Jul 07 2010

Softball News

The late night softball game did not help my fatigue today.  I felt like a zombie, blowing through calls and closing cases out.  But anyway, I wanted to talk about my line from last night, because it’s a crazy one:

1 hit in 1 at-bat.  3 runs batted in.  3 bases on balls (walks).  4 hits-by-pitch. 1 error.

What does this mean for the uninitiated?  It means that I got hit by a pitch four times.  In slow-pitch beer league softball, when you get hit by a pitch, you don’t get a free pass to first base.  This is unusual, because I always understood the rules to mean that if you get hit, it’s automatically a walk.  Every league, except this one, follows that rule.  It was bizarre to a not so lesser degree when I got hit by a pitch TWICE in the same AT-BAT!  I’m not kidding.  Guy plunks me on the first pitch, then he plunks me for ball four, and I’m looking at the ump, wondering when he’s going to toss this guy.  Last game, I got hit 3 times, and two other batters also took hits, including one of our women players, when she got plunked in the leg.

So, I drew 3 walks.  And also, in slow-pitch, if there’s a girl on deck, if you walk the batter to get to the girl, the batter gets TWO bags, not one.  So three times, I was standing on second base.  The first time I drew the walk, it was bases loaded, so I got 2 RBI off of it.  I got the third RBI on my single to left.  Even though we lost the game by 11 runs, it was a much better deficit than our previous games.  Scoring 10 runs was a big improvement over our last game (we scored 6), and the previous game when we scored 3.  I’m seeing this as an improvement on our ability to drive the ball in.

I’m looking forward to next week’s game… I just kind of wish more people would come out to see us play. :/

Jul 06 2010

Sleeplessness

For the past couple of nights, I’ve kind of been finding myself staying up late into the morning hours.  I often find myself still awake and not really able to go to sleep.  I haven’t changed much to my routine, but it kind of feels like the same sleeping pattern I fell into when I was in college and working for Acer back in 1995.  I would stay up real late one night, then sleep early the next, and go back and forth.  Of course, back then, my nights off were split and not together like my weekends are.

What have I been doing on those nights?  Writing.  I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but I’m going to take it as a good thing for now, considering that I’ve been pretty much on a dry spell for writing in the last forty-five days.  Untitled #55 has most of my attention lately, and I’m eager to bring it to a close so I can move on to other things.  In the meantime, though, I can’t write if I’m utterly exhausted.  Tonight, however, I will be playing a softball game and I only got like 3 hours’ sleep last night.  I will definitely be tired tonight.  I just hope I’m not completely zonked by the end of the game!

In other news, I started my sit-up program yesterday and will be continuing tomorrow.  I did 93 reps.  I want to push that to 125, if I can.  Push-ups are tonight before the game.  This is our last game of the spring season.  Wish me luck.

Jul 05 2010

On the Writing Front

Before I begin: Look!  New header graphic!  I decided that since I’m restarting things a little bit, I’d spruce up the place with a change in the header.  It’s subdued, isn’t it?  I was going for something a little low-key, in light of the previous graphic, which was white on black, with a pixelated graphic of Jet Black from Cowboy Bebop.  This time, it’s a colorful graphic of the man, leaning against the wall.  Took me forever to do the neon graphic on the right-hand side, though.

Also: Facebook peeps can now auto-connect to this blog, using their login information.  I don’t save any information for commenting.  It’s all handled by the Facebook API.  The only way I save your info is if you register for an account here on the WordPress site.  Oh, and LJ folks will have to come to WordPress to comment, as I have disabled comments on LJ.  I’m trying to drive traffic here to my WP site.  But don’t worry, OpenID is here to save the day!  It’s all good here at jetblack’s place!

Now, on to the original topic of this post…

So most or some of you are aware that I write.  Relative to the beginning of this year, I managed to finish a lingering short story from the previous year (2009), and I’m actually in the middle of another short story I’m submitting to an archive for free, public consumption (ie: I’m not selling it).  It’s a romance piece, written under a pseudonym I will not mention on this blog.  But I wanted to talk about how I’m enjoying this forward momentum and I hope to use that momentum into writing another piece and then one more after that.  After all, one of my new year’s resolutions (see previous post) is to write 10 shorts and 2 novels by my next birthday.

