One Year and Stuff

Friday afternoon and it's hot and I'm still sick. I always get sick in May. I don't know what it is but I always get sort of like a cold for a week or two and then it just goes away on it's own. Right now I'm very much under the influence of generic cold liquidcaps and I'm soon to be heading back to bed for a while.

I had to mystery shop post offices today. It's worth $12 a shop, but I just didn't feel like driving today. Since it's the start of Memorial Day weekend here in the states, the cops were EVERYWHERE today. I mean speed trap after speed trap. One tailed me as I went to a post office then went up the street, turned around, then came back with it's lights flashing. Thank god it went to the highway and not after me lol.

I made a promise to Moopie not to work out when I'm sick again. Last night I did stepper and I really didn't know what I was doing. I was so out of it. I went like 20 minutes instead of the 15 I was supposed to stop at. Beavis & Butthead were on TNN and I was just watching and walking and I my mind went blank. I'm so used to the routine now that it's hard to break it even if I'm sick. I don't know. But a promise is a promise and I'm going to keep it. Moopie knows far more about working out than I ever will so I kind of listen to her on this one. So no weights today ...

Right now I'm trying a Vanilla Coke. It tastes like coke with Vanilla ice cream in it. I don't think I could drink a six pack of the stuff, but you know, once and a while isn't bad. It's not as god awful as lemon Pepsi is, but it's not going to be my drink of choice. I'm also eating Tostitos bite size corn chips. I bought some jalepeno cheddar dip to go with it and as soon as the dip is cold, I'm going to try to scare the cold out of my system. Hey it's worked before. Honest. :)

I'm kinda fading away so I think I'll go read my Charlie Brown treasury. It's called, well, "Peanuts Treasury," and it features strips from 1959-1967. It's pretty cool. I think Peanuts is the only strip where a lot of the characters we associate with the strip actually weren't born when the strip began. Linus, Lucy, and Sally, for example, were all born a couple of years after the strip started. So it's funny to read the really old strips and watch them "grow up" into the characters we know and loved.

It's so funny how things have changed though. Like Linus had glasses in the 60's. But you only saw them when he wanted you to see them. Snoopy was a lot meaner in the early days, that's for sure and Woodstock didn't come around until ... well the 70's or so. LOL, I'm so lost in the 50 year history that was Peanuts.

I tried to explain all of this to Moops the other night but I don't think anyone's gonna get it. We're at one year here at One Day at TechTV. For me, just having a little quasi-comic strip on the Internet is a really big deal and a year means a whole heck of a lot. Though sometimes I look at the greats and I just am lost in how they do it. How they keep their ideas fresh, especially guys like Charles Schulz, who had 50 years of work on the strip before he died. I'm just in awe of how they do it and I'm in awe of the character development and the rich histories that surround the strips. I'd really would love it to have 2 years here, or 3 years here, and develop a real history for these characters and hopefully have something down the line where you can see how they've changed and how much they've grown while (hopefully) still being worth it to read.

My immediate goal was to create one of these treasury type books, but in web form, so someone could spend an afternoon just reading silly stories about TechTV. I think we're at something like 130 strips now and I've done that. Now my goal is going forward with these characters and seeing where they take us. I seriously don't know. I have rough ideas for the next 12 strips and that's about it. I have no clue. LOL.

Honestly, my best friend, Summer and Moops have both seen how I work this strip. I usually have a concept in mind but not a lot else. For example, the latest one with Martin and Erica. I knew I was bringing back the Laverne and Shirley gag and I knew that I wanted Martin to freak out. So I put Laverne and Shirley at the end of the strip. I found a picture of Martin working in the dress at the computer. I stuck in some lines about him trying to beat something being released to the web and it ended in the typical "NOOOOOOOOOO!" to set up for Laverne and Shirley. The rest of the strip? No clue.

Instead of figuring it out, I went to work on the strip that followed it (which is the Kate strip). I had that in mind since I had to write Kate out somehow. I went ahead and wrote that strip and actually uploaded it to the site before I went back to the strip before it.

