Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in SporkChan's LiveJournal:

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Saturday, February 12th, 2005
10:12 pm	ACen! I will be able to make it to ACen! I've got the time off, and both my bosses approved it. If they try to make me work then, I'll just tell them that I requested it off 3 months ahead of time and go anyway. So now, I've got to get an airplane and a room. Anyone have any suggestions on cheep plane websites? I know I've used them in the past, and they work fairly well. And anyone have room in their room? Or is there an ImproSuite again this year? I can sleep anywhere and don't snore, I swear! (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, February 2nd, 2005
12:11 am	Rememberance and Rediscovery So it's been a while, huh? Life has continued for me, pretty much the same as always. I've gone through a series of jobs most of which I didn't much enjoy. Currently I'm working behind the meat/seafood counter at a chain supermarket. And, shock of all shocks, I don't much dislike this job. It's dirty, and I come home smelling of fish every night, but it's good work and I've always enjoyed the customer service side of the jobs I've had. We just renegotiated our contract, and while there was a brief period where a strike looked very likely, we didn't have to go that far to get most of what we wanted out of the companies. The upside of that is that very soon I'll have good benefits and can go to the dentist and the optometrist again. Yay! Still not going to college, and I'm beginning to regret that choice. Well, maybe not regret, but I certainly see the negative aspects of my life because of what I chose. Which is pretty much regret. Well anyway, I am considering starting back up at school in the fall, if only to improve all the bad marks I've gotten in the past. Still quite undecided on what I want to do with my life. However I'm sure I need to make up my mind soon, or suffer the indignity of living with my mother till I'm 30. So that's basically what I've been up to, and it's a bit depressing I can sum it all up in 2 paragraphs. I'm still kicking, still confuzzled, and still here. Current Mood: listless (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, February 7th, 2004
1:47 pm	In my head I dream of another me But in this world I change nothing And in the space behind my eyes Where my soul likes to live A better version of me cries (Comment on this)
Friday, August 22nd, 2003
11:40 pm	Road Trip! Haircut! Fired! Yes, I am still alive. Stuff has happened in my life that is some import, so I thought I'd share it with you. So, without further ado, in reverse chronological order, 'Important Stuff in SporkChan's Life' 1. Road trip! Yesterday I got back from a road trip down to Los Angeles. Two of my friends and myself drove down to LA on Tuesday for three days or booze, women and revelry. Sadly, women in LA seem to be in short supply or something. The revelry was fun though! We did all the touristy things to do in LA; rent bikes and cruise down Venice Beach, walk the Walk! Of! Fame!, eat at Medieval Times, and go see a Dodgers game for bargain basement prices. Another highlight was eating at Hooters, a first for all of us. We also drank beer and smoked cigars and looked at porn. Basically it was couple of days spent soaking in typical masculinity. On the way back we stopped off at Six Flags and went 'WHEEE!!!' and 'WAA-HOOO!!' and 'Damn, that's a long line.' Oh, and more masculinity, but still, no women. I swear, Southern California must send them all off during the summer or something. 2. Haircut! For those of you have never met me or seen pictures of me, I have long hair. Well had. My three year absence from the barber shop was ended a few weeks ago. I know have only a few inches of hair left. I haven't yet managed to find a style that I like, but that hopefully won't take me too long once I finally get down to the drug store and buy some styling gel of some kind. I've also got something like 16 or so inches of hair to send off to the poor cancer kids, which might earn me some karma points; if that was the reason I'd done it. Sadly, my karma shall stay the same. Anyway, pictures might be forthcoming if demand merits. 3. Fired! So I quit my job. Which makes the title for this a bit misleading. Finally got fed up with my boss and dropped my two week notice on her. Of course, that was just what the [Error: Irreparable invalid markup ('<expletative [...] children!>') in entry. Owner must fix manually. Raw contents below.] Yes, I am still alive. Stuff has happened in my life that is some import, so I thought I'd share it with you. So, without further ado, in reverse chronological order, 'Important Stuff in SporkChan's Life' 1. Road trip! Yesterday I got back from a road trip down to Los Angeles. Two of my friends and myself drove down to LA on Tuesday for three days or booze, women and revelry. Sadly, women in LA seem to be in short supply or something. The revelry was fun though! We did all the touristy things to do in LA; rent bikes and cruise down Venice Beach, walk the Walk! Of! Fame!, eat at Medieval Times, and go see a Dodgers game for bargain basement prices. Another highlight was eating at Hooters, a first for all of us. We also drank beer and smoked cigars and looked at porn. Basically it was couple of days spent soaking in typical masculinity. On the way back we stopped off at Six Flags and went 'WHEEE!!!' and 'WAA-HOOO!!' and 'Damn, that's a long line.' Oh, and more masculinity, but still, no women. I swear, Southern California must send them all off during the summer or something. 2. Haircut! For those of you have never met me or seen pictures of me, I have long hair. Well had. My three year absence from the barber shop was ended a few weeks ago. I know have only a few inches of hair left. I haven't yet managed to find a style that I like, but that hopefully won't take me too long once I finally get down to the drug store and buy some styling gel of some kind. I've also got something like 16 or so inches of hair to send off to the poor cancer kids, which might earn me some karma points; if that was the reason I'd done it. Sadly, my karma shall stay the same. Anyway, pictures might be forthcoming if demand merits. 3. Fired! So I quit my job. Which makes the title for this a bit misleading. Finally got fed up with my boss and dropped my two week notice on her. Of course, that was just what the <expletative deleted, For the Children! The Children!> was waiting for, so I was dropped from the schedule the very next day. Can you tell we didn't get along? Anyway, I've set out on the great job hunt, which I thought would be easy since I'm a reasonably smart teenager with no scruples and a completely open schedule. Forgot that I live in California with a population of 40 quadrillion and only 14 jobs though. So I've had no luck so far, despite some favorable, or what I thought were favorable interviews. Luckily I'd managed to build up some money ahead of time and can continue to pay off my bills for a few more months, especially if I stop spending money by doing silly things like going to LA for a few days. So that's that. I'm alive, have no job, a slightly shorn scalp, and the beginnings of a tan for the first time in my life. Current Mood: happy Current Music: Moxy Früvous - The Lazy Boy (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, June 12th, 2003