My writing blog has quite a bit of dust covering it, and I’ll be honest… I only use it for the original science-fiction stuff.  But with the current pieces I’m writing, there’s no real outlet for me to detail my progress and kind of keep some sort of openly visible accountability.  Here’s as good as any place, so I’ve installed some progress meters and Works in Progress updates on the sidebar to the left.  I’m using Untitled #55 as a code name for my current paranormal story… because the title isn’t set, yet.  Kind of scary that I have had that many writing projects started (not all of them finished, either) in my untitleds directory.  I’ll write more about why I number the new stories in such a fashion in a later post.  Some of you have already heard it.

If you’re reading this on Livejournal, you’re probably noticing that all of a sudden, I’m posting there.  Well, it’s really because of exposure, but also, I kind of miss connecting with my friends on LJ.  Since I moved off, I haven’t had much in the way of people commenting (and also, I lost my drive to actually post, which precludes commenting in the first place, right?), and I felt like I was shouting into this void with no one listening.  Of course, in the end, it’s more about writing and just thinking out loud sometimes.  So, here I am.

Jul 04 2010

34th New Year’s Resolutions

One of the new years’ resolutions I’m going to try and stick to for one year from the Fourth of July is to blog at least once a day (either publicly or privately).  So this means that sometimes you’ll see a post from me and sometimes you won’t.  This particular resolution will be judged solely by me.  But, I guess I should maybe talk a little bit more about what’s been going on lately:

  • I recently celebrated my 34th birthday about two weeks ago on the nineteenth.  I was very heartened to have a large number of friends show up for the party and we had a lot of fun, into the wee hours of the night and actually on to the next day.
  • Shocking News: I managed to stay employed with the same company for more than a year.  In fact, on July 7th, I’ll be celebrating Year Two with this company!  I haven’t done that since 2002, when I was with PayPal.
  • One of my best friends moved up here from Fresno and is now living right next door in his own place.
  • Since my last post, we’ve moved into a house, which is infinitely better than an apartment.
  • I staffed Fanime in May, which was one of the things I swore I would never do again, but Rob was rather convincing and since Japan-A-Radio was there, it made sense to bring me on to staff.
  • I’m playing and managing my company’s softball team.  I’m having a lot of fun with it, even though we’re in second-to-last place in our division.
  • I’ve lost some weight, but I don’t know how much.

As with every birthday, I use June 19th to set some resolutions for the new year.  I took a break from resolutions for my 33rd year, which was a gift to myself.  But now that I’m 34, I’ve decided to make some and see how long before I break them.  Here they are, in no particular order:

  1. I am resolved to write a blog post every day for a year.  The blog posts can be public or private.
  2. I am resolved to lose at least 25 pounds this year.
  3. I am resolved to restart and maintain my sit-up and push-up program for the next six months.
  4. I am resolved to do cardio three times a week (DDR, swimming, cycling).
  5. I am resolved to finish writing two novels and ten short stories this year.
  6. I am resolved to winning National Novel Writing Month for 2010.
  7. I am resolved to not bite off more than I can chew.  My wife knows what that means.

I’m not asking for people to help me with these.  I know I have enough self-discipline to carry this out, and I’ll see it through to the end.  With my recent softball experience, I’m noticing that my weight has become a hindrance to my performance on the field, and since we’re all going to continue playing over the summer, I want to be able to do more.  Besides, pretty soon I’ll be 40 and that’ll be it for me, even for recreational softball leagues… unless I get back down to a manageable size.  My wife will help me where I need it, and that’s really all I can ask for.

On a less serious note, I’d like to go to more Giants games.  Especially now that Shon’s here full time.  We really need to take him up to church so he can worship with me at the Altar of Bonds.  Maybe I’ll convert him to my baseball “cult.”

In site news: I upgraded this thing to WP 3.0 — it’s actually pretty awesome.

How’s your summer going?

Feb 11 2009

Meme Alert: Twenty-Five Examples of Random Crap About Me

If I tagged you, the instructions are that once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you.

1. I can tie a cherry stem into a knot with my tongue.  This has not endeared me to the ladies as much as I had hope, but I did pretty well.  And I didn’t need to tie the stem in front of her to get her to marry me, either.

2. I currently have two radio shows on the same station.  One is the Unwound show, the other is called “WTF.”  If you’re wondering where the hell I find the time, your guess is as good as mine.  All I can say is, both of them are too much fun to give up.  We’ll see how long I can sustain all this before I start putting one or the other into reruns.

3. I can quote whole lines of dialogue from several movies and TV shows on demand.

4. There is no four.  Four is bad luck.  And I’m not really superstitious.

5. On a whim, I paved over my primary partition and loaded Windows 7 Beta.  I’m kind of half-regretting it and half-elated about it.  Depends on what happens when I boot it up that will affect my mood.  Right now, it’s working, so let’s try not to piss it off, okay?

