I can't believe its Monday already. The weekends go by way too fast and I don't like it! Thankfully there is a serious threat of snow today and there will hopefully a good chance of going home early. That would be really nice, but I'm not holding my breath. In the year and a half I've been here, we've gone home early once for snow, and came in two hours late for snow, thats it. Pretty bad percentages once you take into account how much inclement weather we've received recently. Oh well.

So Friday night Elena and I went to the movie and saw Hitch. Very funny movie, very cute, and I highly recommend it. Kevin James totally steals the movie away from Will Smith, if you can believe that. It really is a perfect date movie and shockingly a romantic comedy that a man, like myself, could actually enjoy and not get sick from, like most rom-coms. After the movie I went back to Elena's house for awhile and we just chilled out and watched some TV before I headed home and to bed around midnight.

I didn't do much of anything on Saturday, was just very lazy, watching DVD's and sleeping. Went out to dinner with my family on Saturday night, then I went home and went to bed shortly thereafter. Yes, I know, I'm living the life!

Sunday was more of the same, I basically continued with Saturday's laziness, but threw in a trip to Best Buy with Randy so he could spend the gift card my mom gave him for Valentine's Day. I spent mine the day after I got it, so I actually had to throw down some hard earned cash for my two CD purchase (Thankfully I took my mom up on her offer to vacuum and dust the house on Saturday and made an easy $50 for an hours worth of work). After Best Buy there was just a lot more being lazy until Elena came over for dinner. After dinner we watched last week's episode of Alias, the Oscars and The L Word, before wrapping up the Oscars and going to sleep.

That, in a nutshell, was my weekend. I know, I live such an exciting life sometimes. I can barely deal with it myself when it gets that crazy.

Have a good Monday everyone!

Its really dead here at work. Aside from the fact that its President's Week and a lot of people are on vacation because their kids are off from school, there was a pretty decent snow storm last night, so I'm guessing even more people aren't here today, so its going to be quite boring. To keep myself entertained, and to entertain my readers, its time to tell a "Drunken College Story."

This story came to mind yesterday when I went into the bathroom at work and saw part of the new fire alarm system they've been installing around the office and it took me way back to sophomore year.

I was home for the weekend due to the Jewish Holidays and decided to get together with Seth and Brett at Seth's dorm room to drink and watch the Yankees in the playoffs. Seth went to school locally, as in five minutes down the road (I went there too, after two and a half years away upstate, and graduated after two and a half years there, yes I was on the five year plan) but wanted the experience of living on campus, so he did just that. So Brett and I go over and start drinking and watching the game. At the time I was obsessed with drinking cider, mostly because it tasted good and had a really high alcohol content (translation, it got me really drunk really fast).

So we're watching the game and Seth invited over his ex-girlfriend to come over and hang out with us with her friends (weird I know, they kind of just sort of hung out all summer, nothing serious, although she wanted it to be and he didn't, and told her so once they were at their respective colleges, I just wanted to hook up with one of her friends who conveniently went to my school and who I had given a ride home that weekend, but sadly, nothing came of it, as I had no game). I think at some point some other girl Seth was interested in on campus came over to hang as well.

Brett and I are having a great time getting drunk as oddly, we were the only ones really drinking, when all of a sudden the fire alarm goes off and we have to vacate the building. While the alarm is going off there are also these flashing strobe lights going off (which I later deduced was to alert anyone that is deaf to get the hell out of the building, because its on fire). We're outside waiting to get the all clear to go back in so we can drink more and Brett is busy laughing at some Chinese kid talking into a speakerphone outside the building's main entrance (I guess hearing someone speak Chinese when you're drunk was funny to him).

We go back into the building and drink some more. Brett and I excuse ourselves to go to the bathroom. Once we finish up in there I saw one of those strobe lights that went off in the fire alarm and in my drunken stupidity started tapping and hitting it in a vain attempt to make it flash. Brett joins in on the fun too, to no avail. We head back to Seth's room and Brett notices a fire alarm trigger outside Seth's door. I tell him to pull it (yes, I was that stupid) and he proceeds to (Brett is a hardcore volunteer fireman on top of this. He lives for the fire department and can't wait to be chief of his small town FD come May. And he pulled the alarm despite this). Nothing happens. I'm laughing, he's laughing and we go back into Seth's room, and all of sudden, the alarm starts to go off.

