In case you missed the memo, this journal is mostly going to be regarding baby stuff for awhile, at least until we figure out a better thing to do with it.

I just felt the baby kick. I thought I felt it before, but this is the first time that I'm CERTAIN it was the baby. She started kicking about a month ago (we were at a church Christmas pageant, in fact), and every time since then when the baby would start kicking, Liz would call me over, I'd place my hand on her belly, and she'd stop. I kept calling the baby a jerk, and for awhile I was convinced she was doing it on purpose (she is Liz and my child, after all, so I wouldn't put it past her).

So, yeah. I'm pretty excited. It seemed like it was going to be a repeat performance of every other instance, but Liz called me over once her belly started jiggling every time the baby kicked (which is pretty weird in and of itself), and I finally felt her!

I guess it wasn't just bad Chinese, after all...

I'm still feeling really disoriented from this whole robbery thing. I hate looking over at my computer desk and seeing it completely empty. We're lucky for a lot of things. First and foremost that so many people are willing to help us out (I want to go ahead and thank everyone for what they've done. Even if you haven't given anything directly, just all the prayers and happy vibes are really appreciated). We're also lucky for my work laptop, with which we're able to get online. We're also lucky the cats weren't hurt. We're lucky they didn't take our other TV. We're lucky they didn't take all the DVDs. We're lucky they didn't take our CDs. We're lucky that the only thing we have to replace is the door, and the landlord is paying for it (if she wasn't, you'd better believe I would raise some hell about it).

It's all a matter of perspective, I suppose. It really does help to have a sense of humor about all of this. I still get bummed out occasionally, but I have stupid cats and a stupid bear to cheer me up.

Liz's dad is sending us a computer, which is nice because I feel bad that Liz is pretty much severed from the outside world when I'm at work. My mom wants to help us buy a new Wii. I appreciate it, but we don't really need it. If we could get the old Wii back I'd be happy, just because it was Adrian's gift and all.

I don't really have much else to say.

How are you?

We never freaking use this journal. Ever. It's freaking ridiculous.

I've been reading back through old journal shit, it's such a crazy thing to do... Does everyone wish they could go back in time and strangle a younger them? All I keep thinking is "Angst angst, at least you don't have bills to pay or butt tons of school debt yet!"

After reading through a few years I started considering starting a brand new journal because I'd like to think that I'm not that person any more... except I still write with ellipses too much because I tend to write stream-of-consciousness~like in a journal and... well... actually I think it's just become a really bad habit that there's no excuse for. Oh well, welcome to the fucking internet. Sometimes I feel like writing a short novel or essay or SOMETHING just to remind myself that I know how to use the rules of grammar and punctuation.

But I digress. I'm effing tired of football and cheap bastards that don't want to pay for things. If *I* can afford the insurance everyone else fucking can too. And ultimately it's not my problem if it breaks. I don't care. I'm just the monkey pressing the buttons. You think I care that you're missing Desperate Housewives or Wife Swap or whoever the fuck vs. whoever the fuck? Because I genuinely don't.

Just keeping this job until December... gotta keep reminding myself of that. After the holidays I hope to find some kind of crappy part time job as a barista somewhere, so I can just focus on school.

Oh. The new Ben Folds album is like the best fucking album ever. I can't stop listening to it.

I need to go eat breakfast. And by breakfast I mean left-over pizza. This is not my beautiful house, this is not my beautiful wife...

I'm posting from this journal for two reasons: 1) It's been awhile, and it was getting stale, and 2) I wanted to use my Colin Mochrie icon, because it cheers me up.

Adrian has taken a turn for the worse. The doctors have basically said that it's time to give up on treatment. His liver is failing. His kidney is failing. The tumor is aggresively not responding. Despite this, he (Adrian) wants to still try something. So he's on some new chemotherapy which is really high risk and it might just make things worse, and the doctor has told him and my mom this, but still they soldier on.

I'm just completely emotionally drained from this experience. I no longer know how to feel about this. I've run the gamut of emotions since my mom called me at about 5:30 to fill me in: scared that we might lose him, worried that he's just wanting to continue treatment because he thinks my mom wants it, impressed that he's still managed to keep a positive attitude, annoyed that I can't do anything about it, mad that such a crappy disease can affect such a cool person, etc.

I just don't know what to do. The best idea I've come up with is inventing a machine that sucks life out of criminals and puts it into good people.

This sucks. There is no other way to describe it. I've cycled through my vocabulary, and that's all I'm coming up with: sucks.

Dear life,

Thanks for this super crappy curve-ball when I should be happy that I'm getting married in a week.

Love,
Nathan

Is it sad that the last time this journal was updated was in November? I guess not really, considering I don't even update leujin all that often anymore.

I got a raise yesterday. It was thoroughly exciting. I guess I just look anxious, because this is the second time Mel has called me into her office and said, "Don't worry, you're not in trouble." Anyway, $1000 added to my annual salary. Really not actually all that much, but I don't care as much about the money as I do that this affirms that I'm not a complete eff-up and I'm doing something right, so... y'know, yay to that.

Today we went to a couples counseling thing. Don't worry, we're not on the rocks or anything, we just wanted the discount on the marriage license. Assuming there are no snags or snafus, we will be getting it for $5 as opposed to $50. Yay, also, to that. Other than that... I dunno, it was good, I guess. We learned some useful things, like active listening when we get into an argument, instead of just escalating with "no, you're stupid, this is what I said!" and "No, YOU'RE stupid, THIS is what you said." And there was silly role-playing on the part of the MCs. We didn't have to, thank God, but that's probably because there were about 1000 people there.

