Occupying my time with a vengeance

Soo I've managed to stay busy throughout my weekend. Trip and I had dinner on Tuesday, mmm Red Lobster. Man I love crab... but anyway. After that we watched the most recent UFC pay-per-view... sans the pay part. It was good, although I was hoping Tito Ortiz would lose, but what can you do? I picked the rest of the fights correctly, proving once again that between my knowledge of mixed martial arts contenders and blind, dumb luck... I rule.

After that I trucked up to Roanoke (I know, going to Roanoke on my days off, yesh) to stay with Adam so I could help him out on Wednesday. He needed me to ride with him to Maryland so he could buy a new Forerunner and drive his wife's Jeep home, which I did. His new ride is pretty sharp and he got a sweet deal. I'm definitely having him do the search when I next decide to buy a car... in a decade or so.

It actually was a pretty fun trip. We chatted the way up and he had bought some walkie talkies so we could talk on the way back. That definitely made it go quicker. Stopped in Harrisonburg for dinner and admired the college cuties for a bit.

When we got back to Roanoke we watched Cinderella Man, which was pretty good. It was no Raging Bull, but pretty good. (+1 chainmail) We then watched Jarhead (foot massage), which I liked a lot. Of course, I knew going in what it was going to be like, but they did a good job of making the book come to life for me. After that I headed back. I considered staying with Adam, but I wanted to have one day where I didn't have to drive to or from Roanoke this week.

Today I slept in, then was greeted with some computer problems that put me off. I fiddled with it all day, bought a new network card, returned it and finally figured out the problem over at Trip's. It was annoying. Then we watched Spike's UFC programming on Thursday. I'm a Ken Shamrock fan, but he really seems to be lagging behind in the coaching department. We'll see how it turns out.

We also watched Ed vs. Spencer, the BBC version of Kenny vs. Spenny. I don't think it's quite as good overall, but it's still fun. Also the Brits contests seem less set up from time to time, as sometimes it seems like there is no way what goes on in Kenny vs. Spenny isn't staged.

Well, I have a long weekend in front of me, what with the NFL Draft and work and all. I'll try to update, but no promises. .

avoid assimilation

Funny how my blog dries up on the weekends as I work. It's almost like I have no time to myself... hmm. Anyway it's not so bad, although tonight I did do the first bit of "work" at my job that actually seemed like work. It's not really that bad, typing in the log, but it's not watching tv... ahh well. Also subclipping video is annoying, maybe worse that typing. I still got a cool job tho, as far as what I do. The pay could be better, but everyone says that.

What other news do I have... I dunno. I watched Brokeback Mountain on Saturday. It was very well done and well acted. I liked it a lot, actually. Ang Lee is a master of making scenery a character in his films, I actually wanted to go to Wyoming. That's something that's never happened before. Also, on a purely misogynistic note, Anne Hathaway topless make my brain stop working on any discernable level. She is breathtaking.

I continue to plow through A Feast for Crows. It has moments of greatness, but I feel like it's really missing something... ohh right, all my favorite characters. Ok, not all of em, but plenty. The ones left are good, better than most other authors characters, but it's had not to miss my favs. I suppose I should stop whining.

Where is your sense of decency?

Watched Good Night and Good Luck tonight and it was excellent (foot massage). I thought it was well put together and well acted. It's sad really how many of those same problems we are now having tho, just substitute terrorist whereever they say communist. America never learns it's lesson... or perhaps there is always someone out there using fear to gain power. Either way it's disconcerting.

Also watched some sweet Ultimate Fighter 3. Good stuff. I'm not sure why UFC isn't one of the top sports in America. It's violent, it has character and it doesn't suffer from the same taint of cheating and fixing that boxing does. I suppose it's cause John McCain decided he'd use it as a soapbox at some point and talk about how it was "human cockfighting," which is totally uninformed. Don't get me wrong, I like McCain, but he's totally off base on that one.

I'm now debating playing some WoW vs. watching Brokeback Mountain. Nerdy vs. gay, the ultimate decision. Hmmm...

dingdangdo

So I've finally been able to catch up on my sleep and that's nice. It's been a pleasant time for it. Spring makes for some great napping.

