Oi! Bollocks! And all those other strange words I keep hearing around here...

Yes, I finally made it to London and did not die from my colonoscopy as previously expected. I've been introduced to many of Adam's mates (this brit slang will continue, to no one's delight), and I achieved one of my short-term life goals: being part of a group on "the list" at a club. OOHHHH! AHHH! Dave's important now, and his ego will grow in accordance. I've seen just a few sights so far, and expect a full report when I'm back from Florida. The Winston Churchill War Cabinet Museum thing was bloody brilliant, and I had the opportunity to sit in on active sessions of the Houses of Commons and Lords, just before their Christmas recess. This swank internet cafe I'm typing in is also a first for me, though not as exciting as the rest of London.

Adam is moving house from one flat to another (the movers are working as I type), and his new one is shaping up to be even more amazing than his already very sweet original one. Hopefully I'll be able to take some pics at his afterparty there and post them later. Anyway, this is taking way too long for an international brief update, so sod off!

Sorry to be depressing, but I have a colonoscopy in seven hours. This is perhaps the thing I have dreaded most in my life since the last time I had surgery when I was like 13 or 14. I should be asleep right now, because I have to be up at 4am to take more prep medicine. Like that's gonna happen. I mean, I'll be up, just probably not with any sleep in between.

I've started reading "High Fidelity" (yes, there was a book first!), so in true Rob form, here are my top five most recent depressing events:

1. The colonoscopy. This will surely be one of the worst experiences of my life. I'm terribly nervous about the whole thing, from the twilight wakefulness to the horrible prep medication to the intrusiveness of the whole thing. I can't help thinking about that shower scene in "American History X"... the one when prisoner Edward Norton is shown the full pain that prison life can offer. Writing about it is not helping.

2. The sickness leading up to the colonoscopy. I've been sick since August. It made me miss half my classes this semester. It still goes on without proper diagnosis.

3. 12/12 - Christine's birthday. For anyone who doesn't already know, I've been oft found saying that if my life was a movie, Christine would be my primary love interest. Still true. It's an unrequited love, and I'm dealing with it. However, we've always had a good friendship if nothing else. Up until Thanksgiving, that is, when we'd planned beforehand to get together, and she decided not to return any of my calls. I even spoke to her on the Night of Turkey, and she told me she was busy then and that she'd call back the next day. I called her every day through that weekend, and left messages, and I'm still waiting for a return call. We normally exchange gifts over the holiday, and I normally buy her something additional for her birthday too. I haven't bought anything yet. I don't even know when she'll be home this year. All I know is that I'm pissed, and I'm not calling her until she calls me back. And it makes me feel terrible -- such is the price of love, I guess.

4. New Jersey. I'm back in NJ. There's nothing to do. All of my friends are still at school. The only reason I'm back so early is due to numbers one and two on this list. I look forward to London on the 18th.

5. 12/11 - Three Month Anniversary. I was hoping for something like this to wait until after I'd already graduated. I wanted to continue being idealistic (what? can't you tell from the tone of this post?? lol). Because of stupid terrorists, I was forced to change my world view much earlier than I was prepared to. Sorry for being self-centered. Everything else about September 11 infuriates me as much and more so, but all that's been done to death by the news over the last three months.

That's it for now. That's not all there is, but the rest is mostly happy stuff, like how I got $100 in Best Buy gift certs. and an Invader Zim t-shirt featuring GIR that says "I'm dancin' like a monkey!" on it. I like that shirt. It's things like that make me happier than any depressing things could make me... well, depressed. And Warioland 4 for my GameBoy Advance. These things are excellent. The people that give them are better. Thanks Mark and Patrick!

=w=

I was reading the NY Times website tonight as usual, and I found this incredibly written piece about the night shift workers at "ground zero" NYC. So, naturally, I stole it for archiving on my site. It is in PDF format, and can be accessed by clicking right here. It may be removed if necessary.

I saw Ocean's Eleven on Saturday night, and it was really very good. Soderbergh did an excellent job with all the talent. Unfortunately, although the plot is just a work of art, and the acting and directing are both superb, there isn't a bit of character development. But I guess this kind of light treatment echoes back to the original Rat Pack release. After seeing Brad Pitt recently in this, Spy Game, and on Friends, I have decided to become more like him in every way possible, including his handsomeness, his success, and his ability to date and marry beautiful actresses. Someday, Brad, I will be as smooth and pretty as you.

