3rd place, random bits

February 14, 2005 //

trivial pursuit in blue grass was great – my dad’s side of the family goes every month and this time we had enough people for 2 tables. we split into two groups: those aged 25 and under (my cousins, me, our boy/girlfriends) and everyone else. the kids table did really well – we were in 3rd place almost the whole time! 3rd place! at the end some other tables snuck up on us and knocked us down to 5th, but it was the best showing we’ve had so far. i think that we should’ve gotten 10 extra points for every pitcher of beer we drank…there were 8 people at the table, 7 of us were drinking and we had at least 8 pitchers.

sunday brunch with all of my mom’s family was really nice – it was my grandma’s birthday and my grandparents’ 63rd anniversary. yes. 63. the supper club had a great buffet and a lounge singer complete with drum machine. my cousin put in a request and everything. afterwards we went to grandma & grandpa’s for some visiting.

the weekend was too short for my liking, but i did manage to see almost every member of my family in one fell swoop. i also got to pet my kitty for a good 3 minutes before i sensed she was ready to eat my hand. i even got her to purr. i miss her. 🙁

the kitchen redecoration is going well – the walls have been repainted a nice soothing green, the refrigerator is in the middle of the room, the dishwasher is in the formal dining room and all the furniture except for the table and chairs in the nook is in the hallway…everything except the carpet should be done in just a few weeks.

that eating with my left hand thing isn’t going too well. that is, i had decided that in the interest of time and not embarrassing myself and my family i should not eat with my left hand at restaurants. unfortunately i’ve basically ONLY been eating at restaurants (or sandwiches with my hands) the whole weekend. tonight i’ll experiment with soup and let you know how that goes.

guess what opens this weekend? CONSTANTINE! i can’t remember the last time i was this excited for a movie. probably lotr. i’m going to go see it on saturday or sunday, depending on how i’m feeling after jon’s friday night bar birthday extravaganza. tomorrow night is half-price pizza and half-price movies at city north…hopefully i’ll finally get to see ‘finding neverland’…i saw ‘hotel rwanda’ (awesome) last week so this is pretty much the last one i need to see before the academy awards.

oh right, today is valentine’s day. i keep forgetting because a) i’m not big on holidays and b) i’m not going to see eric till 10pm because of his class. my dad did manage to slip my valentine’s box of pixies in between some mended jeans – i didn’t find them until this morning so it was perfect. thanks dad! (hug)

my brain: dead sexy

February 9, 2005 //

random experiment!

starting today i will be eating with my left hand. changing up normal, everyday tasks is supposed to keep those neurons sharp…plus it seems like a fun experiment. and a lot easier in the workplace than not speaking for a week. i tried to start doing this on monday, but forgot about it once i got back to my apartment that night. tomorrow we’re having a big business meeting lunch though, so hopefully i won’t make a total ass of myself. anyway, if you see me eating with my right hand this week, please remind me that the right is the wrong hand and the left is right.

wooster + link-o-rama

February 8, 2005 //

i decided to take advantage of borders’ buy 3 get the 4th free dvd deal. i got the ultimate edition (2 discs, superbit) of ‘the fifth element,’ ‘hero,’ ‘kindred: the embraced’ the complete series and the first season of ‘jeeves & wooster.’ so far eric and i have gotten through 3 episodes of ‘jeeves & wooster’ and it’s great. it’s a series from the uk that was on in the early ’90s. it’s based on the p.g. wodehouse books and stars stephen fry and hugh laurie (star of my new favorite show ‘house’).

saturday night i went to conrad’s 21st birthday party. lindsay made a delicious chocolate layer cake, but due to circumstances beyond her control the top split in half. eric made little warning signs (danger, delicious, unstable, quake zone) for the cake and lindsay added a lava flow made of red hots. it was pretty sweet.

eric and i watched some of the super bowl but ended up order thai and watching ‘american psycho’ during most of the middle of the game. after the game and ‘the simpsons’ we watched the preview of ‘american dad.’ ‘american dad’ isn’t the best show ever…in fact it’s eerilly similar to ‘family guy,’ down to the anthropomorphized pet who is in love with the family matriarch…but i still managed to laugh so hard i cried when the son (is this what eric looked like in high school?) tries to be smooth and hits on a popular girl by snapping her bra strap through her cheerleading sweater and asking slyly, “did that hurt so good?”

at work i’m sort of between projects – one is almost done and others are all queued up, ready to tackle me all at once. in the meantime i’m doing mood boards and trying to pin down our grant’s target audiences and whatnot. thus…

link-o-rama

cartoons from spam subject lines – link
css design showcase @ css beauty – link
the panasonic x800, the cell phone i lust after – link
a drug deal i totally missed the first 2 times around – link
the happiest i’ve ever been for someone i’ve never met – link
eye candy – link
natural 20 – link

because of god

February 3, 2005 //

mark: sidenote… so many cute southern protestant women. Most I could never date though.

