Halloween part 2

Blog 103106 part 2

Halloween part 2.

Wee bit of a weird day.

I was thumped the other night in Magic the Gathering and wanted to make new decks. At the parental’s place I did two truck loads of wood. During this my mind seem so clear and focused. Maybe because I didn’t want to do wood. I created two decks in my head. I got home, pulled out my cards and forgot everything. So I have a mess of cards on my bed and no new decks. Sigh.

Didn’t get a single Trick or Treater. And that was good. I didn’t buy any candy. I did get nervous though because several people walked by the house. So I pulled out quarters to give out. Didn’t like that idea so I remember I had Mist soda. So I pulled out my 12 pack in case people showed up.

Two minor bizarre incidents.

I thought I saw a former co-worker at the gas station. I didn’t say anything because we didn’t part on good terms. In fact, I got him fired. If it was him he didn’t say anything. I think it was him and I’m pretty sure he had the same car from several years ago. Mine’s a couple of years older. But his car kinda looked like shit. He had purchased his car brand new.

I went to my credit union today. On the way there I spotted these two women at the gas station. One was kind of a kid in just baggy jeans and a sweatshirt. But I liked the woman she was talking to. She was business casual – brown sweater, tan skirt and brown boots. I thought it may have been the woman that helped me with my mortgage. I was checking them out as best as could. And the younger girl caught me. Soon they were both looking to see me! LOL!

I then stopped at the credit union and was in there maybe 10 minutes tops. Probably not even. I headed up to the parents house. About a half mile up the road standing in front of a land for sale type sign were the two women from the gas station. Just seemed a little weird they happened to be there and got there so quickly.

So those were the two minor bizarre incidents.

A few weeks ago I had a Keystone cop event. I was at the grocery store and was heading back out to my car. It was windy and my flier blew out of my cart. I chased after the papers instead of being lame and just letting them fly about. But I was chasing them for about 10 feet and having to stomp on them to hold the papers down.

And last night after playing Magic, I left my buddy’s place. They had repaved the driveway. I had forgotten that it had dropped the driveway by about 6 to 8 inches. So when I stepped out I nearly had a faceplant because the step down was a lot farther down than I expected.

Been checking out this IMUV or something like that Instant Messenger. It’s kinda neat in that it’s a 3-D chat room. Almost like a cartoon. If you pay money to join you can do a lot more. Even with the free account you can do a lot. You can earn credits and buy stuff like clothes and pets for your avatar. It can be addicting. And you can make a couple of different accounts. I made one for me. And I made one to promote the comic. That one is JainaHawkins – the lead character. Of course, this could cause some problems because it’s a female toon and I’m a guy. So I know people will automatically think Jaina is female and then have a fit. I’ve seen it happen in on-line games before.

Oy, wish I had better cable TV. The week leading up to Halloween has THE BEST tv because it’s always old horror movies and lots of shows about the paranormal and the like. I missed 99.9% of them because I only have basic cable. Of course, expanded cable would double my current bill from $55 a month to $110. No way.

Okay, done.

Halloween & dreams

Blog103106

Today is Halloween the coolest of the holidays. Christmas is my favorite though. Unfortunately, I have no parties to go to and no real fun in celebrating the holiday. Sigh.

Found a weird 3-D chat room instant messenger through a comic book board. Ypu sign up and pick an avatar. You can dress them, change the room they’re in, and do all sorts of almost live action role-playing with them. I guess if you pay money you can get ‘adult’ access.

One of my fantasy teams got crushed. That team is 4-4. I finally won a game in the league I really want to win. That team is 3-5. Haven’t bothered to check my work league. I’m pretty sure I lost in that one though.

Tough night of Magic the Gathering last night. I made three new decks and was trying them out. Despite my decks being 1/3 mana, I managed to shuffle the decks so that I got mana screwed. What this means is that I had no power to cast spells. That really sucks because you just sit around and get beat on by the other players. In two different games I was discarding spells needing 4 colorless mana on turn 3 or 4 or even later because I was that screwed. So it was a frustrating night.

Woke up with another headache again. I wonder if this is because my room is so dry. I’ve been waking up a lot lately because my mouth is so dry that my tongue is literally totally dry. So today I’m going to dip into my cash reserves and drop so money on a second humidifier – this one for my bedroom.

My lawn neighbor is out doing his leaves again. I hate doing the leaves. The guy just did them last week and his lawn is covered again. Same with two of my other neighbors that cleaned their lawns. It seems like such a waste of time to rake/clean up leaves. Despite all their work, our lawns look the same. LOL!

Sara is back on-line. Woo-Hoo! I love her blog and look forward to reading it. Crazy Wiccans being busy this time of year instead of entertaining me with their blogs. : P

Crazy dreams this morning. Probably resulting from my trouble breathing.

Writing this all out of order.

My house was in a different location and was a different house. I was staying at my parents because of bad weather or something and when I got back to my house a tree had fallen on it. The damage was quite significant with the roof collapsed leaving the living room and other parts of the house exposed to the sky. I was worried about people stealing my stuff so I locked the front door as I left. LOL!