They shouldn't have had it all day, because we got thoroughly bored and started doodling about 3 hours in. They're very special doodles. And there's parts where we added random accents to letters. One of mine was a banana bunch. I don't know why. Probably because we're exceptionally silly. Also, there were 3 other couples at our table, and by the end it was just one other couple. We thought we smelled or something. The other couple was hilariously cynical and sarcastic, just like Liz and me. Seems like the kind of friends we could have, if we were cool enough to have friends.

In other news, holy crap slightly more than 2 months until we're getting married. WTF BBQ and other acronyms.

We just got back from downtown. It was exciting. We went to Toby Keith's Bar and Grill. I had the pork chops, and it was really good. We bought souvenirs. I got a pilsner glass and Lizi bought a straw hat, because she's silly.

Afterwards we decided to try to find the OKC bombing memorial.

Before I continue, I want to point out how frustrating it is to be a passenger with Liz's mom as the driver when she doesn't know where she's going. She turned left I don't know how many times from the center lane when that was really illegal.

We ended up going around in circles for like 20 minutes, and Liz and I kept going "I think that's it," to which Liz's mom would reply "wha?" *goes straight, or right, or whatever direction we didn't tell her to go*

Anyway, we found it eventually. It was pretty cool, and emotional, and a bunch of other things. There's still the fence there from when the area was fenced off when they were building the memorial, and a bunch of people put mementos on it. And Carla (Liz's sister) was confused by some monogram place. She said something to the effect of "isn't that a breast exam?"

Tomorrow it's off to Sayre and Liz's grandparents. I can't tell you how excited I am. No, I actually am, because her family is neat, but then at the same time I hear stories, so... we'll see.

Liz and I have uninteresting lives, which is why this journal never gets updated.

Yay pointless!

PS - we're old. And we never do anything. Except sit on the couch. And be lobsters (side note from Nathan: but it wasn't a rock...!). And eat cheese. And throw controllers at each other when the other person wins at Soul Calibur. And occasionally give each other noogies. Because we're totally 5. Combined.

This has been an editorial entry as typed by Nathan, and dictated by Liz. Good day.

I had a dream last night that both Sluggy Freelance and Penny Arcade ended. I was horribly sad, but I was relieved when I woke up this morning to find that they're still active.

Speaking of comics, I haven't updated Transplant since like... June. And even then I was only doing it once a month. God, I'm so lame. I've been so busy doing other stuff with work. That's my excuse anyway. My excuse now is that I'm so caught up with all the crazy freelance I'm doing! OH MY GOD IT'S SO MUCH!!!
Except not really. I'm designing a website for Liz's friend (which is coming along alright. The coding for the scroller is being wonky, so I have to try and fix that), and I'm also going to be tackling a whole corporate ID for on of their family friends. It should be interesting, to say the least.

Anybody else want freelance work? I'm dying for money here.

Green Bay is 4-0 right now. That's exciting to me. They haven't been this good since like... '01. I'm glad Favre decided not to retire.

I dunno. There's not that much going on right now. Somebody give me work and lots of lots of money. That's me biggest problem at the moment.

So. Nathan and I will not be homeless after August. Huzzah!

My mom and I gave up on apartments because there was big problem with allowance of pets where we were looking, and the ones that allowed a dog the size of Angel tended to be so small that we would all be super cramped.

So we're renting a house. It's pretty small, but it's got a yard and a porch for Angel, and washer and dryer hookups, a garage, and everything we need. It's going to be cramped while my mom is living with us, but she plans on being out in about 3 months because that's when the market will really be good for her according to everyone.

And the lady who sold us the house is named Elizabeth and she works at the airport. >.> Weird. But she said I should easily be able to get on at the airport because it's growing a lot right now. Here's hoping! And I think they actually pay better because they can't get foreigners to replace you in "24 hours" out here the way they threaten in Denver.

The only thing throwing me for a loop is that our living room has an entire wall that is a mirror. WTF. I will figure out how to work with that though... The lady thinks our place was used as the model so lots of mirrors give the illusion of bigger.

The area is pretty good. We're like in walking distance of the grocery store and a bunch of other shoppy places, and it's just a few miles from where I'll be going to school, and it's just down the street from the church where we'll be getting married, and it's just a few miles from the airport.

And we don't have to share walls with anyone! w00t! It's going to be less in square feet, but I think it'll ultimately be better. Especially since after my mom is gone Nathan and I can have seperate bathrooms. XP

So it's small, but not a bad place to be for a year. It is kinda lame we have to sign a year lease, but oh well. We lived in that hell hole on Garfield for a lot longer than a year and survived... and at least this way we will be close to stuff but far away from downtown. But there is public transportation so Nathan can probably get to his job until we sort out the license junk.

And I can't believe how much my mom is helping us. She's going to basically do a good deal of furnishing for this place. Fridge, washer, dryer, bed set, and that's just getting started. I seriously love her right now. And then she's going to buy me a car so she can get the lower rate with awesome credit and then I will make the payments. And THEN when our lease is closer to being up she's going to help us find a house to buy.

So yeah, things are crazy all over the place, but we'll be around and keep yall all updated. It's going to be super weird moving back to Oklahoma, but I'm ready to be rid of Denver.

Good news: Wells fargo reversed the BS fees they slapped me with. They say that "the fees were applied correctly, but we value your business," so they pretty much took my threat of "reverse it or I'm leaving" to heart. Basically it's just bull crap corporation saving face, and they were tired of me yelling at them.

Bad news: The dog had a big sloppy shit on the bathmat, and then proceeded to vomit 2 feet in front of me. I didn't notice the diarrhea until after the vomit, unfortunately, so it had time to sink in and stink up the bathroom. Super fabulous. She's making cleaning before moving REALLY hard.

