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I was bored today, and in desperate need of a haircut… So…

Drastic change huh?

Is it just me, or is it cold in here?

It’s been a bit quiet on the old blog front since I got back huh? Reallly it’s because there isn’t much to report after the escapades of last week, just long working days. I’ve set my date to leave here, albeit temporarily, as April 22nd to return 4 weeks later on May 20th… Only 11 days before my birthday, so this is a hint for a big party to those who know.

Other than that I’m running my nightly catfights between Linus and Sally, I should set up a webcam and get Vegas in on it, they’ll bet on anything, and the good thing is that Sally can tag Snoopy in any time he wants as they look so much alike. Classic sneaky heel tag team action if ever there was… I wonder if Snoopy’s not telling us something, but seeing as he got “the snip” I’ll say Sally is, in fact, Snoopy’s clone… Like Mini-Me!

It’s funny to see what lengths these two will go to inorder to get the upper handpaw. Sally is the viscious one who won’t hesitate to attack while Linus’ back is turned, so my money is always on him.

Though, what does it say about me when I blog at 12:30 and I’ve got two cats on my bed?

Oh, while I’m here… It could only happen in Georgia, in a Wal-Mart. Georgia represent! What?

Well, my Portland adventure is at an end and I’m on my way back home by way of Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN. Remember I said last time that I’d much rather have an early night as I had an early morning… Didn’t happen, we were in the Boiler Room till 2:30am, it’s a real friendly place, I suggest you go check it out if you’re ever in the Portland area, corner of Davis & 3rd near the Old Town/Chinatown MAX stop. At this point I’d like to thank Tiffany, Lara, Jason, Shauna, Brad, Clarissa, Guy, Brandy, Tiffany’s mom and dad and everyone else whose names I forget for a really good time.

So yeah, good times, good night, I think my bar tab ended up at about $40… That’s $4 per Amaretto & Coke, you do the math. Surprisingly I felt very much alive when I was forced to wake up at 6:30 after 3½ hours sleep, maybe Amaretto is my poison of choice now, cause there is some people who can drink a drink all night and feel fine in the morning, like my friend Scott, he can knock back Jack Daniels & Cokes like it’s going out of fashion and wake up the next day with no ill effects.

Which is handy, as being hungover on an airplane isn’t high on my list of things to do. So we land in the Land of 1,000 Lakes in about 90 minutes time, temperature on the ground is, I’ve been informed, a snowy 21°F, god knows what that is in °C… VERY cold methinks.

Meanwhile, on a sandy beach somewhere in Barbados, Melody (remember her?) is probably having the time of her life… Talk about contrasting fortunes. Things with Melody are still a bit weird, but at least we’re still talking from time to time and she still puts up with me when I go all weepy over her. I dunno what’s really going on, on one hand I’m still in love with her, on the other, she’s in love with another who basically told her he wasn’t really interested in her. I should move on, but that’s easier said than done, she should move on too.

Anyways, enough about that, I said I wouldn’t talk about that side of my life anymore, and that’s one paragraph too many.

“Money talks,
But it don’t sing and dance and it don’t walk,
But as long as you are here with me,
I’d much rather be,
Forever in blue jeans.”

Neil Diamond, the karaoke singer’s best friend… I really should do that more often as I was really loving my small time in the spotlight, course there are some songs I shouldn’t sing. “Unchained Melody” being one of them. No I didn’t sing it, and I’m glad no one else did as it’s not my favourite song for the most obvious reason. Since I last reported I’ve killed Black Crowes’ “Hard to Handle”, House of Pain’s “Jump Around” though they tried to fool me with putting up the wrong lyrics, “but I ain’t going out like no punk bitch, get used to one style and yo and I might switch”, and finally The Proclaimers (the doleclaimers? Scottish joke) “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” which is always good for crowd interaction… Song’s I put in for but never got a chance to sing were Coldplay’s “Politik” and Aerosmith’s “Dream On” and in retrospect, it was probably for the best.