3:16 am	So, it's 3 am, and I'm awake. And I'm posting. Yesterday I made $100 dealing blackjack at one of the local middle school's graduation dances. Was fun, but the music was loud, so it was hard to hear the kids. And pro'lly hard for them to hear me. Got the job through some of my poker buddies. It was a $100 though, and for only a couple hours work. Nice. I tried to spend the money on some anime, but all the places around here only had the newest GTO for me, and not the other stuff I was looking for. Must get later I guess. Ah well. Also couldn't find Ikagura in either Blockbuster or Hollywood, and though I was tempted to just outright buy the game, I resisted. (Yosh!) When I got home, my brother and a couple friends were hanging out and bored, so we all decided to go bowling. One hour later and 1.9 games later, we left, with sore shoulders and blistered thumbs. Went for ice cream at Marinies, the local very good ice cream shop. I got a double scoop cup of Oreo Cookie, and Cookie Dough (Notice a theme there?) and enjoyed it muchly. During the ice cream, my brother got a call telling him there was a screening of 'Hollywood Homicide' at the theatre he works at so off we went. Movie was okay, though the plot seemed rushed and full of holes. Ah, well. Action scenes were nice, and the gimick of cops who are distracted from their police-work by other stuff (Yoga classes, realator side-jobs, etc.) worked well. Ending was certainly rushed though. You very much got the feeling that if you were to buy the DVD, you'd find 20-30 minutes of deleted scenes. Am listening to Moxy Fruvous, and Winamp seems stuck on 'Way to Go Murry' and 'I Love my Boss'. Not that I dislike those songs, but 3 times in an hour for each seems a bit overkill. Especially since there are so many other songs to pick. Fanime is coming up soon, and I'm looking forward to that. If anyone else who reads this is going and would like to get together at some point, drop me a line and we'll try to work something out. Anyway that's about it. I realize this wasn't much about my life as it but oh well. Maybe some other time. P.S. I've been reading all those quiz/questionare things you all've been doing. Am enjoying them muchly, and if anyone wants to write me a couple questions, or vise/versa, consider me game. Current Mood: content Current Music: Moxy Fr?vous - Darlington Darling (3:38) (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 20th, 2003
1:15 pm	Oh yeah, this thing. First of all, yes, shock of all shocks, I'm actually posting to this thingie. Second, this is going to be long, and rambling, and I don't know how to LJCut so just scroll away if you so desire. And here begins the real stuff. THIS WEEKEND This weekend was much with the fun. It was the tail end of Spring Break 'round these parts, and since most of my friends these days are in school of one sort, a party was ripe for the uh.. partyinging. Yeah. Anyway, partyage happened. It was on Friday night, and thus named the, 'Good Friday, Bad Saturday' party. As such, copious amounts of liquor were present. And hey, there were horseshoes, and darts, and poker, so I had to drink! And drink I did. Had some good stuff, and some not so good stuff (Me like: Chocolate Cake, JD's Hard Cola; Me no like: Whatever beer it was that was there.) and then the poker started. And I kicked much ass. All told, I ended up with 13 dollars worth of winnings (We play with nickel chips) unless my brother really did take advantage of my drunkenness and not pay me back. And since I was winning all the money, no one stopped me from getting even drunker, and I was very sloshed by the end of the night. My brother drove me home and that was all for good Friday. And the along came bad Saturday. Which started off bad. I was mightily hung over, and spent most of the morning in between my bed and the bathroom. We were having more poker that night with people, along with other casino games; roulette, craps, and blackjack. So around noon and took a shower, felt better, and crawled back into bed until people showed up. I think I came out even for the night (Still nickel chips) but that's more because I was joining in and playing roulette and craps, and card games are very much more my forte. That was a late night, but thanks to that morning's feelings of sleeplessness, there was no booze present. People left, and sleep ensued. And along came Easter Sunday. Which was a typical day here, except for Easter dinner, which seems to have barely registered for me. We went to a friends house, ate some ham and other good foods, had dessert, and came home. Along the way, I stopped to check my work schedule for the next week. More on that in a sec. When I arrived home, I proceded to spend the day lazing away in front of the TV. And that brings us up to now. Except for one thing. WORK I used to like my job. It was annoying manual labor, and I went home everyday covered in flour, but I still liked it. Every week Monday to Friday, 8am to about 2pm I worked. I didn't have to deal with people if I didn't want to, but could socialize (such as I'm capable of) if I felt like it. I'm not really sure when all that started to change. It may have been with the new manager, but I don't think so, because the full weeks I liked happened after she started. I think it was when I began to have to deal with her though. For a while, I just did my job, and that was that. But then, because of scheduling things and whatnot, I ended up having to pull double duty. So that when I finished my regular job, I'd have to come out and watch the front while the manager drove the deliveries around town. And then there were more of those days, and then a few more in irregular places because of irregular schedules. But it all began to add up. And I really don't like the manger. She's one of the hypocritical people who expects people to do better than she herself does. And that, to me, is the MOST annoying personality type a person, especially a person in a position of power over me, can ever have. And she has it in spades. Regularly coming in late, she wrote me up for showing up 40 min late one day. Even though I got all my job done on time. Nobody there much seems to like her, and I think it's all for the same reason as me, though they simply say that she's lazy. Anyway, three or four weeks ago, I became a delivery driver. Miss manager got tired of driving the shifts, and since I was one of the few workers she could get to work on Monday mornings, I got the shift she