self-titled: ^_^

i come out of hiding for one reason only: it's 1am and I'm really, really bored.

so yeah, i guess that's all i've got. december's been a blast. notable events include: playing poker at tony's one day with JJ, going to the statewide christmas party with katie, sitting at our table and then getting shit for being antisocial the next day, christmas and stuff, steve coming back from whichever european country he's in (i keep wanting to say belize and belgium, which are both horribly wrong), and err that's it? oh, i guess bostonians cafe fell in there, shit it HAS been a while since i've written.

the cafe was decent, it was the day of the 2 foot+ snowfall, so that made things fun. decent enough show and then the party which was pretty undecent. i think maybe i just have no reason to be in the mods. maybe it'd have been better if katie and i had more to work with than just paolo and dave. as it went, we just sat on the couch all night, i took a nap sometime. then we went upstairs to john's room and napped some more. then we ventured out into the freezing cold and 8 foot snow drifts and found our way home.

so we just had the christmas thing. i drove home, which was awful until i got past the exit for 84, at which point it got breezy. long valley pretty much sucks. i noticed this the most at thanksgiving, because like, i got there, and had nothing to do. the way it works in movies and shit is that you go home, go to a bar and reminisce and catch up with all your old friends. Well, i've successfully let all new jersey friendships deteriorate to nothing, so i've really got nothing going for me. not that i care, really. i mean, i should at some point catch up with rob chi and christ, springer, but really i could give a shit about everyone else, although awkward meetings with kate and aviva would be super fun i think. i don't think either of the robs are in jersey anymore, but i really would have no way of knowing. the only semi-tie i have to jersey is jude and he isn't even there anymore and i suck at keeping that friendship up. thought about calling him on christmas, but his number isn't in my new phone. i also thought about calling darren and ts since i think they are the only numbers i do have, but i didn't do that. i'm super awesome at thinking about doing things and then stopping the process right there.

so anyway yeah, jersey sucks. i feel bad because whenever i go down there now, i peace out right away. i mean, the family is great and all, but there's NOTHING to do and no reason for me to stick around.

and wow is it depressing. i don't think i wrote about it here, but at thanksgiving it was really funny. my grandma said something like "brian, when are you going to bring somone back for us to meet?" and i'm thinking to myself: "really?" i can't believe someone actually said that, i thought that was purely limited to fiction scenarios. i was floored. so now christmas, one cousin is getting married, another cousin is in a serious relationship, hell, even my sister has a boyfriend. and here i am, absolutely nothing has changed in a calendar year except i make some more money and work longer hours. the social peak of my week is monday night poker. the new year is coming up and i have shit to show for 2003. in an entire year, my life has not changed one bit, i have not progressed as a person, and have had nothing remarkable happen within my social life. i've bought more cds seen a couple of shows and a couple of movies and played a lot of poker. and i have no reason to think that any of this will change in 2004.

blah. i'm bored and i'm boring. i hate my job too much to look for a new one. i'm a horrible friend and terribly inconsiderate. i'm selfish and only selfishly selfless.

i made a dute dinner tonight, well not so much dinner as some chicken. it was supposed to be dinner, but when i threw the first cutlet down in the pan it was like insta-cooked and supper on fire, so i really dind't have much time for other things. seriously, the chicken was fully cooked in like 2 minutes. i just did simple cutlets in peanut oil, then took out the chicken and did a reduction with onion and garlic and orange juice. then threw in soy sauce and fresh lime juice right a the end. it was nice and tasty. i should have let the sauce cook longer and thicken some more, but i was wicked hungry. dunno what i'll make tomorrow, i like this cooking thing, as long as i can keep ingredients handy. we'll see about tomorrow, i'll probably just do a pizza or something.

still no plans for new year's. jin is having a party and i guess tony is going to one. i know katie won't be down for either, and really neither am i. i'm thinking we can maybe just cook a nice dinner with mike or whatever, then after that if we have some place to go, go there... otherwise just watch carson daly or something.

figure it can't be worse than last year, sitting at home alone. hmm, guess the oc was right, because that's pretty much how i've spent the entirety of 2003. two years ago was of course the bostonians office bust and i think the year before was scrabble in jersey with mom. year before that rick petillo's sister's husband's place. the point of all this is that i have really shitty new years. so hurray for 2004, here's to another god damn new year... maybe i should just go on a roof and drench myself in champagne. and then i can talk to gladys knight... it'll be awesome.

well thank god i've figured out what i need to do because god knows i was looking for something.

