Good Mornin CUSA

Dear Diary,

I coulda swore that this gif licensing thing was debunked back in my BBS'ing days as a hoax. We've always called it a hoax. Ack. Whatever.

To me it all sounds like a rumor that someone started to reduce the usage of .gif files in the world.

Well, today, I cannot put if off any longer, I'm going to give you another installment of the story.

But first I will tell you how unfun this week and next are going to be.

Let me show you my wallet. Y'see that? $200. Guess how long that has to last me. Give up? 2 weeks. Yeup. I'm screwed.

Here's the even suckier deal. Rent's due this month. Suckier still? My Girl's rent is also due, and she lost her job and needs money until her last paycheck comes in.

It's all because I agreed to bail my fscking dumb@$$ roomate out of jail. Shoulda left him there. He told me he'd pay my part of the rent, and I know I can live off a shoestring budget for a long ass time (I've been way poorer), the only thing I'm worried about is my Girl.

I absolutely hate the fact that I over-extend myself all the time. Always, near payday, I look at my wallet and go, "Damn, where did the money go?" And then I think, oh yeah, I floated so-and-so a loan this week. Everyone asks me for money all the time because they know I almost always say yes.

So if anyone has an legal, quasi-legal, or even illegal ways (but ways I won't get caught at) to make about $200-$300, in about a day or so, let me know. It's an emergency.

I dunno, I'm not stressed about. I would be if I was the type of person that got stressed out. But I'm not. My Girl's stressed out. She get stressed out easily. Things just slide off my back. Doesn't matter how sh!tty things are.

Someone's come to work on my computer, I'll finish the Jan '99 part of the story when he gets done.

/rizzn

Quote of the Entry: (from chat logs)

Crackbaby: I am the creator.

Rizzn: izzatta fact?

Crackbaby: it is.

Origin of Narcolepsy Man

Dear Diary,

Narcolepsy Man 1/2
The Origin of Narcolepsy Man
or
Fistfuls of Pi

Once upon a time, in a land about 100 miles to the east, there was this little boy, who's name was Rizzo. He was a good little boy. But he always dreamed of flying. His friend Superman could do it all the time. He used to come hang out with this little boy and take him to go see a movie, and play with legos and all sorts of fun things.

But since little Riz idolized his friend Superman so much, he decided that it was time to start flying.

So he asked his mom and dad on Thanksgiving dinner if he could very kindly have the Turkey wings. And he vigilantly ate them. And every time his family ate chicken, he always asked for the wings.

And at night, he would put on his Superman pajamas, and practice on his bed.

"Up, up, and away," he would softly say (so he wouldn't wake anyone up), take a jump of his bed, and land flat on his buttocks.

Many a night he would cry himself to sleep, because he could not be like his superhero, Superman.

One day, he couldn't stand it anymore, and when his buddy Superman came over, he told him his plight.

"Superman," he said, "I've been trying to fly like you. Every night, I eat chicken wings, and every Thanksgiving and Christmas, and even on my birthday, I ask to have the turkey wings, and when I go to bed at night, I practice flying, but I can't seem to get it right."

Then little Riz asked him flat out, "How do you fly, Superman?"

"Well, Riz," he started (because he called him Riz, which was short for Rizzo), "Your going about it all the wrong way. I was given this power because of how I was born. I came from a faraway planet called Krypton. Everyone flies there."

"And besides, when was the last time you saw a chicken or a turkey flying? So even if you gained the superpower of the chicken wing, you would only be able to fly short distances, not like me," Superman explained.

"Oh. That's bad," concluded Rizzo.

"But all is not lost, Riz. I know you have a superpower in you, it's just not flying. I'm not going to tell you exactly what it is, because it is something you have to find out for yourself. That's the superhero way. Just remember to use your powers for good and not evil."

With that, little Rizzo's face lit up.

As time went by, little Rizzo became bigger Rizzo. Bigger Rizzo got a bigger Rizzo job and that was working on computers. But every day, his mind would replay the message that Superman told him when he was a kid: "You have a superpower ... you must find out for yourself what it is."

Every night, he'd sit in careful meditation ... ok, well, he'd sit on his computer until way late in the night. But he'd think about the superpower thing.

One day, he was working in the server room of the building where he worked, and was typing on a computer named Orion. And he reached over to pop out a Linux Redhat CD out of the drive when a bolt of static electricity. At that moment he was totally zonked out (Zonk!) and went into an unconscious dream state.

There he met his superhero totem (something superheros don't often talk about, because it's kinda personal) who looked like splinter from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but he had a handlebar mustache, which said to him: "Rizzo, from here on out, your alter-alter-ego shall be called Narcolepsy Man, for that is what you now are. You are now having the power to fall asleep at any time you so desire. Just beware of your snore. Uncontrolled, it could have disastrous effects."

"How do I find you again, Master Splinter with a Mustache?" queried Rizzo.

"Silly superhero, enter your dream state. Remember, you must use your powers for good, not evil. Now, quickly, recite pi."

Without thinking, Rizzo began, "3.141592653589793238462643383279502 ..... " and before he knew it, he was looking up close and personal at the keyboard his face had fallen on. Gingerly he lifted his face and looked at the screen, and there were one million digits of pi in a notepad document.

But what's that smell? Oh no, Orion was on fire, which was no good at all.

So Narcolepsy Man looked for a fone booth to switch into his superhero clothes. When he couldn't find one he remembered he hadn't made any yet. So he looked both ways to make sure no one was looking, and fell asleep.

He had a choice. He could try to quell the fire with his sonic snore(TM) or he could enter the dreams of the off-duty firemen so as to alert them of the impending disaster at the local Computer Co.

Then, his totem's words entered his head: "Beware the effects of the snore, it could be disastrous."

Then he remembered he was friends with Superman. Duh.

"I just hope he's sleeping right now."

Luckily he was. So Superman came and sucked all the fire like he does in Metropolis all the time whenever there's a fire.

And Narcolepsy Man woke up and shook Superman's hand and said, "You were right Superman. Thanks for helping me."

"Young Rizzo, I couldn't have done it without you and your power of sleep. I'm sure you've only touched the surface of your superpowers, but be careful and practice out away from everyone. You don't know how embarrasing it was as a kid whenever I would fry someones face with my heat vision all the time," Superman said.

"Good tips," Rizzo replied.

"Oh, and I'll give you the number for my seamstress. She'll make you a cool costume," said Superman.

And with that, Superman did his "Up, up, and away!" thing. And flew back to Metropolis.

Rizzo looked at his workstation, sighed, and completed his shift, thinking "Yep, yep, all in a days work."

Roundup: Rizzo wanted to fly. Couldn't. Superman explained why. Rizzo grew up. Got zapped, met a rat, gained power of sleep and pi. Now he's NARCOLEPSY MAN! But O NO a fire. Rizzo uses superpower to summon help, and saves the day!

Exciting next issue: What did Rizzo do with his superpowers? What tragedy could possibly happen to induce him to use his powers, again? Find out next issue, same sleepy time, same sleepy channel.

---

Inspired by Kelly and Action_Grrl. hee hee, thanx.

Quote of the Entry: "Yes yes, dear one, it is I, The Hindu Squirrel, and, man!, is my tail wet."

- squirrel

My Weekend, in One Million Words or Less

Dear Diary.

What's going on. I had a busy weekend, this weekend. Well, eventful, anyways.

Friday, when I finally left work, I headed over to my Girls house, who was not drunk that day, but feeling rather badly.

I stopped on the way to buy some cigs at the Viet. convenience store next to her house. I was already running late, but fate decided to delay me further.

You know that story I told you about the pentacostal? I don't remember how long ago that was, but I remember saying that I was a magnet for weird religious types to come to witness to me.

I didn't know how right I was.

I've been to this store before, and the young vietnamese is pretty cool, he speaks about 3 or 4 languages, however, his uncle, father, or whatever he is that owns/runs it with him doesn't speak jack sh!t of english.

Well, as I was buying cigarettes, the man saw my Jesus fish necklace that I sometimes wear outside my shirt. (I was all goth boy that day in black, so it looked cooler on the outside my shirt).

He points at it and says "Jesus fish."

I nod and say, "Yes." Apparently this sets him excitedly off into a pseudo-conversation. I say pseudo, because he was doing most of the talking, and it was in very broken english.

At first he sounded like he was talking about the tribulation described in the book of Revelation. He started first talk about Jesus being alive "..about 2012 years back..." which I guess I agreed with, it sounds about right, give or take a few years. Satisfied I had understood his point, he got a piece of paper and a pen and starts to draw the planets.

"This sun." Draws circles representing Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. "This one (pointing at Earth), here. I not know others. But Sun, grow big, burn earth."

So you can kinda see where I was getting the Revelation reference from. Revelation and Genesis says the Earth will not again be destroyed by water, but by fire. So I'm hanging by a thread on his logical points trying to figure what he means out, and I think I have it at this point.

Then he says: "Jesus ... not true god."

I'm like, gee thanks, pally. You subject me to your ramblings for 10 minutes and tell me my religion is false. Cool deal pally.

Then he proceeds to tell me that Jesus lived on Asgard with all the other norse gods, and some of the gods from Olympus too.

So he's gone from sounding like a Christian to a pagan/wiccan thingy, kindof, in a real loose way of interpreting things.

He mentions Buddha, too, but I couldn't ever determine what he meant by that.

So he's running the gamut of world religions.

Then he gets a calculator, and he draws a circle on the paper. He divides the circle in fourths, and two of the fourths into eighths. He brackets one of the eighths. Then he starts doing some sort of calculation on the calculator and comes up with the number 26,462 or something like that. And he indicates to me that this is the age of the world.

Which is about right according to young earth creationism. Indicates that the world is about 30,000 years old.

