Even though they're playing just about everywhere else in the country, and even despite their big nights at the Golden Globes, neither Chicago nor The Hours is opening today here in Appleton. What the fuck?! Hollywood is getting a bunch of shit, while Regal is opening Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (as is Hollywood) and Antwone Fisher. Sure, I want to see both of those, but not as much as I want to see those others. I hate fucking megaplexes.

The best thing about Friday isn't that trivia starts and it isn't that I don't have to work. The best thing about it being Friday is that I don't have to freeze my damn ass off at work. I can imagine my job at Northwest Airlink being pretty damn cool when the weather is decent, but wouldn't you know it that my first week on the job would be the coldest week of the year. Talk about baptism by fire! Standing out there doing ramp work in that wind and shit out at the airport is fucking brutal.

Trivia starts tomorrow night, and Lawrence has finally released their press release. Bank of Kaukauna hints that if they three-peat this year it may be their last year. If so, let's hope they win so they drop out. I mean, come on, 40 people, 30 computers, and 15 phone lines?! How is anyone supposed to compete with that? Is this a TRIVIA contest then or is it a technology convention?

In a bit of good news, the new schedule was posted at work today, and I only have to work 4.5 hours on Sunday instead. I'm working 5:30 until 10 in the morning. Corey and I also have to be at an employee meeting at 5:30 Saturday night, but hopefully we won't be there too long.

Everyone either watched the Golden Globes last night or can read about the winners in a newspaper or online, so I'm not going to bother rehashing all the winners again. Instead, I just want to make a few observational comments....

1) Next year the HFPA needs to invest in a shepherd's crook. Drag those bastards off stage who don't know how to make short acceptance speeches.

2) Did that jackass who produced Chicago really need to stand up there wasting everyone's time doing an extended version of thanking all of the same people who had just been thanked moments earlier by both Richard Gere and Renee Zellweger? Thank you orchestra and producers for eventually just cutting him off.

3) Are Richard Gere and Julia Roberts that inseparable that he needed to make an acceptance speech that was basically the male equivalent of the speech and performance given by Julia when she won her Oscar?

4) Pedro Almodovar - you won the fucking award for best foreign language film in a category where any real competition was stifled so you could win since you're not going to win the Oscar. Get over it. Walk up, accept your award, say thank you, and sit your Spanish ass back down.

5) Jack Nicholson - right on as usual: Nicole Kidman obviously looks better with her own nose and I thought About Schmidt was a comedy also.

6) The producer of The Hours could have handled his speech much better also. I have no problem with the three female stars all coming up on stage, but couldn't he have planned for that and had them all come up together when he went up to accept the award? More wasting of my time.

7) Is John C. Reilly this year's Jim Broadbent? He's even in a musical with Nicole Kidman. Do I smell an Oscar nom for Best Supporting Actor for one of his roles on the horizon?

8) Were U2 and "Curb Your Enthusiasm" both completely surpise winners? Unlike everyone else who had very easy paths to the stage, Bono and The Edge and Larry David and his crew all had to pass through obstacle courses and find their way through the Labyrinth to get to stage.

9) Although I missed the first half hour because I was coming home from work, I have the feeling that Larry David still had the best acceptance speech of the night.

10) What was the deal with Dick Clark? Those recaps were just stupid and ill-prepared.

11) What the hell was Sharon Stone wearing? Did she lose a bet?

That is all. The countdown now starts to the Oscars.

Yes, yesterday was my first day working at the airport. I didn't think it was that hard of work. In fact, I thought it was pretty easy. Fun, too. I had quite a bit of down time, but a lot of that was because it was a Sunday and also because I only know how to do so many things so far.

My parents have been out shopping all afternoon, and my brother showered and played video games, but I spent all afternoon researching prospective graduate schools online. I still haven't made an all-inclusive list of choices, but I'm getting there. I also haven't done much indepth research. In fact, it has mostly consisted of: 1) Do they even have a film studies grad program?, 2) Do they also have a German grad program?, 3) The faculty - have I ever heard of any of them or read any of their books?, and 4) Do I stand even the remotest chance in hell of getting accepted (instantly eliminating Harvard from any and all consideration no matter whether they offer the correct programs or not). I haven't really thought about the financial situation associated with any of the schools as, unlike my undergrad years, I think the value of the education, no matter how much or how little it costs, will pay for itself eventually. What a fun afternoon, eh?

