Busy Busy Busy

Ahhhh my poor neglected blog, it is starving for some content.  That's what I get for not making the time to write.  I've been hearing a lot about that lately from a writing related podcast I have been listening to.  I will make the time for it soon enough.  Now that summer is winding down, that means less time being spent outside on activities.

Of course, another good distraction as of late has been the return of CW to DC.  If you haven't heard it already, it's official now in that we are together as a couple.  He's already started to meet my friends and they seem to like him, plus I've started to meet some of his friends as well, and they seem to like me, so it's a good sign of things to come.

Music To Make or Break

Ever since I was young, I've been one of those folks who pays attention to the background music being used in the scene of a TV show, movie, or even video game.  I think it started with Looney Tunes.  I would notice the music being used in each scene and how each bit of it was used to convey more emotion from the scene.  As I got older, I started paying more attention to movie soundtracks, and could recall certain scenes of movies just by hearing a bit of the music that was used.

Then there's video games.  My favorite video game series is The Legend of Zelda.  I've been playing it since the first one for the NES, and I've almost taken back my title of having played and beaten every single one that was made.  Well who didn't end up having the original theme become an earworm for them at some point or another?  Then the series started becoming more music based, starting with Ocarina of Time.  In nearly every single produced after that, you're using music to advance in the game, whether it is playing an ocarina, conducting a magical baton, or howling into the sky.

What I really like though is when I can start hearing familiar themes being built on and used again in a whole new way.  As I have been playing through LOZ:Twilight Princess, I have noticed how the background music is now based off of a theme of Ocarina of Time, or a wolf song is from a prior game.  Considering that Twilight Princess is supposed to take place in between Ocarina of Time and Wind Waker, it's fun to try and pick out the original themes that the new music is based off of.  Of course, some areas use the same music (Zora's Domain) used in prior games, and that can work, but I like it when I can hear an actual remix.

As I've gotten older, I've begun to think more about how the music I hear helps me in recalling something and what my feelings are on it.  What may make a movie go from good to great would be if I could get into the music with it.  My favorite scary movie, besides the actual plot, would be the original Halloween.  You listen to that piano theme and it sets up those feelings of being out somewhere along in the dark.  It's the same with video games.  I've been listening to some old themes lately, and what I realize is that while Nintendo may not be for the most hard core of gamers, they write some of the most gorgeous music I have ever heard.  Maybe that's a reason why I have stuck with them over the years.

It's fun to be able to find this sort of stuff, and I can only hope it continues this way.

State of the Mangi

So I have been amazingly quiet the last few weeks on my blog, and that is solely due to life.  I have several things I want to write about that have been rattling around in my head, but just no time to really sit down and write them out, but they will be written.  Along with that, there's the things I wrote down (on paper no less) during my trip overseas that I would like to put up here.  Now that I have finished with getting all the photos organized, uploaded, titled, and tagged over on my flickr account, I can cross that big project off my list and move onward.

Besides that, the minute I came back, I hit the ground running with work projects, and I'm in a play, so that means lots of studying.  The month of May is going to be a busy one for me, but I can handle it.  I can't wait for summer though, I'm itching to get outside and hit some theme parks.

Metro Randomness

Just witnessed one of the funniest conversations I have heard on the Metro in a while. A  couple got on with their kid, who was probably about 6, and then at another stop a young woman got on the train and  she is holding a box of crackers and some sort of salad in a container.  After a few minutes  she notices the kid is staring at her and asks if he is staring at her crackers.  He starts  talking to her, she offers him some, but he turns them down.  Then the kid starts talking  about mice for some reason, and telling her how his classroom has one and he has seen them  running around other places.  She tells him not to mess with those mice because they are the  bad ones.  They go back and forth about this while the parents sit in amusement. He was telling about trying to handle some of the "bad mice" and they would scratch him up  and bite him and such.  You could tell he was making it up and the woman was going along  with what he was saying.  A few of us on the train were trying not to laugh at the  outrageous things he was making up.  As they were getting off the train, dad remarked "You should ask your mom about some of these mice."

Ah Metro riders, they can be a source of amusement at times.

