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What amazing and/or disturbing things are crossing my mind now? Enter and find out... |
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This is your first and most likely only warning. But I've been known to change my mind. Anyways, the warning is that my mind can be a pretty scary place for the uninitiated. By entering you waive all rights to sanity, and very well may be haunted by any manner of creature that is contained herein. If you're really lucky, you may be hunted by many of them at the same time! CHANGE PLACES! Ooh, this chair is quite comfy. Now back to the show, er, tour. To your left you may notice cracks in the fabric of reality itself. Don't worry about them, they're mostly harmless. To your right is the duct tape orchards. Mind that you don't pick the fruits, they're not the tastiest buggers, and they tend to sting. Above you'll see several chandeliers, and no, you don't need your umbrellas today. Tomorrow is a different story. You'd like to hear a story? OK, maybe a quick one. It may be larger than it appears inside that mirror. But before we begin, try this shot here. Yes, it is a potion of my own concoction. Drink it, and who knows who or what you might become. Also, you might wonder what happened to your pants... What about my pants? Oh dear, where did I put them now? ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only **
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| It's amazing how much a bit of good news can improve the outlook of... well... EVERYTHING! In my mail today was a few envelopes form Stout, among them being my acceptance for re-entry to school so I can finish that degree I started. I overwhelmed myself when I realized how much I have to do and some of the timeline for doing it, but I've made progress on the obvious portions. I feel like I have a future again. I have a rough timeline for getting out of the casino industry now, and I feel like I have a bounce in my step again. This place, or maybe it's just this portion of Iowa, or some combination of the two, has been sucking the life out of me. I never thought when I left Stout that I'd ever be able to say "I'm going back to school!" with enthusiasm. I can't wait until this fall, and I have so many things to do before then |
| I've mentioned previously in this blog that I'm taking a few classes so I can improve my writing. Because of these classes and a few other things, I've had a fire lit in me to go back to school. I've been thinking about it for a while and have been casually looking at some of the info for doing it, but over this last week have really begun looking in earnest. This is something I've realized now that I need to do. So the plan I've come up with is go back to school at Stout either for this summer and/or fall to finish my old degree program, and then starting spring next year go to another school for a creative writing program. Sounds pretty good to me! Well I've been looking at possible creative writing schools, and have been narrowing the list. In no particular order, the schools I've been looking at the hardest are Drake University in Des Moines, University of Iowa in Iowa City, Southwest MN State in Marshall, and Bemidji State in Bemidji. It was pretty easy to knock off all the Wisconsin and other nearby states as they didn't have much to offer that I could see. But it's these few schools that are giving me the hard time deciding. I know I didn't look at schools this hard before I decided to go to Stout. Is that because I know what I want to do now? Or is it because of my previous time at Stout and how I'm comparing Stout to these other colleges? Drake looks like a real good school with a high quality program, though it's more expensive than the other two. It's also located right in Des Moines, the only real city within a few hours travel distance. It seems like a very eco conscious school, and with a Drake student ID, one gets free passage on the Des Moines bus system. It would be nice to not have to drive everywhere I want to go, and be in a Metropolitan area for entertainment. I know there's also a pair of casinos located nearby Des Moines, so I could probably get some high paying part time work at one of them. Though I'm not sure if I'd want to as part of the reason I want to go back to school is to get out of this business. It's also not too far (Relatively) from University of Iowa, which brings me to... University of Iowa. They have a huge literature department, though from what I can see they don't have an actual creative writing Major. I'm looking at Iowa State as a possibility if I wanted to get a masters after a creative writing degree. Admittedly that's a bit farther down the road, and I don't know if I even would want to go for a masters at this point, but it is something to think about. It's also a much bigger school than any other school I'm looking at. I don't really want to go to a big school where