friday, 05|07|0412:51p: a couple of stoopit memes
I'm bored, and I haven't made a public entry in a while (still mostly doing the friends-only or private thing), so here's something innocuous that can be public, right? A couple of fun little activities?
meme.1 How about a game of 20 questions for the hell of it? You ask me 10 questions, I'll reply with my answer and 10 questions for you. Nothing is sacred, ask anything you want. Put this in your journal and have your friends ask you questions if you wish to continue it. You may just learn something about them!
meme.2 Friday is for Anonymity. Wanted to tell me something but couldn't say it with your face on? Anonymous comments are enabled, IP tracking is off. Tell me what's up. I won't be offended. Or maybe I will be, who knows. This is only for today.
saturday, 04|10|0410:06p: eureka
I thought it would maybe be a sham, but Tickle does make good personalized test results. For some reason I tried their "Right Career, Wrong Career" test, it seemed very good, and it gave me enough of a taste of the results that I just had to buy the $12.95 8-day membership and full career report. (![[info]](http://library.vu.edu.pk/cgi-bin/nph-proxy.cgi/000100A/http/web.archive.org/web/20040611171931im_/http:/=2fstat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) harm1020, I hope you do this too!) It seems so accurate to me, and it really gives me that feeling that I am making the right choices going into film (even though it mostly thinks I should be an architect)! I believe that I am really going to achieve what I want and be happy when I get there, it makes me so hopeful. Just answering the questions really made me feel better that I could decide what I wanted. So, Tickle (formerly emode) is good people, after all.
You can read my results--I would if you posted yours--and in fact, I'd like you to read mine. I saved my full report publicly on my .Mac webspace, so click to read my personalized Tickle Career Report: creative/analytical. Tell me what you think, or if you take one, what your results are.. especially if you buy the full test. Do you think it is accurate, too? I'm just shocked.
(To contrast, if you search on Google you can find other people's publicly-posted results.. one girl who got an analytical/creative (more analytical than creative, as opposed to my creative/analytical) was also told she should be an architect, but had a totally different explanation, different additional suggestions, different "wrong" career, different advice, etc.)
Current Mood:  ecstatic
Current Music: Cher - Just Like Jesse James (in my head)
tuesday, 03|30|049:10a: not fishing
Okay, so I am fishing here. I like to hear it once a year.
21 is supposed to be better, right?
(Tiff, I only lied because I had to.)
Current Mood: ecstatic
monday, 03|29|0410:28a: on ESotSM
I watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind last night. It may be my favorite movie, now.. ever. I cannot remember a movie that has affected me emotionally quite like this ever before. (Then, I am in love, so this just connects directly with an important part of my life.) I watched it.. I was moved, I was on the edge of my seat, I laughed, I cried, I smiled, I cried again, and at the end I just could not stop crying. I was by myself in the movie theater, and I got up and walked out with a purpose, and I could not stop crying, and I did not care. I had to get home. I had to talk to Edward. I had to talk to someone about this movie. I had so much to say, and so many more questions. I think I cried all the way home.
I would have never expected it. I could not handle the idea of him not watching this movie. When I think about it, I don't think I would want to live if I hadn't seen this movie, though I wouldn't know what I had missed.
By the time I got home I had decided that the experience was so powerful that Edward had to do the same thing, so I told him that he has to go tomorrow to watch it. (I went alone because Melody went alone last night. But I'm glad that I did.)
I wonder if a lot of people don't understand the levels of the story, the questions it poses. The story is not about a sci-fi concept. The story is not even about the plot, in my mind, it is all an abstraction.. maybe the plot is just an exciting, dazzling Hollywood excuse to get us to take a look at the profund and brilliant romance that takes place between these two people, and their conversational collisions--to put us through a questioning and mind-twisting cinematic experience. It really goes through almost a whole little lifetime of amazing realizations in a relationship, and it really sort of stands as a metaphor for all the things we can't really say to each other. It poses a lot of questions about ourselves, fate, relationships, and the meaning of life, and it has what I consider to be one of the most amazing and complicated love stories of all time.