Good news: I dunno... at least it's not raining.

Bad news: we have like... no food in the house right now. Looks like I'm eating out.

I am so tired of having to ride the light rail when there's something going on downtown after I get off work. It is the worst experience in the world. You're literally crammed in these small ass trains like sardines, elbow to elbow. It wouldn't be so bad if there was just ONE more car, but no, RTD doesn't seem to have the foresight to be like "oh gee, something's going on downtown this evening. Maybe we should plan accordingly." Drives me crazy when all I want to do is go home, and everybody else is like "LOL ROCKIES!!1"

On that note, it's always nice when songs about matricide come on my ipod in these situations. It makes me feel better.

In other news, I put in my two weeks today. Richard was understanding, but he's sad to have to see me go. I agree, because I love the people I work with and I actually don't hate my job. Not often you find that. Erin, once again, had the best reaction. Her words were "WHAT?! NO!! You're going to make me cry!" I felt bad for laughing, but c'mon. That's fucking funny. Then Jonathan said, "Damn, man. You're going to leave me alone with her?" Good times.

I also neglected to mention how, once again, Wells Fargo is screwing me. See, my rent check didn't get processed until about noon yesterday. I noticed, however, before it was processed, that I was in the negative, so I had Liz quickly transfer me enough money to cover it. It was around noon that I discovered not only had they just then applied an overdraft fee, but because of that overdraft fee I was back in the negative, so they hit me with another.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is bull shit, and I'm not fucking taking it. So I chewed them the fuck out. They say "we'll see what we can do," which is pretty much bank talk for "you're a broke ass mother fucker and we don't care about you because of it," so... you know, fuck them and stuff. Good thing I'm leaving them already, or I'd be strongly considering it. I hate banks.

The apartment is being shown soon, so I now have to clean like a mother fucker.

My fingers are absolutely killing me because I've been playing so much Guitar Hero in the last couple of days. I was really surprised, because I managed to make it all the way to "Cowboys from Hell" on Medium before I failed a song. And... well, that song was absolute death. I'm frankly also surprised that I passed it on the second try. I figured it would take more. I'm ready to bust out II, just to unlock "Trogdor" >.>

I also played a bit of Super Paper Mario last night. It's ridiculously silly and cheesy, but holy crap is it fun. It's all... going back to the roots, plus RPG.

I think we're planning on seeing The Simpsons Movie today. I've heard a number of things. Like it's a 2 hour long episode. And it rocks. And... a number of other things. I dunno, I'm excited.

I keep remembering that we're moving in a month. So long Denver. o.O I finally told my mom a couple days ago. Probably like a week. She was shocked, but she understood our reasons: money, needing a new scene, all that jazz. She's just sad that we won't be as close to her and stuff, but... yeah. I'm not as distraught about that. I love my mom, and all, but I'm ready to actually be further away from her.

I have really nothing important to say.

So, I really hate working Fridays. I may or may not have mentioned this already. Basically all the agents want their stuff done before the weekend, so they're in the marketing department every five minutes asking for them. If you leave to go to the bathroom, they practically have a panic attack and leave like 20 sticky notes on your monitor. It's really special. It kind of makes me want to tear my hair out at the roots.

Life at home is life as usual. We haven't done anything exciting here recently. Though I am getting tired of our phone ringing all the time. It's somebody looking for Liz (pretty sure it's Sally Mae) and they just won't stop, despite the fact that Liz has verbally deterred them.

My weekends don't seem long enough any more. Despite the fact that I have Saturday through Monday off. I guess I'm just still adjusting to the working world and all the turmoil that it offers. When we move, however, I'm going to have to face facts and actually work full time, because I doubt I'll be as lucky as I have been with Kentwood. That and I'm tired of Liz working crappy airport jobs, so hopefully I'll get something that offers like ...$20 an hour starting.

And then monkeys will fly out of my butt and attack the flying pigs.

I'm hungry.

I am so seriously tired of people right now.

I am not even CLOSE to exaggerating when I say there was 200 people on the train on the way to work. It was shoulder to fucking shoulder. It's normally like... 1/3 of that when I ride it home.

Now, you may be asking yourself, what cataclysmic event could possibly be drawing this many denizens of the outlying suburbs of Denver to central downtown?

Fireworks.

I ended up getting home 20 minutes later than normal, because the driver had to keep coming on the PA and saying "if you're in the door, please move. The doors can't close with you there, and the train won't move if the doors are open." We were literally at one stop for 10 minutes, because these dumb cows didn't seem to catch the hint that they needed to FUCKING MOVE.

I was seriously ready to slug somebody by the time I got off. My bad temper was just escelated by the two douche-bags sitting next to me engaged in douche-baggery. Activities such as throwing trash at eachother and shouting at the friend at the other end of the train. I probably wouldn't be so pissed right now if it wasn't for those two 16-year-old skater fucks.

I really hate people right now. I had myself a nice long scream once I got of the train. I drew a lot of puzzled looks, but it made me feel better. :)

So, apparently Matt, the guy who had started at Kentwood the week prior to me, got fired yesterday. I guess he had really low production time and was bitching a lot about the templates, among other things, so Richard and Brandon felt they would just be better off without him.

Here all this time I thought he was the golden child and I was the black sheep, but it's been the other way around. They like me and the work I do, and they like that I do it fast and without complaining. Go figure. I guess the old adage about the squeaky wheel is complete bunk.

Of course, I feel kind of bad, because the first thing I thought when I heard he wasn't coming back was "good, now we don't have to listen to his shitty music." >.>

Other crap about work:

I hate how shitty the machine I use is. Quark (which sucks in and of itself) crashed on me three times today. It was really irritating.

