Those that know me well are quite familiar with the fact that I don't drink.
Smirnoff's Twisted V Raspberry is pretty tasty. I just split one with my friend Courtney who came over to watch Scrubs for a few hours. Not bad at all.
In other news, Hell has frozen over.
I've already downloaded 22 free apps from the App Store.
I won't be getting an iPhone until August at the earliest, as that's when my contract with Verizon expires.
But still, these are some pretty nifty programs (and all of the ones I'm downloaded in advance are free.
"Oh yeah, my blog"...
Shitloads of spam. I looked at a few old entries, and there was spam in the body of the page. The fuck?
Just cleared all the spam out (including several thousand comments), but it looks like the server is choking on stuff. Arg.
I need to destroy the whole blog.evula.net system and put something else in place. MovableType has not aged well, and I can't just upgrade to the latest version because of how many users I have. I might just scrap the whole damn idea and move it over to evula.com....
Go see it Friday when it comes out. I just came back from an advance screening, and absolutely loved it.
I liked Planet Terror more than Death Proof, but I also have a soft spot in my heart for zombies (trivia: I wrote the vast majority of the Zombie Survival Guide Wikipedia article).
Also, the films are absolutely hilarious, as are the trailers. Werewolf Women of the S.S.? Hell yes, sign me up. :)
No, I'm not ignoring the blog again; I just haven't had anything to say. Not only has very little of interest been happening lately (unless you want to hear about every little thing I do), I've been exceedingly depressed about my split with Molly, which certainly doesn't fill me with energy to sit and spit out stories (and I'm not emo enough to use my blog to talk about every little feeling I have).
So... that's all for now.
24. Good God, I'm in my mid-20s. When the hell did that happen?
Does this mean I have to grow up sometime?
...nah.
So... Molly and I decided to call it quits on Saturday. Long story short, the idea that we'd be able to stay together with her going off to college was largely unfeasible (something we'd both known, but hadn't bothered addressing), and we both agreed that it'd be best to make a clean break of it, rather than just dragging it out. Not only that, but we were barely going to see each other for the next few months (between the various shows we'll be doing and her out of town for college trips).
So, that's the end of that. I've got a show opening this weekend (so please don't call me; I'll simply be too busy to answer), so thankfully my mind is somewhat off the topic.
Thankfully.
So I was at a production meeting for Macbeth, the next show I'm doing. Unfortunately, a major storm had hit the night before. The meeting itself was outside, but a handful of us had to venture inside to look at some of the weapons. Lit by just a single flashlight, here's the conversation:
Denise: We need to get rid of some of this food before it goes bad.
Brenda: Hmm, nobody finished off the cookies from the other night.
Eric: Oooh, cookies!
Brenda: ...wait, that was Eric, wasn't it?
No, I'm not famous for my appetite, why do you ask?
Absolutely nothing to actually say. The past month has been busy, and I haven't been around very much to work on the top-secret project (which sucks, since I was hoping to announce it in a couple of weeks; I have to push it back now).
I'll be back 'round here on Sunday, when life will calm down a bit more.
So, that's that.
I'm still around. Midsummer is opening Friday, and it has been an absolute nightmare. I'll post more on it later, but I just wanted to at least touch base.
The top-secret project is going well, too, although I haven't been able to do much with it here lately. Thankfully, several other people who are developing it with me have done fantastic jobs; I'd name them, but then they might get harassed about what it is. ;)
Word of warning: this is a long blog entry. Lots of stuff to discuss, especially towards the end. If you could, please respond with any feedback you may have, positive or negative.
Unfortunately, not everything is coming up roses right now. My car died Saturday, when I was attempting to drive out to Murfreesboro to see a show. *sigh* I talked to my mechanic; he thinks its the timing belt, which isn't easy to fix. He won't be able to get to it for another few days, but by the end of the week, I should have it back (hopefully).
Since I've got a show opening Friday (more on that below), not having a car complicates things greatly, and adds a fair amount of stress. Dad is providing transportation to work in the morning (and to rehearsal in the evening), but I have to hitch a ride with two of the actors to get back home; thankfully they pass my place anyway, so it isn't too inconvenient for them.
On top of all that, I'm also a bit under the weather. I rarely get sick, so this is pretty surprising. I'm overloading on Vitamin C (the only medicine I ever take), but it's a bit early to tell if it is having any effect.
In stark contrast to the Bad News, I've got some fairly big good news to share.
As you know, my birthday was the 17th. In celebration, I bought myself the computer I was lusting after.
I love my computer dearly; not to exaggerate or anything, but the new iMacs really are the "computer of the future" that everyone used to dream of. Small and efficient (in the sense that everything is all in one unit), it's loaded with cool little features; aside from general Mac stuff like Dashboard and GarageBand, the Front Row software is surprisingly cool, plus the hardware stuff like the magnetically-stored Remote and built-in iSight (which also provides a microphone for voice commands). Speaking of iSight, if anyone wants to help me test out the webcam, feel free to find me on iChat ("EVula").
I purchased the iMac with my recently acquired Amazon.com credit card. The nice thing is that the card accrues points for every dollar I spend on it, eventually culminating in a free gift card with Amazon; by putting the computer on it, I leaped forward on the points. ;)
Friday, Enchanted April opens. This is, thankfully, a comedy; a pleasant change of pace from Blackbird and Mother Courage, though MC at least had some humor to offset the drama.
Also in theatre news, I've officially overloaded myself in May and June. The first two weeks have me doing Midsummer Night's Dream with ACT 1. For the second half of the month, I'll be running lights for Little Prince with People's Branch Theatre. After that, it'll be two weeks with Love! Valour! Compassion!, again with ACT 1. That's six straight weeks. I believe I can officially be declared insane. In my defense, the PBT gig is paying, as is Enchanted April.
I'll be taking a break from theatre in June. Look for a lot more work from me starting then. That's a nice segue into...
Several different things to say on this front.
Emperor vs. Spam, the Eternal Struggle: I spent quite a bit of time yesterday clearing out a ton of spam. I haven't been running the Blacklist as often as I should, so it has accumulated a bit. Whoops.
However, I'm taking a different, more long-term minded approach this time: several older blogs have been sitting open, allowing hundreds of bots to sully them with spam. For several of them, I've gone in and manually removed every bit of spam, then closed them to more comments. Once I do that, I configure the Blacklist to not check them (if no spam can be posted there, why should it check? It'll only increase the load time).
So far, I've confined my editing to the smaller blogs (that only have a 10 or so entries). My own blog turned out to be an absolute chore; this is my 203rd entry, and while I'd previously closed all pre-2005 entries, it still sucks to go through so many pages. My blog's spam count has dropped significantly; I had around 3,000 replies before I started, but now I'm down to 568 (I'm running the Blacklist simultaneously; I didn't delete all of those by hand).
Eventually, I'll be deleting neglected blogs (but only after emailing the authors, which I don't have time for right now). I don't have a problem with them sitting around collecting dust; just as long as they aren't gathering spam, they aren't harming anything.
Lair Updates: After Enchanted April is finished (the 8th), I don't have another theatre commitment until the 30th. This means lots of time I could spend working on the Lair. The question, I suppose, is what do I focus my attention on?
Here's what I've got to work with:
The Joke Archive will require me to either write my own CMS, or find one that I can use (I've sketched out the rough outline for my own CMS, so it's slightly less daunting than it sounds). However, "slightly less daunting" is still daunting, so I doubt I'll be doing that right now. That's a damn shame because there's no point in converting it all to PHP just to transfer everything into a database (which means I won't be adding any new jokes until then, either; I've got a ton to add, too).
Numbers two, three, and four, on the other hand, are much more doable.
Work on the Store will be confined, for now, to just getting the black shirts I mentioned up and available. Once that is done, I'll be taking a long, hard look at replacing or augmenting the CafePress with a Spreadshirt store; Spreadshirt offers a variety that CafePress can't touch. Lower priority than just getting the black shirts up, though. That, and getting the gorram Store Spotlight thing to work again.
I've had plans for overhauling the content on evula.com for some time, but I think it's finally time to move forward with it. Not much to say about it until I do it; suffice it to say, it might upset some people, and I don't want to give them a chance to argue with me. ;) On the plus side, it'll go a long ways toward improving my sanity, which is something no one can argue with...
As for improvements for the existing sections, this generally consists of a few small things, like expanding what I did for the Movie Review section (adding the poster image) into the other sections (album covers for Music, etc.). I've also got an affiliate account with the iTunes Music Store that I've been meaning to incorporate for a while now.
I mentioned GarageBand earlier... what a fun program. I've already made a few short little songs; each micro-opus is about a minute long, and fairly simple. Once I get them to a point where I'm comfortable sharing them, I'll publish them to the Lair in the form of an update. :)
Other Updates: As I mentioned above, April is going to be a pretty open month for me. I do have some non-Lair stuff that requires my attention, however.
ACT 1's website is in need of an update. I've got several photos to add and what have you, but specifically, I've got a fantastic automated mailing list system that I need to customize for them (specifically, I need to modify the templates so that it fits with the rest of the site). This is relevant to the Empire because I may, at some point, implement a similar system, although I haven't given it much thought beyond this very paragraph.
At some point, and this goes back to the "Emperor vs. Spam" business, I need to either upgrade MovableType on blog.evula.net, or switch over to WordPress. Upgrading will run me about $100, but will be fairly easy; WordPress is free, but upgrading might be a bitch. Neither will happen next month; first and foremost, I'll need to ditch the neglected blogs to make the transition a bit smoother. I'm only listing it for my own reference. :)
phew!
Yup, today's my birthday; a whopping 23 now. Hot diggity damn.
I have a show tonight, unfortunately, but I'll be having a tiny celebration with Molly and her folks tonight afterwards.
Sorry I haven't posted at all in a while; I've been fairly busy with a few things. Work has been fairly busy; though this past week was actually pretty light, it was cut to shreds by various things (picking up checks from deadbeat clients, running around with errands, etc).
The thing that's really sucked me in, time-wise, has been Wikipedia. I've been extremely active in fixing stuff up. If you're curious, you can check out my Wiki profile. If you use Wikipedia too (and have a user page), feel free to add yourself to the little list I've got there.
I've got another show coming up this week, called Mother Courage and Her Children. It'll be a pretty cool show, though I'm not entirely sure of what I'll be doing on it yet. The show opens Thursday.
Anyway, once the show is done, I've got a week off, then another show (another two weeks). The good news is then I've got two weeks until the next one! :) Yes, I'm burning myself out. Actually, no, that's not true; I burnt myself out during Blackbird, but I'd already committed to these other shows. I should still be able to get a Lair update in at some point, though, provided I have some content to put up... *nudge nudge*
My computer is getting... quirky. For a while yesterday, my extra keyboard buttons (volume control and CD tray) weren't working. I defragged stuff and repaired the hard drive today, and that functionality has returned. However, now Outlook Express (which I still use because I haven't switched over to Mail yet) is working at all.
