Good Year

It's been a good enough year. I have significantly less debt than I did last year, but I've made and spent more money. I've grown farther from my family but closer to my friends. I've found out who my real friends are. I found a way to organize the things I need to do, but realized how little I actually accomplish. I've come to a number of realizations that affect my everyday life. I've eaten a lot of new places, tried lots of foods I really enjoy, and found a number of good meat alternatives.

Christmas was nice this year. I got my dad a new computer (Asus referb, really good deal), my mom a new monitor, and the animals a variety of animal related stuff. Jason got me a much needed pair of work shoes, a few nice books and a shirt (a very interesting set of shirts). I got Jason a few shirts, Kirby's Epic Yarn (very fun game), and a book about video games. Not quite what I wanted to get him, but he liked them. My parents got me a Braun 550cc electric shaver (so now I can shave daily again), a nice pair of cuff links to match my tie tack (that I wore to Rose's wedding), and a case of Jone's Soda (always good).

That's all I have for now. I just didn't want to go a month without blogging.

Call Me Crazy

But I usually try to avoid spending time with people who wouldn't like me for who I am. Weird, how that works. My mom is apparently not the same way. She invited my aunt over to spend the night four days ago and she still hasn't left. During this time I can't have Jason over or do any of the things I enjoy or need to do. I also can't really go anywhere because I can't get my car towed and looked at until my dad gets paid on Wednesday, if he has enough to cover it, otherwise I have to wait until Friday and I don't even know when the mechanic would have time to look at it.

The only thing I can really rely on are my friends, all of whom I am grateful for.

Fighting Sleep

I'm kind of disappointed with life right now. I've learned not to sweat the small stuff, which becomes apparent when you look at the frequency of my posts over the past years. I usually don't blog when I'm in a good mood because I'm busy being happy. Funny how that works.

My car broke down last week and has been sitting at Phelp's because he couldn't fix a car if his life depended on it so I have to get it towed across town on Monday to a place that can look at my head gasket. Even though the head gasket is a cheap part, they'll have to disassemble the top part of my block, so I'm looking at a total of up to $1500. It could also be a plastic plume which would cost me more along the lines of $450, but I don't know. It's unclear to me what is wrong with the car because it's showing a few symptoms from multiple problems and then it wouldn't start, which is uncommon for a blown head gasket.

Jason and I have been running this forum for a while (mostly Jason because I don't know what I'm going), but it's been really slow and I hate to see it stagnate. There are a million things I'd like to do with it, if it only had a larger user base. All I can do for now is make Jason make a favicon and I'm going to make some sig bars because that's the only think I really know how to do. Right now I'm taking suggestions and hoping for the best.

I'm still satisfied with my holiday shopping. During the evening on Thanksgiving I bought my mom a Canon SD 1400 at $80 off. Target and Sears were running the same deal, but I try to avoid going out on Black Friday unless I work. I do have to finish buying Jason's gift though. Time is running out and I need to juggle my money this month, but I don't have an insurance payment due, so I think everything will be okay.

Q4

The whole minimalism thing is working well for me so far. I've been weeding out the things I don't really need, it's just going to take a while. That's mostly because I have a number of people trying to convince me to hold on to all these material possessions. It would probably help if I could explain what I'm trying to accmplish a little better, but all I can do is link to the Minimalist Blog.

The weddings went fairly well for me. Both of my friends' weddings were very nice. I'm glad Steph chose me to be in her wedding, as it was a very positive experience. I already talked some about Rose's wedding. The family weddings weren't entirely horrible and none of them lasted long, which was a plus.

Christmas is coming up and I've already done the bulk of my shopping. It's never too early to start, especially when you have to wait for the merchandise to be shipped to you. I got my mom the same ViewSonic monitor that my dad and I have because her current monitor produces a very poor picture. I got my dad a refurbished Asus computer, which is in perfect condition with the exception of a small scratch on one of the metal plates. I bought various other things for various other people, but this isn't the place.

Science Fiction Double Feature

Jason, Connie, and I saw the Rocky Horror Show in Port Huron this evening. We all had a pretty good time. The performance went well and everyone did a very good job. The audience participation was fun and we all did the time warp...again.



