Jeff’s Journal

I’ve been looking for an excuse to use this again for about 3 weeks

THINGS I DID:

* Got rolling on my character for Mike’s Genius: The Transgression game. Assuming Mandy’s prediction doesn’t come true, that’s going to be a fun game to play in.
* Continued to fill an mp3 player. I haven’t wanted to spend money on a boombox, and I have a 6gb mp3 player I bought for recording purposes that I’m not using, so I bring that to work. 6gb is a lot of memory. Also, I still don’t know if I like the whole mp3 thing, but this is pretty handy.

THINGS I KIND OF DID:

* Wrote a very important letter. At least a portion of it. In my head. I’m being vague.

THINGS I DIDN’T DO:

* Clean.
* Organize.
* Respond to about 4 e-mails/Facebook messages. I’m so bad at this.
* Read. I’m loving Evil Genius by Catherine Jinks and wanted to try and finish it tonight. That’s not going to happen.

THINGS I FORGOT TO DO:

* In my recap post, note two things:
** Ken and Emily had a baby, and Emilie had a baby! I knew there was at least one other baby in there, and I just found out today that Emilie had her’s a couple weeks ago. So yay for that.
** Meeting Jackie and Matthieu! Our Manchester buddies we met back in January, back at the Jeff Kinney event. It’s been almost a year and we get along with them so well I forget we’ve not known each other a year yet. I’m a dummy.

THINGS I’M LYING TO MYSELF ABOUT:

* Ann is officially allergic to amoxicillian. I caught her strep throat, so I’m on it now, too. I’m now afraid of being allergic, to the point where every itch I have makes me think I’m getting hives, too.
* That I’m not going bald. Because I clearly, CLEARLY am. In the right light, I’m a step away from combover territory, which may sound ridiculous and it may be something only I notice, but whatever.
* That I’m not addicted to Puzzle Quest. Because I clearly, CLEARLY am.

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.

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.

1) Three interviews scheduled for this week. One I’m very, very excited about. Crossing fingers…

2) I spent Friday afternoon playing Gears of War 2 with dodgeball buddy Dave for a few hours. Good times there, and a good game to boot.

3) Seeing the parents for dinner. Seeing the brother too. Good to be home, even for a little bit.

4) Seeing Michelle and Josh. Ann & I hadn’t been down to see them since the spring, and I only got to see them at the AMC pub night, so that was great.

5) My old high school put in a wind turbine. It’s huge. And random.

6) D&D - best session yet. I nearly died again, but that was by choice as opposed to me being stupid! We beat up on some crazy, crazy, CRAZY stuff. It was awesome!

I’m confident right now.

I say “weekend” as if I’m not just feverishly trying to recap life in general since I’ve had no desire to write much of anything. But that’s slowly going away, I think. But anyway, less Sox talk and more real life…

1) I went to a children’s library conference on Thursday, and I’m amazingly glad I did:

a) It was held in Bethlehem/Littleton, NH, which is about 2 hours north of Manchester, through the White Mountains. I’m not a “ooh, nature” guy, but holy crap was it gorgeous. It was a pretty crappy day, but as I got to the mountains, you could see the clouds and fog rolling off the hills and mountains, and the foliage was pretty, and I could honestly pick up shop and move up that way for good if things were different in my life right now. Just such a perfect, gorgeous, beautiful area.

b) The conference was enlightening, both personally and professionally. I’ve gotten a bit of a reputation from other librarians with the authors and events I’ve been able to get, apparently, which was a very surprising and nice thing to hear, but each panel was just as interesting as well - one on autism and dealing with autistic kids in the library was great, but my favorite was the Native American materials presentation, which really spoke to my personal vendetta against bad nonfiction in children’s collections. The whole day was really great in that regard.

The whole thing was a very uplifting experience for me.

2) Dodgeball didn’t go so well in week two, but I did nail someone in the babymaker, so that’s worth something.

3) I took Friday off, and went to meet the wonderful, amazing Jon Scieszka on Saturday:

It’s always wonderful when a guy you’ve admired for 20 years ends up being even more awesome than you could have thought. In the picture is fellow librarian friend Jackie, who joined us on the excursion. We got to talk to Scieszka for a good 5 minutes before he spoke, and he signed a couple things for me and posed for a picture. Wicked down to earth, amazingly funny - he has a Norm MacDonald-style delivery which is just hysterical - and really someone I’m happy is cool, and makes me appreciate his work that much more. Really wonderful stuff.

4) Yesterday was D&D, first time in a month. Wow, did I miss it - a really crazy battle with some undead dragon newborns, some crazy challenges, and the afternoon really flew by. Every session becomes more and more fascinating, which is great. Two more weeks? Really?

5) Currently obsessed with the following:

a) 30 Rock. We’re all caught up, finally. Talk about a wickedly funny show. Anything that can make Al Gore fun is fine by me.

b) Anathem by Neal Stephenson. A less talented author wouldn’t be able to make me care about monks who study math and philosophy, but there you have it. Rick has been trying to get me to read Snow Crash essentially since the day I met him, and I may have to bump that up considerably.

c) Mega Man 9. No video game hates you quite the way MM9 does. Yet I can’t stop torturing myself.

d) Acid Tongue by Jenny Lewis. The CD isn’t anything special, except that every song feels as if it’s better than the song before it, and you’re disappointed when it’s over. That means something, right?

e) E. L. Fudge cookies. The double stuff variety. Yeah. Cookies shaped like elves are my anti-drug.

