So, the woman mentioned previously (whom I wait for the phone call that didn't come) called me tonight. We'll infact she emailed me at work, and I was on vacation today, so I didn't check that mail. So she called to see if I wanted to see a movie with her, but by the time we got it all sorted out, it was too late. So we went to coffee and are going to do the dinner and a movie thing tomorrow night. I am such a wimp. She totally blows me off, then calls and flutters her eyelashes at me and I totally forgive her and forget. Ladies, for your future knowledge, you can pretty much treat me like trash, but if you are later nice to me I will be your willing slave. I really need to work on this. Somehow I don't think this is a wonderful quality to have :)

Went to the DMV to renew my licence tags and get a new licence picture that actually looks like me. Arizona is so strange in that my drivers licence doesn't expire until 2037. How wierd is that?

Watched 'Guys and Dolls' last night. Talked to the woman and my wonderful friend Autumn about it and they both couldn't see me as liking musicals. I totally love musicals. They are the best. Life would be so much better with the singing and dancing and whatnot. Totally. In fact, I think I need to break into song now.. Pardon....

Hmm.. Thanksgiving weekend recap.
Wednesday night. Decided to sit home and watch movies and wait for a phone call that I knew wasn't coming. Instead, talked to my dear friend in Utah for way too long and felt better. Ranted (worse then what was written) about love, people, and women. Drank too much in hopes of forgetting about the phone call and women in general. All around rateing, bad.
Thursday. Stayed in bed until 5pm, had dinner at Denny's, which in turn made me ill. Back to bed. Felt ill for the rest of the night. All around rateing, worse.
Friday. Helped a co-worker put up Christmas lights. Had to explain to his 4 year old son why I have a ring through my eyebrow. Had fun most of the day and it was good. Until he (the co-worker) fell off a ladder and broke his wrist. Police, ambulance, fire department. Went home and drank a few beers to put me to sleep. All around rating, could have been worse.
Saturday. Didn't do anything. Contemplated going to the movies but decided against it. Sat at home for the majority of the day. Downloaded a bunch of Buffy episodes and ordered in a pizza. Went to bed late and got a stomach ache. All around rating, could have been better.
Sunday. Finally went to the movies, saw Spy Game, which was ok, but could have been better. Not enough character development to make me care. Had a cute girl at the coffee shop flirt with me about my eyebrow ring. She had hers ripped out (ouch!). On the way home from the movie, stopped at the ubiquitous Circle K to get a coffee and had the checkout girl make several (wrong) conclusions about be because of the above mentioned piercing. All around rating, not so horrible.

So, I suppose this Thanksgiving wasn't the end of the world, but launches my annual trip into holliday depression. I should snap out of it sometime around February, just in time for my annual Valintine's depression :)

Please ignore that posting from 11/24. Simply self-pittying prattle. But nice comments, and Kira, if we ever meet, I will hold you to that hug ;)

Love issues
Ok, so the following rant is going to be about love and perhaps completly out of character for a guy, so if this makes you sqwemish, go read something interesting, like Meg or Kira.
Why is love such a crap shoot? Why can't people choose who to fall in love with? Why can't people (well, ok, me, or is it I) tell people that I love that I love them? Is it the fact that they are dating other people? Is it ok to tell someone that is dating someone else that you love them? Is it really love? What is love? Does love simply mean being comfortable with someone? Is there something more? I have always felt comfortable with the few people I truly love. I fall in love easily, I guess that is my curse. I can see things in people and take all the good things I see and make that into the person. I guess once I have that, I can ignore them treating me badly, like even less then a friend.
But I live in my own little world where principles and morals really mean something. Honesty is probably the biggest of these. Honesty is the thing I strive for in all my relationships, romantic or otherwise. I can deal with people not liking me, or even outright hating me, but I don't know how to deal with people being less then honest. Isn't it better to know if someone doesn't like you then to have that person pretend? I know that I can not like someone, but still do something good for them, if it is the right thing to do. Doing good to people is just behind honesty. I may not like you, but if I can do good to you, then that puts me one step ahead in the game. I suppose there is a part of me that might think I am better then you for doing it, but is that really relavant? I don't expect anything but a thank you for whatever it is I did, and people should not expect any different from me.
I guess I am just a bit down on people at the moment. I apologise.
Here.. Here are some penguins to make you feel better.

