Was I moping?  Maybe I was just being practical, given that my car is sitting in the shop, with still no prognosis (I’m giving Littlefield until 3ish, and if they haven’t called me by then – which they won’t, of course – I’ll call them for a status update), and I needed some sleep and me time.  I had offers for companionship, which I rejected.  Some of it, genuinely because I didn’t really want anyone to intrude (oh, and Saturday, my left shoulder was sore and aching horribly) on my solo veg time.  Some of it, maybe . . . because I just didn’t really think that being with someone else I didn’t really want to be with when the person I wanted to be with was off with someone else for the weekend would make me feel any better.

Some friends had a poker game Saturday night that I’d have really liked to be able to go to, but I lacked transportation, and they couldn’t find anyone willing to give me a ride to and from their place.  Understandable, I guess, but I really would have liked to have been there.  I could have used the companionship and fun.  Does that seem to be a contradiction of the other offers of companionship I mentioned above?  All I can say is, they’re different sorts of things, really.

I’ve already had a couple of texts from one woman hinting that she wants to do something with me tonight.  I haven’t figured out yet how I’m going to decline.

Link of the Day: Jeremy Clarkson Sound Box video

Spam of the Day: “LUKY JUNE ONLINE CASINO PROMO”

Funny of the Day: “How’s the Magma?”

Pic of the Day: Kermit the Frog + Internet Horror

Quote of the Day: “(757): Shark Week may as well be Shark Weed.” – another gem from TFLN

No transpo?  Yeah, getting back to the terrible fucking Thursday last week . . . It rained Wednesday night/Thursday morning.  Lots and lots of rain.  Here’s an example of what I’m talking about:

That’s the sort of open field that dips down a little across from my apartment complex, and behind a host of businesses right along on the Loop 250 service road.  It stretches from this paved alley behind them that runs from Midkiff to my apartment complex, up to Caldera.  It was basically a humongous pond, or a shallow lake.  Unfortunately, so was a good stretch of Caldera.  I stepped out of my apartment that morning, greeted by this continuing rain, water all over the parking lot, in a rush to try to make it to work and Not end up a couple of minutes late.  I hopped into my trusty (so I thought) car, and drove across the parking lot, and saw Caldera underwater.  Hmm.

Keep in mind, this was right at pretty much 8:00 a.m., I hadn’t had been awake very long yet, and what little caffeine I had in me thus far had not kicked in yet.  I’m not fond of mornings at the best of times, unless I approach them from the “still awake from being up all night” angle.  This is the only defense I can make for the terrible decisions I made.

I decided I’d try to make it across a bit of Caldera to Crista Lane on my way to work.  This was a bad decision.  The water was really quite a bit deeper than I thought it was initially.  This is something I discovered as I was trying to begin my turn towards Crista Lane on Caldera, as my car’s engine sputtered and died.  Then, being sleepy and stupid and panicked, I tried to restart it.  Only afterwards, reading on the web, did I realize just how terrible of a thing that potentially is.

A City of Midland Transportation Services truck happened to come driving by (though the water – that truck has ground clearance of about up to my windows) right as I was getting stuck.  They radioed for for someone to come get me out.  A couple of police cars, an ambulance, and a fire truck all showed up, with a wrecker supposedly on the way.  Two firemen got out of their truck, put on waders, and pushed my car out of the water up onto Crista Lane – so the tow truck ended up being unnecessary.  Later that morning, Corey pointed out a bit on the CBS7 web site about a water rescue being reported in Midland “near Loop 250 and Midkiff.”  That was probably the host of vehicles with various sorts of flashing lights that showed up for me.

While I was waiting, in the water, I took a couple of pictures.  This one, when, hrm, I felt something wet on my ankle:

Water was coming up from under the car, through whatever various holes or crevices or whatnot, and filling my floorboards.  It got to being a couple of inches in each of them.  Not fun at all.

