the crazy dreamer

angry dream

2011-06-28T11:52:00.003-05:00

so i had a very angry dream last night. the setting was my parents house, and the scenario was that my grandma was very sick and staying with my parents while my brother, sister, and I all sort of moved back home as well, so the entire house was a cluttered mess. anyway, then there were a bunch of random neighbors who kept coming into the house and criticizing everything, and i had just had enough and started flipping out on them. screaming obscenities at them, threatening violence, making obscene gestures, etc. some time would pass and then they'd criticize me or my family again and i would go apeshit again.

My argument against new atheism

2011-06-06T20:07:00.002-05:00

Two posts in one day! (I'm obviously procrastinating)...

Just was thinking about something and wanted to get it off my chest. This is my argument against new atheism, and by new atheism, i mean what i call proselytic atheism...

so, the thing is... before there was all this proselytic atheism, the god debate was really simple. you could believe in god, or you could not believe in god. nobody can know, so just do whatever...

then these guys started coming along acting like the non-existence of god is not only provable, its proven.

this entirely changes the context of the conversation. the burden of proof is no longer on the theist. these atheists are no longer non-believers, they have their own belief to defend.

and that would be ok, except that it muddies the waters and gives christian apologists and wackjobs alike an opportunity. now instead of defending their own faith, they need only discredit the atheist's. if they can discredit the new atheism, then they'll grin and say QED and have actually accomplished nothing.

new atheists have ceded their advantage and forced an inevitable stalemate where both sides have faith in something (existence or non-existence) and the _actual_ issue gets completely ignored (religion).

and that is why i'm either a deist or an agnostic, depending on the time of day. i see deism and agnosticism as two sides of the same coin... conceding we just don't know about god, but admitting what we do know is that religions are all really, really fucked up.

i think more people should acknowledge what they don't know, instead of simply adopting the opposite position of people they think are wrong. i'm guilty of the same thing (particularly in the area of politics, where my gospel could be said to be essentially the opposite of whatever the religious right preaches). it's not healthy, and it's not useful.

ok, i'm done ranting, i really should work.

awesome dream

2011-06-06T12:20:00.002-05:00

I had a crazy dream last night... I was walking down a street in my home town near a McDonald's when all of a sudden there was this humongous (think enemy of the state sized) alien ship that eclipsed the majority of the sky. This was not a menacing space ship, but almost a cartoonish ship, and there was understandably a bit of commotion. Anyway, we were all just sort of staring up watching this space ship, and then the most remarkable thing happened... in the most organic way, it seemed to suddenly just take a deep breath, and while the center of the ship was far away, we could immediately see a huge cyclone form underneath it ripping trees, buildings, and people skywards towards it as if it were inhaling our planet. Most people ran, but I just sort of stood there watching it, and before long I was swept upwards into the sky...

In the sky, there was some debris but not nearly as much as you'd expect. Instead of being dark, it was like being in a really well-lit fog... much like I would imagine it'd appear like if you were to sky-dive through a thick cloud. I could feel myself being flung in all directions, and any direction looked like more clouds/sky. It was exhilarating. I literally felt like I was flying and was completely unafraid...

Then I began to wonder if this was a dream. It seemed real enough to me, but I wanted to make sure it wasn't a dream, because it was so amazing... so noteworthy. I started concentrating on staring at the brightest spots to see if it would wake me. I tried screaming to wake myself. After what seemed like minutes, I was growing more and more confident that this wasn't a dream until suddenly there was a flash and my eyes briefly opened and I saw the real world...

I immediately regretted my ability to wake myself up and tried to reclaim the dream by falling back to sleep, but couldn't...

ouch

2011-05-13T20:22:00.002-05:00

well, i'm in financial trouble. i think that's what it's called when all three credit cards you own are maxed out, your bank account is incurring overdraft fees, and you have three dollars and seventy seven cents in your pocket, and no idea when or where your next paycheck is coming from.

oh well, i'll get by. (i think).

in other news, i've decided to get in shape (again). this time i'm being a little more regimented. i'm doing the insanity workouts by shaun t, which are pretty damn tough. i'm only on my first week, but if the fact that my entire body has been sore every second of every day since i started is any indication, i think it's going to work. it's also enjoyable, in sort of a masochistic sort of way.

hopefully this week will represent the point in time where i was poorer and fatter than ever again.

it seems my best blog posts...

2011-04-21T01:43:00.001-05:00

...end up as (unpublished) drafts.

last night's dream

2010-11-23T15:34:00.001-06:00

less eventful than the dream in my previous post, but i do remember digging through trash cans around the city and finding just piles of crumpled up money in each of them.

the dreams...

2010-11-23T02:29:00.003-06:00

today, i'm depressed...

the idea of running a service-based company is stupid. i wish someone had told me. it's no win. 100% stress, 100% of the time. i don't know how i was so stupid that i didn't put this together.

i guess my business has always sucked and i always expected when business improved that'd be a big weight off my shoulders. running a business the last two and a half years hasn't been easy on anyone of any size business, i suppose. at least that's been my excuse for holding out hope.

i always thought once i got enough business then i'd be able to enjoy life. but that's a lie. now that business is doing well, the stress related to not being able to pay employees is replaced by the stress with having to meet the demands of the clients i've committed to...

there's no exit strategy, no happy ending... there's no path to retirement that i can see... i mean, i guess i could sell my business to some dumb sap who covets my curse, and they can prostitute themselves to clients and employees and profits and partners...

there's no opportunity to meet someone special, or pursue anyone... there seems to be no time to even take simple steps of taking care of myself. my weight has gotten out of control, my attempts at quitting smoking have been laughable, my apartment is about three weeks from being declared a biohazard environment, my car's license plate is almost a year expired, i haven't been responding to work and personal emails in ages, i haven't found anything that gives me any joy in months other than self-deception.

i find me doing things i previously detested. i flirt with girls who have committed relationships beyond the point of harmless even though i swore i'd never be that guy. i've used people who i don't even particularly like because i knew i could... i've abandoned principles that i've held my whole life because those principles don't seem to be working... why is it the assholes always get the girl, and the nice guys finish last? i'm sure it has to do with evolutionary fitness and a basic sense of morality has never been a condition for natural selection... alas...

anyway, so today i woke up early intending on getting up and getting work done, but i had such vivid dreams that i opted to go back to sleep and sleep all day. it did lead to some really fascinating and yes, crazy, dreams.

the name the crazy dreamer was never meant to be taken literally... it's a reference to a song, but also seemed to transcend it in a hopeful way... now it just seems literal...

so here's the craziest part of my crazy dream from last night... i was in my grandparent's house... they had just moved into a new house... (by the way, both of these grandparents passed long ago). anyway, i was in the kitchen making breakfast for myself when i noticed the nextdoor neighbors had an attractive woman who was sunbathing topless. i thought this particularly amusing until i turned around and noticed my grandpa with a blanket over his lap staring at her and presumably masturbating. it didn't really phase me, but suddenly my grandma noticed what my grandpa was doing and flipped out. "what'd i tell you about staring at the neighbors?" and walked over to him and just picked him up and threw him over her shoulder and carried him into the next room.

yeah, that's all i really remember from the dream... very very odd. also completely uncharacteristic of either of my grandparents so i'm sure they were there as a metaphor for something else (and hopefully not some repressed memory ;)).

oh, i remember another part of my dream now... i was flying to alaska with my sister. while on the plane, there was a group of old women playing bridge on ipads and i joined them for a game (which was what made me so happy i forced myself back to sleep despite my alarm)... at one point a small child came up to me and was crying about something. i consoled the child who upon reflection was cody from the tv show dexter. he was there with his older sister (who upon reflection was also his sister from the show). anyway. he was talking to me and i consoled him and he hugged me, and as he walked away i caught a glimpse of his sister's eyes and realized that she had a deceptive feel to her. i quickly checked my backpocket where my wallet was and thankfully it was still there, but she noticed me checking and indicated to her brother to move on to their next mark...

anyway, i went to alaska with my sister... it was for a funeral for someone who i didn't know... we had to go for two weeks because apparently there aren't a lot of planes going in and out of alaska. and on our return trip we flew over europe because (in my dream) it made more sense to fly over europe on the return trip because of how the earth is round...

i guess in reflection both dreams have a morbid quality to them. i suppose both were affected as well by thanksgiving coming up and subconscious thoughts of family (both alive and passed).

anyway, i've decided to bring my ipod and my liquor to bed with me this evening... so i'll be drinking and listening to the new kanye west album until i dream again. if the decision were up to me, i might not decide to wake up tomorrow... alas...

i hate thanksgiving.

the pain of being progressive...

2010-11-04T02:58:00.002-05:00

life would be a lot easier if i didn't give a shit about politics. if i just took the fucked up state of the country as a given and didn't believe that things could be better.

it all seems so easy. there's so many little things that could be done to improve the lives of everyone in america. and yet there are so many people who out of fear or stupidity or greed who are extremely effective at stalling progress.

this last election really sucked. i am depressed.

well, that happened.

2010-09-06T22:55:00.000-05:00

i'm not a good person anymore...

a little scared.

