early, expecting to get some sleep so I'll be ready to tackle the day today. I get in bed around 10:15, watch a 45 minute show I taped earlier, and then attempted to fall asleep at 11. I say "attempted" because I did not fall asleep at 11. Or at 12. Or at 1. I do not know what time I fell asleep, but I know it was after 1, because that's the last time I checked my clock.

I ended up getting less than six hours of sleep, but still managed to get to work and make it through the day. I'm tired though. Thankfully, it's Friday, so I can take a break this weekend and work on finishing Valkyrie Profile.

Anyways, I know this entry was short, but I'm too tired to think about anything else to write at the moment. 'Night.

So last night, I had a really weird dream. I'm using my computer, but I'm not at my house, I'm at my grandmother's. Everything is going fine, until suddenly my PC starts acting up. It keeps resetting itself, and then when I attempt to turn it back on, it starts up and shuts off again. I don't know what the problem is, so I get up and look at it, when I noticed the side of the casing is open, and my red stress ball has somehow bounced into the PC and knocked my Hard Drive semi-loose.

So I pull the ball out, and reconnect the Hard Drive better. But then I notice the CPU is slumping downwards. It's like the motherboard is made out of cardboard, and the piece that the CPU is attached to has slumped down at the top. So I go out to the garage and grab one of them braces to screw into the motherboard and keep the CPU part in place.

But then, I noticed that it's really early in the morning, and I have to get ready for my first day at work. But I still need to wash my hair and finish getting ready. So I decide I should quickly wash my hair in the sink, which my dream apparently decides it's going to make materialize right in front of me on top of my desk (although, I'm in a kitchen now instead of a bedroom.) So I start washing my hair, but because the sink is on my desk, and my PC is right below my desk, the water from the sink drips down onto the PC's power cord, sending these blue electricity streams all through the kitchen, due to the fact that the water has spread out like a river delta.

So I start jumping around, making sure not to step into any of the streams and get hit with the electricity. I look at the clock, and it's 10:00. I'm supposed to be at work by 9:00. So we rush out and I end up at this office building. I take an elevator up to the fifth floor, and I go to where I'm supposed to meet the interviewer. Forget that I already got the job, apparently I need to go through another interview. So I excuse myself for being late, and explain how my sink and computer tried to electrocute me, but they didn't believe me.

They tried to make me describe what it was like, and then wanted someone to vouche for me. So I leave the office to get someone, and end up noticing there's a terrorist in the building, and I go all John McClane, trying to sneak around the building, but the terrorist notices me, and starts chasing me. I forgot how it ended, but I do remember something cool had just happened, and the alarm went off right when it was getting to the good part.

Anyways, I woke up and got ready for work, and got there to discover the cafeteria in the building has free wireless internet. So I'll be able to have some fun while waiting for work on my DS (and perhaps PSP) at some point.

Work didn't seem too bad, it actually flew by quite quickly. I think the problem I mostly have with work is waking up and getting ready for it. The shower doesn't wake me up like it does some people, it just makes me more sleepy. So I practically fall back asleep in the shower, and it makes it that much harder to get ready to leave for work in the morning. Ah well, what can I do...?

Ever get so tired, that you're in bed, floating off to sleep, and you end up having "thought conversations" with people who don't exist? It's happened to me a lot in the past, though I usually don't pay attention to it as being anything out of the ordinary, because I'm way too tired. It's like listening to a radio show, except you're playing the part of one of the characters. I guess it happens because the brain is trying to phase into the subconscious to dream while you're still conscious of what's going on.

Anyway, it happened last night, and I'm lying there in bed thinking a conversation with these voices. It's not crazy talk or anything, just useless banter. I just wish I could remember the conversations, I'm sure if I were to turn them into a show, it would be the next Seinfeld.

Ugh, this is my final day of freedom before I start work tomorrow. I woke up this morning when the alarm went off, but I was still tired, so it was difficult attempting to stay awake. Played some Valkyrie Profile, and started falling asleep during it, but managed to get to Chapter 8 before I turned it off to watch today's episode of Angel on TNT (I didn't watch Buffy/Angel when it original aired, I only got into it a couple months ago, so this is my first time through the Angel series.)

I'm going to be terribly bored at lunch and my breaks tomorrow. I gotta get myself a Nintendo DS so I can play my Gameboy games. I have a Gameboy Advance, but it's the original model (which I like better than the SP,) but of course, the original model doesn't have the light, so it'll be very problematic trying to play them anywhere else.

