Razzle Dazzle
For the longest time, my cell phone hasn't been performing the way it should. For a while, I thought the battery was dying because I couldn't charge it. I got a replacement battery off of eBay. That took forever to reach me. Once it did, I swapped the batteries out and came to the conclusion that the battery isn't the problem. The charger isn't charging the batteries. I bought a charger about ten days ago, and it finally showed up in the mail today. I swapped out the chargers, but I was having trouble getting the new charger to work. Upon further inspection, I noticed one of the connecting prongs was broken. What. The. Fuck. I'm quite livid about this, actually. Now I gotta go through the process or returning and exchanging something with a company based in California. That'll take forever. I can't get anything to ever go my fucking way. Grr!

Christmas Eve didn't go my way, either. I did eventually settle with going to bed at 10 PM, but I was up by 1:15 AM. I worked at 3 AM. I don't remember what time I got out, but it wasn't four hours later. It was more like six or seven. This coupled with the fact that my sister wanted to leave an hour earlier than we planned, it killed any hopes of me geocaching after work or getting in a quick nap. That was quite bullshit.

The visit to my father's was ok, though. It's typically not that worthwhile of a trip for me, but this one seemed better than normal for me for whatever reason. We ended up staying there a couple hours than we wanted to (Dad wanted to feed us though we ate less than an hour before we arrived), so once again, there wasn't a break between visiting Dad and visiting Mom so I could take a nap.

Luckily, the get-together at my mother's was fairly tame and low-key. It didn't last long. Her side of the family showed up including my Navy recruit cousin, which was cool.

I finally got to go to bed at 10 PM.

Christmas Day was alright. I went across the street to my sister's and scored some prime rib and seasonal beer. Yum.

I didn't get anything too spectacular loot-wise. It's getting to the point now where people just give people gift certificates in exchange for other gift certificates. I got mostly that, and my father got me some golf balls and tees. Whee! I'm hoping next year that I'll finally be able to use the golf club set I bought for 20 bucks.

I got the nephews Guitar Hero with two controllers. I only got to play one song, but I really want to drive back to Hillsboro and play some more. It's fun! I would have gone with Guitar Hero II, but I don't think they're old (or awesome ;)) enough to rocking out to Killing in the Name. :) Tuesday Funnies
Almost missed the cut-off. Jonny's been keeping me busy with online card playing.

Dog Food

A middle-aged woman stopped at the local grocery store each day for months; she always bought just one large can of dog food.

One day the grocery clerk asked the woman what kind of dog she had. She replied, "I don't have a dog; my husband eats this for his lunch each day and he likes it."

The clerk said, "Madam, this is not fit for human consumption, it could make him sick, maybe even kill him." The woman purchased the dog food and left.

This continued daly for months, then she stopped coming into the store. Several week later, she stopped in and bought a loaf of bread. The clerk asked if she wanted any dog food, and she replied, "No, my husband passed away several weeks ago."

The clerk said, "I tried to warn you, that dog food could kill your husband."

The woman said, "Oh, the dog food had nothing to do with it. He was crossing the road and stopped to lick his balls, and a truck ran over him."

Wouldn't it make more sense to buy in bulk? I don't like food shopping more than once a week, though the grocery store is under five minutes away. Merry Xmas!
Mine was better than anticipated. I'll get into details later. Here's to hoping yours was ok, too! Not sure what to do.
I originally thought that some time today, my sister's family and I would head down to Nashua to see our dad. I even came "home" early because of it. You see, I thought because I'm going to have to get read for work at one o'clock in the fucking morning, we'd see him today, I'd go to work, sleep for a while, then party it up at my mother's Christmas Eve night. Turns out that is not the case. Instead, I go to work, we see Dad early in the afternoon, then hang out at Mom's tomorrow night. That's a real pain in the ass for me, because I'm still debating on whether or not I should even bother going to sleep, and now I won't have any time in the afternoon to try and recoup. Kinda makes me glad that I went with no-brainer gift certs for all of their Christmas gifts. :p

Yeah. Four hours from now, I have to get ready for work. To sleep or not to sleep? That is the question... there doesn't seem to be anyone around in the online world, so I'm starting to lean towards the former. Hmm.

I don't think I'll be working more than four hours tomorrow morning, so I wonder if I can sneak in some geocaching. I wonder how tired I'll be by then, though. I wasn't doing well after last Sunday's shift. And I still got figure out how I'm gonna wrap up a couple gift baskets I got to go with some of the certificates I've picked up. Hmm.

