So, I’ve been talking to my friend Lee Lee tonight, and she’s just about got me convinced to start running Vampire : The Masquerade again. Keep in mind, here, I haven’t run a game of Vampire in about 4 years. I’m not even sure if I remember all the rules anymore. I have to admit, though, the thought is very appealing. I’ve been playing in a GURPS : Supers game every Sunday for the last month and a half or so, and I’ve really been enjoying it. My friends used to rave about how good of a game master I was, but I’m feeling so rusty now. It’s almost like I’ve let myself get too “old” to let go of the apparent silliness of sitting around a table and pretending to suck the blood out of people.

I’ve still got all my notes, though. Hours and hours of research into the history of the Tampa Bay area. I had a great campaign lined up. I guess it really wouldn’t be all that hard to get things rolling again, would it?

The more I think about this, the better the idea sounds.

Well, I “outed” myself to the person I mentioned in my journal yesterday. For those of you who were wondering, it was indeed opheliasphoenix. I really couldn’t stand to sit back and watch the hateful things being said about her without piping in my two cents.

AND completely making light of the situation. Which is, of course, my style.

Make ’em laugh, Mikey.

So I’ve been REALLY cranky today. I guess I partied a bit too hard this weekend. A big group of AIM users thought it would be funny to start warning each other (for those who don’t know, a warning is something you can do to someone who is annoying you on AIM. If they get too many, you get logged off). It really got under my skin. I had people IM’ing me all day asking why I was warned. I almost got to the point of yelling at Eve when she was laughing about it to me. Quite uncharacteristic of me, for sure.

I guess I just need some sleep, so on that note….

There is a person I know online who seems to be going through a lot of shit right now, and I’m feeling very frustrated and helpless for some reason. I don’t know her all that well yet. We’ve talked no more than a handful of times, and for the longest time she was one of the users I was most afraid of persecuting me for being a male on the Bad Girl Swirl. She is, however, very important to someone else who I’ve grown very close to in the last few months, and as a result I see her hurting and I want to help.

But I don’t know how.

I’ve thought about sending her an e-mail and expressing my desire to help her, but I’m not sure if that would be well received. You see, as I said above, I do not know her, really, and I’m not sure how she would react to a relative stranger offering her solace. Some people are open to that, and some are creeped out. I could post a comment on her live journal about the situation, but the comments there already seem to be the beginnings of some drama, and I don’t want to involve myself in drama that is really none of my business.

So, basically, I’m going to post my thoughts here on my journal, and hope she reads them and deciphers who I am talking about. I hope she understands that if there is anything I can do, from offering an ear or advice from a third party, I’m there for her. At the very least, I hope she knows that I think she’s a really nifty person, and I hope that she can get through what it is that is vexing her at the moment.

Hrm…was that obscure enough?

Had an interesting artsy-fartsy kind of night last night. Adrienne, Brandy, Alex and Trish came over and helped me read the Shakespeare play “Titus Andronicus,” and then we watched the movie with Anthony Hopkins. We did so to help me prepare for my audition next Monday with the Jobsite company. I wasn’t familiar with the play in any real sense of the word before hand, but last night really helped me get a grasp on it. Especially considering the fact that Adrienne once wrote a thesis on Titus, and Brandy has performed in it before. I’m feeling much more prepared for my audition now.

Well, things are looking a little brighter this evening. I’m getting an advance from my boss to cover the current unpaid bills, and he is letting me pay it off over the next six weeks. The best part about the advance is that he gave me NO grief about it at all. In fact, he was a little put off about the fact that I was hesitant to ask him.

It made me feel important, you know? I’m a needed piece of the machinery at work, and he wants to keep me happy. That makes me feel good. It certainly validates me as a programmer. Now, if only we could get some increases and more vacation days…

On another note, I’ve decided that the song “I’m Not a Virgin Anymore” is the sexiest song ever written. I’ve had the CD for a while, but I’ve never really listened to that song closely. Faeriegrrrl sent me a mix CD recently that included the song, and while listening to it in my car I got absolute chills. That Poe…she’s something special.

I got paid today. Not an incredible paycheck, but certainly nothing to slouch at. I paid off some bills, and when I was done I had sixty dollars left in my account.

I have 600 dollars worth of bills that went unpaid.

This is starting to really get to me. I’m working my ass off and I’m falling farther and farther in the hole. I tried to back out of Dragon Con, because I really can’t afford it, but Brooks insisted that I go, and I really don’t want to let him down. Not to mention the fact that if I don’t get some kind of break from my daily routine soon I’m going to go insane.

I just want this financial struggle to end. I talked to my boss today about the possibility of an increase, and his answer at this point is that I can work overtime. I’ll try, but I have a hard enough time keeping my life in order without spending extra hours at work.

Ugh.

You are 51% geek

You are a geek. Good for you! Considering the endless complexity of the universe, as well as whatever discipline you happen to be most interested in, you’ll never be bored as long as you have a good book store, a net connection, and thousands of dollars worth of expensive equipment. Assuming you’re a technical geek, you’ll be able to afford it, too. If you’re not a technical geek, you’re geek enough to mate with a technical geek and thereby get the needed dough. Dating tip: Don’t date a geek of the same persuasion as you. You’ll constantly try to out-geek the other.

