naladahc | tripping along the golden path

Argh!!!! I just pay 2 grand for a Powerbook G3 and Apple releases the new iBook!!!! And the specs are really really really nice. They finally bumped the monitor resolution up, added Firewire, dumped the girly colours, and have pissed me off royally. All this for $1200 too. For a few bucks more I coulda had a CD-R in it too. Arghh!!!! Such is this computer life. Such is my fate. If I had the money I'd get one for Matt. Then again, he'd just waste time like I am these days where ever he is. The cousin could use one too.

Ok. I left work at 3 to find a hole someplace to crawl into and work on Em's Gems and this Brickhouse website Ed needs.

Now...6 1/2 hours later...I am still at the B working on the site. And I haven't even started on the Em's Gems revisions. No doubt Matt will be totally pleasant when I get home, as he often is when I have to do whatever it is I feel I have to do that he doesn't feel I have to do. Anyhow...

About Brickhouse Productions...well...yeah I got the CDs with some content on them...but of course no real source files to work with. Some html out of some Microsoft shit application that I had to edit out all of the crap. A logo that was from some app that left it low res and worse yet...it was on a black background and they decided to use copperplate gothic as a font (NOTE to readers: Never use copperplace gothic on the web when the type will have to be small sized or it will look like total shit.) This kinda stuff drives my totally bonkers.

I've already taught the lesson that "Friends do not let friends use Powerpoint" and also "Friends do not let friends use Publisher" and it appears I shall have to work up the lesson plan for "Friends do not friends attempt to do websites in Microsoft Word". Three words: Sucks balls nasty!

The Chris Awards site is now in the hands of the Chris Awards people. And I showed them how to make the changes and formatting needed in Dreamweaver. So...hopefully I won't see that site for a while until I am ready to retake the pics of the awards.

Whilst sitting here powered into the juice, though I prefer the bar but my battery died, I overheard the most interesting coversation between a fatchick and her friend. Ms. Fatchick went into a monologue about her weight and how she doesn't understand, even though she is...as she put it, "a big girl" why she can't get fat girl boots and why she can't get fat girl pants that look nice. Well...all I can say is that I've been a fat chick for 7 years or so now and lady, just accept that you have a battle ahead of you and lose weight. Yes...it is an uphill battle, but those of us who are overweight are so because we choose to not make the real effort needed to not be. We choose to eat that extra cheese pizza and sit here at coffee shops for hours smoking cigarettes and being sedentary when we should be getting our shit in order and or bodies in order.

Let's call this "the fat lifestyle" for lack of a better term. Much like the "gay lifestyle", this is a choice you make. At least in my opinion. If you choose to go out all the time, prey on the innocent, cheat and spiritually rob yourself, you cannot blame anyone but yourself. The others doing the same thing are not to blame. Obvious they have thier own fucking problems. Only the individual can acknowledge, understand, and then alter their actions.

I eat crap all the time. I drink 2-3 pots of coffee a day. I smoke a pack of cigarettes a day. I sit for hours in front of a computer. I now have a laptop which I even sit at when I am not at home or in my office. I do these things. I am immersed in this lifestyle that I choose and I am to blame for the fact that I am overstressed, in poor health, and getting ever worse. I. I. I.

One final note Ms. Fatchick. You cannot buy Fatchick Boots because at the 300 or so lbs that you are, they do not make boots that go up your damn huge calfs. Focus on your habits. Know them. Change them. And you will eventually find boots that fit.

Here endeth the rant.

I walk into a new life. A new path with new options and new lessons to learn. Change is the only constant.

Three years of hard work and many lost hours have drawn to a close today. My employement at Ohio State has ended, and my employment at Chemical Abstracts begins.

They took me to dinner tonight. It was fun. Somewhat sad, as such things are, but fun nonetheless.

Ended up at the B...where else do you think I'd end up? Leni was talking with Shawn. Asa was do'n Asa things. Had a beer. Took Leni home way down in German Village. Played with the hoont. Read some geekness which I may review tomorrow. And now...I head to bed.

G'nite reader. G'nite hoont. G'nite Matt who's already sleep'n. G'nite Pickett and Kelly blocks away. G'nite Asa. G'nite Shawn. G'nite Heather. G'nite Doug. G'nite Chad Alan. G'nite Kathy and Fred. G'nite Meow.

