My hard drive crashed on Friday. Well, technically it was somewhere around 3:00 AM Saturday Morning, but you get the idea. I was having trouble connecting to the internet that evening, so when I came home after the monthly Karaoke hootnenanny, I checked to see if the connection was back up. It wasn't. So I ran my Norton virus check, on the off chance perhaps a virus or worm was fucking things up. About forty-minutes into the scan I noticed it was running MUCH slower than it should have. So I tried to cancel; my computer appeared to have frozen. So I did a hard shut-down, waited a moment, and turned everything on again.

That's when it all went to hell. After trying to figure things out myself (Safe Mode didn't work), I called up Dell, and spent an hour on the phone with a very patient customer service rep in the Philippines, at which point we confirmed, conclusively, that my hard drive was fucked.

I spoke with Miller--who is a God among Gods for helping me with this--and he figured that while something obviously crashed the drive, the data may not be lost. He suggested installing my OS on another drive, hooking up my crashed drive as a secondary drive, then use the first drive with the OS to go digging through the old drive to recover the currently lost data.

Well, I bought myself a lovely little (well, 160 gigs will be considered little someday) new hard drive and this morning Miller patiently walked me through the installation process. Did I mention Miller was a God among Gods? He's Odin and Zeus and Bramha in one. Built altars and sacrifice virgins in His Holy Name, for He deserves our fealty.

Anyway, luck wasn't entirely with me because while I can access the old drive and see all my old files, a good percentage of them have been ruined, and I've lost . . . I don't know what I've lost. I literally have to go through a dozen or so files at a time and only when I try to copy them to the new drive will I discover if they're good or gone. The funny thing is, some files will copy successfully after a few (or several) attempts. Some do not. Needless to say, this makes for a very tedious process. It took me about three hours just to migrate the Bright-Matrix files, discovering about a half-dozen, fortunately minor, files were lost.

But see, it's not just the files. It's the programs And not just life Firefox or AOL IM, or even my graphic design/web design programs which I have on disk and can re-install. It's stuff like my Norton Anti-Virus, and all the lovely (and not-so-lovely) windows updates. My computer is currently a sitting duck for all sorts of viruses and worms. Yet the only way to protect my computer from them is to go on line to download the updates.

Meanwhile, eight years of computer files are unavailable, if not irrevocably lost. (Though this Dell computer is three years old, when I first got it I transferred all the files that were on my Gateway.) A brief list of what I am currently without (in no particular order):

• My list of all my friend's e-mail addresses
  
• Eight years worth of e-mails, personal and professional
  
• all my anti-virus anti-spyware protection programs
  
• All the Photoshop files I've created over the years
  
• Every single picture I've taken in the last three years
  
• 600+ MP3 songs
  
• various Microsoft Word documents from when I was still writing fiction
  
• all personal web design; graphics, HTML files, etc--not just the finished product which I can download from my server, but the raw files that I created the product from.
  
• Hundreds of odds and ends--any saved games from games I ran off my computer; all the customized settings I acquired over the years for Windows, Outlook, and the like; all the little exe files I've downloaded, stuff to rip MP3's or play little Flash games (Alas, poor Yeti Sports; I knew him, Horatio); etc

Programs can be reinstalled. And as I had a back-up of QuickBooks, I still have all the Bright-Matrix finances, fortunately, saved. It's going to take several hours to put everything back. And the bulk of the above list will probably be saved, although I do not relish the hours it would take to transfer thousands of photographs, and I'm petrified to discover which ones are gone, which memory lost. . . . But even that . . .I mean, since I no longer have the time to spend seven or eight hours on the computer, this is a process that could take weeks. And you know how good I am at being patient.

Well, XP Service Pack 2 just finished downloading, so I'm going to get a few more things done then call it a night. If anybody tries e-mailing me over the next few days, well, now you know why it may take me a bit of time to respond.

Spider-Man's Greatest Bible Stories

Last week, the 2005 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue hit the stands.

The SI swimsuit issue is one of my few guilty pleasures. (Not to be confused with the multitude of pleasures I don't feel guilty about.) there's no redeeming factor in this thing. It's a blatantly sexist thing, and the tongue-in-cheek tone of the (little) writing found in this issue doesn't excuse the fact that the sole purpose of this magazine is to stare at the varying degrees of pretty airbushed women with varying degrees of unairbushed arousal.

