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I’m at a time in my life where birthday’s don’t really phase me much – hell, I’ve already got the gray hair and the balding spot on the back of my head which is not a topic for discussion. So, birthdays are not a big deal – except for one thing.

I think that birthday’s are a time for family and friends – not a bunch of loud strangers bellowing out a brutalized version of happy (insert resturant name here) birthday with poorly organized hand clapping.

So, if you’re out to dinner with me at any time around my birthday – whatever you do, don’t have all the servers come over and sing for me. I’m not going to like it.

With this in mind – and a warning to those having dinner with me – we went out to dinner for my birthday to Macaroni Grill. The food is always good and the bread is… oh, the bread is wonderful. I polished off 1.5 loaves all by myself.

Our server came around toward the end of the meal – once we had totally gorged ourselves – chided my lightly since I didn’t finish my asparagas (though I acutally enjoy it and would have eaten all of them first except that they tasted like charcoal and lighter fluid. I would have complained, but I just wanted to leave and go home and digest).

She also asked if we wanted dessert – I shook my head no and so did my friend who shall remain nameless (the fate of the guilty). Friend also then added – clearly without thinking – “No, we’ve got cake…” – they pointed at me – “waiting at hom…”

They servers eyes – already wide enough to suggest insanity under normal circumstances – widened even further. My guilty friend – realizing the terrible and potentially dangerous mistake they had made – grabbed the server and dragged her down into the booth. They spent the next few minutes doing everything possible to convince the server not to sing – even begging her to forget that she had heard anything.

For my part – I was resigned to my vocal fate. The food – except for the asparagas – was good and I was stuffed. And there was cake to be considered later. So, I wasn’t going to unleash any of my dark and terrible wrath.

Meanwhile, a compromise was reached. The server would bring cake, with a lit candle, but she swore that no one would be singing. I wasn’t entirely convinced, but I had already decided it was out of our hands. She left and came back withe promised chocolate cake, one lit candle, and no singing.

She was tipped well.

Later,we discoved that we had been charged $.01 for the cake – and that it didn’t taste very good.

Still, overall – a good birthday dinner. And now it’s time to get…

Wait, nearly forgot. I got a papermaking kit for christmas and finally got ahold of a blender – so, yesterday I made about 10 sheets of paper with the kit. Worked pretty well – only had one go “bad”. I’ll make more for sure and I’m considering taking some pictures – but I’m pretty sure it’ll just look like a piece of paper. Which, by itself, is not really that cool.

Okay, now I’m done… back to work…

Friday the 13th, full moon. My 33rd birthday. I don’t really feel any older or anything, it’s not really a milestone. Should be pretty low-key; dinner, cake, and presents. Well, hopefully presents. 🙂

I found out that my co-worker’s daughter has a birthday today too – so I made her an origami dragon with the “good” paper. It’s kind of pearl-green thing – pretty cool.

It’s Orlando Bloom’s birthday today too – but I don’t have his address to send him a dragon.

Let’s see… who else? Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Robert Stack, Patrick Dempsey, Penelope Ann Miller… I’m going to need more paper if they all stop over.

In other news… I found a good storage container and ChewieII is sleeping comfortably in my freezer. What? You thought I was kidding about Cryo-sleep for the wookie?

And I guess that’s about it. Hopeing for a quiet, low stress day – we’ll see how it goes. Back to work…

I have a round “tin” of Ice Breakers mints on my desk (cool mint) that I indulge in before meetings. Seems like the polite thing to do. The tin has two openings – one labeld “to share” and the other labeled “not to share”. The “to share” has a much bigger opening – a clear signal for generosity. However, even though I’m the only one who eats these, the “not to share” side is impossible to use. The opening is too small and the mints seem wedged in there pretty solid on that side. So even though I’m not sharing, I still have to them from the “to share” side – and feel vaguely guilty about it. Though it’s not like I can force the mints on people.

“I have horrible breath! Hurry, take a mint so I can have one too!”