6. I can (apparently) imitate Meatwad from Aqua Teen Hunger Force.  And George Takei.  When I was a kid, I once did an impression of Scotty at a Star Trek convention that brought down the house.  I won a prize bag of cool stuff, including a hat with Spock ears pasted onto it.

7. I like the thrill of live radio over recorded shows.  There’s a kind of rush you get when you’re on the spot all the time, and for some reason I think much better when the pressure is on.

8. I miss convention road trips.

9. I’m a sucker for any decent romantic comedy.  Animated or live action.

10. I love dorama night, but I hate it when people don’t give me a definite yes/no answer when I invite them.  I don’t understand.  Is it because you’re waiting for something better to come along that you have to wait until the last minute to disappoint me and say no?

11. I’m sad that one of my best friends lives 3 hours away from me, now.  I miss hanging out with him every day.  Can’t believe he’s looking to buy a damn house out there, now.  That’s just going to make it permanent, right?

12. I would like to visit Japan.  Check things out, see what’s up.

13. I don’t plan on going to any of my high school reunions.  I really don’t want to compare lives and explain why I never want children or why I’m agnostic or why I didn’t go into vocal music…  Besides, I keep in touch with the people I was close to pretty well, anyway.

14. I would love to staff a convention again someday.  But only if my crew comes with, otherwise it would be pointless.

15. I once unleashed a flock of pigeons on three unsuspecting souls in a room at the Disneyland Hotel in 2000.  Anime Expo has never been the same.

16. I wish I could quit my job and write full-time.  Something tells me, though, that this is more of a grass-is-always-greener situation.

17. Contrary to popular belief, my family doesn’t need children in it in order to be a family.  I’m perfectly happy with my wife and our “daughter” C.J.

18. I would really like to spend one week doing nothing but hanging out with Julia, my friends, my cat… watching anime.  One weeklong marathon of awesome, just like in the old days!

19. I’m really glad that Dave is hanging out with us more often, now.  I really missed him a lot.

20. It took one lunch date to fall in love with Julia.

21. I sleep with music or TV shows playing softly.  When I sleep without something on, I usually end up having a nightmare.

22. I drive a Prius, now.  I’m obsessed with my mileage; you have no idea.

23. I’m an audiophile.  Even though people say that can’t hear a difference, I can tell between 256kbps and 320kbps.

24. My favorite movie of all time is still Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

25. This isn’t the last one, because I didn’t do one for number four, but I love any/all forms of the game Monopoly.  I usually kick ass at it, too.

26. The best alarm clock you could ask for is either a cat purring loudly while it sleeps on top of you, or the first kiss from your wife.

Oct 20 2008

Obama and Me

Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve written here.

I’ve since joined the Obama for America campaign as an IT specialist for the field offices in the area.  I have been helping them in deploying new field offices in South San Francisco and East Palo Alto, where lots of people came in and made over 10,000 calls to New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado, and Indiana.  It’s been a lot of fun, but the one question I keep getting from some people that I see occasionally, is why.

With the exception of a couple of years of Republican registration, followed by Libertarianism, I’ve been a registered Democrat.  I was raised by a Republican father, and a Democratic mother.  My father and I sided with Reagan in 84 and Bush in 88, I voted Republican during the midterms in 94 and then switched parties in 96 to vote for Bill Clinton, before being convinced by my then-fiancee, Stephanie, to register Libertarian in 98.  Back then, I’ll be honest, I wasn’t crazy about politics even though I stayed in touch with what was going on.  After we split up, I did not re-register for a while there until the Bush v. Gore election of 2000.  I switched back to the Democrats, because the religious right had a nice, tight stranglehold on the Republican party.  I’m a firm believer in the separation of church and state, and I feel that faith and politics have their places… just not in the same place.

Simply put, I’m not supporting Barack Obama because he’s the Democratic candidate for President.  In fact (and you can ask my wife), I wasn’t all that impressed by Obama during the primary season.  The one guy I wanted to run (Wes Clark), didn’t, and ended up supporting Hillary Clinton, instead.  As much as I admired Bill, Hillary was a stark contrast to her husband and I just couldn’t back her, either.  My mother and grandmother, on the other hand, were huge Hillary fans and came down hard on Obama.  I decided, at that time, that I would wait for the dust to settle and see who came out on top.  And when Obama became the presumptive nominee, it was time for the party to unite and win this thing.

