Commentastic

i'm not going to be happy if we end up owing taxes this year. not at all. if it weren't for this stupid $4,000 added miscellaneous income we're adding because rhonda essentially lied to us, i wouldn't be worried in the slightest. i hate taxes. work was good today. i got to train one of the newbies on how to make drinks after cleaning up the total mess left over from the previous night. we didn't sell a whole lot during the day [it is monday, after all], but we did get some organizational stuff done since patti was there.

after work, i headed down to mayo to pick up christin's check. well, checks i suppose. i have no idea why she's getting two checks right now, one for the amount she's been paid the past 12 months and one for the amount they were charging us for rent. that whole situation is actually what resulted in the aforementioned irritating tax debacle, so yeah. stupid. it took like an hour to get to mayo and then to our house, which was annoying. rain sucks! we finished series one of doctor who, and i miss the 9th doctor already. it was a good ending, though.

oh yeah! i made this. the cat is sitting on my arms right now, which is making it quite difficult to type. i also can't seem to think very well right now, which is making it quite difficult to blog. i'm actually half-watching youtube videos while i type this right now, which is strange but doable. i'm keeping up with my subscriptions pretty well, even though i just subscribed to another channel today. i'm a glutton for punishment. ;-P anyway, i think it's time for sleep. i close tomorrow, which is great. i don't think i could possibly get up any earlier than noon.

Dredd Is The Law

made it to church today. +50 points for me! well, not really. i just don't lose points today, like i have been the previous weeks. it was good to be back, and we had a nice time fellowshipping with our family there and enjoyed some good food. we'll be getting together with pastor taylor to resume our [westminster] confession lessons, as well as going to the fields' house for italian on wednesday. i'm making lasagna. it's gonna be epic. so yeah, we had a good time this morning, and the rest of the day was mostly spent doing homework and watching youtube.

christin and i ate potstickers for dinner and got caught up on our shows. community is seriously the best show on television right now, and we love it. troy and abed in the mooooorning! i've got 5 vids left in my queue on youtube, and i think i fixed my 'flash crashing multiple times a day while using the queue function' problem. had to re-install my audio drivers, which was harder than it should've been. tomorrow i open the store, and tomorrow night will be comprised mainly of doing two weeks' worth of schoolwork in one evening. fun! it's bedtime, i've got to get up early.

Elephant Ears

there's something about eating ice cream out of the carton that just feels awkwardly rebellious. even though i know it only had about a bowl left in it when i started, looking at the empty box with a spoon on top of it just looks hilarious to me. today i closed at work, starting at 1pm, which is an awkward shift i think. we pulled in a good amount for the day, so i'm pretty satisfied, and i think our owner will be as well. closed without a manager as well, which was good practice for me. also got to work with becky for a few hours, which is always fun.

i'm using a lot of incomplete sentences in this blog entry.

christin spent a lot of the day working on schoolwork, something i need to do tomorrow night in a big way. see, my school finally fixed my problem and i can use my class now, so i have to get caught up on everything i've missed for over a week and a half. lame. but it'll be fine, because school is easy. anyway, tonight i almost caught up on youtube subscriptions [under 20 videos left] despite the setback of losing my queue from the other day. i went back and found most of the stuff i had on there, at least the 'important' ones. hope my views start to pick up. youtube needs to fix the homepage. blah. church tomorrow for realsies. goodnight!

Francophile

so tired. closing one night and opening the next should be illegal. i guess it didn't help that i was up late after i closed, and that i couldn't fall asleep for at least an hour once i actually did get to bed, and that i think i got a total of less than 4 hours of sleep. so there's that. but yeah, i'm dragging at this point. not exactly what i'd call a raging friday night by any stretch of the imagination. work was slow, but fun. read up about libya, made some blended drinks and such. came home to walk the dog before heading over to rhonda's to hang out with christin.

the power was out. blech.

who the hell does that? who leaves their nanny at their house with their kids at night when the freaking power goes out? that's just absurd, in my opinion. but my opinion matters not to the rich, i suppose. ;-P speaking of rich, we got paid today! three paychecks is nice, and the bank account is feeling full, though it will be much emptier in a couple of days when i pay the bills. slowly but surely, we shall overcome. that's right, i said it. i'm mad tired, yo. watched some of wheezy waiter's live show on blogtv tonight, and was going to catch up a bit on youtube until i noticed that my queue was inexplicably deleted. horrible. bedtime.