Here’s a view from my car while I was stuck in the effing water:

Tried to do what things I could Thursday afternoon after work, Friday after work, and then Saturday, to get my car driving.  No luck.  Sunday, Kara and Matt came over, and we pushed my car back to my apartment complex, parked right downstairs.  It doesn’t start, and the electrical system is haywire.  I reached out to my dad for help, having no other real alternatives.  Finally got my car towed on a car carrier to Littlefield Automotive Wednesday during lunch.  Haven’t heard anything from them yet, going to call in a bit and see what, if any news, they’ve got for me yet.

I’ve been really severely stressed most of this week and last weekend.  Stressed about my car, about everything going on at work right now in crunch time (well, until this morning anyway), stressed about money being entirely too tight until my next payday.  Having a non-functional vehicle, and that adding unknown added costs to repair it (or possibly end up getting a cheap used vehicle if repair on it is too costly to be considered feasible) and having to work something out with my dad, probably on a payment plan basis, just added heaps of stress for me.  Some of that is why I haven’t posted a damn thing on this site until today.  It was just something that so seriously wasn’t anything of a priority for me.

So, yeah, that’s a bit to catch things up.  All I really feel like writing about it for now anyway.  Linkage commences:

Link of the Day: SDCC 2009 Hot Cosplay Chicks

Spam of the Day: “Time For a New Copier?” – from, of course, Copier King

Funny of the Day: “Try and spell shield that“

Pic of the Day: Interesting Top

Quote of the Day: “(760): I wish they had nachos that got you drunk” – another gem from TFLN

Plans for tonight are similar, except no laundry.  Just want to crawl up and get intimately acquainted with the insides of my eyelids.

Got a date for Saturday night.  Something I’m looking forward to – should be fun.

Link of the Day: This is just too cool. Needless to say, I want one.

Spam of the Day: “Teach your baby to read!”

Funny of the Day: This is why templates exist.

Pic of the Day: “Free dog souls with conversion”

Quote of the Day: “(214): I think she just tried to waterboard me with her vagina.” – someone from TFLN

Had a friend over last night.  Watched a couple of episodes of house.  Had some other fun.  Mixed feelings there on a few points.  Seem like the doubled dosage on the Androgel (which I got a phone call instructing me to start doing that, that my testosterone levels were still a bit low, a few days ago) might be doing some good.  One incident isn’t proof positive, but still . . . good sign.

Ended up feeling kind of worse today.  Maybe . . . exertions last night when I’m still fighting off/getting over this bug wasn’t the wisest call.

Had a very nice and good Wednesday evening.  Hanging out with a good friend, playing on furniture at Ashley, not getting my mind made up there on any option yet, being harassed by a creepy saleslady.  Thai food, yogurt, not-right tarzan smoothie thing.  Lots of talk.  It was good.  I could use more of that in my life.

Link of the Day: Modern Vampires

Spam of the Day: “Suiciders online” (Oh boy, I’m just waiting to see what AdSense makes of that)

Funny of the Day: Seems like sound logic to me.

Pic of the Day: Che Guevara’s granddaughter wearing only a Bandolier Of Carrots!

Quote of the Day: “though, “i am not a google samich” might bear repeating just because it is so random. i’m loling at it still.” – Kara

The last two days, I’ve been trying to fight off getting sick.  Monday I had a throat that started off tickly, and proceeded to scratchy and raw.  Yesterday, and today, throat is better, but I’ve got massive head congestion, and mucus production is in overdrive.  Meh.  Also, I worked late the last 2 days, and have been really very busy both of them, so I didn’t take the time to post stuff.  At least making token effort today.

Link of the Day: Fake Time Travel to Land Your Female Friend?

Spam of the Day: “Said the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo”

Funny of the Day: “Bartender, fetch us from frosty beers and fancy outfits!”

Pic of the Day: I honestly have no clue what to make of this.

Quote of the Day: “and cheap, srsly, i would never sit in a stranger’s noodles for only a buck” – Kara

Broke my diet (again) last night.  Had a 6″ turkey on Italian Herb and Cheese from Subway last night.  Of the available cheap fast options, that seemed the least evil.

Haven’t touched my Warlock in WoW in like 2 weeks.  I’m debating whether or not I want to go back, finish off the last level to 80, and try to gear up to rejoin my guild raiding . . . or just consider it a lost cause and continue with the other pursuits I’ve been distracting myself with.