We all go outside, again, and Brett and I are laughing our asses off. Everyone was asking us what's so funny. We say nothing. Seth asks us if we pulled the alarm, we deny everything. They give the building the all clear and we go back inside. At which point Seth's ex asks me if I'm OK. I was, just really drunk. We get back into the room and Seth gets a visit from the residence hall director asking him if he knew anything or saw anything about the fire alarm being pulled, since it was done right outside his door. Seth doesn't and so ends his interogation. Eventually, I'm not sure if it was that night or not, but we confessed to pulling the alarm. Seth was pissed, but got over it soon enough and now we all laugh about it.

So there's my story, all brought on by the site of a new fire alarm trigger in the bathroom. Isn't stream of consciousness great?

I really want a new cell phone. Note the use of the word "want" there. My current cell phone works just fine, I've just had it for more than a year and I'm sick of it. So naturally, the inner kid in me wants a new toy to play with.

Granted I know I should be saving money and not spending it, but honestly, I've been pretty damn good at curbing the spending lately, so I think I deserver some sort of treat. Now, the only problem is I don't know which one to get. I have two finalists in it. I really wanted a flip phone, since I've never had one, but they don't make any that I like and that has the features I require (such as Bluetooth and compatability to sync to my Mac). I'm stuck using Cingular, since AT&T Wireless was bought out by them and my contract doesn't expire until sometime in November. But Cingular isn't so bad, my service has definitely gotten better since the two merged.

So the two finalists are as follows. The Sony Ericsson S710a. My past two phones have been Sony Ericsson's and I've had no complaints with them. I like the swivel action this phone has and the much better built in camera phone. Major drawback here is thats its $450 through Cingular. A little pricey.

Next up is the BlackBerry 7100g, which is a phone and BlackBerry all in one, but much smaller than a regular BlackBerry. I have a BlackBerry for work, and if I got this I could get rid of one gadget that I carry around with me most of the time and just integrate the two. A very attractive offer. And, at $250, after a mail-in rebate, its much cheaper than the other one. Only drawback, with a data plan and voice plan it'll come to about $90 a month for service, but I need to talk to my boss to see if there is some way I can get my company to pay for some of it. Who knows, stranger things can happen.

Not sure what to do here. I'm leaning towards the BlackBerry, but also tempted to just do nothing and wait it out and save the cash. I know, what to do, what to do... any thoughts?

This week is going to suck. Its going to be the all time most boring week ever. There is very little to do here at work and I'm trying to keep busy, but there is only so much web surfing you can do in a day without looking at the same stuff over and over and over again. Thankfully its a short week due to Monday's holiday, but it still sucks. Half the place took off for the week, so its deader than dead here. And you know how slowly time can drag when there's nothing to do. Its brutal.

Things are going OK between myself and Elena after our little blow up last week. I'm dealing quite fine with everything. In fact, I had a chance to hang out with her last night, but kind of just wanted to go home. I had to drop off some CD's she needed and a DVD her aunt wanted to borrow at her house. She was supposed to go on an audition just to try something out but she wasn't in the mood since she wasn't going to take a role if they offered. She asked if I was going to stay and I said no, I just wanted to head home. She said, "You sure? This is a chance to see me," all sarcastically, but I was sure. I just wanted to go home, you know? I just wanted to go home, change into scrub clothes and lay down in my bed and not do anything. Plus I'm sure had I stayed she would've been distracted with sending out resumes and e-mails and whatnot, which is what she turned out doing anyway. So in the end, it was all for the best.

She's working tonight and tomorrow night and Friday she has more auditions to go to in NYC, so once she's done I'm sure we'll hang out and do something. The more I think about it, I'm really seeing her about as often as I did months ago, so I'm not really sure what I was freaking out about. It was probably not a big deal and I really think I'm over it. I usually only see her on a day or two over the weekend and maybe once, twice during the week, tops. Just call me a moron on that fight last week. All my fault. (And that will probably be the only time a guy ever truly admits he was wrong in his relationship!)

