Hershey Park! Sounds like fun (did anyone get that pun?) right? You know it! That's where I was at today. While The Workplace picnic headed to Idlewild for the day (along with some people with hangovers I'm sure) I went to a real amusement park with some camp buddies. To kick things off let's talk about people's math skills. So there must have been at least 30 people in front of me at the opening gates and my guess is all of them paid for their ticket with their credit card. So of course me, liking to be different, paid with straight up cash. Now, the cost for my ticket was exactly $35.95 and I gave the ticket booth lass two twenties. This of course entails change of precisely $4.05. Not difficult. In fact I bet there are second graders out there that are quite capable of doing that math. So The Booth Lass opened the change drawer and just stared blankly at it. At this point I was pretty puzzled and I could see her trying to do the math in her head. And unfortunately she was struggling, bad. I could have just told her, "four oh five," and been done with it, but you know, I don't want people getting the idea that I'm arrogant or anything.

So The Booth Lass proceeds to get a five dollar bill out of her drawer. "You have got to be kidding me," I thought. Luckily after puzzling over whether that was in fact the correct amount of change for too many seconds she put the five back in and got out four ones and a nickel. This is what you get America when you refuse to teach your math classes without a calculator. I guess I could have helped her out and used a credit card as well, but I had the cash so I used it.

So moving on. The rest of this entry is going to be pretty dull so here it goes quickly. First we hit up The Great Bear (which was great), then the new ride, Storm Runner, by the creators of Kingda Ka (Storm Runner was absolutely KICK A** by the way, unlike it’s larger cousin!), followed by the Sidewinder (the dizzying dizz I like to call it), then the Wild Mouse (extremely wild I must say), followed by the Wildcat (oh so very nice as well), after which we raced Lightning Racer with Justin and I coming away with the victory on Lightning and then Thunder, then the infamous Reese's Extreme Cup Challenge (a laser tag type ride in which I always win apparently), then lunch and Chocolate World (I hate singing cows and always will), followed by the Comet, Superdooperlooper (a great combo right there) and rapping the day up with one more attempt at people beating me at Cup Challenge (still didn't happen). So that was my day. And I must say, it was AWESOME!

I don't want to go to work tomorrow . . .

As promised, the post about why to be liberated by Life. Friends make it the event that it is. While they come and go, they are always here at the present and always ready to make Life a party. There is so much to learn, so much to teach, so much to take it and experience, with each moment fulfilling us as we embrace it. There is this thing called laugher that pretty much can turn any event or situation into the time of our lives. While for some people it's hard to come by, others share it willingly and freely. Become engulfed in it and you have just found a euphoria to keep you happy for a lifetime. People; it's what we live for. To enjoy people's company is to find peace in Life. And always remember, what happens under the oak tree, stays under the oak tree. It's just better for everyone that way.

Life. If you're not depressed about it, maybe you really should be. And here are my reasons why. First of all, there is no way you could possibly hope to achieve all that you ever desire in life (unless of course you are one for those no personality types that desires absolutely nothing, in which case you fall into my next thought) and even if you do achieve it all, then what? Sit around all day remembering the "good times?" Then as you meander throughout life, you'll make friends, become really close to some of them, and then just like that, they move, or you move, or they get married, or whatever and they are gone. Just like that. Never to be heard from again. It's like you never knew them aside from the random pictures you look at from time to time that have these strangers you so vaguely remember from the past. And unless you're filthy rich, you need funding to do any sort of career change, or to go back to school, or to do any great adventure that could possibly arouse some type of excitement within. Then finally you're left with some constant drab that you do day in and day out which eventually becomes meaningless dribble and you wind up blogging some nights just so you can possibly reach out to anyone out there (no matter how stalkeresk) to just simply be heard.

Now of course there definitely are reasons to not be depressed about life, but right now I don't really feel like telling you about those.

Pictures of South Carolina (and me and The Big Fish) have just been posted. Feel free to check them out.

Well this is it. The final vacation of the year has now come to an end. What this means is that somehow I will have to pull some excitement and stress relief out of my a** in order to make it to the end of the year at The Workplace. Have you seen The Office on NBC yet? If not, I’ll give you a brief rundown. It’s about The Workplace. My workplace. The Workplace is also the basis for the comic strip Dilbert. I can’t give specific examples, as that apparently could be costly to my career, so you’ll just have to catch the little hints I drop here and there.

It also figures that my stay here in South Caroline was during one of the hottest weeks in The States in about 5 years. Some people might not care too much about that, but when you live in Pennsylvania for your entire life, you don’t care much for 115+ degrees of heat indexes. Just goes to show you how much Luck enjoys my company. I’ve become so accustomed to the lack of Luck in my life that I don’t even notice that it rarely pays any attention to me. That’s just the way my life goes. Some people win Stillers tickets in giant raffles, others win prize after prize, year after year at The Workplace Christmas Parties, while still that same person wins more prizes at automation conferences around the country. I win . . . um, nothing at Christmas parties or automation conferences and I definitely don’t win tickets to any type of event (unless it’s to a show about me and my disappointments). But that’s life. On the bright side I don’t have issues with tents destroying my pool liner, or microwaves that can’t be fixed by your local certified fixer who works out of his house basement in Nowheresville, PA.

So in the end, it all balances out. Because that is what life is, just one big balancing act and some of us need a little more help than others to keep things from tipping over. And that, my friends is when Luck finds the need to pry its little face in places where it doesn’t belong.

Since it has come up in a growingly lengthy blog comment, let’s talk about stupid things we have done in front of the opposite sex (or same sex depending on which team you play for). There is really only one I can think of that I had done blatantly, and the thought came about while I was getting an ice cream sunday earlier this evening for dinner (yeah that’s right, I had ice cream for dinner. What of it?!). A few years ago, back when I worked for seven weeks at camp instead of just two, I had gone out one night with my friends Justin (a.k.a. The Movie and TV Guru) and Kerri to just hang out and have some fun. We wound up reeking havoc at the local grocery store and Toys R Us. Before we made it to the Toys R Us I saw a giant gumball machine at the grocery store (I believe my actual response was, “Ooooooh! Giant gumball machine!!”). In this machine there was only one flavor of gumball. Lemon. But the beauty about these gumballs was that they were the actual size of a lemon. I had to try one of these.

So while The Movie and TV Guru was checking out with the very cute cashier chick, I decided to get myself a big ol’ smackin’ gumball. I put my fifty cents in the machine, turned the dial and after a few metallic clankity clanks, my lemon-sized gumball was in my hand in all its candy coated yellow glory. Of course I wasn’t stupid enough to shove the whole thing in my mouth at once, but I was stupid enough to bite the darn thing in half and begin to chew. Of course Cute Cashier just looked on and laughed at my pathetic attempt to get a good laugh from her. I got more than that unfortunately.

After about six to eight chews the flavor and juice of the ginormous gumball was just too much. I couldn’t hold it in any longer. Drool suddenly burst forth form my mouth and quickly kept flowing from between my lips. Yellow, lemon scented drool was all over my face, and suddenly all over the grocery store floor. Of course since I am not above laughing at myself I began laughing hysterically at the situation, which only made the situation worse. Needless to say Cute Cashier then only looked disgusted with me and slightly irritated at the pool of drool I had accumulated on the floor. Fortunately I still detected a smile from her lips.

Okay so it wasn’t a shining moment in the life of Jimmy, but I found the situation quite humorous and to top it all off, I was able to blow bubbles bigger than my face that evening! This may sound cool, but when they pop . . . Well I’m sure you can imagine. That stickiness just seems to stick around forever too.

Who else want to share a story here?!

Well I did it. I finally caught my big fish; two to be exact. Both were about 29 inches. That’s pretty big for a fish I think. I’ll have pictures once I get home. The kicker was having two teenagers watch us from about 40 feet away fishing in the exact same river and catching absolutely nothing. In a couple hours The Brother-In-Law and I racked up three 29 inchers, and two 17 inchers. Some highlights of that time include:

The Almost Catch – This is where I snag my second big one! My line goes crazy and about 10 seconds later, Teenager #2’s line starts going crazy. The next words of out Teenager #2 are, “This thing is HUGE! I’ll feed my whole family with this one!” After about a 5-minute fight with the beast we (well okay me) are rather amused at the fact that we have both landed the exact same fish! Or so Teenager #2 thought. Turns out once I got the big guy on the shore Teenager #2’s hook got caught in my line and thus he landed absolutely nothing. The fish was all mine!

The Line Tangle Catch – This is where The Brother-In-Law and my line got slightly crossed and in the ordeal of moving the rods around to get them straight again, The Brother-In-Law landed a fish. To this Teenager #1 uttered, “You have got to be kidding me!” in quite obvious disgust.

The Final Words – Once the last fish was caught and brought on-shore to unhook, Teenager #2 stated in words that he didn’t realize we overheard, “I have never been more jealous in my entire life than I am right now.”

This was where, with smiles on our faces, my fishing partner and I decided to call it day. What a fantastic day it was. For us anyway.

I caught a big ol' flounder today! Okay, so the fish was neither big, nor old, but it was a flounder. It got caught in my cast net while I was attempting to catch some bait fish and shrimp. So far fishing for me here in South Carolina has been anything but extraordinary. I've been fishing on Sunday, Monday, and Today (for at least 5 hours a day (who the heck goes to the beach when you go to the beach? Not me, especially when the heat index is 115+!)) and all I caught was a single spot tailed bass about the size of a Chinese ruler (whatever the heck that means). I blame my luck, I blame the heat, I blame the tide, but I don't blame the drinks. In any event, I still stand by the claim that a bad day of fishing is better than a good day at work. Not that I would know what a good day at work would be like. A bad day (or week) of fishing I am quite familiar with. Somedays I still wish I had become a park ranger. What that has to do with this post I'll never know. Just thought you'd all like to know.