Ghirardelli FTL

today was interesting. i got up a bit late and headed out to the laundromat to do the laundry as well as film the video i just put up. that went over pretty well, and i had a delicious lunch before heading off to work. today the guys started experimentationing with smoothies, and patrick asked me to try something that i'd say more closely resembled chocolate ice than a smoothie. so i took some advice from someone who does smoothies and changed up the recipe a bit, and now i think we've got it tasting good. i'll do some more tweaking with that tomorrow.

closing is always strange. we are so slow in the afternoons, but the later in the evening it gets, the more people suddenly decide that cupcakes and chocolates are a good idea. i think i made two drinks the whole day long, which is quite odd to me. our coffee is good! well, i wouldn't know if it actually is personally, but i'm told it's good! maybe people are being nice. maybe my coffee sucks! that wouldn't be good. i think we get paid tomorrow, which would be very nice. i'm already getting paid by sears tomorrow, and christin is getting her check early as well. mad ducats, bro.

tomorrow i open at 8am [ugh] and work with nikkie until 5. that should be good, i think. friday mornings are a bit boring and slow, but it picks up toward noon, so yeah. i want to practice some of the drinks and invent new stuff. i've been working on our registers/inventory and getting it all squared away there, which is good because it's something that needs to be done. our owner is just all sorts of frantic, doing way too many things, and i'm trying to take it off her hands so it can get done without stressing her more. i do what i can! now it's bedtime. well, it's way past bedtime.

Harry, Get Your Butt Inside!

oh days off, how i don't know what to do with you anymore. it's interesting that there are two situations in which i will become completely flummoxed with regard to how i should spend my free time on days off. the first is when i'm working so much that it's difficult to think of anything other than work, and the second is when i'm not working at all so all of my time is 'free time.' i've experienced both of these in abundance for the past year, and now it's just sort of... yeah. i'm trying to adapt to the former after a year of the latter.

so today i spent a lot of time catching up on youtube [which i did not manage to do entirely] and getting sleep that i've been missing in the past couple of days. christin and i watched some doctor who and enjoyed one another's company, and we made bomb rice pilaf and chicken chunks for dinner. for those whose interests have just been piqued, a chicken chunk is something between a chicken strip and a chicken nugget. christin tried to make strips, but cut the chicken the wrong way and i said 'those aren't strips, those are chunks!' i hope it catches on. maybe it can become a thing.

note: failure is me.

Iriquois

just so you know, for every day you work on the illinois river, you get a half of a day off with pay. why is that song stuck in my head? no idea. love it, though. got up late, filmed a video, went to work once again. it was a slower day than yesterday, but evening shifts usually are. business was slow, but a lot of people stopped in. we got excited because our blenders came in today [how weird is that? getting excited over blenders?] and i got the facebook and twitter pages up and running and added pictures, etc. good times railroad!

got home at around 10:30 after a short stop at safeway to pick up a few things i forgot the other day. i do that a lot, forgetting small things. only i would buy a 24-pack of hot dogs and no buns. well, maybe not 'only i' but still. christin was already asleep, which is always a bummer, but i rubbed her feet and laid down with her and the animals for a bit before heading out to edit and catch up on the youtubes. still not even close to caught up, but i think i got about halfway through my queue. it's progress, but not fast enough! tomorrow i'll have the day off, so i can finish the job. facebook chat is a great distraction! blog post finished. seacrest out!

Juice By Sarah

today i worked an opening shift, which was enjoyable and felt a lot shorter than it actually was. i got to draw on the chalkboard thingy, which was fun, and we did a special today. at least one person ordered it, so that's good i think. it was really busy today, because it's a 'holiday' and kids have the day off from school, but that really meant that it was a lot of foot traffic and not necessarily that we sold more product than usual. granted, we probably did better than a normal monday, but not by leaps and bounds from what i could tell when i left.

end last night's entry. begin this morning's recap.

after i got home, christin and i watched some doctor who again and ate potstickers. mmm. i got so tired after dinner that i fell asleep on the couch at around 10:30 or so, and we just kind of slinked off to bed. it was weird because i normally don't get that tired that early, but i think it all just sort of caught up to me. i haven't been sleeping that much lately, mainly because i've been working every day to some extent. it's okay though, we need the money for sure. anyway, it's time to go out and walk the dog. bye!

