Ehh.. perhaps monthly

So, lets just go for a blah generic monthly update for the 3 readers I still have. The new job is going very well. You would think 5 o'clock meetings every Friday would suck, but when beer is provided, they seem a lot better.

Well, let's get to the important stuff, sports. Notre Dame. Yeah, well, we pretty much suck this year. I'm glad we're finally moving to Sharpley. Granted the ceiling is higher on Clausen, but sorry, the kid just ain't that good. We could probably live with this if there was anyone else on our team who knew how to play football, but unfortunately this isn't the case. Anyway, I'm headed out for the Navy game (um, if ever there was a year for the streak to end...lets just not think of this). I still have extra ticket if anyone's interested.

How about my good teams. The Red Sox were doing real well up until the ALCS. This is a fairly accurate representation of my feelings on this series, except for the Joe Buck/Tim McCarver thing. I wasn't that big a fan of TBS coverage, but it was still better than those to morons. Anyway, we only have one good starting pitcher, one fewer good relievers than Cleveland, and 5 guys in our lineup who can't hit. It's a bad combination. I picked a helluva time to start dating someone from Cleveland. (She's also a domer).

Moving on to a team I don't have any doubts about, the Patriots. I feel like this is like watching a High School prep team taking on the local public high school every week. It's nice to be able to sit down and watch a game, and not just know that you'll win, but that you're going to kick ass. That's all for now. I still have delusions of blogging more often, but lets hope I least keep this up monthly.

Remember when I used to blog?

Yeah, sorry about that. Let's do this chonologically.

This pretty much sums up my feelings on leaving ESPN.

To top things off, on my last day I worked until 8 pm. I meant to blog when I had a week off between jobs, but I took my decompressiosn very seriously, and did an amazing amount of nothing, combined with almost finishing the addiction that kind of kept me from blogging the past two months, Final Fantasy XII.

Anyway, I started my new job Monday. I was the next to last person to leave my office, at 6:15. Amazing. I rarely did that at ESPN. The day starts at 8:30, which is a little earlier than I like, but I get free breakfast, so I can deal.

Anyway, with normal hours, and my final fantasy addiction temporarily dried up, I don't see any reason I can't blog at least weekly, but don't take me off the the "Are you still alive" column just yet.

A "normal" week

Finally, a week where I should really have to work late, and I get to come home and have a little more free time in the evening, and where I can do things I've been neglectful of (such as blogging).

So yes, lets get to the major news. I've given notice to the worldwide leader. No, I don't have another job yet, but thankfully I'm in a career where freelancing is a viable option. I discovered shortly before I left for camp that there are jobs out there I'm totally qualified for that would give me about a 50% raise. That was the kick in the butt that made me decide that sticking around to the end of the year wasn't worth it, combined with the fact that I stopped getting lip service to my complaints made it clear that it was time for me to go. So September 7 is my last day....at least in marketing and sales.

Now I have to field the "what do you want to get into?" question. This is really hard, because I don't really care as long as I can play with and learn new programming languages, and that it is not in an ad sales environment. Whatever, it'll be nice to start regaining my soul. (I may be a dick, but that doesn't mean I don't have principles.) Now I just need to figure out how to stay motivated for another 2ish months.

Other news: Two weekends ago a one of my good friends from ND got married out in Chicago. The first night I was in the city, and started to lose some of my anti-Chicagoness. I'm still anti-Midwest, but I could probably deal with Chicago since I realized last weekend I probably have a better group of friends there than I do in NYC. The wedding itself was enjoyable, but it was kind of weird for me to see someone I spent so much time with during what can be argues as 4 of the most important years of anyone's life, grow up and get married. Now this is only the second wedding I've been to where I was friend's with one of the people getting married. The first one I went to was for someone a few years older than me and we weren't super close, so I was just kinda there and enjoyed the experience. This time though, I knew a lot more people there, and it was just weird to see someone I was really good friends with take that step. I think part of it for me is that marriage is so far away from where I am in life right now.

music: jesus jones - right here, right now

A month late, Part 2

Sorry about the delayed response. My life has been busy and has taken some interesting turns as of late. Details will come whenever I get around to posting again.

