wildyams

So it was a rather uneventful Halloween, which is good, cause I made it to November without incident :-) I pulled further ahead in my Yahoo fantasy basketball league today, though lol. Work was somewhat hectic, but I got a lot accomplished (tomorrow will be pretty slammed as well). After work I went to Dave and Jen's and we went to Twohey's for dinner (there's a pic of them in my collection below). Then we went back to their place and played the new Grand Theft Auto game for a while. Its pretty cool, but pretty close to the last one. Driving home wasn't too bad till I got really close to here. The big parade in West Hollywood supposedly drew a couple hundred thousand people, and the traffic was just nuts. I've got some pics below of the traffic, check em out.

I got home and there was a message from Jill (my ex-girlfriend for those who don't know who she is). She wants to get together with me and have me help her make a website and go through a bunch of files on my computer that she was supposed to get from me like 6 months ago lol. I'll give her a call tomorrow I guess, I'd like to see her again cause its been a while. I really liked her, but it was best that we broke up. I did want to stay her friend after we broke up though, but I guess she didn't really have any interest in that. Oh well, not something I'd want to force. Anyway, I'm off to bed, but here's my pics:

Click for Pics

I had my alarm going off today at 8:00 this morning, and I fought it for over an hour before I finally decided that I just did not feel good enough to go into work today. My throat felt pretty scratchy and painful today, and I could (and can still feel) a tickle in my sinuses, which to me usually symbolizes the onset of a cold. I have felt sick off and on for the last two weeks or so (seems like everyone's been sick), but I kept going to work. Today I really felt like I'd been run over when I got up, and just did not want to get out of bed (as I said, I hit snooze on my alarm clock for about an hour and fifteen minutes before I finally called it quits lol). I called in to work, and told John I didn't feel good enough to come in. I'll be honest, I have worked while feeling worse, and will go in with the flu if I really need to be there, but I thought about it, and I don't think I've taken a sick day this whole year. I almost went in anyway, just because I feel guilty calling in sick unless I'm literally in so much pain that I can't hardly move, but I know everyone takes sick days, and I know if I don't use mine, they just go away at the end of the year (which is less than 2 months away now). Anyway, calling John I almost said fuck it and went in anyway, cause I know how busy he is, and how he needs all the help he can get, but at the same time I feel like if I don't actually take some sick days when I'm sick, I'm never gonna use them, and just from the standpoint of mental health, its good to take a day off now and then. So I levelled with John and said if he really needs me in there, I'd come in, but I preferred not to. He said not to leave it up to him, so I decided to stay home. I have stuff to do (as I blogged here yesterday), but its not super rushed, and I can get it done on Monday. One of the things about my job, is when you really are under the gun and have deadlines piling up, its really not good to take a sick day then, even if you are deathly ill, and I've sucked it up at points like that and come in and worked in spite of how bad I felt. Because of all that, I took today off, and I am very glad I did. After sleeping for about 6 hours last night, after I hung up with John at 9:30, I went back to sleep. John called to ask me a question about one of my projects at 11:30, but other than that I just slept all day and didn't get up till 5 pm tonight! So evidently I really needed the rest, since I got another 7 hours sleep after I called in this morning lol. I haven't left my house at all today, just stayed here and kept in bed even after I woke up for the next couple hours. I got out of bed to watch the Laker game, but I'm probably just gonna watch some more TV in bed tonight and get to bed when I can so that hopefully I'll feel better tomorrow. I don't know if today was really more because I was mentally worn out or physically worn out or both, but I definitely needed today. This weekend should help recharge me and get me ready to hit it hard on Monday.

I gotta add "Swimfan" to my Worst Films of 2002 list. Having just watched it, lemme tell you, it blew. I saw "Ghost Ship" this weekend, and Swimfan makes that look like it deserves some Oscar consideration lol. Swimfan is a cheesy teen-aged rip off of "Fatal Attraction", which is not a great film, but is certainly better than this turd was. In "Fatal Attraction" at least Michael Douglas was not this totally innocent guy, he was at fault for starting the whole thing, and for the way he acted subsequently, and also Glenn Close was not a total psychopath right from the get-go, and you could somewhat understand her motivation, even if you disagreed with her actions. In "Swimfan" the guy is basically pressured into cheating on his high school girlfriend by this girl who keeps pressuring him to go out, to go swimming (even though she can't swim), then pins him in the corner and starts kissing on him. This all happens on the first day they meet. The next day she is totally stalking him, makes his life hell, kills his friends and makes it look like him, etc... Then in the end, she tries to drown the guy's girlfriend in the pool, and falls in, so he goes to save his girlfriend and she drowns while he's busy trying to save his girlfriend's life. So he's such a good guy that he doesn't even kill this psycho who is systematically trying to destroy his life and kill everyone he knows. No no, instead she just dies on her own, case closed. I hate movies where the characters are that one dimensional. I mean, nobody is purely good and nobody is purely evil. People make mistakes, and people have reasons for what they do. How does a girl who is a complete psychopath manage to lead a normal life right up until the movie starts? It wouldn't happen. About the only thinig that was better about "Swimfan" versus "Fatal Attraction" is that the girl in it (Erika Christensen) actually seems attractive enough to steal the guy away from his girl, even if just for a second. Glenn Close, on the other hand, looks like a corpse back from the dead. I'd have been scared of her too if I was Michael Douglas. I just would have been scared of her the first time I saw her, I wouldn't have had to wait till she boiled my kid's bunny. But take it from me, steer clear of "Swimfan".