So yes… in the beginning, you might say I supported him because he won the nomination.  During the Democratic National Convention, however, as they were rolling out their platform before America, I learned a lot more about him than I did during the primaries.  The primaries were hard-fought and there was a metric asston of bullshit that flew between the candidates.  As during the general election run from the conventions, with all the mud flying, it’s really difficult to get someone’s story without it being tainted by others.  At least during those four days in Denver, there was no more bickering.  I finally got to learn and appreciate what we had in this guy, and while I really dispised Biden during the primaries… his acceptance speech really wow’ed me a great deal.  I began to see both these guys in a new light.

I have never, in my life, been energized about a presidential campaign so much as to join one.  But then again, a lot has changed since 2000 and 2004.  A little television show called “The West Wing” turned me around significantly in participating in politics.  “Decisions are made by those who show up,” struck a serious chord with me.  It has that benefit of being absolutely true.  It was high time I started showing up and putting my money where my mouth was.  This time, it wasn’t going to be enough to donate to a campaign.  This time, it wasn’t going to be enough to hope for the best while others did the groundwork for me.  This time, I’m not going to look back at another election season and say, “Damn, I should’ve done more.”  This time, I’m not going to lament the election of a shitty Republican candidate looking to further a crap agenda for an additional four years after living through the last eight and wondering if President Gore might’ve done better.  And this time, I’m not going to threaten to move to Canada when it doesn’t go the way I want it to.

This time… this time, people… I am stepping up and getting involved.  This time, I’m going to do whatever it takes to ensure that we get a president who gives a damn about those of us who don’t make millions and billions each year.  This time, I’m not going to regret not doing more, because if we lose, it won’t be because I couldn’t find the energy to get out of my chair and add my resolve, drive, and determination to those around me.  This time, good thoughts and clenched eyes would fall way short of the goal.  And this time, Election Night won’t be spent in bed lying awake, wondering if the next day will be better.

Members of my own family are voting for McCain.  I’ve had conversations, at length, and I’m convinced that they’ve chosen the lazy way out.  Being a Democrat means you give a damn about the person sitting next to you.  Being a Democrat means you care about seniors getting proper care.  Being a Democrat means you care about everyone getting health care.  Being a Democrat means that you believe in a strong ecomony driven by a strong middle class, not the failed Reaganomics of trickle-down.  Being a Democrat means you want the next generation of Americans to have a Department of Education fully funded and packed with excellent teachers, because a smarter generation means a stronger economy.  Being a Democrat means you want government to fulfill the promise of a secured future for our retirees in protecting Social Security.  Being a Democrat, in simple terms, means you’re willing to be a caring citizen of the community, not just someone living there.

We’re stronger as a team than individuals.

Sure, it’s so easy to not give a shit and think of only yourself.  That’s what Republicanism is, to me.  It’s laziness.  It’s complacency.  It’s being okay with keeping this country in a deep economic rut.  It’s being okay with racial slurs and calling someone a Muslim because you’re using the politics of fear to further your agenda.  It’s being okay with pointing out the differences between people in order to drive a wedge between them in order to quell the masses.  It’s being okay with the philosophy of name-calling when things don’t go your way.  Republicanism is selfishness.  It’s about “me, me, me.”  It is the ideal that if you don’t agree with me, then you’re instantly judged to be either a traitor to your country or inconsequential.  It’s the ideal that it takes too much energy to learn about the other side of the argument.  It’s the ideal that you hand over your ability to decide things for yourself and download Fox News en masse in order to determine your own positions on the issues because it’s easy.

It’s just too hard to try and understand for these people.

Now, in spite of my general points, I will say that I am friends with Republicans and not all of them are of this vein.  Most of the Republicans (who are not my family) are voting for Barack Obama.  They’re lifelong Republicans, too.  And I work closely with two of them… and by the way?  They made this decision on their own, long before I mentioned my campaign work.  I just wish more Republicans showed this kind of insight, to be able to reach across the party line and really read and listen to Obama’s vision for America.

It’s just too hard to try and understand, I guess.  It’s easier to use a label and dismiss.  It’s easier to be close-minded because maybe… maybe they’re afraid of being called out as a traitor themselves.  Or maybe, deep down, they’re afraid that the ideology that they cling to so fiercely… isn’t as strong as they claim.  I’ve noticed that a lot with people who claim to be Born Again Christians.  They want to convert everyone around them to make themselves feel better about this choice they’ve made.  If you’re really and truly okay with the choice you’ve made, then the way that I think and believe should not be a threat to you.

