alas, we have finally reached the end of our time here at blogspot. time to be a good microsoft employee and leave googles adopted bastard child in the dust. please join me at our wonderful, brand new msn provided space at:

http://spaces.msn.com/members/greatstink.

blogger.com, to you and your evil parents, i wish you all the worst failures imaginable. you may be on top at the moment, but i look forward to the day when msn looks down upon your quivering corpse, chuckling, wondering what you were thinking trying to act like competition. death to google! long live msn!

o yea, one more thing ... thanks for hosting me and my thoughts for the past five months. au revoir ...

its kind of like school a little bit, being this busy at work, having a deadline looming, vacation coming soon ... i guess some of you just went through something similar, or are in the process of doing so. i really feel good about what i do now though, even when my PM finds a million things wrong with everything i checkin. cause i can fix everything he brings up and i have a yes for it all. thats what matters right? so i finished the website today. tomorrow i have to do some changes to my thing i thought i was done with. day or two of that. then its on to the last big hurdle, a whole application to write in a week. we will see how i do, could involve some night and/or weekend work. bit of an inconvenient weekend, since john and corey are headed to portland and it would be fun to go. ah well. cant have it all right? i had some barbecue tonight, it was actually pretty good. not texas good, nowhere near memphis good (mmmm), but the best ive had outside those two places. some really bad blues band was playing in the restaurant, it was upsetting, cause i love a good blues band. i dont claim to be any expert, but blues is all in the guitar and the voice. if you have one or the other youve got a good start. you have both, youre a legend. you have neither like these clowns in the restaurant, youre just annoying background noise. but the food was good and i ate too much and got bloated ... like home again. i really cant wait to be home again. i miss my house. i miss my family. i miss my dog. i miss my friends. i miss just the feeling of texas. i miss breakfast tacos. i miss mexican food. i miss dodging 18-wheelers on i35. i miss thunderstorms. i miss the hot sun.

its nice to know i still miss these things. i dont really miss them in a sad way anymore, just an "awwww" way, brings a little smile to my face, like seeing kids excited in the malls before christmas, or playing with a puppy or kitten. its a real simple emotion. i like simple emotions, ones i know the source of, i know i should feel, and i know ill never have to pretend dont exist. and yet, if all feelings were that simple, then what would i have to ponder laying in bed late at night. maybe god made the world the way it is, put us all in the situations were in, put us with the people were with. maybe he really does have his hand in our lives in ways noone could imagine. maybe he gives us these sensations of affection, of optimism, of pessimism, of short-lived happiness, of failed endeavours, all just so we have things to think about. perhaps he knows wed go mad otherwise, if every situation worked out the way we wanted. you can only think "wow, im lucky" or "this is great" so many times before it turns passe. but give me something i screwed up, sometihing i dont understand, something that might work, something i feel will work but never does, something that slowly and completely slips through my fingers, and that can roll around my noggin endlessly for nights and days and weeks and months. and then when good things happen its like wow, look how much bvetter this feels then everything else, and you can lie there and appreciate that more truly. more things to ponder, and i know id go insane without it, im guessing you would too, even if you sleep alot and claim not to spend much time in useless self-assesment. so gods really looking out for us by making us "suffer". think about it, it makes sense.

alternatively, maybe its all just random, people meet each other randomly, the law of averages says some good things happen, some bad things happen. and we all just float through life making it day to day trying to feel the happiest we can at any given moment. survival of the most satisfied. if thats the case, looks like ill be going the way of the dodo bird. man i love the dodo bird. is anyone really surprised they went extinct? its was called dodo. not a good start. it actually had the nerve to evolve backward, from a flighted bird to a flightless one, just cause it found an easy place to live and it got too lazy to fly. surprisingly, that didnt turn out to be the brightest idea. i think of the dodo whenever i want to devolve back into a pile of goo, or more reasonably, a monkey. they got life pretty easy, huh? sit in a cage at the zoo, play with yourself, eat and poop. how can you beat that? we say we evolved into a more advanced species. maybe, but i dont know that our quality of life is that much better. monkeys dont have to mess around with abstract thought or senseless emotions. whenever they wonder hmm i wonder why this is like that, they get distracted by a bodily function and move on. hmmm, speaking of which ...

what am i missing exactly? somebody tell me. and then tell me how to get it. i want it now! just once. please. i dont think its too much to ask. ive tried and waited long enough. now its matts turn. dammit.

so i was going to move to spaces.msn.com to set up my new blog until i tried it and found out that everyone has to sign up for passport account to leave comments. i find this lame and im sure those of you without a hotmail or msn account would not enjoy it much either. so i dont know if i will make the move or not, we will see.