"Ghost Ship" is another one to avoid. I saw that one with my Dad yesterday, as it was the movie he wanted to see (he had the time and theater all picked out and everything lol), and I didn't really care too much, just was happy to be spending time with my Dad. The opening scene in "Ghost Ship" is one of the more gruesome I've seen in a movie in a while though, and its rather unexpected. Essentially what happens is its a scene on this ocean liner from the 60s and everyone is ballroom dancing to this band and a singer. Suddenly the killer (whoever it was) sets off this thing which has this thick steel cable suddenly rip right through the room horizontally right as everyone is dancing. The result is that everyone is neatly severed in half. However, because they are so cleanly cut by this wire, it takes a couple seconds for their halves to separate and fall to the ground, and because there are people of different heights in the room, some people get cut right through their lower torso near the waist, some up near their shoulders, some right through their face. Its quite gruesome to watch all these people slowly slide apart and fall into a big, bloody pile of body parts, let me tell you. And the scene pulls no punches. It shows these half-people clutching at their other parts, bleeding everywhere, moving around. Just disgusting, and totally unnecessary, but if you're into that sort of thing, then maybe you'll enjoy the movie. The rest of the way it is nothing like that though, just the opening scene. Yuck.

Ok, I've been meaning to make this entry for the past couple days, but I haven't really had the time. I saw the movie "Bowling for Columbine" the other day, and thought it was a really great film. For those of you who have not heard of it, it is a documentary by Michael Moore, who is probably best known for his film "Roger and Me". "Bowling for Columbine" is essentially a look into why America has so many handgun-related deaths each year. It examines our country and compares it to other countries and tries to come up with some reason why Americans seem to be so violent, and so prone to killing each other with handguns. It explores various popular theories on the subject, such as "we have so many guns", "we have a history of violence", "we have mixed ethnicities", "our entertainment is violent", etc... Michael Moore goes through each of these issues and basically debunks them by pointing out other countries with either greater histories of violence, more guns, more violent video games or whatever, and shows that in these countries they don't come close to the number of handgun homicides that we have each year here in America. Essentially what he points to is the way our culture and mainly our media promotes fear in this country. Watching the news, for instance, you'll notice that everything has a slant on it like we are in danger of something, whether its nuclear war, anthrax, shark attacks, killer bees, snakes, the taliban, black people, or whatever. Its all about keeping us riveted to the TV by making us afraid. Even the way products are marketed towards us is based on fear: "without our product, people won't like you, you won't find a girlfriend, you won't be cool" etc... I think he makes some very good points there. He does also point to bad government programs, big businesses and the NRA as contributing. The film is alternately enlightening, amusing, horrifying and disturbing, but is definitely worth seeing.

I had only one thing to really add to it that I thought he may have overlooked, and I'd be curious if anyone else agrees with me on this. Ask yourself this question: What is the most famous murder that you can think of that was not committed on American soil? Ok, now exclude wars, or terrorist acts or acts by some dictator which result in the deaths of hundreds of people. I'm talking about regular homicides, where one person kills another person by their own hand, not with a bomb or a plane or an army or something. And also, I mean murder, not some accidental death like the way Princess Di was killed. This murder, could have been committed by an American if you want to, just as long as it did not take place here in America. Can you think of one? Cause I'll be honest, I've been thinking about it for a couple days and I'm having trouble coming up with one. Jack the Ripper maybe? Ok, now think about what is the most famous murder in America? For me, there's a couple to choose from without having to think too hard: President Kennedy, the OJ thing, Columbine, the mother who killed her kids, the sniper, etc...

I want to venture a theory about the violence in this country, and see what people think. Do you think its possible that we have so many homicides and violent crimes here in America because people who commit these acts get so much media attention? I'm not saying that its because movies and TV shows or video games or whatever glamorize violence and make people want to be violent. I'm saying, is it because the people who actually DO these things get so much media coverage? Clearly someone who kills a bunch of people is not going to be guaranteed to be as famous as the Kennedy assasination or OJ, but they will get SOME coverage, almost guaranteed. And the more disturbing the crime, the more coverage they'll get. I remember a couple years ago, there was this white kid from Orange County who raped and murdered like an 8 year old black girl in Vegas or something, and that got a lot of coverage out here, mainly because it was so disturbing in so many ways: racism, pedophilia, murder, etc... Not everyone is so depraved as to resort to doing things like that to get on TV, but is it so farfetched to think that SOME people would? So much is being made out of being famous these days (and has been for decades), and so many people achieve fame for being violent, is it so unreasonable to think that some people just want to be noticed, and will do ANYTHING, even killing people, to get that attention? For me, if you want to blame anything for why we have such violence here in America, that's as good a reason as any. What do you think?