Right now, I'm seriously looking into getting a new computer. Apple's got some damn good deals on the store, with one in particular tempting me. Specifically, a refurbished 20-inch iMac G5: 2.1GHz, SuperDrive, 250GB hard drive... all for a measly $1,299. If my computer is still acting up this weekend, you can bet your ass that I'll be placing an order on Monday.
So tonight, I'll be at the opening night for Metamorphosis. I know everyone in the cast except two people, but more importantly, Molly has a role in it. Huzzah for that.
Saturday, I'll be seeing another show that sports a cast almost entirely consisting of friends.
Sunday, I have a theatre party for my next show, Mother Courage. The show is with one of the bigger theatre companies in town, so I'm pretty psyched about working with them.
Of course, I'll be working on Monday's update in my spare time. I made absolutely zero progress last night, but I'm not terribly worried about it.
Looks like it, though it's more accurate to say that it is a trojan horse. There's a topic on it over on the Ambrosia boards, for those that are curious.
Is the sky falling? Not quite. In the roughly five years that OSX has been out (seven years, if you want to get technical), this is the first actual bit of malware. No Windows user can make that claim. Not only that, but we don't have spyware, and can run our machines 24/7 outside of firewalls; do that with a PC and begging for a paperweight. :)
I'm curious to see Apple's response to this "threat."
I've been gone for a while. Sorry, but that's just the way life is. However, it'll be getting better.
Friday, a wonderful person from Comcast will be arriving at my door, almost half as eager to set up my television and internet service as I will be to receive it.
Saturday, I'll be cleaning up all the spam that has been clogging up the entire blog system (from what I've heard, comments don't even work anymore, it's so bad).
After Saturday... well, dunno, I haven't thought that far ahead yet. I've got a show going on, so don't expect too much these next few weeks.
To cover a few of the things that have happened while I've been away:
To answer any questions you may have on the subject... yes, I *will* be updating the Lair at some point. I've come to some conclusions about that, and will share my thoughts in a later blog post, after I've fixed the blogs so that people can comment (as I'll be wanting some feedback).
Remember, if you need to get in touch with me, you can always contact me.
No, I'm not dead, and no, I'm not in the hospital. I've been busy with the play; couple this with the fact that I don't have an internet connection at home (no point in paying for a service that I wouldn't be around to use), and I'm rarely around (either to post blog entries or to fix the oft-broken Blacklist).
Friendly suggestion: if you think something serious has happened to me, shoot me an email. I check my email constantly all day, regardless of what else is going on.
Anyway, I'm hoping to get the blacklist crap fixed in the next few days; I've got 1604 comments, and I'm sure that several hundred are spam...
Dunno when I'll get around to getting internet at home; right now, I'm still paying rent at the old place, which really hurts (I'm currently paying $940 per month between the old and new places), so it isn't as high of a priority as I'd like. On the plus side, though, I just paid off my car loan, which will be an extra hundred or so that won't be leaving my pocket every month, and I've got several hundred dollars coming to me from the IRS... things will just be a little tight for a while is all.
I'll fill you in on all the "wonderful" things that happened today at some later point. First, I feel like sharing what just happened.
One of the things that got moved today was my bed. Since I'm still staying in Murfreesboro (I've still got a lot to do at the old place), I borrowed my dad's inflatable mattress to use in the interim. Before I left, Dad told me that I'd have to get new batteries for the inflater thingie. No problem.
So I get to Murfreesboro and get some batteries. I sit down to swap them out, and I notice that one of the old batteries is corroded. Not good, but it's just a simple matter of throwing it out (which I was going to do anyway). However, the new batteries weren't working. It looked like the thing wasn't sealing properly. Yadda yadda yadda, I spend a good 10 minutes trying to figure out what the hell is wrong. I end up deciding that the corrosion has done something to the pump, and that I've got no inflatable mattress for the night. Shit. So I put the pump back in it's box (with the new batteries in it) and the bad batteries in the trash.
Time for Plan B: clear off all the crap from the spare couch and sleep on that (I got the couch for free when I moved in, so I'm leaving it to pass it on in a similar fashion). It isn't terribly comfortable; my feet dangle off the edge, and the sofa covering isn't quite as smooth as a bedsheet (which is in Nashville). Oh well, I can deal with it.
So I get tucked in and relatively comfortable, trying to ignore the subtle noises coming from my neighbors (general talking and a very noisy cat meowing every 20 seconds). I figure I'd been laying there for about fifteen minutes when all of a sudden I hear this loud whirring sound, not entirely unlike a chainsaw in a horror movie. It freaks me the hell out before I realize what has happened: I left the pump turned "on" (since it wasn't working, I didn't know better). I turn on the lights and make a dive for the box; sure enough, there it goes, pumping air from nowhere into nothing. I turn it off, simultaneously cursing the fact that I just got the shit scared out of me and celebrating the fact that I can have an inflatable mattress now.
I unfold the mattress and hook it back up to the pump. I have power, but it doesn't appear to be inflating the mattress at all (I'm not being impatient; I've used it before, and it went a hell of a lot faster). *sigh* Since I'd already resigned myself to the fact that I'd be sleeping on the sofa, I simply put it all away; tomorrow, when I've got plenty of time to let it inflate oh-so-slowly, I'll give it a second shot.
The problem, though, is that I'm wide-awake; my hands are still shaking from the instant adrenaline rush that I got when the damn thing kicked on. I probably won't be able to sleep for another hour... *sigh*
Apparently, the stress of the move has finally caught up with me (why oh why couldn't it catch up with me after the move?), because I felt like total and absolute shit all day yesterday; Tuesday afternoon I had a simple headache, but by Tuesday evening I was feeling quite under the weather. I woke up at 3:30, 4:30, and 6 am on Wednesday, and my entire body was aching. On top of general ickyness, I also had a meeting with a potential client Wednesday afternoon.
I'm still a bit "bleh" today, but I've been drinking plenty of orange juice and chewing these wonderful vitamin C tablets. I've got a very good immune system (this is the first time I've been sick this year), and if I load up on vitamin C, I usually get better quickly.
So I'm laying in bed, not wanting to get up and start moving (8:26), when the phone rings. It's Sean, the Executive Director of GroundWorks Theatre (the company that put up Hellcab last year). She's calling because today is load-in for The Pavilion, their current show that opens this upcoming weekend.
Long-time readers will note that I usually talk about upcoming shows before I start work on them, and are no doubt thinking to themselves, "Gee, I've never heard Eric talk about this show." My initial response to her statement of "Well, today's the day" was of extended silence; so extended, in fact, she had to ask if I was still there. I'd never talked to her about working the show before, but she could have sworn that I had already signed on for it.
My heart immediately started pounding; I've got horrible memory, yes, but I'm always careful to write down what shows I'm working on. This is out of necessity; my calendar gets filled up quite quickly, and usually a good 6 months prior to the show, so if I don't write it down, I could very easily double-book myself. However, sure enough, I didn't have it written down anywhere (I had it in my phone's calendar, but that was only to remind me to go see it), so had to bow out of my non-existant obligation.
Even if I had signed onto the show before, I would have had to back out of it; there's just no way in hell I could work a show right now, since all this week I'm going to be moving (I'm still packing stuff up, because I'm efficient like that). If I wasn't moving, I would have agreed to work it at the last minute.
As it is, October is crazy-busy for me. First and foremost, I'm moving (in case you didn't know by now). Secondly, there are several shows that I've got to see in the next two weeks: Pavilion, Bad Seed (which my friend Kellye is in), Midsummer Night's Dream (I auditioned and didn't get a part, but I told them I'd go to see it anyway; the director was quite cool, and I'd like to work with him again), and 1984. Of the four, I don't think I'll be able to see 1984, which I'm sorta bummed about; it's a professional company, and I've got a friend in the cast. I was hoping I could go and have him introduce me to the Artistic Director. :)
On top of all that, my Grandma will be coming into town on the 7th (Dad and I will be moving all the really heavy stuff during the day, then she comes in later). Then, because that isn't stressful enough, I'm going to be stage managing (note the lack of "assistant" there; yeah, I'm really happy about that</sarcasm>) ACT 1's production of Equus, which runs October 21-29. Basically, I'm going to move, have a day or two to breathe, then jump right into the saddle and work a show; I just thought I'd clarify that for those that were wondering if I'm suicidal, since all evidence points to an affirmation.
I don't have nearly as much packed up as I should. About a half-dozen boxes of mostly magazines, books, and CDs (I never realized how many CDs I have until now). I have, however, cleaned up some areas that were heavily cluttered (this, in effect, is still being productive, so huzzah for me!).
I also took some lovely pictures of my old place; eventually they will make their way here, though the primary reason was for me to have documentation of what everything looked like before it got turned on its ear.
It's official. Well, as official as it can be without me having signed the lease and turned over money to the new landlord.
Basically, I'm officially living at the new place on October first (!), but still technically living in my old place until the tenth. For those looking at calendars, that means I've got a little over two weeks to pack up an entire two-bedroom apartment and get it all moved into a smaller one-bedroom location.
Holy shit, what have I gotten myself into?
The biggest problem with the new place, other than the fact that I'll have to move, is that it doesn't have central heat and air. This has completely blown the mind of my dear friend Molly; given her reaction, you'd swear I had told her that I was sub-leasing the lone bathroom of a gay brothel built on an Indian graveyard. Both Jacques and Trish both say that it never got outrageously warm up there, and I'm inclined to believe them, though I will have to have a few fans placed throughout the place.
I'm not concerned, since I have central heat and air in my current place and don't rely on it too much anyway; I leave it off during the day, and it's not terribly warm when I get back home from work. On the other hand, I'm on the first floor, not the second, and I do use it some on the weekends... oh well. Once I move in and get a feel for how unbearable the heat is, I'll start buying fans; if I buy them now, it will only (a) drain my funds, which I need for the move, and (b) be one more damn thing to get in the way.
What this means for the Lair, though, is that there's no way in hell I'm going to be able to update it reliably for the next couple of weeks. Pretty much, this move is going to dominate my life for the next few weeks, so that I can get the hell out of my apartment quickly so that someone else can get in there and take the lease off my shoulders (I have to pay rent until the end of my lease [end of the year], unless they find someone else to move in). Since I haven't gotten any new content from anyone in a while, this shouldn't be too surprising, though I did listen to a new CD today that is just begging for me to write a Review for it... (hint: I don't like it). Maybe I'll write it in bits and pieces on my breaks...
It went live Friday, but I've been crazy busy all weekend. Tonight was the first time since Saturday morning that I've been home and awake for more than twenty minutes (I slept at some friends' house Saturday night).
I'd give some notes about the site, but I already did that.
Edit: For those that are curious, here is the old ACT 1 site. Quite the improvement.
Really soon.
My lovely friend Trish (she played the title role in Medea) is moving in with her equally cool boyfriend, Jacques. I saw them at a party a while back when they first announced the new living-in-sin arrangement, and logically, both of their apartments were coming up for rent.
