What's going on with me?

10-25-05 - I got to see Carrie today! I was so excited! Sure, it was only on webcam, but still! And thanks go to Sarah for alerting me of her webcam presence. She and I were only friends for a couple months before I moved here and she moved to Utah, but we mean a lot to each other :-) I miss that gal :-(

I don't know why, but I like the words "vehemently," "posthumously," and "eponymous."

I'm two days away from going to Cookeville and doing a couple things in the Drama Troupe performance (Thursday and Saturday at 8 in Derryberry auditorium and I hear it's not much longer than an hour and 15 minutes...should be fun!). I really hate being up here and away from my friends in Cookeville and at home. It's been nearly 5 months and yeah, I've made friends, but none as close as people from those places. They really make me feel loved. I think I just need to be introduced to a couple other groups of friends (nothing wrong with the ones I have now, in case anyone's reading!). Maybe it's just the fact that I have a few groups down there that makes me feel that way, I don't know...

A couple weeks after I started working, which would be around mid-June, I was sitting around at work, doing nothing, when some guys walked into the cubicle room where I was sitting. One asked if I wanted to be in a video. Being that I was bored and I figured it would be something where I could be in a cheesy skit for a training video, I said, "Sure!" Well, it wasn't scripted like I had hoped. They told me that I had to answer the question, "Why is housekeeping important in the workplace?" When they said that, I just looked at them like Paris Hilton looks at calculus and told them I had no idea what to say since I was new and if I did say something, it would probably be BS. They said they'd give me 10 minutes to think about it. About half an hour later, they came back and took me outside on some steps and I gave my BS answer, trying not to laugh. I said something about how it helps to keep you organized and boosts morale, etc.

Anyway, fast forward to last Monday. A couple days prior, I saw that the entire site had to watch a training video called "Y-12 PRYDE" [sic]. I didn't have time to watch it, nor did I know where to watch it, so I was just gonna put it off. Anyway, last Monday I sat down at lunch and the guy next to me said, "Hey, Mr. Y-12 PRYDE!" I just went :-o at him and said, "Am I in the video?!" and he said, "Yup!" I just laughed and said, "It's about time!" The next day around the office, several people said something about it, and some called me "movie star." I've been getting picked on about it, but I love it :-D

I'm thoroughly pissed off at The Price Is Right. For years, the Mountain Climber game has been my favorite game on the show...ever since I got over my fear of the dude's yodeling (I actually got to play that guy in a Drama Troupe skit a few years ago!) which ended before I started kindergarten. The reason I'm pissed at the show is that you can win the game every freaking time if you just guess $25, $35, and $45. It used to be those numbers on the dot every time. Now they've deviated a little, but your errors won't add up to anywhere near $25 if you guess those three numbers. I take that back. In the past decade, and I admit I haven't seen anywhere near every instance of that game in this time, I've seen one instance in which that trick didn't work. ONE! You'd think they'd make it a little more difficult to win a freaking car! Why do I care? I like seeing the guy fall off the cliff. But you know what? They don't even show it any more when he does fall! I've seen it one time that I remember, and I laughed heartily. Whenever people lose (and those instances are few and far between), they always cut away before he falls. What's the point?! Sure, the yodeling is great, but the fall is even better! He bounces and disappears!

I conquered something from my past yesterday :-D Wrenn called me for more calculus help last night. She said the two words I hoped she'd never say: "related rates." I was able to do these problems in high school, but I didn't remember anything about them once we moved past them. All I remembered about them was that I hated them, and that there were conical sand piles involved...bleh. So she says the dreaded words and I said something along the lines of, "Well, I've been using calculus for years now, so maybe I can figure this out without any trouble since I understand things a lot better than I did back then." No such luck. And to make things worse, she busted out with the stinky conical sand pile problem...grrr... I had to break down and go online to figure out how to do it. Long, boring story short: after about half an hour, I figured it out, explained it to her to the point that she understood it, and felt like a new man! I understand them now! Woo-hoo!

Oh, and by the way...the answer was

dh/dt=8/(405*pi)

One year ago today starts the beginning of good memories :-) (Don't worry, that's all I'll say about it.)

10-18-05 - Wow, I have talked to Wrenn so much in the past couple days. I really miss that gal. They say friends don't let friends D & D, whether it mean "Dungeons & Dragons" or "drink and drive," but I think tonight, it should've meant "drive and differentiate." Yeah, I helped her with calculus homework whilst on my way home from Juliana's, while I was at Wal-Mart buying cups and dish detergent, on my way home from Wal-Mart, and then for a while after I got home. It was crazy, but I was able to help her with everything she asked me.