I might get lost in the shuffle. That big school thing is one of the reasons I eschewed UoMN for UW-Stout when I graduated HS. Both SW MN State and Bemidji State are located in much smaller towns, which are pretty much in the middle of nowhere. What I've seen of them I like so far, though not as much as Drake. Both are much less expensive than Drake too. Putting academics aside, there's reasons why I like each of them in turn. My family is all in MPLS suburb area, and Marshall is the closest to there at a 2 1/2hr drive. Des Moines and Bemidji are each 4hrs, though in opposite directions from each other. Bemidji is right on a lake, and there's many other lakes nearby. There's also the Chippewa National Forest real close to there as well. One of the places that I feel most at peace with everything, is when I'm in a boat on a lake. Doesn't have to be a fancy boat either, could just be a tiny little rowboat. But there's nothing much better than being in a boat in summer or fall. I'd make time to do that as much as I can, just to relax and feel the breeze and the sun beating down. Obviously I need to do more research, and actually visit these campuses to see which one is right for me. But each one gives me a lot to think about. There's other aspects of each that I like, but I'm not going to put those down right now. It's nearly 3am and I just meant to take a short break from other activities to manage some of my thoughts on this subject, and here I typed up a TON! Though the weight is a little lighter now, things are a tiny bit more organized in my mind. |
| I had a chance to apply for a higher position at the casino two weeks ago. My direct supervisor was pushing me to put in for it. I decided to not put in for it this time. Wondering if I made the right move. At one point that was the whole goal, get to a floor position on the way to moving up the ranks. I was very distraught when I applied for it at the last casino I was at and someone else, who wasn't as qualified as I was and was quite weird did get it. A year ago I would have applied for this position in a heartbeat and been thrilled to get it. But when the time came around this month, I found that I didn't want it. Curious how some soul searching can rearrange goals so much. They just announced the three people that got the promotion today, and I'm both pleased and surprised at those that got it. Ashley was easily the most deserving of it, there is no question in my mind that she should have gotten it. She has the best knowledge of craps of any dealer I know here, and if it weren't for her patience and teaching I might not be as good of a crap dealer as I am. I know I've still got tons of work to do to become better, but she is one of those that has helped me a ton. The other two that got it, I don't really know. The one guy has always seemed on an even keel, though he tends to attach himself to some of the least stable people. I'm wondering if I had been in his situation if I would have put up with all that he did. Basically, was the sex he got from that psychopath worth it all? And the other guy that got it, he has calmed down a ton since his buddy and real bad influence got fired, but he still seems like an ass too often. I'm sure I could have beaten him out in getting the job, even though he does have more experience on craps than I do. But I didn't apply so I'll never know. I found my ambitions to be a better writer and to someday get a novel or a dozen published made me want to stick with the easier less stressful job. Pay and hours would be about the same, maybe slight increase, but really a negligible amount. My peace of mind is too important. I have enough crazy contained and leaking out, don't need to add more to it. Yeah, I made the right choice. |
| I should be in bed right now. Whatever though, sleep can wait. I'm taking a pair of "Invalid Item"  courses right now, and for one of them the big focus is on Point of View. I read over both the assignments for that one right before work, and for one of them we need to write out a scene between two people fighting. Once from each person's point of view. I was also busy getting ready for work at the time, so I didn't read the instructions too carefully beyond that initial bit. And that initial bit got me real excited because it fit in quite nicely with a novel idea I thought up this last week. This idea involves two Protagonists, and alternates between their PoV over the course of the book, learning their abilities and fighting demons, until they each realize "Hey, we're on the same side. Wanna hang with me and slice some gaping furrows in that giant demon's belly?"I spent the drive to work and most of that first hour thinking up an encounter between my two protagonists, and then I got going on how they're going to fight each other, because in my original idea they fight twice, though I found a nice little loophole in my idea where I could add a third fight between the other two. Since