The luck o' the irish

I suppose that's the right thing to title this post, as there isn't any OTHER kind of luck I may possibly have.

So last night at about midnight, I sent an application into a Best Buy using their online form. Pretty routine for me now, a soon to be unemployed socially active teenager. I wasn't expecting to hear from them at all, let alone as soon as they did.

Flash forward to 2 this afternoon, and I get a voicemail. Lo and behold, it's a rather nice gent named Matt from, Yes ladies and gentleman, you guessed it! Best Buy! More specifically, Best Buy's Geek Squad. He'd like me to call him about setting up an interview.

So, I call and they ask if I can come in for an interview... Earlier tonight...

Perplexed as I was, I'm not going to turn down the opportunity to get a job just because of short notice on the interview. So at 7PM, I sat down with Matt, and was almost immediately rushed through to my second interview.

I say almost immediately because he actually went walking around the store to find the assistant manager for the store, the person I was to have my second interview with, to see if he was available to do the interview NOW. Unfortunately he was busy dealing with a secondary matter of greater importance, so I shook Matt's hand and ended the interview with a "Thank you for your time, I hope to see you again in the future"

Destiny

This may very well be the first of many posts with this title, for I'm pretty sure I've found mine, if perhaps in a very ironic way.

Many years ago, eleven, if I recall correctly; I met a girl who'd become my best friend. Her and I were nearly inseparable during elementary school, the short time we were able to spend together during recess ended up keeping the both of us sane during our individual problems. For some reason, we never thought to see each other outside of school.

Flash forward a little bit to about fourth grade, when my own personal struggles came to a head. Things were bad, my family was having a rough few months. The custody battle raged on, and just as it finally decided to take a long break, my mother began having problems with her back. The drive out to take my sister to school wasn't helping much.

It got to a point where I was given a choice. Either continue to go to school, and risk mom's back more, or begin homeschooling and help around the house in hopes that her back would get better. I did the only thing I had the heart to do, leaving my friends behind and staying home with my mother.

I was heartbroken. On that last day, I couldn't find anyone to get their numbers. I ran around frantically trying to find the few friends I'd cared enough about to want to communicate with. I never did find them. What I learned later was that the one person I cared about the most WAS there, and was trying to find ME.

Fortunately, the story of her and I doesn't end there. Thanks to the internet, and mostly Myspace, we were reunited a few years ago. We hit it off, picking up nearly where we left off. Talking like nothing ever happened. But something had happened. It didn't feel the same. It felt like more.

I didn't just jump into it. I didn't want to risk our friendship based on some seemingly errant feeling. I sat there quietly, painfully watching as she went through a few bad relationships. Little did I know at the time that she too, was waiting, watching. She saw me go through Anna and Katie, and all the "there's this guy"-ing. She didn't do anything, just as I myself didn't do anything. Unknown to each of us, the other was feeling the same way.

Cue just last Thursday night. We were texting about something for some reason. (I'm going to paraphrase, I'm not entirely positive on the details anymore. The basic idea is still there though. She brought up how after the last party we were both at, everyone she knew, including her mother, asked multiple times why we never dated. Awkward. I texted back how it's strange everyone seems to think it's a good idea but us, and she responded with "Well, they have a few points."

... A few points? Had I just heard what I thought I heard? I read the text a few times before deciding what my next action was. "Well... I had always thought of trying it sometime..." "Really?"
"Yeah..."
"I don't want you to feel like you have to"
"I do, really"
"Are you sure?"
"Well... Why not? We only live once."
"Yeah, okay... but there's a snag."
"A snag?"
"Yeah... I sort of fenangled myself into a relationship with this girl online... "
"Oh, well don't break that off for me."
"No, I will... I'm not sure it's what I want. Long distance relationships are hard... But I do know that I've always wanted you."
"... Really?"
"Yeah."
"Wow... took you long enough."
"What?"

And so it begins. I broke it off with the girl online. I STILL feel bad about that. Really. Unfortunately what I'd done to get myself into that whole mess, I did because I had given up on anything happening here with any of the people I knew. I'd exhausted all of my options here, run through all the people I know and still hadn't found anyone who I'd WANT to be with...