I need to find myself a nice jewish girl and marry her. then, like seth cohen, we can join her faith in Judaism and my love for christian commercial tradition and come together to celebrate the ultimate holiday: christmukkah. just like seth cohen.

ps, seth cohen is everything i have ever wanted to be. except for his dumbass not being all "hey anna, let's go out" i'd say that. summer sucks and he needs not feel conflicted. SHE MADE HIM A GODDAM COMIC BOOK FOR CHRISSAKES. all summer did was dress up as wonder woman, which was hot, and certainly topical and thoughtful, but shit, anna made him a comic book about him and captain oats.

the OC is really good, i promise you. i'm not a loser because i watch it.

ps, i was just looking at the tv show download page and noticed that it's the 15th season of the simpsons. that disturbs and confuses me. There's no possible way i was 7 or 8 years old when i started watching. I clearly remember watching the pilot in my parents bedroom with Amy back in glenmont, NY. I guess that must have been in the 8 or 9 range. but i feel it was older since i watched it with my sister... who could talk. when can kids talk? like 4, right? i dunno. either way, i've watched the simpsons since its inception. i remember i had this little 4 inch tv or whatever, and when the simpsons first ran it was on sunday nights opposite america's funniest home videos with bob saget. simpsons was on 5 which was fox and america's funniest... was abc on channel 7. and whenever my mom would come up, i'd change the dial (this was a literal dial where you turn a knob) to ABC. it's funny there was a time when i shouldn't have watched the simpsons. makes me think what the fuck kids watch today. the tv i watch is awful, full of blatant sexual references and bleeped out fucks and shits and all that all over the place. it obviously means nothing to me, but now and then i think of some 10 year old watching MTV and i'm like, whoa, that's messed up.

i need new ties. and an entire new wardrobe. i need things to wear outside of work that aren't t-shirts. and i need a girlfriend. but first and foremost, i need new ties. i love my purple tie, but it gets too much play. the other ties are secondary but are still as overused. even the pink tie i'm tired of.

ummm, i think i hear someone calling for me.

hmm ok i need to be shot.

First, I watched simple life with hilton and whoever. The show is abysmal, but i have to watch it to see paris hilton slut it out in arkansas, because well, why not? the really stupid girl bit was bad on jessica simpson's show, and now i'm just incredibly apathetic. I don't care that paris hilton says "what's generic." that doesn't affect me at all. Well "what's walmart" was a bit entertaining.

and if watching that wasn't bad enough, as I was watching simple life i was really excited to watch rich girls after it. To be fair though, rich girls is a really good show. and well, only because of the hilfiger girl is a real person with actual human qualities. which is remarkable, because it's the opposite of what you'd expect for the premise and mtv. can't remember the last reality show i saw where i could say that there were real people and not just caricature or a vapid hunk of crap... uhoh. no new rich girls but there is celebrity poker. awesome. this show is about a billion times worse than the world series of poker on espn. in fact, it's bloody terrible. there's nothing fun about watching celebrities be cute and act like goofballs while playing poker. Except the poker part i guess. Ben Affleck is a tool and needs to die. I know someone who saw him lose a lot of money like a tool at foxwoods, and that makes me happy. Now if only he got his ass kicked for bringing his girlfriend to the red sox playoffs game, sit front row, and watch it on the specially installed freaking flatscreen TV.

oh yeah, another reason i need to be shot. sometime about 10 minutes ago i was in the kitchen and for some reason i can't figure out started singing the "shake it" part from the outkast song and doing some unspeakable dance-type thing.

ohhhhh ok new rich girls at 10:30, i guess that's the ten spot or something.