Krakow! Krakow!

two direct hits. i've got to quit this whole lazy sunday thing. i know it's a day of rest, but when i miss church, it's not really resting for me. i dislike it. spent most of the day with christin, catching up with our shows and watching some doctor who. we're five episodes into the first season of the new who [eccleston], and it's just now getting really good. surprised that a show that's been so hyped to me by friends is holding up so well, but i said that about firefly and buffy as well. last week's big bang theory was top form. loved it.

so tonight we had a store meeting for q, and we learned some things we've been doing wrong for making coffee and talked about a bunch of stuff regarding building the franchise/store. it's really exciting to be so close to a good group of people in a small business, where my voice actually has an impact on the daily operation. feels good. the meeting went late, but i came home with food for the misses and we watched another episode of who before bedtime. which is the time it is now. not much else to say about today. yesterday's post is so gargantuan, i can't hope to live up to it! so yeah. i'll just plug my work's facebook and twitter pages before i go. i'm running them! so go like/follow us. kthx!

Lightning Fluxuation

today was loads of fun. opened the shop at 8am, got my paperwork in [hooray for getting paid], had a good time making drinks and such. i invented a drink today! actually, does it count as inventing if you make something that already exists, but you have absolutely no knowledge of it because you know virtually nothing about coffee? well, if it does, i invented a drink today. our store manager, nikkie, wrote 'dark chocolate salted caramel' as the chocolate of the day, but the owner read it as the drink of the day and thought it sounded good. so i made it happen. it's a mochaccino. is that a thing?

for the record, i am shamelessly posting this the next day.

after work i headed to safeway with the intention of going in to get kale, collard greens, and some stuff to make sandwiches. as per usual, i ended up buying an exorbitant amount of food because i kept seeing stuff i like for good prices. it's good though, i probably won't have to go to the store in a while now. i got christin ribs for dinner, and she ate 'em like a boss. got home at about 6:30 and unloaded my 6-7 bags of delectable sustenance and immediately headed over to justin's place to meet up and head to a show. i was mad late, but apparently it didn't matter because he was still fussing over his nails.

just so you know, his favorite color is not red, but you certainly wouldn't know it from looking at him tonight. anyway, we headed up to baltimore [ottobar] for the show, which was good fun. i kind of thought it was going to be weird and awkward going up in a full car with two people i had never met before, but i must've forgotten the whole 'they are justin's friends' thing, and we have a similar sense of humor, so of course we hit it off well enough. got to the show and watched a bad and slightly homophobic version of good charlotte, a singer-songwriter-improv guitarist chick who looked like darlene from roseanne, justin's drone/electronics project, justin's friend's band, and one of the worst pop punk acts i've ever seen.

let's talk about the latter, shall we?

to begin with, the drummer was playing on what was at least a $5,000 drum kit from ocdp. and he sounded like he just started playing yesterday. and justin told me that he had been playing as long as him [at least 15 years]. that just makes me cry a bit, and die a little inside. anyway, the bass player was like funkmaster flex without the funk and with a lot of douche and sunglasses to match. imagine tom cruise, circa oprah's couch, on stage with a bass guitar in his hands. trying to be roger from less than jake. and the singer was a kinda beefy dude with a 'taking back sunday' shirt, playing a clean-toned guitar. they were called 'bad idea.' i agree.

after the show, we headed to an obscenely overpriced hipster diner called 'papermoon,' and i had a $6.50 grilled cheese sandwich [it was pretty good, though] and about half of kaitlyn's alfredo pasta. that was good, too. we talked about world religion, vegetarianism, and kurt cobain. it was quite enjoyable. i got home at about 3am, thanks to high's and safeway's gas pumps being closed late at night. who does that? went immediately to sleep. the end! long night, good night, justin had a great set. megan was there too, but she peaced out early. yep.