So I was at the beach today, chillin' like a villain in the warm South Carolina water jumping waves when two girls slowly made their way towards me on their boogie-boards. Now the funny thing about this was that the ocean current clearly should have been carry them the opposite direction, but that didn't really seem to faze them. Of course I noticed this rather early on and would have been even a little flattered had the two encroaching girls not been . . . well . . . girls. I estimate late high school; probably 11th or 12th grade. I would have given them the benefit of the doubt had they not been carrying on, loudly and stupidly like . . . well . . . two high school girls trying to get a fella’s attention. I was content just jumping my waves; believe me. So that's what I continued to do. Jump my waves like there wasn't a soul around me. Of course I listened into their conversation because by this point I could almost reach out and touch one of them. Suddenly I hear the one girl question the other about what ocean they were in. Now, okay, maybe if you were from India, or Russia, one might (I use that term incredibly loosely) not know what ocean they were in off the beach of SC. But clearly these two girls were from the good old US of A and just the mere thought of someone the age of 18 asking that question made me nearly achieve an aneurism.

So here is the conversation starter they use to try and reel me in. "Are you here by yourself?" Wow! A little forward wouldn't you think? Of course the next question out of their mouth was, "What ocean is this?" Now hold it right there! I have finally arrived at the reason for this entry. It's not to inform you about the Ohio high school chicks that were flirting with a 25 year old guy from The Cove, PA. Oh no! But it is to talk about the ways women feel they need to attract the opposite gender.

It would seem that women like to act dumb in order to pick up a man. Why this is, I have no idea. Is it because they want the man to feel in control? To feel powerful? Do they just want some dumb relationship so they can get into a bed? Who knows? I do know this though. The acting dumb bit is going to get you absolutely nowhere with me. I may be in the minority but I find intelligent women highly attractive. Why would I ever want to be involved in a conversation about what ocean is off the east coast with someone older than the age of nine? Frankly I don’t. And I can’t image that impresses a bunch of other dudes out there either. But hey, women, do what you want to do. If you want to act like a ditz who doesn’t know their hippocampus from their hippo-caboose, go right ahead. Believe me, you won’t find me with too much to say back at you.

And don’t worry. Nothing transpired between me and the high schoolers. I patiently waited them out as they idiotically tried to ride the waves back into shore with absolutely, yet purposefully, no luck at all. Once they had finally caught their waves in and waved, and voiced goodbye, I watched them leave the beach. This of course allowed me to safely walk back to my area of rest on the sand. Why can’t I attract girls in my age bracket that aren’t idiots and are attractive? I know they exist!

So I'm doing this MySpace gig right? And I get a message in my inbox there from a little fellow (I'm saying little fellow because his picture was of a 7 year old boy) who wants to be my friend. Now maybe I'm reading into this a little too much, but are the child predator police trying to lure me into a trap? Now I'm not a child predator and I definitely don't play one on TV, but does my profile warrant me as a child predator in any way, shape or form? At which point did I state on my profile or homepage that I enjoyed being around little children? This could just be the funniest thing ever since those that know me know I don't like little kids at all. They cry, they drool, they have snot all over themselves, they talk obsessively and they cry some more. Mothers out there feel free to take offense, but deep down you know my assessment of little kids is correct. In any event honestly, would I really be into the kiddies if MySpace is showing all the nice sexy ads with the fly girls posing all pretty and trash-like? Not that I go for trash-like fly girls that like to pose.

In other news that would only happen in England read about this article and speculate all you want!

News of the Weird reported in 1996 on the eccentric, but legitimate contracts sold by British insurance executive Simon Burgess, e.g., the policy that would pay the then-equivalent of about $160,000 in the event the insured were abducted by an alien, with double indemnity if the insured were also impregnated (and since alien powers are unknown, male pregnancy was covered, as well). In June 2006, three sisters in Scotland revealed that they are renewing their 6-year-old policy from Burgess that would pay them the equivalent of about $1.84 million in the event any of them gives birth to Jesus Christ (should he return), to cover the cost of raising him. [BBC News, 6-22-06] http://www.newsoftheweird.com

Why is it that when you have less than one of something, that something becomes plural? What do I mean? Well if you have 2 apples sitting on your desk, the apples is plural (you have MORE than 1) with an ‘s.’ This is obviously correct. If you have one apple down your pants, the apple is singular, because, well you only have a single apple (and I am talking apples here, not nuts). But if suddenly you discover that you have 0.5 apples up your sleeve, you are back to using the plural form, apples. Why? Physically you have less than one apple, but Grammar says you do not (apparently Grammar ain’t no math wiz (but that’s okay because Math don’t know squat ‘bout grammar.). To throw a nice little monkey wrench in the mix, if you rephrase your statement to say you have half an apple in your eye (which may cause you significant pain and inflammation) you’re back to using the singular for of apple, but only because you placed the single identifier (an) in front of the word apple. If you only have 0.159 apples baked in a pie (which I don’t think would taste very good for an apple pie), who is going to want to say, “My pie only uses one hundred fifty nine thousandths of an apple!” when you can say, “point one five nine” instead? Most people can't even do that kind of math!

I know you’ve all done it before. I think sometimes I may actually do it too much. What is it? Laughing when you are not supposed to. I can’t tell you how many I have sat in meetings at The Workplace and tried to the best of my ability to control my laughter; one time in particular occurred a number of months ago when a rep from IBM came to train us programmers on DB2 databases. Don’t get me wrong, the guy knew more about the topic than probably Einstein did about Relativity but he was hilarious as all get out! The kicker was that he didn’t even try to be funny, he just was! I definitely just sat there in my seat at times with a big old smile on my goofy looking face trying to turn away to hide my body spasms. Why do we do this? Even worse are the “laugher fits” that I get from time to time. Usually they end up with me on the floor rolling around (that’s where we get the Instant Message acronym you know? ROFLMAO (Rolling on floor laughing my a** off. IMers never use this term literally of course). Laughing fits can be evidence of multiple things ranging from Marijuana overdose, to drunkenness, to Bipolar Disorder. Now I’m not telling you this to make you think that I have issues. Of course not! I am letting you know that I don’t mean to laugh at you intentionally (most of the time) and if any of you other readers out there have this problem, just know that help is available! Thank goodness for wikiHow!

So while you might see my laughing as rude I just find myself laughing at life and how I see things.

Will the heat and humidity around here ever end? I want winter back, as well as my desire to wear long sleeve t-shirts, which could very well be the best piece of clothing ever invented!

July 13, 2006

Okay so here is your chance to poke a little fun. Last night I went to a concert with three buddies from camp. Now before I speak about whom I saw, just let it be known that I still maintain that I am a 25 year old, straight male. Okay, the jig is up. I went to go see Kelly Clarkson in concert last night. My manhood aside it was quite a fun evening. Rooney, the band that opened for her (who happened to be from California by the way and I still don’t care), was not as good. In fact I thought they stunk and wanted them off the stage. When the band sang the song S-s-s-s-shake It and I actually saw people in the crowd dancing around I was quite amazed; mostly because there was no alcohol being sold within 10 miles and like I said before, they stunk.

So moving on. Once Kelly took the stage the concert was really quite good. Never mind the screaming 12-year-old girls all over the place, or the occasional rain that made us wet, or the super bright lights that shined right in our eyes. Concerts are really about music anyway right? That and an American Idol who is willing to come out and play in the rain with the rest of the crowd. I took some heat from my campers (I think most of them were jealous anyway), but in the end it was a great evening (the Dave & Buster’s rap up plus the hour straight of listening to O-zone’s Numa Numa song definitely made the end just dog on right). Plus my Mutant Eye is all gone so I’m one happy camper, er counselor.

So I just got home from camp yesterday and it had been an amazing two weeks as always. It’s funny, every year at the end of camp I say I am never going back, yet when I see that application in the mail I can’t help but fill it out. I did keep notes on my two week there since internet access is a little hard to come by in Stony Brook, Long Island. Ergo, the next couple of posts will be recaps of days at camp. I’m thinking this will be a little different and yet a little fun.

July 11, 2006

So I woke up this morning with what I am calling “Mutant Eye.” I had absolutely no idea what was going on. When I woke up my left eye felt a little strange so I took a glance in the mirror and here the whole bottom area of skin under my eye was swollen and flabby. I could feel skin meeting together like a double chin. This of course drooped the lower eyelid a little causing my left eye to appear bigger than my right. All this together helped me coin the term Mutant Eye. My eye itself wasn’t red, gunky or anything like that so I ruled Red Eye out. The only other symptom I noticed was a slight tenderness at the base of my eye. And of course, like a giant pimple, I thought the whole world was looking at it. By mid-afternoon I had discovered the cause of Mutant Eye. Turns out I had a nice little white pimple just on the inside of my lower eyelid. How in the crap does one get such a thing? I didn’t even think something like that was possible! Of course being the skin OCD that I am I had to pop the darn thing. This is where things get a little gross so if you’re squeamish, turn away. The little bugger popped quite easily with a nice flood of white gunk flowing from its center. I quickly washed my eye out so the deadly toxins wouldn’t blind me (actually the whole thing kind of freaked me out and I had to make sure there was nothing left in my eye) and if you’ve ever tried to do that in a public restroom you know that is NOT an easy feat. Anyway, by dinner time my Mutant Eye had been vanquished and I was once again back to my normal symmetrical eye-self. The eyelid pimple just about rivals the inside--the--nostril pimple. Have you ever had one of those mothers?