G'nite Nala.

I am going to waste this day. I am going to sit here, drink coffee, smoke cigarettes, and waste this day.

Well...till around 3. Then I'll go home, post Annie's lunch I think, and pick up hoont droppings. I will then gather my dirty laundry into the dark depths of the basement. With Matt going to see The Mummy Returns tonight I shall have more free time to do solo nala things around the house which I enjoy....

The back porch must be cleaned, and I want to move the neighbors shit back to the neighbors side of the house. I have to Freebreeze the Hoont Dwelling Zone. I want so sweep. Minor dishes. The kitchen is more or less clean.

The car...well..that's another matter...Perhaps I will get up tomorrow and clean up my little area of the basement. And carry the trash up from prior cleaning attempts.

But...I must do my CAS paperwork. Oh yes. Gotta have all that done.

Ok...so Columbus is under riot control. Well...namely the Ohio State campus is. It seems the every weekend for the past month OSU parties have become destructive events with rioting and overall rowdiness.

Ok...here's an equation that may make sense to you OSU Administration and Columbus City Council.

Taking away and closing the campus bars (plus) not having anyplace for approximately 40,000 undergraduates who drink to go to on the weekends (equals) off-campus partying where this type of behaviour may occur.

Simple. Now I don't condone rioting. Yet I don't condone the idiocy of the OSU Administration, their subsidized organisation Campus Partners, or the idiocy of the city council. 'Nuff said.

Oh yeah...yesterday was geek day. Mostly shit, as always...but one or two gems...go get your geek on...well..my geek on really.

The featured coffee at the Bean is Sulawesi...that'd make a good last name. I wonder if Mr. Giggles was drinking it.

Oh...and Unit #1 of Creepy Gay Couple was here. Damn, they are powerless as individuals. Super creepy gay couple powers activate!

I got a "psychic email" today from this woman. Apparently she "felt" that I needed spiritual guidance and the spirits told her my email address.

Thank you for your concern Ms. Cleo. However, my life has been fine since I took control of it. I don't need you meddling in my affairs. However, if you talk to the spirits of my ancestors...tell them I wish they'd have made more money.

I have spent my life attempting to find personal answers, essentially seeking a way to undo the brainwashing that Christianity and Catholicism have wrought on me.

For me, Christianity has proven a dead end. I am not a person of faith. I am a person of experience. I am a person seeing. Hence, my being raised in Catholicism didn't help much cement in me a core that was strong and real. It merely made me answer questions.

Christianty for me is not about experience. It is not about knowing a thing for what it is or what it was. It is about having faith in something that cannot be grasped, truly explained, or proven. I cannot look at it. I cannot touch it. I cannot hear it. There is no experience there. Merely believing that something is the way it is.

It is about fear. Fear of death. Fear of personal responsibility. It is about the fear of living.

Anyway...where was I going with this rant? Oh...yes...in this week's Newsweek the cover story is "Religion and the Brain" written by Sharon Begley.

There has been serious scientific work by neurologists lately in the way the brain works in terms of experiencing "mystical" and "spiritual" moments. They have managed to image pictures of the brain during transcendent experiences.

The buddhist monk in meditation and the catholic nun in rosary prayer reach the same level brain wave emissions and patterns.

Ok...I'm keeping this basic...so follow me.

There are areas of the brain that begin to shut down. These areas control our perceptions. They are truly where the "I" and "me" lie. As these shut down, consciousness remains but the separation between the "self" and the surrounding disappears. This leads to "no-self"...the transcendant experience of god. The feeling that you are one with the universe.

Now 2500 years ago Siddartha Guatama sat under the Bodhi tree and successfully managed, through years of meditation and practice, to separate the "self" and the "no-self". He managed to see the human mind for what it is and removed the obstacles that prevented him from knowing this "non-self". For the buddhist...this is enlightenment. Nirvana. The point where the individual melts away. Where the individual sees that they are a part of a pattern that stretchs back to the beginning of creation and stretchs forward to the end of time.

All I can say is that I feel justified in my knowing that all religion is inherent in ourselves. It stems from that moment when the brain evolved into the complex organism it is. When the first human mind evolved and the true concept of "I" arose from it, so did our need for returning to that moment when we had just evolved "humaness" for lack of a better word. When we symbollically bit into the fruit of the tree of knowledge and were cast out of the garden.