Forgot to Mention

DB and RB's Space Battleship Yamato costumes won two awards.  First place for best uniform re-creation and Best overall costume in a Sci-Fi series.  Can't believe I missed that when I was writing about Far Point

Change My Route

With the beginning of October, it is clear that Fall has arrived. The weather has gotten colder, and the leaves are beginning to turn. However, this is also a time of year that makes me a bit paranoid when I am driving. It's at this time of year that I will start to spot more deer on the road because they're migrating and such. Mostly it's because I drive the Baltimore Washington Parkway when I'm going to/from Baltimore. There's a lot of woods, so the deer like to be around that area.

I'm always afraid that I am going to be driving down the road one night and I'm going to end up smashing into one that runs right in front of me. I don't know why I have that since I have not had a close call, but I certainly don't want one to happen either. Methinks that for the next month or two, I should take 95 to and from Baltimore so that I can try to avoid this potential problem.

Go Further, Yet Step Back

So for the last few weeks I have talked about some of my interactions with people and how it's come to make me realize that with certain groups there is a sort of mob mentality that I have just not really followed into. Part of the problem I have with it is that it seems to be very limiting. Well I was having a discussion with my mom about the situation I've been through and what I've been feeling, and she asked a rather pointed question:

Do you have many straight friends?

My response was: I could use more of them.

Mom ended up bringing in a new perspective that I had not considered before. I have become complacent about looking for GLBT people who share similar interests that I do, likely because that has felt safer for me. It's time to step out of that comfort zone and involve more than just "my own kind" when it comes to my activities. Besides, then maybe I could find people that won't look at me like I have two heads when I start talking sports ;-)

It's not that I have absolutely no straight friends either, it's just more like when it comes to the mix, it's about 75% GLBT, 25% straight, and so it would be good to try and balance things out a bit anyway. So now it's just a matter of doing it. Much like when I first had to figure out where all the gays are, now it's time to take another look at where all the straights are.

Since I'm here, I might as well visit the fact that summer has basically ended and one of the things I had said was I was suspending the BF searching and just doing my own thing. Well I am going to take it a bit further back. I would again like to continue to focus on myself and the things I like to do. I think I've also made it clear by what was said up above that there are things I should continue to focus on for myself as well. Besides that, even if I have bitched at times that I have hated doing some things alone quite often, fact of the matter is that I still know damn well that when it comes to some of my interests, I am on my own with them. It ties into the fact that I need to expand my horizons of who I socialize with. I could find more people who share similar interests if I do so.

Besides that, events that I have observed over the summer seem to be a sign that right now is not the time for me to really be getting into anything with anyone else. Every time I have really had the dominating thought internally of "I really want someone here" then there has been some drama involving someone I know and their relationship with someone else. Along with that, I've also observed people I've known falling into certain patterns when it comes to their interactions, and they haven't clued in yet on just why it is that things get screwed up for them. I want to distance myself from that as it is, but since that is not always possible, I'm taking the Prime Directive as well, and I am not going to do anything that would be seen as some sort of interference. All I am going to do is sit back and watch what happens and take my own lessons from it on what not to do.  It's not even that I feel like I need to swoop in and "save" them in some nice way, it's more like I want to deck them for being so damn stupid when they should know better.  I shouldn't have to be the voice of reason when they're supposed to be the ones who are "older and wiser."

But I digress.

Point being here is that I'm just going to do what I feel like at this point, and pay attention to what is going on with me so that I don't fall into a destructive pattern.  I think in the long run it's going to make me a hell of a lot happier.

General Stuff

The last few days have had their ups and downs.

Monday morning was spent at the local car shop getting work done on my car. The joy of rolling over 180,000 miles is that it means that there is stuff that has to be done if you want to keep it running. In this case, it meant replacing all of the tires, getting an alignment done (it apparently did need it) and also getting the power steering flushed. In the future I have to get the oil changed but I am waiting until after this next batch of fuel injector cleaner is run through the tank. Eventually I'll have to do the 30,000 mile servicing, but that will be when I have more fundage.

I have narrowed my search down to the camera I want. After some hunting and posting to a photography forum, I was led to the Nikon Coolpix s710. It seems to be one of the few point and shoot cameras sold these days that contains a full manual mode. I want something I can easily carry to an event like football or hockey. You can also bet that the next time I go to white sands, I am going to put that camera in a ziploc bag and just shoot pictures through that!

