Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind?

Well, it's New Year's Eve, and most likely I won't be watching the ball drop in Times Square. Not sure what I'll be doing instead, but I've never much of a fan of watching people freeze in a big crowd--watching people in general, yes; just not so much on t.v.

So today I finally took my car in to get the screw taken out of my tire, and it only took 3 hours!!! Well, the actual tire repair only took about 20 minutes; it just took them 2+ hours to get to my car. So I got to wander around the shops nearby (and amazingly, I didn't buy anything but lunch).

And I was able to take my tire in this morning because I couldn't swim: my club team has been kicked out of our normal pool so that a bunch of college swim teams can come train with it.

Where I usually swim

So the Masters group I swim with is now practicing at Ft. Lauderdale High School ("Home of the Flying L's" apparently; not exactly sure what a flying L is tho...), but I guess we didn't get pool time today. But on the plus side FLHS is actually closer to my house than our normal pool, so I don't need to drive as far... although that does cut down on some of my prime phone call making time.

But, in any case, have a good new year. Maybe I'll go check out a movie this afternoon...

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And days o' auld lang syne.

5 golden rings, 4 calling birds...

Now, I believe it's either the fourth or fifth day of Christmas, depending on what day one is supposed to start counting, but I figure, given the international dateline et al, that somewhere at this moments it's the 5^th day (cause it's already tomorrow in Australia).

Oh, btw, I'm back in Florida, and things go alright. Work got it's internet connection back, after not having it since Hurricane Wilma (yes, 2 months).


"...People go absolutely berserk at that point
....They come running in from other rooms...
....The rest of it, we don't know;
....12... monkeys mating, 11... donkeys dancing, 10... pigmies farming,
....9... socks a... swimming; FIVE GOLDEN RINGS!
....This is a human thing. We only like to learn a little bit of a song..."
..........Eddie Izzard, Dress to Kill

I'll be home for Christmas...

Well, my trip home for Christmas ends today, and with it my stable internet connection. I return to Florida later this afternoon, and for the time being, won't be able to reliably update here (so if you're wondering where I've gotten to, I'm just generally without an internet connection).

Boxing Day, yesterday, went rather well--although I managed to try to go to a bunch of closed places (but still got my stuff done, amazingly). I had lunch with some old high school friends, and I got to drive all the way up to Austin and hang out with some crewU'ers (and yeah! the t-shirt is nearing delivery--which reminds me I need to get ordering specs from Mary).

Otherwise, not so eventful, other than recovery practice was lovely (ahhhh, how I like Monday morning workouts).

wiki-wiki-wiki-wiki     ;-)

I'd like to teach the world to sing...

In perfect harmony
I'd like to by the world a Coke
And keep it company
(that's the song...)


Merry Christmas, y'all.
(and hopefully, one year soon, the polar bears will meet up with the jingle)

Said the night wind to the little lamb...

Well, before I say anything else, David Sedaris is funny. Me Talk Pretty One Day is probably the funniest book I've every read; and I'm only feeling the need to share this today because I picked up Holidays on Ice earlier. By the way, I highly recommend checking out "Make that a Double" from Pretty--it's hilarious.

Anyways...

Do you hear what I hear?
What I really wanted to mention today--on Christmas Eve--is my favorite Christmas songs. I've got 3, and I like these above others because they never fail to brighten my mood. While I do appreciate Vanessa Williams' versions of "Go Tell It on the Mountain / Mary Had a Baby" and "What Child is This", Enya's Gaelic "Silent Night", and some others, they don't inspire me like these:

• All I Want for Christmas is You (Mariah Carey)--Mariah's bouncy addition to the Holiday songbook never fails to make me smile. And while it's starting to be redone by others, Mariah's still my fave.
• Feliz Navidad--I'm not exactly sure who sings the "classic" version that I like so, but I do know it is not Celine Dion. What possessed the French-Canadian chanteuse to cover a Spanglish song, I'll never know; I just know she makes me appreciate the "real" version all the more, with its mariachi/ranchero vibe in all its glory.
• Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer (Elmo & Patsy)--From rhyming "scene of the attack" with "incriminating claw marks on her back", to its comical retelling of a normal Christmas nearly destroyed by a drunkenly stroll, this is pure holiday goodness. The video ain't too bad either. And why it got blacklisted from radio I don't understand.
  

Actually, Grandma reminds me of the biggest issues I've got with Christmas radio. It really pisses me off that radio (meaning the radio industry as a whole) feels the need to completely switch to Christmas formats before Thanksgiving (I may have even heard one start just after Halloween this year) and then just instantly switch back instantly at 12:01 a.m. on Dec.26. Now I really have 2 issues here: 1) I don't really want to hear just Christmas songs 24-7, except maybe Christmas Day; 2) I hate, hate, hate the implication that Christmastime is supposed to start in November and end with Christmas. Have these folks never heard of days called Thanksgiving or Little Christmas.... It's almost as if the marketing folks of the world are trying to convert the 12 days of Christmas to before the 25^th, rather than the time afterwards, running up to Jan.6.

