The continuing adventures of Mike.... (original) (raw)
Mike's LiveJournal [Keeping Up To Date] [Been There, Done That] [Expand Your Social Circle]
"If I could frame my mind
Where would it hang?"
--Eve 6, "Open Road Song"
The last 11 trips inside my twisted mind can be seen below. But first you may want to take this opportunity to learn a little more about Mike. Enjoy.
"I don't want you to be the guy in the PG-13 movie everyone's *really* hoping makes it happen. I want you to be like the guy in the rated R movie, you know, the guy you're not sure whether or not you like yet. You're not sure where he's coming from. Okay?"
--Vince Vaughn, "Swingers"
[ << Personally, I prefer his older stuff. ]
| Thursday, April 6th, 2006 | |
|---|---|
| 11:45 am | Bandwagon Schmandwagon. LiveJournal has served me well, but I've followed the crowd to greener pastures.MySpace.Com - Where Whiny Elitist Emo Kids and People With Unhealthy Obsessions With Animated GIFs Live In Sin Until The Next Big Internet Trend! (11 pennies paid out. | Penny for your thoughts?) |
| Saturday, August 13th, 2005 | |
| 12:40 am | I'm thinking if I'm gonna stick with this thing, I may have to switch my style up a bit, from long, thought-out entries to short, "blog"-style random bursts. Like, for instance, a drinking game based on my summer reality TV obsession "Rock Star: INXS"._Drink when any of the following happens:-The cameraman cuts to another contestant during INXS's comments, and they have a sour look on their face.-Someone makes a joke about either JD's ego or the fact that he cried.-The singer arranges the song themselves.-Dave Navarro flirts with a female contestant. (Twice when they flirt back.)-Jessica "interacts" with the band.-Marty gives another mediocre performance that for some reason INXS loves.-Someone from INXS other than Garry or Tim has a comment about the performance.-Anyone from INXS says, "How do you think your performance was?"-Dave calls the performer by their first and last name.-Anyone other than Brooke Burke says the name of the band._Or perhaps, the fact that I got an e-mail from Classmates the other day reminding me that my 10 year high school reunion is coming up next year. Damn, that's nuts.But, yeah. New format time, provided I can find time to write here. More randomness to come. Stay tuned, kids. Current Mood: random (Penny for your thoughts?) |
| Friday, July 29th, 2005 | |
| 2:21 am | Hey, does this thing still work? So I'm thinking of writing in this thing again with some sort of regularity. Not sure why all of the sudden. I don't really "need" it for the same reasons I used to. I guess I just think it was fun. Plus I'm starting to notice things, signs of aging if not maturity, stuff I can't help but ponder. For instance, the fact that lately I find myself listening mostly to either FM talk radio or music that came out while I was still in high school. Plus, I'm married now, which certainly makes life more interesting and, yes, I'll say it, fun. Stuff like that. Maybe to commemorate the occasion I'll go back and purge a lot of old entries from my younger, stupider days. A fresh start might do me good.Those of you who haven't yet deleted me from your friends list and suspected me dead, thanks. More to come soon, possibly.But enough about me. How have you been? Current Mood:  contemplative (27 pennies paid out. | Penny for your thoughts?) |
| Monday, November 15th, 2004 | |
| 6:11 pm | In loving memory of Ol' Dirty Bastard. Russell "Ol' Dirty Bastard" Jones1968-2004 in mourning (5 pennies paid out. | Penny for your thoughts?) |
| Tuesday, November 9th, 2004 | |
| 6:04 pm | The (long) weekend from Hell. Man, when it rains shit, it pours.I capped off a wonderfully awful weekend at work (climaxed either by all of the registers going down right in the middle of the 11 am rush on Saturday morning, or me taking an impromptu "...before I kill someone" break on Sunday afternoon, I can't decide) with my car deciding to overheat itself into almost total oblivion yesterday on the way to school. Well, maybe not oblivion, but repair costs that totalled out to more than the cost of a down payment for a new car. Since I can't afford that either, the Focus shall roll on. At least, it will when Brighton Ford gets its grubby little paws off of it. And the suckfest rolled on into today, as my opening cashier was 30 minutes late and there was no actual U-scan opener, leaving us hopelessly understaffed for the umpteenth day. Someone please tell me why I took this promotion? Oh yeah--more money. Now someone tell me why I'm considering putting in for yet another step up. Home Depot will not be my career, I swear it to you, but it's certainly worth seeing how far I can get while I'm there. What the hell.I think the best part about times like these is the realization that things can't get any worse. Granted, that part is a very brief moment before things get exponentially worse, but I try as hard as I can to at least savor that brief moment. Brief, temporary positivity beats the hell out of none at all, if you ask me. Current Mood: exhausted (4 pennies paid out. | Penny for your thoughts?) |
