So I must say, I had a pretty damn good birthday. I spent most of the early part of Sunday being a lazy bastard, complete with an hour nap in mid-afternoon. Elena came by at around 3:30 or so and we headed for the hotel. She gave me her gifts, which were nice. I can only mention one though, a T-Shirt that says Wolfram & Hart and underneath that Attorneys at Law. No, its not the law firm I work for, but the fictional one on Angel, one of my favorite TV shows. We were watching an episode a couple weeks ago and I saw a character in the background with one on and I said I thought it would be cool to have one. Well, they don't sell them, but Elena had one made for me, which was sweet.

We had a nice dinner at a place that was a little fancy for my taste, but still good. We got some amazing ice cream at a Cold Stone Creamery that just opened by my house, went back to the hotel for ice cream, champagne and Desperate Housewives (I know, I'm pathetic, but I've had a thing for Teri Hatcher since Lois and Clark (I love Superman, what can I say)).

It was a fun night, but Elena wasn't feeling too well in the morning, so we had to skip the breakfast at the best breakfast place on Long Island, which just happens to be right down the road from my mom's office. We then spent all of yesterday being vegetables, watching a Netflix movie Girl with a Pearl Earing (OK, kind of slow but interesting in a wierd way) and the first Lord of the Rings movie and some of the second. Elena spent most of today at my house finishing the second and watching all of the third and loving it! I've been trying to get her to watch them forever, and she finally did and loved it.

She's working tonight and I'm on my way out the door of work in a few minutes. Today was crazy and I'm thankful I was out yesterday because it sounded worse than today! Adios!

I think Cartman says it best right here... Cause it's my birthday!

The big 2-6, wow, I'm getting old. Its all downhill from here to 30. Ouch! I guess it could be worse. I could be my older brother who's 28, he's a lot close to 30 than me.

Plans for today? Being lazy for most of the morning, kind of what I've been doing all holiday weekend anyway. Elena and I are spending the night at a hotel somewhere around here. Probably a nice dinner somewhere and thats it in a nutshell, minus all the naughty parts! =)

I took off tomorrow too, just because I didn't want to work the day after my birthday and because dammit, I deserve it! Alright, I'm off to start my lazy day!

Happy Turkey Day to everyone! I've always loved Thanksgiving. Maybe it has something to do with the nice long 4 day weekend you get (or in my case this year, 5 day, because I'm taking Monday off), but I think what it really is, and call me selfish, Thanksgiving has always been the unofficial celebration of my birthday every year, with all my family around me. Hell, sometimes its the official celebration as my B-Day is apt to fall on Thanksgiving Day once every 5 or 6 years (Last time it did was 2002, so it'll be awhile before the next one rolls around).

Generally, this year I'm very thankful for the time off, because this past week of work, although short, was nowhere in the realm of sweet. It was crazy. Two of my co-workers (which constitute half of my department) where out all week, leaving just me and my boss. We managed OK, but it was still crazy, and it made the days drag on forever! I thought I was going to kill someone. Thankfully since it was the leadup to the holiday, it was somewhat quieter than usual, but take into account 2 people doing the work of 4 and it kind of balances out.

Anyway, enough bitching about work. I'm also thankful that my wonderful girlfriend is finally home for good. This time last year I was in London for Thanksgiving and my birthday, and while that was fun, two days of it was spent wandering the streets of London by my lonesome, including on my birthday because Elena had class, and that wasn't too much fun. Kind of boring if you ask me. Don't get me wrong, it was nice to see the sites, like walking across Tower Bridge and going around Buckingham Palace, it was just not fun to do by yourself. Well, not so this year. Although Elena is spending Thanksgiving with her family and me with mine, she's going to come over later tonight for dessert and spend the night. My mom and cousin are going to crazy enough to get up and go shopping in the morning and I'll have none of that thank you very much.

OK, I think I'm entering into babbling territory so I am going to sign off. I think I hear my little brother to strike up some XBox, so I'm off. Happy Thanksgiving!!!!!

One more week and I'll be 26, the downslide of my 20's. How depressing. Every year brings me one year closer to 30. I guess I could be more depressed about it if my life was in worse shape, but its not, so I won't complain, too much! =) I mean, I really can't complain. I have a great job and I work with fantastic people that make the job that much more enjoyable. I've done this same job at my dad's company years ago, but I couldn't stand the people I worked for (not my dad of course) and it made me hate my job. Not the case now. I also have a fantastic and loving girlfriend, so really, I shouldn't complain. Things between Elena and myself are great, so getting older isn't a bad thing. It would be if I have nothing to show for my time here on Earth.