didn't want. And I loved it. It was better than my other job there to the nth degree. I could drive around in the beautiful weather around here, with the window down and the music blaring. And I got out of the store while being paid for it. Oh, and lets not forget the tips. I was making around $14 an hour, considering my already high wage. Then last Monday, I got in an accident. Minor thing really, cosmetic damage to both cars. Partly my fault, partly a poorly designed parking lot. Luckily the guy in the other car used to work for the same store I now do, so he was understanding. Agreed to handle it under the table, keeping a point of my record, and not causing the insurance on the work cars to increase. Then he came in with a $800 bill. Claimed that there was a small dent in the frame. I'm almost positive he's just stiffing the store for some cash, but the owner paid up. So I'm not allowed to drive anymore. Which is dumb, but whatever. I figured I'd get my roll shifts back, and go back to working 30ish hours a week. Except when I checked the schedule today, I only have 24 scheduled hours. And I will only end up working roughly 18 of them. And that's just bullshit. I have to talk to the manager tommorow about it, but I've also started the great job hunt. I scanned the classifieds today, and am bringing my list of possible places in to work tommorow. So phone calls while the manager's gone. Hopefully all will go well and I'll find something quickly. Otherwise I predict hard times for me ahead, whether I stay with the shit job with shit hours, or just quit and end up unemployed. Times like these, I wish I'd stayed in college. Even if they'd just be different hardships. (Comment on this)
Saturday, July 27th, 2002
2:03 am	Mah-jong! Today I got to play Mah-jong for the first time in a while! (For those of you thinking I'm talking about that silly matching game, go bang your head against the wall and then do a quick google search.) I actually had to dust my set off, it's been so long since I last played. Taught most of the other people how to play, but they picked it up quickly and all was good then. I keep meaning to set up a weekly game, but it's complicated and I haven't gotten around to that yet. Maybe soon. Planing on taking the set over to the big casino night at Jeremy's on the 4th. Maybe afterwards see about setting up weekly game. That'd be fun. Yea Mah-jong! (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, June 10th, 2002
3:12 pm	More Used Philosophy Ah what a day. Multiple things happening, so I'll just make a big whompin' list. -Dentist. Ugh. Had two fillings pop out on Saturday so had to get into the dentist lickity split. Of course, only time dentist could fit me in before his two week vacation was today, at 9:20 in the morning. And I only had a short bit of warning too, so morning was icky. Had to drive mom and bro to work and school, respectively, then drive home, get ready, then drive to middle of nowhere for dentist. Oh fun. Have you ever noticed that pressurized air sound coming from the drill just assaults your eardrums? In fact, it often seems to move past the eardrums and straight into the aural nerve. Or maybe right to the brain. No matter, it's annoying as all hell. And that's just when the drill is going in the next room. There's nothing quite like having this thing with the kinda RPM's only achieve in jet engines sitting inside your mouth only millimeters away from your drugged up gums. Can you tell I like dentists? -Hippie Ad Wandering through the mall I noticed an ad in the storefront of The Limited, one of the many upper-middle class woman's clothing stores in our bloated mall. (Note, the Mall organizers actually kicked out the bookstore in the mall because 'we can't have two bookstores in the same mall'. But we can have 40 different clothing stores? Welcome to America folks.) And this ad was for a tank top-ish thing, very sheer, not much material at all. Anyway, the add said something like, 'Hippie Wear' or something similar. It was implying though that this flimsy bit of cloth was something the hippies would have worn. What I'm wondering is if this ad was tailor made for Santa Cruz, or if it'll get a bum rap here. And the odd part is, I'm not sure.. Santa Cruz seems be formed of 3 main types of people when it comes to the hippie department. A) Tried and True Hippies. People who were young in the 60's here, they lived the life of free love and peace and happiness. I can see their attitude being mostly something like 'Feh, we used to *make* our own clothes. And we certainly didn't pay $40 for the proverbial Tylenol bottle worth of cotton' and then moving on with their lives. However then we have B) The New Hippies. These mostly seem to me to be the folks in town who are into free love and drug use and an excuse not to bathe, but don't really get the passive resistance or lack of violence things that, to me, characterize the early hippie movement. These are the folks that protest the Gap downtown nightly (A Santa Cruz entertainment venue, if ever there was one) and I can see them protesting this add too, just because. Except that they'd get thrown out of the mall in two seconds, but hey, at least their hearts are in the wrong place. And then of course, there's C) The Anti-Hippies. These are mostly the kids that grew up in this area, and have had to deal with living in Hippie-Heaven (My very un-official title for Santa Cruz) their whole lives. They're mostly silly about it, 'Dirty hippies' and the like, but I certainly can't see this ad as catching their attention enough to get them to buy something. Guess it doesn't really matter, I just thought it was a silly ad, that for some reason caught my eye. -Used Book Stores I have decided that I'm not allowed to go in used book stores anymore. Ever. Went in this morning to drop off my Box-o-Books for them to look at and buy stuff from. Wandered around a bit when I got back cause they weren't quite done with it yet. BAD IDEA. They ended up only giving me $30 worth of trade and leaving me with roughly 75% of my books still. Cause they were in 'bad condition' (IE. they had been opened at one point) or they all ready had copies of the book. And so then, just to show them, I went and bought $80 worth of stuff! That'll teach 'em! And that's why I'm not allowed back in used book stores. At least not while I have cash. Current Mood: amused Current Music: Vienna Boys Choir - Carol Of The Bells (Comment on this)
Tuesday, March 19th, 2002
