WeDnEsDaY

So I'm sitting here at work, minding my own business, but in a foul, foul mood.  I'm going through the list of retirees, trying to determine who is available for a certain post-death benefit when the system crashes.  It's been a long time since we've had any sort of system crash.  I have to tell you, it's really helped turn this crappy mood of mine around.  The system went down about a half hour before lunch, so I spent that time chit chatting with some of my co-workers.  I just finished lunch up, which is always a happy time in my world, and now I'm waiting for the system to come back up.  There's no timeframe for this, which is fine by me.  I do have a few things on my desk that don't require the system, but I'll be damned if I work on them.  I need the break.  LOL!

I brought in a new book to read during my lunch breaks today.  Shazam Family Archives Volume 1.  The book I was reading, Legion of Super-Heroes: An Eye For An Eye, I finished up at lunch today and I hate the idea of not having anything to read during my lunch breaks.  Once I post this, I'm going to start reading my new book.  Yay me and yay for system outages!

(Oh, and for the record, I was only interrupted once during the composition of this posting.  Can't people see I'm doing something I'm not supposed to be doing and need to be left alone?  Of course not.)

Podcasts

I got up this morning, jumped in the shower, got dressed and then went to sync my iPod. It's a daily ritual. You see, I need to have a fresh set of podcasts to get me through my morning. But when I went to sync my iPod this morning, it was a bit overwhelming. I had 14 new shows to listen to. FOURTEEN! Arrgghh! This is far from a perfect day. A perfect day gives me just enough to get me to lunch. From lunch on, music takes the place of shows. But not today. I didn't even get to finish all the podcasts. I think I got through 11 of them. One I can't listen to yet (it's a Doctor Who commentary on the new episode, but I haven't had a chance to watch the episode yet), the others I'll listen to tomorrow. Along with whatever else downloads tonight.

I did get to listen to my friend Melanie's new podcast this morning. All I have to say about it is I fucking hate her! If you were to tell me that this was her very first show, I would have laughed at you. It sounded like she's been doing this for years. What a way to get your show off the ground. (Mel, I will call the listener line this week. It's not programmed into the phone yet....) Check it out.

And this has nothing to do with anything, but these are three of my favorite comic book covers featuring Adam Strange.

Spin

Today's weigh in was 197. Last week was 195. So that's plus 2 pounds.... or is it. Last week was really 195.9, while today was 197.0. Technically that's only 1.1 pounds. I'll take it, though I wish the number was smaller this week. On Wednesday I saw 194.1. That was a thrill.

You know what kills me about this picture? It was for real.

I Left The House

For real. Without kicking and screaming. I left my house willingly today. Who the fuck am I? My plans for the day were simple. Play online a little, clean the house, read, take a nap. I was going to have a relaxing day. Until Ken says, "I want to go to this nursery. The catch is, it's in Litchfield, CT. But it's where Martha Stewart likes to shop." My natural reaction to something like this is to roll my eyes. He must have caught me in a moment of weakness, because I said, "Sure." So off we went. The place is about two hours from here. The drive was nice, mostly through local and back roads. Half way there, I saw a sign for Danbury, CT. When I was a little kid, about nine or ten, we lived in the next town over from Danbury. I mentioned this to Ken, so after the nursery, we went to Danbury and Bethel. It was another 45 minutes to get there, but what else did we have going on? Not much. We drove around and around and then we found it. The house I lived in when I was nine or ten. The place looked so tiny and small. I don't remember it being that small when I lived there, but the difference in perspective between a 10 year old and a 41 year old is quite different. The neighborhood looks so much smaller, but in reality, it's not. I showed Ken where I fell off my bike and blacked out. I showed him my school, though I really have no recollection of going to school when I lived there. I showed him where the store was that I would buy my comics. Sadly, it's gone now. It was a really fun day. I'm glad we got out and did something, even though driving across three states isn't nearly as cheap as it used to be.

Tired

I wanted to post something tonight, but I'm beat. So instead I'm posting this video because it makes me laugh.