It’s not my fault you’re insecure and self-conscious about what you put your faith in.

Obama for America means just that.  It’s not Obama for Democrats.  America.  The whole country.  He’s fighting to win back the soul of this great nation.

And I’m helping him with everything I’ve got.

Won’t you join me?

Sep 01 2008

My (Unexpectedly) Expensive Weekend

The major deity of technology took a serious crap on me this weekend.

It started on Saturday morning, when we had to wake up early to go see an apartment building where we’de made an appointment to see an opening.  I went into my office and I noticed that my five year-old LCD was blank.  At first, I thought it was my computer; I thought maybe it had locked up during the night or maybe the video card died.  So, I rebooted it before doing anything else, which was stupid.  I should’ve switched ports on the KVM before trying to diagnose this further.  But no, I forced my machine to suffer an ungraceful restart, first.  it turned out that my faithful display finally stopped working.  And to be honest, I figured that five years was a good run for an LCD that had a little burn-in on it.  By the way, I didn’t realize that LCDs could burn in.

After we saw the apartment, we had breakfast and then we headed over to check out some monitors.  The place we went to, I remembered they used to have a huge flat panel display selection and when we got there, it turned out that they’d reduced it to all of six (down from over 30) and all of them were pretty damned expensive.  I was aiming for a striaght replacement (19 inch for 19 inch), but Julia and I were discussing it and it made sense to go a little bit bigger… except that adding 5 inches also seems to add a couple hundred dollars to the price.  But we decided, reluctantly, to bite the bullet and buy it anyway, because if we settled for a cheap brand and it broke down later, then we’d be out the money on it and then we’d buy a better one, spending more money in the process.  So, I now have a 24-inch display on my desk.

Here’s the kicker: the display won’t work plugged into my KVM switch anymore, but Julia plugs in her iBook and it works fine.  I’ve been in the tech industry over a decade and I’m still scratching my head over that one.  Since I have multiple computers, I need the KVM switch… or I need to buy 3 displays.

That was Saturday.  Sunday morning, we tried to hook up Julia’s iBook to the old screen and it turned out that her DVI-D wouldn’t adapt to the VGA 15-pin connector.  So off we went, back to the store to buy an adapter, except it didn’t work.  DVI-D is not the same as DVI-A, and if we wanted to get a DVI-I to work, we’d have to buy a 35 dollar cable along with it.  Since we dropped a pretty penny on the monitor, we were starting to get a little gunshy about buying more stuff, so we set it aside for now.  I mean, we weren’t even sure the old display would work, y’know?  But, while we were there, we checked out hard drives.  As you might remember, my 250gb portable drive died in June, and all the data on it is unreachable (sadface).  I considered buying a new DVD-RW drive for my system since I usually rely on Julia’s external DVD-RW.  I used to be able to use it on my system, but I switched to a new one and it doesn’t have the IEEE1394 port on it anymore… and there’s no firewire to USB adapter out there.

Hard drives were too expensive and Fry’s had a DVD-RW for under 40 bucks, so we went with that.  I came home and installed it and suddenly my system wouldn’t turn on anymore.  Wonderful.  I pulled everything out of the case, and started troubleshooting it, component-by-component.  The result?  My power supply was dead.  I transferred everything to an older case (this old black one that glows blue when it’s on… I’ve always really liked it), and it turned on when I had the motherboard, cpu, ram, and video card in it, but it would only stay on for like 1.5 seconds when I plugged in the primary hard drive.  That screams not enough power, so Monday… we were back at the store again, this time to buy a power supply (500 watts).  While we were out, we stopped by a Mac store and bought Julia a Mini-DVI to VGA adapter.

I was really gentle with this install, folks.  I mean… I was taking every single precaution I could think of in handling each component.  We’re talking about a system whose total worth reached into $1400, all told.  I don’t think I could bear another part failure (neither could Julia).  Luckily though, I pieced it back together and everything was gold.  I even managed to salvage an old 200gb EIDE drive I had doing nothing in the old case, so I have access to a lot of my old media (mostly TV shows) I lost I had lost when Redtail (my old system) died.

With the new monitor, power supply, adapters, drive and blank discs, we spent over six hundred-fifty bucks more than we planned to.  Originally, we figured less than two hundred for the monitor and that was it.

That’s what we get for thinking, right?

Aug 09 2008

Olympic Fever, Baby!

