You know what? Fuck it.

This is the third time tonight that my description for my blog includes the phrase "the place where my brain takes a shit", or some variant of it. I've had a little alcohol, but not enough that I can let typos pass by if I see them, so here we go.

If you don't know me, welcome. I hope you join my dozen of readers in (hopefully) enjoying this blog, but if not, then you can be on your merry. Shiny?

If you DO know me in "the offline", and don't like this blog, then I repeat, be on your merry. You don't have to like it, and you don't have to like me, but if you don't, I kind of wonder why you're here and why we hang out. I've had issues with people that I know in person trying to make my blog-life hell, including getting the bowels of the internet involved to browse and leave ass-hat comments. It WAS kind of cool, though, because I had something like 500 page views for two days in a row, and four or five troll-worthy comments.

So, this is it. My blog is where I post whatever the hell I want, and yeah, sometimes it is boring as hell. I'd probably argue that it's 90% of the time. I don't blog for anyone but me though, so if you don't like it, then that's good for you. In the possibly-misquoted words of Bill Hicks, "then forget me".

Some of my family probably reads this. To them, hello! I swear, I'm an atheist, and occasionally, I drink. I know I should probably feel sorry if you have a problem with any of these, but I don't. It's part of me, and if you love me, then you'll still love me anyway. One of my grandmothers, who read Random Ramblings when it was still around, actually made it a point to comment when she visited last time. I didn't know at the time that she read it, and she pointed out that she really enjoyed my writing. That was awesome.

Now, I'm probably going to look back on this post and say "Well... that sucks.", but I'll live. And you can bet your ass that I'm leaving it up. For now, though, I'm going to browse 20sb and find shit to do online. Later today, I'm going to blog about the hilariously awesome "wrong number" call that I got, so you've got that to look forward to.

Love you all, even the assholes. :)

-Justin

It's weird to come home and see someone else in your bed.

Allow me to preface that: I'm unmarried, and worked last night, and it wasn't some fling that overstayed her welcome. No, this was not in any way my choice.

I've mentioned my living situation before, but let me sum it up if you're new around here: three years ago, I moved in with my mother to help her out after my stepdad passed. Three years later, we lost the house we were in (long story), and have been living in a considerably smaller and crappier house. As I mentioned in the "Life - 2, Justin - 0" post recently, we're on the verge of losing that -- it sucks, but shit happens.

So my mother's idea is to have a friend of hers move in while I stay with my grandmother, and we use that extra income from her friend paying rent to us to catch up on our overdue rent. Sure, I'm all for that. Oh, you're going to have her crash in my room while I'm in Shelton, see if you get along living together? Neato neato, more power to ya.

Except she didn't, because "something came up". And apparently, this friend is "at least going to stay on the fold-out for a while" and pay a lesser, undecided amount..... who had this dumb idea? Oh yeah, my mother.

Last night, I paid for gas so I could get a ride to work, solely because I wanted that extra hour of sleep. I came home this morning and see somebody asleep in the chair and figure it's my mother's friend -- nope. She was in my room, which surprised the hell out of me when I opened my door and woke her up. Apparently mom had decided to give a ride back to this side of town to another friend of hers, and when he couldn't get in touch with the people he'd planned to stay with, mom let him crash. Noble, sure... but it would've only taken thirty seconds to call my work last night and say "Oh, hey, V.'s going to be crashing in your room until you get home!"

Did I mention I'm not completely comfy with other people sleeping in my bed? If it's someone I know well and/or someone I've been intimate with, sure. But someone that I've met all of three times? Little bit squicky for me. I'm going to talk to both my grandmother and my mother about things, see about moving my shit over there. And soon.

Last night was slow at work...

So, when I had downtime, I got to thinking about blog topics. I think I'm up to four or five, and if I thought I'd have enough time before work, I'd write about one or two of them.

It's not all ranting, either. As much as I love a good rant (and personally think some of my more amusing humor comes out of my ranting), I want to lie to you all. See, I can't have you think I'm just a boring, angry, curmudgeon. I've got to pretend that there's some other facets to my personality.

But, true to form, I think I will START with a rant. Tomorrow's post. :D

I'm just saying...

David has a hot sister.

Trust me.

This post is in no way a cop-out for being tired and unable to think of a post in the short time before I have to start work.......

This shit is DELICIOUS.

