It's like money in the bank...

I was running short on the ole greenbacks in the pocket depostitory, so, I decided to take a walk up to the atm during lunch and make a withdrawal. As I'm walking to CSB (Clinton Savings Bank, for you out-of-towners), I pass by Soverign and remember that I once had an atm account with them during undergrad college at wpi (they had a machine in the bottom of Daniels, so, it just made cents).

I decide to see how much I have in the account still and to possibly kill the account based on its lack of use. Lo and behold .... $40!

Sweet. That's all I could say. I needed $40ish, and there it was, completely forgotten about for about 2 years.

It was practically free money. I love it when I save money and forget about it. Next time, I think that I'll put away more than $40. That way, I'll be happier later on when I discover it.

You spin me right round baby, right round

So I'm helping my gram move around some stuff that she wants me to start selling on ebay for her (ugh, this is going to be such a HUGE undertaking), when she points to her records and goes "do you know anybody that would like those?". Well, my hand shoots up immediately and the words "I do!" flew out of my mouth. Not only that, but she gave me her old stereo. I now have at my apartment, a stereo with two anciently big speakers, a turntable, an 8-track player, and one of those new fangled cassette players. I also have about 50 seemingly mint conditioned LP's. She kept the plastic on about 1/2 of them, only slitting the sides to get the record out.

These are pretty cool. I found an old Dean Martin album, a bunch of Beach Boys and Partridge Family, some Tony Bennette, Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong, Nancy Sinatra, and much more. It's a pretty slick collection. I feel motivated to have a swinging party with cheese fondue. All I have to do now is get some new needles because the current one is shot.

The AM/PM

Wow. So thursday night I literally gave myself a heart attack.

I fell asleep around 11pm watching a movie on my computer. Well, next thing I know, I'm awake and it's 12:35. I just kind of stare at it for a second as my half-asleep brain tries to process what exactly happened and what I should do about it.

12:35! How could I sleep that late. I've been late before for work, but late by 4.5 hours?!?! No way. So I jump up and start frantically getting ready for work and negotiate with myself what has to be done and what can be skipped (like, a shower is replaced by lots of deodorant, breakfast is replaced by a can of soda, etc.)

Then I look out the window to see what the weather is like.....it's pitch black outside. So, I apparently had only slept for 1.5 hours and it was still the middle of the night. Ugh.

I felt dumb. But, instead of going to work right then, I went to sleep until it was really time to go to work. That felt rewarding atleast.

A little bit of everything

This past weekend and this week thus far have hit me with a lot of things.

Went down to NYC with Sarah and people from Nypro and basically spent the day walking around the 5th Ave region. It's fun to pretend like you're buying things. Sales people in the store are so helpful and kind, until of course, they realize that you're near-broke and can't afford their upscale designer crap. I saw this wicked nice watch from fossil but didn't buy it because of price. However, upon return to the land of clinton, I bought it anyways at Filene's @ Solomon because I was so pumped up to have it, even though it was the same price. Oh well.

Then I got to play with my car in the snow for the first time. I must say, the Nubira handles pretty well in snow/ice. Only skidded once, and that was because I was taking a 90 degree turn and went a hair faster than I should have. ABS definitely rocked my socks off. If only it was the outback and I had AWD.....

I've played a little of Halo 2 now. Not as much as I would like, but still enough to entertain my greatly. I just wish that I had more time to put into it. My roommate and a couple guys I work with beat it already, and I'm getting sick of hearing about it. So, I'm going to have to push on and wrap up this beast.

Finished Sarah's Xmas shopping, as well as my sister's. Now all I have left is my mom and dad. I never know what to get those people for christmas. Like they'll use whatever I get them anyways.

Then I spent some time making decisions about my life as it is right now. Seems kinda foolish, but, I think that I'll just have to keep thinking. Now you're like "Tim, this is entirely vague, what the hell are you talking about?". I don't really know. I'm confused. Check back with me in 8-10 business days, or some crap like that.

Ugh. That's all for now. Nothing really exciting going on. Thanks for reading.

Ed Gillespie Loves Me

Several years ago, my young-republican amigo Rachel was kind enough to sign me up for the Team Leader email list for the Grand Old Party.

However, being a strong democrat, this kind of, as one of my favorite high school teachers, Mr. Garrity used to say, "Irked my Craw".

So, over the past while, I have tried many times, unsuccessfully, to have myself removed from the email list. I think that I'm up to about 10 times now. Maybe I'll start signing up any of the contacts that I can find on that list for other more liberal email lists. That would only be fair....