I'm standing at a dead table most of that first hour it's plenty of time to figure out the scene, and during it all, at least how my idea was shaping up, I needed at least one more PoV for the Mentors who are each guiding their chosen champion. They each believe they have found the one that can defeat the Big Bad, when it's really both of them together who are going to carve him up. I get real ambitious and decide I want to at least as an experiment in conjunction with this assignment, write out a whopping four PoV's of this scene, though they're never all four together at the same time except for a very brief portion of battle. So I sketch it out in my handy dandy notebook during my first break. Female Protagonist PoV: Parts 1-3, 5 Her Mentor/Guardian PoV: Parts 2-5 His Mentor/Guardian PoV: Parts 3-6 Male Protagonist PoV: Parts 2,3,5-7 I was feeling very ambitious. I blame the excitement, of which I can feel a bit creeping back in as I type all this up. Over my other breaks I ended up writing most of Part 1 out, nearly at the transition to Part 2, which would be walking into a building I was describing at the end of part 1. My nearly 9 hours at work were up so I go home, traversing the treacherous snow drifts along the 10 miles of 35 down to my exit, and plop myself here, in front of my comp. I go to look at my assignment instructions, and notice something I didn't before... An emotionally strong scene. Fight is mentioned later in the instructions, but I somehow missed that important part. The scene I'd developed has little to no emotion in it. Bah humbug. I'd lost most of my enthusiasm, and decided I wanted to get mostly mindless and play a video game rather than try to switch gears. I did that for 2+ hours and am now back here, thinking. Yes, thinking does hurt. That's why I endeavor to do as little of it as possible. But still I must give it the occasional college try. Or something approaching those levels. While it seemed at first that I had wasted a lot of effort on that assignment, I realize now that it was still good for giving me inspiration on continuing the novel idea. I learned a few things about my characters, meeting the female protagonist, Laura, and her Guardian, Kain. I know what kind of weapon she uses and where her powers primarily lie. Or maybe just the powers she finds it easiest to access. Same with my Male Protagonist and his powers/weapon. He still doesn't have a name, though I've met him in passing in my writer's cramp winning short "Invalid Item" that I wrote last week. Yeah, his Guardian/mentor is the Savior. I don't have a name for her yet either. OK, sleep won't wait much longer. Today's moral is that... Y'know, F morals. I'm crawling in my comfy bed. I think everyone can see where I was heading with this. If I can't when I wake up, well there's my next post. Night ya'll. Nanu Nanu |
| This week has been brutal. The new years holiday was quite busy for me, I worked 11 hours on the eve, and 10 hours on new years day. So glad I get holiday pay for that 11. I need it since I did go out and get that shiny new Xbox. And I'm loving every bit of it. Kinect adventures is quite fun. But my money is depleted now, so no more kinect specific games for now. Once I get this week's and last's paycheck next week, I'll know how far I have to jump into my savings to pay off my bills. But considering the toke rate this week, the 39.75 hours I got, and the holiday pay, I may not even have to dip into it! Here's to hoping! (Drinks some celebratory whiskey) Now with the new Xbox I dove back into p90 again. It was difficult to keep up with it during the holidays and my hours, so I was pretty sporadic until my old xbox died. I've now done 3 of 4 days in a row (needed to catch up on some sleep), and am going to stick with it. I even took a few liberties with it on monday. In the video he says to slow down if we can't keep up. Well I remembered reading about interval training, and while I don't remember the specifics I remember the general gist of it. I did the whole p90 sweat at high intensity, and when I couldn't keep up anymore, I stopped the video and played some kinect adventures. I made sure to do some of the games with lots of jumping around, and after I realized my heart rate had fallen to normal active gaming, I stopped kinect and resumed the p90 video at high intensity. I think I may keep doing that on my sweat days. I'm still struggling with the sculpt portion as too many things pop. I just don't want to get injured again. I'm trying to decide if I should take another pound off my weights for some of the exercises just to be on the safe side, or if it would be worse to do those exercises with unbalanced weights. I'll ponder that one tomorrow. All this thinking about p90 has caused me to remember a dream from the other day, and this one even weirds me out. I received a delivery of a bunch of stuff, some I wanted and some I didn't. There were supplements I wanted so I'd get more benefits from my working out. I wanted those, though I didn't know if I would use all of them as there were quite a few. Then there was some machine that I don't remember other than the fact I was ambivalent about it. And then there was the thing I really didn't want... A personal enema machine. AN ENEMA MACHINE! EWWWWW!!! I argued with the delivery man that I didn't want it, but he wouldn't take no for an answer and eventually I took it. We'll just leave that at ewww. I'm about to go to bed, and am now hoping that by writing about this so soon before bed that I don't dream about enema machines again. That would be bad. And again, eww. |