Well, one quarter of it is. Tonight, I made a version of this chicken with creamy orange sauce recipe, but I didn't do the peas and pearl onions, the flower-shaped biscuits, or the "pudding the color of honey". But the chicken and rice turned out fucking FANTASTIC.

It was a hit with everyone, and I'm already thinking about ways to try and make it healthier. Because as it is, eating this EVER again will fuck over any chances that I'm making to lose weight.

Still working on getting the sound clip from Jim that I wanted, but I'll get it. And you will be squicked.

Wandering around Olympia

The following is a paraphrased version of a conversation on the phone and on Facebook:

ME: So, I'm going to catch the bus that'll get to Oly around 5 instead.

JIM: Hey, we have a horse thing that we've got to do, we should be back in Oly around six. If you wanna goof until then we can meet up?

ME: Sounds like a plan! I can troll around town for an hour.

What ACTUALLY happened was that I got off the bus in Olympia around 5pm, and walked around for a bit. I found my way to the only convenience store that I knew how to get to in that part of Olympia, only to find that it was closed. No coffee or energy drinks to help keep me awake... awesome.

At this point, I'd been up for almost a full day, minus a short half-hour nap before I went to catch the bus. Worked the previous night, came home and took care of laundry and house-cleaning, fought to keep myself awake until I failed. Woke up, caught the bus. Done.

So, I find myself a spot to perch at Percival Landing and write for a little while, until I'm so tired that I know everything is barely-readable crap... and looking back today, I was right. Then I browse around Twitter on my phone for a little bit, until I get bored. Hop back up, and wander around until I'm tired of lugging my duffel bag with me, and find a good place to sit (away from noisy skateboarders, this time). I watched an episode of Comic Book Men, read a little bit more of Way Of Kings on my Kindle, and just kept finding things to do

Not by any fault of their own, but it ended up being about three hours until Jim and Wendy could get back into town and pick me up, so all of us were suuuuuper tired when we got back to good ol' Drafty Meadows. I can't complain too much, though... I was under a covered area and didn't have to worry about the rain, I had ways to entertain myself, and I was sitting at the landing with a great view of the mountains until it started getting dark. Then, I kept myself amused with Castle until they showed up.

All in all, an unexpected-but-not-terrible way to start this few days out of town. Now, I think I'm going to go out and see the horses. :D

Did I make a 'Thing'?!

No, 'Thing' is not a comic book reference this time. Or a penis reference. :P

We've all heard the phrase "Almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades", right? Even if it's bullshit because our friends sucked and said it didn't count. But, whatever. Horseshoes was a shitty game anyway. Ladder Golf is a lot more fun.

Back to the point I was making... sorry, got off on a tangent there. Because fuck horseshoes. Since high school, I've had my own slight add-on to that well-known (and half-bullshit) phrase. MY version was "Almost only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades, and atomic bombs", with my justification being that even if you missed your target with an atomic bomb, "almost" is still going to get the job done. 17-year-old Justin thought that was just the cleverest thing. I haven't said it in a few years, but at work, a customer said it to their friend at the register.

It wasn't someone that I've ever seen before, so I have to ask... did I make a Thing? My own little slice of slang? Is the "and atomic bombs" bit my creation, or have other people been saying it, and I'm not nearly as clever as I thought? Either way, it made me pretty happy to hear it. And fuck the facts, I'm going to stick with it being mine. :P

Now, time to get home and get ready for a couple of good days off!

IT'S FRIDAY!

FRIDAY, FRIDAY, GOTTA GET DOWN ON FRIDAY

Yes, you can hate me now. I won't blame you in the slightest, now that I've referenced that horrid abomination of a "song". But, could you resist it? :P

I've officially put in for a transfer to "another shift" when one opens up. The bottle of "I'll tolerate it" overfilled today, and I'm done putting up with this graveyard bullshit. Done dealing with the drunks, the dregs, and the downright dumb. People trying to argue with me that two obviously-unrelated products are to be bought separately but go together, people not knowing the names of what they want and just pointing at shit, and people who just take out their hatred of being up early on me.

You know what? I feel a little better after that mini-rant. The tiny bit of alliteration in there amused me, and now I just need to get through this short 8-hour shift. Then tomorrow, and the couple of days after, Shelton with people that are like family to me. Things are starting to look up already!

