Year: 2005

Crap, the pressure is on – 29 is perfect age for a big idea. According to the article:

The age represents the optimum combination of education and energy levels required for great ideas to emerge, according to the study.

That means starting this September I’ve gotta hunker down and think real hard. But at least I have a reprieve for genius:

However, the wait is even longer for true genius to show. In the past century the age at which great inventors and Nobel prize winners made their life-changing discoveries increased by six years, with the average now just short of 40.

(thanks to Donncha)

P.S.(If you don’t feel like registering for the article, try out BugMeNot. I finally installed the Firefox extension and it works.)

The following entry was originally posted only to LiveJournal in order to keep things secret from Lisa. I have added these to my blog with the original timestamp for posterity’s sake.

Ok, it’s starting to burn a hole in my pocket. What, you may ask, would be doing that? Well, it’s fairly small, made of white gold, and features a diamond. In case you couldn’t guess, yes, it’s an engagement ring. For those of you who don’t know the progress, Lisa and I have been openly speaking of marriage, and she has certainly made her feelings clear. For me, it’s been all about the logistics – getting the ring, planning the moment, etc. Of course, now I’m in full fledged panic mode.

No, it’s not cold feet. I’m very comfortable with the idea of spending the rest of my life with Lisa. The problem is, I want the moment to be just right for her. And yes, it does matter. And now I’m just going nuts about it, because I want to do it, but I’m not quite ready. And so I am instead carrying around this expensive bit of jewelry, and can’t let her know. Which would be why I’m making the rare appearance on LJ. I have to talk about it, but Lisa actually does read my website from time to time.

The one thing for certain is that I want to do it in Hoboken. It’s where we met, where our life together started, and has just played an essential role for both of us. I was leaning towards doing it right in the middle of the sidewalk in front of the bar formerly known as the Rodeo Ristra, since that is where we met. But now timing is the thing. The part of me that’s itching to get it done with before I explode says to just throw it together this weekend. I’m sure it would be great, but not exactly what I was hoping for. I could always wait until Tuesday and say that I wanted to check out something at the OpenMic – as much as it’s changed it would still be very appropriate for us. Now it turns out that an artist she loved but thought had disappeared will be playing in Hoboken on the 14th. What a perfect evening that could be – but I’m afraid of putting it off too far.

Well, I’d have to say the chances of it being tonight are pretty slim, as I’m just too darned tired to be romantic. If I make it past this weekend without bursting, I’ll probably be able to put a good plan together. Assuming that the ring doesn’t fall out of the hole now burned into my pocket.

Give me an inch and I take a week. I have been zonked of late. Saturday was my day of rest (which actually resulted in some running around that I will explain later). Sunday was the third installment of Lisa’s friends getting married and filling our weekends. Congratulations Anthony and Jen! It was a good time, even if the food was a tad on the dry side. Nevertheless, tons of dancing left us pretty tired, and that was just the start of the weekend. For that night, we drove down to my sisters to prepare for our trip to North Carolina.

Continue reading “Still tired after all these days”

I never got around to the latest results because, unfortunately, the end was inevitable. Also, I was hoping to get some of captures done by now to share with those interested. For one last time, though, if ya ain’t innerrested jump to the next post.

Continue reading “American Idol – Top Three… Two… One”

With Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way due to hit shelves next week, the Chinned One himself is heading out on the road. I’ll be looking at these dates in the area, most likely hitting the Bookends signing in Ridgewood. Although I have to admit that catching a screening of Man with the Screaming Brain along with the signing would be awesome. Which reminds me, time to order those comics.

Next up, I’ll be keeping all eyes on Neil Gaiman’s journal for word on when he’ll be hitting New York City for the Anansi Boys signing.

My fight with allergies has deteriorated from me pretending to fight allergies while actually fighting an infection to me me clearly fighting an infection. In the beginning, the watery eyes and sneezing clearly meant my non-existent pollen allergy was going haywire. But as of this weekend, there’s no more pretending. Last night I could feel my breathing was a bit more labored, even though most of my other symptoms seemed to be clearing up. And with my history of asthma, breathing problems really get to me.

