August 2004 Archives

Today was supposed to be one of those Big Days Where Bret Gets A Lot Of Stuff Done (BDWBGALOSD), just like last night was supposed to be. And to be honest, I think I really did get quite a bit accomplished ... just probably not what I should have been getting accomplished. It's a standard practice for me, really. When faced with mountains of tasks and schoolwork, I'll do all the random tasks before even thinking about the schoolwork. I know I'm not alone, and this is probably a tired cliche among college kids. But things can't become cliches without having at least some true application, right?

At any rate, Wesley stuff is winding down, and class stuff is winding up (or at least, I'm self-imposing some wind-up on my classes so I don't get behind so early in the semester). Most of this is simple reading ... so far. I do have one class that is absolutely terrifying me, however, and that is Creative Writing. Anyone who knows me knows that I can write, and that I enjoy doing it, but I really feel like I'm outclassed in this situation. I'm more than likely letting my fear of writing total crap get in the way of writing anything at all, which is one of the first no-no's. We'll see how this turns out as the semester progresses. I may use this blog as a testing ground for some of my writings, a la Wil Wheaton and probably some others. My writing tonight is rushed, at any rate, because I'm tired and need to get back to reading.

However, because I like having something fun for you to look at during these entries, and since this blog isn't that structured anyway, here's some counts for today:

Number of iPod headphones: 5
Number of popped polo collars: 3
Number of comfy sweatpants bought at outlet sale: 1
Number of Pocket Rocket scooters sat on: 1

Yes, that's right, I saw someone else with one of those scooters I spotted a few weeks ago: Wesley's very own John H.! This tickled me to no end, since he used it to come over here to drop something off tonight. Another mystery solved, since I now know what they're called! He let me sit on it, but apparently it's his friend's. He's currently trying to get another of his friends to buy one, so he can justify getting one to form a gang. Sounds good to me, though I'd have to think about what such a gang could be named...

William Shatner has a new album coming out soon. In October, to be precise. Ben Folds, with whom Shatner collaborated on Folds' Fear of Pop album, is behind this project as well, producing and writing many of the songs. Other notables like Joe Jackson, Brad Paisley, Henry Rollins, and British author Nick Hornby help out with singing and playing and writing some of the tunes. This isn't even Shatner's first foray into the music scene, as Trekkers like me know: all you have to do is look back to 1968's The Transformed Man and revel in the song choices.

Mark my words: this will come to be known as the album of the century.

Here are some things I love:

-Being goofy enough to help Bobby draw a tattoo on Gina's tummy. It started out being a whistling guy around her belly button, but I think the guy got cross-eyed and maybe drunk by the time we were finished. She retaliated by drawing a "Gina" heart on my arm, and some kind of bunny on Bobby's.

-Late night runs to Kroger for toothpaste. "Man, we're gonna have a crazy time on this Thursday night with our toothpaste!" Gina said as we walked down Kroger's aisles, while all the other kids our age were walking to the checkout with cases upon cases of beer. And, like all other trips to Kroger, we ended up buying lots of other food that we suddenly remembered we needed.

I think this night is a direct result of the wood varnish this guy's been putting on our staircase over the last few days. It's getting to my head, surely! I don't think he's using the ScrewFix kind, though, but it would be funny if he was.

For the longest time back home, I was regarded as someone who knew a lot about computers, and thus people would come to me when they invariably had a computer snafu. Most of the time I sort've knew how to solve what was wrong, but sometimes I just got lucky, or used some kind of good vibes to force them to start working. Other times, I just used sheer intimidation to get the job done. All I'd have to do is walk toward the computer, give it a sneer or perhaps a couple of insults, and maybe even whap its monitor if it was looking particularly stubborn. But I jest, and I digress. I know a decent amount about Windows computers, which I realize is only a small part of the spectrum, and probably not very cool when it comes to computer geeks. So, I don't call myself one, and I just try to get by with what I can figure out on my own.

Tonight must have been a cross between intimidation and sheer luck, because I got Gina's wireless Internet card working with their apartment network with very little effort. But hey, I'm not complaining! Quick fixes are always nice, especially when they result in a grateful girlfriend. I may not be a computer whiz, but at least sometimes I can be on a roll when it comes to fixing things. (Yes, I can be on a roll even when the hot dog cart doesn't say it.) Next up on the fix list: my finnicky media hard drive!

Although this hard drive, I think, isn't scared of me and has a pretty thick head when it comes to insults. I'll have to resort to technical knowledge ... or some Internet searches ... and probably some CpE's.

I just have some quick little notes for today. Some quick reflections, if you will. Quick is essentially the name of the game, at any rate, so call them what you want.