Well I didn't do a whole lotta bloggin this week, but I was kinda busy. Sorry bout that, I'll get back to doing it regular right away :-) I did take a bunch of pics at work this week though. We had a rather interesting week at work. First, we had not one, not two but THREE birthday parties at work! lol When its someone's birthday we get a cake and sing them Happy Birthday and all that (novel, I know lol). But its cool cause we get to take a break from work for a couple minutes and eat some sweets. So I got pics of all that. I passed my camera around a bit and other people took pics, so some of them are in there. Anyway, click below for the pics:

Ok, so last night I went out to Steve-o's place in Agoura Hills and met up with him and went to Hamburger Hamlet. Jon met us there then later Edrich showed up. We ate then went into the parking lot and debated in the rain for about two hours lol. What did we debate about? Ok, get this: we talked for a couple hours about how long hip hop will stay around lol. We were talking about 8 Mile, the new Eminem movie (and no, he doesn't get any links from me, and neither does his movie lol). See, I hate Eminem. He can't vanish quick enough. But he's a pop star, and he'll be gone soon enough. I'll just ignore his ass till he's gone lol. BUT, for the time being evidently everyone else is in love with him, and can't get enough, so I'm definitely in the minority for the time being. In all honesty, I'll probably like him in about 10 years or so when he's washed up and considered "retro" though lol. Ok, but Jon there wants to see 8 Mile really bad. He probably saw it today actually. But he was trying to get us to go see it with him today, and I told him there was no way I was going to help support Eminem in the opening weekend of his movie. I'm sure it will make more than $50 million anyway, and its a futile protest and all, but fuck it, I don't like the guy, I'm not gonna help his career. I'm torn though, cause I like Curtis Hanson, who directed it, and would be excited to see a new movie from him. But I'm not gonna support the opening weekend totals for an Eminem movie (cause the opening weekend is what the studios really care about and look at). So then I made the statement that hip hop will not be around forever, which Jon, Steve and Edrich all seemed to disagree with. I told them that hip hop wasn't any different than any other music fad that's happened, and that it would disappear just like everything else has. Now, it won't be totally gone like it never existed, but it will cease to be popular in the mainstream at some point, just like everything else that was popular soon became unpopular. Look at music in the last 30 years or so, and you'll see that no genre sticks around forever. Classic rock, Punk, Metal, New Wave, Glam Rock, Grunge, etc... Everything at one point gets hugely popular where that is all everyone seems to be listening to. But then either the originators become huge, or what is more likely, new groups come along that make a watered-down, more accessible version of the music which sells and becomes huge, and soon after that people get sick of hearing it everywhere and move on to the next thing that the record companies push down everyone's throats. That's what happened with every other kind of music, and that's what will happen to hip hop as well. I even said that this will happen within the next 3 years, but I guess we'll see about that for sure. So anyway, that's enough of an entry for now. I'm gonna go eat, laettner :-)

I just came across this great article which pretty much sums up exactly how I feel about our electoral process and why I don't vote. See, with the election last week I got into a few of the usual "are you going to vote", "why don't you vote", and "if you don't vote you can't complain" discussions. I've been hearing these ever since I was old enough to vote, and old enough to realize that the choices we're confronted with on the ballot all suck. As for the local issues that I also didn't vote on, that's partially just laziness on my part, and partially also because of my general feeling that if there was any issue that would actually make a big difference in our lives, then it never would have been on the ballot to begin with. The feeling of democracy is an ideal that this country had a long time ago, but that was twisted and stolen from us at some point along the way, but that they still hold before us to make us think that we live in a completely free society and that We The People are still in charge. I'd like to quote something here from that article because it sums up my feelings quite nicely:

"What are we voting for?

Just because we are presented with choices does not mean we really have a choice. Who chooses the choices we choose from? What can we do if we don't like the choices?

Americans trudge to the polls proudly each election and inevitably vote for the "lesser of two evils." Candidates are weeded out from a gaggle of wealthy, former/current businessmen who are now exchanging the corporate world for the governmental one, a shift that is quite natural considering that the government is a business itself intimately linked with the largest corporations on the planet, who along with various government institutions determine the health of the economy and therefore the mood and well-being of the general population.

The candidates are mere actors who spend most of their time reciting platitudes from history's tired list, insulting one another's character, and making promises that are literally impossible to keep. Behind the scenes, behind the smoke and mirrors, they comprise the unified ruling class. Where they disagree is where the party lines are drawn.