Wednesday

Before I start this, I need to stress, I am not looking for reassurance or anything. So please don't feel the need to give me any. This isn't what this post is about. This is just about me venting.

That said, today has certainly been an interesting day. It started off on the right foot and everything. I was in a good mood. And then something changed. Sometime late this morning, I found I was having a pity party for myself. I was really feeling down about myself and I don't know why. I mean, it's a natural thing to happen. But it was just so sudden and out of the blue. And I felt like this the rest of the day. I still have a little residual bit left, but not like I did before. I know I have insecurities and I think I keep a somewhat good handle on them most of the time, but I must have let up without realizing it and all that baggage came pouring down on me. I'm not going to go into specifics or anything, but it just feels good expressing my feelings.

You know what's odd? While I was walking home tonight from work, a Spandau Ballet song came on my iPod, totally at random. When I'm feeling down and having a pity party, there's something about hearing Spandau Ballet that's very comforting to me. Seriously. I think it's Tony Hadley's voice. I told you it was going to sound retarded.

I've spent way more time online this week than I planned. On Monday night we recorded the second Dial "H" For Homo show. I was way less nervous this time, but still had a little trouble speaking up. Part of it wasn't my fault because we veered off on the topic of gaming, which I don't partake in. I'm going to do better next week. I'm getting a feel for the dynamic of the show now. It took a few episodes of WMBYS to find my rhythm.

Tuesday night we recorded WMBYS. That was way fun, like always. After we're done, I'm sure it was our worst show ever and then Nessa gets out her magic editing tools and turns the shit into diamonds. I'm sure she'll do it again with this one.

Tonight I was going to get caught up on blogs and stuff and instead I was on Archerr's group shows for Thursday and Friday. And I had a really, really good time. It wasn't a complete Skype shit sammy like the last time.

Tomorrow I'm going to try to avoid the interwebs when I get home from work. I need a break from the computer. It's becoming a problem.

I promise that shortly I will update the listing of podcasts and blogs that I enjoy over on the sidebar of this page. It's getting way out of date again. I know it, but I'm too lazy to do anything about it tonight.

Tragedy

I'm about fifteen minutes into overtime tonight when the most horrible thing in the world happens to me. My headphones DIE! Seriously. I was thrown into a tizzy and I didn't know what to do. I was only going to work an extra hour or so tonight, but that changed quickly. I only worked an extra half-hour. And I was going to walk home from work, but that didn't happen either. No music, no walking. Thankfully I have a spare set here at home and they're now plugged into the iPod. I also have the originals set that came with the iPod. They're going to work and sit in my desk for just such an emergency. I'm just happy that if they had to die, it was at the end of the day. I had 14 new podcasts to get through. With that volume, I can't afford to let them back up.

Another Quickie

This is going to be a short one. I intended on writing a longer one earlier, but I stayed away from the computer most of the day and I'm itching to go read now.

First, it looks like my Frappr map is kind of working again. I've got a few new faces on it and that makes me happy. If you're so inclined, try to put yourself on it. If it works, cool, if not, FINGER.

Second, it's weigh in day. I was 195 today. I'm stoked. Okay, true confession time. I was actually 195.9, but I don't count that pesky decimal. I saw a 1, a 9 and a 5. That's 195 to me. I'm one step closer to my ultimate goal of never seeing a weight in the 200s again. Three nights this week I weighed less than 200 at bedtime. That's huge. A couple more pounds and I'm there. To celebrate, I brought home some Skinny Cow from the grocery store. It's been longer than I can remember since I've had ice cream. Now I have enough for the whole week. Hot diggity damn!

So Tired...

The last 24 hours or so have been very full. For me, at least. Last night after work, we went out to dinner at our usual Friday night place. We were home kind of early, so I went out for a walk, which felt so good. Got home, jumped online and got ready to record a group show version of the podcast. We had Melanie, Mary and Ricky on the show with us and I had a lot of fun with them. I'm sure I didn't speak as much as I thought I did (again), but I don't care. It was so much fun. I'll find out for sure when Nessa uploads the show and I can listen. After that was over, we ventured over to Archerr's UStream video show. He and the boyfriend were doing a show while we were doing ours, so I wasn't sure if he'd still be online. He was and he was DRUNK! And it was hysterical. I stayed there watching and participating until 1:30 in the morning. That's hours past my bedtime. HOURS!! Apparently a bunch of shit went down shortly after I signed off and went to bed and I feel shitty for not having been there to jump to the aid of my friend.

