Domestic Geek

OK, I'm cleaning out my inbox and I found a link to a comic that I sent myself over a year ago about waiting for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince to come out:

http://wheretheresawil.kiwibonga.com/random/index.php?id=025.jpg

I read the book again for the sixth time (I think it was the sixth) over the past two days. I wish J.K. Rowling would get the darned 7th book finished so I can move on with my life. LOL Besides, they have to get the movies into production before the actors are too old to play teenagers anymore. It will suck if Harry Potter is anybody other than Dan Radcliff (IMHO).

I also want to see if my theories are correct. I came up with a new one. You know how Dumbledore's hand wouldn't heal? What if Voldemort's soul moved from the Horcrux ring into him? What if that is why had begged for Snape to kill him? It was the only way to destory that bit of soul. I still believe he'll be back (ala Gandalf). He knew it was ok to be killed because his animagus is a Phoenix and he'll be back. Hmmm, maybe I'll do some googling and see if anybody else drew that same conclusion.

Hi Everyone! Did you miss me?

Sorry about being MIA, but I've had a lot on my mind. I've been doing a lot of thinking about how I've gotten to where I am in life and how to get where I really want to be. Don't misunderstand, I don't have a bad life—I'm just not where I thought I'd be by now. I am not realizing my full potential. Someone as gifted and smart as I shouldn't be making $25,000/yr. In fact, this is the least amount of money I've made in a long time. I also shouldn't be living in a mobile home park. I can't blame anybody but myself. I've made every choice that has me where I am. I'm learning a lot about how one's thoughts keeps one stuck. Not just emotionally and mentally, but physically, as well. For instance, no matter what I eat or what amount of exercise I get, I've been stuck at the same weight for a long time.

Somewhere deep in my subconscious I keep myself exactly where I am now. Letting go of pizza was a huge step, but I keep dreaming that I've gone back to work there. I even toyed with the idea of delivering pizzas again because I'm dead broke right now. My final student loan kicks in next month and I don't even have money for food right now. Don't know where another $200+ is going to come from. Top it off with owing taxes this year. No wonder I'm seeking the security of the familiar. Turns out it might be chemically programmed into my very cells to keep wanting to suffer at a pizza job since I did it so long.

I watched an interesting movie yesterday called "What the #$*! Do We Know!?". A coworker suggested it as it pertains to a lot of the mind over matter type of thinking I've been exploring lately. It was so interesting, in fact, that I watched it again this morning. They even have a website at whatthebleep.com. I'm not taking things said in the movie as gospel, but they touched on things I've heard and pondered before. I've loved listening to Dr. Michio Kaku talk about quantum physics on Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell and on The Screensavers on TechTv. Even though most of the theories are way over my head, it definitely gives me a lot to think about.

The movie referenced the work of a Japanese researcher named Masaru Emoto that studied the effects of human vibrational energy, thoughts, words, ideas and music on the molecular structure of water. Postive thoughts and words produced a totally different crystalline structure in the water than negative ones. Extemely fascinating, considering the human body is composed of mostly water. Deep stuff, I tell you.

So, the whole point of all of this is: I'm tired of being stuck living in my box. I'm beginning an experiment of growth and enlightenment. In a year, I want to be in a totally different place (physically and mentally). I'll keep you guys up to speed on how that is going.

Speaking of being poor, it has done one thing for me—my kitchen cabinets are practically bare. Marcus and I have been eating food that has been in there for a couple of years (or more). I know the bag of elbow macaroni I ate one night had been purchased before we moved back to Aurora over three years ago. *sigh* Since my performance review is over 3.5 months away, I've got to start bringing in more cash in other ways. Things are going up on eBay and I'm starting my design business. I keep saying I'll start it when I get new business cards, I'll get a new mac first, I'll be ready when              . I can't wait anymore. There is really no good reason why I have put it off. I'm scared. I won't find clients. I won't make any money. Bah! I'm good at this and people will pay me. I just have to find them. This next week I'm going to work on getting my business site and portfolio up on the web. Meanwhile, if anybody you know needs some graphic design work done, let me know!!!!!

OK, enough of this for now. I've got some housecleaning to do and a movie from a coworker I need to watch.

Edited: The movie was State of Grace and it SUCKED!