Yesterday Trip and I tripped the fish fantastic, enjoying a tasty sushi dinner. I tried to bring some back for my mom, but she would have none of it. Even going so far as to raise a sneer at the shrimp! Such a provincial attitude, alas.

Anyway not much else going on. I watched Capote and it was excellent (foot massage). Phillip Seymour Hoffman was amazing, not just for his effeminant lisping and whatnot, but for the depth of the feeling encased within. I now have to read In Cold Blood, just to catch up.

I also watched Hostel with Trip, which was less thrilling. I'm saying Meh. overall, although the boobs were quite nice. Still, as a horror film it really failed, I never felt that offput. Could be I'm just jaded.

Currently reading George R. R. Martin's A Feast for Crows, which Nick was kind enough to loan me. I'm having trouble getting into it. New characters introduced at the start makes it seem confusing. Of course, that's his perogative, I suppose, After three books in a series you have earned a little leeway. I'm sure once I get back into the swing of things I'll tear through it.

further tales of manlove

So continuing where I left off last night, we had barricaded ourselves in our room to fend off the drunken horde. They came in and harrassed the crap out of us, banging on doors and trying to engineer a way into the room, but to no avail.

Next morning we rouse fairly early, Jeff bails and Mike, Nick, Adam and Greg go play golf again, while Kevin and I hit Borders, Target (so I could pick up underwear, which I had forgotten to pack) and Macaroni Grill. We then head back to the hotel for an unmolested nap. Mike and Adam returned and took their own naps, while I read Christopher Moore's new book A Dirty Job, which is excellent (Filet Mignon).

Later on we all finally get a move on and head out to Logan's for dinner, which was kind of meh... Then ended up going to some bar Stumble Stiltskin's maybe? The bartender was super hot and we spent the evening oggling her. Adam and Kevin were both contemplating an early exit and bailed early, I didn't stay out much later, but Mike had to hit the club's. He shows an inability to give up the club life for some reason, I don't really get the charm.

We left pretty early the next morning, especially Adam. I know he and Kev were operating on a complete lack of rest for their Easter festivities. I came home and crawled back into bed and didn't rouse until Mom told me Gabe was on the phone. So I got to talk with that goon for a while. Then I goofed off until I had to go to work.

Anyway I don't know if I've actually conveyed that I had a good time with these posts. I seem to have overfocused on the negative (nothing new really) and minimized the fact that I really do enjoy hanging out with those guys and was glad to be there despite packing that much meat into that small of a hotel room.

Chicken fucker, brokeback and eatin ain't cheatin

Man it's been a full weekend. I'm exhausted, so I don't know how far I'm gonna go with this post. My drive home was brutal. My eyes felt all dried out and droopy and I had to force myself back into awareness a couple of times. Worst ride home so far, but I wanted to get something down here for my faithful few readers.

Anyway, as I've mentioned previously, this weekend was Mike's bachelor party deal in Greensboro, with the whole crew hooking it up. It was Mike, Nick, Adam, Kevin, Jeff, Greg and myself in two hotel rooms the first night and Mike, Adam, Kevin and me in one room the second night. Let me say that the time in the rooms were filled with dank and fetid odors and frequent eyefuls of manmeat. Scary really.

I had a pretty good time, although I was totally stunned when we ended up in a club on Friday. When I hang with my boys, that's what I wanna do, not go to a place where conversation is not an option and mill around staring at hot women that want nothing to do with me. But enough with the bad...

We opened things on Friday with Mike, Adam and Kevin waking me up way too early, me packing hurriedly and being picked up. We played golf in Madison, NC at a crummy little course I hadn't been to in years. I ended up swinging pretty well, considering. My short game was horrid, but I did manage to hit a few decent strokes. I think I amazed Adam. People often confuse my unwillingness to do stuff as an indicator of inability, as opposed to the simple apathy it is.

From there we hooked up with Nick at the hotel, grabbed a late lunch and then went swimming. Jeff eventually arrived and we goofed off until dinner, which was ok, despite my steak being a little charred and it being expensive.

