Cute

So I haven't posted much lately. I don't really have any news as of late. I have possible news (a job application that I expect to hear back about), but nothing that's actual news just yet. But I do have a cute story about my nephew.

My grandmother is in town from Arizona and tonight all of the in-town family came and we ate Chinese food together. The Chinese place we go to doesn't deliver, so my mom and I went to pick it up. When we got back, my mom announced that it was time for dinner. Hearing this, my nephew ran into the kitchen.

"It's food!" he said.

Now, I'm not accustomed to him speaking in full sentences just yet. So I often prompt him to either repeat what he's just said or to say something else. "It's what?" I asked.

"Chicken butt."

I hope you all can imagine how hilariouscuteawesome it is to hear a child who's just starting to speak respond to a what question with 'chicken butt,' because, wow, that might top a list of good things to be categorized later. I guess my brother's been working with him on the chicken butt thing for a bit now. Totally worth it.

I'm grateful for my nephew, chickenbutt (20).

Nerdgasm

Halo 3 and Heroes. I repeat: Halo 3 and Heroes. Halo 3 and Heroes. Halo 3 and Heroes. Halo 3 and Heroes. Both in the same night. Last night. Yeah. Somewhere, a huge group of nerds must have done the most amazing thing in order for karma to put together a night with both the season premier of Heroes and the release of Halo 3. Thank you, altruistic nerds, for your good deeds that prompted the universe to such ecstatic heights.

So my brother, mehen, and I have been planning for the release of Halo 3 for a while now. We set up our very own mancave in my brother's basement, fully equipped with microwave, refrigerator, goodbutnotgreat sound system, and a couple of recliners. Mehen pointed out that we've recreated the dorm experience pretty well down there. All we need is a hot plate and a splendid array of soiled laundry to really flesh out the motif. We of course also made plans to buy the video at 12:01 when the game first hit stores for sale to the general public.

The evening started out with my brother's family and mehen's family all coming over here for pizza. The idea was that if we all got together, the agony of waiting until 12:01 would somehow be lessened. It was like the night before Christmas. But worse because there wasn't any chance of any of us sleeping for any amount of time before the hour arrived. So we all got together and paced around for a bit, watched the kids pound on each other, ate pizza. . .

Then we went to the mancave, played some Halo 2, watched some of the various Halo 3 promotional preview type things, watched the old triumph at the opening of Star Wars because the release of Halo 3 promised to have many things in common with the premier of a Star Wars movie, and basically wasted some time. Then at a little after eleven we went to the store. There was a pretty big line of dudes in t-shirts and shorts already cued up and waiting for the moment. It was kind of funny, when a girl showed up, everyone watched her as she made her way to the back of the line. What's a girl doing here? A chick that plays Halo? That is so hot. And so on, as the dudes pretended not to be looking at her.

Anyway, I've dragged this on for long enough. The game kicks ass. A lot of ass. If you have some ass, don't get it too close to the game because it will get kicked. . . We played through the beginning of the campaign (co-op) mode, and it was all Halo, just tweaked from the last time we encountered it. As often happens with the cooperative mode, we started off screwing around, experimenting with all the shinyshiny coolness, and of course attacking each other. Then when we got into actually playing the game seriously, we started accidentally attacking each other. In the new version of the game, the button that you used to use to reload is now used to throw some special grenade-type weapons. So we'd all be standing in a group when someone would decide to try to reload and "Damnit! Who did that?" Fun.

Heroes was really good too. I'd write about it, but I fear that many of my readers have already been turned off by this outpouring of nerdocity. So I'll leave you with some gratitude.

I'm grateful for. . . well. . . you know. . . nerd stuff. . . (20).

Still changing

I'm still working on figuring out a new template for this little blog o' mine. . . I was getting tired of the original. So I changed to the one I had up briefly over the weekend. But I didn't like it. So here's another one. Maybe I need to go back to the original? I don't know. I just don't know. . .

Everything changes

I think the changes I've made are pretty obvious. I mostly wanted to use this post to point out that in a fit of blogger solidarity I've linked to some of my favorite blogs off to the right there. If you happen to run one of those blogs and want me to take down the link, let me know. Also, if you happen to know of any other cool blogs that you think I would like, point me toward them. I always enjoy myself a blog or twenty. . .

