November Challenge - Day Eight

If you know me, really know me, you know a couple of things about me. You know that I'm a huge fan of music. I can't live without music. Music is one of the most important things in my life. You also know I can sometimes have a touch of the OCDs. Now, when you put the two together, what you end up with is Walt being a freak. Complete, total and utter freak. Let me explain. Last year when I got the new computer, I finally had a machine with more than enough room to store my music collection. So I spent a month or so uploading and transferring my collection to iTunes in the new computer. Of course, in doing this, every songs play count was reset to 0. So I decided to make it a project to try to listen to every single song at least once. This project has turned into an obsession. Right now, my iTunes music library stands at 39,898 songs. I have a playlist called "Unplayed Songs" and right now that stands at 10,723 songs. I don't often listen to anything but my unplayed playlists. I have many. Some by artist, some by genre, some by theme... I've let it consume me.

To give you some idea of how I'm progressing with getting this project accomplished, three months ago my library was 36,450 songs with 17,967 of them unplayed. So I have managed to upload about 3,400 more songs and still get the unplayed list down about 7,000 songs. Not bad, huh? It doesn't hurt that I have my iPod strapped to me 24/7, it seems. I give myself a project, set a goal and then let the OCD side of me take over. I think that's how I was so sucessful in dropping 110 pounds. (And speaking of which, tomorrow is weigh in day and I'm petrified of what is going to show up on the scale, based on what I saw on the scale this morning. We'll see...)

Tomorrow my goal is to listen to about 100 more songs throughout the course of the day. We'll see how close I come.

This Is Stolen, Too

What Your Love of Peanut Butter Cups Says About You

You are hedonistic... sometimes to the point of being greedy. You love to eat, and there's no chance you're sharing your candy! While you may be greedy, it's with good reason. You have great taste. The things you love are worth loving, and it's no wonder you crave them.

What Does Your Favorite Candy Say About You?

November Challenge - Day Seven

I saw this picture on msnbc.com this morning and it amused the hell out of me.

I'm very happy to see the loud outcry at the results of California's Proposition 8. This is just the beginning of what's going to be a very long battle. I have to say that I'm not feeling very hopeful that the outcome is going to be something positive, though. I'm not sure if it's the pessimist in me or the realist that thinks this. What I mean is we may have elected Barack Obama to the Presidency, but we are not a nation of forward thinkers. We are a nation of ignorant idiots who live in fear of our own shadows. Just witness all the hate speak circulating about the President Elect right now. If I'm told one more time how he's a sleeper cell agent or the Anti-Christ or that he won the election by using his evil powers of mass hypnotism (it's true. It's been documented in a sixty page report done by top scientists. A woman Ken works with said so. She also said that he has his temple in the park where he gave his speech on Tuesday. The temple has already been dismantled to throw people off the trail of him but just before he bombs the White House, it's going to be reconstructed and that's where he's going to rule from), I'm going to bust. While my faith in humanity got a boost this week, I can't really say that it's very high.

November Challenge - Day Six

I almost just blew it less than a week into the challenge I made myself. I just want to go to bed. I'm exhausted. This is how Thursdays are starting to be for me and I can't say that I like it. Thursday is the first day of my work week. What I've been trying to do is get myself into the habit of doing as much overtime on Thursdays as I can. Because I work a 37.5 hour work week, the first 2.5 hours of overtime I do every week is paid out in comp time. Anything over that is paid out in time and a half. I strive to at least get in my 2.5 extra hours every week. Time off is a luxury I wasn't often afforded when I worked retail, so I try to amass it now. Today, being Thursday, was no exception. I got up extra early and was at work almost two hours early and I stay an hour and a half late. I got my time in and now I can kick back the rest of the work week. But it's taking it's toll on my tonight. I'm ready to crash hard. I want to go in early tomorrow because I have a ton of stuff on my desk still, but I don't think there's any chance of that. I know I'm going to have a fit when the alarm goes off in the morning.

A Week Late, But Who Cares

Check out this groovy Halloween costume of the past. I wish I could have gone as the Brady Bunch when I was younger. Instead I got to be Archie Andrews.

November Challenge - Day Five

I saw this on Nicole's blog and like I always do, I stole it. Apparently science is not a strong suit for me. I'm surprised I did so well on the deceptively easy quiz otherwise. Yay me.

There Are 1 Gaps in Your Knowledge

Where you have gaps in your knowledge: Science Where you don't have gaps in your knowledge: Philosophy Religion Economics Literature History Art

Do You Have Gaps in Your Knowledge?

November Challenge - Day Four

I'm going to keep this short and sweet tonight. It's election day and I need to climb into bed with a nice big piece of chocolate pudding pie and watch the returns. I spent the entire day very emotional whenever I would start thinking about the election. By the time I got to my polling place, I was bouncing off the walls, thrilled to death to be able to cast my vote. I overheard one of the volunteers while I was in my voting booth say how great it was to see someone so excited to vote. And I was. I'm a shy person by nature but I was chatting up a storm with the volunteers. I was having a truly good time.

