I just found out there was a zombie walk in our city on Saturday.  Apparently there wasn't that great of a turn out due to the fact that it was scheduled as a 12 hour event, instead of just a couple hours walking then a BBQ. 

For a first time event, shorter is better, especially in the hot summer.  If I am still in Casper next year, I will definitely be participating providing the sponsors host it again.  I didn't even find out about it until today.  They probably should have advertised a bit more.

If you don't know, a zombie walk is where a large group of people get together dressed as zombies and walk (or lurch) down the street.  Sort of like a protest, rally, or march, but it's completely useless and about zombies.  It's really a great reflection of my generation, I think. 

ashram

PS.  I know this is probably the most useless post I've made in a looong time.

http://www.myspace.com/casperzombiewalk

http://www.zombiewalk.com/

Yesterday was Lindsey & I's 5 year anniversary.  Our first date was Star Wars Episode 2 on May 15, 2002.

The week before last we went to Spiderman 3 on May 3rd.  We got to the theater at about 6.  They let us into the theater at 7.  Then, we got to watch Spiderman 2 for free.  Also, they drew raffle prizes.  Lindsey & I won a free year's worth of movie tickets.  We can see one movie every week for the next year for free.  Pretty badass.   Lindsey kept saying we would win, and we did. Just like we did at Star Wars Episode 3 premiere.  I need to convince her to play the lottery. We could be friggin millionaires.

She's the one part of my life where've I've been really sucessful.  I can't say that I have been all that successful at handling the relationship, but the fact that I have one with such an amazing person is more success than I've ever experienced.

ashram

Halo 3 comes out September 25.  The Beta comes out today.  Halo frenzy.

So, today was almost a duplicate of last Sunday.  I sit down at work; things are really busy, then BAM! homicide.  I am officially a shit magnet.  This one involved 3 separate incidents coming together to create the murder, and I ended up taking all 3 calls.  Somehow I get the feeling I may have to show up at court for this one.

In other non-news, I finally reserved my copy of Halo 3.  The Legendary Edition will cost $130, so I figured I would reserve it and start paying it off now.  Once the release day comes along(I am guessing November 11th), I can then just walk in and pick it up.

Doesn't it look spiffy?

New Halo 2 maps, based on the Halo Derelict & Hang 'Em High maps, come out April 17th.  I am elated and at the same time a little depressed about this.  On the plus side, more Halo 2 maps rock!  On the down side, I can't play games online, and I have no one to play with locally, so I will pretty much just get to run around by myself and appreciate them alone.  Kind of useless.  I have to fix this gaming situation, because it sucks. The only person I can talk to about games and stuff like this that interests me is Lindsey, but she isn't really intrested in this stuff, so it's kind of pointless to discuss it with her.  I need new friends.  Or at least XBL access so I can have pretend online friends.

Guitar Hero II for the Xbox 360 comes out this week.  This is a game Lindsey will actually play with me, so I am very excited.  I am thinking about getting DDR for the 360 as well.  That way I will have two games we can play.

It snowed on my days off, and I pretty much went stir crazy.  I was basically alone for two days, and it was driving me nuts!  Sometimes I like being alone, but after a long lonely week at work, it's nice to have someone to talk to sometimes.  I got absolutely nothing done.  I worked for 8 hours straight on this frickin' news ticker for the clan website and got pretty much nowhere near getting it completed.  That was very frustrating.  I should have just forgotten about it and worked on the tournament software I've been developing, but I thought I could get it done pretty fast.  THOUGHT WRONG.

ashram

Last week was a good week.  Friday I had a whole day of bliss with Lindsey.  More than 12 hours of hanging out!  We haven't done that in over a year.   On Saturday we had the King James Banquet.  Although there was a moment of panic where I couldn't find my costume, Lindsey helped me whip up a decent costume at the last minute.   It was a good turnout, almost 100 people, which is always better.  I think Lindsey had fun, and I had fun too.  Lots of English accents bellowed at ridiculous level.  They really skimped on the food this year, though.  I only got two potatoe wedges!  I think they planned for fewer people.