I have an eventful weekend coming up. Steph is getting married Saturday and I'm going to help her decorate the hall tomorrow before the rehearsal dinner. I picked up the tux today. It's very pink, not in a bad way, just pink. It looks nice, though. My plans for Halloween are still up in the air. That's all.

The Good Wedding

I've seen a lot of people get married for the wrong reasons. Peer pressure, money, tax benefits. They popped kids out, they had kids on the way, they thought they had kids on the way. I've seen people get divorced less than a year later. I've seen the bride cheat with the groom's brother at the reception. I've seen all the fighting and hatred. Only twice have I seen two people get married for the right reason.

Rose and Sean's wedding was really nice. Picturesque. The chapel was beautiful and everyone was dressed so nice. I enjoyed hanging out with all the people from work at the reception. Even Anne, out token old lady got dressed up and made an appearance. The groomers were their usual selves and everyone had a good time. All in all, it was a really positive experience for me.

Also, I'm going to blog about my budget occasionally.

Roots

Now I remember why I blog. Whenever I'm under a lot of stress I always feel better after writing about it, even when no one comments or people react negatively. And I've been under a lot of stress lately.

I got a ticket for going 84 on the expressway the other day, which greatly annoyed me for a number of reasons. I had worked late that night and stupidly agreed to come in early the next day to work the truck, so I was trying to get home in time to get five hours of sleep before I had to get up again. Normally I would have taken Gratiot to 26 and avoided I-94 altogether, but there was a lot of traffic that night and I couldn't make a left turn. Also, two people passed me in the three miles I was on the expressway.

Not thinking much of it, I updated my Facebook status and went to sleep. A number of people recommended that I fight the ticket, which I know I should. Recently I've been having minor panic attacks in normal social situations (seeing friends, helping customers, talking to the cashier at the gas station). Even more recently, since I decided to fight the ticket I've been having a major panic attack every morning and night. I can't sleep and I don't have good days at work. I think I have social anxiety disorder and should go to the clinic or something, but I can't go on being completely miserable every day for a month, so I'll just going to pay the fine, take the points, and be angry at myself for a few months.

I've already gone to one of the 4 weddings I'm invited to this month. It was a family wedding and it didn't go particularly well, but my parents and I didn't stay long. Sean and Rose's wedding is Sunday, and I'm looking forward to it. I helped Jason pick out a sportcoat and I still need to pick up a pair of black slacks. I do wish I had gotten them a little more as a gift though. Steph's wedding is coming up at the end of the month, which I'm also looking forward to, but I'm nervous about being in the wedding party because that's something I've definitely never done before and I don't know Mike's family or friends at all. I'm really excited about their Halloween themed reception and I already have costumes in mind for Jason and myself. I'm making them both myself, which will be cheap but shouldn't look it.

My mom made cards for both of the weddings, which was really nice of her. They're very nice and I really appreciated it. I'm only worried that she's going to say something about me going to these weddings with Jason. I know how she is and I know I shouldn't let her ruin my day, but sometimes she still does. I feel awkward having Jason come here to pick me up in his suit, but feel horrible about asking him to meet me somewhere else.

After that comes Christmas, which I don't even want to think about yet.

Labor Day 2010

I wasn't even supposed to be there today, at least not the entire day. The new girl called in sick this afternoon. Under normal conditions it wouldn't be a problem to find someone to cover for her, but it's labor day and everyone who wasn't at work was out enjoying themselves. Of course I stayed to cover her shift. It was only a few extra hours and I do make $15 an hour on holidays. The rude cunts who gave me attitude all day weren't worth it.

It all started when I went to Arby's this morning and found them seriously understaffed. I didn't complain because it didn't really bother me. I just wanted to get some food. Roughly an hour later a guy was complaining because we were understaffed (It was just me, the cashier, and the store manager) and told me that he called in at work because he "didn't feel like dealing with that shit." Where did he work? Arby's.

The middle parts are a blur. I remember not finishing my tanks and not selling particularly much.

It ended with the two cheap-asses who came the minute the store closed and couldn't decide what fish to buy. Not only did they ignore two closing announcements, but they argued for 5 minutes about which fish would be better to restart their tank. After I handpicked all 16 of their fish I realized they were all on our stupid dollar special. We wasted 15 minutes after the store closed for their measly $16. They could have just come in tomorrow after the sale ends, but before we take down the tags like all the other people do.