Then he starts talking about Mayan Temples and the Sphinxes in Egypt, Antartica, and the Pyramids.

And he writes down a date on the paper. 2000 - 12 - 23.

He looks at me with a serious face and whispers, "On this day ... we all ... die."

ooooh-kay.

"United States, Japan, Australia, California, all, under water. All die. But this year be very hard for us. Many die. But all die (points at the date) on day."

Then he says, "I sorry. I not speak good. Come back later."

And that was apparently the end of the conversation.

So, I went over to my Girl's house, her roommate was pulling up at the same time I was, we went in, and one of the girls that lives across the yard from her was in chatting about stuff. Then one of my Girl's roommate's friends came over. And we watched most of "Shakespeare in Love."

After that, Rick and Nicole came over, and we all went to this Irish Pub called Tipperary Inn. It was pretty cool.

I have found a new favorite beer. Harp. Begone, Shiner, Harp, you taste much better. Plus I actually got a buzz off of it, which is rare for me and beer. (which begs the question, why do I drink it. If I had a good answer for that I'd give you one).

But we parked at a table right in front of the folk bands that played. Lots of fun.

"There's nothing so lonesome
So dull or so drear,
Than to sit at a bar of a pub with no beer.

Hee hee, drinking songs rule.

I ate some shephard's pie there, which tasted absolutely gureat.

We stayed up there till about midnight. Drank about 7 pitchers of beer between the four of us. Ran a $90 tab. Didn't expect that, but split up, it wasn't so bad.

Had to just about carry my Girl out, she was pretty wasted, and she was wearing these weird platform leopard print shoes that it's easy to break your neck in.

I stayed at her house that night and nursed her drunken self into not having a hangover.

Then on Saturday, she went to go practice in the new band she's in, and I played Diablo with my roommates. On the way to my house, we met up with her roommate and her friend at Hooter's and had beer and a Philly Cheestake. Mmmm.

My fourth roommate who I don't talk about much, Solo_Exceptional, went out to go do some stuff for his gramma, got pulled over in H-E-B and got himself arrested.

He called us sometime around 9. Bail was like $300. Of course I had to pay it, but he promised me his new 733mhz computer if he didn't get to pay me back. So I obliged. Unfortunately I think I won't be making rent this month, but will be having a new computer. Pretty fubared. Don't know whether to be happy or upset about that.

So blah blah blah. Girl stayed the night at my house. I played Diablo all night over the network with my roommates, accidentally. Just looked at my watch, and whoops, it's 6am.

Went to bed, slept til 11. My Girl went to go hand out at her friend Davin's house. Came back to me playing Diablo some more. I got off the computer as soon as she came back.

Then, uhh, oh yeah, everyone stopped playing Diablo, and Phitt got a call from his mom. Phitt and Crackbaby had not slept all weekend except for about 5 hours. So they were sleep deprived for real. And us listening to Phitt talk to his mom like a crackhead, and watching Crackbaby's antics at the same time, was absolutely unbearably funny. Phitt kept trying to keep a straight face, and Cracbaby, my Girl and I were all snickering, trying to make Phitt laugh on the fone at inappropriate times. It was cool.

As soon as Phitt got off the fone, Crackbaby and Phitt fell asleep where they were sitting. My Girl and I left to go hang out at Rick's house with Nicole.

We drank some wine, ate some cake and icecream (Rick's son was 17 that day), and thru me telling the story about the Vietnamese dude to Rick, we got on the subject of theology, and had a rather good discussion. No real idiots in the conversation. Kindof is a change for me; no one being overly antagonizing. Everyone was posing good points and not taking cheap shots, which is what I mean by being an idiot. (I guess it helps to explain that my Girl, Rick, and Nicole are all pagans, Rick's a pagan priest).

But everyone said that they respected me as a Christian, and wished that more people were like me. I was flattered beyond belief, and hope that my actions and words were a good example and Christ-like.

My Girl was going to stay over at Rick's house because she promised to help Nicole find a new apartment and get her license renewed and stuff.

I drove home, got on the computer and played Dune 2000 until 4:00am.

And that is why I was late this morning.

(Whew! Am I wordy or what?)

/rizzn

Quote of the Entry: "Oh yeah, and I went to the park today to catalog the pigeons. They all look the same to me. It's really hard."

- joeyd

Song Sung Blue

Dear Diary....

Guess what.

A) I will never understand women.

B) I am bored.

C) I'm probably going to keep you in suspense about what happened next in the story that I've been telling you until Monday because I haven't even started on today's installment.

D) All of the above.

The correct answer is D) All of the above.

I am literally afraid to call my Girl right now she was so pissed off earlier today. I shouldn't be afraid to call her because lately her mood has been swinging in a bad way, and she's probably manic girl right now, but I currently feel like avoiding her right now. Which is sad.

And she wasn't even pissed at me, as far as I could tell. It's one of those "if you don't know, I'm not going to tell you..." things.

dum de dum. I need to get a life.

We are probably going to have a LAN party this weekend. I was going to spend the weekend with my Girl, partying, and watching her practice with her new band she's in. But now she's so pissed off she's probably going to write a bad song about me or something.

Love on the rocks

Ain't no surprise

Pour me a drink

And I'll tell you some lies

Got nothin' to lose

So you just sing the blues all the time

Neil Diamond rules. I will never ever ever cede that point.

Song sung blue

Everybody knows one

Song sung blue

Every garden grows one

Heh... Now I know what to do to make sure my Girl never reads this diary. Just stick a Neil Diamond quote at the top of every page. She hates Neil Diamond. I mean, who else but his lyrical genius could come up with words such as:

Soo, soolaimon

Soolai, soolai, soolaimon

Soo, soolaimon

Soolai, soolai, soolaimon

Soo, soolaimon

Soolai, soolai, soolaimon

So last night when we hung out at Ricks house, I had a bunch of wine. Because that is what Jesus would do. At least according to Rick.

Rick's a smart guy, but a goober, somehow. He's an ex-cultish Christian guy turned into a pagan preist. He's very intelligent, very well versed on world religions. He's been wanting to debate religion with me for a while, which is fine, I guess. But he said that goobery thing last night when he asked if I wanted some wine, and when I said yes, he goes, "You're one of those real Christians, not one of those fake Christians, doing what Jesus would do."

On the one hand, I'm glad he thinks I'm a real Christian. But on the other hand, drinking wine with some friends doesn't really make me a real Christian. But then I'm overanalyzing.

How thoughtful. Kim gave me a Ding-Dong. A hostess Ding-Dong, mind you, keep your mind out of the gutter.

You want to hear something that I do on a regular basis, but is really really dumb?

I collect MP3's at work. But I don't have a soundcard.

heh.

Just thought I'd tell someone that.

But I've got good at finding music. If you want something, I have it. I've got all KINDS of punk music. I even found some Bowling for Soup music. I rule. I'm going to make a BFS cd for my Girl of the cd that's no longer in print and she's going to be so proud of me. BFS is her fave band.

I leave you with your friend and mind, Neil Diamond.

SONG SUNG BLUE

Written by Neil Diamond

Song sung blue

Everybody knows one

Song sung blue

Every garden grows one

Me and you are subject to the blues now and then

But when you take the blues and make a song

You sing them out again

Sing them out again

Song sung blue

Weeping like a willow

Song sung blue

Sleeping on my pillow

Funny thing, but you can sing it with a cry in your voice

And before you know, start to feeling good

You simply got no choice

Song sung blue

Everybody knows one

Song sung blue

Every garden grows one

1972 Prophet Music, Inc. (ASCAP)

/rizzn

Quote of the Entry: "I think I might be unwittingly drinking out of my demographic. It's ginger ale."

- youradhere

xib0 /data1/f9000/OE/OE.QUOTELN

Good Mornin' Diary...

Yes it is. It's a friggin' FABulous mornin.

Well, I spent the night last night with my Girl. Apparently she had a sh!tty beginning of a day, and she said she had a bad day yesterday, but I don't see how, as she spent the day DRINKING.

Yep, that's right. I was finishing up that monster entry from yesterday, and right around 4:00 I got another call from her informing me that she had drank a case of Corona. And would I come over after work.

I so much wanted to be drunk when she told me she was (It woulda been more fun than what I was having).

So after work, I hitailed it to her house. We smoked a couple, had the remaining beers, and headed over to her friend Rick's house. She had told them she was going to hang out with them that night.

But before we left, we got a call from her friend Davin, who I find a little annoying at times, but he seems alright. Davin insisted that she come over when she get's back from Rick's house.

Bonus to this: Traci sleeps with me that night, over at my house, as Davin lives closer to me than to her.

No bonus to this: Traci doesn't come back with my car till 5am leaving me awake and worrying about her over at some guy's house.

I think I figured out why I don't much care for these Jay and Nick fellows that she hangs out with in Denton every once in a while. Just about every male friend she's had she's dated for a short while. She's usually said that dating them was a mistake, and gone back to being friends with them. But all that does is make all her male friends want to go back out with her, and a little jealous of me.

And I get this little voice in the back of my head that says when am I going to go back to being a friend?

Jay and Nick are new acquantances. I'm not sure where Traci met them, but I think it was online. She just joined a band with them, she's supposed to practice all day Saturday with them.

I think I'm niccing out, my brain is feeling so detached currently, and I'm obsessing about dumb stuff. Cigarettes suck. Don't start.

I would like to make that a cool segue into the part of the story where I start smoking and wish that I hadn't, but that doesn't come for a couple more action packed months.

Too many calls this morning. I'm not awake enough for this bunk shite. Thank goodness it's almost smoke break time. But smokin buddy Chris isn't here. Smoking alone is not fun.

According to a self-test like what comes out of Cosmopolitan that Kim (the chick in the next cube over) sent me via email, "[I] can easily attract the opposite sex, but [I do] not easily fell into the loving trap. [My] humor makes them to want to get along with you. He/She will be happy being with [me]!"