Moratorium

work work. job's done. more work? yeah! as you may have already inferred, work was good today. christin surprised me by making me lunch — peanut butter and jelly with the top crust cut off for the win forever. loved it. time just kind of flew by while i was at work, which is great. it's really fun working for the people i work for, which is a breath of fresh air after the hellish months at sears. just glad i don't have to deal with that anymore.

yikes. dot com.

after i got off work, i headed back to the house to pick up my stuff to film a video at rhonda's while christin watched the kids. that didn't happen, the filming part [i filmed later, and this was the quite humorous but short result], but we had a nice dinner and played with the babies. brought the dog with me and the kids got to play with her, which was cool. i'm glad the cats didn't try and start stuff with her, she's a real pansy when it comes down to it. it's so funny, because she's so used to our cat that she doesn't even chase cats or even notice them at all. alright, i need to get to bed... another early morning opening the store awaits!

No Slave's Man

this is it. my 365th blog post on this new blog, which i suppose i can't really call 'new' anymore. as far as continuing goes, it's become such a regular part of my routine [and how people keep in touch with me] that i don't imagine i'll be stopping any time soon. so you'll continue to see blog posts here every day, as you have for the past year. anyone who has read all 365 of them: thanks for sticking it out and following me on this crazy journey. i guess it's been a journey. i mean, i moved across the country and did lots of stuff.

anyway, work today was super fun. i spent some time relaxing and running a few errands before i headed out to the mall at 2pm, and i worked until closing time with patty. she's fun. christin came to visit me at around 5:30 and we had dinner together, which was nice. i made her a chai and it was good, she says. i also nailed the cappuccino i had to make for this guy near the end of the day, which was vindicating since i couldn't make one to save my life the other day. i think i'm getting the hang of this coffee stuff!

my video from yesterday has a kind of low number of views. y'all should probably watch it. i'm not going to re-link it, just check out yesterday's blog post. it's the only link. ;-P i think i'll be going home after work [i get off at 3pm] and filming tomorrow's, since i didn't get up early to pre-film today. i don't like doing that anyway, it feels dishonest somehow. i know it isn't, and a lot of people film the day before they release a video, but it just doesn't seem right to me. granted, it would prevent me from releasing the videos at like 3am my time every day one is due, but... ha! i'm a procrastinator, what can i say?

four paragraphs. wow! i must have a lot to say tonight. that's weird, because i didn't do a whole lot today. i also didn't eat much today... hmm. weird thought. i did have quite a bit of chocolate, because patty messed a few things up. our milk chocolate saucers [which is what we're calling the easter-ish candies we made today, because they look like ufo's] are so good. we made milks and milk + almonds. yum! opening tomorrow, i should go to bed. i'm not terribly tired, though. i'm sure i will be when i have to get up in around 5 hours though, so it's bedtime for me.

Orson Is A Pig

today was crizazy, as the kids say. i made this for you. i hope you like it. it took me all day, just as i thought it would. i woke up kind of late and immediately started writing lyrics. i had an idea for the song and a few lines written, but i didn't know what it would sound like until i finished up the words and started writing music. i actually changed the music after i decided i wanted to do something in a dropped tuning [drop e-flat in this case, or drop d capo 1] and i think it turned out better than i'd previously done with the standard tuning.

actually, i think this song would've been done a lot sooner if i hadn't done a 'full band' version. i was planning on just doing voice and guitar, but i went back and wrote the drums/bass instead because it felt a bit empty. then i had to cut up the guitar and get it 100% on with the click, because it was a bit off. you can get away with that when it's just guitar/voice, but when you throw a quantized drum part on there, it's kind of obvious. anyway, i'm getting a lot faster at writing drums in fl studio, but when it comes to actual music stuff [usually bass] it takes me forever to figure out the notes. that's because i have to use a piano roll and i get all confused.

tomorrow i have work from 2-10, which is bad because i don't get to see christin, but good because it means i don't have to be up super early. but then i have two 8am shifts in a row. that's okay, i don't mind it actually. patty is all excited that i'm going to close with her because she likes me a lot. i like that. anyway, i'm beat tired from editing right up until the last minute tonight. i actually went out and picked up christin's prescription at 2:15am while my video was rendering, then got it uploaded right before the 3:00am cutoff time for the correct date. go me!