My church is participating in the labor day parade in Greenbelt, so I'll be returning to walking in that parade after taking last year off. It should be fun, if you're around you should cheer us on, unless you're part of St Georges, then you should be walking with us ;-)

I'm going to go to Busch Gardens this weekend, weather be damned (glares at TS Danny). They're taking The Big Bad Wolf out after Labor Day, so I have got to ride it now, or completely miss an opportunity to ride the very first suspended roller coaster in the world.

Tomorrow night will be a moment of geekery. I am going to Wolf Trap for the first time, in this case to see LOTR: The Two Towers while a live orchestra plays the score. My friend BG won tickets to go so a few of us get to check that out. Hopefully the weather holds up, though they claim the show will go on, rain or shine.

There may finally be a light at the end of the tunnel for some of the things that have been requiring my focus at work. With many conference calls and such, I think we have found the issue at hand, and with much testing from myself and others, it looks like we at least can make a settings adjustment to resolve part of the issue. However, we still want to know why things broke, but that is more of a question for the developers of the off-the-shelf software that we're using. We shall see what happens with that.

Weekend Update

After spending Friday night tagging items for my churchs yard sale, I was back Saturday morning to lend a hand.  It went very well for us, I ended up being surprised at how much stuff had already been sold in the first half hour of the sale before I got there.  The only snag we ran into was that we didn't have our supplies to sell hotdogs, oh well, next yard sale.

I drove up to Baltimore to meet up with DB and RB to watch the final rugby game of the season with Chesapeake.  The team did well enough to win both games against the NYC club they were facing.  DB and I got to do some catching up while RB took pictures of the game.  Unfortunately thanks to all the rain and the port a potties that had not been cleaned out the week before, the field had some funk going on.  I hope by now that Don's Johns have shown up and taken care of them, blech.

After the games we went over to Mums and had some Boh with the teams before heading back to DB and RB's place.  They had plans that evening to meet up with a friend so I headed off for home, and that is where things went to hell.  I was getting onto MLK Jr. Blvd when traffic basically came to a dead stop.  There was a wreck at the intersection with Baltimore St.  Fine, okay, yeah, it happens, but oh no, we weren't done yet.  Two intersections down at Lombard St. was another wreck, and that one was bad enough to close two of the three lanes.  It took me half an hour to get through it because there was no place to detour.  By the time I got through there and out of Baltimore, I was good and pissed off, vowing that if I was going anywhere that evening, it would be either by someone picking me up, or by Metro.  I ended up chilling out at home that evening since some potential plans fell through.

Sunday I got up and went for an early morning run.  I need to start doing more cardio exercise because I can tell I am starting to get out of shape otherwise.  I went to church and had one of the shared worship services with St James.  One of these days I need to explain this whole deal with St James right now.  After church I used my time to tackle some housework that had been neglected, including vacuuming, dusting, and mopping.  I picked up a steam mop recently to help with keeping the floor clean, it is easier than dealing with a mop at times.

Hung out with some buds in the evening and ended up watching Any Dream Will Do on BBC America.  I hate to admit it but I actually liked the show.  What was really attractive about it was that the judges who give their critiques actually have been working with the contestants during the week, so you will often hear them talk about how this person did one thing during practice when working with them, but then they didn't hear it during the performance.  We'll see what happens with this show, but it's not like I'll know because I am still giving Comcast the middle finger.

Updates

I sent my final draft of my paper to be published last Thursday.  My bosses reported that it was a good paper overall, and the comments they did have were very constructive.  Now it is time for me to write the presentation since I will be presenting within a month, eek!

The Italian dinner at my church last Sunday went well, and the homemade meatballs and sauce I made based on my grandmother's recipe went over very well.  I also got to help with some of the other cooking, and sang some karaoke as well.

Today was one of the laziest days off I have had in the longest time.  I did go to the laundromat and get all of my blankets washed.  When the coupon I have for space bags becomes valid, I am going to use it to pack them away.  I did go to a meeting to look at my church's website and see how we can make sure it gets updated and such.  Beyond that, I just kicked back at home.  It wasn't like I could do much outside due to rain.

I made awesome peanut butter cookies tonight.

