ABCDE

I should have done this before, but I just got around to forming a limited liability company to pass my consulting earnings though. What's really cool is that between having all the forms online, the ability to fax in your documents for filing, payment by credit card, and the expediting option they have, you can have a company set up in a day or two without ever having to leave your home (assuming you have a fax machine, which Jeffrey does).

Before the week is out, I should be the proud owner of ABCD Enterprises, LLC.

So Ronrey

3am is almost upon me.

Sleeping alone can really suck.

P.S. I hate Daylight Savings Time (DST). What fuck-nut thought of it and what dumbasses thought it was a good idea?

P.P.S. Something about this post put a song in my head. These lyrics might be wrong, but feel free to sing it with me.

Where have all the good men gone, and where are all the gods?
Where's the street wise Hercules, to fight the rising odds?
Riding on the thunder, and rising with the heat
It's going to take a Superman to sweep me off my feet!

I need a hero!
I'm holding out for a hero 'til the end of the night
He's got to be strong and he's got to be fast
And he's got to be fresh from the fight

I need a hero!
I'm holding out for hero 'til the morning light
He's got to be sure and he's got to be soon
And he's got be larger than life

[Okay, I went and looked it up. I'm mixing the first two verses together.]

Dallas Evening News

I'm in Dallas visiting family for a couple days while I'm not working, so posting will be spotty for a bit.

HA! (In case you missed it, that was funny because posting is always spotty.)

Anyway, Jeffrey, Steve (my step-father), and I played Texas Hold'em tonight in a city-wide league they've got here. I finished 16th out of 60 some players, which is better than either of my compatriots and the highest you can finish and still get points for league standing. Because I probably won't be playing much in the Dallas league, I just told them I was Jeff. :)

Even better than that, I acquired a job on the drive up here. I'll be working with Ryan, my best friend from college, at Hire.com. Oddly, I'm really not sure what I'll be doing or how long the gig is for. However, Ryan and I have been trying (and failing) to work together for the last 5 years - since we were graduated from Purdue and both came to Austin - so I'm pretty psyched about it all. (Note to self - call HireStarter and Momentum.)

In other events, I recently posted a comment at someone else's blog (whom I know, but not terribly well) and the experience left me quite unsettled. The post of his I commented on was about politics and it's safe to say that I was a lone voice of dissent. It was one of those "let's figure out how to hold off a nervous breakdown after that idiot Bush and the Republicans conned 60M people into voting for him" threads. Between that and the similar mind set I see in many of my friends, I'm feelling like I'll write a separate post about it all. I'm tentatively titling it, 'Grow Up, You Whiny Little Shits.'

Is that to harsh?

Soccer, game 5

We lost, again. I don't even know the score - maybe 3-0.

Emily was sidelined during the first half when her calf cramped up for the send week in a row. I managed to finish the game, but didn't get any bicycle kicks in.

mandate

2 : an authorization to act given to a representative <accepted mandate of the people>

Just so we all know what it means.

Via Merriam-Webster Online.

Ho-hum

This past Wednesday was the last day on the contract I had been working on. So I am now sitting at home, doing absolutely nothing. And man, am I ever bored.

There is nothing I care to watch on TV. There is little going on in the world I care to read about that I haven't already. I've read all the books I own in which I'm currently interested.

I could be updating my resume, I guess. Actually, I should be updating my resume, but then what do I do half an hour from now?

Suggestions, anyone?

Arby

This is picture of my dog. Even without the costume, he's a bit of a doofus.

Marriage

I was a shitty husband.

Not the really shitty kind, of course. I never raised a hand to her. I was not deliberatly and knowingly malicous. But there's so much more to it than that.

I was at times neglectful. Calculating. Cold. Unresponsive. Petty.

I am very sorry for that now.

When I think about it these days, I'm inclined towards the belief that we shouldn't have gotten married at all - we simply weren't right for each other. Don't get me wrong, I don't regret my marriage. I have a lot of good memories and learned a lot from it. I like to think that we are still friends. But while I loved her to the best of my meager and pathetic abilities at the time, it wasn't really enough.

It's unfortunate that I never would have learned some valuable lessons but for the hard way.

Anyway, I just want to say to her, I'm sorry. And thank you.

For what it's worth, I'm doing my best not to make the same mistakes again. I could not have done it without you.

Coli

A very old friend of mine got in touch with me very recently through Classmates.com. I can't say exactly when I met him - I've never been good with quantifying the passage of time - but I was probably 5-8 years old. Our families both went to the First Baptist Church of Palatine.