Well, I better head off and get ready for work tomorrow. 'Later all.

Woke up late again today, surprise surprise, the alarm didn't go off. I have to wonder if this is some kind of omen...

Played a bit of Valkyrie Profile, then from out of nowhere, it starts thunder-storming. I had almost forgot about all the rain and thunderstorms that we get during the summertime. So I was forced to turn off my computer and air conditioner, and just lay here watching television, hoping that I don't fall back asleep.

Eventually, I figured I should start to clean up my room and my closet. While we were out clothing shopping, my mom apparently picked me up this thing I'm supposed to hang inside my closet. It's like, made of some clothy material, and is basically a column of shelves. Of course, I can't use it, because as I explained to my mom, my bedroom is the size of a closet, so you can only imagine how small my closet is. Anyways, I tried to hang it up in there, but it took up half the size of the closet and left practically no room to hang up any clothing on hangers. *sigh*

By the time I was done cleaning up for the night, the thunderstorm was over, so I started my computer back up, and here I am.

Ah, June 6th. This date holds a special meaning for me. It's been eleven years now since my first girlfriend, let's call her "Heather", broke up with me. We dated from March 11, 1994 to June 6, 1994. Yes, ladies, some of us guys do remember anniversaries. We were both 17 years old, and went to school together. I was shy and spineless when it comes to girls even then, so a friend of mine set me up with her, since he knew I found her very attractive and thought she seemed nice.

On Friday, after all classes were over, he went to the library where she hung out while waiting for the bus, and asked her how she felt about being set up with me. She apparently liked the idea, because he came back to homeroom with her phone number for me. I called her later that night, and we hit it off, and we ended up an item. We sat next to each other every class we had together, walked each other to class, hung out on all field trips together, etc. We talked on the phone together practically every night, as we couldn't see each other outside of school (she lived with her aunt and uncle some 40 minutes away and had to take a bus to get here.)

Eventually, the prom came along, and we went together. By this point, I was very much in love with her, and she told me she loved me as well. Even though I get embarrassed out in front of other people, I ended up slow-dancing with her in the corner. It was really sweet. But we both decided we had to spend sometime alone together outside of school. So the following Saturday, her uncle would drop her off at my house early in the morning, and we'd drop her off later that night. Things went as planned, and around 10 or 11 the following Saturday, she showed up, wearing the outfit that I had commented before made her look really pretty.

We hung out in my bedroom, and began by watching some television, then listening to music, then...well, it would be ungentlemanly of me to elaborate. It was nothing too intimate, but let's just say for the next eight or so hours, both our lips were moving except neither of us said very much. Later that night, we held hands in the back of my mom's car as we drove to drop Heather off. When Monday came, Heather gave me a cassette tape to listen to only when I got home.

I did, and it was a recorded love letter. She had recorded it after we dropped her off Saturday night. She went on to express her feelings, how much she loved me, how good I made her feel, how I was such an amazing kisser, how passionate, caring, giving, etc. I am. But then she started dropping me these hints, over and over again, about wanting to be more intimate. Things like, "What would you say if I told you that you could stick your hand up my shirt", etc. and then at the end, told me to record a message back to her.

So I did, and I told her how wonderful she was, and how much I loved her, and how great she made me feel, and how lucky I was to end up with her, etc. And I also answered her question. I told her that even if she gave me permission, I still wouldn't be able to do it, we had to wait. Now, you might think I'm a fool for that, but that's how I felt. It's not some kind of religious teachings that made me answer that way, just my own personal morals. I wanted to, believe me, I really wanted to, but I didn't think it was right yet.

The following day, I gave the tape to her, and when I talked to her on the phone later that night, she said it was the right answer. So I was happy, and things seemed to continue along their path normally. Until the following Monday, June the 6th. She arrived to school late that day, and looked nothing like herself. Her hair was pulled back, long dangly earrings, and she was wearing more makeup than a clown should be allowed to wear, with tacky multi-colored stripes going from the top of her eyelid to her eyebrow. Where was the sweet girl-next-door that I loved?

