Progress Report

I've never really been too big on New Year's Resolutions, and this year isn't looking like things are going to change much. But, for some reason the changing of the year does help to mark a spot. Meaning possibly that though nothing really changes empirically, maybe it's a good opportunity to reflect and make some minor adjustments.

Having said that, here is a quick report on things I've been working on changing this year:

Excercise: C-
-the year up until November was great. Had I continued I was at a B+, maybe even A-. But for the last two months the activity has dropped to zero. I'll have to ratchet that up in 2006.

Job Search: C
-anyone who hasn't heard me say that I was going to get a new job in 2005 wasn't within earshot. But I did get my resume tuned up, so things are moving in the right direction, just at a snail's pace.

Gambling: A-
-all gambling activity has stopped, and that is a huge positive, but there's always room for improvement, hence the minus sign.

Drinking: B
-drinking until the holiday season was lessened to Thursday through Sunday, and I pretty much stuck to that. Noticeable changes were increased energy.

Reading: B+
-starting reading again. I like to read. I am a good reader.

Guitar: F
-although I will pick up my guitar here and there, I have failed miserably at playing this instrument.

Photography: B
-i took hundreds of photos, but more needs to be done in terms of educating myself in the digital world.

Ideas for 2006 include a new job, better physical, mental, and spiritual health, general happiness, and of course, that ineffable something that I just can't quite put my finger on....

Xmas, the Aftermath....

213 glasses of red wine later....
6,107 peices of chocolate ingested...
numerous meals, mid-meal snacks, limited to almost non-existent physical activity coupled with frequent napping....
TV, movies, sodas, burgers and more....
Yup...this is what I've morphed into.

The Grinch Who Stole Christmas

It's 6:34 PM two days before Christmas.
I have yet to buy one gift.
I work all day tomorrow and am supposed to find a way to meet my family for dinner at 5 PM even though they live an hour (w/out traffic) north of LA.
Then I drive back to LA, so I can wake up at 4 AM the next day to drive to Phoenix where I will hook up with more family (in-law family) that I have not bought gifts for.
It's 6:36 PM and I'm drinking a Newcastle, eating Wheat Thins, and blogging.
I am Bryan, and I am a procrastinator.

Que Te Vaya Bien

This mural is actually on display in the Denver airport. Not only do I just find it out of place in an airport, but I'm also just a little bit irritated that a city would use it's money to buy this. And the way the world seems to be working, I'll take a chance and say it wasn't cheap.

I'm reading this book by James Frey called "A Million Little Peices." Apparently it's on Oprah's Book Club, but don't let that scare you. It's really good, if you like a story about a 23 year old Drug and Alcohol addict who is making what is most likely his last attempt to stay alive by checking into a Treatment Facility. His writing style is different; more stream of consciousness than orchestrated prose, but it's refreshing and keeps a good pace.

I was discussing addiction the other day with someone, and it was this person's opinion that we all have addictions. I never really thought of it that way. Rather I thought that many people might have addictions, but not all. So I've been thinking about it a little, and I'm not sold, but the percentage of people that I would have thought had addictions did increase. I think I'd have to say that most people do have addictions.

addiction - (n.) The condition of being habitually or compulsively occupied with or or involved in something.
this is definition 2 a. from Dictionary.com

from wikipedia - Addiction is a compulsion to repeat a behavior regardless of its consequences.

I like the second description better for some reason. Although it does seem that it would then not include workaholics, or more generally anyone involved in behavior in which the consequences were positive or desired. Not that the consquences of workaholics is positive but it usually desired by such people (for whatever crazy reason).

Actually the more I think about it, I like to think of addiction as some behavior which allows us to escape from things that bother us. Some repeated activity that lets us get away. Eating, television, drugs and alcohol, work, being an asshole, being Mother Teresa, talking, etc.

I don't drink tea very much, but I find it very soothing to do so. Yet everyday, without fail I drink coffee in the morning. If I don't, I will be irritable. I used to have to drink it to wake up, but now I'm pretty used to being awake at the same time. So the coffee isn't needed anymore to get me started. But if I skip it, which I would and have only done to try and not drink it, I become cranky and will get headaches. Weird, huh? I know of a beverage that soothes me and I rarely drink it, and I know of another that I drink b/c I have to, or else the world will suffer.

I gotta start drinking more tea and less coffee...

p.s. This guy thinks we're all addicted.

Blog Help

I've got a few questions here and I'm hoping someone can help. I know that no one really reads this blog but I'm hoping that a real blogger might stumble here by accident and provide me with a useful boost. I've tried the help section, but mostly what is there are answers to questions that my Cocker Spaniel can figure out. I don't really have a Cocker Spaniel, and I'm not really looking to obtain one either, so for those of you who haven't finalized your Christmas gift to me, please consider a nice set of Pings, or possibly a street-legal Dune Buggy.

1. Why does my blog run down the middle of the page, leaving inches of space on both left and right margins? It has been answered to change the Template, but that seems weird.

2. Everytime I change my template, I lose any links I've set up. Also, to my dismay, SiteMeter has been kicked out with the last change as well. When I changed the template I copied the code from the old blog, then pasted it to the new one, but I still lost the links, and that other thing.

3. What's the best way to add photos if I want to add them as a link? Any advice on what site will allow the most bandwidth and storage capacity, ease of use, and hopefully free? Right now I have stuff at Shutterfly and Flickr.