Only in America could the Anti-Robin Hood preside over the land, stealing from the poor to give to the rich. Only in America would the general populace be too damn stupid to realize that this is happening. Only in America could this Anti-Robin Hood find huge public support. Only in America, where people have the right to speak up and protest, would millions of people rather take it up the ass than protest a spoiled, rich war-monger and vote him out of office. Only in America would I be called un-American for saying these things.

Word on the street is that the new International House of Pancakes out in Grand Chute is now open 24 hours - but only on Friday and Saturday nights. I take that to mean that they're open from opening time Friday morning to closing time Sunday night. Eh, works for me. Maybe if they get enough business they'll actually go 24 hours every day.

I just got off the phone with Harry from Northwest. He said I'm cleared to work, so I'm starting Sunday morning at 9. Because I'm working with the night supervisor, I'm also working her shifts, which means noon until close Monday through Thursday. The best news then is that I'll have off next Friday and Saturday for trivia! I'll have to work Sunday during the day, but I should easily be back (barring major flight delays) for the garudas. Of course, I'll miss the Super Bowl though.

What the fuck?! I just tried to sign in and work on/view my original GeoCities site only to discover that it was gone! All gone! The Radio Free Groutflow site still exists, as does the Sputnik 6! site (which hasn't been updated in almost 3 years), but my old Planet StarRaver site is gone. Fuckin' a', man - I'm pissed!

Billy Wilder and Jimmy Cagney would love it! Venezuelan national guard troops seized a Coca-Cola plant to ease food shortages. Okay, I can understand if you seize a food plant, but Coca-Cola? I can tell you from experience, if you have an empty stomach, you do not want to be drinking Coca-Cola. Anyway, just the point that they chose a Coca-Cola plant of all places shows the power and image that the company exudes.

I just recently returned home from seeing About Schmidt. Another great movie. That had to be the most full I've ever seen a matinee movie theatre, but, of course, I was about the only one there without my AARP card. The gentleman sitting next to me sat there snorting and hacking and sneezing the entire time. The guy had to be three times my age - has he never heard of a facial tissue?! Sitting in a theatre full of the elderly was an interesting experience. Apparently, they can only watch movies by committee. Some were there in couples, but most were there in groups of three or more. This came in handy when one needed the others to explain every damn thing that happened to them. "Is he? I... maybe...." "Oh, he's retiring! That's why all those boxes were stacked up!" "Is that a... what does he have in his hand?" "I think it's a... is that a six-pack of beer?" "Oh my goodness, look at that painting behind him!" You get the idea.

Examining the "pre-show entertainment" for a moment, there were a couple interesting things. For one, I think the ad for Warcraft III was somehow lost on an audience which had most likely never owned a video game system. For two, interesting that there was a commercial for Childreach right before a film where Childreach plays a big role. Third, this is at least the third time I've seen the commercial for the new "Dragnet" before a movie there, and I still can't get over the idea of Ethan Embry in "Dragnet." I can get by the idea of Al Bundy (Ed O'Neill) playing Joe Friday, but the idea of Preston Meyers, the worst Rusty Griswold, and the guy from "Freaky Links" as Frank Smith us just too much. He looks so awkward with the suit and sunglasses and sideburns. Anyway, that's just me. At least there were no trailers for military movies like when I went to see Adaptation. They did show the trailer for The Pianist (and I was surprised not to hear a couple dozen gasps from the audience like what usually happens when the elderly see Roman Polanski's name) and Nicholas Nickleby. While I detest Dickens, and most movie versions of his books are worse than the books themselves, I might almost go see that. Hell, at least it's not Kangaroo Jack, right? That's a movie that looks like it was made with the express purpose of winning a few Razzies. Let's be honest here - it takes hundreds of people to make a Hollywood film - can't even one of them realize: Man, this movie sucks ass! Any one of the people involved should have realized the moment Jerry O'Connell was hired that the movie was going to rate among the worst. It seems that the studios have made a complete 180 - instead of putting out annual prestige pictures they're releasing annual wastes of celluloid.

Ah, Friday is here. Not that it matters that much to me, as I still haven't been able to begin work. The cats and I are hanging out in my room while The Brat is upto something or another. Apparently he decided not to go to work today and stayed out all night. He's been coming home in the morning every day, which means 1 of 2 things: either he's a raging alcoholic or he's porking his girlfriend. I wouldn't put it past him if both were true. Here I was being all quiet this morning while working out and sweeping the floors and it turned out that he wasn't even home.