12:34 am	Day 7397, and counting. Woke up at the ungodly hour of 6:45. Well that's when my alarm started to go off. Finally woke up around 7:15ish, after hitting the snooze button (EVIL!) a couple of times. Got a ride from my mom to work, for... 'Monday Morning Movie Madness!!!' MMMM is contest run by a local movie station where you guess three movie titles, after being given quotes from those movies. The prize is a $100 gift certificate to Circuit City, and some CD's. Down at Round Table, where I work, we have a sorta monopoly of the contest, as someone from the place has one almost every time for the last six months or so... however, today we lost. Sorta. It was won by Chuck, the ex-delivery driver, who was often counted as one of the 'Round Table People'. However since he stopped delivering to us, we stopped counting him, and are slightly miffed whenever he wins. So anyway, got my prize stolen by Chuck, and walked home. Got home, took shower, ate breakfast, did reading for class later that day. Went and played video games some, fun fun fun. Went to school. Got my test back, I got a 78/100. Not good, but not that bad, and the lowest test grade is dropped. So I still have a chance. Now if I can just bring up my appalling attendance, things should be handle-able. Hopefully. Tommorow I have my HTML and Japanese classes, both of which, I'm having trouble attending also, so I have to work on that too. Hoping that if I start to wake up at a roughly early hour I will be more inclined to go. At the very least it'll stop me from waking up at one in the afternoon, rolling over, looking at my clock, mumbling an expletitive, and drifting back to sleep. Got home from school, played more video games, did more stuff, blah blah blah. Accomplished little in my multiple varied 'Things To Get Done'. Watched 'Jin-Roh' with my brother. Good movie, kinda freaky though. Very depressing? Maybe. Not sure. Have to watch it again anyway, so will leave off interpretation till after that. On a side note, I recently have been re-re-rereading the entire run of Fans! , one of my favorite web-comics. No.. scratch that, absolute favorite. Heartily recommend it for everyone and anyone. T Campbell is one of the best story-tellers I've seen in my recent life. All though, admittedly I don't see that many stories anymore. Should read more. Ah-well. ACen Note - Sent of registration today, hope it gets there in time. Still no plane ticket, want to talk to Rutt about the hotel room first. He's disappeared off the face of the planet. Hope he's all right. Give it till Wednesday or I buy the ticket anyway and hope for the best. If worst comes to worst, bum room of fellow Improer. Have slept on windowsill before for anime con, can do it again. (Comment on this)
Saturday, March 2nd, 2002
2:10 am	Nuclear Whales! Tonight was a great night. All though I worked a little over 9 hours, and ended up getting home around 6pm, we had plans tonight to go out to a concert. So at 8pm we headed downtown to see the Nuclear Whales, who are probably one of the only saxophone orchestras in existence. My family and I have been paying attention to this band for about 6 to 7 years now, since they first played at my elementary school for some reason or other. Since then, we have been to every concert of theirs in Santa Cruz (generally one once a year) at the local jazz place, and we keep going back. Despite the fact that the show doesn't change all that much from year to year, it's very enjoyable each time. They even recognized us this time and made various comments about us being their stalkers! ^_^ Got to see the contrabass (a 6'8", 257 lb saxophone!) again, and each time it amazes me. Afterwards stuck around for a bit and talked to one of the members, Kevin Stewart, who was a really cool guy. Not that the other members of the band aren't, but we didn't get to talk to them, so... yeah... Anyway, lots of fun, sleep time now. Current Mood: happy (Comment on this)
Sunday, January 6th, 2002
2:17 am	And my life continues to be resemble TV far too much. Well I just got back from the Emergency Room. Nothing serious, luckily, but still not a fun way to spend a Friday evening. Apparently my recent cold (Technically a massive Sinus infection), the major symptom of which was a dry hacking constant cough, so agitated the muscles in my chest that I either pulled them or just stretched them a great deal. Or maybe I agitated my lung. The nurse at the E.R. wasn't that specific, she mostly just told 'It's not serious. Here's some pain killers. Come back if it gets worse'. The worst part, I think, was sitting in the waiting room dreading the thought that I could have appendicitis. The pain was in the right general area, although apparently a little too high for me to worry about that. Not that I knew that then. Anyway yeah. Not a fun night, to be sure. Although on the up-side I am at the moment almost completely numb to pain, thanks to the amount of Vicaden in me. Current Mood: woozy (Comment on this)
Saturday, December 29th, 2001
12:52 am	And thus ends the first day of the weekend of DOOM! Well it's almost 1am, and I just took a double dose of Nyquil, so I'll make this short.. or post in the morning with keyboard face. Time Worked Today 11hours 2 min Pizza Skins Rolled Today 207 $$$$ Made Today $100 Oh, and I'm sick as a dog. We'll see if I can get out of work tommorow. If not, expect those totals to go up a bit. -_- (Comment on this)
Monday, December 24th, 2001
12:49 am	What? I need a subject line? Bah! So I got up this morning to go to work, yet again, but the manager there knew that I've been fighting a cold for a few days, so he called up one of the other workers and had him take my place. So I got about an hour worth of work in, walked home, and fell asleep on my couch for a few hours. Very nice. Stayed home and watched DVD's pretty much all day after that. I got my family a DVD player for Christmas, and because I'm a jerk, I've used it more than them all ready. ;p Went on a nice outing with Vern about the middle of the evening and finally cashed the checks that had been building up in my wallet. I felt rich, so we stopped by the near-by mall where I bought him his Christmas present and myself some DVD's. Found the complete Faulty Towers collection, WAI! And some more anime, but that's to be expected. Then we went home, and watched stuff all day. I think I've really gotta do something really nice for Vern soon. He's been a real good friend these past few troubling weeks and I want to show him that I'm really grateful Current Mood: mellow Current Music: Elivis Presley - Lonesome Tonight (Comment on this)
Saturday, December 22nd, 2001
10:01 pm	My mind shall soon explode! ... *BOOM!* Well between today and yesterday, I have worked a total of 20 hours. >.< And I have to go tommorow. And Monday. At least I get Christmas off. But then I have to work Wednesday. Then I have Thrusday off and I'm gonna finally go see LotR. And then I have another weekend like this one. ARGH! If this paycheck isn't at LEAST $500 I'm probably just gonna quit. This is rediculous. Current Mood: aggravated Current Music: Vienna Boys Choir - Carol Of The Bells (Comment on this)
Wednesday, October 31st, 2001
