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    Friday, May 31, 2002

    So last night I started telemarking for Connecticut Life and Casualty, and got a sale on the very first call.

    Why am I good at telemarketing? It's not like I've got this enormous background in phone sales or anything. I don't even LIKE doing it, but for some reason, when people hear my voice on the phone, they want to buy things from me. This, of course, begs the question, "how can I use this power for evil?"

    Well, more evil than telemarketing, at least.


    I've been watching a lot of TV lately. Mainly because I have the BU-luxury item of cable here at home, but also mainly because I don't really have anything else to do during the day. I've found that most TV really, really sucks. MTV I've already discussed. VH1 apparently only plays episodes of "Behind The Music" and inane list shows now. I've found the only stations worth watching are PBS, the History Channel, TVLand and occasionally Comedy Central. And now, I'll interrupt with a quick rant about Comedy Central. Scroll down if you're not interested.

    (( A QUICK RANT ABOUT COMEDY CENTRAL))
    Comedy Central, why do you force me to have a love-hate relationship with you? "The Daily Show" is phenomenal. Steve Carell consistently makes me wet my pants. "South Park" is still pretty funny, too. But why do you insist on ruining my day with constant re-runs of crappy 80s comedy movies and why -- dear God why -- do you not only produce something as inherantly crappy as "Crank Yankers," then also have the audacity to trumpet this terrible show at all hours of the day? And what happened to the Upright Citizen's Brigade? "Strangers With Candy?" Seriously, Comedy Central. We need to have a sit-down, or I'm leaving and taking the kids.
    ((THE END OF A QUICK RANT ABOUT COMEDY CENTRAL))

    Anyway, I recently discovered the show "Farscape" on SciFi. This show is now my only reason to watch SciFi ever since MST3k said goodbye. "Farscape" is a dark space-exploration show with complex characters, witty dialogue and Jim Henson animatronics. It's the antithesis to the clinical environment of Star Trek, and it is unbelievably good. There was a marathon on today, and I seriously sat in front of the tube from 9AM through 6PM. Check it out. It's worth sitting through the cheesy SciFi Channel commercials for.

    Yeah, I spend my summer indoors.

    Oh, and the score is now:
    Casey: 5
    Spiders: 0
    posted at 10:27 PM

    Thursday, May 30, 2002

    hey, does anyone know where my archives are? I thought they were supposed to come up automatically and stuff?
    Please let me know if you do.
    posted at 8:30 AM

    Dial-up modems are slow. V e r y s l o w.

    Yesterday I bid farewell to the cable modem and set up my parents' computer for an account at something called "SBC-Yahoo! Net." It's got the most incoherant, illogical user interface ever. Stay away.

    Last night, Chris, Sara and I played WarCraft online because there's absolutely nothing else to do in this town. Here's my stance on "real-time strategy" -- maybe for some people, there's an element of strategy to these things, but to me it just seems like whoever has the most toys wins. I don't think any one of us is well-suited to play this type of game, either, as evidenced by the time we played against another random person and he ended up killing each and every one of us quite easily.

    I prefer my strategy games a la Civilization III, where I can meticulously micromanage everything and take time to think about everything I do. None of this running into the thick of battle not knowing where anything is business. But, until I can figure out how to play Civ3 multiplayer, I will continue to play WarCraft because it's still fun ... even when your neighbor double-crosses you while your army is out vanquishing your shared enemy :)

    I'm going to start making phone calls at my telemarking job tonight ... but more importantly, I think I'm getting my first paycheck ... all of which will go immediately into the bank where I can't spend it on CDs.
    posted at 8:28 AM

    Tuesday, May 28, 2002

    The Spider War has begun.

    In case you don't know, when I'm at home, I sleep in the basement. It's generally pretty nice, as I basically get the majority of an entire floor to myself. My family leaves me alone for the most part, and thus, this area of the house stays significantly cleaner than the rest. The only problem with this room is its native population of spiders.

    Last summer, the spiders and I held an uneasy detente for May and June, but in July, one of the spiders made the first strike by biting me in the thigh while I was sleeping. For the next few weeks, I retaliated in full force, vacuuming relentlessly, tearing down spider webs and hitting every spider I saw with shoes, books, and even golf clubs. My reign of terror continued until the beasts subsided their nocturnal invasions ... but it was all a ruse, for one day, while I was watching a movie, the Spider King himself lunged at me.

    A giant, hairy wolf spider, the Spider King was a magnificent beast to be sure. I sidestepped to my vacuum cleaner, revved its engine and charged at the Spider King, but it lept out of the way, causing me to scream like a girl and run upstairs.

    After I calmed myself down, I returned to the basement and finally did in the Spider King by throwing a paint can at it. All agressions ceased for the remainder of the summer.