So there's this problem with a daily blog like mine. Unless you've got a really interesting job (which I don't), or at least do more on your work days that work and sleep (which I don't), the posts are going to be kind of boring. Hell, if I hadn't had a beer theft and now-available vacation time to talk about, I'd have had to pull a post completely out of my ass. And judging from the condition I left the toilet at work in this morning, nothing that comes out of there can be good.

The upside/downside here is that I'm going to be hanging out with Wendy and Jim on my days off. It'll give me something to post about, and it'll be super relaxing because I love both of them like family and love being able to spend time with them. The downside, minor as it is, is that the wifi hates me and I get next-to-no cell phone signal. So, it'll be interesting to see how things go with getting blog posts up. Maybe I'll just record some videos with them and post those when I have internet. :p

Last thing for the day: I changed my blog name! It's a play on my last name, and probably the best way to describe this blog. Let's hope I get a lot more awesome, so that it can be ironic. Really, though, is acting like a hipster any better than being boring?

Take the good with the bad

Last night? Sucked. Aside from the whole "10 hour graveyard shift" part, it wouldn't have been that bad. After all, today's the one-year mark for me being at this job, which means that I officially have a week of paid vacation time available when I choose to take it.

The shitty part was the whole "theft" thing. I got duped by a couple of idiots who wanted beer, so while I made a pretzel for one of them, the other took advantage of me not being able to see him for a few seconds. They both hauled ass out the door with some beer, and I got to file an incident report. Oh joooooy.

Now, the night's done, and I just want to go and pass the hell out. I got to BS with Trace, one of my local-ish atheist friends, before I left work. And since today is payday, I'm paying another part of the rent that I'm behind on. Which is starting to feel pointless, if we're not going to be able to keep the place... we'll see.

Isn't there supposed to be some good in this situation, too? That paid time off is starting to sound nice, but I'm going to try and save it until I can go somewhere... like back to the east coast.

See you tomorrow, folks! ... unless I get rant-y later today. Entirely possible. :D

Life - 2, Justin - 0

Want to know a really awesome way to wake up an hour early? The landlord of your below-living-standard rental house hounding you to catch up on rent and strongly suggesting that you might want to move soon, since you obviously can't afford it right now.

For those keeping track, this is the second time life has kicked my ass. The last time was in early 2007, when I barely had a ten hour-per-week job and had to move back in with my grandparents after living in a house that was somehow smaller than this, and in worse condition.

I'm going to TRY and avoid it this time, but it sounds like my landlord's not interested in continuing to let me try and catch up. In all likelihood, I'll have moved back in with my grandma by this time next month. It's not what I wanted, but there are a few benefits to think of: regular wifi use, a bigger kitchen to cook in (and cupboard space to help fill), and cable tv so that I can catch the occasional hockey game. Plus, since she won't ask for as much rent as I'm paying now, I'll be able to save up some money towards some important things -- travel, a car, and moving back out in a year or so (hopefully not much longer).

Here's hoping to make the best of a bad situation (and that I can find a place for mom to stay, because staying at grandma's isn't really an option for her).

I have a theory about Michael Bay...

He's not making shitty films on accident. He's doing it on purpose, to show that people will pay boatloads of cash for all kinds of explodey garbage.

Well, it's either that or he's got a serious hatred of my happiness, and that of many others. You might have heard that he's part of the group working on next year's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. And since it blew up on the internet the last few days, you probably heard that they're not otherwise-normal mutated turtles anymore.

They're aliens.

I've been a Ninja Turtles fan longer than I remember, and STILL enjoy the live-action movies from the early 90s. All I could think when I saw this change is what the fucking fuck. He's got to know how bad these changes are. Sure, M Night Shyamallama fucked up The Last Airbender and hasn't made a good movie since The Sixth Sense, but I don't think it's on purpose. But Michael Bay? Taking franchises and shitting on them, by doing things like making the main characters aliens with no connection to the previous movies...?

Oh, right... I've heard that line before.

Personally, I hope it's just as successful this time as it was for Highlander 2. Don't pay to see this film. Make it Bay's lowest-earning film. Pirate the shit out of it, if you really want to see it.

In Memoriam...

As I mentioned last night, I've been doing a lot of cleaning. I found a couple of high school yearbooks in a box in my bedroom closet, and went through the one from my senior year today. My goal was to find people that I had fond memories of (but whose names I'd forgotten), and try and reconnect online.

