I'm a day late with this, but dammit it, I'm telling you, I'm really friggin' busy...

Yesterday was our 2 year anniversary. During our wedding, we performed the white rose ceremony. It goes like this...

Me: Take this rose as a symbol of my love. It began as a tiny bud and blossomed, just as my love has grown and blossomed for you.

Her: I take this rose as a symbol of your love and place it into water a symbol of life. For just as this rose cannot survive without water, I cannot survive without you.

Me: In rememberance of this day, I will give you a white rose earh year on our anniversary as reaffirmation of my love and the vows spoken here today.

Her: And I will refill this vase with water each year ready to receive your gift in reaffirmation of the new life you have given me and the vows spoken here today.

Me: And so, this rose will be a symbolic memory of my commitment to you at this hour. I vow to be a good husband to you, to comfort you, to honor you, to respect you, and cherish you all the days of my life.

Her: And I commit myself to you to be a faithful wife, to comfort you, to honor you, to respect you, and cherish you all the days of my life.

There weren't too many dry eyes at our wedding...

I've known my wife for over 10 years now. We were friends long before we even thought about dating each other. And now, we've been a couple for over 5 years, married for 2. It's been rocky at times (all good relationships are), but I tell you, I plan on finding that vase every year and placing a single white rose in it...

Yeah, it's been nearly a week since I posted... Didn't I say work is kicking my ass? Oy! Am I busy... Don't ask how I found time for this post...

I broke out one of my favorite albums from college the other day -- Blind Melon. You probably know them as that band with that bee girl tap dancing in that video...What was that song? Oh yeah, No Rain.

Anyway, Blind Melon's first album left a little spot on my soul. A few of the songs and themes are always rambling back there somewhere in my head. It's probably at least partially responsible for my laidback attitude in life. In a less thoughtful statement, it was a great album to listen to high, on life or otherwise.

One song in particular, Change, still rings out in my mind. Not just the way the vocals and guitar play out of one speaker and the harmonica out of the other in the beginning, not just how in the middle I can't help but singing, not even how frusturating that this is the one song I know my voice can't do any justice to.

This song, I think, encompasses my entire outlook on life...

I don't feel the sun's comin' out today
its staying in, its gonna find another way.
As I sit here in this misery, I don't
think I'll ever see the sun from here.

And oh as I fade away,
they'll all look at me and say, and they'll say,
Hey look at him! I'll never live that way.
But that's okay
they're just afraid to change.

When you feel your life ain't worth living
you've got to stand up and
take a look around you then a look way up to the sky.
And when your deepest thoughts are broken,
keep on dreaming boy, cause when you stop dreamin' it's time to die.

And as we all play parts of tomorrow,
some ways will work and other ways we'll play.
But I know we all can't stay here forever,
so I want to write my words on the face of today.
and then they'll paint it

And oh as I fade away,
they'll all look at me and they'll say,
Hey look at him and where he is these days.
When life is hard, you have to change.


I know that the song says "when life is hard, you have to change" but I prefer to think that it's more about adapting to a situation than changing who you are. You can adapt to any circumstance without changing the person you are inside.

Notice the song starts out gloomy. The sun's not coming out today, the skies are grey, but there's still hope. The sun is going to find a way to come up no matter what. A soul will be itself under any circumstance.

As I sit here in this misery, I don't think I'll ever see the sun from here.

Yeah, the sun isn't shining, life sucks, but you know what? Fuck that. If I want the sun to shine on my life, then I've got to do something about that.

And oh as I fade away, they'll all look at me and say, "Hey look at him! I'll never live that way." But that's okay they're just afraid to change.

This actually reminds me of high school. Despite all the ridicule I went through then, I think the people who made fun of me did so because they secretly were jealous of me because I was a free spirit, in a word, myself. I wasn't held down by all the cliques and cliches of high school. They looked at me and couldn't live that way because they were afraid of change. They couldn't leave their clique to be an individual. That's what life's about -- being an individual.

When you feel your life ain't worth living, you've got to stand up and take a look around you then a look way up to the sky. And when your deepest thoughts are broken, keep on dreaming boy, cause when you stop dreamin' it's time to die.