1:42 am	Update Update Update! Well, in the course of my life I've recently come to the realization that none of my friends really know me all that well. I was having a really bad day this weekend and all I wanted was someone to come up and tell me that they cared and ask me what was wrong, and instead I was basically ignored because no one knew how to deal with me when I'm having a bad day. I thought about it a bit a realized that they weren't entirely to blame, because my friends and I never really talk all that much. As someone else put it, we don't really seem like friends as much as we seem like really good acquaintances. So I've thusly decided to try to be a bit more open, which is gonna take some work, so I've decided to start it here. I've found that it's easier for me to change things about myself on the Internet because the whole thing seems less real. I mean, it's all text in the end and it's sometimes hard for me to sense the reality behind the words. So because of that, I'm going to make a serious attempt to post here more often, and talk more when I do get on #iff, even if I don't really go on their much anymore. I'm gonna try to post here at least once a week, but we'll see how it goes. I'm also going to try to talk about all aspects of my life. Previously I've tried to keep the negative things that happen to me out of my LJ. I'm not really sure why. I do know that I rationalized it by saying that I didn't want to bring all these people down by adding yet another negative thing to their life. And hey, that may have actually been my real reason, but I think it was an excuse on my part and I just didn't want to seem like I needed someone to lean on. Anyway, I haven't posted in almost two months, so I guess I should start with a brief update on my life. Life... isn't going that well for me at the moment, actually. Work has been hard lately, even though I've recently gotten a promotion/raise. Actually, because I've gotten the promotion it's gotten hard. First of all, I work in a pizza parlor, which I'm not sure if I've mentioned, but even if I did it was a while ago so I should probably remind you. When I first started my duties basically involved making the pizza and cleaning things up. And then answering the phones and dealing with customers as I got a bit more training. Well my new promotion involves me rolling out the dough into pizza skins (which is the 'technical' term for the pizza dough when it's all round and flat and ready to be piled high with toppings.) Naturally this has to be done at the start of the day, which is really early in the morning and means I actually have to get up before noon. Before that I never started work before 5pm so this is a big change for me. It also involves a lot of heavy lifting (the dough balls can weigh as much as 50-60lbs!) and I wasn't really prepared for that, so I come home every day physically exhausted. Oh, and I get covered in flour from head to toe, but I've all ready gotten used to that. Also, since I've now been trained as a dough roller, if they need more pizza skins rolled in the middle of the day (which is generally because the morning roller was lazy and didn't roll enough) they call me in. Or just send me in the back if I'm all ready working. Oh, and I still get to do my other regular shifts and make pizzas and deal with customers. However, on the other hand, I did get a $1.00 raise per hour which applies to all my shifts, and I get more hours, so I'm making more money. That's good I guess, but I almost never have any time to enjoy my new found 'riches' and don't seem to have that much to do with it in the first place. Anyway, I think that's a good place to stop this post. There's probably a lot more for me to talk about, in fact, I KNOW there's a lot more for me to talk about, but I'm gonna stop it here anyway and post again tommorow. Gonna try to slowly get into this whole posting and talking about my life thing. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, September 12th, 2001
4:24 am	And I thought last Tuesday was a DAY. Well, everyone else been talking about this, so now I guess it's mine. Everyone I'm sure knows what happened, and most of my thoughts on things have all ready been said by other's. So instead of that, I'm going to give a rundown of my day, not for any real reason I guess, but just too show how roller coaster-y it's been. -- Well my day technically started last night (this morning?) at midnight. At that point my(for lack of a better term) 'girlfriend' (Jamie) and a friend of ours (Robbie) were in my living room watching 'America Beauty'. Then our friend left and we were left to ourselves. Some snuggling later we turned off the movie and went to my room. Not for anything H, mind you, but because two people fit better on my bed than on my couch. We turned on the late night talk shows for something to listen to and continued snuggling. Another friend of ours (Vern) was show up a little later, hang out a bit then take her home, and he paged at about 12:30 which is when he left his work. That's about a 40 minute drive so we continued with the snuggling. At some point in there we both fell asleep on each other and didn't wake until Vern had shown up, walked in, turned off the TV, locked my front door for me, and left. This was about at 2:00am, and we'd just woken up, so we shrugged, got under the covers, and went to sleep. Sleeping with another person is always difficult for me, because I seem to need to be in almost the same position each night, and that can defiantly get awkward when the position in question is with my back to the other person. So I ended up sleeping off and on for quite a while, we both did actually, before finally waking up fully at about 11:00. I'm going to list the up's and down's so you have a vague idea how I was feeling during all this. (UP) Okay, now this is where today really starts to begin. At this point you had two teenaged (although not for much longer, eek!) people in a new relationship waking up to each other (for the first time I might add) with no one else in the house. I'm sure I don't need to paint a picture for you people, you're all adults. Or at least some of you are, but the rest of you can figure it out too. While relaxing after our strenuous activities (*^_^*) we both heard a car pull up. Looking out my window, I see it's Vern again. ACK! So a quick scramble to lock the front door then toss on some clothing later, we were eating breakfast and hanging out with Vern. And he was none, the wiser. He had a class in about an hour, so he didn't hang out long. After he left, I went to take a shower and Jamie sat down to watch some TV. She ended up on Comedy Central (Which is a good thing I guess, since they don't interrupt themselves for news.) (DOWN) While doing a bit of snuggling with Jamie I got a call from my friend Vern from his cell phone. I can vaguely hear the news in the background. He tells me to turn on the news, and mentions that planes are crashing into buildings. I switched to CBS to have Dan Rather break my world. This was at about 2:30 and a few minutes after Building #7 collapsed. I stood there in shock for a minute before sitting down on the couch. It took me a