Porridge Stale

oh sears. how i thought you couldn't get worse, but you have. they freaking changed my schedule at the last minute, and now it completely conflicts with my other job. so i'm not 100% sure what i'm going to do about that. i tried to stay after work and talk to a manager to get it squared away [and put in my 2 weeks' notice] but it just didn't happen. waited like 10 minutes after work ended and the guy was nowhere to be seen, so i just left. blah. tomorrow is a super busy day for me, because i'll be writing [lyrics and music] and recording a song, as well as shooting and editing a video for that song. that will take most of the day.

note: i was going to write more to this today, but it didn't happen, and now it's time to write my blog for today. so i'm just gonna post this unfinished blog now. lame.

Qookies!

today was nuts. worked 10 hours at the shop, sold a lot of chocolate and made exactly one espresso drink. ha! but it was good, because we made a decent amount of money. tomorrow i have to work at sears... that's less exciting. actually, it's anti-exciting. is depressing the opposite of exciting? i'm going to say yes. anyway, it was a long but fun day and i got this done. it's pretty good, i guess. vote for and leave suggestions on the moderator module on my channel! i'm leaving next week's theme open to suggestion, so do it. do it good.

i got home at around 10ish, after bringing mcdonald's to my poor, injured wife. her leg hurts really bad, and she stayed home from work today. well, she got sent home, really. after she went to bed, i set about attempting to catch up on youtube subscriptions. i got kind of intimidated and didn't get very far. i also played a bit of wow, which was good and fun. watched some stuff on vyou [well, i listened to it while i played] and that was excellent as well. yep. not very interesting for valentine's day. oh well!

Richard Ibanez

i slept so well, it's ridiculous. sleeping that well should be illegal. it was technically illegal, because it caused me to miss church, but it was so nice to rest. my feet no longer want to make a hasty escape from the rest of my body, which is a definite step up for me. tomorrow, i'll be working from around noon until around 10pm, which is absolutely insane but they're paying me to do it. and that's just fine with me! today, christin got hurt pretty bad while walking the dog. she fell up the stairs [not down] because she tripped on my shoe, which she was wearing. her leg got busted up pretty bad. she's in pain, but she'll be alright.

we went to fedex to print out some stuff for katie's bridal shower, as christin is the matron of honor for that wedding which is happening in a few months. crazy. anyway, they look wonderful thanks to the advice and help of nikki. after that, we picked up a few things at target and stopped by the shop to see how things went today. sales were consistent, we're selling lots of chocolate, and cupcakes are like 33% of our total sales. not surprising! poor rachel [the girl who makes the cupcakes] is going to get overworked so fast! anyway, it's time for bed.

p.s. i got an 'a' in my most recent class. also not surprising! but good.

Soreness

yeah, so i worked a 14-hour shift today. no sweat, right? as becky so poignantly pointed out on my previous blog entry's comments section, i did indeed call out of work... to work. when your boss says 'i will pay you double if you stay until closing,' it's kind of hard to convince yourself that doing anything else is a good idea. especially when that 'anything else' is walking down the hall to a big, depressing department store and staring blankly at a cash register ringing up overpriced clothing. so i called out, and i didn't lie and say i was sick or anything, i just told them what was going on.

more likely than not, i'll put my two weeks' notice in at sears sometime next week. aiya. life has just been absolutely nuts for the past three days. i don't know if i'm going to be able to make it up for church tomorrow, my feet are killing me. i'm almost delirious enough right now to think that just cutting them off would be a vast improvement, but my unrivaled rationality says otherwise. i need to force myself to stand up on those feet right now, walk to the bathroom, brush my teeth, and get into bed. this does not sound fun, but alas, i must make it so.