I seem to have lost my SmartTrip card, which pisses me off because it means that right now I can't download my benefits.  I need to call Metro tomorrow and report it so I can recover what was left on my card, plus hopefully be able to download my benefits, even if it is a bit late.

I am so over the news about the H1N1 flu, or the "swine panic" as I like to call it.  I think it's going to end up being a whole bunch of nothing.  What does bother me though is that I could end up not being allowed to make my presentation if people continue to panic and then our governments think it's a good idea to close their borders to one another.  I actually had to do the unthinkable and purchase trip cancellation insurance for the personal part of my trip so I could get my money back if this happens.  It's so stupid that I even had to think about it.  People, seriously, just wash your damn hands and stay the hell home if you feel sick, and we'll be fine.

People Can Be Crazy

What do you do when you watch someone cockblock themselves?  Do you observe and mentally make notes so you don't do the same thing in your own interactions, or do you say something to the person?

It's just something I have noticed both times that I was out on a Friday night.  Someone I knew was working to get the attention of someone else, and right when all is going well, they do something unexpected to completely sabotage their chances.  Then they're wondering why they're not getting laid that night.

I admit, in one situation I called a person out on it, saying their actions were pretty stupid, and in another one someone already was on them about their actions so I didn't have to say anything.  Still, one wonders when it is and is not inappropriate to say something.  Not just in a situation like this, but in a number of situations that can occur in our daily lives.

Progress

My paper is nearly finished, I just have to write one last section, the conclusion, and then my first draft is done.  It is due to my bosses next Tuesday so I will have plenty of time to review and edit it before sending it to them.  I want to polish it up as much as possible because I know they are going to review and make changes as well, but I hope it is polished enough that they won't have to spend a lot of time editing.

Once my paper is edited and polished I will start writing up my presentation for the conference.  There will be lots of practicing because essentially it will be timed and I have to make sure I can keep it to 15 minutes.  It may not sound like much, but I have to make sure to hit that right time.  One practice will be at our monthly staff meeting, which will help because some of them will ask questions and it will give me an idea of what to be ready for at the conference.  I have this fear that I am going to present and I'll be asked some really difficult question or be critiqued by an audience member on some of the methodology presented.  Once I write the presentation and present the paper in a few practice runs, I'll get over it.  TB might have to suffer with at least one practice run at home.

I got a packet the other day from the Baltimore Ravens.  I am now number 2928 on the waiting list to become a permanent season ticket holder (AKA PSL's).  It is a start, considering the list is limited to 3000 and was full last year.  This is one place where the crappy economy could work in my favor because if people decide to give up their PSL's, then people at the top of the list will be offered PSL's, and if they decline them or even take themselves off the waiting list because they can't afford PSL's in the future, then it just means I get to move up faster than I would in years past.  Here's hoping I become a holder in the future.

While we're on the subject, my new Ravens license plates arrived, so I'll be sporting those as soon as I can get to the MVA to drop off the old ones.  It figures that they arrive the week I already had my AWS day, so it will be about two weeks before I can do it.  Oh well, that's how life goes.

As for my car, I love it when a simple act of maintenance turns out to be more than I expected.  I went in for an oil change and tune-up the other day and decided to get the fuel system cleaned out since I don't think it had ever really been done by a mechanic except maybe during one of the major servicing intervals.  Well that thing brought out an underlying issue that I had a misfiring spark plug, so there went some extra cash to get those replaced as well.  I just have to remember to look at it as preventative maintenance and pushing back the day that I need a new car.  Besides, with the misfiring spark plug I would have failed my emissions test a few months from now when they plugged into my car's computer to check it, then I would be in the shop getting it fixed anyway.

I noticed the other day that the Midas I used to go to is gone now, I wonder what's up with that.  Did they end up driving away a bunch of customers or what?  I know after how much cash I dropped at that place I didn't feel like going back there.  I'm just hoping this new place works out better.

Free Education

I got a nice bonus today as I rode the bus home from my Metro stop, an education on "Northern White People vs Southern White People, Obama Edition"

This is what I learned:

• Southern White People hate black people.
• Southern White People are the reason we had eight years of Bush and Cheney.
• Northern White People like Obama.
• Obama is not a racist because he grew up around white people.
• Northern White People are the reason Obama is now president.
• Southern White People hate that there is a black man in the White House.
• People are going to blame Obama for all the problems that Bush and Cheney caused.
• Obama will be a great president because there are references to the number 44 in the Bible.