Link of the Day: Unusual Canned Foods from Around the World

Spam of the Day: “I photoshopped your face”

Funny of the Day: “Spazi” isn’t right, but it should be.

Pic of the Day: Blasphemy can be fun.

Quote of the Day: “(704): You know the commpass Jack Sparrow has? The one that just points at whatever you want? Thas pretty much my moral compass.” – Someone from TFLN

Had a decent weekend.  Saturday was good, even though I had to work a half-day Saturday morning.  Got a good start on getting automatic updating working for our product, though it’s still not fully working with patches.  Haven’t sorted out why, yet, but I will.  Hung out with a friend Saturday late afternoon/evening into the night.  Worked on her very old, way slower than I thought, laptop, trying to get it updated and functional and reasonably reliable.  It informed her of a SMART disk error and impending drive failure the very next day.  :/

Link of the Day: Photos inspired by the 7 Deadly Sins

Spam of the Day: “Hey, open it up”

Funny of the Day: Kangaroo-like Pouch

Pic of the Day: I’d date her.

Quote of the Day: “If you like nerdy n’ dirty girls, she’s it, in fact, she’s kinky n’ thinky!” – Chris Gore

Hung out with Ivy and Peel, and surprisingly, Tomas last night.  Left to go meet a date at Barnes and Noble.  She never showed up.  Oooh, was I pissed.  That led to me meeting back up with Peel and Ivy and Tomas, at a different location (Woofers and Tweeters), and some impulsive decisions on my part as regards my alcohol consumption.  Got the email address of this girl I met at Woofers.  Now ran into the problem I predicted yesterday with conflicting single-letter name-associated psuedonyming.  Already have a J.  Am seriously not in any state right now to come up with a good methodology.  Anyone have any suggestions?

I’ll confess, yesterday’s Stuff of the Day went up early this morning, backdated.  This is because I had it all set up and ready yesterday, but was running into some significant MySQL issues with my server.  Site5 got them straightened out for me, but not in time enough for me to get it up properly yesterday.

A friend of mine since High School, Anthony Peel, moved back to Midland a couple of months ago.  Haven’t seen him since he moved back.  We were supposed to be out doing something fun and possibly getting into trouble last night, and the next couple of days, because his apparently paranoid controlling wife and kids will be out of town for a couple of days.  Plans must have changed, or something, because he informed me late yesterday afternoon that she wasn’t leaving until today, so we weren’t doing anything last night.  Damn.  I’d been looking forward to some fun on Wednesday night.  So, just before the end of work, I end up with my plans for the night gone.

So, ok, crap – let’s text several folks and see if I can do something anyway.  I ended up hanging out with (and meeting for the first time) someone I’ve been messaging back and forth for about a week.  We’ll dub her S for now.  If I don’t end up finding someone to be with for a while, I’m going to have to come up with some different psuedonyming conventions or something, lest I run out of handy letters (or end up with someone with a name starting with the same letter as another).  Spending the time with her was nice, we had some fun, seem to get along well personality wise, but I just didn’t feel a strong physical attraction.  I’m left wondering, since we seem to get along so well together, should I continue this and see how things might be on a second or later date, and see if physicality and affection may be worthwhile there?

All this is just so complicated and frustrating, since I feel a little bit like I’m just looking for something “for now” until I find out whether or not I’ll have any chance with someone I know I’d like to be with.

Link of the Day: How To Write Unmaintainable Code

Spam of the Day: “Yo yo! Check this out dude”

Funny of the Day: “It was vintage!”

Pic of the Day: “Even Denise Crosby had to tap that”

Quote of the Day: “It’s alcoholic chocolate milk.  I see no issue.” – Rayne Summers, on Bailey’s

I went last night after work and saw Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian.  It was Ok.  Fun, light, cute.  Should have been funnier, IMO, but it was entertaining.  Not super though, and I’m glad I decided to see Star Trek again Saturday with K.  After I left the theater, barely out of the parking lot, I got a text from a friend, and went to Starbucks to meet her.  Spent an hour there talking to her.  Very enjoyable.  She’s terribly cute, intelligent, a bit geeky (in a good way).  I’d so be up for dating her, if I had any clear understanding of interest from her.  Which I don’t think I do.  I mentioned it afterwards last night on a text message, and she used something I’d heard before, about her being “an indepdenent person now” (despite seeming to be a serial-dater, churning through boyfriends).  I don’t know what that means.  If she’s just not interested in me, I wish she’d just say it.  I can deal with that, and be ok with being her friend.  Being left vague and confused, and thinking I’d be a far better choice of someone for her to date than what I’ve heard of just about everyone she’s mentioned to me, I don’t deal as well with.  Hrm.  Ok, all done being angsty for the moment.