Whether we vote Democrat or Republican, we are voting for those beholden to free market capitalism. Globalization and its bodyguard, the U.S. military, win every election." - YellowTimes.org

So this is the problem with sleeping all day: you're up all night. Sure I'll be tired tomorrow, but right now I'm not even a little sleepy and there's not much to do at this hour. My fantasy basketball team is doing well (actually they both are). I have a strong lead in my Yahoo league, and in the Sporting News league I was in first all last week I think (I haven't checked it since Friday though). The Yahoo league is going to be harder to hold onto the lead than the Sporting News league though. Last year I dominated the Sporting News one, because as soon as you get ahead, it becomes easier and easier. The Yahoo one is fairly even throughout, so its good to build a lead early and just try to keep building on it. Nobody cares about this shit though, but like I said, I'm bored. Maybe I'll go get something to eat lol.

"I splurged. I spent nintey-five cents on a set of novelty teeth." - I.M. Fletcher

So it was a long day at work, and its gonna be a long week. The work is piling up, that's for sure. I have two projects going out tomorrow, 4 going out a week from tomorrow, and another Bond title that's gonna be a bitch (they all are) that's hanging over me as well. Who knows what else is about to fall on me? So I'm pretty much dead tired as I usually am on Mondays, and I'm probably gonna hit the hay after this, and with no dinner. After work, there was an insane amount of traffic back here in Hollywood. I don't know if the Pope dropped by or something, but every exit was a mess, so I had to go way out of my way to try to avoid it all, and drove around for a while trying to figure out the best way home. It sucked, and I still don't know what all the hubub was about. Anyway, I got home, checked my Yahoo hoops team (its kicking ass tonight it looked like), and figured I'd check into getting some stuff. So I raided my Amazon wish list and bought a bunch of books (I was getting sick of reading "Dreamcatcher", which I'd set down once before and wanted something more interesting to read), and a couple Marianne Faithful albums, even though I don't think I've ever really listened to one of her songs all the way through, and even though nobody's ever recommended them to me. Call it a hunch. I bought just about everything used, so I got a ton of stuff for only about $66, but the downside was that since they were all coming from different people, it bumped the shipping and handling up over $25, so I ended up paying about $92 total (if that math doesn't work out, fuck off, I'm tired and don't feel like adding lol). So all my computer history-type books and my Marianne Faithful albums should hopefully be here around next week or so. I'll let you know how they all are. Night now :-)

Today was Matt's 33rd (?) birthday, and that was really the only thing that made today different from most. Otherwise it was another very busy day for me, and the rest of the week promises to be busy as well. But we went to El Torito for lunch for Matt's B-Day, we got him a Jean-Claude Van Damme birthday cake, and John plastered his desk with a hilarious bunch of cutouts of some of Matt's favorites such as Rambo, Van Damme, Schwarzenegger, etc... Matt seemed like he had a genuniely good day. Anyway, I grabbed a couple photos from today, so enjoy :-)

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So I didn't get home tonight till about 8:30 or so, which means I put in about 11 hours at work. So it wasn't the longest day I've had at work, not by any stretch, but it was still a long day. Just lots of subtitles to go through today. Fun, huh? lol

Ok, I gotta talk about the new Peter Gabriel album, Up. I got it a week ago or so, and I really love it so far. I haven't fully listened to everything on it yet (I mean, I've heard every song, but I've been focusing more on about 5 of the 10 songs that I like the most). I gotta say, the first half of the album is really amazing. "Sky Blue" and "No Way Out" are rapidly becoming two of my favorite PG songs. I can not wait to see him live at Staples Center on December 11th. I've wanted to see PG for, god, almost 10 years now. As I said, Pink Floyd and Peter Gabriel are all that remains on my list of bands that I truly truly love that I have not seen live (except for the Doors, I guess, but that ain't gonna happen lol). And considering how good this new PG album sounds, this should be a remarkable show.

I guess my only other big news today was that I finally paid off my Good Guys credit card. So that's now two credit cards down and one to go :-) We were gonna watch "Office Space" at work tonight, but it got scrubbed cause the room was being used for something else. What a great film "Office Space" is. Truly one of the funniest movies of all time, and it gets better the more times you watch it. Ok, that's enough for today. I'm gonna go pop some Advil and lay down, I have a headache. Laettner :-)

Man, I woulda blogged something yesterday, but I did not have a chance to. Let me tell you of my evening last night...