Today's lesson has been brought to the riders of the R12 bus route (and now you!) free of charge thanks to your local "Crazy people who ride the bus and are on a mission to educate."

25 Things About Me (since people keep tagging me on Facebook)

So you want to know 25 random things about me?  Here goes:

1. I am technically a native of the DC/MD area since I was born at Walter Reed.
2. I have never traveled out of the country, but would like to in the near future.
3. I have kept my weight between 180-190 lbs for the last ten years.
4. I hate driving in DC, I try to plan my activities around access to Metro stops.
5. I rarely pay full price for clothing, I have no shame in shopping the clearance racks for what I want.
6. I still drive the same car I've been driving since high school, because I take very good care of it.
7. I have two piercings.
8. I have traveled to every region of the US except the deep south.
9. I have ridden 97 different roller coasters.
10. My favorite food is pizza.
11. I never really followed any one football team until I became a Ravens fan in 2006.
12. When I was younger our family had a pot bellied pig for a pet.
13. I was a competitive swimmer when I was younger.
14. I was in Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) in high school and qualified and competed at their national competition in 2000.
15. I don't keep in touch with anyone from high school, only from college.
16. I hated the taste of coffee until about 2 years ago.
17. It is my dream to have season tickets for the Baltimore Ravens.
18. I eventually want to have kids, I've been told I'd make a good father.
19. I think this is the first time I've really done a meme on this blog since starting it in 2007.
20. I didn't consider myself very attractive until about a year ago.
21. I am a sucker for facial hair.
22. I love tigers, I think they're beautiful animals.
23. I prefer dogs over cats.  If I had my choice on the dog to own I would want either a Welsh Corgi or a German Shepherd
24. I prefer a home-cooked meal to going out to eat.
25. I never expected to like computer programming when I started my degree in college.

Helping Out

It seems like I wasn't home all that much this weekend. Actually I was, but most of that hometime was used for sleeping.

Friday night TB came over for a home-cooked meal. He got to enjoy my family's version of spaghetti carbonara, some salad and garlic bread. Apparently he never had the pleasure of enjoying bacon with spaghetti.

Saturday morning we went to IHOP and met with a few of TB's friends before him and I headed over to VA to meet with CA, RB, DB, and JS. CA wanted help with painting her bedroom and bathroom; especially with the high walls in her bedroom. With all the folks there (since we knew what we were doing) we had two coats of paint up in about 2.5 hours. It was fun to sit and be able to roll on paint for the afternoon. After painting and cleanup we had dinner at a Mexican place down the road, which had some good stuff but their green chili needs more spice.

Saturday night we just flat out crashed, fell asleep around 8 PM and didn't wake up until 8 the next morning. Got up and went to church for the 10 AM service, which was good. We had some drama earlier this week due to a sprinkler pipe deciding to leak and start flooding water everywhere. It looks like we'll be able to get it fixed, but some walls will have to be redone and all the carpets and floors in the sanctuary and office area will have to be ripped up and new ones put in. Either way, life will go on there.

After church I had lunch with KW, TB left soon after to head to a friends house for the afternoon before he went to work in the evening. I got a call from him a few minutes later that I was invited over for dinner later in the day. Free food? Sure, I'll take it. I took KW's dogs for a walk around the lake with her so we could catch up further. It was good, though cold out there!

Later that afternoon I had dinner with TB and the friends, fried chicken, collard greens, green beans, and sweet potato fries. For dessert there was apple cake, mmmmm.

Now I have just been relaxing at home catching up on Netflix. Soon I shall be done with The Sopranos and then it's on to the next series.

More New Stuff

Friday seemed to be the day to do new things.

Besides attending a Purple Friday rally for the very first time, I also decided to try ice skating. Despite having lived here for three and a half years and being only about a ten minute drive from a rink, I had never actually tried ice skating. Since it was only $4 to go in the middle of the afternoon, including the rental, I figured if I sucked at it or hated it that I wasn't losing much.