| My Xbox has been inflicted with brokenness, as evidenced by the RRoD. I'm weighing my options on whether I want to get a new one or not, and I'm leaning heavily toward the new Xbox. I don't play as much as I used to, but I had started using it to stream videos from my comp to play on the tv quite often, which also included workout vids. I'm very torn, because while I could afford it, if barely by dipping into some of my savings, it's quite a bit of cash. Maybe a list of arguments either way can help me... New Xbox $400 Will have Kinect much more memory than I currently have ($130 if I wanted to upgrade that separately) brand new warranty and shiny parts, including new controller ($50 for new controller on it's own... really don't remember them being that expensive) Wi-Fi is built into the console, so I would have one less cord running from my router across the room Repair old xbox $100+ to send into microsoft, and wait time of 2-6 weeks or continue taking it apart on my own after buying the tools($20 or so) I need, and no guarantee it will even work To get kinect would be $150 could break again, the console is about 4 years old I'm leaning even more heavily toward getting a new one now... and I did get a best buy gift card in my xmas presents so that's a small step toward it. I have no idea what I would be getting otherwise with it as for the most part I don't buy music outside of itunes. I was planning to get Kinect eventually, but was hoping to wait until the price went down. But who knows how long it's gonna be until that happens... next black friday? At least the Xbox waited until after xmas to gain it's red lights. |
| I'm at my parents house right now in a little lull time before going to the big family Xmas eve bash up in North Oaks. Gifts so far have been pretty good, several pants and books, and quite a load of candy and booze. Sleep has been quite elusive though. I've been relegated to one of the less comfy air mattresses in the basement as one of my mom's sister's and her family are in MN from Alaska for the holidays. It wouldn't be so bad except that it's quite cold down there, and the kitchen is right above me, which is where everyone goes when they wake. It's much better than it used to be before the basement was finished, but it's still quite loud. And I only just found out today that the heating vents were closed. I'm used to seeing heating vents that have metal grills in them at shin level if they're not in the floor itself. I was quite surprised to find out that the circular things in the ceiling were there for the heat. I had noticed them each on their own, but never noticed there were three. Seeing them alone I thought it was a new type of smoke or carbon monoxide detectors. And then to have a grate in the wall as well? After everyone else was asleep I took the grate off the wall to try and see if there was any heat coming through it, and was astounded by how little it did. I learned something new I dids. My sister's BF has his daughter with him for the holidays this year so I finally got to meet little Allie. She's a cute and fun little girl. One of her gifts was a 'fairy wand,' and me being me I mentioned that I was evil. After I sat on Spencer (her Dad's lap, who is actually the same age as me) she seemed to believe that I really was evil. While my sis and Spencer were out back using their damn cancer sticks, Allie told me she was going to turn me into a clock. To which I replied I would have really long arms finally. And then she decided she was going to turn me into a frog. All the girls would want to kiss me so I could be their prince. This went on for a while, I was going to become my own mustache, a lightbulb, an ear, and I don't know what else until she said I was going to be a princess. I had no comeback for that so I just started singing under the sea. And she was going to turn herself into a werewolf. It was fun. Now I'm trying to figure out if I should head back down to Iowa after the family thing so I can sleep well in my own bed, or if I should just wait for tomorrow. I do have to work at 4...  |