But the worst change was yet to come. I called her that night, and she wasn't acting like herself at all. She then told me that she was being forced to break up with me because her uncle didn't like me. So she said I had two choices, either she could break up with me, or I could break up with her. I told her I refuse to do either, and then went on to tell her how much I loved her and that we could work things out. The she made a comment about how she had a pack of cigarettes in her hand (she knows I hate smoking,) and followed it up with more comments meant only to hurt me. I asked her, "What about that Saturday we spent together?" To which she replies, "What about it? It was nothing, get over it."

Now, even if you're not going out with someone anymore, to say that something special that the two of you once shared meant nothing, or even worse, to say that something you once found to be a turn-on or amazing about that person (for example, their looks, or kissing them, etc.) is now disturbing or otherwise horrible, it's going to hurt that person. Heather knew that, and she knew exactly how it was going to make me feel. So she said it, and I felt like I had a stake in my heart.

The following day, I tried to talk to her in school, and she said there was nothing that could be done, her uncle's mind was made up. So I told her I was going to call him as soon as I got home and find out exactly what problem he had with me. She told me no, because she knew I was going to make it home before her, what with her 2+ hour bus ride. But still, I got home, and I called her uncle and...he said he didn't make her break up with me, he had no problem with me what-so-ever.

The next few weeks during school, I tried to talk to her and get back on her good side. But it never happened. All she said, the brief time I did talk to her, was that she had to break up with me, and wouldn't give me the real reason (since she knows I talked to her uncle.) I knew I wasn't going to see her once school let out for the summer, since she was going to start the following year in a school local to where she lived. So on our last day of school, I saw her in the hall at the end of the day, and she motioned with her hands to go away, and defeatedly, I did... And I never heard from her again since...

Over the summer, I talked to a classmate of ours, who talked to Heather a bit and saw a side of her that I didn't know about... Apparently, I was just supposed to be another notch on Heather's headboard. She had already had four other guys in that school, and I was basically her last chance to get one more before transferring schools. When she realized I wasn't going to put out, there was no longer a need to carry on the charade. After all, while she was going out with me, she was also going out with a guy where she lived...

I couldn't believe it, it's impossible... The classmate then took me to see another girl whom Heather knew, and backed up the story. And then later, I went and had a conversation with one of her previous boyfriends who was all too happy to describe just how loose the love of my life was. And I mean that literally, as well as figuratively. *shudders* I asked my friend who set me up with her if he knew about her prior "behavior." He said he did, and when I asked why he still hooked us up, he said, "I thought this way you'd finally get some." I still wonder if he was joking with that comment...

Learning this new information sure helped me get over her easier. But it was still very hard, and I was still extremely hurt... I loved her, and I just can't understand why people would cheat, or use someone else like that. It doesn't make sense to me...

Okay, I need some sleep. Goodnight, readers.

Well, seeing as I have a new job coming up, I needed new clothing. Now, I'm a tough person when it comes to picking out clothing. I don't follow trends or styles, especially when it comes to fashion. I simply do what I want to do, wear what I want to wear. And for me, that tends to be two different types of outfit. When I'm lounging around the house, it's a T-Shirt and sweatpants. When I go out in public, I wear a button-down dress shirt, and black dress pants.

I do not like jeans, I never have. Denim looks too sloppy and grimy to me. Which makes sense really, when you think about it. Back during the gold rush, Levi Strauss invented jeans for all the miners to wear as they went off to work in the caves digging for gold. I'm sure after a hard day working in the mines, nobody really cares that your clothing is all faded, ripped and tight. But that's not how I would want to look.

Anyways, yesterday after filling out my blog, I headed off to the store to pick up some clothing with my mom. When I was a child and teenager, I hated going clothing shopping. Nothing bores me as much as standing around looking at clothing. Maybe if the clothing was going to stand up by itself and do a little song and dance for me, okay, I might find that entertaining. But just looking around at clothing? I can find something much more entertaining to look at. (The preceding statement does not include women's lingerie; I would always be willing to go lingerie shopping with my girlfriend/wife.)

Now that I'm an adult, well, I wouldn't exactly say I enjoyed it, as much as I didn't hate it as much. It still bored me, of course, but I knew I needed clothing for work, so I made the best of it. Anyway, the first stop was the pants. As I stated, I like wearing dress pants. The material is soft, and thin, and simply looks very sleek. My mom insists that I cannot wear just black dress pants everyday.