For some reason I was riding a motorcycle. It was a slick streetbike made by Honda. But it was snowing pretty heavily. So I was trying to ride in something like 3 or 4 inches of snow. Progress was slow. And it was warm I think. I drove along Boston road watching people being stuck, shoveling and other snow related stuff. Lot os people were walking along the streets and stuff too. I passed this one house that had a bunch of people dressed up like stormtroopers from Star Wars. Two were shoveling and then like 4 more were milling around a small pond just off the road in a gulley. But their armor was different. It was more sleek more modern. Their helmets had long face shields of reflective black. On the idea of the shaded face shields that some football players underneath their helmets.

I got to the point were I had to walk. This was near Old Boston Road. I started to follow these two kids climb over some rough cliffs to get to the Eastfield Mall but I couldn’t do it. So I took the road instead which was full of people. It was Christmas Day and I was going to the movies. I don’t recall what movie it was but it was about devil worship and cults and was a horror movie. My brother Greg was going with his friend too. We got in and sat down and the theater was about ½ full and people were still coming in. I found a jacket that I thought was my brother’s and he thought so too. The guy sitting on it gave it to us but after inspection we found it wasn’t my brother’s so we gave it back. I moved to a seat closer to the screen and that’s when I found out the movie was about cults and the devil and stuff.

There are tons of little details I tried to remember after waking up but I’ve since forgotten them as of this writing some 90 minutes later. L I just know most of my family was in the dreams at least for a few shots and that my house was on Bartlett Avenue in my hometown.

I told my parents I would move more wood for them today and my mom needs me to pick up some donuts since it’s a Halloween tradition. Plus I need my humidifier so I gotta go.

Tried to post this early Sunday

Blog for 10/29/06


Tried to post this earlier but blogspot said ‘there were errors’ the two times I tried. Sigh.

Moving the wood the other day went well. My father and I moved 6 pick-up loads of split wood on to our land and near where we want it stacked. The trip wasn’t that far, maybe 100+ yards but we had to drive around the house and into the street and then drive in the back yard.

Played Heroclix with my buddies last night. The two geniuses got mad because I won. They like to talk smack and when I was using strategy they got all mad and started in with the “Jim’s being a pussy” because I was able to attack and retreat and they couldn’t catch my figures.

Then we played a 4 player game and as usual we all got mad for one reason or another. One guy felt he was being picked on by two players. In reality, he stuck his team in a bad spot and refused to move them out and then got totally bombarded. I got mad for two reasons. One of the geniuses decided – as usual – to start cracking on my strategy. This is par for the course but if you question his judgment you’re just an idiot because he knows what he’s doing. And rules arguments get me mad. So I got upset when I felt the rules were in constant flux – changing to fit the situation for the two rules lawyers. And then the other genius got mad for the same thing and he had some tough rolls that got his team in trouble. So what ends up happening is that we all get mad and stop playing the game for awhile until we cool off. What I do know is that the guys get upset when I tell them I don’t really buy Heroclix anymore. It’s pretty much just the same figures being released over and over. I don’t really need 6 different versions of Spider-Man or Wolverine.

Crazy dream this morning. I was married to wrestling star Sable! LOL! But she had some history to her and her former boyfriend lived diagonally across from us. I was living at my parents’ place again in my old room with Sable. Her ex was doing something weird like animal abuse to a pet gorilla. Except that the gorilla was a miniature gorilla – about 16 inches tall or something. There was also some stuff where Sable was working with a cashier register drawer. It was weird because we were trying to balance the drawer as we walked around my parent’s backyard. But it was really windy and the money kept blowing out of the drawer. I had a lot of money in my pocket and was bitching because I kept putting money into the drawer only to have it blown away. And I’m talking $100 bills! That’s when it ended up going to the ex’s place to find the mini-gorilla.

Finally, with Sable crying about everything I took her to my old room to calm down. We hugged for a loooong time and then climbed into bed. We went to do the deed but I asked her to do something for me. I was nervous about it not knowing how she’d respond but she was already ahead of me and waiting to do it! LOL!

And then I woke up.

Seems that’s the way dreams work. I think this dream was just all about the crap I seen during the day. I was bitching money to my friends and saw a comic of a gorilla. Not sure how Sable got in it though.

Got info on what my unemployment check should look like. Money will be tight but should be doable. Of course, my friends gave me shit about it saying I’m cheap and all this and that. But that’s par for the course.

Heading off to watch football and hope I win in my fantasy leagues. And then to supper at my parents. All my brothers should be there so that’s a cool thing.

Sunday log

Blog for 10/29/06


Moving the wood the other day went well. My father and I moved 6 pick-up loads of split wood on to our land and near where we want it stacked. The trip wasn’t that far, maybe 100+ yards but we had to drive around the house and into the street and then drive in the back yard.

