dead men tell no tales...

[ Listening to while writing this: The Shins - "Kissing the Lipless", Huey Lewis and the News - "The Heart of Rock'n'Roll" ] So I have kinda done all the work I want to do today. There is more I could do, I'm sure, but I need to keep stuff kind of spread out so I have enough to do the rest of the week. Today is both a monday (heavy email day) and the last of the month (heavy reporting day) so I have had plenty on my plate, in my opinion. I'd still like to be working somewhere else, and sooner rather than later. I am not looking forward to the commute later today. I think when I get home I may clean my shower. On the way home I need to stop at Long's and get some stuff... maybe go by Safeway for some legit food so I can stop all this fast food/dinners out stuff. I'm at 270 pounds and, while this is still lighter than my all-time high of 285 in Spring 2003, it's much heavier than my most-recent low of 235 in Winter '03/'04. Also need to get the March Dan's jukebox mix done. Definately going in: Flogging Molly - "Salty Dog," Dropkick Murphys - "Barroom Hero," The Pogues - "Beer Beer Beer," and Great Big Sea - "The Night Pat Murphy Died." Yay for St. Pat's Day! Out at Dan's tonight? Perhaps.

[ Listening to while writing this: Minus the Bear - "Absinthe Party at the Fly Honey Warehouse" ] Take a Quiz to see if you know me... it will even keep score! Quiz.

[ Listening to while writing this stuff: The Rapture - "Olio", Broken Social Scene - "Almost Crimes", My Morning Jacket - "The Way That He Sings" ]

I am actively seeking new employment.

That being said, I am eagerly anticipating the coming months. Baseball season is going to ramp back up (first Spring Training games are on Thursday!), the weather is taking a turn for the better (today is absolutely gorgeous... at least on my side of the hills), and I am dating the most beautiful, sexy, intelligent, fun girl I've ever known in my life. What more could a guy ask for?

Today I got paid, and the direct deposit went into my new checking account, at Mechanics Bank, instead of my old one at Washington Mutual. This is good. I've wanted to ditch WaMu and their ATM fees for a few months now, and I finally can (as soon as I pay them the $30 that my account is overdrawn). Between that, and the facts that my bills are all paid up (minus car registration, due in April), that the Disneyland trip from Valentine's Day is all reconciled, I have already paid what federal taxes I owed, I have plenty of money for this month's rent, a near-full tank of gas, and a burning desire to stop eating out all the time... well... things are looking up, monetarily-speaking.

Still. I want to either make more money or spend less or, preferably of course, some combination of both. I am looking at new places to live when my lease is up this coming July. I am seriously considering moving in with my friend Eric... well, rather, he and I would search for a place together... simply because I would be paying so much less, regardless of what we find, than I am now, splitting rent with him. In order for my rent to remain the same, we'd have to move in to something that costs about $1800... which ain't a-happenin, pahdnah.

Anyway, so I'm trying to keep my eyes open for good two-bedrooms as close to downtown W.C. as geographically possible. In the meantime, I am trying to make the best of my miniscule kitchen. I do hate cooking in that coffin. Plus the apartment building is pretty ridiculously loud at times, there's no balcony, little street parking, and I have enough stuff to quite possibly fill an apartment twice as big as the one in which I live. C'est la vie.

Until later then...

At least I actually have stuff to do (for work) today. I have finalized the batter scoring system for the fantasy league... now I'm going to work on pitchers, then try to put together a spreadsheet that will calculate a player's value specifically in our league. I love this shit. Of course, I have about 7 or 8 separate emails going out to about 1.5million people tomorrow, so those have to be set before I leave. Ho-hum. MVP Baseball 2005 is out today! I think I'll go after work to get it...

I just found out the MVP Baseball 2005 will be coming out tomorrow, rather than on March 1st! WOOHOO! Honey... I'm gonna be M.I.A. for a while.

A nap won't help. I've been awake for too long -- three or four nights. I can't even remember. If I go to sleep now, I'm dead for twenty hours. As it turns out, 20 hours is going to be a very, very long time. Rest in Peace, you bastard.

[Currently listening to: Ben Folds Five - Zak and Sara] I had this funky dream last night wherein Kevan Barlow was traded to the Detroit Lions for Joey Harrington. The Niners went on to draft Cedric Benson first overall, then Harrington thrived in the Mike Nolan system in SF, and he and Benson led the Niners to the Super Bowl this year... 2-14 to the Super Bowl... now that is pure insanity. I hate it when people repeatedly misuse words. The game Catchphrase is fun as all get-out. Lemme tell ya. COCK RABBIT! Ugh... I don't have the day off today. I'm at work. I have very little to do though, because we even pushed back our normal Monday email campaigns to Wednesday because of the holiday. So I will probably spend most of the day fucking around on different baseball blogs and sites, toying with the scoring system for my new fantasy keeper league (that has the great name of East Baysball) and maybe posting here. Probably waste some time on some Disney sites too. I should put up a links list of my favorite sites. Like Baseball Prospectus, Athletics Nation, Elephants in Oakland, Mice Age, Mouse Planet, etc... Definately. Until later.