After driving to Buffalo, NY and back sixty-gozobble times and back this month I came to notice a whole slew of road signs that absolutely mean squat to me. The following is what the signs read and what I think in response to it. You can think of it like a Psychologist's word game. "I'll say something, and then you tell me what you think."

Left Turns and Crossroads -- I'm sorry did I miss something? What happened to my right turns? And what about the left turns and crossroads? Funny how I don't even see any other "roads" intersecting mine for miles after this sign.

CHURCH -- No kidding? Funny I didn't see the sign for DEPARTMENT STORE or HOUSE a few blocks back . . .

Speed Zone Ahead -- It's the darndest thing. When I think speed zone I'm thinking speed up, not slow down. I hate New York.

No Turn On Red -- These signs in NY must only be optional.

Changing the topic real quick, the latest member of The Blogging Crew can be found over thar (that's right chumps, I said thar, not there) in the right column. While she won't express her name in her blog to hide her identity, I will. Enjoy! http://dmmos.blogspot.com/

“So check it out dawg,” as Randy from Idol would say. This weekend was the annual National Championship Pottstown Rumble in Pottstown, PA. This is volleyball I’m talking about here of course. Now I wasn’t really going to discuss this but since so many people kept hassling me about it this past weekend I guess I feel obligated. So here’s the low down. The weather this past weekend couldn’t have been worse. I’m pretty sure it rained at least 3 inches making this the muddiest tournament I’ve ever been to. Do you know how hard it is to play in pouring rain in ankle deep mud pools? It’s darn hard and let me tell you, Jim Barley would NOT be having a tournament like this one in his yard. Now lets talk about this “National” championship thing. There are people from out of the country that play in this tournament and I really don’t think it’s fair to classify them as being part of this nation.

But let’s talk about these out-of-country men, er women. I saw the manliest woman from Canada play ball that I have ever seen in my life and will probably ever see again. She was darn good at volleyball and even had the looks, but when it came to personality . . . Wow. Let me give you an example, okay how about two. The first is when she stepped out on the muddied court, just caked in mud (like most of us) and she lifted the top of her tank top up to her nose, took a whiff and states the following for all the world to hear, “Shew that is one bad a** stench!” I’m sorry, did you just comment on your boobs smelling like a**?

The second memorable moment came during a play in the game where she dove for the ball and hit the ground hard splattering grime all over the place. Upon hitting the ground her gum came flying out of her mouth and landed into a pool of brown liquefied clay. Any normal person might just let this be, but she pounded her fists on the ground in disgust of missing the ball then picked up her gum and threw it back in her mouth! Are you kidding me?! To this her male partner uttered, “Man, she’s my kind of guy.” I’ll tell you, I knew those Canadians where a little odd, but crap, that’s just down right manly!

My latest gripe: People that think they know it all, but really don't, then try to convince you that they really do. Maybe I’m just an idiot but I prefer to let them know they don’t know it all. So it upsets them a little, sometimes it upsets them a lot. Do I really care? Not an ounce. Did you ever know one of those people? They just try to get under your skin and try and shut you down and be-little you the best they can. The best thing about these types of people is that when they can’t get under your skin, you get under there’s. It’s a very bittersweet payback.

People manipulation is one of my specialties actually. I never abuse this talent, but I do amuse myself with it from time to time. Take for instance the game I used to play in college with my friends. I called it, “Let’s see how late I can keep people up.” The game was quite simple. I would see how long I could keep people talking to me late at night after they decided it was time to leave. I was really good at it. My record was about 3 hours I think. The best part about was that once my friends caught on, I’d still play the game, and with quite success. The other best part was seeing my friends dead tired the next morning. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t the nicest thing in the world to do, but any one of those people would concur that it was indeed quality time spent with yours truly, and what isn’t nice about that? So just a note for you people out there trying to manipulate other people, you really don’t want to try it with me. I am NOT your friend and I am NOT amused by your petty tactics.

On a separate note (not really) if you work in an office and you don’t read the comic strip Dilbert, you are definitely missing out. Here is yesterday’s edition:

So have you heard the latest story about the debit cards that FEMA handed out during the Hurricane Katrina crises last year? The Government or whoever is complaining because some of the purchases made with these cards have been made public and they include, but are not limited to dinner at Hooters, Girls Gone Wild videos, and expensive wines. What’s my take on it? Well clearly you care since you are still reading this entry.

Before I get into my opinion let me tell you a story. Let’s say little Joey needs to pay for the insurance on his brand new hot rod and to do this he gets himself a job at the local grocery story to help him pay for it. And fortunately for him, Mom decides she’ll give him a couple hundred bucks to go towards the insurance money because, well Joey is Mom’s baby and unfortunately he will never be able to escape from that label, even after he turns 25. Anywho, so Joey puts Mom’s 200 bucks aside for the time being to be used later for his car insurance. Now Joey is your typical teenager so he’s using his newly earned grocery money for clothes to attract the ladies and pizza because he’s darn hungry. And every once in a while he goes the extra mile and takes a girl out on an expensive date (foolish, but alas Joey is still young). Suddenly Joey is hard pressed for money this month so he goes back and takes some of the money Mom gave him to pay for his nice new kicks. However since Joey is anything but an idiot (except when it comes to girls) he tries to save a little more the following month to take place of the money Mom gave him.

So in the end Mom actually wound up paying for Joey’s Air Jordan’s, but the car insurance was still paid for. Was there any wrong doing here? Sure Joey didn’t use Mom’s money for the insurance but he made up for it by sacrificing some of his own hard earned cash.

So now it’s time for my opinion. And if you haven’t figured it out yet you haven’t been reading comprehensively. People are going to spend money on foolish and frivolous things no matter how much money they have. Money is money no matter where it comes from and any money that I obtain becomes my money to do with what I please. If I want to waste a gift in kind on girls with short shorts, that’s my business. It just means that I’ll have to spend more of my hard earned “riches” on what I need to survive. That’s how money works. You are free to do with your money what you please and I am free to do the same.

Maybe if FEMA hadn’t screwed up relief support in the first place we wouldn’t be talking about this issue today. Maybe it’s just a ploy to make people think that FEMA did good and now other people are abusing that gratitude.

So I’m back in Buffalo, NY only this time it was short notice. So short in fact that they were nearly out of hotel rooms when I made my reservation. What does that mean for me? Well it means that I get a handicap hotel room. Luckily I wasn’t taking it away from anyone that needed it, but I did feel a little embarrassed about doing such a thing. At least that was until I got into my room.

Now let me set the scene for you. In a handicap hotel room they obviously try to accommodate the intended user, which means that the bathroom is laid out a little different as well as the room itself.

So let's start with the bathroom. The shower is about twice the size of a typical shower, which is awesome, however there is only a quarter inch lip that keeps the water inside the shower area. This results in a flooded bathroom floor every time you shower! No exceptions! Where do you put the floor towel in that case? Next, the room sits on the first floor of the hotel and low and behold, it faces the parking lot. This means that when my window curtain is open, any darn fool who is walking to their car only has to turn their head to see me getting dressed or playing air guitar to my iPod. Not cool since I love to let as my natural light into a room as possible. Finally, each room in the hotel has internet access via a standard CAT5 cable. Super! However, due to the different room layout for the handicap the wall jack lies right behind the nightstand in the corner of the room. This wouldn’t be a problem if I hadn’t forgotten my own 20-foot cable, but of course I forgot. The hotel only supplies a three-foot cable which means that currently I am sitting in the corner of my room, on the floor squeezed up against the wall and the night stand just to write this stinkin’ blog entry. Go figure, the three-foot cable does NOT reach the bed.

It’s now apparent to me that handicap rooms aren’t for the handicapped, but for people who wish to feel handicapped. The biggest question I have right now is what does that button outside my room door do that says, "Please hold for 5 seconds?" Dare I push . . . ?

It’s amazing how much we grow over time and don’t know it. I had the opportunity this weekend to see some friends that I went to college with that I hadn’t seen since then. Three years I guess it’s been; almost to the day. Sitting around just talking, listening, learning; there is so much that is the same, yet so much that is different about these people. And it’s that talking, listening and learning that make me realize how much I have changed and grown over the years. It’s sort of sad to see those people of the past disappear. Even though you’re looking the physical being right in the eye, it’s not the same person you once knew. But it is so refreshing to get to know the person they have become and to look forward to the person that they will be. When we spend time after time with people that we know we tend to miss the minor changes that occur within us over time. It’s like as a child you don’t remember that one day you when you were short and the next you were tall. It happened so subtly that you never even noticed it until a year later. The living, spiritual being that we all are is no different than the physical being we charade on the outside in that regard. Sometimes you just need to give life some time so you can step back and see who we all are becoming. Maybe someday I’ll get to meet some other people I once knew all over again.

Congratulations buddy!

Not only is it hot, it’s F’in hot! Have I ever mentioned that I hate the heat? And what I hate more then heat is humidity. It’s like a double negative that doesn’t turn out positive. Okay it’s not like that. It is that. When I grow up I think I’m going to move to Maine. Or better yet, Canada. Have you heard about the health care those guys get? I can speak Canadian eh? Yah.