Ok, as I was getting close to getting off work, say at around 6:15 or so, Jon (as in Jon the Bomb as he likes to be called) called me up and said he was meeting Janeen (or 'Neener' as she likes to be called) at the batting cages near Hollywood after work, and wanted to know if I'd be up for having dinner. So of course I said sure, and we decided to eat at Benihana's around the corner from my old place of employment. So I called up Koga (who still works there) and saw if he wanted to meet us there. He did, so we agreed to meet at 8 for dinner. So after work, I cruised out there and met the guys there at Benihana and we had dinner. I realized I hadn't been to Benihana since my birthday last year, which is almost a year ago now (my birthday is December 1st, if anyone cared). When I used to work around the corner from Benihana we ate there quite frequently, maybe once a week or so, but now I don't eat there hardly at all cause its not that convenient to go there anymore. Ok, so when I showed up there Jon asked me if I wanted to go see "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" at midnight. Now I'll admit something here: I did not even know the movie was coming out today. I thought Jon meant at a screening or something, but no it was just cause it comes out today, and the theater was having midnight showings. But I agreed to go, nonetheless, cause I liked the first one, even though I only saw it once and never read any of the books.

The problem was that after dinner, we had a couple hours to kill till the movie. So Jon and I decided to go to Tower where I picked up "Spiderman", "The Fellowship of the Ring" and "Insomnia" on DVD. Jon bought a whole bunch of stuff, including some Todd McFarland toys and some video games. Afterwards we chatted a bit in the parking lot, and had a rather good conversation, and I bought a 128 meg memory stick for my camera from him.

Anyway, then we cruised to the theater, and there were two enormous lines waiting to get into the 12:01 and the 12:03 showings of the movie. Jon and I were meeting Brian and Wendy there (who had the tickets), so we got in the line and waited for them to show up. However, they let the line in the theater really early (like at 11), so Brian and Wendy showed up after the whole line had got in so we were worried we'd get crappy seats. But when we went in, we grabbed some really choice seats that must have somehow been overlooked by everyone else or something, so that was cool. But we had to wait around in the theater for over a half hour till midnight when the movie was scheduled to start, and that was kinda boring, but we all chatted and caught up which was nice. As it was getting close to midnight some guy kept yelling out a countdown "3 minutes!" "1 minute!" etc... but at midnight the movie didn't come on. At about 5 minutes after midnight an employee from the theater came down to tell us they were having projection problems, and it would be a couple minutes. At 12:10 they finally got it working, but they still insisted on showing their usual barrage of commercials before the trailers before the movie. So as a result the trailers didn't start till 12:25 and the movie itself didn't start till around 12:45. I gotta say, when its a midnight movie during the week, they need to make sure they can start it on time (hell, they had us sitting there for a half hour at least with nothing, they coulda used that time to make sure the projector was working). Then they also should cut out the commercials cause we were all gonna be there late enough as it was, and who needs an extra 45 minutes of commercials and trailers at that hour during the week? On top of that, the trailers were some of the absolute worst I've ever seen. It was a combination of really terrible looking films like "Kangaroo Jack", and terrible tag lines ("Take the Dare" for "Daredevil"). So then the movie started, and I thought it was ok. It was not as good as the first one, in my opinion, although I didn't seem to hate it as much as the other people I saw it with lol. It was just kinda... dunno. Well whatever. So then I got out of there and didn't get home till about 3:45 am or so, and wasn't in bed till 4. So as a result I was a little late for work today lol.

But that was all a little bit more than I had planned on doing last night after work, considering at 6 I figured I'd go home, watch some TV and go to bed lol.

I am in AGONY! I have a wisdom tooth coming in and it fucking hurts like a bitch. I haven't been to a dentist in like 7 or 8 years, but I'm going tomorrow. I'm taking the day off from work because its just too hard to try to concentrate while being in this much pain. My whole weekend was pretty fucked as a result. It started Thursday night on my way back from "Harry Potter" and really has not let up since. I've been taking a ton of Advil, probably more than I should, but I couldn't help it. The alternative was an assload of pain, but what's happened is I'm either getting immune to the Advil or the pain is getting worse, because the large doses I've been taking are not keeping me pain free anymore. I checked online and I'm not displaying any of the symptoms of taking too much Advil though, so I guess I'm in the clear. I've been unwilling to up my dosage beyond a certain point, and the Advil seems to keep the pain from being quite so bad as it would be with nothing, but even on 4 Advils, I'm still very much in pain. I'm a bit nervous about what the dentist could tell me tomorrow, being that I haven't been in so long. There's any number of things that could be wrong with my teeth I suppose. Oh well, better to know than to not know I guess, that way they can just deal with the problems. I'd also like to get my eyes checked at some point, see if I need a new prescription. Anyway, back to work :-)

