Watched House of Flying Daggers today. I really liked it. There were a lot of really wonderful elements to it, it certainly didn't make my greatest movie of all time list, but it was extremely well done. One of my favorite fights, and I can't even say why, is the one at the beginning, in the brothel.

Tonight I begin marinading my first brisket, tomorrow, I begin cooking it right before I leave for work, then hope Chuck will maintain the fire, at a low enough temperature, to cook it just right over the course of the entire day. I hope that a couple of things make this possible:

1) Not having to open the smoke chamber and let the heated smoke out
2) Not needing to burn at a high temperature

If I'm lucky, it wont be difficult to maintain a low smouldering fire and keeping the smoke inside the main chamber at 200 degrees or just below over the course of an eight hour period. If not, other measures can be taken, and it will at least be a start. If it doesn't work, I'll at least know and I'll be able to try again. I am really hoping that my peculiar luck, when it comes to... well... everything, will step in and what comes out of the smoker will be just perfect. It has happened before, and I wonder how unreasonable it will be to expect it to happen again?

I have Pink Floyd's The Wall, and I will probably watch that tonight with the lights of and the volume cranked up after I get back from taking my old grill to my dad's house with my dad. It really got its fond farewell last week with some brilliant fajitas and stuffed jalapenos as well as some roasted potatos. I got it only a little over two years ago, and it has been a really great learning experience for me. I loved every minute of it. I really need some better bolts for connecting the firebox to the new smoker, the ones they use just feel too thin and weak for my liking, there are also one or two other things that just make me feel like my old smoker came from a supperior company. But this one is really good in a lot of respects, and I absolutely can't wait to put it to really good use. I really hope that it serves me for at least as long as my last one did, though my dad and I will be working to fix it up, and maybe, they'll both get some really good use. Maybe I'll open up a restaurant and serve real BBQ. You never know.

Now that Paper Mario is finished, I can put my heart behind playing Conker's Bad Fur Day, which is an okay game. It's really funny, which is always a boost to a game that is merely okay, and I am really looking forward to more purely because of how creative the whole gameworld is, but overall I don't LOVE playing it so much as I enjoy what I remember from moment to moment about its cut scenes.

I feel like I have a short story in me, so don't be surprised if someday soon you find yourself reading a little piece of fiction here for no apparent reason at all, it's just been knawing at me from the inside out. I just want to write without any particular goal in mind, which sounds like a good idea.

Last night I had a really weird dream that this guy was killing people, he would focus on them and the more they got his attention, the more he would try, as a spider trying to bite them, or as something else. He was very shadowy. To be sure, that was not as weird as the ending. Dreams are full of incomplete stories, as full of them as any writer's desk is full of ideas that never get a second chapter, but what made this story in my head weird was that it had a complete arc to it with an ending. The ending itself is weird, but when you consider what it's like inside of a dream, it's not THAT weird, it is in fact more strange that ther was an ending at all. An alien of the stereotypical Grey variety stepped through the door, and acused the killer of being nothing more than a senseless murderer, and then killed him. I honestly don't know exactly what to think about that. On some levels that bothers me for reasons I can't really explain. Certainly it was a kind of relief. What ceeped me out more were some of the images of him as a spider.

Spiders have always made me feel afraid in a way I could never quite explain. I certainly am not arachnaphobic, and when they are very tiny they just don't seem as scary. But, I really don't like the thought of them on me. I really dont like pictures of them up close in national geographic. And believe me, I REALLY don't like how scary they are in general or that I'm afraid of them. I've certainly never lost my cool over a spider though. I just get chills way down in my core.

I need to rewatch "The Gods Must be Crazy" and the sequels. I loved that movie. I consider it the start of my cullinary life.

Well, last night I got brisket and beef ribs. I'm going to marinade them tonight I think, or tomorrow and then cook them, my first brisket. 8 hours at 200 degrees, then coat it in basting sauce and wrapped in tinfoil and into the oven for 2 hours. Here's hoping that it comes out tender and succulent.

Finished Paper Mario today. Ultimately it's a pretty good game, way too much cut scene in it for my taste, even though the game needs it to keep the combat from getting boring, I just wish there were a better solution. The puzzles are all fetch games, and that just gets boring. It felt better when I was solving real problems in the game instead of playing UPS Mario.

I have The Wall by Pink Floyd. I need to watch it.

***Cake***

* 5 egg whites
* 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
* 1 package yellow cake mix
* 3 egg yolks
* 3/4 cup orange juice
* 1/2 cup vegetable oil
* 1/4 cup frozen orange juice concentrate -- thawed
* 1 teaspoon grated orange peel

***Glaze***

* 2 cups confectioners' sugar
* 3 tablespoons orange juice

Directions:

Heat oven to 325 degrees.

For Cake: Place the egg whites and cream of tartar in a medium bowl.
Beat on high speed until stiff peaks form, about 2-3 minutes.

Place cake mix, egg yolks, orange juice, oil, orange ice concentrate
and orange peel in large bowl. Beat on low speed 1 minute. Stop.
Scrape down sides of bowl with rubber spatula. Increase speed to
medium. Beat 2 minutes. Batter should look well blended.

Turn beaten egg white out on top of batter. fold whites into batter
until mixture is light but well combined. Pour batter into ungreased
10" tube pan, smoothing top.

Bake for 45-50 minutes or until golden brown and top of cake springs
back when lightly pressed with tip of finger. Remove pan from oven and
immediately turn upside down on the neck of a glass bottle to cool for
1 hour. run long, sharp knife around edge of cake. Invert onto wire
rack. then invert again onto serving platter, right side up.

For Glaze: Place confectioners' sugar and orange juice in medium bowl.
Beat on low speed 1 minutes. Spread glaze over top and sides of cake.
Let glaze set for 20 minutes. Slice and serve.

Spent the night at my mom's last night and spent today kicking butt in Paper Mario. I'm almost finished with it, I'll probably beat it tomorrow. George is on his way over right now, when he gets here we're going to the grocery store to buy a brisket and seasoning in order to start smoking it for the next day or so, which should be totally awesome, slow cooked at 200 degrees for 24 hours or so to keep the juices inside till it's falling apart. I am really hoping that it comes out amazing.

I've also been doing a lot of reading lately. L.E. Modesitt Jr. rules.

Long weekend. Started off with spending the night at my mom's house on friday, I let her cut my hair. I like what she did, but I had some ideas that I think would have been much better. It's nice and short now, the heat doesn't bother me as much, I mean, I want long hair, but it's just not worth the pain. We watched a really lousy movie called Trauma, I wanted to watch something else, anything else really, but my mom insisted. It was about a guy who thought he killed his wife in a car accident, and is crazy and starts acting crazier and crazier till he kills some girl pretty much at random for no reason. LOUSY. I hated it. I'm going back tonight, I think alan wants to trade vehicles with me so that he can do some work on the truck, and I can't wait to go, because I left my gamecube there on saturday. So I haven't been able to finish the last 2 or 3 hours(tops) of Paper Mario.

After that I went home, and from home, Justin picked me up, and took me to go help him paint the rest of his house. On the way there we stopped at this really cool place that was pretty much a drive through convenience store inside of a barn that was just cool and funny. I got a 2 liter of Dr Pepper, though I probably should have gotten something healthier to drink. We got so much done, it's insane. They all but finished the bedroom before I got there and got a good start on the living room, but we finished both of those rooms, touched up around the whole house, did the trim, did most of the kitchen, and the cabinets, and they finally did finish on sunday, I think. We didn't stop till after one, and then we went to Cym's family's house, where her mom had made some AWESOME food. Stuffed crabs, greenbean, chicken, and sthrimp stir fry, garlic bread, and some awesome salad. If they keep feeding me like that, I'm going to start looking for things to go up there an help them out with, like mowing their lawn, or whatever. That food rocks, I kept expecting ninja waiters to hop out of the woods with a 30$ check for the food, but none came.

Justin drove me home, and then, I just stayed up all night on the computer. I had some real issues while I was painting, I suddenly got really shaky and had to put my brush down and my stomach got really queasy, and I couldn't stop thinking about that driver bleeding from his ear and looking around with his eyes. I called my dad and talked to him for a really long time till I was feeling much better. I talked to the police today and they wont tell me any information from their report over the phone without buying the report, no biggie, only six dollars, but it's already been 5 days that it's been unavailable, and they want WRITEN consent to get the report, and on top of that it will take 10 - 15 days to get the damn thing. If he's alive, I'll almost be pissed that I did so much worrying over nothing, and I'll kill him.

So then, I went shopping around about 2 on sunday, after eating a REALLY awesome sandwich at quizno's. I used a whole new recipe for fajitas, I'm told my old recipe is better, but I liked the way I cooked this one. So, in the future, I will use my old recipe, and seasonings, and I will soak the full breasts in that, then I will grill them whole, then slice them with the seraded knife. But not next week, next week I'm going to be cooking brisket, because I have a smoker, and so I can.