This being Friday, I guess that means we're now one week away from trivia. Gnak! It seems everything is coming together, but I'm going to have to somehow unbury the computer desk in The Brat's room and get it partially pulled apart so I can bring it over to Matt and Carrie's next week. I guess I'm going to need The Brat to leave the truck around here long enough so I have something to haul it in also.

Friday also means that new movies are out in theatres. We mostly got crap this week again, but About Schmidt finally opened, so I'm going to go see that this afternoon. The commercials on tv said that The Hours was opening everywhere today, but apparently everywhere doesn't include here. Hopefully that movie, along with Chicago, The Pianist, and Far from Heaven will all make their way here soon. Big wins at the Golden Globes on Sunday could make a difference how quickly any of them get here also. I think I heard that The Quiet American is supposed to be opening to wider release next week also, so let's hope for that.

It seems that the new K-mart store in Grand Chute is among the store closings announced recently by the K-mart Corporation in their attempt to pull out of bankruptcy. Ah, just what we need - another big empty storefront in Grand Chute. Even nicer, the K-mart is one of the first retail building visible when driving east down College Avenue from the airport. What a nice way to greet people to our fair city.

I can't wait to fucking start working. I am soooooooooooooo goddamn bored. It might even make a difference if I had money, but I don't, so all I can do is sit around the house all day and watch tv. I've done that so much I'm sick of it. Okay, then I can use my computer. Fuck, am I ever sick of that. I'm bored, I'm bored, I'm really fucking bored. I want my job to start. I want something to do all day. I'm sick of sitting around here doing nothing. I've done all the nothing I can possibly think to do. I can't even write, because if I'm not doing anything I don't have any inspiration for anything to write about. Fuck fuck fuck.

Bat Boy is on the loose and Weekly World News is there to cover it all. Among my favorite Bat Boy stories involves Bat Boy Endors[ing] Gore. Classic!

I called Harry at Northwest. He said it could be a week yet before I can start. He told me that it takes longer for them to run my fingerprints through all of their files and such. Jebus, I'm not a damn criminal! Just let me start - I need the money.

In other news, I emailed the documentary guy today. He said last year he'd write me back in a couple months, but here it is less than two weeks before trivia and I still hadn't heard anything back from him. Maybe he lost interest in us.

Today is the first day of the big diet. Working out, eating better, weighing myself honestly, etc. I have a lot of work to do, but if I stick with it I'll hopefully lose most of the weight that I want to.

I sat up all night working on it, but I finally have the scoreboard configured and set up properly. It works! It really works! I was having problems with some of the tables on the index page. I know it works now on my computer, but I'm going to have to check it out later today (i.e. after I get some sleep) on my parents' computer to see if it all looks fine. Now that I have the database thing all configured and ready to roll, theoretically I could plaster the score all over. Whew, I can't believe I got it to work....

I just returned home from Matt and Carrie's. The three of us and Corey played a "rousing" game of Scrabble tonight. Carrie whooped all of our asses pretty badly. I just didn't have anything to play and Corey was saddled with some of the worst letter combinations I've ever seen, but Carrie did well with the letters she received and found all the right places to place them. Matt didn't do too badly himself, but tonight was just Carrie's night. Ben came over just as we were finishing the game. He said that he can get us 2-3 huge bags of popcorn from Hollywood for trivia. I don't actually know whether that means they're officially sponsoring us or if he's just taking it, but I figure that if we're getting it from them, that's good enough for me.

Me hun-gy. My parents were supposed to go to my dad's Christmas party after work, which I guess is a rather informal affair. Anyway, this meant that they wouldn't be home for dinner and The Brat and I were on our own. Well, just as my dad stopped home to shower he got a call on his cell phone from one of the morons with whom he is forced to work. Apparently this winner was filling a tank, left the tank unattended, and returned to find the tank tipped over and fuel oil spilled all over. Instead of going to the party, my dad is now enroute to Stevens Point where the incident took place. In the off chance that my dad actually may be able to return and go to the party, my mom is holding off on having supper. She wants me to wait also since I don't have any sort of plans until probably after 11. But I want to eat now! Yummy yummy yummy! UPDATE: I don't think my dad made it all the way to Stevens Point, but he's back already. Turns out it wasn't his coworker's fault. Something about a leg on the tank collapsing. I'm just overhearing my parents talk in the kitchen right now. Anyway, he's going down to shower now and then the two of them are going to the party. Guess that means I can eat now. Praise!