When I woke up the next morning (after like 4 hours of sleep) I actually debated going to the hotel gym and working out since I knew my friends had adjusted a little better to the local time (and were much drunker then i when we went to bed) to kill some time, but ended up deciding against and they managed to wake up not too long after me. We spent most of the day hanging out by the lazy river at the MGM Grand pool. It was pretty solid except for the few spots where I missed with the sunscreen.

Later in the afternoon we decided to go gamble. As a group its the worst we've ever done. I was the highpoint and ended up like $13. It just wasn't our day at the poker tables. After giving up the fruitless gambling, I think we chilled for a bit and then went out to the a club that night (I think it was the Jungle Room, but I don't remember completely because I'm doing this a month late.) I'm generally not one for clubs, but this wasn't too bad since there was a decent variety of music played, there was some occasional trapeze entertainment, and there were actually several people there i liked, which is usually not the case on those off days i end up in a club.

As the night wound down, we had some drunken munchies and decided to hit up McDonald's. About 6 spots ahead of us in line, some guys decided to be assholes and buy 99 Cheeseburgers. (99 because that's the max the computer would allow). This caused us to sit in line for 20 minutes as the late night crew churned out 99 cheeseburgers. I'm pretty sure half the line wanted to kick the crap out of them.

The next day was a low key day where we rented a cabana at the Palms and hung out by the pool. If you have enough people and the money, i highly recommend cabanas, particularly if you're sunburned and theres 100 degree desert heat. After a day of doing mostly nothing (which was very nice), we went out to see Cirque du Soleil that night. The one we saw was La Reve (sorry I can't find a good link) which was pretty much the most amazing set I've ever seen in my life. I HIGHLY recommend it next time anyone finds him or herself in Vegas.

After a I drink I parted ways with everyone and embarked on my red eye flight back to NY (since I had to work Monday). I was hoping to be tired enough to sleep all the way through. Unfortunately some idiot woman in front of who brought her cat on the plane, let it out of the carrier. This had the flight crew chasing this cat around the cabin for 15 minutes as those of us who had been sleeping were roused.

Anyway, I made it back to NY alive, and was at work by 10 am on Monday. A little late, but acceptable. I was actually surprised how well I functioned through the day, though I was pretty much exhausted by the time I made it home from work.

That's the end of the Vegas story. Hopefully this week will be light enough that I will get home and not be completely drained which will allow me to update everyone on the other interesting things going on in my life.

Eventually

Eventually I will get around to posting part 2. But I'm too lazy to type it right now. I'm busy the next 2 night, and then I'm hopefully leaving town Friday night for my one good deed of the year. Hopefully I'll get to this shortly after I return.

Viva Las Vegas: Part 1

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, unless of course you're with a mixed group that has a lot of cameras, in which case, I think the only solution is to blog about it.

Originally, I was supposed to get in to Las Vegas around 6:15 local time. My flight left the gate at Laguardia pretty much on time. Unfortunately because of this cluster fuck I proceeded to spend the next 2 hours IN THE PLANE, ON THE RUNWAY. It's never a good sign when the captain comes on the speaker and says something to the effect of "I can't tell how many planes are in front of us." F-ing fantastic. Since it was pretty obvious we weren't going anywhere for a while we were allowed to use cell phones. After about an hour, I decided to call my friends and let them know I may not make it to Vegas on time, or maybe at all. I also tried to call the airline to see if I could put myself at the top of the standby list for when I got to Midway. I tried to start with "I'm delayed coming out of New York, and I don't think I'm going to make my next flight." To this I got the response "You're flight has only been delayed 8 minutes." No, sorry honey, I've been sitting on the runway for an hour already with no end in sight, this flight is delayed a lot more than 8 minutes. Anyway after reaching the "They'll take care of you in Chicago" point of the conversation (not really what i was looking for, but it was a futile conversation from start to finish anyway), I moved on to call everyone I knew who would be traveling and let them know they're pretty much screwed.