And it is just me or has Dateline on NBC turned into the Online Predator show? It seems like ever time I see Dateline on it is busting more online vultures. What are they up to now? Part V, VI? And now since the predators are getting smarter and are skeptical to enter the houses, they have bribed little children to help seduce these sickos into the home. Just what I want my child doing; luring sexual predators into a house to be aired on TV. What do they give them to do that? Jujyfruit? Snickers? If I were twelve and luring child molesters into a house I’d probably want the mother load of movies or Swedish Fish or something like that. And is anyone else amazed that all of these people getting arrested seem to live in the same neighborhood? Or are they really driving hours just to see some little kid take their close off?

And there it was, one of the most famous lines from the sitcom Seinfeld, “But I don’t wanna be a pirate!” Not that this has anything to do with anything else, just watching Seinfeld and thought I’d keep you informed.

Have you ever seen those movies that have the giant single file line of people, usually tribal people, walking thru the desert? The thing that always gets me about these lines is that these people could get to their destination in a fraction of the time if they walked in a straight line instead of a zigzag over, around and upside-down every possible obstacle in their path. It’s not even human nature to not walk in a straight line if applicable.

By the way, speaking of movies so far this week I’ve seen Over the Hedge, and X-Men 3: The Last Stand, and I must admit I was impressed with both of these movies but for different reasons. Over the Hedge was pretty comical and a laugh-out-loud adventure, while The Last Stand did a super job of rapping up the X-Men trilogy. The thing I liked most about The Last Stand was that the commercials on TV for it didn’t give anything away about the movie what so ever. That’s a pretty rare thing these days. Usually after watching 3 different commercials for current movies I have no need to see it anymore as I have already watched every good joke and action scene on TV between my favorite Seinfeld episodes. In case you find your way to see X-Men 3: The Last Stand, make sure you stay until the end of the credits. You’ll see why once you do.

Is anyone else fed up with this Preakness horse crap? I’m sad to say that I watched the horse race this weekend (against my will I might add) and frankly I wasn’t entertained at all. So the horse that was favored to win broke his leg. Let me ask you, do you know the name of the horse that actually won the race? Of course not. How could you? They only said it once and interviewed the winning jockey for a whopping 30 seconds. Instead the hype was, “Oh no! The favorite horse 'pulled up', whatever the heck that means. Boo hoo hoo.” Let me tell you something here friends. This is the aspect of racing in general. When watching Nascar (not that I do) the focus is rarely on the driver that crashed, but more on the driver that WON THE RACE! And those are actual people, not animals. And as if the horse race wasn’t boring enough, I now have to see the recap every night on the evening news. Luckily it’s not the whole race, just the first 30 seconds, because, you know, no one apparently cares about the END of the race. If the most exciting aspect of a horse race is how the injured horse had leg surgery the next day and is now on bed rest, clearly this “sport” needs a major overhaul.

The state of New York bought me a pizza! Better yet, they bought me a pizza here in The Cove. "How is this so?" you say. The Story is as follows and not a single word of it is made up! This I truly tell you.

For two weeks out of every year I work for The Stony Brook School Summer Programs on Long Island. I coach volleyball there to junior high girls who are wanting to develop their game a little more in a Christian atmosphere (it's a Christian camp). It's great fun. But anyway, because I am employed in the state of New York for that short period of time, I need to pay my rightful taxes to that lovely (note the sarcasm) state. Most years Stony Brook does not take enough money out of my paycheck to take care of all the taxes and thus I end up owing New York money come April 15th. This past year however was different and The Summer Programs actually did well and took out just a little too much of my paycheck, and I wound up with a nice big juicy check this year for a whopping nine dollars! This money meant so much to me that it actually sat on my kitchen counter for about 4 weeks before I finally took the time to go get it cashed. But this past Friday I did just that and oh was I feeling good! So good in fact I decided to treat myself to a nice pizza for dinner. So I went down to my local Foxes Pizza and got myself a nice medium pizza with the usual pepperoni and sausage. And what would you know, but my grand total expense for the pizza was exactly nine dollars.

And that my friends is the story of how the state of New York bought me a pizza. Take what you will from this story but as my uncle would say, "At the very least I have done you no harm."

This past weekend I was in Rehoboth Beach, DE for the MAV (Mid-Atlantic Volleyball) Last Rites Tournament. Usually when I go down to Rehoboth for volleyball tournaments I go down with a bunch of friends from the area for a long weekend. This means that on Friday and Saturday nights we all go out to a club and have a good time. Now if you know anything at all about Rehoboth Beach you would know that most people at that beach don’t “play for my team.” Tell anyone you are going to Rehoboth for the weekend and the response usually is, “Isn’t that the gay beach?” “Yes. Yes it is.” I tell them. While the fact that a lot of people there are homosexual doesn’t bother me, I do try to make sure I’m out with people who swing my way so that I don’t end up dancing with a man whose 6 inches taller than me, wearing high heels, a super mini skirt and a giant blond wig. This means that when in Rehoboth I need to avoid the gay bars. Easier said then done. Of course you can try to spot the upside-down rainbow triangles, but this seems to be going out of style these days. So real quick, these are my techniques on how to determine if a place in Rehoboth Beach, DE is a gay club.

1. There is an animal in the name (i.e. frog, parrot, etc.)
2. There is a feminine color in the name (i.e. purple, pink, etc.)
3. Couples of the same gender are walking in holding hands
4. The guys there are dressed just way too nice
5. Or dressed like NYC hookers
6. Most people are drinking fancy drinks instead of beer (mmmm, beer)
7. The name makes reference to water in some way (i.e. pond, ocean)

So depending on which team you play for use these techniques to find the place in Rehoboth fit for you. If you do happen to find yourself in a place not meant for you, just remember to keep your friends away from the girl that licking all the other girl’s legs.

Here’s some irony for you. This evening I decided to watch a documentary entitled “Understanding Sleep.” This in itself is anything but ironic. What is ironic was the fact that the last thing I remembered about the show was that the hosts were talking about naps. Next thing I was opening my eyes to see that the show was over. Someone should write a song about evens like that some day . . .

Mother's Day cards seemed to be slightly out of control this year. What I mean by that is all the cards at my local grocery store Hallmark were GINORMOUS! There wasn't a single card for "Mom" that didn't require extra postage to mail. And of course, a card big enough to require extra postage also requires extra purchasing expense and thus extra sales tax. Cards for "Grandma" were normal size and not a single one of those required extra postage. Now don't get me wrong, I love my mom, but has it now come down to "Mom" being so important that I have to put two stamps on her envelope instead of just one? I don't really think so. If anything the "Grandma" cards should be the larger ones because they are losing their vision and need that large font to read the thing comfortably. While "Mom's" eyes might fill with tears upon reading her Mother's Day card, she should still be able to read the normal size font of her non-extra postage card. Oh well. What's a few extra bucks for Mom anyway?

Laws of Attraction. I tried to explain these to a fellow co-worker this week and what she came away with from that conversation was that “gay people smell.” Let me just state for the record, this was not even close to the point I was trying to get across. Pheromones. We all have them. They are chemical secretions from the body that are physically undetectable except thru some kind of 6th sense from another body. It has been postulated that pheromones are the reason people feel “chemistry” between one another at a first meeting. We sense these pheromones using our basic sense of smell. It’s what some companies have been trying to market in their colognes and perfumes to help people attract members of the opposite (or same depending on which way you swing) sex. Science says that I am attracted to other people that have different immune systems and are immune to different diseases and viruses than myself so that our offspring can inherit both parent genes and have twice the immunity that myself and mate solely have. Basically Science says that we are attracted to one another simply to produce superior offspring and that it’s by detecting other’s pheromones that I can determine who the best mate will be to produce such progeny.

So in a nutshell, it’s that simple really. Do I believe such a theory? Well in theory (pun intended of course) it sounds good, but I guess the real question is do I want to believe such a theory? It’s no secret I enjoy marveling at the mysteries of this world. I doubt that each person has what some call a “Soul Mate,” a single person out there that exists only for another individual. The world just isn’t that mysterious. I prefer the think that the Laws of Attraction are derived from our environment growing up, our personalities, and of course what we perceive of as beauty. You know the saying; “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” The thing that is interesting about that saying is that while our eyes perceive this world in two dimensions (our brain actually converts those two dimensions into three, but how it does so still remains a mystery) we as people are clearly hyper-dimensional, and the beauty we see goes well past the eyed two dimensions and into depths and proportions so deep that if we were to ever get lost in them, we would never return. Surprisingly enough that exact situation tends to occur quite often in nature. I believe they call that Love.

Ultimate Frisbee Mondays started yesterday. Now I was pretty excited for this as I haven’t played the sport since college (which scarily enough has been 3 years now, almost as long as my actual time in college), but I was completely unsure of what to expect. So I show up at the field in my sneakers and shorts ready to play a game of pickup when the rest of the players show up and start to put on their cleats. “Uh oh,” I think. Then one of the guys put on some socks that go half way up his thigh. At this point I’m a little concerned, because as I stated earlier, I haven’t played since college. So we warm up and everyone seems to throw a disc pretty darn well so I’m really starting to get nervous. We divide up the teams after counting by 2s like a middle school gym class and end with 4 on 4. Now if you’ve ever played ultimate Frisbee you know that a game with a total of 10 players or less can be pretty tiring, and by the looks of some of the guys that were playing, people were going to get tired. So after 15 minutes of play, sure enough players start dropping like flies.

Now let me inform you a little more about this sport. It turns out that there exists an actual offense and defense that to me is completely foreign. When I played in college we just sort of ran around until we got each other tired. The guys that I was playing with yesterday ran an actual offense and defense, which left me pretty much clueless. So I just ran around and tried to get the others tired.

