Now don't get me wrong: I've always said that lyrics aren't the most important thing about a song, and the reason I say that is because I don't want to be one of those preachy, self-righteous, 'my-messages-are-so-deep' kind of songwriters, 'cause I hate that crap, you know? You know, the 'let's-sit-at-an-outside-cafe' and smoke unfiltered cigarettes and have another mocha and talk about how 'I'm-an-artist-and-nobody-understands-me' kind of bullshit. I mean Jeez Louise, that stuff irritates me to no end.
-Dexter Holland, on the Offspring song "Staring At The Sun"

I'm in love all over again. But I won't go into detail about that dream I had about Dexter the other night...

Mood: naughty
Listening to: Grady's mewing

Lineage

I haven't visited HalfKorean.com in a while. I wonder if I should submit a picture of myself for their archive. I wonder who the pictures are for: people who aren't half Korean wondering what half Koreans look like or half Koreans wondering what other half Koreans look like. I have to admit, it's very odd seeing other living, breathing half Koreans. In Minnesota there are entire large communities where Korean immigrants and their families settle, but seeing a half-n-half like myself is extremely rare. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen more than one. There was this girl, Annie I think, who was the daughter of Suk, a good friend of my mom's. I haven't seen her since my mom was alive, almost 13 years ago.

Google searches

Who are all these people who have come to my page via a Google search for "webcam +sneezing"? Why are you searching for such a thing? Wierdos.

Bwa ha ha! Someone else noticed it too!

The best song ever written

is "The Devil Went Down To Georgia." No question.

D-day approaches.

I have to learn how to cook a turkey dinner in less than two days. Great. And we still don't have a table. Anyone in the Twin Cities area have a spare table they'd like to get rid of for about $100?

Mood: worried
Listening to: A-Ha - Take On Me

Sleep is weird.

I dreamed of storms last night. It was probably a combination of reading American Gods and the new Twilight Zone episode last night. I dreamed of tornados -- a reoccurring theme in my nighmares -- and a strange break in the chaos. I dreamed of a thunderbird. She looked like great white crane with long red feathers on her head and a beautiful Chinese woman in a flowing white dress with red feathers in her hair at the same time. You know how dream logic is. She flew through the air of my parents' neighborhood and whenever her wings/arms flapped thunder and lightning crashed. And she looked at me, I think, and I feel like I should remember why. I'm trying to draw a picture of her but it's too hard.

Too many cupcakes and cookie bars before bed last night for sure.

Mood: confused
Listening to: Red Hot Chili Peppers - Breaking the Girl

I will sit here.

I have read Nowhere Girl again and I like it. I feel great having accomplished what I set out to accomplish today. I have new tabs on my car (only a month late this time!) and I changed the address on my driver's license. I'm a little freaked out because I didn't have to take a new picture for my new license. That means that in true Big Brother fashion my face is in some database in some computer on some scary government intranet. I half expect them to announce tomorrow that we all need to go in and get our social security number barcodes tattoed on our necks.

Mood: okay
Listening to: Dinosaur Jr. - Feel The Pain

Finally!

Today is like Friday for me. I actually get two days off in a row! Yay! Maybe we'll go and see the Wild game tonight.

Mood: relieved
Listening to: Seal - Kiss From A Rose

Whoo

Bob finds all the fun stuff on the Internet.

a - age: 22
b - best quality: Peacemaker.
c - choice of meat: Prime rib. Medium. With garlic butter sauce.
d - dream date: Ranma from Ranma 1/2. A bisexual's dream! ^_^
e - ex (most recent): Somebody who has a whole lot of issues.
f - favorite food: Prime rib. Medium. With garlic butter sauce.
g - greatest accomplishment: Hasn't happened yet.
h - happiest day of your life: Couldn't tell you.
i - internal conflicts: I'm one big walking internal conflict.
j - jam or jelly: Jam, because it doesn't look like something you'd find in a petri dish.
k - Kool-Aid: Tropical Punch!
l - love: Dan, the cats, the dog
m - most valued thing I own: My mother's rhinestone jewelry.
n - name: Pick one.
o - outfit you love: Sleeveless t-shirt or black wifebeater, comfy jeans or guy shorts.
p - pizza toppings: Onion, green pepper, sausage
q - question you want to ask: What is so hard about peace that people just don't get it?
r - most radical thing you've done: Shaved my head.
s - sport to watch: Hockey! (Ice)
t - television show: Digimon. I guess.
u - unique habit: I don't know.
v - very favorite verb: "Fucking." It's such a useful word.
w - winter: Snow is pretty. For about two minutes. Give me beaches and 80 degrees 365 days a year.
x - x-rays you have had: Teeth, leg, chest
y - yesterday's best meal: A turkey hot dog and Pringles prepared by Dan.
z - zodiac sign: Pisces.