Played Heroclix with my buddies last night. The two geniuses got mad because I won. They like to talk smack and when I was using strategy they got all mad and started in with the “Jim’s being a pussy” because I was able to attack and retreat and they couldn’t catch my figures.

Then we played a 4 player game and as usual we all got mad for one reason or another. One guy felt he was being picked on by two players. In reality, he stuck his team in a bad spot and refused to move them out and then got totally bombarded. I got mad for two reasons. One of the geniuses decided – as usual – to start cracking on my strategy. This is par for the course but if you question his judgment you’re just an idiot because he knows what he’s doing. And rules arguments get me mad. So I got upset when I felt the rules were in constant flux – changing to fit the situation for the two rules lawyers. And then the other genius got mad for the same thing and he had some tough rolls that got his team in trouble. So what ends up happening is that we all get mad and stop playing the game for awhile until we cool off. What I do know is that the guys get upset when I tell them I don’t really buy Heroclix anymore. It’s pretty much just the same figures being released over and over. I don’t really need 6 different versions of Spider-Man or Wolverine.

Crazy dream this morning. I was married to wrestling star Sable! LOL! But she had some history to her and her former boyfriend lived diagonally across from us. I was living at my parents’ place again in my old room with Sable. Her ex was doing something weird like animal abuse to a pet gorilla. Except that the gorilla was a miniature gorilla – about 16 inches tall or something. There was also some stuff where Sable was working with a cashier register drawer. It was weird because we were trying to balance the drawer as we walked around my parent’s backyard. But it was really windy and the money kept blowing out of the drawer. I had a lot of money in my pocket and was bitching because I kept putting money into the drawer only to have it blown away. And I’m talking $100 bills! That’s when it ended up going to the ex’s place to find the mini-gorilla.

Finally, with Sable crying about everything I took her to my old room to calm down. We hugged for a loooong time and then climbed into bed. We went to do the deed but I asked her to do something for me. I was nervous about it not knowing how she’d respond but she was already ahead of me and waiting to do it! LOL!

And then I woke up.

Seems that’s the way dreams work. I think this dream was just all about the crap I seen during the day. I was bitching money to my friends and saw a comic of a gorilla. Not sure how Sable got in it though.

Got info on what my unemployment check should look like. Money will be tight but should be doable. Of course, my friends gave me shit about it saying I’m cheap and all this and that. But that’s par for the course.

Heading off to watch football and hope I win in my fantasy leagues. And then to supper at my parents. All my brothers should be there so that’s a cool thing.

Crazy dreams

Had all sorts of dreams this monring. Had another crazy dream within a dream. I dreamt I was at an airport or something and that I woke up from that dream. I woke in my old bed in my old room at my parents place. After a while, I woke up from that dream to find I was in my own bed at my own house. That was somewhat surprising because while dreaming I was at my parents place it felt so real like I wasn't dreaming.

Can't remember where I was going when at the airport. I know I was at Bradley in CT. I was pissed because I got there early from wherever I was but had to wait something like 4 hours for my luggage. I live about 45 minutes from Bradley.

Elodie was there. She let me use her poems for The Necropolis Chronicles. She seemed rather happy and bouncy. Last time I heard from her she was basically foregoing the internet because of something serious and I don't know if I'll ever hear from her again.

Other dreams parts of dreams had me in Toys R Us. Some lady there had to do the work of her children. The children, two boys i think, 13 and young were either workers there or had to work there because of some problem. They may have broken something and had to pay it off. This lady, a women in her 30's was doing the work because the boys weren't. She was on a ladder and everything. It was sort of funny because she was wearing a fall coat and jeans an maybe a scarf and loading shelves with toys.

I was there with someone and they or we had to manuver some toys around. Not sure why. Then it turned into rural streets around my home town and we or someone had to add wiring to the phone lines to reach my parents house. Turns out my family owned a shit load of land but it was all weird. It was like thin strips of land along the sides of roads as if just enough land to own the telephone poles.

There was a whole lot more stuff but I've since forgotten it.

Got a little annoyed with my dad yesterday. I went to my parents place to move a bunch of wood - the split wood over the last few blogs. This is actually simple work, a truckload takes 20 minutes and we probably have to do about 8 truckloads. I just about had to twist my dad's arm to do two loads and then he quit. While I could do it myself it's his truck and he pretty much doesn't allow anyone else to drive his truck. It's like a major conflict if someone does. And actually, it's one of my brothers' truck it just that that brother has two other vehicles and lets my dad use the truck. What adds to the annoyance is my dad exclaiming that he wants to get the wood off our neighbor's land. It is on our neighbor's but that neighbor's house is literally 5 acres away with woods in between and he can't even see the wood from his own house. So it's real annoying to hear 'we've got to get this wood moved' and then I show up and we don't move it. Out of 2 hours spent at my parents yesterday, 30 minutes of work was done. All th other time was spent waiting around for my father to actually do the wood. Sigh.

I almost have the front cover to The Necropolis Chronicles companion issue fully inked. I have to do about 30 minutes more inking and it's all set. Mostly it's 'filling blacks', and some loooooong cross-hatching. And I think it looks pretty good to boot!