I find it so bad that I consciously refuse to listen to the all-Christmas stations, which consequently means I basically don't hear any of my favorite noëls without a CD. All of which is unfortunate, because I do like to occasionally hear, say, Debbie Gibson's "Sleigh Ride" or Brenda Lee's "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree", among others. I just wish they'd interlace those with non-Christmas songs, waxing the Christmas-song toward the 25^th, and then waning from the 26^th on...

But, Bah! Enough ranting, back to wrappin'.
Felicidades y Merry Christmas.

I get a little bit closer to feelin' fine

Everyday is a winding road, or rather, everday I would be driving a winding road if I were still living in San Antonio. Now this road, which I've been driving/riding for the past 20 years or so, is the way I get to the pool. It's actually only become any kind of issue since I left, apparently, as the majority of it is now under major reconstruction.

Because of this construction, half the road is closed, so it's now done to 2 lanes from 4. Given the traffic on it, this would make the daily drive to and from work at the pool not a lot of fun. Already, the stoplights that have gone up on it, which have doubled the travel time from 7 minutes to 15-20 drive me crazy. I think I'd really be hating it's current state.

But in any case, in other news, I finally finished The Republic this morning (yeah!), and survived through practice both last night and this morning (and given that the yardage is double what I've been doing--7,000--as is the intensity). And later today I'm gonna meet up with one of my fellow Marshall/Alamo Area alums, Kathy. That is assuming I get some more packing and wrapping done...

Oh there's no place like home for the holidays

So last night after work I flew back to San Antonio for a Christmas break. And at the moment, I'm munchin' on some beef fajitas from T.C.'s... ahhhh it's good to be back.

Hmmmm, maybe today's title should've been "Feliz Navidad".... I guess I'll ponder that as I clear out the 605 emails that landed in one of my Inboxes since October 24.

Interjections! show excitement or emotion; they're generally set apart from a sentence by an exclamation point...

...or by a comma when the feeling's not as strong.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas--even though I'm not quite sure if the tree's up in the Grand Hotel, which I'm guessing is in New York City. Still things here in Lauderdale are rather festive, even if I avoided Winterfest over the weekend. Course, there's no snow, but that's ok: I'm not much on shoveling or slick streets. Anyways, today is my last work day before heading back to Texas for Christmas, so I've been frantically trying to get stuff done before my departure (like wrap presents, watch & return some DVDs, find a ride to the airport--you know the important things).

What has been up of late? Well, I finished off about 90% of my shopping, saw King Kong (which was alright--I wasn't super keen to see it, but is is a good adventure movie, if you're looking for one) and went to my swim team's and work's holiday parties (the former was alright except I paid $10 and didn't get any food because I had to leave before it was served--no I'm not bitter about it--and the latter was excellent, though I'd rather have gotten the dancing chicken than what I ended up with--tho the rattlesnake eggs I did get are rather cool).

Other than that, pretty much the only real eventful thing is that I have a screw in one of my tires, which is slowly causing air to leak out. I probably should get it fixed before leaving town today, but with all the holiday craziness I figure it would be better to wait until I get back next week. So my car will just have to be screwed for a little longer, I guess... (yeah, I know it's bad, but I couldn't resist)

Oh! the best part about going home: I should be able to post my back-logged blogs! (yeah! the crowd goes wild)









[ really posted Dec.24.05 ]

So we pray to as many different gods as there are flowers...

So worried about saving our souls.... Ahhhh, such fun, still off-line at work, and the home computer is now really screwed (may my G3 rest in peace).

But on the plus side, most of my shopping is done, and next week I'm headed home for Christmas. And while I'm there, hopefully, I get to catch up on the 2+ months of email that's backed up. On the plus side, I've got a journal to post wherever I do get back online (and then I'll start trying to be more creative here).

Btw, Court, it was not sarcasm.

Wish it were a Sunday, 'cause that's my fun day

Actually, (hopefully) most of today's manic-ness was on the drive to work, and afterwards has been rather ok. Recently, I've been trying to push my arrival time to work earlier, but haven't had much success. This is usually because I tend to not get out of the house an earlier despite my best plans (some of which is partially to blame on Buffy and Angel both being on whilst I dress--on FX and TNT).