This morning Ollie woke me up by poking me in the face with his paw. This is a regular Saturday morning event. He doesn't like for me to sleep late, so he jumps up on the bed and starts poking me gently until I wake up. He's a little shit. By 10am, Ken and I were outside doing yard work. It's the first chance we've had and it's mostly done. I hurt, but I'll live. I was told we would spend and hour or so doing this, but it turned out to be three. After that, we ran errands and had lunch. Cheesecake Factory, one of my favorites. And we had the shittiest service we've ever had. Terrible. It wasn't too terribly busy and it took almost 20 minutes for our waiter to first come over. And he was incredibly negligent in attending to us AND the table next to us. When we were done, Ken went to the bathroom and I tracked down a manager. This isn't really like me, but I was annoyed. I dropped a dime on Frank, the terrible waiter, and the manager gave me a gift card as an apology. That was cool.

We got home around 4:30 and I decided that if I didn't go out for a walk, I was going to regret it. I went out for about an hour and I'm even more tired now than ever. Best part of the walk, though, was when I was in the middle of the student ghetto. A bunch of hot frat boys were playing (mostly) shirtless volleyball on their front yard. That was nice.

It's 6:30 now and it's still 80 degrees out. I wish every day could be like today. I think it's going to rain tomorrow, which sucks, but I don't care. I'm going to need a day to lay around and recover. Well, after I go out shopping. I need new shorts. All the new ones I bought at the end of last year are too big on me now. Sure, I'm wearing them, but I need something in my size.

Spring Fever

Today is absolutely gorgeous out.  Amazingly beautiful.  It's going to be 80 degrees and sunny and just plain nice.  So why the hell am I at work?  Especially because it's Friday, too.  I'm one of a handful of idiots who chose not to take either the whole day off or a half day.  But I reasoned to myself that if I did take today off, I would probably be sitting at home in front of the computer.  At least I'm getting paid to do it here.  Yesterday was similar.  It hit 77 degrees.  Thursday is the day of the week that I like to get as much overtime in as I can.  It's the first day of our pay week.  I forced myself to stay for an hour and a half (and it was really hard) and then walked home.  I managed to walk home three times this week.  That's huge.  I only walked all the way home twice last year.  I'm enjoying that I can get outside and walk around again more than I thought I would.  

Yesterday in general was a hard day.  Wednesday night we recorded our first Dial "H" For Homo podcast.  I was so wound up after it that I couldn't fall asleep.  I was up until nearly 1am, unable to shut my brain off.  The cats decided to use me as their bed, so I kept waking up all night long.  Finally, Ollie decided that I should get up at 5:45.  I normally sleep until around 7.  Litte bastard.  So I spent most of the day in a haze.  But the weekend is here and I can try to recover.  Tomorrow is yardwork day.  It'll be the first time out there this year.  I don't think I'm looking forward to it, either.  Once I'm out there, I'll be fine, though.

Thirty more minutes and my day is done.  The day has flown by (the few people that were here kept piling tasks on my desk for me), but I have a feeling it's about to come to a screeching halt.  Ken's picking me up and we're going out to eat and then later tonight we're recording our second WMBYS group show.  Should be fun and I'm going to try to be less passive at this one than I was at the last one.  More assertive!!!!!!!  We'll see.

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Hot Damn!

I'm very happy. When they announced that the Bush Administration was going to bankrupt the treasury by sending everyone money, I was excited. Then I saw the payment schedule. Because the last two digits of my social security number falls between 90 and 99, I was in the last group of people to get my money. And that group was scheduled to get the checks the last week of September. Sadsies.