Going to slow roast it at looooooooow temps for 24 hours with applewood... going to make it nice and delicious and falling apart. Tons of people came, though the whole party ended pretty early, like 8 or so, about half the people showed up late, ate, then left early. Then a few showed up so late, after half the party was gone, while the other half was helping put my new smoker together, and just simply were not entertained enough to stick around. So, I feel it was a mediocre event, I've had much better parties with fewer people and plenty of good music for everyone to listen to, no one put on so much as a single song tonight.

After all of that, and everyone going home, I did some cleaning, then tripped over Sophie after the lights were out and sent her howling into the other half of the apartment. I crashed really early, and I feel like I needed it. I need some more sleep, and I think I'm going to crash early again tonight. For now, I'm going to keep reading the Towers of the Sunset.

Char Grilled Fajitas Marinade:

1/2 c White wine
4 chopped green chiles
2 cloves garlic minced or pressed
Juice of 2 limes
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp cilantro

Serve, and cook even, with all other things you would cook fajitas with and serve with.

I am sore all over, BTW, legs, arms, chest(still), and feet. Even my eyes hurt a little. It almost feels good, and in a way, it really does becaue it means I've been active this weekend, and I like that. I want to be an active person, like I'm constantly moving forward. Oh yeah, guest list for Sunday:

Jake
George
Jackson
Marcia
Marcia's sister(Beth, I think)
Kayla
Mike
Chris Brown
Heather
Zac
Justin
Cymmeron
Dad
Mary Ellen

People who bailed and who are no longer my bestest best friends:

Kevin

Oh, yeah, other minute trivia: Conker: Live and Reloaded is a lot of fun for people who have never played Conker's Bad Fur Day, and for those who have, and loved it, it's better than just replaying the original. I forgot to play the multiplayer while I had friend's over last night.

Special Thanks to those who aided in my efforts to construct my grill:

Zac
Jake
Jackson
George

This post was brought to you by:

The letter D

And remember, cookies are a sometimes food.

Well, it's been a very long week, and I'm feeling pretty good inspite of everything. All that's happening will shape out one way or another and I'll just have to accept what I can't change and work as hard as I can at what I can. It's not the end of the world. It's so odd having to say these words to myself, but it helps. Anyway, tonight I'm spending the night at my mom's house, which won't kill me, I do love her, and Alan is okay too. It's been very nice of them to loan me their truck to get through this time, but I'd like to have my own vehicle as soon as possible, which means dealing with insurance, and waiting till the police report is turned in from the accident.

Some time next week I should get some pretty solid closure to all of this mess. At the very least, in the very worst case scenario, I still KNOW what happened, and how the guy I hit is doing by wednesday. Anyway, I'm going to head to my mothers now, and then, I have some pretty fun plans for sunday.

Well, today is pretty good, I'm sore all over but mostly tired. I'm going to spend the night at my mom's. Tomorrow I get my tooth looked at by another dentist. Life, I guess. I just want to go to sleep, for real.

Well, this weekend was really cool, it started off with ariving in Dallas early, though I got a call from my dad's dentist office and they made an appointment on tuesday, and going to my grandparent's anniversary dinner at an awesome mexican restaurant. The menu was so incredible, I really felt like everything was great and I was actually attracted most to one of the cheapest dishes on the menu, and I was NOT disapointed by how awesome it was. I forget the name but it was 2 rather large spicy chicken burritos, one with cheese sauce covering it evenly, the other with green sauce, and the flavors occassionaly mixed. It was simply delicious, I could eat there again. Followed that up with a REALLY nice flan, that had a really interesting texture, it was like inverted tapioca in that it had many hollows... the texture was very similar but different, and the flavor was outstanding.

After that we cellebrated my birthday and I got the last of my birthday presents, some spices from grandma and grandpa with my birthday card. They are so awesome that words do not even surprise, they have overwhelmed me this birthday. Aunt Karen got me an instant read meat thermometer with a really awesome feature, it has markings on it that let you know when speciffic meats are done, so that you don't have to know that information by heart while you're cooking, she also got me some kababs, which will also get a ton of use, as well as a 20lb bag of charcoal for cooking with, that she almost gave me for christmas till someone pointed out that she would be giving me coal for christmas, and she just couldn't do that, so she waited six months. Saturday was fairly subdued as everyone was out doing their own thing, so I just played on my gamecube and finished reading the Dharma of Star Wars. I liked that book, it really gave me quite a bit to think about, I had never tried to actually understand Buddhism before, and it is quite an appealing philosophy, though it is in no way a religion.

I got my 5th star in Paper Mario, which I am LOVING. Genuine romantic love. There is a reason cds have those holes in the center. I think I have found the love of my life, if only I can find a priest who approves of that, but somehow, I think it would be easier if I were just gay instead of a technophile. Most people look at pornography in the bathroom when they're young, as for me, I always snuck a copy of wired or technology today in with me.

Anyway, the whole day ended up being fairly subdued, a little celebration of father's day, with lots of chatting, my sister came over for a while, and we made plans to see Batman Begins on sunday, which didn't happen, but it was nice making plans. On sunday she got there too late, so we just went and ate at the Rainforest Cafe for her bday, and did some shopping. I got her Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory by Dahl, and The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne.

After all the shopping, we split ways, each of us with our lightning cups and went home. Dad and Mary Ellen got pizza when we got back from Dave's Pizza, which really rocked, until my crown came out while chewing, it had been sticking in my mouth quite well and so I had been leaving it in so that I could eat, and I bit down on it with my real teeth and it shattered like a piece of hard candy. My other teeth didnt even hurt, I only knew because of the crunch that didnt belong in the middle of the pizza. Real teeth rock. and I really can't wait to get a new crown, because i cant even imagine a prosthetic being even close to having a real tooth at the core considering what my real teeth did to that crown.

And then the rest I think I covered yesterday. THe dentist thought they were just going to cement my crown right back in, but crunch crunch gone, and also there was a miscommunication. It was decicded that what happened didnt matter because it was time for a whole new permanent crown to cover my tooth anyway, since my other crown was given to me at 11.

Anyway, George came over last night and we ate at bennigan's, I love it there, and chatted and I'm still driving my mom's truck, which is working fine. I'm going to go have a good day now, and feel better, I'm still pretty horribly sore all over, though less so. People keep telling me this is supposed to get worse. I guess I'll see in a few days. I really hope the other guy is okay. I don't even know who he is, all I can do is call him the other guy. I've made some bad jokes to help cope, please, don't get offended at me, I really don't mean anything I say that's mean.

Well, It's pretty clear by now that I didn't post last night. I had every intention to, I had a very good weekend for the most part, but on my way to my mom's house after work I was in a very serious car accident. I was not hurt but I believe the other driver was, we were both taken to the hospital very quickly and I do not know everything that is going on, except that it is looking like it is the other driver's fault.

I was going down loop 610 west bound and a car was stopped in traffic and pulled across 3 lanes right in front of me, I had no where to swerve and I struck him on the driver's side. He was pretty seriously hurt it looked like, unconcious most of the time, bleeding from his left ear down his neck, not talking, but the medics told me not to worry about it and that he was going to be okay. I was wearing my seatbelt and had managed to slow to about 35 or 45, and so I was able to walk away. Though I went to the hospital anyway to get checked out. The taped me to a board and loaded me up, then drove me as fast as they could to the emergency room and delivered me just like a fedex package. They x-rayed my chest, and checked my pulse and my blood pressure 20 times, and my ekg and everything looked safe and sound, which was really cool, all together the copay for the particular hospital I was at(I understand it's lucky they took me to the one they did) was only 50 for the services and another 20 for some pain medication which I have yet to need. My mom came and picked me up around 10 pm and took me to her house after getting me dinner. I love her so much, and her and her husband Alan let me borrow their truck till my transportation is all sorted out. That's really going to help me stay on my feet.

This morning I took it to go to my dentist appointment, where he gave me a 634$ estimate for a new tooth and told me that my real tooth was in good enough shape and had such excellent work on it that I could eat normally even without a cap till it was fixed. After that I payed 124 to get my stuff out of my car, wrecker fees, it's still in the lot gaining fees for being there. After that, off to work and then, eventually home. At work I spent a lot of time talking to the insurance claims investigator. I hope they find it is that guys fault, so that I can get some real help getting back on my feet. More.. I really hope that guy is okay, I don't often talk about my religion on here, but, I am going to pray for him.

Well, I've been at work since 7 am this morning, I've played on the gamecube and I've read from my book and I watched bits of House of Flying Daggers. On the way to work I got a horrible scare when my crown came off after maybe 10 years on my tooth. It doesn't look very healthy underneath either, and I don't know how much it will cost to fix or what will have to be done about it, and I'm really quite worried. Anyway, I'll be spending this weekend at my grandparents', hopefully. Depends on when my coworker is showing up out here. If he shows up too late, I just miss the ride with my dad to go up there.

Alan should finally be out of all surgery today, after the initial precedure for the pancreaitis, they felt they needed to remove his gall bladder, and so I believe they did that yesterday morning.

Anyway, this tooth thing scares the crap out of me. I don't know if I have enough money to fix it or if I'll have to take a loan. Either way, there's nothing I can do till tuesday next week.

