Well ... yesterday (since it's now after midnight) was the day after Thanksgiving... which many people refer to as Black Friday - The biggest shopping day of the year. Well, I did go out to Best Buy yesterday morning, and I did find myself in a crowd of people being herded through long lines like sheep... but I did manage to get 150 CD-Rs and the new 3 Doors Down album all for under $10 without sustaining too much mental trauma. Anyway, tonight I logged into DeviantArt and I see this post regarding BND (Buy Nothing Day). Of course, I had never heard of such a thing, so I stopped and read it. Well, apparently, it is some rediculous plea to get people to buy nothing on Black Friday, and to basically contribute nothing to the economy for a day. The make this plea on the grounds that they are demonstrating against the unequal distribution of wealth throughout the world. Anyway... u can read it for yourself ... along with the comments here. I think it's pure idiocy at work. I have several reasons for this conclusion. [LIST] 1) No one should tell anyone how to spend their hard earned cash. 2) The distribution of wealth is facilitated by buying and selling 3) While not spending money on one particular day seems like it would save you money, in fact, you're just going to end up paying more for the same items you could have bought during a Black Friday sale. 4) We're capitalists ... simple as that. Consumers drive the economy, if we want the economy to improve, we should be motivating people to shop till they drop. [/LIST] But like Denis Miller always says ... That's just my opinion. I could be wrong.

Ok ... well... next week is thanksgiving. I'll be working - no big suprise ... but it does pay time and half ... so I think it's worth it. Of course, it also means the holidays are here again. Well... with me being atheist, it might seem a bit hypocritical for me to be celebrating x-mas. Fortunately, my fellow atheists have dug deep into the traditions of x-mas and pulled out the winter solstice (the point at which our hemisphere is the furthest away from the sun giving us the shortest day of the year). The winter solstice (mind you, I'm not doing any fact checking) has been celebrated throughout many cultures for thousands of years.... some say all the way back to Mesopotamians, and perhaps even farther. These same celebrations were eventually integrated into the christian religion and renamed Christmas. Of course, we all know, modern christmas always falls on Dec 25th... but the winter solstice for 2002 will occur at 7:14 pm CST on December 21 as it varies each year. I'm getting a bit carried away ... anyway ... it's not my job to inform you of how Christmas is really just a fucked over renamed holiday that's been around thousands of years... you can do that research yourself. I just thought I'd point it out.

Well. So much for being as regular as possible with my entries. I just remembered yesterday... and I had a good entry to write and now I can't remember what it was. Anyway, I decided to go ahead and make myself write an entry anyway... since I can't log in to HSX right now for some reason. HSX is the Hollywood Stock Exchange. Me, Gene, and Terry from work all decided to sign up and compete based on how well we perform. It's actually pretty cool ... u buy stocks for movies that are just released or yet to be released ... and bascially just speculate on how much money they will make. They also have the same sort of thing for Music, but we're not competing on that side of the site. It's really too early to say who's winning, but Terry has started off with a fairly good lead. Really, the best part, though, is learning about all the new movies that are going to be released within the next few years. It looks good for comics lovers, that's for sure. There's also a few movies based on games that will be coming out... two of my favorite are Max Payne and Alice. Alice (basically, an extremely twisted Alice in Wonderland) will be all CGI and should be fuckin awesome. Gene keeps saying movies based on games typically don't do well ... but Tomb Raider and Resident Evil really didn't do that bad.... even though I wouldn't consider either of them to be really great movies. Anyway, my game of the moment is Unreal Tournament 2003. I just haven't been able to play online yet cause I have the warez version Eric gave me... man, those warez guys aren't trying hard enough to crack games anymore. Anyway ... I ordered the game off of e-bay ... mainly just for the CD-Key (A good key that will authenticate on the server). So I got a good deal... $25 shipped ... compared to $50 + tax if i bought it locally. Apparenty games are cheaper in Thailand, so I won't be getting the manual or the box ... not much good with them being in Thai ... but the game is supposed to be in English .. so I could really care less as long as I can play it online. Hopefully I'll get it sometime this week. It may be next week though, considering it is coming from thailand and all. Well... that's about all for now ... maybe I'll post again when I remember what it was i was going to post yesterday ... heh.

