RANT: Mayhem, the dog in my avatar, the best dog I've ever had, was hit and killed by a guy who lives down my road last night. Great friend to my kids, watched out for all our other animals, just the best boy you could ask for.
Rave: Red River Shootout! This is my favorite weekend in Fall. I will be inebriated for the next 24 hours.
I've not been on in quite a while. Been pretty busy and life has been pretty good. Let's catch up: Rave: Things are going wonderfully with the new girlfriend. I've been spending a lot of time with her family and while I may not agree with all their quirks and beliefs, they've been great to me and don't mind me dating their daughter at all. Rave: The new job is awesome as well. For the past month I've been in training. Working at home, training has consisted of conference calls lasting roughly 90 minutes each day, followed by lots of playing Playstation 3, Civilization 5, sex with the girlfriend, sleeping, and getting fat with great food. All while getting paid great money for full 8 hours every day. Real work starts Monday, but I'm ready for whatever gets thrown at me. The home office is coming along nicely as well. Got a decent desk from Ikea and put it together this past week. Funny story involving having a friend ride in the back of the Altima with my desk in two huge boxes with the back seats folded down and him laying between the boxes.
RANT: It's 4:30 on an absolutely beautiful Saturday afternoon, and I am stuck at work doing data entry into our new ERP system. This sucks big time. Rant: I posted on facebook how much it sucks working on Saturday, and I got a couple comments from friends who have hourly retail jobs or are servers/bartenders about how they have to work Saturday's all the time and that I shouldn't complain. You know what? I spent 7 years in school getting a graduate degree in Computer Science, I think I am entitled to not work on Saturday's and to bitch and complain about it when I have to. Rant: I'll probably be back up here tomorrow too.
You know when you hear a song and it brings back so many memories that you can't just abstractly listen to the song? What's worse is when you had some semblance of a relationship with someone with whom you shared an incredible taste in music, so whenever some of your favorite songs play on your iPod all you can think about is him and the trouble you caused each other. You know that it was just a fleeting thing and it probably caused more trouble than it was worth but you have never connected with anyone like you connected with him. Every time you hear any of those songs you can't think of anything but him for at least a few days. Rave: Beer.
Rant: My brother was missing for 6 hours today and it scared the living bejesus out of me. I know he was off being a dumbass teenager but it doesn't make me feel any better. He's back and he's safe but I am still very upset. I hope he realizes what worries his actions caused me and my parents (and everyone else they called, which would include the majority of this city). so Rave...he is safe.
Rave: Seeing a Tchaikofsky symphony tonight with a friend. It's nice to have occasions to get all dressed up and wear pretty gowns.
Rant: My AIDS (thanks Frebis) flared up and I was sick for most of the week. Couple this with a massive IT roll out project and you have a recipe for disaster. Rave: Because I'm awesome, the project went off without a hitch. Double brownie points for doing this while I was illin' as it were. This is going to look awesome for the yearly review on Wednesday. Super Rave: Black Keys concert at the Paramount tonight. Seahawks tomorrow.
Rave: My Stanford Cardinal is up by 7 at halftime right now against Oregon and I am really fucked up for this! Been a Stanford fan for years, hoping this is the year we smell some roses. Rant: Have a graveyard shift tonight at 11:30. Fuck.
Rant: I am fucking sore. Spent the morning moving a lot of furniture, including a very heavy sectional couch, on into a truck. Moved said items from Detroit to our home (in Northwest Indiana, a 5+ hour drive), and then unpacked them and rearranged most of our house. This involved bringing all said furniture in, and moving the couch we HAD in our living room down to the basement (it was replaced with the sectional). Rave: New TV and a coffee table are also in the basement. I've moved a HD cable/DVR box, my Wii, and my PS3 down here. I am going to put all my movie posters and other such things down here, and officially have a 'man-cave.' I will be spending SO much time down here from now on. Rave: Going to sit on the new couch while my wife rubs my back and I watch Iron Man 2. Rave: Having family over tomorrow for dinner, beer, and football. Will be awesome. Rant: Test on Monday. Have to read 200 pages. Need to work on that tonight, tomorrow morning, and Monday morning.