So with the apparent lack of inshapeness with my team other than me we struggled to keep up. About the only advantage I had out there was that I could run faster and jump higher than anyone else. Or course nobody knew that I was a semi-pro volleyball player in training (or would like to be anyway). When it came to actually playing the sport I seemed to be a little lost. But with my apparent inshapeness I was stuck covering the only other guy that was inshape out there except he was darn good. He’d dart and dodge all over the place leaving me, well lost, but still moving all over the place.

In the end I was pretty darn impressed with all the players there and their ability to play the game. If I were to give them a little advice however it would be to possibly get on the mindset that they will have to run around a little more than once a week to be in shape to play in tournaments come this summer. Maybe I can’t provide offensive maneuvers, but I can provide a little bit of stamina.

Of course you know Google is probably the most popular search engine in the history of the planet. It’s so popular in fact tat I’ve even heard people refer to search engine as a verb: “Why don’t you Google it to find out more about it?” But did you know that Google is on heck of a scientific calculator? “Hey what’s two Google three?” Why five or course! Not only can you do simple math like 1 + 1 or 4.5 / 5.75, but also you can do numeric conversions. Go ahead try it. Just type, “165 lbs in kg” and watch your weight be converted to metric. Want to know how many milliliters are in 25 ounces? “25 oz in ml” Come on, give me something hard. There are tons of conversions you can do, including base conversions! “0b1100112 in decimal.” If I were a virtual calculating machine, I’d be in love. I tried to get tricky on it and test out some higher-level mathematics like logarithms and imaginary numbers and it trucked along without any issue. I decided I’d pull out the big guns with the equation, e^πi + 1 and wouldn’t you believe it, the number zero popped out. I was speechless.

You might ask why this equation is so unique. Well the answer is really quite simple. This is the only equation that uses all five major symbols of mathematics and only those symbols once. e being the irrational base used when computing natural logs, π being the proportion of an circle’s circumference to its diameter, i being the imaginary number representing the square root of negative 1, the number 1 of course, and 0, the symbol representing nothing at all. Truly a mathematical wonder I do believe! At one time I proved this equations using integrals and summations, but that was high school and has been long since forgotten, just believe me when I say it’s a true equation.

If you’re looking for a good movie to watch, and you happen to be from a small town in Massachusetts, I would suggest the film Beautiful Girls. Now before you go off thinking, “Boy is Jimmy a perve or what?!” Lets take a look at what the film is actually about shall we. Unfortunately for you pornoholics this movie is not going to satisfy your addiction. The movie was made back in 1996 though this doesn’t mean that it stinks. To start with, the movie has such stars as Rosie O’Donnell, Matt Dillon, Annabeth Gish (Agent Reyes from The X-Files) and event the great and wonderful Natalie Portman (though it is a 13 year version of her yet even then she was great). While this isn’t a Captain Jimmy Movie Review, I will say this movie is worth watching, especially if you are an adult and still live to be back with your high school buddies, or you actually do live with your high school buddies. Not only does the movie address the crossroads in our lives, as well as what our lives might be like had we all been from a small town and stayed there forever, but it also addresses the great thing that is friendship. If you haven’t figured it out yet, Vikki I am recommending this movie specifically for you. So if you haven’t seen it, go see it! Well, you’ll actually have to rent it since it is 10 years olds, but go do it! By the way is it normal for a film that takes place in Massachusettes to be filmed in Minnesota?

Have you seen these new Doublemint Twin Mints commercials yet? They're the ones with the two goofballs wearing some green pin-striped shirt that look nothing alike yet sing like they are in some kind of old Broadway musical. The concept is that Doublemint Twin Mints are different from the gum, so let's make the "twins" doing the singing completely different. In all seriousness here, how much are those two nuckleheads singing getting paid? I'll tell you this much. If Wrigley hired me to do that singing and dancing crap they'd be about broke because I wouldn't be doing that junk for mere pocket change. Where do they find people to do that? Does Wrigley just walk around the streets of, say, Pasadena, CA and think, "Hey look at those two idiots over there. They look retarded enough to be in our latest commercial. I bet they can't sing for crap!" I tell you this much, I wouldn't be playing the role of one of the idiotic background singers and dancers for cheap either.

So I go to Buffalo, NY for a week, come back and everything outside is either green, white, or pink. It’s quite nice actually. Where we were at in Buffalo we saw either brown, black, or tan and those colors weren’t the colors of nature, but the colors of ghetto towns, nasty Lake Erie and NY traffic. So needless to say I was glad to be back home.

With Easter being this past weekend, it was another fun filled event at my Grandma’s. Just like last year’s post, here are some of my favorite recaps.

• Digging a hole to plant flowers with a nice shovel, but as soon as I pull the shovel from the ground, only the handle comes back.
• Replacing said shovel with a cheap plastic one and attempting to dig a hole.
• Watching my sister squeeze a robin’s egg to see if it was real and it popping in her hand getting dead baby bird all over her!
• Knowing that my sister is OCD about stuff like that and not having anything to clean off her hands with within 5 miles!
• Watching my grandma put half a dinner plate of food out “for the birds.” My brother-in-law says it’s got to be some groundhog or cat that really eats that stuff.
• Waking up on the living room couch with a mouth full of white dog hair. Blahhh.
• Schooling a 6 year old in Mario Kart 64 and watching her get really ticked off!
• Having said 6 year old tell me she will take my glasses from me and break them!
• Hearing the dinner conversation move from menopause to constipation to colonoscopies in a matter of minutes, literally.
• Waiting for my great uncle to bring up how he wants the bar my grandfather made that now resides in father’s basement . . . again!
• Listening to my great uncle bring up said event as well as the appraisal of my grandma’s house . . . again!
• Trying to find anything in my grandma’s house with either real sugar, salt, or fat in it. No go.

So I've been in Buffalo, NY for the last three days now and I am starting to get pretty darn sick of their accent, ya know? See I'm even starting to think with it. Luckily I'll be heading back to gold ol' PA tomorrow just in time for The Office with any luck. The roads here that I'm traveling on are uterly brutal. Apparently these are 4 lane highways with only a middle double yellow line for road markings. This means that two lanes of traffic travel in each direction with no lane dividers. Also suddenly these two lane roads become one and then two again before you even know it! New Yorkers are all honkin' their horns left and right at me! Also the No Turn On Red signs seem to be optional to follow and a red traffic light simply means come a slow roll and then drive on thru the red light; straight!. I could never make it here unless I had a giant Hummer that I was allowed to run people over with.

In other news I'm trying to get on this MySpace bandwagon here before I'm left out of the loop. So today I got an email (from a devoted fan apparently) requesting that I be her friend on MySpace. "That's cool," I think, "I'm with it. I'm hip." So I click on the link to take me away to Internet Connection Land. MySpace works as it intends too but I can't help but notice the giant picture of the half naked chicks on every other page. I mean, X10 camera ads have those sizzlin' hot babes advertising for them, but the ads are pretty small. These puppies take up half the page! No exaggeration! So I'm not really sure who MySpace is catering too, but it appears to be the young, 20 year old males that are so obviously sex crazy. If only the majority of my friends looked like that I'd be pretty darn happy!

NOTE: If you are one of my friends, please note that the last remark was merely for entertainment purposes only. Take no offense. As your mom would say, "But you are so beautiful on the inside." Huh! What a load of crap!

Captain Jimmy's Bootleg Movie Review: Ocean's Twelve

So it's been a while since I've seen a bootleg movie, but this version of Ocean's Twelve did not disappoint. The movie kicks off with fairly poor video color quality with Japanese sub-captions and poor text display format. All that aside, the movie was great! Danny Ocean (George Clooney) is at it again scheming up a way to make millions on a heist. Unfortunately this time Ocean's involvement and his 10 other sidekicks is a result of Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia) tracking everyone from the first movie down (even though in the first movie he didn't even know they existed) and making them pay back what they stole, plus interest. The movie continually points out that Benedict was reimbursed by the insurance agency, but I'm not quite sure why this was hinted at time and time again. It really eluded me.

Anywho, Ocean's Eleven wend up finding out that they are being played by some French Thief who is the master of all thieves otherwise known as The Night Fox. This guy is neither a knight, nor a fox by the way. It turns out that The Night Fox is who helped Benedict track down all of Ocean's Eleven team solely so he could see who was the better thief. Needless to say a new heist comes up and only Detective Lahiri (Catherine Zeta-Jones) is smart enough to figure it all out. To rap things up things get pretty intense and we finally discover that the 12th member alluded to is none other than Julia Roberts er, Tess Ocean (Julia Roberts).

The movie was crafty, exciting and very quick and sneaky. You have to watch closely and pay attention or you'll completely miss all the stuff the movie has to offer. Not only did I not want to turn it off, but also it was 12 midnight on a weeknight and I still had to watch the ending. Despite my lack of sleep that night I give this movie 4 superbly picked pockets, out of 5!

Unless you’ve been living under a rock the past few days you should know that Today’s co-anchor, Katie Couric has announced her leave from the famed mourning show effective this May. While not a fan of hers at all (I think she acts like a ditz and dresses like a 16 year old just so people will like her) I was quite pleased to hear this news. Of course in my mind, this leave of Katie’s could only mean one thing; make way for my favorite news personality of all time, Campbell Brown! Not only is she super attractive, well okay, she’s super attractive. If she and Katie were to go at it fists and all Campbell would come out looking like she just walked a mile, while Katie would probably be in a bloodied heap of a mess on the ground. But of course, NBC throws the monkey wrench of all time and decides to hire that woman from The View who also hosts Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. What the BEEP! This is not what I’ve been looking forward to for years! Why have you dashed all my hopes and dreams NBC? Why have you denied the most wonderful talk head her right of passage into the weekday Today show? I would have started to watch more of the Today show. I would have gone into The Workplace later just to watch her (like I do on days she subs in). But hey, NBC screwed up yet again and just lost even more viewers for its popular mourning show.