while to realize the magnitude of this as the first thing that I heard about was Building #7 and that was only listed as ~40 stories. Then they reshowed footage of the WTC tower's being hit and collapsing. (;_;) I held hands with Jamie for a bit, then ran to my computer to check to see if anyone I knew in NY was okay. Only person I knew of was Jesse and a quick check of his LJ confirmed his safety. After that it was back to holding Jamie on the couch. She'd paged Robbie and he came over. At this point the snuggling basically stopped 'cause Robbie's one of the many people not to know about 'us' and because Jamie is closer to Robbie than she is to me. (Which is perfectly fine, considering they've known each other for years and I've known her for a few months and only been serious about her for a week.) After we'd been watching the news for a while and seeing lots of stuff (The footage of the two people who jumped out of the WTC while holding hands REALLY upset Jamie, which is understandable. It's always the human element that gets you the most.) that we'd rather not have seen, Robbie had to go to work. Jamie had to go to home too, so he took her home. Sometime during this my brother had come home, so I went to go talk to him a little and see how he was doing. He'd apparently learned of it early this morning, before he went to school even, so he seemed fine. Then I got on #improfanfic to talk to people a bit before I had to go to work. (UP) Today was my very first day at work, and a new job can help you forget anything, even something this tragic. Actually, it was Robbie who got me the job, which is at one of the local Round Table pizza places. He's hired about 3 friends now and been working there for many years, so this was okay I guess. Eh, I needed the job, or at least the money that I'll get from the job. Anyway, pizza making isn't that difficult a job, if a wee bit messy (UNDERSTATEMENT!! Do your local pizza guy a favor, leave off the sausage!) I only messed up one (I swear I put chicken on it!) but I did have to ask questions every 5 seconds it felt like. When I was done at about 8:00pm Jamie came over and hung out with me, mostly because after the events of the day she needed someone to hang on and she knew she's have plenty of people there. I was dead tired after my all of 3 hour shift (Realize that I haven't done much of anything for months) so we stayed at Round Table flipping from the news to Comedy Central and back. People we knew just kept showing up and then while I was in the bathroom, Ted showed up. (DOWN) Once Ted showed up I knew stuff might not be so good for me, but I wasn't quite prepared for the extent to which it would effect me. I personally blame it on the long day I'd had up to that point, but who really knows. To clear things up a bit Ted is kinda sorta Jamie's boyfriend. (And before you jump on me about this realize that I plan making a post in a few days explaining the relationship I have with Jamie, so save it until then, k?) Anyway, he was actually being affectionate with her for once, so she was being affectionate back and that was causing problems with me. We hung around for a little bit waiting for Robbie to finish closing up the place, and decided to go over and hang out at our friends Ian's house. Realizing that I was on a bike so it'd take me a bit longer, and because I kinda wanted to get out of there, I went on ahead of everyone else. When I got to Ian's I found that he and Vern had walked over to the video store to return a movie. This didn't really matter much and I crashed there in one of his chair's and messed around on his computer. Robbie and another guy who had been hanging out at Round Table (Alan) showed up and then a few minutes later so did Ian and Vern. This forced me off of Ian's computer and I sat around for a bit just hanging around. Jamie and Ted had decided to walk to Ian's and this didn't improve my mood any. A bit later Robbie left since he has class early tomorrow so I stole his very comfortable chair and just sorta sat around being a bit mopey. By this time Jamie and Ted were late, and getting later. A while later, Jamie finally came in (Ted had all ready left in his car outside. And he didn't even say good-bye to all of us.) being very happy. Now, Jamie is often a rather depressed person so her being happy is always a good thing, but I was aware that it was Ted who'd made her happy, and that was sorta the final straw so I got really depressed. Jamie noticed a comment I made about someone making my day even worse than it already was and dragged me into the kitchen to explain myself. (UP) I explained to Jamie that I was feeling a bit depressed because she was hanging on another guy. She seemed a bit shocked at first to find out that I was jealous and tried to explain to me stuff that I all ready know and I told her it seemed to mostly be me having a really long day and the whole 'logic vs. emotions' thing where logic never wins. To explain something, I'm normally a close lipped individual about how I really feel, so telling Jamie this was actually a big deal for both of us and I think she realized that. Then we hugged and did the 'I love you' thing and I felt a bit better. It's amazing how something so trivial can sometimes mean so much. Then we went in and rejoined the other people and we all just hung out till 2am listening to some Robin Williams stand-up. (We all needed a good laugh.) After that we all went home. Biking always helps me to feel better, especially biking in the dark. I think it's mostly due to it being one of the few things that I'm actually talented at and also physical activity can always make one feel better. When I got home I messed around a bit on the ol' 'net and decided to sit down and write this thing out. -- So that was my day. It's the busiest day I've had in years, and one that I'm gonna remember for a long time. I started a new job, America suffered it's greatest tragedy in a long while, and my relationship progressed another day. (Which is the way I'm taking it, one day at a time.) It was quite a ride, and I wonder if I'll still be cresting hills tommorow. Current Mood: exhausted Current Music: Various Artists - Linus & Lucy (Reprise With Peanuts Gang) (Comment on this)
Friday, September 7th, 2001
2:39 am	Hmm... today was a DAY. Well, when I first loaded up LJ, I was about to write a nice longwinded post about my failing love life and all that jazz. Especially seeing as how I'd just apparently managed to screw what was probably my best chance at happiness in quite a long time. However, right about then, my chance walked right back in the door, and that post went out the window. Since then I guess things could be said to be good, although I'm really not sure. I believe I'm in some sort of relationship, although at the moment things seem to be up in the air. However, we have to keep it quiet for now, not because of any ex-'s or current dates, but more because it would definitely... ruffle some feathers if we made ourselves public. I actually agree with this fully cause I'd probably lose a friend or two, and that would be bad, but it makes labels very difficult. Anyway, even if nothing else good comes of all of today, she said she loves me, and that makes everything better. Bah, why didn't anyone ever tell me relationship-stuffs was so confusing? Current Mood: cheerful Current Music: Radioland Murders Soundtrack - In The Mood (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, August 26th, 2001