Talk like a pirate day

I just missed it. If Last Comic Standing had been one hour instead of two tonight and I had been able to watch Top Chef at ten instead of eleven, this post would be busting with arrs and mateys and me timbers would have most certainly been shivered. But since it's tomorrow already, you're all stuck with my regular, notpirate voice. Sorry.

So, I may have finally started looking into something that I should have been looking into a long time ago. Freelance writing. A bit ago, z-man pointed me to a freelance posting in a video game magazine, and I applied for that. Then, after the idea of freelancing percolated for quite a while, I realized, 'Hey, maybe there are other freelance writing jobs out there.' Hell yes, there are other freelance writing jobs out there. Cool ones. Related to subjects that I not only know about but am passionate about as well. Awesome. Procrastinator, writer for hire. A mercenary writer. Were pirates mercenaries? That's right. It's coming.

Avast ye landlubbers! Thar be writers thar!

I'm grateful to live in a time when pirates are jokes instead of thieving, killing menaces to society (20).

some people get me. . .

. . . but some people don't.

So I was at work on Friday, and my boss was trying to figure out if 'over [something]' (I can't remember the exact words) was one word, two words, or two hyphenated words. Eventually, folks came to a consensus that it was two words. I then said to him, "Yeah, two words would work all right. But I definitely wouldn't try to make it three."

He stared at me for five seconds or so.

"I don't think you could make it into three words," he said.

If I knew my boss better, I would've laughed. As some of you may know, my failed attempts at making other people laugh often make me laugh. Unfortunately, people who don't know me very well tend to think I'm laughing at them when this happens. So I try not to do it unless I'm confident a person will take it the right way.

But one of my fellow sports writers came to my rescue. "Sure you could," he said and then offered some preposterous three-word version of 'over [something].'

"I guess you can," my boss said.

I'm grateful for everyday silly (20).

Off the wagon

I've been having a lot of caffeine lately. Silly for someone with anxiety and head issues, I know. But a lot of the things I do don't really make sense. . . Anyway, at first I didn't notice any negative effects, so I kept having a coffee in the morning and maybe one more caffeinated drink and/or some chocolate throughout my days. Is caffeine one of those chemicals that slowly builds up in your system? Because I never increased my intake, but over the past few days I had been jittery and stressed up to an extreme even by my standards. So today I decided to cut out the caffeine, which of course led to a lovely headache for much of the day. Why oh why am I so dense? I always have to make the same mistake at least a dozen times before I even realize that it is a mistake. Then I have to repeat the mistake a few dozen more times before I finally understand that I need to change something. You know that myth about goldfish that says that they have such poor memories that by the time they swim a circle around a fish bowl they've already forgotten what was in the bowl, so the little colored rocks and the bubbling treasure chest with the assorted bones are always new and interesting for a goldfish even though the goldfish has seen those things for all of their existence? Well, on Mythbusters they disproved that myth by actually training goldfish to go through a simple maze over the course of a month (?). Does that mean that goldfish learn faster than me?

I'm' grateful for The Office (20).

Why I really need a second job

Yesterday I fell to a new low in procrastinating. I watched the Fat Albert movie. Not only did I watch the Fat Albert movie, but I watched ALL of the Fat Albert movie. From start to finish. And it was bad. From start to finish. It's not like I was doing something and the TV happened to be on the station. I was flipping through the channels and found it at the very beginning of the movie and then thought to myself "I'm gonna watch me some Fat Albert." Sigh.

I'll write about the future job stuff tomorrow. Right now I want to write about my current job stuff. I went to the paper tonight, wrote another football preview. I think I may finally be getting the hang of previews. It went pretty well tonight. My editor seemed to make fewer changes than he's had to make on my other previews. Also, I'm starting to learn that it doesn't matter much what questions I ask the coaches during the interviews. They're pretty much going to say the same basic things regardless. So I don't need to get as nervous about the interview process as I have been. More exciting for me, however, is the news that I'm going to be covering an actual game on Friday. My editor is sending me to a high school volleyball match, and I'm supposed to write a game story. COOL. I'll be needing to get myself one of those hats with the notecard that says 'press' now. (thank z-man for that joke reference)

I'm grateful for good movies (20).