Just found out that I can leave in plenty of time for the weekend, and so, to all of those who I would normally be seeing all weekend long, I'll miss you and I'll see you later.

Got my smoker today, picked it up in the morning, but forgot to buy a cover for it, and had to go back in the evening to pick one up, it cost 40 dollars, which surprised me. Didnt have enough time to put it all together, the day is moving slowly, I need to go to sleep though since I have to be up and at work by 7 am so that I can visit grandparents over the weekend.

Batman Begins begins tonight! It will be on the IMAX, formatted for the IMAX and it will be vunderbar! I think Mike will go, but so far, no one else may be able to, Jackson might too though. And, I have a new grill coming to me, I'm going to make the arangements today to have it picked up by tomorrow. It's a combination of my birthday, christmas and next birthday's present, so this grill is going to be.. quite simply.. amazing. It has a firebox for smoking, ash trays to use it as a direct heat grill, drip pans, thermometer. I haven't seen it yet, but I am seriously stoked. I AM going to give my old grill one last goodbye cookout. It deserves it, it's over 2 years old and it's served me well through countless bbqs, I really love it, and I feel that it's crash the other day is the saddest thing in the world.

Jackson just called and said he can't make it, if Mike can't either, I just wont go. Cest la vi, perhaps another day.

Oh well, and yeah, I did something really stupid last night, if you know me, ask me about it, if you don't, trust me, you don't want to know.

It's been a very long weekend with lots of twists and turns. Started off with hanging out for Zac's birthday, we all went to go see Mr. and Mrs. Smith, which was an awesome movie... George had to watch a totally different showing because he decided to, once again, not show up until the movie was starting, and, in this case, sold out. After the movie we all split ways and went home. While I was at the mall though, I picked up a pair of chinese medicine balls that had elephants on them. My dad loves elephants and it was an unusual patern.

Saturday was a bit of a disaster. It started off well, I met Mike for lunch at 12, and I shopped around the coffee bean emporeum. I really love that place. After that we got back to my apartment, and my dad helped me set up the shelf, which, worked really well, doing a good job of holding everything up. Though, on monday, my parsley died from exposure. I am still hoping it's roots are good and it will grow back though. After that, Mike and I went to Fry's to try and find a Machintosh version of Unreal Tournament 2004, which, no one seemed to have, and we didn't get back till later than we needed to. George had already been there and helped chuck load my grill up into my truck, and then as soon as we could we sped off, me leading the way, turning onto 1960 and spilling my grill out into the road, scratching all the paint, destroying the wheel axel beyond repair, breaking the thermometer, damaging the smoke pipe, breaking the seal and slamming it inside the grill some, breaking off the smoke pipe cover, smashing the handel. We eventually got it to George's house, and it was in just good enough shape to smoke the ribs his dad bought, and I made some pesto with fresh herbs from my garden, along with a strawberry jalapeno dipping sauce for the ribs, which everyone made fun of me for, until they tried it.

No games went on that night, George's network refused to let the third computer play with us, no matter what we did, even after we got Return to Castle Wolfenstein installed on all three computers. We eventually gave up and went home, the grill stayed behind till I picked it up on Monday. The next day Justin had asked all of us if we would go out and help him paint the little delapidated building he will soon be calling home. He can't fix any of the real problems with it, the holes in the floor leading to the outside, the waterdamage on, well, everything, but we were able to get half of it painted nice and white by the end of the day. Before I went out to help, though, I went to visit Alan in the hospital, he has pancreaitis, and is having his surgury on wednesday. Mom got some fuzzy slippers, and some candy, and a card that I wrote some things on that I hoped would make him feel really loved and she let me give those to him while she gave him some other things.

We worked really hard painting, it was the first time I ever did anything like that, by the time I was done my arms were sore. Cym's mom was an awesome cook, she made us a shrimp and lobster salad, with salmon, and served it with some fresh green onions and balsamic vinigar. We talked about cooking and she told me how to make stock, and soup bases, and gave me some really excellent recipes. Then after we were all done painting for the day, we jumped into the water and had a swim, and there was strawberry shortcake waiting for us. The whole thing was extremely fun, and I had a really great day. I would go back and help out more next week, but I will probably be out of town, visiting my grandparents and my sister on her bday.

Monday, I got my grill back, and then George and I caught the 10:20 of Madagascar, which was, by all rights, an awesome movie. I love the lemurs. Today, I don't have a lot of plans, I'm going to see what happens.

Another one of those days where I was way too busy to post the events that transpired over the weekend... I promise to give a full recap at work, first thing in the morning. it's 2 am, I love how blogger gives the west coast time. Anyway... amuse yourselves till tomorrow, one way or another...

Well, I missed my post yesterday. At the expense of a several week period of missing NOTHING, even making a saturday post, in fact, I have faltered. To be fair, I was dead tired after a week of enduring fun and friends till five in the morning. I've written about it all here, and so help me, every minute of it was worth it, but... I was really ready for a break. I slept a long time last night, and I still felt a little short changed. I could use some more tonight, so I'll try to get home fairly fast after meeting Zac for his birthday. I really think that I may do almost nothing this weekend, just for a breather, next weekend should be back to normal for another year, though. Either way, I missed my blog.

Wednesday, was George's birthday, and I have yet to give him a present, though I feel I earned my delay, in that he has not yet gotten me one, and two, I did cook chicken for him on wednesday using more and more fresh ingredients from my garden. Sage is a beautiful flavor, and fresh cayenne pepper really adds something. Everyone liked the chicken, even Mike had good things to say. Chris was unable to make it, and he left yesterday morning to fly to his next post.

1/4 cup paprika
2 tbsp brown sugar
2 tbsp garlic salt
1 tbsp ground mustard
1 tbsp fresh ground pepper
1 tbsp dried oregano
1 tbsp onion powder
2 tbsp ginger powder
1 tbsp minced sage, can be fresh or dried
and, based on your taste... a little bit of cayenne pepper.. 1 1/2 tsp can be good.. but if you dont like hot... go for less.

Sprinkle it onto the chicken... pretty liberally, till it's got a nice coat, get both sides, then cover and refrigerate for 10 minutes to an hour, the longer the better within reason... then cook it till it's done, if you're doing something simple like boneless skinless breasts (best to use skinless meat or to get it under the skin of meat with the skin) you cook it for about 10 to 15 minutes per side, then flip it over and brush it with honey for 3-5 minutes on either side... if you overcook it, it will be a little dry... so use your best judgement, it will still be awesome though.

Next time I make chicken though, I think I'm going to change up the entire recipe and maybe go for a tea leaf rub and use some basil and lemon thyme to give it more of a cultured kick rather than the southwestern touch. Lemon thyme is going to be the theme though, it should match the chicken really well, and I really can't wait to give it a try.

Dad is coming over tomorrow, so we're going to get my herb garden set up where it will get plenty of sunlight, and then we're going to have some ice cream and chat for a while.

Tonight, I will be finding out what is happening for Zac's birthday party. I think he may just want to play Star Wars Galaxies all night long, which, frankly, is fine by me, I can do that from home. The Dharma of Star Wars is turning out to be really good, I am loving it. I really enjoyed the bits about mindfulness most, they made me contemplate how well I focus on the things I am doing, and made me wonder how often I am carelessly damaging something or hurting someone. It made me really want to be more mindful of my actions and strive to be better in all that I do.

Scott has been giving me some good lessons lately about problems, specifically NP-Hard problems and problems of NP-Completeness. It's really fascinating stuff, but given the hectic nature of the week, the lessons have been split up.

Anyway, suffice to say, all my gaming has been put on hold, but tonight I might just be playing Star Wars Galaxies all night with Zac online as he is not going to have internet for a while after tomorrow, so, I say, get the most out of it while you can, after all, it is your birthday!

Anyway... I'm going to cut out saying, I love my herb garden, it is so much deliciousness to use with anything.


As the blood dried on his face, crustin in the gashes across his nose and down his cheeks, the soldier stood firm while the dark man in front of him painted. The yellows and blues and greens mixed with the crusting red of his own blood as the preparation continued. The night was dark, and the only light was the brightness of the torch laying symbolically in the short grass at his feet. Somehow, his own name seemed lost, and he was unable to recall who he was. The dark man spoke words that seemed to transcend language as they floated through the air. There were spirits in this place, in this dark field.

We are what we do, the dark man said, his features made bright by the light of the torch, the whites of his eyes seemed alive amid his mud caked face. He told the soldier that a name is at the very best a reflection of what all living beings find inside of themselves. His lips moved with grace as he told the soldier how when he knew his true self, he would again know his own name. The soldier understood none of these words, and yet the meaning seemed to ring clear through him.

The dark man took up the torch and extinguished it into the earth, blinding the soldier with the sudden absence of light. In less than a moment there was a searing hot pain in his right thigh, in its most sensitive spot close to the hip, the heat and pain spread and his vision began to become spotted before he fell to his knees, the torch removed from his flesh but the pain still so strong as a fever overtook his mind and he passed from conciousness.