Alright, back to finding something to do until I can go home. Wednesday may suck during the day while you're working or whatnot, but Wednesday night is really something to look forward to, TV wise. You have Lost, Alias and Smallville to enjoy (although Smallville has been pretty lame since after Christmas). Here's to hoping it gets better! Adios people, hope we all make it through the day while staying sane!

In High School Biology I always found Darwin's Theory of Evolution to be highly interesting. It makes total sense to me. In order to survive, you had to adapt. Those that adapted were able to pass on their traits to the next generation. Those that didn't die. Yeah, you know where I'm going with this. If my relationship is going to survive I'm going to need to adapt to the new circumstances. So far so good. Didn't really see Elena too much over the weekend, but I kept busy enough, doing what, I can't really remember, but it wasn't too bad. Caught up on all the DVD's I've been meaning to watch and really caught up on my sleep, to the tune of a 5 hour nap on Saturday afternoon. That felt good.

Randy and I went to see Constantine on Sunday and I have to say it wasn't half bad. Pretty cool effects, interesting story line and premise and on the whole, highly entertaining. I hight recommend it. Elena came over last night after an audition for something she made out to be an Italian version of My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Not sure if its for a movie or not, she made it out to be a scripted reading in an attempt to get funding for a film. I'm not sure, but then again she uses a lot of theatre, music and acting jargon that I have no idea what it means. Hell, if I started rambling on about RAID arrays, TCP/IP and storage area networks she'd probably have no idea what I was talking about.

Elena stayed the night and we hung out for most of the day until she had to leave for an acupuncture appointment (she has steel rods in her back from scoliosis and it helps with the back and neck pain) and then another audition. This one is local, but she's only going to test out a new song she's going to be using at future auditions. Its for community theatre and she said she's so beyond that, she's just going for the practice and would turn down any role they'd offer her. She's got more auditions in the city tomorrow and we may hang out after work. Who knows. I really just hope she lands some kind of steady gig, because I'm sure all this auditioning, while good to get the experience, has to be exhausting. I'm just glad I don't have to do it. I got sick of going on pointless job interviews when I was looking for a job after awhile.

So we shall see. I've kept busy. This afternoon alone I was entertaining by Keyser trying to hump various things, like pillows, blankets and my arm. That helped kill a half hour or so. I'm thinking of taking up a new hobby or two. I bought a guitar for myself when I graduated from college and I was deluded enough to think I could teach myself how to play. Never happened. In the meantime the thing sits in the corner of my room collecting dust, so I was debating finding someone to teach me how to play. Bonus is that the sound of the guitar and really just the sight of it freaks Keyser out big time. So thats worth it.

So thats about it. In the immortal words of Monty Python, "I'm not dead yet! I'm getting better!" Thanks for all the good vibes people. Keep em coming. Adios!

One of the old PC's we had around the office had a message on it when it boot up saying that imminent hard drive failure was detected and that all data should be backed up as soon as possible to avoid loss. I thought that was kind of interesting, because I feel like my relationship with Elena is about to experience imminent failure as well. The story is really too long, and somewhat personal to tell here. I had this whole long post that didn't seem to going anywhere that I just deleted five minutes ago before I posted it. If you really want to here it, leave a comment and I'll try to respond as coherently as possible with the most condensed version I can muster.

And should I take it as a bad sign that the hard drive in that PC crashed the other day?

Well, in comparison to last year's Valentine's Day, this years was a resounding success. Considering at the end of V-Day 2004 my relationship with Elena was on very rocky ground, having a normal, if somewhat boring day is much better in my book. We had already exchanged gifts last week because we weren't even sure we'd be able to get together last night at all. We were and I picked her up from the train station by my office and headed to one of my favorite Italian restaurants, Vincent's Clam Bar. They make the best Chicken Parm, which is my favorite dish. No place else, not even my mom can duplicate the quality. Elena even tried a bite and she agreed, it was damn fine.

After dinner I took her to get her car at the train station by her house and she followed me back to my house where we proceeded to head right back out again and get ice cream from Cold Stone Creamery. (I figured it was Valentine's Day and a little indulging wouldn't hurt too much). I had the best ice cream, it was called Dulce de Leche Desire and it consisted of French vanilla ice cream, a double shot of caramel topping, cinnamon and honey. Good stuff. We went back to house to eat it, watched 24 and passed out. End of night. Beats last year, hands down.