One of the things my father HAD to do while I was at the house was return bottles and get his lottery tickets. So I gave him a dollar to get me a ticket. I didn't get a single number out of last night's drawing.

Time to go. I'm off to my parents' place again to try and get a lot of wood moved so it can be stacked on our land. We'll see what happens today. Sigh.

Various small things

Had a sweet dream the other day in that I won $200,000 at a casino. I was sort of hoping that it will be a prophetic dream. I sometimes have those. Actually, it was more like wishfulfillment. Is that one word? I was watching a game show the other night and for some reason my head fixed on $200,000. That would pay off my house, put a nice sum into retirement and get me a decent large screen TV. I don't want a gigantic 45" to 55" screen - something more like 36".

Did the proof reading of most of the pages for the companion issue for The Necropolis Chronicles. Yeesh! Found way to many errors for my tastes. So now I have to reformat those with the new corrections. Tedious stuff. I hate tedious stuff.

Think I finally settled on an image for the front cover. I was drawing up some various ideas. Nothing really struck me overall but I do like the last image I've decided on. It's tough because I know some people are going to say the book is a rip-off of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and I'm trying to avoid that. I stopped watching Buffy around the end of season 2 beginning of season 3 and only saw sparadic shows thereafter. I guess I got bored with the series.

I think I had the water waaaay to hot in my shower this morning. After I got out I was feeling all naseautious (spelling?) and felt like blowing chunks. Still draped in my towel I staggered to my bed and collapsed and laid there for 10 to 15 minutes. Now I pretty much feel okay. I was going to make today my 'busy' day in doing the grocery shopping, stopping at some hardware stores and other small tasks but maybe not now. We'll see after I finally put some food in my gut.

Oy. I sort of feel trapped in my house. My retired neighbor is out doing the leaves in his yard. There are two or three trees on my land barely feet of his that cover his yard with leaves. And he's a yard/lawn nut so he's always out there tinkering with his yard. Last year he mentioned he had no problem if I cut the trees done. Of course, he didn't offer a cent towards what would probably be over $1000 in cost to have the trees cut down. Hell, usually he asks/suggests buying some tools & equipment from him - almost always yard stuff. I don't hate the guy but I get annoyed with him.

Done.

a story of tragedy

Blog 10/22/06

Ugh, both my fantasy football teams should end up taking loses again. This is the third week I’ll be losing in both leagues at the same time. In Bob’s league I have a solid team. Just turns out I could only lose to two people this week and I played one of those two people. I outscored 7 other teams. There’s a tiny chance my team might win in Dwain’s league but it’s highly unlikely. Pretty much one guy needs to score 3 touch downs. Doable, but highly unlikely to happen.

In Bob’s league, everyone is really bunched up with similar win-loss records. If I make the play-off’s I can win the whole thing because my team has been the best scoring team since week one. In Dwain’s league my offense sucks so bad that my team doesn’t break 100 points. That’s an average weekly score for most of the other teams. That team is about to go 2 wins and 5 loses. It’s frustrating because that’s the league that I’ve won for two years straight. It’s also frustrating because I missed the draft and I have guys on my team that I would most likely never have drafted but now I’m kinda stuck with them. Some I really am stuck with because you cannot get rid of them.

Met a new guy at the comic store that plays ‘clix. He was moderately annoying at times. Oompaloompa hates the guy and kinda treats him like shit. The has a 40+ minute ride to Springfield so I don’t expect to see him much. Plus Angry Black Man was really going all out with his trash talk. No if you know Fred, he’s a decent guy. If you don’t know Fred, he’s like 6’3 or taller and pretty beefy – like big gut and ass. When the chips are down though, he’s got your back. He’s also a fireman so that’s gotta count for something.

We both beat the new guy. Fred wiped him out. My team was weaker and it took me forever to finish him but I did pretty much thump him. I lost to Fred. This is fairly usual but he has some cards that I don’t that give him a decent edge. I could go out and buy the same cards but it’s more fun to beat the challenge of not having them. But I usually fail to beat that challenge. LOL!

The Patriots are 5-1 and have beaten their division rivals in every game so far. Because of this, they are pretty much locked to win the division and make it to the play-off’s.

Not a whole lot going on overall. Nothing really exciting for news. Money will be quite tight with unemployment. Maybe moreso than I expected. I also got a lot of mail concerning my unemployment. It really sucks reading this stuff because it really makes me feel as if I’m not going back to work at Top Flite. And that would rather suck since it’s the best paying job I’ve ever had.

Tired & Sore

Picked up my last paycheck today. My badge has been cancelled and wouldn't let me into my former work room. It was disappointing. Luckily, another worker was in the break room and let me in. Nothing new for news on going back to work.

I then spent roughly six hours at my parents. Most of that was moving and splitting wood. The pieces were pretty large and some were so heavy - I'm thinking 250 pounds at least - I couldn't move them in the soft grass. Considering I use to move 1000+ pound skids of play sand back in my TRU days, I'm not too terrible at judging weights.