The new hire is funny. He's not there to replace Matt (unless, of course, this was all a part of a diabolical plot), but he's cool.

My boss is crazy.

My work amuses me. Because I can say stuff that I say in normal conversation, and it will absolutely kill my coworkers with laughter. For example, I was making edits to a site that I have literally been working on for three weeks, and I got even more back. So as soon as I was done with them, I told Erin, our "Executive in charge of Administrations" (receptionist), that if this agent comes back with any more edits, Erin could tell her to go die in a fire.

Which is apparently a lot more funny than I realized.

What was also really funny was the fact that my boss, Richard, was talking with someone in his office, and she had a laugh that sounded like a hyena, so everybody else was cracking up, because she would laugh like every 5 seconds.

I'm also going to start working on Tuesdays. With my 4 days a week and Liz's 6, it's like we have two normal jobs.

What wedding?

So, for awhile I was thinking that Liz (not Liz, but Liz. Y'know) had the best reaction to my engagement announcement, but then I told my mom. At first she thought I was kidding, and then she told me that she somehow got the idea that marriage "was not something you guys cared for."

Then, however, I told my coworkers. It was really comical. I casually asked how their weekend was, casual chit-chat style. Then they asked me how mine was, and I said, "ah, it was alright. I got engaged."

Matt: Whaaaaat? (imagine it said like a white guy trying to be black)
Erin: Shut up!
Me: yup.
Erin: SHUT UP!!

Haha. Good times.

Really awesome thing happened to me at work today.

We're like... super behind, as usual, and all that's left on The List is a bunch of level 4s. As you well know, I had not done even a level 3 until last week, so I was really not looking forward to this daunting task. See, level 4 websites actually have to look amazing, wheras level 3s just need to be good. If that wasn't bad enough, the first person on the list was one of the agents who always ALWAYS comes back with a million changes.

So! I grinned and bore it. I actually finished it up in a matter of 3 hours (I know, right? They really are that insane), and sent it off to proof, expecting to hear back a million reasons why it's a terrible site.

I was shocked to hear Brandon say, "Hey, Nathan, this site is really great looking!"

Lo AND behold, 10 minutes later the agent e-mails Brandon back, saying, and I quote, "Awesome! Your sites are always the best!"

Now, you should know how picky this agent is. She got so tired of "mediocre" sites that she asked Brandon to be the only one to do her sites. Naturally he has better things to do, so basically what we do is send the proof to him first and then he sends the proof on to her, giving her the impresson that he did it.

So, y'know, it was really cool. I also helped building flash, because I'm apparently the only there who knows action script. Which... what the hell.

Yet another tale of the bizarre, courtesy of Denver's public transit system:

Today I saw a guy with a huge envelope full of old light rail tickets. By full, I mean he couldn't have had any less than 60 in his possession. Why on Earth you would want to keep them is beyond me, because they're only good for the day you buy them and you can't redeem them for prizes or anything like that.

In the further adventures of my job, I've found that I enjoy working a lot more when I actually get to design and am not forced into templating. Have I mentioned how much I hate templates? Because I hate them with the passion of 1,000 suns. Yesterday I actually got to do some real designing. It was also my first Level 3 website. Which means nothing to anybody. Rest assured, it roxxorz. It's almost like they actually trust me and stuff. If you actually care to see it, you can click this link. It's nothing exciting, so I won't be offended if you don't care.

I had something else to say, but it got lost somewhere in the series of tubes. So I'm going to go play video games.

I am so tired of the jack-holes that live here! Once again, I go to get my laundry out of the dryer only to find them sitting on top of the counter. This is so fucking irritating. Normally this happens when like... I do a load of laundry, and then forget that they're there and we go run errands or something. Then it's like, "okay, I probably deserved it for being inattentive," and I just shrug it off.

However, I know for a fact that my clothes could not have been sitting there for more than 15 minutes. If I go in there and see the dryer has clothes in it, I just wait and come back later. It's just unacceptable how people do these complete douche-bag things. I hate how willy-nilly people are with other people's stuff. There is no way in hell it could be THAT urgent.

So, I went ahead and opened up their dryer door, so when they come back in an hour, they'll have a nice, still wet surprise.

Assholes.

Hilarious, AND topical.

Sort of.

So, nearly two months later, I finally fucking got my degree from the art institute. That's right, I really am a graphic designer now.

Except, you know, that means diddly-shit. It's not what you know, it's who you know, after all.

Yay, or something.

As it turns out, I'm not the only one pissed about all this templating crap going on at work. My coworker, Matt, got stuck doing it today as well, and he commented on how he was tired of all this busy work, grunt work bull shit that we keep getting handed.

However, on a positive note, there was actually people going in and out of Brandon's office, presumably for interviews to fill in the position of "bitch," so I might not actually have to keep doing all the crap jobs.

I'll probably still be doing all the production work stuff, but I don't actually mind that. It fills the god-awful 8 hours.

I want another job. Not just for money, so I can actually pay rent, but because I'm kind of tired of the politics and nonsense at this place.

But I must remain vigilant, despite how little I care any more.

It's really lame being the bottom totem in a company, because you get stuck with the absolute crap jobs. If anybody recalls, my company is making the switch to having all level 2 (I expect this not to mean anything to anybody) brochures and websites be this side of automated. It's basically a plug-and-play kind of deal. Brandon, my immediate supervisor, has said that I need not worry about my job, because this is the kind of thing that they could hire anybody off the street for.

Apparently they haven't gotten said person yet, so I got stuck using the templates. Which sucks. It basically makes a complete mockery of my degree. Rather than trusting me to do a level 3 brochure, he would rather I do something a monkey could do. Which pisses me off.