So, I have a final tomorrow, technically today... and yet, I'm still here, typing away instead of studying my ass off. And why is that? I don't know... I'm very tired and going to sleep now. Phenobarbital has the wonderful effect of keeping you tired enough so that you suck at doing anything of consequence, but awake enough for people to bestow upon you said tasks of consequence. I also have this painful lump on the back of my head that isn't going away, but it makes me laugh because I think of that new VW New Beetle commercial with the guy going through a day in his life with an ever-expanding New Beetle parked on his head. I miss Sonic, my New Beetle, and it is my secret desire that this bump on the back of my head will keep growing in size until it spouts a new car out for me. Either that, or that it gives me psychic powers just like John Travolta in "Phenomenon." Ahh, Travolta. What a foolish foolish fool-type-person.

Wow, rambling a little more than usual there... must be quittin' time. G'night.

So, lots of stuff to post.

First, I just wrote an article for my college newspaper for my bi-weekly column on popular technology, and it's on blogging. Click here to read it. It's the unedited version, and I'm all over the place in it, so I may post the edited ver. later if it's any good.

Next, Mark's brother saw his picture on my site, and he sent me an e-mail about it. How did he find it? I was there when Mark IMed him about it. Here it is, unedited for any spelling mistakes, etc:

------------
From: [Mark's brother's e-mail address]
To: somepoems81@yahoo.com
Subject: hey punk
Date: Tuesday, December 04, 2001 10:05 PM

huh i saw you pitiful attempt at trying to put me on your website....i'am now
the mascot of your website -jedi master BJ, so cool...............
------------

Wow, I'm at a loss for words. Evidently he'is the mascot of my page. What's in the future for Brian's picture then? Yes, you guessed it... Flash animation... I'll get right on that one, should be fun.

Moving right along, my friend Dan gave me and my other friends advent calendars to celebrate the holiday season. This would be my first advent calendar, due to the fact that I am Jewish. Supposedly, one is meant to consume a chocolate every day leading up to Christmas. There are little holes you punch out to get the candy. I've seen people do it before, and never figured it would be so incredibly difficult. I personally think that a much better system would be to rip the front off of the container, and dump the sweets into a candy dish or something. This way, you wouldn't have to only eat one at a time. You could shake out a few calendars this way, and soon you would have a mountain of chocolate pieces just waiting to be consumed throughout the holiday season. I mean, come on Christians, this isn't Lent, you know! Eat! Eat! Unfortunately, I have a feeling that Dan might be offended if I tore apart his present, so I will stick with the one-a-day convention, even if I don't like it very much. I guess chocolate in any form can't be bad...

In other news: I played and won five more games of NHL 2001 last night, and I managed to shut out two of the teams, most notably the Red Wings, who are first in the Western Conference. Brodeur has been coming up big on saves, he's been really acrobatic lately, and Scott Gomez has scored in three consecutive games, pulling out of his pretty much season-long slump. These shutouts mean that I obviously have to turn up the difficulty again... here's hoping I don't get creamed next game when I try it.

EDITED Almost forgot: new Ed tonight, everything else is reruns.

Here is a sci-fi picture of Mark's brother Brian... a New Hope? I think not. Here's to Photoshop: making normal pictures look insane for the past however-many years!

I've chatted with my high school friends Carmel and Nikki recently. In lieu of expending some actual energy and finally make a links page, I have opted to link to their homepages through their names as I have just listed them. See how easy that was? I will hopefully have a links page made before their names disappear off of this one... hopefully for me that is, if I don't want to suffer their spunky girl rage attack.

I was in Best Buy today buying the Tenacious D album to listen to in preparation for the Weezer concert my friends and I are seeing on Sunday. They're opening, and I want to be totally ready for the joy that is them. Anyway, while I was there, I saw the freakiest sight ever... N*Sync bobbing head thingies! I was frozen like the fly who haplessly buzzes into a freezer just as someone shuts the door! The horror washed over me like that guy in that commercial that goes into a car wash, but leaves the top of his convertible down! And I felt just as foolish... standing there, mesmerized by the hypnotic head-bobbing of the plastic likenesses of those pop wonder losers. It was my roommate Mark's birthday today, and I had been hounding him for weeks, begging to know what he wanted... but the bastard stonewalled me all the way. Then I had an epiphany, standing there with the not-quite-head-bangers, thinking about what to get for Mark. For a moment, one twisted, horrible moment, that might have been the lowest point in my life, I considered it... the obvious conclusion... just get him one of those hideous----- no! I couldn't bring myself to touch one, much less force its evil upon him. He is fortunate that I have a conscience, and a revulsion of horrid things like that, or else there would have been much head bobbing terribleness in his future.