2010-08-11T04:18:00.002-05:00

i was browsing facebook this evening... and noticed an update from a girl i knew in high school who i would hardly consider a friend, and who i've not noticed an update from in many months. in fact, i'm pretty sure she has me blocked as the only update i saw was on the side that said "you haven't connected with so-and-so in so long" and was encouraging me to contact her.

what's interesting about this was that i immediately thought, "i was JUST talking about her the other day!!" until i realized that i had had a dream in which her father happened to be there (who i did actually know in real life, perhaps better than her, so this isn't necessarily a projection) and i had asked him how his two daughters were doing.

and so now i feel really fucked up because i had this dream that i didn't even recall having, about three people (the father and two daughters) none of whom have ever at any point played a significant role in my life... and yet i'm dreaming about them and believing it true until I force myself to acknowledge the conversation never happened by logic.

what this means is.. either senility is already hitting me, or when it does, it is going to hit me extremely hard. one way or another, i don't have much of productive life left, i'd imagine.

oh, and by the way... i also quit smoking. smoke free for two weeks. cold turkey. i'm proud of myself.

more of the same

2010-06-28T01:37:00.003-05:00

i've had lots of crazy dreams since the last post, but been neglecting posting... here's another though, for posterity...

last night, i dreamed that i was in the 3rd basement level in a parking garage beneath a 20 story building... i was walking with some friends, including my best friend, and as we were walking towards the elevators, a car came down the ramp and slammed into a support beam. all of a sudden we could feel the entire building shaking. at first we were at disbelief that a car could cause any damage to the structural integrity of a high-rise, but regardless of the cause, the fucking building was swaying, so we decided to get the fuck out as quickly as possible. my best friend and some others sprinted for the elevators. I ran towards the nearest emergency exit stairwell. I was the first to arrive at the stairwell, and I held the door open for the other throngs of people who started running towards it. once the last person was through, I followed out and up the stairs and onto the street where we could see the entire building was completely unstable.

i was watching it sway and everyone was freaking out, and then all of a sudden the top tier of the building sort of imploded on itself, collapsing and sending chunks of glass and concrete down towards the street all around us. the panic continued to grow as we ran away, and i looked back again, and started seeing the next tier collapse off to the side. finally the whole building just collapsed entirely.

i didn't know if my best friend had made it out alive. i just knew as i was watching this that it was like september 11 all over again. i couldn't believe that i had made it out. i was so proud of myself for holding the door open for the others instead of being the first to rush out. eventually i met up with my best friend, and we had thankfully both survived the event, as well as everyone else who had been in the 3rd basement of the garage. it appeared that the building held on long enough for most people to escape, but the death toll would still likely be significant.

another crazy dream

2010-04-27T01:57:00.002-05:00

I had a very interesting dream last night. the jist of it was simple wish fulfillment... myself and two friends ended up needing a place to crash for the evening, and we ended up at wyd's... this led to conversation then reconciliation and made me all warm and fuzzy inside... that's not the unusual part though...

as i said, there were two friends with me. one was my friend who got married last weekend. the other was a friend i had in high school who was senselessly murdered 6 years ago. i hadn't thought of him in years. almost forgot his name completely. it wasn't until about a half hour after i woke up that i even put two and two together and realized that he was dead.

so that's what my mind's wrestling with these days... reconciliation, marriage, death...

subconscious

2010-04-13T16:51:00.001-05:00

well, i left it to my subconscious to sort it all out, and i had a dream i was trapped in an elevator when suddenly it began plummeting out of control.

thanks subconscious, you know just how to make me feel better.

something unexplainable

2010-04-13T01:51:00.002-05:00

i've been feeling depressed lately. the first signs of evidence for that are when i post on this blog, because, well, i can vent and if anybody even reads it, they probably don't mind my venting, because that's all this piece of shit has been for quite some time...

anyway, today i was trying to wrap my head around the ideas that have been bombarding my brain for the past 3 days, and i'm starting to come around to the possibility that maybe i'm not depressed. maybe i'm just really close to an important realization. an epiphany. it feels like there's something incredibly important that i've accidentally brushed against and dismissed and my subconscious is screaming at me to just stop, take two or three steps back slowly, and reassess where i'm at and what i should be looking at. i'm not really depressed or hopeless, i just feel hopelessly confused. like i had the answer on the tip of my tongue, but i just can't seem to relocate it at the moment...

perhaps it's an exercise in futility. most likely it's a process best handled by my subconscious. but i can't seem to step away from this obsession. i can't really do... anything... until i figure this out.

it might just be wishful thinking to suppose there's a purpose or an answer in anything, but i've not given up at the moment. perhaps this will all get buried in work or self-loathing or alcohol in the next couple of days.

my emotion right now can be summed up by this completely unrelated quote:

I have to remind myself that some birds aren't meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright and when they fly away, the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up does rejoice, but still, the place you live in is that much more drab and empty that they're gone. I guess I just miss my friend.

the call

2010-04-12T02:27:00.002-05:00

i got a voicemail from my ex-girlfriend today. she needed to talk. i panicked. oh shit, please tell me she's not pregnant. she's not, she's dating someone else. phew. i guess. but yeah. upon reflection, also kind of makes me feel less special. it was never going to work between us, but it still hurts a little more that she's been able to move on so quickly.

i guess i should just be happy she's not pregnant. i can't help but wonder if i'd be happier in the long run if she had been.

mortality

2010-04-11T04:42:00.002-05:00

it just occurred to me that i probably don't have a lot of time left being alive.

i smoke a lot. i eat unhealthy and am overweight. i drink way too much. i woke up this morning (ok, at 6pm) with a raging hangover and several wounds on my body which i have no idea how i got. i don't have health insurance and i'm broke so i wouldn't be able to afford medical care if i needed it. my levels of stress are extreme. i haven't been to a doctor in over a decade. i have only one living grandparent. the first was lost before i was born and i don't know what she died of. the next died of multiple strokes, the next had alzheimer's. the one who is still alive has diabetes and has had multiple quadruple bypass surgeries. my mother is a breast cancer survivor, my father has had a heart attack. i'm a fucking ticking time bomb.

my friend and drinking buddy who is 6 years younger than me had a checkup last week that showed him with severe liver damage, and i can only imagine mine is as bad or worse.

i'm old, and my body is starting to reflect that.

i don't mind that i'm going to die... but it feels like i've missed far too much in my life. i'll likely never fall in love again, never have kids, never accomplish anything noteworthy or memorable. i guess that's just how it goes.

too many regrets but too little time left to worry about them.

i'm a bucket

2010-02-05T03:05:00.003-06:00

embarassing

2009-12-16T03:17:00.002-06:00

i just found out i've been using the word "diction" incorrectly for years... i always thought it referred to word choice, but apparently it refers to word pronunciation.

i can only imagine how many times i've made an asshat of myself using it incorrectly. how ridiculous is it to refer to one's own vocabulary with an incorrect word.

d'oh.

three things

2009-11-27T04:32:00.001-06:00

i had an epic dream about surviving a terrorist attack in chicago that was very vivid and very realistic. i woke up believing it had happened.
i now have a girlfriend.
happy thanksgiving.

important life lesson from a dream

2009-11-05T13:52:00.002-06:00

I had a dream there were tigers all around me. they were docile tigers and I was encouraged to feed them. I was handed a hunk of meat and told to throw it to them. Remembering the days of having a dog, I decided to pull the fake-throw technique where you hang on to it, despite going through the full throwing motion and temporarily fool the dog. Well, the tigers were temporarily fooled, but then realized the meat was still in my hand. Even after I then threw it, the tigers had already associated the meat with my hands, and so they started coming after me. So, that sucked. Lesson learned: never try to fool a tiger.

another dream

2009-11-04T14:35:00.002-06:00

i had a dream last night... i remembered almost all of it when i woke up, but by this point I only remember one small sidenote. Apparently, I was at a mall of some sort, and was walking out through one of the restaurants, and they had a sign for donuts that advertised them as "Winkies", and they cost $3.74 each, but the first one each day was free. So I took a free one and left. And I pondered that business model and wondered if they actually sell enough of these "Winkies" to justify giving away hundreds of them free each day.

i've had a bad day, please don't take a picture...

2009-10-28T14:28:00.002-05:00

so the last 24 hours were... interesting.

in random order:

i bought shrooms from a street magician

i saw a street magician who was fucking phenomenal... like, criss angel shit

i got kicked out of a concert

i kicked a bum out of a bar

i threatened the bum with violence, which i feel incredibly guilty about because the threat of violence is itself an act of violence. and i'm supposed to be a pacifist

i did get free beers and a sincere thanks from the bartender for kicking him out though

i didn't really get kicked out of a concert, the girl i was dating got kicked out and i left with her... she got kicked out for taking a picture with her camera phone

which is bullshit

and led to a fight

i woke up to an email of her breaking up with me

so i went back to sleep

now i'm at work and one of my employees got a better job and is quitting

which is just wonderful timing considering i now have shitloads of work for him to do

which means now i have shitloads more work to do

epic dream

2009-10-27T14:52:00.002-05:00

I slept for 15 and 1/2 hours last night and had a very long and detailed dream.

It started when I needed to attend a church function with my family. I was riding with my aunt and when we arrived at the hotel room affixed to the church. When we got out of the car, she was showing off to me that she had a car opener that had room for 4 different cars on it, and she was showing me that the first button worked on this particular rental car. She was excited to find 3 more cars that she could put on her car opener. When we went inside we discovered the fridge and freezer were both already full and we didn't have any place to stash all the beer we brought. This was quite frustrating and eventually I just left the beer on the ground next to the fridge, and went out back where there were about 50 people standing on the patio watching the field below. At that point, a 10 on 10 football game broke out and I watched as people were playing for a while, before I decided I wanted to participate. So I organized a game and got everyone to come out onto the field and we started to set up a second football game. After a significant amount of confusion I asked everyone to line up and count off so we could get even teams, and it ended up being a nightmare because people kept moving around and we couldn't get an accurate count. I really wanted to play quarterback, and some people were throwing me the ball and I kept dropping it, but then I wanted to throw it to someone to prove to everyone I could be a good quarterback, but everybody was just standing around next to me and not looking so I couldn't even throw it to anyone.

So I gave up on football, and some girl offered me some drug (LSD?) in the form of a cherry icee. She had to mix it, so her and I were sitting at a dining room table in the church/hotel creating a psychedelic icee when a large black family came in and started eating dinner with us. While pouring the icee, the girl had some trouble getting the paper cup set up properly, as she was trying to do something fancy with a lid and whatever, but I told her it was fine and just took the icee in the ripped piece of paper.

It was quite a mess to eat, and it kept giving me brain freeze. I was mostly sucking the juices out and turning it into a clear slush at the bottom of a piece of paper. During this time, the father of the black family that arrived began to speak very smugly about current events. He made a few statements that I found to be particularly incorrect, and so I challenged him. His entire family looked at me with surprise and curiosity. It was clear that nobody had ever challenged him on his B.S. before. I don't recall what I specifically challenged him on, but it was clear that I struck a nerve. He shifted the conversation towards personal attacks against me. His first personal attack was about how I had cheated by being an extra player on the field during the football game. I was taken aback by this because I hadn't realized I was an extra player so I responded that I was unaware of such a transgression, but was truly sorry if I affected the game. I explained that I never claimed to be perfect, and that apparently I had screwed up, but my screwup does very little to legitimize his argument. I continued to challenge him on things he was saying and his family was starting to cheer me on.