What really irked me, however, was when I was finishing the last of the ones he assigned me to do for that day, and Brandon popped in saying "Oh, by the way, the templates aren't working so well and the searchable text is just screwing things up, so go back to the way we've been doing things."

Fortunately when I'm super pissed about something, I have the uncanny ability to just shut down completely and not shout and punch things. Honestly, now I don't feel bad about leaving in 2 months. I'm contemplating just not even telling them that I'm leaving, because they've been treating me like crap. I would just up and leave now, but we really need the money, and it's not like I have anything else on the grill.

I want to smash something right now. Smashy make Nathan happy.

I had a very poopy morning. It started when I got wrapped up in something that I probably shouldn't have gotten wrapped up in, so I ended up leaving a couple minutes later than I normally do. That's not really too big a deal, because I always make sure I get to the light rail stop 10 minutes early.

So, I get to the corner of 14th and Grant and realize I left my lunch upstairs. I run back and grab it. It's at this point that I also remember I need to get money for the light rail. I don't want to have to pay $4 to use a non-wells fargo ATM (seriously, wtf? It's bad enough that ATM fees exist, but then to have my bank be like "oh, by the way, you suck for not using our ATMs. Here, have an extra charge," WTF, mates), I have to go to the other end of 16th street.

This wasn't all that bad, really, because at worst it meant that I was going to be 5 minutes late. That's no big deal, because my boss is that late a lot of the time.

What really pissed me off, however, was the fact that my train never showed up. Because of this I ended up being 45 minutes late. I was super pissed at RTD for that one. What I think happened is that my train did show up, but it just had the wrong route on the sign. That, or RTD is lame.

I'm also miffed that I didn't actually get any designs done today, because there was a huge stack of reprints and site updates which I didn't even finish. Lame^max.

Such is life, I guess.

I love that our hallway smells of super stinky weed.

I also love that I was told I would hear back from the interviews I had last week by last Friday, and I have yet to hear from one, and I just heard from the other in a letter. Basically it was "we regret to inform you that we didn't hire you. You're creative and we wish you luck," form letter BS.

So, the apartment is clean. Cleaner than it has been for awhile, at any rate. Living room is clean~ish, and the kitchen is mostly clean. i did the counters and such, but I didn't get to the floor because we don't actually own a mop. I managed to get bleach on one of my favorite shirts, which kinda sucks, because now there's big pink blobs on the bottom of it. Alas, forsooth.

I did the bathroom, too. Liz seems to think it's never actually been cleaned, which I'm inclined to believe, though I'm positive that I've cleaned at least the toilet once since we lived here. It was quite the arduous task. There was dog fur that had basically been glued into the corners around the tub, which was really gross. Not to mention the who-knows-what stains on the walls. There were no less than 20 empty toilet paper tubes. There was also one that found its way under the big thing of toilet paper and had been soaked in shower water and was a soggy disgusting mess.

It's funny how I really have NOTHING interesting to say.

Thank crap that Easter is this Sunday, that means I can finally have my precious, precious caffeine again.

Not that I haven't enjoyed the benefits of having no caffeine in my system (less, of course, the trace amounts that are in chocolate and aspirin). I've actually noticed that I feel physically better, and mentally, too. Though I'm pretty sure that the intense headaches I've been having are due to the lack of caffeine. Other than that, however, I've been feeling loads better.

I'm shaking a lot less than I was the last time I put myself through this ordeal, which is really a good sign. I'm not sure what it indicates, exactly, but I know it's good!

I think after this I'm definitely going to try to consume less caffeine. I'll at least try to limit myself to no more than 2 cans a day, or on days that I work no more than one bottle. The bottles available at the caf downstairs come in 24 oz, so it's actually the same amount.

Umm... yeah.

( hey look, more important things beyond this here cut! )

So, that's pretty much what's going on with me at this point. We need money like whoa, so it's good that I have an interview, we're moving soon like whoa, and I'm tired of my mom like whoa.

Oh, also, it was Odin's birthday yesterday. Or it should have been, at any rate. We bought black and white cupcakes. Birthday wishes for our kitty who is dead because of someone else's negligence!

Ooh, I'm updating from my office. I am such a naughty boy.

I haven't yet done this because I'm normally working in the same office as my boss, but today the guy whose computer I normally use is actually coming in today, wheras normally... well, he doesn't come in.

I don't actually have anything worthwhile to say, I just felt the need to update at work.

My boss is sick. Has been for the last week. Sucks to be him. I hope I don't catch it.

I want the penny arcade game. Badly.

In other news, I've been giving a lot of thought to my tattoo. Originally I had settled on doing a line of text from "The Jabberwocky," because of strong memories I have of when I still respected my father, later to be accompanied by an actual picture. Now I've decided that may not be good enough. So! I'm making you choose for me. Never mind the fact that this might not happen for quite some time, I'd still like an opinion.

Poll #950380 He's gettin' ink done
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 8

What should Nathan's tattoo bee?

**EDIT**

Try to ignore the fact that I misspelled "be," because I can't fix it.

Decidedly the worst part about being sick is fever dreams. I woke up in a panic last night and couldn't get back to sleep because I felt too much like a bird.

Insert your "wtf" here.

So, yeah. One of the people at Liz's work caught bronchitis and she subsequently brought it home and now all three of us are sick. It really quite sucks the balls.

Exciting things that have happened in the last week that I've failed to mention due to other things that were less exciting!