So this is like the start of week 4 of sticking to my diet and I'm amazed I've gotten this far because one thing is for sure, I hate doing it. I weighed myself after a week of being back on it and sticking to it and I weighed the same I did on Christmas Eve, which I thought wasn't too bad considering how bad I ate all through and after the holidays. I stuck with it another week and weighed myself and was amazed at a loss of 4 pounds. Not bad at all. Stuck with it again, weighed myself and only lost a pound that week. I know, one pound isn't bad, but I was expecting more.

So I've actually started doing what I've planning to do for weeks now and start to exercise in the morning. We have a stationary bike in my house that generally just collects dust. So Saturday morning I hopped on it and rode for a good 30 minutes. Did the same Sunday and this morning I woke up at 5:15 AM to do a half hour before I got ready for work. That especially sucked because my legs are sore from months of inactivity, my ass is sore from that uncomfortable bike seat and I'm exhausted because I was up until past 1 AM watching the Grammy's and then catching up on all the other shows I taped because I was watching the Grammy's. To top it all off, I'm always starving! My stomach was rumbling something fierce awhile ago and I know I have to wait until later tonight to eat dinner, hopefully with Elena.

I know its all for a good cause because I would really like to fit comfortably back into all my clothes again. I can't believe I lost so much weight only to gain about half of it back. It sucks, but thats life I guess. I'm trying to stay this course and get back to where I was. I'm sure I can do it, I'll just be miserable while I do it. What else is new?

So Happy Valentine's Day everyone! Elena and I unofficially half celebrated it on Friday as we went out to dinner and exchanged gifts. She's in the city today at an audition and if she doesn't get work as an extra on Law and Order tomorrow she's going to take the train back to a station near my office, I'll pick her up, we'll grab dinner and celebrate fully, hopefully. Thats the plan at least.

Alright back to work and drinking gallons of water in a vain attempt to silence my stomach. Have fun!

This one is a doozy trust me. Technically it should be a nightmare, but at the time the dream was occuring I think I was enjoying it. Only when I woke up did I realize the horror that could've been if it were true. Here's how it went down.

Despite the fact that we've been broken up for more than two years, somehow I knocked up and then had to marry my ex-girlfriend, while somehow still with Elena. Strangely she was OK with the arrangement. Now, aside from the pregnancy having a gestation period almost triple the usual 9 months, my ex, who I guess was my wife in the dream went into labor. I was debating with her whether or not I should leave work and go pick her up and go to the hospital. I don't know why I would debate that. In real life, if my wife went into labor I'd drop everything and run. Strangely though, I was working in NY and she was at our old apartment in Lousiana. Odd, I know.

So we skip the whole labor part and all of a sudden I'm happy because I have a son now. I even imagined the e-mail my company would send out about it, like they do when every employee has a kid. Hell, they even announce when some people become grandparents. I'm amazed they don't send out notices about people that bought dogs.

Anyway, I'm getting off topic. So I wake up and realize it was all a dream and I was horrified at how much my subconscious found it enjoyable. Granted earlier in the day I was thinking about what it would be like to be around Elena when the time came for us to have kids, but I wasn't thinking of my ex-girlfriend. I woke up and was tempted to tell her about the dream next time we IM eachother or something, but then I realized that it would probably upset her, given that she can't have kids due to having cervical cancer last summer and having to have a hysterectomy performed. Yeah, that would be a bad idea.

Its been exactly two years since I started doing this blogging thing and boy has it been an interesting two years (or at least I think so. If you feel that my life is boring, I'm sorry). Let's recap shall we?

When I first started this in 2003, I had just broken up with my longtime girlfriend and had just managed to find a job as a part time consultant, so things were starting to look up life-wise considering the relationship sucked at that point and her deciding to move back home was probably the best thing to ever happen to me.

A few months later I met Elena and love ensued, only to have her go to London for a year and a month after we'd been together for only four months. I guess it could've been worse, but at least I got to visit London a bunch of times and travel to other places in Europe. When I donated blood Tuesday (which went horribly wrong, again, they asked me if I've been out of the country at all in the past year, so I rattled off the countries I've been to, England, France, Ireland and Scotland. Not bad in a years work if I do say so myself.

