BOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Happy Halloween!!!

Yes today is the day when kids get to dress up and walk around to strangers houses and get free candy. It seems like a very odd custom to me, but I am the first to get dressed up and hand the candy out, I think if they are going to get dressed up I might as well get dressed up too. However, the best part about this odd holiday comes tomorrow when all of the stores offer the candy at half price. Enough halloween stuff for now.

Last night we had BoCaNO in Boston again at the Grand Canal. I ate so much food, I thought I was going to explode. Keep in mind I had an entire California Pizza Kitchen, pizza at about 1:30. I started with my typical drink Stoli Raz with Cranberry, then Shepard's Pie, a water, a sprite, a piece of German chocolate cake and finally I had a giant glass of milk. It was not a pretty sight. Besides my over eating it was a good time as usual, though Mark's absence was certainly noticeable. I do want to send a shout out to Ruslan, dude wassup, I hope you get to check out Jackass: The Movie before you head home.

Have a great day everybody and don't eat too much candy.

Dave Matthews Lyrics of the Day
Song Title: Halloween
Hey little dreamer's eyes open and staring up at me
Oh little lonely eyes open and radiant

Wait until I come and I will steal you
Wait until I come I'll take your soul
Wait until I come and I will steal you
Wait until I come and I won't go

Darlin' dreamin in the night
Shadows on the windows
Lead oh and everyone go
Well leave me on the night
I will give you lightning
I will not relinquish light

Another Cool Crisp Autumn Day

Not much to say today, but I figured I should make an entry anyway. I went to Borders bright and early this morning to get the new Mad About You DVD. Unfortunately, either it doesn't work or my DVD Rom on my computer is busted stuff. Hopefully it is not the latter, because that would cost mucho dinero. The worst part is that I was looking forward to watching it on the train ride home tonight :o(

Last night I went to the gym, which as always was quite boring. The movie Grease was on the big screen tv, it was a lot better than watching headline news while running. I didn't think I was going to be able to run for a half hour, but somehow I did and actually could have run longer. Wow looking back yesterday was a real boring day and I don't have anything else to say.

New Daily Item (hopefully)
Dave Matthews Lyrics of the day
"Some times I feel like I'm falling, fall back again." - Seek Up

A Fresh New Week

I must say I am in a pretty good mood, which unfortunately means I don't have anything to rant and rave about today. I went to the Pumpkin Carving Party last night and had a great time. Well I did once I found the place, for only the second time ever an online mapping website gave me bad directions. The first time was about five years ago, when that stuff was in its infancy, but now the bugs should be worked out. I ended up driving by where the star on the paper was about twenty times before I gave up and by some stroke of luck realized the star was in the wrong town. After finding the place everything was great, more people should throw pumpkin parties, they are perfect for a cool crisp autumn evening. We ended up with a wide array of pumpkin designs, from a few triangle eyed jack o lanterns, to a kitty, a pumpkin seed (sailboat), a leaping skeleton and a witch. I don't understand why it took so long for somebody to come up with those paper patterns you can put over the pumpkin, we never had those when I was a kid. Well thanks Amy for being such a great host and throwing such a fun party.

Check back later for a picture which you could use as a nice halloween desktop picture.

Eastern Standard Time

I am sorry to say it is the last Sunday in October and this means as we all know that in most parts of the country daylight savings time comes to an end. As much as I look forward to such events I totally forgot until the people on Sportscenter, said it was 9:00 AM and I looked at the clock and thought, "These guys probably do about seven shows a week, because they do one show and then just play back the tape." Then I realized my clock was wrong, which is not like me. I do have an excuse though, I was out very late last night at a hopping Halloween party in North Grafton. Since I didn't leave there until 1:14, I didn't get home until 2:15, but I guess in reality I left at 1:14 and got home at 1:15. I guess that is a record which I will never break, one minute from North Grafton to Amesbury. Who would have thought with my little old VW I could make such great time :-)

So anyway the party was great, it did involve some dancing which for those of you who know me, is not exactly my forte. Since I had a costume on it didn't really matter to me anyway and I also only knew like two people. Here is my pic!

Thanks to Travis for lending me the gear, the orange hard hat was the key to the whole outfit.

Busy day today: lunch with Travis at Margaritas then a Pumpkin Carving Party in Watertown. How have I become so busy in such a short time, well I am not complaining just wondering? Only 51 days until what I think is going to be the 2nd best Dave Matthews concert I have ever been to. I can't wait.

First Snow

I woke up this morning at 5:30 and for once my brother was actually right about the weather. The roof was noticeably white, but it was hard to tell because it was so dark. I watched the news and they confirmed that it was possible there actually was some of the white stuff in my area. I finally went downstairs and turned the outside light on and there it was falling from above, thousands of snowflakes. I actually opened the door and stood outside for a minute, enjoying the serenity which can only come during a snowfall. The air was cool and crisp with a slight smell of burning wood, you couldn't hear any sounds except the snow landing on the ground. It made waking up so early a pleasure. It won't be long until the skiing will begin. Yippee!