1) On my ride home from work on Wednesday, the generator in one of the trains blew up. Sparks rained inside the car. It was really neat.
2) On Thursday, the power in my office was out. But only kind of out. It was out enough that the lights worked, but the computers didn't, so I really couldn't do my job. Which is okay, because I got paid for three hours of playing paper football and I got to come home early and console my bear.
3) Mini-golf! With my family.
4) I have had yet another instructor compliment my writing. And this was coming from an English major.
5) One of the instructors I had in the past is STILL going on about how awesome my monster photomanipulation is. He came up to me yesterday and asked if he could hang it up in the hall, which I was all for. Ego +10
6) Insert clever comment about the lack of number 6 here.
7) It's hot. This warrants the title "exciting" because it's been balls cold for as long as I can remember. I like this weather. I'd actually prefer about 10 degrees cooler, but I'm not going to complain.

I need new contacts. I've been wearing the same pair for about 3 months.

So, here's a quick little update about Odin before I run off to work.

My mom came and saw him today, and she thinks it may be a number of things. She says it seems like he was dehydrated, and we did the right thing in forcing water into him. She was going to go the sub-q route, but since he seemed to be doing better she decided against it. She also gave him some kitty laxatives, in hopes of clearing up the blockage that we think he still has.

She also thinks that the reason he seems to be falling over and unable to maintain any balance whatsoever is because he's suffered some sort of nerve damage by way of a virus. One of the kitties we had long ago had something similar, and Odin is behaving in the same way he did. I still think it may just be because he's stopped eating and his muscles have atrophied. If we keep force feeding him, it may get better. Then again, my mom may be right and his brain is all wonky now.

Either way, my mom has no actual veterinary background, she's just had a lot of experience with pets, and we're going to take Odin to maxfund (which is a super cheap vet/no-kill shelter) on Friday to hopefully get a proper diagnosis.

Luck and hugs for the Odin, yes?

I always worry when Liz doesn't get home until super late that she got in a horrible accident and is unable to call me. I think maybe I worry too much.

I don't really have anything interesting to say, unfortunately. It looks like Odin is feeling better. He's actually jumping up on stuff instead of hoisting himself, which to me is a good sign. Liz still seems to be worried, which is understandable. I'm still a little worried about him too, but the recovery is a very slow process. He likes cantaloupe, which is good. It helps make him regular.

Clarice is a butt. So is Angel.

My family is driving me crazy. They seem to be convinced that just because they don't have anything to do all week, that I should be completely free all the time, too. The problem with that is that I have about 1 day in the week which isn't dedicated to doing stuff. It's kind of frustrating how they call me all the damn time, especially when I'm at work. Oh well. The recovery for Adrian's bone marrow is almost done, so it means they'll be returning to life as usual, which means I can stop avoiding their calls.

Oh yeah, I'm doing the lent thing again where I give up caffeine. It's actually partially for my senior project where I look at the effects of caffeine on my creativity, it just happens to coincide. It hasn't actually been that bad so far, but it's only the 4th day. The first time I did I didn't get the shakes until week 2. I look forward to that! I'm not irritable at all either, which is nice. I'm sure the girls appreciate that.

That's all for now.

So, it's time to update about my first 2 days at the internship!

( workin' in a coal mine, goin' down down down... )

Oh boy, I got me another interview. This time it's with an in-house real estate company (woo hoo?), and it's paid as well. Basically I'd be designing websites and such, only doing it within quark because they like cheating and html is kind of a skill that nobody actually needs anymore. They seemed genuinely interested in me, which is always nice.

I've pretty much resigned myself to the fact that I'm not graduating this quarter. I can finish all my classes and stuff, but my externship class is going to be holding me back because I need 90 hours, and that's pretty much impossible to do in 6 weeks. Most internships only offer to have you come in 2 times a week, and unless I can convince them that these need to be 10 hour days it's going to be kind of impossible.

So, it'd be nice if I actually got this position. It would make my life tons of easier, because I may be able to just squeeze out 90 hours before the final week, and then I wouldn't have to worry anymore.

I'm going to talk to Ed though, and beg and plead him to let me slide. I'll be talking to my teacher today, as well, so maybe I can finagle something or something.

I really wanted to go to the Christopher Moore signing today, but it doesn't seem likely. I should have gone to talk to my teacher yesterday, then I'd be okay. Fook.

Oh well, look on the bright side: I have an interview. Yee haw... Let's just hope I don't get lost in South Denver, because I don't want to die for a job.

I'm excited. Liz (not my Liz) has commissioned me to design for her a cover for her writing portfolio. I've been incredibly bored, so this is a nice welcome change of pace. I thought about maybe convincing my Externship teacher that this could count for credit. He said we could use freelance, but this is kind of a one time thing. Besides, I would like to actually GET an internship still, but maybe I can fake it.

Frankly I'm just excited to actually get to design FOR somebody instead of just... y'know, class project stuff. It's gonna be pretty cool. I've already got a bunch of really wicked ideas, so I'm going to make some drafts and show 'em to her probably within the next couple of days. I'm gonna stick it in my portfolio, too, and be like "blah, blah, professional design, blah, big spender, lying out my ass, blah." It'll totally rule.

So, thank you, Liz, for letting me design for you! You rock my socks.

If anybody else wants to freelance me and help me fudge a college credit, do let me know! :D

Holy balls it's cold.

In other news, my interview went exceedingly well. I really don't think I could have asked for a better interview. The company seems really cool, and the two people I talked to (Ling and Jason, in charge of print and web at the company, respectively) seemed really awesome. Ling went to AiC when it was still CiA and worked with the teacher I had this afternoon. Jason also went to AiC, but he graduated fairly recently (like 1 or 2 years), was given an internship, and quickly moved up the corporate ladder.