Any of these stories could be in my head and any resemblance to real people is purely coincidental.

School Can Suck It.

Today is the first day of the fall 2010 semester at Macomb Community College. I won't be going. Not because I couldn't get government aid, because I did. Not because I couldn't get into the classes I needed, because I did. Not because I didn't jump through all of the pointless hoops the college requires, because I did. But apparently, I turned in my financial aid papers 8 days too late.

I had originally filled out my FAFSA during the second week of January so I would be ahead of the game. Unfortunately, I put in the wrong school code and Rochester College received my paperwork. I didn't realize it until April but I fixed it immediately at that time. Not having been to school for six years, I didn't realize the deadline was four months before classes start. I also didn't realize the people in the financial aid office were so useless.

During the second week of July I made a few trips to the college. Both of them were after work, so I didn't have time to finish everything at once. The first day I talked to an academic adviser and did an online orientation. The second day I lined up some classes with an academic counselor and waited in a hallway for three hours to talk to someone in the financial aid office. I asked the woman if there was anything else I needed to do and she told me to go ahead and register for classes and my aid would cover it.

The following day I registered for classes (after making another trip to the college to update my address so I could do so) and everything worked out fine. I watched my statement online and waited for my grants to be applied. There was a note toward the bottom of the statement that states that the Financial Aid Paid entry reflects aid paid on classes that start within ten days of the statement. I was a little worried that the payment was due 3 days before that time, but the lady in the financial aid office assured me it would be fine.

On the thirteenth (10 days before class started) my tuition still hadn't been paid and I still had a balance so I called the financial aid office but couldn't get through. I made another trip to the college the next day and waited in the hall for another three hours. The lady then told me that my FAFSA was late and hadn't been processed despite having been sent three months prior. Her solution: "pay cash and we'll reimburse you IF your aid goes through before the next semester." Okay, just let me hop in my Mercedes and draw $2200 from my bank.

Needless to say I'm very annoyed with Macomb Community College.

For Anyone Who Has Declined to Bowl With Me:

You guys are missing out. Just saying.

This Post is Poorly Written

I ended up finding the contacts I needed for my wipers through the local GM dealership, even though they had told me that they couldn't find any. They charged me three times the market value ($10, up from $3), but I picked them up the next day and was ready to go. The last time I fixed my own wipers I thought broke them because they worked a little worse than they had been, but worked. This time was a completely different story.

I called the local mechanic who is always too busy working on cop cars to do anything else. He blew me off and told me to call another mechanic to do it. It was getting kind of late and I needed to have wipers the next day, so I decided to fix it myself. Once I gathered the right tools and disassembled the wiper assembly, I learned a few things:

After installing the contacts and motor cover, I tried my wipers and the motor was doing the same thing. It turns out that the Autozone wiper motor I had installed last year already broken. One of the metal arms broke free and got lodged into a small piece of plastic. This is what caused the motor cover (including the motor controller circuits) to crack, which is what I thought caused the wipers to stop working last month.

I proceeded to reinstall the old wiper motor, which I lazily left in my trunk for the last year. Despite being a little rusty, it works beautifully. I reassembled the wiper assembly, reapplied the cover strip, and reattached the wiper arms. My wipers now work on all of the speeds, including the intermittent ones. The washer pump also works so I don't have to put up with my dirty windshield any longer. Now I just have to change my oil and rotate my tires and I'll be set for a while.

This Isn't the Best Time

I don't know how to say all the things I'd like to say. Give me a few days to regroup and I'll try again.

The Art of Stress

I'm trying to go back to school next month. Last week I went through enrollment and placement testing process and registered for classes. Even though most of the classes I planned on taking were full, I ended up finding some that would fulfill some requirements. All my classes are on Monday and Wednesday (with an additional one online) so I can still work as much as I have been. I even sat in a hallway for two hours to talk to the lady in the financial aid office to make sure there was nothing else I needed to do in order for it to go through. Still, I don't trust it.