Juliana's was fun, even though stinky Anna won at Settlers of Catan, again. I placed one of my settlements on a really dumb spot, otherwise I would've been more in the game than I actually was. Oh, well. It was fun, anyway.

10-16-05 - Goodness, funny things happened today. I went to meet a friend at the SubWay by UTK and there were some crazies working there. They were quite entertaining. Anyway, at some point they did something that was worthy of taking a video, and it can be seen here.

It looks like I've got a couple new people that'll come to DDR night now, so I think that this Thursday, around eight people (including me) will be here. Woo-hoo! It's growing!

Yesterday was William's birthday. A bunch of us ate at Sunspot. Whilst sitting there, I grabbed a pack of Sweet & Low and wrote "Happy 11110th birthday, William!" Yay for party fouls! Later, he was talking to someone on the phone and, being the jerk I am, I scooted my chair back so he couldn't see me and called him. When he answered, I told him he was using poor table ettiquette and needed to get off the phone. He said, "What?" and I scooted forward and looked right at him and said it again. He started laughing like a moron after he looked around for a while and saw me. I hung up and he switched back over and said, "Hey, dude. Apparently I need to get off the phone." I was just joking, but I guess the conversation wasn't very important. He hung up and just kept laughing.

10-11-05 - Well, I know it's been quite a while, but there's a new video on my site! Go here to watch it. If you can't figure out which one it is, you have herpes. A few people have had qualms about watching it. My advice: don't - just watch it!

Life's been pretty boring lately. I haven't done a whole lot of anything. I had a decent weekend, hanging out with various people and what not. I started working out again on Thursday and so far, I've kept it up. I know it's only been three times, but I've gotten back into the habit I think.

If you decide to watch the video (which was the main point of this post...I tried to pad it up with other stuff, but that fell through), let me know what you think. For those weirdos out there that don't know how to contact me, just go to my main page and click one of the links. If anyone has an idea for a video, let me know. I've got lots of time on my hands and I'd like to make more videos!

10-3-05 - You know, one day I was watching Behind the Music for "Weird Al" Yankovic (notice there's no "h" on the end, in spelling or pronunciation) and he said that every time he releases an album, it ends up doing fairly well and people call it a comeback album, which he doesn't really understand because, as I said, they all do fairly well. It's probably just because they are so far between. The point of mentioning this is that I feel like I'm doing a comeback album every time I post, regardless of the performance of each post. I know it's an odd analogy. You have herpes, shut up.

I went to go see Corpse Bride on Saturday. Prior to the movie there was, as is the norm nowadays, a string of previews. One of them was for the sequel to Cheaper by the Dozen. I laughed and said "Cheaper by the Baker's Dozen?" not knowing the the family name was Baker (despite having read the book in middle school)! That made me laugh even harder. So, what'd they end up naming the movie? Cheaper by the Dozen 2. How clever.

The movie turned out to be ok. As Jasmine (and I'm sure many others have) said, if you go in there with the intent on comparing it to The Nightmare Before Christmas, you won't like it. Holy crap, the animation was so smooth! It was great! The movie itself? Meh. It had its moments. Within fictional movies in fantastic worlds, some rules are broken. That's how things work. Some rules from our world stay intact, though. That's also how things work. (For example, in old cartoons: broken rule - gravity works instantly; obeyed rule - gravity works) In this movie, the example should be: broken rule - dead people act like the living and can return to the world above; obeyed rule - people don't spontaneously burst into a monkeyload of butterflies for NO REASON WHATSOEVER! What the heck was that? That ruined the whole movie for me!

I don't understand the unholy orgy of Tim Burton, Danny Elfman, Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Deep Roy, and Christopher Lee. If they're cool with her being the only chick, though, then whatever.

Cookeville and Columbia were immensely fun this weekend! I'm excited about repri-(long "I" sound)-sing a couple roles in the Drama Troupe performance at the end of this month. That'll be the same month that Dennis Haskins, TV's "Mr. Belding," will be in Cookeville. He'll be at the Tennessee Theater Convention, or something like that, as a guest speaker. "Why him?" you ask. I guess he's the biggest Tennessee native that was willing to make an appearance. His speech is on the topic "How to make it as an actor in America," or something like that. This leads me to believe that he will be covering the "don't" section.