Anyway, things have changed. I was just at the IRS website and my payment has been moved up. Because I got my refund by direct deposit, my stimulus check will come the same way. And because it's direct deposit, they don't actually have to print a check and mail it. I will now have my money in time for my birthday, mid May. I'm still in that last group, but May is way better than September. And if I didn't do the direct deposit, the date for paper check has moved up, too. That would now be in July.

Go to the IRS website and check out when you're going to be getting yours.

Blogger... GRRRRRR!

I had one more celeb hairstyle to show and blogger has been giving me such a time trying to upload it. I tried many times last night and a bunch of times this morning. Is anyone else having blogger connection issues or is it just me?

New Hair

I just got a haircut a week or two ago, but now I'm thinking I should have waited. I found a site that lets me try on celebrity hair styles. Looking at me with fierce new hair makes me happy. Whose celeb hair do you think fits me best?

Reese Witherspoon

Halle Berry

Angelina Jolie

Jennifer Aniston

Julia Roberts

Gwen Stefani

My Turn To Be A Lemming

I was surfing through a bunch of my favorite blogs earlier today and I read this one on Pod Is My CoPilot. Taylor bought something to play his iPod through and he got it super cheap. Being the cheap ass bastard I am, I took notice and decided to make a trip to Best Buy myself. I've been looking for something to hook my iPod up to so I can listen to it downstairs without headphones. But everything I've looked at is just plain too expensive for how much I would really use it. So I keep putting off getting something.

Anyway, I check out what Taylor bought and thought it was okay, but I started looking around more. The thing he bought was marked $25.99 on clearance. At my Best Buy, it was $32.99 on clearance. Still, it's originally $69.99. Still a great price. But then I saw this (sorry for the link instead of a picture, but blogspot isn't allowing me to upload pictures at the moment. Grrrr...) More features, still on clearance and only $30.99, marked down from $99.99. SOLD! I actually had a choice of getting it in black or in white. I chose white because it was $19 less than the black one. I'm guessing the white ones just sat there on the shelves while the black found homes. I just got home a little while ago, tested it out and the sound is great. I'm very happy with my purchase. Very happy. Ken's so happy with it that he's thinking of going back and getting another one for his office.

Switching gears, today is Sunday, so it's weigh in day. I shocked the crap out of myself when I weighed in at 198 today. Every single day this week I've been above 200. I was paying the price for last Sunday. I was really expecting to hit right around 200. Last time we had Game Night I gained 3 pounds for the week. It took me until that next week to get back down to where I was pre-gorging myself. I tried to be really good most of this week and it did pay off. This makes the fifth consecutive weigh in below 200 pounds. I couldn't be happier.

My Saturday

What a great day it was today. The forecast was rainy and 50's. The reality was sunny and mid 70s. I don't know what the hell happened, but it was amazingly beautiful today. I think the crap weather has been pushed off until tomorrow. I had the windows open all day, the front door was open so the cats could go out on the porch. Just amazing. On top of that, I cleaned the house (it really needed it... did nothing to it last weekend), Ken finally picked up his office..... And then things changed. LOL.

I'm going to a wedding next month and I really don't have anything to wear. I could wear my suit, but I bought that a year and a half ago and I now look like David Byrne in it. Only David Byrne's suit fit him better. So, Ken dragged me out this afternoon to go suit shopping. I told him I really didn't want another suit. I don't ever have an occasion to wear it and I felt it would be a waste. We compromised and ended up just buying a coat. This way I'll have something and can always just grab a pair of appropriate-to-the-occasion pants to go with it. I HATE shopping for clothes like this. Really, really hate it. I don't know where my aversion first started. I've had it as long as I can remember. I'm sure it has a lot to do with my general body shape. I have a tall torso, so I need to buy tall clothes. And I've always had problems finding them. Luckily I now have a bunch of stores I can try and usually find something. I realized half way through the shopping adventure that I was copping an attitude and I couldn't pull myself out of it. Once the new clothes were purchased, I apologized to Ken for my pissyness. He asked me why do I still get like this and I told him that whenever we go shopping like this, most times it ends in disappointment for me. He called me out on that, as he should have. This trip was a complete success, thanks to him. I'm lucky to have him. I really don't know of anyone else who could put up with my bullshit like he does. And what's funny is he says the exact same thing about me.