Every year since I could remember, my family and I have always watched the Olympics. Since the 1980 games in Moscow, I can recall sitting in my family room and enjoying the competition of the worlds’ athletes every four years (until 1992, when they started staggering the Winter Games). I never miss out. My favorites are volleyball, basketball, baseball, softball, swimming, and for some reason, I always seem to catch the Equestrian. It never fails! This year, instead of happening upon it, I shall seek it out and get it over with. I have no idea what it is about the equestrian that just sucks me in.

I was in awe of the opening ceremonies last night from Beijing. The Chinese know how to put on a show, but as Julia and I were commenting on the torch-lighting ceremony, I said that I thought the best torch-light I’d ever seen was Barcelona ’92. When they passed the torch fire to the archer and he had the one shot to hit the target.  At the time, I thought it was the best way ever to light that torch.

Paralympian Antonio Rebolle gets ready to send the torchs flame into the huge cauldron at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona.

Paralympian Antonio Rebolle gets ready to send the torch's flame into the huge cauldron at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona.

Did anyone else fast-forward through the march of the athletes? Julia and I sat through a healthy chunk of the smaller nations, but once we got to Italy, and it was starting to get later and later into the night, we decided to time-shift on the ol’ TiVo and blow through the geographical trivia contest and slow it down during the more impressive nations (such as the UK, US, etc). I cheered for the Japanese national team early on in the march, and of course, the “Chinese Taipei” team waving their specially-designed, least-offensive Olympic flags instead of their own national flag (which China finds too offending to display). Here, I thought the Olympics were about setting aside differences and competing on a level playing field… but whatever. The reception of the team from the US was heartwarming. It makes me want to pull for Chicago in their bid for the 2016 games, and wish that the San Francisco bid for 2012 wasn’t such a spectacular failure. I think having the games in the Bay Area would’ve ruled big time, and I don’t care how much of a traffic jam it would’ve caused… I love the Olympics.

My question to my readers today is in two parts: 1) Are you watching the 2008 Games? 2) If so, what’s your most favorite event?

Jul 28 2008

iLuv my iPhone

I’m not sure if you know, but I recently got myself an iPhone 3G.  I’ve been pretty impressed with it so far, much to the delight of my wife who has taken full credit for “converting” me to the Apple cult.  Lest we not forget that I was running a LinuxPPC server in the late 90s and I did Apple networks at two different schools in the bay area as a volunteer, right? 😉  Or that I have a G4 server sitting in my living room right now.  I think she just likes to divide us into Apple and PC people for the arguments that will inevitably ensue over which is better.  I’ll give Apple props for hardware, but I’d rather run Windows because the applications are far more useful (to me).  Since you can now run Windows on a Mac, I’ll probably be buying a Mac Book Pro and installing Windows on it. 🙂

Anyway, I’ve been having a field day with my iPhone.  I’ve downloaded a metric ton of applications for it and one of the cooler aspects of owning this thing is the fact that I have been introduced to Pandora.  Where the hell have I been that I’ve not been properly indoctrinated into this thing?  I’ve created like six radio stations and I’ve really enjoyed them all.  It’s not just being able to listen to your favorite stuff, it’s also being introduced to really good music that’s similar to it. I’ve discovered several new artists that I’ve got to start listening to (as if I really needed more music to listen to, right?), and now I don’t really need to put together playlists for long trips if I don’t want to. The only pity is the fact that Pandora doesn’t really have much in the way of Japanese music… oh well. Not like I’m hurting for vocal jazz or funk, either 😉

If you previously had my phone number, ditch it. It’s no longer valid. If you’re on Facebook or you have my email address, you can retrieve the new one pretty quickly by visiting my profile or sending me an email (as long as I call you friend, of course).

I started work this morning at 7am, which is the earliest I’ve reported for work in a really long time. Usually, I’m in at 10 or later, or working the graveyard shift. It was really weird to wake up at 6am and roll out of bed while Aqua Teen Hunger Force played in the background. I’m covering for a recently fired employee who acted as the case coordinator for the team. We already hired a replacement, but it’s going to take a while for him to get up to speed, and until then, I’m the one answering all the phones. It was crazy busy this morning, too. I was exhausted by 2pm, and I’m already heading for bed so I’m not completely fucked over tomorrow.

In other news, the Giants are about to blow a seven-run lead, and the Tribe toppled the Tigers. Well, at least one of them won.

Jul 26 2008

Three Years Ago, Today…

I wrote this.  Take a trip down memory lane, with me, won’t you?