... Open house for Wesley, as well as general recruitment, is going pretty well. We're at least on par with recent years.

... I think it's going to be much harder finding friends in the classes where I don't already know people, since this ISE class of 2005 seems to be either a really tight-knit group or rather standoffish. I could be wrong. Time will tell.

... USA!

... Being able to stay up later is a great thing for me. My body not letting me stay up late, however, is not so great. After this first week, I can only hope that things will even out as they should.

... One of my class syllabi just mysteriously vanished within about five minutes of me shuffling papers around and organizing my binders. How? It's unknown.

... I'm a little scared of my Creative Writing class, but that's only because I'm not confident in my ability to churn out quality fiction anymore. It's just been years since I've sat down to write an honest-to-goodness interesting short story. There's no time like the present to start thinking about ideas, though. In fact, the present is just the time to think about writing - since I have to write and all.

... I feel like I'm behind on a lot of things.

I took a few days off from posting, as I mentioned earlier, to help out with Wesley's loft sale and go down to Rob and Melissa's wedding in Petersburg. How did all that go? Well, the wedding was very nice, and I'm very happy for the both of them. It was also great seeing a lot of my Wesley buddies from the past four years again, for one last time during the summer. The only downfall to the weekend was the rain. With it being an outdoor wedding, the downpour that hit a half-hour before the ceremony pretty much ruined any chance that we could play in the wedding. I wish it had worked out, since we'd practiced so hard, but I didn't feel too let down. It was an honor just for Rob to ask us to do it.

Loft sale went spectacularly for another year, since we cleaned out all our inventory, and now I'm trying to switch gears back into New School Year mode. It's a lot more challenging than I thought it would be. On one hand, I'm basically more prepared for all my classes than I ever have been, having done this fall semester thing three times (and four times for Wesley stuff) before. On the other, I have to deal with a slight fish-out-of-water syndrome, being one of the few people left around here from my class. These things take time to adjust to, I realize, and hopefully I'll get it smoothed out soon.

As I've looked back on the summer, it went quickly after all. I learned a few things about work and balancing other things with it, and I feel like I really did accomplish a lot. Between work and two summer classes, preparing Wesley for a new year, and weekend weddings and road trips, I was a busy guy. That's one thing this school year should provide: more free time! Looking back at all the entries from the summer (and my digital picture galleries, when I get around to them) should give you a pretty solid idea of how it all shaped up for me.

For now, it's time for the last bit of unpacking I need to do. Oh, by the way, Gina sent me sand in the mail today. It was cool.

I've settled back into my digs at Wesley again, where I'll be staying for the majority of the school year. Today was a long day full of packing, driving, unpacking, and helping with Wesley's yearly loft sale. The way things are looking now, that sale will be over by Friday, which will be spiffy.

Right now, my room is at version 3.5, but I'd like to be able to upgrade it to version 4.0. The only thing is, there's not that much more I can do to it to save space or change its looks. I've gradually perfected the room over my years here. I suppose I can just get rid of some of the junk that's threatening to climb up from under my bed and shelves, but that would hardly merit a five-tenths version increase, I would think. I'll just have to get creative again.

Speaking of creativity, the fourth and final wedding of the Wedding Tour 2004 is fast approaching, and I've been practicing the music for it dutifully. The guitars are ready, though I might give them a polishing. I'm ready, for the most part, to take one last road trip of the summer, right smack-dab before school starts.

Posting will resume as normal and at full force on Monday the 23rd, with a few tiny posts scattered throughout then. Bear with me as summer winds down (wow, what a busy and fun one) and the school year kicks off!

Also: Happy Birthday to Sarah M.! It was good hanging out at her place tonight with Jen and Sarah's parents and roommate. I got ice cream cake and some cookies, plus the chance to make some inappropriate magnetic poetry, just like the good old days.

Howdy folks. I haven't posted the last few days because I've been enjoying the transition from Working Stiff to Lazy College Student on Summer Vacation. Granted, soon I'll be College Student during Fall Semester and probably pretty busy again, but that's all the more reason to enjoy these few slow days. I'm writing from home today, recharging and having a good time doing it.

So what was this Day of Change I kept alluding to last week? Well, it's pretty simple, really: a lot of things changed on Friday the 13th. Tim moved out of the basement at the end of the summer session. I completed my last co-op term. The 2004 Athens Olympics had their opening ceremonies. And the new Subway in Kent Square was supposed to open. But curses, they were behind schedule! It appears I won't be among the first to grace its sandwich building goodness, after all. Yes, I love Subway and will defend its faults till the end.