In other news… I clean when I’m stressed. I think its one of those “impose order from chaos” kinda things. I’ve been really stressed for a variety of reasons for the past several days – to the point where I rearragned my book shelves and cleaned out my closets. There are some who would suggest that I remain stressed and keep cleaning, and while that would help the apartment, I’m not sure my own physiology could maintain it. For the record, I’ve got two copypaper boxes full of books I’m getting rid of, I’ve lost count of the trash bags of trash to be tossed, and 5 bags of clothes that I’m giving to goodwill.

Finally, I had a dream last night that I was riding a small cart down a trail toward work – but I stopped at a coffe shop for muffins. That’s not the weird part. I got up to pee, then fell asleep again. Then I dreamed that I was telling someone about the first dream – and that I was barefoot. Needless to say (but I’ll say it anyway) I was very confused when I woke up.

That’s it for now, back to work…

First up – terrible news. The Flash – the finest comic produced by DC Comics – is being cancelled this month. It’s supposed to re-launch this summer, but it’s going to be a long winter and a longer spring while I wait.

I won an ebay auction for a backup wookie – in case the wear and tear on the traveling orginal proves to be too much for him. ChewieII, as he’ll be known, will be put in cryo-sleep when he arrives.

I got a new playstation 2 for christmas and it’s allowed me to play some games that I hadn’t be able to with my aging PS2. One of those games is Lego Star Wars – hilarious. The little lego dudes can use The Force to move around other legos and solve puzzles. The lightsaber battles are cool too.

I also fired up an old game called Okage: Shadow King. I’ve played a couple of hours of it, but I think I’m going to stop and sell the game. It’s…boring. The storyline has promise, the writing is good – but there are a number of elements that make it nearly unplayable.

1. There’s a significant load time when going from room to room in any building or town. And 98% of those rooms are empty, or occupied by an idiot. The time spent just trying to find something useful is terrible.

2. The hero fights his first boss battle with a stick. Not a mystical sword, not a potent spell, no might armor. A stick. First time in – and I got killed. And this was before I’d figured out the save points – so, I had to start over from the beginning.

3. The first dungon has the second boss, who I defeated fairly easily. Then I saved, went back, and battled some ordinary monsters. Did one point of damage, then got poisoned, put to sleep, and killed in the next turn.

4. If I have to battle one more random demon chicken, I might lose it.

I should just eject the disk and go back to Xmen II where I belong.

I was in a couple of stores over the weekend and was amazed again at the lack of awareness. I didn’t realize I would need the reflexes of Spider-man to navigate a grocery store without being run over. After some careful study, I think I have figured out why it’s so dangerous.

A. Shoppers are distracted by the bright lights and shiny colors.
B. Each one is given a steel cage on wheels with primative steering – and they navigate the store by pushing this weapon in front of them.
C. There are no traffic signals or arrows on the floor – no defined right of way.

Randomly moving, distracted people with weapons. Why not give them all shotguns as they walk in? Might save some time.

Also over the weekend – I helped a friend of mine’s aunt with a computer problem. It was, thankfully, not something I could fix – since the fix would have involved 1.5 hours of a download to install. It was AOL’s problem and I got out of there with a sigh of relief. Now, I like helping people with stuff – but sitting around watching a computer download some software is not my idea of a rip roaring good time. I got some notes together for when she calls AOL and I think that put her on the right track.

I’m in the process of cleaning up my spare bedroom/library – since it’s a cluttered mess. Of course, this has led to utter chaos through the entire upstairs as I decompress the room in order to organize it. The chaos is still there, and I fell down the stairs when I tripped over some clutter this morning in a desperate attempt to reach the bathroom. I’m okay, if you’re concerned.

That’s it for now… back to work..

Sounds almost like a destination – and I guess I did a bit of traveling. Here’s the recap…

Friday before last, headed down to visit my folks. I stopped off at my sister’s new office – a cube farm like mine, but far less oppressive. And she’s got a window too. We were supposed to meet mom and dad for lunch after they picked up the christmas ham – but they got lost and were delayed. There’s some debate on who’s fault it is – and it’s better if we just leave that undefined.

Christmas with the folks was good – got some cool stuff and had fun. We did brave Walmart the day before christmas, which was scary – but otherwise good.