in other news, i dont think the steph situation is going to work out ever. i get the distinct impression that there is no reciprocal feelings and i dont see them developing. its quite disappointing, but hey, life goes on. shes still my favorite person in seattle and a whole lot of fun as a friend, and thats gotta be worth something. so thats all there is to say about that. well, assuming youre like me and dont believe in miracles. if one occurs, youll be the first to know. we wont discuss how much optimism can suck the life out of a man. instead, we will fold clothes. goodbye.

the ronco knives are out of control cool. my new favorite infomercial of the current day. "youll chop onions so fast you wont even have time for tears. the only tears youll have are tears of joy." i agree. if i had those knives i would cut everything. just cause i could. imagine the possibilities.

that is all tongiht. hehe i said id share a thought a day, i didnt say how long theyd be. look for some changes coming soon including a new address for my space. courtesy of msn. might take a little time to get the motivation though, so dont hold your breath. unless it stinks. cause noone like halitosis. thats what its called right? bad breath. hold it.

so its not that i dont like working with people. i do. i like the interaction, i like getting help, i like the input and the education that comes iwth it. but i really dont like depending on other people to do my work. i was never great at group projects in school for that reason. i work on my own schedule, i get things done as i do them, and when im ready to do something, i like to be able to just do it. so when i have to wiat on my program manager to get me something, and he takes over four weeks to do it, it really bugs me. i spend two weeks making this website like forever ago, then wait for the UI spec, and then its completely out of my mind. he gives it to me today, and now they want it done as soon as possible, cause code complete was supposed to be the end of the week. yea, not gonna happen. not my fault though so i dont feel too too bad about it.

work is cool though. i like it. im pretty consistently busy these days, which is perfect. days fly by, weeks fly by, then weekends are fun. its really what a job should be. i enjoy what i do, im doing well at it, and theres very little stress and pressure involved. some people i know complain about their job, say they dont feel like theyre making a big enough impact on the world, that theyre overloaded, blah blah. i dont need a big impact, i dont care about changing the world, ya know? my ambitions arent that high. i mean if i end up in the situation, and im sure i will at some point in my microsoft lifetime, where i am working on an important commercial product with real visible financial impact, i will be trapped in solid product cycles, stress everywhere, constant changes ... it will be a blast. but till then ill stay in my cushy little position, work my 9-10 hours a day, and feel good about myself. and drink mountain dew. lots and lots of dew. i think im getting a dew gut hehe. shhh dont tell anyone.

two signs its december. first, the date at the top of this post says december 1st. second, i just saw the m&ms/santa commercial. he does exist. they do exist. man i love christmas m&ms. or just christmas altogether. i was going to buy lights and decorations, but im afraid ill blow out my fuse again. my guess is they didnt have big electric bulbs when this place was wired. but i think i will buy a wreath. i need some spirit. i love spirit. i will go shopping this weekend for fun knick knacks for gifts for people. then i will be spirited. what do you want? nothing? cool, ill get you one of those.

"Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see."

man ive been sitting here trying to figure out what to say about this quote for like two hours. watching family guy (when you wish upon a weinstein), seinfeld (clip shows, 2 of them), daily show and simpsons. its gotten me nowwhere. i really like this quote though. its from rene magritte, a surrealist author and painter in the twentieth century. he was describing a painting called the son of man, with an apple hiding the face of an otherwise visible man. i think its kind of an interesting idea. im not exactly an overly curious guy, ive never been one to pry in other peoples affairs, spy on them, sneak through their mail or diaries or anything to find out secrets. but its cool to think of the fact that theres always more out there, you know? sure, physically this is an obvious thing. a wall hides the outside, a lid hides the inside, masks hide the ugly, ummm something else hides the pretty. you get the idea. but its kind of true in the abstract as well. everything you do in life hides something else that you could possibly be doing or have done. and arent we all pretty curious as to what is hidden by life? everytime you ask "what if", thats essentially what youre asking. what is being hidden? its an interesting exercise, even if futile and useless. im still stuck on that course from time to time. see, i love where i am right now. i love this city, i love my job, i love my apt, i love my few but good friends. its really a great situation. i mean obviously its not perfect. i miss things about the other life i used to live. i miss the simplicity, i miss the people, i miss the culture. so i think, what if opportunities had come different. what if my life had stayed in texas with my friends there. it would have been fun i think. but would i have been as happy there? would i have the same satisfaction? i dont think i would. it was fun, but i think im glad i moved on. even with everything i miss. i think when i first moved out here, my emotions hid the accomplishments i was making. i think i fooled myself by only seeing the difficulties and uncomfortable loneliness of it. but as was pointed out to me recently, ive made a pretty good name for myself in the few months ive been here. im pretty happy. there are things i want, things i may or may not get. but who knows, maybe by focusing on those i am missing something else in life. maybe i should look for the things that my current feelings are hiding ...

nah. i dont think so. abstract thinking sucks. i want what i want. now give it to me. pretty please.

ps. written on a key lime, a sex in the city, a playboy, and a kingston
pps. those are martinis
ppps. with steph :-)

pppps. still nothing :-(