From the concerts desk, I went back up to the Mountain Stage in Charleston last night to catch a concert from the Mutual Admiration Society, whose album I plugged a few weeks ago. They lived up to the hype quite well. MAS's touring group is Nickel Creek, Glen Phillips of Toad The Wet Sprocket, John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin fame, and Pete Thomas from Elvis Costello's band. It was an eclectic lineup, but it was such a hoot to see them perform songs from the MAS album, plus a few Nickel Creek and Toad tunes, with some Zeppelin and Beatles teases thrown into the mix. I'm sad to say their tour is wrapping up soon, but if you're near Arlington this week, I'd go check them out at the Birchmere. I also got a chance to talk to Sean Watkins after the show; he's a pretty cool guy.

I've got a lot of neat things planned for the rest of the day. Talk to you all soon!

I'll get back on track soon, but the past couple of days I've been attempting to make sure the Trojan horse file I got infected with was completely gone. Yes, it's been a busy couple of evenings in front of the computer. I'm not entirely sure which variant of this backdoor-type file I got was, but it seemed to match up with a few that I found on Symantec's site. I think I have it under control, and thanks to my summer-roomie Sarah, I think we caught it before it passed on any sensitive information. We can only hope, though, and I suppose time will tell. In the meantime, it's time to change a few passwords and reinstall every computer security program I can think of.

Tomorrow: the Day of Change!

Tonight: Tom, Gina, and I made a sign out of a sheet, with some funky paint. More are on their way. Gina's also got a new name.

Tuesday evenings aren't usually the ones that you would expect to be crazy and funny, but tonight's sure was. A few of us went out to O'Charley's for a farewell-to-Blacksburg dinner for Otey, which was fun in and of itself. The rest of the evening from that point on totally counteracted the terrible commute home I had today, when it seemed that every stupid driver on the road had come out at the precise moment I was trying to get back from work. But I'm not going to dwell on that, because many things were pretty cool and hilarious from tonight.

The first thing was Gina's comment when she dropped her knife at the restaurant: "Now, a gay person is going to come visit in the morning." Apparently, this is some wives' tale that she heard, but I'm convinced she was just making it up (more than likely, anyway, despite some evidence to the contrary).

The other big highlight of the night was our discovery of the Firm Sculpting Stick at Walgreen's. It's marketed as some sort of exercise equipment, but it was stocked on Walgreen's shelves just underneath the Donut Express. Coincidence? Hardly. Otey knew their actual plan: to entice you to buy both items, then use the Firm Sculpting Stick for its actual purpose of having someone beat you with it every time you went for some donuts. Eventually, you'd get a conditioned response of pain every time you even saw a donut. There's your diet right there. It might be a bit violent, but I guess it's just another sign of our weird, wild times.

This week, like all the others have been lately, is going to be a busy one. I'm counting down to a Day of Change on Friday. (Cue the ominous music.) I'm attempting to complete several other projects, including work and my class, by the end of the week. The payoff? Having a few days left over before fall semester starts to relax and play around with things on this site that have been needing some attention. I already updated the main page, but it's mainly a figurehead, anyway. The only thing I know for sure is that I could certainly stand to learn some more CSS and HTML code, but I don't have the time right now.

... I think my second hard drive is about to die. I keep getting delayed write errors when I try to copy files to it (mostly .jpgs from my digital camera or the random music file). All web research points to this happening right before a fatal crash. Everything's backed up in the meantime, but I'd sure like to try to save it. More tinkering and puttering.

... That's all on the heels of a potential virus I might have gotten. A couple of Norton sweeps and a round of spyware removal later, I'm still a bit paranoid. All I know is the file that I thought was safe disappeared when I clicked on it, and it turns out it had a hidden .pif extension. Not good, not good at all. I'll keep hoping my computer doesn't start acting funny, but if it does... more tinkering and puttering.

... The summer has gone by so fast!

I just got back from Blacksburg's annual summer festival, Steppin' Out. I'd only heard of it in passing before this year, because I've always been busy or out of town during all my other summers in college. And until tonight, I never really knew why they called it Steppin' Out, but I have learned the secret. Basically, a majority of the Blacksburg stores, restaurants, and other retail establishments step out of their stores and into booths on the streets. Throw in some traveling booths of various arts and crafts and some live music, and you've got yourself a festival. I enjoyed being right in the middle of it all.

Gina and I ate on the Henderson lawn, listened to a latin band jam, and watched some high school kids be high schoolers. The guys dressed in their trendiest clothes, tackling each other, passing the football and nearly taking out innocent bystanders, and flirting with the girls ... those were the days, eh? Watching them made me realize how much growing up you end up doing during college, whether you like it or not, and I felt older for the first time in a while.

But that only lasted for a few minutes, 'cause then Gina and I started dancing to the latin beat down the street, weaving in and out of people on our way to the next booth ... and I forgot all about feeling weird.

