I told my family a while back that I didn’t think I would be back home before the start of the new semester. Yesterday I started wondering why I had ever said that. I have several days with no work and no food, I have laundry to be done, clothes to buy, food to buy, a car to get fixed…why wouldn’t I go home? So when I talked to my sister today a little before 2pm and she said she and my mom were about to go to a big sale at JC Penney, I said, “Ok, that’s it. I’m going home.”

It was a VIP Sale where they stayed open late. I managed to pick up quite a bit of stuff I needed for a pretty good price. My mom and sister found some stuff as well and we went home feeling pretty good about how much we saved.

The reference I made up there about fixing my car is due to a safety recall my dad told me about the other day. Something about the ignition lock and shifter lock…it sounded to me like it wouldn’t be a big problem if something did malfunction but I figured I would try and get it taken care of since it’s free. The rest of the day tomorrow will be filled with laundry and maybe a movie. I’ll probably also work on finishing The Da Vinci Code which I am loving so far.

Oh yeah, about 30 minutes ago I saw a prank on a live newscast! One of the main anchors was talking about someone who was getting married and standing in front of one of those projection screens. When they were supposed to put up the picture of the two getting married, instead they flashed up a modified picture of this really ugly woman. The guy looked at it and did a doubletake before saying, “Very funny guys. Now put up the real picture.” He could hardly finish what he needed to say he was so flustered. I was cracking up!

I came across this today and felt like sharing. Eat Your Peas.

Of course, I found that before I forgot I had to work and was 30 minutes late. Sorry, Julia. Now I’m trying to decide what I want to do for dinner since I can’t leave the desk and the dining center is closed for the next five days. I’m considering going home for a while so I don’t have to spend more money on food. And no, that’s not the only reason I would go home.

I keep seeing that commercial for the Dairy Queen Brownie Batter Blizzard. It really makes me want one, but it’s gonna be hard to get my hands on one from behind the Moore desk. Maybe I can enlist one of my friends to track down my dinner…

This post has little purpose. Time to end it.

Currently Playing: Disturbed – The Game

Tell me exactly what am I supposed to do
Now that I have allowed you to beat me
Do you think that we could play another game
Maybe I could win this time

How can one family get so screwed over when it comes to intelligence? I turned on the TV just for some noise and then decided to jump in the shower. When I got out, The Ashlee Simpson Show was on. Between her and her sister, they have the combined intelligence of a stalk of corn. (In third place: Peter Griffin and a stalk of corn.) For some unknown reason she’s allowed to drive a Lexus with a sweet GPS navigation system, yet she can’t follow simple verbal and visual instructions and drive to her location. And who the hell decided she could sing? I can’t stand her song that’s on the radio right now and watching her attempt to record her album gives me a headache. I can’t imagine how much post-production work is necessary to make her sound halfway decent. At least her sister has some talent, even if she doesn’t know the difference between tuna and chicken.

I went out with everyone last night for Jill’s last Thursday in Manhattan. It was alright, but I wasn’t really feeling it last night. Still, I didn’t feel like being anywhere else so it wasn’t bad. After we got back I read for about an hour and then finally went to sleep. I slept in a bit this morning and then went to lunch with Jill and company before she left to go back to Wisconsin. I was sad to see her go.

The rest of the day was pretty dull. I went to Varney’s with Jason to figure out what books I need and how much it would cost to get everything new without buying online. Way too freakin’ much. I can’t believe I gave the bookstore so much of my money in the past. I have yet to check how much it will run me online, but I’m sure I’ll save quite a bit.

After that we watched the first three episodes of The Grid. It’s a limited series on TNT about terrorism and the people who fight it. I was pretty impressed with the first half (there are six episodes total). It focuses on counterterrorism not just in the U.S. but all over the world, so it’s a little different than a show like 24. It’s got several agents working together from different countries and touches on the struggle to get organizations like the FBI and CIA who are working for the same cause to actually cooperate with each other to get things done. It’ll be interesting to see how things wrap up.

The rest of the evening I spent watching more TV, whether it was the Royals losing a close game in the 11th to the Indians, or the latest episode of Stargate Atlantis. Now Old School is on so I’m watching that, but I don’t know how long I’ll last. I’m pretty tired for no reason, so I think I might catch up on sleep tonight.

Currently Playing: Everlast – Broken

I’m broken like a promise
I’m shattered like a dream
I’m broken with all my pieces scattered ’round for you to see
I’m broken like record
I sing the same old song
I’m broken like the heart of a man that’s run away from love too long
Girl what about you
What about you girl

I can’t even remember the last time I worked here. I’m pretty sure it was before my vacation. It seems so long ago, I’d forgotten how busy it can get here. The first hour and a half was a rude reminder. I think the worst thing to happen when you’re working here is to have an international student show up after 9pm and not know where they are supposed to be staying. Better yet, they aren’t pre-registered with Guest Services or summer school. I have to try and make the judgment call: are they supposed to be staying in Guest Housing and they are just a walk-in, or are they here for school and need to be on floor one, two, or three? The most confusing are kids here for the bakery school up on the hill because the length of their classes can vary. That’s what I had tonight. I guessed (correctly I hope) that he should be with summer school, so I started trying to get ahold of their staff on duty, Penny. Unfortunately, she wasn’t answering calls or pages (room or cell phone), so I ended up calling Nic who graciously came out to help this guy check in. They had no information on this guy either, so hopefully we got him into the right place. When all was said and done, Penny called just before Nic left the desk and informed me she had been in the shower. I pointed that out to Nic so he could go give her a hard time if he so desired, so he headed upstairs. *grin* The guy checking in did give Nic and I each a pretty cool Korean bookmark though. Very nice of him.

