I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving holiday. For the Latter-Day Saints, I hope you had a good day of toil. Ours was a weekend of feasting and being sleepy. But it was also a week of merciless cleansing. We cleaned the house for three days straight, after a month of neglect. Today it is so clean here. I am gushing with happiness at the cleanness of our home.

It’s good that Lisa and I have things to do around the home though, because we’ve been poor lately. We had thought that November would be a good month for us financially, with Lisa at last getting her first full paycheck from her new job. But the money that we borrowed from our credit cards last month now needs to be paid back. And other things have come up.

Our car, already in a dubious state of health for the past three months, has taken an dramatic turn for the worse. Where once oil dripped, now it gushes. I think it may just be a small, relatively cheap part that I can replace myself, but the seven-year-old Jetta has so many other random problems that need to be fixed. There is a mysterious problem with the wheel alignment. My new tires are wearing unevenly. The transmission has been slipping and needs to be checked. One day, the driver-side lock suddenly fell out of the door. I need to put that back in at some point.

They are quite possibly all fairly cheap fixes, but there is little money to spare these days. We can’t go long without a second car; and I love my Jetta, who I have named Bucephalus. I do not want Bucephalus unhappy. I am obliged to fork out whatever it takes for the repairs.

We are also in extreme-saving mode. With only two months to go until the house is ready for us to move in, every spare penny goes to the “House Fund.” Today, we saw that they installed the tile, all the doors and windows, and the bathroom fixtures. They are about ready to lay the brick. It’s likely they could finish before we expect them to, so we want to have all the money we can possibly save as soon as possible. Just in case.

Aside from cleaning and lamenting about my money problems, I’ve been occupying myself with my welding class. In the past four weeks, we’ve learned to cut the metal, bend the metal, grind the metal, braze the metal, and weld the metal with a gas torch. Next week, regrettably the last, we learn to weld the metal with an arc welder. I’m looking forward to learning how to arc weld, because my dad is giving me his welder once I move into the new house.

I’m pretty good at brazing; bending and grinding are pretty rudimentary; and I did surprisingly well at gas welding. But I’m not great at cutting small shapes. When I go for a square, I end up with a melted blob. When I go for a circle, I end up with a sometimes circular melted blob, often with jagged pints. Fortunately, grinding it out is easy, fun and also mesmirizing, so my creations have turned out tolerably.

I have made two sculptures and am in the process of making a third. I have already crafted a narwahl and this funky abstracted-head thing. I am now working on a fast-looking dog-like thing that looks like it could be an old-timey hood ornament. They’re not top-quality jobs, but they’re a good start. And I’m practicing as much as I can. Maybe someday I’ll become good and you’ll see me in my 15-minutes on Monster Garage acting like some kind of a rock star.

What? Like you don’t watch?

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3.15am

i am offended by trippy’s away message. justin timberlake is not a doof.

okay, he may be a doof, but i still fantasize. damn. the boy is fine, somehow.

ironically, somewhat, when presented with the opportunity to hook up with one of the british boys i once thought to be awfully fine tonight, i declined. and declined. and declined again. the quote of the night was “i knew you wanted me all along.” i think it’s funny that people actually say things like that in real life.

and of course, it all just made me want you more. you realize that, right? you’re the reason i say no. you’re the one i am thinking about. you’re the one i want. you’re the one, period.

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5.49pm

ah, the things i think it important to say and write at 3 in the morning when i am drunk…

this is the first sunday i have spent in richmond in i think 11 weeks. i honestly did not know what to do with myself today. the free time almost freaks me out, which is exactly what i didn’t want to happen when i started my weekly sojourns to northern va. shell came over and we lazed around a bit watching SaTC, and i finally set up my new stereo.

i ended up tackling my room for most of the afternoon. i haven’t had a good clean in a bit, and so far i am three trash bags and three laundry loads through. i wonder what it will be like if i ever really finish cleaning it completely. talk about not knowing what to do with myself. it’s like where the sidewalk ends.

shell made our hotel reservations for NYE and i am enjoying the idea of such poshness i could never ordinarily afford. it balances out the idea of being outside in the cold. shell is starstruck with the whole times square scene so i am readying myself to be one of those drunken louts you see on tv screaming and wearing plastic 2004 glasses:

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i watched ‘the apartment’ 3 times in a row yesterday afternoon, analyzing it for screenwriting class.

day gone.

so what better way to spend the evening then watching more movies?

we were supposed to hang out with kady, so she came over and we went and rented movies. taking 1 boy and 2 girls with slightly different movie tastes into the rental store is perhaps a bad idea.

it took us an hour to pick a pair of movies. ‘a mighty wind’ was first and easy. ‘fear dot com’ was shut down by the ladies, while i nixed ‘bend it like beckham’. ‘25th hour’ was choice number 2 until we realized it was 135 minutes. ‘winged migration’ was out so we could watch it over xmas with parents. finally, we settled on ‘charlies angels 2: full throttle’ (the unrated version.

