Fun musical games

I saw this on Tara's blog and I really like the idea so I'm stealing it. That and I like the excuse to blog about my favorite band so here's the deal:

Favorite Artist name: R.E.M.
Choose a band or artist; and answer a bunch of questions using only titles of their songs.

1. Are you male or female? Man on the Moon

2. Describe yourself: So Fast, So Numb

3. How do some people feel about you: Half a World Away

4. How do you feel about yourself: Bittersweet Me

5. Describe your ex boyfriend / girlfriend: Turn you Inside Out

6. Describe your current significant other: Diminished

7. Describe where you want to be: Near Wild Heaven

8. Describe how you live: Walk Unafraid

9. Describe how you love: Just a Touch

10. What would you ask for if you had just one wish: Me in Honey

11. Share a few words of wisdom: Everybody Hurts

12. Now say goodbye: Leave

Planning ahead

So, for those of you who haven't marked your calendars, tomorrow is my birthday. Normally I'd be pretty psyched because not only is it a great reason to go get drunk, but my birthday is on a Friday, so I don't need to worry about hungover for work the next day (uh....like last year). However, as I've been living in NY for all of 3 weeks, I don't really know many people outside of work. Now, I told a couple of the guys I work with that my birthday is coming up. Unfortunately 2 out of 3 of them are on vacation this weekend. Realizing this, I decided to actually go try and be social with the rest of my coworkers. I went to the one female coworker that I'm starting to trust a little (...and by trust I mean act like my obscene self around) and asked her if she was free after work on Friday. She said no (apparently she's going to Cincinnati) but of course wanted to know why I was asking. I told it was my birthday tomorrow, and I was trying to see who was free after work.

"Garrett!" she said "I'm disappointed in you. You didn't tell us." (She also informed another woman I work with across the hall).
"Sure I did. I told Dave, Mark and Chris. Granted 2 of them on vacation, but I still told someone."
"No, you didn't tell us. You need to tell us these things ahead of time."
"What? I'm giving you like a whole day's warning. Besides I told the other guys like 2 weeks ago."
"No, you need to us girls!"

Ahhhhh! The light comes on. It's a gender thing, and they want to be able to plan ahead for something. Not that it would have mattered, most people seem to have things they need to do after work tomorrow anyway (hence my "planning ahead" by a day). Anyway, it looks like I'm going out with friend Amy tomorrow (rock on SMC) and my cousin Saturday, and I'll probably go out to lunch with everyone n my group tomorrow for lunch, so it looks like it should be a decent birthday, though probably a lot less drunk than I'd like it to be.

A change of heart.

I decided not to register for the next actuarial exam. Whether or not this is a good decision for the long term obviously remains to be seen. I almost feel like I'm doing this on too much of a whim, but the more I think about it, the more it seems to be the right thing for the time being. I've been pursuing an actuarial career since my sophomore year. I've also been doing everything I can to experience living in a city since that time, whether it be for a summer internship or a full time job. After I graduated and was living in CT, I did overtaking I could to move up the chain, both at ESPN and on the actuarial front. At the end of last year I succeeded in both fronts in passing the first exam, and getting offered a full-time job at ESPN in NYC. For the first time in my life I have almost everything I want: a full time job, in the city, with benefits, and vacation time. Granted this is really my second career choice, but at 23, is that really so bad?

Also, since the company moved me to NYC, I'm obligated to work for them for at least a year. I haven't really been studying since I moved since I've had about a million other things that I need to get to. Also, I'd like to just come home and relax for a while. Perhaps this will give me time. I can do something like study 3 days a week, instead of 6 or 7 for several hours a day, which on top of a full time job is very draining. I don't want to move to NY and become a hermit. Also, the next 3 months of my life would just suck because I am behind where I need to be if I was to do well on this test. Also, this will give me an opportunity to focus on my current career (Hey! There's a novel idea) and try to continue to move up the chain. I'm sort averaging a promotion of sorts every 7 or so months. I'd kinda like to see if I can keep this trend going. I'll still be angry with myself if I'm not making 6 figures by the time I'm 30, but I think I need to take this time in my life to slow down for a second so I don't burn out.