Haha, as I'm typing this, I'm also reading one of the message boards of young "team leaders". This is one of them, with a reply-comment after it:

"Texan4bush wrote:I am a republican because I believe that the life within the womb is just as significant as the life without the womb and killing either without cause is morally wrong and unethical. I believe that those who kill others for sick pleasure deserve to be put in prison. They have committed a sin and will be judged for that sin,among others, and capital punishment only speeds up the process. I don't belive in the concept of "being gay," as it is an abomination , but I do believe that God forgives those people as he does those who commit any other sin. I believe that we should use all of our resources, yes, even oil in Alaska, as drilling one hole could not, in my mind, kill off an entire species. Call me crazy, but i dont think that even possible.

yes, they will get all the oil from alaska by drilling only 1 hole." killing either without cause is morally wrong and unethical" but capital punishment is ok? you aren't too smart."

Oh man

This is probably the funniest article I have ever read on The Onion:
http://www.theonion.com/news/index.php?issue=4045

My favorite line in the story: "The alliance between the tiny fraction at the top of the pyramid and the teeming masses of mouth-breathers at its enormous base has never been stronger," a triumphant Bush said."

Keep up the good writing guys.

People Confuse Me Sometimes

I just read an article that was linked off of www.defectiveyeti.com about the current beliefs of christians; mainly in the US but with some stats about Canadians and the Brits.
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040216-113955-2061r.htm

In it, there is one question where they asked people "Who killed Jesus?"

"Who killed Jesus, then?
"The big answer is, we all did," Mr. Gibson said in an ABC interview which aired last night.
The network's poll found some slight differences among respondents when asked about blame for the Crucifixion, however: 12 percent of evangelical Protestants, 11 percent of Protestants and 6 percent of Catholics said today's Jews still are responsible for Jesus' death. "

I don't get this. How can you hold the Jewish people of today accountable for something that was allegedly done almost 2,000 years ago? If this is the way that thinking works, then Jewish people should be able to go up to any German and blame them for the deaths of their ancestors during the Holocaust. Or an African-American could blame even ME for the enslavement of their ancestors. Or somebody from Japan could blame one of us for blowing up their relatives in Hiroshima.

This is ridiculous.

A sad day

Rest in peace, Hans.

Something Encouraging

On Saturday I was at Shaw's in Clinton crunching my summer's worth of cans/bottles and using the money to get some Guinness from the Wine Merchant. As I was going back into my car, an older lady approached me from across the parking lot with pamphlets in her hand. She walks up to my door as I'm sitting down in the drivers seat and says "Can I offer you something encouraging to read for when you get home?". I looked at the pamphlet and it was something about letting Jesus into your life, so, I quickly and politely replied "No thanks". She smiled and walked away.

This made me think, though. Do I have the look of someone who is so engrossed in a life of sin and debauchery that I must surely welcome Jesus back into my life as the only means of saving my dirty rotten soul?
Why? I had a midtown shirt on, does that mean that I'm a stereotypical concert going punk who gets drunk and causes trouble? I sure hope not, because midtown is upbeat, and happy.
Was it because I had a brown paper bag in my hand, containing the life-blood of the irish community? Well, I only had a 4 pack, so, there really wasn't the potential to cause too much damage there.

Regardless, I'm pretty content with my life. I have a great girlfriend, a good job, and all the things I was hoping for post-undergrad is all falling into place now or soon. So, I don't need any encouragement. But thanks for asking.

My lunchtime reading of the internets

Two things I figured I'd share with you guys today:
1. Most of you have probably already seen this on alsoccomm, but this is awesome.

Way to go Brits.

Also, did anyone else see this on the news?
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/11/05/school.strafed.ap/index.html
This is crazy. It's a good thing only one person was in there, and he wasn't harmed.
We spend all this money on military technology, and they still screw up stuff like this.

Irony, Not as Ferrous as you think

So I brought my car to Diamond Chevrolet (they used to sell Daewoos, so, they're nice and still fix them) yesterday because I thought my car was part of the faulty camshaft-sensor recall that Daewoo put out. This was thought because my check engine light has been on NON-STOP for about 2 months, but, the car runs fine, so, I've neglected to act on it.

The took the thing out, realized it wasn't part of the recall, so put it back in, and the light when off. Problem solved! And they didn't charge me a cent for it, so, I was pretty happy at that point.

I start driving down Park Ave. towards my apt, and realize how sad it was now. One less light on my dash to keep my company. I started to think of a funny/melancholy haiku that I could write to commemorate the occassion. About halfway through though (after about 2 miles of driving) it comes back on.

So, that's what I get for thinking it was gone and pretending to miss it. Because now it's back. Forever. Until of course I use one of those diagnostic machines and just turn the sucker off (which will actually happen pretty soon, a guy at Nypro has one).

Oh yeah, in case you've been living in a cave, Bush won again. Here's to four more years of suck. Maybe, if we're lucky, he'll do something stupid, like have some sort of crazy, satanic, wild sex with Cheney's lesbian daughter. That way, even the Moral (Bigot) Republicans will want to impeach him out of office.

Wow, this post was a lot longer and more political than I planned for. Sorry.