5:43 am	Wandering Ramblings Hmm.. I'm not quite sure exactly how to start this post, so I guess I'll jump straight to the heart of the matter. My parents are separating. Did any of you know that? I doubt it. I've never mentioned this journal to my Santa Cruzian friends and doubt they would have heard of it any other way. As for my Impro friends who are likely to be reading this? Well I've never been very forthcoming about my personal life. I'm not really sure why not, maybe I just feel that so many people have so many problems why trouble them with my own? Anyway, I digress. My mother is getting divorced. This is nothing sudden, in fact I've known about it for more than a year and suspected it would eventually happen for longer than I can remember. The divorce will likely be final sometime in November, right in the middle of the holiday season. This is about the worst possible time for a family to lose a member, no matter what the cause. This also makes our annual Christmas party much more unlikely, although if I have anything to say about it, the party will still happen. I don't think I could get rid of such a childhood tradition. Now some of you may have noticed that I wrote above that 'my mother' is getting divorced. Not 'my parents'. This is because I don't really think my father is getting divorced. Oh sure, technically he is, but it's a different thing for him. He's gaining freedom, a new chance for happiness. I really can't say I blame him in fact. It was fairly obvious that he wasn't exactly happy with his relationship with my mother. I'm in some way's happy for him. I hope he finds what he's searching for. My mother on the other hand... She's not taking the divorce so well. She found out about a week ago that my father had started dating again and, I believe, shut herself in her room and cried herself to sleep that night. She worries a lot about stuff now, more so than she used to even, which is saying a lot. I worry for her sometimes. She worries a lot about our financial standings, and I can't really say I blame her. My father's wages were the primary source of income for our household, and they're about to stop. My mother's job might be enough to pay the rent for our house, so if we don't end up getting some assistance from my father, I expect that most of the money I make at my job is going to go to the family. I can't really say I'm happy about that, but my only other option would be to move out on my own, which I can't do on my meager wages. I'd also be abandoning my mother and younger brother, and I'm not very shocked to say that I'd feel worse about doing that to my younger brother than my mom. I can't even really say how I feel about my parents. We've never been particularly close. Certainly not since they moved me here from Massachusetts, and I'm not very sure about beforehand. Neither of my parents knows that much about my life, or what I think of things, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. I'm not even sure what kind of relationship with my parents I would like. I think in many ways, I'd somewhat just like to leave, move off on my own, and never really think about them again. I'm pretty sure I don't love my parents. At least, I don't love them as the people they are. I love them as my parents, the people who brought me into this world, protected me, nurtured me, raised me for so long. But as people? If they died, would my first thoughts be, "My God, my parents are dead!" or, "My God, what will this do to my life?" I don't know. I really don't know. I'm not even sure how I feel about that. Current Mood: worried (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, July 10th, 2001
4:50 pm	AX 2001 Report! Well I wanted to get this done right after I'd gotten back from AX, but unfortunately, my slacker lifestyle prevents me from actually operating like that. Luckily I'm only two days late, which for me is a major accomplishment. Anyway, on with the writings and stuff! Wednesday 1:45pm Road Trip! Got up at 7:30 today after only 6 hours of sleep. Despite that, I was pretty psyched, as I was going to AX later today. I spent a while finishing up all that packing stuff and then sat around waiting for my ride to show up. He finally did at around 9:30 and we (my brother and I) loaded up his van with our stuff. Then it was over to another friends house to shift stuff around so everyone could better fit in the two cars and we set off. I managed to secure the whole back seat of the van to myself, which wouldn't have been possible if Vern hadn't managed to make it on Wednesday with the rest of us. We only got lost a few times, since our Co-Pilot/Navigator had trouble reading the road signs. Understandable really, but we'll still mock him for the rest of the trip. ^_^ I managed to finish my book in the car a few hours later. I've recently been re-reading some of my Piers Anthony collection before I sell them off to a used book store to make room for more books. The books seem... not quite as good as I remember them. Anyway, I'm currently listening to the only Beatles CD I brought, while spread out in the back seat. I'll probably catch some more sleep in a bit, since we're only half way. P. S. - It's bloody hot down here! Quote - "You don't need to be clean, you're OTAKU!" - to my friend who was making us later by taking a shower. Thursday 7:30am The First Morning Well it's the first morning and all ready my ugly sleep schedule rears it's ugly head. Went to sleep at 11:30 last night and woke up at 2:00am for half an hour. Then after I fell asleep, I woke up again at 5:30. Fell asleep again another half hour later and finally woke up completely at 6:30 when the rest of the group woke up. Opening Ceremonies starts at 10:00 so some people went off to get our line standing practice in. ^_^; Last night was nice. After we finally arrived at about 3-3:30ish we checked into the room (10th floor. Wah!) and then wandered off to get our badges. 