Speeches...

Well today first thing I get up and it is like 1:30 in the afternoon. My dad decides it has been a little while since his last one so he gives me a speech. He informs me that maybe I shouldn't have passed up an opportunity to become a slave in the real world that could happen for me right now. Why wait til August to become a bitch for a company when you can do it today is what I got out of it. I know he is just being straight forward and realistic about my life. He says he is just trying to make me realize that I am going to have a ton of expenses that I will have to start paying on right away. From what I can estimate I will have rent, car insurance, health insurance, car expenses like gas and maintenance, student loan repayment. I think he is getting worried that I am not getting worried. He questioned me as to why I am holding out to go back to my job up at ISU for just a month. I reply because it is my job, a job that I already have, and I like it. He apparently isn't getting it. Although I don't forget he has loads of life experience. I'm not stupid. I just don't think he feels me. I don't want to settle down. I have youth on my side. Before I know it I am going to be a decrepit old man who has grandchildren running around my feet begging for me to take them to McDonalds. I am in no rush for that. Although I do love kids. It is not for me right now, I can recognize that. So, now dad has me thinking... crap I am going to be in a world of hurt if I spend one cent besides bills. I DON'T WANT MY LIFE TO BE JUST BILLS! I feel like I have to pay everyone just to be alive. What kind of crap is that. I am done now. Later!

A little TLC...

Tonight was a chill night. I knew I didn't want to sit at home and do nothing at all so I went down to the bar but just to hang out. I did no drinking while there besides water. I had quite a bit of popcorn too. That stuff is addicting like no other! Hung out and chatted about nothing in particular. Played some games like Photohunt and Wordster with Kristina and Lauren. Met a guy named Jesse who works at The Curve Inn. He apparently remembers Ed, Lauren, and myself from when we've been in there lately. Melissa showed up and hung out towards the very end of the evening. Ed closed the bar down a little early because it was incredibly slow. Ed and I then went into Dempsey's to say hi to people. I got myself a Rolling Rock while I chilled because it is just a dollar. Nice. Merf was bartending and kinda chatted with him for a sec. R showed up with Shane and they said hi. Listened to some live music by Joe. After that Ed and I met up with Lauren and her buddy Christopher at Steak N Shake. I again was just there to chill cause I knew I wasn't tired at all. I got myself a big water. Ed got his chocolate milkshake. Lauren and Christopher had already been there a while an were almost done with their food. We sat around and chatted for a while telling stories about pranks and funny things that we have done to other people. Ed and I reminisced about the old Phil and Kyle show that I obviously was a part of. Good times back in the day when Phil and I would just rip jokes and get "mad" at each other all the time. But all in good fun too. We knew we weren't serious.

So things that are on my mind. I am broke. Not literally but damned close. I got my tax return today and I got about 400 dollars back. I wouldn't even open it because I don't want it. No, not like that. I do want it but I am saving me from myself. If I put it in my immediate checking then I will end up spending it. So, I had my dad go and put it in my savings account that I have here in Springfield. It is safe now. I don't usually touch that account except for the necessities like rent or bills and such. I am doing all I can now... to try and save money. I have been driving the speed limit. You may say what?! Yes, speed limit for me is a money saver. Maybe not for you. But there is more to it than the speed limit. Like I will not rev the engine nor accelerate very fast. That uses gas at a rate faster than needed and gas costs money. So I am being a granny driver and pissing people off by driving right at the speed limit and gassing the car really slow when taking off from stop signs and traffic lights and such. The more constant of a speed and the more gradual increase of speed helps to not over use gasoline. PLUS I am also being a very safe driver because of this and I am treating my new baby so well as a result. My new baby is my car, A 1992 Geo Prism (Red). I have only had it since the end of December and before that I haven't had a car to drive as my own for over a year and a half. Not having any car at all makes a person value the actual priviledge of driving so much more. I am so good to it now. I try hard not to leave garbage inside it. I bought my baby a top of the line MagLite to keep inside it. I have oil and HEET in the trunk to keep it running smoothly. If I had the money I might even spend money on Premium gasoline. The kind that is unleaded is good according to Shoofly. I've washed it a few times. Too cold to do it myself and give her the TLC she deserves but soon enough I will get out the bucket and hose and wash her down in the front yard and then give her the good waxing that any other car will be jealous of.

Tomorrow I plan on going to see the movie Cheaper by the Dozen which stars Tom Welling who plays Clark Kent on the WB's Smallville. I will be seeing the earlier showing so that later in the evening I will be able to start a Night of the Living Dead-athon with Ed and Melissa. I just heard that she will be inviting April and Jules to join us also because they love scary movies. Cool in my book. SO tomorrow is a movie day for me. I had better get to sleep so that I will be well rested for all this movie watching I am going to be doing. Watching so many movies in a day is exhausting you know! It will be fun hanging out with people outside of bars. Lately everyone I see (besides ED) is out at the bars or at late night eating establishments.