According to RealAge I am not really 29.1 years old, but 37.2! :)

Thanks Robyn for this wonderful link..
Hmm.. 3:47pm, guess I should start thinking about dinner and bed...

'Tis the season well, almost
Secret Santa for everyone! (link via kottke.org). Go sign up and buy someone something.
Of course, you could always just buy me something.

Also, the Department of Health and Human Services hit my site yesterday. Imagine it, the government reading my blog.. Scary..

Oh yeah. I finished Microserfs last night. That's a pretty decent book. Nothing earthshattering, but ok, and a good ending. I have decided that in order to preserve what little hope I have, I am only going to read books with happy endings, which means I either read the end first or stop reading.

Still downloading Buffy episodes. It's gonna be a Buffy-o-thon tonight. I need to see what all these kids see in this Buffy-Come-Lately, rather then kicking it old-school.

Or something like that.

Blah.. Comments were down this weekend as I upgraded my system. Moved from my wimpy Celeron 400MHz to a studly Pentium IV 1.7GHz processor. I feel like a real man now.

So I decided to download a crapload more Buffy episodes today. Kazaa is a good thing..

So I was walking down the street the other night, on my nightly consitutional, and I passed this girl. I'm walking along, and she is biking in the other direction, on her way home or something. Anyway, I'm walking along and I look at her and she looks at me and we lock eyes for a moment then she does this little smile thing. So I turn away, being a strange breed of gentleman. Then I start to think about it a bit. Why would she smile at me. Was she smiling at me because she thought I was some kind of hotty? A thirty (well almost) year old hottie? Doubtful. Was she smiling because she thought I was some old deranged man looking at her, something like maybe 23? I don't know...
I am a strange old man...

So I just watched 'Once More, With Feeling', yes, at work while I was codeing (KaZaa is my friend). It was good. Pretty funny too... But, ya know, what would have been really cool is if they had Kristy Swanson, the true Buffy.
Really... No, Really, trust me.. :)

Hmm.. nothing much to blog about today. I now have two friends who don't seem to want to talk to me. One ex-coworker, so that feels awkward, since most times, when someone quits it's almost as if they are dead. Strange...
But anyway, since I got paid today, I went and spent money I should be saving.. But oh, what bounty:

• 10,000 Maniacs - In My Tribe... (I saw these guys on their tour for Blind Mans Zoo.. That was excellent)


• The Cranberries - No Need To Argue


• Sarah McLachlan - Surfacing


• The Mighty Mighty Bosstones - Question The Answers


• Douglas Coupland - Microserfs


• Laurell K. Hamilton - Circus of the Damned (Like an R-rated Buffy)


• Tom Wolfe - Bonfire of the Vanities

So this should keep me going for a while :)

Also, just finished Dave Eggers - A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.. Good book. Read it.

Ok, hopefully all that cat tummy and thumb rejoicing has lightened everyone up for a moment so I can say something.
Planes fucking crash.
It happens people. Statistically safer then driving, but sometimes accidents happen. Nothing to blame, which is why they are called accidents. My heart goes out to all the family and friends of the victims, truly it does, but come on people.
Am I the only person to remember a time when terrorist acts weren't the first thing people thought of when a plane crashed? I remember planes crashing in my youth, and there was nothing strange about the NTSB (Nation Transportation Safety Board) was called in to investigate the accident?
I live on the approach to Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport. The planes are close enough for me to count the windows and read the lettering on the tails. September 11th was spooky for me, mainly because the familiar rumble of planes wasn't there. I sat outside and looked at the all too quiet sky. But I am not afraid that a plane is going to crash into my house because I believe in the engineering of the planes and the capable hands of the pilot. And nothing is going to make me stop.

Ok, I'm better now. Please go back to rejoicing your thumbs.