Jacques' place sounds like it could be quite cool; the rent is a little more than a third less than what I currently pay, with a comparable amount of space. It's in Nashville, and while I love my dear old Murfreesboro and all the cool people I know in it (Courtney, Bryan, Crispy, Multi-Bob, and Cory, just to name a handful), it would put me a lot closer both to work and everything else in my social life (I'd be about fifteen minutes from the Darkhorse).
I did up some quick math on monthly costs; I don't pay for water in my current apartment, so it isn't in the new amount (I'll get an approximation of what I should expect tomorrow from my dad). However, the quick estimation makes it look like, with all of my monthly bills combined, it'll end up costing me less than my current rent alone.
Damn.
I'll have an estimated savings of $225 per month (that's a whopping $2,700 per year!); it doesn't take a genius to see the many advantages of moving out. :)
The problem with this? Well, I'd have to move. Duh. Not only that, but I'd probably have to move quickly; I'm sure the new landlord wouldn't care if I didn't move in quickly, as long as I pay my rent, but I'd need to give sufficient notice to my current apartment complex so that I don't get reamed (although they're really nice, so I'm not too worried about that).
And for the sake of repeating myself, I'd have to actually move. Ugh. Thankfully a lot of my crap is already packed up in boxes anyway, but still, I'm not looking forward to moving everything I have (desk, computers, five bookcases, a ton of books, TV, clothes, etc). I suppose I could get the majority of things packed up fairly quickly (just an entire weekend if I put my mind to it), but it wouldn't be fun.
The first order of business is to look at the space. I'll be swinging by Saturday to check it out. Hopefully it won't be too small for me; I currently have 960 square feet all to myself, but when you consider the fact that it's a two-bedroom apartment, I could stand to downsize a bit. Right now the spare bedroom is being used as a storage room. If I move into this new place, I'll have an $225 per month to spare; that will cover a pretty damn big dedicated storage unit. :)
Monday, I'll be off from work. While this initially sounds like a Good Thing, ultimately, it is not.
At work, Monday is my main day for doing stuff. Bill paying, timesheets, invoicing... it all gets done on Monday. I'll do it Tuesday, sure, but I hate getting out of my routines.
Some of you may be asking why I won't be at work. An excellent question, inquisitive reader! You see, I've got to be in court at 2:30 for a speeding ticket I got a month or so back. I'm not happy about it, but if I go to court, the chances are much higher that I'll merely go to driver's ed. This is a Better Thing than my insurance going up.
On the flip side, Monday evening is my first rehearsal for Lady. I'm really looking forward to it. I found out about the casting; my friend Kellye got offered a role, but turned it down to take a more challenging role in another show (I'm totally psyched for her, though; getting offered two good roles at one time has never happened to her, and she's overjoyed). Bryan got cast (as my brother, though I have no idea what his name is). Courtney didn't get cast, but instead is going to be the assistant director; eventually , Courtney would like to direct, so this is a cool thing. My friend Valerie (who auditioned on Monday) got cast, as did Cassie (the really cute girl with the pretty eyes from my audition entry). All in all, I'm quite happy with the cast. :)
In the "other random things" department, I'm reinstalling OSX on my tower. I backed up all of my Empire files (again), so if I have to wipe everything, at least I'll have that (though I'd rather not wipe everything). I would have done it earlier today, but it's been storming off and on; I didn't want to start installing and then have the power go out, potentially screwing everything up even more.
Between this and the rehearsal tomorrow, there (more than likely) won't be a Lair update tomorrow; aside from the fact that I don't have any content to add (though I suppose I could whip together some quotes and whatnot, and maybe a quick review), I'm just going to be too busy between court (no clue how long it'll take, but it'll happen at a horribly inconvenient time) and cleaning my apartment. If the OSX update tonight goes smoothly, though, I can start kicking ass on work.
Oh, and for those that were wondering, I fixed the problem with my headlights. Apparently both bulbs blew at the same time; strange, I know, but it happened. Of course, this was after I paid $30 for a new headlight relay that I had to drive all over for, but nevermind that! :)
I also seem to be making regular lengthy updates to the blog; this is my fourth in a row (with 13 entries in 28 days). Go me! I'll be curious to see how long I can keep this up; I have no idea what my rehearsal schedule will be like, but I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for a multitude of free evenings. :)
Let's start this off on the right foot and begin with the positive!
First up, the mess with Comcast is sorted out. I don't know if Comcast did anything or not, but when I checked it last night, I was still getting the stupid "Welcome to Comcast!" message. I then unplugged the power strip that the cable modem and Airport are on, then restarted it. Worked like a charm! I have no idea why, but I also don't care.
Enough with the good stuff, it's time for the shitty news.
First up, and the reason that this entry is titled what it is instead of "Two Broken Things and Two Fixed Things," the Blacklist appears to be on the fritz again. I can't add new entries to the list; I get an error message each time I try. I was getting this same error the other day, but I was able to get around it by clearing out some of the redundant subdomains; looks like I'll be doing that again. Yehaw.
I'd really like to upgrade to the latest and greatest version of MT-Blacklist, but to do that, I'd have to be running the latest and greatest version of MovableType. To do that, I'd have to pay $99... donations are greatly appreciated. :)
Item Of Non-Functioning #2 would be my G4 tower. I'm not sure what's going on with it, but it isn't good. Right now, I'm using my laptop exclusively, since the tower is running slow as molasses when I attempt to do anything; this is a change from it's "everything is broken when you wake up the computer," and in addition to it's inability to mount .dmg files. *sigh* I'll be spending some time on it this weekend reinstalling the OS... again.
If this computer were my only experience with Tiger, I'd think it sucks. However, I'm running it flawlessly here on my laptop and on one of my computers at work; my personal computer just plain sucks. I'm hoping I can afford a new one by next March, when it will become five years old. Maybe I'll turn it into a file server or something... dunno.
What's really important about this piss-poor news is that all my Lair files are on it. I'm not in danger of losing the data, but at the same time, I can't work on Monday's update. Just as well, I suppose, saying as I don't have anything to add. If I can get my computer up and running quickly, maybe I can pound out a quick review. Using my laptop won't be an option; you see, the tower doesn't have a DVD drive, so I have to mount the tower onto the laptop as a firewire drive and install it like that. Nothing more fun than tying up two computers at the same time!
The third thing that is broken is, as always, my car. This time, it's the headlights. Specifically, they aren't coming on at all, though I do have high-beams and running lights. The Headlight Relay is clicking when I try to turn them on, so I'll be getting a new one before attempting any other fixes. This is a major pain in the ass, though, since it means I can't drive at night, and I've been leaving early the past few days to make sure I get home before dark (I left at 5 today since it looked like it might storm).
This sucks for the upcoming weekend because I've got a party on Friday and a play to see on Saturday; I will be attending neither event (and will be relegated to sitting around my apartment) if I can't get the problem fixed tomorrow. Grr.
...although it would mean that I would have nothing else to do but work on reinstalling the OS. Nah, not worth it. :)
I realize that my readers (which is like seven people, but whatever) are of varying ages. Some are in college, some still live at home. Those that have yet to experience the sheer joy of living on their own should pay particular attention to this blog entry, and the advice that it contains. Sorta like that song about sunscreen from a few years back, except that I doubt I'll ever get any radio time with this.
Contrary to popular belief, there are some things around your home (whether it is an apartment or a house or whatever) that you can safely ignore. Dusting? Pah. A thick layer of dust on everything is healthy; it keeps light from hitting everything quite so harshly and causing unnecessary eye strain, so not dusting is actually healthier for you. Vacuuming? Your dirty carpet should be able to present an accurate record of your daily activities to archaeologists in the distant future; really, who could be so short-sighted that they don't take future generations' needs into account?
While vacuuming and dusting both present physical clues that, to lesser people, mean they should be taken care of promptly, taking out the trash presents no such clue sometimes, but through a cruel twist of fate, actually is important. For example, take my situation: my primary dinner meal consists of two banana, peanut butter, and honey sandwiches, each downed by a glass of milk. It's healthy, it's tasty, but most relevant to this blog entry, it doesn't generate much trash (a used banana peel and some bread crumbs). As a result, my trash can fills at a less-than-prodigous rate.
Usually I can keep track in my head of how long it's been since I last took out the trash. However, spending two nights at my dad's really threw me for a loop on this one. Usually when I start seeing fruit flies in my field of vision while sitting on my lazy ass watching television, I take it as a sign that I needed to take out the trash about two days ago.
Perhaps you can see where this is going.
Fast forward from whatever arbitrary time I was talking about to Sunday, about thirty minutes before I left for the audition. I went to throw something into the trash, and noticed that it was actually full. Well, time to take out the trash. There also seemed to be a few more fruit flies than normal. Okay, so it was past time to take out the trash, I told myself. No worries!
Note: the previous "no worries" comment official concludes the understatement portion of the blog entry. You may now continue reading.
I approached the trash can and saw a few more flies inside. Okay, mildly obnoxious. However, then I had the unfortunate (though inevitable) thought to get the crushed milk carton out of the top so I could take the can's cover off. The trash can literally exploded with fruit flies, swarming over everything. It was totally and utterly disgusting. I estimated that there were at least 60 flies total. Thankfully, as this was relatively early on a Sunday, I hadn't had much to eat, so I had no lunch to lose.
After several futile attempts at killing the horde manually, I opted to get my vacuum cleaner, which sees very little action otherwise (see above), and waged my own personal Holocaust against the vermin. I have to admit to quite a bit of sadistic glee at watching their numbers thin, and it was amusing to watch them circle the end of the vacuum's hose like water down the drain (seriously, they spun around the hose in mid-air over and over before getting sucked in). After an initial pass, I discovered a large group hiding on my cabinets (go figure, brown bugs on brown cabinets are practically invisible). It took my two more passes, but I got the vast majority of them.
That was Sunday, and today is Tuesday (for the unobservant). There are still several of the little buggers (literally!) flying around; they're much easier to kill now, but still, I hate seeing them at all. But let that be a lesson to you all: take out your trash on a regular basis, don't just wait for it to get full.
Also, here are a few follow-ups to previous blog entries:
Fantastic Audition: I got the role of Nicholas. No surprise; it was the role the director has been hounding me about for almost a year. Not sure how my friends fared, though.
Damn Comcast!: So, the whole problem originated with me not actually paying Comcast the money I owed them. Whoopsie! However, I've been unable to get online with my connection since Thursday, despite paying them (I dropped a check off Thursday evening). As I mentioned, I've been hijacking someone else's wireless connection (although Davis has since disappeared, I'm now using some generic linksys wireless router), but it sorta sucks, since I'm not always getting three bars on my connection. Lame. But I talked to a guy at Comcast tonight, and apparently my account has to be rebuilt, or something. Whatever. He says I should be back in business tomorrow morning. Groovy.
