Long Time, No Here

Hey, I know it's been a while, but I'll someday be able to do this on a regular basis. (Insert mocking laughter here.)

This must be the Month of Old Friends. First, Bobbie and Kim come to visit me over Columbus Day weekend. Five days later, Jay comes up to visit and go to the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. Then a couple days ago, Josh calls to tell me he'll join the Go-Tard Thanksgiving Get-Together (GTTGT). Then, to top it all off, Angela calls me up out of nowhere, when we haven't talked in almost a decade. Nice surprises (okay, the visits from Bobbie, Kim and Jay were expected) all around.

Bought Harlem Nights and To Wong Foo on DVD for $5.50 each this afternoon. That's fun.

Otherwise, I'm unbelievably busy, which shouldn't really surprise anyone, as that's my normal state these last several years. I thought college professors were supposed to have it easy.

So here are the things making me happy right now:
Chad Michael Murray and Jared Padalecki unbelievably hot.
Speaking of Jared Padalecki, "Supernatural" is turning out to be a pretty good show.
The Order of the Stick is one of the best online comic strips ever.
Role-playing wise, I'm currently loving playing Necessary Evil, a game where you play supervillains who have to save the world after aliens manage to kill off all the superheroes. Here is a pic I did of my character, Phosphor . This game is unbelievably cool. Just so people can see some of my recent artwork, I'm also including a pic that I did recently for the Changeling game I've been playing. My Photoshop painting has been developing nicely. I just wish I had more time to paint. Well, that's it for now. It's fun having friends. I love my friends. I dare anyone to prove that they have better friends than I do. It can't be done, because I have the best friends in the history of friends.

Yes, I'm complaining

I know, it's been a while. I'm just not a "daily routine" kind of guy.

You know what other kind of guy I'm not... (I know, you blurted out "straight!" Ha Ha.) I'm not a social guy. Now, here's the problem. Back in late Junior High, I decided "I wanna be a social guy and have lots of friends." That seemed great for a someone who was shy and introverted, and I spent the next couple decades making lots of friends. Now, however, I am 31 and I want to spend lots of time sitting by myself and reading or watching TV or playing on the computer. Except now I have lots of people pissed off when I don't want to hang out with them.

Before anyone gets mad, let's establish a few points. I'm writing this because I need some advice. It's not that a) I don't like my friends, b) I don't want to hang out with my friends, or c) my friends aren't important. It's just that I have lots of friends and when they can't or won't all hang out simultaneously, it gets a little draining on me. Having lots of friends is AWESOME. It's just that I don't have time to have an all-day hang-out fest with every single one each week. Yes, sometimes I can hang out one-on-one and make a day of it. But sometimes I can't. Because if I spend all day with Friend A, that means I'm not spending time with Friend B, or Friend C. And it really makes me feel like shit when Friend A gets pissed off because I take ten minutes out of our all-day hangout to talk to Friend B when he/she calls, or both of them get pissed off because I'm busy next weekend hanging out with Friend C.

--I'm posting this on here, because none of my local friends (the ones where this is a real problem) read my blog, so they don't know I'm talking about them, by the way.--

So, help me out people... what do I do? How do I tell Friends A-C, etc. that I don't want to hang out all the time? They all get upset when I spend time with someone else, but I don't want to stop spending time with all of them, and they can't or won't hang out with each other? I can't get them to merge, and it's driving me crazy. Especially since the only thing I really want to do lately (when I'm not RPGing) is SIT HOME ALONE!! But if I ever do that, they ALL get pissed off. I want to be an introvert again.

Oh, and I'm also upset lately because it seems like the only way I can talk about myself is to complain. Why don't I ever have anything to say when nothing's wrong? Isn't self-esteem fun?!

Oh, and I had a smoking relapse. Trying again to stop, but I'm really out of willpower/discipline right now, and it's getting stressful at work. Oy, my life is too nice to suck so much. I don't understand.

Weaving Dreams...

Hey everyone,
Just finished the fourth and final day of Dreamweaver camp. Lots of fun. It was pretty basic. I could've learned a lot more in four 1.5 hour sessions, but the workshop was full of a bunch of "those" people. You know the ones. They're exceptionally smart except when it comes to computers... then suddenly they don't know their ass from their elbow. There were, like, calculus and chemistry professors in the workshop, and yet... "Wait, so where is the server, exactly?" and "How do I copy those files again?" Aaarrgh!! Computers are complicated. They are not mystical. Why do so many people have mental blocks about basic computer functions?
If you'd like to see the results of my labor, check out my new Professor West's Website. Not bad for 6 hours of work, eh? I'll try to redo my portfolio site soon, but my friend Lea was going to redo it for me and then she went to Prague, so I don't know if she's going to continue it or not.