Siddartha successfully returned to that moment. It did not involve Christian bloodshed and arrogance. It did not involve fear of death. It involved knowing oneself at the deepest level and when this happened, knowing the non-self that exists in us. Knowing that we are god and that god is in us. Not out there. Here. Now. In the moment.

If he could do it, perhaps there is hope for us all.

I found something really interesting on the net. Our old marketing director has a site and posted an article that I commented on. She apparently uses it as a sample. It is at http://www.bbahneycomm.com/reproart.html. Now what is really really funny is that all the quotes are mine, but my former boss had her make one of the quotes his. Hah!

Reader Asa Guice writes...

"Hey, When are you gonna launch ? YÕknow, just a page or two that has a gateway front page ÒAre you a team player?Ó and two choices for ÒY/NÓ. The ÒYÓ jumps to some random picture of a fatchik/circusfreek/mongoloid or whatever undesirable of choice for the day. Not a big maintenance issue, just a couple of pages, and you could have a web-counter pick up the number of hits the damned thing got with a running tally of ÒTeam Players foundÓ or what-have-you. Just a thought. Asa "

He brings up a good point. The world needs to know about being a team player and taking one for the team when the occasion calls for it.

Let me know what you think. Here's a sample.

The cousin writes...

"i just finished reading yer rants for May...i loved them. the commentary was quite delightful...absolutely mind numbing, and i could not pull myself away (i now am running late for work). From the spiritual take to the fat chick lifestyle- I loved it! You get two craft sticks up from the kindegarden art teacher. (by the way, i have found that the best line for chick pick up, or conversation starter this weekend was "oh, I teach kindergarden art"--wow, the power of that!) anyhow-thanks fer startin my day off good--enjoy yours :)"

I think I may have to try that pick-up line. Or maybe... "Hi...do you need your hard drive de-fragged?" The girls will totally go for that!

Well...I'm here at my new job. Let's just say it is very different to the atmosphere that I've been in for the past 8 years. Very different.

Kinko's was organized like McDonald's. OSU was just plain disorganized. Here at ACS...well...it appears to be truly run as a company with clearly defined roles for people, a staff hierarchy that everyone knows and follows, and an IT staff that is very responsive...

However, they didn't install my LAN drop so I have no connection...I still don't have a phone in my office...and I have no email address as of yet. Oh...but I do have my Unix log-on.

That's the really interesting thing here...there are practically no Windows machines...it seems to be about 80% Solaris and 20% Macintosh. The only Microsoft stuff they use so far that I can tell is Exchange for email. I did request an NT box and G4 tower for my use. I got the NT box and the G4 tower should arrive soon.

I'll stick it out for a few months. I think it will be very boring compared to what I'm used to. Oh well.

The flowers are taking. That was happy to see. I was afraid they'd wilt a bit getting used to the shitty dirt/clay in the back yard. But no. They are spunky. Spunky $10.00 a flat Home Depot flowers. Yay!

The Basso scene as of 6pm...

Matt is read'n Deutsch!
Asa is work'n on his newly reinstalled iBook.
Heather is here...talk'n about drink'n and stuff.
Component #1 of the Alpha/Omega twinnage is study'n law and stuff.
The Hiljack White Trash couple was here.
Maureen is be'n Maureen.

Me? I'm just tired and ready to fall asleep.

Flowers in back. Flowers in front. Yard nice.

Unsuccessful attempt at repairing catastrophic directory damage on Asa's iBook. Nothing worked. I forgot to lay hands on it...and since it was Sunday, I should have taken it to church...perhaps that would have worked.

I start new job tomorrow. I am not even excited

Ya know...yesterday I wrote about how my new job had no soul...and for the most part...this is true....however, I've had a major change of heart today.

I actually left work happy, which is something I haven't done in ages...I actually left work not stressed. So...I think I will like this job...

If you are that bored, you can read my ACS journal to learn more about my new life...

I sent the cousin a special ecard. My commentary on my old job.

Had dinner with Jamie N., Vijay T., Matt, and the ever popular Doug G. Mac's of course. I actually had a black & tan (no dachshunds involved).

Was a ho-hum geek week. Barely a $20 week thank god. But there was a lot of shit I didn't buy. No reason to. It is mostly shit.