4. How come I can't drink beer for a living?

5. The guys above are The Brothers Sarkisian, and they are not to be messed with. I know they look peaceful eating there little ice creams together, but have you ever heard of Scarface? He's a nice fluffy vagina compared to these guys.

6. A.T., check under "LINKS" on the right hand side and click on "Some Photos." It's the only time I've used Shutterfly, but they allowed me to upload as many photos, with no size limit that I could see (photos averaged 2 MB) for free. The downside was that I had to upload the photos one at a time. Flickr allowed me to upload them in bunches, but they have a 20 MB limit per month if you register for free. Free is for me. So why not just upload smaller versions of the photos? I do that here b/c I only do one photo per post. I don't want to have to resize a bunch of photos to upload them to a site. Does Photoshop have a way to resize a series of photos? Or does any other program have that capability?

Traded in my Civic

How do you like my new mode of transportation? Sure it's harder to take my loving customers out to lunch since I traded in a four-door compact sedan for this little style-beast with only room for one atop the rear fender. So, sure...what's your point? And since when did I love my customers? All aboard!!!!

Yellow has always been my favorite color. It's mellow...and when loco gringos make fun, I just laugh maniacally. Did I just spell that correctly?

So tomorrow is the end of another work week, and I'm ready for Friday afternoon. This year Christmas has really worn me down. Every year it takes it's toll, and it's not like I do much, so I can't really pin the tail on the donkey on this one, but I'm beat. We got no tree; no real holiday parties to speak of; no Christmas shopping and spending as I actually am the Grinch who Stole Christams. So why??? Don't know. I just know that I'm ready for January 2006. And as usual, no specific resolutions, but I do resolve to try and be better. Excercise more, eat better, call my Mom more often, be nicer at work, you know, that stuff.

My Bank and Good Nutrition

My Conversation with the Bank Teller today:

Teller: Why don't you have a savings account with us?
Me: Because you charge for it.
Teller: No we don't.
Me: Without a minimum balance of X dollars you do.
Teller: No, we don't.
Me: Really??
Teller{smugly}: Really. You just need to put at least $25 from your checking into your savings every month.

I didn't continue at this point, but that sounds a lot like a minimum balance to me. Also, she was nice, but did she need to get all touche on me? I loved the second "No, we don't" aka "I've won the argument you fool even though we do require a minimum balance we just restructured the deal to confuse your moronic mind."

Another reason I don't have a savings account with my bank is that I use every available penny I slave for to pay down debt with carries an interest rate of at least 10%. The gracious savings rate at my bank.....0.5%. Stunning, isn't it?

Hey, Mrs. Bank, I'll give you $1,000 to loan out to people at variable rates and you can pay me $5. Yippeeeee!!!! What does $5 even buy these days? My trip to Baja Fresh the other day put me back $6, and I didn't even get a drink. Just a burrito. $6. So I guess I'd have to let my bank borrow more than $1,000 for a year to get a free burrito from Baja Fresh. No drink though, better bring a can of soda with me.

So we all know that I'm not an economist, but let me tell you what I think is happening. The banks are getting really, really, really rich and the American people are getting really, really, really poor. We just don't know it yet. Everyone cashing in the equity on their homes to buy crap and artificially inflate the GDP seem to think this is free money. That's supposed to be your savings vehicle, not the 0.5% savings rate. How did this rate get so low? Seriously, if it's all relative, then how much lower can it go? Well, only about a fraction less that 0.5% I think, or the bank conversation might sound like this:

Teller: I noticed you don't have a savings account with us?
Me: You don't actually pay any interest so there is no incentive for me.
Teller: Well, sir, technically you might be correct, but you still don't have a savings account with us. So there!

Shizzle

I'm hungry. Where is my wife?

Weekends Were Made for Michelob?

Does Michelob actaully sell beer? I'm sure they do, but compared to Budweiser, Coors, Sam Adams, etc., I can't specifically remember the last time I drank a Michelob or saw someone purchasing some Michelob in the store. Let me check my resources.................................okay, this is sort of gay. But the www.michelob.com requires you to enter your birthday before entering the site??

Couple quick questions:
1. Do you have to be 21 to enter an alchohol-related website?
2. If I'm under 21, and I enter my correct birthday, what happens?
-Answer: you're directed to the Anheuser-Busch Adventure Parks page. Again...gay.
3. If I'm under 21, but I enter a fake birthday which gives me the cyber-appearance of being over 21, what happens?
-Answer: you get right in just like I did with my fake ID at 19.

"Well, I'm so excited to have finally turned 21, now I can get into Michelob.com."
--quote that will never be overheard.

Not really sure why I'm worried about Michelob, it's probably pretty tasty. Afterall, if I'm going to drink a Bud, or a Coors Light, then I'm pretty sure it doesn't get worse than that. I actually remember buying "Beer" in college, and it wasn't all that bad. That level of beer is all the same if you ask me.

In summary, beer is good. We like to drink beer. Possibly this point was missed as it was subtle, but the word "gay" is not used by me to refer to homosexuality or anything related to it. Similary (this just goes for me), the word "fag" does not refer to a homosexual male, but the term "fag hag" does in fact describe a woman who hangs out with gay men.

What's a "fag" then? It refers to a guy who wants to know what it means. Seriously, is this what you want to know? If so, you're definitely "gay."