Anyway, eventually I did make it to Midway, where I discovered my connecting flight had also been delayed, which considered good news. Now, when I arrived (5ish local time) the flight was supposed to leave at 9:30. More time than I really need, but it's nice to have time to eat some dinner, and leaving at that time should still get me to my destination around midnight, which is fine for Vegas. Well, after dinner and finishing my remaining reading material, and power walking around the terminal, I recheck my flight since it seems like it should be near boarding time, only to discover it has been pushed back an hour. Grr... So, I go to the bar, have another beer, buy a book of crossword puzzles, and around what seems like it should be boarding time, I recheck the monitor and discover the flight as been pushed back another hour.

This process more or less repeats itself until a plane arrives at midnight that we can use. Just one little problem, apparently there is no flight crew for this. ::Bangs head against the wall:: After ANOTHER hour we finally get a flight crew. I end up arriving in Vegas around 3am local time. I get to the Palms where my friends were partying and they go out for some drunken munchies. After said meal the boys and I head to the MGM Grand, and go to sleep about 6 am local time. With the exception of some dozing on the plane, I've been up for 25 hours.

Ok, I should think about going to bed. Part 2 will come later this week.

Another Day

Another Red Sox win. Another Yankees loss. Needless to say, it is a good day. Speaking of the Yankees loss, it involved a steal of home, which in this day and age of baseball is almost as rare as a no hitter. In fact, I would argue that stealing home is the most exciting play in baseball, since it involves what I would consider to be the highest risk and highest reward. I think its a play that needs to be tried more often. Of course, that would also require everyone to tell their respective manager to sack up and take a risk even if you don't have a player named Jose Reyes.

Continuing on the sports theme, Cleveland, I must say, I'm very disappointed in you. Now, I'm certainly not that big of an NBA fan, but c'mon, your team is in the Eastern Conference Finals, you have one best young stars in the game (even if his competitive edge isn't ideal), but that arena sure as hell didn't seem like it was sold out. What, did you all stay home to watch the Indians lose to my Sox at Fenway?

For the 3 or 4 of you that still read my blog, you may remember me mentioning being locked in an office on New Years Eve. Well now there is video proof...with a few artistic liberties.

Everything I can remember

So yeah, it's been a while. I haven't been posting or reading. It's kinda bad. This entry will be random, and possibly a little rambling.

Fashion:
I've noticed recently the wallet chain is making a come back. Though its really more among the ghetto kids the the punk kids. I remarked on this phenomenon to a friend of mine and she said that not only is they ghetto crowd sporting the wallet chains, but that they've also started wearing suspenders and the checkered vans. I didn't believe and then saw that exact combination on the way home. When the hell did the ghetto kids start looking to the nerdy emo/punk kids for fashion ideas. Next dogs and cats will start marrying each other and there will be mass hysteria.

1 Year
March 10th was my one year anniversary in the city. This also marked the end of my opposition to dating anyone in the city. This will have more relevance later, but I'm trying to go chronologically here.

St. Patrick's day.
1 Hockey game and 3 bars later, I got two phone numbers. How a guy wearing jeans and hoodie who isn't shaved and is already 6 hours into drinking pulls this off is beyond me. I celebrated by having a vague recollection of catching the uptown D train at 14th street. The next thing I remember is peeing on the platform at 205th street in the Bronx. I really need to stop passing out on trains. Of course by the same token, anyone that trys to mug me will be really disapointed because I usually don't have much money left in my wallet by the end of nights like that anway.

Birthday
Thanks to those who left my the myspace birthday love, it was appreciated.

Speaking of birthdays, that meant I as in Atlantic City. It was good tiems. I love taking people's money at the poker table. I love it even more when they're smart enough to know what i have, but dumb enough to keep putting down more money just so they can see my cards. Thanks for bringing me back into the game kids! This excursion involved the small but good crew of Rory and Jim; amazingly we all survived. I think we drunk dialed everyone that we mutually knew and had numbers for until our phones died. Apologies if you feel left out. Get me your number and I promise it won't happen again.