This week has been crappy so far.  Lindsey is stressed out with work and school.   On Sunday night I went to work hoping for a quiet evening. One hour into my shift, BAM!, we get a homocide and 3 family fights all at once.  Plus a few minutes later we got a guy threatening people with a gun. So much for quiet.   Monday I called in sick.  I picked up Burger King on the way home that morning, and I think it was a huge mistake.  I did not feel good by the afternoon and spent most of that evening curled up next to the toilet.  I spent most of the 36 hours between Monday morning and  Tuesday evening in bed.  Of course, I woke up at 4 am on Tuesday and couldn't go back to sleep even though I layed there all day.  So, now I have been awake 12 hours.   WILL IT NEVER END?

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles came out last week and I am dying to see it.  Not as much as I was dying to see 300, but still.  I should read the reviews online.  I guess I could go do that now.

Guitar Hero II comes out on the 360 next week!  I am pumped.  Finally, I get to actually play a copy of it.  My PS2 copy has been played only once by me, when Lindsey was kind enough to loan her PS2 for a party at my uncle's house.  It's kind of frustrating to own a game, but not be able to play it.  Will not do that again.  I kept telling myself, "Lindsey has a PS2; play it on hers sometime".  But frankly, I owned it for almost a whole year before I got to play it.  Ridiculous waste of money.

ashram

I only check it about once every 3 weeks, but something on Myspace.com got me jealous.  At first I didn't think too much of it and blew it off, but now it's eating me up.  Shit, I hate myself.  No more Whorespace for me.

I finally got around to joining deviantart.com, the site where thousands of professional & ameteur artists put me to shame daily.  I decided it was time to get some things going on the art end of things.  I wanted to use this to inspire and motivate me.  There is a lot of neat stuff over there, and I all of it makes me want to work harder to create some neat stuff.  I would also like to learn the art of photoshop brush creation and would like to post what I make on there for others to use.

Here's my profile:

http://mesidin.deviantart.com/

I haven't really posted here lately.  I've been too busy.  I am in one of those states where I zone out when I get home.  Things are such a mess that I can't focus on them.  The cabin is a mess.  I still don't feel comfortable doing stuff out there.  If it would fucking warm up a bit, I could sleep out there and really make it my home, but it's been too cold lately.  Then, the room in the trailer I have been sleeping in is just piled with all my clothes from when we moved.  I finally got those cleaned up Friday.  It's such a relief to have at least one thing starting to get organized.  I had to wash all my clothes, though.  Somehow an entire bag of dog food got spilled and mixed into my clothes tubs during the move.

We don't even have a dog.

Organization is huge for me though.  I just feel depressed and lethargic when my room is a mess.  It's even worse now because all my belongings are split between to buildings, and one of them is regularly submitted to sub-zero temperatures. Bleh.

I am thinking about giving up drinking soda again.  I really splurge and over drink.  I just can't even limit myself to one a day.  It's all or nothing, I suppose.  So, I will probalby stop again.  Tonight I drank grapefruit juice.  I really like grapefruit juice.  Lindsey would probably think I am crazy for liking it, since she knows that I HATE sour stuff, but I like this juice.  She's the one who likes sour things.  I know juice can be just as bad as pop, as far as sugar & stuff goes, but I don't crave juice or drink too much of it.  I think it could help me get rid of my gut; so I'm quitting.  Lindsey and I need to start working out as well.  I'm getting old & fat.

I have been teaching myself a lot more lately.  Over January, I learned the basics of PHP & MYSQL tables, great stuff to know for creating dynamic websites such as this one.  I also started reading a great book about programming MUDs with C++.   I have messed with installing pre-built MUDs and customizing them, but creating my own would be awesome. It's also teaching me a lot about network programming.  I hope to complete one of the first basic programs in the book by creating a chat room later this week.  Then I can hopefully adapt that to a Flash/PHP version I could use on the web.    It's pretty exciting stuff.

Valentines Day went very well, although our food got cold because it was one of two of the coldest days that week.  I was too nervous/excited to eat.  I cooked chicken fetuccini alfredo.  That was my first time cooking anything with chicken, fetuccini or alfredo in it.  It was okay, I guess.  I had stayed up all day after I got off work getting ready, but it was worth it.   Lindsey seemed to enjoy herself and that's all that mattered.  We watched Pride & Prejudice(the newer movie version), and cuddled.  I pretty much dozed off the moment it started.  Lindsey was sick, so she was tired too.   She seemed to like the video I made her.  I was extremely nervous because it wasn't overly romantic, but intended more to be funny.  She didn't laugh much, but she did smile a lot.