I, meanwhile, was absolutely on fire. I knew exactly what they were going to ask and the best way to respond to each question, and I was very charming and amiable. I got some mud on my pants, which kind of sucked, but they were too busy looking at my face/portfolio to even notice. Speaking of my portfolio, I talked about it in the best way possible. I analyzed the target market, explained why each piece was effective, and wrapped it up really concisely. I wasn't fidgety, I didn't spin in the chair, and I sat up straight and talked clearly. It went really well, and I'm feeling super confident.

I'm not, however, going to get my hopes up, because I don't want to be disappointed. They will be getting back to me on if I got the position or not within the week. I think I'll be able to manage it really well, too, because all four of my classes are classes in which I have individual meetings with the teacher that will last only 15 minutes.

I also got an e-mail in my website inbox this morning from Nicole. Yay Nicole!

I have a real live interview with a real live graphic design firm offering a real live payed internship on Friday.

I'm real live shitting a brick.

This is serious. The real deal kind of thing. This is somebody offering me an interview after having seen my resume and my digital portfolio. I'm incredibly nervous, but... well, I'm hoping I can prepare for it during my days off (which happen to fall on the two days prior to said interview). I'm really hoping that this goes well and after seeing my portfolio they shake my hand and say "congratulations on your new job," because this kills two birds with one stone: It takes care of the internship I need to have for my externship class, and it gets me a paycheck. I'm already nervous and I feel like vomiting.

I'm excited as hell, on the other hand, because it means this hard earned bachelor degree is going to actually go to some use and I'm not going to spend my life rotting away at a wage slave job. Hell, this might be that foot in the door opportunity that I've been hoping for. Yeah, it's an internship (a payed on. Did I mention that it's payed? Because it's payed. Payed internship. FTW.), but there's a possibility that if I do a good job and they love me I can be like "so... how about a permanant position?" and then they'll give me one and my life can begin as a millionaire.

Or starving artist.

Either way, it's time to wish me luck!

Frown town! Foxtrot is going into a Sunday only format! This makes me terribly sad, but I can understand, because there's a LOT of demand for getting those comics out on time. I guess I should be happy that it's not ending entirely, but I can't imagine that being very far down the road.

What a terrible Christmas present :(

OMG we rearranged the apartment BBQ!

Adrian is now in the official recovery process. He's apparently doing well enough that he's allowed to go out and about and do stuff, so he went to the zoo with his dad yesterday. He wanted to come over here today and hang out with me, but Liz is still sick and his immune system is crap, so it's not a great idea for him to be here. So instead, I'm going over to the place where my mom is staying and we're going to play games there. Good times.

So, in other news, I got bored yesterday while I was showering (which I was doing because I had a random case of hives suddenly. What fun) and decided to shave off the magic beard and sideburns of doom. I do that randomly. Liz says I should grow a soul patch, but I think I'd look hot with a fu man chu.

Additionally, Twilight Princess is the sex. The cinematics make me want to touch myself. I'm already 10 hours in and I'm only right before the third dungeon. Holy crap-shits.

Time Magazine sucks. They have an article proclaiming that having gay parents somehow makes a child be raised wrong. They also claim that divorced parents do the same thing. Of course, this is just claims, because they don't present any actual facts, so I refuse to believe it until I see some charts.

Um... go cheese.

For some reason our connection is being absolute death-crap right now.

Reason #2501 to hate DSL. It keeps effing dropping out, and it's driving me bat-shit crazy.

Froinlaven.

It's once again time to bitch about finals, if I may. They suck, they're killing me, thank god they only last a week, why the hell ass isn't it over yet, somebody please kill me now oh god oh god why can't I die?

In other news, it's almost tuesday, which means I finally FINALLY get my hands on a copy of twilight princess. Liz is going to be hiding it from me, however, so it won't distract me from finals. Really you'd think this would be incentive to get them done sooner, but uh... I don't.

I didn't get the internship, which kind of sucks, because that company seemed really cool. Oh well. Maybe next time.

Harroo...

I guess I'm done with all the christ-chex shopping. The biggest problem I had was finding something for Liz, because she has this thing where she only wants practical things, and I suck at buying practical things. I think, however, that I solved that problem rather nicely. My mom gets a clock with fighting dragons, my little brother gets a pokémon book, my sister gets a shirt that says "it's my brother's fault" and my older brother gets two calendars: one page a day with simpsons trivia, and one monthly wall calendar with hot, half naked girls. FTW!

Speaking of Christmas, it looks like my holiday is going to be spent here, in my apartment, with my whole famn damily here. Not until the 28th, though. I don't know if I'm going to be going back to Los Alamos at any point. I'd kind of like to, because I need to see people and their antics.

I'm sure everybody will be glad to hear that I'm graduating in March. I'm probably going to take the first month or so off, so I might actually have time to hang out with everybody then. Then again, maybe not, assuming I have a job, which I hope to have. Hopefully this internship opportunity I've snagged will lead to an eventual job, because this place seems really cool. This, of course, assumes I even get the internship. Here's hoping I hear back from them soon, because that would roxxor. Foot in the door, and all that jizz.

It's my mom's birthday today. I need to call her.

I wonder if anybody actually reads anything I say that has any sort of substance?

We went to Best Buy today. We finally broke down and bought a slimline PS2. It was about time, because we already got rid of Liz's (because it was a crappy gen-1 which had shit-tons of problems from day 1) and mine was starting to crap out. It was doing the same thing that Liz's was and not playing blue discs without setting the system on it's side. I think this may be why my copy of virtua fighter 4 never worked.

Anyway, it was a really great deal. I was expecting the price to go down with the release of of the PS3, which it had some. The retail price had gone down to about $130, but this one was marked at $130 but it came with a second controller and a copy of ratchet: deadlocked, so it was like... a $200 value, which is just fucking sweet. Liz also got butt loads of DVDs because of all the deals (some marked as low as $5!).