So exciting!

Erg. Anyways. I'm out for now. Expect a house of neddin update in the near future. Like today or something. Unless some cool people come online with AIM to chat (hint hint, you know who you are).

Thank goodness it's payday.

/rizzn

Quote of the Entry: "Ever had a weird sensation that time had actually stopped for a while? Just a brief flicker, or what would seem like a brief flicker, because after all, time had stopped. I was looking at the clock at 10:15:17, and I could have sworn everything stood still for...well, who knows how long. Everything except my mind, of course. Maybe I just had the hiccups, but I don't think so. It was very thought-provoking."

- Tenderpoison

House of Neddin: Part V

Dear Diary,

Top of the morning to you or something.

Well, guess what. I'm pissed at my employer. Actually, I'm more pissed at the HR department that interviewed my Girl.

They fubar'ed on her interview, and gave her the wrong test, gave her a supervisor test, so she didn't pass and didn't even get interviewed. I'm currently working on getting the responsible parties fired.

I wish my Girl didn't get so depressed over stuff like this. She was calling me last night, I expected her to be all excited that she got the job, and she was in tears thinking she was stupid because she couldn't pass what I thought was an idiot test.

Well, I had no idea which test she had taken, so when she started describing it to me, it was a test of internal procedures and dumb stuff that a person not inside the company would have no way of knowing.

So I told my direct supervisor here about it today, Frank, and he's like, yeah, for sure, that's the supervisor test, I'll talk to our boss, get the ball rolling for another interview, she'll for sure have the job.

I asked all the agents that had been hired on recently, and they had taken the test I was familiar with, the idiot test.

It's so not fair -- but such is life.

And when I was describing the problem in front of stupid Jarhead supervisor that is supposed to be gone by now, he's like "Whatever." I coulda killed him in that moment and had no remorse whatsoever.

Well, that pretty much describes how I feel about him all the time, but urge to kill at that moment was above normal levels, for sure.

How do you convice someone they aren't dumb, when you know they aren't, but they think they are? She has serious problems with how she images herself in her mind. She always says she's not pretty, not smart, but she's wrong about this. It's not like she's fishing for compliments, she just has a low self-image. It was something she told me about when we started dating, that she had a low self-image. But if anyone else said that about her, I'd beat 'em up, but you can't do that when the person degrading her is herself.

Errgh. Frustration. She's going to get depressed again.

(couple seconds later)

Speak of the devil.

My Girl just called me a few seconds ago. I told her that it was a mentor/supervisor test.

"No wonder I didn't pass it."

That's the response I was looking for. I told her that the ball was rolling to get another interview for her... We haven't been able to get anyone hired, and no joke, they've all been taking the friggin supervisor test.

She seemed in good spirits, and was on her way to an interview.

But she is still exercising that independence that she wanted so badly and hanging out with some friends tonight. Which wouldn't bother me really, but why does she have to hang out with guy friends, which I'm sure would pounce her if I didn't make my presence as a boyfriend known early on.

Just jealousy rearing it's ugly head.

Gosh, I'm really getting obsessed with my Girl, aren't I. I didn't used to write entries totally revolving around her every friggin day. Maybe that just means I've gotten closer to her, or perhaps the drama in my life has begun to revolve around her, or I don't know.

Drama drama drama. Kinda reminds me of January of '99. (Hows that for a transition? heheh I kill myself sometimes)

---

January '99

New year, obviously. Recovery from the party taken place. When I got back from Dallas, beer bottles everywhere, and amazingly, two cases of bud and miller still left.

I found that my roommate Dewey had fallen head over heels for this Rachel chick, and they had already gotten engaged. Like two weeks after meeting each other.

Noone really could stand Rachel. She was overbearing, had Dewey around her pinky, and generally caused strife among the people of the house.

So what did the people of the house do? Made it difficult for her to be around. Nate and Larry found her hotbutton. I want to preface this by saying I had no part in this, I really didn't mind Rachel that much, but everyone, and I do mean everyone, didn't like her. 'Cept Dewey.

Her hotbutton was racism and racist comments. She would leave the room if she heard them. So one wrasslin' night, Nate and Larry did nothing but make racist comments to piss her off. Larry went downstairs to get his rebel flag (remember, we're in East Texas in this story, so you are always going to know at least one or two people with a rebel flag) and wrapped himself in it like a blanket, so that when she came out of Dewey's room to tell them to shutup, she'd see it.

She saw it, and got all white in the face, and ran out of the house.

A few days later, Dewey and Travis decided to move out.

"Too bad about Dewey, 'bout time for Travis." were my thoughts on it.

So I invited my co-worker Lumpy to come live with us. Hysteria was a guy I met back in the diz-ay, when I was an old BBS'er. He and I went way back, and he had finally gotten a job doing fairly well where I worked.

But Lumpy was an odd duck. Crackbaby and I refer to him as "...a scumbag, but our friend...", which is a pretty accurate description. You'll see why when I get into it later on.

Funny facts about Lumpy... He's 23 I think now or somewhere in there, and he's had over 20 jobs. And he's wrecked like 12 vehicles. And he's probably made it with every chick in a 30 mile radius of our hometown. Lumpy's favorite beer: Shiner Bock

So Lumpy got the basement that we converted into a bedroom and Larry had the bunk downstairs, and I had the upstairs bedroom, Dewey's was vacant. This probably didn't take place (Lumpy's move in) till about the third week of January.

Ok, I'll admit, str8 edge Rizzn over here drank a little bit over at Ferrill's house that New Year's weekend. Well, my birthday is in January... second week, my slight intoxication at Ferrill's gave me the courage to make the decision to go ahead and take the plunge on my decision to leave the str8 edge world.

So one wrasslin' night, Travis, Dewey, Larry, and Nate were cappin' off the leftover cases of beer, and I randomly decided to join in. Drank 4 of em' really quick, didn't even get a buzz. Got quite dissappointed.

Then the sh!t hit.

I lost my job completely at the ISP.

Back then, one of the biggest problems for users of our system was a virus you may have heard of called NetBus. It's a trojan horse program that once installed, gives hackers access to your computer. Cursory scans of our users systems showed that about 85% were infected by this program, so anytime they got online, they were vulerable.

I had been working on a program that would go thru the users and uninstall the virus behind the scenes. But to do so, it had to use the backdoor created by NetBus.

There are programs that you could install to make a hacker think that you have NetBus installed, and if the hacker decided to try to intrude on your system, it would log their IP address, and send an email with it to the SysAdmin.

Well, one such user had one of these programs and reported me, not knowing what I was doing.

I eventually got a hold of this user and explained it to him, but he had already told someone else in the company about this intrusion attempt, and it made it's way to the company's legal department, and by that Friday, I was let go.

Everyone in the office was just sick to hear it. My boss went out and got blasted that night. The former owner, the big boss was almost in tears.

So I was pretty broken up about it, too. I was totally up to suggestion. And who to suggest stuff to me but probably the worst influences in the world on me, but some of my greatest friends, Crackbaby and Lumpy.

They suggested I try acid.

I did.

My first drug.

But the acid turned out to be bunk. We just ended up sitting in the basement for 7 hours watching Record of Lodoss Wars with dialated eyes. And that's it.

So a week later, Crackbaby took Lumpy and I to Denton, mecca for all drugie hippie college types, to some old roommates of his and we got some plane tickets and boy was it a flight. Timothy Leary I think was the name of it.

Absolutely wild. I was telling skunk_girl about it not long ago. First of all, the apartment was a total hippie trippin' smokin apartment, with blacklights, flourecents, and those trippy lightning balls and devices they sell at Gadzooks. And at first I didn't feel the effects of it, and someone popped in the movie Armageddon, which I have not seen sober.

A message to anyone who trips acid out there: Do not watch Armageddon on acid.

All I remember from that was that dude from Resevoir Dogs (Mr. Pink) was crazy, the chick that played Bruce Willis's daughter was fine, a bunch of sh!t was flying at planet earth, and Mr. Pink got tied up on an asteroid, and a bunch of people died. In space. Oh, and there was a crazy Russian in there somewhere. And a dead one, too, I think.

It got too much for me at one point, I didn't really realize I was tripping, but I knew the movie wasn't making much sense. I went to go get up and pee in the bathroom. Well, of course the mirror caught me, and I was spending what seemed like an eternity watching my face melt and go back. I realized I was tripping then.

When I went to go take a wiz, I got caught in a time loop. I just kept going and going. Sorry, don't mean to gross you out or whatever, just a real weird deal. One of the things I remember.

Then I went back inside, I think Armageddon was winding down, so I just was looking around the room. I was reclining on a white blanket, and I looked down at it, and all of a sudden I was flying through clouds and stuff. It was crazy.

Then the movie was over. I totally missed the end. I couldn't tell you who survived it, and if the Earth survived, or what. I just remember it was over.

Crackbaby was smoking buttloads of pot in the corner, but I wouldn't touch the stuff. I wanted a pure experience, so I could judge what it was doing to my body and mind. But he was taking hits off a bong called 'Satans Cock.' It was a five foot grafix bong, which translated from pot head terms, is a tube about five feet long that's clear, with a bowl on the end, that takes two people to operate (one to light, on to hit the bong).

Crackbaby was at the what we call "Crackbaby, breathe" stage. Where you have to remind him.

After a few cig breaks and pauses to admire the pretty colors, I remembered I had Vitamin C in my car, and I went on a solo adventure to the car to find them. Well, I went out the door, over to where I had parked, and I couldn't find the car.

"I must be really fubared," I thought.

So I went back inside, retrieved Lumpy, and we went to go find the car. Couldn't find it.

We both went back inside, found Crackbaby, who would be of almost no help to be sure, but went back outside to find the vehicle, and couldn't find it.