Hot Diggity

I'm just getting ready to leave work.  I can't believe I managed to put in any overtime tonight, much less two hours.  It's really nice out still.  It was supposed to be dreary and rainy, which is why I decided to stay tonight, but now it looks like that's going to happen later tonight and tomorrow.  But I got a couple hours in and that's what counts.  I'm kind of sweating, too.  For overtime, a supervisor had me lug around a couple dozen cartons of unsorted folders and then put them in order.  I didn't think I'd get it done, but I did.  My fingers feel very, very gross now.  Old folders will do that to you.  Now to track down someone to sign my time card.

Dial "H" For Homo

I forgot to mention this. Dial "H" For Homo, my new podcast, is now available from the iTunes Music Store. Go over there and subscribe now!

Time

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Aftermath

So, as I stated before, I ate my weight in shit at Tanya's house on Sunday. I was pretty upset with myself for doing it, too. I really have issues with self-control sometimes. Anyway, I wasn't happy with myself on Monday morning either. I got on the scale to discover that I was 5.1 pounds heavier than I was Sunday morning. Five point one. That wasn't pleasant to find. And then, I get in to work yesterday and Rosey had backed a couple of cakes, just because. It killed me to turn down cake. Especially Rosey's cake. She's the most amazing chef. But I did it. And I walked most of the way home from work. This morning's weigh in was much more promising. I'm only 1.6 pounds heavier than I was on Sunday. If I keep it up, I'll be back to normal by tomorrow or Thursday at the latest. But I'm still pissed off at my actions.

Well, So Much For That

I'm disgusting. I am really disappointed in myself. Today Ken and I went down to our friends Andy & Tanya's house for Game Day. We usually have a Game Night, but they just had their second child and getting to go out at night is now next to impossible for them. So they hosted and we made an afternoon of it. Lynn & Lori, our usual hosts, also joined us. And I ate. And ate. And ate. Lori brought the most amazing buffalo chicken wing dip. I could have eaten the whole plate of it. Tanya made another kind of dip that I devoured. I also had a Quarter Pounder in the car on the way down. And we brought chocolate cheesecake, of which I had two slices. I bet I ate more calories today than I did in a normal 3 day weekend. I don't know why I did it. This is going to have an adverse impact on my weight. At least I started eating after my weekly weigh in, which was back down to 198. If I see anything in the 100s again this week, it will be a fucking miracle.

I'm going to go lay down and be miserable now.

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iPod Shuffle Game

It's time to play the iPod Shuffle Game again. Here are the first 12 songs that come up for me today:

1) Lord Help The Poor & Needy - Cat Power
2) Anxiety (Get Nervous) - Pat Benatar
3) The Bug - Mary-Chapin Carpenter
4) Mood Indigo - Tony Bennett
5) I See You - Juliana Hatfield
6) Gary Gilmore's Eyes - Die Toten Hosen
7) Each And Every One (Live) - Everything But The Girl
8) I Want To Be With You Always - John Prine
9) Blake's Jerusalem - Billy Bragg
10) 14th Street - Rufus Wainwright
11) There Is A Voice - Squeeze
12) I Can See Clearly Now - Neil Finn

Mostly all appropriate for a Sunday Morning.

Doctor Who - Partners In Crime

Hot diggity damn. New Doctor Who premiered tonight in Britain. The Doctor is back! Donna is back! The premiere episode was better than the Christmas Special, but not as good as it could have been. The plot was just a little too far over the campy line. A diet pill that helps the fat just walk away. Literally. Turns the fat into aliens for the purpose of reseeding a planet. I don't know about that. The main bad guy was basically a Supernanny. Uh, no. But we got some great bits in spite of this. When Donna and the Doctor finally cross paths with each other... I laughed out loud. Loud enough to wake Ken up, who fell asleep on the couch. The Doctor is still feeling the sting of losing Martha and has proven he's still hurting over the whole Rose thing. And Donna, being Donna. She's going to be a hard character to write. You want to be true to her spirit, but she walks a very fine line between loud and boisterous free spirit and campy sit-com character.