Do stuff

Note to self: Stop procrastinating.

I'm grateful for Eric Ewazen's sonata for trombone and piano (20).

I really had no idea

As it turns out, when I manned the phones at the paper last week I was bombarded by calls. I hadn't realized this until tonight when my editor was telling the other new guy who's doing what I'm doing about my experience. First off, the other guy only had to handle one call on his first night answering phones. As my editor told it, however, my night was quite exciting. "He started off with three or four calls right in a row. Bam, bam, bam." (I'm paraphrasing in quotes here. Strange). "Then he had about fifteen minutes off and then three or four came in right on top of each other again." Then he looked at me. "You ended up with what, at least thirty column inches?" I didn't know, but I said, "Something like that." So my first night answering the phones at the paper (last Thursday) was pretty action packed the way he told it. Cool. I did have a good time, even though I didn't blog about it. . .

Which leads me to something. I kind of like working at this paper. Now that I'm past the frustration of not knowing what is expected of me and the irritation of finding out how little I'm going to be able to work there, it's not such a bad experience for me. My editor is very complimentary of my work and the work of my fellow newbee. And I'm learning quite a bit. Writing in an office full of phones ringing and people talking, writing on deadline, and writing while answering phones are all quite different from the writing that I normally do. . . Heh. On a side note. Tonight, some of the other writers from the paper just stopped in to visit and well, I wouldn't say they were drunk, but I wouldn't say they weren't drunk either. . .

What all this means is that, if at all possible, I'd like to keep this job for a while. I've devised a plan that involves a suggestion most recently offered by piwok, but offered by so many others in my life that I can't keep track. I think I'll apply to be a substitute teacher in the area. It's a pretty flexible job from what I've heard. Also, I saw an add for a workfromhome data entry job. That job together with a substitute teaching job and the job at the paper would probably provide me a livable income, not to mention the fact that taking all three of these jobs would satisfy three of the four career areas that test from yesterday told me I should pursue (clerical, teaching/social-work, and writing). I've been reading a book on guitar repair over this past week, so maybe that's how I'll fill in the industrial arts void.

I'm grateful that tonight I got to sit at a desk with a PC instead of a Mac (20).

I had no idea

I just took one of those career tests that are supposed to tell you what you would be most happy doing and therefore would be mostly likely to succeed at. Take a guess at what kind of career it thinks I should have. Anyone? Anyone? With a score of 99 out of 100, I should be a writer. What a relief. Now that I know this, the job search should pretty much take care of itself. . .

Oh, as it turns out, I should avoid sales. 3 out of 100. Three. And health care? 11 out of 100. Nursing? Brilliant. Just brilliant. I was in the low 90s for teaching/social work. Good thing I decided against going for that teacher certification now isn't it? Anyway, it seems that I know what I really want to do, but for my backup plans I just don't have a clue. And here are the ones that surprised me most. Clerical in the 60s and industrial arts in the high 70s. I'd be content as a secretary and a pretty happy handy man. Who knew?

blame me

Sorry for the recent post shortage. I allowed myself to wallow in a bit of a funk for a few days there. As I often tend to do, I had unrealistically built up this job at the paper. I had thought I'd be working at least fifteen to twenty hours a week and would therefore only need to look for another job where I would work ten hours at most. But I wouldn't need to rush the search because this job would hold me through well enough until then. I bought a cell phone for the area. I had an apartment picked out. I was planning on joining a gym because they were running a special. I even thought that maybe this job was an audition for a bigger writing position. In my head, I was pretty hot shit. In reality, I'm just a schmuck working five hours a week writing for a paper that didn't even want references or a writing sample before agreeing to meet with me. So now I still need to find a real job. The apartment quest has been halted because I'm not even sure if my main job will be in this town, (though, I would like to keep my current job if my new location will permit it at all). I'm still better off than I was a month ago. Heck, the resumes I sent out last week are better than the ones I sent out before then because I have a real writing credential on them. I just wish I could make things progress quicker. I feel like Bob, babystepping my way through life. At least I'm getting somewhere.

I'm grateful for vanilla dunkaccinos (20).