slainté

st patrick's day is nearly upon us. as such, i think i will make a few suggestions.
1) watch "boondock saints" - starring norman reedus, sean patrick flannery, willem dafoe and billy connelly. two irish immigrant brothers take on the russian and italian mobs in an effort to rid hell's kitchen of evil men.
2) drink guinness - if you've never tried one, you should even if just to be able to say that you have done so. it's thick and filling so don't plan on drinking more than two. and take your time, it's meant to be enjoyed, not hurried through like some domestic light piss-water beer.
3) drink an irish car bomb - half-glass of guinness with a layered shot of bailey's irish cream and jameson irish whiskey. drop the shot glass into the beer and chug it down. smooth and unbelievably great-tasting.
4) kiss at least one son or daughter or ireland.
5) learn an irish drinking song - such as, "when irish eyes are smiling," "oh, danny boy" or "i'll take the high road". (or the newer chumba wumba song "i get knocked down".)
6) reaquaint yourself with house of pain. just in case.
7) learn gælic - erin go bragh (ireland forever) or slainté (let's get drunk) will work for greetings, toasts and meaningful things to yell out at various random times during the night.
8) eat beef, potatoes and cabbage like any true irishman would. irish stew and reubens are good, too.
9) um, wear green.
10) be at paddy's irish pub at chateau élan on march 17th. festivities start at 4pm with traditional live irish music and food.

i was hoping for serenity...

Your Ultimate Sci-Fi Profile: which sci-fi crew would you best fit in? Millennium Falcon (from Star Wars) 100% Serenity (from Firefly) 75% Galactica (from Battlestar: Galactica) 69% SG-1 (from Stargate) 63% Moya (from Farscape) 63% Nebuchadnezzar (from The Matrix) 63% Bebop (from Cowboy Bebop) 44% Enterprise D (from Star Trek) 38% Which sci-fi crew would you best fit in? v1.0 created with QuizFarm.com

speaking of marketing...

did everyone catch what becca did? she saw that i was getting more new hits on my profile (up to 115, now) so she changed her photo to illicit new hits on her site!!! oh jealousy, thy name is woman.
(it is a nice picture, though; not quite revealing the face, just an attractive figure with a hat. very nice.)
and it worked! i checked her profile just to see if she had updated everything with, you know, new job information and such. nope. just a new photo.

rantings on the state of restaurants

driving home from work last night, i stopped at a taco bell because it was open at 12:15 am. i ordered a chicken burrito and a seven-layer burrito. the drive-thru speaker lady says, "what kind of chicken burrito do you want?" with an air of annoyance.
"i'm sorry?" i respond confusedly.
"chicken supreme or grilled stuffed chicken. which one do you want?" she says with an attitude building up.
"supreme, i guess," i answer and then she tells me the total before i can say that i also wanted a soda.
all of my life i have ordered chicken burritos from taco bell and in twenty-seven years no-one has ever asked me what kind. what happened to the plain chicken burrito? did they take it off the menu? are my only choices the supreme or the grilled stuffed? and if so, shouldn't one of those be called just a chicken burrito? can you really label a product as the 'supreme' version if there isn't a base one to which it can be compared? shouldn't they just call the chicken burrito supreme a chicken burrito now?

and personally i blame 7/11 and starbuck's. 7/11 introduced the big gulp and that was the start of everything getting bigger and bigger to outrageous proportions. and starbuck's began the short, tall and grande method of naming product sizes. now, companies have not only focused on making everything bigger or more special than the original, but they have even deleted the originals.
at taco bell, i couldn't order a regular chicken burrito. at sonic the have three sizes of fries: regular, large and sonic size. shouldn't they be called small, medium and large like they once were?
fast food chains and gas staions are even selling 32, 44 and 64oz sodas. who needs that much of any liquid other than water?

thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's schtüff

so i just glanced at becca's profile and saw that it had been viewed 472 times. this made me wonder two things:
first, why the hell is that information listed? i'm already looking at the profile, it's not like i need the something to convince me to do so. "oh, look. all the cool kids check out her profile, i guess i will, too."
second, how many proflile hits do i have?
the answer: 72.
yep, that's right. becca has been checked out exactly 400 times more than i have. isn't that like saying she's 5 times more popular than i am? or that in a crowd, 5 times more people would look at her than me?
this is so depressing.

random thoughts when time is short

i'd like to announce that i think i may have found the perfect girl for whom i could fall in love -- ally sheady, as seen in "the breakfast club" (which i watched at around 2am last night). that is, of course, if she really actedjust like that in real life.
so if anyone knows a nice, young, neurotic girl with cleptomaniacal tendencies and an impulsive desire to lie with every word she utters, send her my way. and that habit of squeaking rather than actually speaking would be a plus.
the search is on; let me know when you find her.

for all of those who ask why - 22 october 2002

it may not be good poetry but it's honest...

on my knees i waited for you
on sunday mornings i waited for you
friday nights i traded my plans for you
eighteen years and i postponed my life for you.

twenty-three years of opportunities are gone
twenty-three years and disillusionment has come
twenty-three years of providence is gone
twenty-three years and now antipathy has come.

do i follow teachings from yesterday
do i allow myself to stray
do i hold on to what i was taught to believe
or do i stand up and brush off my knees?

all my life kneeling
all my life praying
all my life seeking
all my life wasted?

on my knees i feel so small
on my knees i cannot see at all
on my knees i can no longer pray
on my knees i cannot stay.

22 october 2002

i arrived home from an stressful night at work at about 1:00am. i decided to check my email and blog for the first time in about two weeks. i did the email first, then decided to catch up on everyone else's blogs before writing anything myself. now it's 3:55am and i cannot remember what i was going to say.
so i defer to something written a few years ago...

is this how you do it
beat me up if i don't go your way?
is this the tough love they speak of
turn your back if i glance the other way?