Kinda happy no one in my family reads this site. Well, no one I bought gifts for anyway. Don't any of you go spoil it on them! :p Shh!
My video card's fan has been making a ton of noise for the longest time. I recently broke down and got an NVSilencer 6 for it. I took the old fan off and slapped this puppy on. Unfortunately, I don't have pictures of the fun. On the flip side, you aren't missing much. But anyway, now the loudest thing in my computer -- when idle -- is a disc drive with a cd or dvd in it. Note that I said, "when idle." You know how quiet a cd drive is when you're not using it? Yeah, that's the loudest part of my computer. My gas stove right now is in the process of boiling water. It is louder than my computer despite being about 20-25 feet away! That, my friends, is what I like to call fucking ridiculous.

Did I mention my computer has four fans running inside of it? Dusting off the one's and zero's.
I've deleted almost all of my old work emails in the past month, but Sean hasn't. He's been sending me nostalgia several times over the past week, and I thought I'd share one that got a couple chuckles. Names (and places) have been initialized (or changed) to protect the not-so-innocent:

EG: "GL" will be working in the freezer (in Vermont) in order to keep his job. He is assigned this position due to the proximity of people who will get him fired for his lack of social skills. Let's all give him a big "good bye".

SW: I did 6 months in that freezer. He won't make it.

JG: I did a dime in Chino for killing a man for saying hello to me.

I'm not sure this will be a regular thing, as the number of decent old work emails that weren't three-word-game related or didn't involve file attachments are fairly scarce. It's also dependent on Sean sending me shit that is actually worth reading again. He's not very good at that. Frickin' noob. An addendum to the post below:
Coworkers are the main reason I have trouble changing jobs when I know I'm destined for bigger and better things. It doesn't really help that all I do is work. That and geocache when the weather is right. But I digress. Anyway, coworkers become family. And if I (or they) leave, there's a 99% chance I'm not gonna hear from them ever again. Some I've managed to keep in touch with for maybe a year or so after the fact, but then the communication breaks down and I end up emoing out. With today's technology, why the fuck is it so hard to keep in touch with people? And why can't I seem to lose the people I don't want anything to do with anymore? :p

I'm at a peculiar crossroad where it may be in my best interest to seek out another job. Coupled with what I wrote below, I felt this little "impulse post" coming on. Consider yourself warned.
My fantasy football finals prediction came true. Me and "RM" are gonna duke it out in a rematch three years in the making. The winner walks away with $350. The loser gets $100. The battle for third -- the two teams that lost to us in the semis -- duke it out for $50. It should be interesting. It's gonna come down to Monday night's game. I hate Monday nights. It keeps the suspense of who won a little longer than I care for.

My cell phone has behaved as a land line phone for around two weeks now. I replaced the battery thinking it was dead, but nothing has changed. It looks like the AC charger may be at fault. I ordered a new one off of eBay a couple days ago. Hopefully that will take care of my issues. It's gonna be tough not having my cell phone on me for this holiday weekend. I need to keep the new battery full charged (it came fully charged!) because PSNH has scheduled for the electricity to shut off for a couple hours early in the morning on December 27. My cell phone acts as my alarm clock.

We had "Secret Santa" at work today. I ended scoring an TAG "all-nighter" pack. As if I don't have enough trouble keeping all of the ladies off me, now I'm gonna be in a world of hurt with this shit. I'm thinking of putting some on and hanging out in Human Resources all day and see what happens. I'm a smooth operator.

Truth is, I don't particularly care for colognes or other types of fragrances. Hell, I don't even use aftershave. I consider body sprays to be a complete scam. I kinda feel that if I use any sort of smelly stuff, then I'm trying to put myself out there as wanting attention or being desperate. I like to escape the radar as much as possible. Strangely, I seem to end up with some sort manly smelling stuff every other Christmas. I'm sure there's a hint in there that I should be picking up on.

I don't mind buying gifts for friends this time of year, even knowing that I may not get anything in return. Coworkers end up becoming family. I want to get some people I work with Christmas presents. However, I don't want to buy for more than one or two, but if I get some people stuff and none to others, then it could snowball into something ugly. It's not easy being discreet at my job. I also think it would lead to over-analyzation of my motives and whatnot when all I want to do is show my appreciation. At my now-part-time job, I could get away with it. Valentine's Day was more my forté back then (pimp pimp!), but I've been known to shower Christmas gifts to those I felt deserve them. It feels trickier now, though.