This weekend, too my knowledge, we have nothing planned. I’m looking forward to a late-night High School Musical 3 and a lot of sleeping.

Ahhhhgfdgdfgdfgergbrbn.

1) Summer reading = over. A good summer, but also glad it’s over and I can somewhat relax again. I’m always amazed at how much I end up running on adrenaline rushes for a lot of stuff, and then I’m shocked when I’m exhausted at the end. I took Friday off, slept in, and pretty much stayed on the couch all day playing games.

2) Life doesn’t seem to want to slow down, either - we have a Red Sox game coming up, another weekend in Massachusetts, we still have to figure out when to see people we haven’t seen in a while, still house hunting. Why is life insane?

3) D&D was awesome on Sunday. We went Wyvern hunting, and did it well. Ann played her first week as a Dwarven Fighter, and was pulling action movie stunts almost immediately, and it was pretty awesome. Best battle I’ve been in since I’ve started playing, hands down.

4) Someone want to explain why Pac-Man: Championship Edition is so addicting? Anyone?

In no particular order. Ann went to visit Boston, so I largely had to make do on my own, which was cool.

1) Seeing Lee Anne. We were trying to figure something out all week, and finally she just decided to come up to Manchester and hang, which was great. We hit the local bar/food joint of choice where I had fried pickles for the first time - they were AMAZING. We also wandered around Manchester proper a bit and hit an Arena Football game, which was all sorts of weird and awesome all at once. Even without all the fun stuff on the side, spending an afternoon with Lee Anne is always a good thing. Adding fried pickles to the mix just makes it that much better.

2) Nerd Alert #1: Civilization Revolution came out this week. I love the PC series, and they made a console version which is pretty great, if not a little flawed in places. But I did pick it up and was able to save $20 on it with some skillful eBaying, so that’s good.

3) D&D yesterday. I’d say that the rounds we had yesterday were probably my first experience with some significant grinding - a couple tough battles combined with some difficult preparation for a confusing magical item. It was the first time my relative newbieness really reared its head, as I was both trying to do things that didn’t work, made things a little more complicated than they needed to be in some places, and didn’t quite catch onto another idea Mike had in one battle where we were getting more than a little punished until it was almost too late. Still a fun afternoon, but yikes. Still, the whole episode opened up a few cans of worms, and has completely opened up a new idea for my character I hadn’t thought of. So that’s something.

Ironically, the punishment debacle in the second battle? My character didn’t take any damage. Granted, I’m playing a wizard controller-type, which means I’m not supposed to get into the melee, but there was something annoyingly amusing about that - annoying for everyone who nearly died, amusing to me. Then again, if any of my dice rolls decided to work properly in that battle…

Mario Kart anyone? 2707-2006-6250

For those of you who don’t wanna play, I offer this:

…of the non-political kind.

1) It’s hard for me not to get excited over things like this, for obvious reasons. Of course, the media isn’t always rock-solid on reporting science issues reasonably, and any wide-scale rollout of this would be too late, but still.

2) Not to say I haven’t been excited about Super Smash Bros. Brawl up to this point, but this reveal about classic demos really gets me excited. Why? I couldn’t tell you, honestly, but I like the concept and it’ll likely get me spending money on the Virtual Console.

3) I don’t hate the Giants (ETA from the comments: Hitler HATES the Giants), and I look forward to a good Super Bowl if the final game of the season was any indication, but does this come across as dickish to anyone else?:

Everyone else on the Giants sideline ignored him, even the team managers, who had been keeping players warm all game. They didn’t bother to drape a jacket over Tynes’ shoulders as he stood alone near midfield, listening to the crowd cheer for his miss and watching the Packers win the coin flip to get the ball first — and perhaps exclusively, had Brett Favre not thrown that interception — in overtime.

Tynes would say later that the lack of communication from his teammates was “no big deal. … I don’t talk to anyone during games anyway.” He would also explain away his decision not to celebrate his winning kick on the field with his teammates. As the ball was tumbling through the uprights, silencing the Lambeau Field crowd and sending his teammates onto the field in a frenzy, Tynes turned and ran 75 yards through the opposite end zone, through the tunnel and into the locker room. He ran alone.

“I was cold,” he said. “I wanted to get inside.”

Maybe it’s just that simple — his teammates were celebrating a trip to the Super Bowl, but he was cold. He’d meet them inside. Who knows? But I will say this: I shadowed Tynes for most of an hour inside the Giants locker room, and Feagles was again the only teammate who said a word to him. Yes, there was a 10-minute period immediately after the game when the media was not allowed inside the locker room, and perhaps the entire organization used that time to kiss Tynes’ feet — but for the next hour, not a single teammate said a word to the guy who kicked the game-winning field goal in the NFC title game. That seems strange.

