Jeff’s Journal

Mixing memes:

What age did you turn this year and how did you spend your birthday?

I turned 27. I think I actually had to work late on my birthday, if I remember correctly.

Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

Well, I’d say some of it. Got more politically involved to a point, but didn’t get much done with the book as compared to what I wanted.

What did you do in 2008 that you’d never done before?

Had surgery, I suppose, even though wisdom tooth extraction is hardly surgery. Played a tabletop RPG, which took way, WAY too long for me to get involved with. Quit a job with no actual fallback in place. Was in a movie that people saw. Ate black olives and liked them.

Did anyone you know give birth? Did anyone you know die?

My grandfather died at age 94. That’s the only real noteworthy death from this year I can remember. Congrats to Andy on his second kid, that’s the only one I’m remembering at the moment.

Tell us about some noteworthy things done by people you know.

Chelsea got her movie in a bunch of festivals. That was probably the most noteworthy thing I can think of.

Do any traveling?

I only went 2 hours from Manchester once. Didn’t leave New England at all.

What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?

A less ridiculous work situation, financial stability, a place closer to home.

What date from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

No clue.

What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Standing up for myself. As strong a personality I am, I tend to wilt considerably when it comes to defending myself or doing what I think is the right thing. This means both recognizing where I’m correct and admitting where I’m wrong. I’m still not perfect, not even close, but the Jeff of even 2 years ago would have never done what I did concerning the library debacle this year. The Jeff of 2 years ago wouldn’t have apologized for wronging someone so long ago and thus repairing a relationship that had no business being repaired.

What was your biggest disappointment or failure?

The library, the election, the Super Bowl. My relative inaction on the Kroger Babb bio. The American news media.

Did you suffer illness or injury?

Wisdom teeth and strep throat.

What was the best thing you bought? Best gift you were given?

Interestingly enough, I didn’t actually buy all that much for myself. I spent a good deal of money on gaming stuff (video and tabletop), but nothing crazy.

Whose behavior merited celebration?

My wife’s, without question. She trusts me to do the right thing, stands by me when I need her support, and doesn’t hold back when I’m wrong. The fact that she hasn’t bailed on me for a better model after the activity of the last 3 months is a testament to how lucky I am to have her.

Whose behavior did not?

Library-related entities. The American electorate. Manny Ramirez. Benefit Concepts, Inc.. Pigeon.

Where did most of your money go?

Bills.

What did you get overly excited about?

The amount of reading I accomplished. D&D v4.0. Left 4 Dead.

Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? Sadder. The world was my oyster last year, and this year I have absolutely no clue where I’m going to end up.
ii. thinner or fatter? Same. I’ve been a steady 177-182 for 4 years running no matter what I do.
iii. richer or poorer? Poorer, since my new job is essentially a $10k/year pay cut.

What do you wish you’d done more of?

Worked harder on the book, was more active physically, socially, and politically.

What do you wish you’d done less of?

Moping. Getting too far into my head.

How will you be spending the end of the year?

Ann’s babysitting, so I’ll probably play Left 4 Dead until the clock strikes midnight. I don’t really do much on New Year’s these days, nothing will trump New Year’s 2001/2002 for me. Then again, if something interesting did come up, I might dive at it.

With whom did you spend the most time on the phone with?

I avoid the phone as much as possible.

Did you fall in love in 2008?

Tiffanie’s kitten is quite adorable, yes.

Best TV shows and/or website? (passive entertainment)

The new ones on our plate are Mad Men, 30 Rock and How I Met Your Mother. I don’t think we watch anything else that’s new new.

Websites? Cracked.com is the ultimate timewaster, as is Shelfari.

Best video game?

I spent the most time with Team Fortress 2, Geometry Wars 2, and Left 4 Dead.

Best book/comic?

Book was Anathem, no contest. Comic? Ultimate Spider-Man or the Buffy/Angelverse.

What song will always remind you of 2008?

Interestingly enough, probably “Sultan” by What Made Milwaukee Famous.”

What was your greatest musical discovery?

For so, so many reasons, the Two Man Gentleman Band.

What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Must not publicly berate people. Must not publicly berate people. Must not publicly berate people.

How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?

How many ways can you match your Chuck Taylors to your button-down shirts?

What political issue stirred you the most?

Other than the election itself? Possibly the Employee Free Choice Act.

Whom did you miss?

Everyone 75 miles south of here.

Who was the best new person you met?

There are a pile of people who fit this here, so I’m just going to say that getting to know Mandy, Bill, Mike, Billy, and Jenny has been a pleasure I’ve not had in quite a long time. Hopefully I don’t irritate them too too much.

Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

Must not publicly berate people. Must not publicly berate people. Must not publicly berate people. Honestly, though, not especially. I don’t *hate* the one person who essentially made my life a living hell as much as feel sorry for them, and as much as I get irritated and upset with people I know and love when it comes to matters of personal beliefs, I don’t ever hate them and never could.

What did you want and get?

I wanted little, and got little.

What did you want and not get?

See above.

A valuable life lesson you learned in 2008?

Be yourself, because your principles matter.

What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Must not publicly berate people, an Obama loss, and $20k.

Quote to sum up your year.

I’m so bad with quotes, but this one book I read this year, Parenting Without Belief, had a really interesting passage in the introduction that brought a ton home for me in terms of things that went on this year in a lot of areas. It applies to almost everything noteworthy that’s happened with me this year, so yeah:

Oxford biologist Richard Dawkins shares a heartfelt letter to his 10-year-old daughter Juliet about his own intellectual values. …[S]ome others [may] find Dawkins’ approach disrespectful to religious belief. There is a good reason for this: he does not respect religious belief. Not one bit.

This raises an important question…. Is it okay to disrespect someone’s beliefs? Notice that the subject is beliefs, not believers - we can presumably agree that people themselves deserve respect. But can we allow disrespect - not just disagreement, but disrespect - for opinions?

If the word “respect” is to retain any meaning whatsoever, then respect must not be granted to all opinions automatically. I may disagree with an opinion but still respect it, if I feel it was arrived by legitimate means…Though I disagree strongly with my friends, I respect their argument since they back it up with reasoned argument.

I know full well I didn’t achieve this in either direction in many of my doings this year, in more than just discussion on current events but on my life in general. I wish I had seen this in January and not December.

Ah well. 2009 has the potential to be an amazing year, and I’d be smart to embrace that. I’m more comfortable in my own skin now than I believe I’ve ever been before, and that can only translate positively. Let’s hope so, at least.

1) I was invited out to a friend’s birthday, but it took me nearly 50 minutes to make the 20 minute drive home, and that’s before the snow picked up.

2) My wife has strep throat. This means that I’m probably going to get strep throat. Who has two thumbs and no interest in strep throat? THIS GUY.

3) Addiction of the moment? Good Old Games, which has two point-and-click adventure games for free for download. The whole site is awesome, and you should all feel pity on my financial situation and buy me some gift credits or something. I could spend $100 here, easy.

4) Christmas is six days away and I’m still not feeling it. That’s very depressing.

5) Karma’s frustrating. I reconnected with someone I wronged this year, and it’s been a very good thing. Unfortunately, I’ve lost a friend that I miss a bit too much sometimes, and I was having a nostalgic moment about the whole thing and I have no clue what happened for real, although I have suspicions. And no way to approach it. And that makes me sad.

6) I really, really don’t want strep throat.

7) I used an mp3 player for the first time ever today. I admit it - they are pretty neat. I bought a Sandisk for eventual voice-recording stuff, but pulled warehouse duty today and ended up using it while picking books. I will say this much, though - earbuds? Not cool. Very uncomfortable, very strange.

8) Seriously, throat - if you’re swollen and ridiculous in the next few days, I’m going to be very angry.

Yeah, real quiet around this neck of the woods lately. Why?

1) New job. It’s not bad, it’s still a job, it’s light years better than anything I interviewed for during my downtime, though. I’m chomping at the bit at this point to get really rolling, but whatever. Either way, it’s one of those unfortunate timesucks - 8 to 5 plus commutes, plus all the stuff around the edges.

2) Oh, edges:

a) My satellite radio is on the fritz, so I tried to get some stuff to un-fritz it. Instead of going past my place to the Circuit City on the southern side of Manchester, I thought I’d save time and hit the Circuit City in Concord. Dumb mistake, and I still haven’t fixed it. By the way, standard radio is crap. That was Monday.

b) Tuesday, I wanted to try and get a small boombox for my cube at work. Cheapest one is $20 - no thanks. I could have swore these cost $7 once. Fail.

c) Today, I wanted to go to the library. Too bad they close at 5:30 on Wednesday. Stupid me.

3) It isn’t all epic fail, I have found time to eat and play games and watch some shows, but I feel like my time is just completely gone. It’s a strange feeling.

4) What is epic fail is the current financial situation for us. We’ll make it through our spring plans, but it’s going to be one of those “I sure hope nothing big comes up in the next 3 months” type things. The current job just doesn’t pay enough, plain and simple. So we’ll figure it out.