And at Basso we have...

Matt geek'n on comics.
Asa geek'n on law.
Marueen be'n Maureen.
Asian Girl with Cool tats is be'n Asian.

Hmmm...Asa is talking with the girl he says he's hot for. She's cute. She has a big old ethnic nose. Gotta love that. I think it even beats Scott's for sheer size.

The Pickett has arrived. He's a happy man. The Wexner Center bookstore has agreed to put a Plum Review bookmark in every book they sell. Cool. Mega Hoonty Cool.

Oh. Have I told you all I'm going to MIT in June. Yup. I'll be spending a week in Cambridge/Boston at a Science Imaging conference. I'll get to see Annalisa and meet Matte and Frances. And I think Annalisa will be staying at the crib the following week for Comfest 2001. And Karl will be coming back to Columbus for that weekend. So...all is good with the world.

New movies up at the movie site.

I cannot truly convey how screwed up my experiences were at Ohio State. I now have something truly organized and efficiently run to compare it to. OSU is essentially FUBAR.

I am involved with high-level application conceptualization and am the key to binary object and enhanced multimedia object integration into the composition services workflow. Yay! I actually know what I can do here.

I am also responsible for the low end integration of color scanning migrating from DC to Columbus. That's cake work. The fun stuff is the special projects.

Last night after that 8 hour meeting of fun and excitement, I got the urge to start grill'n! So...I went to the Big Bear and got some dogs to grill. 45 minutes in line later....argh...I hate Big Bear...

So...I grilled...and was happy. Watered the garden too...which should be taking off in the next few weeks. I gotta plant the remaining flowers by this weekend.

Then...I planned on heading to the B to work on the Plum Review Version 1.0.

Shawn was there and I started shoot'n the shit with her. Now readers of this site know I have profound interest in her. There are few that I've met in life that have her interests and her accomplishments. However, she is not a geek, though I believe that under her outside persona is a geek in need of breakout.

The Pickett arrived. Many cancer sticks were enjoyed. And witty conversation was had by all.

New important information on the Pickett. He shaved off the goatee and cut the hair. He looks thinner and his fabuloscity level is at an all time hight.

Shawn's always hovers around 8 or 9.

Well, I've got the basic layout and top navigation for the full plum review site which will hopefully go live soon. This of course is a temporary container site. Version 2 will be the actual site, properly laid out with the faults of the initial one taken out. But, at least there will be more than a place holder.

I got an email back from Annalisa yesterday. Seems I will now be in Boston from June 12 to the 17 and hopefully, well...probably will be able to meet all of the people I want to and if they have time, show me around. Then, she'll be here the following week for Comfest. Then, I'll be heading out to Las Vegas for a much needed vacation. And...if I'm lucky...will take my dad to a titty bar.

Dreams can be the most bizarre things.

Case in point...the dream I had from 12:30am to 2:30am last night. Two hours of the most bizarre and strange events possible. The fact that I managed to remember it, which I promised myself I needed to at 2:30, proves how totally strange it was.

And thus...

I found myself, Matt, Preston (sans Kelly), and Doug being coerced into moving to someplace called Winton, Ohio by Dan O'Reilly who works at Basso.

Now from what I can remember, Winton, Ohio was home to this German amusement park run by gnomes and dwarves (the fantasy flavour). There was this "tunnel of love" type ride through caves and such where gnomes would apparently berate the visitors from the sidelines.

Now we all lived in an apartment that was a mirror image of Scott Steyer's place on Neil, only much bigger, and the walls were transparent. The beds were the OSU res hall bunk bed kind of beds. Oh, and Hensley was there too.

Now I don't know the reasons for any of this.

All of a sudden a party starts happening. I was screaming and yelling because the more people I kicked out of the apartment, the more began to show up. Hensley was running around and I had to constantly try to keep him in the bedroom.

Now through this whole thing, I remember looking through the wall and Doug never left his bed. He just sat there. Matt was trying to sleep in the top bunk and I was trying to get all of these people out of the apartment. Many of these people were people from Basso, or just faces of people I have seen here and there.

Preston was not cooperative in any of this since he was drunk and in the front room on the couch yelling at me for trying to break up this party.

Through the whole dream I distinctly remember saying to myself "when will I wake up...this can't be real! This can't be real!"