I don't trust financial institutions to get my money where it needs to be when it needs to be there. My bank fucks me. Hard. So do my credit card companies. Even Baker College of Port Huron mishandled my money. Why would now be any different? I have too much credit card debt right not to be screwing around.

I'm also having a Hell of a time finding a set of windshield wiper motor park switch contacts of my car. My wiper motor cover somehow cracked in half (WTF?) and I bought a replacement, but I'm missing a few of the contacts that are used to connect it to the motor itself. The contacts were discontinued by AC Delco and none of the local stores or online shops have them. Even the reseller on eBay was out of stock, after getting my hopes up with multiple confirmation emails. So now I have no wipers. Again.

A lot of my friends are getting married and having kids right now, which is great. I'm really happy for all of them. I'm not so happy that every time someone in my life has good news she takes her anger out on me. I'd really like to tell her to fuck off, but I don't have anywhere to go. After 6 years, I'm still stuck here.

And Don't Get Me Started on Their Retarded Fucking Children

I'm sick of selling animals to people who just kill them. And they don't even care. They don't give a fuck that their goldfish produce a substance that is toxic to the fish they're buying. They don't give a fuck that birds have sensitive respiratory systems and a lot of the chemicals we inhale will kill them. They don't give a fuck that guinea pigs don't have the ability to produce vitamin C, so without a constant supply they'll die. And they especially don't give a fuck that they have to pay attention to their fucking animals and keep buying more that they fucking neglect.

Then they don't want to interact with me. Like dealing with a physical person is a burden and their animals should just appear in their hands. On the other hand, they don't have any problem wasting all my time with their common sense questions and stupid ideas. Yes, those big fish with the teeth will eat those tiny fish. Yes, you can mix blue and yellow guppies. No you can't mix salt water fish with fresh water fish. Yes, I do work in the fish department, that's why I'm standing in front of the enormous fucking wall of fish.

Now I'm off to build my moon base.

Priorities

Despite all the things in my life that are going well, I'd like to take the opportunity to remind everyone how much I hate the fucking bitch I live with. Today I rented a tuxedo for Stephanie and Mike's wedding. I also got promoted. But that's not nearly as important as Stepahnie being unavailable to be the miracle that makes me normal again. She can go fuck herself because I'm done playing her bullshit games. That is all.

On Work

The position I had originally applied for at PetSmart three years ago was cashier. I was applying online and didn't know what to put in the box, so that was my default. It turned out that they didn't need a cashier at the time but Emma called to inform me of an opening available as a dog trainer. Even though I didn't (and still don't) know anything about training dogs I went to the interview. I think Emma and Amy mutually concluded that I was too shy to be a trainer so they stuck me in pet care, cleaning fish tanks and bird cages.

It's good that things worked out like that because I register trained over the last few weeks and I hate it a lot more than I though. I can handle rude people. I can handle people who act like I'm mentally challenged because I work part time at a pet store. I can handle people who take their bad days out on me and throw tantrums when they don't get their way. I can even handle people who launch personal attacks on me for no particular reason. What I can't handle are stupid people.

"Why is my total $95?" Did you see all the shit in your cart? Apparently not.

"Why did my total go from $40 to $185?" The $40 was your that bag of dog food I scanned. That's why it said PURNIA DOG FOOD. Now it says TOTAL. That's your total. Learn math.

"Why does the shelf say $4 if this is really $8?" It's on sale with your store card. You declined a card application and refused to give me your phone number. Learn to read.

"Why does the shelf say $20 if this is really $75?" Someone put it in the wrong spot. Did you honestly expect to get that price?

"Why does everything here cost so much?" Because the corporation takes advantage of stupid people.

Antisocial

I'm feeling kind of antisocial this evening. Exactly why this results in a desire to blog is unclear, especially considering I don't really have much to blog about.

I've been pushing to update the electronics in our house not only to have better equipment available when I need it, but also to be a little more eco friendly. In February I replaced my aging CRT monitor with a new LED backlit LCD and my old hard drive with a Western Digital Caviar Green drive. For Mother's day my dad and I are going to pick up a 65 watt MSI Wind Nettop to replace my mom's ancient 250 watt 233. For Father's day the following month, my mom and I are going to get my dad a new monitor similar or identical to mine. On a side note, I was going to plant a tree today for Earth Day/Hank Green's birthday, but don't get paid until tomorrow.