| I had a fleeting moment of inspiration and after typing down the beginnings of it so I can figure it out, I started clearing off the refuse and dishes from my comp desk so I could begin. My garbage bags needed to be taken out after this so I jogged through the snow-lined parking lot to bring them to the dumpster. Even though I was wearing a t-shirt, I wasn't feeling cold and decided to get the mail from the other side of the lot, and it was in my mailbox that I found my surprise. A package from this here website. I open it up once I'm back in front of my computer, and find inside a holiday card. Inside that card is a pin, and what I'm assuming are two bookmarks. Now this isn't much, but it's just enough to warm my spirits. Despite the snow all around, the holiday movies and commercials for them all over the tele, this hasn't felt too much like the holiday season to me until I received this. Now that I think about it I'm a little surprised I haven't received any holiday cards from family yet. I have a rather large extended family, and by this time of year I usually have at least 3, but so far I have none. I'm not one to notice this kind of detail normally, and could really care less whether one of my many aunts does or does not send me one, but to not receive any so far? Makes me more than a little curios. Now that I think of it I know the main reason why I haven't received any. For the longest time I've gone by the nicks Navatar1 and Ducttapesamurai. But I do have another that I go by, though much less often. And I would never share this third one with family, though I wouldn't hide it either. Perverted Hermit. And various misspellings of it thereof, always with vowels missing. Mostly I use those nicks with online gaming, such as Guild Wars, and WoWarcraft when I used to play it. Holy Hermit was a pretty good Paladin before I realized that game was sucking away my life, as sure as a Lich or tick might. Oh how annoyed I would be that everyone thought I was a healing paladin because I put Holy in my name when I created that char. I didn't realize the mistake I had made until it was too late, and I wasn't about to either go back and start a new paladin, or pay whatever the fee was that blizzard charged to change the name. For me in that instance, Holy was all about bring the holy cleansing fire to the undead and netherworld beasties. But enough with the aside and reminicences of the past. It's more than a little disturbing finding myself being nostalgic over a computer game now, though thinking of it, and what it meant to me, oddly gives me a little more inspiration. I'll have to ponder on that later. No, the thing about that nick that's important is the Hermit portion. I am somewhat becoming a hermit, isolating myself from certain facets of the world. Part of that is where I live. There are very few people worth my time here in this part of Iowa. At least in the places I frequent. Part of that is the hours I keep, which I'm attempting to shift a little, but I realize my attempts so far have been halfhearted. I do make attempts to visit with family up in the cities when I can, but it's hard when all the people I care about are such a long drive, and when I can make the time, there's never enough of it. Down here I barely ever see people. Sure, there's plenty of players at the casino that I deal to, and other dealers and people to talk to. But interests just don't overlap. Most times I would rather be alone with my thoughts or notebook in the break room, than to venture out back and into the filthy smoke shack. Far too many of my coworkers smoke. And of those few times they don't go out there, I feel disconnected from them. I suppose that disconnect is one thing I should take and try to bring to my characters, since I know it so well. Wow, I've gone quite far afield in tonight's ramblings. I guess the only thing I have left to say is that it will be nice having proper bookmarks now. I always use whatever's handy when I've been reading before now, such as pay stubs, random scraps of paper, even my credit card once in a while! |
| I've decided to halt work on my Nanowrimo novel, Elemental: The Power Within, because of it's myriad issues that I can't fix with my current writing skills. Because of that, I've decided to start creating a new fantasy world, and I'm working to flesh it out more fully before I start writing. I'm finding it very easy to create the main Antagonist, or the one who will be the eventual main antagonist, but I can't get a grasp on what kind of person could be my Protagonist. For starters, the Antagonist is the High Cardinal or some other grandiose position either at or near the top of the Church of St. Cativan. I chose that name for multiple reasons, as for starters most of the Church leadership will be of a type of Leonine species. The second main reason is that I know that if I can bring this book and the characters in it to life, people will get riled up when they notice that Cativan is an anagram. Yeah, I'm probably begging for trouble with it, but so what. It makes me smile. I wonder if I'll feel the same way when I finish this thing? |