Eventually the LSD started kicking in and I walked away from this debate to go outside. There was a saucer on the ground with flaps on it that apparently if you pumped the flaps hard enough you could hover around. I sat on this saucer and began pumping as hard as I could, and I could feel it start to teeter a little bit and almost lift me up, but I got tired and wasn't able to achieve flight. It was at this point that I realized I had left my beer and my ID at our table in the bar/hotel/church with the rest of my family. I also realized that I had told my friend I would get him a beer, but I was having trouble remembering which beer i said I'd get him. There were two beers he hadn't tried, and one was the Dolchestor, but he didn't choose that one, he wanted the other one, which I couldn't remember exactly what it was called... something with the word "wood" or "mill" or something like that... it was two words. At any rate, as I was heading back into the bar, my family left, and they encouraged me to go with, but I said I had to go back because I had left my beer and my ID... and while I was ok to leave without the beer, I was going to need my ID. Someone in my family suggested I just call down to the dining room and have someone bring it up. I found a phone, and instead of having numbers, the phone had an elaborate video display that showed the actual lines on a diagram and how they interconnected to other locations in the bar/hotel/church. I found the appropriate line and tried dialing it, but nobody answered.

why bother

2009-10-04T18:02:00.000-05:00

i'm sick of being used... it's time to start over.

zack morris

2009-10-02T01:28:00.002-05:00

I had a dream that zack morris was trying to find the answer to the most important questions in life, and i was trying to explain to him that it's ok to admit that we simply don't know. that in fact, pretending like we have certainty in things that are uncertain is a detriment. but, zack being zack, he called a timeout in the middle of me explaining it and totally blew me off. what an asshole.

more dreams

2009-09-22T22:51:00.002-05:00

i had a dream i had a son. that's all i remember of it. that night i had a separate dream that was equally as profound but equally as elusive and i've already forgotten. last night i had a dream that i shat myself.

in real life, i'm mostly just fucking myself. i'm getting involved with women who aren't interested in me... i'm doing projects i'm not interested in... when i have a 40-hour project i procrastinate for two weeks and just put it off until 30 hours before it's due and pull an all-nighter marathon to see if i can rise to the challenge because it's the closest thing to a challenge i can find at work... i'm making business deals that i know aren't sound because i'm desperate... i'm drinking more than my body can handle... in general things are going fine, i'm managing to survive my own flirtations with failure, enjoying the ephemeral "relationships" i've established, paying off my bills month-to-month, and for the most part too distracted to concern myself with anything else. but sometimes... when there just aren't enough distractions... i've got nothing but ben folds and lateralus and the bends and a lifetime's worth of regrets...

crazy dreams

2009-08-28T00:47:00.003-05:00

last night i went to sleep at 2am with the intention of waking up at 5am. see, i was going to do an all-nighter but i very foolishly consumed about 4000 calories that day and my stomach UPSET... i knew i had to sleep it off or i'd be miserable, but i had so much work to do. so 3 hours seemed like an adequate nap.

so, I went to sleep at 2am, and my alarm went off at 5am. snooze. 5:09am. snooze. 5:18am. snooze.

5:27... 5:36... 5:45... 5:54 ... 6:03... 6:12... 6:21... 6:30... 6:39... 6:48... 6:57... 7:06... 7:15... 7:24... 7:33... 7:42... 7:51... 8:00... 8:09... and then at 8:18 I turned off my alarm... and eventually woke up at 10:30am.

ugh.

so as you can imagine, i had an interesting dream. so interesting that each time i woke i raced back to sleep to continue attempting to solve it.

the basic premise is i was camping in a tent with wyd (dunno why she is making a 2nd occurence in as many nights)... we were just hanging out in a tent at like a campground about an hour out of chicago... i went outside the camp and there were lots of people around with baked goods... some with cupcakes, some with frosted cookies... so i was wandering around sampling the goods, and when i came back to our tent, our tent was gone, as was wyd, but our bed was still there... yeah, odd that there was a bed, but whatever, it's a dream... so i look briefly and then sort of shrug and just lay down in the bed, and after a while she comes back and puts the tent back up over us... then as we're lying there a gigantic robot arm (ala terminator: salvation) crashes through the tent and snags wyd... i manage to scramble away in time and escape to the street by this campground... i tried to cross the street but cars were coming too fast... then i tried again... then i made it half way, but they were just coming soooo fast... i'd sprint like 3 steps then have to sprint back to the middle... finally i made it across to a gas station/convenience store and was able to ask the clerk where the gigantic robots take people... he told me they take them to the old mall, which has been converted into a slave warehouse... the mall is a ways away, but i don't know how to get there... finally i find some people at the campground who can take me that way.

...so i go into this mall, and the front of the mall is still a normal mall, there's just a huge store in the back that's off limits. there's also all sorts of subway trains and metra trains that go through this mall so it's just a massive beast. i end up seeing someone in a lab coat walking towards an unmarked door and so i just walk behind them and pretend to look like i know what i'm doing. this person just keeps walking either oblivious or ambivalent to my presence shadowing them, and i casually walk through several security checkpoints that require the keycard of the labcoated fellow who was walking in front of me...

...eventually, i make it to the back room where there is just piles and piles of crumpled tents and sleeping bags and grills and various camp supplies... i start looking around, and i hear wyd call out to me from within the pile... she managed to hide and stay hidden within the tent so the robots didn't enslave her, but instead put her in the pile of rubbish.

so we meet up, and this is about the time i start having to hit snooze every 9 minutes... because now that we're here, i have no idea how to get us out and back to chicago. see, we're about an hour away, and we have no vehicle... we don't really have anything anymore... further, while i was able to sneak in following someone in a lab coat it was going to be significantly more difficult to sneak out, if even at all possible. there was still a question of whether wyd could even walk or if she had sustained an injury... so i spent about 3 hours in 9 minute increments trying to come up with a plan to escape... i tried various tactics, like just walking out, trying to follow someone out, etc, but they kept failing... the closest i got was to jump a guy in a labcoat who was pushing a cart, and wear his labcoat, put wyd on the cart, and then start running towards the exit while pushing the cart yelling something about an emergency and to call 9/11... i think it worked, because then we found ourselves outside of the mall, but with no vehicle and no means of transportation. to go back into the mall and try to sneak onto the trains seemed foolish, and we knew the robots would come looking for us again... i believe the dream ended as we were walking down back roads in the general direction of chicago with me trying to think of a way to get us to safety and then suddenly realizing this was a dream and i need to get the fuck to work.

i'm thinking of making this a dream blog. i know it's not interesting to anyone but me.. but it's interesting to me, so maybe you should be a little more open-minded... jackasses. ok, i'll still have other posts, i guess, but i like posting my dreams, because i like forcing myself to remember them... i'll try to keep them coming.

crazy dreamer

2009-08-26T04:31:00.002-05:00

i had several dreams last night that were very memorable...

...but i'm quite drunk and it's been quite a while, so i might not remember them.

...but i remember one quite clearly. i was in a bedroom with wyd and i left to go to the entrance because their was a sound that was disconcerting. i ran downstairs (i dunno the locale, but the bedroom was upstairs) and checked the door, and when i checked there was a tiger at the door who was glaring at me, so i ran into a closet on the first floor and slammed the door behind almost immediately before the tiger crashed into it. i had escaped, but after a few moments of panic about wyd's wellbeing i awoke from this "meta-dream" and realized that i was in bed and wyd was still safe and lying next to me. i felt so happy that it was all a bad dream and i was still with her, but soon after that she removed her arm from around me, and i rolled over to check if she was ok, and i awoke from the real dream to realize that i was actually alone. yup, it was a dream within a dream. i wish i hadn't woken from the second one.

i had another dream where i was setting up a tent. as i was setting up this tent, i realized i was setting it up in a sandbox. we were putting stakes in the ground, and as i put one in the ground i started feeling around in the sand and i found a couple of small screws which i had needed for some reason... then for no reason known to me, i decided to grab the small screw and put it in my mouth and swallow it. I woke up from this feeling with the sensation of having just swallowed something small and metal but having no fucking clue what i had just swallowed (other than the cues in my dream). I suspect I'm going to have an extremely painful shit in the next couple days.

i had another dream last night, but i can't rememer it anymore. i think the last two were so memorable that i couldn't have possibly stored it in short term memory. but if i remember before tomorrow or if i have anymore good dreams, i'll try to share with you here. hope they provide some level of entertainment to you, as they're really entertaining to me.

stream of consciousness (for fun)

2009-08-24T21:56:00.002-05:00

fuck, i shouldn't be blogging, i'm too busy
but i got so much on my mind this'll probably help me remember all the shit i gotta handle
alright, let's see... CANNOT forget to deposit rent check tomorrow or i won't be able to pay the credit card bill..
and CANNOT miss the financial meeting
oh, but can't forget to pay the credit card bill AFTER i deposit the rent check
and i need to talk to dean to try to get paid for that work before the end of hte week so i can pay payroll
but i got to talk to colin to make sure everythings done first
i hope dean can meet before the end of the week, because i need that money
and i gotta follow up with gene to see if he sent those documents to the two clients who want to pay but can't because he never sent them the shit i asked him to send them last week
(seriously, what the fuck is that guys problem)
wtf is up with fucking skits in rap albums? god, i need to go through all my music and delete all the skits. can't even listen to some fucking music without hearing obnoxious shit.
maybe i should be listening to nin instead... concerts this weekend, huzzah!
mostly i should keep working on this animation. i gotta get it done tonight
ok, it probably won't get done tonight, but it can't be that far. can it?
fuck.
if i get it done tonight, then i can get the site started tomorrow, and hopefully done by thursday, have them give feedback friday and go live monday.
no work on the weekend though... nin.
my aunt sent me a check for $100 for no reason whatsoever. she just sent me a card that said she was really proud of me, and gave me $100. is that not the coolest fucking thing ever? and i really needed the money.
i should be getting more soon. big contract gig coming up.
which will suck, because i'm already spread thin.
ok, what else...
i forgot to upload the changes to kingsbury plaza last week i hope they aint pissed.
i forgot to tell herrington i added their email functionality. i really hope they aint pissed.
just got an email from shari asking me about whether gene sent those documents... i hate getting him in trouble with shari, but goddammit i cant run a business like this.
and is mcd ever gonna fucking pay? forreal.
i should check facebook to see if anyone posted anything and gmail to see if anyone chatted with me
oh my god, andrew's facebook status updates make me want to fucking kill myself. this is why i dont own a gun, because i'd be sucking on the barrel of it right now. wtf.
ok, i know you're not friends with andrew (my partner) but his status updates:
- This edgy viral video just kills me: [redacted]
  1 minute ago · Comment · Like
- It's so edgy.
  19 seconds ago · Comment · Like
- Whoever did it must be "edgy."
  2 seconds ago · Comment · Like

Yeah, he posted a link to a video he made (that he's pimped on facebook over and over again over the past several weeks) then commented on how he thought it was edgy, and how he thought "whoever did it" was "edgy" (this time in quotes). are you fucking shitting me?
this sucks.
i should get back to work, but i would seriously rather do ANYTHING else.
oh shit, the tigers are playing... better check the score.
(half hour later) tigers are up 1-0, finally some people to chat with on gchat. yay!
i know i'm forgetting something important... what else do i need to remember... this is my stream of consciousness to-do-list...
ok, um, key words for mike p
um...
oh shit, overview for mike c
oh my god and billing for mike c... i'm 3 months late... arrrg
oh man, i can't even focus on stream of consciousness.
and i've been writing this for like an hour instead of working...
ok, real quick... what else is this week...
chpa shit.
oh yeah, meeting with tyler on friday
should probably do laundry
ok, this isn't working. i can't even brainstorm my goddamn list...
ill just post this now, regret it in the morning, and edit it down tomorrow.

the memories of a man in his old age

2009-08-14T01:16:00.004-05:00

every time i try to write a blog, it just seethes with self-loathing.