After christmas, we loaded up and headed to visit the rest of my extended family. My grandmother’s house was pretty well full once we had all gotten there and we got a little loud. My dad entertained the crew with magic tricks and we all had fun.

Also visited some of my mom’s family – my cousin just recently had a baby girl who’s just amazingly cute. Her eyes are this amazing blue – and wider then they could pull off in Village of the Dammed. It was a good thing, trust me.

My sister and I headed back on wednesday – she had to work. We were all pretty well scattered for New Year’s – I spent most of it watching movies – and saw a little of the Dick Clark special.

A few comments:

Ryan Seacrest got Dick Clark’s name wrong near the end – on national television.

Mariah Carrey was at her most sluttly. And she totally lip-synced. Whatever happened to the ultra-high-note Mariah we all loved?

Dick Clark… you know, I read somewhere that people were applauding his courage. I feel for the guy, but it was uncomfortable to watch him. Just my opinion.

And now I’m back to work…though I’m not really sure how to proceed. I got a lot of things wrapped up before the holidays and the boss is off today. Still, we never really slow down here…so I’m sure I’ve got something waiting for me in my email.

That’s it for now…later…

I went and gave blood again yesterday – and again, it took quite a while. I think I was there for about an hour and a half, most of that spent waiting. They were understaffed and didn’t anticipate the number of people coming in. I even saw one guy get all the way to the waiting area just before you give blood – and then he left. All that waiting, and he couldn’t wait a little longer – he was even next when the left.

Fortunatly, the guy that took my history also came over to help with the donatation area – and I didn’t have any problems getting the tubes filled, though a lady that was there did.

In other news…I tried the burger king Chicken Fries. Eh, they’re just chicken strips. And they tasted okay.

Also made a trip to the comic book store. While getting the latest issue of the Flash, I also picked up some dice for one of those DVD “Scene it” games that I’ve played recently. The dice that came with the game are too big and they don’t shake well in a person’s hand. So, we kept rolling the same number and catagory. I’ll need to paint/label one of them, but that’s minor. The 6 and 8 sided were for the game – the 20 was just for “coolness”. It harkens back to the days of dungons and dragons and getting better outcomes for rolling high numbers. I didn’t really play dungeons and dragons, but I’m geeky enough that I should have. Anyway, I saw a t-shirt that said, simply, “I roll twenties”. I thought it was funny, so I got myself a 20 sided die, just in case I need a little extra power or smarts. Or something, I’m not entirely sure why I bought it. Still, for an impulse buy, it only cost me 80 cents.

And last night while doing the laundry – the $#@#()* dryer vent fell off again. I did a little swearing and put it back on. So, my basement is warm, but that’s about it. Not even sure why I keep bothering – I should just replace the damn thing with a regular hose and be done with it.

Well, I guess that’s it for now. Time to get back to work…

It’s “Take your wookie to work day” again – this time, Chewie is sporting his new sweater.

Silly wookie.

In other news…a .5 liter coke bottle will not fit in my cup holder in my car. Coming into work, it leaped out of the protective confines of the cup holder and vaulted to the floorboards. It was still closed, fortunatly, but still annoying.
Again, no issues in opening it.

Finally, I had to call my sister last night. I got a christmas card that had glitter on it – and the glitter of course got on my hands. My sister has glitter, ummm… “issues” and she was the first one I thought to call to help get it off me. She suggested that I not touch anything and immediately scrub my hands. But by that point I had already touched the phone and the phone had touched my head – setting off a mock panic attack for both of us. It was pretty funny.

Well, that’s it for now…back to work.

In the news today we’ve got:

The NSA spying on America
The president apoligizing for the war
and the House voting to cut health and social programs.

Of those three, the apology upsets me the most. Mainly because it’s so empty. Do we really believe that he’s sorry? Do we really believe he’s taking responsiblity?

Nope. And the thing that really gets me is that he’s still not doing anything to end the war and bring our troups home – troups that shouldn’t have ever been deployed there.

I think that someone saying “I’m sorry,” by itself, isn’t saying much. People should follow an apology with an attempt to make things right. Repair what’s broken. He’s still doing the same things and making the same mistakes.