    Just a few days ago, I spotted a slightly smaller version of the Spider King perched on one of the doorways in the basement. I tried to swipe it with a broom, but again, it evaded me. I called in for reinforcements, and my brother Scott and I successfully slew the spider. Later that day, I also vanquished some of the Spider Kings vasals -- one that was eyeing my GameCube and another that actually had the audacity to leap into my bed while I was trying to make it in the morning!

    This conflict will undoubtedly continue through the majority of the summer. For those of you keeping score at home, it's currently:
    Casey: 3
    Spiders: 0

    I'll be sure to keep everyone posted.

    Oh, and I didn't get my substitute teacher job, because they called to cancel the interview AN HOUR BEFORE I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE THERE. What the hell is that about? REAL professional, guys.

    Oh well. At least I got my McDonald's Hotcakes. Mmmmm.
    posted at 9:00 PM

    It's because everyone else is doing them, so why shouldn't I? But hey, check it out -- I'm English and I like marmalade. Sweet!





    which children's storybook character are you?

    this quiz was made by colleen

    posted at 8:33 PM

    Monday, May 27, 2002

    ... and if I remembered any HTML at all, maybe I'd be able to do the same for her. Getting that pirated copy of Dreamweaver was a blessing and a curse, I suppose. Anyway.

    Yesterday I saw an ad for Circuit City that announced they were selling ALL of their regularly priced CDs for just $9.99. Every single one in the whole damn store! Of course, this was reason enough for me to get dressed. I logged onto Amazon.com to grab my Wish List and set forth, hoping to snag some of these mega-bargains ... but alas, no bargain was to be had, for this megastore had nary a single item on my lengthy list of possible purchases. Nothin'. Not even the White Stripes, who I just saw will be playing the MTV Movie Awards or something. That was really disappointing.

    And another thing ... when the hell did MTV get so retarded? Honestly. I don't use that word a lot, and I know it's not "PC" or whatever, but when I flipped through the stations today and landed on MTV, "retarded" was the very first word that popped into my head. There was some sort of contest going on to see which specimen of pre-fabricated Abercrombie Couples could pop the most balloons but -- and here's the genius twist! -- THEY COULDN'T USE THEIR HANDS!!! THE MADNESS!!! Picture this:

    INTERIOR -- CASEY'S LIVING ROOM.
    CASEY is sitting on his couch, looking bored. He flips through some stations. We see a documentary on rivers, home shopping and finally, a line of mostly-naked, semi-attractive couples thrusting toward eachother to pop balloons they have placed between themselves. A crowd cheers them on.

    PAN from the television screen to Casey's face. His mouth is open in a combination of disgust and disbelief.

    CASEY
    What the fuck?

    FADE OUT.

    I never thought it would be this bad. And I can't even buy alcohol because of Connecticut's stupid Blue Laws.

    Tomorrow, I'm hoping, will be better than today. I've got a job interview for a substitute teaching position, and I plan to get up early to grab me some McDonald's hotcakes before I go. I haven't had those things in YEARS, and I've been thinking about them for at least three weeks nonstop. Yeah, my life rules.

    In summary, Circuit City is a store for corporate whores; MTV is a TV station for vapid corporate whores; I hate my Puritan heritage; Pancakes are delicious.


    posted at 5:44 PM

    So it looks like Kathleen has not only discovered my newly-minted Blog, but has also actively promoted it. Rock on!


    posted at 5:27 PM

    Saturday, May 25, 2002

    I'm sitting here nearly pulling my hair out trying to make Shayna the mix CD I promised her in December. I think the main problem is that I've got two warring philosophies on mix CDs -- the first is that I want her to hear a bunch of great songs from artists I like that will hopefully pique her interest in them, and the second is the more "artistic" vision of a mix CD, whereby the mix has an overarching theme or statement to it. Both of them are nice, but they rarely work well together. Maybe I'll just have to scrap what I have and start again with a brand new outlook. Or maybe I'm just trying too hard. Either way, it should be known that I put a lot of thought into these things ... far more than I would in, say, scheduling a doctor's appointment or something like that.

    Went to a coffee shop in Middletown with Chris and Matt tonight. The coffee was pretty good, but even better was playing chess with Matt. I haven't played chess since last summer, and I forgot how much I really enjoy it. There's something really satisfying about developing a strategy and seeing it carried out, especially when you're playing against someone who knows what they're doing and will work actively against your strategy. Metaphor for life, it is. And even though our game ended in a stalemate (with my heavy advantage), it was still fun. Maybe I should invest in a chess board. They can't be that expensive, right?

    All right, that's it. It's cold in my house, and I'm tired.
    posted at 10:24 PM

    Friday, May 24, 2002

    Summer is ... driving to Wal-Mart with the sunroof down and The Strokes blasting in the speakers. Just in case you were wondering, or if someone asked you what, exactly summer was and you were left dumbfounded.