3 wrong turns later we finally found the line (Line #1). After that was over we went out for food to the local Denny's then came back to the room to hang out. The fireworks over Long Beach were nice, and we had a great view from the 10th floor window, but watching the crowds of people crossing the intersection afterwards was more fun by far. Then we all watched some TV and crashed. $$$ spent $50 - Con Registration $15 - Dinner Sleep 6 hours Quote - "Belldandy says "You will soon have your wished come true." (In bed.)" - Anime Expo fortune cookie. Thursday 6:30pm Well Opening Ceremonies was very nice, even if it did start 45 minutes late. Nice Guests of Honor and an interesting new feature I hadn't seen before, a virtual MC. They have in the backstage or a side room a girl hooked into sensors so that her every move is registered and projected onto the main screen. It's still a littler rough (the girl seems to have problems hearing the audience and kept talking over applause) but it was certainly an interesting effect. After introducing the GoH's the voice actor school that's at the con came out and did a short piece along with some of the GoH's. Including Inoue Kikuko (Belldandy, Kasumi Tendou), and Kawakami Tomoko (Utena, Noelle). After OC, I ran over to stand in line for the Inoue Kikuko panel. Waited to hours after getting one of my friends to bring me over some food. The panel was nice, with some good questions (Who is your favorite character you've played? "I like them all too much to decide.") some stupid questions (Will you merry me? "... No.") and some odd questions. (You've been quoted as saying you wanted to live like a banana, what did you mean by that? "Where did you hear that?") Inoue-san was a very interesting person, who even sang a few songs right there for the crowd. Afterwards I found out that I won the raffle for her to sign something of mine, so I had to head over to the dealer room to buy something for that purpose. After turning up empty-handed looking for the poster I wanted, I got a pencil board with the same image. I also got a CD in case she's unable to sign the laminated surface of the pencil board. Plus I wanted the CD. ^_^ Now I'm hanging out at the room before the ImproDinner, which I need to head over to in a few minutes. $$$ spent $60 - Room $5 - Pencil Board $43 - AMG CD Quote - "All functional weapons such as crossbows, throwing knives/stars, bows, boomerangs, darts, rocket launchers, tazers(stun guns), etc., are prohibited." - Part of the AX weapon policy. Friday4:30pm Well I'm sitting in the second row for the first American showing of the Ah Megamisama (Ah! My Goddess) movie after sitting in the sun for an hour and a half. Can't really complain though since my friends camped out since a little before 1:00. It'll be worth it though, especially since the only people in the front of us'll be the GoH's and creators of the movie. I got Inoue-san to sign my pencil board which looks really nice and I've gotta find a frame for it when I get home. With that and my similar posters of Skuld and Urd I'll have some nice wall hangings. If I can get those other two signed at some point in the future I'll be mightily happy, but I expect that won't happen anytime soon. ImproDinner last night was nice though not many people showed up. Rutt and Rags were fairly much like I expected them, take that however you want. And for some reason I thought Calc would be taller though. Last night I had to sleep on the hotel window-sill, which makes it odd that it was one of my better nights sleep in a while. $$$ spent $15 - Dinner Sleep 9 hours Saturday 9:30pm Where to begin? How about at the high point of yesterday after my last entry? With the AMV contest. It was a great contest, if a bit predictable with the audience reactions. The audience in these things almost always goes with their favorite anime, often because it's so hard for casual AMV watchers to spot some of the really technical stuff in one viewing. Granted it's hard for myself too, but at least I look beyond the anime used and the simple theme. One rather annoying thing about the contest was the video which one Best Comedy and Best of Show. It was a video which did a lot of editing to make it appear that Spike was tracking down and then fighting Vash. There was nothing wrong with the video, in fact it was extremely good, but the annoying thing was what it did to one of our ideas. We had planned on doing a similar AMV with Spike and Vash 'fighting' to Dueling Banjo's. Most of my friends fell the idea is shot dead, but I'll have to talk them out of that. Anyway, my friends who I thought were lost just showed up and we're gonna go down to see the Blood movie so I'll talk about the rest of the day when I get back. $$$ spent $10 - Breakfast $10 - Tenshi ni Narumon LD $40 - Hameln CD $25 - Nadia DVD Saturday 11:30pm Well Blood was a pretty good movie, if a bit devoid of plot. Granted it was only an hour-long movie, but it seemed like the start of a series more than a movie. It was nice not having to stand in line though. We actually walked in right as they started the pre-show, a short Kero-chan flik, with him chasing some takoyaki. It was oddly reminiscent of the old Warner Brothers shorts. I did miss the Masquerade though, because we only managed too get 4 tickets and other people wanted to go. From the sound of things though, I didn't really miss all that much, except for Inoue-san singing during judging, but I may go ahead and buy the tape just for that. On another note, I got to meet the infamous W4 on my way to see Blood. Didn't get to talk long but he seemed like a nice guy. Final Thoughts All in all AX was a fun trip, but I may not go next year. The whole thing seems just a bit too big too me. Too spread out, too much to do, too many people, too commercial. Too big is a really good way to describe it actually. My friends and I are also getting a bit turned off of the contests for AMV's, so our efforts might start swinging away from that end to just be more fun light-hearted stuff. We'll see on that end. Anyway, that ends this long post from me, we'll see when my next one might be. $$$ Spent $273 - Total Sleep Uhh... I lost track somewhere. ^_^; More than I expected to though. Current Music: Goddess Family Club - Mata Koi Wo Shiyouyo (Comment on this)
Saturday, May 26th, 2001
4:32 am	Biking at 4 am... Can be one of the most exhilarating experiences of your life. Tearing through the night down darkened alleyways with no streetlights and a bike light that dims with each passing second. Turning down tree lined streets where the foliage looms above you, and you don't so much see it as feel it bearing down on top of you. Zipping around curves at fast speeds with out the use of the breaks, not because they don't work, but because they squeak loud enough to wake the people 3 blocks over, not to mention set your nerves on edge. Using your foot to steady yourself as you make a near 90 degree turn from one darkened street onto another. Zooming down the large streets, now devoid of life, with a over present fog so thick your glasses were clouded so much, that by the third block you took them off and it improved your vision. Zig zagging across the streets that so often are filled with cars which impede your ability to make a simple left hand turn. In short, it's something that I absolutely cherish, and enjoy every minute of. And in this day, that's something to hold on to. Current Mood: high (Comment on this)