"You need to pick a different color and different type of pants, you can't wear the same looking pants everyday, people will think you're wearing the same clothing over and over everyday," she says.
"What, like it's unheard of to have five copies of the same outfit?" I reply.
"No, you need something different. Pick out some khakis, you'll wear them, they're not jeans," she says.
"Yeah, but they're not as soft and neat as dress pants," I insist.
"You can't just wear dress pants, those are the type of things you'd wear on a date, you need something casual. You do want to attract girls, right?" she replies.

Well, I guess I can't argue with that... Next up was some shirts. Normally, I go with solid color dress shirts, but my mom insisted that I try something besides dress shirts. She kept picking out shirts that I just wouldn't want to be caught dead in.

"This would look good," she says.
"It's got stripes," I reply, "Stripes make you look heavy."
"These are vertical stripes," she says, "only horizontal stripes do that."
"Yeah, but it still doesn't look very nice," I insist.

So then we go over to the Magnum PI shirts. You know, those Hawaiian shirts with the different colors, and wacky patterns. And she says how this blue one would look good. It's kind of a light blue with palm trees on it. Now, I would normally never wear something like this, but I figured I should try something different for a change. After all, if it gets a nice girl to hit on me, I think it's definitely worth it. And girls seemed to like Magnum PI, so I can give it a shot. She also convinced me to try a polo shirt and another Magnum PI shirt (a green one with leaves all over it.)

After all that shopping, it was around 11 when I got home. We stopped by Subway on the way, and I get another yummy sub. Allow me to take you into the world of my tasty sub:

Well, it turns out last night wasn't as uneventful as I originally thought. As soon as I finished posting my blog, I tweaked my template just a tiny bit and re-saved it. But for some reason, the upload was going so extremely slooooow, so I hit Stop, waited a while, and then tried again (it said it went through okay the second time.)

I republished the site, but as it turned out, BlogSpot didn't take to the second upload, it only took the canceled one. Which meant only the first half or so of the template (all the CSS code and a couple lines of the layout) went through, and the second half (the layout) was eaten up. Since I hadn't gotten around to really saving the template locally, I had to go through and try to restore the main layout.

I managed to get to bed early last night, which is helping me get on schedule to be able to make it to my new job when it starts in a week. I slept for maybe 10 hours, as my alarm actually went off this morning. I have to change the time again so it'll go off even earlier now...

So I got another call from Time Warner, asking me if I would be interested in their "All-in-One" service (Roadrunner, Digital Cable, Digital Phone.) We already have Roadrunner and Digital Cable, and while it would be nice to have everything "all in one bill", that doesn't justify the extra cost of the digital phone over our plain old analog phone bill.

Anyways, I got a call in the middle of last week, from Time Warner, wanting to tell us about their All-in-One service. I gave my normal reply, that the person who makes those decisions wasn't home, and that got them off the phone. The following day, right before dinner, a man from Time Warner shows up at my door to talk to us about the All-in-One service. So we show him our phone bill, and it turns out that the Digital Phone would cost several bucks more than our analog phone bill. So he skims down the Time Warner bill, and he's like, "I see you have Cinemax and Showtime, you watch them both?"

As if I'm willing to get rid of 20 of my channels just to pay more for something I already have. He's like, "You get free long distance..." to which I reply that everyone I would call lives in this town anyways. To make a long story short, he left without making a sale.

So the following day, I get another call from Time Warner, wanting to tell us about their All-in-One service. And yes, another call the beginning of this week, and the day after that, and the day after that. So when they called earlier, I was like, "We've had a different person calling us about this service practically every day for the last week, someone even showed up at our door to talk to us about it. We are not interested in it right now."

Don't these people talk to each other to find out who's been pestered already?

Well, it was a rather uneventful day today. I woke up late, due to my alarm clock not going off for some odd reason. I had just changed the time to one hour earlier last night, so I definitely know it was set to go off.

When I woke up, I flipped through the digital cable channel list, and found that the Sci-Fi channel was showing a Night Visions marathon. Yet another good show that Fox decided to cancel, while renewing crap that shouldn't have been put on the air to begin with. Ah yes, sweet non-judgmental Fox, where coming in third is a triumph!

I grew up watching these type of anthology shows when I was a child. The most famous, of course, being the original Twilight Zone (which I saw in re-runs, obviously, I'm not that old,) as well as the 1985 version of Twilight Zone, and shows like Freddy's Nightmares, Tales from the Darkside and Monsters. In this series, Henry Rollins of the "Rollins Band", plays the Rod Serling role of introducing and wrapping up each of the half-hour stories in the hour-long show, which usually considers of a sentence or two spinning an old adage in a twisted way.