Despite the fact that Campbell got married last Sunday, it still doesn’t mean we all can’t dream and hope for a divorce. It’s a good thing the Half-Sevens Rule¹ doesn’t apply to older women.

¹Half-Sevens Rule: A rule brought to my attention by Andy that states that a man can have relations with a younger women provdied her age is half of that of the man's age plus seven. For example, I am currently 25 so I would be able to see a women that is half of my age (12) plus 7, which would be 19. Note: This rule gets better with age and keeps those real young people from being together.

Ahhh Spring Time. Time for nice weather, cool breezes and of course volleyball and ultimate frisbee! While I say good riddance to my incredibly sucktacular winter I am quite ready for the spring season's sports to start up. I got myself into an Ultimate Frisbee club out near Johnstown, PA so I'm completely stoked (as some boarders may say) about that. And for a nice random thing, a woman on Deal or No Deal just thought that Thanksgiving was on March 3rd. How is that even possible?

I think cheese is highly overrated and highly overused. It’s like everywhere you go, everything you order these days comes with cheese. At fast food places it’s not enough to order a HAMburger, you need to specify it’s a “Hamburger, no cheese” (using the word without in place of no usually results in a cheeseburger). I’m not asking for a cheeseburger here. Salads come with cheese on them by default. We’re stuffing cheese into the crusts of pizzas, buying casseroles with cheese baked in already, and even filling cheese inside pasta! Cheese should be an add-on product only people! Not everyone likes the stuff. I mean we accommodate people who are handicapped with parking spaces, low-grade ramps and elevators; all I am asking for is to NOT assume that we all want everything we eat smothered in cheese. It’s not like it costs as much as an elevator to not put the cheese on the salad, in fact, it saves money because the national cheese supply will not diminish as quickly! All I want is for no more bizarre looks when I order that chicken without cheese, and no more sounds of annoyance when I say, “Hold the cheddar on my fries.” There are more of us out there than you think, so cheese up people!

On a side note (I've been informed that the phrase By the way makes absolutely no sense what-so-ever) does anyone else think it’s ironic that Joan Osborne sings the song “One of Us” that just happened to be the theme song to the has-been CBS TV show “Joan of Arcadia” in which the main character Joan alluded to the actual person Joan of Arc who claimed God appeared to her time after time as different people?

It's no secret that two of my favorite TV shows are Stargate SG-1 and The X-Files. Yeah yeah, say what you want about my nerdy science fiction obsessions, but if Andy can like Stargate SG-1 then clearly you can't consider me weird (besides Stargate is currently the most popular sci-fi show on TV). Anywho since I've seen just about every episode of each I'm quickly discovering characters that appear in both series, as different characters of course. For a list of just a couple of these fine fellows, just keep reading.

William B. Davis. If you've ever watched The X-Files than I know you know this guy. He's the Cigarette Smoking Man, or Cancer Man as Mulder puts it sometimes. However, CGB Spender has made guest appearances in a couple of recent Stargate episodes as a foul looking Prior. Maybe all those cigarettes finally got to him.

Mitch Pileggi. He played Asst. Director Skinner in The X-Files. However you can now find him playing the role of Col. Caldwell on the spinoff series Stargate Atlantis.

Tom McBeart. He's the lovable Col. Maybourne of Stargate. While he may be Jack O'Neil's arch nemesis at the NSA, he can be found playing a couple different characters on The X-Files. One if which is Detective Gwynn who helps Mulder track down a couple of vampires thirsty for blood . . . and sex.

Megan Leitch. The fairly hot sister of "Spooky" Mulder, Samantha, while was abducted by aliens and made an appearance here or there as a clone and what-not she apparently has a twin elsewhere in this galaxy known as Linea, "Destroyer of Worlds." This is of course the younger Linea who accidentally comes down with amnesia while experimenting on a human race on some far off planet. That crazy Vorlix!

Don D. Davis. A League of Their Own fans know him as the manager of Racine, but us sci-fi nuts know him as General George Hammond on Stargate. This general however can also be found as Agent Scully's father in a few episodes of The X-Files.

Amanda Tapping. [Sigh.] This is the most recent find that was actually brought to my attention today. Yeah yeah, so I have a little crush on the attractive brainiac known as Samantha Carter. Now I'm no MacGyver, but I'm pretty sure she played a hooker in today's The X-Files episode, Avatar.

Nicholas Lea. Just for kicks I thought I'd throw Alex Krycek into the mix. He never really appeared on Stargate SG-1 but before he was the evil killer Krycek he was . . . well some guy that was abducted by aliens in one of the first couple seasons. Rarely do you find such a main character in a series play other insignificant roles.

So I'm pretty sure I missed some of them, but these are the ones that stick out in my mind. By the way. Have you seen the new TV commercial for the V-Cast Razor phone? It may be the funniest commercial ever. My favorite part:

Razor phone: Where's your cell phone.
Guy without phone: At home.
Razor phone: Because he's LAME!!!!

I'm currently sitting in front of my TV watching the latest in reality TV called American Inventor. Remember how back in high school you used a certain word to describe things that were really really really stupid and it sounded something along the lines of "doplic?" Well this word comes to mind while watching this show. Not only are the "judges" idiots but their personalities are mind numbing as well. The inventions appear to be quite idiotic as well. Captain Jimmy would give this show a whopping 1 grand jury shy of a court indictment.

So here’s my gripe about American Idol. Keep in mind I try and watch this show religiously, so I’ll be fairly judgmental. First of all is it at all possible for Randy to act his proper age? I’m guessing you’d be pretty hard pressed to find another fellow born the same year as him saying phrases like, “Yo, so check it out dawg,” or “Aight I’m diggin’ it.” Also the three fingered hand wave can also fall in the Act Your Age category. Second I realize that the judges want some diversity in the songs but don’t pick a theme that doesn’t really have any brisk songs in it and then be disappointed with the lack of energy from the contestants. Stevie Wonder is a great artists, but lets face it, not too many 18 year olds are walking down the street jamming to Part-Time Lover on their iPod. Finally are the producers even letting the contestants choose what they want to look like anymore? If they were I’m pretty sure some of them wouldn’t have looked like they did last night. Maybe I’m a little obsessive about the show, but hey it’s Tuesday and frankly I have no life really during the week.

Happy Pi Day!

Jose Canseco is a bumbling idiot! And anyone who thinks otherwise can be labeled the same as far as I'm concerned. Only about 20% of the words coming out of his mouth can be deemed relevant or accurate. The rest are either blatant lies or phrases so ambiguous nothing could ever be concluded from them. Anyone that responds to questions regarding where one received his information by saying something along the lines of "my sources will be made public soon enough," should be whacked on the back of the head like the 12 year old he is acting like should. I'm convinced anyone who chooses to interview the guy these days is doing so for the soul purpose of humiliating him. No other outcome could come from such a dialogue for I have yet to see a discussion with the man where I haven't said out loud in an irritated voice, "What an idiot!"

Human emotions are an interesting thing aren't they? They can keep us from sleeping, keep us from eating, even keep us from talking to others. Sometimes I think how great it would be if we just didn't have to deal with all that stuff. Then I remind myself how dull this life would truly be without them. Sure the drama would be all gone, but how can you admire the beauty of a crisp sunny day without the damp and dreary rainy one? The emotions that we feel help define who we are. So even while a sleepless night is fine here and there, it's the massive emotional overflows that make me see how nice it sometimes is to live a very dull life . . .

By the way, if you're ever at The Workplace and you find the man that stole my mom's pink shirt, tell him to work a little faster and to quit complaining about not getting things done because the new hire is driving his van around!

A couple things tonight. First just let me say that everything I express on this site is my opinion, and pretty much my opinion only. If you don't care to know my opinion or you're going to be offended or complain about my opinion then you really shouldn't be reading this. Of course comments are welcome, but the fact remains that this is life as I see it and sometimes that could be hard for others to hear (for whatever reason). Of course this site is a prime example of my free speech at work so really anything goes. I realize not everyone out there is "down" with blogging and some see it as needless banter and crude remarks. Well it's a lot more than that. It's a huge knowledge bank filled with opinions and creative writings yet to be discovered. Sure sometimes we bloggers complain about life and the people in it, but that's our business to make it public. Even professional writers like Dave Barry and the like are making comments about people all over this planet for entertainment purposes only. So just for future reference to you readers out there, don't judge me because I'm judging you . . . well actually go ahead, that's what we do by human nature. But like I said before, if you don't care for my opinion then don't read my blog.

The other things shall remain private for now. There are some things in my life I prefer to keep to myself and a few select others. That doesn't include however my thoughts about life.

Does Deal or No Deal rock or what?! WHOAAAA!! You might find it creepy for me to have a picture of Howie Mandel on this post, but I find it perfectly normal. This guy rocks!

Is it just me or can our bodies only feel cold? By this I mean if one part of our body is warm and the other is cold, the cold will override the warm. Here's an example. Stick one hand in a glass of freezing cold water and the other in a glass of warm water. Leave them there for a little while and then take your hands out and touch them together. Does your warm hand feel the cold of the other, or does your cold hand feel the warmth of the other? My money is on feeling the cold. Could this possibly be because warm always goes to cold, high always goes to low, order goes to disorder, enthalpy to entropy? Probably . . .