So, all of a sudden, Comcast is forcing me to download some sort of software just to get online. The worst part is that the stupid "Download Now" link doesn't work... great. Hopefully I can talk to someone on Saturday, when (a) it won't keep me from going to work, and (b) won't cost me a thousand minutes on my cell phone (I never come close to hitting my max, but still...).
I'm online right now through the ignorant generosity of "Davis," whoever the hell that is. I'm just happy they didn't bother closing off their wireless network. :)
Haven't had too much to say, since I haven't had much happen.
My car got put in the shop on Thursday and Friday. Being without a car sucked; not only did I not get to spend my evenings here at home (meaning I couldn't work on the stuff I wanted to add for tomorrow's update, but food that I'd bought and had planned to have consumed by now is just sitting there). On the plus side, this should prevent my car from overheating as much as it has been recently. Yay.
I'm still finding stuff that is missing from my car. Not only did they take the car stereo, but they also apparently took the pliers that I used to adjust the temperature of my AC/heater (the knob fell off).
I also found out today that they took my (non-functioning, hah!) Maglite flashlight that I kept in my car. I didn't realize that it was gone until I went out to get it so I could replace the batteries and the bulb that were both dead. Oh well, I guess the next show I do, I'll just have to be 100% sure to bring my other one, since my backup is free-floating out there now...
My copy of Tiger is acting a little funny. iChat keeps randomly quitting on me; this last time, it walked me through all the "this is the first time you've run this copy of iChat" stuff, and several of my preferences were reset. Not only that, but iChat was Aqua, while the rest of my computer is Graphite, and I had dual-scrolling buttons (both up and down at the bottom of the scroll area, as opposed to being at the top and bottom). Quite perplexing.
In better news, I'm going through old CDs and ripping the good stuff off them. The Forrest Gump soundtrack has several good songs (I'm listening to Sweet Home Alabama currently).
Tiger upgrade went off with only a few hitches, huzzah huzzah. I had to install it twice on the tower (first time a straight upgrade, the second time replacing the old system folder) before it finally worked properly. However, I had to manually upgrade from 10.4.0 to 10.4.1 and then to 10.4.2; I couldn't just jump from .0 to .2 for some reason (the installer just wasn't working for me). It did work on my laptop, though; dunno why.
I only have a few widgets right now, and none of the cool effects (them spinning for the prefs on the back, the watery effect when you drop them) work because of my shitty old video card, but still, I'm enjoying it.
Read the title and you'll know what I'm talking about.
Because of my computer set-up, I have to use my laptop (with the DVD drive) to install Tiger on my tower; I'll be restarting it as a FireWire drive to the laptop. I backed up the important stuff (read: the 1.1gb The Empire folder) to the laptop, though I'm not going to be wiping the tower down (it's a pain in the ass that I'd rather not deal with).
Once all that is done, I'll be installing Tiger on the laptop itself tomorrow.
The rest of Sunday will be spent playing with widgets and downloading my favorites ones that I use at work. :)
Also, while this is installing, I'm going to work on my car. Maybe I can figure out why it is over-heating... I looked at the reservoir last night (the car was too hot to open anything up, but the reservoir is transparent) and it looked like it was completely full, which it shouldn't be. Hrm.
Turns out there were 35 other people.
Yeesh.
So at 8:24 this morning, I leisurely stroll out to my car. I unlock the driver door, and see a couple of CDs strewn in it. "Strange," I think to myself. "I don't remember doing that." Looking up slightly, I see that my glove compartment is open, and the majority of the contents (map, registration info, etc) are on the floor in front of the passenger's seat. "Strange, I don't remember doing that, either."
Because I'm slow, it's only then that I realized what happened. Sure enough, I shift my eyes ever so slightly to where me CD player is... whoops, I mean was. Son of a... *sigh* There's the frame of my dash, just hanging out there with several wires dangling where once there was a fully-functional (and fully-loaded, if you consider a single CD to be "fully-loaded") Kenwood CD player and radio combination.
First thing I do is call my dad, to let him know what happened and that I'd be late. Secondly, I call the cops. I cool my heels outside while I wait for the officer to arrive, when over walks the groundskeeper (really nice guy; even knows my name). Turns out that I was one of five total cars that were broken into: three were in the same lot as mine, and the other was on the other side of the complex. I was the lucky one, though; everyone else had a busted window, while mine had been pried open and the door unlocked. They were just looking for goods, though; the CDs I mentioned were still in their cases (though one of the CDs was the pre-show music for The Normal Heart; can't really blame them for not taking that).
After the cop got my information and filled out the report, I cleaned up my car a bit. The groundskeeper came back over and we shot the shit a bit more, when I realized that I was actually missing a piece of my car: the black section over the window that was pried off so that they could unlock it. The groundskeeper said he hadn't thrown it away, and after a short inspection, found it in the grass. The beautiful part about this is that there are some nice looking fingerprints on it; I opened and closed the door for the only other person that has ridden as a passenger, and I don't think I ever put my hand on that part of the door when closing it, so hopefully those fingerprints will help nail down who did it. Looks like I'll be calling the cops again when I get home. Good times. :\
So, now I have a car with a messed up window (still works, but it doesn't quite seal the way it used to; I don't know if it is water-tight anymore), but no CD player. This really, really sucks for me, since I drive about an hour and a half ever day. I don't know when I'll get a replacement; money is a little tight right now, and I won't be putting anything of value into my car until I get that window fixed (otherwise it'll be even easier to get in). *sigh*
So on Friday, I had dinner with Stark Bledfast and his sizable family: his wife Lynne, two daughters (Rachel and Hannah), and two young sons (Daniel and Joshua). They were in town for Polaris' product expo (as he is a dealer, he was invited to attend). Hanging out with them was quite fun. I'd met Mike, Lynne, and Daniel last September, but I enjoyed meeting his whole family, especially Rachel, who is a smart-ass of above-average quality. I actually caught myself almost flipping her off at one point, which may sound strange, but believe me, that's a compliment. ;)
Anyway, Saturday I hung out with them some more, but ultimately it ended up just being me and Mike at Polaris' Proving Grounds, where they had several different ATVs set up for people to test out the new batch of Polaris machines (since everyone is a dealer, it's ideally so that people will order some to sell). It's something I've never done before, and I had so much fun. I also had so much sun burn on my neck; when I got home, it was incredibly red, and I could see where my name tag had been hanging on my neck all day. I took a nice hot shower, though, and it's been good ever since.
Anyway, my Sunday was fairly uneventful, though I did spend the evening in the company of an incredibly lovely young lady (who had just come from a wedding, so I felt like I was totally undressed, even though we just ate at Steak n' Shake).
...I'm going to write up a summary of each day on the day it happens. I'm still trying to write up everything, and I'm sure I'm forgetting stuff. Not only that, but I haven't made much progress on it, because I haven't had much extended time to just sit and write.
Grr.
Whee, I'm back home. As much fun as I had hanging out with Tim and Danny and everyone else, I'm really glad to be home. Driving my car, sleeping in my own bed, having my knife on me at all times... yes, I've missed this.
However, I've been awake for more than 24 hours now. Not quite sure when I'll go to bed... I'm alternating between being really tired (like I was when my dad picked me up from the airport) to being quite energetic (like I was when I was singing my heart and soul out in the car driving home).
After two rather quick flights (Detroit has a nice airport), I'm now in Pennsylvania. Wooo!
Not long after we got here, Tim took me over to his friend Andy's place, where they have a regular game that goes on. I have to say, I did quite well for a newbie; Tim knocked Andy out, and then I knocked him out. The other guy and I kept switching chips back and forth, until we finally decided to split the pot (which means I made $20). I'm very, very happy about it. :)
Yay, had a fairly good haul from Target just now. Eight shirts, a new belt, and a ten-pack of hangers for about $100. Oddly enough, the belt was the most expensive single thing I got. :)
I'm gearing up for my MacWorld trip (in exactly one week, I'll be on the plane headed to PA). As a result, I thought I'd buy some new clothes to freshen up the ol' wardrobe with. As a result, I got several dark red and green shirts, since those work fairly well on me, though I also got a few dark gray-ish colored shirts that looked nice as well.
A lot of stuff was on sale. While this is good for the bank account, this means that the one really cool shirt that you found is probably the only one left. More than that, when you get back from the changing room, you won't remember where you found it, and will spend about 20 minutes going back and forth in the mensware department trying to find the damn hanger cluster that you got it from (even though you got it from the big mish-mash of miscellaneous clothing). Grrr.
All in all, I'm quite pleased with what I got. More importantly, I was grasping at straws for something to post to the blog. Huzzah! :)
The Normal Heart is finally over, and I have my life back. Such as it is; the past few days have been spent relaxing and playing Destroy All Humans, which is quite fun but I'm not sure I'll be buying it.
Anyway, after Thursday (which is when I have to return the game), I'll probably get back to work on the Lair. There is only a week and a half until I leave for PA, and I'm quite psyched about it, though it does mean I have to be careful about getting food at the store; I don't want to get a bunch of food that will just sit here for a week. I'd rather not come home to a stinky apartment. :)
My car is in dire need of a tune-up. It's sorta sputtering on the road, I don't have as much power as I usually do, and it stalled at a red light earlier today.
Fortunately, my mechanic is awesome. He's a good mechanic and a hell of a nice guy.
Unfortunately, he's in the middle of nowhere, and I've got a show tonight.
I'll be dropping the car off in a few hours, and my dad will then give me a ride to the theater. After the show, either I'll get a ride from an actor or he'll pick me up, and I'll crash at his place for the night, and then he'll take me in to work (saying as I work for him, it's pretty convenient). Then we'll drive out to the mechanic's tomorrow afternoon, I'll pick up my car, and then I'll go to tomorrow night's show.
*sigh* I hate being without my car.
But on the plus side, this is my last weekend for The Normal Heart, and after that, I have just two weeks until I leave for Pikeman's place, and then we're off to MacWorld Boston 2005. Hot diggity damn. :)
This really isn't news; I got a haircut a month ago now.
However, it is becoming increasingly obvious that I wait perhaps a bit too long between trimmings; since doing this show, I've had no less than a dozen different people comment about my haircut (including people I've met only once or twice).
For some reason, I'm just finding it incredibly amusing. :)
--
I was thinking that I might get a small Lair update in this week before Thursday (the next performance of The Normal Heart), but this weekend absolutely exhausted me. As a result, I'm going to just take some Me Time and rest up. I'll work on the Lair, but I won't update it this week (after this weekend, I'll be done with the show, thankfully).
Heh, oh yeah, my blog!
So, anyway, the last month has been pretty busy. Here's all the shit I've been up to:
That's all I can think of, but that's mainly because I'm really hungry. The Lair update has made progress; all I need to do now is finish up the existing Rants, and then add the Rants and Reviews that have piled up in my Inbox, and I'll be good to go. I'm also probably going to dump a ton of quotes into the Quote Archive.
