Outside of work my life is pretty boring lately. With everyone else either in school or differently occupied with work or other social engagements, I've been spending a lot of time at home. Thanks to the library I have been getting my fill of movies. I've also been observing as my mom disassembles Legoland. My room of Legos is being torn apart so my parents can use the space for other storage. It's a fair deal, as I never go in there anymore anyway, but it's another vestage of my childhood disappearing forever. It's not like we're getting rid of the Legos or anything; they're just being taken apart. At some point we'll have to clean them all (they're covered in dust and some sort of disgusting film) and then they'll be packed away until I move out and get a place of my own again.

I'm pretty hopped-up on caffeine right now from having sat at GW and sipped coffee for a few hours, but I need to drain it quickly so I can get to bed. I have to be to work at 8 and morning comes quickly these days you know. Nighty night.

After returning home this afternoon I got a phone call from employment agency #2. She asked if I'd be interested, even though it's not what I applied for, in taking a 1-2 week temp job working some machine in a sign shop. Well, knowing that it would make my parents much happier if I was working, I accepted the offer. So, starting tomorrow morning I'm working at some company out in Greenville printing signs. Fun fun. It's most definitely not what I want, but if it'll get Mom and Dad off my case for a week or two I guess that's good enough. Boy, this moving home thing is one of the worst decisions I ever made.

My plans for today are not yet well-defined. I just realized about a half-hour ago that I hadn't paid my car payment yet for this month (and it's due today), so I have to run over to the credit union and take care of that. There's some job fair going on at some hotel in town today - and of course my dad wants me to go there - but all the places listed are telemarketing firms, factories, or financial institutions - none of which I have any interest in. If my dad is so interested in these places, then he can go and get himself a job working for one of them, but no thanks for me.

I just got home. I went out on the town with Corey and Erik tonight. I first picked up Erik and then we picked up Corey. We drove downtown and parked my car behind Jekyll's. We walked on over to Jim's Place, where we spent the majority of the first part of the night, and had a few beers. I saw a couple people there I went to high school with, but they were mostly negligable. Erik knew of a party going on at some guy's apartment above some store on the Ave, so we went there next. It was pretty dead, but I seemed to know a lot of people there, so we stuck around talking for a while. Corey started getting tired, but I talked him into going for one more drink ay Jekyll's. I couldn't believe how many people I knew there! Squishy was working the door (as he apparently does every Saturday night). Zak was in there with some people and so were some people who were on our trivia team last year. Crystal was there - I had previously seen her at Jim's Place also - and she told me she works there on Friday nights. Trixie came in with some guy also, but they mostly kept to themselves. After finishing our drinks (sort of), I took Corey home, and then Erik and I went to Frank's, where we met up with some of the guys who had been at the party. After consuming pizza, I took Erik home and then drove around to see if anyone else was still and active. Nobody was. I then drove home and now here I am at 4 am. I'm still a little awake, but I guess I might as well go to bed, as I have nothing better to do. I think we need to do this a little more often on Saturday nights. I guess tonight (Sunday night) Erik and I are going to go down to Peabody's in Oshkosh again. Yeah. Oh, and you can ask Erik about the "Weed Machine" thing.

Since I've tried calling every person who I know to be in town, and not a single person is available, I guess I'm going to have to make the most of the night by watching some of these movies I'm borrowing from the library. I guess it's just mostly disappointing because I'm actually feeling sociable tonight and it's all going to go to waste.

I don't understand why she'd need to deny making such a statement. I mean, any comparison between the methods employed by Bush and the methods employed by Hitler would be fairly accurate. I'll stop short of calling Bush a racist when it comes to the Arab world, but he's not far off on that respect either. Even more worrisome are comparisons possible between Bush and Saddam Hussein. Every charge levied against Hussein is a charge equally possible for levying against Bush. Bush says Hussein possess weapons for mass destruction. So does the U.S. Bush says Hussein trains terrorists. So does the U.S. Bush says Hussein is a threat to the rest of the world. The U.S. is a bigger threat to the rest of the world. Bush says Hussein oppresses the Iraqi people. Bush oppresses both the Iraqi and American people. How is it that so many Americans are so ignorant that they don't realize these truths and they think I and my ilk are the stupid one's? It's the religion. Christians are taught to blindly believe any stupid think told to them as if it were God's will. You know what people? The terrorists thought they were acting out God's will also. It's okay to be Christian and think for yourself on occassion. If even just some of you did that it would make a huge difference on why the rest of the world hates us so much.

Not much to speak of from yesterday. Following the interview, the rest of the day was fairly uneventful. I went down to the library, returned the dvd's that I had watched, and I picked up 3 more: Horse Feathers, All Quiet on the Western Front, and Branded to Kill. My dad and I went to George Webb for dinner and then we went to watch my mom bowl (Thursday night is her league night). Then we came home and I dozed off down in the Red Room watching Horse Feathers. I found my way to bed somehow.