"It must be gone," I concluded.

Talked to the Dr. Feelgood, as I like to call him, and told him I couldn't find the car, and he was like, "Where did you park?" Just outside the door. "Oh man, I'm sorry, I shoulda told you, you can't park in the complex, you'll get towed."

Now normally I woulda flipped out and been a nervous wreck. But that's me sober.

That night I didn't give a fsck! I was like, sure man, no problem, we'll just get it in the morning. It didn't even phase me that I didn't have a car right then and I was over 100 miles from home.

The rest of the night progressed, night became morning, we slept for a few hours, ate breakfast, and proceded home.

That's about the extent of the first half of January. More fun stuff that extends itself to another volume happenned in the second half of January. And thats when the new chapter of my life and my downfall really began.

Just to sum up where I'm at right now.... I'm unemployed, living in a house with 2 dudes, Larry and Lumpy, and I just broke one of my cardinal morals, drugs and drink.

It doesn't get better for a while.

---

But anyways. For some reason I've been procrastinating with my entries lately.

I think for sure I'm going to be able to get my Girl a job here, because of the whole fsck up. I'm supposed to meet with my boss and maybe some HR people about it soon to see what's going down.

I'm audi 5000 diary. Maybe expect a small update before today's over.

/rizzn

Quote of the Entry: "Ginger ale bottles and cans (just clap your hands) are as understated as they can possibly be, with the exception of a pronounced NO CAFFIENE label that might as well just read "Won't Kill Grandma!"

- youradhere

Prelude to about nothing

Dear Diary...

Had lunch with the girl. My diagnosis of manic-depressive is probably right. That's what I was diagnosed with in high school, and that's what seems to be re-surfacing. I'm all happy now, not down like I was this morning. At least it's not bad. I just get all stupid and corny when I get depressed. Nothing serious.

I don't want to go back on that Nortriptiline though. It was a pain in the butt to remember to take it, plus, if I skipped a dose it seriously fscked with my body. But it solved my problem till I 'grew out of it.' It may be just triggered by stressful situations or something.

High school psychology rears its ugly head.

Just got some happy news, the position that was going to make my salary jump quite high is still available. I'm going to ride the contract company till something happens this time. Hopefully the same thing doesn't happen to me as what happenned to Reality.

Well, I had a long entry to put in here, a new installment of the house of neddin, but I've got to go, my ride's here (girlfriend borrowed the car today), so I've gotta cruize and go to some job fair with her. But I'll post it as soon as I finish it in the morning. There's some funny stuff in there.

And then the next installment is January '99. Which is going to be tough, because the statute of limitations hasn't come close to running out on that stuff yet. So I've gotta come up with a way to dance around the subjects without incriminating myself and others.

hooboy.

House of Neddin: Part IV

Dear Diary.

How are you this morning. I'm tired this morning. This morning I was really ready to go and get to work on time, like around 7:00, which gives me enough time to get to work, it's just that I was truly lazy. I just wanted to lay down and smoke a cig. So I did.

I went over to my Girl's house last night. I think her roommate is trying to butter her up for something, because she's acting all domesticated. She took out the trash without badgering, she cooked dinner, a good one too. Steak and fresh veggies, sauteed mushrooms. It was nutz.

Not that I'm complaining.

Yesterday was weird. After I put in my last entry, I was kinda dozing in the cube waiting to go, and somebody woke me up, and I had a el 'cid flashback; I hallucinated a spider on my hand. I kinda looked down at it shocked, blinked twice, and it went away. Weird deal.

Anyways, my Girl confuses me so much. I'm just going to give up figuring it out. She walked me out of the apartment last night and gave me the first good solid mushy kiss she's given me in weeks. I wish I could peek in her head to figure out WTF is going on.

This is the last week we have Dorkimus Maximus Jarhead stupid boss. I think that tomorrow is his last day. Thankfully. Unfortunately, they promoted another dumb boss to replace him. He's incredibly stupid, and for some reason thinks that all the other techs that work with him are as dumb as he actually is. And unfortunately, this dude has been with the company for years, and has no other promising job prospects, so he'll be hanging around a while.

I soo hope that I get that promotion out of this dumb department.

---

Anyways, let's see if I can remember some more stuff from the House of Neddin.

(imagine the Waynes World "Doodledoo" sound effects and wavy camera fade here)

---

December '98

Oh yeah, this is December '98. This is an easy month. Lots of crazy stuff happened here.

First couple weeks of December were uneventful. Courtney moved out, she finally couldn't stand it anymore. We were just to male for her to live with. Travis and her were constantly arguing. I think that Travis was just pissed he couldn't get any tail from her. She was pissed that tail was what he wanted. Plus we were a little messy.

But her and Big Nate still hung out all the time over there. And Larry developed a personality around us.

Larry was cool. He liked ICP (Insane Clown Posse), his psycho girlfriend, gettin action, picking up chicks at the mall, watching tv, and not his job. Favorite beer: Budweiser.

Larry moved in after Courtney moved out. Which was good, because Larry didn't bitch about everything, paid rent, and had a steady job (he painted houses with his dad, (his dad's biz)). He was a cool dude.

Larry too was a wrasslin' fan (WCW). Every Thursday and Monday, it was wrasslin' night.

One of the first things I bought when I moved into the house back in September was a 48" Widescreen teevee. So everyone loved bein at my house. Plus, since where I worked (an ISP) got bought out by the cable company, I had a free cable hookup. (including a free cable modem! with a FULL 13megabit contract).

It was suweet.

But a little story about Larry.

Larry had this girlfriend before he moved in that was real real good to him, just that she was too clingy for Larry's lifestyle. I can't remember her name right now, but she was kinda like Larry in that she never really talked to us at all until we really got to know her well. But when I say that she was real good to him, she was real good to him. She would buy things for him constantly. Like a pager, celfone, a system for his truck. Crazy stuff.

Well, about a week after he moved in, his truck got raided. All the stuff was stolen out of it.

Larry broke up with her right before he moved in. But she was psycho, or at least that's what Larry would tell us. She'd call him and page him and stuff all the time. Like 7 or 8 times a day. Always calling for him at the house. Get home, there'd be like 15 messages, mostly for Larry. It was nutz.

Well, about the first or second week of December, Travis tried to hook it up with a girl called Amy Vanderpool. Courtney introduced her to him. She was one of her friends from somewhere they worked together at. She was an ok girl that I knew from highschool, maybe a little bit of a slut (from rumors), but apparently she was a little psycho too. Travis dated her for about a week, until Amy discovered Larry, and pretty much dumped Travis so that she could date Larry.

Well, Larry was ok with that, since he was no longer tied down to a girl. After a one of our legendary Friday drinking parties, Amy was ready to jump in the sack with Larry, like the third night she knew him.

Larry walked into his room and there was Amy, under his covers, completely nude.

Amy's not completely unattractive. In fact, she's a nice looking girl. But she has a skin graft on her arm that seemed to turn Larry off immensely. He started giving Amy weird nick-names like "Rubbermaid" (because the arm felt like rubber to him), and "Suck-and-Drool Vanderpool" and stuff like that. Mean stuff.

But soon Amy earned her psycho reputation. Larry told Amy he really wasn't interested. Amy didn't take no for answer. She stalked him. And I do mean stalked him.

I remember one time when Amy called for Larry and Dewey answered the fone.

Dewey: "Hello?"

Amy: "Yes, this is Amy, is Larry there?"

Dewey: "Amy? I'm not sure if Larry is here or not."

Wild gesturing ensued from Larry indicating he's not there.

Amy: "Are you sure, I think his c.. I mean he told me to call him around now."

Dewey: "No, I think he went out with Nate."

Amy: "Do you know what car he took, because I see.. I mean... umm.. can you check to see if he's there?"

Dewey: "Actually, I'm on the pot right now takin a power dump, I'm not sure exactly who's here right now."

Amy: "Ummm"

Dewey, of course being Dewey, had to prove his point by punctuating with a thunderous fart.

Amy: "Ok, I'll call back."

Dewey at that point runs up to the window and peeks out the blinds, then runs to the caller id.

"Larry, you have a stalker. She's up at the end of the road in her car calling on her cel-fone," deduced Dewey.

It continued like such for about another week, until Larry told her to stop coming over, he didn't want to see her again, in a not so nice manner.

...

Up at work Wilhe got promoted to database admin, Van got promoted to Training Coordinator, leaving Jeff (different Jeff), Albert and I as the lone Network Technicians.

That continued for a couple weeks, and then I got demoted. It's not something that I tell most people, because I'm quite ashamed of it. I was still kinda depressed at the time, I guess, so my job performance wasn't up to par, I was a little too comfortable in my job, so these things contributed to the condition known as slack. At least that's the only reasoning that I can think of.

Perhaps I was too close to the situation, so that I didn't recognize the problems existing in my own performance. I mean I was doing things waaaay out of my job description. My workaholic nature dictated that Albert and I would sometimes stay up at work till 3 or 4 in the morning, dealing with network issues that would arise. I also wrote many programs that made network administration easier that I never was paid for. Just for the good of the comapany. I loved it that much.

I was literally crushed when I got demoted. I was sent back to first level call queue. That was the genesis of the idea in my mind to move to Dallas and get a real job paying real money.

I called my homey Ferrill, a boy of mine from back in my h4x0r days. He and I always concocted impossible schemes to get filthy rich and/or powerful. He was going to hook me up with a job up where he was doing serious net admin work.

But call it either laziness or dedication, I stayed with the company, and I was a reformed employee, I did nothing but work, didn't even answer personal emails, seperated them out into personal and work.

It turned out that they were trying to groom me and reform me so that they could move me up to a higher management position. They just chose the wrong way to do it with me, because their move completely destroyed my morale. I was a crushed man.

And then came new years eve.

