9-20-01
I don't think I have been blinking enough.

The General Thoughts I Had In A 7 Hour Meeting Today
Someone called me a widget today. Is that better than a cog?
I won a coffee mug. I don't drink coffee.
Why is a business run like a high school geometry or vocabulary class?
After 40 minutes there was not one word mentioned that applied to what I do at work.
They fed me food. I got a Crunch bar. Lasagna. Some chicken. Strawberry Cheese Cake. I ate it all.

9-19-01
While I'm at work I tend to be on the phone a lot. I have to call banks and employers to verify that the information on the application is true. Today while I was calling an employer I was placed on hold for a few minutes. The company, being mindful of the number of people on hold and the amount of time one has to spend there, kindly placed a radio station to be played during the mindless minutes placed there. The radio station that I was able to listen to consisted of two radio hosts and a psychic talking about the placement of plants. When the Declaration of Independence was signed, at 2:10 P.M. (I'm assuming Eastern Standard Time, but it could be Pacific Standard Time so don't quote me.) the planet Earth was in a Cancer stage with a rising Gemini in the background. I guess the planet Jupiter and Pluto were opposite, and the planet Freedom (even though from my 3rd grade science class I don't remember a planet Freedom, and didn't they figure out that Pluto isn't a planet anymore, but actually a moon?) was in view. But last Tuesday, 9/11/01, the planet Freedom (after listening further it sounded like maybe Pluto is freedom, but I thought it was war, but then again I'm no expert) was blocked, and will continue to be blocked till July of 2002. The psychic tells the listeners that we are in danger till then, but at least with Pluto and Jupiter (now I became completely confused about the planets and figured that this psychic just created her own planet, Freedom, and named herself the ruler, and she rules with an iron fist planning on bringing her reign to the rest of the universe) and since we were in Cancer with the rising Gemini we actually will create some good energy.............

The radio hosts only response was "Oh good We like good energy."

9-18-01
From the little political papers I have read politicians are to act in a cool and level minded atmosphere away from the emotions and impulses of the large masses of citizens so that the country does not screw itself over. This was one of the thoughts those old guys from the Revolutionary War had when they created the republic that we call The United States. They felt that if the people were allowed to make all of the decisions chaos would reign. And we all know how I feel about chaos. It will hurt me. (In chaos no one respects a mighty mob boss.) I understand that 78% of the population of the United States is wishing for war so that we can get who is responsible, but we hold it to the elected officials to have a cool head to think before they react. I understand that in today's politics it is almost a hopeless dream for an elected official to speak against this war. They may appear soft on terrorism, even though I don't know one human being who likes terrorist actions, so hopefully if we do go to war, it is because it is the right thing to do.

On a more personal note, the apartment that I talked about before is mine. Well, Bill has part of it too. We will be signing the lease sometime this week. If everything goes according to plan, I should be moving Oct. 7th. Again, since nothing ever goes according to plan, odds are it will be early Dec., but still the plans are being made, people are talking, things are being shuffled through. Slowly I come to realize I have nothing to live on my own. No toaster. No microwave. Pretty much I have a bed, which is a bonus. So, does anyone have any pots or pans they want to give me? Man, being poor and attempting to get things stink.

Fantasy Football is up again this week. I came in a whomping last place between my friends. Last time I play with my heart. Sorry Flutie. You're going on the bench.

I'm bored. I've talked about how my job is slowly stealing my soul (only 18 more days left till I become unemployed and flounder around till I find another job close to my new apartment). Most of the time I don't realize it till I get home and realize I don't want to do anything besides sit on my bed and become a mindless slob in front of the tv. Well, today I felt a shock. It was a shock of the office violently stealing a chunk chunk of my soul. It actually hurts now to be here.

9-13-01
I've written about 3 or 4 different things in the last few days, but each time I deleted it due to the fact that I have not been able to get my mind off of everything that has happened on 9-11-01. Jokes and little anecdotes seem a little insensitive right now. Images of the plane smashing into the building, leaving an imprint of only the plane in one side till the explosions shook everything apart, race through my mind. I wasn't touched personally. No one I know was hurt or killed, but still this event frightens me...has visibly shaken me.

Every time I went up to Chicago I would be filled with a sense of awe as I looked over the skyline. Amazement filled my eyes each and every time I looked upon the city. It is sort of like a sense of pride due to the strength and courage it took to make those skyscrapers. The way the human species strove to rise above it all. When I think about how much work and effort went into creating each and every building...well, I get sort of choked up. As long as I wasn't driving I would usually be staring out the window, just looking at the cluster of buildings. A smile would cross my face as I thought about the assortment of people living in this community. But it scares me to think about how easily they can be destroyed and with such malice. It saddens me.

After a few hours of watching the news I just couldn't take it anymore. I had to do something to take me mind off of it. So I did a whole lot of nothing but stumbled around the house. Again I turned on the news, and just when I thought that they couldn't show me any more images or tell me any new information, they do. A small amount of people has started to attack Arab-Americans. That is just about as bad as the terrorists. Innocent people being tormented. All I can do is shake me head is disbelief and just hope that people will start to figure things out a bit.

