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It’s been a long time since I’ve been on a real vacation. I’m talking about the kind where you go on a trip somewhere to have fun and have to spend the night away from home. The good thing about having a real job is that I have more money to spend on this type of thing. Summer is the best time of year for trips, so it’s time for me to start making plans. I’ve got all this vacation time accrued, so it’s time I start using it.

My roommate and I have talked about going somewhere together. We may end up going to a concert somewhere, but that isn’t the only option.

I also want to go to D.C. this summer. I have wanted to go for a while now, but things haven’t worked out so far. It should be a lot of fun.

After approximately 10 days of not feeling well, I went to see the doctor yesterday. I had hoped to beat it myself, but it didn’t seem like it was going to happen any time soon. I went on a Sudafed treatment over the weekend. I started to feel better that first day, but after that it didn’t seem like I was getting any better. I was tired of being sick and being tired all the time, so I went to see a doctor.

The doctor asked me a lot of questions, took some blood, and gave me her theory. She thinks that my allergies started acting up, which made me more prone for “other things to settle in”. She thinks I caught a cold while my allergies were bothering me. She said that she was going to “dry me up”. She prescribed medicine that ended up costing $64 that she said may not work because not all allergy medicine works for everybody. If it doesn’t work she wants me to come back to see her. I hope that I’ll be feeling better within the next few days.

This has been kind of a rough week between lack of sleep and sinus stuff. I’ve had lots of fun though. I’ve spent many hours playing Valkyrie Profile 2 and may be starting Super Paper Mario tonight.

My new case and motherboard that I ordered from TigerDirect came in the mail the other day. I already received my new processor and video card. I’m moving the DVD burner, sound card, and hard drive from my old computer to this new one. Today I went to the new computer store and bought a cooling fan. I’m so eager to start putting everything today, but since I feel terrible I think I’ll hold off until the weekend.

The thing I miss the most about being a student is learning new stuff. Maybe I’ll take a class over the summer or in the fall since it would be free. I have learned a lot of new stuff at work but it has slowed down some lately. Thankfully, I’ll be getting something fresh and new to jump into within the next few days.

Working full-time takes up so much of the day. By the time I get off work, I want to spend my time relaxing and doing something fun. That means I haven’t been going to the gym much. Of the 50 lbs that I lost in 2005-2006, I’ve regained about 20 since last August. I’ve rejoined The Sanderson Center on campus and I hope to go a few times a week. I may end up having spending some of my valuable weekend afternoon hours in the gym. Maybe I’ll get back to the point where I actually look forward to going there.

If I go to a fast food restaurant or any kind of restaurant enough times, I often know what questions they are going to ask ahead of time. Sometimes when I place my order I try to make sure that I answer all of those questions.

Me: I’d like a medium #2 with no onions to go please.
Cashier: Would you like that medium or large?
Me: Medium.
Cashier: No onions?
Me: Right.
Cashier: Would you like that for here or to go?
Me: To go.

Then he told me the total. That kind of thing happens a lot when I order food. I wonder if they aren’t really paying close attention to what I am saying or if they are mechanically following a script. Do I need to use a bullhorn?

When I got home with my food I discovered that the burger had onions on it. I hated my life for a second.

I ended up buying this monitor as a replacement for my CRT that died. It’s fine for what I need it for and I get a rebate if I remember to fill that form out. I seem to be partial to Samsung products these days.

I watched Parenthood the other night at its still good after all this time. My mom was a member of Columbia House (when they had VHS movies) and that was one of the movies she bought. The fact that I still remembered most of it even though I hadn’t seen it in around 15 years means that I must have watched it over and over again. “When you’re slidin’ into first and you feel a sudden burst…”

I finished reading Black House by Stephen King and Peter Straub. It’s the sequel to The Talisman. It’s a much different book than The Talisman. The whole style seems different. A lot of that may be because they were written about 20 years apart. It’s still a great book, however. There’s a lot of Dark Tower goodness that people who were fans of that series will enjoy. **minor spoiler warning** It even had a warning about continuing past a certain point at the end just like book 7 of The Dark Tower. **end spoiler warning**

Speaking of The Dark Tower, I hear that it may also be made into a movie or TV series.

