it's a long way to the top

navs key laborers retreat was sweet. all the talks were really good, and it was cool to get to know a lot of the navs people better. i'm glad that we've been getting more involved and a part of everything. there's definitely some great stuff going on there.

the only part that wasn't good was twisting my ankle playing football. it's nice and swollen, and i've been hobbling around like a crippled person since yesterday afternoon. i'm also dead tired, and i have an 8 am test in prob & stats. i used to like this prof, but now i'm convinced that she's evil. first she schedules a test for 8 am the day after the super bowl. now she moves up our test that should be on this coming friday to tomorrow. and jess wants me to see mercy's play with her tonight because she has extra tickets. i'll probably just sleep the whole time.

i've been workin from seven to eleven every night

tim sent me an awesome link on revenge of the sith today. it contains a huge number of pictures from the movie, as well as a brief plot line. be warned, it definately contains some serious spoilers.

edit: tim posted the whole thing up on his site, check it out there.
edit 2-24: just go check it out through tim's site, the link i posted to is shut down now.

it ain't like that anymore

ok, so the home depot thing isn't going to work out. judging from their benefits description, they probably would not reimburse me for the type of classes i take. even if they did, they deduct any scholarship money you get from your reimbursement. apparently not helping people who are already successful and therefore might be more beneficial for your company is the smart thing to do. looks like now i'll simply wait till the park needs me and i'll start working there part time, and then get a new job after the summer.

so now i have to decide if i want to move out, and have very little money to do anything with, or stay at home longer and save up my money for something... life, i guess.

you float like a feather in a beautiful world

so austin, doug, rob and i are starting to get serious about looking for a place in clifton for next year. i'm excited. i'd love to have a house to ourselves, but depending on how many people we have, it might be better to get an apartment. we'll see.

i'm also thinking of getting a job at home depot. i talked to rob about it, and it sounds like it'd be great if i could get some more money working three or four extra days a week before the summer. then i'd also get tuition reimbursement for working there. so not only do i get more money to live on, but i save money on school. then take a leave of absence for the summer and pick up again in the fall. i've also nixed the idea of taking leave from or quitting nick & tom's once i start at the park; i figure i need all the money i can get, even though it's going to suck working weekend mornings at the park and then going to nick & tom's. oh well, we'll see how it all turns out.

one more day to complete my service

i'm not usually a big fan of TIME, but i happened to see a column in the latest issue that was a good piece of work. people came up with plenty of reasons to oppose the war in iraq, usually saying that the u.s. lied about it's motives and that we were going in for the wrong reasons. however, after the first free democratic elections in the country in fifty years on jan. 31, most of those reasons for opposition look even more transparent than they did before. say what you want about whether or not saddam had WMDs, we said we were going to create a democratic iraq, and we did just that. despite how incredibly underhyped the whole election was, the point is it happened, and for those 8 million or so people, it was amazing. it's time for everyone to get off their high-horse of opposition and admit that whether they supported the invasion or not, good came out of this.

you can find the article on time's website here.

that's okay, i shaved my head, and i'm not sad

you could say the internet is a lot like the Force: people can use it for good or they can use it for evil. and then there are times when they use it, and it's just plain weird and funny (you'll need sound for this).

i guess i better give jess credit for the link so she doesn't beat me again.

yay for haircuts!

sitting on an angry chair

*insert obligatory post about how much the super bowl sucked; how bad i hate the patriots, namely bellichick, dillon, brady, harrison, and branch; how corey dillon has been rewarded for all his complaing and bad-mouthing in cincinnati; how mcnabb choked under the pressure; and how football has been reduced to a boring, predictable game like baseball, in which the patriots will win by three points every year*

don't fear the reaper

haha, after hollywood finishes disgracing DOOM, they're going to make more of a mockery of the Halo series than the Halo 2 story did. and i'll sit back and laugh as they pick The Rock or Vin Diesel to portray Master Chief, and all the little 15 year olds flock to see it. i still feel like bungie stabbed me in the back, so i have no loyalty to their franchise anymore. i'm sure someone will get around to butchering Half-Life eventually, but for now i'll just sit back and enjoy this.

i fell on black days

this is a sad story. anytime i try to play half-life 2 anymore, it locks up and dies, giving me some stupid error message. i can't figure out what could be wrong with it; i updated my video driver and reinstalled the game, so short of totally reinstalling steam and half-life 2 again, i don't see what it could be on my end. it's strange, i played through the entire game and it only died on my a few times, over a several month period. then last month it would die after so long every time i played counter-strike. now when i try to play the game (last week and today) it dies every time i start playing, usually after a minute or two.

maybe it's for the best though, because for the 20 minutes i managed to play just now before it died, it was so slow it was hardly playable. it seems even slower than before. i think i should avoid playing it for now, i don't want to drag it's greatness through the mud simply because of my inferior machine. my dad had to mention a dell ad he saw for a whole brand new pc with the works for $350. it's almost enough to make me not want to move out soon. maybe i'll consider it if, once i look at my finances, i decide i can't afford to move out. i definately can't justify doing both... or can i?