It’ll be good to get back home to Atlanta and that good ol’ southern comfort, it’s just a bit too cold and wet in the Pacific Northwest for me, which is ironic (dont’cha think?) all things considered, but I do kind of have the travel bug now, there’s so many places I’d love to see and do in the US… Los Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Grand Canyon, Chicago, closer to home I’d love to catch a game at Turner Field, see a basketball and hockey game at Philips Arena. And I’m sure I’ll get it all done before long.

“I wanna do it all,
See Paris in the fall,
Watch the Yankees play ball,
I wanna take it all in.”

See, I’m not even in Minneapolis yet and I’m jonesing for some country music, Erika would be most happy with that. It’s all she’ll be happy about after my spot of vacational procrastination. Don’t ask, I’ve just lost my ability to write…

And before you say “so what do you think you’re doing now? Dumbass!” I’ll explain…

This isn’t creative writing in anyway shape or form, it’s just me reporting on my life and events that surround it, it takes next to no brain power at all to do. Creative writing on the other hand is totally different… I would explain further but I can’t be bothered… Anyways, I was set a task to do, just a little one and on paper it looked pretty easy… Write one or two paragraphs in the personality of a celebrity, the subject would be my own choosing… And I thought and I thought and I thought and I thought and I contacted a few friends for inspiration and they thought and they thought and they contacted their friends for ideas and we all came up with nothing, nada, zip in terms of a subject.

And even if I did have a set subject matter, I was struggling to think of how I’d write it in the style of someone else I don’t know well enough to know where to begin. So this went on and on for days on end and now I was well past my deadline when I handed in a very incoherant stream of consciousness.

Yes, I wrote it in my no-brainer blog style.

So Erika will not be happy with me, not that she’s ever really happy with me, busting my chops is her second favourite past-time after ripping into me or whupping my candy ass, so needless to say I’m not expecting hugs at Hartsfield Airport tonight.

So it’s my last day in Portland, and overall it’s been fun… Tiffany was worried I’d be bored but I’m in my element right here as I love to explore new cities, hell I wandered round Boston for about 3 weeks and never got bored and Portland is very similar to Boston in terms of size and population. The main thing about Atlanta is the lack of good public transport, well at least where I live, and I’ve been told by a great many people that it’s not a walking city. Maybe thats why I’ve put off going downtown for the entire time I’ve been here.

But anyways, back to Portland… Cool place, plenty of things to do, I’ve still got places to see like The Rose Garden (not to be confused with The Rose Garden Arena which I saw yesterday) so I hope the weather holds out for that. As usual I’ll have a few pictures ready for when I get back to Atlanta, speaking of which, it’s an early rise tomorrow to get back home, I’ll probably need to leave Tiffany’s around 7am to make it to the airport on time, I sure don’t want a repeat of Tuesday’s events again.

That also means I should have an early night, stumbling in at 2am to wake up at 6:30 does not sound like a masterplan, but if that happens I’ll probably do something stupid like stay awake all night and sleep on the plane.

Well I arrived in Portland late, but ahead of schedule, if that makes sense… I was originally meant to land at 8pm after a 4½ hour flight but despite leaving an hour late, we arrived only 30 minutes later then the original posted arrival time. Neat.

But I called Tiffany and was basically told she really couldn’t wait on me much longer and she was on her way out to a place called The Boiler Room, meet her there. I was given directions, get off the MAX at Old Towm/Chinatown and walk straight up for a block and a half and it’s right there, and so it was… So I figured, rather than look about for her, I’ll walk up to the bar all nanchalent like and she can spot me, and it worked a treat… But first I had to get money, so round the corner from the MAX stop was an ATM machine with it’s own resident philosopher/preacher who damned me to hell for withdrawing money from the beast and paying my taxes to President Bush, seriously… I’m not making this up, I just ignored the rantings and later I was told it’s not the greatest neighborhood as a homeless shelter is nearby.