| I am truly loving this whole massive amount of snow we've gotten here in the north this weekend. Several people were called off from work on fri night because of the freezing rain, so I ended up getting 9 hours at work. Then yesterday the white stuff flowed in. I called work and told them I wouldn't be making it in. That was a good decision, as a half hour later the interstate was closed and I found out that a ton of coworkers got stuck at the casino overnight. Several day shifters were stuck there for more than a day. And now I woke up this afternoon and see videos of the metrodome roof collapsing, the packers lost to the Lions, and I turn on the TV in time to see the patriots score a TD in the final seconds of the first half against the bears to make it 33-0. WOOT! In other news I've started P90. worked out thur fri and sat, but I'm not going to work out today. I can tell my shoulder is near the limit, and I need to slow down a bit. I lightened the weight on my dumbells after my thur workout, and overall my legs are really sore. Found it a little weird walking from my bed to my kitchen. It's been too long since I've really worked out due to the neck/shoulder injury I had during the fall. Take today off, and do it again tomorrow at a lighter intensity. Crap, I gotta get ready for work here. I'm sure I'll be able to make it to work today, and they haven't called me off at all. And one other thing, I'm loving disturbed's Asylum cd. |
| I hadn't gone to burger king in a while, as it's really not that healthy. Well tonight I decided I didn't care, I just wanted to eat some greasy meat and got myself a double burger. The workers there are fun people. When BK is dead and I'm standing at a dead table, Julie, who's one of the evening managers, and myself will make faces at each other or dance around a little. So when I goes up there tonight she mentions to me that one of the subway girls thinks I'm staring at her when I'm on roulette. And apparently I creep the girl out a bit. Really, all I could do was laugh at this. While she is kind of cute, the simple fact is that she's just a young kid. Wow, that just made me feel old typing that. And I'm only 26. I guess the girl doesn't realize there's a tv built into the roulette display board. The board displays the last dozen or so numbers spun. The percentages of certain bets like red, odd, or the columns within the last 150 spins. And above all that at the top of the board, right about head height, is one of the sports channels. So on sunday nights, if I get lucky enough to stand at a dead roulette game, I get to watch some football =) |
| I'm amazed I made it to the NaNoWriMo goal of 50,000 words! It was a crazy month. Work was quite hellish, writer's block consumed my whole second week, weather has been frigid, (16 degrees right now, though I ain't going outside to test the veracity of this) and I've been pretty sick  the last few days. But I got my 50k words, including 20k these last 5 days! (3 of which I've been feeling like absolute hell.My novel has a long ways to go, but I got off to a good start with it. Most importantly, I learned a bunch of things. I participated in the Nanoprep group, and through that I had a good idea and had the framework of my story world fleshed out. But when I got to writing, I found I didn't do enough. I had created a few of the locations, and the ones my characters got to within the 50K words were relatively easy to move them through on their journey. But locations that I didn't really think through and create, were quite a bit harder to picture the action. The fight scene that took up my last 3k words for example. I almost had one of my antagonists throw his mug into a fire in the fireplace. But then I remembered, this town is hot. Theres a river of lava flowing nearby, there's no need for a fireplace in any building, or at least not in a waiting room of the Chieftain's tower! And that table that my Protagonist crashed through kind of surprised me too. And then there's the fact that I had been expecting Mara to be a soldier who was married to Durk after my hero went forward in time. Turns out Mara is married to Durk, but it's Durk's sister Tavia that's the soldier, and she never quite got over a crush she had for my hero because of how he defeated a dragon. The only way I can fix that is to rewrite a certain 14k section to include Mara in, so that both of the women become soldiers. For now at least, I'm going to shelve my novel. I'll get back to the actual writing of it at some point, but I'm just going to take a little more of a casual approach to getting it done. The note cards are going to stay on my wall, and I'm going to try and make an effort to stare at it a little every day, to fill in the holes which I now realize were like canyons rather than the pavement cracks I thought them to be. Someday I'll complete this project. But for now I'll enjoy what success I've had. Watch a movie and turn off my brain for a bit. And Nyquil sounds like a good idea after that. |
