"This is the kind of honesty that only beer can bring." Such was the frankness of the discussion that I held tonight with a very old friend of mine. I got it all off my chest, almost like a confession. I told him about my dad's health problems, I told him about the weight on my mind about career choices (and was relieved to hear that he was going through the same type of indecision), I related my belief that depression was imminent due to my current situation, I filled him in on the abusive relationship I had been in while we were both in college (I was on the receiving end). He told me about his concerns with the relationship he's currently in, his career choices, his belief that maybe L.A. wouldn't hold everything that I was looking for since Boston didn't hold everything he was looking for, and a decent amount of reciprocation in terms of what I was feeling. I'm glad to hear that I'm not alone in this confusion.

The Royal Tenenbaums was good, though. I enjoyed it, despite its absurdity and abject satire of itself. I particularly enjoyed the acting, especially Gene Hackman, Anjelica Huston and Gwyneth Paltrow's. For once, I actually saw Gwyneth's appeal and realized how people might think that she's incredibly attractive, though I'm not sure why.

I'm not a fan of spam. (Who is?) So I'm prone to entering a fake e-mail address when submitting things online that I'd rather not be tracked for -- anonymous surveys, software updates, basically anything where they might sell my e-mail address to another company. One of my friends used to have the AOL screenname "Bob LaBlah" (say it fast three times over), so I got the idea to use "boblablah@bob.com" when I was in a situation where I couldn't download something or proceed on the Net without putting in an e-mail address because I figured it would be my own inside joke as a "screw you" to anyone who might try to sell my information. I finally just shortened it to "bob@bob.com."

Out of some strange curiosity this morning, I went to see if there really was a bob.com. There is. They buy and sell collectible stock and bond certificates. I wonder if any e-mails sent to bob@bob.com actually go through to a user or a general mailbox there who's been inundated with product updates, spam and porn e-mails for the past few years. If so, well... better you than me, I guess.

I'm not a fan of spam. (Who is?) So I'm prone to entering a fake e-mail address when submitting things online that I'd rather not be tracked for -- anonymous surveys, software updates, basically anything where they might sell my e-mail address to another company. One of my friends used to have the AOL screenname "Bob LaBlah" (say it fast three times over), so I got the idea to use "boblablah@bob.com" when I was in a situation where I couldn't download something or proceed on the Net without putting in an e-mail address because I figured it would be my own inside joke as a "screw you" to anyone who might try to sell my information. I finally just shortened it to "bob@bob.com."

Out of some strange curiosity this morning, I went to see if there really was a bob.com. There is. They buy and sell collectible stock and bond certificates. I wonder if any e-mails sent to bob@bob.com actually go through to a user or a general mailbox there who's been inundated with product updates, spam and porn e-mails for the past few years. If so, well... better you than me, I guess.

Among the dumber questions I heard/was asked this evening:

- (Just after the conclusion of Lord of the Rings) "So, how'd they get such short and tall actors? I didn't think that wizard guy was so tall in real life."
- "Is it cold out?" (No, it's Boston in January at night, but it's a completely atypical 75 degrees and I'm wearing a heavy winter jacket because of this new sweating diet I'm on. The flush on my cheeks is not from the cold and the wind, it's from makeup.)

The movie was still excellent the second time around. I went with two friends, one who had seen it before and who had not. The one who had seen it before is also a movie buff, so we traded barbs quietly during the film, such as saying "Down here, this is our time!" when Sean Astin and Elijah Wood set out from the Shire, or using a Hugo Weaving intonation for "Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson," when they entered the Elvish town.

Among the dumber questions I heard/was asked this evening:

- (Just after the conclusion of Lord of the Rings) "So, how'd they get such short and tall actors? I didn't think that wizard guy was so tall in real life."
- "Is it cold out?" (No, it's Boston in January at night, but it's a completely atypical 75 degrees and I'm wearing a heavy winter jacket because of this new sweating diet I'm on. The flush on my cheeks is not from the cold and the wind, it's from makeup.)

The movie was still excellent the second time around. I went with two friends, one who had seen it before and who had not. The one who had seen it before is also a movie buff, so we traded barbs quietly during the film, such as saying "Down here, this is our time!" when Sean Astin and Elijah Wood set out from the Shire, or using a Hugo Weaving intonation for "Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson," when they entered the Elvish town.