| Wednesday, November 3rd, 2004 | |
| 6:08 pm | A historical day. Well, yesterday was the big day. A day I've been looking forward to for a long time. The day I practiced my irrevocable right as a citizen of the free world.... and celebrated my 26th birthday. And it was a pretty good day. Had a nice home-cooked dinner, got the Trivial Pursuit 90s edition, Arrested Development season 1 on DVD, and a combined $85 from relatives. All in all, a pretty decent haul.Oh yeah, and there was something about an election, too.There was a time when I absolutely loved birthdays. Then there was a brief period when I hated them. Now, it's kind of just another day, but it's usually a pretty nice day. It really is possible to enjoy your special day without running around like some idiot with a party hat. Age doesn't really matter to me. Sure, I got plenty of "So, feel old yet?" remarks like I do on every birthday. But truthfully, I don't. I feel the same as always. I'm just trying to get by, do what I have to do and enjoy life at the same time. As busy as I am, I'd say life's going pretty well at the moment. If things can continue the way they are, who cares about aging? We only get a few short years to enjoy while we're here. Why obsess so much over counting them?As for the election, I read my friends list today and saw all sorts of reactions to the election, most of them in the "let's move to Canada" vein. As a registered Democrat, I myself voted for John Kerry. But I'm not exactly mourning the future of our country. Whatever's gonna happen is gonna happen. Sure, I didn't exactly have a great last four years as far as jobs go, having gone from a comfortable, stable "grown up" office job to head cashier at Home Depot, having done nearly every shit job in between short of janitor. But who's to say the next four years will be any worse? I know as much as anyone else. All we can do is shrug our shoulders and hope for the best. (Perhaps my blase attitude has to do with my basically now being ineligible for any sort of draft that may or may not be reinstated. Who knows.)I guess we'll just have to see where the next four years take us. First things first, let's see what happens in the next one. Current Mood:  hopeful (7 pennies paid out. | Penny for your thoughts?) |
| Saturday, September 11th, 2004 | |
| 9:49 am | Good news. Life's going pretty well right now. I really think I'm going to like college a lot. My writing class is GREAT. I'm gonna get way into that. It deals with opening myself up (no problems there) and writing about pop culture. Finally, a class tailor-made for ME. Why the hell didn't I go back to college sooner?Work is going really great as well. I recently got promoted to kind of a supervisory position. That's a pretty cool thing after only four and a half months. Sure, it's not the greatest job in the world, but I'm pretty proud of how I'm doing there. People there actually like me and respect me, and I actually want to go to work and want to do well there. And for the first time in a long time, I really feel like I have friends. Strange, but very, very cool.This is the part where I whine and bitch about something, but I really can't think of anything right now. So looks like I'm gonna end this one on a high note. What a great feeling. Current Mood: pleased (3 pennies paid out. | Penny for your thoughts?) |
| Friday, August 20th, 2004 | |