Well, last night was pretty stressful, trying to iron out plans, Mike wanted to eat at Outback, and Chris wanted to eat at his house, which is where I ended up eating, but it was stressfull, because Chris also wanted to have the lan party last night. I would have done it for Chris, because he's a good friend and he has to leave on thursday, as stressful,and as much work as it would have been to just start at like eight in the evening, I would have done it. Either way, I still didnt get to sleep till 2:30, which felt early, and I feel great today, but i'm starting to get a headache.

Kevin gave me and George bday presents, and we hung out with Chris till late and I made more orange candy for the party tonight, which should be pretty cool. Anyway, I'm going to go... let my head heal, and I am DEFINITELY going to sleep at 10 tomorrow, if not earlier.

Well, last night, though very rushed, busy, and otherwise totally consuming of myself, was incredible. And please, don't take me at face value when I say I was so busy all night long that it hurt. I love to be busy from time to time, and cooking a meal for all of my friends, and hearing whispers of how good the food is really makes a day for me. How much do I love it? Let me count the ways, in order of appearance(to the best of my memory):

1)Jake
2)George
3)Jackson
4)Kevin
After this it gets a lot fuzzy:
5)Marcia
6)Tera
7)Kayla
8)Teruwah
9)Chris
10)Steve
11)Dad
12)Mary Ellen
13)Zac
14)Mike
15)Justin

Started off the evening by leaving work about 30 minutes early since I knew I would be on a tight schedule and I didn't even have any of the food bought yet, I normally would have done that the day before, but it has been a very hectic week with Chris in town and spending time with him, which, though fun, has been very time consuming, and has kept me up late nights. I'll live, but sometime in the next day or so, I really need some very good rest after this weekend.

I met Jake at EB Games and George arived there shortly afterword, we then went straight to the grocery store where I bought 74 dollars worth fo food to cook at the party. That is a record number, or maybe not, and I just don't know it because usually so many people help split the bill(which I absolutely did not want happening last night, my party, my gift to all of my friends), which makes me appreciate them that much more. We got fresh chicken, drinks, potatoes, corn, chips, disposable silverware, jalapenos, cheese and bacon for stuffing the jalapenos, and plenty of other things. Got home and immediately began working hard at getting the food ready for everyone, it sadly didn't come off the grill till 10, and that was because I had some rub already premade from my last grill and it didn't need remaking in order to season the meat.

I also had plenty of help with almost everything, from shucking the corn to skewering the garlic rosemary potatoes. I had bought 4 packages of chicken but only used 2, the other 2 should get used over at Georges house during his bday on wednesday, and it should be really good. Teruwah showed up fairly late, but so much more than welcome, I love my sister, and it's been so long since I've seen her, and she saved my butt by bringing enough rosemary for the potatoes from dad's house, and she got me a really wonderful present, a painting that she did on a very, very tiny canvas, and a manaquin to go with my other one, only much smaller.

Most everyone watched Team America: World Police while I got the food ready, which I was unable to watch, too busy, I'll probably watch it tomorrow or something. I liked what little I caught of it. Also, way later someone brought out Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a really awesome movie from the same guy who did Being John Malkovitch, another really awesome movie, and we watched that. The party didn't start to break up until midnight, and didn't die down completely until 3:30 in the morning. It was so great having almost everyone there. It really made me feel good, and so I have to say it was one of my favorite birthdays ever, and I'm really glad Chris just happened to be back for that.

I also showed everyone the video for Prey from E3, which was totally mind blowing, I'll link to it another day, but it looks like to half life, as half life looked to all other games in 1998.

Anyway, I also played Star Wars: Galaxies right before bed, and created my bothan character Marianas Trench. I'll play some more tomorrow, maybe finally with Zac this time around. Anyway, I'll write about what happened tonight tomorrow, it's been a really long day, I havent gotten to sleep before 5 am since last thursday, and I am in desperate need of rest. Have a good night.

Very very awesome weekend, you already know about Cindarella Man on saturday, on friday though, things ended after hanging out with Chris and Joe by watching the movie Anchorman with Will Ferrel, which made me laugh till my sides hurt. It was physicly painfull to laugh that hard. I shared my hot sauce wealth with Chris. Then, on saturday, I went to dinner at 5 with my Mom, and her Husband, they treated me to a delicious dinner at Asian City's Hibatchi Grill, wich was extremely wonderful and they got me the Steak and Chicken special, and a necklace. I really would write so much more about it except that I have put this off and I am now in a hurry to write it all before I get going to start the festivities for tonight.

After that I picked up Chris and we went to Half Priced Books, where he got a copy of Blood Rayne for him, and an adventure game that I picked up, but don't remember the name of, for me. Then we went to the mall, and hung out, where I bought Star Wars Galaxies, which I, tragically, have yet to play despite it being monday because I have been so busy. We met Zac there, and I got him a birthday cd with the money he gave me to get me glaxies as a present, so consider it a sort of gift exchange where we both get what we want. After that we went to see Cindarella Man, Chris, Zac, Emily, and I, and you know how that went.

Sunday was much the same, with lots of sleeping until it was time to go meet my dad at six in the evening. Mike called me to invite me to go hang out with him and Chris at the mall, but I was asleep when they called. When they finally did get through I told them my phone didn't even get the calls(I thought it hadn't, apparently I checked wrong because later I looked and it showed that it had), and it was too late for me to go. I went straight to my dad's house after playing some Paper Mario, and they gave me my presents, some VERY cool ones I might add. A T-Shirt with the M&M characters done up as Darth Maul, Emperor Palpatine, Vader, and Dooku, that says dare to go to the Dark Side, the star wars Mpire. Awesome shirt, a brush for sauces that has a bottle and feeds the brush, a fresh pepper grinder and fresh peppercorns for it, a stuffed jalapeno holding grill tool in the shape of texas, The Dharma of Star Wars(which is an awesome book on buddism), and an herb garden! I tell you, the herb garden ROCKS... Serranjo peppers, basil, lemon thyme, parsley, sage, orange mint, chives, oregano, and the rosemary they already gave me, plus a shelf that I can raise them on in my porch area! Woohoo! Then they took me to the other nearby hibatchi restaurant, H.B.'s Japanese Steak house, which was equally awesome, I had the orange roughy which was.. so tender it was falling apart. Then after that we talked about herbs and I let them try my Retsina wine, and my meade, which they both loved, I served the meade with a leaf of orange mint in each glass. I am going to love cooking with herbs fresh from my garden, it is one of the coolest gifts ever, and I really love it.

After that I picked up Chris, who made departure plans for thursday, and we went to my house and watched 12 MOnkies which was awesome after getting snacks at Walmart. I got back home after dropping him off afterward around about 4 am, so, again, no time for galaxies, maybe tonight, after the festivities which I will fill you in on tomorrow. Adieu.

I find it interesting that the only feeling I can think of that does not dull after feeling it too much is envy. If anything, the pressence of the object of envy and the prominant feeling of it seems only to make it stronger. Joy, sadness, fear, wonder, all other feelings seem to wane as though they were each a day and that their onset promised nothing more than their end, and that between those two moments, the beginning and the end, anything could happen. But envy... envy can never be satiated, it never wans or fades or grows old. In truth, I loathe my envy, and yet I constantly find new things that seem worthy of it. When I see someone experiencing something for the first time, I envy that they have yet to be dulled to it. I yearn, in my sould, to feel things as though they are always new, even if I have experienced them a thousand times.

This is a wandering thought, but it aslo happens that from time to time, I also feel like my life deserves meaning. Of all the grand ways in which that phrase has been used, I mean to say, value and lasting purpose. Now, certainly many turn to God, or to any number of outside forces to give them purpose, and while I certainly believe that it is totally personal to me whether I believe in God or not(ha! you thought I was going to tell you what I believed! n00b!) but whether or not it matters in the grand scheme of how things work, I believe that my belief matters. Either I believe in God and there is a God, and nothing changes because God was never one to put off planning someone's meaningless demise even though they believed in him, and the same outcome is true if I don't believe in God, and it's also true if I believe, but there is no God, and yet equally true if I don't believe and there is no God. In a way, it's almost bleak to think about it. So, meaning, is what your life is left with when it's over with, what other people get out of it. I want to be a good person, a better person than maybe I really can be. So help me, I will strive for it. I want to be the type of person I dreamed of when I was six, honest to a fault, strong of character, and ambitious. I want to have so much spirit it bursts out of my seams and does things that I should not be capable of doing. I want to make other people's lives better. I think, that should I live to be a thousand and have do nothing for anyone, then I would have been better dying tomorrow for a trivial cause. I expect neither is neccessary.

Extremes always make me wonder. They never seem to be right. I find myself often pondering them and even supporting them in favor of alternatives, but always in retrospect I discover that I don't really support them. There is not always a correct course of action, often this comes when no matter what you do, someone suffers. I love hypothetical situations in that they can make you feel like crap over things that would never happen. Such as, if it rested on your shoulders would you save 1 million people, or 5 hundred thousand people among whom was someone you loved, such as your mother, or your father or your wife or your child, or would you through inacction allow 1 million 5 hundred thousand to die?

It will never happen, you will never have to make that decision, but it drives you nuts in the emotional catch of the problem.