A lot has been going on at work, much of which isn't really my business to talk about. A few people are leaving for better jobs, which is good because they're getting away from situations that don't work for them and will likely get better pay. On the other hand, it sucks because they were both genuinely nice and knowledgeable people. We've had some people come to my department from other areas of the store, which is good because I really enjoy teaching people things and it's nice to see people on a more regular basis.

I'm looking for a new hobby. Something cheap and preferably something I can use to make a little money on the side. I've considered picking up a small tank (I'd love a Fluval Edge, but it's $99 on sale where I work and up to $150 online) and doing some aquascaping. No fish. Just rocks, dirt, and plants. It's not the cheapest hobby, of course, but with a little effort I could make something really nice. Any thoughts on productive hobbies would be nice.

Tired

Can't type long.
Work all day.
Read all night.
Eat healthy lunch.
Spend money on animals.
Be with friends Sundays.
Pay bills.
George wheezes.
Make more vids.
See Jason sleep.
I sleep now.

Script Frenzy

Instead of making a post about how politics is a stupid topic to discuss because the Internet has brought the fluidity of communication to an extreme level and everyone assumes they're an expert in every subject because they have minimal experience in a small subset of that subject, I'd rather post this:

I'm ready to participate this year.

Untitled

I miss the days when my blog was just my blog. The days when only three people had the URL. When I could talk about whatever I wanted and didn't have to take other people into account. When I could just be honest and not sugar coat every sentence. It's kind of the same feeling one gets of missing the innocent days of his/her childhood. I guess I'll begrudgingly keep at it until I find that I have relevant things to say once again. Until then expect plenty of drivel.

Look at Me Still Talking While there's Science to Do

Jason wants to buy a house sometime in the near future so I've been trying to save money to pay off my debt to save money. That hasn't been working too well because I'm at a point where I barely make enough money to pay all my bills and buy the things I need. People tell me I should find another job, but the market isn't so good out there right now and I'm not going to sacrifice my stable job for one where I'd make more money but might be out of a job in six months. That's just irresponsible. Foreclosed homes are super cheap right now and a lot of them are in an area I'd like to live. I'm also interested in home repair and gardening and think I could really make something out of a crappy little house.

Jason and I went to see Alice in Wonderland last night and I really enjoyed it. It was a lot more interesting than I though it would be and the story was a nice change from a lot of the shit movies that are coming out right now.

Not much else has been going on here. I've been reading The Art of Happiness by Howard Cutler and the Dalai Lama. It's pretty interesting and got me thinking about a lot of things. I've also been practicing proper Zen minimalism and meditating more than I used to. I also started yoga, but am not sure if I like it yet.

This Week's Random Virus

First: I don't know why my header is purple. It looked black on my old monitor and I don't really feel like fixing it right now.

I've have the last 5 days off, but I've been sick for the last 5 days. What a lovely surprise. On Thursday I felt better during the afternoon, but it didn't last long. Needless to say, I didn't get much done this week. I did get caught up on all my podcasts, though. Now, I have to clean.

My Birthday, with no Photos

I had a really good birthday. About a week ago, half way between Jason's birthday and my own, we went to dinner at Leong's with Rose, Sean, Jason, Jennifer, and Sarah. I forgot what I ordered and the waitress made fun of me. Then I had to remind her to bring me chopsticks. Again. Then we hung around Walmart for a while, but ran into one of my managers which was a little awkward.

Jason and I hung out with Steph and her family on my birthday. Steph made me a cake and everyone signed a card for me. It was nice. Then we went bowling at Colony, which was more fun than I thought it would be. Since I ended up on a lane with all the kids, I got a relatively high score. Relatively. Heather won me a stuffed dog from their quarter eater, which we tried to give to Jose because he wanted her to win him something, but the machine wasn't giving another prize. I couldn't stay out too late because I had to work the next morning.

My parents gave me a new 19" widescreen monitor, Jason gave me 2GB of RAM and I used the money my mom gave me to buy a 500GB 7200RPM hard drive. The image from the monitor is beautiful, especially when it's using proper sRGB color. The computer is so much more responsive with the extra RAM, so much that I'm able to do the things I always do without the least amount of slowdown. I'm expecting the hard drive to arrive by Thursday so I reinstall Windows and set everything up before the long hours I'm working over the weekend.