Ahhhhh . . . .

Have you ever just taken a big refreshing gulp of Life and thought to yourself, "Yeah. Life is good . . ."

Well The Workplace Expo 2006 is finally over. It has occupied my time for the last four days and I am quite happy to see it go and not come back for another two years. We demo-ed our blacktop/popcorn plant again like last time. I wasn’t so sick of popcorn though this time around. This popcorn plant is probably the most expensive and extravagant popcorn machine that exists in the world today. If I acquire a picture, I’ll gladly submit it so you all can see it. You are also reading a post from one of the worlds leading experts of the physics of popcorn, and salt flow.

While IT did it’s little video game racing event again, I was not eliminated from the competition this year as I am no longer in IT, but Automation. Translation: I kicked arse in the game and walked away today with a brand spankin’ new PS2 Mini and steering controls! Next time I’m sure all of corporate employees will be excluded from winning. I just keep ruining it for more people. It’s their own fault though. Here’s a small tip: Don’t have video game contests when you have 20 some year old guys working for the company. Especially ones that have had and are recovering from an addiction problem and have “Video Game Night” every Friday from 5pm to 3am.

All in all the Expo wasn’t so bad. I got to know some fellow employees much better and even did a little social event with some of them last night. While I still believe that this expo is a tremendous waste of money and my time, I do walk away with a crap load of free stuff every two years! Here are some of my favorite booths from Employee Expo 2006:

1. Procare: A local fitness club, here you got to test your balance skill on a cool machine that was completely configurable with resistance and feet position.
2. UPMC Medical: This is currently my health care provider but at the booth they were doing bone density test. Despite the amount of milk I drink daily I was told I should be taking calcium supplements with magnesium, along with more dark green vegetables.
3. Altoona Medical: An Altoona medical facility that perfored a body composition analyzer. Some cool stuff I learned about my body:
   1. Total body mass that is fat: 24.6 lb
   2. Total body mass that is water: 103.21 lb (which is insane by the way!)
   3. Body Impedance: 529 Ohms
   4. I should gain another 10.61 lbs to be my ideal body type – no thanks!

To read posts of Expo Past, check out these great links!
02.17.2004
02.18.2004
02.19.2004

Is it me or am I the only person watching the Olympics these days? I haven't found a single person at work yet that could discuss in detail the events of the Olympics that had aired the previous night. Now Figure Skating I can understand (what I don't understand is how this could possibly be the most popular Olympic sport here in The States) but come on people, these are the games of the winter olympiad! These only happen once every four years! And for the record, talking to me about Michele Kwan doesn't count because frankly she's all over the news almost as much as Dick Cheney is these days and she's not even competing anymore. If you're looking for some good events to watch, here's a list of my favorites:

Curling: If you haven't seen this, you're missing out. Grant it you don't need to be in great shape to compete in this event, but the skill that is involved is just flat out ridiculous.

Snowboard Cross: While in the Winter X Games for quite some time now, Snowboard Cross made it's Winter Olympic debut this year. Simply put, four boarders race at a time in heats down a hill until contestants are eliminated by time and the final heat occurs. Just in case you have been watching this event, tricks and showboating before the finish line, or anytime during the race are NOT necessary and should not be attempted . . . Women . . .

Freestyle Skiing: If want to see people doing ridiculous flips that you will never ever even want to consider doing, then check this puppy out!

Alpine Skiing Super-G: All I have to say is good god! Are people really this insane!

I used to enjoy setting up PCs. Now . . . well just just say I won't be surprised if the PC I disconnected last week will be set up again anytime soon. Sort of makes me wish I had a laptop...yeah...

You knew this had to be coming, so here it is in all its glory:

Captain Jimmy's Super Bowl XL Review

To put it bluntly, even as a hard core Stillers fan, I wasn't impressed last night. As Bob Dole would say, "You know it. I know it. And the American people know it." I would have much rather watched the Stillers-Colts game again in its entirety. Neither Pittsburgh, nor Seattle had anything worthy of a Super Bowl performance. Perhaps the biggest disappointment of the night was the absence of one Troy Polamalu. Sure you could see #43 out there running around but he wasn't involved in any kind of play! He had no rushes toward Hassleback, and I don't even think he had one tackle. Let's face it; he is the majority of that defense. Now I'm not saying he played awful, but you could tell the guy was hurt out there as he couldn't really seem to out run, out perform, or out maneuver anybody.

The Stillers rarely sent in the blitz and Big Ben played like he did last season. I can understand the man was nervous, you know second year quarterback in his first Super Bowl. That's no petty feat. But the last two games before The Bowl the Stillers played were off the hook! Ben's arm was firing! Bettis' bus was rolling, Foote's foot was stomping. This game was missing all of that.

The reason the Stillers win can be summed up in two plays: Parker's 75 yard run touchdown and of course the of the hook reverse to Randle El who then passed to Ward for a 43 yard completion pass for a touchdown. Of course Ben's touchdown helped some, but everyone made it out to be so controversial, I'll throw it out. Just for the record and with all Stillers' fan aside, the man scored a touchdown. John Madden is frickin' old and blind so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, but come on Rest of the World! The ball passed the plane of the end zone. In football we call that a touchdown. Clearly the white lines on the ball were directly above the end zone white line meaning that the tip of the ball had to have passed the plane. Yes it then got knocked back, but it's too late by then. So Ben tried to be tricky and slide it across the goal line, but you show me one other football player who doesn't do the exact some thing on every single play!

Pittsburgh clearly won because of Seattle's lack of . . . well, they just blew it. Penalties were called when touchdowns should have been and just too many passes were dropped. Basically that's what it all came down to. They couldn't catch the ball when the play really mattered. Sure they were hot when it was a little 5 yarder, but eventually that just didn't cut it. And just to clarify again, you can’t push off another player to catch a ball, EVER and you can’t rap your arm around another player’s chest from the back and hold him from getting to the quarterback. Those are rules of football. So quit your wining about bad calls Seattle fans.

In the end it must have been really hard to pick an MVP for that game. But I'd say Ward was the guy it should've been. He had some key catches that made the game a winner for the Stillers. In conclusion, all was well with Jimmy and his Stillers. While it was no pretty victory, I'll take a homely win any day. The only thing, well okay, things I could have done without were the awful halftime and pre-game shows, and of course, the fact that Crap Face Tom Brady had to witness the coin toss in his butt ugly velvet sports coat. Like Madden said before the game. You show me a good loser, and I'll show you a loser. That may have been the best thing he has ever said.

HERE WE GO! STEELERS! HERE WE GO! PITTSBURGH'S WON THE SUPER BOWL!!!!

I'm not understanding the hype over Groundhog Day. Does anybody actually believe in the myth? And how does Phil see his shadow on a cloudy day when nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing is casting a shadow? Heck how do we even know he sees his shadow? Is it because he is looking down? Maybe he has an ingrown toenail and is checking out. And when does Phil even have time to look down when those guys in the big coats drag him out of his hole and hold him up over their heads? I think this "holiday" is a bunch of moo-ha-ha. Now maybe if they gave us a day off work I might be more inclined to change my opinion...eh, wait a minute...probably not.

Tomorrow is Stillers Day again at work! HERE WE GO! STEELERS! HERE WE GO! PITTSBURGH'S GOIN' TO THE SUPER BOWL!

My big gripe today: winter has apparently ended and no one bothered to inform the calendar. This weather is ridiculous. I don't know if it's because of global warming or what, but for years now the winters around here have sucked with a capital S! And what's worse, I keep buying season ski passes for The Knob in the hopes that this year will be better than last and year after year it keeps biting me in the butt. Well that stops right here! Starting the end of this winter (or whatever season you want to call it right now) no more season passes to The Knob. If that means getting tons of snow, but at a 4 hour flex price, then so be it.

In other news, check out this blog if you feel like no one could ever understand how you think. You may be surprised. http://postsecret.blogspot.com/

Here's how this day went. Volleyball tournament (coed 4's) in The Cove today. We started off doing quite well (I had a couple real sweet hits off a back 2 set, it was awesome (of course only fellow volleyball nuts know what the heck I'm even talking about here)). We wound up tying for first in our pool (although since we split with the other 1st place team, and they beat us in total points we wound up second). So it was off to playoffs. About this time we crapped out and lost in the semi-finals to a team that really wasn't better than us. So usually I'm down after losing in the playoffs, mainly because it happens quite regularly and I'm heading back to my chair to gather my things up when my phone rings. It's The Workplace. "Hey can you go fix this? So and so said they tried this, but I can't get a hold of them."

So I quickly leave The Cove and head to one of our most dreaded plants. When I get there what do I discover? Nothing short of sheer stupidity. Here someone laid a garden hose, with the water turned on I might add, on the floor and it had filled up an enclosure with delicate, yet very vital circuitry (Opto 22 to be exact) with water. Of course like most circuitry it doesn't work under water. So with the tools in my car and a terrific co-worker/friend/turned boss working on his PC from home being my eyes on the phone, Ashley and I switched some Optos around and got the thing working again for the rest of the weekend. Of course me being soaked by a hose, along with dirt, grime and a sliced bleeding finger did not add well to my already disappointed state of loosing in the semis.