| 1:47 am | Sicknesses. Being sick, for me, has always sucked pretty bad. I have this little joke that I actually have a constant cold that just goes into remission like some sort of cancer. I guess that's kind of true of a lot of Michigan folks. At any rate, when I do get sick, it's usually pretty bad for a couple of days. I wouldn't say my current illness (yet another bad cold one vomiting session away from being the flu) was ever as bad as it's been (it's now day 3; day 2 is usually the worst, and it was), but it still hits hard. I still went to work today, and despite an almost downright awful first half, I made it through the rest of the day. Which is odd, considering that I can't vouch for any actual hours of sleep in about the past 72 hours or so. I may have dozed off a couple of times, I do remember dreaming very briefly once or twice. But most of my last few nights, and even the nights before I got sick, have been mostly tossing and turning. This is even under the influence of NyQuil, one of the only cold remedies that actually still worked on my mutant strain of colds. I still get up in the morning with the usual NyQuil hangover, but little if any sleep to show for it. I hate being sick. I hate not sleeping even more. Granted, I'm a night person, but when a few hours of sleep are available I love to take advantage of them. It was hard to do working two jobs, one of which required I be there at 4 a.m. Now I have plenty of available sleep time, but it just isn't happening. Why? Is my body just not used to the new system, where I can actually get more than five hours of sleep a day, and in a single session? It's kinda frustrating. I run myself dead tired, but when I try to lay down, I just can't get comfortable, and my eyes refuse to close. Now THAT sucks.I've determined that a hobby of mine is Reading Stuff By People Who Are Smarter (And Way More Clever) Than I Can Ever Hope To Be (which is, incidentally, too long to fit in my LJ interests. Damn!) I tend to do this quite a lot. I'm currently reading You Shall Know Our Velocity! by Dave Eggers, for example (and recently finished Dress Your Family In Corduroy And Denim by David Sedaris, for another.) Reading stuff like that makes me wish I could write like them. Problem is, I guess it also makes me wish I could talk that same way. I've recently been told that one of my more annoying habits (of which I have many, I'll admit, a bit reluctantly) is slipping 25-cent words into normal, casual conversation. I have no idea why I do this. It's like, some weird habit or something that I know I can control, but for some reason, I don't. As hard as it is to convince people sometimes, I really don't feel like I have anything to prove to anyone. But I guess I act differently sometimes. I don't know. I don't really think that I'm the sum of a few parts, calculated to improve how the world sees me. But I guess, when I talk the way I do, I can come off that way. I'm sorry if I do, and I'll try to work on that. it's weird how you can reject one person's opinion, yet still wonder if that's how everyone really does see you, and in turn, wonder if it is true. Is what I think is me, really me at all? Or am I really just this picture I've painted of what I wish I was? Man, I hope not.Hmm, maybe that's a little too deep for 1:45 am. Maybe I should just hit the NyQuil and get some sleep. Yeah, sounds like a plan. Current Mood: contemplative (7 pennies paid out. | Penny for your thoughts?) |
| Monday, August 9th, 2004 | |
| 12:25 pm | Mike's Day Off. I completely blew off Target today, and I don't regret that fact a bit. I've also more or less decided I'm leaving Target a couple weeks early - effective immediately. It was something of a revelation I had last night that, basically, I didn't feel like going to work there anymore, and for all intents and purposes, I didn't have to. That, and I set my alarm the wrong way and ended up oversleeping. When I finally woke up (45 minutes late already), I rolled over and said, "Screw that place." I'll probably go in and file the necessary paperwork anyway, just to make it all official. I was leaving in a couple of weeks to go back to school anyway (yes, I am officially now a college student.) In all honesty, I feel pretty good and am enjoying my morning/early afternoon off. It's kinda like Peter Gibbons in "Office Space" (a movie I still find parallels to in everyday working life, even at Home Depot) the day after he was hypnotized. "Today I did nothing, and it was everything I hoped it would be."I finally read "The Catcher In The Rye" for the first time ever a couple of weeks ago. I liked the book and all, but if it had come out today I doubt it would reach the classic status it has today. These days we like our anti-heroes heartless and cold, and Holden is just way too emotional and caring. I'm not sure a lot of people in Holden's age group today would really respond to it. Sure, they'd all want to ditch school and wander New York City I'm sure, but I don't think they'd be so concerned about their families and so shameful of those who do things like write "Fuck You" on the wall of a school. Most of them would have probably done just that himself. I think it's a shame that today's kids aren't a little more like