(which is probably why nobody reads this blog anymore)

does anybody else in here feel the way i do?

2009-07-20T01:59:00.002-05:00

there's a lot of things wrong with me. a lot.

but i think the one thing that's most wrong with me right now is that i keep thinking i'm special. that i'm unique. that i'm the only one who is dealing with shit beyond what his mind and limited life experience and moral code and expectations and patience can handle.

everybody's been here. everybody seems to get through ok.

(that's not true)

but some people get through ok. and i'll keep fucking up until i find a way.

(that's also not true)

but i hope... i certainly don't expect... but i plead with the fates... that at some point someone will come along with some answers.

but honestly i'd be willing to settle for someone else who's even asking the same questions.

all i know is no one dies

2009-07-12T03:54:00.000-05:00

i'm still confusing love with need

raw honesty

2009-07-01T01:20:00.002-05:00

i asked my accountant today, "so how fucked am i, really?"...

his response... "you're completely fucked."

good times.

i am awesome

2009-06-28T17:02:00.003-05:00

yup. i am awesome.

i think people need to start realizing that.

hiatus

2009-06-15T18:28:00.003-05:00

i was on a brief blogging hiatus (you probably didn't notice you couldn't read my posts) while i made swift work of fucking up the best chance at a relationship i've had in a year, watched my company spiral from "viable on the verge of profitable" to "oh god, please someone stop the bleeding", and endured a painful family emergency alone in silence.

but now i'm back. i don't know why.

[-snip-] (had to cut out a lot of the bullshit. i keep forgetting the internets are public these days)

update: gotta admit that i'm a little confused... sometimes it seems to me as if i'm just being used.

things

2009-05-21T01:11:00.005-05:00

things that are not good when you're sick:

cigarettes
ice cream (at least in excess)
insomnia

things that are good when you're sick:

water
campbell's chicken noodle soup
whiskey

things i really really wish i knew:

how to tell if a girl is interested in me
how to tell if i'm interested in a girl when i first meet her
how to facilitate meeting her a second time (short of asking her out, i guess) when i am trying to decide if i'm interested in her
why i'm so stupid about not dating (never "dated" anyone. don't know how, don't care to learn, i guess?)

things i definitely don't know:

what to do with my life after this business thing thrives or fails
whether or not to share my feelings with lauren about her new life (now i'm just cheating)
how i didn't figure out that whiskey was the best thing ever when you're sick until now

things i definitely want:

to take a road trip
or fly somewhere even
to work less, live more
to have someone to take care of me when i'm sick, even if it's just providing sympathy
to keep smoking tonight, even though i committed to rationing my smokes

things i am terrified of:

having to explain to my employees that the company has failed.
having to find a way to pay rent if my company fails.
introducing my parents to my new girlfriend (if i ever get one, of course)

things i am committed to:

no beer sunday to friday afternoon (it was no drinking, but i was miserable until i started sipping whiskey tonight, and now i'm dandy... so i'm compromising)
cutting back to two packs of smokes for sunday through friday afternoon (I have 10 cigarettes left for tomorrow and friday afternoon... cutting it close, since i was over a pack a day last week)
finding a way to make my business work, because even though i am starting to care less and less about it, i am beginning to care more and more about my employees, and they need it. i no longer have the luxury of being selfish or even selfless.
at some point getting up the nerve to put myself out there, whether i fall on my face or fall head over heals, i've got to make a move soon or i'll live the rest of my life wondering "what if"
figuring out what to do with my hair, because it's an absolute clusterfuck right now... my last hair cut was a nightmare, and i'm stuck between growing it long or getting a douche cut.

things i am realizing:

starting a business is like starting a family. no longer is providing for yourself sufficient. people depend on you, and it is incredibly stressful.
i'm 60% more charming when i'm drunk.
i'm 98% more likely to forget the details of why i think i a girl was interested in me when i am drunk.
i'm 850% more likely to forget important details of our conversation and repeatedly ask the same obnoxious question over and over again when i'm drunk.
i don't blog as much as i used to, and i worry that my friends blog less because they see me blogging less. it makes me want to blog more to encourage them to blog more, because i miss them all, and i haven't heard from my blogging friends in too long.
(but maybe only forrest reads this blog anymore? if so, thank you forrest, i love you for that)
i probably am going to have to move/disguise my blog soon because my sister is now on blogger, and i can't afford for her to find this.
... because she might see me say things like "shit", "fuck", "cunt", and "boogedy boogedy!!"

things i can't deny:

I'm going to have one more cigarette before i finish off this glass of whiskey.
that leaves me only 9 for tomorrow and friday.
... i'm used to 2 on the way to work, 2 before lunch, 2 to 4 at lunch, 4 after lunch, 2 on the way home, and as many as i can down once i get home... let's try 1 on the way to work, 1 before lunch, 2 at lunch, 1 after lunch, 1 on the way home... oh shit, that's 6... that leaves me only 3 left for work on friday plus thursday evening... i'm fucked.
ok, 1 on the way to work, none before lunch, 1 at lunch, 1 after lunch, 1 on the way home... 4... i can do that... that leaves me 2 for the evening, and then one for friday morning on the way to work, one for friday at lunch, and then one for friday afternoon before i buy a new back for friday evening... hooray!!! i can do this!

things that are dragging on longer than i intended:

my addiction to cigarettes
this blog post
my infatuation with lauren

i'm learning a lot

2009-05-04T01:38:00.003-05:00

i'm learning a lot. too much to post at this time. but i got some questions.

#1, what causes bananas to turn brown when they're pressed with a thumb. some sort of chemical reaction i suppose? its still all the same molecules and elements inside of the skin, but the skin and the banana turn brown when a little pressure is applied. bruising. simple enough of a concept, and everyone is familiar with it... but why does it happen?

#2, why is the cost of living so much higher in large cities? or more aptly put, what is upsetting the rules of the free market in large cities? competition ought to drive prices down. volume also often drives prices down. i have 3 grocery stores within 2 blocks of me, and yet if i drive 45 minutes away to a rural town where nobody has a choice of what grocery store to shop at, i can get everything 10-20% cheaper. the grocery stores near me sell 10 times as much volume and they have 10 times the competition, so they should actually be cheaper. is it solely a matter of real estate costs? i'm sure that's a factor, because in urban areas, demand for real estate far exceeds supply, but i suspect the real estate costs would be covered by volume alone... and that only goes for commercial real estate... there are literally thousands of vacant apartments in chicago, far more than i'd assume there would be in upland, indiana, for instance. why wouldn't the demand in upland drive up their prices while vacancies in chicago drive them down?

oof

2009-04-18T16:49:00.002-05:00

rough night. my mind is racing. too many things to think through. i need to find a way to be a better person.

some more for wyd (and fff)

2009-04-10T02:02:00.002-05:00

pretty entertaining, but i also found it ironic that while the christians are trying to claim the founding fathers as their own, hitchens falls into the same trap, claiming benjamin franklin was "undoubtedly an atheist"... he was a deist, my friend. just like me. my religion wins, fuck off.

kudos to blackwell for saying "I'm not going to let you bogart me", kudos to hitchens for saying "I don't require your permission", and the whole conversation is just entertaining as hell to me.

i also love the ridiculous overstatement "if you don't know that, you don't know anything"... this interview represents everything i love and hate about the new atheism movement... I love their confidence in the face of christianity, i hate their bullish cockiness... frankly, you will never win an argument by calling your opponent stupid.

and that seems to me the pity of the leaders of new atheism... they're not trying to win an argument, they're not even trying to convert people... they're trying to feel superior to christians. it's smug.

and i really can't believe this guy is trying to claim benjamin franklin as an atheist. if he's gonna claim benjamin franklin as an atheist, then i'm claiming richard dawkins as a deist. suck it, bitch.

for wyd

2009-03-31T08:12:00.002-05:00

Fundamentalists say the darndest things...

My personal favorite:

No, everyone is born Christian. Only later in life do people choose to stray from Jesus and worship satan instead. Atheists have the greatest "cover" of all, they insist they believe in no god yet most polls done and the latest research indicates that they are actually a different sect of Muslims.

:-/

2009-03-29T19:26:00.001-05:00

ok that's settled then...

2009-03-21T01:07:00.000-05:00

... i guess :-/

fuckups

2009-03-19T21:32:00.002-05:00

tomorrow i have to make a hard decision. the first one in my business career. to fire or forgive. i think i already know what i'm going to do... but it sucks being put in this situation.

turtle trying to fuck a shoe

2009-03-12T20:59:00.002-05:00

i love the internet.

why i am here, what's meant to be...

2009-03-06T03:28:00.002-06:00

but i know this, i know...

in case you wondered...

2009-02-24T03:04:00.002-06:00

i failed on all my goals... and i don't care.

everyone is a commodity in this dehumanizing capitalistic bullshit society. i wish the retardicans were right about obama ushering in socialism. it'd be nice if people became worth more than just what they can produce. maybe i'm joking, maybe i'm not.

the value of a friendship means so much to me. the value of love, infinitely more. and i'm becoming more convinced daily that i am alone in those sentiments.

oh well... at least i know what i'm doing isn't making me happy. i guess that's step one. step two is figuring out whether i go backwards to try to regain lost happiness or i stumble forward into the grey murk.

i'm not where i started a year ago. i haven't turned back, but i also haven't gotten anywhere. i'm just pacing back and forth waiting for someone to grab me by the hand and show me where i'm supposed to go.

and then i consider, maybe someone else is waiting for me to grab their hand.

revised goals.

2009-02-12T00:06:00.003-06:00

i feel like i've been stabbed or prison raped or something...

so i revised my goals... here they are:

-make it through this week.