Henry Rollins

I was flipping through channels tonight after my Law & Order addiction had been satisfied, and came across a Henry Rollins standup special. My first exposure to Rollins was on "The Crow" soundtrack with the Rollins Band cover of "Ghostrider." I become more familiar with him with his commentary on various VH1 shows throughout college. At some point in time (I'm guessing between sophomore and junior year) I came across his standup. He did a bit about a trip to Bangkok that had me in tears. I think it would have been pretty funny regardless, but having been there relatively recently, I think I had a deeper understanding for the humor. At any rate I stumbled across him again this evening on IFC and he again delivered. Absolutely f-ing hilarious.

Other Rollins notes. This is not a man you'd want to fuck with. I'm pretty sure he was born with steroids pumping through his veins. I know he was sent to a military school at a young age because he was too much for his parents to handle, so the preceding statement doesn't seem like too much of an exaggeration. Now he simply has biceps the size of my head, and his music tends to be pure anger.

After a google search on Rollins I discovered that he's going to have his own show on IFC. I can't wait.

Orlando

So my trip to Orlando. I'm sure the 10 of you that read this are just dieing to know how that went. Anyway, the first night there was a beach party reception that was supposed to be college themed. The first table that caught my eye had both Notre Dame and Michigan banners. Ok, that wouldn't have been my choice of school combinations, what else is around. Ah, Florida and Tennessee. Yup, these were definitely decorated by someone who has no concept of college sports rivalries. Anyway after the meal the DJ started going, he tried to encourage the crowd to act like college students. Um, yeah, not so much. As I drank and listened to things like Usher's "Yeah," all I could do was think back to what I was doing while listening to that in college and think "yeah, that's not going happen." After this soiree I went to Pleasure Island and proceeded to ditch anyone else that went there from my company. I ended up going to the rock club that was there and listening to the cover band. I met some girls from Houston who were probably like 7 years older than me, and had a good time. I was also pretty drunk by the end of the night.

On an aside, I was drinking Yuengling in Orlando. I thought this was impossible to get outside of Pennsylvania or New York. How the hell was this not available in CT, but readily available at frickin' Disney. Whatever. I'll take it where I can get it.

The next day I was kinda hungover, though I did drink a sufficient amount of water before going to bed/passing out so that it wasn't too bad. More than anything I was just exhausted. It didn't help that have NO interest in sales or marketing which is what this whole damn conference was about. But hey, when the VP says you should go, you listen. There was a pretty cool guest speaker from Harvard business school. He a gave a nifty lecture on why traditional big companies that were real successful and up getting into financial trouble when the seem to do everything they should. Unfortunately he went about 15 minutes too long for my attention span as I started to fall asleep at the end of his lecture.

Aside from getting sunburned while sitting outside for lunch, the rest of the afternoon is forgetful, at least to me, so I'll skip ahead to the NASCAR themed evening. I actually spent most of this evening watching the ND v. Michigan NIT game. There were several people from a Detroit office that were Michigan alumns, so a small crew was watching the game. Some of them were concerned since ND was up by like 10 early. I however, I had confidence in ND to blow the game because a.) its what we've done all season and, b.) we haven't beaten Michigan in basketball for like 7 years. Anyway, I had to leave before the end of the game. Most everyone went to a bar called Jelly Rolls, I went back to Pleasure Island (again note avoiding of my company, call it idiot insurance). I caught the end of the game here as well, and saw ND blow it once again. I was hoping to meet up with the Houston crew, but alas it was not to be.