I watched the CUBBIES today on ESPN. They did alright but lost. But as I learn from ED spring training doesn't really matter and to not really concern myself with scores because they are out there getting warmed up and used to certain rotations and such. It is all about learning what will work for the team in the regular season so if they learn something but lose, that is fine. I hope to catch a few Cub games this season. I saw 1 last season but time limited me. I should be able to do more now... we can all hope. :)

Old job...

Well, I went and saw Master and Commander today for just $1.00 at White Oaks Cinema. It is still very weird to go there. If you don't know I used to work there and worked my way up to shift manager. Not the head or anything but I ran the show some of the time. Times have changed and it is now the cheap theater. The staff is almost completely different except for 2 people that I know of and I haven't seen them there cause they don't work very often. I walk down the halls and memories come back and it was a good time working there. I got crap pay working there but I enjoyed it and that is why I stayed there until I did. My beef is that I felt important when I worked there. Everyone who worked there knew me and I knew all of them. I enjoyed working with almost the entire staff. Now I feel like I am nothing when I go there. I feel as if I never actually worked there and maybe it was all in my mind. It is the same theater but now it feels totally different there. But while there I still feel the urge to go to the back office and chat with whoever is managing that shift. I don't know these people though. I could chat movies with them and be like, yeah I used to work here. They don't really care so I don't even bother. I just keep the memory that I know what it is like to be behind the concession stand, to clean a theater after hundreds of people throw popcorn and soda all over the floors, and what it is like to keep the movies running as smoothly as possible so that the movie goer has an enjoyable experience. I might come back to that point some day. I still enjoy movies more than anything else but right now viewing them as everyone else views them is all I have.

Good weekend...

Oh boy. It has been a good weekend. Well, the Illini lost on Friday which sucked but it was a good night otherwise. I hung out at the bar for most of the game but then for the rest of the time I spent next door at Dempsey's with my new friend Jules and her older sister Jen. We chilled there with good conversation and great jazz music. Mary D slightly embarassed me when she told Jules and Jen about how I used to sing and dance in a competeing group during high school. They seemed impressed though so then it didn't seem so bad. They actually asked why I hadn't mentioned that before and I'm like... yeah, not something I just announce to everyone I meet. After Dempsey's the 3 of us went to Denny's to get a bite to eat along with Jen's boyfriend who had just gotten off work at Damon's. Overall it was a really good night.

Saturday I promised Crow that I would help him out by picking him up in Decatur and giving him a ride back to Bloomington. See thing is with Crow is that he "was" a very aggressive driver and likes to speed and travel close behind other vehicles. Well he got himself 4 tickets within a year and lost his license. To get his license back he had to take a driver reeducation class that was being held in Decatur. Our old roommate Nolan who now lives and works in Decatur picked him up from Bloomington brought him back to Decatur and Crow stayed the night there and then went to the class on Saturday. Well I went and got his sorry butt and we went back to Bloomington. Boy, it sure was nice being back at my apartment, the one I have paid rent in full for but have not really lived in for a whole 2 months. I felt like I was a visitor but with my own room. Very odd feeling. Once back in Bloomington though Crow treated me to a great dinner at Chevy's and also a pitcher of Margaritas. Very good stuff. Well that filled us up so much that we had to just chill out for a few hours but also got us in the mood to do some more drinking. Lucky for us that from friends of ours were having a small gathering at their apartment. I, of course, decided not to head back to Springfield just yet. It ended up being a good night. Drinking games and loud crazy drunkenness. I met a few new people too because since I have been gone Crow and Phil have expanded to hanging out with more people. So I met Heidi and Kara and chilled with other friends from school.

Sunday I took Crow to work at 8am and then came back and went back to bed because I had trouble getting to sleep and didn't get to sleep until about 6am so I had only slept for about an hour and a half before I needed to get up. I was able to sleep until about 1:30pm so that helped. After that I went to watch Phil bowl in the Bloomington City Tournament. And John a fellow bowler bowled a 300 his first game. I have now witnessed 2 of the ISU bowling teamers bowl a 300 and another bowled a 300 when I wasn't there. Crazy stuff.

I just got bored with writing. I have been slowly writing this for a decent time now so I am just going to stop. I might post more in the morning. I'm just going blank cause I'm getting so tired. Later!

More often...