Well ... Susan called me today. She called to tell me she's back from Texas. I don't remember if I ever posted about her going to Texas, but she moved out there because her best friend from high school was going to be having a baby, and ... well... I guess Susan wanted to be there for her. Anyway ... She left right at the beginning of October, i think... i know it was right before Bayfest. I don't know the details, but apparently her and her friend, Cheri, got in a fight so Susan and Gerald came back to Mobile. I just feel so confused now ... which it seems is the usual result after I talk to her. Last time I talked to her, she was in Texas, and she said she missed me...said she didn't realize until she had left how much she would miss me.... that confused me. It confused me because even when she was living here, we went months at a time without so much as chatting online... and i told her so. I guess she thought I felt like I was being neglected... cause she gave me some crap about her not being such a good friend. Needless to say, I was left quite confused. So now she's back and she calls me the day after getting back in town and to tell me to call her sometime so we can hang out. I guess it's just so hard for me because I always want to read more into things than there really is. I just have to get it through my head that we're strictly friends, that she doesn't like me in any other way, and never will. Why is that so hard for me? She doesn't deserve for me to be acting like this. Hell... I guess all I can really do is what I've been doing... bury my feelings for her as deep as i can, and still try to be a friend. So... am I gonna call her back? To be quite honest, I have absolutely no idea... part of me says it's the right thing to do as a friend... and the other part says I'd only be torturing myself again.

...I miss Wade.

Ok... well ... so far so good on getting around to post to my journal. I'm getting really sick of people not being able to sign my guestbook. I don't know if there's a problem with the actual guestbook service I'm using, or if my visitors are just friggin idiots. I mean, if i go the guestbook and post, I get the my confirmation e-mail to go and approve the entry and everything ... works fine. But when other people try it, it almost never works. It's like this folks .... you type all the shit in, then u hit the button that says "All done? Click here to PREVIEW." Then, after the preview page comes up, you have to hit the button that says "Sign Guestbook" to actually SUBMIT the entry. Your entry will not show up on the site immediately, because I have the guestbook configured so that all posts are approved by me before being posted to the site. That's not to say I won't post your two cents just because you disagree, but at least i can weed out the total nimrods if I so choose. Signing the guestbook means a lot to me... and I hate that some people don't, won't, or can't do it. I'm so tired of people saying they signed it when I never got an e-mail, so then I go check my guestbook servie and find the damn thing ian't even there. Aye ... it's givin me a headache ... I'm going to bed. L8r.

Allrighty ... It's been a little over a month since my last post. Man, it doesn't seem like that long. I dunno ... I really don't think one post a month is enough to keep this thing current. I really want to go to a post a day, but I just can't see myself taking the necessary time each day to follow through with it.It will likely be a few posts a week... cause on the days I work, I usually don't do much else. But enough about that .... let's get back to the job at hand and this last month. hmmm ... lemme see ... well... I got bored and on one of my trips over to Eric's recently, I managed to borrow away his PlayStation 2 .... hell ... he didn't even know where it was. He hadn't even unpacked it from his move from Ocean Springs to Biloxi... so it was obvious he never plays it. Anyway ... he calls me a couple of weeks later and offers to sell it to me for $200 ... with all the games and the 2nd controller and everything. Well ... I didn't have the money. So, I did what any 20-year-old would do .... I asked my mother for the money ... called it an early x-mas gift. Quit laughing. It worked, didn't it? Allright. So now I have a PS2 ... and quite an overdue balance with blockbuster on Need For Speed : Hot Pursuit 2 ... but it's cool. I also have black hair. ok ... mostly black hair. Maybe i should explain. I was Silent Bob for halloween. I had a black leather trenchcoat, the Mooby (tm) hat, my Converse Chuck Taylor All Stars, a decent looking beard ... and well ... I dyed my hair black for the full effect. The only problem was I had no place to go for halloween... and I refuse to stay home and hand out candy. So, me and the Bum, and his flavor of the week all went to the Mall .... seemed a good place for Bob to hang out ... duh ... Mallrats ... anyway ... I had a couple of people recognize me as Bob so that was cool. I just wish I could have gotten the bum to dress up as Jay. Ahh... that would have been so damn cool. There's always next year. As i was saying though, the hair dye isn't permanent.... but it's not exactly temporary... so yea ... it's still in there. I also shaved off the beard ... but decided to keep a goatee just so dissuade people from calling me m'am on accident. I really hate that... and it happens more that I care to admit. Ok, this isn't the best place to end an entry, but I've never been known for great endings... so until tomorrow ... or next week ... or next month ... ciao.