One of the downsides of Pleasure Island, is you only need to 18 to get in, with an exception of the dance/hip-hop clubs, which just aren't my style. As I was again sitting in the rock club listening to decent live music, a bunch of 18/19 year old girls came in. Now, granted the last girl I saw was only 19, but this just seemed to have trouble writhing all over it, so I left shortly after midnight with just a slight buzz, and went got some decent sleep. Everyone else apparently got hammered at the other bar.

Tuesday made no real impressions on me. Though they did make mention of the ND/Michigan game as an "instant classic." Ok, I know the need to sell ESPN classic, but c'mon. This was friggin' NIT game. Nobody really cares that much about it. Also, if this is a classic, almost every game ND has played this year was a classic, because they all ended like this. I think I would be a horrible person to have at an actual sales meeting with a client. I should also mention that at the evening event someone was trying to convince me that ND was a good team. Uh, no sorry dude, when you start 1-8 in your conference, you're not good. It doesn't matter if you're in every game if you lose every single time.

We free time in the afternoon where I took a beautiful hour+ nap. In the evening we went to MGM studios. They left 2 rides open for us, the Tower of Terror and Rock'n Roller Coaster. Both rides I thought were a little disappointing as far as theme park rides go. Of course, I do love an adrenaline rush, and neither of these really provided as much as I would have liked. After this evening event, the majority of the crew went to Pleasure Island, while I decided to again dissent from the main mob and go check out Jelly Rolls, which during the day I discovered was a piano bar.

While this place was no Rum Runners (which is easily holding on to the my favorite bar of all time status), it was fun. It was also kinda nice to go out with some VPs, and have them buy you shots of Bushmills, even if they're all 40 :-)

What I did learn on this trip, is sales and marketing people love to spend money. For someone like me who more less runs his life like a college student, this was kind of a foreign concept. I have a feeling that my supervisor is going to look at my expense report of <$50 and be like "This all you spent?" Most people probalby spent that just to get to the airpot.

...I have no ending to this trainwreck of thought, and as I'm sick and tired, I'm goign to stop writing and go to bed.

...so i've been tagged

So while I was drinking heavily in Orlando, Southie tagged me. A post will come on that trip tomorrow when I'm not completely exhausted, and I have time to stop and think about everything I need to say instead of just trying to wing it off the top of my head (like I normally do) and forgetting like 2 of the 5 points I wished to discuss. Anyway.....

The rules:
List seven songs you're into right now. No matter the genre, whether [or not] they have words, or even if they're any good, they must be songs you're really enjoying right now. Post these instructions in your blog along with your seven songs, then tag seven other people to see what they're listening to.

Beyond the Gray Sky - 311
(Just stuck in my head on the subway from JFK)
Not Falling - Mudvayne
(Used as intro music for people going on stage to talk about shit that past 3 days. It's kinda weird to watch middle aged guys get introduced with this. All I could think was, "You guys certainly wouldn't have chosen this as your intro music.")
Attack - System of a Down
(Same as above)
Beverly Hills - Weezer
(Same as above. Songs get stuck in my head really easily. Then I feel a need to sing them for another week afterwards)
New York Minute - The Eagles
(Just the new to NY vibe)
Don't Get Lost in Heaven/Demon Days - Gorillaz
(Ok, not really in my head, but it was not too long ago. I didn't have 7 songs on the playlist in my head)
Spirit in the Sky - Norman Greenbaum
(Stuck in my head all morning. I have no idea why)

So, I'm not passing this, since if you look at the other people's blogs I link to, 2 are Southie, one Southie tagged, and 2 never update their blogs, so yeah just like it died with Danielle, its dying with me.

Brief hiatus

So I'm leaving tomorrow for Orlando to go to a Sales and Marketing conference. I have a gut feeling that I will be bored out of my mind by about 10 am Monday morning. In theory there is some sort of softball game or other event that requires "active wear." This could easily be the highlight of the trip. Of course, the company is paying for the hotel and 3 meals a day for the next 3.5 days, and I'm sure several trips will be taken to Pleasure Island, so bottoms up!