| I'm currently feeling pretty sick, and a ton of things are going through my mind. In order to properly clear my mind for continuation of my nano, which I can hopefully make some good progress on and maybe even win, i have decided to dump a bunch of the weirder things in this post. Let's start with yesterday's dreams, shall we? It started off with me fighting off some vampires, and then for some reason I decided I was going to save this one vampire chick from herself. I killed the rest of the vampires and brought this one to a different dimension somehow, and removed her fang teeth. She was quite miserable, but she was learning to cope. She was trying to bite me here and there, without much luck because of lack of fangs. But the month went fast, and since it was going to be 30 days since I had removed them her fangs were going to come back. I couldn't let her stay in this dimension which had no magic or vampires or anything, so I sent her back through. I think I sent her back in a cage even. I went out to enjoy the day and some policemen decided they were after me. They had cornered me, and I didn't want to hurt them, so I activated some device in my leg to bring me back to the dimension I sent the hot vampire chick, the one she had originally come from. My apartment was there, and my sis was over visiting. I was worried the vampire might come back soon with her fangs all regrown so I was going to get ready to go out and find her before that happened. I was cleaning my face and trying to clear a big pus and blood filled boil from my nose, when a chunk of my nose decided to come off instead. "My nose! Some of it fell off!" I repeated that several times until my sister came down to the bathroom. Meanwhile I'm looking at the hole in my face, not bloody, but just a dark hole into my head. I looked down at the chunk of nose in my hand and I can see it in layers, especially detailed were all the nose hairs and slightly pinker skin. And then my sister comes into the bathroom, looks at my face, and the nose in my hand, and says "Yeah, that'll happen." That's when I woke up, and found I was cradling, in my hand... my thumb. It did succeed in making the thought of my nose coming off seem quite a bit more real. Now that I got that out of the way, I'm almost at the point where I can introduce dragons into my nano. My dragons don't have wings and live in lava, but they are mighty big! |
| My wish for the weather to be really bad backfired. It was bad enough that they called several people off from work. I was not one of those people. The focus meetings, or at least the one I was going to attend, was canceled, so that was a plus. But I still spent 9 hours at work because of other people with more hours needed to get out earlier so they wouldn't achieve the dreaded overtime. Well, dreaded for the big boss in charge, who called off the vast majority of the 8pm shift. I was one of the few that came in at 6. Whatever. So they now have the Nanowrimo validator up, and even though I have quite a ways to go before 50k, I decided to put my work so far in. Open office shows my word count as being 31309. Well the validator takes those same words and counts it as 30613. Yeah, I lost nearly 700 words. Bah humbug |
| I know I have to go to bed soon, but I want to stay up and continue writing my nano. Work is getting in the way of my Nanoing. We here in america have the thanksgiving holiday, which for most people means they get a five day weekend. Being in the entertainment industry, this means my hours are all messed up to provide for the people who are traveling up or down 35 tomorrow. For some reason our boss decided to be an idiot and also schedule our all dealer and floor focus meetings for today and yesterday. What all this means for me is that I have to go in two hours early and then work a regular shift on what is supposed to be my day off. I did get a saturday off this last weekend to kind of compensate, but it doesn't quite satiate me. I've been behind this whole month on my Nano, though I've finally been making some good progress these last two weeks. I have six days left to write nearly 20,000 words. I'm also working thanksgiving evening too, though I have monday off to compensate for that. I'm sure I'm going to spend that whole day writing to try and finish on time. I may need to make another donut/Energy drink run to have enough fuel for that. Maybe I'll get lucky and we'll get a blizzard that'll close 35 for a few hours, thereby preventing me from going to work. Does that make me horrible, wishing for something that'll prevent hundreds of people from traveling? |
| Ahh, nothing like writing a satisfying fight scene to bump that nano word count. The monster drink has finally worn off as well, so I'm going to bed in a moment. But please, check my recent entry out "Invalid Entry" |