Man, I have never been in pain anywhere near this before. Its just agonizing. Here it is 3:30 in the morning and the only reason I'm awake is because the Advil wore off and I woke up in a LOT of pain. So I took 2 Advil, waited 20 minutes, then took 2 more because the pain was not subsiding at all, then waited a half hour and took another one, and I don't dare take any more than that. So here I am, waiting. Waiting for the pain to subside so I can go back to bed cause there is no way I could sleep with this much pain. The pain is twofold as well: not only do I have the piercing pain associated with the tooth cutting through my gum as it tries to emerge, but I have the pressurized headache-like pain that accompanies my jaw being pushed to accomodate the new tooth (which makes me think this wisdom tooth is probably impacted). Man, hopefully the Advil kicks in soon. I can not WAIT for the dentist appointment today! Its a little over 7 hours away. Even if they don't yank any teeth today, I am praying they give me some more effective pain medication, because I am scared taking 4 or 5 Advil at a time, especially since I have to pretty much regularly have that many in me or else the pain is unbearable. Advil is the strongest pain relief medication I've ever taken, and really the strongest type of drug of any kind that I've ever had, but I desperately need something stronger. I can't wait till this is all over with.

Ok, I saw the dentist at 11, and he confirmed that sure enough I have a wisdom tooth coming in. He reccomended taking it out, but gave me the option of either just doing that one right there, or scheduling surgery to have all 4 of them taken out at once. I said it made more sense to do all 4 together, and he agreed, since he said sooner or later they'd have to come out and I'd go through this all over again when they started to come in. Fuck that, so we decided to have surgery scheduled. He said in the meantime he could help "irrigate" the one tooth that was bugging me to try to relieve some pain, so I was fine with that. However, "irrigating" it meant prodding rather forcefully with one of those sharp-pointed metallic jabbing instruments that dentists are so known for, and as a result it was the most pain I've felt during this entire affair. He could see how much pain I was in, and said he wanted to just pull it right then, but saw that made me nervous, because if he did it, I would not be knocked out, just local anesthetic and a lot of yanking. Sensing my nervousness, he said "unless you'd rather be asleep" to which I said yes, then he decided to schedule me for surgery at 3 today (which is 2 hours from now). So he gave me 600 miligrams of motrin to take (which actually is working quite nicely now), gave me my x-rays and the address and name of the doctor that I had the appointment with, and sent me on my way. My big concern right now, however, is that I don't have a ride there, and I can't seem to get ahold of anyone. My dad is gone to lunch, and I don't have his new cell phone number, and his secretary said he's going from there to a meeting with a client, and won't be back till this afternoon, so he's out. Jon is at work (although I did ask him, but his boss is a pain in the ass so he can't get out of work, which is totally understandable). Dave and Steve don't work, but I can't get ahold of either of them, even though I tried both their home numbers and cell numbers, I got nada. So here I am, pondering what I'm going to do since I probably need to leave the house here in an hour. My other concerns are that I've never had any kind of surgery before, I've never had an IV before, and I've never been knocked out before, so I don't know what to expect. I don't know what I'll feel like afterwards, don't know what kind of shape I'll be in tonight, don't know what kind of clothes I should wear, or even if that matters at all. I just want this to be over with :(

Ok, so I finally got ahold of Dave, and went out to his place, then he drove me to the surgeon's place from there. I got in, the doc checked me out, said he could do the surgery, they just had to verify the insurance info and I'd be ready to go. However, when I checked the insurance info, they told me that their standard policy is to charge the patient 40% of the total charge for the surgery up front, then bill the insurance company for all of it, and I would be responsible for the difference if there was one, or they would refund me any money that the insurance company covered beyond 60%. Well 40% of the total was almost $700, and I did not have that much on me, so I had to end up rescheduling my surgery for tomorrow. I did get a prescription for some stronger pain medication and some penicillin, so I'm feeling good now. Afterwards I went to Dave's place and hung out there from about 5 or so till 10, then came home and here I am. I'll have more updates for you tomorrow or the day afterwards. Till then, laettner :-)

This'll be quick. I got 4 teeth yanked this morning, my dad loaned me half the cash to pay for it, but I'll get that back from the insurance anyway. I didn't have to count backwards from 100 when they knocked me out, in fact I don't really remember any of that. When they went to put something in my arm (which was not the drugs yet, cause they told me so), I just closed my eyes cause I hate needles, then they chatted for a bit, maybe 30 seconds to 2 minutes or so, and the next thing I knew they were telling me to go to the recovery room. My mouth was totally numb, but I didn't feel too bad otherwise. I walked out of the place fine, went to my dad's for a bit and waited there while he went to work for a while. Then he got back just in time for the novacaine (or whatever they used) was wearing off, and he drove me home, picked up my Vicodin, and got me some soft foods. Since then I've been icing my face and watching TV. Just wanted to give a quick update in case anyone cared, since I can't talk (so don't call lol). The doctors said to take tomorrow off from work if possible, so I'm gonna, maybe I'll be able to talk then. Hopefully I won't have a mouthful of gauze then.