Most of the people that I tried looking up, I didn't find, but then I saw something unexpected. One person was listed as a "Public Figure" page, and I knew why before I clicked it. He'd died, and this was a way for everyone he'd known over the years to grieve together, regardless of distance.

An old friend, the same age as me, died doing something he loved with people he loved. I think it's time for me to try and get out and do more things, make some stories to tell. :)

I've been cleaning and rearranging my bedroom all day. Between a few things that had to be thrown out, and a bunch of books and things that had gathered dust in my closet... not a whole lot of fun.

All I can smell right now is the dust that's in my nose, and I need to give my dog a bath. She's definitely started on the path towards "smelly".

Just wanted to take a few minutes and get something up for today, since I realized what time it is. I was up late enough last night and slept until 10am, so it still felt earlier than it is. Now, time to bury myself in dog shampoo and then back into the cleaning and laundry. Gotta get it done before I go back to work tomorrow night.

So...

I noticed 5 minutes after midnight what time it was.

In my defense, whiskey and good times with friends (old and new) were involved. I'm counting this, because it's my rules, so fuck it... just this once.

My green today? A Green Lantern pin. ONE person said something about it, and was impressed that I knew more than just the movie. And he was TRASHED.

Thank you, everyone who was at 8th Street Ale House tonight. It was a lot of fun. :) I'm home now, hope everyone else made (or makes) it home safe, or at least makes it somewhere safe, even if it's a friend's home instead of their own.

I guess there is one good thing about family emergencies: they give me something to blog about.

Today was set to be uneventful. It was payday, so there was the bill-paying that needed to happen -- always fun, amirite? Then I saw the new work schedule and was thrilled to see the next few days off... might have to head to Olympia and visit with Jim and Wendy.

I was shooting for the trifecta of uninteresting -- getting online at my grandma's and, among other things, having a conversation with my three year old cousin to try and figure out why he was running around with no pants or underwear. The boy will end up in a nudist colony, I'm starting to think.

Then, disaster struck. My mother had gone to visit a friend of hers and her friend gave her an anti-anxiety pill that she took too much of. Rather than treat it like an emergency, her friend called me to complain about mom being too out-of-it, and then proceeded to let her drive. Real good friend, right? Thankfully, another friend of hers (and mine) lived nearby, and when she saw the state that mom was in, she took the keys away, called me, and drove mom back here. I feel grateful to her for getting mom home and helping me take care of her for a few minutes before she had to go back home -- she couldn't find someone to watch her kid for very long, or she'd probably have stayed to help.

Moral of the story? Don't hang out with fucking morons that'll give you pills they think will help you out, just because they're a pill-popper with obviously no concern for your well-being. We found the half that mom didn't take, and disposed of it. She's doing a lot better now, and is asleep. I'm thinking of calling it an early night too... today was draining, the last few hours.

WORK WANTED

It's kind of like a HELP WANTED sign, but seeking work instead of seeking workers.

Minimum wage is not enough to take care of bills and rent and shit, especially since I'm supporting my mother, too. There is a local company doing a hiring event tomorrow - laborer, cleanup crew. I'd be busting my ass, but I might actually make enough to get out of the remainder of my debt.

Stress hasn't been helping my mood or creativity, as was evidenced today. Today was a bad day, complete with rotten mood. Lots of factors worked together to have me plenty pissed off, and it was hard to just shrug stuff off like usual.

My mother's part of the problem. Because her boss was treating her like shit, shorting her on her paychecks (it was all under the table), and telling people that mom was doing horrible things out of the company van, she quit her job a few weeks ago. Since then, she's kept herself regularly unable to pass a piss test and get a new job, so now EVERYTHING is on me and my $9.00 per hour, instead of just rent and the cell phones. All while she has me do anything I can around the house while I'm awake, because she has a headache, or her asthma's bothering her, or some other reason.

I'm tired of getting shit on, but without abandoning her to her own (lack of) means, there's not much I can do about it.

Sorry to dump on you, blog. I'll try and think of something funny for tomorrow.

I hate waking up from incredibly detailed dreams, and forgetting the important parts before I can write them down.

That's what just happened.

Blah.

AAAAAAAH!

Blogging: I fail at it.