‘a mighty wind’ was good. perhaps less crazy weird than the others and more just entertaining in its own right (b+).

many of you are my friends. you know i like bad movies. this can also be supported by the ‘battlefield earth’ drinking game, johns reviews of the nightmare on elm street series and the friday the 13th series.

the worst commercial (that is, released to theaters) movie i have ever seen was ‘blown away’. i base this on the fact that it took me three seperate nights of sitting down with said movie to make it through it.

even so, i think i have a new winner.

yes, ladies and gentlemen – ‘charlies angels 2: full throttle’ is the worst ‘real’ movie i have ever seen. the plot made no sense. the action made no sense. the directing was terrible. the soundtrack most assuridly was picked by drew barrymore and cameron diaz. there were added cartoon sound effects. not even john cleese could save this movie from itself.

there were outtake and bloopers during the credits. it became increasingly obvious that they had more fun making the movie than i did watching it. that might be the main problem.

without even fighting myself: this movie gets an ‘f’.

i cannot stress how awful this movie is. rent ‘battlefield earth’ instead. watch ‘charlies angels’ at your own risk. (and to those who might claim im somehow biased because of my hatred of the diax and dislike of the berrymore – i thought the first one was tolerable. mainly because of bill murray, but still.) i expected nothing from this film and it still managed to shit all over me.

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The holiday season brings out the best in people, except journalists who seem to drop into some sort of IQ-draining coma. Here’s a headline from Wednesday: “Holiday Travel Rush Starts Smoothly.”

In other words, nothing happened. Interstate Used By Some.

Followed by Friday’s “Bargain Shoppers Seek Holiday Specials.” Wow. I bet the fatcats in Washington tried to put a lid on that one. Powerful stuff, really.

Finally, today saw an exception. “Woman Trampled, Knocked Unconscious By Wal-Mart Shoppers.*” Apparently, the woman was run over by a mob racing for 29 dollar DVD players. Now that’s news: 29 dollar DVD players. Astounding.

*Studpidly, when I was looking up the trampling article, I typed “woman trampled” not into the Yahoo! news search but regular Yahoo! The first page was this. I don’t know whether it’s safe, so do not click these links. Unless you’re into it. In which case, have at it.

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so i’m on break for my saturday night class. yeah work all day saturday. anyhow, right before the break my class was working on a future tenses review exercise. they had to write about the future plans of two people — spoofy-man or detai-man. normally, spoofy is a mini-muffin plastic wrap snack, and detai is what people refer to the cigarettes that people sell individually in the streets. but spoofy-man just happens to be a tasty snack that can walk and talk like you and me; detai-man is a walking, talking single-issue cigarette, of course.

so i was walking around checking up on the groups, after assuring them that yes in fact spoofy-man and his friend could walk and talk like you and me. after the initial disbelief they let the creative gates open. one particular group had tried several sentences after only a few minutes, not sure which one to use. they were as follows:

You will call Spoofy-Man when you are hungry.

Spoofy-Man will change your life.

Spoofy-Man will make you fatter.

that group was two thirty-somethings that work for Moroccan Television. hopefully they’ll pass the spoofy-man idea on to the head honchos and slip in a good word for me.

then the slacker group suddenly started making more noise. right before the break, hmm, maybe they’re slacking again.

me: hey, have you guys finished yet?

them: yes, teacher.

me: are you lying?

them: no, teacher.

me: ok.

them: so we can go on break now?

me: no!

now i’d like to share some ‘i am a superhero…’ essays from my saturday morning beginners’ class.

“I am superhero, I fairly danse well and have already good sentiment for a modern personne, but i smoke a lot before i save a personne of dificulty and i love my job. but my job is stressful.”

“I’m a superhero, I’m a middle tall, and I play the sport and I can run quickly. I draw nicely, and I know prepere the good hamburgers.”

“I am a superhero. I can help the people, because i can steal. I’m very nice and prettly superhero. I have a very beautiful clothes but very expensive. I help the nice people but not the boring.”

word. so the first one was a guy, the other two girls. that class is mostly 14 year olds. anyhow, back to class. hope you enjoyed.

peace

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roxy and i went shopping yesterday. and didnt buy a single present for anyone. i hate the day after t-day. its such a scam. and i had forgotten what it was like to go down to 3rd st in santa monica this time of year. all the ‘ice’ decorations are up (blue, blocky plastic in the fountains), yet you can walk around in shorts. it just isnt right.

midnight special has finally opened up again down there, so thats nice. that overpriced shop of weird ‘urban’/ikea type gifts is gone though. that didnt last long.

its funny to be here, to be online during the break. the buddylist goes empty, the posting dies down. go john! go me!

and hopefully by the time i sleep tomorrow night, ill be able to say 95% of my work is completed for the semester. today i have to watch ‘the apartment’ prob like 3 times and analyze it, writing my final on it as i watch it. blech.

also: for the people who dont seem to get it: bold items on the sidebars are clickable. this means: you do not have to search for something that is on the list – just click the item.

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I’m in the big hippy commune known as Oregon. Thanksgiving is over, and as other family holiday passes, it becomes more and more clear that I don’t belong in my family.

One of the first thing I was greeted with was my dad telling me that I’ll be getting a stern talking to about how I dress from my sister. Apparently my sister was amazed that Christina ‘allows’ me to dress like I do. While it ended up that my sister actually was fairly pleased with my clothes, my family is beyond appalled that I shop and thrift stores and wear clothes that are over 10 years old. This was only the beginning of what will surely be a long weekend.

I think my favorite moment so far was the big argument during Thanksgiving dinner over country music. My brother, sister and my brother’s best friend went completely off on me for my hatred of that crappy musical genre. We actually were yelling at each other at one point. Many times I feel that it’s me against my family, and I have no ground to stand on because I’m just so different from everyone else.

I missed the Alkaline Trio show for this?

So the rest of my family is going skiing/snowboarding tomorrow morning. And what shall I be doing? Finish reading the Contortionist’s Handbook and playing on the new laptop. Alone. Go me.

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