Now there was this door to a basement in the kitchen that we were told to never go down. I remember opening the door, and there was someone, I can't recall if it was my friend TA or someone like him, saying that they'd take me to the party downstairs or something. They lead me down these steps and then I had to crawl on the floor of what apparently was The Inn At The End Of The World from one of the Sandman story arcs. I remember standing up and being introduced to Shawn who frequents Basso, except she kind of had a beard.

I then woke up.

Now the only thing that makes sense is the Shawn with the beard thing since she jokingly made this comment the other night that I should grow this long beard.

The rest...well...I just don't know.

I talked to my mother last night. I was a whole month off on my dad's birthday. It was May 4...not June 4. And I wrote June 4 all over the beneficiary stuff at work. Ack.

Anyway...Happy Belated 59th birthday Fred!

We ate at Mac's. Go figure. Me, Asa, Doug, Matt, and Kelly. More or less the usual.

And as a special treat to all the Asa fans out there, I've decided to start a new "Email Adventures with Asa" site.

Learn all of Asa's secret dating tips and tricks.

(6:39pm)
So Shawn brings this dream book in and I attempt to analyze the other night's bizarre dream. I shan't tell you what I found. Too disturbing. Dwarves. *shudder*

So we went to see "Wit" last night at OSU performed by the theatre department. All in all, it was very good for an essentially a student production. The main lead of Vivian Bearing was performed by an Assistant Prof at OSU. She was ok. I liked Emma Thompson in the HBO production much better. The second lead...well...he sucked.

However, the surprising gratuitous beaver shot at the end was...how shall I put it...well...surprising.

Comics week pretty much sucked. I may review them. Who knows.

I had to reprimand Chevonne today for refering to me as a gay boy. I am not gay. I am bisexual. There's a big difference. I am not a fan of gays in particular, and most know this. Yes, I went through a confusing phase that I refer to as my dark ages where I associated with that crowd. However, I grew up. (NOTE: this is very different from being a phreak or geek, which I am both.)

New exciting email from Asa. Enjoy!

I looked out the windows at work today and the sky was black. I haven't seen it that dark...and the rain...oy the rain. It was horrible. There were power lines down all over Olentangy River Road. And the basement was soaking wet. Ack. Nothing really damaged. But I don't know if I want to live there if that continues to be a problem.

Of course, it is sunny out now. Only in the midwest.

The major problem has been the fact that we have had rain every day since Sunday. The ground is saturated. The flowers, especially the hostas, seem to love it. They have really grown...including the lilac. But I don't think the soil can take any more rain. Nope. Nope. Nope.

The Basso local colour as of 5:55pm...

Preston...do'n plumreview things.
Sunshine...and her really hot boyfriend Justin (straight out of a Gero video)
Maureen...do'n Maureen type things
Asa just left.
Saul is play'n chess
Old Creepy Guy is on the couch
Cute From The Front Boy is here on the chair reading.
Would Be Cute If She Wasn't Blonde Girl is here
Kelly just arrived

The fabulous Deb Doran, known by many here and afar, made it on a website...even a full flash animated website...

I forgot how much I really miss Deb. I miss everybody out in San Francisco. I haven't seen them since last June during the cousin trip.

---
Went into work really early today...7:00am. I haven't done that in a long long long time. I think perhaps I will make a new habit of it though.

---
I have a Matt-free weekend, which I am actually looking forward to. I'd be looking forward to it even more if it wasn't fucking raining so much. It is supposed to rain all weekend. Just fucking lovely.

---
At the B with the Pickett. Tom B. is here do'n Tom B. kindsa things. Steve's work'n. The girls here today aren't much to look at.

I came across this commentary by the mormons on kissing... "In summary, passionate kissing is a sin before marriage. If you are doing anything with someone that you would not also feel comfortable doing with your brother or sister while in the presence of your parents, then you are going too far and need to repent."

Fun...isn't it?

(7:38pm) Ok. We're at Mac's now. And I pulled out the old Powerbook so I could tell you about all of the fun and excitement.

I of course have ordered the burger, medium, with mozarella, mushrooms, and cheddar with a side of mayo and a side of bbq sauce for the fries.

The Kelly ordered her usual. The Pickett got the chili, no onions, with sour cream and mild wings.

Rick, our server, brought us our meal and offered me that special ice tea refilled every 5 minutes that I need.

