LJ, I will miss thee. Sorta. Maybe for a few months. It's a fresh year, with a fresh job, and a soon to be fresh apartment. So it's time for a fresh blogging start.

http://tinyincrements.wordpress.com/

I woke up feeling like shit on Friday, so I made a quick stop to CVS to load up on supplies before work. I ended up with zinc losenges, Nyquil, Dayquil, and some throat/mouth wash shit that really is as horrible as it sounds. It is here that yet another divide between my Plano friends and Lawrence friends has become evident. I swear some of these people are afraid of self medicating. In Lawrence, nobody would really think twice if I sat around drinking Nyquil and DayQuil straight out of the bottle (in appropriate quantities) or mixing in some homeopathic tea with my other meds (hey, Eastern medicine works). Hell, I could be ripping off a bong and then down a whole bottle of Nyquil and people would just laugh and watch what happened. I had at least a half dozen coworkers and friends comment on whether I was overduing it with the meds. Wusses.

All in all, I think I'm beating this cold. The combination of drugs and herbal rememdies seems to be keeping it at a low level, and I actually felt good enough to go to softball practice today. Oh yeah, I play softball now. My company team rules. Actually, we suck. Apparently the last company team only won one game, and it was by forfeit. If they actually finish a game without losing by the slaughter rule, they consider it a job well done. So needless to say, I enjoy it quite a bit. First of all, I'm one of the few people to actually ever play team sports, so my knowledge of baseball and how to cover different infield positions puts me near the top of the team. The fact that I don't throw like a girl/software programmer also scores me points. So after spending most of my little league days in left field, I might actually get to play in the infield. Hooray for lowered expecations! The only downside is that my knee, which had been feeling fine since my ligament shredding snowboarding incident, apaprently doesn't like the strain of softball. So I spent most of my day hobbling around because of a bum knee instead of a cold. But hey, I had some anti-inflamatories left from the snowboarding accident, so I threw a few of those into my drug coctail for the day. At this point, I might as well.

Waking up to John Waters' on NPR sharing anti-Valentine's Day songs: Priceless

http://dallas.citysearch.com/profile/9568628/mesquite_tx/bong_s_cleaning_tailors.html

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070205/ap_on_fe_st/rubber_sidewalks

Recycled tires turned into sidewalks, it would be neat to see a small test case like Lawrence or KU do that.

Best. Fucking. Quote. Ever.

"Critics are concerned that the restaurants' (Hooters') scantily clad servers don't fit the image the city seeks to project in its Big Beaver commercial district."

Because anybody who puts Hooters and big beavers together in a sentence and slips into an AP Wire story is my fucking hero.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070201/ap_on_re_us/another_hooters

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/30/washington/30rules.html?hp&ex=1170219600&en=9f1468dd91984d81&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Serious, George Bush scares me sometimes. It's not that I think he's evil or something, but that he's just insipidly dumb and doesn't understand the problems with the Executive Branch controlling the other branches of government. He honestly believes the Executive to be the most powerful branch in government. I'm not so sure he could answer simple questions about the notion of seperation of powers if you asked him right now. Actually, I'd like to see that. I just need one White House press reporter to ask him point blank to explain the concept during a press conference. A hundred bucks says he'd stammer through it and get it mostly wrong. It would be one YouTube in less than 5 minutes.

I really hope Ted Kennedy has some Scotch tomorrow and gets up and nails Bush to the cross for this shit. If you haven't seen his speech during the minimum wage debate, you're missing some good Kennedy action: http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/01/26/ted-kennedy-lashes-out-against-the-gops-opposition-to-increasing-the-minimum-wage/

So as part of my nebulous New Year's Resolution to stop being so lazy, I decided to revive a tradition of the rich white patriarchy: Sunday reading! I did this because 1) I normally sit around on Sundays and 2) My pile of un-read books is very large. I was planning on finishing Cross-X today, but isntead, I got detoured by reading an article by the KC Star's sports columnist Jason Whitlock. He essentially blasted modern black culture (Jason's black, fyi) for failing to push forward on civil rights issues. He went on a tangent about W.E.B. DuBois's notion that the most educated top 10% of Black America shall be the leaders to push forward into the future, complaining that modern Black culutre allows the most ignorant 5% to be the standard bearers, telling kids its cool to go to prison and drop out of school. He then goes on to blast Flava Flav for going from fighting the power to playing a minstrel on VH1. Iteresting read here: http://thebiglead.com/?p=1038