These lines are pretty self-explanatory. Don't stop dreaming. Don't stop being who you are because in the end that's all you really have.

And as we all play parts of tomorrow, some ways will work and other ways we'll play. But I know we all can't stay here forever, so I want to write my words on the face of today. And then they'll paint it

Again, rather self-explanatory. As we're learning who we are, we are also figuring out what pushes our buttons and what pleases us. Life is short, so make the most of it and make your mark. I think what Shannon Hoon, God rest his soul, meant by "and then they'll paint it," is that the best way to be remembered is by being yourself.

Quick sidebar to explain that last thought. I joined a fraternity in college. Many of my friends couldn't believe it because I am definately not the "frat type." But, I did. And from that I got one of the best compliments I think I ever could receive. A friend told me that even though I joined a frat, I remained an individual. Get it now?

And oh as I fade away, they'll all look at me and they'll say, "Hey look at him and where he is these days. When life is hard, you have to change."

Notice the change from the first chorus. It's later in life and the person is going away, possibly even dying. Everyone looks at him and says, "Wow, look at him. He's remained himself all this time." And you get the hint that they wished they could have been like that. They wish the could have been themselves throughout it all. They couldn't adapt well-enough and become something they are not...

When life is hard, yes, you have to change. But not who you are...

Dear Journal (yep, one of those posts, much rambling ahead),

Lord is work kicking my ass. Or at least, it's about to. One of our promotion producers gave his notice and his now gone. But that leaves us down one person just when we need to be full staffed. November Sweeps starts next Thursday and we've got great momentum. Just have to last past Thanksgiving... I can do that...

Being one producer down, the other producer and I have had to take on extra late shifts. I still work Sunday through Thursday, but on Monday and Tuesdays, I have to produce the daily news topicals (12p-9p). You know, those promos you see where the news anchor tells you what's coming on. It's not such a hard thing to do, but 2 extra days of topicals (I work the late shift on Sunday) means I only have 2 days to do EVERYTHING ELSE. There's radio spots to download, tag and upload again. There's special news sweeps pieces that will need promos. That's about a day of work. Then, there's the hosted movies on the weekends. Those take about a 1/2 day to a day of shooting depending on what's needed to be shot and about 2 days to edit.

On top of all that, my supervisor has not shown any interest in picking up a few projects. Well, at least not until the big boss probably told her she needed to give her producers a hand. So, while me and the 4-to-5 month preggo producer are killing ourselves to just survive the sweeps period, she apparently was just going to pile job upon job to us and not do much of anything.

When the guy quit, we divided up the topical days... 3 for me and 3 for preggo producer. The supervisor wasn't going to take a day to do topicals. That's total bullshit; we were (and still are) incredibly pissed that she wouldn't take one fucking day of topicals. The problem arose the other day that the preggo producer had already planned to take this Friday and another Friday is sweeps off. This was okayed before the guy left us. So, the supervisor gal wanted me to work those two days, which I really normally don't have a problem with. But, since Fridays and Saturdays are my weekend to do with as I please, my family had plans to go out of town then. So, I can't work the latter Friday. I said I can't work then, but I probably could work the first Friday. I told my supervisor I would have to get back with her after I checked with my family at home, just to make sure we didn't have plans then, too. She walked off and straight into the bosses office, when we think she was told she would have to pick up alot of the slack, too.

When she got out that meeting, I told her that I could work the first Friday and asked what she was going to do about the Sunday I was giving up to work the Friday (5 day work week, folks, not 6). She, in a bit of an aggrivated tone, simply said she would just have to take both Fridays. No skin off my back... And thank you for picking up a little of the slack...

The boss has told us producers that we can lean on him and the supervisor to pre-produce stuff, like writing scripts and gathering footage, etc. We'd take the tapes and edit them. And we are definately gonna take advantage of that... probably abuse the priviledge. Hey, maybe if we annoy the supervisor enough, she'll quit and I can get a promotion. That would be nice. So, part of me just wants to keep doing things that will annoy her enough into quiting...