Ohhh, I almost forgot we had the fantasy football trophy ceremony for Nick at the hotel before the pool. Adam pulled out all the stops, sweet trophy, plaque to commemorate all the past winners, an unveiling and to top it all, music from Monday Night Football and NFL Films. I'm looking forward to it next year when I win.

Anyway, after dinner we wandered around for a bit and ultimately went to the club that stunned me. Kev, Jeff and I weren't drunk enough to enjoy ourselves so we bailed a little early and barricaded our room to prevent being fucked with when the drunk bitches made it in. A wise choice.

Ok, that's the opening night completed and I'm beat. I'll continue the story tomorrow when I get a chance, but now I hear my pillow calling me. So long chicken fuckers.

No. 37, the Larch

OK I think I have reached maximum saturation on speculation on the NFL draft. I want to hear no more about which quarterback is the best. If they talked more about defensive players or possible positions beside QB I might be ok, but it's always about the same crap. Just get me to the draft and then we can talk about who took what and where.

I'm enjoying my time off, although I haven't really done a whole helluva lot. Mike is in tonight, so I think we're gonna go grab some beer at Hurley's. I'm gonna take it easy, as I'm driving and I'm saving up for the weekend.

Soooooo yeah...

This is not me! I hate this!

Vacation!!!! Wooooo. Yeah it's been a hard couple of months and now I need some time off... Yeah I know I'm a slacker, but what can you do. I plan on enjoying kicking back until the weekend and some good quality partying with the gang. I'm hoping we can piss off some good Christians in the hotel for Easter this weekend. That's my goal.

Notes from yesterday: woke up like I had won the silver in an Olympic drooling event, ran late the whole way to work and ground out my 10 hours there. Drove home, stopped for gas and got some chicken tenders at the Dodge Store... big mistake. Walked into my home and was greeted with the bold smell of fresh lilacs on the kitchen table. Nice, but disconcerting when you don't expect it at 3 a.m.

Debating what to do tonight. I may stay in and watch ESPN's Draft special. We'll see, I'm sure it'll be rebroadcast and I may need to get out.

My other ride is your mom

Sooo I'm not near as depressed today. Don't get me wrong, it's not all rainbows and unicorns, but I'm not breaking out the white makeup and black clothing while listening to the Cure either. Work was, well work. Sunday is bad because the WB programming sucks donkey nard and good because I turn that shit down and watch the Fox stuff that's good and then adult swim.

The highlight of the night was when a coworker was talking about Aliens vs. Predator, the horrible, horrible movie. He really liked it!!??! and wondered "If they'll make a sequel?" I didn't really feel like discussing why I thought this movie was a hunk of utter shit, so I replied with a noncommittal, "They probably will." Which seemed to satisfy him, although I may not have been able to remove the resigned tone from my answer completely.

Anyway, one more night of work before my five day weekend and Mike's bachelor deal. Wooo. Hopefully tomorrow won't suck totally.

The desolation of interpersonal relationships

There is a special kind of despair I get when I am around people and wish they'd go away and then when they aren't there I feel lonely. I've been in a pretty melancholic mood all day, probably because of the rain. I dunno, I've just felt isolated of late. My home doesn't feel like home and nothing I do seems to ultimately bring me much pleasure.

It's probably just doldroms induced by spring coming and me not having anyone to sprung with, if you will. Anyway, it's way too late and I need to sleep for another fun-filled day tomorrow.

Ground and pound

Went to hang with Trip this evening and ended up getting sucked into UFC stuff on Spike. First they had some live matches, which was cool. None of them were spectacular really, but still fun. Then the new season of the reality show Ultimate Fighter came on. It's Shamrock vs. Ortiz coaching, which gives Trip and I a natural point to argue over since he loves that douchebag Ortiz and hates Shamrock (who I always liked).

But yeah, I love watching that stuff. It has the stuff I liked about Tuff Enough without the suckass wrestling part, although I do admit to missing Al Snow as a trainer. Still actual mixed martial arts makes up for it.

I return to work tomorrow, but I suppose it's not all bad. I work four days and then get five off, whoo. Gotta love that, although it does hurt my financial rebirth. Ehh, what can you do?