Link of the Day: Cut the black one!

Spam of the Day: “Live microbes-free!”

Funny of the Day: Hmm.  I’ve been wondering what that beeping was lately.

Pic of the Day: I must try this. The vodka one, of course.

Quote of the Day: “Never ascribe to malice, that which can be explained by incompetence.” - Napoleon

Saturday, had a frienDate with K.  Dutch on everything.  Not thrilled with going backwards with someone, but I’d rather be friends with her than nothing.  We ate at Cheddars, and it was really surprisingly good.  I had the best Sirloin steak I’ve had easily over a year, the shrimp was decent, and the dressing on their Caesar salad was one of the best I’ve ever had in a restaurant.  I also had a little teensy bit of the Croissant that came with my salad.  ZOMG it was so light, flaky, and delicious.  I wanted to devour the entire thing.  But, trying to stick with the low-carb diet there . . . Not that it seems to have done any good (more on that below).  We killed some time doing some shopping at Barnes & Noble and Pier 1.  She got a gift or two for her niece, and I happened to spot some book she’d been looking for and snatched up immediately as we were in the line up to the cashwrap to check out.  Then we saw Star Trek again, then wrapped up with some mutual grocery shopping at HEB.  I know it all sounds really pedestrian, but I really enjoyed the 8 hours we spent together, regardless.

I weighed this morning, same routine I do every time I weigh.  UP 3.8 pounds.  Not horribly surprised, I had a vague feeling I’d gotten a little heavier.  Definitely unhappy about it, though.  Apparently, despite doing very good on actually being carb-conscious on what I ate this whole weekend, I either drank enough that burning the alcohol for energy continued for so long that all the fat I consumed didn’t get burned at all and just stuck around, or maybe one of the “diet” coke and vodkas I had wasn’t actually diet.  1 single decent glass of regular, fully sugared/HFCS’d coke will easily knock me right out of ketosis.  Almost wishing now I’d gone for some of the really, incredibly tempting scrumptious stuff at Cheddars I didn’t order.  :/

Got another one of the packages in today I was expecting, the PetFoodDirect shipment.  In addition to another bag of Innova dry food for her, got a dozen cans of Evo canned food.  She sort of got accustomed to having it as a treat/supplement a couple times a day in IN and AL, and this is the first time since I’ve moved back to Midland she’s had any.  She definitely seemed to enjoy it.

Link of the Day: Microsoft’s new Bing search engine

Spam of the Day: “Your drawbolt will go deeper in.”

Funny of the Day: “Not just ANY girl porn”

Pic of the Day: “Does he look like a bitch?”

Quote of the Day: “Damn those reckless Amish!” – Me

I had an ok time, had some fun there. I particularly enjoyed Wild Cats, the sort of Coyote Ugly like bar club. Complete with a bubble generator at the very end of the night.

But prior to that, my (female) friend I met there that night, tried to get me hooked up with Random Cute Female Eye Candy. This is where the fail comes in. It took place on the main dance club area, Zazoo or something like that.

Can someone explain to me the basics, guidelines, practicalities, etc. of how this is supposed to work? This is something I have zero familiarity with, and was literally shoved into it without warning. I was unprepared. I didn’t have a damn clue how to go about it, and it pretty much turned my confidence level from Fairly High to Oh Shit in no time – which, such dismal confidence I’m sure could be read by the women and girls there (because, indeed, some of these were merely girls) which helped contribute to my Fail.

How does this whole process, where your introduction to someone (apparently) comes in the form of you thrusting your groin into their ass work? Someone clue me in here, because I just don’t get it.