Mood: good
Listening to: Seal - Kiss From A Rose

Santa drives an old brown minivan.

I saw him leaving the mall at the same time I did. And he still looked jolly driving away in his rusty, weathered sleigh.

Mood: depressed
Listening to: myself chew

Observation:

It's amazing how some guys can wear a kilt and pull it off so well.

Work it, boys!

Mood: On the verge of hysteria
Listening to: That weird vein in my head pulsing

Unrequited lust

Mood: sad
Listening to: Madonna - This Used To be My Playground

I'm feeling much better now.

I'm still a bit tender around the bladder region, but all of the other hellish symptoms are gone. I was really skeptical about only being on Cipro for three days. Every other time I've needed meds I've been told I need to take them UNTIL THE END OF TIME HA HA HA HA! Well, I don't need to go through what I went through when I had an H. Pylori infection ever again. Pray you don't get that, gentle readers.

Now for something completely different. I was attempting to make something bruchetta-like to go with our spaghetti the other night and came up with an amazingly simple winner. We haven't gone shopping in a little while due to money issues and we're getting pretty scanty on food so I didn't have a lot to work with. I took some english muffin toasting bread and spread some melted butter on it. I spread a generous amount of pesto and sprinkled parmesan on top of that. It went in the toaster oven for one and a half cycles on "dark" and out came this wonderful salty artery-clogging toast. It was better than the spaghetti.

Mood: good
Listening to: Madonna - Music

Either I am excessively emotional today or this is the saddest thing I've read in a long time:

DEAR ABBY: I enlisted shortly after Pearl Harbor. Thirty-six days later, I was on my way to the Philippines. En route, the Philippines fell to the Japanese, and we were routed to Australia. Eleven days after we landed, I met the most beautiful girl in the world.

On our first date, I told her I was going to marry her. I did, 18 months later, while on a 10-day R-and-R leave from New Guinea.

After more than 57 years of marriage and two children, my beloved "Mary" died five days before Christmas. Although we agreed that our ashes were to be scattered over the mountains, I found I could not part with hers.

While Mary was alive, she would frequently say, "You don't know how much I love you." I'd reply, "Likewise." I never said, "I love you." Now her ashes are on my dresser, where I tell her several times a day how much I love her, but it's too late. Although I wrote poetry to her, I could not bring myself to say the three words I knew she wanted most to hear.

As my dearest was dying and we thought she was comatose, I told her, "There aren't enough words to tell you how much I love you." A few hours later, she whispered, "Not enough words" and died.

The reason I'm writing is to urge men to express their feelings while their loved ones are alive. I don't know why, but many men are reluctant to express the depth of their feelings. -- MISSING MARY IN COLORADO

Mood: sad
Listening to: Tori Amos - Jackie's Strength

Well, look who's "gifted."

According to this site's IQ test I'm "gifted" ("for the sole purpose of intellectual stimulation, education and general knowledge"). Lookee lookee, I'm 158.

Dude, IQ tests don't go that high. I'd be, like, a triple genious or something.

Mood: tired

By the way...

How in the blue fuck do you pronounce "L'engle"?

Read Read Read Read Read

In the past three days I have polished off A Wind In The Door and A Swiftly Tilting Planet, both by Madeline L'engle. Okay, so I did feel a little dorky picking out books from the juvinele fiction section of the library, but I feel very rewarded by it. I didn't even know that there were followups to A Wrinkle In Time until a few months ago, and never even thought to search them out at the library until I happened to be wandering through the fiction section and noticed L'ENGLE on the spine of a book. I'm immensely happy about finally getting myself a library card. I don't know why I ever spent so much money actually buying books before. Duh.

There are several books that I NEED to own, however. I've felt lost ever since my set of the Chronicles of Narnia disappeared. I really want a nice hardcover set of those -- something that I can pass down to ... whoever. And now that I'm on the L'engle track, I'd like to own all of her Wrinkle-related books as well.

It's back to the library tomorrow before work so I have something to read while I'm there. I checked out the Tao Te Ching but I found that it was much too hard to concentrate on cryptic ancient Chinese philosophy in the middle of a mall. I need more fiction. It's actually been a very, very long time since I read any fiction before this week. It's been religion this and philosophy that and paranormal here and sociology there. It's funny, I have this intense hunger for knowledge but I hate being taught by anyone. That's why I'm doing so well with my correspondence course and why I sucked so bad at "real" college. I think it's because I have a power complex. Really. I have to be in control of a situation and myself at all times or I go nuts.

Hm... off to update my Amazon.com wishlist.

Mood: smart

Satan strikes again

We didn't have a phone line yesterday. Grr.

But it seems to be fixed now. Obviously. I've been a bit lax on blog entries lately but I have two excuses: work and a UTI.