Back on track, I decided to rummage through my KU book collection and dug out my copy of The Souls of Black Folk. Since it's only about 150 pages, I sat down and read it from cover to cover over a few hours (much like I did the night before the midterm). I recall now, that Western Civ was actually a turning point in my academic career. At that time, I had dropped out of the Engineering Department and didn't have a major. That was the semester I knocked out a lock of GenEd requirements, including Western Civ. It was probably one of my best semesters in college. My Philosophy class tied into Wester Civ. My English class about stage plays tied into my film class. The notion of a liberal arts education forming a well rounded basis for thought really clicked for me. It's also when I joined DF and eventually switched to Poli Sci, so it was a pretty good semester all around. I also distinctly remember that reading some of the material for my Western Civ class made me feel "college smart" for the first time. I remember going to Java Break with a couple people from my discussion group and talking through the ideas in the book before the test so that we could not just recite the words of the author, but rather explain the ideas. I remember feeling smart back then, especially when the friend of a friend who worked the night shift there would come by and chip in (good ole' grad students). Reading DuBois today really brought back some of those memories. I found a few passages that I had highlighted back then, which was odd sicne I was not a fan of the highlighter. Who knows, maybe it was the person before me who resold the book. This one stuck out, so I feel like posting it:

"The function of the university is not simply to teach bread-winning, or to furnish teachers for the public schools or to be a centre of polite society; it is, above all, to be the organ of that fine adjustment between real life and the growing knowledge of life, an adjustment which forms the secret of civilization."

I'm quite happy with my Sunday reading. I hereby resolve to try to keep doing it. Once I'm done with Cross-X, I think I'll dig in to 1776 or Guns, Germs, and Steel. Now I just need a dive coffee shop.

Did you ever have one of those situations occur where you say something and everybody around you just assumes you're being sarcastic, but you're really not? That was the end of my evening. My friend had a birthday party, which I was looking forward to because it meant seeing a group of people I don't often get to see and possibly meeting some new people, which I get precious little of right now. I enjoyed the party, even if it just reinforced my bitterness about everybody around me being in a serious relationship, engaged, or married. So once the party started to peeter out and I was out of beer, I did my handshakes and hugs and left. When I said goodbye the to birthday girl, she asked me why I was leaving. The first though to make it to my lips was "You're out of single women." Everybody got a good chuckle, but it wasn't me trying to be smarmy. That was my real logical reason. While I still enjoyed everybody's company, I now officially the odd man out of the numerous couplings, so I decided it was time to go. This only helped to reinforce a conversation earlier in the night when my love life came up and I had to admit that I don't even have so much as a crush right now. The well is that freaking dry. 95% of the women I know are in relationships, and the other 5% are off limits for one reason or another. I'm almost considering going back to school in the fall for the express purpose of meeting women. Then I remember the associated cost and kibosh that idea.

Dorky: Tivoing the State of the Union so you can come home from work, put your bike on your indoor trainer, and pedal along with the State of the Union

It's no drinking game, but I had fun. Also...



Bad angel... good angel... damnit, stop leaning to the right.

I'm really happy I finished Tipping Point a few weeks ago. This, my friends, is the tipping point: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070120/ap_on_he_me/smoke_free_america

More than half of Americans now live in smoke-free cities. The economy is up. The restaurant industry is doing fine. The nightlife industry is still kicking (or at least keeping with historic market trends). I've really run out of reasons to oppose smoking bans. This is the final straw. Now there seems to be overwhelming evidence to show that it won't collapse western society.

http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2007/01/us-law-deans-appalled-by-stimson.php

So 130 law school deans signed a letter pretty much telling the Pentagon to eff off because of that stupid PR director who said lawyers defending GitMo detainees were traitors. I checked to see if KU signed (best to be in the list of 130 law schools than off it). As it turns out, because the KU Law School Dean is Gail Agrawal and the names were listed alphabetically, KU got to be first. Woo! Top 25 ranking!