Since I’m working ’til 5am, I’ve got plenty of time to browse the internet. And I’m going to share some of it with you, my lucky readers. Isn’t that nice of me?

You know I think this lady was just having a bad day. I mean who hasn’t bashed the wrong car by mistake? And I didn’t know 66 year old ladies could still jump.

How can a potato help save lives? Well, it doesn’t have anything to do with eating healthy. But this potato powder might come in handy the next time you call 911. And speaking of potatoes, some South African’s are trying to make their own genetically modified version (this one isn’t overly interesting, I just thought it was funny considering the previous article).

Holy crap, they found a real Death Star! Ok, not really. But this porn stuff is pretty funny. No, it’s not really porn. Just funny.

I’d really like to think I could ever be this type of person. Sadly, I doubt I would even get near this car.

So Pierce Brosnan is Bond no more, but c’mon…does this really make any sense?

I can’t believe the gall of this woman (I used this page ’cause I like how there is no picture of her). First she sends a letter to the judge basically asking him not to send her to prison because she has led a “good, worthwhile, and exemplary life.” Now she’s asking to reverse the order of her punishment so she can spend time in her freakin’ mansion before going to jail! Dammit, I wish they had locked her up for 5 years just for being so pretentious.

I stole this tagline from Fark.com because it just makes me happy: While the bad hackers were busy screwing up Google and Yahoo yesterday, good hackers were busy kicking the crap out of Doubleclick. (So this one might require registering, although I didn’t have to…maybe I already did)

This also makes me happy: An extra 50 minutes of footage in the extended edition of Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King! More info is just under the interesting news about Star Wars Episode III.

Ok, so I realize I probably put enough links in this to give people Carpal Tunnel (sorry Lindsey, bad joke). Still, if you read them all (or at least skim), you’ll have a good idea of what I’ve been doing for the last hour or so. Only four left to go. It’s time to break out my movie for the evening, 21 Grams.

Neither I, nor anyone else, have ever heard of DJ Smoldyface.

I’ve been meaning to post for a while, but I decided getting back to a normal sleep schedule was more important. Since I’ve posted, quite a bit has happened. We played our first playoff softball game on Sunday. We played a good game, but ended up losing 11-12 in the eighth after about an hour and a half. At least it wasn’t a blowout. Yesterday was a volleyball night and it was good. Then I went on duty, which was uneventful on the whole. Tonight we played volleyball again, but I couldn’t stay as long because of rounds. I took a pretty good dive right at the end though, so it didn’t bother me that it was time to go.

As everyone else is getting excited about the new semester, I’m still trying to hold onto summer. It’s been such a welcome break to have so few obligations and not have any classes. The more I think about it though, the more I realize I better start getting ready for the coming changes just like everyone else. The last thing I need is for the start of the semester to run me over like a truck and be behind from the start. I guess that also means I’ll have to clean up this room to make it possible for two people to move back in…

I feel like I’m at a crossroads. And there’s like, a Denny’s on one corner, and an IHOP on the other.

Currently Playing: Something Corporate – Fall

So I fall
I don’t wanna feel this small
You know I just can’t handle this
Handle this at all
And I’ll just fall
I’ll let my heartbeat drop
I falter as the music stops
And you watch me as stall
And wonder when I fall

I’m sitting in Boyd Hall for 5 hours tonight, so I decided posting would be the first thing I’d do to occupy my time. Last night was a lot of fun. The usual group (plus or minus a few) headed out to Aggieville. I started early and maintained. Or something. The night was good overall, although I did find something out that, if true, kinda sucks. That’s all I’ll say for now. Unfortunately, my good night came back to haunt me this morning when maintenance woke me up three times to mess with my smoke detector cause they think it’s setting off the building fire alarm panel. When I finally did get up, I was met with a dull headache that stayed with me through most of the day. It’s pretty much subsided at this point, but that doesn’t mean I’ll be enjoying this shift. For your reading pleasure, here’s some more lyrics analysis.