Today has been less than exciting as well. I must have gotten too much sleep last night because I woke up this morning rather groggy. I stumbled around the house and watched a bit of tv. This afternoon I'll probably read while waiting and hoping for a phone call about a job.

I got an email today from the secretary for the German department at the U. She said that Rick is up for promotion to full professorship and she wanted to know if I could write a letter attesting to his influence on me (or something along this lines). I wrote her back telling her I'd love to, as he was, of course, the biggest influence on me of anyone at the U. I'm waiting now for her to write me back and tell me exactly what she needs.

Overall, just from what I've encountered so far, I'm much happier with this second staffing agency than I was with the first. The first seems too large and too concerned with their own advertising and public image. This second one is much more personal and personable. I just hope it leads to something, although I'm pretty sure it will.

There, now you can go on with your lives.

p.s. My mom made an On-Cor 2-pound, family-size entree last night. I don't have any idea how it could be enough for an entire family.

I find this quote taken from the Drop Bass website most amusing because he refers to Appleton as "a little town," while he is from Marshfield! Marshfield is to Appleton as Appleton is to, say, New York City - it's shit, nothing, nada. How could some hick from Marshfield, no matter how long he's lived in Milwaukee, refer to Appleton as "a little town"?!

In completely unrelated news, I always have time for a good laugh when officials decide to shut down a rave. Here in Appleton Telulah Park has been shut down all day this coming Saturday in an attempt to prevent a party which the police believe was to be a rave. Apparently police in Sheboygan went "undercover" at a party last week and found flyers for the supposed rave in Appleton. Of course, either the flyers were for a party that was nothing more than a red herring or the organizers have to be the stupidest I've ever encountered. I'd love to confirm or deny the truth, but it seems that all of the sites with rave info are drying up and disappearing. Surely most of them are casualties of the national war on rave culture, but there has to be some sort of local-ish site left that will give me what I'm looking for. Uff-da.

And now in other news, I'm not in a very good mood today, so everyone had better back the fuck off. To begin, I stepped in a big pile of cat vomit this morning. Didn't see it there on the carpet, but I surely felt it going around barefoot. Next I opened up my last bill from Xcel only to see they still have me listed as having not paid my bill for July! Fuck that! The check was cashed 2 months ago! Now I need to dig through all of my boxes and hope that I didn't throw out that bank statement and cancelled check yet. Fucking fuck. Then there's the job thing - still don't have one. It's a little late to call them back now on that job that began today and the other staffing agency still hasn't gotten back to me. What, do they check their email once a day? I just want to kick someone's ass right now. There are other things too, but I don't know who reads this, so I'd better keep my mouth shut on them. Grrr....

I went over to Trixie's a little after 9:30 Friday night. Squishy and Cory met us there and we all rode to Squishy's in his car. Oh, and he just happens to live next to the old Metallica residence on Pacific at Bates and Dunlap. The four of us started out by walking over to Subway so Trixie could get food. From there we headed down Colleve Avenue to Dr. Jekyll's (or as it was previously and more aptly named, Pat's Tap). Along the way I saw Mom and Dad (Tony's parents) driving along the Ave in Mom's new Mini Cooper. I yelled to them and caught their attention, but either they didn't recognize me or they ignored me. Anyway, we got down to Jekyll's and I had my first couple beers there. I downed a pair of Leinie's while admiring signed bank notes on the wall. One of them was signed by a certain J. Konz, who I suspect to be the man who was the first to ever get me drunk. Anyway, Trixie, Cory, and I were getting bored so we talked Squishy into leaving and heading down to Firefly. Sitting there I had PBR, and then they ran out of that so I had to switch to Rolling Rock. The seating organization there was such that it was difficult for all of us to interact, so I sat there staring at the tv or into space. As Trixie put it, I looked like the miserly old regular sitting at the beer sneering at the kids. Then we walked down to Big Belly. Some band from Milwaukee was playing there. Trixie, Squishy, and some female friends of Trixie's sat at a table, but Cory and I took up seats at the bar. I downed a couple of Miller Lite's and a shot of Jack that some guy bought for Cory and I. Some girl from Milwaukee who was with the band saw my GVSB shirt and asked me if I liked Sunny Day Real Estate. She was happy just to know I'd heard of them. She proceeded to ask me my opinion on both Fugazi and Jets to Brazil before giving me her business card. Apparently she and some of her friends write their own online music zine. I haven't gotten a chance to check it out yet. Okay, so we left there about 2 and were going to go to Illusions but they had already quit serving (what the fuck?!), so we went to Houdini's instead for the nightcap. I slammed my bottle of Miller Lite and they sent us all out after playing "Welcome to the Jungle." We congregated on the corner of College and Appleton for who knows how long. While standing out there Ben passed by and I caught his attention so he came and joined us. We ended up walking back to Squishy's where he made frozen pizza. Ben stopped over with the footage he'd shot already for his movie, but Cory wanted to get going, Trixie was going to leave with him, and since my car was at Trixie's, it meant it was my time to leave as well. We stumbled back to Trixie's leaving Cory at his place and by then I was sober enough to drive the few blocks home. It was 4 by then, so I went straight to bed.

