The First Day of the Rest of My Life

Monday, November 29, 2004

Now THIS is the type of relationship I'd like to have...

Saturday, November 27, 2004

THINGS TO BLOG ABOUT WHEN I HAVE TIME:

- Aggies.
- My holiday wishlist.
- Dating and ranting.

Monday, November 22, 2004

FINALLY!

Someone feels my pain.

Sunday, November 21, 2004

Random Cool Blog of the Night:

Shipwrecked and Comatose.

To finish my review:

The main character, Jay, seemed to not be too believeable. For a guy that hasn't had much religion in his life up until this point, he wasn't much of a "regular" guy. No talk of drinking adult beverages, no talk of sex. (For a Texas Ex, that's hard to believe.)

As far as the romantic interest that drives the main plotline, even that left me wanting. Felt like a romantic comedy, only without the romance. From my count, there was one cheek-peck, and one hand-hold. If this was to make sure than Christian bookstores, then mission accomplished. I kept waiting for the cinematic kiss at the end.

If I bought the rights to this book, that'd be something I'd fix. Make a decent movie, put it on PAX, maybe the Hallmark Channel.

All in all, not a great book, not a horrible book. Don't know if I'll read the sequel, but a decent read.

Saturday, November 20, 2004

So I finished Flabbergasted last night.

And to be honest, I still don't know what to think about it.

The book follows Jay, a 20-something stock broker, who, after being transferred to Greenville, S.C., tries to meet women at a Presbyterian singles group. After a couple of meetings, he decides to go on a group-sponsored weekend trip to Mytrle Beach, which in turn sets off a very random chain of events.

The author, Ray Blackston, does a very nice job painting scenery. Many times during the book, I could clearly see the background portraits he was painting. But, as with the movie "What Dreams May Come", the picture only does so much. The story is just light enough, with enough serious moments to make the story worthwhile. One of the reviews printed on the book referred to it as a male Bridget Jones's Diary. I suppose that's somewhat accurate, only with a lot less lusting. (None, to be exact.) And that's the part that got to me a little bit. And I'll get to that soon. Now, I need to get to church myself.

Friday, November 19, 2004

June 17, 2003:

"I found this guy's blog and started reading it and decided immediately that someday somebody needs to make him the star of a novel. I thought of the guy in that book I read, Flabbergasted, but he's not quite like that. Anyway, I like this guy, at least his online self."

November 18, 2004:

Started reading said book last night, after everyone left for the night. Not too bad, so far. Not great, but not bad either. If I were one to read on the beach, this would be a decent selection.

Full review coming soon...

So the dinner party went pretty well. Two of my guests couldn't make it (thanks to Southwest Airlines), so it ended up being four of us. The main course was Shrimp Fra Diavolo, thanks to the fine folks at the Food Network. Along with my strawberries, and three bottles of wine, a good time was had by all.

One thing I had trouble with: after covering the strawberries with the chocolate, I put them on a cookie sheet, and put them in the fridge to harden up. When the time came for eating them, a lot of the chocolate stuck to the pan, causing some people to scrape the chocolate off with kinfes. (There was at least one bona fide choc-a-holic in the group.) Any suggestions on how to avoid this in the future?

Tuesday, November 16, 2004

So I'm hosting a dinner party for five friends on Thursday. I haven't figured out what I'm going to make yet. I know my world-famous chocolate-covered strawberries will be made. (Maybe this time, I'll actually use chocolate instead of the almond bark I've used in the past.)

The only restriction on menu I have is pork and green peppers. Any suggestions from my more domestic (or domesticated) readers on recipies to impress?

I thought I had a handle on this. I guess I was wrong.

You may remember when anxiety and panic first became a part of my life. Well, it seems to be back. In a much lesser degree than when it first started, but it's still something I'm having to deal with.

Basically, I've been having somewhat of an existential crisis of late. "Why am I here?" and "What'll happen to me when I die?" have been the more popular questions to float around in my head. I've tried to go back to what happened when previous episodes occured, and came up with some similarities. One, lack of sleep. For the past few weeks, I haven't gotten to sleep until around 1 or 2 in the morning. Two, lack of church. Didn't go to mass this past weekend. What gets me is that even when I did go to church and sleep more regularly, it didn't seem to help. Maybe I need to get back on the meds I was taking (how emo of me), maybe I need to try something else. Since my folks are heading out of town this evening for a few days, guess there's no time like the present.

Monday, November 15, 2004

So I met up with V and C, along with my old roommate, at a bar on Friday night. Two things struck me as interesting...