Well, I have been busy with trying to keep busy lately. Tonight was a night in for me and it is now 3:30am and I have yet to go to bed. Why am I still up? Probably because I was up this late last night and slept until 2:30pm this afternoon. My sleeping schedule is so messed up. I am going to have trouble going back to work when my recovery time is up. BUT I am having a great time. Who says recovering from a major surgery has to be boring. When I asked the doctor if drinking alcohol would be ok and she said yes then I was golden. I have had 2 weeks of drunken fun. I actually had to take this past weekend off. Of all times... The Weekend. I know I know but I was starting to feel a cold or something come on. I still have a minor sinus and cough thingy going on but it isn't too bad. Techinically to me right now is the End of Wednesday the 24th so I will recap my past few days.

Monday the 22nd, of what I remember I went and saw Hidalgo with my father out at the new movie theater. We both enjoyed it and it was a good guy movie and none of that lovey girl crud in it. It had humor but not slapstick but more of a whitty and smart humor which my father and I both liked. Then after that I dropped my father off at home and went down to The Bar. Which from now on when I say The Bar (caps not always necessary) it will automatically refer to the wonderful establishment of D.H. Brown's in downtown Springfield. I went to the bar because before the movie I got a call from Lauren on Ed's cell phone saying that they wanted me to come down there because they were going to be bored later on because Monday's are not a very busy day especially after the after work crowd decides to go home. So I promise to come after the movie with my father. I head on down there and start my nightly tab up. Well so you know I have been watching the awesome movie The Big Lebowski lately and it put me in the mood to have a few White Russians. Well, I thought I only had 5 in the time that I was sitting there at the bar but apparently Ed says that I had 7. I really do differ on that but he wasn't drinking and I was so I will have to trust him on this one. Well, we had a decent time while Ed tended bar and Lauren did a wonderful job of waitressing. Then Lauren at close asks us if we want to get a drink (ONE DRINK) at another bar before she goes home. Ed and I are always up for one more drink so sure we went next door to Dempseys for that one more drink. While there I had a shot and 2 rolling rocks and a screw driver all in the matter of less than 45 minutes. Well, I know that somehow we decided to keep this going and we went to a favorite bar of ours The Curve Inn which is a 3am bar. We went there and that is when all shit broke loose. Well not really but we started pounding away shots. I bought more drinks than I can remember and the lack of money in my wallet the next day proved it. So yeah, I was ok to drive and didn't have far to go but when I got home it hit me like a ton of bricks. WOO BABY! Mr. Mini Plastic Trash Can was my friend that night. I never meant to have that much but yeah I wasn't doing anything the next day so I wasn't too worried about it. I just took a little longer to wake up and get moving. Now that was a crazy night.

Tuesday I decide that I want to see yet another movie and this time I go with Ed. He and I go and see Dawn of the Dead which is a remade zombie movie. WOW! I say props to those people cause I was clutching my coat the whole time. When I see a movie I open myself up to it and I feel like I am there. So that crap was scaring me so much. Granted if I was there on a date I know I would have acted more macho and such but hell... I wasn't and I didn't care cause I was with my boy Ed. So we saw that and then when we got out of it we were like... well what to do now? I look at the clock and I say... The Bar is still open let's go down there and have a drink. HAHAHA. Ed couldn't refuse cause it is what we do... Bars. So we went down there and hung out til close. Shoofly who ditched out on seeing the horror flick with his bros decided to chill with his gurls and also said he wasn't doing the going out thing and lo and behold he was at the bar when we got there with his lady friends all of whom I already know. So it was a good time. Hung out chatted with Mike who was tending bar and also with laurie who was waitressing. Then we were invited to meet my buddy Reier at Stella Blue for a few drinks and all of us go there and he never shows up. So Ed and I actually not wanting to do another real late night of drinking again decide after 1 drink and knowing that Reier isn't going to show that we should go. We needed sleep because I think that the night before was still haunting both of us. So we called it a night.

Wednesday, today. I slept in late again. Didn't get up til like 2:30 in the afternoon. Ed and I decided that we needed to watch 28 Days Later on DVD on his big screen TV. So I was like I will just buy it because I hate renting DVDs now when for just a few more dollars I can own it and watch it whenever I want to. So I went to Family Video and opened up my own account outside of my parents. Wooo, I am becoming an adult and I know this because I have my own account now at the video rental place. YES! oh and I also now have half off rentals for the next 30 days and I also had a gift card which the remainder is credited to my account for future rentals and purchases. I am so set. So anyway, we watched that movie during the day. Would have been better at night time but we wanted to watch it then and not wait til later. Plus I had plans later to... Yes... see a movie with my friend Natalie. Well, we tried to do that but it looks like more people will be able to go with us tomorrow and we wanted this to be a group thing so we just got some food at the Barrel Head and then called it a night. I still had a good time there. Kurt and Kristine showed up to have some dinner with us and we sat and chatted for a while. Natalie even headed home and Kurt, Kristine and I still chilled for a while longer. I wasn't quite ready to go home. I got home at about 10:15pm and surprised my mom because she thought I was at the movie and that she wouldn't see me until tomorrow. So I have just been here hanging out this evening. Chatting online and watching late night shows. Goodtimes. I do plan on doing daily updates of whatever I have to say more often so that it isn't a huge entry like this one. I hope you enjoy. If not then don't read it. I'm not forcing you to read my blog. So go away. But if you do enjoy my blog then let me know. It is whatever. Well, adios! :)

Passing the time...