I don’t feel as if we’d see that on the Pats if it were Gostkowski. Maybe I’m wrong.

4) Speaking of football, one of the Patriot wide recievers, Dante Stallworth, believes he has a Martian alter-ego. But it’s okay - he only comes out during games. And people thought the Red Sox “idiot” culture was weird…

5) I don’t watch these often enough to stay caught up, but Michael Cera fans should enjoy Clark and Michael, a web-video thing. Also, Cera plays a role in the first installment of “Drunk History, which tells the story of the Hamilton/Burr duel through beer goggles. Thanks to Liz for this one, I got a kick out of it.

6) This is fun: Background Music for Your Movies. If I ever get around to making silly short films, I’m liberally using these.

7) Also from WFMU, Adlai Stevenson election spots. A really neat piece of American political history that gets so easily forgotten. It’s incredible the amount of stuff like this that probably exists in people’s attics and basements that may never get to see the light of day.

8) A pimp out for Fantasy Book Critic and Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist, two book blogs that have become instant favorites as well as extended my already-too-long-list of books to read beyond anything manageable.

9) I was hoping that the buzz on Rambo would be similar to Rocky Balboa, but it doesn’t appear to be the case. I’m hoping to catch There Will Be Blood this weekend, though.

Tis all for now.

1) So, yeah. Obviously, we’re seeing a bit of a different thing here - I’m starting to separate from LiveJournal a bit, which is what that top thing references.

My reasons are many. For one, I’m more than a little annoyed with some of the tactics of LJ’s leadership, both old and new. The, uh, “Great Strikethrough” was one thing, but when, for instance, you can’t search for “spice girls” in one’s interests anymore, well, it’s not quite the bastion of free speech that it was when I signed on back in, geez, 2000. It’s a little sad, honestly.

Secondly, a lot of it has to do with my literary endeavors - quite frankly, if my book is good but unfinished, having relevant material to point to and say “hey, look, I DO know what the hell I’m talking about and I can write in a coherent and consistent fashion” will only help me. I’m not ready to launch that blog for real yet - I want it to be based on bad movies, but I can’t figure out a good name let alone necessarily want to run it on my own. If anyone has suggestions on the former, let me know, and some of you may be hearing from me on the latter.

So either way, when I saw Lance with his crossposting recently, I looked into it, and hell, why not get the best of both worlds - my material can post on LJ at the same time it does on my site, and I can have separate blogs for separate things and still centralize them on LJ without having to worry about crappy syndication on LJ’s end. I’ll still have the occasional friends-only post on LJ, but you can always comment where you’re reading it, and yeah.

Yeah, this may seem trivial to a lot of you. That’s fine, but that’s just what I am, I suppose.

2) So, what’s new, right? Well, it’s old news to about a dozen of you, but we got a new TV. Instead of being responsible and paying some bills, I decided to pool together my Christmas money and get a better television for the front room. It’s nice, and gave us a little more leeway in how the room is set up, and yeah:

We went from a 26″ to a 37″, this one has 1080i and HDMI, and was a floor model to boot, so we didn’t pay an arm and a leg. I’m pleased, and, as you see, it fits in rather nicely to the whole room. We had about 16 people packed into the room for the AFC Championship game on Sunday (and thanks to everyone who came out, it really meant a ton to us), and yeah. Good times.

3) I held a massive event at the library this past week, where Jeff Kinney, author of Diary of a Wimpy Kid did a Q & A and a signing. It’s really refreshing to see such a big shot author be so down to earth at the same time - it’s like he doesn’t quite comprehend how much of a rock star he really is. I’ll never forget how disappointed I was in Judy Blume when I met her, and seeing the kids so excited to meet a genuinely good guy was really fun. I should have gotten a picture, but I forgot. No matter, though, we had about 90 people show up and it was pretty much completely awesome. Thanks to Ken for tipping me off, I love when old Scholastic contacts work out.

4) I don’t recall if I mentioned this, but I did buy a Nintendo DS. I like it - i don’t love it yet, but I also only really have one game at the moment, and that’s New Super Mario Bros., which is great but isn’t Team Fortress 2. I’m sure once I land Mario Kart DS and Zelda: Phantom Hourglass it’ll be a different story.

What’s shocking is that my mother ADORES her DS. We bought her one for Christmas, and she absolutely loves it - she has a bunch of puzzle games and keeps “burning the motherfucking food” on Cooking Mama. It’s hilariously unexpected. Talk about a great system overall, really.

5) Since it’s going around Facebook: I apologise for not pimping Kate Nash to everyone sooner, but she’s awesome and you should all listen to her.

6) On Heath Ledger - I was never a huge fan, but found his acting better than average for Hollywood folks his age and thought he made interesting choices when he could have just as easily been a heartthrob/action hero. It’s shocking to see someone less than a year older than you die, quite frankly, and that part is unsettling, but I’m more disappointed that we might not have ever had an opportunity to see what he was truly capable of as an actor.

Now, if we can only get Amy Winehouse to lay off the crack…

I think that’s it for now.

np: Kate Nash - Made of Bricks