Taster's Choices

in a word: sore. i'm so tired that i'm writing this blog way before i usually do, because i'm likely to go to bed very, very soon. i worked 9.5 hours today, and tomorrow i will work at least 10.5 total between both jobs. crazy! tomorrow is our first day opening, though i'm not 100% sure we will have everything really ready. i guess we'll see, but from the way the store looked when i left at 5:30, i'm not overly optimistic. who knows? maybe they pulled it out tonight and it'll be all set when next morning rolls around. stranger things have happened.

hooking up the espresso machine and toying with it until it started working right was interesting. we made a few bad, bad shots of espresso, which is progress enough! i think the grinds weren't fine enough for it. patty [the store owner] was working on it when i left, so she may have gotten all of that squared away by now. tomorrow will be the test! i don't know if i'll make it through my shift at sears. christin says she foresees me calling out sick. i dunno how i can do that, though — i'll already be at the mall! plus, i've called out sick way too many times lately. granted, i was legitimately hurt or sick each time, but meh. bedtime.

Under The Bored Walk

uhh, hey. i got a new job today! pretty sweet. i started today, too. i'm working for a chocolate and coffee place in the mall, new store for a first time owner. i'll be making/serving coffee and chocolate and basically entertaining customers with my antics. it's good times! tomorrow i have to be there at 8am, so i need to go to sleep, but i wanted to get this blog up. editing for this video took a long time, but i think it came out really well. probably the most fun i've had filming in a long time. i love when i get enough material for a long outtake video to put on my second channel. ;-D

it's funny that now i'm totally not worried about money anymore. when we knew that christin would be taking a huge pay cut to work for dan and sarah, we were kind of stressed on where that money was going to come from. now i'm not so worried, because i've got a job where i'm guaranteed 30 hours a week at least, which is about what i wanted. for now, i'll continue working at sears, but i can see myself getting burnt out pretty quickly if that goes on for long. we'll see how i handle it. i'm going to attempt to keep up my video schedule as well, but yeah. it's going to be tough to do all that.

kind of crazy to think that i'm basically going from doing nothing most days to working full-time for the first time in over a year. i can't believe it's been that long. the great thing is that i won't have to work sundays [i said i can't, which is true because i don't think it's right to work on the Lord's day], and i'll still be in the mall. while i'm at sears, that's good because i can go from one place to the other. the outfits are similar enough, so yeah! but like i said, i don't know how long that will last. i'm very tired, and it's time for me to relax and sleep. goodnight!

Verizon

it's funny, because it almost seems like every time i start to write something in this blog now... well, anything poetic or profound-like... i end up opening a new text file and typing it as a song lyric. that, i think, is progress. i recently heard alex day [nerimon] answer a question on vyou about twitter in which he said that he found it to be a creativity stifler. his reasoning was that he'd come up with a good joke and say 'i think i'll tweet that!' and then he did, and it was over. i've had a similar thought about twitter before, and that was actually the reason i didn't have one for a long time, but now it seems i'm catching myself and not allowing my potential creativity to be stifled.

go me, i guess?

so tomorrow i've got a job interview. that's interesting, right? it's for a coffee and chocolate place in the mall that is potentially opening up on saturday. becky, one of the few people that reads my blog every day [and actually comments on it from time to time], is a manager at the place and they need, like... you know, regular worker-type people. that's me! i can do that! i figure it's got to be better than sears, and it could be fun. i did enjoy my only food service jobs i've ever had, and i don't understand the bad rep they get, really. i mean, it's no burger king or anything, but it's not glamorous either. i guess it could be. chocolate is kind of glamorous.

i've also got a video to film tomorrow, and it's one i've kind of been anticipating. actually, this one is the whole reason i chose the theme for this week. i hope it turns out well, because i'm excited to film it. i'm not 100% exactly what i'm going to say or anything, but yeah. i rarely know that. i may try scripting stuff for a week or so, like scripting every word, and seeing how i like the feel of it, but i think i'll just end up with more source footage and lots more editing. i dunno. more work that i'm not being paid for doesn't seem like a great thing for me right now. really, i'd rather focus a bit more on music. that's for friday, though.