On Valentine's day, Jason took me The Little Bar behind CVS in Marine City. I got Southwestern Tapalia, which was really good. I tasted Jason's long island iced tea, which was also really good. I got Jason a box of chocolates but despite the price, it only came with 6 pieces. He couldn't stay late because he had to work early the next morning. It's a running theme that annoys some of my unemployed friends.

The Future of Lies

We've been trying to orally communicate with our machines for a number of years. We haven't had a terrible amount of success until the last few years. The Google Nexus One will let you perform a number of complex actions with simple voice commands (the fact that the phone transmits the sound of your voice to Google where it is decoded and data sent back to the phone is irrelevant). Microsoft Sync is a similar system, optional in any Ford/Linclon/Mercury vehicle which also works exceedingly well. How long will it take for systems like these to be standard on devices, large and small?

Intel Chief Technology Officer, Justin Rattner, theorizes that as computers become faster, we'll begin programming them to think in the same way we do. This makes sense, seeing as our brains seem to be the most efficient computers in existence. When these computers begin to think like us, voice recognition and synthesis will be completely natural. At this point, the most convenient and efficient way to interface with a computer will be by speech. It becomes not entirely unlikely then, that text and writing will eventually fade and our culture will be orally based, like those that existed thousands of years ago.

The difference is that instead of bards passing down and retelling stories through the generations, we'll have computers recording everything we do with 100% accuracy and perfectly communicating the situation to anyone within reason (Ignore the issues with this right now). Since these computers have all the accuracy of written word, will be easier to interface with, and will be in the hands of everyone, society will still be able to advance in much the same way it does now only much faster.

A great deal of information can be conveyed through speech. Tone, pitch, inflection, loudness, and rhythm together convey the true intent of a message behind words. Our brains interrupt these cues and do their best to determine meaning. We then reply, automatically adding these elements into our speech.

The problem I see is this:

These same elements of speech can also be used to hide the intent of a message. What's to keep someone from creating a nice, sweet, mild mannered program with a pretty little voice to deceive and manipulate us in all kinds of creative ways? And the lies get a hell of a lot more convincing if we add holographic body language to the mix. Human psychology is a bitch like that.

Is it any wonder I used to write science fiction?

That's What She Said

And I concur.

Rennovation

My new blog template didn't quite turn out how I wanted it. I'm fairly happy with my flickr badge (to the far left), but wanted it to align to the left side of the window with now space between the images. I'm also still looking for a grungy image to use for the body background (to the right of the black line). I came across a lot of images I liked, but wouldn't work for one reason or another. Not sure what I'm going to do with the design from here. Any suggestions?

That's Like Something from Science Fiction

I've decided that instead of living on a planet it the Goldilocks zone of a nearby solar system (which has been a desire of mine for some time), I would be content living on a space ship. With a little training I could be an amazing medic or mechanic. It doesn't matter if we ever actually went anywhere because I'd be away from here. As long as I could convince Jason to go along with it, it would be an ideal situation for all.

[THIS PARAGRAPH IS NOT ABOUT PUPPIES OR KITTENS AND HAS BEEN REMOVED]

I've been really bored with my job lately. It's a nice job and all, but it's never interesting. Every week I clean the same tanks, feed the same animals, and talk to the same customers about the same problems. The only time anything interesting happens is when something breaks and I get a chance to fix it. Unless it's something big like the main sump. That just gets in the way of my work.

My bank account and I are currently having a minor scuff, which is normal for the Christmas and birthday rush season. I also need to get glasses that aren't partially opaque with scratches and tags for my license plate which aren't expired. What joy.

Happy Happy Fun Haiku

Life is wonderful.
Rainbows and puppies abound.
Earth is beautiful.

Marriage

If people continue treating marriage as a privilege for people who fit a small set of preconditions, then I propose the following additional conditions:

a)The sum of the IQ of the two individuals must be more than or equal to 280.

b)The two individuals must have a combined annual income of at least $40,000 plus an additional $10,000 for child that is expected.

c)The two individuals must carry no dominant or recessive genes linked to any illness or disability.

d)The two individuals must undergo an extensive background check and have no recorded felonies and no more than one misdemeanor each.

e)The two individuals must undergo psychometric profiling and posses only the traits conducive to raising a family.

f)The two individuals must be virgins.