Still, it was a good work day and I am both sore and quite tired. Most of the wood is split, probably 80% I'd say. A couple of pieces could be split but others are just too large. Soon comes the moving and stacking of the wood. It should be about 3 cords, maybe as much as 5 chords.

That's about it. Got home, watched BBC news, NBC nightly news, played Call of Duty 2 until 8pm and then watched Ugly Betty with some channel flips to other shows and then Supernatural. And just saw a great catch in the outfield in the Mets/Cardinals game that took away a homerun and doubled a guy off first base for an inning ending double play.

Tired.

Done.

Feeling better

Hmmmn,...I think my funk is lifting.

My leg feels quite good today with only the slightest of swollen flesh and is only sore if I poke and prod it.

I also feel like working on the comic. This is a good sign. I actually had forgotten that I had a picture ready to be inked so that I can complete the last of the character entries/descriptions.

The weather was miserable earlier but the sun is starting to poke through a bit. If it gets dry enough I'll be doing some wood at my parents house. The wood splitting production has gotten dangerously slow with little being done over the past few days. We are only suppose to have the wood splitter until sometime Friday. There's still quite a bit to do.

Reopened my unemployment claim today. First I had to wait until Tuesday because of the way things are set up by the unemployment department. Then I was told via recorded message to try again today. Even though I called at 8:40am - ten minutes after they open, I had to wait about 15 minutes for a claim person. Then that took about 10 to 15 minutes to take care of. I think money will be tight but I shouldn't fall behind in bills.

So I told my friends that I'm out of a job and have some free time. So what's one friend say? "Hey, maybe we can go catch a movie." Um,...no. I think I shall have $20 or less per week to spend on myself. I don't feel like dropping half of that on a movie. He'll call me a cheap bastard but bills come first.

Someone posted this link to Youtube on a comic forum I read. It's quite funny. It really cracks on women but it's done in a funny way. Seems like it came from a TV show or something.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HhPHCT-Kes

stealing a blog

I haven't gotten any writing or anything else done. It's just been one thing after another; emails and phone calls, errands and simply getting out of the house. I need to re-gather and re-focus right now.

# # #

Stole that from my friend's blog. It parrallels the way I feel right now. I haven't really done much my first day of being unemployed (today) or yesterday for that matter. I finished up one picture for the comic and that's about it.

Nailed my leg pretty good the other day when working on the wood for my parents. I was running the log splitter while my older brother positioned the wood. The splitter sent a large piece shooting off and into my thigh. Three days later I still have a dime sized welt but my leg pretty much feels fine. The first day after the incident I was limping and my leg was thoroughly sore. Never got a black-n-blue. I was thankful that the piece - about the size of a basketball if I remember correctly, caught me in the muscle tissue of my thigh instead of the bone of my shin. That probably would've been a trip to the hospital.

Meh. I'm done. Can't focus.

What a shitty stretch of news

So I go to work and in the break room outside of the main room are some of the first shifters talking with us. I quickly learn that a bunch more people are being laid off. And I'm one of them. It's only suppose to be temporary - maybe three weeks or maybe six weeks but the company doesn't know for sure. The last two times I was laid off there was no job to go back to. So that's it, after my next 12 hour shift tonight (Friday) I'm done. And I lose all of my benefits starting Nov 1st. I figured I'd lose my job because it's manufavturing but I didn't think it would be this quick. Guess I'm going to have to pray that it really is only temporary.

Continuing on with more 'good' news (sarcasm intended) my friend is apparently getting divorced. After seeing the total shit my brother has gone through with his I really don't wish divorce on anyone. I also find it sad when a union fails.

Even more 'good' news. One of my internet friends that helps me with poems for the comic is probably going off-line. From the brief PM I got from her something happened recently and it didn't really sound good. I gather she'll return eventually but who knows when. Or if I'll even know.

Can't remember if it was this week, I think last week really, my brother's ex started with more of her shit. She's now trying to drill into my nephew's head that she takes care of him and daddy only has fun with him. It never stops with her. I guess she just ignores that my brother shares custory with her including every other weekend where my nephew sleeps over. Apparently that doesn't count for taking care of my nephew. Nor having my brother look after him (her choice!) while she goes to school. Or anything else he does is 'taking care of him'. I don't wish malice on people or certainly try not to, but I would have no problem if a car hit my brother's ex, spewed gasoline all over her and burnt her into a crisp.

The only potential good news I have is that The Necropolis Chronicles Companion issue is only 5 pages away from being done. And since I no longer have a job about 24 hours of writing this, I should be able to finish it up by next week.

Bah. I'm going to bed to try and just forget this day.

Wood

Ugh. I’m gett’in old.

My parents got these giant looking tree trunks given to them for free. The wood is oak and ash. My brothers started cutting it up with chainsaws and I showed up to help by splitting some wood. It was an Indian summer day of 80 degrees. After 15 minutes I was totally winded with sweat pouring off me. It was splashing on to the insides of the lenses of my glasses.