So I got new glasses last week. I was really excited since I had my old ones for 5 years. Finally, a new look. Smaller, silver frames instead of the black hipster glasses (but I had them before they were hip). But I hate my new glasses. They don't hug my head right. They smear too easily. They touch my nose wrong. I think they're lopsided (even when they're not). I think they're closer to my right eye than my left. They're making me fucking neurotic. I've spent the last half hour trying to flex them into some sort of position that isn't irritating, but to no avail. I think I'm just missing my old pair. Shit, I've worn them a fifth of my life.

"Half of all children are below average, and teachers can do only so much for them."

http://opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110009531'

So my dad put a sheet over my windshield to "protect" my car. This is the same car that spent numerous winters in Lawrence getting buried in snow and ice. So instead of just turning on the defroster for 3 or 4 minutes and doing a little bit of scraping, I had to pull a fucking sheet-cicle off my car which had bonded to all of the ice around my car. In addition, he kept the damn thing on using my wiper blades, so now my wiper blades (which I got two weeks ago when I changed my oil) are shot to hell.

I swear, by the time I get to work, I expect half the town to have devolved into some sort of feral state.

Uggg. I want it to be 2009 already. Within the video game industry, my salary is lower than normal for my position. I'm willing to accept that because of two things: insurance and royalties. I don't pay a red cent for my haelth insurance, and that makes me happy. The only tihng I do pay for is a $10 payment for extra eye insurance. I did this mainly because I just got new glasses under my mom's plan before I got booted off of it. So now I can get a set of perscription sunglasses for driving and cycling under my new plan. That will save me a few hundred bucks. So health insurance = good. Royalties on the other hand are a fickle mistress. If we sell a game on the big platforms (Xbox 360, PS3, Wii) we'll make a lot of money. If we sell a gae on a hanheld, we'll make a tiny amount of money. Tiny money is okay, but big money is the ballgame. The theory behind paying us less than industry average is that it motivates us to work hard and ship games faster so we can make more royalties. Also, since we have 3 big development teams, we should be rotating games into the market at regular intervals. That's the problem. All of our games are stacked up. My team aims to release for Christmas. It probably won't happen, so March 2008 seems like a better time. The other two teams are aiming for Christmas 2008-Spring 2009. Either way, it will be 3 big games in 18 months. Mid 2009 will probably be the royalty check to end all royalty checks. It will the the tail end of one gamea nd possibly the first payment on two games at once. That's where half the company goes out and buys houses. Emphasis on buy. Mortgages are for suckers.

But for now, it's all about living within my means. I toured an apartment today (the one that I really really want) and just for kicks I asked to see what I could get in the $1000-1100 range. I saw the most perfect apartment ever, and I really really want it. I just can't afford it right now. It's got this huge open air kitchen / dining room that you could put a table for 20 down in. That flows into the entertainment room, which flows into a covered patio the size of most apartment's dining rooms. The master bedroom had an integrated walk through closet that connected to the master bath, complete with jacuzzi. There was even a side "sitting room" connected to the dining room, which would have been a perfect place for a loveseat, some chairs, a small TV, and a table (I would make it a hookah room on principle). God that place was amazing. Technically, I could afford it, but I couldn't do anything fun or save money. Boo to being an adult. So the smaller apartment will be my first choice. I need to run the numbers, check on utilities, and then look at another one of their model units (they couldn't find the key). Fingers crossed, I'll be moving on Feb 1.

On the bright side, I found out I had more money in my bank account than I thought. So right now I've got $2500 ready to go, plus my paycheck on Feb 1 at my new pay rate. Sadly, my basic furniture bill (bed, matress, dresser, entertainment unit, couch) is going to run me like $1500. Plus deposits, plus kitchen stuff, plus all those little things that cost $15 a pop you need to fully move in, that money is going to go away quickly. After rent, bills, food, and entertainment, I can spare $600 a month for furniture and decorations. I'll need a new flat panel TV ($1400), stereo ($300), chair + ottoman ($500), dining room set ($250), and of course accent lights, frames, rugs, art, etc, etc. But hey, by the time I get all of that, it will be 2009 and I can afford to move. Of course that's 2 years from now, and I could very well have a wife and kid by then (bahahahahahha... wait... stop laugh at yourself... damnit).