Today, however, was an exception. I actually managed to depart the house about 10 minutes early--definately a shocker. But any advantage I gained was lost the instant I strayed from my normal path to work. This morning, due to a lack of milk and o.j. in my fridge, I decided to grab a Dr Pepper on the way to work. Since my normal route doesn't cross the path of a convenience store, most inconveniently, I turned onto an alternative street and into traffic.

Normally, my trip into work takes about 10-15 minutes, so when I got stuck on one block for 15, I knew I was in trouble. To add to this, when I could finally turn off the wickedly congested road, I had to turn away from the office as I was on the wrong side of the street. So I took a right, away from work and the convenience stores on the way to it, and doubled back to return to my normal route so I could only be a wee bit late to the office. However, when I got back around, the normally vacant train tracks I must cross had a train on them, stopped.

So I called into work, explained what was happening and got advice on a detour--way to the south. Thirty minutes later I got to the office--such a good way to start the week.

[ really posted Dec.24.05 ]

Work, work; ah don't ya be lazy...

I can mash potatoes; I can do the twist... and apparently I can also inadvertently miss a couple days of blogging. Not too much to report, tho. I finished most of my Christmas cards last night and dropped them in the mail this morning (the ones not done are for the people I still need to track down addresses for: Neil, Raul, Greg...)

I also only read a few pages of The Republic--it's pesky like that--and I'm still working on getting a hold of a local rowing club. Got gas for $2.21, which is really good for this next of the woods (although it's probably lower in S.A.). I'm supposed to go see The Chronicles of Narnia tonight (although Memoirs of a Geisha also comes out today). Oh! I also got my ticket home for Christmas and my move in January... interestingly, my December ticket was $600 (round trip), my January one was $80 (it is one way, tho). Now I ask you, is that in any way fair?

And coincidently, Dirty Dancing was on TV last night... man I'm being boring today.

[ really posted Dec.23.05 ]

Ring, ring, ring goes the telephone

The lights are on, but no one's home... Well, actually, someone's home, the phones just aren't actually ringing yet. The phones are supposed to go operational today, but I'm not holding my breath that they will. [Note: The phones actually did go up the next day.]

As for the weekend, it went well. I finished reading The Moviegoer on Saturday, so I'm now back to reading The Republic (I'm reading other books between Plato's "books"--i.e. chapters--to help manage getting through it). Actually, I've only got about 30 or so pages to go, so I may just power through the 2 remaining books and be done with it, possibly in time for my trip home for Christmas (so I can return it).

Why am I reading The Republic, you may ask? Well, kinda stupidly, it's because I wanted some insight into the cave scene in The Matrix Reloaded. Interestingly, more than just the allegory is applicable from Plato's work in the trilogy... maybe I should've taken a philosophy course at some point.

But, anyways, back to the weekend:
On Friday night, after swimming, I headed out with some fellow FLA Masters to see Æon Flux. Now, I've liked Æon (pronounced "eon" if you're wondering) since originally spying it on MTV years ago, and when I saw Charlize Theron in the role I was a tad dismayed. Mostly because in transition from animation to live-action Æon lost her way-cool ram-horn-esque coif, but also because the look of the film seemed off...

So I went into the movie a little concerned that things would be off, and they were, but I ended up really liking the movie and feeling that it was true to the original series. Now whether or not this is because I don't truly remember the shorts or because the movie actually is true to the intent of the show, I'm not sure.

The movie also cleared up a lot of questions I had about what was going on or why such and such was there--like why a fly caught in someone's eyelash was at the beginning of each show. And the cinematography junkie in mean was very happy with the look of the film. The fact that the show's creator wasn't directly involved in the movie didn't seem to effect things too much (which, in a way is sad, although I believe is o.k. with the adaptation).


Other than the movie and book, and I did some Christmas shopping (I got a moose for my sister), and helped another friend move a ridiculously heavy entertainment center into her second story apartment (and a much lighter chair and desk). Oh, and I also tried to sabotage clean up her computer, but was only partially successful--and thankfully, I was able to undo some of what I did to make it function again.

Now if only I'd get going in getting back to rowing. I've got to get a hold of the place first, which necessitates a phone...


[ really posted on Thu.Dec.22.05 ]

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

Oh. my. word. When I think of Florida, I generally envision warm, semi-tropical beaches with palms gently swaying in the wind. Not so, at least today. It's cold, low 60s--yes, I realize it's not that cold--and with the A.C. finally working at the office, it ain't too warm inside either. So, having dressed in shorts and a t, since that is what I've been wearing of late for these more labor-intensive days at work, I'm cold.

Luckily, I remembered to bring a seat top to work with me--to combat over-zealous air conditioning. Oh, and in other news, it looks like the office won't have its net connection back for another 2-3 weeks. Such fun!


[ really pub.'d on Thu.Dec.21.05 ]