Now sadly, I missed one of the biggest parties in my House O'Neddin with the old crew that ever happened, but I've heard most of the stories that happenned, and I'll try to relay them to you.

I had accepted an invitation to hang with homey Ferrill in Dallas for New Years Eve, and our night was an uneventful night of partying, drinking, network gaming, and Dick Clark.

The House, though, on the other hand, was one of the town's biggest party spots.

Everyone who was anywone was there. I think the body count stacked into 60 or 70 or so. Upstairs, and down. There was more beer than could be possibly humanly consumed in a year there. And hard liquor! Boy howdy and stuff, much of it.

One of the highlights of the evening would have been Larry and Nate getting funky to Kid Rock's Cowboy blasting on our stereo & sub ... nothing like seeing someone that big get funky.

Larry had one of the floorlamps tipped over using it as a microphone, and it came out of the base, so he lifts it up, being the drunk biatch that he is, and slams it down.

Out go the lights, the music, the everything.

Larry had blown a fuse. One of the fuses that couldn't be replaced because the company went out of biz in the great depression.

So what was the proper course of action for a bunch of drunks to do to fix the problem? Lick a penny, put it in the fuse box, of course!!

So in short order, the party was back underway.

Many monumental things happenned that night.

My roommate Dewey met the 'Love of his Life' that night. Alleged love of his life. More on that later, but it was a girl named Rachel.

My buddy Ryan (Jeff's brother), got his first makeout session.

And my preacher's daughter got drunk!

Fuggin great.

This is a story right here. Apparently, my roommate's little sister and the preacher's daughter Erin were looking for a party that night, as was everyone in the world. Well, they decided the place to get drunk was my house.

And plaster themselves they did. Erin, on alcohol, apparently is quite deadly, as she became the makeout machine. Kissing just about everyone there.

The impact of this was not felt until Dewey's sister had an attack of conscious and told her mom about it. Which is when Dewey's parents called us and told us we needed to call the preacher and apologize for having such a den of sin that anyone so innocent as Erin can walk in and become corrupted, etc, etc, ad infinatum, ad nauseum.

Next Episode: January 1999: A New Era for our Intrepid Hero.

---

Okay... I'm kinda in a hurry so I maybe left some stuff out, I'll post edits and changes as I think of them, but now I've gotta go have lunch with the girl, be back as soon as I can.

/rizzn

Quote of the Entry:

"When a man's best friend is his dog, that dog has a problem."

-- Edward Abbey

"It's ok to love your dog, just not love your dog."

-- Crackbaby

Musical Interlude

Dear Diary,

Like a ton of bricks it hits,

Before she finishes her sentence

As the predicate predicate predicts

A quick ending to her presence.

I could see it coming from a mile away.

At 600 miles an hour.

A surprise attack.

Tora! Tora! Kamakize

No looking back,

A tactic of considerable power.

(Chorus)

It doesn't matter now,

What I should've done then

My heart was in the right place

At the wrong time again.

Widowmaker, the Impossibles

I usually only post that song after a breakup, but y'know how things have been going lately. Just feeling down, and I bought an Impossibles cd last night, so I felt like posting ok? heheh

It's an incredible song that pegs the feeling for me everytime.

Anyways. Girl's online now. I think she might get the job. I think my mild depression is becoming more obvious, because 3 or 4 times Traci asked what was wrong with me last night. I couldn't talk to her about it at the time. She asked me again this morning, too. I didn't want to get into it right then and ruin her day. She's got interviews today and stuff.

I just feel sad when I kiss her, because she doesn't kiss back. She told me a week ago that she felt like my passion was gone and I regarded her like a friend not a significant other. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I think she was just projecting her feelings onto me.

I wish she could give me a sign that I don't need to be insecure. Insecurity sux.

Really, I'm insecure. I had this dumb dream last night that proves I'm insecure right now. I had this dream that I was back in middle school. I don't think I've told the stories of middle school to anyone here.

I am now 6'4", 165lbs, but in middle school, I was 5'3", 73lbs. I got beat up every day for the weakling that I was.

Well, last night, I dreamt that I was back in middle school again. I was playing basketball on the school court, and everyone was getting pissed off at me that I was missing the shots. I was on my way to walk over to the side to take off my dorky yellow and blue coat, and put it in the little locker box. Everyone dropped their basketballs and started following me over there, and for some reason I had a bunch of pencils in my pocket.

They grabbed the pencils out of my pocket, and broke them. They were jeering at me, and calling me names and stuff, and then the passed out the broken pencils and started stabbing me with them.

This actually happenned to me when I was in an 8th grade math class once. This dude walked up to me and grabbed my pencil and stabbed me in the leg with it. I never told anyone about it. David Frances was his name. He was in my dream last night, and so was this Michael Smith character, he's the one in 7th grade who chipped my tooth by tackling me in a touch football game. He was about 5'8", and 200lbs.

Well, anyway, this dream was right when I was waking up, so I took control of it and turned into Superman and kicked all their asses. But it disturbs me that I'm that insecure and have dreams about middle school.

I'm about to have lunch with the Girl in a few. Hope that things go well for me. ;-)

I guess I'm out, diary. Expect an update later today.

BTW, my old house story is not over, I'm just working on a better entry so I don't have to sacrifice the number of updates I do just because it takes all day for me to remember what went on 2 years ago.

/rizzn

Quote of the Entry: (from another chat log)

RichL: I am Sam. Sam I am! I like green eggs and ham.

Rizzn: Would you eat them in a box? Would you eat them with a fox?

RichL: I would eat them in a tree. Even if I had to pee.

House of Neddin: Part III

Dear Diary,

Once again, my girl has been gone for two days, and not called me. She called me at 3pm on Saturday (an hour after I woke up), and asked me to go to her neice's birthday party while we were starting a LAN party. I had thought that it was going to start (the birthday party) much later, so that's why I had made plans to help setup the LAN.

At least she was understanding about me waking up late on a Saturday this time. Last time that happened, well, go back and read the diary. You prolly know what happened. Heh.

I was inCREDibly late to work today. Like 2 3/4 hours. As usual, no one noticed.

The reason I'm trying so hard to get a hold of my girlfriend and stuff is so she'll have a job. Which is necesary, because I don't think I'm going to pay her rent for her again this time. Because she's starting down a track of destruction. She's abusing me, yet relying on me for survival. All for the sake of feelings.

I guess she's the only one who's feelings can be considered in this relationship. But it's important to remember, I'm not bitter. Just venting. Grr.

Actually, today should be a GREAT day. Check out this email I got in my box this morning. It rules:

Just wanted to let you know that I think your diary kicks ass. Thanks, )O( Akira

Hee hee. I kick ass.

Plus I had to deal with our proxy server being down this morning. I'm hearing from my co-workers that if I keep dealing with issues that are for SST's (supervisory positions in my dept), I'm precariously perched on receiving a promotion, and a token salary increase.

Hrmm. Well, from the bored look on the faces of all you people staring at your screens, you probably tire of my current boring life and long to hear the latest installment of my exiting life at the House of Neddin'.

---

November '98

This installment isn't quite as exciting. But don't worry, we're about 2 months in the story from getting some real action, so to speak.

I guess what I'll do today is introduce you to as many people as I can ... Let's pretend it's Friday, children, and we'll all go to one of my house's drinking parties.

This is before I used to work at home. That comes in two months. So we'll hafta begin sometime around 6:00pm or so. That's because although I only live about 5 minutes, literally, away from where I work, I was turning into such a workaholic, that I stayed there for hours after work. But let's just assume that today I came home at 6:00pm.

Well, let's see, oh, big surprise, Travis is just now waking up from his current napping place, the couch!! How fabulous, yes it's true, the deadbeat doesn't have a job.

I met Travis when I was in 9th grade, in Sunday school class at the church I ended up going to after we left our Methodist church. It was a good church. But anyways, he was one of the first people to greet me.

Travis is by definition, a redneck. There's just no other way to describe him. I, by definition, am not a redneck. I don't know how he and I got along, but whatever. He was good at fixing cars, welding, not cleaning up, making messes, and cooking. Oh, and losing jobs. His favorite beer: Budweiser.

He had a job when he moved in, but lost it within two weeks. He got another job, but lost it too. He finally got a job that paid enough to pay rent, and then moved out. Since he gave me the washer and dryer that worked like sh!t, he thought that the bills had been paid.

Total cost for knowing Travis: $1500.

Ok, so Travis is just now getting up. "Hey Travis, how are you doing? We drinkin tonight? Oh course we are? Ok, cool."

"By the way, did Jeff call?" I might ask.

Jeff is my brother (figuratively). I've known him since about ninth grade too, he fostered me thru high school, don't know how I made it with him, don't know how I woulda made it without him. Know how that goes? He was my best bud. His interests were including in-line skating, computers/internet, girls, dating, and girls. He was about as tall as me (6'something), and had dyed, bleached blonde hair. His favorite beer: Zima.

He used to give me all sorts of useless advice on how to act on dates, what few dates I had in high school, and how to get the chicks. I s'pose it worked for me about as good as it worked for him, but I never realized how bad we both were at it until much after high school.

Jeff was usually the "Beer Hootchie" as we liked to affectionately call him. He was the main man over 21. Dewey, the other non-minor, rarely bought beer, for some reason. Jeff had an unusual quirk. You know how people get when they're drunk, it doesn't matter what age you are. I was probably the only sheltered young'in who didn't know what a drunk or a druggie looked like when I was at those younger ages. They get all crazy, lose inhibitions, etc. Well, Jeff never did these things, didn't matter how much he drank. But he beer buzz began on the way to the liquor store. He'd act all crazy beforehand, and then just drink and be all normal Jeff. Just something funny we'd used to tease him about.