Right before Elena left for London I snagged a full time job and I'm still there (I'm just as amazed as the next person) and I'm enjoying it a lot (most of the time. Hell, every now and then everyone hates their job for some reason or another).

I also lost a lot of weight thanks to Elena, only to be a moron and put a lot of it back on. But I'm back on track now and actually lost four pounds last week. I'm highly curious to see what the loss is this week as I've continued to stay on track (again, I'm really amazed at that one too).

So where am I at right now? Still got the good job, still have the great girl and I'm contemplating getting engaged by the end of the year. Not a bad two years if I say so myself.

So I passed out last night at about 8:30 PM. Pathetic, I know, but I was so damn exhausted. I'd say I shouldn't have stayed up so damn late on Sunday, but I won't, because it was worth being tired. So I'm feeling much better today now that I'm well rested. I'm about to head down to the lobby to donate some blood, which I haven't done in awhile. Its a good thing to do, plus it gets me out of work for an hour or so. And don't forget the free cookies.

File this one under I'm oblivious. I get home last night, walk through the house doing my usual "I just got home routine." I check the mail for anything addressed to me. I take my vitamin box out of my laptop bag and throw it on the counter so I can take them with dinner (or my dinner protein shake I should say), throw the towels in the drier and head upstairs. I throw my cell phone on the charger and notice a voice mail. Funny, I didn't hear the phone ring on my ride home, but then again I was listening to John Mayer at a pretty loud volume (yes, even though most chicks love him, I still think he's a very talented musician). The message is from Elena to call her when I get the message. I call and she asks if I checked my living room yet when I got home. No I say, so she tells me to go look at it. I get down there and nothing is different. She says, oops, she meant the den. I walk in and nothing looks different again, until she says to look at the DVD's.

Mind you, between my brothers, father and myself we have close to 500 titles on DVD. WIth the holidays just passing, we added a lot to the collection and the DVD racks we had overflowed and I bought and built a new one but was way to lazy to stock it and organize everything. I even bought that program that scanned them all into my Mac and put them in order, but still didn't get around to organizing. Well, Elena did. In her spare time before she left yesterday morning she put everything in alphabetical order, and every shelf has some room for growth. I was stunned and profusely thanked her, although she thinks I didn't sound too excited about it. Trust me, I was. That was probably a major undertaking and I highly appreciate it. Now I can never say she never did anything sweet for me in two months. That was sweet.

Alright, back to work for awhile, then off to give a pint, then home to catch up on the 24 I missed while unconscious last night. Enjoy the rest of your day everyone!

I must admit, Super Bowl Sunday was very, very good to me. For one thing it was a great game, pretty thrilling in places and close too, which is really all you can ask for. If the game is a blowout its just not fun to watch, even for the commercials which, thanks to Janet Jacksons nipple last year, were pretty tame compared to years past, but what can you do? One of the best parts of the Super Bowl was that the halftime score was tied at 7 apiece, so my numbers in my office football pool hit, and I scored $150. Very nice. I was getting nervous for awhile as the half was winding down and Philly kept running plays and calling time outs instead of just letting the half run down. But it ended, all tied up and I got my money, which makes me a very happy boy.

Elena worked all day, helping to cater a party at someone's house and she pulled in more than I won, so I guess we both did pretty well for the Super Bowl. She came over for the night after she was done with work and the game was practically over (she had no interest in it anyway). Unfortunately we were up really late (you have to love those late night movies on Cinemax, I know I do for the effect they can have on the libido) and I'm exhausted today. I just called her cell and she's still passed out in my bed. Lucky girl. I wish I could sleep in. I was so tempted to call in sick or something, but I'm taking next Monday, Valentine's Day off, although most likely Elena will be going into the city to audition for something and I'll tag along. Maybe we can half celebrate on the Sunday before. Who knows.

Well, back to work. Hopefully this day will cruise by so I can go home and get some sleep. Have a good Monday everyone!