I went back the next day to do some more. I was happy I wasn’t all that sore. I made sure this time not to go as furiously with the chopping and got a a lot more done. I still had sweat dripping off me pretty good and I got quite tired but it was a better and more productive day. I did manage to get 5 different blisters on my right hand though. The gloves that I thought would be okay sucked in reality.

Yahoo stats aren’t up yet but I’m fairly certain I split in my two fantasy football leagues. I’m 2-3 in the league that I want to win in for the third year in row. It’s going to be tough with two teams already 4-0. So far, my computer draft choices have yet to live up to their projections. It doesn’t help that I’ve faced two different opponents that have posted their best scoring weeks of the year against me. In the work league I’m 3-1-1, 2nd best record overall. And I beat the guy that’s 4-1.

My big plans for getting a ton of work done on the comic have been scrapped. Although I had planned on today and tomorrow to do most of the work so there is some hope yet. Helping my brothers with the wood was a bigger priority. My dad’s in his 70’s and he shouldn’t be doing or have to do such strenuous work.

A couple of weird dreams that I’ve pretty much forgotten. One had me in the military and in a school that was a base. I can remember running around the place with other team members looking for something. I think I may have been a medic or studying to be one.

Another dream had me with my usual – the dream was more like a movie where I was the director more than the star. Those kinds of dreams are a little weird. While I sometimes star in the dream it more like I’m the camera hanging just behind their shoulder and following them around.

Almost supper time. Done here.

Sunday morning musings

Saturday was fairly action packed.

I woke up early which kind of pissed me off since I wanted to sleep at least until 9am. Made/finished two Magic decks from the night before. After checking out some stuff on-line my buddy called and we went to the comic store to hang out. Two other guys ended up showing up which was good because I hadn’t seen one for a couple of months.

I got into a real good game with Angry Black Man. I ended up losing but the fight was a real close contest throughout the game.

Grabbed chow at Friendly’s afterwards. I had a burger with fries and a milkshake. The shake was a little watery unfortunately. But the chow was pretty good and I couldn’t finish the fries. I happened to have had a coupon with me to save $5 on a $25 purchase or more. I had ordered extra bacon on my burger which cost 60 cents. Between my buddy and I the bill came up to $25.15. LOL! So I got to use my coupon. I thought we’d ring in at $18 or $19.

Went grocery shopping after that and ran into a old co-worker there that I hadn’t seen in a year I think. He looked a little worse for wear which was slight depressing. I think he was okay though.

After getting home from that I caught my Magic buddy on-line. My brother said he had called to play Magic. After some brief IM’s I went over wanting to try out the new decks I had made. I really hadn’t expected him to call and figured my decks would have to wait until next Monday night following Columbus Day. Snuck in part of a game before a crew of three showed up and that made for six players. My buddy and his dad were groaning like hell over that first half game and it was great. I was really putting them through the ringer by screwing with land and crushing them with black vices. That’s Magic talk.

The first big game I played in was okay. I was the first one eliminated but played for a full hour busting people’s chops with crazy cards that drive people nuts. I don’t think my deck delivered a single point of damage but people were quite happy to see me booted. The resident ‘expert’ was eliminated soon after me and he wasn’t happy. He kept telling the guy that eliminated that he had made the wrong decision because of this and that and that and this. The expert had lost and he couldn’t accept it.

So the expert and I had a fun little crazy game after that. Then we found out that the clock on the wall wasn’t working and that it was 40 minutes later than what the clock read. So I bolted because it was pushing midnight and I had been awake since 6:15 am I think it was.

There was a quick e-mail check to find out that SOMEBODY hadn’t responded to my e-mail yet. ; P And STILL hasn’t. Actually, out of about 5 people I’ve e-mailed over the past couple of days, only one has responded. So much for the ‘hi, how are you…’ e-mail. And two are business related. Sheesh!

With football on today and my oldest brother at the parentals for his birthday dinner tonight it doesn’t look like I’ll get much done today. I was surprised I sleep until 10:20 am and never heard my brother and nephew rise, eat and leave. I must have been tired. Still feel a little sluggish but that’s probably because after a shower I’m on my PC.

Had a weird dream this morning. I think it took a bunch of the stuff I saw yesterday and sort of rolled it into a dream. I was in New York for some reason, something like Albany. There was a baseball stadium that was inside a mall or something. I was lobbing balls from outside the field markers to just inside the outfield warning track perfecting clearing the wall by an inch every time but once. I think I was pretending to be a ‘closer’ pitcher.

Then I was wandering around a sort of clothing outlet that was filled with people from the baseball area. The outlet had rows and rows of really tall racks and racks of clothing and sneakers. Kind of a pick through and grab type scene. This old lady wanted my autograph and I said I couldn’t help her and went to the ‘bullpen’ to where I had scene other pitchers warming up/practice pitching in case they had to pitch. But where I went was in between some clothing racks and I started pitching. I then pulled the racks close together pretty much sealing me off from others because I didn’t want to pitch, just get away from the autograph seekers.