| Hoo boy! I was fading earlier, so i decided to have a Monster nrg drink during break. Little aside... its been months since I've had an nrg drink. So I have it during break, and then I go out onto the tables and start dealing, and about 10 min in I'm bouncing up and down. If I didn't have to stay at my table I prolly wouldv'e been bouncing off the wall! The band was good tonight, so I was singing along to them and stuff. I was extremely hyper. I still am. when I finish typing a sentence I raise my fingers up above the keyboard and wiggle them about like I'm doing JAZZ HANDS! I figured I'd crash after that second break after the drink, but nope, here I am almost 3 hours later and I'm still bouncing around. I don't think I've had an nrg drink last this long on me. I know I was amusing a few of my players and fellow dealers with how bouncy I've been. Someone thought I was on speed or something. Never tried any drugs besides mary jane so I can make no comparison. Now that I think about drugs, a bunch of old high school acquaintances have been surprised to find out I wasn't a stoner back in hs. In fact I never tried anything until college. But I remember this one guy I always talked to, he was a big pot head and we had some real deep philosophical discussions when he was partly blazed during lunch break. Me being the naive idiot I was, had no idea he was blazed at all! JAZZ HANDS!!! |
| I've been trying to get the events of tonight off my mind enough that I can continue with my Nano, but it just won't happen. So I decided to blog about the nights fun. Usual thursday night Karaoke fun happened. A couple friends I don't see quite so often anymore came out as well. The shitstorm followed them. I started typing up some of the events and then decided I shouldn't. It's not particularly riveting, and basically what it amounts to is stupid. My take on the whole thing, the part I'm really fixated on, is this- At first I reached the conclusion that I'm glad I don't have a significant other who creates drama like this. But then I realized there's three possibilities that completely, or at least mostly nullify my conclusion. 1. Is it just Iowa women who are psycho like this? In this case I need to find a woman who either does not live in Iowa or is not psycho. I'm not sure how much separation there is between the two groups, if any. 2. Is it just Clear lake cops that are stupid like this? It doesn't really take 4 city cops, each in their own car, and a State patrol officer in his own vehicle, to give a warning to one guy that he'll be arrested if he goes back to the apartment he shares with his gf (maybe soon to be ex gf). Or maybe it really does take 5 officers in their own vehicles. 3. Maybe it really only takes 5 officers because my buddy is black. Maybe it's some combination of the three, but most of my angst over the nights proceedings is gone. Maybe I can pump out a few words on my Nano now before I turn in for the night |
| I've just been completely drained these last few days. For quite a while my brain was going on overdrive, I was multitasking a little bit much. And then something happened Monday that brought everything crashing down. I got off work early that night and spent most of the evening in a daze. It takes me 15 minutes to drive between home and work, and I left at 830. I drove slow from the daze, and then just sat in my car outside my place for I don't know how long, but it was after 9 when I went inside. Now everything is just copacetic... or maybe just comatose. I truly don't know which. I'm thinking I need to work out right now. Later tonight I want to go to Karaoke, but I don't know if I should allow myself. I made a decision with Nano to not go to Karaoke unless I was caught up, but I think I just need a mental evening. Or at least just an hour. I really don't know anymore. But do we ever really know? Or do we only know that we think we know what is ever really going on. Now I'm just messing with my own mind and that's not good. Or is it good that I think I'm messing with a mind that is mostly mine but is really part of the public consciousness? Or do I think I'm just screwing with my subconscious mind when it's really my conscious mind being screwed over by this fallacy that is supposed to be reality? If that's the case, I reject this reality. But what should I substitute... Hmm, something with donuts would be nice... |
| Sometimes you just gotta take a few moments to enjoy the simple things in life. Life the feel of pulling a comb through your wet hair, the tingle of icy hot on a bum shoulder and neck, and the warmth of a space heater pointed directly at cold feet. Oh yeah. Sadly, times with the simple things must come to an end, at least for now, as I'll be late for work if I don't turn off this heater and get out the door right about... uh oh! *Throws coat on and is out the door |
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Neil Gaiman, some people hate him. I think i like his short stories best. (I own Smoke and Mirrors, which has the best Snow White retelling ever written (Snow, Glass, Apples) in it!)