Furthermore, once two individuals are married, the government is to keep a close eye on them to make sure the following conditions are being met:

a)The two individuals must maintain their annual income.

b)The two individuals must produce children within one year of marriage.

c)The two individuals must not perform any acts of infidelity.

d)The two individuals must not be committed of of any crimes.

e)The two individuals must continue to produce the optimal number of children for the first five years of the marriage.

f)The two individuals must provide proper education for every child produced by the marriage.

Let's send that shit to court and see what happens.

Same Old Thing

I've been having trouble sleeping lately. I don't know if it's because I've been sitting around too much, drinking too much coffee, or worrying too much. Even though it's a new year and I've made a lot of changes, I think my financial situation may take a little longer to fix up than I originally though.

I just need to get back out of here. Much like the dilemma I was in a few years ago, everyone I know is moving ahead in life, but I'm stuck here. Now, instead of simply moving out of their parents' homes, everyone is getting married this year. It's a step I'm emotionally ready to take, but once again, I'm stuck here with no money and no way to get away from the people who hold me back.

Blah. I'm going to bed.

Does My Gerbil Really Need Water?

I really wish people would stop buying pets for their children. Kids have no desire to take care of something, and neither do most adults. Over the holiday season I sold a number of pets and fish tanks. I also had a number of questions such as "Are you really sure I need a filter for my fish tank," "Can't I just feed my hamster old vegetables," and "If it dies can't I just come back and get a new one?" If you don't want to take care of a living animal don't buy one, you miserable people. That's all I'm going to say about that.

I've been transferring the data from my 120g hard drive to my new terabyte drive and I realized that I've been downloading music faster than I can properly tag it. It's a lengthy process, but when it's done my music will be much more organized and I'll start using Winamp's music library again. I originally started weeding out the collection, removing music I don't listen to or no longer like, but I ended up almost doubling what I've gotten through so far. Not my intention.

That's all I have. It's been a boring few days, but I don't want to stop blogging again.

2010

I suppose it's time for me to return to reality. For a moment I contemplated extending my vacation until the end of the decade (at the end of this year, not the beginning), but I think I've had enough time to myself. It's really helped me clear my mind and concentrate on what is really important to me.

I haven't been doing much other than playing games, reading a few Carl Sagan books, and been trolling around the religion and LGBT sections of Yahoo! Answers. I've been listening to a lot of good podcasts, including Are We Alone, This Week in Science, Astronomy Cast, and all of the new content on TWiT.tv.

Connie needed some help pulling up her carpet and refinishing her hardwood floor, so Jason and I helped her with that. I really enjoyed that because I enjoy doing productive projects and it ended up looking very good. She also cooked quite a bit of real food for us and let Jason and I record a few episodes of "Ask a Gay Couple". We all had fun with that.

For the last few weeks I've been having good times just hanging out with my friends. Rose and I have been hanging out a lot since she started working at PetSmart. Last week her fiance, Sean, took us all out for dinner at Outback Steakhouse in Chesterfield, which was tasty, but all too expensive. I plan to return the favor next week with a gift card I'll be winning from our annual sales contest at work. Steph had a New Year's Eve party, which I enjoyed a lot. Jason and I even danced briefly this year.

I've been reading a blog called Zen Habits and am going to start simplifying my life and doing some of the other things on there. There's so much clutter in my life that the tings that I find important aren't really accessible to me. I allow people's negative attitudes get to me, which is getting cumbersome and needs to stop. I'm going to start spending more time enjoying the few things I have instead of working to get things I don't need.

I plan to pay off my credit card debt by June. After that I can finally repay the people I owe money to and concentrate on paying off my auto loan. That should help me get to the point where I can get out on my own again, maybe even put a down payment on a house at some time in the near future. I could then fix it up and sell if for a profit, depending on when the housing market picks back up. I'm optimistic about the economy.

That's all I want to say right now. How is everyone else doing? Does anyone bother checking back here anymore? Please, let me know.