And then there was the ironic story of the Bush administration condemning another country for withdrawing from a missile treaty.... I shit you not here people, the Bush administration is officially condemning North Korea for pulling out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. How hilarious is that?! The same administration which thumbed its nose at the rest of the world and rejected the ballistic missile treaty with Russia so they could build the useless missile defense system is now accusing the Koreans of "thumb[ing] its nose at the international community" - Secretary of State Colin Powell's exact words. This is almost too good to be true! Remind me again how this guy got elected President? Oh, that's right... this is too unreal. Too unreal. Ha.

I just returned home from seeing Adaptation, which finally opened here in Appleton today. One of the best movies I've seen of 2002 and most assuredly the best screenplay. It was funny and poignant and personal and creative and introspective and dramatic and, most importantly (for me, at least), it was fun. It was aware of its own self awareness and had fun playing with it. Why does it take so long for movies such as this to finally reach this hole in the wall?

Here I was in a pretty good mood and the U had to spoil it. Having returned home from a night at Ravens with Corey, I was checking my email when I saw that I had one from Jonathan. I hadn't heard from him since I moved back, so there was a lot to catch up on. I wrote him a nice, long email recounting my past few months and hit the "Send" button. Error. Apparently the U must have finally disabled the old server which they were eliminating to cut back on all the spam infiltrating the system. Since Popmail is not configurable, I decided I'd have to move my account to Outlook. I configured everything EXACTLY as ADCS instructed me to and I tried sending again. Another error. I looked everything over - all okay - so I tried again. Another error. Grrr... I finally gave up (it being now 3:45am) and just sent my reply from another email address. I then went in to the University system and set my email to forward to another address. I hope I can figure out the problem, if not, c'est la vie.

Waiting for Corey to call me back any time now. I guess we're headed down to Raven's to check out the dj's spinning tonight. It's about time they had live dj's again! They're supposed to be spinning from 9 until close, so I think we're heading down there shortly after 9 with the hope of finding a place to plop our asses down and kick our feet up. I think Jeff and Mike are supposed to be meeting us there also, but I don't actually know, for Corey was the one communicating with them.

While checking my host's website a little while ago to see how many MySQL databases I get, I couldn't help but notice that my host had instituted new hosting plans. The new plans offer more stuff for less money. Of course, they didn't bother to tell me, so I've been paying more for less. I just sent them an email requesting that my account be upgraded so that I actually get that for which I am already paying. I mean, I've been paying this whole time for an account with only 100MB of space, but for as much as I'm paying their new plan offers 200MB. I want my double space! I also want all the other extras that I'm paying for but not getting. Grrr....

UPDATE: I have to admit that I didn't think I'd heard back from them so quickly, but I just checked my email again and there was a response from someone with the host saying my account had been upgraded. Taking a quick look at my site info, I see all of a sudden that I now have 132+ available Megs of space. Woohoo! No need to start deleting stuff now! Yay me! That is all.

Just kidding.

See Mom - alcohol is good for me.

I have quite successfully wasted away another day sitting at the computer. I spent a good chunk of the afternoon and early evening here setting up a blog on the Too Much Trivia site. Nothing really important, I just thought it'd be cool to have one to update during the contest.

If yesterday was the Orthodox Christmas, does that make today the Orthodox Boxing Day? How about the start of Orthodox Kwanzaa?

Corey and I drove out tonight to some place southwest of here. I think Corey said we were on the western edge of Lake Poygan. We stood out there in some park while he took photos of the stars letting the exposure go for several minutes at a time. After taking the better part of a roll of film, we drove back to Appleton for a few beers at Jekyll's. Being broke, Corey bought me a couple PBR's. The bartender also gave me a free MGD Lite that some moron had tried to buy with someone else's ID. Apparently the ID he tried to use belonged to a regular. Because she had already opened it, there wasn't much she could do with it, so seeing that I was drinking "shit" beer as it were, she gave it to me for free. Thanks Betsy!

Well, I finally gave up on teaching myself several programming languages I don't already know (or at least for this year) and decided to make the scoreboard on the Too Much Trivia website updatable via Movable Type. It's not the super customized ditty I had wanted to create, but it works fine. I'm thinking about creating a seperate blog on the trivia site for team members to update during the contest journaling what the team is up to at the time and what not. Haven't totally decided yet on that one though. In the mean time, I tried playing around with the "blog-end" div on my own blog, but it doesn't seem to have fixed my problem. I'll look at it again later, but for now it's time to eat.