Kelly's breasts are mighty fine tonight, especially with The Pickett pulling her shirt taught.

A remnant from the dark ages is here and acknowledged me...and in bizarre form I actually acknowledged back. A rarity.

Woke up with a cold. Sucks balls nasty. Maybe go to Basso for java, maybe annies for bfast...then home and try to clean and stuff...

Oh...and there's more news from the man at the front line.

I have not had a cigarette in two days. Two days. T-W-O.

Now recently I started hitting two packs a day, so my addiction is at an all-time high. My cells saturated with nicotine...scream for more...and there has not been any. The feeling in my gut and in my soul is horrible. Truly horrible.

I didn't realize how my addiction had truly grown. I could actually have whacked the pickett over the head with a bar stool and stole his smokes...that's how bad the craving is!

Hmmm...oh...the site will start having a new look (version 34 more or less) slowly creeping in over the next few weeks. And I promise you all...I will try to get my lame design gallery up. I may have to host off of the NBCi site due to bandwidth issues.

Since all email sent from hotmail.com gets automatically filtered into my trash (since they all tend to be spam accounts) I almost missed this viewer email...

On May 21, cableguy81ii@hotmail.com emailed:

"hey man, you don't know me, but I thought I might let you know that the day that shawn was in basso with that dream book, she had her hair up, which she never does. I told her to wear it up that day, cause I think she looks cuter like that, but I was mildlly dissapointed to see that you failed to take notice. So, if you remember what she looked like that day, I would be curious as to what your thoughts are on the subject."

On the subject of Shawn...I wonder if she ran in the Race For The Cure like she had planned to do...last time I saw her she said she was feeling rather ill, but that was like last week. If ya ran Ms. R., then here's hoping ya kicked ass. I here that the first ten to cross the finish line got personally kissed by Robert Smith!!! Let us know here at naladahc.com if ya did!

Today...is geek day. It is also an extremely lame geek day. But...I'll review them later.

It is 6:20 at the B. The usual rabble of local flavour are here.

The Pickett and The Kelly are here. He just gave her flowers.
Sunshine (sans hot new boyfriend)
Edit (pronounced eh-deet)
Maureen is be'n Maureen
Chevonne is work'n at the B now.
A still ailing Shawn is talk'n with a friend.
Matt is read'n JSA #24.
Doug is look'n fabulous today.

Behold! I bring you ".help" pronounced "dot - help", my new graphical and technical support website. Well...I will eventually. That's what I did today. I started the project plan to incorporate all of the source guides and prior consulatant work in one nice location...it'll be cool.

Anyhow...I suppose that should go to the ACS page, but that is under revision.

So I spent most of last night...well..almost all of last night...at the B having high quality conversation with Shawn. The usual gang of miscreants was there. And...to ad some excitement to the evening...Shawn's ex-boyfriend was there. The drama saturated the air.

One thing I love...is when Ms. R. gives that glare like "please...kill this person that is talking to me now!". I've seen her use it on a few people, mostly on Aubry. No doubt she gives people that evil look of horror when I talk to her as well.

The final episode of Star Trek: Voyager was very lame. It wasn't so much the content...but the "let's wrap this up in 2 minutes" feeling that I didn't like. We as an audience didn't even get a chance to see the crew enjoy being home. Or even 7 of 9 get to see Earth for the first time. Or to see her breasts looking out over the San Francisco.

Been redo'n a lot of the site. The new travel pages are up including a trip my roomate and I took to San Fran in 1999 for LinuxWorld in San Jose.

As I sit and reflect at the B over the weekend's events or lack of events, I know that there's probably a lot I have yet to get done.

I spent over an hour on the hoont zone, using two kinds of fabric deodorizers on all accessible furniture. The hoont temperature contral units, otherwise known as blankets, have also been cleaned. While on the subject of said hoont, he also had a lovely 20 minutes in the bathtub being rubbed down with his aloe hoont shampoo. I suppose I should have taken pictures, as it is a sad sight. A sad sight indeed. (NOTE: This hoont hates water!)

Got most of the dishes collected and cleaned. The mail sorted. Etc, etc, etc. Hopefully the yard will dry out sufficiently to mow today. And Ipecac want's to go see The Mummy Returns...of course, he should know to look for me here...