[Listening to: The Anomoanon - 'Kick Back']

I'm still trying to figure out how to use all the stuff in w.bloggar, to post to this blog. There are some interesting features I don't understand yet.

Besides, today is a bad day for me to try to learn anything. I'm completely exhausted and barely making it through work. Got back from Disneyland last night. Had an amazing time, with the most wonderful girl in the world. We had some fun (I say that facetiously) to return to involving a certain, shall-remain-nameless assface, but hey, not everyone in the world can be happy for other people's happiness, I understand this.

So Saturday Heather's folks picked me up and took the two of us to Oakland Airport to head down south. The flight was delayed a little more than a half-hour, and the DirecTV on the flight... one of the main drawing points to flying JetBlue... was non-operational. Bummer, but we were so excited about the trip we just talked the whole time.

The first surprise I had for her was a towncar picking us up from the airport. Now, since we flew in to Long Beach, and shuttles to Disneyland only depart from LAX or John Wayne, the towncar was only a slight splurge... the other option would have been a cab. Cabs scare me and smell strange. So, towncar it was. We checked into the hotel, took our bags up to our room, and headed over to Disney's California Adventure. Heather had never before been to that park.

We hit some of the Paradise Pier rides (Sun Wheel, MaliBoomer) after grabbing a Soarin' Over California fastpass. Then we, at our friend Thorsen's recommendation, ate the best damn corndogs in the entire world at Corn Dog Castle. Holy Crap. They were huge, and delicious. They came with little bags of potato chips that we didn't even try to eat.

We spent most of the day at DCA... did Soarin', and Tower of Terror, and caught the MuppetVision 3D show (a personal favorite) before heading back to the hotel, grabbing coats, and making our way to Disneyland for Heather's other surprise.

She knew I wanted to see Fantasmic! on Saturday night, and I was real nervous that it would rain and the show (which is performed outdoors on and across the Rivers of America from New Orleans Square/Frontierland) would be cancelled. She got so nervous when we crossed into Frontierland near the area and saw all the people standing already, and wondered where we should stand. Stand nothin'. We headed up the stairs to the Disney Gallery, where I gave her her ticket to the Balcony Seating Dessert Buffet. We sat comfortably with amazing seats for the show, above the crowd, dead center, and ate some awesome puff pastries, assorted cheeses, etc, along with some cocoa and soda.

It was a nice start to an excellent weekend. Sunday we spent all day at Disneyland, with lunch at the Blue Bayou Restaurant and a welcome midday respite back at the hotel. Monday was morning back at DCA, and in the evening we had reservations at Granville's Steakhouse at the Disneyland Hotel for Valentine's Day dinner. It was amazing, and I discovered a new wine I need to track down around here... Saintsbury Pinot Noir, from Napa. Tuesday, even though we were completely exhausted, we headed back to Disneyland after we checked out, and milled about, doing a few rides after breakfast at the River Belle Terrace, seeing Tom Sawyer's Island, and just sitting and people-watching for some of the time.

All-in-all, it's the best trip to Disneyland that I can remember, and I'm down there a lot. She's one special girl, and she made my trip there all the better.

Here's to many more. Love you, hun.

Okay, so in someting like 22 hours and 45 minutes, I'm getting on a plane to go to Disneyland with my wonderful, sexy girlfriend Heather for four days. I'm very excited, but would be moreso if I wasn't so ridiculously busy today at work. That's what I get for taking two days off (next mon/tues)... a ton of shit to do on Friday.

Hated the forced line breaks that happened when I tried posting via email... hoping that this will work out well.

Emails, emails, emails... for those who are unaware (if anyone reads this), I am responsible for email marketing at my company... y'know... SPAM (not really, at least, not legally-defined)... anyway, I've had to work on like four new emails today. I basically do the work of an HTML programmer, while having neither the skills nor payscale. Being stupid, giddy in love is so much fun.

I've had blogs in the past, and used different software to post to them. Because blogger lets me do this by sending an email, I will, possibly, keep this a little more up-to-date, especially once I get email set up on my cellphone. It has a keyboard. And that is neat. So, I don't think anyone will be reading this for a while, but the first purpose is, as I'm sure you could have guessed, standard ol' blogging... but it will also be about my exploits in and around Disneyland and Walt Disney World (when I can get out there) and throughout the development of my website, HappiestPageOnEarth.com... which, right now, does not exist save for the URL itself. At any rate, go read my friend Russell's blog... he's writing a novel! And writing about it! Noweverybody. More to come later. I love that this looks like I'm working, since I'm just writing an email. Oh. Who'd've guessed "tellnotales" was available for both the blogspot subdomain AND my Gmail account? (please note: I have no connection whatsoever... besides a shared love of Pirates of the Caribbean... with the delightfully wonderful website tellnotales.com... but you should go there anyway)