The Joke Archive won't get updated to the new layout yet (I know, that sucks), but I need to get moving with the update; if I waited to finish it, it wouldn't get done until after MacWorld (mid-July). However, when it is updated, it'll have an extra hundred or so jokes in it (no kidding).
So, anyway, I guess that's it. Hopefully something momentous will happen in Real Life that will give me something to actually talk about. No promises, though.
...this is what I mean:
Thursday, March 17: My 22nd birthday. I'm going to be having dinner with Courtney (yes, the ex-Empress; we're still the best of friends). Dunno what I'll be doing that evening; we might just end up calling it a night and I work on the Lair all night. :)
Friday, March 18: I'm going to see a play at my old high school.
Saturday, March 19: reunion cast party for the Rocky Horror Show. Yes, I wasn't in the show, but I knew most of the cast and I crashed half their parties, so I'm invited anyway. It's also going to be in Murfreesboro, so it'll be hella easy to get to.
Sunday, March 20: wedding to go to in the middle of the day.
Monday-Thursday: possible rehearsals for another play I've agreed to do. *sigh*
In the past three days, I've been asked to work on three shows and two websites. Busy, busy me.
You may think that you do, but you really, really don't.
One of the (many) things I'm in charge of at work is collections. If a client is late in paying us, I'm the one that calls. I love my job in a very sick and sadistic way. I'm also very, very good at my job.
We have this one client... well, I shouldn't share the name (legal issues and whatnot), so I'll just call them "Deadbeat." Deadbeat is a restaurant that is just around the corner from us. We originally had been talking with Deadbeat about a postcard campaign for them. We were pretty excited; this was a fairly large client, and we were hoping to have things take off with this local franchise and have it go all the way to the corporate level. However, that didn't happen.
Everything with them was rush rush rush. Our initial concept was shot down. A mistake in my opinion, but whatever, it's Deadbeat's call. So we did a second one and sketched out what the photoshoot was going to capture. Because they were in such a rush, they told us to just go ahead with the drawings. Okay... whatever, they're the boss. All the while, we'd scouted out the restaurant and told them what they needed to fix (a lengthy list). Deadbeat also changed our postcard numbers; we were going to direct the cards to a much better list of addresses, but they had us go with their list. Again, they're the boss.
So, the postcards finally hit. Fast forward three weeks after I send them the invoice and I get a phone call from Deadbeat. Turns out they didn't think that they should get charged for the initial concept (charged as a flat fee) since they didn't go with it. Problem is, we dropped a lot of time off the final invoice because of that fee (that way the invoice was under the max amount we told them it would be), so I wasn't about to just take the fee off and call it a day. Deadbeat suggested we drop the amount down and make it a flat fee; we were still losing money, but less than if we just dropped the Concept fee, and since we were trying to get our foot in the door with Deadbeat, I reinvoiced them.
Well, Deadbeat fell off the face of the earth after that. I kept trying to get in touch with our contact at Deadbeat, but kept getting his voicemail. On one day (the 60 day mark for the invoice), I called once every hour on the hour (a total of 7 times, since I missed it at lunch). I sent a letter to them reminding them of their obligation (via certified mail, so I knew they received it, and have legal evidence proving such). The stipulation on the letter was that, if I didn't receive payment or communication within 5 days, I'd be taking them to court. Day #6 rolls on in, no money or phone calls, so I head down to the county clerk and file a civil suit against Deadbeat. Lo and behold, after he was served the notice by a Sheriff's deputy, he managed to pick up the phone to call me. So less than 30 hours after I went to the courthouse, I had my money. Booya, lawsuit cancelled.
Now, in the middle of all this, we invoiced the remaining time we had in our various projects for Deadbeat (including that initial Concept Development fee that they didn't think they should pay). Enclosed with the invoice was a letter that let them know that, yes, they were legally obligated to reimburse us for our time, regardless of whether they used it or not.
Well, I called Deadbeat yesterday to remind them that they owed me for the second invoice today (the 11th), and that if I didn't have my money by noon on the 14th, I'd be taking them to court again. I got a phone call from Deadbeat earlier today, and he had no clue what I was talking about. Bullshit, the invoice was sent via certified mail, I have a signature saying it was delivered. Regardless, he is confused how we can charge them for anything they didn't use; after a fairly heated (though civil) conversation between myself and Deadbeat, I tell him that I'll be going down to the courthouse on Monday to file against them, and I just sent Deadbeat PDFs of both the invoice and the letter that accompanied it (again, letting him know that he is legally bound to pay us).
The shit will be hitting the fan around the middle of April, more than likely, so hopefully I'll have some more stuff to say then. Right now, I'm in a sadistically wonderful mood. :)
Now, this is just the worst of the three clients I've had to start roughing up just to get my money out of them. Another was much easier to get my money from, though I think I've made an enemy of the receptionist (telling someone "that's not good enough" when they give you the run around doesn't make them your friend).
The second client was a pill to deal with, too; the president (who was my contact) kept giving me sob stories about how she was dealing with personal matters. Now, don't get me wrong, I feel bad for her... but I don't care. In the time that she took to tell me her sad little stories, she could have been signing a check. Before we began working with her on the two projects, she had us hold up until she was sure she could pay us; a little while later, she gave us the go-ahead. That means she had the money; any shit that may have happened in her personal life is none of my concern, and would have looked *very* bad if I had taken her to court (lucky for them, I got my check from them two days before I would have done so).
Oon the plus side, I *did* successfully get them to pay their late penalty; this is almost unheard of in regular attempts of creative firms to get money. Everyone I've told that to that works in a creative industry (like the architects next door, or other graphic designers) has been quite impressed. I'm seriously considering freelancing as a collections agent, working on a commission. I could make some serious money like that. :)
Right now, WeatherPop is showing me that it's 66.6° outside.
Yes, I am easily entertained. ;)
Last night I went over to my friend Lynda's place to help her film an audition tape for a movie she's hoping to be cast in. It was a lot of fun, and it was filmed by a director friend of hers. Aside from the audition piece being the first time I'd ever been filmed (the camera wasn't focused on me, but that's fine; it wasn't my audition tape, after all), the director friend seemed to like me well enough; he seemed to be quite interested in having me work with him on some projects. Considering I know several people that have worked with him (Lynda, David, Erik, and my sister Olivia), I know he's cool, so I might switch from doing technical theatre to actually acting in (albeit relatively small-time) movies. Score!
As for the Evil Eye comment... well, a few minutes ago my right pupil all of a sudden dilated to about twice it's normal size. It still isn't quite normal, and is causing my vision to be really strange. I can see just fine, but it seriously looks like I have an evil eye, and my right eye is now a lot more sensitive to light. I have no idea what the hell is going on; I'm honestly a bit spooked by all this. I'm going to be going to bed way early tonight (as in, as soon as I get done typing this) so that I can rest it, and I'll call my Dad tomorrow morning to get his opinion. Whee, this is fun. :\
As I mentioned before, my ex-stepdad wasn't doing too well. I got a call earlier today to let me know that he died at 10:51 this morning.
I probably should be more upset than I am, but I feel it hard to be; he wasn't doing well physically, and he was in a lot of pain. He's dead now, so he isn't in pain anymore. *shrug* I see it as an improvement, but I'm also the sort of person that celebrate's a person's life, rather than mourning their death.
I used to have Mormons that lived behind me. 5 of them (in a two bedroom apartment). They were nice enough; I made sure not to talk to them for any extended period of time, however, because I used to be in the Mormon church (we left before I was baptized), and if they found that out they'd be all over me like white on rice to come back to the church.
I miss them so very, very much.
I've already had to talk to the apartment office about my neighbor's pets. Specifically, they have a bird and a dog that, apparently, is easily surprised. For a while, the dog would all of a sudden discover the bird and start barking (yelping would be a more accurate description). The bird, in turn, would then start skwaking loudly, which further surprised the dog. Oh, what a pleasant sound to hear at 5 in the morning. Thankfully, after I talked to the office, I haven't had to hear them. I know the bird is still there (I hear it every once and a while, but as long as it isn't keeping me from sleeping, I'm fine with it), but I suspect the dog is gone. Oh well, couldn't care less.
Then, there's this morning, about 5:30 or so. There I am, sleeping nice and peacefully, when I'm woken up by the sound of very loud yelling and shouting coming from the bathroom (our bathrooms are back to back). At 5:30, I'm out cold; I've slept through my alarm clock, which is right beside my head, on more than one occasion, so I'm fairly surprised that they managed to wake me up. Anyway, I could hear them argue a bit more out in the hall, then they went back in. He was yelling really loudly, and I'm 90% sure I heard him hit her. I'm not quite sure, but one of the things that I heard him say (couldn't hear her) was "go ahead, calling the fucking police!" Well, I am sure that he wasn't talking directly to me, but I figured that his suggestion wasn't without some merit.
So I call 911, tell them what's up, and wait for the police to arrive (I'm wide awake at this point, no point in going back to sleep). While this happens, the happy couple behind me take their argument back to the hallway, with the guy eventually locking the girl out, so she goes out to the car (I figured to leave, but apparently to stay warm). About this time the cops show up, and have a nice little chat with them. I figured they'd knock on my door to get my report of what happened, but that I guess they didn't need it. I'm a bit pissed about that, since I stayed out in the living room specifically for that purpose, but whatever. :)
Anyway, it's now 6:54, and I can already tell that I'm going to be damn tired by the end of the day. My guess is that I'll be going to bed at 10:30 tonight to make up for the lost sleep. Grrr.
So, I found out yesterday that my (somewhat estranged) ex-stepdad is dying of sclerosis of the liver. Today, I went and saw him at the nursing home that he's at right now.
He's in rough, rough shape. He can barely talk, and was breathing very slowly, heavily assisted. I was only there about 10 to 15 minutes; I didn't know what to say, and when I did try to make small talk, he could barely speak. The fact that he was tired and kept slipping in and out of consciousness didn't make conversation any easier, either. Eventually he made note of the fact that he was so damn tired and I told him I was going to leave to let him sleep. I'm going to go see him again on Saturday; with any luck, he'll be dead by then. I feel sorry for him, and he must be in fairly intense pain. The only thing I can wish for him now is a quick, painless death.
In other news, the Forums are almost ready to come back; the only thing remaining on them is for me to upgrade phpBB. Oddly enough, I don't feel like doing that right now. Go figure.
For just $678, I can get a 1.42GHz Mac mini with an internal AirPort card (memory upgraded after). That's only about a month's worth of bills... *sigh*
It doesn't help that it is over 3 times as powerful as my current machine. Grr.
Okay, so I wake up on the 31st and my clock is flashing. Glancing over at the G4, I see that it's power buttons aren't throbbing. Great, a random-as-hell power outage. Well, there are worse things that could have happened, I say to myself, especially since I had two different parties to go to for New Years. Hell yeah!
