How are you celebrating the 4th of July?

I will be going over to my friends place for an overnight stay. Lots of zombie related things are planned, 28 days later and Shaun of the Dead, plus I'll probably be playing some City of Heroes with my new zombie based character. Also, there will be some Silent Hill 2 which fits in with the theme. Well...not totally since that's not really a zombie related thing...but it's still horror type stuff.

It should be a good time and a good way to forget that the rest of this week ever happened. There's a reason I haven't done much blogging recently, but everything seems to have calmed down quite a bit now, so hopefully this long weekend will be good for relieving some stress.

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What is a childhood memory that still haunts you?

I can't remember if this happened when I was suspended from school for a while (that one's a bit of a long story) or if it was when I was sick for a while and couldn't come in. I want to say it was in elementary school so I'd have to go with the sick angle. Anyway, I was out of school for a while long enough where the teachers had been sending me my homework so I wouldn't be too far behind.

And one day, the homework packet came complete with a number 2 pencil, unsharpened. My Mom ended up sharpening the pencil and we used it to do my math homework. But, a little further down in the packet was instructions on how to make a pinwheel for science class...using the pencil that we had just sharpened.

Well, I kinda freaked out because my Mom sharpened the "Science Pencil". And if I recall correctly, it took the teacher reassuring me that the pencil wasn't all that important to calm me down about the whole thing. But to this day, the memory of the science pencil that had been deprived of it's chosen destiny haunts me.

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In my quest to lose weight (yeah, I know I haven't posted the chart in the last few weeks. I've been on a slow incline recently which I'm trying to put a stop to now. I will be posting Monday's in the hope that some public humiliation will get my butt back in gear) I've been trying to go outside and do some bike riding more often than I have been. So last night after I finished eating dinner I went out to get a ride in.

I decided to take the longer of the routes I normally take (8.3 miles roughly) which involves going down a fairly large hill, into "town" and then back up another fairly large, but not terribly steep hill. Except for one section about halfway through that I have to walk the bike up or else I get horribly exhausted. At the top of that section where it levels off to something a little more reasonable, I got back on my bike and started going again. Only I didn't go...my chain fell off. Argh! I did fix it myself (I'm not very mechanically minded, so I'm quite proud of this fact even if it's a minor thing). However, I now have what seem to be permanent black marks on my hands from touching the chain.

This stuff is never coming off...

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Flowy Frost

As Wassy mentioned in the comment to my last article, I did leave out something which I should have mentioned. In my defense...certain parts of the weekend felt like they were actually weeks long...one part of that being Sunday. So by the time I got around to writing my post, this seemed like it was ancient history. In any case, here we go.

For a while I had wanted to get a better quality print of one of my favorite pieces of art that I have, Flowy Frost. I really love this piece and it really means a lot to me because it was quite possibly the best gift I have ever been given. I had been going through a very rough couple days which ended in a near nervous breakdown and It was a total surprise. It was also responsible for helping to bring me back to reality. I'll always have a special place for her.

Anyway, the print I had wasn't the best quality and Wassy had recently found a good quality print shop to take care of this stuff. So I decided I wanted a new Flowy Frost print, something that was a little larger and better quality than my other print which happened to come from Staples.

So friday, my 11x14 print was delivered to me and I feel in love with it all over again. The print came out really nicely and I was actually able to find an 11x14 frame that was the exact same style as my 8.5x11 frame that I had been using for it. And along with the Flowy Frost print came another very nice surprise:

Ink Frost

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Sorry for the lack of updates over the past couple days. Been a little busy and I was feeling a little out of it for a while there, which isn't really conducive to blogging.

But the main thing that happened is I'm dumping Progressive Direct for my car insurance because they decided they were going to charge me $50 more per 6 months than they had been charging me for what seems like absolutely no reason at all. So I scouted around and ended up setting on Geico as being the cheapest ($167 per 6 months cheaper, to be specific about it). So I switched last week and all I need now is to take care of the photo inspection part and send back one form and I'm all set.

And I'm going to specifically mention that this saturday was a very nice day. My friends and I went out to Green Lakes State Park and walked the trail around one of the lakes before settling in for a picnic lunch (mmm...deviled eggs) which was awful nice and relaxing. It's beautiful out there and the trail was very nice. Not very crowded either. I really hope to go back there sometime and hang out some more.

I've been noticing a curious trend where I've been wanting to just hang around outside more often than I normally would. I'm not an outdoors person at all realy, so the fact that I'm drawn to just hang around outside is a bit of a surprise to me. I've started taking a book outside to read during my lunch break, for example. It's just something about the fresh air that relaxes me a bit more than just hanging around inside would.

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What would you like to accomplish this week?

I'd like to finish off the decluttering project in my bedroom but I'm not sure if that's going to happen. As it is right now, I'm stuck because I've run out of garbage can space to throw more bags of the stuff I'm tossing. So it may have to wait until next week to continue in force.

I'd also like to get back in the habit of exercising daily. I've been severely lax recently on this front and as a result my weight loss has totally stalled. So I need to get back on the bandwagon and see if I can drop another 10 pounds to get back to where I was when I fell off the bandwagon last time. 

And also I want to spend more time practicing my piano/keyboard playing. Because it's something I want to get good at but I haven't been putting enough time in to really get much of anywhere.