I get there, get my skates, and attempt to get around the track, it doesn't work too well because I haven't tightened my laces enough. Go back, pull them tighter, try again. Okay, now I'm getting better, but my feet are being pinched like all hell. A piece of advice, consider getting skates in the next size up. Went back to the counter, got new skates, laced up and got back on the ice. Holy crap, now we're moving. I actually pick up on it easily because I have some experience from doing skating and some rollerblading as a kid. I go around a number of times, only fell once and even then it wasn't a hard fall. To me the ice is much more forgiving with mistakes on the skates than on a concrete rink floor or even out on the street. I had an enjoyable time with it, until my ankles started to hurt from rubbing against the side of the skate. Next time I am wearing two pairs of socks to see if that will help. I must have bruised the bones pretty good because it still hurts to put any direct pressure on them. Oh well, it happens.

Spike

Yesterdays entry about the bad Windows update really drove traffic to this blog.  Typically I get about 5-10 people who read every day.  Yesterday I had 349 visitors because of this windows update issue.  Apparently I was popular for a while in a Google search before everyone and their mother started reporting about this update and how it broke their computer and/or how they fixed it.  I even was used as the source for Yahoo! Answers when someone was complaining about their computer being bricked.

Finally, Taylor Swift being a homophobe is not the most popular google search that brings people to my blog ;-)

Weekend to Get Stuff Done

This seems to be the weekend to be productive, based on my own activities and the activities of some of my friends.

Saturday morning I watched the final season of Drawn Together. That's a pretty funny show, and I will have to pick up the DVDs when they're on sale. Went and met up with a couple at Ikea and picked up a few things for the kitchen as well. Enjoyed some fondue for an early dinner at their house. It makes me want to dig out the fondue pot I have and start trying out some recipes.

Later that evening I met with some folks who originally could not go to see Rocky Horror in Greenbelt and we had a bite to eat before heading to the show. The show was fun as usual, I absolutely loved it, and this time because it was the final night, the actors reacted a bit more to the audience, which made it hilarious. After all was said and done, the actors acknowledged their director and three audience members they used as plants for audience participation. Boy did I learn a lot of good lines from them :-D

For whatever reason after that, I was basically wired the rest of the night and did not fall asleep until about 2:30 in the morning. I woke up at 10:10, so it was a bit too late to go to church, oops. However, one of my friends was having a memorial service for her dog later on so I went to that instead. The service was nice and very sweet. She admitted later that this is one of the first times she got closure like that for a companion animal. I had lunch with her with a few other acquaintances before coming back to watch the football games. The Ravens won, which made me very happy. The 'skins also won, barely.

During the games I was also cleaning up the apartment; not only general cleaning, but extra scrubbing as well. The stove got a major degreasing because I discovered that under the drip pans there was a lot of junk that needed to be vacuumed out and then with a little 409 I got the whole bottom part cleaned out. It isn't easy because the stove top does not lift up like most modern stoves. I also got the house picked up, organized, vacuumed, and then scrubbed down the bathroom. The place is going to look good when the parents arrive in a few weeks.

Now I am sitting back waiting for chicken to finish baking for dinner. After that, who knows. I can't wait for tomorrow night, meeting up for dinner with Fredo and then we're going to see Tina Turner in concert. That should be an awesome show.

Companion vs Self

I must get way too optomistic at times, or Ijust dont always think that far ahead. 

I love going out and doing stuff, especially seeing live events, and I am used to going with people.  Of course, with some events, it means buying tickets in advance.  I don't know what posessed me, but for some events, instead of buying one ticket, I bought two.  Maybe I hoped that I could use them as an excuse to take a date.

The more I think about it, the more I wonder if it was such a good idea.  Some of these venues are definitely not the kind of place where you would just take a casual date.  It would be more appropriate to take either a good friend, or someone you're seriously seeing.  I do not think I will be seriously seeing anyone in November or December (nor do I plan to look for anyone) so it's a matter of what do I decide to do.

I may make a few inquiries for Tina Turner and see if there is interest among my circle.  As for the Ravens vs Redskins game, I now have an extra ticket, but I don't know anyone who is a fan like I am.  The other factor is the parent factor, my parents will be visiting and they are going to the game with me.  I dont want it to be misconstrued that if someone goes with me that they think that I must want to get serious because my parents are there as well.

If it doesn't pan out, I'll figure out what to do.

...

I swear my mother must be talking to my priest.