Last February I wrote a brief (for me) review of the 2004 swimsuit issue and I didn't want to break tradition. So here I sit, swimsuit issue on my desk and both hands above the keyboard, to give this annual cultural event its proper due. That I'm doing this while listening to the new Tori Amos album which is replete with feminist ideology, is just part of the fun.

So. Let's start with the cover. For some reason SI has decided that the half naked women on the cover isn't enough to catch a casual browsers attention. It used to be all SI needed to sell an issue was a picture of a wet girl in a bikini, accompanied by a minimal amount of type which usually consisted of the cover model's name and what paradisical place she happened to be in when the picture was taken. Alas, in today's world of over-stimulation, one image and a half-dozen words can no longer guarantee a sale. Thus, the editors at SI have decided to clutter almost every centimeter of space that isn't occupied by the afore-mentioned half-naked women with a lot of meaningless t(h)ype.

The most stand-out copy is the promise that "the SI swimsuit issue GETS HOTTER". Which has me thinking that either SI has finally invented thermal paper, or they're desperate to win over the men who abandoned the annual swimsuit babes for the monthly sluts of Maxim. Are the pictures really that more risque than last years? Well, while I could easily do a page-by-page comparison (and don't think I haven't seriously considered the idea for at least half a second), I'm going to resist temptation and simply not believe the hype. Oh, and let's not forget the winner of the SI Swimsuit Model Search is revealed on page 176. I know you were all shivering with anticipation about that one.

Now, in the past, gracing the cover of the swimsuit issue was a great honor. (Or so they've said. I've never been on the cover so I cannot state this with absolute certainty) I can only guess that that particularly currency has devalued as badly as the dollar has because covergirl Carolyn Murphy has to share the spotlight with smaller pictures of not one, but three other girls. While multiple-models have shared the cover in the past, they were at least in the same picture as one another. Now we've got some nameless model in the upper left corner selling the obligatory body painting section of the issue, and the trading cards (yes; trading cards; be patient, I'll get to that, too) of two models as well. And in an even worse indignity, while Carolyn's name is shuffled off in 11-point-font at the bottom right corner of the cover, the names of eight models who don't even appear on the cover are placed
more prominently in four times the font-size. I guess it's still an honor just to be nominated....

In all fairness, though, there have been better cover shots. Carolyn in quite airbrushed, and with the SI logo behind her head and the scenery behind her blurred, the whole picture has an air of falseness; as if this cover was completely created by computer rather than just a computer-enhanced version of an actual photo. I understand that these models are supposed to have an aura of (sexual) fantasy, but with chessecake there's a fine line between fantasy and artificial, and this one trips over that line quite noticeably.

Now, it's been forty-one years since the first swimsuit issue hit the stands, and after so long a time you have to marvel at the longevity of this thing. But in the last few years, SI has gotten increasingly gimmicky with their issues, always adding some sort of twist to keep things interesting. You wouldn't think staring at women in bikini's would get old--after all, for every guy that genuinely loses interest there's always some eleven year old finally discovering women. But I suppose in this age of readily available internet porn, pubescent boys can go elsewhere for photos a lot more revealing, and so the once proud SI is reduced to that most ridiculous of incentives: trading cards.

It's true. Right in the back is a page of nine cardboard-stock trading cards. The back of each card lists the model's age (to my surprise, three of the models are actually older than me), her most prominent modeling contracts, the obligatory photographer and bathing-suit designer credit, and a piece of trivia ("Did you know? Caroyln says that the people she admires the most are primatologist Jane Goodall and undersea explorer Jacques Cousteau." Yeah, but did either of them grace the cover of SI? I think not.) The issue I bought says this page contains "9 of 18" cards (one for each model that appears in the issue) there's hours of fun awaiting you and your friends as you try to collect them all! I can just see all the guys down at the local sports bar bringing out their swimsuit trading cards: "Hey, Jerry? I'll trade you two Anne V for your Yamila Diaz-Rahi." Uh-huh.

However, for the one or two of you that aren't interested in trading cards, there are other features, any one of them is guaranteed to be of interest. Maybe.

There's also the aforementioned body-painting section. Now, I love the body painting. I mean, aside from the fact it's actually pretty cool just how realistic the artwork appears, I love the fact that it allows SI to put completely naked women in their magazine without having naked women in their magazine. Although there are shades of Hugh Hefner with a centerfold shot of one of the models. She's "wearing" a spray-painted red bikini-bottom, but it obviously didn't cover up everything as the editors had to resort to blatantly airbrushing her crotch into shadow.
So while there are obviously limits, it's still a bizarre thing to realize that a thin layer of body paint is all it takes to delineate a state of dress.