Just the perfect place for me to find my own way to in my first night in the city huh? Well, actually it was a cool place, nice and friendly, lots of bad karaoke singers. I fitted in like a charm, I was introduced to a few of Tiffany’s friends (names I don’t even remember) and her room-mate Lara. So we (Tiffany and myself) stayed there until about 12:30/1am before heading back to her place for a night of red hot passion far too explicit to even mention in here just incase young people are reading for a night of me sleeping on the couch with a fat version of Snoopy for company. And it’s a cool place, I mean what not to love about an apartment with a fat cat and an original Nintendo Entertainemt System with Tetris, Paperboy, Super Mario 2 & 3 and The Legend of Zelda (gold cartridge baby!) to go with it?

It was cool seeing Tiffany again, especially as I hadn’t seen her since September 1999 in NYC. Funny that it was 4½ years ago, but I remember Scott & Scottmaani (long story) like it was yesterday. So she’s now officially the big 3-0, won’t be long till I reach that age… Time does pass to quickly the older you get, if you told me 5 years ago I’d be where I am now (on the couch in a hot chick’s apartment in Portland, OR while residing in Atlanta, GA) I’d have probably have laughed at you.

I figure I’ll write a few things en route as it will give me something to do…

Firstly, I should not have been in Houston, TX. I should have been living it up in Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN but sometimes damn computers are too smart for their own good. Why do they wipe you off the passenger list if you turn up less than 45 minutes before your flight? Madness, but props to Tim, my driver (yes, I had a driver take me to the airport and I highly recommend it) for his Dale Earnhart impression weaving through traffic along the 75 to the airport. And here’s a point Erika has brought up more than a few times… No one in Atlanta seems to work, no matter what day or time of day you go out, the roads will be full, Tuesdays at 1pm is no exception it seems. but I digress… Houston is where I ended up and it seems like Houston is the airport equivilent of “Hotel California”, you know, “you can check out anytime you like but you can never leave”. If only I had a little more time, I would have given Ani Moller a booty call, I’m sure that would have made her day.

It was a short lay over on paper, not even an hour, but atrocious weather conditions west of Houston was preventing aircraft leaving in an orderly fashion, we sat on the runway for close to an hour, an hour… I’m on a tight enough schedule as it is… Eariler, in the *ahem* George Bush Intercontinental Airport™ I called Tiffany to tell her of my unfortunate change in plans, but only got her voicemail… I was originally meant to arrive in Portland, OR at about 7pm PST, now it would be closer to, if not after 8pm. So sitting on the runway, nervously glancing at my watch has done my nerves a world of good.

It’s cool that she was gonna wait util 7pm or 8pm for the first of her birthday nights out, but later? I’m pushing my luck here.

So, as I sit here sipping down a $5 can of Heineken and nibbling on cheap airline kibble, well that’s a lie… The beer was $5, but the kibble was actually a pretty nice teriyaki chicken sammich. it’s currently 5pm Tiff-time, the in-flight movie, The Hulk is playing, not the best comic book adaptation movie ever, so the iPod is keeping me company with the new Norah Jones CD… Where’s Concorde when you really need it?

While I’m on a rant, isn’t there some uncourteous passengers in the air, for exemple, the gentleman in front of me see’s me take my laptop bag out the overhead compartment, mainly as it was over his head. So what happens as soon as I push the on button?

*WHAM!*

He puts his seat back and my laptop keybord is shoved so far into my stomach it could feel my spine on the other side. In between gasping for dear life I tried to ask him to put the seat forawrd, but no success. I like to think I’m a courteous traveller… I rarely put my seat back, even if I’ve got next to no legroom, which I usually get. When the plane lands, I always allow people out after the rabid mob has grabbed their bags and departed. It’s the small things, you know? I was always brought up with my dad saying “manners maketh man” and it’s very true. A small proportion of travellers have no manners, none at all, they’ve always got to be first on the plane and first off it, they’ve got to get that emergancy exit seat even though they’re only 5’2″ and they always seem to find themselves in the seat infront of me. As the woman beside me said, it’s not enough that they have 18″ extra legroom, they have to take 8″ off ours.

Wait… My dad made the blog, how crazy is that?