Ryan was his brother. I'd also known him for about the same amount of time. Jeff and Ryan also attended the same church I went to. Ryan now is doing webdesign for a firm I used to work for. But at this point, he was still in high school. He used to get drunk with the crew all the time. He's like a shorter version of his brother. He enjoyed being on the computer, making ameteur movies, picking on people and mechanics. (Jeff and Ryan were not rednecks) His favorite beer: Zima.

Okay, so its about 6:30, and Courtney's boyfriend, Big Nate, was about to make it over. He was over at the house so much he was just about a resident, but he never paid rent, and we never made him. He was the one who looked like Goldberg. He usually brought his childhood buddy Larry over with him.

Big Nate rules. An interesting story about him.

I don't know how many of you actually follow wrestling, or as I like to say, wrasslin', but in the WCW, and the other leagues he was in before that, Goldberg held an undefeated title. I'm not going to go into the story surrounding the defeat of Goldberg, but when Kevin Nash defeated him thru some bunk methods (he used a stun gun, or more acurately, his partner did) in what was supposed to be a 1 on 1 match for the title. Well, when that happenned, Big Nate, a 6' monster who could pass for Goldberg cried. Kinda funny.

We didn't tease him much about it though.

Big Nate like working at his camp that he worked at (maintenance), having sex with Courtney, weightlifting, drinking beer, and raising hell like a redneck. He was from a small town out side the small town of Tyler. His favorite beer: Miller Light or Budweiser.

When Big Nate came over, sometimes he came over with some Budweiser from work, and some preliminary drinking started. Then Dewey would come home.

Dewey is a real cool dude. Crazy though. He's basically the clown of the group, overshadowing everyone else's clown tendencies, because, well, he's Dewey. I've known him since I was in high school, right around 9th grade. We used to go on mission trips all the time in high school, but Dewey, I think, wants to be a real deal missionary. He's been on numbers of trips to South America. He really gets off on that. Either that or doing mechanical work. Dewey's strange quirks (and he has millions of them. Dewey, himself, is a strange quirk) include owning many many non-functional cars. Mostly Impalas. And Honda CRX's. And motorcycles. His favorite beer: Whatever everyone else is drinking.

Larry, by the way, at this point in the story doesn't have a personality. He never said much. He just kinda sat around, quietly. He was really shy until we got to know him, so I'll introduce him at a later time. But don't wory, he comes into the story in a bigger way later on. He and Big Nate are the ones who named the house. But I get ahead of myself.

Mike and Rebecca would usually be making their ways over here pretty soon, followed shortly thereafter by Mike's brother Mark, who was two years younger, and looked like a spittin' image of him. Rebecca is one of the finest looking girls in the world (one of them, one of them. My girlfriend's prettier ;-). Rebecca and Mike were always arguing. They were each other's first time, and they'd been together since high school. It was such a sickeningly romantic thing. "Kinda makes you wanna cry, doesn't it?" [nod to Brak]. But they always stuck together. Which was cool, because in that hound of jackals, we always told Mike whenever they broke up, we'd be the first guys on the hot pursuit of Becky. We even took numbers on who would go first. It would rotate by the week. ;-) Jackals, we were.

Becky was a girly girl, she had the funniest southern drawl, and wasn't the brightest bulb in the pack. But she was cool, and she'd always drink with us. And sometimes she'd get REALLY wasted. There was one time she got so drunk off some wine cooler and a bottle of champaigne that she was actually on the floor sliding around under people's chairs. Not the thing to do on a bachelor pad's floor. Her favorite beer: Zima, Wine Coolers, Bacardi Breezers.

Mike was cool dude. He was going to school and working at Montgomery Wards. He's going to Texas A&M now, I think. He was a mechanic guy too. Most of these guys that I say are mechanics, all have their cars tricked out to race, or are working on cars to do so. Drag race. Funny thing was I could usually get my old Delta '88 to do close to the same thing, stock. It pissed 'em off. ;-) Mike liked mechanics, Rebecca, and partying. His favorite beer: Zima or Budweiser.

Mark, Mike's brother was pretty cool. He didn't always come over. He had his own girlfriend that didn't always like our parties and stuff. But he had a tricked out Corvette that was pretty cool. His favorite beer: Budweiser (noticing a trend here?).

I think that's everyone except Courtney, who usually came in late (it's about 10:00pm now, everyone has poured in, the beer has been flowing for about an hour and things are underway), because she was a waitress at a Mexican restaurant down the road. That circle of friends she had there touched my past and future circle of friends that lead me down the bad road. But that comes much later.

But she'd come home and immediately start berating Big Nate for drinking so much, and then proceed to drink herself silly on hard liquor or beer. I'm not sure what her interests were, well, let me think back. I guess, girly things, the Backstreet Boys, N*Sync, MTV, VH1, Big Nate, and talking about us needing to clean up the house.

And then there was me. I didn't drink.., alcohol. Usually I just drank Jolt that was leftover from the punk shows that Jeff, Ryan and I put on.

We'd play all kinds of drinking games, go out on the front yard and drink like rednecks, go in the back and drink, be so loud that the cops would get called. Usually, though, the cops would just get called because of the parking situation. Tickets all around! Woohoo! It was crazy that we never got busted for MIP since everyone was always drunk talking to the cops and stuff. Ohwell.

But there you go, that's a more formal introduction to everyone in the house at the time. And it takes you a month closer to where all the sh!t starts going down, which I think starts in December or January. Stay tuned.

---

Jeez that took me a long time to write. I started that around 10:00am or so today, and I just now got done with it, it's around 2:00pm.

I still can't get a hold of my girl to tell her to bring her frickin' applicatoin in.. I went ahead and turned my roomate Crackbaby's app in. He's going to be hooked up with a job on my team (Team Wank) here soon, now. Working on getting Phitt up here, and then the whole team will be wankin', er workin here.

I'm hungry though, and I've worked thru my lunch. Doh.

I hate it when I do that.

/rizzn

Quote of the Entry: "Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither suffer much nor enjoy much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat."

- Some Cheesey Bastich.

House of Neddin: Part II

Dear Diary...

Back again today. Boredom and regret for taking this shift are setting in. Skunk_Girl just went offline, so I guess it's time to turn to the productive, or some reasonable fascimile thereof, and continue with my story.

BTW, folks, I want you to know I'm never ever switching to night shift. This just plain sucks. I wanna talk to my g/f, or go home, or get drunk or play video games or something, and I'm stuck talking to losers like me that are working past beddy-bye time on the fones.

At any rate ...

---

I know it's been a pretty boring story up to now, but I just had to set it up for you. That was by no means an inexhaustable definition of the house nor the characters in it, but it was just enough to give you an idea.

BTW, another boring fact about the house. For 2200 SQ ft., the rent was only $425 a month. Sweet deal, right? Almost want to make you move to Tyler, teeming metropolis of 80,000 people. Trust me, don't. ANYways.

I may want to re-iterate, for those who don't know, that back in those days I was still sXe (translation: straight edge) as well as an ardent Christian. I'm still the latter, just not the former. I was also a virgin, never had a drop to drink, although I had been known to smoke a pipe every once in a while. Just so you know. After all, I AM the star of this show. ("We're ALL stars. At the Dope Show").

The first month there was pretty much uneventful. Which is odd considering. This house, it seems, attracts attention. I had been to that house once before I moved into it, when I just happened to have been there one New Year's Eve when a friend of Jeff's who owned the house had a party there.

First month was uneventful. I don't remember much going on except me pining over my long lost girlfriend. I was so gone for her, I didn't even start to look at girls for another 2 months after that. Which is crazy, because I lived with a girl. I don't know how many of you have lived with an attractive member of the opposite sex that you weren't going out with before, but you see them in just about every state of undress, and this chick was living in a bachelor pad, and none of us seemed to have any attraction to her. I guess we all had our own reasons.

The second month I lived there was a slightly different story.

There I was one night, after a hard days work of typing on the computer a bunch and fixing network issues, watching Celebrity Deathmatch, and I hear a banging on the door.

*BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG*

"Come in, the door's open, bud," said Rizzn, expecting one of his friends.

No answer.

"Um, who is it?"

Muffled answer.

"OK, Hold on, I'm getting up."

Ok. Nothing much can prepare you for what I saw next. I open the door and there's this guy in a S.W.A.T. uniform holding a semi-automatic rifle. I'm thinking "Ok, whatever you got me for I didn't do. OH wait, the guns not pointed at me calm down, breathe."

"Sir," he says, "You need to leave your house now."

"Uhh," I dumbfoundedly reply, "may I ask why?"

"There's this guy, your next door neighbor, who has a high powered semi-automatic rifle threatening suicide, with a possible hostage situation. We are evacuating everyone in a 100-yard radius."

Uhh, oh-kay. The cop asked me if there was anyone else in the house at the time, and there wasn't, just Danny's band practicing in his half of the basement. So I blew out the candles and put on a coat and walked behind the S.W.A.T. van for safety.

Meanwhile, Danny is down in the basement, auditioning a new drummer for his band, and they are about to kick it up with their rousing rendition of "Don't Fear the Reaper", when they hear a knock on the door. We for months afterward joked that if the cop had been five minutes later evacuating us, and Danny had started up with his song, the night probably woulda never gone the way it did.

If I remember correctly, this was a Friday night. Which meant it was drinking night. (Back in the day, I wasn't even tempted when drinking night came along. I just hung out with the drunks, it was fun.)

So the band, Kathy, and Me were sitting behind the S.W.A.T. van for protection when my roommates and friends started pulling up with alcohol for the festivities. It's also important to remember that on drinking night, none of the participants save Dewey and Jeff, my home-boy from highschool, were of legal age.

So up the minors pull with alcohol. We stayed outside talking and making fun of Sydney Harris, or as we grew to affectionately call the bugger that night, Psycho-Syd.