Now, For you sports fans that wish SI would stick to athletes, the editors have heard your pleas and offer an olive branch by way of several sports-themed offerings: there's three pictures of Venus Williams in swimwear. Olympic medal winners Jennie Finch, Amanda Beard, and Lauren Jackson go for the amateur modeling gold with a eight page pictorial. (The editors wisely include small pictures of the ladies in their sport outfits so you can recognize who they are.) And of course there's the traditional "couples" section, wherein famous male athletes pose with their wives. A whopping three couples this year; I guess this section is not as popular as previous years. I don't understand why. Surely after 200+ pages of women in bathing suits you'd welcome seeing Richard Jefferson or Mark McGuire in swim trunks. Although if the sight of these great athletes lowering themselves to pose for beefcake shots offends you, rest easy in knowing Keyshawn Johnson still has his pride; standing next to his bikini-clad wife, Keyshawn defiantly poses completely clothed. Keyshawn may be many things, but he ain't no sex object!

And that's that. This magazine is over 200 pages; after a while all the models tend to blur. Whether they're on the beach, in a chair, by a window, an elephant; it's all the same, really. The models give the camera their best come-hither-eyes, because no exploitation is complete without the illusion that these sexually-charged women actually want to direct that charge at you. Although I suppose there's some amusement to be had in playing The Nipple Game. You know this one: you look at a picture and have to guess whether the model's nipples are legitimately hidden and which models had their nipples airbrushed out. But even that gets old. Up until a few years ago, the swimsuit issue used to be only a 20 or 30 page spread in a regular issue of SI. Since moving to an entire extra-length magazine, things have simply gone straight to overkill.

But I'm still buying. Because life without overkill, especially the bikini-clad kind, is simply no life at all.

Tori Amos' lastest album, The Beekeeper came out today.

If you've read my blog for a while--or just know me personally--then you already know that I've had a falling out with Amos' music in the last two years. A large part of it has to do with the over-saturation I had when her last album, Scarlet's Walk, was released. In ten months I saw her six times in concert. How people can follow a band around for an entire tour I'll never know because after six concerts it was almost painful to hear any song by her.

But what complicated matters was that, as an artist, Tori Amos was competely reinventing herself; msuically, lyrically, conceptually, the Tori Amos of 2002 was a vastly different creature than the Tori Amos of the 1990's. And the artist she's become doesn't have the same appeal to me as the artist she was. So choosing that particular moment to spike my usual exposure to her music was badly timmed to say the least.

I've anticipated this new album with an incredible amount of hesitation. I've been of the mind that, simply, as both Amos and I have grown up (Tori was 27 when Little Earthquakes was made; I was 16 when I first hear it.) we've simply grown apart; the things Amos' finds interesting as an artist are not the things I find interesting as a listener.

But Tori is a talent, and there was still enough interest in her to want to see what this new release would be like. I think I've been viewing it as a make-or-break moment for me. That, upon listening to The Beekeeper I would decide for certain that it was time to leave Tori in my past or stay with her going forward.

(It's so odd to describe my feelings in these terms. It's not like I know Tori Amos personally. As confessional as her songs have been, there's no connection to her. But I think it's important to note the connection people have to music, and meaning they find in those songs. I don't know Amos but I know her music, and it's been a huge part of my life--especially for many tumultuous, formative years--that there is a relationship there, something that has a life of its own just as any "real" relationship with a person can grow and change over time.)

Anyway, I have the album and I'm giving it a go. Like two old friends that haven't talked in a while, it's as awkard as it is rewarding.

To be critical: "Barons of Suburbia" sounds like "Carbon" sped up, and there's a lot of music that sounds like what Amos has done before. "Sleeps with Butterflies" is a blatant attempt to win over the Soft Rock audience, despite my liking the hook in the chorus. At 19 songs, this album definitely repeats itself. It's inevitable that an artist riffs of their earlier work, but when the work in question is the previous album from just two years prior, that's jsut dissapointing. And, let's face it, the direction Amos has gone in is not one I instictively enjoy.

And yet . . . there are more than a few moments of originality, not just in terms of composition but thematically, conceptually. Where Amos has gone for this album--and given that I'm only listening to it completely for the first time and that any attampt at deciphering a Tori Amos song requires a Rosetta stone, I'm not entire sure where it is that she's gone--it's a place I am genuinely interested in checking out. Tori would definitely benefit from a good producer, but her artistic vision is both undeniable and (for me; for the first time in quite a while) genuine.