Just realized, less than two minutes before work, thatg I hadn't blogged. I will make up for it tomorrow, as I have a day full of STUFF planned!

I guess I'm the only person in the world who hasn't seen "Se7en"

I've seen/heard a few references to the movie lately, and in catching up with old TANcast episodes, found out the actor who plays John Doe during a TANfight. I don't know if that will affect my enjoyment of the movie when I do get a chance to see it, but I'm finally making it a point to watch it soon. Three days off, two of which I don't have plans for, so that sounds like a good time to do it.

By the way, speaking of awesome things, check out Jorah's blog for today... she made a soap of +10 awesome, and has plans to make another awesome (maybe MORE awesome?) one soon. I plan on buying both of them and getting a new shelf to add them to the Wall of Geek with, which reminds me of something else I wanted to mention...

I'm finally putting some holes in these walls, and it makes me happy to feel like you can walk in that room and recognize it as ME by some of the things I like. Right now, I have two Doctor Who posters, one autographed Heroes cast member picture, and on another wall, pictures from my New Jersey trip, and some mementos from the last decade or so of my life so far.

So far, I've only got one shelf that I bought and put up, but I'm planning on more. One thought is tearing apart my dresser -- that I've had since I was ten and is slowly falling apart -- and turning the salvageable pieces into shelves in my closet. It would free up a little extra space in my very small room, but we'll see.

Now, time to end this random "write whatever comes to mind, regardless of how shitty my segues are" post and clock in at work. Tomorrow's day 7 of 7, and it's the first time I'll be working graveyard at one of the other stores. Only good thing about it is that it's so close to home that I can clock on and just walk home, rather than waiting for a bus. :D

I missed it!

Yesterday was this blog's 100th post! And, in another blog-milestone, this blog turns two years old later this month! Nothing special planned, because hey... it's a blog.

I've been seeing a lot of people lately! Kelly drove by me on my way to the bus the other night, I saw her daughter Phoenix in the store with her grandmother the last night, and Trace stopped in doing his job as an employee of one of the companies that supplies us with stuff the other morning.

It's been pretty neat, and almost resembling a half-ass social life where most of my interactions take place in/around my workplace. Speaking of work... time to clock on! Going to try and be MUCH better tomorrow. Today, I suck.

Another reason to hate graveyard shift...

I sleep during the day, and when I wake up, shit has HAPPENED. Sometimes it's good, other times it's very bad. Today was one of the latter, as a local deputy was shot and a judge was attacked, in a nearby city's courthouse. The suspect is still at large, and anyone who is curious should follow the news, and the compiled story over at Grays Harbor Down, where Sarah has done a good job updating regularly.

My best hopes go to those injured, and I really hope this guy is caught. I haven't had time enough to read up and see if we have any idea why he did this, but I want to see him caught before he can hurt anyone else.

Aside from that, I just can't stand all the rude attitudes on graveyard shift, but that's a minor bitch. The whole "being eight hours behind on news that happened shortly after I slept" thing is much worse. Really, I'm just not a fan of graveyard shift. At all.

Sorry to be a serious topic, and kind of a downer, but I'm being too rushed to say much more. See y'all tomorrow!

Good thing I caught this!

I almost didn't remember to blog today! That would have suuuuuucked.

It's been one of those "bleh" days. Payday should be fun, but most of it went to paying to keep my garbage pickup going, and the rest is going to my cell phone bill. Being a grown-up is fuuuuuun.

So, now it's time to clock in, for day 3 of 7 in my work week. Off at 6am, then I can go home and make up for the sleep I didn't get today. #graveyardshitsucks

DELICIOUS! Spicy beef & bean burritos!

They're beefy! They're spicy! They've got beans in them!

I'm going to go ahead and inform you that this recipe didn't all come from my head, and that picture isn't mine. Both came from here, although I adjusted the recipe a bit, and plan to do so next time I cook it, too.

I would have loved to take a picture myself, but the kitchen was a bit of a mess, and I'd been drinking Fireball both before I started cooking these on Sunday evening, and while I was cooking them. My camera hands aren't steady when I'm sober, so I highly doubt that whiskey makes them any better.

Also, unless your Safeway is better than mine, don't go there for the ingredients. The only size can of enchilada sauce that they had was almost three times what the recipe calls for, so I bought enough to make three batches of these burritos, and still have about a dozen in the freezer at home. If you want to have enough burritos to have every meal for a week or two be burritos, then by all means, do your shopping at Safeway.