So The Workplace will get my bill for 2 hours come Monday morning (I wonder how much I cost per the hour?) and I took off for home to shower. Luckily to cheer me up, my friend took me out to Hooters for my first time ever. Just to clarify, it was actually her idea (that's right, this friend is a girl and she wanted to go) since she loves the food there. I must admit the food was tasty, but I also must admit that I was slightly distracted from my normal food focused state by the people serving the food (for obvious reasons). Just for a heads up, there are way more families there than single guys if you can believe that. I don't think I'll ever take my 12 year old boys (not that I have any right now) there though. That's just got to be way too much hormone overflow for them. So the day's emotions sort of fluctuated like the Stillers game two weeks ago, but all in all I guess I'm still happy to be around.

Now in this world of ups and downs...
So nice to know there are jackalopes around.

I MADE IT!! HA HA HA!! I am at the top. Right now if you do a search at Google for "james barley", yours truly, me, the Jimmy himself, will be the number one result. Oh how I have waited for this day. No more James Barley the woodturner from Canada at the top. It's all me!

Sigh...Oh what a sad sad world I live in...

Here we go!!! Pittsburgh's goin' to the Super Bowl!!! Here we go!!!

Tomorrow is Steelers Day at work which means we get to wear Stillers gear at The Workplace! How kick a** is that??!! I'll be sporting number 43, Troy Polamalu of course...

I must be becoming an honest man or something. Suddenly I’m paying for the music (or TV Shows) I download and for software as well. I’m not quite sure what is coming over me. Well okay, maybe it’s not so much honesty as easibility. Downloading tunes these days has become such a hassle with those peer-to-peer applications. First you have to find about 50 computers that have exactly what you’re looking for if you want to download the thing this century. Second there is no guaranty that you’ve downloaded what you think you’ve downloaded. Take that time in college my roommates and I tried to download The Matrix 3: Revolutions before it was out. We ended up with some form of Swedish porn. These days there are wrongly names files, corrupt data, even incomplete, or poorly ripped tunes out there. Thirdly I’m sick of searching for hackz and crackz that don’t work on the latest versions of the software I’m looking for. I usually wind up with some sort of porn a long this search to. Also the software thing now I can sort of sympathize with since that’s pretty much what I do at work. If I were to write some simple little program I’d want people to pitch in a little bit (a few bucks) if they were going to download and use it (unless the thing was super-duper useful and it put bigger companies like Apple or AOL in a frenzy and they had to pay me to take the thing off the web, then it would be free). Maybe my days of illegal activities aren’t over yet, but frankly I just don’t fee like putting the time into it anymore.

Security Note: The opinions and actions expressed in this blog entry do not necessarily reflect those of the author.

We don'’t always make the best decisions in our lives. My life is no different than anyone else's. Luckily we have people know as friends that yell at us and are honest with us that attempt to get us back on the right track. The only bad decision we can ever make is to decide to not listen to these friends when all they want to do is make our life better. The greatest thing about friends however is that no matter how many times we decide not to listen, they will continue to stand by our side and yet still point out our mistakes.

In case you missed it this weekend I shall recap the Stillers game just as it took place exactly one day ago (subliminal message: New England Lost! Hee Hee! Stupid Tom Brady!!).

Wow Ben looks good today! Touchdown! Yes! That’s right! Owe come on, where’s the flag! Another Touchdown! Push ‘em back!

Half time: Can you believe what’s going on here?!

Nice! No! Yes!…Enter last quarter.

NO! NO! What happened to the blitz? NO! YEEESSSSS (jumping up and down) – NOOOOOOO (immediately falling on the floor)! WHAT THE #@$% call is that!? (followed by more obscenities). Yes! YES! YEAHHHHH WAAAH WHOOOO (more jumping up and down and high five slapping)! AHHHHHH NOOOOOOO (falling on floor yet again)!!!! GET ‘EM! GET HIM!!!! SOMEBODY!!!!

Block it! BLOCK IT! HE MISSED IT! AHH HAHAHAHA YESSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!! Rapped up with extreme body fatigue and relief while slumping into a rag doll on the couch.

If football was like that every weekend I don’t think I’d watch but once a year.

I didn’t quite meat my quota last Friday as I only played Need For Speed: Most Wanted for 9 hours straight. The time was cut short by my need to get up somewhat early the next day for my uncle’s 60th birthday party/Solstivus celebration. I must say it may have been the largest Solstivus festivity ever! Not only were there heaps of gifts given this year, but there was a Book of Solstivus created by none other than Til himself. There should be a link up shortly so you all can read and learn more about the ridiculous holiday founded by my family. It has yet to be decided as to what gifts will make the Hall of Fame and Honorable Mention this year but some of my picks right now are “Old Used Couch Arm Rest Covers,” “Collection of Years Past Ski Passes,” and “Broken Single Earphone.” While the Giving of the Gifts observance was larger than ever, it will take some time for the Elder Committee to decide on what gifts were the best. Of course after the Giving of the Gifts we all partook in the Solsti-Bowl in which a Miracle of Sostivus Past took place not once but twice! This was of course the Miracle of the Jumping Gutter Ball. All in all I think this proves that not only do I have one of the most bizarre families ever, but we have fun being bizarre.

And by the way, can I get some colder temperature and a little bit of snow here? It’s frickin’ January and it’s frickin’ 50 degrees outside. This wouldn’t irritate me so much if it wouldn’t happen every year! Now I have proof. Just check out previous posts from past Januaries. What the crap kind of ski season is this?

Have sports actually gotten to be easier to play over the years? Think about it. Most sports these days include equipment to play with whether they be bats, clubs, rackets, skies, etc. And in most sports this equipment is getting better and better allowing the athletes using them to be worse and worse. Lets look at golf and tennis for the time being. Pull out one of your old grandfather’s one woods or moms old tennis racket and you’ll find a much smaller, heavier cousin of today’s extreme gear. The old golf clubs and tennis rackets we actually made of wood and the heads were rather small. A golfer needed to hit his ball perfectly in the center of his wooden club head to hit a beauty off the tee. A tennis player had very little room for error as well to get some topspin on the ball sending it back over the net toward his opponent. Now head into any sporting goods store and see the latest; super light, metallic golf clubs with heads bigger than beach balls and very light weight titanium rackets with mesh covering more surface area than my aunt Sally.

Now a golfer doesn’t even have to hit the ball center or swing with any type muscle to drill the ball home while a tennis player could hit a ball with his eyes closed! So while it looks like our athletes have improved over the years, really they don’t need to be as good as they once were to look like they are better. Technology makes the sports what they are today. Baseball bats can hit balls further today than ever before, parabolic skies make flying down the slopes easier than ever, shoes help you jump higher, play longer. Performance enhancers make you stronger, more focused. Even swim suits have developed to aid the swimmer with less drag.

But maybe this is the essence of sport itself. Perhaps sport does need to evolve with the times in order to keep all our interests. There has to be some kind of limit to which the human body can perform and what is the fun of sport if we have to stop there?

Here it is, by popular demand.

Why My Birthday Depresses the Crap Out of Me

Most of my friends know that my birthday is not one of my finest days of the year. The big question this year was, “If your depressed by turning 25, what are you going to do when you turn 50?” My response was always the same; “Be really depressed!” The concept isn’t that hard to understand and hopefully I’ll be able to present my case well enough here that even my readers will become depressed at their birthday. Sort of a messed up goal, but hey, I guess I’m sort of a messed up guy.

Birthdays are a simple idea. All it is really good for is giving you a point during the year at which you can relate your accomplishments and disappoints to. If someone asks you when you did something you say, “Oh yeah. I did that when I was 18.” Yes I do have accomplishments I look back on, but I also have my disappointments. Regardless of how either of those two notions make you feel, the two help demonstrate the master conception: another year of my life is over. Simple as that. Being 24, yeah that’s done, gone, yesterday’s news, just a memory, an infinitesimally small point on the timeline of history. And what will being 25 hold for me? The same thing. And as if the previous year couldn’t have gone by fast enough, this year will go by even faster, and the year after that faster still.

Remember how when you were a kid and would watch Saturday morning cartoons each episode of Thundercats and My Little Pony seemed to take up half the day? Well genius those episodes were just as long as today’s TV shows, being a mere thirty minutes. Yesterday they seemed half the day and now you forget that thirty minutes even existed. A fifteen minute trip to the corner seemed like FOR-EV-ER! Now fifteen minutes isn’t even long enough to use the bathroom in the morning.

Besides, what is there really to look forward to in getting old (as if I’m not already there)? The aches and pains of getting out of bed? The inability to control your bladder? The memory loss, vision loss, hair loss, height loss? Wrinkles, ear hairs, brittle bones, bi-focals, tri-focals, decreased muscle mass, change anxiety, countless wives (did you catch that one?), sleep stage loss, backs that won’t bend, unmentionables that do, countless bills, children, knee problems, feet problems, teeth problems, joint problems, loss of balance, loss of hearing, loss of all things important to you like your friends, families, jobs, significant others, houses, pets, the ability to eat what you want. Honestly need I actually go on?

I see others around me that play the sports and do the activities that I do that are older and frankly you can tell they are older. They move slower, don’t bend over the whole way, fall harder, jump lower, bruise easier, get injured more frequently, get tired faster. I don’t want that.

In my short 25 years of existence more people have come and gone in my life than I care to recognize. High school buddies erased from my life, college best friends never to be heard from again, neighbors that moved away, loved ones that die. And frankly this is just the beginning. In the future I will have more friends disappear, children move on, parents pass away, career changes. Are you depressed yet?
The lives that each of us live seem so small, so insignificant already, do we really need a day to celebrate all that we were and all that we may be, but will soon forget anyway? I’d much rather just be. Forget about the past because it’s in the past, forget about the future because it hasn’t yet come and just live right now, right here. As long as I can do that, I should be a-okay.