This being something more local for me, I dunno if my lovely readers (all six of you; I think I've picked up one or two strays who found my blog thanks to my Vendetta site) have heard this, but The Borgata Casino in Atlantic City is instituting a new policy that demands their cocktail staff gain no more than a 7% weight increase or else they could lose their job.

First they'll be put on probation during which time they must lose enough weight to put them back in the hotel's good graces. The casino is apparently weighing their employees to discover a baseline weight. Once that's established, anyone who ways more than 7% of that weight will be suspended without pay and placed on a diet program. If they don't lose the prescribed weight in time, they're pink slipped.

Of course this prompts all sorts of cries of sexism from various groups, and some of the waitresses themselves are a bit miffed. One Borgata Babe, midway through her shift last night, said it was "wrong for morale." She said that the weigh-in had made her feel like "an object rather than a person," and that others concurred. But, you know, when part of the job requires you to wear outfits like this:



is anyone the least bit deluded into thinking that customers of the casino are supposed to be attracted to their minds first and their bodies maybe?

Still, how marvellously repressed is our society where not only does dressing women up in scantily clad clothing equate to making millions of dollars, but that the need to make even more money has driven us to the point where a company can force employees to maintain a specific physical requirement? Never mind the overt implications of what constitues beauty, forget the obvious male-controlling-female issues at play here. Just marvel at the absurdity of it all.

As some of you may or may not know, last month the King of Nepal staged a coup, dissolving the government and taking over control of the country. The King siezed power in response to the growing Maoist insurgency the country has dealt with in the last few years,claiming he did so because of the current government's failure to resolve the situation.

The King also decided to declare any journalistic opposition to his policies illegal and he has begun arrest dissident journalists. Radio Free Nepal is a blog run by Naplese journalists who want to keep the outside world informed of what is going on in the country, despite whatever the King's press statement's say. The blog is a collection of first-hand reports as well as links to various internet articles regarding the crisis. (Thanks to Boingboing for this one.)

The BBC's website has an informative section on the situation as well.

Thanks to BoingBoing for this beauty: Somebody photoshopped "My Little Golden Book About God" and turned it into an instruction manual for aliens invading Earth.

HAIL ZOGG!

So I'm watching Alias (right now, in fact) and during the commerical break, there's an ad for JC Penny's Valentine's Day sale. Lots of reds--assorted jewelery, gift boxes, lingerie, etc. And a few red ballons to play up the red/Valentine's Day motif. And to tie in the accompanying song.

See, it took me a minute to realize the song, but the music in the commerical was a folksy version of Nena's "99 Red Ballons" It took half the commerical for me to place it; they had a male singing it and because they slowed it down all nice and accoustic and chopped up the verses (combining lines only from the first and last verses of the song; because all the other verses referenced missiles), it was hard to place. But considering they end the commerical with the guy singing "99 red ballons go by" it became pretty unmistakeable.

But here's the thing: "99 Red Balloons" (as you all damn well better know) is a song about a nuclear missile attack. It's a song about atomic war and mutually assured destruction. And JC Penny is using it to shill Valentine's Day products.

So let's think about this: the commerical shows these idyllic scenes of husbands and wives, girlfriends and boyfriends, all sharing these nominally romantic moments, expressing their love for one another, completely unaware of these "red balloons" that are climbing into the air. And soon these "red balloons" are all over the sky, so many that they blot out the sun. The last shot of the commerical is an aerial view of a typical American suburb with a plethora of red ballons floating overhead. The serene lives of these lovers soon to be forever shattered once these "balloons" . . . pop.

Thank you JC Penny's. Thank you for having the courage to do to Valentine's Day what should have been done years ago: nucking the mother fucker straight into oblivion.

Aw, crap, I got work tomorrow.

I mean, OK, so I did it for one day, that's nice, I guess. But they expect me to go back. And not just tomorrow, oh, no, they're expecting me to be there for the rest of the week! And you know something, they haven't said as much yet, but I got a real nasty feeling they think I'm going to do the whole thing over again next week, as well!

So, needless to say, it's still a bit odd to be back in the working groove. I just finished watching Gilmore Girls and it's 9:00 and damned if I'm not going to have to go to bed in a few hours to go to work tomorrow. A bit odd, really.