I went on down to the Appleton Police Department this morning for my appointment to get fingerprinted. I thought I was going to leave there with black fingers, but apparently I thought wrong. Appleton no longer uses ink, but rather uses a computer and a scanner to scan in the fingerprints and then prints them out on a printer - clean and painless. I drove my fingerprints straight out to the airport then, but Harry was in a meeting, so I left them with some other guy. I'll have to call this afternoon and make sure that he got them. I also went to the bank and transfered some money to cover the check I sent out this morning. My first tuition payment was due today, so I needed to get that out in the mail. Once that check is cashed I'm pretty much flat broke. My dad is lending me $100 for my substitute teaching license, but I have to wait now for my transcript from Minnesota, because I was a moron and waited until now to finally order it when I should have done it months ago. Ah, c'est la vie.

Barring a complete and utter collapse, and also the massively powerful effects of jinx, I should like to predict right now that the Twins easily win another Central Division title in 2003. I mean, how can they lose? All the other teams in the division are losing or have lost some of their best players. Thome left Cleveland. Byrd left Kansas City. Now Fick left Detroit. About the team left with anything is Chicago (and you have to like the trade they made with Oakland to pick up Billy Koch). Still, I don't think Chicago has enough yet for 2003 to take another division title away from the Twins. Oh yeah.

Whine whine whine. Go ahead Jim Fassel - whine some more. Yeah, the refs fucked up. Millions of people watching the game saw it happen. It's not the first time the refs have fucked up and it certainly won't be the last. Everybody knows the refs fuck up a number of calls every game, but it always seems to be sore loser who has to complain about it. Same thing happened when the Vikings played the Packers in Green Bay. The refs, as always, blew some calls, and since Minnesota lost, Mike Tice (or someone on his staff) leaked the news from the league to the press. If you can't taking losing, get out of the game, because you certainly don't belong in this league. Go play in Canada.

Can anyone explain to me why this column gets wider and wider the farther down the page one goes until the left edge of the lines at the bottom are no longer readable? I've played around with everything and just can't figure it out. I've been online for well over 14 hours today, so I give up for now. Poopydog.

I've spent the better part of today working on my new redesign for this site. While searching through some old files in search of better ways to find referrers to this site, I see I have some interesting referrals again, including:

• Anthony Dilweg Biography
• Spergon Wynn worst
• high school football teams mooning pics

... and there are plenty more where those come from. In the mean time, I suppose I should let The Brat get on soon. I'm just delaying, because I know that as soon as I get off, he'll be on for the rest of the night.

For those of you not on the PantsWire mailing list - or who haven't checked out the Too Much Trivia in the Pants website in the last few hours - Too Much Trivia in the Pants has our first official sponsor for 2003... and it's a doosie: Miller Brewing Company. Damn straight. Matt got us the hook-up via work, so they're getting us a couple quarterbarrels of Leinie's. Oh yeah.

Ha-ha! I knew that if I kept my mouth shut it would work! Ohio State beats Miami and the Big Ten reigns supreme! 5-2 in bowl games! Fuck y'all.

Sorry fans of the University of Iowa - I jinxed the Hawkeyes last night. I don't mean to take anything away from USC, but anyone who watched the Orange Bowl last night knows that the Iowa team which had previously gone 11-1 was not the same team which got slaughtered last night. I take credit for jinxing the team by talking up the Big Ten last night and Iowa's chances to the end the season with a #2 ranking. When am I going to stop?

I give up. I can't come up with any ideas for a back-up lesson plan. Shit, when was the last time I had a substitute in a class and the teacher didn't leave a lesson plan? 7th grade German? I really can't think of anything else. If worse came to worse I could make something up, but to tell you the truth, this really isn't my specialty. It's one thing to be a real teacher and come up with a lesson plan based upon the overall curriculum you need to cover for the year or semester. It's another thing to come up with some stupid activity to fill in 50 minutes. Fuck it, I'm not going to do it.

Does anybody really use 640x480 anymore? According to what my tracker tells me, only 5% of the hits to this main page have been 640x480, while 800x600 and 1024x768 have combined for over 92% of the hits. That's almost as much as the 97.5% of my visitors who use IE (I think most of the hits I've gotten from Netscape have been me testing to see if the page appears correctly in Netscape). Since only 5% of you are using such small screen resolutions, I think I'm going to say "to hell with you" and make my next redesign at least 800x600. I could make better use of my full width and make everything a little less cluttered if I forget the little guy. Heh - if you still need to use something that small, feel free to scroll horizontally if you need to, but I could care less.

How is it that with so many new movies coming out and so many screens around town, only 1 movie is opening in town tomorrow? Don't get me wrong - I've been looking forward to seeing Bowling for Columbine for months, but that doesn't change the fact that I can't believe we can't get anything new. Fuck this town, man.