My studio and bedroom are still messy. But...oh well.

Had breakfast at Annie's with Asa. Then quality Basso time.

I wonder if Shawn ran in the Race For The Cure. She was supposed to, and I saw tons of people with shirts on. Here's hoping she kicked lotsa runner ass!

The Pickett and The Kelly came over last night and we watched The Dark Crystal on DVD. I hadn't seen it in years, and it still is a remarkable film.

I fell asleep during SNL.

That was my day. Thanks for sharing.

Argh! The 'rhoids have kicked in something fierce this weekend. Argh! Argh! Argh!

Well, wasted most of last night just cleaning and organizing my hard drive...mostly the mess of mp3s files and other nameless items that accumulate that never get properly placed.

Matt came home around 9am this morning from a night out carousing and clubbing, which he hasn't done in years and is paying for this very moment. I don't know if I could feel comfortable doing that anymore. Mostly because I was rarely sober back then during the dark ages when I did go clubbing.

My parents should be down shortly. (Note: The were supposed to be here by 1...but no doubt my mother was late as always.)

For any family members on my maternal side reading the 'dahc.com today...I traced back the Powalowski's arrival to the US to 1904!!!! So...I have genes here in the states a full 10 years earlier than I had previously thought. (However, it appears I can go back to at least 1880's via the Kieselewski side!!!!) All in all...5th generation American...

And the really funny thing is...I've been thinking of how much I really hate the hypocritical subterfuge that is American culture lately and have actually posited the thought about what my future would be like if I emigrated to Europe..

Well. I decided to resurrect an old layout. Too many people emailing saying "why'd you take the links down from the main page" and stuff like that. So...here. The nalaportal is back. I liked my streamline centered look, but hey, I gotta adjust to that reader feedback...

Well, work has been really slow today. I did potentially solve the NFS sharing issues with the Mac's. So that should prove fruitful. What blows my mind is that you can have 60+ macintosh systems and not a real Sys Admin to maintain them. Sure...you got a few Wintel sys admins here. And let's not forget the bevy of *nix Sys Admins...but not a single damn real Macintosh Sys Admin...But that's a rant for the ACS pages...(NOTE: I was not hired to be this Sys Admin either.)

I'm on day 11 of my new non-smoking lifestyle. I've gone from 2 packs a day to quitting cold turkey. And so far so good. But...well...I have gotten really sick. Like a cold or flu...and I can't tell if it is because of my quitting smoking or something I picked up (hopefully not from Shawn since she was ill for like three weeks straight).

By day 4 of quitting, the nicotine had been purged from my system. The mental craving is still there, but that obsessive compulsion to drag that smoke into my lungs has more or less faded. Three days ago I entered the second post-smoking phase. Now my lungs are cleaning themselves out causing me to cough and hack up lovely phlegm. This is what happens. And well...hopefully no permanent damage done by those 6 years of smoking.

Dinner last night consisted of Mac's with Shawn in a post-Basso "I'm hungry sorta...wanna eat?" way. She's interesting in that "nala, you haven't really talked to a woman that you barely know" kinda way. It helps to meet new people. God knows I'm really stagnant that way.

Well. Comics were a day late due to the holiday. The new issue of Wonder Woman was just pure perfection. It took me back to the Wolfman/Perez Titans of the early 80's and is the kind of story I want to read from the JSA writers. Oh...and I got all of the Stormwatch graphic novels now.

I really hate my inability to design a website that is truly inventive and creative and at the same time reflects my rather boring and mundane existence. There is nothing worse than for me to start clicking on links off of Matt's site, and then finding these web people with such incredible talent for web design and layout. Maybe it is because I don't really do web work other than naladahc.com and hence, don't have time to experiment with real active and working pages. It just makes me sad. So much I want to do and write and yet know skill to execute the design or talent to put the words on paper.

Annalisa emailed back and voluntered to pick me up from the airport when I arrive in Boston (should I just type it b-a-w-s-t-o-n)? I can't wait to see her. It will be almost 51 weeks to the day. And I really want to meet Matte, her husband, he being one of those designers that makes me feel so lame.

One of my favourite websites, Rotten.com, was recently voted "The least useful website" -- The Guardian (London), 21 May 2001. Yup. The real internet is all about internet roadkill. Fuck your e-commerce and marketing/mailing pipe dreams!