I have also been thinking, that nothing done through anger or hatred is done well. I certainly still believe that often things must die, and that it is still essential that often people are thrown into such conflict that they must fight and maybe die for what they believe is right or for what they want, but, I believe that it can be done with passion that is not driven through anger or hatred. Necessity is a far more powerful motivation than anything else I can imagine, as well as a wall. It may look passionless when it's done, on the surface, often someone doing something unusual, or particularly important would seem to be cold and distant. I think, that this is a most incredible act, to seperate yourself from everything you feel about what you're doing, and do only what you have to. I could imagine just as much damage being done out of love as I can out of hate, as Robert Frost put it, Fire or Ice. One wonders though, if it's the same event, why does anyone care how it happens?

I saw Cindarella Man tonight, and I thought it was a really beautiful movie, I shed a single tear from each eye right before the final fight started I was so moved by the plight and attitude of Jim. It was inspiring and it made me do a lot of thinking and pondering and poetic lines flowed through my head. This is certainly going to stew inside of me for a long time. Anyway, I don't normally do saturday updates, but I was particularly inspired. It's very late, so have a good night.

Well, I'm looking forward to some very cool things this weekend, and I have my birthday party on monday. Things should get pretty interesting. Tonight I'll be seeing Cindarella Man with Chris. Maybe. If he bother's to call. He's in town till wednesday and then I may not see him for 6 months or 2 years. Frankly, it will be a crime if he doesn't show up at my birthday. But he's invited, and it's his crime to comit. Anyway, I'm going to have a good time, one way or another. Adieu.

Played Paper Mario all day. I really enjoyed it, and I had some really good convos and even had some people comment on my poetry. Makes me want to write more. But I don't know if it would express as much feeling.



The tall grass acted as a curtain all around Brutus as he marched out into the field, a fellow soldier on either side, each only a few feet away, and yet for that they might as well have been a million miles away given the thickness of the tall green but yellowing blades. The flickering orange shades of the setting sun fading as the glints on his well polished and cared for armour as he marches forward, listening to the harsh rustling on either side as he tries to keep pace, a growing sense of uneasiness swelling in his chest with each forward step, the looming pressence of many fellow officers, the haunting question of what they were running from...

Started this weekend out with a bbq that my dad and his wife were invited to. It was really nice, I got all the food done on time, had to cook late, so everyone ended up eating at nine, since friday was the only possible day to do it with my dad, and I didn't get home till 7:30. Well, I was shocked and awed to find out that Chris was in town from the army and had just gotten back earlier that day, so I rushed over and picked him up and brought him back to eat and hang out, Mike showed up and everything was fun. The food was awesome, and I liked talking with everyone, but I forgot to let dad try my wines and orange cognac.

Despite all plans, saturday ended up just doing nothing all day long, except playing Paper Mario, which happens to be an extremely cool game, which I would like to own.

Later in the evening I went over to Chris' house and we watched Escape from New York, an aweful movie, if ever there was one. After that I went to sleep kindof early. On sunday, I got the parts to fix Tera's computer, and I took Chris to Fry's, though he wasn't happy about not going to see Star Wars, I had forgotten to tell him we were grilling instead. Anyway, we took him home after grocery shopping, and then, we got totally rained out, I'm talking flooded out of grilling, I didn't even go over to Marcia's house to do anything.

On monday, I relaxed, played lots more Paper Mario, and then went and checked Mike's house, and fixed Tera's computer, then off to a bbq at Marcia's family's house with Jackson, and then from there, to swimming at Marcia's complex. Tons of fun. Then, at 9:30 Zac gave me a call and asked me to go meet him for dinner, so funny, he was with a friend at Hooters, they had never been and decided to randomly try it out, the perves. They managed to offend the waitress before I even got there. I tried the wings just to see if they were worth it, they weren't, but I got to talk about star wars all night long, which was totally kick ass. After that I went home, and, you guessed it, played Paper Mario all night.

Then, last night, I had a midnight grill, started cooking the food at 12:30, ate at 1:00 am, it was delicious chicken, I LOVED it. Jake was the only one who came for it.

Long long day, long long weekend, I'm just putting this here so that you'll know I care, I'll write more tomorrow.

Well, last night, Jake and I hung out with my mom for a little bit, then we rented apocalypse now, and we watched half of it while we ate ice cream till jake had to go home. Chuck rotiseried some bacon wrapped tomatoes... buuuuuuuut, Jake didn't get to stay for those to get done. However I cannot say I am 100% disapointed, as I love them and always enjoy having more.

Tonight Dad and Mary Ellen are coming over, I'm going to be smoking ribs for them. That's the third time in 3 weeks that I've smoked ribs, and I really like the recipe and the techinque, I could really use a real smoker though. After this, I'm going to move into more indoor areas of cooking. I really want to be able to do a brisket though.

Avast, there are many pirate things for the day. I am always fond of all things piraty, and even though it's not officially talk like a pirate day, well, ARGH!!! For all of those who are fond of games, let me say that I'm with you on that. And remember, piracy is never just for the guys! For the record, buckaneering is okay too.

Well, tonight I'm going to go grocery shopping. I went the last 2 days without eating any fast food or at any restaurants. I broke down for lunch today, but I'm hopping right back on it. I can save several hundreds a month and be healthier if I eat only what I cook myself(or what Chuck cooks and I steal from him).

Anyway, tonight, I'm buying food to cook food for my dad, I'm going to have a barbecue on friday so that he can try my smoked ribs. He missed my last two cookouts, and I really want him to be able to experience how good I'm getting at this. Jackson and Jake will also be there, which should be pretty cool.

I'm having pretty serious problems with blockbuster online, it's been almost a whole week and I havent recieved any of the movies that they have mailed to me, and I don't have a clue as to why. I reported this to their service, I'd rather get the problem fixed than just have them remail the movies. There is no reason why I should not be getting them in the mail, but on top of this, when I was first getting movies, I was getting the wrong movies entirely for no reason at all.

I think i'm going to watch Road to Perdition now. Long live the Revolution!

Some things are just inherantly wrong with the world. The lightsaber I want is sold out. And frankly, that is not cool. Anyway, I spent the day watching the first season of Night Court. I had planned on watching Road to Perdition, but when I got there, my coworker had that as a sort of suprise, and I loved it as a kid when all I saw were reruns, so I had to watch it. It was funnier than I remember.

I have also done a ton of work on the interface for Project KSM. So far it's looking pretty good, I've gone and made it look as scuffed as I can, and I have some more plans up my sleeve. I'll post more here and maybe screen shots too.

I'm really hyped about the new Batman. It just looks like they're getting back to something with more substance, less flashy lights, or neon lights. I also can't wait for the new Chocolate Factory movie, even though I haven't heard anything at all new about it. Other than that, I cannot think of anything right off the top of my head that I want to see, even though I know there is.

I got registered for classes yesterday, and I tried to get in touch with Grandma and Grandpa today to get that taken care of, but I think I was too late, so I may have to change my schedule to take those classes in the fall, I wouldn't mind the break though. Anyway, I'm really tired right now, so I'm going to go to sleep, have a good night.

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Well, last night was pretty cool. I was surprised pretty late in the evening when Jackson showed up. Didn't have much to do because Mike wanted to go home pretty early, which is understandable, he has work in the morning, so we went for a walk down to the local gas station, picked up some snacks, and walked back. We talked and I showed Mike the logo I did for our website, and then he went home for the evening, followed shortly by Jackson, who did stay for a little while to play hacky sack.

My dad called and agreed to come to a bbq next friday, which should be small, I'll do a couple of racks of ribs, which shouldnt throw me back toooooooo far, and some corn. It will be fun. I may invite a few other friends who are willing to chip in, which should be pretty cool.

Anyway, my stomach isn't feeling it's best today. Oh, and I appologized to Mike yesterday, that went well. I still need to watch this movie, suspect 0 that my mom loaned to me.

This weekend was mostly nice. On friday night I hung out with Mike, we ate at humble chinese kitchen, which I like. Afterward, we had to pay cash because the credit machine couldnt connect through the phone lines, which was the first indicator of a much larger problem that was affecting the entire city of humble. A cut fiber line that was crashing phone service, cell phone service, and internet service for everyone, no one could use credit cards, and everything was going wrong.

Including things at Mike's work. No biggie, but we had to go there and I waited in his office while he did what he could. He's really moved a long way from the temp job he used to have there, and he has big plans there. And he really can go places, and that's awesome. I know I'll still be talking to him when he moves to Jersey, but I'll still miss him a lot. He worked really hard for his degree and he's using it to do some really cool stuff for Panalpina. I wish I had that kind of dedication. He'd be the first to tell me that I just need to pick something as a career path and follow it. And it's really good advice.

So, it actually wasn't boring. Doesn't hurt that I'm good at entertaining myself, doesnt hurt that I was able to guilt him into letting me play on his PSP, which he got on thursday and didn't tell me about. After that we stopped at H.E.B. and I bought six oranges and some raspberries to make candy with, the oranges produced a ton of candy, and the raspberries are ruined because I tried to rush the recipe.