And there's no roommate. I should have a roommate. Last time I started a job I had a roommate. Maybe that's what missing. No pal who's also going to work to help reinforce in me the fast that this is what I should be doing.

Anyway: Work will definitely have to be verboten on this blog. Not just for the usual reasons, but seeing how my job will be client interaction, and given how many clients my new job has (and it has many), not only would I have to worry about my co-workers reading this, but I'd have to worry about clients reading this damn thing.

So God knows what I'm going to write about on this thing; I'm sure I'll think of something.

What I can say, though, is that I think this new job will work out well. Everybody I met today was super-nice, and chatted extensively with three or four people in the customer service department (I think there's about 20 or so in the department) and they were all really friendly and very helpful. Everybody was warning us (for there is a second hire who started today as well) that there's one hell of a learning curve and there will be plenty of days where the tidal wave will drag you under, but they also all stressed that they're available for whatever help I'd need.

Though the position and the responsibilities had been explained ad nauseum by this point, as I assisted one of the reps on a project she's working on, I was actually able to watch and see her do her job, and that gave me the best understanding of what I'll be doing; and it's definitely something I can handle. Customer-relations, problem solving . . . I can do it. Once I understand the software itself, and after the obligatory start-up where I get my ass kicked because I have the understanding without practical experience, then, when I get that experience, I shall rock the kazbar like no other.

(And can I just point out that the utter mangling of proper grammatical structure in the preceding paragraph makes me ashamed to admit I was an English major.)

One final point of synchronicity I'd like to point out: In explaining this company to people, I've described it thusly: this company designs the software that helps unions keep track of their medical records. This is not exactly true. What the software does is keep track of benefits. This mostly has to do with medical insurance, but it's insurance plans for unions as established by section 302 of the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, so the proper term is "benefits". Now, the amusing thing about this is a very similar field to what my father has spent the better part of 35 years dealing with. Because he spent 30 years working for New York State's disability department--benefits--dealing with disability claims, and since leaving the State he's been doing the same thing in the private sector. Like father, like son, eh?

Ah well. I got distracted while writing this and now I have even LESS time before beddie-bye. See you in the funny papers....

Wouldn't you know it: I start work in the morning and I wind up with a killer headache. So while the Aleve kicks in, I figured I'd give my "one-the-eve-of" post, even though, technically, it's well into the-night-of.

You know, the thing about unemployment isn't the lack of job. It's the lack of money. Really, I could get used to this not-working thing very easily if it wasn't for the fact that I don't have the money to stay in that position. It's a catch-22, really. I don't enjoy the unemployment because I'm worried about finding a job; I find a job and now I almost wish I stay unemployed.

It's going to be very strange going into work tomorrow. I'm trying to remember what I felt going to work at Optical Connectivity, but I honestly can't remember, and a review of My Unemployed Life doesn't really share much. I feel like I'm in almost the exact same position I was starting that job, and yet the feeling is much different.

I suppose it's because I'm here in Maple Shade. After all, my move down here had three main objectives: settle in an apartment, find a job, find a social life. Two down, one to go, and I think starting this new job is giving me an air of permanence to things. I'm here. Staying home in the apartment all day, it's not much of a life. But now I've got a reason to be out for nine or ten hours of the day and it very much cements the fact that I ain't going elsewhere. (Oh, sure, you never know what the future holds--yada yada yada; you know what I mean.)

So who knows. I admit I'm still a bit uncertain about switching careers again, but I spoke with Karin on Friday and she told me they already have work being put aside for me, so at least I won't have to worry too much about how quickly I'll be put into things.

The weird thing will be getting up earlier than I have been. Admittedly, in the last few days I've been slacking off with my alarm. When it went off this morning I turned it off and went back to bed for an hour. Granted, I was tired from staying up so late last night (I made the mistake of watching the Simpsons and that American Dad preview. Both of them were crap.) So, as I plan on going to bed well before midnight, I should be fine when the alarm wakes me up at my usual 6:45. Though I don't have to be at the office until 8:30--though, obviously, I want to get there early on the first day--so maybe I'll bump that time up, depending. Then again, if this winds up being anything like my last job, in a few weeks I'll be showing up at 8:00 and keep things where they are.

Ah well. Not much more to say. I know I'm trying to enforce my new work-ist-verboten
policy on this blog, but I think I can get away with at least describing my first day, so place bets on a) if I want to write anything about it tomorrow and b) whether I'll actually motivate myself to do it.

Ah, the joys of employment.

See you tomorrow.

Still. My first day of work in six weeks.