Wario Vs. Waluigi

of all the days! i don't know what that means. i recorded a video today, which can be seen here. it's about double negatives, which are quite fun to play around with, kind of like silly putty. the ice in the front yard is almost all melted. guess that means it's time for it to snow again, eh? the weather has been colder as of... well, as of today. earlier this week it was almost like spring had sprung. this winter is lasting forever? at least for tonight? no, stop, chris carabba. anyway, i didn't get the smog thing done because i left the paper at the house. i have to do it tomorrow though, so i'll be sure to let you know how it goes. ha. right.

work tonight was excruciating. it's the worst when it's slow, because it just seems to drag on. we got to close super early though, which was a plus. i got home shortly after the time i was supposed to leave sears, and christin was still up. i proofread some of her homework, which she's doing really well on, and worked on editing the video while she finished up some more school stuff. it's good that she's getting back into the swing of the school thing. ;-D uploaded the video, did my daily stuff on wow, checked out some youtube and vyou videos and now it's bedtime.

Xena, Warrior Princess

another class down. the final was kind of brutal actually, as finals go, but that's because i didn't note the length before i started writing. while 8 pages isn't excessively long for a research paper, it is for the topic i had to research. the history of bilingual education in america isn't particularly interesting to learn about, and it's basically just the same thing in cycles for 400+ years. blah. anyway, i got it all done, which was the main thing i needed to accomplish today. tomorrow is another story — i've got a lot of other things i need to do.

first in that list is make a new video, though that part won't be terribly difficult. it's really editing that takes up most of the time at this point, the filming rarely takes more than 20 minutes or so once i've got the lights set up. i'm not 100% sure of everything i'm going to say in tomorrow's video, as the topic is a bit simple and lacking in examples, but i guess that's good. i haven't had a short video in a long time, so it'll be a break. maybe then the editing won't take a whole lot of time. that should give me time to do the other things i need to do, which are getting the car 'smogged' and going to work from 5pm-closing.

is it sad that the former is less daunting?

nothing really creative came up today, though i did think of a song i really want to cover in the near future. i also realized that i really want to involve christin more in the writing process of the songs i'm doing, especially since she is one half of 'the perfect place.' granted, she's got a lot less time on her hands and is less musically inclined, but i've been having trouble finding melodies for my songs that i haven't completely overused. she's good at that sort of thing. i also need harmony for a lot of the stuff i have written, so that'd be good too. hey christin, let's do that, eh? yeah!

Yak Snot Burrito

so i started typing in here about two hours ago, and what i wrote actually ended up becoming lyrics to a song. funny! it was about how i have a bunch of half-written songs and not many full ones. it's kind of annoying, but it's just sort of how i've been working these days. the problem with me is i'm very prone to not finish things i start, especially songs. i went back into a few of the fruity loops files for the older ones, and i'm now realizing that i'll have to do them all over almost from scratch. i've gotten a lot better at using fl studio since i wrote them.

i'd like to apologize for yesterday's post, as it was quite small. i'm sorry about that. i didn't have a lot to say, and it was a pretty boring day in general. today wasn't much better. i slept through my alarm and was still sore in the morning, so i stayed home from church and slept in way too long. i got comfortable late in the sleep-cycle, and it was just so nice to not be sore in the position i had made my body get into. lol. awkward sentence. anyway, after i got up, i took a shower and headed out to sears while christin made a pie. i got my schedule, and it's acceptable. i don't work tomorrow, which is good news. i have my final paper due.

writing music has recently become more of a thing i do. i want to get back into the business of creating things. i like playing wow and watching shows with my wife, but i miss the creative aspect of making music. so recently, i've been spending more time writing songs and getting a bit frustrated with my inability to play certain chords, as well as my tendency to overuse and reuse the same progressions and such. i'm kind of a sucker that way. it doesn't stop other people, but i just have higher standards for my own work, i guess. anyway, that's that. the pie christin made [dutch apple] was delicious. and now it's bedtime.

Zima + Hula Hoops

still sore. woke up late from the buffyfest, which was excellent of course, and took the opportunity of a lazy day at home [christin is sick, i'm still in pain] to catch up on our other shows. watched all of the big bang theory and community episodes from this year. señor chang is a genius. christin took a nap, which turned into bedtime, and i played a bit of wow. got in a heroic blackrock caverns and man. i just can't understand how people can't follow simple instructions. people who have done it before just can't manage to figure it out. ugh.

note: bad me.