On saturday we went to Best Buy, where I bought a game, we did that till we were sure Justin was at his new trailer, and then we got directions and went out to visit him there. It was... to be honest, not the greatest hole in the world. But with some spit and elbow grease they've fixed it up to dilapidated. With much more work, they could actually make it liveable for about a year. Justin is always cool, and they had a lot ot laugh about, they found shemale porn hidden in the old place, and there were maggots in the fridge, and a bong in the bedroom. So they inherited it from a pretty serious loser of a chick.

After that we came back and we ate some mexican food, and then went on to shop at H.E.B. for the real food for sunday. 4 racks of ribs and some corn. Pretty simple list, plus wood for smoking and a smokebox to put on the coals.

Sunday started out really slow, I started to think no one would come till people started trickling in around about 6. I had put the rub on the meat with joe's help at around 1 in the afternoon, till 2, and then let it chill in the fridge till time to cook with. Food was ready at 9 and everyone loved the food. George tried the hot sauce, he said it only tasted slightly hotter than tobasco, but his body knew otherwise, his lips spasmed, and his stomache made him regret it. I later found out that he deliberately didnt chew, just to avoid getting the full effect. And then he brushed his eye. Wow, I can only imagine the sting that would bring, or I could only imagine if I hadn't experienced it all too many times with habanero juice on my hands while taking out contacts.

He didn't finish those ribs, and so when Chuck started walking around, eating the ribs left on the plates people were done with, even the ribs that already had a bite or two taken out of them, he got a little surprise when he got to George's plate. I wouldn't even have known about Chuck's little round of eating if I hadn't walked in on him in the kitchen holding some ice to his lips and with a brooding look on his face as he suffered. He swore that he could see burn marks on his lips afterword, and described the decreasing pain as similar to that of a lingering sunburn.

The whole day Mike was mad at me for some reason, and I don't know why. I got frustrated and snapped, I really shouldn't have, and I owe him an appology. It caused him to leave my house early. I felt really bad about it, and I'm going to talk to him about it when I call him this afternoon.

Justin and Cymmeron showed up, and they had an okay time, except for Cym. When I took Zac to get his car so he could go home, I got to see the awesome lightsaber he got from his girlfriend. Coolest gift EVER. I really want Darth Vader's lightsaber though. Well, I mean they're both Darth Vader's, but, well, nvm, you know what I mean.

Well, last night was really cool, I got my special sauce in the mail. It was really quite wonderful, I gave joe an itsy bitsy taste and had one for myself. It wasnt that bad, so when I met dad at Subway, I put some large dollops on my sandwich. My dad and Mary Ellen told me that I looked like a cartoon character the way my whole head turned read and my eyes started getting real big and bloodshot. Started hopping around Subway begging for a piece of bread and offering to pay for it, but all she would say was no, but then, she could barely speak english, so begging wasn't doing much good.

Anyway, after that whole ordeal was over, we went to see star wars, which was pretty good the second time around, about the same as the first time, only maybe a little worse because of some nearby obnoxious kids.

After that, not much of anything else happened. I forgot I intended to stop at the grocery store on the way home
I need oranges and raspberries for making into candies.

Well, I saw Episode III last night. It was good, but it's good in spite of a lot of things it did really painfully wrong. No movie can be great in spite of flaws, flaws, by nature, reduce movies to being merely good by matter of fact. A movie has to be great as a whole, but can be good with bad parts. Some of the parts of this movie were great, but some things that were just so easy to do right were done so wrong that it was painful. Such as Darth Vader's awakening. When they had his arms clamped down, and he ripped himself off the table, screaming without bending his legs, the comparison to Frankenstein's monster was just far too heavy, it was almost disgusting, do they think that people are so stupid that they don't know a monster when they see one?

It was a horrible moment, something that should have been significant made meaningless and painfully funny. They spent bilions on this movie and made unintentional funnies... that's not supposed to happen. Star Wars movies are supposed to be the movies that OTHER movies make fun of by cheesily ripping off the scenes from, not vice versa. There were some great characterization scenes for Anakin, and for the turning against Obi Wan, that was really awesome. But there were way too many whiny scenes even as he became Darth Vader, I don't get what they're problem is, because he loses all of his menace by whining in this movie. I think they picked the wrong actor entirely. He had no force behind his presence.

I could go on and disect the entire movie, but it's pointless.

Going to go see it again tonight, with my dad, and mary ellen, and jackson, and I think marcia.

Well... Star Wars tonight.... and then again tomorrow evening with my dad. Wish me luck, and hope all of you who are going to see it too enjoy it. My standards are a bit high, this movie could be really good and I wont like it because it's not great.

Time to try to rewrite that massive post from yesterday, whew... this is daunting...

Okay, everything begis with friday, in which not much of anything happens. Got home from work and lounged around. I could swear I did something on the way home, but I'm not sure about that. I think I might have just gone straight home. But when I got there, I stayed there, and, I am sure that Mike and George came over, because I got my orange cognac back from George. After that I was online, and Pattie was trying on every piece of jewelry she owned for prom on saturday. I stayed up late chatting and playing games.

And of course that lead to waking up late on saturday. For once, though, saturday was not the date of this particular get together. Rather, though, I did want to get the shopping done on saturday so that on sunday I could just wake up and begin working and getting everything ready. Well, that didn't even get off the ground till about 8 in the evening. Zac and Mike went out earlier on, but I had just woken up and didn't feel like heading out, so I stayed in and played games, and otherwise disposed of my time until I was ready to go. I gave Mike a call and let him know that I was ready whenever he was, and that ended up being eight in the evening. We went to marble slab first, where I had a really good berry smoothie.

After that, and a call to George, who didn't meet us until it was very nearly time to head back to my place, and we were off to H.E.B. to wander the halls and carefully decide what to prepare. After a long and tedious decision making process, we decided on ribs, a single rack that would be divided among everyone as they were 12 dollars a rack, plus some boneless skinless chicken breast with some regular barbecue sauce that we would modify, rather than making our own, plus some sausage. Corn was predetermined to be a side dish, and for certain parties a requested dish of orange glazed portobello mushrooms was aranged for. All in all, a good night that cost 60 dollars, split three ways.

Upon ariving at my house I began peeling oranges, which had been purchased to be used for the glaze, while we began watching one of the movies that Mike got when he was out with Zac earlier in the day, Tokyo Babylon. I liked the second half, which I didn't watch until yesterday, much better than the first half; though, I did enjoy the first half. After they left for the night, after George got an emergency call from his open girlfriend, Jennifer, and Mike got tired so they both left and Chuck and I watched Smallville while I sliced the two orange peels into strips and then used my cleaver to carefully cut away the pith from the orange. After the cutting was done, which didn't take that much time at all, I blanched the peels for 2 minutes, then I boiled them in 2 cups of water and 2 cups of sugar till they were nice and tender. I took them out and quickly tossed them in sugar to give them a light granular texture, more like candy than orange peel. After that, at about 1:30, I put them on a dehydrator, which cut the drying time down to 1/4th its normal.

When Mike first tried them, it was like pulling teeth, though later he certainly seemed to enjoy them, admitting that he had not actually tried the orange swiss candies he was comparing them to, only the raspberry ones. I think he just likes to tell me that he hates my food. Clearly, if something isn't the best, it's no good at all. Either way, I'm going to take him on directly, I have finally looked up a recipe that will allow me to do the same with raspberries, so that I can have a direct comparison from him rather than a simple, if their raspberry candies are that good, then there's no way your orange are as good as their orange. I'm tempted to just not feed him anymore, though, if he really didn't like the food, he wouldn't be one of the people who chips in the most, and always chips in, for me to cook. So I guess we both just like being grumpy.

Anyway, so, I still went to bed pretty late because after everything was done, I was still cleaning and Pattie got online after prom and told me about how much fun she had and about the movie she went to afterward still dressed in all of her prom jewelrey, tiarra and all.

Didn't wake up till 11 the next morning. Hopped on yahoo before I started getting ready for all the other work I had to do, and sure enough, a new random popped up for the morning even though it was sunday, one of the worst days for randoms, and this one happens to ask what I'm doing. When I tell her about all the food I'm cooking, she told me how totally gross it was, and how she was a vegetarian who doesn't like portobello mushrooms, or corn on the cob or in fact much of anything it seemed. So I wasted an hour being told how humans are absolutely and totally un-natural, and how horrible it is that we have to kill to survive, everything that humans do apparently being the work of evil. I've heard good reasons for vegitarianism, even being vegan. It's not un-natural. On the other hand, neither is eating meat, we're omnivores, and we're designed to live however we want to. So after that I finished getting ready and began preparing the meat, putting together the rub and putting it on the ribs, and the chicken, then covering them and popping them into the fridge to let the meat absorb the flavor. After that, Mike showed up, followed fairly shortly by Jake, who brought some onions and a few other odds and ends.