I (Heart) Lily Allen.


That is all.

So I just saw a UPS commercial that uses Postal Service in the background. Irony is funny when it's subtle.

I hate living at home. Hate. Hate. Hate. To make matters worse, I seem to have opened some giant rift of anger with my parents. I'l tell you the watered down story, and then give my side at the end.

I wake up Wednesday morning to find a slip of paper under my door saying my optomotrist called to remind me of my 10AM appointment. Problem is, I never made an appointment. Also, I have a meeting at work at 10. It's 9:30. So I frantically e-mail and call work, cancel me attending the metting, and go to my appointment. Turns out, they called to remind me that my appointment was Thursday. I go home to shower and see that there is indeed a phone message saying Thursday. At this point I'm royally pissed. One of my triggers that will absolutely enrage me is other people making health care decisions for me. I know I'm wierd, but when I talk about a right to privacy when it comes to health care, I really fucking mean it. My parents both know this as I've had numerous discussions abuot how they are to never schedule me for appointments of any kind unless I explicitly tell them to. My dad rarely lsitens to me when I say these things, and has had a tendancy to make appointments regardless. We've had words about it before.

So this is what proof I'm working with at this point.
1) The appointment was made by phone with my parent's phone number as the call back number.
2) The appointment was made in December.
3) The optomotrist's office does not make automatic appointments because that would be a really dumb way to run a business.
4) The optomotrist has stopped even sending me reminder cards since I haven't been there in over 5 years. In fact, my file was in a storage box at their off site storage, so I had to fill out completely new information.

So I've eliminated myself from the question of "who made this appointment" for the following reasons:
1) I've had one conversation with my optomotrist this year. It was a quick call from my office phone asking if they had any room before the holidays. They didn't, and I never even gave them my name. If they had even phone traced me, it would have read Gearbox Software.
2) If I had set up an appointment, I probably would have used their website form system because that's just easier.
3) If I had set up an appointment, I would have given them my cell as a callback number. I haven't used my parent's phone since I moved back in since nobody would ever think to call me on that line.
4) I keep a very anal retentive Outlook schedule. If I had made it, I would have been calling from work and would have had Outlook on. It would be on that calendar in a heartbeat.

So the only other people at my parent's phone number who would call my optomotrist would be my parents. I left a note that morning calling them out on that fact and very bluntly telling them to never do that again and that it caused me some massive headaches at work because of missing meetings and coming in late two days in a row. My dad responded to this by yelling at me and threatening to throw me out. I actually listened to that little voice in the back of my head for once and didn't escalate the situation. Instead, I've just pretty much left things as a cold war in my household. I wake up after they leave for work, and I stay at work until 10 or 11 (luckily, we're crunching, so people think I'm a good worker for staying late). Today I just woke up, took a shower, and went to work and then the bar. My goal is to run this out for 3 weeks and then move. I've already explained this to my mother over the phone, so I'm pretty sure she's mad at me now, too. I'd really like for things to get better, but I'm right, god damnit, and I'm not backing down. One of them (signs point to my dad) royally fucked me over at work and crossed a few major lines with me, only it top it off by threatening to kick me out for having the nerve to call him on it. I'm not fucking apologizing for anything, and I'm not mending fences. My dad is a fucking asshole, and I've put up with this shit for nearly 25 years. I'm done. I'm out. If he wants to swallow his pride for 5 god damn seconds and apologize, I'll listen, but the bridge has been burnt, and I'm kinda happy to be on my side.

That being said, it's really fucking awkward in this house.

Go see Children of God. I don't care if you have to drive an hour to find a theater that has it. It is quite possibly the best film I've seen in years. To further complicate matters, Pan's Labyrinth is coming out next week and is currently at 99% on Rotten Tomatoes, which means it could very well replace Children of God in that top spot next week.

But to reiterate: Children of God is just too fucking good. Go see it now. Now!