As I was just writing Sean on It's Your Turn, now that I have about twelve hours left of unemployment, I wind up cramming a dozen things into my schedule that I could've easily taken care of in the previous weeks. But such is a life.

Meanwhile, I actually have things I want to write about but, naturally, because I have so many other things I want to do I don't really have the time to write. And it's not like I can stay up 'till two in the morning to get it all done, y'know?

So, let me run out and take care of my errands. I'll be back later and I can commiserate on the Eagles' loss and my impending employment and maybe one or two other things.

Provided I have the time, of course.

(Yes, yes, a boring as hell and all too brief blog entry. Patience, people. Good things come to those who wait. Though it's the early bird who gets the worm, so it's rather a damned if you do and damned if you don't situation. But I'd rather take the lesser of two evils and finally run out of these ridiculous cliche's. I'll be back.)

Oh, yeah, I still have this thing, don't I?

It's not that I haven't wanted to post. The thing is, really, what is there to say? You got to admit, when you have a blog that is very muchly reliant on me chroniciling my job hunting activites but then throw all matters of employment under Setec Astronomy, well, that does some serious damage to writing about the topic, don't you think?

And, really, there isn't much else going on right now. Once the job situation is fully resolved then I can concentrate on that pesky social life thing. But until then, I've been . . . well, I've been hanging out with the usual crowd a lot, lately. I mean, there was Deb's party two weeks ago, and last Friday was AC with Sean, Kate and Rob. This past Friday was karaoke night and I spent Saturday with Aline. It's like Old Friends week . . . except they aren't my "old" friends yet. Unless it's a time thing and not a grouping thing, but I really don't feel like getting into that conversation again.

So, really, there hasn't been much else to report, other than I'm spending my free time alternating between work for Bright-Matrix and becoming Mr. Couch Potato 2005. Did you know Gilmore Girls airs on ABC Family twice a day? The morning episode airs the previous day's afternoon episode. SO now I'm watching the same episode twice. This is very sad and I cannot tell you how happy I will be when I have to leave this apartment to go to work.

I'm also currently reading Peter David's run on The Incredible Hulk. It's been interesting to watch his storytelling change; partially a result of David's maturity as a writer, partially a result of watching his ideas for the Hulk solidfy from short-term to long-term story arcs, and also partially as a result of how comicbook writing itself changed over the years, from the late eighties and on through the ninites. Not that this means much to most of you. I'll give you the issues to read, that will help. David only wrote the comic for twelve years, and I am missing a handful of the early issues, so there's only about 130 issues for you to read. I'm already almost 50 issues in myself.

I know, I could be going out more, but you know what, it's fucking cold out there. And while a nice drive into the country once in a while is nice, part of the experience is getting out of the car and hanging around outside. This tends to be problematic when the windchill numbs your face before you've even closed the car door.

Why couldn't I have chosen a warmer time of the year to do this? Summer time would've been great. Hot, yes, but at least I could spend some time out on my patio while reading, or go to the pool--we have a pool here. I'm not quite sure what to do about this, actually. I mean, I've never had a pool to go to. Sure, there was the swim club when I was younger, but I never liked it. I don't like communal pools. Splashing around with just your friends is one thing, but other people around? A beach isn't so bad. Beaches are different than pools (in case one of you haven't figured this out; I know the differences are subtle), and it's not like you can swim in the deep end of the ocean. Well, you could, but the waves would be a bitch.

The point is (somewhere), a beach is wide enough that, more often than not, you can stake out a little area for youself and have at it. At a public pool, there's much less space for you to call your own. Theoretically, at the beach you pick a spot and you can plot a straight line from you out to the horizon that's all yours. Ina pool, depending on how crowded it is, you've got about five feet all your own. And if all I've got to splash around in is five feet of water, then fuck it, I'm just going to use my bath.

So, yes. It's February 1st. January has come and gone. Wasn't that exicting?

You know what it reminds me of? My freshman year at college. In which I spent the first month pretty much as I have here--holed up in my room getting real coy with the TV. Mild human contact, but no real social life to speak of. At college, I didn't get my soical scene rolling until October; that's when things began jelling for me. I'm a late bloomer. Real quiet type. I never say anything without thinking it through; quality over quantity, that's what I always say. Using as many words as possible, of course.

But trust me, things are on the horizon. I'll be able to talk more in a week or so. And who knows, maybe I'll actually get around to posting pictures of this damn place.
But that would be . . . constructive.