Great deals aside, I'm never fucking going shopping on Black Friday ever again. There was just absolute sensory overload, because there were DVDs playing and people playing guitar hero and all the gah. Not to mention the fact that the PS3 and Wii are both really shiny and I want them like burning. Alas, there were no demos set up, so I couldn't play them, so it was sad.

Oh yeah, and some girl that was working there started flirting with me while Liz was pooping. It was amusing.

Have I mentioned how tired I am of Christmas already? I'm tired of the songs, I'm tired of the decorations everywhere, I'm tired of the sales that started before Halloween, and I'm tired of the rampant capitalism. It is absolutely maddening. It gets like this for me every year. Obviously it's gotten a lot worse than when I was younger.

Frankly, I wish I could go back to that. I wish I could get excited about Christmas anymore. When I was younger it used to be something to look forward to! It was an exciting day, because there was just a general feeling of fun and joy in the world (not to mention the great gifts I would get). Now it's just... eh, I don't know. I don't really know how to explain it. It's not like I hate Christmas or anything. I guess I just hate the Commercialism of it.

I'm quite serious when I say that I'm ready to start celebrating solstice. At least with that there's nothing to bank on. Everything has just gotten to be about money! Nobody even thinks about what the holiday is even supposed to be about anymore! Granted there's still pageants and the like, but you know as well as I do that the minute they go home all they're thinking about is presents, weather it's getting them or giving them. It's just a source of stress for everybody.

Maybe it's American's. I don't know. I don't mean to sound like a cynical person, but... well, let's face it, that's what I am. Every holiday isn't what it's supposed to be about anymore. This is supposed to be about Jesus. It wouldn't bother me as much if there wasn't as much focus on the material aspects of it all, and it was more about the tradition, like if we just gave people myrrh. You'd have a stockpile of myrrh, I'm sure, and even then it's not like anybody would care. It'd just be another one of those "oh great, time for this silly thing again. Traditions are so stupid," blah blah blah.

I dunno. Maybe I'm just being crazy. The point really is that I'm tired of Christmas songs. They kind of make me want to shoot people.

And interacting with my family. My family drives me crazy.

I realized that I never gave my impressions of Casino Royale after having seen it last night. I would now like to sumarize:

Hmm. This fellow seems like Connery. I approve.

Holy shit, jumping! WHOA! DUDE, EXPLOSIONS! YAY!!

...wtf? His head is way to small for his body...

heh. cheeky bastard.

Oh boy, pithy reparté! I do so love it.

Egad, double crossings!

Egad, more double crossings!

This plot is taking too long. Get to the explosions.


So, to summarize the summary: I love James Bond. A lot. I'm going to be seeing it again with my mom when she's up here next week.

In other news, I like thanksgiving a lot more when I don't have to deal with my family (aunts and uncles and grandparents et all). Mostly because I only actually have one class next week, which I'm almost positive nobody is going to even show up for, so it's going to be one of those "yeah, whatever." days, and I love those.

Who's excited for Casino Royale? I know I sure am! But that's mostly because I heart James Bond in ways that aren't natural. I swear to crap, everything is coming out on the 17th. It's crazy mad times.

*pointlessly updates for the sake of using an icon I created weeks ago but haven't gotten a chance to use as of yet*

I'm also happy to report that I currently have about 8.5k in my NaNo. Yeehaw.

And my flash teacher should die.

My jumpdrive isn't working any more. I may have killed it, but I'm not positive. The fact remains that it basically died, so much so that it wouldn't even let me format it. So much so that I couldn't delete any of the files. So much so that pulling it out without "safely removing" it didn't even give me an error.

This is all that remains:

( R.I.P., Cheesedrive )

It is SERIOUSLY perplexing to hear teachers refer to me as "Nate dawg." Then again, it's weird hearing anybody refer to me that way, but an adult that I respect... yeah.

Having class on Fridays is going to suck. I haven't had one of those for quite some time. Then again, I haven't had (only) a 3 day weekend in ages as well.

I'm not going to have money until week four at the earliest. That sucks.

I have a really good idea for my digital portfolio: Basically a silhouette of me playing guitar, and then each string will take you to a different section (logos, layouts, etc.). Upon clicking, it will zoom in on the neck and each fret will zoom in on the individual project. It's going to rock out loud.

The class I had tonight is like ... preparing me for the real world, in that we're actually designing a website for a real live client. We aren't getting paid shit, but uh... yeah.

This quarter might very well kill me. As well might next, my last, quarter.

Oh, life. You are so teh lolz.

Y'know, the real trouble with having two journals is deciding what goes where. At first the content was divided equally, but now this one hardly gets used at all. It's frustrating considering what we paid. It's also frustrating how little Liz uses it, but she doesn't update her regular journal ever, either.

I guess there's always the comfort of knowing it'll never go away.

Classes started again today. This is no skin off my hide, because I don't even have class until tomorrow. The fact that I have my Tuesday class and my Friday class with Reina is encouraging, though, because in all likelyhood they will both be 15-minute meeting classes, and if she's awesome she'll let me condense them both down to one meeting time. Even then I still only have two REAL days of class, so that's always encouraging. Means I could probably even get a job and not... y'know, die.

Buffalo Exchange is hiring, and they're right smack in the middle of the school and the apartment. Though I hear tell that they're really sticklers on the hiring front, so I'm not exactly crossing my fingers on that one. Besides, I now actually live close to 16th street, so I may just make a job run this weekend.

I guess that's my plan. I need to get serious about money considering I'm graduating in about six months (terror = high).