Holden, and that makes me feel kinda old.Where is the happy medium between fun and responsibility that most adults can seem to reach but that I seemingly have yet to discover? At what point do or should one become too mature to want to go to movies or concerts or do fun things with your friends anymore? Does getting married and going back to school mean and end to the things that used to make you happy? Should it? Is this what being 25 is all about? I hear about classmates and people around my age getting married and starting careers and families. That's kind of where I'm at now, but it all still seems a little weird and overwhelming to me. But being that I am of the age to do that now, should it? Am I immature, or is everyone else too mature? And is it wrong that I'm tired of thinking about stuff like that and would rather just kill some time at a movie?Maybe I shouldn't take days off. Makes me think too much. Current Mood: introspective (12 pennies paid out. | Penny for your thoughts?) |
| Thursday, May 20th, 2004 | |
| 4:07 pm | Busy. Too busy to sleep, too busy to think..... too busy to live. Why has my life become the paycheck-to-paycheck soulless mess that it has? Why do my biggest worries now involve leaving the air conditioner on too long or how much of my bills can be covered by my next paycheck? Is this what "growing up" really is, that he who dies having worked the hardest and struggles with the most stupid shit still dies? I'll suffer through it, but I don't have to like it. Ahh well. Maybe I'd feel better about the whole thing if Home Depot didn't so completely own my weekends. Who knows. Current Mood: busy (5 pennies paid out. | Penny for your thoughts?) |
| Tuesday, April 27th, 2004 | |
| 11:02 am | Working conditions. I'm writing an entry right now because I feel like it. I remember when I used to do that all the time, almost daily even. It's debatable that I have anything more to really say now than I did then, but I figure, someone out there must still care what's going on with me. And this is about the only way I still have to keep in touch with a lot of them, which is sorta sad. But hey, life goes on I guess. I miss all of those people I used to consider friends, and would love to find the time in my life (and theirs as well) to share wonderful conversations with any and all of them again. Perhaps someday I'll have that.The new jobs are going well, with my feelings about Home Depot taking a slight lead over Target. Both are fine jobs, and there's little I don't like about either of them. But at Home Depot, it's the people. I find I have a difficult time relating to the people I work with at Target. Many of them are much older, naturally leading to different interests and a different type of relationship. These are people who've been working for so much of their life that they've just become kind of embittered to it. Any sense of hope or idealism is sucked out of them. To them, you are their co-worker. They'll have nice chat about sports or cooking or what have you on breaks, but you get the sense that these people, while so friendly on the clock, have no desire to, say, get together for poker on their nights off or have a barbecue. Home Depot is quite different. Most of the people there, especially that I've worked closely with, are around my age. They're still idealistic, friendly, conversational. They really sincerely want to like you, to help you. This extends all the way to management. I get such a good feeling from everyone there. I can tell that they're friends outside of work, since they talk about going out on weekends and whatnot. It's nice to work at a place where everyone seems to be enjoying themselves, and that the management encourages it. The airport it certainly ain't.Not much else new in my life with regards to my last entry. Saw "Kill Bill Vol. 2" last night. It completely rocked, though in a very different way than "Vol. 1". Sure, 1 was basically all about kicking vast amounts of ass and amputating a few limbs in the name of a greater good - revenge. But in 2, you really understand why. All in all, it's a hell of a great story.So, I'm hanging in there. I'm enjoying a rare day off from both jobs today. How nice it is to just relax and enjoy a day lazing at home with the puppy. But the way, Ash is doing great as well. I'm including a picture I just took a few minutes ago so you can be reacquainted with him.( Cuteness.Collapse )Anyway, that wraps it up until I have more to say. I'll keep you posted as long as anyone cares. Current Mood: calm (11 pennies paid out. | Penny for your thoughts?) |