When I scratch Kiki on her belly (which she dares me to do, by lying on her back in the kitchen), she always has to put one rear foot on the palm of my hand. As if to say, See, I'm resisteing you scratching my tummy, making my eyes go all squinty. I'm resisting but your too strong, and have opposable thumbs. And I sit back and think, she's right. I do have thumbs. I contemplate my thumbs, and am awe struck by their thumby-ness. Without thumbs, thiswouldallruntogetherbecauseIwouldn'tbeabletohitthespacebar.
Thumbs are wonderful. Rejoice your thumbs..

Oh my god...
My cat snores. I just noticed that...

Sorry, I just had to share that with someone.

Hi.
Can I take a moment, a time out, from the normal weblog-ish trappings to speak directly to you? One of those moments, from the movies, where the character turns, and speaks directly, without apology, to the camera. Break the 4th wall, if such wall exists. Does it? Here in the land of non-fiction diary making? This is non-fiction, right?
*or is it?*
Out of my personal lack of family, friends, or any other type of personal relationship, I have become rather self-centered. I don't believe this is, in fact, totally my fault. Isolation breeds introspection. But I need to talk about me for a moment. My hopes and fears and dreams and desperations. I need to talk to someone who will nod, and Hmmm, and offer advise or simply an 'I hear you, brother'. I need someone who will stroke my personal inadiquacies away and reveal that there is something of importance, something real, here.
*are you here?*
I type in this blog and say things and do things in my day to day life, and yet none of it seems quite real. Am I really here, a 29 year old divorced white male? Living in Arizona? Or really, is there no Arizona. Am I actually, a 23 year old female accountant, who aspires to something else perhaps? Am I a 14 year old boy, freshman in high school. Mature beyond my years? But lets just, for the moment, agree that I am this 29 year old man, immature behind his years.
I wonder if this is it. Is this all there is? What if this is as good as it gets. Single and alone, but for 3 cats, one of whom is clinicly insane. Perhaps I am clinicly insane. My white walled, one bedroom apartment looking more and more like a cell as the days go by. And days go by, to what effect, what end? I do nothing, go nowhere, talk to no one, but for this. Here I am whatever I say I am, because what do you know? I could be making all this up, or it could, quite simply, be real. Here I go all over, from Great Britan to Australia to Florida or Oklahoma or somewhere I don't know where or somewhere here in Arizona. I can say whatever I want, because I am anonymous. I am whoever the moment needs, because I am in the position to invent the person I need.
*But who am I?*
I don't really know. I believe something, but what? Do I have goals, dreams, hopes, dispairs? Do talk to myself, outloud, as I walk the streets of whatever town? Do I go to a job, 5 days a week, then on the weekends, lie in bed with no real reason to get up until Monday? Perhaps I call old friends on the phone, and we talk, stuttered, not really knowing what to say, because we really don't know each other anymore. Or maybe just family, which is the same boat. Do I know anyone, anymore?
I feel I know you, whomever you are. I feel like I know Meg and Miss Shauny and Melissa and LisaLisa and Robyn and Todd and Kira, but I don't. I mearly go and peek into the small parts of your lives that you share with everyone. A little voyeristic glee from seeing the small things of people living life.
*Because I'm not?*
I move from day to day, not touching anything, going through life like a museum (*please stay behind the yellow line*). Is life supposed to be cold and clean, the dust never quite settling on anything? Is my life simply little dots, formed in such a way as to create shapes? Shapes that form into constructions, which grouped together create a little unit, whole unto itself? Am I a simple stream of information, travelling at high speeds, yet never really existing at all? Who knows.
*I sure don't.*

My Colorgenics response

You feel that everything is going against you and you are worn out and exhausted by all the conflict and quarrelling. You are trying to protect yourself but at the same time you are hiding your feelings hoping, that by so doing, you can avoid exposing yourself to attack. Hopefully this will give you the chance to get on with your life. Nevertheless, you should be very careful to try to avoid stirring up any opposition which might endanger your plans.