Here comes the Raging Bull

I, having been diagnosed by my mother, look like hell. Actually she said I look ill, but I'm translating into Eric-ese. I don't really feel great, but I am feeling kinda crappy. Anyway I don't think it's anything big, I'm just beat.

Trip and I had Outback, which was more expensive than I remember, but good. It'd been a while since I had enjoyed a good steak. After that we goofed off and walked around the mall for a while. I ended up succumbing to temptation and getting Battlefield 2, but I got a good deal on it so all is well. I still haven't played it, I may hook that up in a minute.

After returning to Martinsville, I got to see the XBox 360 in action and man is it sweet. I'm totally jealous. Fight Night 3 is pure boxing goodness. I won the first game with Jake Lamotta, but Trip then came back to win the rest of the fights. I shoulda won the last matchup, but he put together two good punches and I was unable to get up... which sucked.

After that we checked out the bells and whistles and it's all really cool. Plus the wireless controllers are handy, although both Trip and I kept reaching for the cords to keep from getting tangled in them, except they don't exist so we just look like goons. Needless to say I want a 360 now... although I have bigger fish to fry.

This is the time of decision

Man it's hard to keep posting while I'm working. I mean, I love the four on, three off schedule, but during the four on I feel like I don't have time for anything more than work, driving and sleep. It'll all work out once I get moved. But yeah, the past four days seemed really long. But now the sweet payoff.

Not much planned for the "weekend" honestly. Trip and I are probably gonna hit up some fine Australian cuisine and then play his XBox 360 for a while. That should be cool. Other than that I'm probably just gonna try to keep it low key and cheap. With Mike's Bachelor party coming up in a coupla weeks I need to conserve some cash to enjoy that properly.

People think I'm insane because I am frowning all the time

Just got in from a relatively pleasant night of work. I realized that I love not having to deal with people at work. I got in at 4 p.m. and the place was packed. Guys working on stuff, people filing in and out organizing tapes and whatnot and I was kind of annoyed with all the traffic. At 5 p.m. most of those people disappeared and the evening brightened considerably. By 7 p.m. it was down to just me and Lindsay, who was working the Fox side and tends to be very quiet. I love it. No mindless, uninteresting time filling conversations, just me left to my own devices.

Anyway I am now highly tired. I should be going to sleep, but I will probably putter around the net for a bit. Ohhh yeah, I'm now officially insured, so that's one less thing to stress about. No cosmic April Fool's Day joke... well not yet anyway.

Ohh I finished reading William Gibson's Count Zero on Thursday night and it was good. Not my favorite of his books, but even at his worst he's better than most others. I'd give this book an easy foot massage. I'll eventually work my way through his entire catalog, I'm closing in on it now.

repeating nonsense mantras endlessly

All in all not a bad day. I woke up fairly late and goofed off for a while. Went to check out my tax situation and found out I don't have to file this year. So that's one less thing to worry about. I then went to get my haircut and that turned out fairly decent. That place was a zoo, it was packed with gossiping women. But they were having a good time and I was amused.

Puttered over to Trip's and he and I went out for some delicious sushi. I tried the squid and it wasn't bad, but requires further inspection before I'll order it regularly. I'm developing a taste for more of the actual raw stuff tho, at least I think so.

After our "bait" we hit up Walmart and walked around for a bit. I managed to resist temptation for the most part, but ended up buying a new wireless router, batteries and waffles. Can you guess which of those was the impulse buy? So now I am pimped out for wireless, with neither my computer or my mouse tethered. I will now dive into the datastream and surf the heady shores of information.

thick, like a mouthful of caramel

Just got in from my long ass drive and had some Cheetos and now it's blog time. I'm pretty damn glad about my three day weekend here. I'm about beat. I've been getting up early for one reason or another lately and I'm just wore down.

My drive home wasn't really that bad tonight tho. I started things off with this Japanese band Boris. I read that there sound is described as Sludge Metal. It's pretty cool. Thick sonic waves that hit with a thud and come together for a solid groove that makes you imagine hordes of fans headbanging in unison. Pretty sweet.