kara: oh. illegal?

mark: worse. moral.

a civic hybrid or a mini or maybe a jeep cherokee classic

February 2, 2005 //

i guess the past month sort of flew by, what with actually doing work at work and all. i built out templates for my office’s new website and coded a cms for one of our clients. i’ve settled into a nice routine of sandwich-making and bus-taking (cta, if i were as unreliable as your bus ‘schedules’ i’d never be employed for longer then, oh say…45 minutes, which is how long i stood waiting for you in 9° weather, waiting to lose that last bit of feeling in my toes and face. while i’m on the subject, dear humbolt park landlords: shovel your fucking sidewalks). i am starting to spend my spare moments wishing for a car so i can avoid my crappy commute, but i’ve pretty much decided that i’m not buying a car until i have a real reason to do so – like a job that requires a lot of traveling or maybe winning the lottery.

i’ve seen some movies (‘the aviator’, ‘house of flying daggers’, ‘a very long engagement’, ‘kinsey’, ‘million dollar baby’) and have finished the first volume of the baroque cycle. nothing earth-shattering actually, which is sort of depressing…but at least i have a good job and i’m healthy. soon i’ll be heading home for grandma & grandpa’s anniversary and grandma’s birthday, PLUS trivial pursuit in bluegrass. TWO tables this time for trivial pursuit; i anticipate some heated interfamily competition! this weekend a few parties are going on…i haven’t been out in awhile and am sort of hesitant to do so, but they’re both being thrown by people i wish i saw more of (my fault).

cripes, my grammar is awful. was it always this terrible? i need to get a grammar-check module for movable type or something. anyway, let’s see – last night we did tuesday night pizza at ben & sara’s instead of o’famé so we could watch ‘groundhog day’ and play some xbox. ok, tetris worlds is a weird game. granted, we could’ve looked at the manual to figure out what was going on, but the objects of some of the game variations were really bizarre. ben, matt & i did sort of a round-robin thing so we all got a chance to play. next time: i bring over my two controllers so EVERYONE gets a chance to be confused.

i could probably go on but i realize that i’ve been totally rambling. hopefully i’ll be able to get back in the habit of posting once every day or so. happy birthday conrad!

ohhhh say can you seeeee

January 18, 2005 //

we got new phones at work – the kind that has one basestation and wireless satellite handsets. dawn is kickin’ it in philly with some clients today so aaron and i set up the new phones. out of love for our country (but clearly not for our ears) we set all of the handsets’ ringtones to ‘the star spangled banner’. unfortunately, they don’t ring in unison. it’s just like in real life where one person is always a little late. you know, like:

…by the dawn’s early light (-ight)
what so prou(-ou-)dly we hai(hai-)led
at the twilight’s (ssss) last (ssss) gleaming (-ng)…

you get the idea.

real quick…

January 10, 2005 //

sorry i haven’t posted in awhile. i’ve been working non-stop while at work and only today have i gotten a little break to do some site maintenance. the job is super, ‘white noise’ was creepy, the best part of ‘the life aquatic’ was the giant cross-sectioned ship, my new css book rocks and extra sharp cheddar makes awesome sandwiches. the other night i had a dream wherein i was going to be killed and i was waiting over and over to be shot in the head while the assassin did test shots with blanks or something because the murder had to be staged in a very specific way. but then he fell in love with me and decided not to kill me but his boss saw me alive and got mad and decided to finish the job himself, but this time also kill my parents. i guess he didn’t succeed? i woke up too soon to find out. weird. the end.

happy 2nd anniversary!

January 2, 2005 //

wednesday was the 2 year anniversary of hyperbolation. i look back at my first entry and i am amused and a bit embarrassed. and – whoa! pubweb! here’s to having my own domain. thanks to everyone who reads my site. this is the most successful journal-writing attempt i’ve ever made. i think a lot of it has to do with the technology aspect but i think the best part about having a website is there is a place where friends and family can automatically go to see what’s up with me and see pictures from trips and stuff. hooray for the internet!

i have been a bit lax in writing lately because a) being unemployed means less time in front of a computer and b) being home for a week and a half means enduring the dial-up connection that my mom (admit it mom! this is not dad’s fault!) REFUSES to upgrade. hopefully i will still be able to post stuff from…my NEW JOB! woo hoo! i feel like the new kid at an ultra-elite private school. kinda nervous, but mostly relieved that i have a job at a cool place. more on this later! happy new year!

damn you ty.

January 2, 2005 //

damn you extreme makeover: home edition for making me cry after i ACCIDENTALLY saw TWO MINUTES of the show while flipping through channels.

what are you all up to?

December 20, 2004 //

i just talked to one of my best friends from high school, adam. we caught up and stuff and it was awesome! i am not good at keeping in touch. i know this. i keep up with a lot of stuff via weblogs. weblogs are awesome for this purpose. but what about you guys that don’t have weblogs (and might be reading this right now)? what are you up to?