Today was a little odd. I wasn't really tired, but around 1 this afternoon I kept yawning. I was yawning so much I was annoying myself, haha. The weather outside is nice and crisp and it's supposed to dip to into the 30's. Damn it, I knew I should have gotten a firelog on my way home from work! Anyway - I'm sorry to be such a fricken downer on here. I'm OK, you're OK, riiiiight? :) The holidays can be rough as they are every year, but we're going to Seattle soon and my 14th wedding anniversary is coming up and (aside from my stinkin tooth) I have my health and have managed to avoid the various flu strains and colds going around *knock on wood*. Yay! Today stash was in good spirits, he's loving this weather and he came by my work to bring me a latte which always makes my day better. Connor got an awesome Star Wars pop up book from my Aunt, our fake Christmas tree us up and there's Christmas and Chanukah gifts under it (sacreligious, I know, but the blue and silver wrapping breaks up the green/red monotony) And we're going to watch Ghostbusters so all's good in the hood.

We'll see how I feel after my trip to the dentist tomorrow morning. :P

Oh my, I just had a revelation!

On our front door frame, we usually keep a mezuzah (it's a blessed Jewish parchment or scroll taken from the Torah, and placed in a case). It's supposed to be a mitzvah - another word for 'blessing' - to hang one on your doorpost. We're not terribly religious by any means but we've had one on our front door frame for years. I grew up with one so it's sort of tradition, like how some people hang crosses in their home. Whenever we move, the mezuzah is the last thing I take from the house and the first thing I place on our new reisdence before I start unpacking. But sometime in recent months, the glass casing with the parchment inside fell off and couldn't be found. We never got another one. Anyway, it probably sounds like superstitious hogwash but maybe that's what's been missing and why it all went pear shaped for a while.

I'm probably just talking out my ass, but we're going to get a new mezuzah tomorrow just in case we've pissed off God somehow.

I fixed my computer; faster than ever; I'm posting on it now muahaha! (able to make a boot disk from a windows xp torrent!)

@Whirls: I'm not superstitious, but I am a huge believer that forces greater than ourselves are at work guiding us and shaping our experiences in ways which we may perceive as superstition having an effect on our lives, not knowing or even being able to comprehend the tremendous energy behind it all. ;-)

@Biff: YAAAAAAAAAY! Glad your compy is fixed.

Yeah, I believe there are forces much larger than ourselves that are at work too. But there's still that little guy sitting on my shoulder that says it's all superstition. ;) Ah well, it can't hurt to be superstitious, can it?

So stash went to get a new mezuzah today. He got the whole shebang - instead of parchment he got the blessing on calf skin which was then sealed in plastic and placed inside the silver casing to protect the blessing from the elements. He told the person working there our little story about our run of bad luck we've had over the past few months and she was saying people come into her shop all the time with similar stories - job loss, health issues, crap luck in general - because their mezuzah's were damaged or lost. So I guess my people (and those gentiles who are married to people like me) really must be the chosen ones... in a cursed sort of way. :lol: I can't believe I'm talking about this here!!

lol--nice. Hey, cheers to your new mezuzah, and to good health in 2009.

Must have a Pentium duel-core, don't you Biff!

As for those forces that revolve around us everyday, I agree that some are just hounding me to fall on my ass and put me in deep shit, but I also know there are forces that are combating these evil spirits to help me out as say,guardian angles, or protectors to provide safety or the well being of me and my family.

..then there's those 'Star Wars' forces, in which I can never grab the TV remote from across the room!

good guess :)

My specs!

A P4 @2.6 Ghz, 1 gig of ram and 80gb hard drive space with a Radeon 9800 Pro.

It's 5 yrs ancient, but still runs great for me. Plan to get a top-of-the-line one soon.

that's pretty good for 5. mine's a dell laptop, nothing exciting there, blah!

So I stopped by Trader Joes on my way home from work to pick up some juice. The place was a madhouse. As I was standing in the checkout line, there was some commotion by the front door. Some employees were apprehending a 45-ish year old man, clearly underdressed for the chilly weather and rain. He was caught stealing. Some people behind me started snickering and making snide comments about the guy and it just plain pissed me off. I'm usually non-confrontational but before I could stop myself I said "you know, it's really sad when people are stealing FOOD!"

Stealing is wrong, of course - but it's not like it's some loser kid was ripping off cd's from the record store so he could trade them in and re-sell them at the used record shop across town. Fuck those people. But when people steal food it means they are hungry and its really sad to see that kind of desperation especially seeing as it bursts the orange county bubble I live in. I wish some people would shut their mouths rather than make shit comments about what a loser some guy is because he's hungry and trying to make off with a sandwhich. I mean, Merry friggen Christmas for heaven's sake!

Aw, sad.

And Whirls, you have such a lovely soul. :)

I haven't been witness to any sort of holiday or economic desperation--I'm used to seeing sad states of homelessness, however. I always make it a point to give my leftovers and dollars to quite a large number of homeless people. Sometimes I get the feeling like I shouldn't, for one reason or another, but most of the time when I see someone's existence for which I can't even fathom the pain, anguish and humiliation they've had to endure, the trauma which has been dealt to them and that which they endure on a daily basis, the cracked, hardened skin and dirt, I definitely take a moment to see if I have any spare change. And if I don't, a dollar will suffice.

And I think after this phase of my life passes, I'll have an amazing opportunity to make a larger difference.

And would you look at that, an article about shoplifting on the rise:

http://www.nytimes.c...plift.html?_r=1

I assume everybody's holidays went great!

Good! Now lets get back to work people! :)

Just listen to "No Love" by Disconnect (or the other way round) and it has some similarities with Galaxy Bounce.

2008 in photographs

part1

http://www.boston.co...tographs_p.html

part2

http://www.boston.co..._part_2_of.html

part3

http://www.boston.co...tographs_p.html

Damn, those are, indeed, some amazing photos.

As for me, I'm back at work. GOOD TIMES!

Going to write a demand letter for my own purposes today, though. Wish me luck.

Very choice pics Mr. Pumisher. Completely blown away of what has happened within the last year. Memorable at the most, and the volcano pic just looks sick.

Copying and pasting these to my digital frame.

Pissed!

I wish these media hounds on TV would fucking leave John Travolta and his family alone in their time of crisis!

Inside Edition especially.Fuck off!

Ooh, yeah, good call on that one. No matter what bullshit he believes in, he still just lost his son.

I loathe the media, indeed.

On the bright side of things I made some good overtime yesterday!

On the not-so-bright side of things, this means that I worked for 14 hours yesterday.

On the bright side of things, most of the work consisted of me watching The Simpsons and Family Guy on Hulu.com. :D

I still LOVE the chems!! (Can I post that here?)

MMMMmmmmy Elastic Eye :)