I've updated the NHL 2001 page. Woo hoo! My perfect season still stands! There was some doubt, however, during the STL Blues game. The computer scored first in every period, tying the game at 2 in the second and re-tying it at 3 in the third. My rusty skills had combined with one of the better opponents this season to create a mortal terror inside me... I just might lose a game! But I was fortunate enough to score two unanswered goals, they pulled their goalie with a minute left, and I scored an empty-netter. The 6-3 score doesn't convey the closeness. Ah, life is good.

BTW, loved the Ally quote: "Richard violated my hole!" That episode has achieved instant classic status in my mind, with the undercover sting, the aforementioned hole violation, Ling's nude photo shoot, and the amazing "Turn the Beat Around" opening sequence. I still miss RD Jr. and Taye Diggs though.

In other news, I'm finally getting my life back together after missing so much school with the sickness... catching up, studying for my finals, rewriting poetry, going back to work, and generally feeling useful again. Wow, back together just in time to mess it up again with a month-long vacation. Good job, Dave. Very excitied, though, about the prospect of going to London for Adam's 30th b-day party. My first time in London outside of Heathrow, my first look at Adam's flat, my first guest-list only, major club opening event, and I even get to fly over on Virgin Atlantic! I'm feelin' like a VIP here! Hopefully, I will be able to secure some Harry Potter first British editions over there, but it's not at the top of my list, what with all these other wonderful things going on.

Continuing on with the TV-runs-my-life theme, I downloaded some new episodes of Invader Zim onto my computer, and they're amazing. Gotta love that Jhonen Vasquez, and his sick, twisted idea of humor. I really wish he'd get back to writing some comics, but I'll settle for the animated version for now. I haven't updated more than a couple of sentences on my JTHM page for a few years now, but I might get around to it one of these days. For a recent online chat transcript from a Jhonen interview, click here. I nicked it from the hosting site to have in case they take it down... it's too funny to lose! He discloses that there are 40 episodes of IZ approved so far (2 seasons). That means I get my fix for at least another year and a half... excellent.

EDITED about 8PM
TV tonight: Boston Public and Ally. Damn that David Kelley and his addictive shows.

Wow, so, forget The Practice... HBO premiered Project Greenlight tonight... I had no idea it was coming out so soon. For anyone who doesn't know, Project Greenlight is this concept that Matt Damon and Ben Affleck came up with to allow unknown writers to have a shot at getting their movie made. From over 10,000 entries, it was narrowed down to 250, then 30, then 10, then 3, then 1. (Click here for the official website.) The winner gets $1 million from Miramax, gets to direct their script with Damon and Affleck producing, gets the movie released by Miramax in theaters, and gets an HBO documentary made of the filming process. The first episode tonight was kind of like Survivor, in that it focused on the whole narrowing down part of the process and picking the winner, and the reality TV allusion was made more than once. I hate Survivor. Hopefully, the rest of this miniseries will be more entertaining.

I kinda feel bad for the group know as screenwriters, having to constantly deal with so much disappointment. Oh well, sucks for them. They're a narcissistic lot, as well as terribly cynical and way too cerebral for their own good. I'm sure that, with their snide comments and witty in-joke banter, they deserve whatever evil comes their way.

So, the main page now links right here, and I'm all sorts of happy that everything works. I'll be adding the little navigation drop-down menus to my other pages next. I really had fun making the random text on the button.

If anyone's wondering when some of my own poetry will make it up onto the site... well, don't know what to tell ya. I was thinking about having some of it copyrighted first, but I don't think any of my stuff is really good enough to finalize in any form yet. And I don't want to have to pay for a copyright every other day... Bleh, not really sure what the answer is here. I'll probably just put up stuff with a copyright notice, which will still hold up in court, etc.

In other news, I've promised myself that I will not buy NHL 2002 for the PS2 until I finish the my interrupted season in 2001. So that should be wrapped up soon, b/c I really really want 2002. I have, however, already gotten NHL Hitz 2002, and that is just an amazing game. Well, amazing for what it is. EA's NHL series is much more reality-based, and you can't really compare the two... although it's fun to take a break from reality every once in a while.

Did I mention that I'm currently on phenobarbitals?

Anyway, TV tonight: new Simpsons, new Malcolm, new X-Files, new Practice. I'll be taping X-Files as usual, so it'll probably be Sex and the City reruns live and X-Files tape-delay.

Finished the color scheme and layout... going to make an icon link on the home page now...

Hooray! It's December, and that means that you have to come up with something interesting and new really fast or else you get the feeling that you've just wasted a year of your life. So, this blog thing is, I guess, something quite interesting and new for my website. I think the real challenge for me with this thing is: how often can I post without running out of things to say? And the other question is: why would I waste my time writing anything if no one's going to read it? Hopefully, these questions and more will be answered in the months to come!