Somehow.

Also, Christmas is in 14 days? So completely not ready.

I’m selling my Wii and my PlayStation 2. No, it’s not because we’re unemployed and poor, it’s that the money can go toward things we’ll actually use, which isn’t the Wii or the PS2.

If you know anyone interested, let me know and we can work something out.

…that I have no clue as to whether I can remember everything.

1) So remember that short film I was in? It made its debut at Lumen Eclipse last weekend, and apparently to pretty good acclaim. I have a copy of it, there was one on DailyMotion that doesn’t exist anymore, and when I am able to share it with you all, I will, because I think it’s worth seeing - it’s offbeat, it’s a fun Nancy Drew homage, and if you hate it, well, it’s only 60 seconds out of your time. It’s worth noting that I’m on screen for roughly .75 seconds, which is a new record for any sort of film presentation, and thus makes my role as “The Pianist” of similar substance to Dame Judi Dench’s Oscar-winning turn in Shakespeare in Love. Just sayin’.

2) A couple weeks ago, Rick and Mark came up for a long weekend. It was essentially like old college times all over again, which was exactly what was needed and a good time. We hit the Anna Maria alumni weekend pub night - it’s my 5 year reunion this year, which is scary in so many ways. Saw a lot of people I didn’t expect, a few I did, and I’m honestly glad I went. The rest of the weekend went smoothly except for the amount of money I spent on food and the fact that my 360 hates EA games.

3) Dodgeball started up this week. A solid W for The Ocho, and I didn’t play half bad, either. I forgot how much I missed it, too - good competition is fun, and the team’s a pretty solid good time, too. I wish I could be one of those people who can hit the gym 4 times a week or whatever, but I can’t even blog regularly. But I feel great tonight, even if the tops of my thighs are absolutely on fire from the running around.

4) With my time at the library coming to a close, I’ve been trying to get myself set up better at the Manchester Library, which means navigating through their new system and getting used to the kinks, especially from a patron side as opposed to the librarian side. Instead of getting into the nitty gritty details without knowing the specifics, I’ll say this much - every so often, I’ll tell Ann how sad it makes me that I simply will never get to read all the books I want to. I’ve read over 100 this year alone, so it’s not as if I’m a reading slacker - it’s just that a) I know my list at Manchester is about 60 titles deep right now, b) it could be doubled if I wanted to take an hour and play around with it, and c) that doesn’t even start getting into the books that the library doesn’t have and, scarier, probably can’t get.

My literary holy grail at the moment is Zen in the Art of Slaying Vampires. I’m not paying $44 for a used book on Amazon, and even weirder is that no library shows as having it on WorldCat. I may never even see this book in the, uh, paper flesh in my lifetime, never mind get to read it. It has apparently been optioned as a film (yeah, that’s right - not that anyone’s ever seen the book or anything), which bodes well, but still, this book is essentially the story of my life when it comes to books. Not that I won’t have hundreds of others to read instead, of course, but still.

5) Related to the above, I’ve tried LibraryThing and couldn’t really get into it. I tried the iRead application on Facebook and found it difficult. I did GoodReads and got annoyed. Finally, I’ve found a web-based book program I actually like - Shelfari! I know it doesn’t do much new with certain things as perhaps the others I’ve tried have, but I love the interface and this just feels easier. I don’t know if I’ll keep up with it - after all, I’ve read over 400 books in the last 3 years, and I can’t normally remember what I read last week without keeping it written down somewhere - but if you’re unhappy with your other ones or whatever, friend me over there and check it out.

6) I feel like the only human being in the world who doesn’t understand Twitter.

7) At this point, I think the best move is to NOT talk about the Red Sox in fear that it might, like, bring Mike Timlin into a close game or something.

8) Finally, I can’t decide which one of these videos is more awesome, so enjoy them both:

The Good: My health insurance (read: not my dental) will pay 100% for wisdom teeth extraction. Even better, they’ll pay for all of them to be removed, not just the three impacted. I’m not going to say I’m excited to have them tear some stuff out of my face, but it’s nice to know I won’t have to worry about it.

The Bad: Vehicle registration this year - about $275 combined state and local. The annoyances of a new car, I suppose.

The Ugly: It turns out that we won’t be getting a refund from Massachusetts, and that we actually owe around $250. Annoying as hell, although I should have expected this.

Combine that with the federal tax we owe (around $330) and that’s over $800 we have to lay out in the next 6 weeks. Doable, but ugh.