What I and others at work can't figure out is how she's stable enough to keep working here without being fired or quitting. I am completely sincere when I say there is not a single person in a 80+ person office that has said one nice thing about her. Where ever she goes, tension follows and I have heard the words "hate," "looney," "fucking ding-bat bitch," and "fucking fruit loop" used in reference to her (one of those by a bigwig department head). No one can figure out how she can stay in place where no one likes her. Seriously, she'll walk into the office in the morning -- three of us already there -- and not one of us will acknowledge her. I think we do that on purpose... I could go on about her, but really, I'm getting a headache. Sincerely, I get a headache about 5 minutes after she walks in the door and it magically goes away when I leave work...

But, you know, playing what I think was charades with what I am pretty sure was a young girl with down syndrome who didn't speak much English (we were at Tae Kwon Do and many of the Korean children speak in their native tongue) is now a cherished memory and I will no doubt try to put myself in her mind when I need to de-stress. I mean, she wasn't just talking to me and the wife, she wasn't just playing charades with us... she was talking to her invisible friends who seemed to help her perform her charade. I didn't think what a weirdo she was. I thought, she knows. If I were in her mind, then I'd know and see that all of the above doesn't matter... Just that flapping my arms meant bird and NOT flying, lying down on the ground meant sleep, not sleeping or laying down, and my best friends, only those that know can see...

I wonder where Garry Trudeau will be taking this storyline about web logs...

I wonder what the blogosphere will say/think about it...

Maybe it's the liberal in me, but, Doonesbury has got to be the funniest cartoons, editorial or otherwise, ever. How Trudeau is able to keep his strip fresh, funny and topical is totally beyond me...

Tale of Big Bird Catches Some Air -- Anchorage Daily News

This is an interesting story. Several people in Alaska have seen what is described as a flying animal with a wingspan of 14 feet or so. That's a wingspan of approximately 2 Brad Garrett's... Scientists believe it's nothing more than a Stellar's Sea Eagle, a bird twice the size of a bald eagle...

"I believe this is a possible Dragon Sighting," wrote "Anonoumous." "I believe that it is a Northern Ice Dragon."

Now, I WOULD think that this is some jokester trying to fake out the news, but then I note the spelling of "anonymous" and start doubting myself... Then again, it's a hard word to spell...

This quote scared me more...

"There was a recent sighting of a giant raptor in the Coastal Bend region" of Texas, writes a woman from the Houston-Galveston area. "Don't let the scientists blow this off. It could be the biological discovery of the century."

A giant raptor... My guess is this giant raptor was seen in Tinseltown's Cinema 19 during a screening of Jurassic Park 3 (or is it Juras-SUCK Park 3). Either that, or some drunk saw the dinosaur statue made out of hubcabs (I think) located west of Houston on I-10.

Despite the skepticism of some people, Bouker, the Dillingham pilot, said he knows what he has seen and agrees with some scientists that it's likely a Steller's sea eagle.

Thankfully, the person who saw this big bird believes what he was of this earth and not the famed Thunderbird of Native American legend...

Did you realize that the girl from Legend and Ferris Bueller's Day Off has grown up to become Harley Quinn in the WB's Bird's of Prey? Yep, that's Mia Sara... Blonde hair and all...

Also, did you realize that the jerky-ass jock that broke up with Jennifer Love Hewitt in Can't Hardly Wait is the hot, hip, cool-as-shit cop in Fastlane (And I don't mean Tiffany-Amber Theissen)? Peter Facillini was also in The Scorpion King...

Weird how these two shows are competitors... Of course, she went from really hot to just kinda eh and he went from yeck to totally hot... Wonder how that factor will play out in the rating race... Then again, Mia's not the main attraction, is she?

I'm thinking of redesigning the old site here... I'm thinking there will actually be some grey colors here, too. Although, I do think it's kinda funny or ironic or something that this place is called Everything Grey and yet almost nothing is actually grey. I have a design in my head, but I don't know exactly how to pull it off. I guess I'm gonna have hone my html skills. Some of the design change will be copy and paste. I might have to learn CSS, which doesn't look to difficult. This look now is a modified blogger template and it wasn't too difficult to decipher the code. But, I guess the best thing to do is start from scratch.