Spicy Beef & Bean Burritos!

1 pound ground beef

1/2 cup chopped onion (I didn't use onion, as I don't like the texture of them)

1 clove garlic, minced

2 tsps chili powder

1 tsp dried oregano

1/2 tsp ground cumin (I didn't have cumin, but mine turned out great without!)

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp black pepper

1 can (16 oz.) refried beans

1 can (10 oz.) enchilada sauce

1 package of (8-inch) flour tortillas (or any soft tortillas, for those who can't do flour tortillas)

In a large skillet over medium heat, cook the beef and garlic until the meat's browned, stirring often to break up the meat. Drain it, and add all of the "dry seasonings", then let it simmer for about 10 minutes. Add the refried beans and the enchilada sauce, and heat thoroughly -- it should get pretty thick once the beans get heated through and mixed well with the rest of it.

The original recipe, linked above, says to wrap the tortillas in foil and place them in a 350° oven for 10 minutes, but if you're freezing them to reheat later like I did, all you have to do is get them soft enough to wrap up without breaking. You can do that in the microwave, in about 10 seconds. Spoon your beefy/beany mixture into each tortilla and roll up tightly. I start with folding the "top" in, then the "bottom", and then folding the sides to have a shape resembling the store-bought burritos, but with a lot more awesome inside.

The recipe yield should be about 6 burritos, but it was a little different for mine. I think between what was eaten by me and my houseguests on Sunday, and what I froze and have been reheating since then, tripling the ingredients made closer to 20 burritos. I'll edit this post soon with a delicious picture of one of mine after reheating, when I can.

I used low-fat refried beans, lean ground beef, and in the second and third batches, freshly-diced peppers. The 1st batch mostly stuck to the recipe, the 2nd saw some diced jalapenos added in at the beginning, and the 3rd saw diced jalapenos and diced habaneros added in. All of them have been spicy, and overall great. I plan on having a lot more fun tinkering with this recipe, but for now, it's one worth going for if you like spicy foods.

Well, I was going to put a recipe up...

But my phone won't cooperate. Part of it includes me having to call the cops, and getting texts and notifications from a friend (with whom I'm playing Words With Friends), and part of it is just this shitty Blogger app.

So, I'll get that recipe up tomorrow. :p

Stuff You Should Know!

I busted my ass today, working on the behind the scenes stuff for this blog. I had to use unorthodox methods to be online, but I got a lot of things started and/or set up. Sure, more than a few of the pages are currently blank, but I had a lot of shit to do.

So now, scraping in juuuust under the midnight wire for today's post, here's some questions from Alexandra over at The Tsaritsa Sez. It's a part of some blog meme, and it sounded like fun, since she left it open for everyone to participate -- something I'll be doing too!

1. What is your favorite scent?

I love the way that everything smells both right before it rains and after the rain is done. I guess "petrichor" would be a good answer for this one.

2. What is your favorite way to relax?

Either cooking or writing. Cooking's the less demanding of the two, because it's frustrating to stare at that blank page when you're trying to write. It's like it's mocking you.

3. What was your favorite game to play when you were a kid?

I was a huge fan of Legos. I had a pretty good action figure collection, too, but I was FAR more interested in building shit that I imagined with Legos and having epic space battles, and things like that. Almost everything that I built was, in my mind, some sort of neat futuristic spaceship.

4. What did you think you were going to do with your life when you graduated high-school?

At which point? Pretty much all of my thoughts involved some sort of college after high school -- we see how well that worked out -- but what I wanted to do in life changed OFTEN. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a Ninja Turtle, or a Planeteer, or Darkwing Duck. The shame I felt that I didn't accomplish any of those took a little while to get over. I've wanted to be a detective, to work with computers, to be a writer, and even considered going into the military when I was approached for my high ASVAB scores and got some pretty crazy career path offers.

5. Chocolate or vanilla?
Depends on what we're talking. If we're talking about almond milk, then both work for me. But overall, I'd probably have to pick dark chocolate over vanilla.