Anyway, after gambling, Hooters, a stop back to the room to watch the Final Four, we headed out to a bar with a cover band. We were hanging out, singing along to our favorite dorm room party songs when some drunk idiot bumped into me causing me to spill my beer a little. (FYI, the bar was crowded, but there was still sufficient walking room.) Being the asshole that I am, I felt the need to shove back. This caused him to shove me back causing me to spill more of my beer onto the courgar I was flirting with. Thankfully, Jim being the least drunk and most level headed of all us stepped between us so I didn't do something insanely stupid. Well the night continues on without incident for another hour or 2 and the cover band wraps it up for the night.

After releiving himself, Jim returns to tell me that the guy I was trying to pick a fight with was apparently hanging on to the urinal for dear life. That would have been funny enough, but then the guy decides he wants to try to pick the fight this time. He wedges himself between me and the wall as I was next to and I think says something about not liking the sideburns (hey they're not for everyone). Jim this time decides that the smart choice is to just take my beer from me to prevent any alcohol abuse. In what can only be described as an amazing degree of restraint (particularly considering that I'm drunk and teh bar is closing so getting thrown out wouldn't be that big of a deal), I convince the guy to get the hell away from me. The guy then wanders forward a few steps, and I guess he tried to get on stage, where he ended up tripping and completely taking himself out. He was then carried out of the bar by security. High comedy.

The Academy is...
A friend of mine had an extra ticket to a "live taping" of The Academy is... for MTV. This conveniently fell the week I had off from rehearsal so I could actually go. I only knew 2 songs by them, but I liked those 2 songs so decided hey, free ticket lets go check them out. I was disturbed by 2 things. First, I had to walk through a metal detector to get in. I can deal with this, but the fact that I set it off and I was told to keep walking was really weird. Second, all ages shows really kinda suck because hanging out with high school kids makes me feel a little dirty. It's also a little sad that I probably have more in common with the 40 and 50 year old parents than I do with the high school kids. Anyway, they put on a decent show, though I don't think I'll be buying any CD's.

Notre Dame Hockey
A dispointing second round exit, but what I really want to talk about is our first round opponent. Alabama-Huntsville. That's right, a school in Alabama can support a D-I hockey team. WTF? Can anyone explain to me how this is possible? Is there another D-I hockey school with 500 miles of them? Who the hell plays hockey in Alabama? Needless to say I'm perpelexed.

Sit down for this one.
I'm actually dating someone. We had agreed to "casually date" with the implication of being able to date other people, though it seems to be sliding towards "exlusively date." While its nice for now, I'm pretty sure it isn't going to be going much of anywhere for 1 main reason: she's spending the summer studying abroad. There are several other contributing factors that cause me to have doubts as well, but if I am going to do this dating thing, I suppose you have to throw yourself out there a little right?

getting caught up.

So the weekend after being woken up by runners I was woken up by workers sawing through bricks on the building across the street. I thought the blue collar people in this city had unions that told them not to work on weekends, then someone pointed out to me that the unions actually tell them to work on weekends so they make time and a half. I can't win. It's like some divine sing telling me I should grow up and start getting out of bed earlier on the weekends so I do something productive with me day. Personally, I'd rather make a lot more money and move into a high rise apartment building where I'm above all the noise. They seem to be equally difficult, but the making money idea seems a lot more enjoyable.

In other news, the second busiest time of the sports year after football season, is march madness. I may disappear for a little while.

Speaking of sports, I missed ND's loss in the tournament. I'm disappointed obviously, but I didn't see the game so I can't really comment on it. I will comment on the lack of underdogs in the sweet sixteen though. This is the most boring tournament in years. At least the women's tournament has an underdog in the sweet sixteen. I'm officially on the Marist bandwagon, but I'm pretty sure Tennessee will kill them in the next round.

Friday night I was supposed to hang out some old coworkers from Bristol, but then that whole nor'easter thing happened, and they decided it wasn't worth risking their lives to go watch the Knicks, which I can't really blame them for. Anyway, the Knicks donned green unis for the game which I thought were pretty tight. If I cared about the NBA at all, and was a Knicks fan, I definitely would have spent too much on a jersey.