I kept the heavy tip flowing after Boris with some Clutch, who in my humble estimation are one of the great bands still together today. Thunderous metal riffs with southern rock and funk grooves thrown in for good measure. Also intelligent lyrics about unique and diverse topics, how you top that?

Anyway it's about time for me to go to bed, I'm drifting away at the keyboard.

Head back to Chalkytown!

Been a busy weekend and I even get to work again tomorrow. Of course, the bright side is that I then get the next three days off. I'm gonna relish those. Although they won't be completely slack, as my dad is finally home from the hospital and needs some help moving around. It's not easy and I'm a pretty sucky nurse.

So I did something this weekend that I had never done before. I drove home from work and watched the sun come up. I've seen it come up on my way to work and watched it come up while I worked, but never finished work and saw it come up. I can't say it was my favorite thing, as I was about dog tired.

I watched Walk the Line (over the course of the last three days). It was pretty good, although it too followed the rough storyline of all those biopic films. Can't deny the acting and I understand why the actors wanted to sing the songs themselves. It adds a reality that you can't get any other way. Still, as good as they Phoenix and Witherspoon are, do they compare with the real thing? Not really. There is a reason Johnny Cash is a legend and it's cause his voice is inimitable.

I'm the only one that exists in this vacuum

Another night in the books. Not bad all told, although the drive home sucked... I didn't have to get in until 8 p.m., so I decided to do dinner beforehand. A coworker had mentioned that Cici's Pizza was a nice buffet that was cheap with good pizza, so I thought I'd check it out. It turned out he was right, by and large. I doubt I'll be back anytime soon, tho.

The problem I had was that I forgot what type of clientele cheap pizza buffets bring out. That's right, hordes of family people out and kids every-freaking-where. I was trying to read and eat quietly, when about halfway through my meal this family sits down right beside me. They had a maybe 7-8 year old girl with em. She had a cone thing that she was using as a megaphone. She decided to shout at me for about 4 solid minutes while her mom fetches the pizza. She has no idea how close she was to having that fucking thing as a permanent part of her anatomy.

Anyway, tomorrow I go in early to meet with the insurance lady, who seemed pleasant. That's right, I'll be among the ranks of the insured... woohoo.

Indulging minor obsessions

Last night was filled with digital plunder as I eviserated the competition in Halo 2 most of the night. Me, Trip, Mike and Adam hooked it up, with Danny in there early as well. Trip did manage to pull out the final game against me, bastard.

Anyway I am now prepping for my road trip. I need to refresh my cd case. Find some lively music for the drive home and whatnot.

Spent the afternoon reading football sites online. Damn Adam for keeping the gridiron fervor alive. It makes it seem like longer until both the draft and the opening of the season. On a related note, T.O. is headed to Dallas. Honestly I think this was a smart move for the Cowboys. He will be on his best behavior for a year and is gonna be amazing on the field, especially against Philly.

Caring is creepy

So I went to visit my dad today. That was less than fun. He was in a pretty good mood when we got there, but was pissed we didn't take him with us. He's still out of it, but hopefully is showing signs of getting better. It was still stressful to leave him there all pissed off.

Anyway other than that I didn't do a lot. I tried ot get my oil changed, but the place was closing by the time I showed up. So I gotta go back tomorrow. I hooked up with Trip and we watched The Office, My Name is Earl and Kenny vs. Spenny. Ohh and How I Met Your Mother. The Office is soo freaking awesome. Actually all of those shows are awesome, although HIMYM is not as super awesome as it seemed early on. It's still very good, but not drool worthy. Maybe it has just been a slow couple of episodes.

I played a little WoW this evening and there are some lameass politics going on now with people there and that was irritating. It's just impossible to keep everyone happy and it can grate on you. Tomorrow I may hook it up online with Adam and get some Halo 2 in and maybe even some Madden.

Ohh and Paul Tagliabue has announced he's gonna be retiring in the near future. Sad really, he wa a good man. He had class and worried more about the good of the game than petty disputes. You gotta respect that. I hope the next one is cut from the same cloth.