Like Twilight Zone, Night Visions is a series of stories unrelated to each other, where unusual and often supernatural event occur, and attempts to spin our heads with a surprise twist ending. Being more modern, the stories in Night Visions are more gruesome than in Twilight Zone; while audiences were spooked by episodes such as "Twenty-Two" in Twilight Zone, where a hospitalized woman has reoccurring nightmares about visiting room 22 (the morgue,) we are treated in Night Visions to episodes such as one where stranded teens are captured by hippies, who peel off our travelers' skin to make clothing and instruments from them.

In most cases, the surprise-twist in Night Visions is very predictable. Episodes like "Dead Air", "Renovations", "The Maze", and "Harmony" have endings that I saw miles away. However, then you have stories such as "Afterlife", where the surprise-twist is totally unexpected. I don't mind that I could guess most of the surprise-twists before the story was half-way through, as sometimes the journey is a lot more fun than the destination.

I saw a few episodes of Night Visions when it first aired, but in their infinite wisdom, Fox decided not to handle the series very well, often replacing it with other crap, or moving it's time slot. And it just got to the point where I could never catch it on. Next thing I know, they had canceled the program before the first season was even over. They never did air the last six episodes, however the Sci-Fi Channel eventually showed them when they picked it up. I would certainly love to see the entire 26-episode season released on a "Series Box Set" DVD.

After Night Visions, I played a little bit more Valkyrie Profile, before surfing the web some and having a Subway sub for Dinner. I love these things.

Hi there, welcome to my blog. This is my first attempt at one of these things... I originally learned how to write a website back in the summer of 1996, using pure HTML 3.2 in Notepad (Learned from a book I bought before I even had a computer.) Today, the web uses all these expansive languages such as XML and CSS, and they kind of passed me by since I lost my fascination with having a site back in late 1999. Things seem a lot easier with just making a template and posting entries, though I must admit, it feels a lot cheaper than actually going through the process of writing the site the original way.

Okay, it's time for introductions.

I live in New York (Capital District, far upstate from NYC,) and have lived here all my life. It's a nice place, we don't have all the crime you would find down in the NYC areas, but then, we also don't have much of anything else either. Sure, the nearby cities have malls, and stores, and all that. But the town I live in myself really only has fast-food places and businesses that nobody would know exists unless they actually go there.

Personality wise, I'm charming, caring, and a hopeless romantic. I'm very loyal, and like to make people happy; my friends are the most important thing in the world to me and I care about them more than anything, so I often go out of my way to do things for them. I like to make people laugh, so I crack a lot of jokes as often possible, but I also have a dark sense of humor, which means I can be very sarcastic with some of my wisecracks (but they're really all in good fun.) I can also be very sensitive and emotional, which leads to my feelings getting hurt much easier than most people, and I end up worrying a lot more when I shouldn't really need to. I also have a tendency to get up on a soapbox about things, and can get very passionate about proving my point (expect to see this a lot in my posts.)

I'm 28 years old, though I have an old soul and a young heart. I've always been much smarter and wiser than my age. When I was in grade school, they did one of those IQ tests and they found out I was genius-level. I tend to look at things from a philosophical point of view, seeing the "big picture." However, I also seem to act much younger than I am. Not in an immature way, but in a joking, playful, charming way. Perhaps it's because I'm right-minded.

I am unfortunately still single... Ideally, I guess I just wish I could have the "American Dream."  Wife, children, house, perhaps a pet...though, a white picket fence is certainly optional.  Unfortunately, I'm too soft-spoken and very shy, especially when it comes to girls. Which makes it hard for me to meet the girl of my dreams.

My hobbies include:

• Playing videogames, specific genres include: Role-Playing, Fighting, Survival Horror, Arcade-Style Racing, and Adventure games. I also prefer 2D games to 3D games, believe it or not. It's not that I love 3D less, it's just that I love 2D more.
• Watching movies and television, specific genres include: Horror/Thriller, Comedies, and Adventure. Sadly, most television shows that air today suck, but thank goodness for TV on DVD.
• I also enjoy music, though I don't listen to it as much as I used to years ago. Specific genres include: Alternative, Rock, Hard Rock, 80's Pop/New Wave, and Punk. Though I can pretty much listen to any styles, except for: Rap, Hiphop, R&B, and "twangy" Country/Western.