Worst. St. Patrick's Day. Ever.

Fair warning: this will be long and bitchy.

The day started good and well. My office was celebrating the V foundation, where you can wear your favorite sports team's jersey to the office. I was extra coordinated and wore the jersey of the Irish National team. This also gives a good excuse to wear jeans and sneakers to the office :-) Anyway, I make general plans to tag along with some of the guys I work with since I've lived in NY for a grand total of a week and don't know anything. Unfortunately, I kinda need to go home because I can't leave my laptop at the office this weekend since Sunday I'm going on a business trip to Florida. So I leave shortly after 5 so I can go home, turn around, and get back to mid/downtown. I get on the 1 right outside my office and take it to the A. I catch the A just as it's arriving, and I apparently neglected to check which way it was going. So, after going one stop in the wrong direction, I switch sides and start going uptown.

The train gets to 145th street, and they make an announcement that someone has been injured on the 168th street platform, and neither the express or the local will be going there. Oh that's just freakin' fantastic. So I get out of the subway, and look at the bus stop that was recommended. I decided that getting at the end of a line of an entire subway train of people trying to get on a bus will be an exercise in futility, and start heading north and west. ( I have realized that knowing I will always need to go north will be one of my saving graces in this city.) Anyway, I hop on a bus and it takes me to 168th, where I walk like 6 blocks (as opposed to the 2 I need to get to the subway) to my apartment. By this time it's like 6:15, and it has take new an hour to get home from work. I drop of my stuff, turn on my computer, and pour myself a couple shots of Jameson, because I figure I'll have some catching up to do.

After 15 or so minutes I get a text message fro my coworker telling me where they're at. I do my best to down my Jameson quickly, and I head out. When I get to the subway, I realize I can't find my metro card. Fucking great. I just dropped $75 on that shit 4 days ago and now is missing. I debate buying a new one, but decide to run back to my apartment and give it a onceover. I come up empty. As I'm about to admit defeat and head out my door, I check in a pant pocket that I hadn't stuck my hands in (because its one that I don't' every use), and discover my metor card there. (On I side note, I have a bad reputation for hiding things form myself in packet I don't' use 95% of the time.) Anyway, I run back to the subway, and get on the express. Unfortunately, the train in from of this is express is experiencing technical issue,s so its running at about the speed of the local. In fact, the local actually caught up to us about halfway down the line. Anyway, after delays, I finally get to where I'm going at "8th and 49th." I look around for th bar but don't' see it. I walk a half block down in every direction from this intersection and come up empty. After a while of aimless wandering, I give up and trying calling people. Unfortunately, no one is answering.

Anyway, I decide to go another block in each direction to figure out what people really mean, and I find the bar. (Ah, so when you say 49th, you mean 48th). I make like 2 rounds up and down stairs (most of which with my $8 Guinness in hand), and I finally spot 1 of the 3 people I was hoping to meet up with. By the time I get there, apparently the other guy I was supposed to meet (and was trying to call) have left. Whatever, I'm here, I'm drinking, and he's talking to girls. I figure I can hang for a while. I do, have a Harp for my second round, and eventually leave when it's done since the girls were leaving and the guy I knew had already left. I go to a locally grocery store and buy myself some twix (because I haven't eaten since lunch), and finally get a call back from the guy who says he's down in the West Village. Thanks dude. I've lived here a week, lets do street names and numbers, because I don't know anything. Anyway, I make use of the facilities in a local hotel, and go down and wait for a train going downtown.