-avoid letting people see how badly i'm fucked.

-listen to all these cat power albums i just downloaded.

-hope for a miracle.

setting some goals...

2009-02-06T01:36:00.003-06:00

weight loss goals

end of february, down 6 lbs

end of march, down 11 lbs

end of april, down 16 lbs

end of may, down 21 lbs

end of august, still down 21+ lbs

running 5 times a week

lifting 2 times a week

counting calories 5 to 6 days a week (if i'm drinking, i'm drinking... fuck it)

business goals

next week, start showing up in the morning every day

end of february, become a better motivator for my employees

end of march, break even

end of may, hire another employee

end of august, give myself a raise

end of year, profit

personal goals

now, no more getting black out drunk (drunk is ok, but i gotta remember the night or i fail)

now, no more drunk-texting people (this has become a real problem in combo with the previous)

now, no more heavy drinking on weeknights

end of next week, clean up my bedroom

end of february, get a license plate, city sticker, etc. (now 10 months overdue)

end of march, sign up for health insurance

end of may, buy some clothes for the summer

end of september, buy some clothes for the fall/winter

end of october, find something that makes me happy that i can cling to through next winter

blog goals

after this post, be less boring

sometime this year, make a professional blog (that will be, actually, more boring)

sometime this year, find someone i can confide in so i can stop confiding in a blog

some day, write something interesting enough that people actually comment

other goals

always, give more than i take

always, let shit roll off my back

always, confront dogma with reason

fuck all

2009-01-31T17:22:00.001-06:00

i gotta change.

just a fading, fucking reminder of who i used to be

2009-01-29T20:27:00.000-06:00

i have made two semi-resolutions...
1. I will no longer punish myself for mistakes I've made over a year ago. It's time to let it go.
2. I will admit that I have everything that I need. I do not need to purchase anything in order to become the person who I want to be. I am either that person or I am not that person regardless of what I possess.

i can't live up to those semi-resolutions right now... but I aspire to them, i guess. they just seemed like worthy things to aspire to.
i have been having vivid dreams for the last month... so vivid that i often think what happened in the dream really happened... sometimes for weeks before i actually think about it and realize it must've been a dream.
this makes it easy for me to see how people can be so wrong... i mean, these assumptions that i've been carrying around for weeks based on nothing but a dream... but until i actually think about that topic it doesn't even occur to me it wasn't real.
i wish i could think of a good example of the above, but its eluding me at the moment...
i have an internal debate over the ethics of which elevator to use. seriously.
see, i live on the 27th floor. there are 5 elevators, two of which are tied together and go to floors up to 27, and 3 of which are tied together and go from 27 up to 51 (the top floor). here's the thing: if i choose the three elevators it is almost always faster... (there are three and there is only one floor that it stops at between 27 and 1, so its basically an express elevator right to my apartment.) that said, every time i take that elevator and there's anyone else in the elevator, I'm basically making them wait an extra stop. i wonder if they are thinking "jeez, that jerk could've taken the other elevator and i wouldn't have had to stop here." see, if i take the one that only goes between 1 and 27, i am never directly inconveniencing anyone. they will always get off before I get off, because I am at the end of the line both directions...
so it is more self-sacrificing to take the side with two, but much faster to take the side with three...
HOWEVER, if I were to always take the side with only two elevators, i could end up indirectly inconveniencing those riders. if the mean floor for visitors on that elevator is the 14th floor, then the time it takes to go back and forth from the first to the 14th is what we'd consider normal... if all of a sudden one of the elevators has to go all the way to the 27th then it's going to take that much longer to get back down to the first floor for the next batch of people who want to ride.
basically, the time difference to people on the fast side is the time it takes for the doors to open and then close, because it has to pass my floor anyway, but the time difference for people on the slow side is the time it takes to open, close, as well as travel the distance of whatever floor was the second highest to mine and then back down.
so ultimately, i think i'm doing the right thing by taking the fast elevator. besides, its a helluva lot faster. and i like that.
i've been waking up miserable. i stayed home sick the tuesday and wednesday... went in today at 1pm. each day i wake up just absolutely wretchedly sick and by around 6 or 7pm i feel fine.
i think there's something in my bedroom that's making me sick... it's been really cold and really dry, so maybe that's affecting it. I dont know.
i was thinking about the qualities i am looking for in a girlfriend or a wife. i think i've narrowed it down to one: she can't be a republican. that's really it. i know, i'm really setting the bar high here... but really, god, can you see me with a republican? i couldn't respect her, and i wouldn't be able to hide the fact that i had no respect for her, which would cause her to resent me.
which is fine by me, because this hypothetical girlfriend is a total cunt anyway... that's why i've eliminated her.
there's another quality i anticipate my next girlfriend to have, and that's confidence... because she's probably going to have to make the first move... because i'm a fucking coward.
but i also think insecurity is sexy.
so fuck all.
i'm in love with the show House. I've decided i want to be House.
when i watch the show i connect with him. i know its ridiculous because i'm nothing like him, but i attribute that to just great writing. when you can see yourself in a character who is nothing like you... truly amazing.
i want to be more of a jerk when the situation calls for a jerk. i don't think i can pull it off though.
his relationship with stacy through season 1 and 2 hits a little too close to home.
i wish i could become an anti-social genius. or even just a genius.
right now, the greatest song in the world is leaving hope by nine inch nails. no seriously. listen to it and tell me i'm not right.
i'm in a lot of pain when i let myself be. i've been supressing and even repressing feelings for a long time.
drinking doesn't numb the pain, it allows it to surface. this is why i am giving up getting drunk for a while.
but i've got a headache so i'm gonna get a beer. fuck it.
i still need to destroy this blog... maybe i'll do that tonight.

vice

2009-01-25T03:13:00.003-06:00

i'd like to trade some of my vices for virtues.

i think i fucked up... i gave up smoking and started exercising... but that's just fucked everything up, because now my karmic balance is fucked.

my other vices have become significantly worse.

i think i'm always going to have a certain amount of vice in me... when it was just smoke breaks that was a nice controlled dosage that had little negative side effects (if we're willing to assume lung cancer isn't a negative side effect).

i need to find a better vice. i think i _should_ start smoking again, but i have too much pride to go back to cigarettes.

it can't be drinking. i hate myself when i drink too much, and i've been able to have less and less self control. what other vices do highly productive people have? smoking, cocaine, amphetamines, drinking...

i need to become highly productive. i probably should've never started my own company because i am no good with the stress, but since i can't turn back the clock, i need to make my company successful, and that's only going to happen if i get a helluva lot more productive.

i hope i can figure out a way to get productive starting tomorrow.

its times like these...

2009-01-19T21:37:00.003-06:00

i wish i believed in a personal god because i have an overwhelming desire to thank god for the end of bush's reign of terror.

if i may leave you with a jay-z quote:

No more war
No more Iraq
No more white lies
My president is black

i want to break this blog.

2009-01-13T03:40:00.002-06:00

but i don't have time to break it properly.

so i guess i'll give an update.

a week left before bush is gone. fuck yeah.

i got a couple client meetings on wednesday... big business opportunities. cross your fingers.

i'm playing video games again because i'm depressed as hell and it's a distraction from life.

gears of war 2 has so many good things going for it, but it often gives you the most idiotic obstacles... it's like all of a sudden it says "ok, you've had enough fun fighting aliens, now we're going to create a complicated game of simon for you that'll take you an hour to perfect and that will provide no satisfaction upon completion whatsoever." violence in games does not make me violent, but stupid shit like that makes me want to punch a midget.

i have lots of work to do tonight, and i'm procrastinating... it's almost 4am... i'm not exactly sure when i was thinking of getting around to it.

i can't wait for summer. i can't deal with this depression much longer.

meh

2009-01-11T03:11:00.003-06:00

so...

some stuff

2009-01-06T22:52:00.002-06:00

my happy dreams weren't meant to last, i guess, since last night i had night terrors again. I woke up, stood straight up on my bed, and then dove to the ground between my bed and my window and hid for what I would guess is 5 minutes before I rationalized that the threat had passed and it was safe to lay in my bed as long as I stayed really still and didn't draw any attention to myself.

not sure what i was hiding from, but i was terrified. i hope that some day there's a cure for night terrors.

in other news, i'm a fatass again. not as heavy as i was at this time last year, but definitely much heavier than i was at this time 6 months ago. i put on about 15 pounds during the holidays, and i'm going to go on an even more intense weight loss routine this year than i did last year.

i just ran on the elliptical for 30 minutes, and my health-thingie on my iphone says normal is to burn 300 calories, vigorous is 371 and very vigorous is 417 for 30 minutes... I burned 463, so I feel like I'm really kicking ass. And I don't even feel that bad afterwards. I think part of that is being a non-smoker. it's a lot easier to run now than it was before. i might try to run every night for a while... if I run every night at 463 calories burned per night, that's 1 pound per week right there... in addition to my diet, i could probably start dropping 2 or 3 pounds a week, easily.

it's all a matter of motivation, i guess.

that's where i'm a viking...

2009-01-05T05:25:00.002-06:00

for a couple weeks i've been having vivid dreams of meeting a girl and experiencing those initial feelings and emotions that come when you realize someone might like you as much as you like her...

...and then i wake up, and throughout the day the memory slowly fades until at some point (sometimes several hours later) i realize that it was just a dream and i am still hopelessly alone.

i can't decide whether these dreams are making me more depressed or if they're the only thing keeping me from being completely depressed.

whatever you call it...

2009-01-05T03:48:00.000-06:00

"No! You can go back to your, what do you call it, your Google, and you figure out all that." -- Former President George H.W. Bush, in a Fox News interview, when asked if he would elaborate on some of his son's failures as president. January 4, 2009

ashes and diamonds, foe and friend...

2008-12-26T23:41:00.002-06:00

we were all equal in the end.

thirty something...

2008-12-20T23:46:00.003-06:00

what the fuck can i say.

where i am today, and where i was a year ago.

one year ago I was in love with a girl, lived with my best friend, and was generally content, except that I was unhappy with my job situation, hated the president, and desperately wanted more friends.

today, i run my own company, have plenty of friends and am jubilant about the president-elect, but i am desperately missing someone who i can confide in.

I guess that's how karma works. Nothing else to say. Fuck it.

(ps. 5th day of no smoking, cold turkey... I am a fucking rock.)

telling myself its not as hard... hard... hard as it seems...