I hate the idea of giving up on a season with almost 5 months yet to play, but I'm starting to think that Liverpool has lost all chance at winning their 19th top division title this season. After leading the league through the early months of the season, they've now gone 10 Premiership matches without a win following their most recent 1-0 loss to Newcastle United. The real problem is though, what happened?

Can one really blame the manager when a team just begins to fall apart? Once again, I want to point out that Liverpool were top of the table when their worst slide in 50 years began. Even chancing that somewhere certain players have had bad luck, Houllier has tried dozens of different player combinations, but nothing seems to be working. He's switched from Dudek to Kirkland in goal, rotated the midfield and frontline (of course, the injuries to Owen and Heskey don't help), and filled gaps in a defense that had been the best in the league the previous two seasons. He even tried benching Gerrard when he thought the young midfielder's attitude and form had taken a dip. Nothing has worked.

While one might say that the players have taken an obvious dip in performance, how does an entire team go about taking 10 games off? Has every player on this large squad really slacked off that much? Unfortunately, it's been several weeks since a Liverpool match has been broadcast here, but I find it difficult to believe that the entire team has gone about such a major collapse.

So what does it all come down to? Luck? Maybe, but what I really think is that this team really just needs a spark. When a team sinks this deeply into a funk, they need some sparkplug to light a fire under the rest of the team. Houllier has supposedly come out in public and stated that he doesn't intend to make any moves during the current transfer window, but I think that would be a major mistake. If nobody on the current squad is going to provide that spark that the side needs, then he needs to go out in search of someone to take on the duty. Even just a player taken on loan could do the duty under the right circumstances. At this point, with a title almost assuredly lost, it's time to start thinking about at least pulling back into contention for at minimum a spot in next season's UEFA Cup, if not a spot in the Champion's League.

Can somebody please explain to me why 7-3 Kansas is ranked #17 but 10-1 Iowa State is unranked? Sure, Iowa State's opponents haven't been all that impressive, but then again, neither have Kansas', yet for some reason they're ranked #17. Me thinks something is amiss out in the Big 12. The two of them showdown on Monday, so I guess maybe that's one opportunity for Kansas to prove me wrong. I think 9-1 Oklahoma State has similar arguments heading into the Big 12 season.

Moving to NCAA D-1A football, how 'bout the Big Ten? 4-1 throughout the neverending season of bowl games going into the big two tonight and tomorrow night. Should Iowa win tonight against USC and Ohio State beat Miami tomorrow night, the Big Ten would go 6-1, and Iowa would have legitimate claims to a #2 ranking behind Ohio State, but ahead of Miami.

Hello everyone and a big happy new year to all. I know some of you are rather relieved that 2003 is here as you had a terrible 2002, and I for one can't blame you. Even so, I hardly went about ringing in the new year. I guess I could tell you what I did. Corey and I ended up picking up some liquor and mixers and brought them down to Jeff's in Oshkosh. Because it took Corey so long to shower and get ready, it was 11 already by the time we got there, which didn't leave too much time to party before midnight. That turned out not to matter much anyway, as nobody really seemed to care when 12 o'clock came and went. Beside the two of us, also there were Jeff, Mike, and Erik. Corey and I were really the only two who partook in the drink. The night was mostly spent shooting the shit, listening to music, watching a little tv, and watching someone play SOCOM. About 5:30 everyone but yours truly started to tire and decided to turn in. By then I had hit my second wind was ready to keep going, but as everyone else was passing out, I didn't really have a lot of choice. I was in and out throughout the morning. Sometime in the mid-afternoon Mike got up and Corey followed shortly after him. We ordered pizza and spent more time shooting the shit. Corey finally drove he and I home sometime around 4. And, that my friends, is how I spent New Year's. Not all that exciting, but still beats staying home.

From 8:30 until 3 today (and then at the same time tomorrow) I attended the substitute teaching class at CESA 6 in Oshkosh. I don't know as that I actually have learned anything new as much as have had things I already knew pointed out to me. Essentially what I mean is that since I'm not all that far removed from high school myself, I could rather relate to most of the classroom management techniques that were introduced. I might not have thought of them on my own, but seeing them demonstrated produced a couple "Oh yeah"-s out of me. We have homework for tomorrow too - we're supposed to come up with a back-up lesson plan for in the event that we were to arrive for a class and the teacher didn't get a chance to prepare one her/his self. Joy.