That was it for the next few hours, we hung out, but didn't do much at all, almost no one showed up at 3 except Kayla, who brought some nice fluffy buiscuits. George, bearing extra chicken because we began to worry about numbers, eventually showed up around four, followed shortly by Chris' brother, Steve. Around 5:30 or 6, Marcia, Tera, and a friend of theirs from quest, I think his name was Brandon, it's a shame if it isn't Brandon because I've met him twice now and I should remember. Though they were preceded by Chuck, who I forgot to mention because he, of course, lives there. The fire got started around 4:30 long before the last set of people arrived, and well after the music was already playing with the speakers pointed outside so that everyone could hear.

Tera and Marcia brought some "carrot cake", which I didn't try till after all the other food because it was innapropriately named "cake". I say that in a way that makes it sound bad, and yet, it was really very, very good. But it was by no means a cake, it had shredded apple and carrots, and a few other things, I think, and I would like to have had it along side my chicken, ribs, and corn, because it was much more of a cole slaw with carrots and apples, thant it was a cake. It's a shame they didn't leave some, because just thinking about it is making me want more...

Okay, on top of all of that, I did not actually grill. This was a real, honest to goodness barbecue. I smoked that meat by building a small fire on one end of my grill and putting alluminum pouches filled with soaked woodchips on the fire to generate smoke and keeping the meat as far from the charcoal as possible, so that the smoke itself would cook the meat. I used apple wood chips, and I really could taste the difference it made. The ribs I cooked slowly for 2 1/2 hours, flipping regularly, and for the last 30 minutes I threw the chicken on, which cooked VERY well, it was amazing how good the chicken looked with perfect grill lines and the sauce on it, oh my. At the last minute, as I was taking the ribs off the grill, and making the mushrooms, I second guessed myself and left the chicken on 5 minutes more than it needed to be, and it was just ever so slightly dry. While still delicious, I can do better next time. I was just worried because it was chicken.

The ribs were practicaly falling off of the bone, and they were nice and tangy, and extra delicious, the corn, oh my, none of it was undercooked or burned, it was divine, in fact, everything came out superb. This is by far one of my most successful cooking ventures considering how little of it I looked up exact details for in advance. I am deffinitely doing it again next weekend, with only ribs and only people willing to chip in a full share, so that we can eat better, for fewer people, which should be really really good. Justin showed up quite late, but there was still some food, and Cym was with him, absolutely everyone enjoyed the candied orange peel, and even Mike had more than one more piece after the food. Just wait till I make them together with candied raspberries.

Everything broke up really early, I was alone by 11:30 at night, and so I played games until I fell asleep after cleaning up. I did so much cleaning before the party, even before I started cleaning, the whole place was cleaner than it had been on friday evening.

I love my new cookbook from half priced books, barbecue inferno, it is now tried and true, and looking for much more use in the future.

That covers the weekend, then, last night, after a long day and having the post deleted, I finished watching that movie, while at work, then in the evening, Mike and George showed up and... we worked on our game. Currently under the working name, Project K*S*M. This was an absolute first for us, out of all the game projects we have ever previously done, we have never, aside from time spent cooking up ideas and brainstorming, spent a whole hour and a half, as was done last night, simply working on a game non stop with actualy work in the same room together. We made some serious progress and I want to do it again at least once more this week. I continue to nag them both, and I am not afraid to nag to get this done, for once I'd like to finish a project, and prosepects are looking good. Mike may be out for the week, but at the very least I could hammer out some serious details with George about the ships and the other things he's working on in the document he's making.

Special credit to Scott for the Retsina wine I enjoyed at the end of each night, and for a whole bunch of links that he sent me that will, and I mean this with deadly sincerity, will indeed get used...

Anyway, that's it for today... I finally have Gattaca back, George swung by and got it for me, and I'll be watching that later tonight.

I had a really long, really awesome post typed up. I was in a really good mood. It took me two hours to do what I did, and I had a great time doing it. Then firefox crashed on me and cost me 2 hours worth of work. I could kill right now, my blood is boiling and I am furious. I'll write it again tomorrow. Right now, I need to simmer down. Seriously simmer down. That was just... wow, I HATE my work computer right now. I don't know what the heck is wrong with firefox on it.

Anyway, I'm going to try to relax now. I'll give the post again tomorrow. Look forward to it, it's going to be really awesome, just like this weekend was.

Scott did some more digging today and came up with some awesome links, plus there are the reviews that he found yesterday. I love this quote:

"Get yourself into a dark room a tripod and a digicam that can take infrared and point it at you. They'll show up like a glowing golfball passing through your GI tract. It will also hurt as much coming out as going in. In all seriousness though, I hope you're feeling better soon, Steve! Once upon a time I grew some tomatoes right next to a healthy crop of serrano peppers, and I am not kidding when I say that some of those wolf-apples had a touch of a kick to them. I'm going to try to replicate the process this Spring, only I'm going to plant habs instead. If I'm successful, the results would make an incredible batch of spaghetti sauce. Wish me luck!"

Anyway, it's only a matter of time. I've been looking at recipes to cook on sunday, and I think I know which ones I want to do, I should probably start preparing them tonight or tomorrow, and decide how I'm going to go about smoking with my standard charcoal grill... I wish I had a real smoker with a firebox for smoking.

It's been argued that there's nothing special about Blair's 16 million reserve, that it's just pure cap, and to an extent that's true. But I still want some, just to try it. I'll live, so it wont kill me, just be an experience, however painful, that I can brag about.

It's amazing how hot things seem to gather up myths about them almost as if they were Gryphons or Unicorns.

Well, today was pretty long, I didn't do a whole lot of interest, mostly just slacking off, I had planned to go to the movies with Mike, Zac, and Emily, buuuuuuut, they decided to go to Hitchhiker's Guid to the Galaxy, which, not only have I already seen, but wasn't that great and I'm not keen on paying to see it a second time. I would have gone anyway for the company, but then George told me that Marcia and Tera were having a housewarming party, so that combined with the alternative being a mediocre movie, plus Zac's habit of just not showing up after making plans made it easy to call and cancel on the movie and go to the party, which was tons of fun, I mixed drinks but didn't have very much myself. I just like to mix.

I accidentally left Gattaca there, which is an awesome movie and I had planned to watch it at work today, cest la vi.

When I got home, Scott had stopped talking in Senryu, I think he was too hyped about hot sauces to bother. In fact, that's the hype that spreads. Because of our chat I have purchased a bottle of Mad Dog 357. Collector's Edition. I'm going to join the 600,000 scoville unit club. Eventually I want to work my way up to the 16 million club. That one left the creator, who put one crystal on his tongue, swollen for several days. He described it as having your tongue pound on by a hammer against a cement sidewalk.

I can't wait to try that.

Today I write Senryu.

It is a form of Haiku,

That is beautiful.

It's a simple thing.
There are many challenges.
It makes me happy.

There's something awesome,
About complex thoughts done short.
Oh, how it inspires!

Each and every verse,
A whole idea encompassed!
How that feeling burns!

Do you like Haiku?
Does a Senryu inspire you?
Maybe it will now.

Write your poetry,
Do not try to be profound.
Just express yourself!

Well, this weekend started on a decent note with a nice friday evening, and then I didn't do anything but play games all day saturday, I never left the house. I got a mother's day present online for my step mom, I got her a Jewelwer's Loupe, which is a little magnifier that she will use for her master's gardener certificate. On sunday when I gave her the picture of it, it wont get here till friday or something, she was really happy.

I gave my mom a little glass crucifix statue, and I got them both cards. I stayed and watched some tv with my mom, and dad and Mary Ellen gave me a fresh rosemary bush which I have been keeping well.. minus a few leaves *wink* I can't wait to start cooking with it, or to have it big enough that I can use it a lot.

On monday I finished my last couple of assignments for Intro to Computers, and then I posted after I finished my test,that's why I was feeling so worn out, and I had class today with my final exam. It was also Mike's birthday, and after a TON of running around we had dinner with George and Kayla at Olive Garden, he got himself a car, a Suburu, and George got him a darwin awards book, and I got him Mystery Island and 20,000 leagues under the sea by jules verne.

Today I wrote my final critical analysis on the poem "The Word Plum". Only took an hour. Even had a long chat with Scott today in haiku only. If he'd had a whole hour to practice he would have kicked my ass with it. Scott is just cool like that.

Anywho... That's not a reaaaaaaaaaaaally long post, but I don't know what else to say. Watched when Harry met Sally, and I liked it a whole lot. Anyway, time for me to get off.. have a good night.

It's late, it's been a long day. Pretend I wrote a long post here explicating the events of this weekend and today. If you pretend it today, then I promise to fulfil it tomorrow.

Good night.

Well, mothers' day is quickly approaching. I don't know what to get my mom yet, but it's easy enough to shop for her. Mary Ellen on the other hand I have just asked my dad about what to get for her. Mike is getting his mom an iPod or an iPod Shuffle for mothers' day. Mike's birthday is on monday and I just found out what I need to get for him. As it happens, he wants to read 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. I was starting to think I was going to have to fish for something hoping he would like it, but I got lucky. So I need to finda decent copy of that tomorrow because his birthday takes place monday, though I do not think there will be a party.