So, then, the work week.  Been pretty busy most of this week, and the other days where I wasn’t, I was chatting online with someone.  Not the best of news there, but I’m remaining confident.  So, some of my not updating any day this week except Friday, today, was part slacking and part being really busy with work stuff.  I want for stuff on the new product version to hurry the heck up, so we can shoehorn it out the door and then I can get the raise I’ve been assured will happen.  I can survive on what I’m being paid right now, but if I want to do interesting things, go places, have fun other than sitting at home watching tv/movies and playing too much WoW (I’ve done enough of that the last 5 years, thanks), I need more money.

So, I could probably make one heck of a mega post just devoted to catching things up from the last several days.  Screw that, here are the links:

Link of the Day: Google Wave

Spam of the Day: “cuttlefish”

Funny of the Day: Yes, and then cookies.

Pic of the Day: LeVar Burton is fucking awesome! (via @wilw)

Quote of the Day: “If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” – Frederick Douglass

Had a weird conversation with J last night.  Initiated by her, I wasn’t really feeling like talking to her much.  I think she’s kind of crazy, or else she’s having a grand time enjoying this bizarre drama she’s creating for herself.  Whatever.

Have a date tomorrow with K.  Very much looking forward to it.  Trying to come up with something interesting to vary a fairly standard date.  

Link of the Day: The Art of Levitation

Spam of the Day: “(The Fimble Fowl, with a corkscrew leg”

Funny of the Day: Window Shopping

Pic of the Day: That’s a sign you don’t see that often.

Quote of the Day: “Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.” - Mark Twain

I also ran my Dad around for various vehicle rodeo tasks Monday and Tuesday as he was getting his truck worked on (mostly annual maintenance stuff) at Jimmy’s shop (World Class Automotive, I highly recommend him for any domestic or Japanese import work).  He sprung for lunch both days, and both Monday and Tuesday I was bad, breaking my diet repeatedly.  2 days of carb devouring, up 2 pounds.  Yeah, so I started back pretty severely limiting my carb intake yesterday.  

Monday night, I had a late, impromptu date with J . . . we went to a strip club, Jaguar’s Gold Club.  I hope their busier days/nights are better than Monday nights, because it was like a parade of some of the skinniest girls I’ve ever seen.  There were maybe 3 or 4 dancers there with honestly attractive bodies – seriously, there were half a dozen girls there that were just scary, like 12 year old heroin user girl, skinny.  They didn’t need to eat a sammich so much as a deli.  Then yesterday, after work, talking J on the phone . . . she tells me a lot of stuff that I probably should have been made aware of a lot earlier.  I’ve come to the conclusion that she has basically been using me for money (not too much, but still, principle involved) and ego boosts (a lot of there).  Rather irritating.

Went and visited Ivy and Kodi last night, we hung out and talked and tried some decent wine, 7 Deadly Zins, which Ivy wants me to write up a “an old-Joe-style review” for.  It might happen.

Link of the Day:  Top 50 Text Acronyms Parents Should Know

Spam of the Day: “Wake up your porkmonster”

Funny of the Day: “Tell all your friends their lunches are non-notable!”

Pic of the Day: I simply don’t have the words . . .

Quote of the Day: “To me, boxing is like a ballet, except there’s no music, no choreography and the dancers hit each other.” - sayings on Sports by Jack Handy

Finally heard something after a month of NOTHING from Goddess yesterday afternoon.  Not entirely happy, but very relieved to finally get some communication at all.

Drama from M last night.  Passive-aggressive hypocritical game crap.  Hope it’s done with.

Got a new toy last night, courtesy of Ivy and Kodi.  Haven’t figured out how to make iTunes cooperate with me entirely, but already enjoying it.

Link of the Day: Fish eats a DUCK!

Spam of the Day: “Wanted: ugly timeshares”

Funny of the Day: Why is it glowing?

Pic of the Day: Very funny.  Wait until you see what’s in your shoes tomorrow morning.