Danny told us the story about "Don't Fear the Reaper." And he also told us how that little house Psycho-Syd was in was cursed. He told us: "Before this night is through, that house's windows are going to be broken out."

It seems every year in October, or sometimes September, the windows get broken out. One year, a bunch of kids around Halloween broke all the windows. Another year, there was a huge meth-lab in the house that got raided. And in '98, the festivities were provided by Psycho-Syd.

At one point one of the SWAT guys ran up to me and asked me if he could shoot out the streetlight above my window. I aggressively agreed. There was a 1000 watt streetlight attached to the side of my house perched right over the window behind my bed making it impossible to sleep. Or rather making it difficult. It was by learning to sleep with 1000 watts shining in my eyes that I became NARCOLEPSY man, the guy who can sleep under any circumstances.

They shot out the window, and went up to the second floor in Danny's room to see if they had a good vantage point to snuff out poor Psycho-Syds seemingly pointless existence.

But, one by one we got tired of waiting around outside, and one by one we snuck back in the house when the S.W.A.T. wasn't looking until about at 3:00. Then the party was on. We all piled up in my room, which had the best vantage point of the action, watched the news crews and SLEWS of cops crouched around this guy's house. And the Papa John's crews.. (Can you believe that the S.W.A.T. ordered Papa John's that night? Delivered right to the van!)

Drinkin beer, watchin hostage situations.

As the night went on, hearing the shoutings between the cops and Pyscho-Syd, and catching the up to the minute reports off of MSNBC by the local NBC affiliate, I was able to gather that Sydney had just broken up with his girlfriend and gotten fired in the same day, came home, and took to drinking. With his faithful high powered semi-automatic rifle.

His friends came over, were, well, concerned, and called the cops, and left.

The climax of the night was when the sh!t hit the fan. I was on my computer getting an update, Courtney, Michael, Travis, Jeff, Ryan, Dewey, and Larry were sitting on and around my futon, which was now turned to face the window. Danny and Kathy were trying to sleep.

All of a sudden, I guess the cops were ready to go home. The busted out all the windows, tear-gassed the house, and out comes Psycho-Syd, preceeded by his hostage. His anklebiter dog.

That was the bit of drama that happenned early on in the house. I remember not too long ago recounting incidents like this that happened on a regular basis each month, althought they escape my mind right now.

But our house was like a little MTV show. You know. They always have those mixed co-ed groups living in a house? All we needed were cameras. (Which we eventually got. Another story. Another time.)

---

But more on that tomorrow, it's near the end of my shift and I'm ready to get drunk. This has been such a get drunk week. Sooo much stress. I think I'm going to either turn alcoholic or workaholic. I just found out I don't totally wretch every time I drink vodka anymore, so I'm going to help myself to some of that tonight and see how it goes.

Sigh.

I guess that means over and out.

/rizzn

Quote of the Entry: (another chat log exerpt)

Crackbaby: I'm talking to a NetAdmin right now.

Crackbaby: his user name is phloughphie

Crackbaby: can you guess the pronounciation?>

Rizzn: hell no

Crackbaby: fluffy.

Rizzn: lol

Rizzn: *wonders what nationality that is*

Crackbaby: gay.

Rizzn: Heh

House of Neddin: Part I

Dear Diary...

Regardless of what you may think of my current life, my life over the last 2 years has been absoluetely crazy, and it's just now settling down, and I guess I should be reveling in that fact.

My girlfriend and I went to a goth club last night.. The Church. I've never been, but I know infinite amounts of people who go there, both from my hometown and from big D.

I actually broached the subject of whether or not she still meant what she said Monday night about backing off, and she still does. However, her actions haven't really changed. Which makes me scared it's her feelings.

She told me she has always had a problem in relationships, where she gets bored and loses interest, even when she doesn't want to. I'm torn in my head between showing all the affection and passion I can to show that 'flames' can be re-kindled or whatever, or playing hard-to-get in hopes she may think she's losing something and try harder or something.

So I dunno. I'm trying not to think about... hadda get that crap off me chest.

But I was talking with skunk_girl yesterday about how far I've come this year. And she said I ought to put it in the diary. Which would probably make for good story and good ratings or whatever. So I'm going to post it up bit by bit, because it's a long assed story. It gets really personal, and a bunch of you guys will probably have less of a bit of respect for me after the story is done because I did some bad things, bad choices really. But I'm going to put it up here anyways.

---

It really all started when I moved out. The excitement anyways. When I moved out of my parents house. My parents and I have what I would say would be an excellent relationship. At the time I was working at a local ISP for my hometown. I had been working there since they started in the biz. I absolutely loved my job.

I was going out with a girl at the time I moved out. Her nick I think was Z.., so we'll call her that. Z.. and I were both very strong Christians, and it was one of the weirdest relationships I've ever been in. It was one of the best, though. She was my first real kiss, first one true love. I think we had been going out for about 5 months. She was the reason I was moving out, so I could spend more time with her. It was her suggestion.

She was one of the reasons. The other reason was that my relationship with my parents had been rapidly deteriorating, because on top of me being a workaholic at the time (for fun, I would go to work. I enjoyed my job that much), I spent any other excess time with my girl.

Well, about that time, she had gone back to college, about 2 hours away from where we lived. And sure enough, the very weekend I got moved into my house, she decided that it was time to break up. Just be friends.

I had been ready to pop the question to this girl a few days earlier, or at least start looking at rings or something. It's always when I decide to completely devote myself to a girl when they drop the bomb.

It was a sad day. I went over to her house. She said "We need to talk." It was so cliche from the beginning of that encounter. Like I told her I loved her and she didn't say anything back. Absofricklutely retarded. That's always your first sign. We need to talk is the second sign of the apocolypse. Maybe a missed kiss, or the way she looks at you with that sad look. They know they are about to break your heart. And they do it anyway.

She was the kind of girl that goes from relationship to relationship. Which seems to be the only kind of girl I can seem to attract. The only kind.

But at anyrate, it took me about 3 months to get over her, in which that time I took to settle into my new house. I barely spoke with her over this time... and this going from a relationship where when she was in town, we'd go on a date every night, then talk in her room for hours, then go home and chat on the internet for hours until we crashed.

When she was away, we'd chat for hours when we were supposed to be doing other things. Like sleeping, class or working.

But anyways, I didn't speak with her hardly at all. That was a rule I made up. Let's not talk with each other for a month. If we can't absolutely stand it, then we need to get back together.

I keep digressing. Eergh. Well, let me introduce you to my house, take you on the tour, and show you who lives here.

My house (another thing of pride and joy to me), was an old thing, built in the '30's, original wiring. The company that made the fuses went out of business in the great depression.

It was a split level, the upstairs belonged to Danny and Kathy, downstairs belonged to me, and my roommates Dewey, and Travis. It was all hardwood floors, big livingroom, kitchet, diningroom, 1 bath on the floor level, 2 bedrooms, and plus we had a basement. All in all, about 2200 square feet. We turned the basement into two more bedrooms, one a bunk bedroom, the other a regular bedroom/gameroom.

Travis really wasn't supposed to live there. In order for Dewey and I to live there, we had to clean up the house and rennovate it. Big investment. All in all, I put about 3k into it. Building the bunk downstairs, the bar upstairs, painting, taking up the carpet, polishing the floors.

Dewey is a crazy guy. I mean utterly nuts. Not a drug user, didn't fubar his mind that way. He's just ... Dewey. He has these things called Deweyisms. He'll just come up with a random word or use a word some way its never intended to be used, and pretty soon everyone is saying it. Mostly because it's so off the wall that it's funny as hell.

Dewey and I were the original intended inhabitants. But then he invited Travis to come live with us, which was a mistake. For some reason he invited someone who was known never to be responsible nor pay rent to come live in our house. And the whole time he lived there he never paid me rent, except with one rubber check. Which turns out to bite me on the ass about 2 years later, but I'll be coming to that in a long while.

Travis is a loser. Travis is cool to hang out with, but not live with. Travis is good at fixing things and cooking, but is an absolute slob. I'm not saying that I'm any kind of clean freak, and I'm sure that if any of my RL friends read that line, they'll laugh at how true it is, but Travis put me to shame.

When Travis decided to move in, he invited another friend we all knew, a girl from church (which is where we all met, BTW), named Courtney, to live with us. She was just getting out of a bad relationship, and personally, I think Travis was looking to score. But Courtney almost immediately met a guy that everyone from the clan back then remembers as Big Nate.

Nathan was cool. He was about as tall as me (I'm 6'4"), and he looked like Bill Goldberg (the wrasslin' dude from the WCW). And he was a huge wrasslin' fan.

And those were the original players in the game. The original members of what became known as the 'House of Neddin'.

(The name House of Neddin comes from an ICP song. Neddin is a euphimism for sex. I would normally explain where the name came from, but I'm going to go into enough detail about this story that it'll become quite apparent).

All this took place in about September of 1998.

---

Well, now that I've introduced everyone and gave you the run down of the house, I'm going to close out this portion so that I'll actually have something posted up today. I'm here till 9:00 pm today, so look for further updates tonight. (I switched shifts with Phillip because he had to go pick up Cure tickets tonight).

/rizzn

Quote of the Entry: (from chat log today)

Phitt: I was thinking about going into the midget slavery business

Rizzn: hmm

Rizzn: good career move

Tonne Fun Bun Son Gun Run

Well, g'mornin diary. And a g'mornin it is.

Yes, better spirits for the Riz-boy this morning. I wish someone would get off their cel fone in the office because it interferes with everyeone's headfones, and it's quite annoying. But not as annoying as this call I'm about to pick up will be I'm sure.

Anyways, things with the Girl are going better. I was invited to stay with her at her house last night. She is not feeling as depressed it seems. Which is good, if she's not depressed, I'm not depressed.