In other news... I had two drags off a cigarette on Saturday night. I then gave it away willingly, completely unimpressed. Now, this does not mean that I don't constantly want to smoke, but I have discovered that I have plenty of resistance when actually faced with it. I could have smoked that entire cigarette, but didn't want to.
Disregarding those two drags... tomorrow equals one month. I've even been off the patch for nearly a week.

Is this serious?

Three weeks. Today makes three weeks without smoking. As a reward, Sci-Fi Channel has decided to air Firefly, starting tonight. As an added bonus, they're showing a new episode of BSG. See... Sci-Fi channel cares about my health. They're proud of me. They are rewarding me for my discipline and dedication. They love me.

If anyone else wants to send gifts, they'll be welcome, but don't feel like you should. Sci-Fi Channel's got you covered.

And in case anyone's wondering, that three weeks is without cheating. Not even a drag. Not that this is easy, but I'm kicking ass.

Two Weeks... Twooooo Weeeeeeksssssuh

Anyone get the movie reference? Granted it doesn't work as well written as spoken, but my head doesn't split apart and turn into a bomb anyway, so I guess it doesn't really matter.

Anyway, it's been two weeks now. I haven't even cheated. Primarily because no one up here smokes, or they're really good friends and won't let me have one. Otherwise I would've cheated! No shame in my game... I want a cigarette bad! It's not bad enough that I'll go buy a pack (although I consider that about once an hour), but it's bad enough that if someone gave me a cigarette, I'd smoke it. Good thing I don't buy the whole "sins of the heart" thing, because my heart is LUSTING for tabacky. But I have not sinned with my body.

So the other thing going on is that I'm having a sort of obsession with a song. "Everyone is Changing" by Keane. I don't know why, but I can't stop listening to this song. I have the CD in my car, and I try to listen to the rest of the CD, but it's weird, because in between each other song I have to listen to Track 6 again. I think about this song day and night; I get this strange glaze over my mind whenever I hear it. It's almost like I go into a trance or something. When I hear it, I feel like I'm living in some strange alternate reality where everything else slows down and becomes more significant and hyper-real. I can't explain it, but this song possesses my very soul. PS: I now know how loud my car stereo goes, and if you've never had your car on maximum driving down the highway at 74 mph with the sunroof and all the windows open with this song on, you've not truly felt the depth of emotion.

Or maybe I'm just freaking out because I want a cigarette so bad.

Dennis Blows, I Don't Suck

So, first of all, my sympathies to anyone who was hurt or suffered negatively from the Hurricane Dennis thing. That being said, however... when do we stop treating Hurricane Devastation in Florida as though it were something special. Do I expect sympathy for a foot of snow? No, because it happens so often, everyone knows better. There's no sympathy for a level 4 in Oklahoma, because anyone there should know better than to say "WHY ME?" Why you? Because you live in goddamned toronado alley! So, Florida... sucky day, kids, but, you can't say last year didn't give you an idea. So build stronger houses, or move. Emily's on her way.

In other WTF News: it has now been 9 full days since I have had a cigarette. As if that isn't amazing enough, yesterday, I (ready for this?) forgot to put on a new patch, and it was actually fine. I'm now wondering if I'll be okay just quitting the patch now. I don't know if I'll try that or not, though. I just don't want this time to be another false start.

The worst part is the habit. I just feel like there's this thing that I'm supposed to be doing, and just can't. It's really strange because it's this thing that I've done about once an hour or more, every day, for the last ten years.

Another thing that's bugging me as I'm awake at a rare (for the summer) 7:00 A.M.-- It's so annoying when the local weather guy says "Thanks, Al," and "Back to you, Al," when Roker hands over to the local weather report. Does he really think anyone believes that he and Al are good friends, or even in contact? Why can't he say "Good morning," or "Back to Al." We all know that Al Roker has no fre--WOW, Sgt Scott Haines of the Santa Rosa Florida County Sherriff, is HOT!!!--sorry... has no freaking clue who Rich Caniglia of Rochester's WHEC is, and that they're not in personal communication while doing the weather.

Well, that's what's got me going this morning.

Cool!

Directed Energy Weapons?? Star Trek gets closer every day... Now if we could get our society to progress as quickly as our technology.