Month: October 2002

I just received an official letter stating I will be receiving an extra $2,000 with my paycheck in two weeks due to my supercoolness. Sweet. This much closer to being debt free.

This whole “Being Appreciated” thing is just so different than what I’m used to. I went from working in a (supposedly) piss-poor company (where was all that income going, anyway…) working countless hours with no overtime pay or other appreciation of any sort, to working for a company with a great boss who asks much of his subordinates but appreciates the work they do. And rewards them when things go well.

On top of all this, I am loved by a girl (despite my idiosyncracies). How much has my life changed in the last year? In the last three years? These days you might actually find me smiling.

Also in the Kick Ass file (or the Kick Ass, Or It Might Suck file) are the plans to give (a younger) Angus MacGyver his own feature film as well as a WB series, Young MacGyver.

In case you Buffy fans haven’t seen it yet, this week’s episode featured a girl convinced she would die. Willow, the resourceful girl she is, “googled” her name to look for clues and found her website.

I seem to remember there being more animation when they showed the screenshot during the episode.

Although I don’t have much, thanks to M-D‘s scanner (mine is on—or more accurately beyond—the fritz) I now have photos online. They were taken at various events this past summer, primarily Becca‘s and Denise‘s birthdays.

Unfortunately, the Yahoo photo album service leaves a lot to be desired. When I’m more awake I might move them somewhere else.

New look, new name. Update your links. I never liked “Several Species of Small Furry Dice” anyway.

I’m in the process of moving all the files from my old desktop over to my laptop. I’m discovering things I thought were long gone—or at least things I haven’t thought about in a long time.

Such as porn.

Ben Folds can really play. He wails. He can blow. He wields his axe with great authority.

The concert was fabulous, although it was missing my favorite song, Luckiest.

It’s odd. I used to like a song by Dar Williams called The Ocean. It includes this line, which is why I was drawn to it so much, never mind the context:

You don’t know how lucky you are
You don’t know how much I adore you

The Ben Folds song, Luckiest, is opposite in a way:

And where was I before the day that I first saw your lovely face?
Now I see it everyday and I know that I am (I am, I am) the luckiest

I am lucky… and thankful. I’m a much different person than I was a year ago, and I couldn’t be if it weren’t for my introspection, the love and support of five people (two of whom being my father and his girlfriend and one being my mother who will always be on my side), and the occasional words of encouragement from a friend who could relate.

Am I ready for all the guilt to go away? Probably not. Especially not if I keep doing things to keep the worst memories in my mind. Maybe someday those I hurt will be ready for forgiveness. It will probably be after I am ready to be forgiven, which may not be quite yet.

But let there be no mistake. I am the luckiest.

Rainy days. When it rained, instead of usual daily activities, the kids gathered in the indoor areas for alternate activities, such as art and singing. At night in the rain, we could lay in bed in the bunk listening to the drops on the roof.

Once in a while there would be a flash downpour and we would run to the closest sheltered area, making sure there was enough body heat to go around by standing close to each other.

Pink Floyd. I was introduced to the Floyd by a counselor who, while camping out for the night with everyone from our age-group, brought a guitar to the campfire to play us some songs. He sang us Wish You Were Here and I immediately wrote home requesting that my parents send me the cassette.

After it arrived, the tape became the official music of my photography activity group (at least according to me). The other five people in the group were probably ready to throw the cassette out the window, but that didn’t matter. What could be better than listening to Shine On You Crazy Diamond in a darkroom while developing black and white photos?

A girl used to tell me that I pronounce the words pecan, syrup, and almond “wrong” because I say them in a manner different than she. (She wasn’t just being cute — she really believed she was right and I was wrong, while I maintained that we were both correct.) Other terms we disagreed on were “standing on line” vs. “standing in line” and a supermarket “cart” vs. “wagon,” of which the latter I actually discussed with others at Wegmans the other night. Apparently, there are people in the world who don’t think I speak some crazy language as I was led to believe.

In support of my realization, someone at Harvard (or Havahd) has put a survey online to determine where certain pronunciations and definitions of certain words are common. The results are online as well, but due to the site’s popularity, it seems to be a little slow.

Someone spent a large amount of time building a rendering of M. C. Escher‘s Ascending and Descending, one of his most popular works.

If there are any more Lego masters so inclined, I’d love to see a model of Relativity.

You are likely to have always been artistic in one way or another, dear Pisces, but today you might realize that your creativity is more extensive and insightful than you previously thought. Perhaps the work of a great poet, musician, painter, or dramatist might awaken new ideas and inspiration. Make some notes; keep a record of the works you saw or heard so that you can go back to them again later. Also write down any dreams you may have.

I used to write down my dreams; at one point in high school I would remember at least three dreams every night and write them down in a journal. A few years ago, I started a “team” online journal so we could all post our nocturnal imaginings. Eventually it just died away.

In college, whenever I appeared in my girlfriend’s dreams, it was always as an evil character. No matter what I did in real life, her subconscious wanted to see me as someone trying to be hurtful.

I guess it’s easy to just give in.