I'm sitting here listening to my favorite band Cowboy Mouth on headphones on my computer. I'm not doing much of anything but at the same time I feel so busy. I'm just surfing the internet for upcoming summer concerts. I don't think I'm looking in the right places because I don't see many that I would really want to attend. There used to be a kickass festival towards the end of May down at "The venue formerly known as Riverport Amp." It was called PointFest and was put on by the St. Louis radio station called The Point. Well, I'm looking into it for this year thinking HEY! I could possibly swing by that this time around but nooooo. I see nothing about it. All I can find is Ozzfest which is at the end of summer and I really don't want to do that. I might enjoy seeing Ozzy by himself for the heck of seeing him cause I do like "some" of his songs. But damnit I was looking forward to PointFest and it doesn't look like it is on. So anyway, concerts seem to be lagging. I am planning on traveling around the country at the begining of this summer so I should possibly try to find other venues out along the west coast that Ed and I could hit up.

I would really like to see Cowboy Mouth this summer sometime and they actually a few times are not the far from Central Illinois and far for me would be more then 4 to 5 hours away. Driving long distances is fine with me as long as I can get enough sleep ahead of time. But yeah they are going to be in Wisconsin at this place called Capital Brewery which just looks really cool. I really would like to hit that up. Just the venue seems like it would be a kick ass time.

Well, not much going on today for me. Except for the fact that the Fighting Illini just kicked Cincinatti's ASS! I believe the Illini won by 24 points with over 60% field goal shooting. It was simply an amazing game. This was the second round and now the Illini move on to play Duke a #1 seed in the Sweet 16 section of the NCAA Tournament. Those boys were on fire and I hope they can reignite that intensity this coming Friday evening when they play again.

Other than that. I'm just lounging around today. I slept in cause last night I took a good dose of Tylenol PM so that I could get a good night's sleep. I've still got this cold and at night I am up coughing alot. It sucks believe me. My sister Jennifer called the house today. She was upset cause she lives in LA and was unable to get the game cause another one was being shown instead. She would get clips every so often and had to watch the scores shown in the upper right corner. I felt bad for her but then had to let her go because the game was about to come back on! HAHA!

I'm probably just going to hang out and watch some movies today. Last night I watched The Wedding Singer. Good movie, I love it every time I watch it. Tonight I think I am in a Big Lebowski mood.

Yeah yeah yeah, This is the type of thing my parents warn me about allllll the time. Don't push yourself too hard you will make yourself sick. Don't stay out too late and drink too much because you will make yourself sick. Well, this past week and a half I have partied so hard and given myself no time to recuperate from the nights prior that I have come down sick and exhausted. It started with sneezes here and there. Then I got a nasty stuffy/runny nose and now I have a cough that makes me feel like my old bronchitis is back or something but I don't know for sure. My first remedy to all of this is to lock myself up in my house and treat it and rest as much as I can. Also I actually am still recovering from my surgery that was less than 3 weeks ago. I am not totally better. So I am under a self imposed house arrest.

Other than being sick I have been having a blast lately. Thursday evening and night Ed, Shoofly and I went to visit Miss Jessica Wakolbinger at her college of Truman State University in Kirksville, MO. We had a blast. We had Jessica as our guide to show us the town and experience different bars and scenes. We found the "House of Jesus" and apparently he is not for sale. Took our picture with Mr. Kirk the founder of the awesome ville. We "dipped" every time we were told to. Illinois is actually north of Missouri. My preppie frat name is Brent, Ed was Marcus, Shoofly was Donny, and Jessica was Misty. Had some awesome microbrews at a local restaurant brewery called IL SPAZIO'S. Large kitchen utensils on the wall in Mexican restaurants can freak Jessica out. Some dude accused me of having his hat. People at the Dukum Inn do not know the joy of a good PhotoHunt except for one waitress named Stephanie. Jack has moods and you don't fuck with the moods. Bellacino's in Kirksville is genius and has a TCBY inside with it. The PetroCard is tougher than it looks. I may someday work at the Kum and GO just so I can say I service customers everytime I work. What a good time.