I'll skip the less-than-exciting details of Saturday pre-sunset and jump straight to the evening. Matt called me up and invited me over to go drinking. He, Carrie, and I went to the Bar on Lynndale. I drank a few beers, Matt filled up on Jack and Cokes (the special of the night) and Carrie drank a couple LIT's. By the time we left she was pretty lit up. We went through the drive-thru at Taco Bell and then went back to their place to play Top Shop. It quickly became apparent that the game could go on forever tonight so since everyone was falling asleep we decided to just save it and quit. That was about 2 and I came home afterward. I'm not exactly tired now, but I just know my parents are going to drag my ass out of bed early in the morning to go to church. I wish I had the balls to just tell them that I don't believe in any religion (let alone their's) and have no interest in going to church, but I just don't need any more conflicts with them right now. Uff-da.

This cleaning job has allowed me to re-discover some items I had either forgotten about or didn't realize I still had. In addition to notebooks upon notebooks of things thought lost, I also discovered the NMA handbook, the Freak-of-the-Day book, and the original Innerground among many other things. While I've thrown away quite a bit, rare gems such as those listed above have moved into a new archive.

I didn't go out at all last night, but the night before was the first I'd really left the house since moving back home (not counting the trip to Minnesota or the 2 hours spent at Matt and Carrie's on Labor Day). Wednesday night Matt, Carrie, and I went to the martini bar. We spent quite a bit of time there sipping drinks from glasses that reeked of cleaning fluid. We later went back to their place and watched tv. Ben stopped by with some food from Dahmer-no's but didn't stay long. I left about midnight so they could go to bed. Driving past George Webb I saw that Trixie was working so I stopped in. Shane (of Appleton Imports fame) was there, having just come from a foosball tournament at some bar. I sat at the end of the counter closest to the smoking booths talking to Trixie when she was on break and several others when she wasn't. I hadn't intended to stay long, but she and the other employees kept refilling my coffee cup. Finally sometime after 3 I started hiding my cup so they couldn't keep filling it. I think I made it home by 4.

So the weekend has come and I don't have a job lined up yet. Although it's only been a week since I signed up with the staffing agency my parents are getting antsy for me to find a job. I promised my mom earlier in the week that if the staffing agency hadn't found me anything by the end of the week I'd go put in my application elsewhere come Monday. Well, I guess that's what I'll be doing. I'm not totally penniless though, as a check for my security deposit came today from Minneapolis. I got the full amount back, so that's another $500 to keep me going for a while. My dad is already freaking out about my ability to make my next car insurance payment, and that's not due until the end of November/beggining of December! It's only been 2 weeks yet my parents' nagging is already really getting on my nerves.

Molly and I went to see One Hour Photo Saturday afternoon also. I'm not sure yet how I'd rate it, but it turned out to be a little better than I had expected based solely upon the opening sequences. I see the Uptown is showing the re-released version of Metropolis starting on Friday, but of course i won't be here.

Okay, I should go. I need to get to bed so Molly can get to bed. I also need to get up and get on the road in the morning. Nighty night!

The current plan is that I want to go to see One Hour Photo at the Uptown at 2:45. Doors for the GVSB show aren't until 9 - that's for the 21+ show. The all ages show starts if course nuch earlier.

Time to go - I'm getting hungry and smelling Justin's turkey leg and saurkraut aren't helping any.

I'm not planning on getting any of that done tomorrow either. I have an interview with the staffing agency at 8:30. I'm planning on leaving for the Twin Cities right after that. Molly and I are going to the Twins game tomorrow night. Oakland pulled off yet another win last night, but hopefully Minnesota can make the streak end at 20 tomorrow night. Saturday afternoon I want to go see One Hour Photo at the Lagoon. Saturday night is the GVSB show at the Entry. Sunday I'll drive back here (hopefully in time to catch the better part of the Packer game).

