Thursday activities
I stayed home from work today. Despite having the whole day, I feel like I didn’t get much done. I did a bunch of festival stuff with Aluatis. I guess that’s something. I got a little caught up with Survivor. Mary should be happy. I refilled my prescriptions. That’s definitely a good thing. I went grocery shopping and bought food for the month.
Grocery list
Bag of frozen chicken breasts
pack of fresh chicken breasts
6 bags of frozen vegetables
4 packs of pasta
2 jars of pasta sauce
2 loaves of bread
18 eggs
6 packs of steak
4 boxes of cereal
8 boxes of oatmeal
2 packs of bacon
gallon of milk
ketchup
olive oil
bunch of bananas
bag of frozen fish filets
peanut butter
low sugar jam/preserves/jelly/whatever
The oatmeal is for work. I get three meals per box, so 24 breakfasts over the next month (3 more than I should need)
The cereal, eggs, and bacon is for breakfasts at home of which there will be 9.
I have 6 steaks and 9 chicken breasts. Add to that the 10 fish filets and that should get me 18-19 dinners. There will be three times this month that I’ll be at a church event or meeting where I’ll get dinner. So my total becomes 21-22. The pasta will get me 12 or so meals. So I should be covered for dinners. I’ll just have to figure out lunches and I’m set for the month.
I might need to buy more vegetables mid-month.
(Sorry to Suzanne that you had to read this twice!)
Tonight I had my ARISE group. It went well. We talked about doing a bible study after this season ends. I’m looking forward to that.
Friday, fish, & fotos
I got pretty much nothing done at work today. I did help one faculty member with a course he wants to revise, but that’s about it. Pretty sad really.
After I got off work at 12:30, I went to Tasty Kitchen, a Chinese place on Burney, to meet Tonja for lunch. We had a nice meal and talked about life and Disneyland. I had the salt and pepper fish. It was pretty good. I was impressed at how clean the restaurant was!
After that, I met with Vangie and Hallie to work on goals for the strategic plan. This was a very productive meeting! I think we are all energized by how well on track we seem to be at the parish these days. For those of us that stuck through the hard times, the reward is sweet!
This evening, I had a decision to make. Should I go to a belly dancing party and take photos of the lovely ladies dancing, or do I stay in to play on the computer and watch TV?
I went out and took photos.
Just about the most boring day ever
Super lazy day today. I wish I were more inspired to do stuff. 🙁
- Played some LOTRO. Did some book work with Aluatis.
- Watched a lot of stuff. Episodes of Castle, Robin Hood, 30 Rock, Lie To Me, Smallville, and the movie Pandorum. Pandorum was interesting. I have questions about what the members of the ship were experiencing for the entire movie. I feel there are some unresolved plot points.
- Called and talked with my dad.
- Researched stuff to do in Portland. The more I look into making the trip, the more excited I’m getting.
- Did not go shoot photos of Nicole for her website.
- Cooked up chicken and pasta.
My beard is starting to get on my nerves. It will be a relief to shave it off.
It’s expected to be rainy and blustery all week. I hear frequent creaking coming from the vicinity of the roof.
Reenforcing a ‘thinking only of myself/my needs’ attitude
Watched a two-hour episode of The Event tonight. It was the first episode of the spring; the series having resumed after the winter hiatus. On the whole, meh. I’m not real excited about this series. But I’m not real excited about any television right now. Which is odd.
Anyway, during this episode a familiar, well-worn trope was used. A man was forced to facilitate a break-in of a government facility or else his family would be killed. He chose to help the bad guys and in the process, many, many people were killed. Call me a cold-hearted bastard, but I really take issue with the lack of moral fibre I see on display. It’s true that I have never been in such a situation, but what right would I have to decide that these people should possibly get killed so that I can save people whom I care more about? Either way, someone is going to get killed. I can choose to actively participate in that or not.
Frankly, I feel the same way about bumping rights at work. I believe it is morally wrong for me to be allowed to decide that it is more important that I get someone’s job than it is for him to keep it. Let me explain. If I have more seniority than my coworker and I have once upon a time worked in a position that has the same title/classification, if my position in my department is downsized, I can lay claim to my coworkers job and they are out of luck. Of course, they can dump on someone else less senior. It all rolls downhill, right? Gah! I have a real problem with this.
There was a story that I remember from elementary school about a new chick that was placed in the coop. He learned the first day that all the other chicks would painfully peck the less senior chicks. So #1 would peck #2, #2 would peck #3, and so on down the line until it got to our hero. Well, this chick thought that wasn’t right and resolved not to continue the practice. And sure enough, when newer chicks were introduced and all the older chicks would do their pecking thing, our hero wouldn’t pass it on. And eventually, when our hero was the most senior chick, nobody pecked anybody.
I must really have taken that particular lesson to heart, because I think this pecking bumping order thing sucks. Calling it a right doesn’t make it right. I will not do it.
Something to do
Today consisted of
- waking up not according to some predetermined schedule, but when my body was done sleeping (spring forward, who cares?)
- watching some tv (an episode of V to be precise)
- going to Mass (the music continues to be mediocre)
- lunching at Sips Bistro with Steve and Fr. Ramon (I had the Chicken Cesar Wrap.)
- spending a couple of hours at the milonga at Azucar (Silvia and I had made plans to go. It was mostly tango, but also a smattering of many other styles. Mary in particular was very kind and asked me to dance several times. If you know me, you know I like dancing and have no problem with partner dancing, I actually prefer it, but I do need to know the steps.)