Along those lines, I saw a T-Shirt with a big “W” on it – the label was “Worst Ever”

In other news…my school has a new slogan that actually makes me vaguely interested in the sports teams. “Fear the Roo”. 🙂

In still other news… I had what I think was a cluster headache over the weekend that I mostly slept through. Woke up in the middle of the night having to pee and with a headache. Took care of what needed to be taken care of – then went back to sleep somehow. I woke up with a bit of a headache and that soon faded out to the sharp stabbing pain that only manifests when I cough. And today, that’s nearly gone too. I guess if I’m going to keep having these, at least I slept through this one.

That’s it for now – time to get back to work…

This morning, while I was getting into my car, I set my bottle of soda on the roof so that I could check to see if I needed to scrape my windshield or if I could just brush it off. Instead of putting my soda in the car – as I should have – I left it there and reached in to start the engine and get my scraper. The ice on the roof – with the vibrations of the engine – caused my plastic bottle of soda to fly off the roof, hit the ground, slide under the car next to mine and come to a rest in a snowbank.

So, I went around and picked it up – there was a lot of foam at the top, but the bottle was undamaged. And on the way to work, I sort of forgot about how shaken up it was and that I should be careful. I twisted off the cap at my desk and…

…nothing happened. It was fine. The soda must have settled down somehow during the car ride. Strangest thing.

Last evening, I went to get my car e-checked since my registration is due in January. And if I did it in 2005 to avoid the long lines, it would be free instead of the ususal $19.50

Now, I’m not sure how the line lenght is going to be differnt from year to year – but free is better than 20 bucks. There was no line when I pulled up and my car passed. Took maybe 7 minutes total and I was on the road with my certification in hand.

I had been a little concerned since there had been issues with the cars computer and the oxygen sensor, but they must have been electical ghosts and didn’t affect the tests.

This morning, I had to pass up a prime parking spot at work since some dufus had backed into their space – and done a poor job of it. This is one of the many things that annoy me. If you’re going to take the extra time to back into a space – do it well so that you don’t mess things up for anyone else. And frankly – you’re not Batman. You don’t need to fly screaming out of your parking space to chase down the bad guys. Get over yourself.

This past week, I’ve been taking a closer look at my phone bill. I was concerned about the amount I was paying for my local service and the plan I had wasn’t really what I needed. So, I called them up and looked for options. They couldn’t offer any savings on intraLATA calls and the unlimited residence service, even with all the extra stuff removed, was still over 20 bucks. I ended up saving 5 bucks, but I’ve got no features on my phone. Hell, if it was any simpler I’d be using bare copper wires or tin cans and string. And it’s still over 20 bucks + all the the federal fees and charges.

I’m strongly considering giving up on a land line entirely and going the cell phone route.

Now, before you get all up in arms – keep in mind that my biggest concern with those things has been the people that use them. I’d be getting a simple phone with a simple plan and using it primarly from home.

The very notion still makes me queasy, but the merger of SBC and AT&T doesn’t give me hope for better customer service or reduced prices.

And I guess that’s it for now. Have a good weekend and I’ll get back to work…

I had to make a trip to the supermarket last night to get supplies for the holiday party dessert I was making. As I headed toward the entrance, I heard/saw two people sitting just past the soda machines outside, having a smoke break. As I came past the machines and into their view, one of them threw a cigerette at me.

Now, I know that they were already throwing the cigerette when I came into view and they didn’t hit me – the cig landed between my steps. I shot them about half a glare since no damage was done and if I got really worked up every time someone did something stupid in my presence I’d be in jail now.

They shouting an “I’m sorry” as I walked on. I think one of them was still out there when I left after getting my few items.

And of course I forgot one thing I needed – so later that evening I walked down to the Circle K and picked it up – then walked back.

For those interested – the dessert I made is as follows.

27 Ho-ho’s
1 large package of Jello Chocolate Pudding (with three cups of milk)
24 crumbled shortbread cookies
1 full container of cool whip

Yeah, it’s evil, but I only make it once a year – so, it’s okay.

That’s it for now, gotta go do some work…