It's about 9:30 at night now, and after a long wait for the train, I need to go to the bathroom again. I figure I'll wait until I get to the bar. I get myself to the street my coworker is supposedly on, and he gives me a corner of to streets. Unfortunately, neither of these has numbers, so they're pretty much meaningless. I ask him east or west, and he guess west. So I walk west. To the end of the street, and do not find the street he mentioned. Thanks, you're a moron. So I turn around and walk back the other way. I walk almost to the east end of the street and aI still haven't seen it, and say fuck it, I'm going to the most recently passes subway station. As I'm about to go down, I see the street he motioned. Awesome. I give him call to ask him the name of the bar, but there is no response. I call the other I guy I met up with earlier, and he doesn't answer his phone either. I wit awhile, but no one calls back, and I say fuck it, I still need to pee, I'm going home. By this point it's like 10:45.

So now I'm cold, sober, I need to pee, it's St. Patrick's day, and I'm calling it a night before 11. Fucking fantastic. SO I take the rain home. Of course now that its night, the train is local, so this is going to take like 45 minutes. ::ugh:: Anyway, I finally get home to pee (I've needed to do this for like 2.5 hours). Let me tell you, it was far and away the highlight of my evening. IT was a piss that was slightly below orgasmic. I couldn't even walk straight afterwards. It was that good.

In conclusion. St. Patrick's day sucked. Worst ever as far as I'm concerned. God damn. 2 years ago I had a keg of Guinness at my house and everyone get plastered an it was great. Now I'm sober and alone on St. Pat's. Tomorrow, I think I will start creating going out rules for myself in NYC.

NY Quick Hits.

If you have thinning hair, it really might be time to reconsider the Mohawk look. (This goes out to the dude that required every ounce of my willpower not to stare at him and his absolutely awful hair that I saw on the subway this morning).

The ^!#$#$%&* machines refused to accept my credit card when I tried to buy a month pass. I tried going to the actually living person that sells passes, but apparently they only accept cash. Grrr..... The machine did accept my debit card which I HATE using for anything other than the atm.

I already miss my big grocery stores (Shaw's and Stop and Shop). The local grocery is Gristedes. Aside from being small and a little dingy, it has the most bass ackwards selection of goods I have ever seen. I suppose in time I'll do some searching and find a better one, but the Gristedes is 2 blocks away and very convenient.

Will move, moving, moved.

Sorry about my blog hiatus, but its been a busy week with the whole moving to New York thing, and as such, I'm going to be a bit more long winded than normal.

OK, most of you probably are not familiar with an incident I had the post office earlier this year that put them on my shit list. I tried to priority mail my ticket application to the Fiesta Bowl, and it took 4 days for the "2-3 day priority mail" so I didn't even get entered in the lottery. Anyway, they reaffirmed their place on said shit list this past week. My new roommate tried to express mail the keys to the apartment to me. They show up during the day and leave one of those brown slips in my mailbox saying there is a package available for you. I go to the post office the next morning and give them the slip, and they say, "Oh this is for the Hartford post office." All I can think is, I live in East Hartford, why is my package in Hartford. Whatever, they'll leave another slip today, and I'll look up on the Internet tonight the directions to eh Hartford office.

So I get another slip and look up the location of the Hartford office. When I go there in the morning, I take a closer look at the slip, and notice the address on that is for an East Hartford office. Shit. Alright, I know where the East Hartford post office is, so I go back to the one that is on my street, and they say, oh this is for the post office on Silver Lane. Right. I have no idea where that one is either, and now I really need to get myself to work. I call the Silver lane office and ask if they can just leave it on my doorstep. "No it's priority mail, and if the sender didn't sign the box, then we can't do that." Right, because it's quicker to keep attempting to deliver and then move it form one post office to another instead of leaving at the place I come home to every day.