Ow.

Mood: sick
Listening to: the wind

It's funny 'cause it's true.

What Office Space character are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Thoughts from work - originally written 11/07/02

Disclaimer for this blog entry: I'm no fashion diva, but I know what looks goofy.

It has probably been said before but the athletic shoe industry is either completely insane or has a sick, sadistic sense of humor. There's got to be a bunch of guys sitting around a bong over at Nike going, "hey, let's see how many idiots will wear this!" I mention this because I work at two fairly upscale, white-collar malls and I get to see all sorts of ways rich folks waste their money. I just saw some kid shuffle by with what appeared to be high end Nike moon boots. Or really poofy hightops. Are hightops making a comeback? Who said that would be allright?

THOUGHT: right, you look so hard with your skinny white arms sticking out of your Timberwolves jersey, kid.

Seriously, are Zubas making a comeback in the Latin-American male fashion scene?

Who else can I pick on? How about those teenage girls with slits in the bottoms of their pants that make their pant legs flop all over the place? Are they trying to show off their ankles? Are ankles sexy?

Fashion item that needs to go away once and for all: denim jackets.

One of the kiosks I work at is directly outside of Abercrombie and Fitch. The display windows are filled with very large pictures of some young beefcake weraing what look like red reindeer swimming trunks (on top of boxer shorts no less). Red shorts with little white reindeer. That should be in itself very funny. But in one of the pictures beefcake is standing there in the comical shorts with a Santa hat on his heat half naked looking like he's attending a funeral. It's surreal. Speaking of Abercrombie and Fitch, they blare the most obnoxious crap all day long. I get to hear this bizarre mix of "mall music" (a tiny stop up from Lite FM) and techno remixes of pop songs.

basshihatbasshihatbasshihat Can you hear me basshihatbasshihatbasshihat Can you hear me running... basshihatbasshihatbasshihat

Fucking strange.

I also work directly across from this towering edifice of folk-based commercialism, a two story giant red and green Santa house. It was here before Halloween. Remember what you wouldn't see any holiday merchandise until the day after Thanksgiving? Good times. Sensible times.

Thanksgiving. Yikes. It's only a few weeks away. Dan and I are having it at our new place this year. I extended the invitation to my parents knowing full well what their answer would be. Dan said, "maybe they can just come over for dessert." I burst out laughing. I couldn't help it. My parents visit their children's homes? Pshhh. Right. If that ever happens, look out folks, 'cause the end of the would is nigh. Okay, not going to talk any more about my parents. It's just plain unhealthy.

Back. Finally.

AARRRGH! I've been without an Internet connection since 10/27/02. Qwest (the "new" Qwest) is more Satan than ever. So here's what happened:
I called them up last week days before we moved to let them know to stop service there on the 31st and start it up at the new place the same day. We move. Days pass. I call them up on Monday and ask what the fuck because we still didn't have a phone line. They told me that we were scheduled to have everything installed on Tuesday. Tuesday goes by, still no line. I call back Tuesday night just before they close and ask WHAT THE FUCK? It seems that the previous tenents never disconnected their service and their line was actually shut off due to nonpayment. The customer service person asked, "did anyone tell you this yesterday?" NO, nobody told me or Dan or anyone else for that matter. So can't you just shut their line off and start ours up? No, they reply, your landlord has to call us and tell us to shut it off. OKAY, FINE. So I call up Butch (yes, our landlord's name is Butch. Cool.) and ask him to call Satan, I mean Qwest, which he does right away -- bless the man. I call Qwest back a little later and ask so NOW what the fuck? How long until we get a phone line? "I can schedule you for Friday." AAAARGH!

Meanwhile I have no idea if customers have tried to place orders or contact me with questions. The "new" Qwest doesn't seem to give a shit. So today is Friday, November 8, and we JUST got our phone line. How do I get in on that Qwest lawsuit? Did I mention that I was charged for three months of Qwest internet access after I cancelled it? Hate them. Hate them bad.

Enough of this. What else has happened in the past more-than-a-week? We moved, as I mentioned, and our new place is splendid. It has its problems, as all apartments do (especially in buildings built close to 70 or 80 years ago) but we have all this space now! I have an office! We have a clawfoot tub! And a three season porch! On a busline! Rock.

I started working at Southdale which, for those of you not familiar with the Twin Cities, is the most white-collar, super-affluent shopping mall in the state unless you count the Galleria, which is right next door. The place sickens me. The next entry will be from what I wrote while working yesterday. I could go on and on about the little rich bastards running around with daddy's credit card or the rich bastard middle-agers who think their shit don't stink so damn much that they can't even say "hi" back or make the slightest acknowledgement of the wretched mall employees (i.e.: me) who are OBVIOUSLY so beneath them. Rich pricks.