Bruegger's vs. Finagle a Bagel
Before today, I wasn't a big fan of Bruegger's because they have square bagels. You may wonder what beef I have with square bagels and my argument is this, it just is not normal. Even if you take the dough for a bagel and place it into a square shape, I believe it will end up being round. So the square bagel has a very artificial look to it, which is kind of disturbing to me, what do they have to do to them to make them this way.

This morning I ended up in Bruegger's for only the second time ever and now have many more reasons to prefer FAB to Bruegger's. First of all, FAB has the cool buzz saw, which automatically gives it leverage, it is safe and efficient in a nice fun to watch package. Second, Bruegger's is one of those places where you get your food and then pay afterwards. This is annoying because you have to dig money out of your pockets, while juggling the food at the same time. Ice cream places are famous for this setup, of all places they should take the money first, have you ever tried to keep an ice cream from falling over or dripping, while finding your wallet, it's impossible. Another fault to this system is in the flow of the line, most people can order and pay in about the same amount of time, bigger orders take longer but not too much longer. The system helps to keep the line moving at a relatively uniform speed, but in the other system, you actually have to wait behind larger orders forever. At least ordering and paying first allows you to hang out in another area, so you don't actually notice you are waiting behind a large order and I have noticed at FAB they will fill up orders based on how the bagels come down the shoot, which allows the smaller orders to get finished sooner. At Bruegger's today, I got the feeling of being lost in line because the same woman was taking different orders while waiting for my bagel to toast, I also didn't know if I could pay or if I had to wait. My final complaint is about the price, for an apple bagel toasted with butter at FAB it is $.85, but at Bruegger's it was $1.04. I don't even care about the twenty cent difference as much as the four cents over a dollar, is just such a pain. I would just prefer to hand over a dollar and be done with it, now I have to see if I have change and if not give two bills and then I have a ton of change. Why can't they just adjust the price to $.95 to make all of our lives easier?

So there is my argument, feel free to comment. The entry did start off so nice didn't it.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

So I wore a winter hat to work today and I am going to see how long I can wear it before I either a) Am asked to take it off OR b) My head gets so hot I have to take it off.
Here is a pic of me with the hat
. I don't know if the picture will show up but you could always copy and paste into your browser it will definitely be worth it.

Fire drill at 10AM at least my ears won't be cold. I think it is so stupid that they tell us when the fire drill is going to happen. What the hell is the point, of that? We all know we aren't going to die, I mean I think it is great that some of the lazy asses I work with have to actually exercise and go down three flights of stairs. The best part about the fire drill though is watching the people try to open the door to the stairwell. All you have to do is hold it for ten or fifteen seconds, it will beep while you hold it and eventually will open. However, the morons that get to the door first don't quite get the concept and just tap it and when it beeps they get all nervous and let go, which results in a large pile up at the door. The worst part is the people think the problem is with the door when actually it is them. So they stand around and complain until somebody gets daring and actually holds it down for 15 seconds and amazingly the door opens. Wow!! I know if there is ever a real emergency, I am going to be trapped in a sea of morons, who can't figure out how to open a damn emergency door. It is even more fun once we get outside and we all stand beside the building and try to find the rest of the group so we can all be accounted for. What I don't understand about this crap is that nobody even knows the correct place to stand and we just all end up where ever somebody we recognize ended up. The worst part about this location is that it is right under the building where any debris in a real emergency would be falling down onto our heads. Well it doesn't matter because we would never make it that far anyway, see the door stuff above.

Well this turned out longer than I intended. Later.

Monday Monday Can't Trust That Day

Had an interesting weekend, and it did not involve movies. I finally got my car back and the grand total for everything was only about $400. So it has slightly postponed my search for a new car, but only for a couple of weeks, it is definitely time to say good bye to my VW :0( Either way it was so nice to be able to drive myself around and I ended up putting about four hundred miles on it in two days.

Saturday I took care of my car in the morning and went home to mow the lawn. Don came over and hung out and we talked about new cars, it was pretty classic. I then headed to Cambridge for the "Head of the Charles". I met Kate and then Mark and we went to check it out, but it was over and all of the boats were just practicing. We then went back to Kate's house and had dinner and did a little bit of drinking. Okay, I had a little too much, but only too much to drive, not so I got sick. It was a great night and I had a great time. I ended up waking up in the morning at seven and driving home.

Sunday involved a little bit of rest and a trip to Plymouth for some mountain biking. They gots some beautiful country down there near the cape. We rode on some great trails down there, the only bad thing was that I broke the shifter on my bike and now the front gears won't shift out of the small sprocket.

Today, hmmmmmmmmm. Not much happened today aside from a trip to Boston Costume, which is a great and amusing place. People from all walks of life show up at that place and don't hesitate to make fools of themselves. Scottie tried on a cool hot dog costume, but it could have been a lot cooler if it was made of foam and about seven feet tall, so it really is not worth the $65 rental fee. Went to dinner at the Pizza Factory with
Travis old skool style. It felt like high school when we used to ride bikes and eat lunch there all the time.