I lost touch with him when I moved to Indiana from Illinois with my mother after my parents' divorce. That would have been about 15 years ago. As I told him in one of our e-mail exchanges, I've thought about him several times over the years and wondered how he is doing.

I remember him very fondly, too. He was one of those genuinely good-natured people you have the pleasure of meeting maybe a handful of times in your whole life.

Anyway, I'm very excited about the prospect of remaking a friend. Maybe we'll have nothing in common and after a few more e-mails we'll never speak again. But maybe not.

Who are you? And can you help me with something?

So I'm curious - who are you? I know of 3 or 4 readers of my blog, but I don't think that quite accounts for my (miniscule) daily hit count. So, if you read my blog regularly, how about leaving me a comment and letting me know who you are?

And as long as you're posting a comment, can you tell why Amazon has cheaper prices on Dell's Inspiron 700m than Dell? I want to know what the catch is.

tendentious

: marked by a tendency in favor of a particular point of view
: BIASED

Saw it in passing.

Via Merriam-Webster Online.

Soccer, game 4

We lost. Badly. 3-0.

But wait, it gets worse. Towards the end of the first half, I pulled my hamstring. I tried to play on it briefly in the second half but ended up limping off the field when I twisted my knee on the other leg.

We aren't done yet, however. Emily also quit the game early after being helped off the field with a severe cramp in one of her calf muscles.

It might be worth noting that our opponents didn't score until after I left the field.

I'm just saying.

Travel blog

I just discovered a travel blog called Gadling. This entry is just my way of marking it without adding it to my links on the left. That is all.

Via Engadget.

Thank you, sir. May I have another?

Jane Smiley, the author, has a piece up at Slate subtitled "The unteachable ignorance of the red states."

The election results reflect the decision of the right wing to cultivate and exploit ignorance in the citizenry. I suppose the good news is that 55 million Americans have evaded the ignorance-inducing machine. But 58 million have not.

Her article goes on to express the kind of hysterics often voiced by the left today to explain their on-going rejection at the polls.

From a pragmatic standpoint, does it seem wise to belittle people whose support you seek? If anyone has a lock on stupidity these days, it has got to be the left.

On the other hand, The Backseat Philosopher has a more cogent argument as to what's gone wrong and how to fix it.

Our error is that we Democrats are far less understanding than we think we are. Our version of understanding the other side is to look at them from a psychological point of view while being completely unwilling to take their arguments seriously. "Well, he can't help himself, he's a right-wing religious zealot, so of course he's going to think like that."

The petty, childish part of me enjoys watching pompous, ass-hatted fools futilely bang their heads against a brick wall. The grown up in me wishes they would stop - it makes a mess and impedes the process of democracy.

ambivalence

1 : simultaneous and contradictory attitudes or feelings (as attraction and
repulsion) toward an object, person, or action

2 a : continual fluctuation (as between one thing and its opposite)
b : uncertainty as to which approach to follow

Emily was right about this. I got it wrong.

Via Merrian-Webster OnLine.

Good news and bad news

This is a somewhat belated post. I can be a little lazy.

First, the bad news - Bush won. Yes, I supported him and voted for him, but look at the other choices I had.

And in a blow against freedom, propositions against gay marriages passed in 11 states.

And now, the good news - Kerry lost! Woo-hoo!

Even better than that, I saw a 33% return on my "investments" at Tradesports.com.

But the best news of all is that while Yasser Arafat is still alive, at least he's in a coma! May death come for this monster soon.

Update: He might be dead already!

Update: Arafat is being declared dead by CNN and others. I really like this quote from Jonah Goldberg over at The Corner:

Obviously, my remorse knows bounds. My sadness has a bottom. Words are more than adequate to express my grief.

I'm So Ronrey

I went out after work today and when I got home, Emily wasn't here. I think she's out with Stevie.

Anyway, I miss her. A lot.

I should have gone home for a kiss first.

I should have voted for Kerry

Not because I'm Republican, but because anything that sets back the left and today's Democratic party is good.

Okay, okay, even if I had fully bought into this idea, I still wouldn't have voted for Kerry. Since I live in Texas - and Texas is going to go for Bush regardless - my vote for Kerry would have only added to his popular vote tally, which would give him more legitimacy. Definitely not what I would want.

*I'm up this late because I took a nap earlier today and now I can't sleep.