So by the time I woke up at around 5 AM, I had a slight panic attack. I’m good at calming myself through them, but it was definitely stressful. The physical side of the attack made it difficult for me to discern what part was being caused by my ailment, and what part was being caused by me worrying about what part was being caused by my ailment. But I managed not to lose it and alarm Lisa. When she did wake up, I calmly stated that I was thinking I should see a doctor today. That’s still up for debate, as I don’t feel that bad now, but Bhavna (who went to the ER last week) is trying to convince me its for my own good. We’ll see…

Continue reading “Life and its lemons”

“…and then throw it in the face of the person who gave you the lemons until they give you the oranges you originally asked for.”

Ah, the wit and wisdom of the great Bill McNeal. Happy, happy day. After more than 2 years of waiting, the first two seasons of NewsRadio have finally hit the shelves. One of the greatest TV shows of all time (it’s one of my all time favorites, so no exaggeration here) and I can finally stop watching the crappy vidcaps that took me months to download. If you dare doubt the sheer comedic genius of this show, just check out the quote page. Or even better yet, a thread of fans sharing their favorite quotes. Then, once you are done doubting, just go out to the store and blow another thirty bucks.

And the hits just keep on coming. Last week saw the first season of Scrubs finally come out, and next week we’ve got Moonlighting coming our way. Now if only The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. would get done, my life would be complete.

PS – I forgot to mention that Best Buy has all season box sets of The X-Files on sale for $50! I might just fill out my collection this week.

…that make you laugh:

A college class was told to write a short story in as few words as possible. The instructions were that the story must contain the following three subject areas:

1. Religion
2. Sexuality
3. Mystery

There was only one A+ paper in the entire class.

Good God, I’m pregnant! I wonder who the father is.

(thanks to ***Dave)

You know how people always talk about the funny coincidences in life, that it rains on weekends and is beautiful during the week and such? Man, I am a walking billboard for that these days. My allergies have been on the fritz for the last two weeks. But wait a second, I don’t really have any allergies, not outdoor ones at least. I’m the cat and dust kinda guy, not the pollen type. Yet this year Mother Nature is pulling no punches and subjecting me to whatever form of mucous-filled Hell she can concoct.

Winter was rather lovely for me. No major illness. No serious colds or flus. I even managed to avoid skidding my death trap of a car off the road. But once the weather broke, and offered us the wonderful embrace of sunshine and reasonably warm climes, I quickly became terrified of the particles filling the air. Over the last week I’ve become an expert in various techniques of blowing my nose… don’t worry, I’ll spare you the details.

It all culminated this weekend in enough sinus pressure to nearly explode my head. A wonderful afternoon of Slow Food and good company over at Sandy’s concluded in a haze of clogged passageways and the uncertainty of an infection. Yesterday’s attempt to catch up with Joseph had to be abandoned as I couldn’t even imagine trying to go anywhere but my couch. My head was pounding, my neck was stiff, and my sinuses were stuffed. It’s a miracle that I made it through the day.

And now that Monday has come and I am back at work… well, I’m still blowing my nose a lot, but it’s nothing compared to this weekend. So now that I can tolerate the outdoors again, I am once again shoehorned into my little closet of an office. The joys of irony… or perhaps it’s the joys of Murphy’s Law…

An old friend e-mailed me a while back. I, being the dunderhead that I am, took over a month and a half to finally get back to him. But here’s the good part. Rather than coming here and posting about how I’m going to write back to a long lost friend and brag about re-connecting as I so often do, I just wrote the e-mail and sent it. Then I wrote another one, to one of my sisters, and sent it. And then I wrote one to another friend, and then another, and then another sister just for good measure. Wow, it’s like after using e-mail for a decade, I finally get it.

I want to communicate with people more regularly, so dammit stop thinking and writing about it and just plain do it. This post is so post-modern it almost sickens me. But I’ve got another point that this is supposed to lead to, so let me see if I can find it… nah, screw the segway, let’s just get moving…

Continue reading “And now for something completely different”