So its been a pretty good weekend so far and I'm looking forward to tonight's game. It should be a good one, and if the score can manage to stay with numbers ending in 7 and 7 for both teams I'll be a happy man. I got some decent numbers in the various Super Bowl pools I entered into, 7 and 7 being one combination of numbers. Lets go for 7 & 7!

Friday night Elena and I went to her cousin's house, ate some good pizza and played Monopoly until 1 in the morning. Its been a long time since I played and it was fun. I got a little too competitive, but it was all in good fun. Rob and I ganged up on his wife and Elena and made a deal for immunity on each other's hotels and such and proceeded to clean them out. It would have interesting to see who would've won if we weren't immune to each other. I'm thinking me, because he only owned Boardwalk and Park Place and the crappy purple properties that are just around the corner past Go. I had a good stretch of stuff with hotels, so I may have won, although I did land on his BW and PP a few times, but never had to pay, thankfully. So that was Friday night.

Saturday my parents had a big dinner party for my dad's department at work. They do it every year with another one of my dad's partners. Its just a way for them to thank, in advance, their employees for the all the hard work and long hours they'll put in during the upcoming tax season. So there was good fun, plenty of liquor and tasty desserts. Elena ate too much and went to bed feeling it. She just left to go to work and hopefully once she's done she'll come back over for the end of the game.

In the meantime I'm waiting for Elena's cousin to call me. Her younger sister is looking to get an Apple laptop and I offered to go with them to the Apple Store to help them out. Like I need an excuse to go to an Apple Store? Its pretty cool though, her younger cousin goes to the same school I went to and is majoring in the same thing I did, so she's getting a new laptop because they all work a lot on Macs and a lot of stuff she's doing other people can't access because she works on a PC. Plus she's hoping to go to grad school for film, so she'd need something mobile and powerful enough to edit video and stuff. I'm a little jealous. I'd like a new laptop, but honestly, mine is just fine for my needs. Plus, I'd rather wait until they figure out a way to get a G5 into a laptop. That'd be sweet.

Alright, everyone enjoy the rest of the day and the game. I don't even know who I'm rooting for, probably the Eagles just because New England's won a few already and Philly has been trying to just get to the big game for the last five years and haven't been able to. I just want my numbers to come through so I can win some cash! Adios people!

Its been pretty hectic this week, both at work and in the good old personal life. Elena has her meeting with the agent today, so I'm really hoping she gets it. Not just because it would be great for her, professionally, but I also think it would give her a great confidence boost and pull her somewhat out of this funk she's been in all month long. Plus, with an agent, she won't have to go looking for work as much, as he'll do that for her, and she can devote her spare time to something else, like say, perhaps, me? Her meeting is in about an hour so I'm crossing my fingers and hoping for the best. Everyone do the same!

Works been hectic, but thats typical. Hey, it pays the bills so I'm no complaining. Its Superbowl weekend so I'm pretty psyched about that. Maybe fortune will smile upon me in the football pools I've entered and give me some cash. I have some pretty decent numbers, like 7 and 7, so I would love a final score of 27-17 or something. Here's to hoping!

Other than that no crazy plans for this weekend. May go into the city with Elena tomorrow, it all depends on how her meeting goes. Then Saturday my parents are having this huge dinner party for my dad's department so I need to stick around at home and control the dog, because when food is around, Keyser goes crazy, like bite your hand off to get to food crazy. Should be fun. I'm trying to convince Elena to come, so who knows what will happen. Again, if her meeting goes well she'll probably be in the mood to socialize.

Alright, back to the grind, everyone enjoy your day and think good thoughts for Elena!

Elena and I had a big talk last night and sorted through all the shit thats been going on. Hopefully, now that we both know how each other feels things will get better. Elena said she's going to try to not be so selfish and start giving back what she gets. She kept asking me how and I kept telling her that I can't tell her, she just has to know. Its the little things, you know? That's all I ask for, the little gestures of love that lets someone know you care about them. I said I couldn't remember when the last time she did something sweet for me that made me pause and realize it was sweet and she said, "What about your birthday?" That was two months ago!

Alright, I'm going to stop babbling. We're OK now and hopefully things will get better. She still has some personal stuff that she has to deal with before a lot of what we talked about will get addressed, so hopefully she can take care of it soon. In the meantime one can only hope for the best.