For the Martin strip I remembered that we used to do a lot of gags about Erica being scary, so I went back to the old standards (Rerunning the Days at TechTV is the theme this season after all). I found some pictures of Erica talking and laid them out on her side with pictures of Martin reacting on the other side. Once I had the strip laid out, I simply started writing captions at random. I knew I had to explain where Martin got the skirt from and I needed to find something for him to freak out about so I hit the old standards ... raiding the girl's locker room. I'm such a guy. A few captions later, it all pretty much meshed and now Martin is having a freak out that leads to ...

Oh you think I'm gonna tell you? :)

Sorry, you gotta keep reading to find out because I really don't know myself. :)

On that note, sleep is calling. Cold pills here I come.

k9

Feeling Yucky

It's a Thursday morning and I'm feeling yucky again. It hit last night, had pains in my ear and I thought it was just my allergies going nuts. But I woke up this morning feeling like heck and wanting to stay in bed. Not sure WHAT it is but I will say that I want to climb back into bed and waiting up for the Schwan's frozen food guy to get here really isn't a joy that I'm looking forward to. I want darkness, slumber, escape and I want it now DAMMIT lol.

FOX CELEBRITY BOXING SPOILER WARNING UP

Last night was pretty bad though. Just sitting here not feeling well while watching the waste that was FOX celebrity boxing. I think the whole concept would work better as a video game. I mean sure it was great to put a really fat guy like William the Refridgerator Perry up against Manute Bol -- on paper -- but the fight was nothing but snooze city when it hit the ring. I mean no real blows and neither guy really looked like he knew what to do.

Just like the concept of Screech vs. Horshack was great, but really, Screech was 50 pounds heavier and a good deal taller than Horshack. It wasn't going to be a fight. It was a 3 round borefest, highlighted only by Screech playing to the crowd and Horshack not getting the fact that he had no chance in heck of winning the match.

The less said about Chyna vs. Joey Buttafucco the better. Joey cheats. But who didn't expect that?

Again, it would make a great video game. More like an old school street fighter than the current crop of 3-D fighters. Give Horshack and added spirit attack or something to make up for his lack of power. Let Fridge charge people and knock them over. Heck, even make Joey's hip tossing legal as long as Chyna can counter by clotheslining his butt to heck. I'm not sure that anyone would buy it, but heck, I'd buy a game where you can take Chyna and beat the heck out of the very worst celebrities that have filled our airwaves for the last 20 or 30 years. :)

SPOILER WARNING DOWN

And on that note ... no, I have nothing better to do with the day. :)

k9

Star Wars Spoilers, Whines about Yuck, and More

Another Tuesday and I'm half awake. I have a headache the size of New York City and I'm fumbling around on my extremely messy desk for a my allergy pills. I feel like crap and want to go to bed. So I think I'm going to finish up some work, do my cardio workout, shower, then take a long nap this afternoon. I'll probably feel better but right now it's yuck yuck yuck.

When I'm sick I'm too easily distracted. For example, I just lost 5 minutes because I was checking out my Musicmatch Jukebox to see if the new MP3s I downloaded needed track editing, or if there was a new version of the Musicmatch software. Both were yes, so I spent the time checking files and updating before I realized that hey, I have the blog window open. Oh boy, I'm sick lol. Again, I'll probably be fine this afternoon. I tend to bounce back. Honest, really I do, as I fall over and crawl back into bed lol.

SPOILER WARNING GOES UP

Saw Star Wars this weekend and I'm not going to give away the major spoilers. Well, other than the movie starts a 1/3 of the way into the book and they eliminate some key scenes from the book that actually EXPLAIN the romance between Padme and Annikin a bit better than what came off on the screen. I did realize from both, that Darth Vader was just of an impulsive whiny bastard as Luke always was. So maybe I'm finally buying the "Luke, Luke, I'm your father ..." crap.