Lindsey got a Dell Inspiron with Windows Vista!  I am so jealous.  It has like a 17" screen or something ridiculously big like that.  The picture is great and the Media Center features are sweet!  Anyway, just a side note.

ashram

My childhood friend Chris is in town for the holidays this week.  We usually hang out for a couple of hours while he's up here.  We generally see a movie, and then he drags me down to a bar for a while. 

It's like going to a cliche high school reunion everytime he is in town.  Now, I count myself lucky that I will never have a high school reunion to go to.  I graduated from a class of 3 people, one of which is a close friend and the other I don't expect to see again.  I want to avoid seeing him this week.  I feel like an ass because of it.  Everytime he comes up it's like a reality check for me.  All the unfulfilled plans and my lack of success hit me in the face like a ton of bricks.

Chris is a law student at Georgetown.  He already has a 4 year degree and a shit load of world experience under his belt.  I won't ever say that he rubs it in my face or anything like that, but I feel ashamed to face him.  "Yes, I still live in my parents house.  Yes, I still work at the hell hole dispatch center.  No, none of my creative projects have gotten off the ground.  No, I haven't made any plans to move out of town.  No, I don't have any friends besides my girlfriend."

I was thinking of taking Lindsey and my brother out with him, but then I would just get to be embarrassed in front of them as well.  At the same time, I probably won't have many more opportunities to see him.  He's not a great e-mailer with his old friends like Mike and I.  My e-mails tend to just "get lost".  And if I ever do move, I doubt we will be back in Casper at the same time again.

ashram

I've been alive:

8990 days, 23 hours, 25 minutes and 9 seconds

as of this posting.  Bored. Bored. Bored.

http://www.timeanddate.com/counters/customcounter.html?month=5&day=21&year=1982&hour=7&min=0&sec=0&p0=778

In roughly 7 years, I will have been alive over 1 billion seconds.  Looking forward to that.

Wow.  2006 went by way too fast.  I know that some years seem to go by quickly, but this one takes the cake for me.  All I've felt is older and I know I didn't get to anywhere near all the things I wanted to get done.  I am looking forward to 2007, though.

Anyway, Happy New Year!

ashram

Buddy, Yume, My Heart & Treasure:

Today, as I moved the entirety of my belongings into a tiny room I've lived in before, I contemplated my life, the things I've done over the past four and a half years, and, finally, you.  If I sit in the center of the floor and stretch my arms to each wall, I can almost touch them.  I am dumping my books and clothes and DVDs in piles on the floor so I can reuse the boxes.  I hate having to live like this.  I hate moving away from you, when you were just a minute away these last two years.

It suddenly dawns on me that I have hit the lowest point in my life thus far.  Not because of where I am going to live at.  I shared this same miniscule room with my brother during high school, uncomfortably at times, but we did it.  It is also not because I've gotten myself into a decent amount of debt.  It is certainly not the fact that I've upset you and "gotten in trouble" multiple times over the last few months.  I wanted to say at first that it was all those things.

The truth is that it is because of who I am.  The person who I've let myself become.  I am a rude, insecure, pathetic, self-centered, procrastinating, and immature ass.  I don't like that person.  I am sure you know a lot about him, because your words sting my ears now.  About my unhappiness.  My lack of enthusiasm or excitement.  My disrespect of you.  My recent apparent sabotage of our relationship.  You are right.  Sometimes I am so stubborn about these things when we are talking them out.  I am embarrassingly too stubborn to admit that I am wrong.   Or even that your advice or counsel carries a valid argument that could help us and especially me.  So, my buddy, my Yume, I wanted to write to you about these things.  This doesn't preclude me from sharing all of this in person with you when I see you next, but I have these ideas and feelings with me now and I want to capture them.  I loved when w

My Love: For every time you've whispered or shouted encouragment about my creativity. For all the notes and ideas you have spent your own busy time creating to inspire me.  For all the changes I told you I would make in my life.  For every time you've made that first step in reconciling an argument.  For every pen, pencil, paint, and paintbrush you've given me to create with.   For every beautiful smile I haven't returned because I was pouting.  For every sexy, joking, or just plain fun time you've danced around my room, inviting me to join you.  For every kiss goodnight I haven't cherished.  For every piece of precious advice I've pridefully ignored.  For every time you said you loved me, that you would always be with me, and I looked at you with an incredulous frown:

I am sorry for wasting your gifts to me.