    Got a phone call from Christinia today, which was quite nice. We chatted for a bit while I was supposed to be outside helping people take the cover off of the swimming pool I never use. Seems like they got it off just fine without me.

    Later, I also got a nice call from Chris, whom I will hopefully see tomorrow. We chatted for a bit about alcohol, and decided the following:
    1). Hard Liquor gets you drunk the fastest. It also makes you the silliest.
    2). Wine gets you "mellow drunk." We decided we could also apply the adjectives "calming" and "nice."
    3). Neither of us is man enough to enjoy drinking beer, so we couldn't analyze that particular alcohol because it's so damn nasty.

    On a non-alcohol related note, my Dad just called AT&T today to cancel our cable modem service. Holy Christ, this summer is going to suck. On the positive side, though, it will give me a chance to erase and reinstall everything on their computer, which really needs to be done. Their keyboard just caused a fatal system error. THEIR FREAKIN' KEYBOARD. If that's not messed up, then I don't know what is.

    I also don't know why I enjoy this blogger thing so much. Not only do I constantly check on my friends' sites to see if they've updated their "blogs" as they call them, but I've also been updating mine like crazy. Maybe it's just because it's new, and there's some novelty aspect? Or maybe it's just because I like to complain about everything.

    Probably the second one. Either way, I really enjoy the way this site looks now. Pretty snazzy, eh? Eh?
    posted at 9:59 PM

    Thursday, May 23, 2002

    FINALLY!!!

    After sitting at the ol' keyboard for a little while and with some help from the nice people in the Tripod web design boards, I've finally gotten the site to look fairly decent. I'll make the "official" announcement on the move soon, and then I'll fully settle into my new home on the web. I'll probably be updating the majority of the site in the next couple of days. Having the house to myself during the day is really nice.

    Cool things that happened to me today:
    1). I got my Candy Butchers CDs in the mail. Good Lord, Mike Viola is poptastic.
    2). I had one of those Vanilla Cokes I've heard so little about. It was pretty good. They kind of just taste like Coke, with a slight vanilla aftertaste.

    Because my little sister goes to the same elementary school I went to, I've been picking her up recently and seeing a lot of the teachers I used to have. Besides seeing someone who taught you things over a decade ago, it's also really weird because almost all of them are retiring this year.

    Mrs. Bober, my fifth grade History/English teacher (and one of my all-time favorites) was quite happy to see me, but she mentioned that my sister was much nicer than I was. I don't remember being mean in fifth grade, but I did ascend to the high rank of class president through Machiavellian machinations, so it's possible.

    I'm going to make Shayna's mix CD this week, I swear. I've been thinking about making two different mix CDs that can duel eachother thematically. Man, I'm a nerd.

    I've been home three days already and I still haven't seen any of my friends. I'm going to change that tomorrow. But for now, it's Candy Butchers, Resident Evil on the GameCube and bed. Maybe some Vanilla Coke, too.
    posted at 9:02 PM

    Wednesday, May 22, 2002

    OK.

    I've been trying to get this thing up and running and incorporated into my site for the past two days, and now I think I may have finally done it. Why has it taken so long? Because my family destroys computers.

    My parents' computer, which is the only one in the house with internet access, unfortunately, crashes more often than a Pinto with a broken steering wheel and cut brakes, driving on icy roads when the driver is wearing a blindfold. Seriously.

    But there's a reason for all of this. You guessed it -- the Parents. Experience the magic that happens every single time I come home from college in this following theoretical dialogue:

    Mom: Thank you for fixing our computer again. You know, it's always broken. Did you sell us a lemon?
    Casey: No, mom. I had it for three years and I never had a problem. All you have to do is keep it maintained, like I just showed you how to do, all right.
    Mom: OK. We should be able to do that.
    (( Time Passes ))
    Casey: (returning home from school) Hi, Mom.
    Mom: The computer's broken again. You need to fix it.

    Oh well, whatever. All that matters now is that I'm 21, and I can drink and gamble like a mobster. I swear, though ... one more crash on this computer, and I'm going to have to down a bottle of wine just to cope.

    In other news, I started my summer job today. It seems pretty cool, so far. All I do is call people and ask them about their automobile insurance. I get paid $15 an hour to do this, AND I get free coffee, AND I get to work with other people my age who seem pretty cool. How did I manage this racket? Because my neighbor (I call her the Job Savior) totally hooked me up. It's a night job, though, so I don't get to see any prime time TV, which sucks, but hey. What are you gonna do, right? Right.

    I also have an interview at my old high school for a job as a substitute teacher. You think about THAT.
    posted at 10:15 PM

    Monday, May 20, 2002

    So, this is it. I have finally become one of those kids with a web log.
    posted at 7:56 PM