So I'm sitting at work running tests on a problem server at the moment. Its tons of fun, let me tell you. Again, I guess I shouldn't complain as I've had a pretty great weekend so far, despite the nasty weather. Friday I took a half day from work and headed home at 12:30. Elena met me at my house and we watched Once Upon A Time in Mexico, which I proceeded to pass out in the middle of, and stayed napping until about 5:00 PM or so. It was great, and just what I needed after two weeks of craziness and crazy people at work. We got some Chinese for dinner and were about to settle in for a lazy night of watching TV when her cousin called and invited us to her apartment to watch Elf and Chasing Amy (I know, a weird double feature, but I'd never seen Elf and Elena's cousin's husband never saw Chasing Amy, so it was fun).

Saturday the dog woke me up crazy early, but I just went back to bed on the couch with him until about 11:30 or so after I fed him, so that was nice. Elena and I just lounged around for most of the afternoon and headed out to grab some dinner, hit Target and Best Buy and went to see a sneak preview of Finding Neverland, which was a damn fine film. Elena then headed home after the movie because she had to wake up at like 2:30 in the morning and head into Staten Island to be an extra in the remake of War of the Worlds that Tom Cruise and Steven Speilberg are doing. I just spoke to her a few minutes ago and she thinks she saw Dakota Fanning, the little girl from I Am Sam and every other movie in the world lately. She said the scene they're shooting that she's involved in is people trying to drive on the highway to get away from something, probably the aliens or whatever, and then suddenly all their cars stop working, so they all get out and run. At the moment Elena is just sitting in her car, doing nothing, She gets paid something like $100 for the day and the real reason that she's doing it is because the company that she got it from also does extra work and bit parts on shows like Law & Order (all 3) and Third Watch, so maybe she can get some more work or a small speaking part in an episode sometime soon. Here's to hoping.

Alright, back to work. Hope everyone has a great weekend! Adios!

Yup, this week continues to shape up to be a doozy, and I can't even begin to tell you how happy that makes me. I think I'm ready to kill someone, seriously. If I get one more stupid problem report from anyone, I just may snap. So watch out!

Had a good time last night, a lot more fun than I thought it would be. Elena and I grabbed some dinner and a Mexican place right near the movie theatre by my office. Afterwards we had an hour to kill, so we went to Fortunoffs, a really high quality department store thats known for their high quality jewelry, and started looking at engagement rings. I just wanted to know what Elena's tastes were, because she's so damn picky about everything, and I needed a ring size too. She definitely prefers the round one, and she even found a very interesting, but beautiful setting. It reminded me of the way DNA looked, with a double helix wrapping around itself. There were two strands the entwined around each other once as they came to the top where the diamond should go, and all along the strands were little diamonds. Very beautiful. Of course now everyone is asking the big question, when?

Elena called her mom while we were there to ask her what type of shape she had, and both her mom and her sister (who's been engaged for what seems like forever with no date in sight) both had round as well. Of course her sister just had to talk to me as well, and the first words out of her mouth were, "So you want to marry my sister?" I thought it was funny. Regardless, I just wanted to get a feel for her tastes. When I'm ready to buy my parents have a jeweler in the city they've been going to for as long as I can remember. My grandparents went there too, and according to my mom they've been dealing with my family for 40 years, so I'm sure I'll get a good deal.

So that was ring shopping. All in all I think i was a good experience. I think Elena realized that there's a lot more to it than sheer size of the diamond, although she still said she wants it to look big (lucky me). I think I was a little more up on the stuff than she was, you know the 4 C's and all that. We'll see. I think we've agreed to a limit on Christmas spending on each other, and maybe even skipping exchanging gifts this year so we can both pay off our debts and start saving. So I'm taking that as a good thing.

We then went to see Bridget Jones, and although it was entertaining, some of it was just damn ridiculous. And let me say this, Renee Zelwegger really packed on the pounds in this one, she looked so much bigger than she did in the first one. I myself, prefer the way she looks in the movie. I've never been into the waif thin look. I think its unhealthy.

Alright, thats it. Back to work!

If the way today has gone is any indication of how the rest of the week is going to pan out, I'm in trouble. To say my morning sucked is putting it lightly. I feel like I was trying to do five trillion different things at once, ranging between fielding a tech support call with Microsoft, to writing out instructions for a very simple thing to do and dumbing them down so that a monkey could follow and of course working the help desk as well. I'm just ready to snap. Thankfully I'll be leaving in about an hour. Elena once again is going to come pick me up and we're going to grab some dinner and then go see the new Bridget Jones movie. We watched the original last night from Netflix, so now we're ready for the sequel. I heard it sucks, but its Elena's turn to pick the movie.

In between dinner and the movie I was thinking we could hop over to Fortunoff's to look at, of all things, rings. (I know, bad rhyme) We kind of got on the subject of all things marriage Saturday night at her cousins party as she was marveling at some peoples engagement rings. I know I'm in trouble when she says, "I like the finer things." I told her I'm ready for that step in every way except financial, which unfortunately is the most important, but what are you going to do? In time I'll have my credit cards debts paid off and my car as well and I'll be able to start socking money away like theres no tomorrow, so I'm not worried. It was a good conversation, so at least that was a positive.