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Time for a weekend update post! This weekend started with me in the mood for some relaxation after some events that happened on Friday, but the weekend delivered...at least Saturday did. My friend Wassy has been having some really good results from her site and had been getting a bunch of commission requests. Which is good and bad. Good because her little business is starting to actually go somewhere. Bad because it keeps pushing back a piece that I wanted to have done that's all City of Heroes related.

But because of that for our weekly get-together we ended up just hanging out at their place while I played some City of Heroes with Jay and she did her artwork stuff. I must say, she has a fine system for playing games while laying down on the couch and I must figure out how to do this at my place. It's very comfortable. The evening was capped off by a little wine and some fruit and cheese type snaking which ended up being very good. All nice and relaxing (and productive for her at the same time)

Sunday though I was in the mood for something productive. So I decided that I was going to finish the de-cluttering project that I had started a while agot and totally failed with. I attacked the mess in my bedroom which resulted in 5 bags of garbage for the trash guy to take away this morning, along with a whole lot of cardboard. I've got a ton of computer related items which I'm never going to use. I'm at a premium for space anyway, so I really need to either chuck it or sell it. Most of this stuff is in the "chuck it' area unfortunetly. I manged to get a good way into it and as soon as I get home today I'm going to continue the process. Well, after I exercise. I really need to get rid of some stuff that I NEVER use. Like my old Sega Game Gear, for example.

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How many meals do you cook at home each week? What do you do for the other meals?

Usually 4 meals cooked at home per week. The remainder are as follows:

Saturday (or sunday) I'm usually over at my friends place or otherwise out and about with them and we grab dinner somewhere (or Wassy cooks). So that's one weekend day down. Sunday I generally go over to my parents for the homemade pizza my Mom makes, although sometimes I'll stay home and cook something myself.

Wednesday is the day Wassy comes over and we go out to dinner and do stuff that we're interested but Jay wouldn't really enjoy. Usually there's music listening or Anime watching.

So I only really cook 4 days a week. And I mean cook by the loosest definiton of the word.

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It's been hot all weekend and it's supposed to be even hotter out today and tomorrow. So it's with a thankful tone that I can report that I finally have air conditioning in my apartment. Last year my friends donated their old AC unit to me because their new place had one built in. I finally got around to asking them if it was all right for me to run something (since utilities are included in my rent, I figured I should ask with something that uses up electricity like that) and their reply "You don't have AC already?" was enough for me. Another reason I wanted to run AC was due to my fish. My betta's tank heats up dangerously (was 84-85F on saturday) without it, so I need something to keep the temperature in the apartment down below 80 degrees if I can.

So my parents came over yesterday to help me install the thing (that sucker's heavy) and I turned it on and it works. Glorious cold air, streaming into my living room! I don't know how I lived without one of these things before! I think the dehumidifier aspects make it even better. Humidity sucks.

Anyway, rounding out my home improvements for the weekend was the installation of a Pur water filter on my sink. I had been using a brita pitcher for a while and liked it, but it was annoying having to fill it up all the time, so I figured a faucet filter would be a better way to go. I ran into a little snag when I tried to put one of the included adapters on my faucet and found out it wasn't the right size. I got halfway to the hardware store before I realized that the size my faucet was and the size it needed to be adapted to where actually the same size. Oops. After that little hangup everything proceeded nicely.

Oh, I also saw a couple of movies over the weekend. First up was Indiana Jones 4, which I thought was pretty good right up until the last 15 minutes or so. But it had everything I'm looking for in an Indiana Jones movie. Some of the witty dialog seemed forced at times, but overall, it was a fun ride and I don't regret seeing it. After that I went back to my friends place (we saw Indy together) and we ended up watching Enchanted which was very good. Disney making fun of itself and taking the whole animated movie thing to ridiculous levels of absurdity was awesome. And the scene where the prince leaps off a bridge and begins singing only to get run over by a bunch of bikers is funny every single time.

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The first full week back at work after you've been on vacation is...not fun. But I'm very glad I made it to friday. Not much actual stuff to report this week as I've gotten really heavily back into City of Heroes again and I've been playing pretty much all my spare time to get one of my villain characters up to level 50 so that I can explore some of the new content that came in with the last update. That happened Wednesday night so now I'm laying back a little bit and recharging.

Watershed

Opeth

Wednesday was also the day of the new Opeth album, Watershed. Well, it was technically released on Tuesday, but I didn't listen to it until Wednesday evening because Wassy and I had planned on hearing it for the first time together.

All in all it's a very solid effort. I doesn't top Ghost Reveries for me, but I think it's tied for second place with Blackwater Park. And it keeps getting more and more of a hold on me every time I play it again. The only song I really don't get is "The Lotus Eaters" because it's a little...strange. The rest of the disc though is just top notch. I'm really glad this release didn't dissapoint because I was looking forward to it a lot.

It's kinda strange hearing Opeth on CD though, since at the Albany prognation show I was within 5 feet of them when they walked past the meet and greet line. It's the same with Dream Theater and Three now. It's weird hearing people you've stood next to and exchanged a few words with playing music on a CD on your iPod. It just makes them feel more...real.

Anyway, I hope I'm able to make it through to the end of today all right. A bunch of bad storms swept through the area overnight and kept waking me up. That was combined with a couple of bad dreams, so I'm operating on very little sleep right now. And I have a headache. Blah!

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