St. Patty's day I found myself back at MSG for the Rangers vs. Bruins. This game was a blowout, but it was also the first time I've seen the goalie get pulled, only to see the replacement get pulled later and have the starter go back in. After this I did bit of bar hopping and ended up meeting a couple of cute girls. Good times all around except for the hour of time missing when I tried to take the subway home. That was a little scary.

I'm alive, really, I swear it.

So for those of you who think I stopped blogging for the new year, sorry, I'm lazy. I've been busy too, but not so busy I can't post, really just more lazy.

Story 1)
So I sort of did the Times Square thing for new year's, except that I was in an office on Times Square 20 floors up, which is way cooler, and way nicer. Anyway, it was a cool party and all, and after the ball dropped, well, I was out of alcohol, and didn't see much reason to stay much longer since I had do a little work New Year's day (the downside of working on something that visible 24/7). Anyway, when I got to the door to exit, I discovered that someone else was trying to leave as well. Unfortunately the door was locked. Now, the lock was on the inside of the door, unfortunately it was no longer functioning, meaning everyone at the party was locked into the office.

Thankfully this was a theater office, so they had some tools floating around. We tried screwing around with the door knob for a while, but eventually we came to the conclusion that there was no way that lock was going to get unlocked. With a hammer and a screwdriver we ended up removing the door pins, and then someone on the other side (the hallway was accessible by climbing in through the windows off the ledge surrounding the building of other offices throwing parties) kicked in the door. Good times. I had door grease I couldn't wash off my heads for like 3 days.

Story 2.
So, I'll start by apologizing for not having any pictures. I never remember my camera, and for those of you that know Jim, you know he isn't this sort to remember that sort of thing either. Anyway, I left Tuesday afternoon where my flight got delayed over an hour coming out of JFK. Why you ask? Well, JFK sucks. Consequently I missed my connecting flight in Charlotte, and there were no other flights leaving there from New Orleans. So I had to spend the night in Charlotte. Unfortunately since missing my flight was not the airline's fault, I had to pay for my own hotel room. Grr... They did at least get me on a 6 am flight out of Charlotte to Chicago, and there I connected with a flight that finally allowed me to reach my hotel by about 11 am. The flight from Chicago to NO was first class too, which was pretty nice. One of the many annoying this about this (other than spending a night in Charlotte, and getting only 4 hours of sleep) was that I discovered Jim had gone to bed around the time my flight was taking off for Chicago. So not cool. Anyway, NO was pretty sweet , except for the game. (I think Rhema McKnight will go down as my most hated Irish player ever.) New Orleans may be the only city that is dirtier than New York, which is both impressive and sad at the same time.

In other news I finally have business cards after being in my current position for almost a year. In fact I have 2 boxes of them. I can probably count the number of times on one hand that I've actually needed one over the past year. I think I'll just go out one night and hand them out to everyone just so I can feel there is a justification for having that many.

There are probably more things I forgot to say, but I'll try not to be such a space cadet. Now I just need to get caught up on reading everyone else's blogs.

Your government at work

So I got my social security statement the other day, which was mailed to my East Hartford address, but lets ignore the fact that I've lived in NYC for 9 months now. Anyway it said I have 19 of the 40 credits i need to start receiving social security. Now, I'm 24, and have had some sort of job 8 years. Assuming I maintain some sort of employment for the next nine years, and assuming I continue to collect credits at the current rate, I'll be able to start receiving social security when I'm 33. Rock on. Maybe I'll be a millionaire by then too....

In other news I finally got off my lazy ass and networked the computers in my apartment. Now I have to wait 2 hours while all my mp3's transfer to my laptop.

The motivating factor for this was that I finally joined the ranks of the ipod users. I still don't think I'll ever be a real New Yorker, but I have a feeling this might be a step in that direction.


Anyway, I have new year's story I will share when I get back from New Orleans. I might have New Orleans stories too, but I might drink those memories away as well. We'll see. Anyway, here's a picture on the way I did a Times Square new years, 20 floors up.

Just for fun, some 2006 news oddities.

Merry Christmas Eh!