Take the Polygeek Quiz at Thudfactor.com

I have been feeling so energized this week. Maybe it’s the whole bipolar thing. Now that I’ve had a low I’m on my way to a really good high. Or maybe I’m not bipolar at all and I just had a few crappy days and now I’m getting my shit back together.

Karen bought a treadmill over the weekend, and I’ve been using it every day. Couple that with the walks I take in the afternoons with Eve, and I’m not back to the same level of physical activity I was at when I was really motivated and into weight watchers. I’ve had two weeks now of consistent loss, and with this new burst of activity I’m hoping to see even better results this week. I’ve also been finding it easier to eat less recently, for some reason. Again, maybe it’s just the whole attitude of feeling better about myself and not taking comfort in food.

Eve and I pitched a project to a store in Ybor City last night, and I’m really excited about the prospects of working for these guys. The place is called “Kicks on 7th,” and it’s a really cool kink shop. While we were there a stripper was in the place shopping for costumes, and Eve said they get a lot of strippers in there. Can’t go wrong with strippers. Randy, the man who runs the place, asked me if I was single. When I told him I was he said “you’re going to like working here.” One of the reasons I’m so excited about it, though, is that Randy seems like a genuinely nice guy. Eve picked out a wig to purchase for a friend of hers who recently had brain surgery, and he told her to take it and not worry about the price for now, since “we’re working for him.” How cool is that? He didn’t even make her sign anything. Just gave it to her on faith. It doesn’t seem like you run into people like that too often these days.

I’m really starting to wonder if the Democratic Party isn’t determined to label themselves “The Party of Morons everywhere.”

I’m a card carrying Democrat, and I have been ever since I registered to vote for the first time. Chances are, unless some sort of truly viable third party comes along, I always will be. I do not vote along party lines, however, and in fact I support several Republican officials here in Florida.

The problem I’m currently having, however, comes from the fact that the Democratic party is making a stink about ballots in our upcoming Gubernatorial primary, and I really think they are making Democrats as a whole look like drooling idiots.

Here’s the situation. As you all well know, we had a wee bit of difficulty here in Florida during the last Presidential election. There was a “confusing” ballot in Palm Beach county that caused a lot of people to vote for the wrong candidate in the election. This was insturmental in helping George Bush win Florida and, subsequently, the election. So we’re all a bit sensitive about our ballots here, and great steps are being taken to insure that this doesn’t happen again. Many counties here have converted to touch screen technology, but those that haven’t will be using the old fashioned paper ballots again.

And this is the crux of the current issue.

The ballot for the gubernatorial primaries has wording that, according to some, will instruct people to select two candidates for governor. Which will cause an overvote. The wording in question is “Choose one pair.” The problem, apparently, is that none of the candidates have chosen a running mate yet, so Democrats are making a stink about the fact that people will vote for two primary candidates. In other words, voting for Bill McBride AND Janet Reno.

My question is, if someone is THAT friggin’ clueless do we really want to cater to them?

I find it a bit insulting that they are assuming we are so uninformed in the process that we would actually think that it’s possible to vote for two candidates in a primary. What’s worse, is that the party leaders seem to think we NEED that protection. They are talking about brining a law suit to get it changed. “Our constituents are stupid,” they seem to be saying, “and we need to protect them from themselves.”

Do we really need to support the belief that Democrats are simpletons who can’t figure out a ballot? We’ve had enough grief about that since the Palm Beach County incident. I know it’s a radical concept, but can’t we rely on voters to educate themselves to the process? Isn’t it reasonable that we expect people to inform themselves about who is going to be on their ballots and what they are voting on? Isn’t that one of our duties as responsible members of the voting society? Why do we want people who would be so clueless as to be uninformed as to what they are voting on to be in the polling places in the first place?

Oh, because stupid people will elect us…I forgot…

On a similar note, I’m constantly amused by the party line voting that so many people exhibit these days. Let’s vote for Jeb just because he’s a Republican. Hey, do you like the FCAT? No? Do you like vouchers going to private schools? No? Are you happy about the fact that the sales tax holiday was suspended this year? No? Still going to vote for Jeb? Yes???

Politics make my head hurt.

You know, I’m really starting to get sick of President Bush.

Now, I realize that isn’t going to come as a surprise to most of you. I didn’t vote for him, I don’t believe he is our legal president, and even knowing what I know now I wish Al Gore was in office to have dealt with our current state of affairs. However, I thought he did an admirable job of pulling the country together after September 11th. He said what needed to be said at the time, and he took steps to attempt to insure that it wouldn’t happen again. For that, I applaud him.

I am, however, getting absolutely fed up with the Terrorism bullshit.

Today, President Bush met with the nine miners that were trapped up in Pennsylvania for three days. He took this event as an opportunity to push his anti-terrorism agenda. I’m sorry, but can someone tell me exactly how in the hell nine touch son of a bitches surviving some horrid conditions relates to our “struggle” against terrorism? I hate to say it, but I really think we are heading down a road of ruin with this whole war on terrorism. More and more, we are hearing from our elected leaders about the “radical” steps we are going to have to take to make sure these events aren’t going to happen again, and the more I see them talk about it the more frightened I get.

Oh, and the icing on the cake in this situation for me is the fact that the miners weren’t allowed to talk to the media, because they have each signed exclusive $150,000 movie deals with Disney for the rights to their story.

Yep, that’s the Spirit of America all right.