2008-12-10T03:30:00.002-06:00

i'm depressed.

ok, maybe not.

i don't know, but i'm frustrated.

i need to throw myself into my work and ignore all the other distractions.

i'm quitting smoking in only 5 days. in the past it was easy to quit. i think this time it's going to be extremely tough.

you know what i really need? some new music to listen to that is really really fucking good, but isn't really really fucking sad. y'know, maybe the new common album will do the trick... fuck it... fuck this blogging shit, i'm gonna go steal a fucking album.

suns coming up... and i can't sleep

2008-12-01T06:46:00.000-06:00

i hate that it's 6:40am and I still can't fall asleep. so lame.

ok, so this is what i want to say... the new kanye west album. wow.

listen to this... new style for kanye, and it is really phenomenal.

Street Lights

I love that song, and several others on the album. I can't recall another artist making that severe of a stylistic change and pulling it off so well.

kanye fucking rocks.

oof

2008-11-30T20:13:00.003-06:00

i just can't win lately...

broke my iphone last night. fuck everything.

i gotta do some work.

i'm not enjoying life very much right now.

don't say you will.. you will...

2008-11-29T03:11:00.000-06:00

business has gotten rocky. i've got qualms with my partners and they've got qualms with me.
i think we'll work it out. we kind of have to. i guess this is to be expected.
but it still sucks.
i went home for thanksgiving. i wasn't looking forward to it.
it ended up being really fun. they even threw me a surprise party for my 30th birthday.
my aunt made everyone masks of me. when i walked in and they yelled surprise i was kind of freaked out because it looked so creepy. it was hilarious.
i got a flat tire on the ride home. my tire blew out about 10 miles from my house on i-94 while i was driving in the far left lane of the interstate where it's 7 lanes wide. fortunately i was able to make it over safely and pull over and change the tire without dying.
my family got me lots of junk food for my birthday, and sent me home with tons of leftovers and candy and junk.
i'm trying to lose weight, but its tough to lose weight when there's candy everywhere.
for the first time in a really long time i feel like my family really loves me. its a weird feeling.
i guess for the first time in a really long time i feel like i love my family, too.
the holidays are always a sad and emotional time for me.
i don't know why, i guess because i've got some sort of seasonal depression problem.
but after seeing my family yesterday and how much fun everything was, i am almost looking forward to seeing them again.
i don't know what i'm going to do on christmas day though. i wonder if i have any other friends who'll be home alone on christmas and if they'd want to hang out.
i really hope so.
i'm kind of depressed.
but not really.
hey hey hey hey.
i have so much work to do this weekend.
a lot.
i hope i can wake up early enough tomorrow to get a good start on it.
my mouse batteries are dead.
oh yeah, i broke my tv two weeks ago.
i bought a new one the other day.
my phone broke a week ago.
i bought a new one the other day.
i got an iphone.
it's pretty awesome.
iphone's are so much fun. they are like precious little bits of joy in my mouth.
or something like that.
i have a headache. i should sleep.
the shit in mumbai is too depressing to even think about.
it never ceases to amaze me how awful this world actually is. maybe i really am naive. dammit all.

a drunk post...

2008-11-19T01:06:00.002-06:00

i am so fucking sick of this fucking abortion discussion. let's move past it. it's so fucking stupid. it's fucking stupid and i hate everyone because of it.

look, abortion sucks. it fucking sucks. it scars the fucking mother-to-be for life, i'm sure, and it's a terrible thing.

but fuck, you want some woman who was married when she got pregnant and decided to be a stay at home mom, who's husband was making a nice salary and was planning to cover everything, but then he got laid off, and now she's 3 months pregnant and they know in 6 months his unemployment runs out, and his unemployment barely even covers their food expenses, but now that he doesn't have health insurance they can't even pay for delivery... you want that couple to have a kid and have to find some way to feed that kid? what the fuck is wrong with you?

ok, you want them to have the kid and give it up for adoption... i get that, i really do... and i can feel you on that... but now you're gonna say that gay couples can't adopt your kid? are you shitting me? you are just going to bring an orphan into the world and then be picky about who is going to love and care for that orphan? are you shitting me? fuck you, you are fucking scum of the earth.

seriously. scum of the goddamn earth if you are anti-abortion but also anti-gay adoption. absolutely reprehensible human being who would rather orphan's grow up in the state's care than in the home of a loving family.

oh, but guess what, you're probably a republican who thinks the state shouldn't be paying for these kids either... your taxes should be lower so those orphanages shouldn't even be getting the money from the government in order to even function.

so what you're saying is, you want every conceived child to be raised by a straight couple with no government funding whatsoever. ok, tell you what, you're in charge of that you fucking dumb ass mother fucker. go ahead. find a straight couple who wants to adopt every fucking conceived child. seriously, go. if you can do it, i'll concede and you win. but i bet you a fucking billion dollars you can't, so how about you fucking get over your fucking ideals and your smug religious bullshit and look at the fucking reality. seriously. i hate you already, but god damn, you are some dumb piece of shit. i wish you had been aborted and spared us all this stupidity.

the end. (i win.)

seriously...

2008-11-19T00:19:00.002-06:00

life goals...

2008-11-09T04:35:00.000-06:00

start my own company
make some friends
do everything i can to get obama elected
make my company successful
find a girl who loves me
be a better father than mine was
live to see and celebrate the deaths of jerry falwell, pat robertson, sean hannity, bill o'reilly, osama bin laden, george w. bush, and sarah palin.

We won.

2008-11-05T16:07:00.001-06:00

I am so happy.

happy day

2008-11-04T12:38:00.001-06:00

we're gonna win this shit.

i've got tickets to the rally.

i just voted.

party at my place tonight.

confidence...

2008-10-31T16:10:00.002-05:00

i found out today that a girl i once had a crush on in college (before meeting wyd, natch) thought i was cute, and then i saw her today and she said that i looked just like i did in college, and "that's a good thing". that makes me feel good, even though probably nothing will ever come of it.

i'm beginning to almost realize that maybe i'm a dumbass and maybe girls can actually be attracted to me.

oh well, i guess it doesn't really change anything. i'm still going to be scared shitless of ever asking a girl out.

c'est la vie.

things that suck, and things that don't

2008-10-29T02:29:00.005-05:00

Things that suck

I was out enjoying a cigarette when I saw a tow truck back up to a car on the street outside my balcony. As it was backing up, a man yelled "Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey!" and ran up to the truck, tapped on the window and unlocked his car, opening the driver's door. The truck driver got out and they started talking, and then a police car pulled up. At this point the guy was talking to the cop for about 5 minutes, and then finally shrunk back in defeat and his car was towed, while he could do nothing but pace back and forth on the street for about a minute with his hands on his head.
wtf, let the guy have his fucking car back. i mean shit... ok, the cop can give him a ticket, or maybe make him pay the tow truck guy $20 for his time or something, but give him his fucking car back. getting towed sucks. i know, he fucked up and shouldn't have parked there... but c'mon. getting towed really, really, really sucks.
the guy also tried to get into the truck to ride with to the impound lot, but the tow truck driver wouldn't let him. wtf.
this election is really heating up. there are two stories being told here. Obama's story is "we can make things better", and McCain's story is "Obama is different from you. Different is scary and dangerous."
the lunatic fringe of the republican party (which looks more and more like the base of the republican party every day) is eating this shit up, and are growing more racist, more hateful, more evil every day. they're overtly racist, blatantly race-baiting, liars, fear mongerers. mccain, and especially palin, are encouraging this behaviour. they're feeding off of it. they must believe the only way they can win this election is to scare as many people into voting for them as possible.
it shatters my faith in humanity when i see a video like this:
it seems mccain/palin/republicans aren't going to lose gracefully, but instead want to tear this country apart if they aren't going to win.
I think I've got a cyst on the back of my head. it's a bump just above the base of my hairline. since i discovered it yesterday, my entire back has been aching sporadically, and i think it's because its pressing up against a nerve.
I can't help but constantly imagine the scenario that would unfold if this were brain cancer. i'm sure that's 100% impossible, but silly things like these remind you that there are much less silly things that can happen, too.
I don't have health insurance, so it's going to suck going anywhere to have them look at this thing. but whatever... i've got money. the main thing that sucks is finding the time to actually do it. i'm busy as hell.
speaking of finding the time to do it, i also have failed to register my new car, update my license plate, my driver's license, and pretty much everything else. I got a well-deserved ticket for it last week, but i haven't had the chance to remedy the situation yet. Everytime i drive home i drive near cabrini green (unavoidable) and it's crawling with cop cars. Everytime i hit a red light i stare in my rearview mirror and hope that a cop doesn't get behind me. A couple days ago one did so I immediately turned and went the wrong way to get home just so he wouldnt have time to stay behind me and look at my plate.

Things that don't suck

OBAMA'S GOING TO WIN
I just put in my bid for tickets to the election night celebration in Grant Park
I put in my bid right away, and I've given lots of money to the campaign, so I think I've got a good shot at getting a ticket, but they're projecting 1,000,000 people to be there.
Seriously. One million.
I was at Lollapalooza in Grant Park a few months ago and there were 300,000 people there. But they were split up between 5 stages. 1,000,000 people around one stage is absurd.
And I get to be part of history. I get to be there. I'm really proud of the fact that I own a part of this campaign, and that I was one of the earliest to own a part of this campaign. I am really proud of the way this campaign was run. The contrast between a campaign built around integrity and a campaign built around hate is obvious to any neutral observer. And the fact that integrity was able to overcome hate is overwhelmingly reassuring.
I think one day I'll look back on this and see it as the defining moment of my generation. And I'll be able to speak with pride when I tell my grandchildren about how I was a part of the movement, just as grandparents tell their children today about their involvement in the civil rights movements. Just as those who were fortunate enough to hear the 'I have a dream' speech in person surely remember the moment to their loved ones.
Maybe I won't get a ticket... but I'll be there.
I'm having an election night party at my house. My friend is bringing a bottle of Dom Perignon, and we're going to watch the early returns for the east coast. And when Virginia or Florida or North Carolina or Ohio or West Virginia or Indiana (any of them) land for Obama, we're going to toast to his inevitable victory. Then we're going to walk down to Grant Park singing "Yes, we did!" and dance in the streets. We'll hug complete strangers. We'll cry because we know this is a moment that none of us really thought would happen... we just always dreamed it would... and then along came Barack Obama who told us we could actually make a difference... that we could actually change the world... and he showed us how.
Barack Obama. Barack Fucking Obama.
If he runs this country half as well as he ran his campaign, we can expect improbable, amazing results.

you've had enough, i'm sure...

