This is quite possibly the greatest news article in the history of national media.

http://www.thespec.com/News/BreakingNews/article/421948

I really have nothing to talk about, but I just finished training and I have 15 minutes left before I can leave. So, I'm certainly not going to do any work with only that much time left.

The training went well. I was a little nervous because I was pretty much ad-libbing the entire time. We had a rough outline of things we wanted to cover today, but that was all. But it went really well.

The two people here for training are from Argentina, so there is a bit of a language barrier. But, I expected to have more trouble understanding them than I actually did. It was funny, because a lot of the times I would have no idea what they were saying when they started asking their questions, but then I would get right when they finished speaking. It just sometimes took a few seconds, but I handled it well.

It was even funnier when they would talk to themselves, though, because that's when they didn't speak English at all. I'm sure they were talking about me, that goes without saying.

Tomorrow is the last day of training.

Ahahaha, so true:

Wow, I'm writing a blog entry when I'm at home, as opposed to when I'm at work supposed to be working. What is this madness? =)

I've updated the songs in my playlist (the music player I have embedded into my site). It actually wasn't as outdated as I initially discovered -- I kept two of the songs there, and added several new ones. Check it out if you'd like; you should know the link.

For those of you unfortunate enough to have seen 2G1C, check out Kermit the Frog's reaction to it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOn1htjSZic

Today was "Fun With Contact Lenses" day. It started out normally enough: I woke my eyes up as best I could and put the lenses in, feeling no ill-effects whatsoever. Then, on the drive to work, it felt like someone was stabbing me in the right eye with a rusty nail.

So, three quarters of my drive consisted of my either having one eye closed, or me poking myself in it. Finally, whatever was in there worked its way out. It was probably an eyelash...those fucking things hurt.


Oh, and I really love when they do this:
http://www.lfgcomic.com/page/174

I'm very, very close to the end of IT now. Less than 50 pages to go, I would say.

Remember the last time I posted about this book, and I hoped that Stan's reasoning for committing suicide would be explained in detail? It was probably the stupidest explanation I've ever heard in my life, but it does fit his character. I honestly can't think of a better explanation for it, so I suppose I accept this. (He didn't want to get dirty again.)

The only complaint I really have about what's been going on in the story here at the end is that if I didn't already know a lot of the mythology that Stephen King created for his books, I would have been totally lost when IT was talking to itself. I would have understood that IT was feeling fear for the first time in Its life, and that IT wanted revenge on those kids. But when IT started talking about the Turtle, the Macroverse, and where IT really lived, I would have been left scratching my head in confusion if I hadn't read The Dark Tower books.

I'm quite certain I had no idea what IT was talking about the first time I read the book.


Now I should do something constructive. Inland scripts, here I come.

Someone sent me this rather long write-up about my astrological sign. I've never been one to put much merit into these things. My opinion is, if you read a bunch of these without anyone telling you which one was yours, you probably wouldn't be able to pick yours out of the bunch. I'm sure anyone can find a few things that apply to them in each and every one of them. Nevertheless, it is kind of fun to read them and try to apply each of the points to yourself and say, "Ok, yeah, I am kind of like that."

This isn't the first such write-up I've received about my sign (which is Aries, by the way). Most are the same: "Born leader, stubborn, blah, blah, blah". I received one a few years ago that really struck me as unique, because one of the points it brought up was right on the money for me in a way that I had never seen before. The sentence is still in my head:

"An Aries doesn't just need love; they need to be loved."

That can be true for anyone, but it then went on to explain this in more detail, and what it said was very true of myself. I don't remember exactly how it was worded, but I can create an example. At a group gathering, such as a party or whatever, most people will mix into the crowd and talk in groups. An Aries, however, will prefer to talk to one person at a time. The reason for this is that an Aries wants each person to like them, not all of the people as a group. And as such, they treat each person as an individual too, since that's what they want in return.

THAT is me, period, end of story. I find myself doing this at any family gathering I've ever been a part of, any party I've every attended, and so on. Hell, I even act this way in the games I play. When I played counter-strike, I would quite often play maps with only one other person. I also find it funny that I still do this in a game like WoW, since it's an MMO. But I do -- I have more 1-on-1 conversations in that game than group conversations, and that's because it's the way I prefer things to be.

So it's not that I'm anti-social, as it would appear to those who aren't familiar with my intricacies. Quite the contrary. I just prefer to be more personable than I am able to be in a group. And if I single you out and talk to you individually, congratulations. That means I like you.

Just remember to single me out from time to time as well. We Aries need that, and we're too stubborn to admit it.

Check this out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr_Horrible

I laughed. But I didn't laugh because this was funny. I was laughing at myself for being stupid enough to actually watch it.

Bad horse. Bad horse. Hi-Ho Silver, away. Signed, Bad horse.

I haven't been keeping up very well with anime these days. I've kind of gotten away from it a bit, and the interest just isn't there for me anymore. However, I had a little bit of a blast from the past today, so to speak.

I was listening to my Zune here at the office, and a song by Three Days Grace came onto my playlist: "Get Out Alive". I like the song, and I wondered if there was a music video for it, so off to YouTube I went.

Sifting through the search results led to many EMO-related home-made videos. (EMO kids love this song, apparently. I can see why, it's pretty moody.) I couldn't find an official music video, but one of the home-made ones caught my eye instantly. It was a montage of video footage from an anime by the name of Elfen Lied, set to this song.

I haven't thought about Elfen Lied in a few years now, but I remember the anime quite well. It is one of the most violent and disturbing pieces of entertainment I've ever seen.

I'm not sure how to classify the show, but a good term for it would be psychological horror. But the plot is so confusing I'm not even sure that's the proper term. The first 7 minutes of the first episode are the most bloody, gory, and disturbing minutes you will ever spend watching a TV show in your entire life.

Watch it. I dare you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdIiMONsh4k


In any case, it's one of my favorite anime shows. And maybe I can teach you something useless. Elfen Lied is actually german, meaning "Song of the Elves". There's also a German poem called Elfenlied. These two things are from where the title of the anime comes.

Also, I wrote up my own summary and review of the anime, as I did with many of my favorite shows. You can see that here: http://www.pastatdude.com/anime/elfenlied/