It was another case of what I really wanted being right under my nose the whole time. Destiny is, quite possibly, my destiny. She's always been there, we've always been good friends, there's nothing either of us have ever done that's ever made the other angry.

So, we went out Saturday. As far as anyone knew, we were just friends. We started in the mall, walking around it twice before we decided we were bored. We went to my favorite Hawaiian Barbecue place for some grub, then headed to the pool hall for a while. We met up with one of her friends there by chance, got bored of the pool thing, so we headed to pie for some Village Inn... Wait, strike that, reverse it. There we go. (i'z sleepy XD)

After that... that's when things go to be the most interesting. We had lived through the "Her mother's crazy friend and a car and waaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAaaaaaaaayyyy too much caffeine..." experience, and we were just hanging around her neighborhood. It was dark, and a little cold. We walked around her little community a few times, finally stopping on a hill to just sit for a while. It was great. We laid down to watch the moon and clouds, something she hadn't done in a long time.

Unfortunately, the grade of the hill was such that she kept sliding down a little. I held my hand up such that she could grab on, and hopefully stop sliding. It didn't help much, however, so she rolled over and I threw my arm over. We laid there like that for a few minutes, our eyes fixed on each other's faces. I moved my had up to her cheek... and we kissed. That was my Saturday, one of the best days of my life so far. The only thing coming close was the day I found her again

Yesterday was better still. She made it over by bus. After some hot chocolate (because DAMN was it cold out there.) we spent the rest of the night just being together, complete with the sappy romantics. We didn't really DO anything. We just talked, laid, and kissed. I anticipate that it will happen many more times in the future.

Really, I'm almost positive she's the one... As much as I hate to admit it. After eleven years without a single even close to serious falling out, we'll be okay for a few more, at least.

She is, in my eyes, beautiful. Perhaps not beautiful by societies standards, but I don't need society to tell me what's beautiful.

I don't ever want to have to give her up.

Cell Phone Company Convolution

OKAY, I'm no longer a sideline skeptic. Cell phone companies blow chunks.

So my cell phone company, who's name brings me agony indescribable, has made me angry once again. I'm pissed off. The one plan I REALLY need, an add-on to let me connect to the internet FROM MY PHONE, isn't available on the plan I'm currently using. A plan that has unlimited data.

Now, if I'm paying for the service, WHO GIVES A FUCK what plan I'm on? WHY DOES IT MATTER? I'll tell you why. Because they can make more money by getting me to switch plans. In the corporate scheme of things, does ten dollars a month REALLY make that big a difference?

NOT ONLY have we been with this company for TEN YEARS, we've never been late paying a bill, we've always been good customers and upgraded our phones often, we've never called customer support, tried to get money for dropped calls, we've referred people, all that jazz. So why, when I say I want to have a plan that lets me connect my PHONE to my LAPTOP and get INTERNET, they say no?

Is selfish greed more important to them than their customer base? Is losing all those customers they did REALLY not making that big an impact? This company needs to realize that they have to appeal to the customer, stop dragging their longest customers through the mud, and start offering things we WANT.

They may have lost me.

Sprint, as a loyal customer who's been using your service happily for ten years, I'm sorry to say that we WILL NOT be agreeing to another two year contract. You can expect three less phone's worth of income when our current contract runs out.

I hope in the future you steer yourself in a direction that values the customer more than the money you are going to lose without those very people.

While I'm at it, text messaging rates. They're absurd. It does not cost $.45c to send a text message to Australia, thankyouverymuch. I might not know much about cellular phones, but I do know that I can send the same text message on the internet, using the same data cables, for much, much less. So much less so that it doesn't even increase my monthly internet bill.

And now, I'm off to find a provider that won't screw me over, if they even exist.

Time... Flies...

Okay, so updating this thing is a little harder to keep up with than I'd like it to be. A lot has happened, a lot of it I don't remember.