If you're ever in the position where you have two New Years parties to go to, stick with one or the other. The first party I went to had a lot of people that I didn't know, but it was still a fun enough affair. The host, Chaz, has a karaoke machine (and had played host to several cast parties before) and is about the friendliest guy you'll ever meet. Eventually, the number of people started to dwindle and a few more people I actually knew showed up, and I was having a good time (in no small part to a really hot friend of Chaz's... too bad she was there with her 13 year old son). Eventually, I got a call from my friend Multi-Bob, so against my better judgement, I headed off to the second party.
*sigh* When I left, the first party was winding down; there were just a handful of us left. Actually, it was just me, the hosts (Chaz and his wife), another couple (in-laws of Chaz), the hot woman, and her son. A small group, but still an enjoyable one, especially since it was just me and the three women. The other party, on the other hand, had hit it's peak long before I had gotten there (around 2am), and there was some sort of stupid drama that had happened before I got there that had dampened the spirits of those still remaining. While I had fun hanging out with the three hosts and Bob, dammit, I would have had a lot more fun ogling the chick at the first party (the term "MILF" comes to mind, as it was oh-so accurate).
Oh well. So I get home around 5am on the 1st, go to bed, and then wake up around 3pm. I clean up some around the apartment, then I head out to Hastings (a local place for music, books, games, movies, etc; it's a fun place to just browse). As I'm driving back to my apartment, I see several flashing cop cars sitting at an intersection. I see them about the time that I'm realizing that there are usually street lights where I am... crap. Turns out that some drunk driver hit a power line. Dunno if he survived; I've been asked this question each time I've related the story, and it never even occurred to me to find out, since I don't care one way or the other.
So I turn around and try an alternate way of getting back to my apartment. 8 minutes later (from where I was, it's usually about 2 minutes), I'm coming up on my street from the opposite direction, realizing with a sense of dread that I don't see the bank's sign, or the Shell station's sign. No no no... yup, there's my building, with absolutely no lights on at all. The icing on the cake here, though, is the fact that my building is on a different grid than the rest of the apartment complex. So I pull in and park, with every other building lit up like normal, while I head towards the black void that is my home.
*sigh* There wasn't much to do other than to head to IHOP for dinner, so I hopped back in my car after grabbing a book to read. Two hours later, I head back towards my apartment. The intersections affected are still blocked off, but I have power. Hot damn!
Hopefully the rest of the year won't be like that. :)
For those that are curious, here's what I got:
Sorry that the forums aren't up by now; my weekend didn't exactly go as I had planned.
Yipee. Verizon decided that, since they had to swap out my cell phone so much, both they and myself would be better served by simply getting me a different phone. Now I have a Samsung a670, yipee. It's a camera phone, which means I can now take horrible photos of just about anything! It makes a sound when you take the photo, though, which you can't disable, and all the sounds suck. It also has a color screen, which I couldn't care less about. But, it won't need replacing every other day, which is a vast improvement. I wanted a bluetooth-enabled phone, but the one they had was a full $200 more expensive. :\
It was priced at $99.99, but the support guy wasn't going to be able to get me that price (the price is for new customers only); I think the regular price is $149.99. Instead, he got me a bundle deal that got me a car charger, extended battery (?), and earpiece so that he could give me a break with the phone price.
The charger and earpiece are both marked individually as $29.99, and the battery was $59.99. All that plus the $149.99 phone price comes up to $269.96. What did I pay? About $75. I'm very happy with the deal. :)
The only drawback is that a holster didn't come with the package. They didn't have any plastic ones, so the guy dug around in the junk drawer to find one that would fit on my phone (it was free, too). Now I've got a crumby leather-ish holster that is fairly difficult to get off of my hip. I also didn't get a manual, since he grabbed a replacement phone rather than a retail phone.
My car is in the shop. I dropped it off at the mechanic's Monday evening, meaning I spent the night at my Dad's place. However, I still don't have a car. That means that I have to spend the night again.
This is crappy for several reasons. First, I don't have a car. 'nuff said. Secondly, I don't get to spend the night in my bed; my bed is comfy, and I sleep well on it. Dad's guest bed is nice, but it isn't my bed. Third, I was going to work on the forums tonight; since I won't be at home, I can't do that, which means I need to do as much as possible tomorrow evening, even though I'm supposed to have dinner with someone, meaning I won't have much time tomorrow (and I have shows Thursday and Friday evenings). Grrr.
Arg!
So, I got another new phone yesterday. However, the calendar button (part of the four-direction button at the top) doesn't work half the time. That I could get over, I suppose... but the Send button doesn't work all the time, either. That, I can't deal with, since it's a fairly integral part of the phone. Grr. However, I did fix the backlight issue with the second phone over the weekend; it accidently got smashed into something, and then it worked like a charm. :)
So this means I have to go back to Verizon again and have them order me another phone. At least I'm not being charged for each swap-out.
I am fairly annoyed that the first phone I got worked perfectly for nearly two years, and the two I've gotten since (the exact same model) have lasted less than a week before problems have come up. At this point, I'm tempted to just buy a new damn phone; if I can get one with Bluetooth, that'd be swell. Dunno if I'd want a camera phone or not, though. *shrug*
No Lair update yesterday, sorry, oh well.
I'm tired. Anyone following the crap on my forums can guess half the story (the other half is strictly real-world crap, which I'll share when it isn't almost 1 in the morning.
Grrr. So it was 4:30 yesterday, and I still hadn't gotten a call from Verizon about my new cell phone coming in. For a lack of anything else to do, I checked my messages. Sure enough, Verizon had called and left a message about my new phone.
Let me rephrase this: Verizon Wireless called my broken cell phone to tell me that my working cell phone was in. They were supposed to call my work number, because they "knew" that my cell phone was broken.
Arg.
So I now have a working cell phone... sorta. The backlit screen doesn't light up, which makes use in less-than-fully-lit places an impossibility. *sigh* At least I now have a working phone, and can stick all of the numbers I need into Address Book.
I've been such a freakin' recluse today. No phone calls whatsoever, all because I was a little too careless with my phone. Then tonight, after the show, I didn't catch wind of where everyone was going because I had to go lock up everything backstage, so it's quarter after 9 on a Saturday and I've got absolutely jack to do.
Grrr.
Well, my cell phone took one too many tumbles yesterday. Right now, it's just completely off, which I almost never do, simply because the only thing it can do is receive phone calls that I can't hear (though the outside screen does show the proper color for each caller).
I just got back from the Verizon store, where I was told they'd have a new phone for me on Tuesday. Gah, I have to go the entire weekend without any sort of phone (I don't have a land line, just the cell phone). Thankfully, my weekend is going to be socially dead anyway because of the show, but still, it's frustrating that I won't have a phone until Tuesday (at the earliest; at the worst, it could be after Thanksgiving that I finally get everything working again).
(EVula Sr. is the name of my tower's hard drive)
Yup, after only a handful of problems, I'm now running OSX 10.3.6 here at home.
Unfortunately, because of those problems (and because of an hour that was shot to hell by spammers on my forums), I'm not going to be able to update anything around the Empire tomorrow; there's just too much left to set up on this machine.
So, I'm finally going to be making the jump from OS9 to OSX this weekend. Hopefully. I finally got a new/used CD-RW drive for my computer; the current one is fairly busted, making it impossible to boot from a CD, as well as other stuff (can't rip MP3s off of CDs on my tower, I have to load them onto my laptop). All I have to do is swap out the old drive for the new one (which isn't fun; I just did the same thing last week to an identical machine at work, which is where this used CD drive came from). Then, once I have a fully-functional CD burner again, I'll start burning backup CDs of everything on my machine, starting with the Empire files (site HTML, Store Photoshop documents, etc), System Folder, email, and Applications.
Once I have absolutely everything backed up, I'm going to pop in the OS X.3 installation CDs that I borrowed from work, and completely wipe and reinstall the operating system. It won't be fun, but it will be thourough. After that, I'll have a dual-booting machine (once I load my old System Folder back in) so I can make the change at a slow pace if I want, but I'll probably try to stick to an all-X operating environment.
Once everything is up and running again, I'll probably get iLife, just so I can start playing around with GarageBand. I've wanted to try it out for the longest time, and I'll finally be able to. Yay! Who knows, maybe I'll start a GarageBand section of the Lair, or start selling music CDs on the store. ;)
Anyway, because of all this computer upgrading, an Imperial update on Monday is up in the air. If things go smoothly, I'll be able to start working on stuff later today, but getting my home computer running is more important than writing a Rant or Review for the Lair, sorry.
I'd also like to congratulate myself for managing to update my blog almost every single day this week. Go me. :)
Heh, I forgot to mention it. :)
So, yesterday I'm driving to work, and it had rained heavily the night before. There's this tricky little stretch of road where it literally zig-zags across (one 45° right turn, then a 45° left turn). I'm coming around the second bend when I hear breaks getting slammed and see a white car starting to head over the yellow median. I immediately try to get myself around the turn; if I had tried to stop right then, either the white car would have hit me head-on, or the car behind me would have slammed into me (which then also could have launched me forward).
Well, good call on my part. I whip right around the bend, but was still treated to a heart-stopping "crunch" sound that I'm certain could have been heard in the Vatican. It was horrible. So, after a bout of medium-to-high-level profanities from yours truly, I got out of my car once I pulled over (and made sure the white car didn't bail on me). I check the back of my car... and then check it again. "Where the hell is the damage? There's some scratched paint... or is that dirt? Oh, no, that's scratched paint. Okay, what the hell caused the sound? Weird."
So I walk back towards the white car, when a cop just happens to pull around the bend. Rolling his window down, he asks if I'm alright. "I guess so..." He pulls in behind me, turns his lights on, and I keep walking towards the old jerk who "hit" me. He's fine, his car's fine, the three of us go back to my car, acknowledge that yes, no real damage was done, and we part ways. I think my exact words to the other driver were "well, have a nice day." The cop seemed to get a kick out of that, for some reason.
So that was my excitement for the week. :)
Dammit! My Xbox died yesterday. I was playing Knights of the Old Republic, zipping around the Black Vulkar base, when a slight power surge made the lamp twitch at the Xbox shut down. I went over to turn it back on and... nothing.
*sigh*
I've got a friend who might be able to get it modded (to replace the power unit), and that's a much better choice than getting a new one. Not only is it cheaper, but it means I don't loose all of my data.
I'm still getting adjusted to single life (which is harder than I would think). I don't think I'll have an update ready for this upcoming Monday, but I'm sure I will the week after. Who knows, maybe I'll have some spare time this weekend... yeah, right.
...just tired.
Tonight will be the last of 3 nights that I'll have to myself this week, and I'll probably get stuff done (I need to do a couple of things around the Forums, process the incredibly backlogged blog.evula.net accounts, do the Blacklist thing again, etc).
Unfortunately, I don't know how much content I'll have on the Lair when I start working on it again; my breakup with Courtney really took the wind out of my sails, so I've been lounging more than working on my days off. Oh well.
Also, I hope to write up an entry about everything that has happened in the past few weeks.... it's quite a lot: ending of a relationship, the potential start of another, the stress that comes from doing a play (and the fun that comes after each show), seeing old friends for the first time in a while... yeah, it's been crazy. :)
Courtney and I broke up yesterday. I'd write more about it right now, but it's late and I'm tired.