Quote of the Day: “that’s why i use a straw and blow bubbles in it first. or there is always wine bonging” – mtdewd (in response to a nutshell explanation of wine decanting)

I like Win7.  Way better than Vista.  A few things that do require adapting to, but overall, it’s the easiest to set up version of Windows ever, and, for the most part, it just sorta works. I was especially happy when I stumbled upon the, ought to be fairly obvious but I just managed to miss it for a long time, option to Pin an app to the TaskBar (more or less making it like the old Quick Launch toolbar) so I could make Chrome stay down there nicely.

Friday night going well into Saturday morning . . . was certainly an eventful time filled with new experiences.  Much of which . . . I probably shouldn’t relate here.  I ended up in the course of the night visiting two clubs/bars I’ve never been to before, Basin Nights (where I was shanghai’d into singing karaoke, for the third time ever.  I mangled RHCP’s Under the Bridge), and Crossroads.  Crossroads . . . I’m not sure if it’s a GBLT full-time, or just on Friday nights, or just that night for some special event, or whatever.  It’s clientele wasn’t exclusively those of alternative sexuality, but whatever the case, honestly it was probably the most fun and interesting bar I’ve been in since I moved back to West Texas.  Met some new and interesting people.  One of which I saw get thrown out of Basin Nights for allegedly doing illegal things, which I suspect was mostly bullshit and was someone being petty and vindictive. But, whatever.  I also had women buying Me drinks that night, which is sort of a refreshing change.

Link of the Day: Elements from Blizzard Games Done in Lego

Spam of the Day: “Don’t look inside” – This seems oddly counterproductive to me.  

Funny of the Day: “My insides!  They’re on fire!”

Pic of the Day: Move along.

Quote of the Day: “At that point in the morning making that kind of decision and doing that kind of math is like asking someone with downs syndrome to perform brain surgery: Difficult, at best.” – Name Withheld by Giggling Request

Aside from just seeing the movie, it was also a first date with a very attractive blond I’ve been chatting with for a few days.  We snuggled, and throughout the movie there was plenty of non-verbal, tactile and sensual flirting.  Afterwards, we hit up Chili’s, and then went for a walk and quiet time at a park.  It was a very good date, I enjoyed it immensely, and she seems to have as well and I think we’re both looking for a second date.  The sooner the better for me.

Overslept this morning.  Again.  Late to work.  Not good.  HAVE to find a good place that I can effectively place a clock radio alarm so that I’ll hear it well enough but that I have to get OUT of bed to go shut the blasted thing off, and fix that.  Really need to not have this happen again.

Link of the Day: European research: Americans are fat because we simply eat too much.

Spam of the Day: “Let Accai Berry imporve your health” – The misspellings (and not being for penis growth/ED meds) made this choice for me.

Funny of the Day: Bible Loophole

Pic of the Day: Too cute.

Quote of the Day: “No matter how happily a woman may be married, it always pleases her to discover that there is a nice man who wishes that she were not.” - Henry Louis Mencken

Lunch was grilled mahi mahi.  I’m not certain if I’ve ever had mahi mahi before.  It was good.  Almost a buttery taste to it.  Mahi mahi is win.

Link of the Day: FWhyMe.com

Spam of the Day: “Wiping good off the shelves”

Funny of the Day: War on Drugs

Pic of the Day: Awesome shot of Cartagena, Colombia

Quote of the Day: “Faith is not trying to believe something regardless of the evidence: faith is daring to do something regardless of the consequences.”  - Sherwood Eddy

Was late to work this morning.  Really aggravating, because not only have I been trying to rather make a point of not letting that happen again, I even went to bed early last night.  I was falling asleep at like 10:30, and slept pretty solidy throughout the night.  Dunno what happened this morning, I have very vague memories of an alarm, and then next thing I know, a meowing cat at 5 minutes before I’m supposed to be at work.  Not good.

Got a movie date tomorrow night for Star Trek.  :)

Link of the Day: Peter Dinklage to play Tyrion Lannister!  Oh, also, they found some guy to direct.

Spam of the Day: “Drop your pants with “I know I’m the best” look.”

Funny of the Day: Ask an Asian

Pics of the Day: Some awesome photos by Mark Seliger

Quote of the Day: “Those of us who refuse to risk and grow get swallowed up by life.”  - Patty Hansen