I don't know when you can expect the change to occur, but I really want to change the look... Just expect more greyness in the future...

I think I need an html editor on my home computer. I downloaded a shareware version coffeecup, and I liked using it, but like a dumbass, I let the free trial expire without doing much with it... Dreamweaver is installed on the work computer, but do I really want to use work time for such a project, especially when it's gonna get extemely busy soon... No...

I need a logo or something. I thought incorporating a ying-yang, but that idea is fizzling out. I'll be taking suggestions. It think it's probably obvious I'm not a designer...

Many people bitch about blogger, but I really haven't had any major problems. But I think that's because I'm very laidback about everything. This website shouldn't be causing me any stress. It's supposed to be more of a stress-reliever, a place to make jokes, and hopefully, a place where folks laugh (with not at)... I've thought about moving to Moveable Type, but I get the impression that I would have to install it on my work computer because many of my inspirations happen at work and if I don't write about it then, poof, bye bye blog entry. That's my main reason for sticking with Blogger -- because I can post at home and at work. I don't mind blogging at work; I usually do it during lunch, like now, or early in the morning when I get here. Though, I haven't really looked hard at Moveable Type or any other blog system. I just get the impression that it's not what I want to use...

And when I do this re-design, I'll have to make sure to update my blogroll because there are some blogs out there I like to read that I don't have on the roll... That's my rule, if I read it, I'll roll it. And I don't expect or ask for linky love either. I roll because I read, not because I need the love...

I'm a little bothered that many of my hits are coming from "Tamyra Grey" searches. I guess the Grey doesn't help. Or the post about American Idol. I'm also a little bothered that someone found this place searching for "hot beef injections". And now I'm getting hits from searches like "sniper I am god tarot video game" and "moulin rouge homosexuals." That last one I think I take offense at because it kinda implies only a homo could like Moulin Rouge. One of my best gay friends doesn't like it, and I friggin' love it, so there goes that theory... There was one other kinda disturbing search recently, but I only remember it was "pink naked" and some other words that didn't go with "pink" and "naked", like possibly "child"...

Well, all you freaks, welcome to my web world... which will one day soon, possibly even this year, will change...

What is my uber-christian supervisor trying to tell me when she asks me if I want to go on Dr. Phil, or Jenny Jones, or have a paternity test done on Montel (considering my wife's not pregnant and I already know I'm not the biological father of our nine-year old)?

On a side note...

Finding out the hard way: Deodorant and Anti-Persprirant ARE NOT the same thing.

One of the computer geeks at work has this saying on a sign at his desk:

There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those that understand binary and those that don't...

Ain't that a kicker?

The wife and kid are out of town for the weekend...
There's 1/2 a fifth of Southern Comfort in the cupboard...
A 3 liter of Coke...
The house is clean...
Ryan Adams, Liz Phair, Guster, Jellyfish and Barenaked Ladies have a concert going on in my living room...
I have absolutely no responsibilities today...

Sniper Left Taunting Note, Police Say -- Washington Post

When this story about the sniper first started, I wondered about this person's motive. Seemingly random...

Then, I starting thinking about Death, a character in Terry Pratchett's fantasy satire series, Discworld. What the corrilation?

Well, Death is a strange character. In "Soul Music", he gets all existental about life and takes a vacation from his job. But, someone has to fill in for him because, you know, people have to die... That's where the sniper comes in... He's motive is he's filling in for Death... or perhaps Death has hired an assistant. I mean, there's a lot of people who's time is up and Death can't be everywhere at once...

Ok, not really... but that's what happens when I let my mind wonder... Reality gets all skewered...

Seriously, it seems like our sniper has left a calling card...

"Dear policeman, I am God," the message said. Police said it was found on a Tarot card known as the Death card, part of a deck used in fortunetelling

I would venture a guess and say this guy knows nothing about tarot cards because the Death card isn't necessarily a bad card to get. In tarot, the Death Card signifies a big change, a rebirth and renewal and in the end, it's really not a bad card. There are much worse cards to get, like the Tower (called the Broken House here; scroll down), or the Happy Squirrel...