Well, we arrived back home around 12:30 this morning, driving straight back from Pennsylvania.
I got a lot of work done on the trip, but I still need to do a lot more before I've got a Lair update ready (although when I update it, it'll be a big one). As a result, I won't be updating the Lair until Monday the 26th.
Now that I'm back, I need to sort through email and whatnot. Ugh, no doubt, there is lots of it...
Well, we're just outside Boston. Currently, I'm sitting in Danny's living room with Courtney more or less awake and Pikeman still out; I've been awake for an hour already, which I'm fairly pissed about. ;)
Anyway, the general consenus is that we (Pikeman, Courtney, and myself; Danny and Leah may or may not be able to come) will get to MacWorld around 1; our thinking was that it would give us sleep-in time, but my body obviously disagreed with my head about that one. Stupid body.
PS: Danny and Leah are hella cool.
Not ATMOS, the EV Nova developers, but Atmos, the gas people.
They keep sending bills to us at work under the suite's contractor's name. I've asked them a grand total of 5 times to change the name, using the normal methods (checking the stuff they said to on the sheet you send with payment). I've tried calling them, but each time I do, I've been unable to get a real person. Grr.
So anyway, today I wrote a nice little note on our note card stationary and stapled it to the check. Then I stapled both the note and the check to the sheet. I also checked all the info on the sheet, same as always. If those stupid shits don't get the point by now, I'm not sure what I'll do next...
A few technical difficulties here in the home network. As a result, the Lair update scheduled for today will happen... uh, not today. :\
So yesterday I had lunch with Multi-Bob and Eirk; it was quite the treat, since Multi-Bob moved out of town and just happened to be around for us to have lunch. Originally there were going to be five of us going, with Holly and Olivia coming too, but breakdowns in communication happened, so it was just us guys. Good times.
Today has been fun, but uneventful.
Tomorrow should be quite fun, though; Courtney and I are going to have an actual date, which is something that we haven't done in a long time. Don't know quite what we'll be doing, but whatever it is, it'll be some time dedicated to just us. Seems here lately we've been too busy with getting her moved in for anything else.
Also, I had planned on writing something totally different (and, er, much more interesting) today, but realized that I wanted to have it be fairly lengthy, and so I'll put it up on the Lair as a Rant with the update tentatively scheduled for Monday. Yay!
Oooh, and as Courtney just reminded me, she's been here a full week. Awesome!
Some really bad thunderstorms moved in last night, so I had to shut down my tower and unplug it. The laptop was still online, though, since the cable modem will be replaced for free if it gets zapped, and if my AirPort base station gets fried, I take it into CompUSA and they'll give me a replacement for free (wonderful insurance). However, I felt more like cozying up with the Empress than jumping online to talk about every event that had happened in the past few days (of which there were none), so it all worked out for the best, I suppose.
So Friday was the first official day that Courtney lived here. It was really nice to have her be the last thing I saw before going to sleep and then the first thing I saw the next morning. I can definetly get used to that.
Saturday was the first time that we spent all day together. When I say all day, I don't mean 10 hours or so; from when we woke up to when we went to bed, we were pretty much with each other the entire time. We were originally going to move her furniture Saturday, but there was still stuff in her room and her parents (all of a sudden) made the request that we move stuff before 6. Since they made that decision at 5, that sort of screwed us up, so we made plans to move it all Monday (today) instead. The rest of the evening was spent loading up my car with stuff to take to storage.
Courtney had to work Sunday, but before she had to leave we went shopping. The weather sucked and as a result, I was more tired after getting all the food than I was when I woke up. After Courtney left, I sort of just lounged around, cleaning out the fridge (which I did before loading in our new food) and such. I ended up taking one last load of stuff to storage much later in the day when the weather didn't drain the energy right out of you.
This morning, we got up and headed out to her parent's place, where we (she and I and her parents) loaded up both her dad's truck and my station wagon with her furniture and boxes she hadn't brought with her Friday. After we unloaded it, they took us out to lunch (free food = good), and then we came back here and she set up her room while I cleaned up mine so I could give her my spare desk (which was in use at the time...). After she went to work, I cleaned up a little bit more (uh, stress "little"...), and set up her computer. Let me go on record as being glad I own a Mac; setting up her computer was obnoxious, due primarily to the big honkin' monitor that came with it. Having to run the mouse all the way to the CPU was also rather silly, too.
Also, at various points this weekend, I've been working on the Lair update. Specifically, I've been working on updating the sidebar so that it is a bit better organized (I also re-coded it to ditch the rollover effect it currently has, and to make it a bit easier to manage when I make a major site update later this year). I also mucked with the code for the front page; unless you are extremely attentive, you won't notice much of a change. So far, I've got 20 jokes done, and from the looks of my inbox, I might have several rants and reviews to add as well. Excellent!
Courtney's first day of living here is, officially, today. Actually, she'll be here in just a few minutes... her first time "home."
We're absolutely giddy with joy. :)
Not much going on right now for me to share with you all... I've been working to clean out the spare bedroom so that Courtney can move her stuff in this weekend. I can't get a hold of Sarah for her to get her shit out of there, and it's really beginning to piss me off; I've got several boxes that I'd like to not put in permanent storage, but don't have room around here for, so I would ideally toss them in the closet to get them out of the way while I moved everything else. However, Sarah's junk is in the closet, and as a result, my stuff is off to the side. Grr.
Oh, and I just cleared out 10 or so spam comments on my blog. What fun. For those who have blogs, I suggest IP banning 151.37.*.* and 151.38.*.*.
So, Courtney is going to be moving in (officially) Friday the 28th, since that's when she gets her first paycheck and, after that, she'll be able to help out with bills and food and whatnot. However, the first thing that needs to happen is that I get all of my crap out of the spare bedroom in my apartment, which will become her room. But before I can get all of my crap out of there, Sarah, my old roommate, needs to get all of her crap out of there, too.
So today she was supposed to swing by to get the rest of her crap out of my room. I called her three or four times, but got no response. Arg. So I sort of floundered all day, having had my morning start out badly by sitting down for a bout of D2 while killing time between calling her. Bad idea, I got lazy all damn day. By the time I got my ass in gear and started moving stuff into my car to take to storage (although, to my credit, I did clean up the apartment a bunch), it was around 8. I get to the storage place and my key doesn't work in the door to get to my unit. Great.
So now I have a car load of crap, a room still full of two people's crap, and less than a week until the Empress makes the Lair her permanent residence.
I keep forgetting to update the damn blog until the end of the day. Arg.
So the other day I was working on a computer problem that had been kicking my ass at work since the beginning of the year, which is when we moved into our current office. The problem was that the OSX machine wasn't able to get online when plugged into the router, while the OS9 machines were. Quite a problem, since I'm trying to switch the office over to OSX (tired of Quark, and if we use OSX, it'll streamline a lot of things at work regarding the server and syncing various bits of data across machines).
Anyway, long story short, what happened is that the router was acting as a DHCP server, which is what it was supposed to be doing. However, what I didn't realize is that the modem (I have no clue what the connection is) was also acting as a DHCP server. The OS9 machines were pulling their IPs from the modem, while the OSX machine(s) (I tested this on another, usually offline, OSX machine, and my dual-booting PowerBook) pulled their IPs from the router, which meant that it couldn't get online.
Problem solved, and so now all I have to do is half a dozen other things and we'll be on X at work. Huzzah.
It was a total blast. Courtney and Mel showed up here and then we drove in seperate cars out to Blackstone in Nashville. Tons of people were there, and we ended up sitting at a table with a whole bunch of folk from Cherry Orchard (Holly, Olivia, John, Erik, Pat, and myself), some people from Game's Night (the show I did props for), and then a bunch of other cool people (like Cory, Kat, David, and Linda). Courtney had to leave early, though, since she had a job interview early this morning, and she took Mel with her (we knew she'd leave early, which is why we took seperate cars).
After the Blackstone's bash, a bunch of us went to David and Erik's place and hung out for quite a while. I ended up spending the night, which I wasn't planning on doing since I had a meeting today and needed to be somewhat dressed up; I ended up wearing an all-black outfit last night, so I had my black cargo pants and then borrowed this cool silver button up shit from Erik that looked quite nice with the pants.
This isn't the first time I've crashed there, although it was the first time that I did and had to go to work the next day. Next time we do this, it'll have to be on a weekend, dammit, when Courtney can come too.
Well, not that I shaved my head or anything, but I did get a haircut today and lost a significant amount of the hair that had been collecting on top of my head. I had to wait until after the show was over, since the hair cut I now have isn't exactly period for late 1800s Russia. I'm also growing out the facial hair that I had to cut for the show; right now it's pretty thin, but it'll grow in soon enough.
It's nice to get my life back from the show.
Tonight I'll be going to a going-away party for my friend Multi-Bob. Courtney and her friend Mel are going to be driving seperately from myself, since she'll be leaving a bit earlier than I will probably, and I was going to be picking up my sister on my way (although when I talked to her, she said she'll probably do something after the party, so she's driving herself). It should be quite fun; it'll be at Blackstone, which has a kickass burger, and tons of cool folks will be there. Huzzah!
I'm rarely ever sick, but right now I feel like crap. Sore throat, stuffy head, general aches all over my body... bleh. I came into work for about 45 minutes before my dad/boss told me to go home.
The plus side, though, is that I swung by Walgreens on my way home to pick up some orange juice and vitamin C tablets and got to surprise Courtney at work. The look of sheer joy on her face was priceless. :)
However, my friend Chris and I were going to go see Cowboy Mouth perform in Chatanooga. I called him around 3 to tell him that I couldn't make it, but when he picked up, he sounded just as bad as I did. Too bad, though... I would have loved to have seen them again. Oh well.
Almost forgot to mention it, but today (the 11th) is the one month anniversary of myself and the Empress. Huzzah!
We went to a fancy Italian restaurant and had a nice filling meal, then came back home for a little while before she had to leave. All in all, a great evening.
Everyone accumulates change over the course of the day, right? (If you don't, just pretend you do) Well, what I do is toss it on my bookcase and, once it gets to a certain amount, I roll it. I've got a considerable amount, which I'll be taking to the bank today.
$170 in quarters
$40 in dimes
$18 in nickles
$16 in pennies
That's $244. In coins. $244 in coins is very, very heavy.
And I've still got $11 or so in unrolled coins that are sitting there, waiting for my to get enough of each type to roll them up.
Anyway, just felt like sharing.
So I was driving down the interstate, heading into Nashville to have lunch with my friend Lauren, and I see this black SUV on the side of the road. Actually, that isn't what caught my attention. The woman running frantically from the SUV, dressed in little more than a negligée and wearing a terrified look on her face, was. The male driver jumping out of the driver's seat and running after her got my attention, too.