Anyway, Friday comes, they day I move to NY. Now, this package I cannot retrieve happens to have the keys to my new apartment, which I kind of need if I am going to let the movers in. I call the post office in the morning to make sure that it hasn't changed locations again, and they say yes it is here. Cool. At least it’s not going anywhere. Anyway after all my stuff is packed and the movers are on their way to NY, I go the post office to pick it up. Now, somewhere in the moving the brown slip has been lost, which shouldn't be a big deal as long as I have a photo ID. Now in the post office I hand them my ID, ask for the package, and tell them that it is a priority mail. The guy says ok, and looks on the shelf behind him and doesn't see anything. He then goes around back to check and comes up tells me they don’t seem to have it. I tell them that it was there when I called this morning. He then goes around back again to look. The female post office work to my right asks "You said it was priority mail right?" I reply in the affirmative, and she picks up an envelope that was right behind the counter and calls the dipshit in the back who clearly lacks auditory skills and who was making me nervous as to what had happened to my keys. Anything of importance will be FedEx-ed for the rest of my life. I hate people, but postal service employees are the only ones I wish to kill.

Anyway, Friday was the big move day. I must say, it is pretty damn cool to have someone come and move all your stuff for you. It was kind of funny to watch the mover go through my desk and discover the stupid toys I have hidden away. It was also kinda nice to sit back and watch everyone else do the work and not have to worry if my collarbone is back up to full strength :-)

I had my car in the city for one night. It was awful. I thought I would miss my car, but after driving it around just to get in, and out of the city, I never want to drive in NY ever again. It makes driving in Boston look easy.

Apartment notes: I have no blinds. I could deal with this, as I’m somewhat of an exhibitionist. However my room faces east, and at 7 am yesterday I decided that acquiring blinds is quickly moving up the priority list as my bed was doused in sunlight. The showerhead hangs straight down from the ceiling. My roommate loves it, but I don't think it does it for me. There are some other quirks, but nothing major. I just need to contact my uncle n NJ and work some free storage.

That's all for the moment. I'll try not to blog this long ever again.

Songs: "Wild Thing" - The Troggs, "Awake" - Godsmack, Ozzy, "These Eyes" - Guess Who, “Stuck in the Middle with You” – Bob Dylan, “You Wouldn’t Believe” (Acoustic) - 311

Final Tourney notes

Congrats to UConn for holding of 12 seeded WVU. I was kind of torn the whole game because I grew up a UConn fan, but it was so exciting to see a 12 seed give it their all and hang with them. I left before the awards, but Ann Strother should in the MVP. UConn would have lost without her. I also realize why UConn isn't quite as dominant as they were in the past. Their top 2 point guards both of too much A.I. in them, which never really works. Sure they can create a lot, but a shoot first point guard will never win you a championship.

More band stuff. The National Anthem wasn't sung at any of the sessions prior tonight. Whoever the visiting band was played it. I liked it. There was no stupid improv or diva-ness to it. It was just done straight, clean and to the point. I wish it was always done that way. Alas, they got some diva wannabe to do it tonight. As I heard her sing, all I could think about was how much Daniel C. Stowe would have hated all of her vowels.

Mascots. I've decided the plush mascots suck. They're just way too goofy. I never really thought about it until I saw DePaul's blue devil, but they really suck. Give me a Leprechaun or a Mountaineer any day. This led to a conversation I had with my friend Lauren who attended this evening's game with me:

Lauren: Honestly, who do you think would win in a fight: a dog or a mountaineer?
Me: The guy with the gun.
Lauren: That's ridiculous. You can't hit anything with a musket.
Me: You don't need to be very accurate at point blank range.

(Just ask Dick Cheney.) *not part of the conversation, but it would have been really clever if I had thought of it at the time.

Also, on a related note, the mountaineer nearly took out the woman who sang the National Anthem. For some strange reason she was walking all over the civic center. She happened to walk in front of the WVU ban during a timeout, and the mountaineer started waving his musket around to cheer as she walked up behind him. She was inches from getting clocked in the head. I would have laughed my ass of if this had happened. This is because I'm a dick and I think people getting hurt is funny. :-)

Music: various Led Zepplin, "Tuesday's Gone" - Lynyrd Skynard.

More Big East

Band Stuff.

Pitt did the theme song from the Family Guy, good shit.