I went out running this morning. Convinced that I need to lose 40-50 pounds, I figured exercise might need to be involved. I actually made it all the way around the block. Afterward I was stiff as a board. I walked over to the elementary school and back, but that just made it worse. When I returned home I stretched, which helped, but I was so stiff that stretching was no easy task. It doesn't help any that I don't currently own any running shoes. I wore my regular shoes, which I'm sure are the reason my back was so sore when I was done. I'm not in pain now, but I might be tomorrow morning. Uff-da.

1. Let's quit bull-shitting; the real intent of the proposal is to curb cruising on the Ave. The problem is that this forces the teenagers elsewhere in town. Not only will they pick a new strip for cruising, but the police will be forced to branch out more in their patrols.
2. Closing the main drag through downtown does nothing but cause a traffic nightmare. I'm all in favor of pedestrian zones, but not when the pedestrian zone closes the main east-west route through the center of town.
3. There isn't a damn thing to do downtown other than drink. Closing the streets just better facilitates pub crawls.
4. The argument is that closing the street off proved very popular for the celebration of the re-opening of the street. Yes, that may be true, but that was a one-time opportunity. People in this town aren't going to come out every weekend to do nothing.
5. Wouldn't it make more sense to close the street when people are awake and the shops are open? Closing the street after 9 on Friday and Saturday nights achieves nothing, as most people in this one-horse town are already going to bed and there is nothing for them to do downtown even if they weren't. Once again, we're back to points #1 (this is only being done to curb cruising) and #3 (we're only going to facilitate pub crawls).

Maybe I'm just dumb, but I don't understand how 14 of the 16 alderpersons voting didn't see the sheer stupidity of this idea. I'm starting to hate this town.

Okay, so I have to spend this afternoon cleaning stuff out of my bedroom and preparing things to be moved. I told my dad I'd have everything ready for the bed and dresser and things to be moved when he came home. It's not like it's some sort of requirement, but it is something that I'd like to have done. I also have to do some vacuuming so I can put the couch and tv and things downstairs in the Red Room. They're all in the basement already, but there's no room in the Room to put any of it right now.

I made strides today toward finding a job, which would occupy at least part of my day. I called the staffing service this afternoon and set up an appointment for Friday morning. I have to bring with me my resume on paper and disk, 2 forms of ID, and 2-3 business references. I hope they don't mind that none of my references will be local. I'm bored, I'm bored, I'm so bored, I'm bored.

Pfft. Yeah, the Twins. I leave town and they can't win a game. Last night was loss number 5 in a row. It was also Chicago's 6th straight win. Let me remind everyone that the season isn't over yet and that magic number is still firmly placed at 13. What it needs is a push.

We moved my stuff out of my apartment Saturday morning. We didn't finish moving out and cleaning until a few minutes after noon, but since we (actually, mostly my mom) did such a good job of cleaning (meaning less work for him), the maintenance guy didn't charge me for getting out late. My dad headed straight back, but my mom rode with me and we stopped for lunch. After getting back to Appleton, we unloaded the vehicles and then went to Frank's for dinner. I came home and fell asleep before the tv. I did a little work on my bedroom and watched some tv on Sunday. Sunday afternoon I went over to Matt and Carrie's. Mom made dinner, so I came home for that. Then I went with Mom and Dad and my aunt, uncle, and cousin to see the worst movie of the year: Episode 2. I'll get more into that later. By the time I got home I was tired again, so even though Matt and Carrie invited me to come out for a drink, I stayed home and fell asleep before the tv again. Those same relatives and my grandma are coming over for lunch today.

Similar to Episode 1, I only went to see Episode 2 because my parents were paying. I don't know if even that was worth it. The script was so completely horrible and cliched. The computer graphics were about as fake as computer graphics can be, and unfortunately almost the entire movie was constructed using them. Have model and set building become lost arts? Worst of all was Hayden Christensen. He's worse than Arnold and Stallone combined! He's not good looking, he looks nothing like the kid who played Anakin in the last movie, and his range of acting consisted of one facial expression which he tried to use in every situation. Episode 2 was so bad that it almost made Death to Smoochy look Oscar-worthy. Ugh.

How about those Twins? I didn't really catch any of Saturday's game, but those A's are tough. Although the Twins didn't seem to play that terribly, the A's were just up to every challenge. Most amazing had to be yesterday's game and the 9th inning. What are the chances that Michael Cuddyer would hit a homerun off Billy Koch and Corey Koskie would hit his first homerun since early July in the same inning? Even more unlikely is that Oakland would come back with a game-winner in the bottom of the 9th. With thw current 4-game losing streak and Chicago's 5-game winning streak, the magic number had held at 13 just as the division lead has dropped back down to 13 game again. Should we be thankfully that the Twins are moving on to Seattle tonight? With Eric Milton making his comeback, I should think so. Even so, Johan Santana, who has been filling for Milton, is the last starter not to lose....