I don't have much more of an update for you, but here goes. I've been here for the past couple hours switching out gauze every half hour or so, and I was rotating ice packs from one side of my face to the other. I'm not feeling bad now, and really the pain I've felt after the surgery was not as bad as the pain I had before the surgery, but I am on stronger drugs and I've been catering to my mouth a lot more as well (go figure lol). The word is that I'm gonna have some swelling tomorrow and the day after I guess, and I have to watch what I eat for the next 2 or 3 days before I slowly start re-introducing solid foods. I'm gonna pop a Vicodin in another hour or so, then go to bed and I'll probably just sit in bed most of tomorrow and watch TV. Since I thought I was gonna have the surgery yesterday, I didn't eat anything until dinner last night, then today I haven't eaten anything except some yogurt and cottage cheese followed by some vanilla ice cream. I haven't had anything to drink other than water. I may have to go shopping for more food tomorrow, cause I don't have a whole lot here. Anyway, that's it for me for the night. I'll blog some tomorrow and maybe even put up some pics :-)

My face is totally swollen today. I've been icing it off and on yesterday and today, but its still really swollen and really sore. I'm actually in more pain today than I was yesterday, don't really know why that is, but maybe that's normal. I'm gonna take work off tomorrow, cause it really hurts to open my mouth, even to eat (I'm only eating cottage cheese, yogurt and ice cream still by the way), so I don't want to go to work if I can't really speak for more than a minute or two, and also the vicodin I'm on makes me pretty sleepy, so I figure I'll take tomorrow then the weekend and I should be ok by Monday. Anyway, I didn't do a whole lot today. I went to bed at around 10 or so last night and got up at maybe 8 or so. Then I stayed in bed and just watched TV till 1 or so, when I took a nap till 4:30 or so. Then got up, watched some more TV, then went out shopping for some more food to last me through the weekend. And that's pretty much it. The way I feel now though, if I don't leave the house till Monday for work, that's fine with me. Anyway, that's my update for the day :-)

Well here's a few pics I've taken over the last couple days (none today I'm afraid). You'll see below a pic of Dave, of me, of some scenery and a car. Click on Dave to see him with his new glasses and a few pics from his place. Click on me to see me before and after my surgery. Click on the scenery to see a few shots of outdoors that I took to and from my surgery. Click on the car to see something that truly you'd only see in LA: a flashy Mercedes with "Student Driver" on the back.

To quote Primus: "Funny thing about weekends when you're unemployed: they don't mean quite so much, except you get to hang out with your working friends." Even though I am employed, having been off since Monday kinda makes the coming of the weekend a little less important, especially since I probably won't leave the house all weekend as I'm still recovering lol. Seems that my pics below were a big hit, or something lol. I'll take a pic of my removed teeth for you in a day or two, so you can have that to look forward to lol. What else is new in my life? Not much. I've been reading "Fumbling the Future: How Xerox Invented, Then Ignored, the First Personal Computer" and its really quite fascinating. For those who know much about computer history, its a well-known story, but for those of you who don't know much about computers, basically Xerox invented the first computer to ever use a Graphic User Interface (GUI), which is using a mouse and a desktop (up until then it had only been letters on a screen and a keyboard). Xerox also invented the laser printer and the Local Area Network (LAN), which is the process of networking a bunch of computers together with each other the way offices everywhere do nowadays. They invented Ethernet, which is what enables computers to communicate with each other without using a modem. They invented all of this and ended up not using any of it and instead gave it all away and made hardly any money off of any of it. They even ran a commercial for their computer (called 'Alto') and showed a guy essentially using his mouse to retrieve and send email and to make printouts back in 1979. That is a good 5 years before Apple ever introduced their Macintosh with their 1984 Superbowl commercial or even longer before Microsoft introduced their first version of Windows. To put it even more in perspective, most people did not use a GUI exclusively until Microsoft introduced Windows 95 in, well in 1995. And I'm sure a lot of you can probably remember how recently it was that you started using email. Well Xerox had all of that finished by 1975 or so, and had it ready to be marketed and sold in 1979, but scrapped it all even AFTER they ran commercials for their Alto computer. Its one of the all-time classic blunders in business, obviously, so its a fascinating read to see how this all happened. Check out the book if you're into that kind of thing. Ok, enough blogging. I'm gonna go ice my face :-)