But we still need to clear the air about our discussion about taking steps back that we had this Monday. It's not eating me alive like it was before because I'm pretending in my mind it didn't happen (which is what she may be doing -- but I don't think so), but this is not healthy, it needs to be dealt with on level heads. I don't think that either of our heads were level Monday.

I am unbelievably tired. And it's not even lunch yet. Usually I don't take my nap at work until after 3 or so. And it really sux cuz I've got to run all over town today on lunch.

I'm about ready to crash. This sux.

Oh, forgot to tell you yesterday. I am supposed to have won $1000. Some scratch off card they stuck on my door at my house yesterday morning. I'm thinking of getting a scratch off lotto ticket with that kinda luck.

I know it's a Bad Idea to have my girlfriend working in the same department as me, but I'm trying to get her a job as she may be losing her job due to illness where she's at now. I'm trying harder to keep her job there than get her a job here. I just think it would be a blow to her confidence if she interviewed here and didn't get the job... although I'm quite confident she'd get it.

She has absolutely no confidence in her technical abilities, even though she is smart as a ... thing that's really smart. I was going to put smart as a tack, but that never made sense to me, what's the difference from being as smart as a tack, or dumb as a doornail? Are tacks really that much more intelligent than a doornail?

But back to the point, I wish she'd have more confidence in her abilities. Sure, she might be a bit inferior in job experience and skills to me, but most everyone is. (BTW, that's not a boast, I've just been a computer nerd all my life, so for someone to have more skills than me is someone who has logged some SERIOUS nerd time on a computer) She's the smartest computer chick I know personally, and I wish she'd realize that.

Anyway, i need to sleep or work or both, so I'm signing out for now, diary.

/rizzn

Quote of the Entry: "Here's a food I never ate simply because of it's name: Sauteed Bull Testicles."

- Uncle Bob

Great Debates of All Time, Part XXIV: Great Taste or Less Filling?

Dear Diary...

Reality is holding out on us. She promised some juicy stuff at lunch time and what time is it? it's like way after lunch. hooboy. wots up wid dat? ;-)

Anyways... went and had lunch with the Girl today. She's feeling much better, kissed me, told me she loved me. I think she's trying to forget it. I'm torn now between asking her to discuss it and clear the air or forget about it.

Oh well, it's not bothering me much, so I think I'll let it slide for now. Bring it up in a couple weeks if an answer is not obvious or discussed.

I'm running out of quote for the entries. Using them faster than I find them. In fact, I'm using my last one today so I guess I better get crackin' for some more.

Be witty, people! (So I don't have to be and I can just quote you!)

Smoke time .. brb

---

30 Minutes Later

---

Wow, long smoke break. Told people the story abuot the time I got witnessed to by a pentacostal chick up here. We got into a mild theological discussion. It was kinda fun. It's interesting to see how people who have no theological training or background nor any religious beliefs claim to have such far reaching knowledge of Christian theology.

Other people were looking at us funny. Guess religion isn't something people talk about at work much.

The discussion was quite civil. Frank was cool about it, because I was rippin' on that brand of pentacostals, and he grew up as one. Erin was quite ignorant of theology, for a smart person. She bases more of her knowledge on experience, than fact. Phil didn't say much.

Anyways. I'm still in the process of trying too hookup my roommate Phitt and Kim. This should prove interesting.

My girlfriend's telephone number is 'temporarily disconnected'. And I've got to get a message to her about keeping her job. Eeesh... suckage.

Ohwell, I'm out till I have more to say.

/rizzn

Quote of the Day: "Make my plans as one big joke and work towards the punchline. On... uh... the world I guess. And the best part is, the world doesn't even GET IT! It's like a fuckin' episode of FULL HOUSE!!!"

- akaifailure

Over the Top and stuff

Dear Diary.

I've been cheating on you. Not really, but I did actually handwrite a note that was meant only for myself to read last night, so I hope you aren't mad.. ;-)

But to make it up to you, diary, I'm going to write the entry I handwrote in here last night. Excuse it's cheeseyness.

---

I've decided that I must be really really depressed if I am handwriting a note that I intend only to be read by meself.

I just got done watching some cool animes about some dudes who are part-time florists and part-time assasins. And about this boy ninja in the 20th century. Phitt got them from work.

But directly to the point -- I am missing my girl so much. I feel like we broke up. I wonder if the damage to the relationship can still be repaired.

I'm different in my approach to relationships. I look at each one as if it were my last, not even considering the possibility of breakup.

It's how I've always been. Why would anyone want to be different than that?

Its an ego-centric thing of me to say, but I cannot concieve in my mind a different apporoach to dating.

Some people will express love with ulterior motives (i.e. to get someone 'in the sac'), some will say it because their spouse or significant other say it. others still say it out of habit and some will say it out of shame.

I am completely different. I don't say it because of a warm fuzzy I feel, nor because of obligation. I say it only when I'm sure of the impolications and the committment behind the words "I love you" can be fully comprehended, calculated, and backed up by my actions.

Words mean things, and love is not an emotion, but a committment.

But this is turning into nothing more than a treatise on what my positioin on love is.

Back to the point, if there is such... I miss her. So much that it hurts, and I do mean physically.

Not to turn this into an exercise in cheesiness, but I really do miss her that much.

I don't know why I do this to myself. Girls are the reason I [get depressed]. The only reason. Girls are the reason and only reason I 've turned my emotions off in the past.

It's the same story everytime. Five months or maybe a little longer of pure bliss for me, something snaps in the girl and she breaks it off.

I see the problem clearly now. Only because I just wrote it down, and it's happenned enough times for it to be called a pattern. Habitual even.

But I thought that it was only guys who were afraid of committmeent?!

Damn the 20th century and the liberated woman! Who gave them the fscking right to be as assholish and prickish and selfcentered as the traditional American male.

I guess that I belong in a backward culture where guys can still be chivalrous and women aren't allowed to be afraid of committment to a guy who worships the ground they walk on.

But after the girl breaks it off due to the fear of committment, as tradition goes, either a) she comes crawling back in a most unseemly fashion, or b) she dies.

Literally. I've a history littered with the girlfriends that gain 50 pounds after breaking up, die in car accidents, or in 2 cases, contract lukemia.

But the ones who survive/and or come crawling back manage to contact mue just as I am getting over them, which is generally a three month process of its own.

That is the problem with fully extending your heart to those who are merely human. Whilst God never breaks my heart, women seldom seem to pass up the opportunity.

---

I'm not even going to type in the next part because I read it and it's way to fscking cheesey. I'm actually embarrassed at what I wrote so far, but pretty much it's all how I feel, in a melodramatic sort of way.

I'll probably write more later. Just wanted to get that typed in this morning and see if was over the top, after having a night's sleep on it.

/rizzn

"Further up and Further in!!"

Dear Diary...

Me again. You know me. Rizzn. Y'know? sheesh, why you bein like that. Is it about me handwriting an entry last night? You know you is the only diary for me.

heheh

silliness.

Anyways, I talked to my dad a few minutes ago. Thank goodness his office has a toll free number.

Anyways, as I may have mentioned before, my dad's a shrink, so I talked to him about my problems, and my girlfriends problems, and it was very encouraging. He didn't say a whole lot more than I didn't know, but sometimes it's not what you say, but how you say it. He has a gift like that.

munch munch on 99cent Jack in the Box.

ever notice how 99cent cusine tastes better than any other kind of food? maybe that's just me, but the best food in the world is a meal of 99cent whoppers. When some of the locations started charging more for them, it just killed it for me.

Oh, whoops, I forgot to pick some stuff up while I was out to lunch, I'm going to have to take an extended cig break I guess at 4.

Once again, my girl is unreachable by fone. But I'm letting it slide. I'm not gonna be bothered by it. She wants her space, and if she loses her job and another job opportunity because of it, maybe that's the price she'll have to pay. I'm tired of doing everything for everybody.

I'm sorry, dear voyeurs of my diary, that you have to hear about my sorry state of love-life affairs for these past few days, I'm sure it's getting boring. Rizzn, move on, you say. We want your witty banter and colorful commentary. Well, I'm handling this better than I expected, so you may expect to see more of it sooner rather than later.

I made a decision that I'll have to break it off (the relationship), if things don't seriously seriously change in 2 weeks time. Crackbaby and I taLked about it last night. I know taking advice about women from my peers is a bad idea, (I mean look where it got me in high school), but he told me something that made sense.

Y'see I live by a code, that I don't tell anyone about just because I hope the way I live my life makes it evident. In my life I put God first, others second, and myself last. I'm sure this has been helpful and beneficial in ways that I cannot see to others around me, but it sure has gotten me into trouble.

Without creating a huge book to describe my last chapter of my life, the short run down was this method, carried to extreme, left me penniless, homeless, and broken spirited about a year ago. Ever since then, my boy crackbaby and I made a pact that if we ever see each other sliding in a bad direction or giving too much, or anything bad like that, we will call each other on it.

Crackbaby said that just in the last couple months, maybe three months he started to see me come back out of my shell, which is about right. This is about the time I started to live again, and give my heart piece by piece away to people I thought I could trust, including my girlfriend.

He told me he would kick my ass to hell and back if I let that same situation happen again, where I go into that much of a shell over a girl.

He told me that living your life for others is good, but in this situation with my girl, I need to think about what's best for Rizzn here. If staying with her is going to cause me undue pain and torment, or she starts to take advantage of me, I need to end it this time, and not wait for the devestation.

So keep your ears to the ground, Diary. I'll keep you updated on what I decide to do with my girl. And what she decides to do with me.

And yes, I'm feeling in enough good spirits to include a quote for the entry. Sorry I was depriving you of that I know you enjoy it.

/rizzn

Quote of the Entry: "So, in case you're wondering, my cough is now productive. I am a veritable snot geyser. "

- lisamcc