Category: People

Dear gentle reader: this blog has been operating continuously since I was a teenager. The writing below is at least a decade old. In that time every molecule of my body has been replaced, along with many foolish ideas and flighty beliefs. I want to keep some of those things public out of an honesty and humility I owe the world. I trust you to carry that context with you.

January 16, 2004 /
  1. The day before yesterday, Maria made carrot cake, and just moments ago, we used it to have carrot cake soup for breakfast.
  2. Yes.
  3. Oh God yes.

January 11, 2004 /

So last night, me and Alison and Evan and some other people went to this hot new club? And I GOT US KICKED OUT.

I’d like to say it was because I put a bouncer through the mirror in the hallway, but actually it was because I was wearing tennis shoes. “Good catch,” they said to each other as they hustled me out. I laughed and went home.

January 9, 2004 /

Whoa! Moon shot!

If this ever comes to anything, it could actually make things really convenient for a certain movie franchise that has yet to be written.

January 2, 2004 /

As today’s Stone Soup points out, it’s actually pretty silly to even think about working today, but for some reason I did, and dragged myself out of bed at 6:30 just as normal. It was a little strange to be one of like four (as opposed to eighty) people waiting for an elevator, and a little stranger when all the lights on our part of the floor were deliberately off. When I read that comic strip and waited an hour and still only tech support was there, I took off like one of the wiser characters in a survival horror movie.

After that I mostly… slept? And played Double Dash. Maria got a GameCube for Christmas, so unless she bans me from using it I’ll probably never accomplish anything worthwhile again. We actually unlocked almost everything on New Year’s Eve, along with our stay-in-and-snack companion Lisa, but we lacked a memory card at that point and were bereft of saving ability. I got one of those on the aforementioned trip home from work today, so now we get to do it all again. This is a fine and noble thing.

Tonight it’s out to dinner at some fancy place where they make you eat so slowly that it takes two hours to finish the soup, then Strizzle Lizzle rehizzle, and finally sometime after midnight Ian and I will drive to the hinterlands and crash (as in sleep, not… hit things). The next morning, we and forty of our closest relatives will race tiny cars down a track for eight hours until one emerges supreme. Seriously. We’ve been doing it every year since before I was born.

December 27, 2003 /

Right, Christmas. It was good! The Adkins-Wood Collective borrowed the infamous Deb’s house (she was out of town, and we’re homeless) for the fastest gift-opening we’ve ever had, then left in the afternoon to come to Louisville and have dinner with Joe’s sister Laura. Who I guess is now my aunt? She’d probably be weirded out if I called her that. While there, I met her stepdaughter, who I guess is now my cousin?

Normally I’d make some crack now about the new definition of family units in the new millennium, but to tell the truth, I feel kinda behind. I just got my first step-cousin-in-law, man, everybody else has had theirs for years.

But yeah, the dinner was good and Joe embarrassed Ian and me (but mostly me) at the pool table. I got warm socks, emo hoodies, the first season of Highlander and as many copies of Finding Nemo as I have hands. Mom was at least a little taken in by our we-got-you-DVDs, what-you-don’t-have-a-DVD-player, oh-well-you-get-this-present-too gag, and that was good. In grand Brendanian tradition, I forced Blankets on Ian and Daredevil: Yellow on Caitlan, things with which they seemed cool.

Man, have you heard about Blankets? Just… just google it and read a little. It’s pretty much everything they say.

December 21, 2003 /

Drove to Urbana, Ohio. Saw paternal family. Paternal family had small babies. Babies were cute. Very happy to see babies. Drove back.

Long drive to Urbana, Ohio. Even when your brother does all the actual driving.

Going to bed now.

We’re going to Kenmore Square

December 16, 2003 /

LiveJournal has gotten rid of their invite code system. What does that mean? It means my few remaining holdout friends (or those friends who initially gave in but quickly regressed) without blogs need to get one. Right now.

I know LJ carries a sort of stigma–just as Geocities is the source and font of crappy web pages about one’s cat, LJ is the source and font of angsty emo drama. And bad spelling. And typing in all lower case.

But let’s face it: as far as free solutions go, it’s the best all-in-one publishing / aggregation tool out there. Of course NewsBruiser is better blogging software, and of course Feed on Feeds is a better RSS reader. But they need server space to run on, and many people just don’t have that, or don’t want to pay for it. LJ provides that free space, along with grained access control, easy (but deep) configuration, and good documentation. Plus it’s open-source.

It’d be easy to go over there and snap up a bunch of free journals to compartmentalize things, but of course I don’t need to do that–I can create more NewsBruiser notebooks any time I want, and I’ve always got Zomziepie, Spam As Folk Art and Ruse You Can Bruise to write in.

What I did do, though, is create a new community. Hey, road trip people! I know almost all of you already have LJs, and if you don’t, there’s no reason not to get one now. And then when you do, it is hereby required that you roll on up and post at Calicomicon!

December 13, 2003 /

Emily Anderson was here for about 24 hours, starting Friday night; she, Maria and I made pancakes, watched movies, and generally mocked my sexuality. A good time was had, mostly. (They made me wear a pink fuzzy hat and sunglasses. They called me “Elton.”)

Seriously, it was really good to see her, and we did have enormous fun. I found out I’m a deity of some sort, I guess: this morning Maria was unhappy about the gloomy no-fun weather outside, so she turned to me for help.

“Brendan,” she complained, “make it snow!”

I turned in the direction of the balcony and ordered, in as grand a tone as I could produce, “Snow.”

It started five minutes later. I’m not really sure how to turn it off.