Parts of me do not want to be writing something like this. Other parts have been trying to find the words to say. Even another part is still sitting here in disbelief. I'm not sure what is going on.

Good luck everyone.

9-10-01
What a glorious weekend. On Saturday I thought it was Sunday, which meant I was able to fool myself into believing I had free day off. Damn me and my tricky brain.

Sunday was the opening day of the NFL. I have officially recognized that I will never be a NFL coach, and I'm all right about that. During the time I have been searching for a job I have started a list of every job out there and began to cross them off, and here is another I can scratch off my list. It has fallen among some other high favorites such as male stripper and baby eater. The NFL coach debacle is due to the fact that in my fantasy football league that I am in I have chosen all the wrong players to start. Even Samir beat me.

I would also like to express thanks to my friend Mike R. who ended up giving me free Tool tickets last night which forced me to sit in a daze through out my day of work today due to a lack of sleep from the weekend. The show was quite interesting. Tool has short little films being played in the background during all of the songs. One of the things that was not lacking was cock. In many of the films there were a lot of naked people, and at one point a naked man climbed towards the top of the screen, hung upside down by his feet and gyrated to the song. Another aspect was the the lead singer of Tool, kept talking down to the crowd. He played a funny joke asking the crowd to repeat after him, and everything he said was "I will think for myself. I will be an individual. I will not repeat what others have said." Man the crowd really giggled over that one.

The opening band, who I keep forgetting the name of (which is no surprise because sometimes I don't even remember the name of bands I like), had no cocks in their show, but they were metal. And I mean metal all the way. Welcome to head bangers ball. From what I was able to gather from the lyrics, it sounded like he was a little upset that the Bears lost. I think that is why he was yelling. I understood his pain. I yelled a lot too during the game. It is almost the exact same thing, but completely different.

9-8-01
Football season is upon us and I have joined a game with my friends. A little thing called fantasy football. Needless to say, I'm going to get my ass kicked in, but still I would like to show everyone the results of our game. Feel free to check how the mighty Ukrainian Tenenbaums fair against the strong 4-D Monkeys. Shit man, their 4-D! Are you prepared for the trumbling that will be caused by trendylibrarians. when they go head to head with MarkMalone_My_Hero? No, I don't think you are. Mostly due to the fact that I'm not ready and I've been playing around with this game the whole week. Feel free to come and check on our results week in week out (they should be updated after Monday Night Football) to see if Dos Huevos Grandes will remain victorious when he meets Firm Buttocks.

*Disclaimer* : Those names mention in the previous paragraph are the names of or teams. See, it all makes sense now. *Disclaimer*

Mental Note 3: Pay attention to your other mental notes! Stoopud I-90.

I cashed a Savings Bond I had since I was born. As I sat there for 40 minutes I had the incredible feeling that this is a sure sign that my childhood is over. The last remenants from when I was a kid is slowly leaving my life. A thing that I was given when I was born to use when I grew up is now actually being put to use. My heart started beating faster, I grew nervous. I debated on not cashing it. Finally I accepted the money. But to convince myself that I was not a complete adult yet, I went outside and ran around on a playground pretending I was a space man during my lunch hour. So screw you real world!

9-7-01
A special gift from me to you. All of this information is coming to you straight from me at work. Finally they have hooked me up to this thing they call The World Wide Web and I have access to the lowliest form, e-mail. So I'm writing this to send to myself (so when I check my inbox there will actually be something besides old men threatening me because I have no useful information about hookers in Pittsburgh) so that you my faithful readers, especially that guy from France who keeps coming back for more, can have an insight into the thoughts I have at work. Please, control yourself.

A few days ago the Human Resouces department decided they had to improve office morale due to the fact that this place steals your soul, and every once in a while they try and fool you into believing that you are not losing your soul by giving you ice cream. But today was different. They passed out silly string and some cameras and said, take pictures of you guys having fun. "Screw you.", I thought. Especially since they did not hand me any silly string. After all the string was used and I watched I gathered up a lot of the string, bunched it into a ball and have placed it on the side of my computer screen. It is still sitting there growing it's own eco-system reminding me I only have over a month left till I get to regenerate my soul.

King of the Temps. For a while I thought Marc was King of the Temps, but instead I have found a new candidate. My friend Chris was telling me of this 38 year old temp who was brought in to move some files closer to the people who need them. While moving them he created his own system of hiroglyphics that only he could understand and wrote them on the boxes he was moving so that only he and only he understood the filing system. This forced the company to keep this Temp among temps for a month when his job should only have taken a week. And what did he do with all that time? He spent most of the time hiding, sleeping, talking, and running away from any of his bosses. From temps all around the world, we salute you.

9-5-01
This past Labor Day weekend I went out and pretended I was ditching work. It made the days more exciting. I made sure I stayed away from the area I work. If they saw me then the gig would be up. And we all know how we feel when the gig is up. I played some video games, read a bit, looked at a computer screen, walked around, played some sports, and had some ice cream. I like ice cream.

I'm going to get some ice cream tonight.

How is Duff Man so damn funny!

When I move I'm going to live like a king. If a king lives with no furniture.