I don't know if I was the only one who was down way back in the days that they revealed the father thing. I mean it was a plot twist, but we ALL had this image that Darth was a really cool alien or something. The movie "Chasing Amy" has a whole scene on this, with another perspective on the disappointment, and I tend to agree -- I liked Darth more when he wasn't this whiney little kid who turned into a whiney teenager. He better be damn cool in the third movie or there was no point in the prequels, IMODO.

SPOILER WARNING GOES DOWN

I'm trying to understand the Shakira song "Underneath Your Clothes" right now. I know it's a ballad and as long as you hit the right notes to carry the sad tune, it doesn't matter what the lyrics are, but damn, "UNDERNEATH YOUR CLOTHES there's a Linux penguin, it's the OS I chose, No more MS for me, and all the things I deserve for being a alternative OS Person, HONEY ..." kinda work the same as the actual words as long as you really belt out the UNDERNEATH YOUR CLOTHES and HONEY bits.

And on that note ... I'm going to fumble through some work before committing to the day.

k9

Ugg.

It's Tuesday afternoon and I am typing slowly. I have a tiny cyst in my right hand near the knuckle on my minddle finger. When I flex my hand you can see it as a tiny bump, it's gross looking but it's nothing serious ... until I aggrivate it and well, that's when my arm feels like I broke it. I somehow aggrivated it last night and I've sent the last 24 hours or so not being happy at all.

My close friends know that this is the week everything changes anyway, so I wasn't going to be in a good mood, but this, on top of that, has me seeing red and I'm not going to be my normal happy self for a bit. I will get better, I don't want to talk about it, and if I'm not myself, deal with it I'll be fine again in a bit. I'm irritated and just not in a good mood right now. So that's your warning.

On that note I'm going to go do the one thing that doesn't hurt to do now -- go read Star Wars Episode 2 the novel.

k9

Another Update

As you can see, I'm in the mood to write today. I'm watching the end of the 5th Element on DVD and then I'm going to catch the end of a trading spaces rerun before my afternoon nap. It's dark, it's dismal, it's raining and I sorta like it. I get more done when it's dark out and frankly, with the way things are going lately, I'll probably have my most productive day this week after a good nap this afternoon.

I started working out this week. Three days of weight training, four days of cardio workout. I even bought a workout bench to try to get myself in some shape. I spent yesterday afternooon putting the darn thing together, and frankly, I KNOW I didn't inherit any of my dad's mechanical skills, but I did get it together, that's what's important. I skipped today's cardio because I tried out the machine and went a little crazy. I know I'm going to hear about that but it's a one day only thing.

The bench makes crunches a lot easier. I can do leg curls too on it too. I had instructions on how to do them without a machine before, but you know what? I don't know how anyone could balance a dumbbell between their feet to do it. Thanks to my best friend and to Moopie for telling me to get this machine. Makes that part of the workout a lot easier.

So far it's paying off. I mean the pants I'm wearing now are usually tight and hard to zip up. Well, now they're not. I mean it's not a dramatic change, but it was like after a week of working out and being active, they just feet a little looser than before. That's all I'm after anyway. I want to be back down to a 32 waist on day. I can settle for a pure 34, but I don't want to be stuck at a 35/36 waist that I am now.

I had a blood pressure checkup this week and I'm okay. He doesn't want to see me for another year. So that's good, though I gained 4 pounds this year and I never gain weight. I mean I could tell I was getting a little chubby. My grandpa noticed it last time he was here. In the Grandpa way of hitting me in the stomach and going "oh, you're getting a gut!" So working out has been on my mind.

I also kind of want to be in shape for my Canada trip this summer. My deal on that is that I'm already geek enough. It's a strike against me already. I don't want these people to remember me as being chubby as well. So I'm working out and I'm sort of glad I'm doing it. Now if I can keep with it, I think I'll eventually be down to that 32 waist. That's all I care about. Not going down to the size 28 waist I was in high school. LOL that would be a dream.

I was 130 lbs. from 6th grade to 9th grade, then grew a bit and was 150 lbs. when I graduated high school. Was 170-180 for most of college, then, well, I haven't topped 210 as of yet, but if I wasn't careful ... okay not going there. It's hard because both my parents are big, I mean my dad goes from 270-320 on average (a lot due to water weight gain due to one of his conditions), and I know I don't ever want to be that big. I don't look the weight I am (some people think I'm normal), but I feel it, and that's one feeling I don't want to have any more.

