September 10, 2001

Everyone's Experiencing Something But Me (Recovered from LiveJournal)

It's been another strange day in the Sarasota compound. Started off the day earlier than usual, as Autumn had a pre-temp position interview at 10, which was the same time I had to be at work. So I, being the wonderful gentleman that I am, volunteered to step in to work a little early. I got there, and Joe and Mark were already hard at work. We've been having trouble with the DVD writer for the last couple weeks, and today was pretty much set aside for trying to figure it out. It was nearly 2 before we decided enough was enough and threw up our arms in a combination of disgust, surprise and utter, utter defeat.

We grudgingly called the woman who had brought the job to us, to let her know we wouldn't be able to finish the job after all, and she said "that's ok.. I don't really need it until christmas anyway." Which, I guess made our day. It was a pretty useless day all around at the office, as none of us seemed to be in the right mindset to get things done. Mark needed to ask the mailman something, and I remembered about it but he forgot... yet I said nothing. No idea why.

So I got home, after sending autumn a link to this page: http://www.drqshadow.com/dance/, and found the kitty to be ignoring his new scratching post in favor of my brown leather recliner, as well as an Autumn in "one of her moods." I tried my best to make her smile, but she just seemed to get annoyed. So that was a wonderful experience for me.

We decided Barry, the cat, was too stinky and needed a bath. So, into the tub he went, and he was none too happy about it. You know all those tv commercials they show you, where washing a cat / dog is such a fun, happy family experience and it's something everyone should do once or twice? Yeah, well, they're full of shit. Poor Barry's heart was pounding so fast I thought it might explode, and he clawed the hell out of whatever limb was within reach. Once we got him out, he shook one paw at a time, repeatedly, in what was one of the most bizarre things I've ever seen an animal do. We used up a couple towels on him as well, and when he was still damp, we broke out the hair dryer.

Christ, I think this cat thought that was the dark angel of war or something, because he swiped at it, threw his head back to reveal his fangs, and tried everything up to and including a dead sprint up the wall to get away. Luckily, I was the one holding him... wait, I guess that wasn't so lucky after all.

Afterwards, he was pissed at us for a good length of time before he realized we were his best source of warmth. Now he's resting easily on my lap. All seems to be forgiven. But he keeps farting... perhaps this is his own special brand of payback.

So, in conclusion, Autumn's sad and doesn't want love, Barry's angry with us (and with good reason), Mark's surprisingly unproductive, Joe's as busy as ever, and I'm stuck in the middle with little or no emotions of my own.

Oh, and the police were outside when I got home. No idea why. They just seemed to be hanging out, talking with one another. That difficult feat required 3 cars. I must've missed something; maybe the alligator ate somebody.

posted by drqshadow at 10:36 PM 0 comments

September 05, 2001

I've Lost at Phone Tag (Recovered from LiveJournal)

Seems like I managed to talk to everyone in the world within these last couple days. I gave BP a ring this evening, just to pass along the new address / #, and to see how things were doing back in the old pisshole of Muncie, and he seems to be doing OK. He's got two labs full of new Apple equipment to look after / network / maintain / hack, so he's been keeping busy on that front.

The sis called late this evening, which was just as bizarre as any of our other conversations. For one reason or another, our whole discussion rotated around the cat, and Autumn's bizarre method of playing with it. She seemed to be taking a special pleasure in forcing the poor young creature to fall over backwards, chasing a gold ribbon. But it was all in good fun. Erin's enjoying college to its fullest, which makes me wonder why it took me so long to come out of my shell freshman year. I've fond memories of Jeremy and I sealing that door tight and vegging far too long in front of the N64, which was brand new at the time. Have I just dated myself? Gah!

Anyhow, last night I had a nice conversation with Kate. I guess you never really figure out how much you liked talking with a close friend until they're out of your area code. I wish we could've hung out more as we got older, but then again.. maybe the distance made us better friends than we ever should have been. Hm. Deep...

I use that little tri-period cliche too much in my writing.

We're still discussing names for the cat... current front runners include: Atari, Skeletor, Randy Gordo, Barry (or Lavonne) or Ralph. I'm also somewhat fond of Cat5, but perhaps a Logan's Run reference would be too vague.

My insanity with the MP3s has yet to slow down, except now I've added a new passion to my search; Invader Zim episodes. I've been a big fan of Jhonen Vasquez since Squee launched (never even SAW Johnny... it was always sold out...), and I can't believe Nickelodeon's letting him get away with some of the shit he's done. It's dark, twisted, bizarre and right up my alley. So I must have them all.

Work went well today. The Gonyas came in, and took a look at the Quicktime VR I did of his sculpture. They seemed to really enjoy it. Mark told me August was the worst month in terms of income Rocket had ever experienced. To make a point... we've already made twice the income in September that we did in August. And today's the 5th. Yeesh.

Oh! And I had a quick chat with Lindsay on AIM earlier today. She seems well. I was always a bit bugged that we never hung out more than we did. We get along really well.

Then again, that might just be me being retarded again. We hung out a lot during my Freshman year at BSU, because I was home so often, hoping and praying Myra would remember she was my girlfriend. The stupid things we do when we think we're in love...

OK, time to say goodbye. I've just been granted an account on a server offering Invader Zim episodes! Hoot!

posted by drqshadow at 7:40 PM 0 comments

September 04, 2001

Here's to New Acquaintances... (Recovered from LiveJournal)

The weeks are just blowing past now.

I've been getting quite a bit done at work, finishing up our website, (Rocketdigital.net), completing my first decent QTVR Object movie, finishing and printing our Real Estate Agent pitches, and starting some work on Mark's old site, Modern Producer.com. So life's been full, busy, and satisfying. I'm doing what I like, being paid well enough to survive for it, and ending up with stuff I wouldn't be ashamed to show off in the least.

Autumn and I also made a new addition to the house, in the form of a 4 month old grey tabby, who's currently waking from about an hour's sleep in the guest bed nearby. He seems to be sneezing a bit, which has me worried he caught the upper respiratory disease they warned us about at the Humane Society. We were told it's very treatable, but I guess we'll see. He's only been here about 6 hours, but seems to be warming up to us nicely. Well, me at least. Autumn's been sleeping most of the time we've had him. Anyway, he's getting along remarkably well for a little guy who just had his nuts lasered off. I know I'd be more than a little pissed at the bastards who did that to me..

We got a lot of stuff unpacked and up on the walls yesterday, so the apartment looks much more like a home now, and much less like a work in progress. The floors are almost to the point where we can vacuum them.

I participated in my first show with Punchline Saturday, a battle of the bands near Venice, and it went really well. We sounded great, in all modesty, but only took second in the competition. I have no idea how the band that won did so, however, as they were just awful. Imagine, if you will, a Blink 182 cover band with a lead singer who doesn't know the meaning of the word tone. I dig most of Blink's stuff, but to cover them isn't really that difficult a task. To cover them badly requires a special kind of suck. And no, I'm not being harsh...

I've been going absolutely MP3 crazy lately, downloading album after album on Hotline Client and catching up on some of the purchases I'd been meaning to make for quite some time. I found a couple servers that have almost everything I could ever want, including an Operation Ivy album I didn't even know existed. It's a really cool experience to find new songs from a band that split up over ten years ago. I feel like a kid with a new piece of candy. Except I don't eat Operation Ivy's music. And I'm 22 years old. And... well, I guess the experiences aren't really all that similar after all.

The cat just woke up again, so I'd best supervise him further. He was dubbed "Skeezix" by his previous owners, but I don't think we're gonna keep that name. More to come.

posted by drqshadow at 7:39 PM 0 comments

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