Antiseptic Tank

today i woke up at 9:30am and attempted to get out of bed, but i couldn't even sit up. i laid there not in pain, but in absolute soreness from the neck down. so i went back to sleep and eventually made it out of bed for a few minutes at around eleven, then back down again. lesson learned: don't slip and fall backwards onto a large slab of ice. it hurts a bit for the time being [actually, it didn't really hurt at all], but the next day is a real pain. aiya. so i called out of work because i can barely stand up, and christin went to a girls' night sort of thing, while i finished up today's video.

speaking of finishing up, it's now 4:45 in the morning and we just finished the last episode of buffy the vampire slayer. well, really, we just finished the last 7 episodes in one long burst. it was a good way to end the t.v. part of the series, and i'm really excited that they are still making comics for the so-called '8th season.' pretty exciting. spike went out with a bang, which is what i expected, and let's just say that i can't believe how few major characters died. i won't say who. but man... anyway, nathan fillion is the man, caleb was easily tied with the mayor for my favorite 'big bad.' though, to be honest, evil willow was pretty much the scariest. anyway, bedtime.

Barge It Up

when i was going to my car today, i slipped on the ice in the driveway and fell backward, hitting my head. it sucked. my body is still sore from the fall, actually, and i'm pretty annoyed with it all. i've had a neck-ache for the past few days from sleeping wrongly, and now i've got this to add to it. i'm not complaining in the sense that it has a huge impact on my ability to function as a human being, but it is quite irritating when i move around a lot. i should probably get with the not moving and just go to sleep. i'll do that, i just need to finish my homework first.

now that i've finished my homework, i suppose i could bore you all with some details about the day. i didn't do a whole lot. i did get cheese logs, as i said, but i didn't end up going to christin's work. long story, that is, but i did go to the library and pay my $0.25 fine. i also renewed the book i have, since i haven't even read one page of it in the time i've had it in my possession. too many other ways to utilize my time, i suppose. i have so many books i need to read, but i've been busying myself about the internets a bit too much, i suppose. even tonight, i feel like i should do my daily heroic on wow, but i'm not going to. too tired now.

i guess that means it's bedtime. hope i can sleep.

Crème Brûlée

it's song wednesday, and this is ready for your viewing pleasure. the video is just silly, but the song is something i'm really proud of. who would've thought i'd end up being an educationally based internet singer/songwriter? i grew up playing the drums, and now i'm using fake drums, synth, and acoustic guitar to teach people about english grammar and punctuation. now if only this could pay the bills in some fashion, i think i'd be set. ;-D i should've started doing this years ago. but never you mind, i'll keep it up. may even write some additional tunes and get my fawmon. probably not. i'm a postponer at heart.

tomorrow i'll be going over to work with christin after i get up, which should be fun, provided i can get enough sleep. it's also thursday, which means yummy cheese logs for me. i didn't get one last week, and i'm jonesing! and apparently i never finished this last night. what else can i say about it? umm. i played some wow, and i talked to my friend justin about really bad 'screamo' bands. like, really bad. like, unbelievably bad. lol. yeah, that's pretty much all i can think of to say about that. i'm going to post this now, and endure the inevitable shame of late posts.

Drunken Uncle

today was a day of non-accomplishment, in the sense that there were a lot of things i wanted to do that just didn't get done. i wanted to make some headway into recording my song for tomorrow, but that didn't happen. christin stayed home from work, which threw me off a bit, but the major thing was the noise, noise, noise! i couldn't sleep at all last night, so i got up super late. took care of the wife, made her chicken noodle soup, then did my rounds on the interwebs while i ate soup myself. campbell's chunky soup sucks without adding a ton of salt.

went to work, which was a bit more stressful than usual due to the yearly store review tomorrow. the big wigs from corporate are coming to assign an alphabetical score to our store, which apparently is the equivalent of retail apocalypse 2011 the way people were freaking out. had to clean a bunch extra, and had to have a manager inspect my cash wrap after i dropped the bags off at the cash office. it was fine, of course, i'm quite clean at work. it's a pretty amazing contrast. buffy is getting goooood. they're really building up 'the big bad' in this season. i did get some work done on the song, and i know what it's going to sound like now. worked a bit on the programming for the 'full band' version, which i hope to finish tomorrow.