Rant: 8-hour lsat prep session today. Rave: Got to watch two bums get arrested drinking tallboys in a park on our lunch break. Rant: Another 8-hour prep session tomorrow too. Starts early. Fuck my weekend. Rave: Corrected the instructor wrong within the first 15 minutes of being in "class." I'm surrounded by idiots, and having never actually seen an LSAT question before in my life, I think I will do quite well on it. The dude was giving us all these "logic strategies" and bullshit terms, trying to make retarded and elaborate word formulas for the questions, and with the vast majority of the problems I was able to find the correct answer without all that nonsense. Rant: For an 8-hour day, I'm not sure I got my money's worth. Rave: I've been doing the charity thing for a while, donating some money here and there when I can. But it occurred to me tonight that, if I actually get through fucking law school, I could do a lot more for people by going pro-bono on the weekends. I'm going to law school for my job, and I fairly recently been informed that some of what I'll be doing -- if I become an attorney -- might well be "company-subsidized personal legal consulting" for employees, basically as a perk for them. Hell fucking yes. I'm more motivated than ever now.... although there's something about not counting the chickens I believe that's applicable.
Rant: Stanford fell apart in the second half. They were without their best receiver heading into the game, and Chris Owusu was just railed forcing a fumble in the play that would change momentum in the game. Tough fucking loss.
RAVE: The Ducks come back to win it 52-31! OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooo!!!* Man I wish I could have been at Autzen today. *That's the irritating chant we do at Autzen... or at bars... or just in general when the Ducks are mentioned.
Rant: might lose my job for being unprofessional. And by unprofessional I mean going to the pub during work hours daily. Rave: Hopefully they offer me a bag of money to leave, as opposed to sacking me. If they give me the boot the first thing I will do is see an employment lawyer, as I go for beers during work hours with other people from work, including management, and have been doing so for five years. Rave: If I do get the shaft, I will become a labourer for bricklayers. I had my first taste of manual labour in years last week and loved it. Rave: Watching Louis C.K. Hilarious right now. Guy is rather humerus. I hope he comes down under.
RANT: Fuck. Fuck fuck fuckity fuck. It's 11.30pm Sunday night here. My washing machine decides it's time to blow a hose fitting. As in, the screw on attachment to the back of the washing machine breaks under the water pressure. I didn't realise until water started lapping at the lounge room doorway... half a house away. I've just spent several hours mopping up water the best I can. It's saturated carpets in three rooms, including managing to go under a wall in the kitchen through to my son's room. I do not have a wet/dry vac (yet). Added to that, because of where the hose broke it has fried the board of my washing machine, half way through a cycle. I am off bright and early to 1. buy a wet/dry vaccuum and 2. buy a new washing machine. DOUBLE RANT: Clive Anthony have been having a 15% sale off everything.... that finished today.
Rave: I am super-low-rolling sports betting's Even Steven. Since I'm a useless prognosticator, I only bet on sports three days a year - on two different Australian football finals games, and on the Melbourne Cup - think Kentucky Derby Down Under. I'm such a cheap-ass that I only bet with the minimum deposit in my online betting account, which is $30. Last weekend, I threw down half my budget on the first of the finals on a series of three different $5 bets that could have stood to win me around $130 if they all came out. I missed one bet by a single point, the second by a narrow margin as well, but nailed the third. The odds were 3:1, so I covered my lost bets with the winning one. Back to square one. This weekend, the game from last weekend had to be replayed. I threw down another $20 on three different bets, and they all lost. I had spent the other $10 on two bets on the second game. One I lost, but the other one (odds 7:1 at $5) won, thus covering my losses for the entire weekend and giving me $5 profit on top. Fuck yeah! Rant: I'm one low-rolling motherfucker.
Rave: Football all day today, it would be nice to see my Texans pull out a win after last weeks stomping by the Cowboys but to do that we need to actually show up unlike last week.
Rant: Fuck you Dish Network, the fastest way to piss me off is to take away my It's Alway's Sunny fix. Looks like I'll be switching over to DirecTV, and before Thursday no less.
Rave: Life's good, but busy. Spent the better part of the day studying and preparing meals for the early part of the week so all the family has to do is either pop it in the oven or heat it up on the stove while I'm in class. On the menu: Tonight--tandoori chicken; tomorrow--chicken lasagna Florentine; Tuesday--Curried Eggplant. Ravier: Cancun next month!