As promised, here's the pictures Marcus posted of his tech tree.

Even though I specifically asked him not to get me much ('cause I knew he'd get me something and I did have one small gift for him that I ordered way back in October before I lost my job), Marcus got me a really cool gift. I opened a box Christmas morning that included stuff to upgrade my old PC tower—new motherboard, processor, ram and a video card. He also got the new Trans-Siberian Orchestra CD, The Lost Christmas (I will go see them live if they tour next year!) I felt horribly guilty for only getting him a t-shirt, but that was all that could be done this year. After spending the morning putting the new hardware in and the afternoon reinstalling Windows and drivers, my "new" computer was up and running. Marcus said, "There. Now you can play Harry Potter games and stuff." Well, as soon as I had some money, I told him, I would go out and get a game to try it out. Either that, or Mike could install one of his PC games on it and see how the machine held up. Marcus left and came back a minute later with a new copy of SIMS 2 that he was hiding! Dang him!

Those that have read here a long time know that I was a Sims Addict. That was until my poor old G4 became so ancient that it became incapable of playing the ever bloated expansion packs. Then came school and my life was too busy for such an addicting game and I was too busy trying to keep my own energy up with worrying about a poor game simulation. I wanted the Sims 2 when it came out for mac, but again, no money to upgrade the old machine, so there was no point. While at CompUsa one day looking at games, I told Marcus I should just upgrade the PC and play games on it since there are already several expansion packs for the Sims 2 for PC and none for mac yet, Parts for a pc are cheaper in general than parts for a mac, as well. That way I would keep the mac gameless and open for designing and surfing.

After one unsuccessful install (my boot hard drive needs to be replaced), a sucessful reinstall on the other drive had me up and playing. By then it was late and I needed to go to bed (stupid work pizza job), so breaking in the new game would have to wait until the next day.

So, guess what I did from the time I got home from work and finished a quick surf of blogs until 10:30 last night: YOU GUESSED IT!

Now when I have money, I'll have to upgrade my boot disk, buy more memory, a flat panel monitor, expansions packs..................

Marcus' mother sent me a "Taught Myself Knitting" kit. THANKS!!!!!! Now I can learn to knit this coming year as well. Whoo Hoo! I'll have that Harry Potter scarf done by the time book 7 is released!

OK, time to quit dawdling and get off to work. As soon as I take care of some delinquent bills, I'm quitting that job. I decided for sure yesterday. I've already told one of the managers that I probably won't be there more than another month. I just can't take it anymore. SSDD. Things are never going to change there, so I need to quit griping about it and move on. Plus, now that I have to commute to Larkspur, I really won't have time to get it all done, anyway. Maybe a couple of weeks working as a graphic designer for real will give me the confidence to start freelancing on the side (evenings and weekends). February 2006 will mark my 6 year anniversary working at that store and April 2006 will mark the 15 year anniversary of working for that company. I don't really want to mark those milestones.

OK, I'm out of here.

It's been a Christmas movie marathon at my house today. I started off by watching The Polar Express, followed by A Christmas Story and finished up by Jim Carrey's How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

A heard something interesting on the radio the other day and as par for me, I don't believe anything I hear unless I research it for myself. I had always heard that denoting Christmas as Xmas was the way secular people tried to take away the religious aspects of the holiday. It turns out that Christmas has been denoted in this fashion for over a thousand years. If you're curious of the origins, read this wikipedia entry on Xmas.

So, I keep hearing this one song that I really like playing at stores. It has a realy cool horn riff in it. The problem is that with all the other background noise and how fast the singer speaks, I can never hear the specific lyrics so that I can google them. Well, I was standing right under a speaker at King Soopers today and I caught enough words. I googled them as soon as I got home and I find that it is a song by The Waitresses ("I Know What Boys Like", "Square Pegs") called "Christmas Wrapping". I've seen people mock this song on blogs and such and had no idea they were ridiculing a song I really liked. *hmph* Anyway, my $10 iTunes gift certificate came from Blingo a couple of days ago, so I purchased it!

I saw an infomercial last weekend for a CD collection that I wouldn't mind owning from Time Life called 70s Music Explostion. It's too bad the 10 disc collection costs $120! Even if I had money, I'd have a hard time shelling out that much at once for CDs.