While V and I were out on the dance floor, jamming out to the tunes of one of S.A.'s more popular cover bands, her eyes lit up at something that appeared on the TV screen above us. I turned around to see what it was, it was a commercial for McDonald's McGriddles. A few minutes before, she heaped all sorts of praise on the aforementioned breakfast treat. I just had to laugh. The fact that one person can derive so much pleasure from something like that just kills me.

Secondly, the bar itself. In the men's room, there's a poster that details the air filtration system in the place. Apparently, this thing has been broken for months. Used to be that I'd go there, and not leave with that stale secondhand smoke smell that would stay with me, my clothes, and my bed linens until my next shower. But the last few times I've been there, even if I'm only there on a "quiet night," (Thursday, ironically) I'll come out smelling like I finished the third shift at Phillip Morris. I'm not one to make customer complaints (though I am getting tired of going to that place all the time), but I may make an exception if this keeps up.

As you were...

Tuesday, November 09, 2004

Okay, maybe I have been a little bitchy lately. Hopefully, that'll change with this little tidbit. My new dream job?

"Best Week Ever" panelist.

It'd be the best job... ever!

Sunday, November 07, 2004

Allow me to elaborate...

- The job search is really sucking ass right about now. So much so, that my folks are bringing up the idea of grad school. Now three things are keeping me from jumping at this idea. One, my GPA. (I graduated by the skin of my teeth.) Two, the GRE. (Haven't taken it yet.) Three, my lack of excitment about the subject. I've never claimed to be an academic, and after reading stuff like this (check the comments), I seriously doubt that I'd have the ganas to get a Master's. Basically, I'm in the same funk that I was in two years ago. And unless another 24-hour news station launches here in town, I doubt that it'll end anytime soon.

- The novel writing is really sucking ass right now. I had one decent streak of writing, followed by several subsequent attempts cut short by writer's block. Truth be told, this is usually how I deal with large tasks lately: go gung ho for a short period of time, hit some sort of minor slipup, and quit altogether.

Here's hoping both streaks end soon...

Saturday, November 06, 2004

THINGS TO BLOG ABOUT WHEN I HAVE MORE TIME:
-Transformation.
-Becoming a writer. (Or trying to...)
-Job searching.

Tuesday, November 02, 2004

Well, I finally voted.

Went to a nearby middle school (one I would have attended had my family stayed in S.A.), stood in line for about 10 minutes or so, and buried my face into one of those elctronic voting kiosks. (That's a funny word: kiosk...kiosk) Overheard one person having difficulty with her ballot (she pressed the wrong language button and got her ballot in Spanish). The elderly gentleman observing everyone asked me if everything was okay with me when he saw me reading something at my kiosk. (I brought a League of Women Voter's guide with me.) But after a few minutes, I had exercised my right.

Now I get to sit through the recounts and court cases. In the meantime, follow this advice from one of the guest InstaPundits (via Volokh).

Monday, November 01, 2004

Day One of NaNoWriMo:

Less than an hour of writing, and 332 words down. At this rate, I should hit 50K in five months. Some peeps are blogging their novels, I'm gonna hold off on making anything public until I actually finish the thing. But here's the opening passage to wet your whistle.

He’d been here before. Or he thought that he did. Either this was really happening, or he was flashing back to a scene from one of those Skinemax movies he would always watch whenever he wasn’t feeling so high on himself. The sweat on his brow felt real enough. He recognized the Cure CD playing on the bookshelf system in this modest bedroom. The chest he was looking at sure looked real.

“There should be more talking right now,” he thought. “Witty banter, dirty talking… hell, I’ll take her reading the sports scores from the TV. I still need to know how the Tigers did tonight.” But those thoughts soon gave way to those of pure mechanics. He quickly went through his checklist of movements in his repertoire, mentally checking off which ones would be included in his performance tonight. “Can’t do my specialty tonight,” he angrily muttered under his breath. He kept telling himself he should have stretched before his last softball game. No triple was worth going without his special move.

His companion caught sight of this, but before she could say anything, he went into his routine. His performance was more mechanical, more like an Olympic diver in the prelims, making sure the degree of difficulty was just enough to impress the judge to go on to the medal round. He started into his routine, but then noticed something was off. “That track doesn’t sound like that,” he thought, noticing the oddly repeating four-note pattern coming from the CD. Four guitar strums, then silence, then another four strums, repeating ad nauseum. He’d heard this rhythm before. “Wait a minute, this sounds a lot like my…”

As the sunlight glistened through Tony’s window, the familiar four-beat strain of his alarm clock welcomed him to another Tuesday morning. As he struggled to reach the snooze button, one thought came into his mind, one that did not bode well for the rest of the day: “Damnit, time to wash the sheets again.”


Any (con/de) structive criticism is welcome.