2008-10-23T02:20:00.003-05:00

you've all had more than enough of my political rants, i'm sure... and I think we're all like-minded here, which is nice, because i can vent w/o defending my positions, but it doesn't really make for much interesting dialogue.

...i've started posting some on my xanga (which is actually read by republicans... even my naive family members), so if you're interested, you can follow the action there:

http://www.xanga.com/thecrazydreamer

seriously though... two more weeks... and our long national nightmare is over. two more weeks.

dexter

2008-10-20T02:24:00.000-05:00

i never feel like a pacifist when i finish an episode of dexter.

shit

2008-10-19T06:04:00.002-05:00

i don't know what to do with myself anymore.

i built myself up a nice group of friends over the last few months through my sister company. really really good friends. six of them were laid off on friday, and now i have six fewer friends.

i don't deal well with change. especially endings.

and to say i don't do well with it is a massive understatement. i almost always feel overwhelmingly depressed when my tidy little world changes.

you all probably already know that about me.

i guess i'm just having a hard time looking at the future and seeing how fucking uncertain everything is. things were really good for me lately, and i've now got a reminder that when things are good, it just makes it suck that much more when they end. i know that a lot more of my friends will leave the company, and i know that co-workers who are friends rarely remain friends when you stop seeing each other every day. its just human nature. i mean, hopefully some of my friends will be friends for life, but i dont want to lose a goddamn single one of them.

i don't know how i've managed to pull myself and my life together for so long and be pretty successful and well-adjusted, and yet still collapse in on myself at these moments.

its times like these that i just feel so alone. that nobody is permanent.

it may be shitty or counterproductive to use another person as a crutch, but i think i really need to settle down with a pretty girl who'll let me cry on her lap when my friends go away and reassure me she'll always be there for me.

actually, if you'll permit me some impromptu self-diagnosis, i would say this stems from some childhood issue of never connecting with my family. because i guess that's what your family is supposed to be. you lose your friends, but your family is always there for you. or so that's how its supposed to go, i guess.

fuck it.

everything i'm not made me everything i am.

obama update

2008-10-14T03:35:00.002-05:00

i don't know if any of my readers follow politics as ferociously as i have been, but i thought i'd share the good news if you've missed it...

obama is frickin KILLING mccain across the board.

you might have remembered a while ago i listed a handful of states that obama just needed to win one of in order to win the election... well, here's the current situation:

If obama wins any of these states, he wins:

- Ohio (averaging +3.2 in polls)

- Florida (+5 avg)

- Virginia (+6.5 avg)

- Missouri (+2.2 avg)

- Colorado (+4 avg)

But lets pretend McCain magically swings all those states back to him... Obama still has a marign of error with likely victories in New Mexico (+7.3 avg) and Nevada (+2.9 avg.).

But if McCain spends too much time focusing on those states, he might end up losing ground in all these other new battleground states that were previously thought to be locks:

- North Carolina (+1 avg)

- North Dakota (obama +2 in latest poll)

- West Virginia (obama +8 in latest poll)

so... it looks good. i'm skeptical about florida and ohio (after the last two elections) and missouri is really too close to call, but I have a great feeling about virginia, colorado, and new mexico (which would be more than enough) and like his odds in at least a handful of other states. I just really don't see any way obama loses this bitch.

a few things

2008-10-06T04:01:00.002-05:00

If you've got a few minutes, will you please do me a huge favor and read this. Please.
I'm in love with this song. It makes me feel like I'm in love.
I remembered that I love driving through Michigan and Indiana and wherever because I would drive with my sun-roof open, and occasionally while I was driving on those long, lonely interstates, I'd lean my head back and just stare up at the stars. There are so many of them. I was able to count 3 stars from my balcony tonight.
But I love Chicago even more. Beautiful city, beautiful people. The city breathes life into me. I love my balcony. I could live here forever. Or I could move somewhere more peaceful.
It really depends. I always believed I'd be happier taking it easy... just relaxing and having time for whatever I wanted. None of that bustle. Maybe I would be happier doing that. It's hard to say.
Really, the only thing that I know for certain would make me happier right now is being able to play bridge more often. I got to play quite a few games a couple weekends ago. I won every game, which is good for my ego. But I worry people won't want to play with/against me because of it.
I'm very good at bridge. If I wanted to spoil the purity of the game, I'd consider joining a tournament. I wonder if you can make good money in those things.

My dream for tuesdays debate

2008-10-05T21:09:00.003-05:00

At some point during the debate, the moderator will ask Obama about Rezko or Ayers or someone else and this is what I want Obama to do:

I want Obama to say to the Moderator, "Before answering this, would you mind if I directed a question to my opponent, Senator McCain?". When the Moderator responds, "Certainly", he then says:

"Senator McCain, do you think the undecided voters of America are more interested in my relationships with Tony Rezko, Billy Ayers, and Reverend Wright and your relationships with Charles Keating, Aquiles Suarez, and Rick Davis? Or do you think that perhaps the citizens of America are smarter than that and deserve better than this partisan bickering. Don't you think we should focus our campaigns on the policies that will directly affect their lives, such as the differences in our economic policies, our plans for Iraq, our positions on health care, and our fundamental beliefs regarding women's rights?"

He's set the trap. If McCain concedes the policies are important, then when he runs the ads he is already going to run, he'll be seen as a hypocrite and Obama will win in a landslide. And if McCain decides to focus on the issues themselves, then Obama wins in a landslide there, as well.

a few things...

2008-10-05T00:43:00.000-05:00

I'm happy with my life right now.
Business is going well. I've hired two new employees this week.
I'm pretty busy, but that's ok. I'm actually at the office right now, and it's past midnight on a Saturday night. But I'm getting shit done, and I love my job.
The Cubs just got swept. Ouch.
I still love pandora.com.
I've been drinking and smoking too much, but god damn has it been fun.
I was out until 5am on Thursday night with my good friends. I just couldn't be more content than when I'm out with them into the wee hours of the night.
I passed up the opportunity to attend the Michigan football game today, and I'm glad I did, because they got smoked.
Obama's got big leads across the board, and things look good. But you know Palin/McCain are going to go on the attack like this country has never seen before. Hopefully enough people have already made up their minds and/or voted early to offset any advantage going negative will give the republicans.
I'll be going in to the office again tomorrow, and probably spend the whole day there.
I've started watching some of the shows I used to love that are now new episodes again, like Prison Break, House, Heroes, It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, and Entourage. Of those shows, It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia is the only one that's significantly improved since the writer's strike. Heroes is the one that has gotten the worst, and I'll probably give it one more episode before abandoning ship. House is just as good as before, and Prison Break and Entourage are slowly losing my interest.
I keep forgetting to download and watch The Office. Anyone have an opinion as to whether I'm missing anything in this season?
I recorded the VP debate. I only cared about it because I wanted to see Palin screw up. Apparently she didn't, so I don't really care about it anymore. There was no debate necessary to know who is the more capable vice presidential candidate, or whose positions are more inline with mine.
I miss having a girlfriend sometimes, but I am pretty happy that I don't have any commitments to anyone at the moment.
You're going to be bombarded with lies about Obama's relationship with Billy Ayers in the next month. Read this and get the full story.
Today I saw a bumper sticker that said "What did you want to become?" and I thought back and remembered how I wanted to work with computers and be my own boss. God damn, I kick ass.
That said, what the hell am I still doing at the office. Screw this, I'm going home.

a terrible day for the economy, but...

2008-09-29T19:05:00.002-05:00

...but I just doubled my company's revenue!! Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!

HARSH!

2008-09-26T02:10:00.001-05:00

check this out...

mccain's economic plan: blurt out random crap

white privilege

2008-09-16T02:15:00.001-05:00

maybe a stretch for some of the points, and the double standard might better be described as "republican-privilege" for at least several of the points, but still interesting:

white privilege

nothing to see.

2008-09-15T02:27:00.003-05:00

i watched 21 yesterday.

i might have to give up watching movies for a while, because i don't think i can endure anything so painful again anytime soon.

i mean seriously... based on such an awesome story (a handful of MIT students rigging their odds to win big bucks at blackjack)... and they dumbed it down into the single most cliché movie of all time.

and ok, whatever, its not like i'm a snob about clichés... they're fine sometimes... just give me something- anything- interesting.

but they didn't. it was utter shit. terrible. worse than the happening, which only a couple months ago i had called the worst movie i've ever seen.

i honestly feel like i have less will to live because of seeing this movie.

if you see it and, like me, you feel like walking out after 5 minutes, please just do it. i sat through the entire 16 hours of this shit (i dont really know how long it lasted, but i'd put it somewhere between the time it takes to recover from getting your wisdom teeth removed and the time it'd take to pass thirty three consecutive kidney stones each incrementally larger than the previous).

if i had made a drinking game out of this movie (such as having to drink everytime you've seen the exact scene portrayed in another movie done both better and earlier), i'd have probably mercifully died from alcohol poisoning before having the train wreck that is the second half of this movie thrust upon me.

in my opinion, the best way to describe this movie is "good will hunting minus all of its humor, personality, and creativity and then re-edited into a teen romantic-comedy / thriller hybrid. except, even worse than that."

i'm going to commit to memory the names of every person involved in creating this abomination and permanently avoid their work in the future.

*HOLY SHIT*... no wonder this is so bad... look at this director's other work... Monster-in-Law, Win a date with Tad Hamilton, and Legally Blonde. and it was written by the son of a bitch who wrote Analyze That. This movie's promotional materials should've come with a disclaimer "from the creators of the worst movies you've ever seen or were smart enough to avoid".

may god have mercy on your soul if you fail to heed this warning.

does truth even matter anymore?

2008-09-12T13:51:00.001-05:00

it does to me. :(

hilarious

2008-09-08T19:11:00.001-05:00

check it:

republican "change"

survey says...

2008-09-08T01:59:00.002-05:00

I filled out a survey from taylor today, and thought I'd share my response with you guys, because I suspect many of you feel the same...

I am happy with the consequences of having chosen Taylor, and would not have chosen another path for myself.

HOWEVER, my appreciation for attending Taylor is based entirely on one principle: The significant majority of Taylor University's students and staff were so militantly dogmatic and intolerant that it made it almost impossible to not draw marked distinctions between my beliefs and the accepted beliefs of the intentional community.

The one thing nearly all my friends from Taylor University have in common is that almost all of us share the same common experience of arriving at Taylor University with an earnest passion for evangelical christianity. This lasted only until we saw the embodiment of those beliefs in the professors and overzealous students at Taylor. While not all of us abandoned Christianity, even those few who remained christians no longer identify with the disdain for logic or lack of compassion that characterized the Taylor University experience.

