Journal

Almost half

11/14/2004

Last night I went with Lauryn, as planned, to an art gallery where one of her professors was showing some pieces. We ended up having a lot of fun... so... I guess I made up for Thursday.

Beverage: Coke

Music: Snow Patrol - Wow

Brittle Bones

11/13/2004

November is almost half over and I haven't really accomplished anything. Granted, I have been keeping busy and have actually made some serious headway into completing several projects, however I haven't actually finished anything. I've put off working on the revisions for this site as I so often do. The main thing that's holding me back with this is the art section. I had planned on using a popup window for the art, but I'm sort of thinking I might just stick with individual pages as I've had in the past. I think I'll keep the popup windows for now and change it later if I think it's necessary. I really just need to get something uploaded. Yeah. Other than the site, I've also been working on a couple of new programs. It's exciting stuff... I think... Maybe.

I've been hanging out with Carrie a lot lately. I don't know if I've mentioned her in here previously, so I'll risk the redundancy and say something now. We've been hanging out a lot lately and things are cool. It's really random how she met me... I went out one night and forgot to close Yahoo Messenger. She found my profile, checked out my site, and wrote me to tell me about it. So... I got the message later, wrote back, and it went from there. It's hard meeting people when you put almost zero effort into it... but somehow things seem to work out.

In other news, somehow I've managed to disappoint Lauryn. I suppose it was to be expected. I'm pretty much a failure at the whole "normal" social-life thing. I was supposed to hang out with her on Friday. However, I also had to drive Carrie to work and I ended up waking up later than I planned. So, I drove Carrie and came back here, and the phone was ringing as I walked in the door. Apparently I should have called Lauryn to tell her that I was behind schedule... however, I wasn't aware that there was a specific time I was supposed to show up. The plan was to go over there after I dropped Carrie off. I had just dropped Carrie off... and... yeah. I guess I assume too much... or I'm just oblivious of these things are supposed to go... or something. Yeah, I'm a loser. So... anyhow... the plan for today is to pick Carrie up from work and then, if it's going to work out, go with Lauryn and a friend of hers to an art gallery. The main problem I see with this is that there is the serious potential that I won't be able to make it to Lauryn's house in time to go... so... I have to call her and figure out what I can do. I'm hoping I won't have to cancel on Lauryn... I've already let her down far too many times as it is.

Note to everyone: Never invite me anywhere or attempt to include me in an activity and actually expect me to go. I usually just end up backing out, saying no up front, or just not showing up. The result is that I feel guilty or someone tries to make me feel guilty, someone gets hurt, someone gets mad, or something else equally as nice. What fun is that? Yeah, I'm all for watching paint dry... anything more exciting than that and I feel like running and hiding in a corner. Maybe I just like being alone... maybe I should be.

Hmm... What else? I went to see the Polar Express (I recommend ear plugs for the musical scenes) and the Incredibles. Yeah... I've probably seen something else in the theaters lately, but I don't have a clue what it might have been. Before the Incredibles was the new trailer for the latest Star Wars movie. Yeah... movie clip montage mostly from the original three films, which take place after this movie (after meaning in the future), along with a few bits of new stuff. It's not exactly foreshadowing when you show clips from the sequel in a prequel... right? Could be that they're just trying to remind people what they're supposed to be building towards... and try and build some anticipation through what we already know and love. I'm thinking it's going to be a huge let down... hoping I'm wrong too. I've seen the original three countless times. The last two Star Wars films I've sat through maybe twice each with no plans to ever watch them again. Maybe movies just suck in general. Lauryn's convinced me that we have to write a movie together. I mean, why not? We couldn't do much worse than some of the stuff that makes it to production. Right? It's amazing how much money can be spent making a movie that's a catastrophic flop when there are so many impressive and well-written low-budget independent films. I'm sure market research and financial concerns are mostly to blame: don't take any risks, make movies that have predictable plotlines that the target audience will identify with, throw in a couple of big stars or lots of special effects, and hype it to death. I'd trade most modern computer based animation for good old puppets and scale models any day. I would also trade in the big stars for good writing or at least a novel plot. Maybe someone should organize a yearlong sequel and remake boycott. That would be amusing...

Beverage: Coke

Music: Snow Patrol - Run

Raindrops echo

11/04/2004

I'm running a bit behind on my self-imposed deadline of October 31 for the site update. That's right, my big and greatly overdue website overhaul is... well, overdue. The good news is that it's well underway and I'm probably going to get it done soon... yeah, soon as in before the end of the year. Right.

Somewhere during October I discovered the joy that was IHOP pumpkin pancakes. Somewhere in the past few days I realized that I somehow didn't manage to go back for more and they're off the menu now. That's probably a good thing.

Rather than waste my time eating pumpkin donuts or pumpkin pancakes, I've been keeping busy with other things. The website aside, I updated Unleashed FX 12 at the request of a user and I think it was definitely worth the effort. I've also been working on some other projects. Lots of details to mull over, eh? I'm big on the vagueness. I figure if I leave a few plot holes, you'll fill them in with exciting stories of paint drying. Just think of all of the possibilities, the endless combinations of astonishing things I could have experienced over the past month. Yeah, whatever you were thinking, it didn't happen... but I did get a hair cut.

Hmm... I don't think I mentioned the banner I made for Collide. Talk about random... so... I have this myspace account and, as is typical of the site, I get a completely unsolicited request to add the band Collide as a friend. Well, I love Collide... so... yeah, I added them... read through their profile, followed a link to their website's forums, found something about a banner contest, made a graphic, submitted it, and they liked it along with pretty much everything else that was submitted. My prize? I won my very own copy of their album Vortex. Joy... Now I just need to find a contest where the prize is something more along the lines of a few hundred million dollars. I have a box full of lead, yes actual lead, fishing weights... maybe I should work on turning those into gold.

What else? What else... let's see... Halloween was cool... Lauryn and I hung out and watched some of the Aqua Teen Hunger Force marathon on Cartoon Network. After that, it was Plan 9 From Outer Space. Oh yeah. Zombies, aliens, bad acting, stock film of the military, and lots of really cheap pyrotechnic effects... what more could you ask for? We also watched the original Night of the Living Dead and some seriously bad psycho-Santa/Christmas themed horror movie. I thought I had seen it previously, but I'm thinking maybe I'm repressing memories of a sequel. We ate enough candy to kill one of us, but somehow we both survived... go figure?

Now for the really bad news... I lost my watch! Oh the horror... I had the thing for maybe eight years. Imagine a pocket watch, a Casio Databank watch with only half of a wristband. Imagine that half wristband cracking with the stitches falling out. Yes, we can rule out theft. It's just gone and I'm thinking I'm never going to see it again. If anyone finds it and looks through the databank and wonders what the hex stuff is... I kept the keyboard commands to MS-DOS Debug with the addresses for changing the Flying Windows screensaver into... I dunno... maybe it was flying happy faces. Yeah. What's worse is that I don't have any photos and will now be rather unable to add the watch to my museum of junk. Right... so... a new watch was acquired and it's suitable as far as being a watch is concerned. No databank this time around though... I couldn't find a similar watch that I liked... stupid updating of product lines. Anyhow...

Beverage: flat Coke

Music: Lycia - Broken Days