So instead of trying to get it all down, trashing my brain trying to find the little bits of information I want to put here, I'll just type up what comes to mind. This will lead to what is most likely a hard to follow series of thoughts that won't make any sense to anyone.

Friday night I kissed the girl who I've deemed my current "problem girl". Nobody I know is happy that I did that. Nobody likes her. She is pretty attractive, and has an okay personality, but for some reason, everyone thinks I need to wash my mouth out with battery acid because of it. Okay, so I was a little drunk, I still made the conscious decision before. I'm not really all that happy about it myself, because the kiss felt a little... empty. Although she was into it, and I wasn't really very drunk, I didn't feel anything. It's a strange sort of disconnect, actually. You'd think there would be at least a little bit of feeling there, but no. There was nothing.

*sigh*

Well, I suppose it's not too bad. I mean, it's only the first kiss I can remember in 5 or more years. I guess it's better than nothing. Though, now that I have, it makes me feel a little more sure that I need to find the right person before committing to anything. In my desperation, I'd thought anyone would do, but not so. For that, I am glad, because it makes me even more sure that I'll find the RIGHT person, and not just settle.

So the rest of the night was a little strange. I had already stopped thinking about the kiss, so I had a lot of fun. Talked with a bunch of people I hadn't seen in about six months. Absolutely everyone was there. Everyone was happy to see me.

After a while, I ended up talking to this girl named Kendra, and ended up talking about being nervous, feeling out of place, and it was a nice long two-sided conversation. It was fun.

Then I got drafted into a beer pong team. Kicked ass with a guy who's left arm was nub just a few inches from the elbow. beat the reigning champs.

That was my friday night, Hung out with some people that I hadn't seen, had a few beers, kicked ass at beer pong, and kissed a girl for the first time in years. I'd say the night was a success.

The next day, however, wasn't as great. Started the day off at 12:30, played a little Army of Two on my cousin's PS3. A few hours later, got drafted into a game of Denver in a Box, which is essentially a ripoff of monopoly. Turned out Problem Girl had spent the night. Awkward.

I was the first out, followed by one of my cousins, then my aunt, then it was down to Problem girl and Asshole. Well, Asshole won, and was an asshole about it. No surprises there.

Watched a few horror movies. Everyone was there. Afterwords Asshole, Cousin, and Aunt took off, leaving me and problem girl alone. I apologized for my actions. She changed the topic. Awkward again. She needed a ride home. I can't drive, so I offered to walk with her. Three miles in the cold, not happening. She ended up finding a ride, and left without saying goodbye. I was sitting alone in the dark for about ten minutes. Nobody said goodbye, nobody said anything about taking me with them. So, Cooler Cousin gets home from the Avs game, and promptly went to bed. Alone in the dark... again. At least he said goodnight.

So I got online and chatted with people. So boooooooored.

Ended up going to sleep at 3 AM. woke up this morning at 11:30. Had a good breakfast. Izgud.

Let's see... Last Monday I went to go see Sex Drive with a girl I met in the DO IRC. We met at Noodles and Company downtown, then went to the theater afterwords. Was a great movie, I recommend it. Took the light-rail down to the park 'n' ride, where her car was parked. She drove me home, met my mother, hung out for a while, then left. Was a good time overall. The whole time it was awkward. She's exactly like me, so the blame rests on both of us for the awkwardness. It was a fun awkward though, and we laughed because we pretty much knew what each other were thinking in our awkwardly directed window-stares. I almost didn't go home when my mother told me I was breaking the plan. I didn't because I'm too obedient. But yeah, Mom likes her, wants me to do more with her, but I think she's going to end up as just a friend.

Uhm... So yeah, I guess that's what's happening in my life at the moment. I don't know if it's interesting or not, but there it is.

The Killers - Human

I'd like to say right now, BRAVO.

This is the first time I have ever been interested in an entire album by ANY band, let alone before I hear the whole thing. All I have from The Killers' new album is the recently released Human from their upcoming album Day & Age.