I'm thrilled the show is back and the next three months are going to be geekster heaven for me.

And if having the Doctor back isn't geeky enough, I hit a major score today at the mall. The cd chain I used to work for recently began carrying DC Direct action figures. (They couldn't carry them while I worked there and got a discount... nooooo.) I was poking around the store this afternoon, looking at the toys only to discover a sign stating that all action figures were now 50% off. Guess who loaded up? Yup. Me. I bought the three New Frontier figures I didn't have already and a Gorilla Grodd from the Justice line. Randy, the store manager, told me that the discount might get bigger shortly. The store is moving into a new location and they're trying to get rid of as much stuff as they can before the move. I guess this means this location isn't planning on carrying them anymore, which makes me sad. Bah. But I got 4 figures for $27 before tax.

Dial "H" For Homo

As any reader of this blog will know, I'm a huge comic book geek. Love comics. Have loved them most of my life. I find no shame in my comic geekdom and I wear it proudly. My cube at work is covered in comic pictures and action figures. I have an entire room dedicated in my house to my comics and toys (well, mainly because Ken doesn't want that stuff in the rest of the house, but still...) I've spent the majority of my life participating in comics fandom in one form or another. I've been to conventions, I was a member of various apas, I've participated in message boards... Well, now I have another outlet for my geekdom. That outlet is Dial "H" For Homo. It's a new comics oriented podcast featuring me along with four other faboo homos from four other awesome podcasts. There's Michael from the QCast Connection, Taylor from Pod Is My CoPilot, Eric from Confession of a Southern Boy In Yankeeland and Wes from Live It Up! Five gays with five different perspectives on comics. Our first teaser episode is up (Issue 0) at the Dial "H" For Homo website, so go check it out. You'll also find links there for our individual podcast sites.

More Than Six

Months, that is.  Monday marked the conclusion of my six month soda fast.  I originally was going to try for a month, which turned into two months, which turned into 100 days, which turned "wait until I hit 200 pounds," which turned into 6 months.  I hit that goal at the beginning of the week, but I've extended it just one more time.  I get my teeth cleaned tomorrow and I haven't had a soda since my last cleaning.  And I've noticed the difference that has made.  My teeth are usually so stained from all the carbonated goodness that is soda that I get a lecture from my dental hygenist.  This time I'm guessing the only lecture I'm going to get is about getting my rear wisdom teeth extracted.  I get that lecture at every cleaning and I promptly put it out of my head until the next time.  

It's funny, because now that I can have soda, I don't really want any.  My cravings for it disappeared about three months ago, give or take.  During the first three months, I would get nasty cravings for it time and again.  I do miss it and I will try to befriend it again, but I'm hoping we only stay acquaintances this time, not BFFs.

(I'm trying to write this from work and email it to the blog.  Sometimes it seems to work, sometimes not.  I hope it works.)

Only Cuz Nessa Asked....

Oh, And Another Thing

Totally unrelated to the previous post, but something I keep meaning to mention. I went out and bought new underpants this weekend. I get laughed at when I call them underpants, but the word makes me laugh, so I use it. Anyway, I needed some new boxers and I bought 'em. All in size M. I'm down to a medium. I threw away all my 2XLs this weekend. It's amazing how differently the new ones fit. :-)

Doom & Gloom

Okay, maybe not quite that bad, but....

My goal is to post something daily here, but it doesn't always happen. Obviously. But I try. I think it's going to be a little harder for the foreseeable future. I'm having carpal tunnel issues again and I'm trying to back off of the computer as much as possible for the time being. My wrists haven't been bothering me for over a year, and then all of a sudden last week the pain returned and doesn't seem to want to go away. So I figure if I back off of computer activities a bit, this should help.

You need to understand that I spend an inordinate amount of time on the computer. A disgusting amount. And it pisses me off that I get nothing done because of it. I'm still going to try to update this as often as possible, but I can't see it happening daily.

That is all.