I am kind of on the fence about this cold weather we have been getting. I hear we are supposed to get some snow flurries tomorrow night. I love the winter and all but I still want to do some more outdoor activities like biking and hiking before the really cold weather gets here. Besides I don't have quite enough money to get my new skis yet especially since my car crapped the bed. Okay that is enough for now.

Not much to report, I am glad Friday is finally here. I still don't have my car, but should be able to drive it like normal again tomorrow afternoon. I will begin my new car search either tomorrow or Sunday.

I got to work this morning and everybody was standing up down in PA land waiting for me to get here. I wish they would just be patient and let me sit down and eat my breakfast, which was the seasonal Pumpkin Raisin bagel from FAB. Oddly enough it was pretty good despite the fact I had to eat in such a rush.

Oh yeah almost forgot, I was walking to work and this guy totally flipped out at this woman. He was driving this old beater truck and she decided to cross in front of him and he just started cursing up a storm. He drove slow and just kept cursing at her, it was funny because he looked so stupid despite the fact he probably thought he was being some macho hero. The best part was he could only go about 100 feet before he came to another light and had to stop anyway. Impatient people are the worst.

The winner is...

I finally heard from good old Charlie at Yeo VW, sometimes he is mean and sometimes not so much, but this time he was not so much mean. My problem was a bad exhaust pipe which he says I should get fixed at Midas or Mieneke because it will be cheaper. The other problems include a bad oxygen sensor ($280), a new harness for my door locks ($120) (whatever that is), a new serpentine belt ($100) i don't believe it actually has anything to do with snake like animals and an oil change. I am only getting the snake belt and oil changed, the other stuff can wait. So if I tally up the votes and the total cost of fixing the transmission is $0, so Becky with the guess of $1 wins( and you said you knew nothing about cars). Your prize is a bagel from the Andyman, I hear the baker there is a real prize, so her bagels must be good too. I am still accepting ideas for a new car so tell me what you think.

Waiting for the big news

I stumbled through the rain and wind last night and made it to the Asgard for BoCaNo. It was a nice place but the wait staff was terrible. I ordered a lemonade and he came back twenty minutes later and apologized for forgetting and I told him I would have a water instead. The atmosphere was cool, but the stools were a bit uncomfortable and the tables were very tall, I don't enjoy feeling like a small child when I am eating. Unfortunately, due to my late start, I caught the 10:40 train home, which involves a delightful layover in Beverly, not very enjoyable in a Nor'Easter. I did make it home though at 12:30.

This morning my car and I hobbled our way to the dealership for the big appointment. I had a line of ten cars behind me because I was afraid to drive fast. The guy should be calling this afternoon to let me know how it looks, either way I will be looking at cars this weekend. We also have a pool going on how much my transmission will cost to get fixed Suha $800, John $1200 and me the constant optimist $600. If anybody else wants in just post a comment. Either way I feel I am going to lose.

Work has been crazy this morning with a bunch of little modifications to existing stuff, which is my absolute least favorite thing to do. Need to make money especially if I am going to get the new wheels.

I am only posting an entry because I just learned how to set my current mood and music without putting it in the body of my event. Thanks Britt!!

It is still raining like crazy outside, I just went out for the first time in eight hours. I had on my raincoat and walked around the office with my jacket zipped and my hood up. I couldn't figure out why everybody was laughing and looking at me funny, isn't it normal to walk around inside like that. It was even better when I came back and was dripping wet and still had my hood up.

Going to BoCaNO tonight in Cambridge, at the Asgard (ass guard), which is just a sister restaurant of the Kinsale. Scott left work early so I am going to have to be late, doesn't matter much to me I am not hungry at all. It is amazing how filling a turkey sandwich and some animal crackers can be. Later y'all. "Don't burn the day away." - DMB

Been A Long Time

Well I haven't (written) typed in this for a while, it just seems so wrong to say write when you write with a pencil. The reason for this entry is because of Brittany's recent endeavour with her deadjournal. So I will try to keep pace with these young college girls, keep in mind they have a lot more time to write than I do. Well then again it is not like I actually do work at work.

So my car is "Busted Stuff". It sounds like the transmission is going, I am hoping I just need to get a new clutch, but I don't know a clutch from a brake pad so I am in no position to determine what is up with my car. Two camps have formed around this issue, one which is pro new car includes: my mom, my brother and Steve and almost everybody but me. I just think if I can put $700 into a car and get another year out of it is better than making payments of $400 a month on a new one. BUT I can't make a decision until I know what the heck is wrong with the car. All of this does make me feel like a child, because I have to ask for rides whenever I want to go anywhere. If my mom is driving it usually means I have to go on a silly errand, and even though she makes it seem like it will be a quick five minute chore, it turns out to be an adventure.
PEACE!!!

Since I don't have a deadjournal I will have to manually put in my mood and music.
Current Mood: Purdy Good!!
Current Music: None for now listening to Howard Stern. David Gray after the news though