I can't wait for next Tuesday to arrive. Tuesday Funnies
You get a two-fer today because it's Christmas time and I'm in a joyful mood.

Chores

When Tom's wife came home Sunday afternoon to find the kitchen and living room a mess, the laundry still in a pile by the washer and Tom on the couch having done nothing but drink beer and watch football all day.

She yelled, "Watch yourself, mister, or you're going to make me do something I don't want to do!"

"Wow," Tom thought, "I can't believe I'm going to get a blowjob out of this!"

Top 10 Science Fiction Geek Pickup Lines

"Someone must have shot you with a phaser set on 'stunning.'"

"I can't help it -- my eyes are trapped in the gravitational field of your breasts!!"

"Nice Asimov."

"Not only can I beam you aboard, I can beam you a woody."

"Earth woman, prepare to be probed!"

"I'm the droid you're looking for."

"Is that a spare Vulcan ear in your pocket or... well, I'm just asking because some jerk in the parking lot pulled off one of my Vulcan ears."

"Hey, baby. I own Microsoft."

"Your mouth says, 'Shields up!', but your eyes say, 'A hull breach is imminent.'"

If I told you you had a beautiful body, would you watch me masturbate while I download pictures of Jeri Ryan?"

Haha. Hull breach. *yawn*
Not a big fan of this passing weekend.

I played cards with a friend online 'til about 10 PM Saturday night, went to sleep, then woke up at 2:15 AM to get ready for a 4-hour shift at my part-time job. Ick. Work didn't suck too badly, but I did hit the proverbial wall a couple times and had to hop myself up on donuts and juice to make it through the morning. Though a 4-hour shift sounds like a waste of time, it worked out well because I was out the door by the time we opened for business, and I didn't have to deal with any crowds as I finished the rest of my Christmas shopping.

I had lunch at 9:30 in the morning. I had a second breakfast (omelette) a little after noon. A couple more meals followed after that. My schedule is all fucked up. I'll probably go to bed at 8 or 9 tonight and hope everything cancels out tomorrow.

I could have geocached today, but I didn't make myself some sort of cache itinerary last night. Oh well. I'm guessing they'll still be there come spring time.

Preliminary reports show that my $500 fantasy football matchup is in my favor. If things keep looking the way they are, we're gonna have a rematch of Fantasy Football Super Bowl 1 (this is year #4) next week: me and a supervisor. He won that time because we played until week 17, and most of my team's players didn't play because they were resting for the real world playoffs. Damn. This year, though, we're playing 'til week 16. So we'll see. It's still early, though; I can't claim victory this week at the point in time.

My secret to success this year has been Willie Parker (running back, Pittsburgh). I got him as my second pick (overall pick #19). I could easily see that he was first-round material, but he escaped everyone's radar, many opting for unproven running backs like Ronnie Brown (Miami) because most sports magazines predicted big things for these unknowns, claiming they were first round caliber players. wtf? lol! Thanks for the money!

It's a week until Christmas. I have to get up just as early next Sunday and still magically party it up at various households later that night and the following day. I'm sure that'll work out well. Richie Rich
I'm a little confused about the weather we've been getting. Aside from the dusting of snow we had that one day (which all disappeared the following day), I haven't seen any snowfall since. Also, the weather the last couple days has been in the 50's. I never thought I'd be playing frisbee in December. I could probably get away with geocaching the weekend if I was to become so inclined. Hmm.

I got three paychecks this week. I was the only one in the department to get more than one. They all turn out to be legit, too, as my full-time place of employment pays you for unused sick and vacation time and gives you a fresh set of hours at the beginning of each year. So I was the only one who didn't take any paid time off. Not a real surprise, because I'm a workaholic and I'm single. I don't have anywhere to go and no one to go with. Come to think of it, the last time I requested a day off was January 6th, when I got my car registered and inspected. I did, however, spent the day running errands with a friend who, strangely enough (and to my disappointment), I haven't hung out with since. So sad.

This coming year may be different, as there are tentative plans in the works for a seven-day hiking expedition on the Inca Trail in Peru. Man Candy and his girl, Elizabeth, are thinking of going there around Memorial Day, and I'm considering tagging along (the bigger the group, the cheaper it is). That could be interesting. If I'm gonna take time off in another country, I'm more interested in hiking around Iceland or wherever then, say, sunbathing my pasty white ass in Bermuda. I'm not built for the beach. Wow, waves. Big deal.