Merry Christmas everyone. If you're not celebrating Christmas, sorry, you're screwed. (Just don't tell that to the people at the Chaunakah party I'm going to tonight:-x)

It was a kind of weird when people were asking me if I was going home for Christmas. My answer is generally along the lines of "My home is New York, but would you like to know where I'm going?" That's what happens when your parents first move from the home state, and then move from the home country. Of course this does allow me to leave the cool out of office "FU! There is no way in hell you're getting a hold of me" with not just "I'm out of the office" or "I'm on vacation", but "I'm out of the country. (bitches!)" Ok, that last part isn't there, but it would be way cooler if if was. Anyway, I'll be in Canada (eh) until Wednesday. Until then, party on.

My Mom is not fashionable enough for NY

So, I suppose it's a good thing that she doesn't live here. So my Mom, who likes to through us a bone and come up with a good list of things that work as Christmas presents (please add sarcasm to that), pretty much only asked for one thing for Christmas, when I finally asked her specifically what she wanted. Now she told me I could order it online, which is all good and well, except that I leave for Canada on the 22nd, so I kinda need to rush delivery things at this point. Anyway, all she wanted was a simple turtleneck. Unfortunately, in NYC all you can buy is cashmere sweater turtlenecks, which isn't what she wants. I have nothing against ordering things online, but something like clothes I like to see in person, so I can at least eyeball it and say "Yes this will work", or just randomly choose an unsuspecting victim in the store who is close in size to the person I'm buying for. Oh well.

In other news, I have the worst cold ever. This thing is completely kicking my ass. I rarely get sick, and when I do, it's usually just a mild cold. My Cold-Eeze, which I will swear by, has done nothing. I've tried having spicy foods with meal to clear up the sinuses for at least a few minutes, and even that didn't have any effect. I've slept a lot, eaten well, even convinced myself to work out on a Sunday (which never happens), and none of this has done anything. Now, very slowly it does seem to be improving, but it seems like it will be several more days before I'm 100%.

Finally, I have bowed to peer pressure, and I am now going to the Sugar Bowl with Jim, and possibly Rory. All other Domers are welcome to attend. As of right now I don't have game tickets. I'm not sure if I'll get them or not, but I've never been to New Orleans, so for a worst case scenerio, we'll just go to party.

Stupid Immune System

It starts slowly, just as a tickle in your throat, but then you notice it seems to continue on for an hour or so, and then you notice your nose has started running, and soon reality is setting in. You're getting sick. This was my afternoon/evening as I spent it trying to get caught up after an unexpected 4 hour lunch (which I would have really enjoyed had I not known that I had a shit load of work to do when I got back to the office). The real frustrating part about this is tomorrow is the office holiday party, which means that I now have to curb my drinking for my own personal health. Also, I'm taking Friday off, so instead of having all the time to do hangover recovery, and go out and party again, I now have to stay in, sleep a lot and get healthy. Grrr.....

The year (and this week) in review

Through Thursday (barring any unforseen disasters) I will go out every night of the week (from Friday last week). Soon my liver will be quite angry with me.

Anyway, I've liked this idea. Go to your calendar, find the first entry for each month of 2006, and post the first sentence of it in your journal/blog/what-have-you.

January: So I've been blogging for a while, but it has been tucked off in a hidden corner of the net, and there are some topics that are not as well suited for that blog, so I decided to create this public one.

February: FINALLY! I'm getting the hell out of CT and moving to a real city.

March: So I was browsing through some blogs and I stumbled upon one that made a mention of today as Ash Wednesday.

April: I'm going to miss having TV at my desk.

May: Yup, today pretty much blew my weekend out of the water.

June: Yesterday was one of my coworker's last day.

July: So, I have returned from a fun filled week of camp.

August: I had to stay a little late at work today.

September: Question: if you were hanging out someone at a bar who had/was recovering from cold sores, would you willingly offer that individual your drink, and then finish it after they tried it?

October: 'Twas a good weekend.

November: Tomorrow I get to spend the day on the company's tab.

December: You want to know what this is?

Hmm...I think I need to come up with better opening sentences... Though this did work out kinda well since I just stared blogging in January.