Watching Fight Club right before bed will cause you to have some really strange dreams. But my bad mood from a not-so-restful sleep was broken when I logged in this morning to find my Blogger Insider questions from the brilliant leather-suit-wearing webmistress Bill. So on with my own contribution to "Project Mayhem":

1. If you woke up one day to find you had inherited a fully-stocked zoo, which animal(s) would you bring into the house to live with you?
They don't have rabbits in zoos, do they? Too normal. I don't like having tons of animals around, so I wouldn't take too many. I'd install a couple of lions at the front door in order to eat any stray salesmen, politicians or religious fanatics who came by to convert me. I might try to train a couple of monkeys to clean the place occasionally and write some web code for me -- maybe they can figure out SQL for me. I wouldn't mind something small and fuzzy to share the couch with while I'm watching TV, like maybe a chinchilla or two.

2. How much of your Blogger Insider management time is spent dealing with petty bickering?
Thankfully, not too much. Mostly it's just people wanting to sign up or get more information, sometimes it's people saying their partners haven't gotten back to them yet and what should they do. I get a few strange requests like "can I sign up, but only do interviews when I want to?" or "I want to sign up, but I only want to interview people and I don't want to be interviewed." Sorry folks, it doesn't work that way. It's enough of a bear to manage the rapidly-swelling membership list that I can't implement special requests.

3. What is the best thing you've ever done, karmically speaking?
Wow, tough question. I'm pretty generous by nature, so it's not uncommon for me to perform acts of random good karma on a regular basis. Like yesterday when I drove my friend all over creation to get a new master key for his car and then out to some random subway stop where he'd left his car while he was on vacation. I've bailed friends out of jail at 4AM on a school night. I've driven friends to an airport an hour away. I've gone over to friends' places after midnight on worknights and stayed up late with them listening to their problems and giving them advice and letting them cry on my shoulder. The biggest thing I probably did was when I flew out to Portland, Oregon, because the girl I was dating at the time needed to drive back to Boston but didn't want to do it alone and her sister bailed on her -- so I flew out there and we drove back so she could start her job in Boston on time, that's the famous 51 hour coast-to-coast drive. My co-workers told me afterwards that they laid odds 10-to-1 against me that I wouldn't walk in the door on Monday morning, but not only was I there on time, but I was also rested because we'd gotten back Saturday night so I'd had all day Sunday to take it easy.

4. What is the worst thing you've ever done, karmically speaking?
Again, tough question. I have a guilty conscience the size of Idaho, so anything bad I've done tends to be blown out of proportion in my head. But I still think the worst thing was falling under the spell of Evil Manipulative Girlfriend and allowing her to turn me against my parents and friends for almost 2 years.

5. Describe the ideal bed.
I love my current bed. It's a queen size bed, it's not soft because I like a decently-hard mattress, but it's not so hard that I'm lying literally on top of it. The ridges created by the stitching aren't pronounced so I can't really feel them through the sheets. Plus, the sheets are key. You can have a great mattress and boxspring, but if you put 140-count sheets on them, that just ruins it. I'm a big fan of flannel sheets, though I've recently become quite enamored with cotton jersey sheets.

6. You're waiting at a bustop: what's the most irritating thing someone can do?
I tend to shy away from public transportation and I've taken the bus maybe twice in my entire life (not counting a schoolbus). But hypothetically speaking? I guess either crowding my personal space or doing the disturbed-mental-thing: yelling at everyone, picking fights, etc. I also have this aura I inherited from my mother, it makes random strangers talk to me about everything (including personal details of their lives even though I've never met them before) and it sometimes kicks in at very inopportune times. I could be standing there minding my own business, reading a book or listening to headphones, giving off clear waves of "I'm not in the mood, don't talk to me" and people will still come over and talk to me. It's not that I'm anti-social, it's just there's sometimes when I don't want to talk to people and especially random strangers.

7. The nicest?
Give up a seat for me. I have problems with just standing up. I can walk around for a long period of time or I can sit for a long period of time, but I can't just stand there. Or they could hand me a blank check for a nice chunk of change.

8. You're at work: what's the most irritating thing someone can do?
Talk really loudly in the next cube while making your incessant personal calls so I hear every single little detail of your life. But the things that mostly annoyed me about work were personality conflicts I had with other people -- I couldn't stand it when bosses would take projects away from me, at one job I'd make initial inroads on setting up an interview or something and then my boss would hand it over to someone else on my team because I was "too new" and the client contacts wouldn't recognize me. I just kept thinking, "how come you can't introduce me to the client already so I can take care of this stuff myself, instead of making my co-worker look wonderful? I'm fully capable of seeing this through, that's why you hired me, and you're not giving me a chance to prove that I am capable of doing it." Also, I hate self-important people who are on the same level as me but try to boss me around.