In my infinite wisdom when i missed last week's the O.C. i didn't make the obvious connection that i could just download the damn thing. I'll have that for tomorrow and have 2 freaking hours of it. i can't freaking wait. i wish david schwimmer was still playing, and that ben affleck contracts aids or something. that was the most retarted thing i've ever seen, guy matched an all in call with three to a flush. phew, affleck just lost a hand. man, i wish they'd just play poker and not talk. seeing the camera cut to david schwimmer in the back room saying "jesus strong hand" makes my soul hurt. man, this willie guy i don't know is playing reckless and somehow winning. i like it. the other great thing about this show is incompetant commentary. ugh. affleck going down. only time for one more hand though, heh.affleck's gonna go all in and lose. haha sucker. i was right.

cast of the west wing next week. i hate this show. afflect immediately reaching for his cigarettes.

ok, i think i need to tv off until rich girls so i don't get sucked into the queer eye show. ok i really want to turn this off but i can't. i can't bring myself to do it. and i want a goddam bunch of gay guys to give me a makeover and clean my room. also, i just saw a tshirt of the straight guy's that i want. it's pink and has "nintendo high score" in stupid blocky iron on letters. not really, cause it's hideous, but i like it's spirit. oh yeah, speaking of shirts, i need to buy that mix tape shirt from dieselsweeties. done and done. i wish there was some magic way to pick the right tshirt size. i tried large. hope it's not too big for my disaapointingly narrow frame. I need a navy long sleeve shirt or something to wear under this tshirt so i can pimp it out and be the envy of all who see.

well, just about the worst thing that could happen happened today.

A little background. Two weeks ago when I was eating my chili, i was feeling pretty good. Well, I was feeling pretty awful, if you remember about 4 hours later i threw up a lot, but aside from that, I was feeling OK. The new position I'm in, sure, it's a lot of work, but it's not bad work, whatever. Then Staples called and told me they wanted to hire me. From that point on, my job sucked and I couldn't get out of it soon enough. And it's not so much my job as it is my boss, but the job certainly comes with it's share of headaches. But until i was given the very probable prospect of something new, i was perfectly content doing what I was doing.

The next two weeks carried on with me in constant communication with Staples, providing references, taking tests, being assured that "we're working as fast as we can to get you in here." To say i was confident would be an understatement. But I was understandably very very eager, the longer things take the more you get the creeping feeling that something will go awry.

Wednesday comes, HR e-mails me, "we've closed the books on you, all that's left is the department signatures." of course, the department is gone for the holiday. First thing monday.

I almost quit my job on Friday, because for the past 2 weeks, quitting has been the thing I most looked forward to. I didn't quit, much to the pleasure of my mother, who has been, at best, extrememly skeptical.

Today was spent clicking refresh on my hotmail page and checking my phone to see if maybe i didn't feel the vibration. At about 4 I see 508 on the caller id. this is it, i thought.

No, not so much. The call was from the head of the Department. Turns out Staples just did their budget review and they're over target and most departments are in a hire freeze until things get "resolved." The guy was very apologetic, very vocal about his disappointment in the company, very affirming that they want, and eventually (if i'm still game) will have me. He went so far as to say if they had tried to push me through early last week it probably would've slipped by. when it opens up, be it a year or be it next week, "we're not interviewing, we're calling you with an offer." And he'd be "shocked" if it continues for any longer than three months and expects it to be much sooner.

And to that, I've got nothing to do or think or say but shrug in defeat and say "we'll see."

So here i am, i was way too excited, way too talkative, and now i'm left with egg on my face. Great mom, your negativity was warranted, congratulations. And for everyone else, I talked it up and now I've got nothing, i'm again a failure and a fucking loser. but really, when has that ever been different?