I went online to pay my DirecTV bill a few days ago and saw that I owed over $200. It turns out that they charged me fees that I had been told I would be charged. I paid the amount that was due on the last bill, waited a day for the payment to go through, and then called them to have all the extra charges taken care of. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and say that they weren’t trying to cheat me. It probably happened because my call got disconnected before the guy could finalize the deal and the second lady didn’t know that I wasn’t supposed to be charged those fees.

Those Amazon.com ads on the right side of the home page seem to be different depending on whether I’m using Internet Explorer or Firefox. I wonder why that is.

I got pulled over for not wearing a seatbelt of all things. The one time I wasn’t wearing it and that happens. I discovered at the time that I didn’t have a recent insurance card on me. I had 3 expired cards, but not one that was up-to-date. I also discovered my driver’s license expired in about 2 months ago on my birthday. I had no idea. Time flies in the real world. He let me off with a warning on the seatbelt and expired driver’s license and only gave me a ticket for no insurance. Once I go show them proof that I do have insurance, I’ll be set.

Update, 2/26
Stephen King has now confirmed that The Dark Tower will be adapted by LOST co-creators J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof. How much did they pay him for the rights? $19. Somehow that’s not surprising.

Wow! There was a plane crash near the Jackson/Clinton border yesterday. It went down less than half a mile a mile from my mom’s house – where I spent a lot of my early years. My mom heard it and called me afterward.

I had a lot of fun with the Wii last night. I played the tennis, baseball, and boxing parts of Wii Sports and they were pretty cool. I messed around with a lot of stuff on the menu, created a Mii, etc. I was able to browse longklaw.com using the browser that you can download. My friend number is 1875 7438 9934 0398. I purchased Super Mario Bros from the Virtual Console and plan on giving it real try tonight. I had the most fun playing The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. I wish I had gotten a Wii while I still had time left in my break and not on the first day back to work. Oh well. There’s always the weekend.

I got a gym membership again today. I’m not even going to try to plan a schedule because I know I won’t stick to it. I just want to go and do something a few times a week.

I saw the series premiere of Dirt on FX the Tuesday night. Those commercials that I’ve been seeing over the past few months got on my nerves. I had heard that early reviews of the show were bad, but I was surprised at how much I liked it. It was fun and mean and crazy. Maybe it goes downhill from there. I really don’t need another TV show to keep up with.

I ordered HBO because Rome starts back on the 14th of this month and The Sopranos will be back in April. A benefit is that on the various HBO channels they’ve been playing a lot of movies that I’ve been interested in.

I’m back in Starkville after a short trip to Jackson. My friends and family were good to me again this year. For my birthday and Christmas I got:

• The Talisman and The Black House, both by Stephen King and Peter Straub
• The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe Extended Edition
• Time & Again Shea Butter
• Fraggle Rock: Doin’ the Things That Doozers Do
• a USB Hub
• a USB Adapters Kit
• money
• The Transformers 20th THe Movie Anniversary Edition
• a Visa Gift Card

Recently I bought Bully for the PS2. It’s mission-style gameplay reminds me a lot of GTA. That’s not surprising since they come from the same company. Bully is rated T for Teen, so I guess it won’t be quite as bad as GTA. I wonder if I can finish the game before I go back to work.

I started reading The Talisman on Christmas Eve. I’m already hooked on it and I’m having a hard time putting it down. I think my friend was right when he told me that a lot of the annoying elements of King’s writing are held in check, maybe because of the guy he co-authored the book with. At least I think that’s what John was saying. I discovered tonight that there’s a mini-series based on The Talisman coming out in 2008.

Please don’t waste your time watching The Wicker Man like I did. It was terrible.

The first season of Coupling was really good. I’m looking forward to watching the rest.

I discovered the option on the DirecTV menu that allows you to watch programs in Spanish when available. I never realized how much fun that could be. It really improves the quality of some programs.

I’ll be going back to work a week from Wednesday. I’m going to enjoy this time off as much as I can.

I don’t really get out of town that much anymore. I went to Tupelo for the first time in about a year and a half. I stopped to fill my tank before I left Starkville. I’ve noticed recently that gas stations are making you prepay even during the middle of the day. Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I don’t look trustworthy. When I go a gas station before a trip, I usually buy something on the inside. I’m not in the habit of keeping a lot of cash on me, so I use my card to pay for my gas at the pump. Then when I go inside to pay for their overpriced items, I have to use my card again. It seems like it wasn’t that long ago that I could just pay for everything at once on the inside. Oh well, it’s just a minor annoyance.