...Yeah, okay, that sounds like a plug, but it's not supposed to be. This is me on my feet shouting to the heavens that this song is freaking amazing. It's a disconnect from most of the Killers songs I've heard in the past. Mr. Brightside had an older feel to it, and All These Things That I've Done had a nice ambiance effect to it, but Human has an epic all-surrounding feeling.

It's got a strong beat, a powerful synth "oohh" behind the beginning, a strings ensemble behind the majority of the song, mixed in with a buzzy electro-synth.

If the rest of the album is half as awesome as this, I'm buying four. One digital from amazon, one for my car, one for my mother's car, and one to keep in a drawer in case either of the other two gets scratched. Yeah, you heard that right. I won't just copy the disc, I'll buy more than one.

Just. That. Awesome.

In fact, it's awesome enough to pass me by my most recent month and a half writer's block. It's inspiring enough to get my working on my projects again... and blogging. Need to do more of that.

The Good Guys

In literature there are often two kinds of "good guy". There's the singular, and the plural.

The singular good guy usually solves a problem with an internal debate, or gut reaction. He takes things as they come, either going through all the options in his head, or taking a leap of faith. These are fairly common, as far as characters go. They're usually in it for themselves or someone they love, and rarely do they think to the true scale of the situation.

The plural good guys are usually shown as either a group of acquaintances, or a band of adventurers pulled together by a force or common interest. Within the group, we see the same kind of debate as our singular good guy, but open to other ideas. Now the unfortunate thing is that when you're writing with a group of good guys, you tend to run into disagreements. These disagreements stem from the mind of the character you've created and can be quite a roadblock. Time and time again, author's have gone the now tried and true method of pushing the stick in the mud to grudgingly going along with it because he/she "Can't think of anything better.

I myself ran into this author's conundrum when dealing with the novel I started. It presented itself as a large roadblock, and put me off writing for months. Even today I'm not nearly as enthusiastic about the whole thing.

Now that I've moved onto a different project that I need to write for, I've started to think on some ways to avoid roadblocks like these. If you change the dynamic of a group from a forum of ideas to a singular decider, instead of a democracy you get a dictatorship. Unfortunately for me, dictatorships in this form are incredibly fake and unlikely.

So what does a person do in that situation? You make someone a bold idiot and go with whatever they'd do.


If you've noticed the Google Ads, I've placed them there as a test before I put them live on my newest project's website, as I'm going to need whatever income I can get. They should be gone soon.

Then, the loot post

My step-dad and I made an AWESOME haul today.

We set off this afternoon to the house of a guy selling four 250 gig hard-drives for $30 each. Just a few days ago, the hard-drive in our server decided to start making grinding noises.

Uh... yeah. When we got there, the guy talked with us a while about where he got the drives, some of the other stuff he was selling, and also stuff he wanted to get rid of. He mentioned
laptops. I asked if he had any memory specifically, as I'm looking to see if I can upgrade the Eee's memory. What he gave us surprised me.

We left his house with five laptops, a docking station for one, floppy drive for another, and dvd drive for yet another.

They are:
2x Averatec 6100 (Intel Pentium 4 3.0 ghz, 512mb ram, 60 gig HD, ATI Radeon 8600) missing one battery and both power supplies
1x Gateway 450SX4 (Unknown Intel Pentium 4, unknown ram, 20 gig HD, unknown video, two power supplies, doesn't turn on, docking station fits this one)
1x Compaq Presario R3000 (Unknown AMD Athlon XP-M, 256 MB ram, 60 gig HD, no power adapter, turns on but shuts off soon after using other power supply. Suspected on-board RAM issue)
1x Compaq Presario 3000 (AMD Athlon XP-M 2.8ghz, Unknown video, currently contains HD from R3000, ram from one of the Averatec machines, boots using power supply higher than rated, cuts off supply and dies shortly thereafter. Suspected working laptop in need of power adapter)

So that's the haul. We think the Averatec both work fine, but we have no power to test. Going out tomorrow to look. Not a bad deal for $30. At the very least we have five licenses for Windows XP, four home, one pro, that can be transfered to other computers. What WAS this guy thinking?