We talked a lot about the game. I don't know, I don't have a lot to say to Mike lately and I don't really know why, maybe he just doesn't have a lot to say to me. He'll probably be going away soon, so our friendship will be going out to lunch. In a way, it feels a little like it's already there but I can't explain why.

I wrote more poetry, this time for a girl I like:

A haiku for you
This way I express my love
This will be your kiss

Today was a nice day, except it started badly. My big paper for the year got a C, which means I probably wont get a b for the semester. I might, but it will be low. I started speaking to a few people online in haiku only. Then I was inspired to interpret a Haiku visually, making essentially, a haiku of pictures combined. See if you can interpret it:

Well, last night was really awesome. George, Jake, and Kevin met me at HEB, where we bought a salmon, feta cheese, tomatoes, and some other ingredients. I had of course learned earlier that day that I had recieved the wine Scott was sending me in the mail. It is a Greek Retsina wine. So, I decided to cook a salmon Mediteranean style.

Fry the salmon fillet in olive oil and garlic, skin side down. After a while, flip it and peel the skin off while the other side cooks. Keep frying until the salmon is nice and flaky. Add feta cheese, you can even get this with a little dry tomato and basil already added in, if not you can add basil here, preferably fresh, add diced tomatoes and some kalamata olives, or if you dont like olives(I was the only one who did that night) you can just add a little of the juice and drizzle a little more olive oil on top, keep frying until it is all warm, but not until the cheese melts.

Serve with a Retsina wine, chilled. Scott sent it to me, an incentive reward for beating Super Metroid in 59 minutes. I feel bad that I haven't gone back and done better, I really wanted 45, but I worked so hard to get down to 59, I just havent touched it for more than a few minutes since then. The Retsina was the inspiration for the entire meal. It's a very earthy wine. For desert, I served a Yaiourti Me Meli, which is very simple. Thanks again to Scott for the recipe. You take plain yogurt, and you use it as a base, then you take naval oranges, grate some zest off their peel before you slice them into bite sized bits, try to save all the juice you can, and then arange them on the yogurt, cover with a light layer of honey and then sprinkle with orange zest. It's an awesome desert, and there were a few things I could do to make it a little better, like serving it colder than I did, and making sure the orange is bite size.

Another package arrived today... ;)

Looks like I was so busy yesterday I forgot to post. Well, it was a very nice weekend. It started out with a slow friday where I didn't do much but play Guild Wars. Guild Wars is a topic all by itself, as it is a great deal of fun, but it is very unique in the way it takes a game similar to diablo and pushes it up to something that feels like an MMORPG but isn't, and adds enough depth and balance to the combat system that it actually feels like it's worth playing lots of. On top of that, it has plenty of story to go with it and play through. It is an entirely enjoyable experience.

On saturday, we went to help Tera move into her new apartment, I'd only met her once before, we got it all done in one trip, down from the second story and up to the third story. By sunday my calves were sore, and they're still just a little tender today from all the climbing. After that we ate a ton of pizza and then George took me to Jeni's house while he worked on her computer for her. After that we went to go and see the HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which was a decent movie, but it was clear that some retarted executive was in charge of putting things into the movie that had no business being there for the sake of mass appeal. Arther is supposed to be the most dense human being ever, and the romance in the movie between him and Trillian is totaly worthless. The dolphins are awesome, however, and there were lots of good parts.

It was disapointing since I love the book so much.

Sunday was spent lounging around, and enjoying the afternoon, and recovering. I honestly can't remember doing much of anything on sunday. Chatting online, oh wait, I think I went out to dinner at Zio's.. in fact, that's exactly what I did, and I had the spagetti and meatballs. Very good too. Other than that though, not much.

I picked my poem for the final today and wrote my first draft of my thesis statement. And yesterday I spent 6 or 7 hours working on work that was due that evening, but had been available for over a month. I am such a procrastinator. Anyway, aside from a few hickups, such as losing the entire powerpoint presentation part of the project after I was almost finished working on the last slide and having to redo it, everything went great.

:) well it's friday. You know what that means. Yep, it means I have successfully blogged 5 days this week. Talk about a challenge, writing down your feelings and what's been happening.

This weekend I'm going to be helping Tera move into an apartment with Marcia. Was supposed to help on wednesday, but had forgotten that I had made plans to visit my mom. I had already failed to visit my mom for a week and so I really had to visit here. She's doing much better.

I'm thirsty, before I got to bed I think I'm going to brew some tea. I'm going to watch Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy tomorrow. I seem to be the only one super hyped about it. Oh well. Anyway, have a good night.

Today, Pattie Sue Taylor asnwered my secret question and unlocked my Yahoo account for Beneath_the_Sea. :D I AM Beneath_the_Sea again! It feels so good to have my old address back. But I really dont know how often I'll use it. There is something really satisfying about having peace and quiet during the day and being able to work. I may switch between accounts depending on what my mood is on any given day, or whether or not I have work to do.

Read tons of poems by various artists this morning while looking for a poem to do my final critical analysis for class. I dont want to do the one I initially wanted to do by Robert Frost, it's too easy, too many people have probably done it.

Anyway, I bought Guild Ward Collectors Edition on my way home from school today. Came with a logitech headset, and it runs great. I'm loving it, though I haven't actually played much, been getting the sound fixed, and letting george play. Had spagetti for dinner, I love cooking my own food. When did I start living exclusively on fast food except for special occasions? It's time I changed that.

It's amazing how tired I feel today. I think it's because I got into the bad habbit of sleeping at work. It's really something I should never do, but I get tired every day now unless I'm doing something. There's even lots of things I need to do, and I still get sleepy and take a nap.

I need to work on my novel, and get to 50k words, and 100 pages.
I need to work on my game, I've done so much on it already.

I have reading I could do, I need to stop sleeping at work all together. I need to do things. I need to write poetry, and run and play around, and I need to talk and learn new things.

Expression:

I came from no where,
There is no depth to my existence.
I watch the world grow there,
On the other side of my personal fence.

I have no culture,
A thousand cuisines pass my lips.
The wisdom of ancient cultures helped me mature,
They are at my finger tips.

But these things are not mine,
That feeling in me is strong.
They are like the taste of brine,
To have none of your own feels so wrong.

All these things make me feel something,
Churns in my chest and plucks at my heart.
A truth in these feelings does sting,
And to you I will impart:

I have a spirit!
It is creative!
My spirit is free! No rules or structures bind it, only guide it!
Songs pour from it,
Feelings flow through it,
And a richness that is untapped,
Burns, burns hot inside of it!

I will make my own culture,
Be the source of my own history.
I will make stories with alure,
The world will get something from me...

Read some poetry by Langston Hughs today and last night. It was inspirational and it made me feel a lot of things. It made me feel this emptiness, not through the content of the poem, but in comparison to the poem. It talked about exploding dreams, and it was passionate, and it talked about spirit, and sometimes I feel like I'm missing those things. I know I come from Scottland, but I haven't really inherited anything from that. I don't know anything about my great grandfather other than he was an accountant, or about my grandpa other than that he was an engineer and spent lots of time in Australia. I mean, I don't really know all that much about my dad.

At least that's how it feels a lot.

I got some sleeping and I finished a document.

*sigh*

I dream, too.

Well, I ended up not posting much at all last week. Probably my lowest post count since I started trying to post every single weekday. It had a lot to do with me getting really sick and having lots of school work to do.

I worked on my Huck Finn critical analysis paper until I couldn't force myself to read it anymore. I couldn't find anyone else to proofread it, so I'm sure I have more mistakes than I should. I am really proud of the work that I did on it though, my dad liked it.

I was having the worst stomach issues all day long, and eventually muscle aches and pains, but after 13 straight hours of totally solid sleep, I felt so much better.

The weekend was nice and relaxing with some of the best weather I have seen in my entire life, warm sunshine, cool air and almost no humidity. It was something amazing.

Well, I didn't sleep at ALL on monday night. Was nearly dead all day tuesday, finally got rested. Didn't get a full proofreading from my teacher, that would have been nice. So now I'm done with all the editing that I could find on my own. Only thing left to do is turn it in and see what I get. I am worried though.

Spent today working on my critical analysis paper. Not very hard though. I'm going to pay for it tonight. My court date was reset so that I could afford the cout fees on the date I go. The other two tickets, for not having my license and for having the wrong address, were dismised.

Tomorrow I'll get to have a 30 minute talk with my teacher and get to show her what I have of my research paper, so I'd like to have as much done as possible, and all of it if possible. I slacked off at work, and I had other school work to do as soon as I got home for Intro to Computers, so here it is, 11 o' clock and all I have are 3 pages that are totally disorganized, and need to be written from straight quotes into full body paragraphs with topic sentances and expanded into 4 more pages at least. And I need a few more quotes.

Looks like it's going to be a late night. Doesn't have to be, but the more done by tomorrow for my teacher to look at, the better the revisions and final draft on thursday morning.

Well, I was up late late late last night working on the restoration of my computer, and I will be up again tonight late late late working on it some more. But at least now it is useable right now. lol, it was a tough decision, and I'm sticking with it. Already lost a few things due to not thinking first, so cest la vie. I'll live.