Shit, I gotta blog about something, right? Well I went back to work today after taking off 4 days last week with my damn teeth. My teeth are a lot better now though, although I still took pain medication last night and today. Anyway, work was good I guess. It took me half the morning just to sort through my emails though lol Man we get a ton of emails there. Anyway, I got work tomorrow and then a half day Wednesday, and then I'm off again till next Monday. I have an appointment to check up on my teeth on Wednesday after I get off work, and then I'm going to dinner that night with my Dad and sister at Cal Tech. Thusday I'm going to my Dad's and we're gonna do Thanksgiving dinner there. Friday, I have no idea what I'm doing. Saturday is the day before my birthday, and since Sunday I'm going to my Dad's again for dinner and a movie (probably), I think I'm gonna get together with friends on Saturday. I have no idea what to do though. I really don't like birthdays, not for anyone, and for me its no different. Presents are cool and all, but I don't like having to shop for other people's either cause I suck at it. And I always forget birthdays. I even forgot my own my freshman year of college lol. True story, there I was at college walking around all day, totally unaware it was my birthday until about 4:30 in the afternoon someone said "Hey Will, Happy Birthday" and I was like "Oh yeah! I forgot about that!" lol Plus, I hate getting a whole lot of attention, and you can't avoid that shit on your birthday. The only thing I really do like about my birthday (or really any of my friends' birthdays) is that its an excuse for us all to get together and hang out, which is really one of my favorite things in the world. It seems like with us all living so far away from each other we don't get together and hang out all of us together that often. So anyway, it should be nice if we all get together and hang out.

In my fantasy basketball league (the one I care about, the Yahoo one), there's this guy who's been doing a couple shady manuvers. The way it works is that you have your lineup set the day before, then at midnight the roster gets set for the next day, so any moves you make after midnight won't take effect for a full nother day. Now this guy has been dropping a lot of his players just a few minutes before midnight, then picking up some new guys who are playing the next day when his guys are off, then he waits till right after the stroke of midnight and then he drops those new players again and picks up his other guys. Its a way to keep your roster padded with a larger amount of players than you're supposed to be able to have. Its cheating basically. But I haven't said anything, even though he's done this the last two days. Wanna know why? Cause I wanna make him pay for it, not just point out that he's cheating and hope he stops. See, what I'm gonna do is watch real close around midnight and if he drops any decent players in the hopes that he'll pick them back up in a few minutes, I'm gonna swoop in and snatch those released players up as soon as he lets them go, so he gets stuck with the crappier players he just picked up. Then I'll tell everyone that it doesn't pay to cheat and point him and his devious actions out as an example lol

Ok, I haven't blogged much this week, but I do have a whole bunch of pics for you, and they're not as disturbing as the last ones about my teeth lol. Click the picture below to see some work pics from the last week or so:

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I was at Dave's place on Sunday, and we didn't do a whole lot, just hung out and went to dinner at Twohey's, where I got chili because of my tooth. Anyway, Dave got ANOTHER G4, bringing his total to two G3s and two G4s. Sounds like overkill to me. Anyway, now he's got 6 monitors going in his room, which to me, means its officially become a computer LAB lol. Anyway, click below for two pics of his setup:

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On Tuesday night, I went out to dinner with my friend Jen, and we went to Hollywood and Highland, which is a pretty cool mall-type shopping thing they just put in about a year ago here in Hollywood. We ate at CPKs, then came back here and watched "Bottle Rocket", cause Jen had never seen it before. She thought it was hilarious, just like I do, of course. Anyway, here's some pics of Hollywood and Highland at night:

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Yesterday I went to the oral surgeon's for a follow-up on my teeth. I was worried I might have a dry socket or two, but evidently all is well. After that I went out to dinner with my family last night at Cal Tech. But anyway, I got some good pics of the sky while I was driving around yesterday, check em out:

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Did you all have a good Thanksgiving? Mine was pretty nice. I told you about going to Cal Tech for dinner on Wednesday, and that was really our Thanksgiving dinner. Thursday I went back to my Dad's place and just had like turkey sandwiches and hung out together. We went to the movies and saw "Solaris." I'm not really sure what I feel about it though. I wasn't expecting it to be as abstract as it was, or to be paced the way it was. It kinda reminded me a bit of "2001", although not nearly that good, so don't think I'm comparing it in that way. To be honest, I'm not really sure what I think of "Solaris", I may need to see it again to get a better idea of what I felt of it, but I'm not really in a rush to see it again, so maybe I didn't like it that much. I dunno.

Anyway, yesterday I didn't do anything. I slept in really late, got up and just watched TV, and played online then went to bed really late last night. Today I haven't been awake that long, but all I've been doing is trying to line up what we're gonna do tonight for my birthday. Steve and my sister are coming over here at 7, and we're gonna go to The Grove to check out the Apple store, then we're gonna go over to Benihana at 9 for dinner where Jon, Koga, Edrich and maybe either Keith or Grover are gonna meet us. Afterwards, I have no idea what we're gonna do, we'll figure it out. Dave isn't gonna be there tonight cause he said he has a family obligation, and that is disappointing, cause I can't really remember the last time that one of us missed someone's birthday, and cause as I stated I was looking forward to us all hanging out together, and now that's not gonna happen. Jon just called me, he's at the airport in Chicago trying to get home, but they keep delaying his plane, and its maybe looking like he may not be able to get back here tonight either, although that's definitely not his fault. Oh well, hopefully tonight will be fun anyway, even without two of my closest friends there. It will still be fun to get out of the house I guess :-)