- more tv (forthcoming. Perhaps some Being Human or Ordinary Family. I should watch the dvd I have from Netflix, The Island.)
- LOTRO (Aluatis needs to continue with Volume 1.)
- posting here (which I just finished.)
A new name, let’s play the game
This has been a longish weekend of doing nothing. In other words, perfect!
I played some LOTRO, but I spent most of my time watching TV. I still have a lot of catching up to do from when I was busy watching Oscar nominees. But the thing is, it’s been rather tough to rekindle interest in a lot of these shows. Maybe it’s time to cut some of them loose. And actually, I’ve already started doing that. A week or two ago, I set my TiVo to stop recording CSI and CSI:NY. Other programs that may soon go the way of the dodo include: Chuck, Castle, No Ordinary Family, and The Cape. And Survivor this season, well, I haven’t even started watching it. I’ve had no interest.
*Ping*
I think I’ve been having some real blood sugar issues this weekend. It might be time to start taking my health a little more seriously. 🙁
Also, I could really go for a deep-tissue massage right now.
What occupies my time
I haven’t been able to play LOTRO as much as I’d like lately. There are a few reasons for this. Foremost among them is that I really only enjoy playing when I can play with my friends. Lately they have not been on much for one reason or another. So even when I do log on, I see that nobody else is online and I log out fairly quickly. Perhaps we are just missing each other. Not sure what’s going on there.
Also, it seems like I’ve been pretty busy in the evenings of late. As usual, two nights a week I have music practice; and in the last few weeks, I had my orchestra concert, string recital, and I attended the CSU Stanislaus Percussion Ensemble performance. Tomorrow night I am doing the music for the vigil Mass for the Immaculate Conception.
My weekends have been full too. Last Saturday, for example, I had music practice with Carmelo, went to the Honda dealership to get my oil changed, had choir practice in the afternoon, and went to P. Wexford’s in the evening for the monthly Irish Sessuin. This week, I will be hanging out at Barnes & Noble all afternoon for a classmate’s book-signing, likely playing at the 5:30 Mass (for the last time), and hopefully going to see The English Beat play a concert downtown. Too busy!
Just a few weeks ago, I was noticing that my Tivo’s now playing list was getting rather short. Well, there has been a dramatic reversal there. Now I’m worried that it’s filling up too fast. So one of the things I have been doing instead of playing LOTRO is trying to watch these programs to take a bite out of my backlog. In a way, it makes me glad for the WGA strike. Less new content coming up to worry about. And, I have dropped Bionic Woman from my list of shows to record. It never really got very good and I won’t miss it at all.
And so, dear reader(s), I ask you: how are you managing your time during this final month of the year?
The fall season
One of the first things I do every morning when I get into work is to check my email. This includes my work email, MySpace email, and my gmail account; sometimes Yahoo email but almost never my SBC Global account. With MySpace, there’re not only messages to read, but bulletins from friends, new friend requests (from girls who are wondering why MySpace won’t let them post their sexy pictures) to mark as spam, and blog postings.
So I read a blog posting this morning from my friend Tawny. She was writing about her reaction to the fall TV series premier week. This made me realize that I need to let you all know about what I am watching these days. So here goes.
Mondays
A very busy night for the ole tivo. I have Chuck, Heroes, Journeyman, and Prison Break. There’s also a dumb sitcom called The Big Bang Theory that is pretty lame but the theme song is by the Barenaked Ladies. So I’m giving the show a shot in case it gets better.
Tuesdays
House
Wednesdays
Bionic Woman, Life, and a quirky little show called Pushing Daisies
Thursdays
Another busy night. Survivor: China, Smallville, My Name Is Earl, The Office, Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style. I’m going to check out Big Shots as well to see if it’s any good.
Fridays
Stargate: Atlantis
Saturdays
Sundays
I don’t think I’m recording anything on these nights right now.
I’m not sure what night it comes on but I am recording Survivorman too. It’s more for something to have on in the background while I’m on the computer than a show I need to sit and watch.
Starting in the near to medium future, I will be recording Law and Order: Criminal Intent, 24, Lost, and Battlestar Galactica. And as I’ve posted about before, when they come back I’ll record Psych, Monk, Eureka, and Burn Notice.
Thanks to my friend, Tawny, for the inspiration to post this!
What I watch
I’m a big TiVo fan. I switched from cable to DirecTV because that satellite company had a pre-existing relationship with TiVo. Well, at the time I switched, DirecTV was implementing their own (inferior) dvr. I stuck through the contract but switched back to cable after a year and got a new dual-tuner TiVo box.
All this to say that I record everything I watch and rarely turn on live television except as background noise.
Ok. At this point in the summer, there’s not much on that I watch. I am catching up on episodes of Scrubs, a show I only recently started watching. I watch Monk, Dead Zone, Psych, Eureka, and I’ve recorded, but haven’t watched, Burn Notice.
Fall is always a tricky time for me. There are many new shows and I have to decide which, if any, of them to watch. And I got a bit burned this last Spring. A new show debuted on Fox; Drive. So I started watching and thought the show was pretty good. Then the series was cancelled after like 3 episodes. Arrgh! Why did I bother? So I’ve decided to record new shows that I’m interested in and only watch them if the series is going to last for at least the season.
So, more on tv in the fall when I really have to start organizing my viewing schedule.
In the meantime, I’ll talk about how I spend almost all my time at home; MMORPGs.