9. The nicest?
Bring me chocolate. Tell me you think I'm a cool person or that you think I'm doing a great job. Realize that it can't be all business all the time and joke around with me occasionally on e-mail. Compliment me on something I've done. Include me in your after-work festivities with the other co-workers. It doesn't take much.

10. You get a fortune cookie. The fortune reads: "Your dearest wish will come true." What is it?
There's so many... I think first and foremost, it would just be to be able to live comfortably -- mentally, physically and financially -- for the rest of my life, and to be able to do something with my life that I really truly love.

Watching Fight Club right before bed will cause you to have some really strange dreams. But my bad mood from a not-so-restful sleep was broken when I logged in this morning to find my Blogger Insider questions from the brilliant leather-suit-wearing webmistress Bill. So on with my own contribution to "Project Mayhem":

1. If you woke up one day to find you had inherited a fully-stocked zoo, which animal(s) would you bring into the house to live with you?
They don't have rabbits in zoos, do they? Too normal. I don't like having tons of animals around, so I wouldn't take too many. I'd install a couple of lions at the front door in order to eat any stray salesmen, politicians or religious fanatics who came by to convert me. I might try to train a couple of monkeys to clean the place occasionally and write some web code for me -- maybe they can figure out SQL for me. I wouldn't mind something small and fuzzy to share the couch with while I'm watching TV, like maybe a chinchilla or two.

2. How much of your Blogger Insider management time is spent dealing with petty bickering?
Thankfully, not too much. Mostly it's just people wanting to sign up or get more information, sometimes it's people saying their partners haven't gotten back to them yet and what should they do. I get a few strange requests like "can I sign up, but only do interviews when I want to?" or "I want to sign up, but I only want to interview people and I don't want to be interviewed." Sorry folks, it doesn't work that way. It's enough of a bear to manage the rapidly-swelling membership list that I can't implement special requests.

3. What is the best thing you've ever done, karmically speaking?
Wow, tough question. I'm pretty generous by nature, so it's not uncommon for me to perform acts of random good karma on a regular basis. Like yesterday when I drove my friend all over creation to get a new master key for his car and then out to some random subway stop where he'd left his car while he was on vacation. I've bailed friends out of jail at 4AM on a school night. I've driven friends to an airport an hour away. I've gone over to friends' places after midnight on worknights and stayed up late with them listening to their problems and giving them advice and letting them cry on my shoulder. The biggest thing I probably did was when I flew out to Portland, Oregon, because the girl I was dating at the time needed to drive back to Boston but didn't want to do it alone and her sister bailed on her -- so I flew out there and we drove back so she could start her job in Boston on time, that's the famous 51 hour coast-to-coast drive. My co-workers told me afterwards that they laid odds 10-to-1 against me that I wouldn't walk in the door on Monday morning, but not only was I there on time, but I was also rested because we'd gotten back Saturday night so I'd had all day Sunday to take it easy.

4. What is the worst thing you've ever done, karmically speaking?
Again, tough question. I have a guilty conscience the size of Idaho, so anything bad I've done tends to be blown out of proportion in my head. But I still think the worst thing was falling under the spell of Evil Manipulative Girlfriend and allowing her to turn me against my parents and friends for almost 2 years.

5. Describe the ideal bed.
I love my current bed. It's a queen size bed, it's not soft because I like a decently-hard mattress, but it's not so hard that I'm lying literally on top of it. The ridges created by the stitching aren't pronounced so I can't really feel them through the sheets. Plus, the sheets are key. You can have a great mattress and boxspring, but if you put 140-count sheets on them, that just ruins it. I'm a big fan of flannel sheets, though I've recently become quite enamored with cotton jersey sheets.

6. You're waiting at a bustop: what's the most irritating thing someone can do?
I tend to shy away from public transportation and I've taken the bus maybe twice in my entire life (not counting a schoolbus). But hypothetically speaking? I guess either crowding my personal space or doing the disturbed-mental-thing: yelling at everyone, picking fights, etc. I also have this aura I inherited from my mother, it makes random strangers talk to me about everything (including personal details of their lives even though I've never met them before) and it sometimes kicks in at very inopportune times. I could be standing there minding my own business, reading a book or listening to headphones, giving off clear waves of "I'm not in the mood, don't talk to me" and people will still come over and talk to me. It's not that I'm anti-social, it's just there's sometimes when I don't want to talk to people and especially random strangers.