Currently Playing: Shinedown – 45

¹Send away for a priceless gift
One not subtle, one not on the list
Send away for a perfect world
One not simply, so absurd¹
In these times of doing what you’re told
You keep these feelings, no one knows
What ever happened to the young man’s heart
Swallowed by pain, as he slowly fell apart

⁴Everyone’s pointing their fingers
Always condemning me
And nobody knows what I believe
I believe⁴

¹When giving a gift, most people try to find the best thing possible. It’s always nice to be able to come up with something that’s not on the receiver’s list. There’s a certain amount of pride involved with giving something a person wasn’t expecting but will like just as much (or more) than anything on the list. In this section, the author equates that priceless gift to a perfect world. Personally, I’d just like to see a better world, cause for some reason I have a real problem with perfect. I think perfect = boring. Still, today’s world is pretty fucked up so any improvement would be nice.

²This guy is on the edge of a big change in his life. The ashes of his former life are still all around him and he’s not yet ready to accept what has happened. I think this is common for a lot of people when something big (and usually bad) happens. It took me a little while to come to grips with the way last semester turned out, but I was able to move on. Still, that time in between kind of felt like do or die time…suck it up and move on, or waste away in pain.

³Life is indeed complex and each person’s life is like a puzzle, but also each person represents a piece of the whole puzzle of life. When you are young, you are too small to reach the shelf. Likewise, you don’t really understand your role in the world yet. As you grow, you get closer to being able to reach the shelf and unwrap your piece of the puzzle and closer to understanding the reason you’re here.

⁴I can definitely relate to this. I don’t know how many times I’ve felt like I was being judged by someone who doesn’t know anything about me or what I stand for or even what’s in my head at that exact moment. What’s worse, most people make that snap judgment and never look back to see if they were even right about it. Who knows what they might have missed? Maybe it was the real me, and maybe they would have liked it if they’d hung around long enough to see it.

Since I couldn’t think of anything else to post about, I thought I’d do a little mini review of the last two books I read. I actually finished The King of Torts just a few days ago, and Bleachers while I was in Colorado. Both are by John Grisham, and I’ve been a fan of his for a while, but it had been a year or more since I’d read one of his books. The last one had been A Painted House, one of his first departures from the legal genre. When my mom asked if I wanted any books for the trip I asked for Grisham.

Bleachers The plot centers around a former high school football quarterback who played under a legendary coach in a small town. The coach lays on his deathbed, and many of his former players are returning to their hometown and coming to terms with their feelings for the former coach.

It started out a little slow, but it probably seemed that way partly from getting interrupted so much while I was trying to read. Once I got into it a little bit I was enjoying it more and I really like the way he revealed the conflict between the coaches and players. As the story goes on, you learn a little bit about some of the players and the kind of relationship they had with their coach. They either loved or hated him, and it seemed to change daily. I know from something I read a while back that this is a book he had wanted to publish for quite a while, but had decided not to for whatever reason until recently. I’m glad he did because while it’s not his best work, it was an enjoyable read. And fast at 229 pages it was perfect for vacation reading.

The King of Torts A young public defender suddenly finds himself with inside information on a bad drug that could make rich. After jumping in over his head, he gets an ego (probably typical of getting rich overnight) and his success continues. But it isn’t long before problems start cropping up. In the eyes of the media he sees himself go from a rising star to just another greedy lawyer.

As I said, it’s been a while since I read Grisham, but this one just seemed to have a slightly different feel to me. He examines greed and how money can corrupt a person, but it also goes into ethics a bit. While the main character isn’t exactly breaking the law, his actions are pretty shady. A part of me kept thinking, “OK, he’s gonna realize what he’s doing and turn it around somehow.” Still, a part of me wasn’t so sure it would happen and that’s what kept me reading. There was a love story of sorts on the side which fit in alright. This one didn’t seem to have much of a resolution, but then I guess it keeps you thinking and that’s not a bad thing. Again, not my favorite, but definitely worth a read.

Ok, I’m getting into that habit of staying up too late again. I gotta break myself of this before the semester starts. I’ve just been thinking about a lot of stuff lately. A friend is going through a tough time and I’ve been trying to help, though I don’t know that I’ve been very successful. I have my plenty of my own issues floating around, too. That feeling of uneasiness I have being single is starting to creep back into my head. Plus a new semester is about to start and I’m not as excited as I’d like to be. I’m coming back to a place where not that many people liked me at the end of the year, and I’m not in any of the positions I wanted to be in. It’s all plenty to keep me up at night thinking.

Currently Playing: Relient K – Over Thinking

I was thinking
Over thinking
‘Cause there’s just too many scenarios
To think about
To figure out
If you’re my dream please come true

I saw the first one of these little flash animations sometime last semester thanks to Jimmy. He posted part II today and it made me wonder if there were more. A little looking and I found the creator’s website. There’s four parts so far and I look forward to the fifth and final installment. This guy’s got talent. I give you the Mario Brothers Flash Series.

Currently Playing: Socialburn – Ashes

Cause there’s always somebody
Who’s out there waiting for someone to take them away
If I search long enough I might find that someone
Waiting to take me away
…yeah, but not today

So I stayed up way too late getting this finished, but here they are: pictures from my Colorado vacation. I might come back later and add the first five that I posted to those pages, but for now that’s it. Linked on the side also.

G’nite.