On that note, might blog one more time today. Then who knows? I'm off to watch Trading Spaces.

k9

Later that Morning

Today is Mother's day in the U.S. and my mom decided to go spend the day mystery shopping with my God Mother instead of taking part in the plans that she didn't know my dad and I had for her. Well, we didn't know we had plans for her either until about 8 PM last night. Our plans were to have me get up early, go get her flowers and a present, then surprise her with it and either take her to lunch or get takeout from somewhere for lunch.

Instead ...

I ask what she's doing today and she says that she and my God Mother (who is staying with us for the weekend), are going to be gone all day.

So by 9 PM, I'm in a car going to Wal-Mart to go get her flowers. I'll say Wal-Mart is strange on that note. Since we're so remote, Wal-Mart seems to be where all the kids hang out on Saturday nights. The place was seriously packed. I got my mom a hanging flowered plant (I hate buying "dead" flowers), and a couple of video games for her computer. I also picked up a transformer for my nephew and a YOUNG Obi-Wan figure for my niece (she wants to marry YOUNG Obi-Wan), since they're in the middle of moving to Washingtong State from Indianapolis (don't get me started), and these will be waiting for them when they get there.

Got home and gave my mom the flowers and she was more impressed with the Majhong Master 2 software lol. Oh, typical, but that's how things go around here. :) At least they're gone today, my dad is downstairs doing whatever, and I have peace and quiet for the day. I can go back to work and be my myself. It doesn't get better than this! :)

k9

Sunday Morning Thoughts

It's 1 AM and I thought I'd return to blogging before I settled down for the night. Bubbagump looks to be settling in over on top of my jacket and my backpack. That strange little guy. He won't sleep on a bag or a coat unless he knows that I've been wearing or using it lately. I've tried it with all sorts of things over the years and he knows which ones I've used every time. Crazy boy.

I just turned off SNL. Kirsten Dundst was on and, well, you all know my feelings about Kirsten Dundst. LOL. Next week it's the wild dreams about Natalie Portman as the Senator from Naboo in Episode 2 ... okay I'm done dreaming. Moopie is probably going to come in and hit me any time now lol.

In other news, I'm in the middle of realizing the long time person that I love, the one that I thought I was going to end up with and spend the rest of my life with, isn't the one. It's hard, but you know, it's been a long time coming. Being single again after three years is gonna be rough as well, but we all have to do what we have to do in this life. Her choice was made long ago and I'm just dumb enough to realize it now. Don't hate her, still friends with her, heart really isn't broken. I mean in a way I'm happy with the choice she's made. It's her one chance at this and she has to take it now. I'm down that it came at the expense of our relationship but, know what? After everything this year, I'm just sorta numb to the whole thing.

I actually feel like the French guy in the Americanized bastardization of a classic Japanese Horror film that you might know as the American version of Godzilla. He was a normal no-named guy who just happened to be sorta numb to everything. His squad dies? Eh, moment of passing, but there's still a freaking monster on the loose to kill. Monster almost steps on the car? Eh, moment of fear, then drive like a maniac out of there. Monster dies? Eh, don't stick around for the fancy shot of the heroes posing as the camera fades, just go on to the next job.

That's what I feel like. I could whine on and on about everything from this year. I'm not going to take the time to do it. I still have a job to do, I still have people I care about, and no matter what, I'm here for the duration. I'll find my destiny one day and if I'm not going to find her, then you know what? I'll look back upon my life and see all the time I didn't waste sitting on my ass whining about it.

This week is one year at reallycoolsite.org, I believe, I'll have to look at my billing statement to be sure. Other than it means I'll be paying $8 or so to run this site per month, it also means that we've been around for over a year here. So thank you for taking time out of your life to read my silly stories. To those who asked, yes, there's a pay off coming about Martin's butt. Just give me time ...

k9