7. The nicest?
Give up a seat for me. I have problems with just standing up. I can walk around for a long period of time or I can sit for a long period of time, but I can't just stand there. Or they could hand me a blank check for a nice chunk of change.

8. You're at work: what's the most irritating thing someone can do?
Talk really loudly in the next cube while making your incessant personal calls so I hear every single little detail of your life. But the things that mostly annoyed me about work were personality conflicts I had with other people -- I couldn't stand it when bosses would take projects away from me, at one job I'd make initial inroads on setting up an interview or something and then my boss would hand it over to someone else on my team because I was "too new" and the client contacts wouldn't recognize me. I just kept thinking, "how come you can't introduce me to the client already so I can take care of this stuff myself, instead of making my co-worker look wonderful? I'm fully capable of seeing this through, that's why you hired me, and you're not giving me a chance to prove that I am capable of doing it." Also, I hate self-important people who are on the same level as me but try to boss me around.

9. The nicest?
Bring me chocolate. Tell me you think I'm a cool person or that you think I'm doing a great job. Realize that it can't be all business all the time and joke around with me occasionally on e-mail. Compliment me on something I've done. Include me in your after-work festivities with the other co-workers. It doesn't take much.

10. You get a fortune cookie. The fortune reads: "Your dearest wish will come true." What is it?
There's so many... I think first and foremost, it would just be to be able to live comfortably -- mentally, physically and financially -- for the rest of my life, and to be able to do something with my life that I really truly love.

Sorry for my lackluster performance over the past couple of days. I haven't been feeling like my usual self, and I've been battling a perpetual headache for the past 2 days. It's become more annoying than painful.

I'm still mourning the loss of "Sports Night." My lack of sleep during nighttime hours has allowed me to regularly watch this great show as Comedy Central reruns it weeknights at 1:30AM. With all the crap on network television these days, "Sports Night" is a shining beacon of a great sitcom.

Sorry for my lackluster performance over the past couple of days. I haven't been feeling like my usual self, and I've been battling a perpetual headache for the past 2 days. It's become more annoying than painful.

I'm still mourning the loss of "Sports Night." My lack of sleep during nighttime hours has allowed me to regularly watch this great show as Comedy Central reruns it weeknights at 1:30AM. With all the crap on network television these days, "Sports Night" is a shining beacon of a great sitcom.

I might be going back on the air for a little while! The radio station at my alma mater is looking for some DJs to fill in over winter break, and their overnight slots are freeform at the DJ's discretion -- which is perfect for me, since I'm becoming a little insomniac anyways. I'm also looking into the afternoon shift as well.

The cool thing is that they also stream online on Live365, so if you're interested in hearing what I actually sound like in addition to my on-air style, you'll finally have your chance. I'll let you know if it goes through, which I hope it does. It'll be great to be behind the mic again.

I might be going back on the air for a little while! The radio station at my alma mater is looking for some DJs to fill in over winter break, and their overnight slots are freeform at the DJ's discretion -- which is perfect for me, since I'm becoming a little insomniac anyways. I'm also looking into the afternoon shift as well.

The cool thing is that they also stream online on Live365, so if you're interested in hearing what I actually sound like in addition to my on-air style, you'll finally have your chance. I'll let you know if it goes through, which I hope it does. It'll be great to be behind the mic again.

Is it just me, or are people a little too eager to declare this recession over? Every day, I see at least one article talking about how the stock market's performance that day or how some economic indicator shows that the recession is ebbing. Today, I saw an article in which someone said that the rising unemployment rate proves that we're coming out of the worst of it. Now, I'm no economist, but isn't a rising unemployment rate a bad thing?

Is it just me, or are people a little too eager to declare this recession over? Every day, I see at least one article talking about how the stock market's performance that day or how some economic indicator shows that the recession is ebbing. Today, I saw an article in which someone said that the rising unemployment rate proves that we're coming out of the worst of it. Now, I'm no economist, but isn't a rising unemployment rate a bad thing?

Well, well, well... seems the Backstreet Boys are starting to crack a bit under stardom. Nick Carter was arrested in a Florida nightclub after a fight broke out over a woman. Maybe he finally met a female who wasn't interested in him and he couldn't quite grasp that concept?

Well, well, well... seems the Backstreet Boys are starting to crack a bit under stardom. Nick Carter was arrested in a Florida nightclub after a fight broke out over a woman. Maybe he finally met a female who wasn't interested in him and he couldn't quite grasp that concept?