That is my response to "Would I attend Taylor University again?" Simply put, I wouldn't change who I am right now for the world. If I had gone to almost anywhere else I might not have had the experience of seeing first hand how fucked up my beliefs were by just acknowledging how fucked up everyone around me was. Maybe I would've drifted through life without ever having any need or desire to reexamine my own dogmas. Maybe that alone is what separates me from my brother and sister.

Which makes it hard to say this, but I would almost recommend Taylor to anyone who is a smart, but dogmatic, evangelical christian. I don't think anyone leaves Taylor both smart and dogmatic, because the two butt heads so frequently. The smart ones break off from the pack and do things like read my blog and be awesome, while the dogmatic ones buy hemp necklaces and become youth pastors or submissive housewives.

required reading

2008-09-05T11:59:00.003-05:00

hockey mom maverick hockey mom maverick maverick maverick reformer maverick yada yada... here's the truth...

http://www.crosscut.com/politics-government/17341

teeheehee

2008-09-04T18:24:00.001-05:00

Apparently, I am Satan...

2008-09-02T00:00:00.003-05:00

So here's what's new with me:

it's football season, which means i end up seeing my family more often as i come up for football games.
i went to the game on saturday. michigan lost, which sucks.
i debated politics with my brother and my dad on the car ride home.
my father informed me (and i quote), "those are lies from the pits of hell".
in case it wasn't obvious, my father is a fucking moron who resorts to exaggerated accusations in order to deflect any criticisms of his dogmas.
i am the only person in my entire extended family who isn't afraid of truth. how did that happen? this is no exaggeration, though. my entire family is in love with their blindness and treat me as if i am an imbecile because i have rejected their dogmas.
my father informed me that i am "obviously reading or listening to the wrong people". he, of course, listens to enlightened people like rush limbaugh.
my dad's opposition to obama included both "you can't trust a word he says" and "i don't like what he says he's going to do", as well as "he hasn't done anything ever" and "i'm afraid of what he'll do if he's president". its nearly impossible to argue with someone who doesn't feel the need to have a consistent opinion.
i am hereby making a commitment to donate more money to Obama than my entire extended family donates to John McCain. i may not be able to undo the damage done by my family to america, but i can at least try to nullify it.
in other news, this afternoon i had a cookout at my place. there were a handful of girls across the street who started waving to us. we waved back.
they then made a sign that said "COME OVER. BRING BEER!!"
we made a sign back that said "OK WHAT #", asking for their unit #.
they replied with their phone number, and we called them.
it was pretty fun, but they cut off communication relatively quickly. i think at first they thought it was funny, but when we called their bluff they realized they didn't want a bunch of creepy guys from across the street coming over.
oh well.
i saw dark knight tonight.
i know, seriously, after like 13 years.
it was good... maybe even great, i guess.
but it was so hyped, i expected to be knocked on my ass. i expected to be incredulous as i walked out of the theater.
to me, it was great, but not in the league of movies such as v for vendetta, fight club, or the matrix. all of those movies were great, too, and i couldn't wait to see them again. they had so many layers to them. the dark knight seemed to be a little shallow to me by comparison.
but again, it was a good or great movie. so i won't take anything away from it.
back to my dad... one of his claims was that obama didn't even vote for the ethics reform bill that he's claiming to have been instrumental in. i have no idea where he got this idea. in the debate, i said, "well, i've certainly never heard that, so i'll have to look into it." the only thing i could find was some discredited report from hannity & colmes where this guy lied and said obama opposed some (other) vote. if anyone has any better idea of where he got this idea (or whether or not there is any truth to it) i'd love to hear it.

bush

2008-08-29T18:56:00.001-05:00

Bush Tours America To Survey Damage Caused By His Disastrous Presidency

stumbled on this...

2008-08-29T02:39:00.001-05:00

does this look like me? I thought it did:

YES WE CAN!

2008-08-29T00:31:00.002-05:00

The definitive moment of this presidential race just happened. It's fucking over. Every person who saw that speech is going to vote for Barack Obama. Even John McCain probably watched it and realized he was fighting a losing battle. Don't be surprised if John McCain concedes the election tomorrow. And if he doesn't, he's only dragging out the inevitable.

Obama is going to win by 10% nationally in November. It's fucking over.

Wish me luck, I have a huge meeting with a very large potential client tomorrow.

[redacted]

2008-08-26T03:50:00.002-05:00

[because that just didn't make any sense]

please remember me happily

2008-08-25T21:33:00.007-05:00

rough night for me emotionally. not necessarily bad, but just bittersweet. its always hard for me to say goodbye.

i can't decide whether to cry or drink. wallow or distract myself.

that's a lie. i've already decided to drink.

--no sooner did i type that than a song came on that erased any chance of me making it through tonight without sobbing.

i got nothing left but a carton of smokes, a case of beer, and balcony where i can cry as much as i fucking want to.

update (1:00am): its all good. its my buddy's birthday and we're drinking beers and talking tech shit and work shit, and i'm fine. life's tough sometimes, but i'm very fortunate to have lots of friends to lean on, including one special one who i am going to miss, but i'm still so glad to have met her and i wish her nothing but happiness and contentedness forever.

update (idontknow): i'm done drinking. its late. i wanted to watch michlel openbama shit. obama. on tv. but im too drunk. michelle obama though. wow. fucking amazing america is. i mean, look at fucking barack and miclell. what they were when they were born and what they are now. if they dont become presidnets and first lady i am going to fucking hate everything. but they will, god dammit they will. but they deserve it so much. they are so amazing., what amazing stories. and joe biden. his story is amazing too. i can't think of 3 peopeel on earht who deserve presidency moer than hotse poeple. shit. i srecdorded it thoug on me dvdr. and il wantch it tomrow. O- BAM_AA O_BAM AA. YES WE CAN! he berrtr fuckxing win or im gonna fucking loesi t. he has to. shit. i gave lts of monye to obmaa but i think i shold give ltos more. what if i didnt give enough and he endedn op loising the election and he cnouldnvei own ifi had gien more mone.wish i could do something better thana shjtu givemng mone. why hte fukc do ki keep slpelling it mnone without the y. jseus chrsit fuck shit cutn fuck offensive wrds here god night fuckers, peacece outs.

udpate( stubmle ppn pcitures.)

doe the make sens?E i ndoubt t. but they semd lke the right thingto asy.

Veep! Veep!

2008-08-21T00:28:00.002-05:00

this comic strip really is something.

who do i want obama to pick as veep? bill richardson.

i'd be happy with most of his options. even hillary clinton wouldn't be the end of the world. but i like that richardson dude.

i'm worried it's going to be tim kaine. he's alright, but he looks a little goofy, and doesn't really add anything to the ticket. some people think he'd help out in virginia, but i don't know. if obama wins virginia, he wins the election... but the same can be said about indiana, so maybe evan bayh is an option.

but bayh would suck because then we'd lose a democrat in the senate, because there's no way a democrat would get elected to take his open seat in indiana.

well, whatever. he can pick anyone and we'll be ok. i am kind of hoping for a surprise pick. someone completely out of the blue. we'll see.

Apparently, America doesn't have any problems.

2008-08-10T19:30:00.000-05:00

Finally got some down time this weekend. I had nothing to do all last night. And nothing to do today. This is a marked change from the last three months when I had non-stop obligations (be they social, familial, or professional).

I love me some bullets, so here we go:

The olympics are on. I don't give a shit. Fuck nationalism.
John Edwards had an affair. This is apparently big news, despite the fact that he's not even running for president anymore. Did you know John McCain had several affairs? I guess Edwards' affair is newsworthy, but John McCain's long track record of infidelity is irrelevant. Left-wing media bias, my ass.
I saw a McCain ad on TV today. I want to punch that guy. What a fucking sleazebag. His ad was a transparent personal attack on Obama, and was loaded with lies. Then I saw an Obama ad a little bit later. He didn't even mention McCain, just talked about his plans, and about his campaign. Could we get a clearer distinction between the two?
Obama is probably going to win. He's pretty much a lock to win all the Kerry states which nets him 252 electoral votes. Add in a sure thing in Iowa (7) and New Mexico (5) and he's up to 264. Then all he needs to do is maintain his lead in any of Colorado (9), Nevada (5) or Indiana (11), or pull off the minor upset in Ohio (20), Virginia (13), North Carolina (15), Florida (27), Missouri (11), Montana (3), North Dakota (3), or South Dakota (3). My expectation is that he will win Colorado & Nevada to easily when the election, and the results of Indiana, Ohio, and Virginia will be extremely close but ultimately irrelevant.
My roommate was watching the olympics and there was a candid interview with George W. Bush by Bob Costas... most memorable quotes:

"Well first of all, I don't see America as having problems." -GWB
"If you're a religious person [motions to himself], you understand that once religion takes hold in a society, it can't be stopped. [trademark smirk]" - GWB

Neither myself nor my roommate (a republican) can comprehend how GWB stated that as a good thing.

been a while

2008-07-26T16:49:00.002-05:00

here's some things i thought were interesting...

earlier this week the city of chicago decided to take the one way road by my work place and make it go the opposite direction. right in the middle of the day they just turned all the one-way signs the opposite way, and removed the stop sign on the one end and put it on the other end. we watched several people go down the road the wrong way.
i finished my first client's website yesterday. i'm pretty happy its over.
i went out with co-workers to celebrate after work. i dont know if i've ever laughed so hard. they are really fun.
my girlfriend apparently didn't like that i went out with friends instead of her and broke up with me over text message.
i am completely ok with that... things werent working out and it really just needed to end. i think her breaking up with me is a good way for it to happen, too, because hopefully it makes her feel empowered or whatever.
this video is really stupid, but it cracked me up last night when i was trashed: text message breakup
i'm in a kickball league right now, and it's the highlight of every week. i love it. my teammates named me mvp of our last game, which is pretty funny because i sucked in the game, but i was at least entertaining.
ok, stavros is here, so i'm out. peace.

bedkjlrad

2008-07-02T22:50:00.000-05:00

read this

why me...

2008-06-19T15:57:00.001-05:00

why are all my landlords douchebags. my last landlord won't return my full deposit, so now i've got to sue his ass. lame.

make history

2008-06-17T14:43:00.000-05:00

download firefox 3 today.

fallen

2008-06-14T15:33:00.001-05:00

Fallen
by mikropikol

career killer

2008-06-14T02:47:00.001-05:00

M Night Shymalan is never allowed to make a movie again.