Oh, an interesting sidenote… Don’t believe that crap about mobile phones and electronic equipment screwing up airplanes during and just after takeoff. I forgot to switch my mobile off and hey, we’re not dead yet, even this laptop with the wireless network card in and the signals that sends and recieves didn’t send it spiraling towards terra firma, nor did the iPod I listened to during the delay and during takeoff.

It’s a stange conspiracy, don’t you think?

And it even got me thinking… If you can’t use mobile phones during a flight, didn’t those people on the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania on 9/11 make a call during the flight? The imfamous “let’s roll” call to arms no less. Maybe that caused the plane to crash and not the supposed terrorists controlling it. OK, enough paranoia for one flight. Time for another beer, I’m gonna get me some of that air rage.

Remember that BlogMadness tournament I was in?

I found out something that really made me laugh today…

In my Round 1 match many moons ago I was up against Tightly Wound and Highly Strung and thanks to you guys, I won by 1 (17-16) vote… Now after I was eliminated in Round 3 I assumed I was out…

Apparently not, cause in the “losers” Round 4 I was still alive, and facing Tightly Wound and Highly Strung again…

And she brought the pain… HARD!

I was whitewashed (without even knowing it) 15-6.

I dunno, I just found that pretty funny, I can only guess Tightly Wound and Highly Strung got the sweet revenge…

So Lord of the Rings swept The Oscars last night…

Not much of a surprise, shame Bill Murray, or even Johnny Depp, didn’t win best actor. Though, I’ve not seen “Mystic River” to judge Sean Penn’s performance. Though this is the Academy probably repaying him for the time he lost to Nicolas Cage when he put in a career performance in “Dead Man Walking“.

Other than that, I thought it was a pretty entertaining 4 hours. Gotta love a Billy Crystal hosted awards show anyway.

We’re nosey neighbours… We see things going on through the office window and make up stories about what’s going on. Don’t get me wrong, it’s just between us, we don’t spread idle gossip to other neighbours.

Like, as an example, the neighbour directly across the road, she has a female visitor everyday, so we think a little lesbian lovin’ is going on there… And today was the coup de gras.

She had a visit from the Cobb County Police!

Now, as we were peeping through the blinds at various points of the house, we were hoping for something more to happen… But it passed without incident. What a let down.

Strangely it was the highlight of my day.

It finally happened… The version of Adobe Photoshop CS I was using had the old “serial-expires-on-February-1st” trick happen to me… So after a month of using a trial version and the older “changing-the-clock-back-to-January” trick I thought “it’s been a month, more or less, I’m pretty sure the mad genius’ out there have cracked this problem by now…”

And I found they have, hallelujah!

If you have the same problem as me, download the crack from keygen.us and you should be sorted if you follow the instructions given.

(via Funny Logic)

Thankfully Michael Hanscom was pretty understanding about yesterday’s incident, so I’m back to this old look while I figure things out…

Plus it snowed today! Can you believe it?

I’m a hypocrite… Last month I had a post called “All Rights Reserved” about me jumping on the Tequilamockingbird vs. Bryan Lamb righteous cause of copyright infringement… Only for me to do something far more heinous than copying someone’s words.

What’s that you ask?

How about a design? And yeah, I got busted for it… So now I’ve sent Michael a rather apologetic e-mail and crossing my fingers he doesn’t decide to take matters any further, I’ve also left this place as barren as I could at short notice as another kind of way of saying “sorry”.

So if you read any comments saying how low and despicable I am, now you know.

Feel free to lambaste me and distance yourself from me if you wish. I’m not denying what I did. And I am sorry for what it’s worth…

We finally managed a bit of a family reunion without the hissing and growling from Linus. Thought it took some real persuasion…

Aren’t they cute?

Meanwhile, it’s Grey Tuesday so get the DJ Danger Mouse remix of Jay-Z’s “Black Album” while you still can… Why? Well, it’s remixed with The Beatles’ “White Album to create the EMI un-friendly “Grey Album” that was quickly blocked a week or so back. Highly enjoyable protests are always the best.

OK, spoke too soon… Linus was soon on the offensive while Sally just lay there and took it.