Now it's time to watch the votes come in. Senator Obama has a slight lead in the popular vote as of this writing. Only two states have projected winners and forty-eight to go. I'm trying to stay positive and I really want my candidate to win. I'll be crushed if he doesn't. We'll see... It's going to be a long night.

November Challenge - Day Three

Mental Health Day, how I've needed you. You have no idea. The last two days have been absolutely amazing. Stunningly amazing. It's been so long since I've had a day to myself, let alone two. In the olden days, back when I worked retail, I would have Thursdays to myself. Since leaving retail and having the same schedule as Ken, these days are few and far between. And he rarely travels for work anymore, so my "me time" is a rare bird. Trust me, though, I've more than made up for lost time. I've been the biggest piece of shit since he's been gone. Today was no exception. I did run some errands this morning, paid some bills and did one last load of laundry (clean sheets for Walter tonight!!!), but otherwise, I've been a vegetable. My plans for tonight fell through, but I'm not going to complain. It'll give me a chance to play online a little bit and then get to bed early. I want to be well rested for tomorrow. Hopefully I can motivate to go in a little early to work for the overtime. But I'm not staying late. I want to get home in good measure to vote. The polling place is about a dozen houses up my street at the school, so I have no excuse. I'm kind of scared to watch tv tomorrow night, because you never know what could go wrong at the last minute. We'll see, I guess.

A side note to Kevin in Danbury. I stumbled across your blog last night (four posts in two years? Let's get cracking on that right now....) and I picked up your challenge. Only you'll have to go over to my photoblog for that.

And I stole this quiz from Kevin's blog, too.

You Are 23% Stereotypically Gay

You have a hint of gayness about you, but only very slight. You might have a few qualities that fit a gay stereotype. But in general few people are going to think you're gay.

How Stereotypically Gay Are You?
Take More Quizzes

I thought of something else I wanted to say earlier today, but it's gone now. If it's important enough, it'll come back to me.

November Challenge - Day Two

Okay, so yesterday's post was lame, but I didn't really think about it until it was too late and I barely even got up to post as it was. Today's post is better. Much better.

Is it possible that today is the greatest day of the year? If not, it's damn close. Here's why I'm finding today so good.

1) I weighed in today, like every Sunday. And I was hoping and praying to see 190. I've been stuck at 191 and I thought this week it would be a nice change. However, I wasn't going to get upset to see something above 191. The last few days I've been a little naughty. On Thursday there were cookies at work. Since they were placed in the empty cube in front of me, I had easy access. I ate a lot of cookies. On Friday, we had donuts to celebrate Halloween. I said I wasn't going to partake, but there were chocolate covered Boston cream donuts. And then for dinner on Friday I made a poor (but delicious) choice. With all that being said, I couldn't believe what lies the scale told me today. I'm at 188 pounds. 188! I weighed myself three times and got the same number. It must be a fluke, but I'm running with it. Naturally, my first thought after "Holy Shit!" was "Now what am I going to eat today?" I've been good so far. I had hummus for lunch, even though I wanted everything on the Wendy's drive through menu. And I'm eating the tiniest pack of Reese's Pieces you've ever seen while I'm typing this.

2) Chores are (almost) non-existent today. I got more than enough done yesterday that I only had to run the dishwasher and do two loads of laundry. I was hoping for only one load since I did all the laundry yesterday. I needed to wash the guest room sheets, but somehow Ken had managed to compile an entire load of clothes for me to do in addition to the sheets. HOW?

3) This extra hour thing is the best invention ever. My body is telling me it's 4:30, but the clock is telling me it's 3:30. Just when I think I've dicked the entire day away, I realize that it's not as bad as I thought. I wish we could turn the clocks back an hour every Saturday night.

4) The house is quiet. Very quiet. Ken flew out on a business trip first thing this morning and I've had the whole house to myself all day. There's nothing better than a mental health day. They're so good, I'm taking tomorrow off of work, too, and vegging out. I can't tell you the last time I had two days to myself with nothing to do. No work, (mostly) no chores, no human interaction. I'm soaking up the quiet. I caught up on everything on the dvr and once that was over, the iPod took the place of the tv. This is great. My plan for tonight is to watch my stories (Amazing Race and Charm School... I'm ticked I forgot to tape the preview showing this moorning) and hopefully finish up the second season of Dynasty. I've got two episodes left and I can get through those pretty easily. (Season three is on my Christmas list)

5) I noticed I'm just a few visits shy of having 6000 page hits since installing the visit counter back in March. That blows my mind. Six thousand visits? Thank you for visiting! I mean it.

How was your Sunday?

Challenge

I want to try to post a blog a day all month. I was just laying in bed watching tv when I thought that I want to do this, so I got up and this is all I'm writing today. I have one more episode of Dynasty Season Two to get through tonight.