I then slipped through some other racks into a somewhat quiet corner of the store. There was this young lady there that was about 6 and ½ feet tall but only average looking. I saw a girl at the supermarket earlier in the night that was really tall. Sort of reminded me of her. Dream lady was dressed in a sleek fur coat and glossy boots and was selling shoes or something. She called to me and started griping about her sore feet. She then took off her flat heeled boots and put on some really high heeled pumps making her look like 6’8 or taller.

She was only average looking (what kind of dream girl is that?! Lol!) but was flirting with me. I decided that I didn’t really want to drive back home to MA after everything that had happened and got a room at a local joint. The place was apparently owned by some cousins of mine. It was like a three story factory or old apartment building with lots of farm land around it and was quite the shithole. Grimey windows, the room was almost a small apartment and the kitchen looked like it was from he 1930’s. The walls had graffiti on them. There were two ‘baby’ toys on the wall – silver and gold Star Wars ships – a TIE fighter and an X-Wing.

There was a woman or maybe two there. One was another patron in her own room. I walked around the third floor after getting up. The place seemed to have a lot of halls or walkways and not much for rooms. I think there were only two or three rooms on the third floor and I wondered how the place stayed open. The halls/walkways had huge single planed windows and the place felt like it was built in the 1930’s or earlier.

I woke up somewhere around here because I can’t remember much else.

The Yankees lost! LOL! I’m rooting for Oakland since the Red Sox are out of it.

I like Wendy’s new profile pic on her blog.

It’s noon and I haven’t eaten yet.

allergies?

Since work cancelled work this weekend I have both Saturday and Sunday off. With Monday being a holiday I don’t have to go back to work until Thursday night for 7pm. Then I work Friday night 7pm and have Sat/Sun/Mon off all over again. Kinda nice but my paychecks will be small.

My parents were given about 3 or 4 chords of wood for free the other day. This is pretty big for them because they use a wood stove to heat the house and should save them $300 to $400 this winter. It’s all ash wood too so they can cut it and burn it this season. So I expect to spend at least one day of this essential week off up there helping them cut and stack the wood.

Got two more pages done on the companion issue of The Necropolis Chronicles. I also noticed that about 12 pages had the same error so I went back and fixed those.

Saw my buddy at the comic store and played clix. Another guy showed up and joined in. Then I went to another buddy’s to play Magic the Gathering. So now I’m in the mood to play more Magic. I always prefer to make crazy decks that are highly annoying. It’s fun to win but I prefer to make people moan and groan and complain. “Pox?! You bastard!”

Watch Ugly Betty the other night. I had wanted to catch the premiere but was working. It wasn’t as good as I thought it would be. I’ll probably watch another episode or two to see if it gets better.

Caught most of Supernatural the other night. I would have caught it all but my buddy called in the middle of it. I still like this show a lot. Sometimes it’s hit or miss but the dialogue between the brothers seems really real and it’s my favorite part of the show because they aren’t wusses for the sake of drama. If the brothers are pissed they almost fight one another, bitch at one another, and crack on one another. But it just seems real unlike a lot of tv drama’s.

Typical fall day today. Some sunlight earlier, must’ve rained at some point since the road has some minor puddles and the weather is cool but not overly cold. I need to mow my lawn one more time. The grass is getting high again and since one of my neighbors is a yard freak my yard looks like a jungle compared to his. I don’t really mind mowing the lawn but it’s kind of low on the priority list.

My mom was waited on by the goofy bank teller finally that I’ve complained about before. She agreed that there seems to be something wrong with this guy. She went in to pay her credit card bill and it took the guy like five minutes to complete the transaction. I guess another teller kept trying to hide that she was walking past him to keep up on him but she finally asked him if everything was ‘okay’. He said it was. I hope so. My parents don’t have a lot of money and this guy screwing up their credit could really hurt them.

I sometimes wonder if I’m allergic to my brother. Or at least, something he either wears or brings home from work. This has happened before but the other day I was totally fine the whole day. My brother comes home and about 30 minutes later or so I start sneezing to the point of my eyes bawling and I almost couldn’t breathe along with using about half a box of tissues. I had gone outside earlier in the day and had had no problems so unless a tree or flower or something only blooms at night I really think it was my brother. It kept up most of the night to where my nose was constantly dripping. I was fine the next morning. I dunno. Maye it’s just fall or something.

Back to deck building!

Lay-off's

Yep, I thought my job was secure for 2 to 5 years but the room I work in just laid off 16 workers. They let go 4 people from each of the 4 crews. It really rather sucks. I wasn't one of the 16 but still...