Alright, must call the mechanic to inquire whether my car will be ready tonight. Lets hope so as I'm sick of bumming a ride with my older brother every morning and begging for a ride to his office after work. Wish my car luck!

Sorry for the lack of an update, but after the week that just passed at work I'm amazed I'm still sane! It was just a crazy week, full of too many annoying people with really moronic problems. I can't tell you how many times I had to walk this particular bunch of idiots through the simplicity of downloading a file from the Internet to your desktop, and then opening the file by double-clicking on it! I swear, I'm not lying, I had to explain that to at least two people, probably twice each! Crazy. How do some of these people get through law school? I'm amazed myself.

So it was a really crazy week at work, and by the time I came home all I really wanted to do was either watch TV and then pass out, or play Halo 2. I mean, come on, seriously, you have to have your priorities straight in life, right? Elena and I didn't really hang out at all during the week, just Tuesday night to watch a few movies. We started a Netflix account together and watched one of our first movies, Saved! I thought it was great, only because when I lived in Louisiana I lived amongst people like that. My old boss at a the shitty newspaper I worked for, the biggest hypocrite I've ever met, was a Born Again Christian. I don't think he ever knew that I was Jewish, because I didn't want the situation there to be more uncomfortable than it already was. I know that he already looked down on the fact that I lived with my girlfriend when I wasn't married to her. The guy even said to me once, "You'd like going to my church." Sure, whatever you say, I'm sure my parents would love that fact!

So anyway, that was the week I had. Friday night I went out with Brett to John Harvards to down a few Pumpkin Spice Ales, good shit, I love that beer! I need to stock up a bit before Thanksgiving, because its a seasonal thing and it'll be gone until next October! Anyway, Brett, the king of tardiness, was two hours late picking me up, because of course, my car is still in the shop (I know, long story, but I should have it back on Monday, I hope). He said he'd be at my house by 9:30, and at 10:10 he calls and said there was a fire call that he had to go to, then he had to go to the firehouse real quick, run home and then he'd get me, he'd be there in a half hour. 11:00 or so rolls around and he says he's getting ready to leave his house. He didn't actually show up until after 11:30. Crazy. He was supposed to get married today, until he and his fiance broke it off two months ago. He probably would've been late to his own wedding.

Elena and I went to a party for her cousin's 21st birthday last night. It was nice to meet a lot of her extended family that I hadn't met yet, and damn, her family is huge! Mine pales in comparison. The big side of my family is my dads, but its not that big. We're talking an Italian family with people having anywhere for 6 to 9 siblings! Nuts. Anyway, the party was fun, Elena got a little too drunk and I ended up having to drive back to my house from her parents, not fun to do when you're almost 6'5" in a little Ford Tempo. But we made it.

Not sure what the plan is for today, probably Elena will just catch up on all the TV from last week she missed and I'll play Halo 2! Thats my idea of a great Sunday! Adios!

I must say, as weekends go, this past one was pretty damn enjoyable. I'm sorry to see it over and to be back at work, but oh well, it happens. Hopefully the next one will be here soon enough! So here's the rundown...

I saw The Incredibles, not once, but twice, well, really, one and a half times. Elena and I went to see it Friday night but I passed out in the theatre and fought to stay awake, thus missing about half of the movie here and there. So I went back Saturday night by myself since Elena was working and saw it in its entirity. I really need to stop falling asleep during movies. First it was Kill Bill, Vol. 2 and now this. Although Kill Bill wasn't really my fault. I was still jet lagged from Paris, but Friday night was totally my fault, as Elena and I got pretty drunk on two big pitchers of frozen strawberry margeritas at dinner before we went to the movie. Our waiter at the Mexican place was pretty damn cool. We had a good portion of the pitcher left when we were ready to go, so he put the remaining in to go coffee cups which we took into the movies with us. Nice.

Elena was like a crazy person at the restaurant though, I thought I was going to have to kill her! I kept telling her that the movie started at 9, and at 8 she was curious if there was an earlier show we could catch. No, I said, its playing at 9 and 10 and basically every 40 minutes to an hour. She thought that meant we could catch an 8:40 show, but no, the only earlier show was 8:20 which there was no way we could catch, but she was determined, and buzzed, otherwise. So much so that she was in a huge rush to get out of the restaurant. She made me call my poor brother at least 3 times to get the right movie times and to order tickets beforehand so we didn't have to wait. And all for naught, as I passed out. Oh well, lesson learned.