This evening DePaul tried to distract people by counting up, and naming each element on the periodic table. As a distraction I give it a 5, but for cleverness I give a 10. As a snob, and an asshole, it's nice to see there's not quite as big an IQ drop off after ND.

I have forgotten much of the Pitt fight song....

I do however remember the Wet Virginia fight song. This will be odd when tomorrow I'm rooting for UConn and singing the WVU song. On a related note, props to WVU. A 12 seed in the conference tournament has made the finals. Also, a big WTF to Rutgers. They were a probably 1 seed in the women's bracket for the NCAA's. Now I'm sure they're a 2 seed at best.

Also, this was my last night of karaoke with my known crew. 'Tis a sad day.

Big East Women's Basketball

After watching us play twice, I now realize why were a 10 seed in the Big East tournament (not 11 as I had previously reported). Our perimeter defense sucks. The only reason we beat USF is that eventually Meghan Duffy realized she was the best player on the floor and took the game over, along with USF missing several wide open 3's down the stretch. Today, in our loss to UConn (which could have been a lot worse than it was), I saw how much more athletic UConn was than ND, and it suddenly all become clear. Oh well, tomorrow I'll stop sporting ND swag and put on my UConn hat. But after watching us, I do think we have a good chance of being much better next year.

Other Notes.
I hung around yesterday to watch Pitt play. They have a monster of a girl on their team called Mercedes Walker. She's 6'3" and 230lbs. at least. She is a big girl, and against mediocre competition, she'll kick ass. However, DePaul totally shut her down this evening, and I discovered Pitt has no one else on their team that can do anything, since DePaul just doubled Mercedes all night on their way to the rout.

Bands.
After ND's, DePaul's was my favorite. This is for 2 reasons. One, they had French Horns; the best instrument ever. Second, while the opposing team shot free throws, they would singe a different song every time. It was clever and original. I liked it. On the other hand, there was Villanova, who didn't even have a band. Just poor form.

Unrelated thoughts

I'm posting for the sake of posting. That, and I don't expect to have time over the weekend to post. Tomorrow night is the moving out party. I'll probably be too drunk to post. I'm out of beer. Rum and Coke it'll have to be. Anywho....

I move to New York in 8 days. I think I've made arrangements or taken care of everything I need to do before I move. Now I just need to motivate myself to do a bit of packing....

I'm going to the Big East Women's bball tournament at the civic center this weekend. Section 101, row H. Look for me on TV. On a related note, what the hell happened to our women's team? We won the national championship 3 years ago. Now we're an 11 seed......in the Big East. We're not even going to the Big Dance this year. WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED MUFFET! We were ranked 15 in both ESPN and AP polls preseason. We'll barely even be in the Women's NIT!

I have done a superb job of eating up all the food I have in my house. All I have left in my freezer is some bread, a hot dug bun, and a big bag of frozen broccoli. It's going to be a week of exciting meals.

The saga of my first paycheck for the new job. Instead of being direct deposited (like I signed up for) it was sent to the NY office. The person who received it happened to be out of town until this Tuesday. However, no one in HR was aware of this, so I requested a cancellation. Tuesday it was discovered and mailed to me at the Bristol office, and the cancellation request was cancelled. When I looked at my check, it had my home address on it. Disregarding the direct deposit request, why couldn't they just send it to my house? The downside of the big bureaucracy of my company. Grrrrrrr.......


Songs: Crossroad - Cream, Crazy Little Thing Called love - Queen, a Jethro Tull song I don't know the name of. Hey You - Pink Floyd

did you miss it?

So I was browsing through some blogs and I stumbled upon one that made a mention of today as Ash Wednesday. Last year I was clued into it by people walking around with ashes on their forehead. Apparently such individuals have been since removed from the office. Whatever. I just need to remember to eat bleeding red meat every Friday for the next few weeks. Unfortunately this won't be anywhere near as entertaining as it was when I was at a catholic school. Oh well, the sentimental thought is nice.