6. Would you prefer to star on a reality TV show, or participate on an "extreme" game show, like Fear Factor?
Probably the "extreme" game show, unless the reality TV was an interesting idea, and something I was either really good at or horribly bad at. Either way, I'd stand out. =P

7. What would you change in the world, if you had the power?
I'd make it a little more fun. Pop some fictional stuff into the real world, like the Genie (from the Disney Aladdin movie) or The Doctor... if he's not real already.

8. Do you believe in climate change? Ghosts? Aliens?
Yes, no, yes. The first is pretty straightforward science, the second implies an afterlife that I don't believe in and the existence of a soul, and the third... considering how unintelligent we can be as a species, I have a hard time believing that humankind is the only intelligent life in the universe.

9. If you could travel back in time to any time period, which era would you choose?
Strictly as an observer, safe from all harm, I'd go back to the Cretacious period. I'd want to see the dinosaurs, find out the definitive truth to the world-changing that brought about their end. But if we're talking about being active and really in it, probably the late 1800s. Not entirely sure why.

10. What is the most romantic/thoughtful thing anyone has ever done for you?
I'd say one of the first thoughtful things that comes to mind is when my friend Erica randomly put out a public tweet telling people to follow me on Twitter because I make her smile on a daily basis. Really, I've got some awesome, encouraging friends - both online and offline - and I'm lucky enough that it's hard to decide what's the most thoughtful thing.

11. What is your dream career?
Being a successful writer. It could be in comics, or a novel, or short stories, but that's what I've always wanted to do, and now I do it... minus the "successful" part.

There was a 12th one "for good luck", but I've barely got time to write eleven of my own, let alone answer hers in a manner that I'd feel good about. So, instead, that's what I'll include as one of mine! Thanks for letting me steal it, Alexandra! =P

1. Why do you blog?
2. Who is the one person that's meant the most to you, alive or dead?
3. Which would you choose, if you could one have one: wealth, wisdom, love, or fame?
4. Do you have any hilarious stories that you can share involving alcohol or "other"?
5. What's one thing that you have a problem with, morally/politically/etc., in the world?
6. Name one genre of music that you've always wanted to get in to, but never knew where to start.
7. If you could have any ONE piece of technology, fictional or real, what would it be?
8. What superpower would you want, if you could have any besides omnipotence?
9. If you had that power, would you use it for good or evil?
10. Have you ever thought about whether or not you'd survive the zombie apocalypse? If so, what's your plan?
11. What is the worst book you've ever read? (If you don't read, "What is the worst movie you've ever watched?" is a potential substitute... but start reading, fool!)

Everything's shiny, Captain!

WHAT HAPPENED? EVERYTHING'S DIFFERENT!

Change is good, my friends. Welcome to the new layout, what do you think? It's still 'under construction', but I'm tired and it's workable for now. I decided the change was necessary, because I'd had the old layout for a very very long time. I still have it saved in case I decide I want it back - or if you all demand the old one back - but it's nice to have something different around.

I'm also going to be starting a lot of new pages, so the (many) links up above that are currently lead nowhere will have somewhere to go in time. And by "in time", I mean I'm going to try and make time for it tomorrow, or really late tonight, if that's when I'm up next.

So, leave your feedback on the new layout, and any advice you want to offer or pages that you want to see. I'm going to go home, relax and let my eyes rest, and then probably catch some sleep after I write a bit more of Project: SAMSON.

11 hours

With a few exceptions where I got woke up, I literally slept the day away today. After being up for 24 hours, I'd say I needed the sleep.

Anyway, now that it's almost 10pm and dark, time to get some grub, go for a walk, and get shit done. :D

Wall of Geek begins!

I bought a frame today, and finally put my "exploding TARDIS" poster up. I've had it for a week or three now, and it feels good to finally get it up on the wall. The next step is a commissioned piece from a friend, once I finally decide on a design for it.

Last night, I made the "Five-Alarm Fire Burger" for the first time, and it was great. Decided to put the sliced jalapeños on the burger after cooking instead of dicing them up and putting them in the patty, and I'm glad I did. Turned out well, and I'm looking forward to making it again.

Today's hopefully going to be a bit busy. Laundry, cleaning up the house, editing last night's "Fire Burger" video, and dropping in on a housewarming/birthday party with one of my favorite local families. :) Then I've got work tonight, but hopefully, it'll be a good day.

I'm stuck playing cribbage.

Not a bad fate, but it's not at home, which prevents things like cooking. And blogging more. And having a little whisky while doing both.

Still, it's fun.