Johann Pachellbel's Canon In D is quite possibly the most wonderful piece of music ever written. It's a song that moves me beyond expression. Whenever I hear it, a flood of emotion takes over my soul and in the same instant I am reminded of my past, engrossed in my present and contemplating my future. It's like how your life flashes before you when you die, only this music breathes new life into your essence...

Which isn't necessarily a good thing when you are marking movie clips at work and it's used as background music in Father of the Bride...

I don't know where he got this... The kid is planning on using a pick-up line on his crush at school tomorrow... You know the one... "Hey, did that hurt? When you fell from heaven?" I could never be that smooth...

What's your favorite pick-up line? What line do you use to get the digits?

I often have a strange sense of deja vu. This feeling usually manifests like this: I'll be doing something and my eyes will be attracted to something about what I am doing. Then, I'll realize I've done this before and how something is about to happen and it does. Confused? Well, this happened to me earlier...

I was sitting in an edit bay at work scanning through video tapes. Suddenly, I had this feeling like I had done this before. I made a note of the tape I was looking at. Oddly enough, it was generic promos of James Van Praagh's show Beyond.

Then, I started with the details of the scene. I thought, if I look at the monitor I'll see the squares of the promo being fast forwarded. But, not just random pixel squares. An exact scene. I thought I would see the endpage of the promo pass-by when I looked at the monitor and in fast-forwarded motion James Van Praagh would appear from light and fog. Sure enough, I looked up and there he was.

Then, I thought I should hear that the NY Giants were about to score a touchdown on Dallas. Of course, I did have the game on at work, as well as trying to listen to the Saint's game on the web. The Saint's was where my aural focus was at the time. Then, I hear something to the effect of "Collins throws. He's got a receiver. TOUCHDOWN!" I look up to the tv and the Giants just scored the game winner.

When the deja vu gets that detailed, I just have to stop what I'm doing and take a minute and get out of the situation. And usually, I had deja vu about doing that, too.

I've read that experiencing deja vu is a form of clairvoyance. Apparently, what psychicly happens is that you dream of a future event that you later experience. Most of the time you don't remember the dream until you have the deja vu. So, in essance, you see the future in your dreams. This happens way too much to me.

Lately, the wife and I have been trying to experiment with out psychic abilities (don't laugh). Honestly, a lot of it seems like coincidence. Here's a way we read about to test and develop your psychic abilities. We'll take out a deck of cards and one of us will try to determine whether the card is a red (heart/diamonds) or black (clubs/spades) card. According to the test, if you get 13 out of 20 right, you're well on your way to developing your abilities. I'm borderline right now. I usually can get 12 of the cards. The skeptic in me thinks that anyone can guess red or black and be right 60% of the time, so I figure it's all coincidence.

Then, we'll go a step further and try to determine the number and/or suit of the card. It's harder to do, so if you get 6 or 7 out of 20, you'd doing good. Again, I can borderline it. Usually get 5 or 6.

Do I think I'm psychic? No. But I do think I have the potential...

Sometimes, I read stuff like this and this and think that maybe video games like Grand Theft Auto 3 are influencing people's brainpans. Maybe whoever committed these crimes got the idea from the game...

I have Grand Theft Auto 3 and basically the jist of the game is do be the best criminal you can be. You can kill people in the game any number of ways: Rocket launcer, run over them with a tank, sniper rife, flame thrower. It's definately not for kids, and I don't play it when the kid is around.

One of my favorite stress relievers is to play this game. I go find a fast car, park it near some stairs, get out and climb to the top of a roof. Then, I'll snipe as many folks as I can until the cops come after me. Perhaps, I'll shoot down a few police choppers before making my getaway. The point is it relieves my stress and I don't actually hurt anyone. I'm an intellegent being who knows that I can't do that in real life. It's morally wrong, not to mention, I don't think I could actually kill someone.

But, in a video game, bring'em on... Come on copper, try and take me down.

If you don't like clowns, then for God's sake, don't click here*.

Ok, I know you're curious... Go on... click here*...

* by clicking, you agree not to sue ML or Everything Grey for totally destroying your sanity...

linkage props to ThenWhen.