Work's shutting down this weekend. Not totally unexpected actually. This did this the last Monday holiday too. What does suck is that my paycheck will fall from 48 hours to 24. It's a big loss of money. What it means for me is that I lose 'my check' this month. With the way I do my budgetting, ever fourth check is pretty much mine to spend as I please. Weeks 1 & 2 pay my mortgage, week 3 pays my monthly bills and week 4 is mine. Well, this 24 hour check falls on my 'monthly bills' check - week 3. So now week 4 will have to help pay the monthly bills. Kinda sucks. I was planning on saving money towards a sci-fi cons in case my buddies and I decide to go.

Had weird dreams yesterday. I can only remember parts of two different dreams. One I walked into a room that was in my parents' house. The whole family was living together again and I walked into my room (a house totally different from my parents' real house). And there was a ghost in my room. It was a little scary but didn't mean harm even though it tried to possess me. It was the spirit of a girl - maybe 12 or 13 I think - from the 1800's in America.

The other dream I was living on the west coast in California I think in San Franciso. In the house I was renting I could see the ocean from my window and it was maybe a ten minute or so walk to it. My friend Bob was investigating ghostly activity in the house and was interviewing me about it. It might have been another ghost of a young girl.

Writing a bit of an adult story using my super-hero characters. It's a lot of fun and hopefully funny. Deinately NOT for kids.

Sneaked in some inking at work on pictures for the companion issue of The Necropolis Chronicles. It was real boring inking stuff - straight lines and backgrounds and 'filling blacks' (shadows and spot blacks). I much prefer inking characters because they are much more exciting.

Can't really think of much else to write right now.

Stuff from the weekend

This past weekend was…okay I guess. Nothing bad happened but nothing good happened either. On the downer side my sleep was totally messed up. I started on Saturday by not getting good sleep. Slept like something from 11:30am to 3pm I think it was. Sunday I woke up at 6:15am and fought my way back to sleep to sleep a couple hours later and woke up at 12:30 PM. Fell asleep later in the early evening after being a couch potato for the day watching football. Both Saturday and Sunday nights I was up until 2:30am trying to sleep. It really sucked.

Watched the movie Sky High Saturday night. It’s a Disney flick set to super-heroes in high school. It had Disney’s tried and true clichés of outcast becomes popular, forgets his/her true friends but they take him/her back after finding out that the new friends are just jerks. Princess Diaries comes to mind immediately.

But I liked the characters, the setting/background info, and seeing who had what for powers. Some of the acting was a bit horrid but I think the director wanted sort of a Batman from the 1960’s feel. So in the end, I found the movie entertaining and quite enjoyable and I’d watch it again. I’d say Bruce Campbell as Sonic Boom was the funniest character. And Warren Peace is just such a great name with his mom being a super-hero and his dad a Super-villain.

My co-worker caused a bit of a problem at work the other night. Our normal supervisor has been needing to miss some time for training courses for work. So we got Scott from the shift that mirrors ours. So Kevin sees this maintenance guy and says he’s sorry about his son-in-law getting fired. Scott fired the son-in-law for having six occurrences. An occurrence is an absence that can be more than one day. And Scott is big on firing people. I think he’s fired or gotten 4 to 6 people fired since he became a supervisor about 6 months ago. Well, maintenance man had just talked to his daughter the previous day and nothing was mentioned about the son-in-law getting fired. Oops! So I guess the maintenance confronted Scott. I actually saw some of this not knowing what was going on. There didn’t seem to be any shouting or anything but the guy did come back for a second round. I’m sure he wasn’t happy about the situation.

My fantasy sports teams are in trouble this week. I lost in the baseball championship series. My guys actually came back a bit to try and make things at least have to go to the final day to say I was truly defeated. I won 3 categories and the champ won 7. I was disappointed that half my team didn’t play during the final week. Last year’s MVP sat the final 3 games of the year. That certainly didn’t help my cause. And two of my pitchers skipped their last starts of the year which rather sucked. It’s a bummed knowing that if things had gone perfect the last week that I could’ve won only to see the guys I needed to play sit and do nothing.

In football I’m facing the same opponent in two different leagues. Bob is KILLING me by 70 points in his league. That’s a huge margin. He’s scored something like 154 with a good player still to go and I’ve got 85 points with my QB still to go. I’m leading Bob by 2 points in Dwain’s league but Bob also has the same good player still to play in that league so there’s no way he should lose. So it looks like my fantasy teams will all lose again for the second week in a row. Ouch.

During football I worked on some sketches I had started at work. I was drawing in some backgrounds to help give the drawings oomph. They look pretty good and I’ll be using them in the companion issue. I’ll be working on that later today, maybe even just after I post this.

My friend Wendy FINALLY posted a picture of herself to blog profile. Hey, Wendy! (waves). I guess I haven’t seen her in awhile because she looks completely different from the last time I saw her. Of course, that was about 4 or 5 years ago I think. Now that I think about it, it has been quite awhile. I kinda like her geeky glasses. J

My brother won a 190 pound pumpkin in a raffle. It now sits by my front step. It’s a little bigger than 2 or 3 basketballs stuck together. Somehow, we’re suppose to get it up to my parents’ place but we’ll need a truck.

Later.