You don't feel as if you can go it on your own anymore. You don't want to be taken for granted ... You need to be recognised as a "caring person" and it could be that you are searching to establish a relationship, not necessarily with someone new ... but with that someone special who could feel the same way as you do.

You are a rather inhibited sort of person. This could be the result of your upbringing or of your schooling, whatever. You are able to obtain satisfaction from various forms of physical or emotional activity ...but all in all- you are inclined to be emotionally withdrawn. As a consequence of this you find it difficult to sustain any deep involvement.

All of the stress and strains resulting from disappointment have led to agitation and anxiety. You have been going out of your way to make a good impression, but you have reservations as to the likelihood of succeeding.You feel that you have a right to accomplish all that you set your mind on - but you have become helpless and distressed when circumstances have gone against you. The idea of failure is most upsetting and this can even mean utter dejection. You see yourself as a scapegoat ... and you feel everyone in your sphere of influence has tried to take undue advantage of you. You are trying to convince yourself that your failure to achieve standing and recognition is not of your making ... but indeed of those around you ...

You are moody and depressed at this time but it will pass. All of your hopes and dreams seem to have gone astray .. and you are fearful of planning further for the future. Disappointment at the non fulfilment of your hopes and the fear that to formulate fresh goals will only lead to further setbacks have result in considerable anxiety and you try to escape from this by withdrawing into yourself. But that is not the answer .... You have the power to succeed. Believe in yourself... All is possible to him who believes ....

I believe I am really depressed now....

Have you ever had one of those wierd little moments that make you wonder who you actually are? I have these all the time, but I do know that this is not me.
I am not an expert on bio-terrorism working at the CDC, so please do not target me for your little terrorist games. Thank you.

So, apparently the Diamondbacks won the World Series. Yey.
I was simply minding my own business, walking downtown to see a movie (Monsters, Inc. but I will get to that in a minute). The game was over and people are getting a bit rowdy, but what do you expect. It's all in good fun so I go see my movie.
When I leave the theater, I am told by some nice uniformed fellers that I have to take an alternate route home. Bit strange, but ok. So I'm walking along and I see down to Mill Ave (the main strip here in Tempe) and there is a large firetruck with it's lights on. 'Must have been an accident' I think. I come upon two fella's walking from that direction. 'What's going on?' I asked them. 'It got a little out of hand. They had to break out the tear gas.' Wonderful.. And as I am walking home I get to see the police helicopter flying around with its spotlight, broadcasting 'Disperse and go home or you will be arrested'.
So the Diamondbacks won the Series.. Yippie...

Anyway, Monsters, Inc is one of the funniest movies I have seen in a long time. Simply wonderful. I cried. I was just great. It was funny and touching and sad and happy again. You just can't beat that. I love Disney and Pixar. They are my new heroes.

I'm touched (well, of course).
What I mean is I am touched emotionally. Apparently there are readers of this blog that believe that I am not a freak. Perhaps when you read my NaNoWriMo, you will be persuaded otherwise. Yes, I believe that that is going to be a full week of my vacation. I will write 50,000 words before the end of the month. Now I have never even imagined myself a novelist, but hey. I have a weeks vacation, so I figure, if I spend an entire week drunk, I can do this. And you here will be subjected to the results thereof. Aren't you lucky... :)

Drum roll please.....
Ok folks.. here it is.
There is no Book Report
This is just beta, sitting on my poor little server at home, but please test it out. I haven't fully tested it myself, so I know there are bugs, so if you finds some, let me know. Plus if you think this is a stupid idea, let me know that too...

I Must Have This!

I have 2 weeks of vacation left until the end of the year. I need something to do. I really don't want to sit around my apartment for 2 weeks, because if you think I am off now, after 2 weeks of isolation I should be good and rabid...
Send me ideas because I am too pathetic to come up with anything on my own..

Linktastic
LisaLisa and tobynopoly have linked to me! Linkorific!! Although tobynopoly has me at the bottom in the 'Freak' section. :)

In other news,
PHP is such my bitch. Apache also. And Perl!!
Name that random movie quote:
"Where's my bitches!!"