First off, some old business: I wanted to give a few more fun highlights from last weekend's BIG road trip squeezed into a little one. I'll skip the DVD features for a more traditional commentary, though:

...During that same weekend, I got to sample some Arabic food, in the form of kibbi, a sort of meat-filled roll. It was quite good. If I had a picture of it, I'd show you. I also beat Gina at Uno, 3-2, in the ultimate match-up of the century. It's been a while since I played, but I got my skills up to snuff in time to pull off the win! Rain was another major feature of the entire weekend, causing some trying times being stuck in traffic ... but we survived. On the way back, Heather directed Gina and I through some backroads from Fredericksburg to Charlottesville, which were also a blast. Gina was driving, and while she wasn't as used to roads like that as I am, she did a fine job. We called it her Ultimate Driving Skills Test. We also found an absolutely gorgeous, glowing little church lit up in the foggy night sky somewhere in Albemarle County. We decided we'd have to come back to take some pictures of it one day. All in all, an eventful and fun-but-tiring trip.

...As for the past few days, all I've got to show for this week is a sleepy head and a finished Marketing book. My next-to-last test is tomorrow, and then I'll be spending part of this weekend getting the rest of the assignments done. Then I'll actually have a few days of sweet freedom!

...This just in: Gina has been fighting with the vacuum cleaner tonight, and in retaliation, it ate her cell phone charger. Snapped the cord right in two. Nasty little bugger!

...I'll leave you with one final story; probably one of the funniest things I've seen in a while. On my way to C'burg from Gina's apartment this evening, I was passing through the parking lot nearest to 460 when along came a most unusual rider. He was a muscular college-aged guy wearing a cowboy hat, riding on the tiniest scooter I've ever seen. This wasn't a stand-up model or a Segway, no sir; he was sitting down, using mini handlebars, with his legs bunched up and barely hanging onto the floor of his brightly colored ride. He knew I was cracking up, I think, 'cause he just gave a semi-cocky smile as we passed each other. It made my day. Do any of you guys know what those little scooters are called (and possibly where I can get one)?

Prologue: I meant to write about my past weekend the first two nights I've been back, but I've just been too darn busy and/or tired. That hasn't really changed, but I'm going to split it all up into a two-parter again. I'm also going to bump the new music post until a bit later in the week, like tomorrow maybe.

As I mentioned earlier, this past weekend felt like a week-long road trip crammed into just Friday through Sunday. It was a lot of fun, though, and it was great seeing everyone I got to see. In fact, it was the large cast (with a few cameos) that made it seem like such a robust trip. Instead of writing a long story for it all, I'm going to save some time and bullet out what you would see in the liner notes and on the back case if you were buying the DVD of this weekend.

... On a balmy Saturday afternoon, Bret and Gina drive back from the local delicious Panera Bread store only to see a car pulled over by a Maryland Park Policeman ... on horseback! Watch as the policeman calmly writes the ticket while still saddled, much to the chagrin of the lady who was caught speeding. (The only thing worse could be being stopped by a cop on a bicycle.)

... Watch as assorted grandparents, parents, step-parents, and Bret and Gina gather at the El Mariachi restaurant for a wonderful dinner of South American food! Nope, it's not just Mexican this time. But they'd better watch out, because somebody is likely to spill water on themselves!

... Look for appearances by G-Town Langley, Daryl, Rob, Heather H., Mitzi the happy dog, and many more celebrity guest spots!

... When our heroes drive to Rob's new apartment in downtown Arlington, they discover that it's next door to where Gina's stepfather works! And what's more, it's across the street from the mysterious Dr. Dremo's lair, which Gerritt and Daryl had visited just days before. Will our intrepid crew be able to gain access to Rob's hotel-like apartment building in time to use the bathroom? (Yep.) And does Rob actually have a view of the Washington Monument from his place? (Also yep.) It will be a test of all of our heroes' wits before they find out!

Okay, this could go on a while. There are more interesting tidbits to talk about, though, so stay tuned! The Special Director's Edition DVD will be out soon.

Under the cover of a horror-story moon and patches of never-ending rain, Gina and I have finally made it back to Blacksburg. This weekend has felt like a week road trip squeezed into two days and three nights. I will say for right now that it was good seeing everybody that we saw, and that I'm really tired. So I think I'll go to bed. Sorry for keeping you out late, Gina! :-o

Weekends never end sometimes. Sometimes feelings don't, either. Or screwing up. That's one of my own deep thoughts.

EDIT: If you note the time this was posted, you'll realize that I should probably never post while I'm on the verge of going to sleep. The writing quality just gets worse and worse as it goes along... man, I hate dreary Mondays.