Elizabeth has been to Peru a few times. She has a Peruvian photo album if you care. I am the master of my domain.
In other news, I survived the first round of fantasy football playoffs. In fact, I had the highest score out of everyone, despite having my highest-scoring player sitting on my bench. That makes me awesome beyond comparison. It's also impressive because I didn't have faith in my matchups.

This coming week will be awesome. One matchup involves a manager and a player that can't beat him in the regular season, but has beaten him soundly in every playoff game the last three years.

There's nothing too magical about my matchup. It's funny, though, to see that it's always the same four or five people that make it to the semis every single year that we've been doing this. Thanks for all of your $50 donations, rookies. Throb throb throb...
Unfortunately, that's not the good throb that can occur in one's pants, but the sensation I feel in a spot where a tooth once was.

All four first molars (teeth diagram) in my mouth have problems. Some time during my youth, I got normal silver fillings put into the ones in my upper jaw, but the ones on the lower jaw got some sort of temporary white filling instead. I'm not sure what this stuff was, but over time, that white filling would erode away and expose the hole / cavity that was there in the first place. As years went by without dental coverage, these two exposed molars would crack and chip away (I chipped one eating a gummy bear once), eventually destroying all evidence there was a tooth located there. Both crowns are gone, and the one on the left side of my mouth is missing about half of the root, too.

What's weird is that I'm never in pain. I think way before teeth decay to this point, most normal people require root canals or other expensive orthodontic surgery. Me? I'm tough. I feel nothing. Maybe once a year I'll have a toothache. In most cases, like today, any pain I feel is the result of a piece of food someone getting into the hole in my left "molar" forcefully but not intentionally. That's what's happening today: a pointy corner of a cracker jabbed its way into there somehow and made me emo out.

I'm not sure what the point of this story is. Don't get white fillings? I'm not sure why I ever got them. I was a kid, so it wasn't exactly my choice to make. They're supposed to make the tooth stronger, but how can that be true when my fucking enzymes destroyed them? My silver ones are still in mint condition.

My mouth hurts. I'm gonna go numb it with some whiskey. Tuesday Funnies

One day, in line at the company cafeteria, Joe says to Mike behind him, "My elbow hurts like hell. I guess I'd better see a doctor."

"Listen, you don't have to spend that kind of money," Mike replies. "There's a diagnostic computer down at Wal-Mart. Just give it a urine sample and the computer will tell you what's wrong and what to do about it. It takes ten seconds and costs ten dollars... A lot cheaper than a doctor."

So, Joe deposits a urine sample in a small jar andtakes it to Wal-Mart. He deposits ten dollars, and the computer lights up and asks for the urine sample. He pours the sample into the slot and waits.

Ten seconds later, the computer ejects a printout:

"You have tennis elbow. Soak your arm in warm water and avoid heavy activity. It will improve in two weeks. Thank you for shopping at Wal-Mart."

That evening, while thinking how amazing this new technology was, Joe began wondering if the computer could be fooled. He mixed some tap water, a stool sample from his dog, urine samples from his wife and daughter, and a sperm sample for good measure.

Joe hurries back to Wal-Mart, eager to check the results. He deposits ten dollars, pours in his concoction, and awaits the results.

The computer prints the following:

1. Your tap water is too hard. Get a water softener. (Aisle 9)
2. Your dog has ringworm. Bathe him with anti-fungal shampoo. (Aisle 7)
3. Your daughter has a cocaine habit. Get her into rehab.
4. Your wife is pregnant. Twins. They aren't yours. Get a lawyer.
5. If you don't stop playing with yourself, your elbow will never get better!

Thank you for shopping at Wal-Mart.

I don't want to know how this creep got a urine sample from his daughter. It's starting to look a little more like Christmas.
My place this morning when I walked out the door:



That's my rig; the one closest to the camera shot. Ain't it sexy? Or what you can see of it, anyway?

Now I can consider Christmas shopping.

I haven't really done any sort of shopping thus far. Funny, because each year I make an effort to get most -- if not all -- of my holiday shopping binge taken care of before Thanksgiving comes around. But without a visual cue like snow, it never really dawned on me how much time there was left until Christmas. Today was the first day in which I saw snowfall.

I hate getting people gift cards. Though they are very practical, they aren't particularly thoughtful. It's an easy cop-out. I like getting people actual gifts. However, I need an idea of what they would like or sometimes I make my own mental notes through conversations had earlier in the year with said recipients. I try to give people a broad list of shit I could use each Christmas. Sometimes, I refrain from buying something today if I can wait 'til after Christmas so those shopping for me have something they can get me and I'd be happy with. I had a list this year. However, none of the people I typically shop for gave me anything to work with this year. What the hell? I can get the nephews (my sister's 9-year-old and my brother-in-law's 11-year-old) anything and they'll be happy, but it looks like everyone else is getting various gift cards and that's it. Not original, but they're not really helping me, either. Fuckers.