So what do I do? Immediately pull over and dial 911, of course, and I wasn't the only one. There were two other cars, that I could see, who pulled over, presumably to do the same. I pulled over on the other side of the curve in the road, so I couldn't see what was going on, but the car (a white Acura) that pulled over behind me (between me and the SUV), backed up to see what was going on. As soon as the SUV got back into traffic, the Acura jumped immediately on his tail. I tried to do the same, but had difficulty with getting back into traffic, between the traffic itself and trying to maintain a cell phone conversation. I did get the license plate number and type of car information to the operator, and I was able to tell where they were going, and the Acura was no doubt providing the same information. I was forced in the opposite direction by traffic, so my excursion into the wonderful world of warning the law was brought to an early end, but still, I feel like I did some sort of good, and the Acura was still tailing the SUV, so the police were probably able to nail the bastard. Huzzah.
And it also means that I've updated the blog three times in three days. Crazy.
The Emperor now has an Empress. She is absolutely wonderful. Her handle is Sakhmet, and her name is Courtney. She's also one of the women that falls in love with me in the play that I'm doing. Lucky for me, I suppose. :)
I'm at a bit of a loss as to what I should say... she's beautiful, she's intelligent, she's funny, and best of all, she digs the Empire. I'll try to get some pics of her and/or us online in the near future. Soon she'll even have her own blog, too.
Anyway, I'm sure that I'll be posting more about her in the future, and if any of you come to MacWorld Boston this summer, you'll more than likely get to meet both of us; I'm trying to get her to come along too. :)
Update 4-27: Courtney's blog is up and operational. Here is a link.
Its been a while since I've put anything up here...apologies for that, but I've been fairly busy.
Just to recap:
Rehearsals for A Month in the Country are coming along nicely.
Multi-Bob's show has almost all of their props. After tonight, I'll be off the hook entirely.
Personal life... well, I'll save that for a future posting. :)
Nothing especially important has happened recently. Had my first rehearsal tonight for A Month In The Country; it went well enough, I suppose, although the way that the director gives blocking notes is new to me (we sit down first, run through everything, and then walk it out, adapting it as needed).
Tomorrow I go to see Tape, a play being done by some friends of mine. I'll be going with Sis, Holly, and Multi-Bob.
Saturday morning/afternoon, I'll be shopping for props for Multi-Bob's show. Later that evening, I'll be hanging out and playing games with Erik, David, Lynda, Multi-Bob, Sis, Holly, and some of the folk from KWP (Ren. group that I'm sort of a member in).
Good times.
Haven't posted anything since mid-day Wednesday, so here's what all has happened:
Wednesday Evening
Cowboy Mouth kicks so much ass, its almost illegal. I had dinner with my friends David, Lynda, and Erik at Chez Jose, and then Erik and I went to the show. An hour and a half after we get there, they finally take the stage. In that time, my friend Multi-Bob shows up, and my friend Chris (who I hadn't talked to in a while, so I hadn't actually invited him) happened to be there with one of his friends, so we all watched the show together, although Erik had to leave after only 20 minutes.
The show itself was awesome. Two full hours, which is a major test of endurance (both for the band and for the audience). They're so energetic, it's insane. The show ended with Fred (the drummer/lead singer) inviting the opening band up on stage, as well as a friend of theirs on guitar (which meant there were ten people up there), while Fred walked around on the bar, singing/talking at us. That whole jam had to last 15 minutes or so... so very, very cool. I ended up talking to Sis for well over an hour after the show, which was good too.
Thursday
We had a damn good audience for Cherry Orchard, especially considering the fact that it was a Thursday show, which usually has crappy audiences. Nothing special, although I did get a super-cool gift from Sis and Holly: a framed pic of them at the beach, which is where they were earlier in the week (they were driving back on my birthday), a birthday card, and a funny glass mug illustrating the male brain. Its so accurate, its scary. :)
Friday
Uh... to be honest, I don't remember much about Friday.
Oh wait, yeah, we had the cast party for Cherry Orchard on Friday! Good times, good times... I found out that I'm the Twister champion in the cast, even beating my sister, and that I can dance a little too much like Shakira if I want to. :)
Saturday
The last day of the show. We had a rehearsal at 1 for the understudy, since one of the actresses couldn't make it. That meant that I was stuck in Nashville for the entire day, since it wasn't worth it to drive back to the 'boro just to drive back to Nashville, and then drive back to Murfreesboro again. As a result, I was back at the theatre at 4, and the show didn't start until 7:30. Since I had the keys to the theatre, it was cool; I just tossed a couple of new CDs on the CD player and laid down on the bed that was on stage and relaxed. It was great. :)
We had a huge thunderstorm that day, too, which knocked out the lights; they fought with them for over half an hour before finally getting everything working. Ugh. We had a huge audience that night, too.
We had to strike the set Saturday evening, though; that was a lot of work. I didn't get done until 2, and I called Sis on the way home, and ended up talking to her for yet another hour. I swear, we're making up for lost time when it comes to our chats...
Sunday
I got to sleep late. Hell yes.
I had a read-through for the new show I'm in, though, at 3, so I couldn't relax all day. I like the show, and especially my character; I get to have two different girls fall in love with me, everyone talks about how great I am, I have only a few lines, and I'm barely on stage, but I'm still integral to the show. It's great. :)
The only thing that I'm upset about is that Sis couldn't get a part in the show. She talked to the director a little too late; he'd already cast the role. That sucks; I was really looking forward to working with her again. The role she was up for was the young ward (who is one of the two women who fall in love with me), so we would have gotten to act together; our chemistry kicks ass in real life, so I'm sure it would have translated very well. Oh well, life goes on.
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Anyway, that wraps it up. This has been a much longer entry than I was planning on writing. :)
Its my birthday, so here's what I've gotten:
A healthy amount of cash
Cards from my mom, dad, and grandma
The Secret Teachings of Jesus: Four Gnostic Gospels
Encyclopedia of Heresies and Heretics
An odd little head massager thingie
A mutual fund
There's also a card from Olivia and Holly that I haven't gotten yet
Free lunch today and another free lunch tomorrow
And this is before the actual birthday fun. Hell yeah. :)
Oh yeah, over the course of doing the Cherry Orchard, I met my sister. World, say hello to my sister, Olivia. She's awesome.
I just sent out the email to everyone I've invited to my birthday bash tomorrow. Huzzah!
Thirdly.... I'm damn tired.
Hmm, I bet a few of you are a bit confused about the sister thing. Olivia is one of the two "lovely ladies of the Cherry Orchard" mentioned here, and the more I've gotten to know her, the more I'm finding that we have in common. Conversation just flows very naturally, we get along incredibly well, and we're both extremely comfortable around the other. We just sort of decided that we're brother and sister one day, and so far, I haven't had much evidence to suggest that we aren't (aside from the fact that we have completely different parents). But hey, who needs details?
Anyway, I just had to share with the world what is easily the biggest development in my personal life right now. After all, its not everyday that you find a life-long friend, much less a sibling. :)
I was looking forward to relaxing a bit this week, but then Life happened.
Monday: Movie Night at my friend Multi-Bob's place.
Tuesday: Read-through for the show my friend Multi-Bob is directing (I'm doing props for it). Production meeting afterward.
Wednesday: My Birthday! Cowboy Mouth concert that evening with a load of friends.
Thursday: Cherry Orchard performance.
Friday: Cherry Orchard performance.
Saturday: Cherry Orchard performance. Strike set that night, and then I'm done with the show! Hell yeah!
Sunday: Read through for the show I've been cast in (but, uh, I don't know the name of it...).
For all the various internet things that I'm neglecting (visiting my forums, sorting out the whole registration mess on the forums, email, blog accounts, and everything pertaining to the backup system), I'm hoping to take care of them spread out over tonight, tomorrow evening, and tuesday evening.
...just tired.
I've been working my ass off for the play, and as a result, last night was the first night in a week that I'd even turned the computer on.
As a result, I haven't been checking my email much. If you've tried contacting me at all, just wait a bit longer. The play is over on the 20th, even though I've got more work coming around the corner...
There's other stuff that I could mention, but I'll save that for future posts. I just wanted to let people know I hadn't slipped into a coma or anything. ;)
So, it snows last night. I walk out to my car, and dammit, my Apple sticker in my back window fell off from the combination of freezing temperatures and then slight melting.
Grr.
So, I woke up this morning and slowly made my way to my bathroom. Flip on the light, and gah! I've got blood on the side of my face!
I wash the dried blood from my face and reveal a quarter-inch gash by my mouth on the right side. No clue how it got there; I'm guessing that I tossed and turned during the night, and ended up slicing open my cheek while shifting. Kind of odd, though, since I cut my nails just a few days ago...
Hey, no one said that these blog entries were going to be stunningly interesting. ;)
I found out today that Cowboy Mouth, one of my favorite bands, is going to be playing in Nashville on my 21st birthday.
Some of you may not know how big a deal this is. Cowboy Mouth is one of the best live bands ever. They put on one hell of a good show, and have been able to count on me as a loony fanboy ever since I got to meet them this past summer. Incredibly nice people, very friendly, and very happy just to know that people enjoy what they do.
Anyway, it also pretty much solves any issues about a birthday gig. I'm just inviting a ton of friends to come to the concert. They'll have to buy their own tickets, but they won't have to get me any gifts. I'm hoping that afterwards we could all go out to dinner, but I'm still too excited about getting to see them again (and on my birthday, no less) to care about all the details. ;)
Bleh, we've been moving everything at work, out of my dad's house where we were previously at and into the new digs. Talk about tough work... first, there are the tons of boxes. Second, there are the multiple machines (five G4s) and monitors (another five) and the tons of cables that connect everything. And three guesses as far as who gets to set all that stuff up...
On top of all this, I got to build both a desk and a lateral file. Did the construction go smoothly? Hell no! I managed to screw up the desk so many times it wasn't funny (well, now it is, but at the moment, it was just plain frustrating). The desk, you see, was designed so that its shelving unit could be on the left or right side (which is a good idea), but that means that all the relevant pieces have holes in them for either configuration. That means that construction is just a bit more difficult, and when you have your head as far up your ass as I apparently had mine, it gets very difficult.
When we moved in, we also found that we didn't have an internet connection. Joy of joys, when email is the lifeblood of the company. Emailing clients a PDF saves us so much time, and having them email us revision information lets us update the job quickly and easily... without an internet connection, we couldn't do a damn thing.
Oh, did I mention the fabulous phone system, the one that is fabulously overly complicated? We finally got our stupid voicemail to work, but then we couldn't change the generic greeting message, which directed missed calls to the company directory...which we didn't have... which meant that no one knew what our extensions were. Yay! A few (extremely angry) phone calls by my dad, and voila, we're walked through the phone system over the phone (oddly enough) and now we have a working system.
On top of it all, throughout our attempting to get business up and running, we kept realizing that we needed "just one more thing..." back in Nashville (we're now based out of Franklin, which is about 25 minutes away).
As I said, moving sucks.