I am sorry that I have been so complacent with your love this past year.  The disrespect I have given it and you has been scornful and unacceptable.  I realize now what a unique love you have shared with me.  All this time I have been looking for abandonment, disregard, or betrayal, yet I was missing this amazing thing right in front of me.  I let my selfishness and insecurity to ruin the best joy I have ever experienced.  We've said this a lot, but it can never be said enough: You are my best friend.  Why haven't I trusted that?  If there is someone who I can share my heart and mind with, it is only you.

I am sorry I haven't loved you the way you deserved to be loved.

I am sorry I haven't cherished every precious moment I get to spend with you, to savor them when you are away.

I am sorry that I have been a boy, when I should have been a man.

I am sorry I've claimed dreams of granduer, but haven't gotten past my parent's basement.

For the many ridiculous things I've said and argued that have hurt you, I apologize.

The only way I feel I can show you what I mean is by change.  I don't want this to just be words.  I don't want this to turn into a momentary pang of guilt washed away by procrastination.  I don't want to be this person any more. 

You are such a strong-willed, talented woman, buddy.  I really admire you.  When you decide that something is right or needs to be done, you do it.  Even if you have your shy moments, you can push past that with confidence.  I want that.  I want to be someone who is confident.  I want to be physically attractive, fit, and strong.  I want to eat healthier.  I want to be successful financially.  I want to be happier about life, whatever it may present.  I want to love you unconditionally and whole-heartedly.  I want to be all of these things when I walk beside you through the mall or downtown or any place we go, not because I feel I might need them to hold onto you or to keep you from dumping me at some future date, but because you deserve to have someone like that by your side, and I want to be that person.  I don't deserve to have you by my side, Lindsey Marie.

So, my lover and friend, I know that I have scorned your advice in the past, but I want to know if you will forgive me that wrong.  I have desperately needed your help this whole time.

All my love,

Shae

My little brother arrived at our house almost 12 hours late.  Stupid weather/airlines.  It's nice to see him again, and frankly, he's fucking huge.  I feel almost a head shorter than him now.  I am not sure if it was an illusion due to foot wear or posture or whatever, but I swear 1 year ago, I was only 1/4 inch shorter than him.  Now I'm looking up.

We started officially moving today.  This entailed staying up all night before waiting for my brother to show up, horsing around with him for a few hours, packing some stuff, then starting the move at 8 am with no sleep.  The move is/was hell.  It has last all day into the evening, and, by the time I got called into work we were still packing up.  The bitch of it was that we are moving into a trailer that my uncle and his family were living in, so we had to pack their shit up, move them out, then finally move onto our stuff.  We start moving our stuff at noon.  That's how prepared he was. 

Then, my other uncles new wife who was helping us move stuff really pissed me off.  I had never met her before today.  She brought this fucking gigantor dog to the move and let him out of  the car.  So, every time you had a montsrous desk or dresser or whatever in hand, the dog was fucking right there trying to trip you up.  Then, she was smoking in our house.  I hate the smell of cigarette smoke.  Do it in your own house.  Not mine.  I am already huffing and wheezing from the 11 degree weather and the exertion of moving two households.  I don't need your smelly ass smoke in the house I am moving into!

My body is exhausted.  My hands are cramping up at work, as are my legs and arms.  The only thing that helps is continuing to type.  Keep those fingers warm!  They are going numb.  I don't want to lift another box again.  But, my car is sitting outside in the parking lot full of my most precious shit and I will have to unload it when I get off work. Also, that Christmas thing that was supposed to happen last night didn't. It was put off until tonight.  So, I officially missed Christmas.  Again.  And I was thinking earlier this evening that things can't get much worse.  Silly me.

Looking at a different side of things, I can't be wholly mad I was called in.  The girl who I was called in to replace just found out her grandmother died tonight.  While I can't take solace in the fact that someone is having a shittier night than me in this case, I can look at the upside that for once in the last 6 months my job has actually called me in for a valid reason.  Glass is half full and all that. 

I seriously wept like a baby when I hugged my brother before I left for work tonight.  He told me he would take care of my stuff and make sure everything got where it needed to go.  Happy Holidays.

ashram