I don't think I have anything to report on this week. Same shit as always. Hmm...

Phantasy Star Universe is fun. They pimped it out today with new Christmas conent, among other leetness.

We're hoping to do some more epic bowling next Friday.

My cell phone has become much like a land line phone for the past week. The battery won't charge anymore. Hopefully, I can get a new battery at my part-time job. It's not really a big deal, though it can be a pain in the ass on the weekends. If people need me during the week, most of them have my work number. I have no cell reception in the building anyway.

Completely unrelated, but I like being surprised by guests when working at my part-time job. I've been visited by three different people from Keene. That's a good 60- to 75-minute ride. I'm sure they had other stuff to do in Concord, but it's still really cool that they would stop by and say hello. Now how come I can't get any of my Concord area people to visit me in Keene? :/ Hmmph. I see how it is. Or hell, how about visiting me in Concord, for starters?

The NFL season is coming to a close in a few weeks, which means it's fantasy football playoffs season. I'm seeded #2 in my $500 purse league, but the #7 seed has great matchups (my team is on the left). So I'm a little scared. It's gonna come down to the quarterbacks, of which all four starters (we get two per team) are failures in their own right. It's gonna be interesting. I need to win this game for a 75% chance of walking away with money. Otherwise, I get nothing. I've always won in the first round of the playoffs, though. And Willie Parker got me over 20 points last night.

We played frisbee twice this week, including today in the snow. That was a complete disaster, as it was 18 degrees out and incredibly windy. I didn't have a hat, and the other fellow was hatless and gloveless. Wicked.

I think that's it. I gotta go kill stuff now. Tuesday Funnies

Car Trouble

A man was driving through west Texas one spring evening. The road was deserted and he had not seen a soul for what seemed like hours. Suddenly, his car started to cough and splutter and the engine slowly died away, leaving him sitting on the side of the road in total silence.

He popped the hood and looked to see if there was anything that he could do to get it going again. Unfortunately, he had a limited knowledge of cars, so all he could do was look at the engine, feeling despondent. As he stood looking at the gradually fading light of his flashlight, he cursed that he had not put in new batteries, like he had promised himself.

Suddenly, through the inky shadows, came a deep voice, "It's your fuel pump."

The man raised up quickly, striking his head on the underside of the hood. "Who said that?" he demanded.

There were two horses standing in the fenced field alongside the road and the man was amazed when the nearest of the two horses repeated, "It's your fuel pump. Tap it with your flashlight, and try it again."

Confused, the man tapped the fuel pump with his flashlight, turned the key and sure enough, the engine roared to life. He muttered a short thanks to the horse and screeched away.

When he reached the next town, he ran into the local bar. "Gimme a large whiskey, please!" he said.

A rancher sitting at the bar looked at the man's ashen face and asked, "What's wrong, man? You look like you've seen a ghost."

"It's unbelievable," the man said and recalled the whole tale to the rancher.

The rancher took a sip of his beer and looked thoughtful. "A horse, you say? Was it by any chance a white horse?"

The man replied to the affirmative. "Yes, it was! Am I crazy?"

"No, you ain't crazy. In fact, you're lucky," said the rancher, "because that black horse don't know shit about cars."

Maybe the smart horse can diagnose my car's suspension. Why?
I got over 10,000 visits last month. That's about 350 a day.

I refuse to believe I'm that interesting. I've barely written anything as of late. :P

Thank you, crawlers, for all of your hits? Wicked fucking hard
Last night was a silly time. I joined a cult with swhorfe and scored a haircut, then we went to play in the evil WalMart for a while. Sean has a bar soap fetish. The bar soap aisle also happens to be the condom aisle here in Keene. While I was sizing up some Magnum XL's (clearly), this gem of a convesation took place (to the best of my recollection):

Sean: So which ones do we like?
Me: Uh... you wanna phrase that a little differently?
Sean: Huh?
Me: A guy was walking by and turned his head towards us after you said that.
Sean: *puzzled*
Me: By "we," he's probably thinking you and me instead of you and your girl.
Sean: OMGLOLWTF ^_^

It's true. He actually said "caret underscore caret." Sean's a silly bitch like that. ;)

We then proceeded to have sex in the aisle and called it a day.