Saturday we didn't really do anything, just were kind of lazy bastards until Elena headed off to work. Although, at 3:30, when she had to be at work in a half hour she realized she forgot her work shoes at home. There was no way she could make it home and then to work on time, and she didn't need the shoes until 5, so I had to run to get house, get the shoes, then run to her restaurant to deliver them. Fun times. Randy really wanted to go see Saw (ha ha, See Saw! couldn't resist), but I had no desire to go as I wanted to see The Incredibles in its entirity while conscious. So I went without him and came home to him watching the end of Mean Girls, for which I made fun of him for, but really, had no right to as it was my movie, although he did pay for it. Forget it, its complicated. He said he'd rather spend his night watching Lindsay Lohan's enormous rack than a cartoon and I could see his logic. He then proceeded to continue his chick flick rom-com night by watching 13 Going On 30, which again, I couldn't fault him for, as it was my movie again, and I love Jennifer Garner, so its all good. Elena came over after work and that was that.

Sunday again we were lazy and didn't really do anything. Just lounged around, went to Blockbuster to trade in some duplicate DVD's we had and picked up Shrek 2 and Dawn of the Dead for Randy. We had some dinner, watched some TV, had some fun and went to bed.

That brings me to here, Monday afternoon with about an hour and 15 minutes left of work. My car is still in the shop, and it should be ready tomorrow. Hopefully it'll run like its supposed to. I need to stay motivated to pay it off as I'm seriously lusting after the Audi A4.

Elena is probably working for most of the week, so I probably won't see her again until Thursday or so, which is OK, as Halo 2 should be on my doorstep tomorrow when I get home from work, and I'm sure it'll consume every aspect of my life for awhile. Can't help it.

Alright, back to killing time at work. And oh, only 20 more days until my birthday!!! Woo hoo!

Although I'm highly disappointed that Kerry didn't win the presidency as I definitely thought the country needed a change of some sort, a small part of me is glad that Bush won. I know, that sounds crazy, but there is a sick sort of logic behind it. While I do believe that in the first 4 years of office Bush has led this country into hell in a handbasket and he will probably go down as one of the worst presidents ever, now his fate is in his own hands because he's got to clean up his own mess, for probably the first time in his privelaged life. All I have to say to him is have fun, because I'm sure its not going to be pretty.

Thats enough political talk from me. Its Wednesday and that means the week is almost over. I'm not sure if Elena and I are still meeting for dinner tomorrow. Her friend from Florida is in town and they're supposed to get together in the afternoon to hang out. I mentioned I was OK with her friend coming along to dinner, so we'll see what happens when and if Elena ever touches base with her. Nothing big planned for the weekened either. I really want to go see The Incredibles, as I love Pixar movies, and the teaser for the next and final Star Wars movie is supposed to play in front of it as well, so thats further enticement. I know Elena wants to see it, so I'm sure we'll go.

That's about it thats new around here. My birthday gets closer and closer with each passing day and I still don't know what I want, if anything. I think I'm just going to ask for donations to my many charity's, like Matt's Pay of His Car (So He Can Either Drive it Until it Dies or Get A New One), or This Money Goes Straight to the Credit Card Company. Those charities need the most so we can reopen the all important Ring Fund.

Alright, back to work!

Its amazing what a weekend filled mostly with rest and a good dose of antibiotics can do for you. I'm feeling much better today, although it is Monday and I'm at work, so how good can someone really feel in that instance? Still, I am getting much better. I still have a little nagging congestion and yummy phlegm, and a bit of a cough still, but thats about it, nothing that isn't life threatening.

The weekend was pretty dull. I ran a bunch of errand on Saturday morning and just relaxed at home in the evening. I had to go into work for a few hours on Sunday morning to do some server upgrades with my coworker, which all went smoothly, thankfully. It had the potential to go horrible wrong, but we knew what we were doing, and thankfully the procedure was pretty idiot proof. After work I went back home, rested and relaxed for most of the afternoon and then Elena swung by and we headed to her cousins for dinner. Had a good meal, too much wine and dessert and then headed home where I proceeded to pass out at a little after 10 PM. Very pathetic.

Elena is working for the next three nights in a row, so I won't see her again until Thursday. She's going to try to get a voice lesson again, and my car should be in the shop, again, so she may just come pick me up and we'll get some dinner around here that night. We've been meaning to go to P.F. Changs for awhile, and there's a Cold Stone Creamery right next door to it, so that sounds like a pretty damn good 1-2 punch of food and dessert to me.

In other news, let the countdown begin. Its officially November today, and its my favorite month of the year. Why, you ask? Because my birthday is in November. I know, its pathetic that someone who is going to be 26 still gets excited about his birthday, but I can't help it, I do. My birthday is always on or around Thanksgiving, so we always unofficially celebrate it during Thanksgiving while all the family is around and I've always liked that. I can't help it. So, we're counting down. Only 27 more days until November 28.