(I am not even going into the amazing cinematography, creative and jarring visuals, the actors, the marketing, anything. That is like an entirely separate entry. The content of this movie, the sum of its parts, transcends all of that.)
I think I need everyone to go out and see this movie. Then I need an advance DVD so I can go through and write down everything it provokes, so that we can discuss it. Who has seen it?
wednesday, 03|17|041:44a:
every now and then, when I'm all alone
i'll be wishing you would call me on the telephone
say you want me there, but you never do
i feel like such a fool
i can't take it, what am I waiting for?
my heart's still breaking, i miss you even more
and i can't fake it the way i could before
i hate you, but i love you
i can't stop thinking of you
it's true,
i'm stuck on you
(still friends-only, leave a comment)
saturday, 02|21|049:14a: oh no
My Express shirts are knockoffs of Thomas Pink shirts! WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME THIS? Why did I have to find out like this?! How shall I ever afford a $165 Thomas Pink? What am I going to do?
Sugar daddies?!
Current Mood: mortified
Current Music: Deborah Cox - Absolutely Not (Chanel Clubmix edit-csr)
friday, 02|20|041:06p: same-sex marriage
Where do you stand? Despite the fact that my last public entry was also a poll, and I swear I don't do polls that often, I think I need to know this.
Poll #251708 marriage
Open to: All, results viewable to: AllDo you support same-sex marriage?
I think I know what it means if you vote no. I wouldn't have realized the hypocracy of this (in the case of my friends) if it weren't for isilya.
(Still friends-only.)
Current Music: In Grid - Tu Es Foutu
wednesday, 09|24|0310:33p: poll tiem!@#
Since by now you should know how easily I am amused by statistics, humor me with voting in the following lj-poll. Every vote is like giving ibrad a shiny, brightly-colored present on Christmas morning.
( I cut because I care. Well, and because you bitch incessantly otherwise. )
saturday, 09|20|036:47p: psa: just fucking stop it already.
These people need lobotomies. Or more fitting, third degree burns and ass-flesh skin grafts covering their precious little faces and bodies, to match the gut-wrenching ugliness and hate inside. My apologies to friends if you are a creator/maintainer, a judging member, accepted, or an appreciator of these communities, but you really make me sick. Go do something else with your life.
Who am I talking about? Here's a great list: Communities and users interested in "nonuglies." Them.
To those hatefully derided and rejected by the petty assholes that are part of these big circle-jerks, good for you, I hope you have learned something. I hope you have actually grown as a person, maybe to appreciate inner beauty, a concept that some will never grasp.
Current Mood: cynical as always
friday, 09|12|038:47p:
I'm getting really tired of not having internet access at home, how I can't post things when I think of them (so I end up with huge long boring entries where I don't really go into detail or put forth much effort because there is just too much to write about). I hate not being able to google for answers to random questions I think up, or look for images or stock photography for things I am producing, things like that. I have grown to become internet-dependant over the years. While at first being without internet was kind of like an adventure--roughing it, you know--now it has grown aggravating and tedious and my life is completely boring. Or rather, it would be, if I didn't have all of the drama going on. I just want to go back to a simpler life without drama. Where I could drown myself in LiveJournal and Friendster and Google and mac rumors and phone geekery and AIM and IRC and gnutella and my websites and all of my friends scattered about the world who were the only ones that were nice to me.
Instead, I have the library. I think there are 30 other people on these shitty wintels surfing the web, and I have come to the conclusion that we are sharing a 28.8kbps dialup connection. There really could be no other answer, considering the abhorrent download/display speeds I am tolerating. Little is more infuriating than knowing exactly what you want, but having to wait, in silence, unsure if you will ever get it.
Stay tuned for continued friends-only posts.
monday, 08|25|039:41p: i'm irresistable you fool
Apparently the contract you sign when getting a checking account falls under that whole "legally binding contract" thing that causes problems for 18-year-olds in Nebraska. I learned this while trying to open an account at Security National Bank. Apparently what I signed with Commercial Federal really doesn't hold any water, so I could run up ten grand in bounced checks and not be liable because no one else is on the account and I was not 19 when I originally started my account and signed all of the papers. So I could just go on a big shopping spree!
(I don't think I'd do that, because it would be dishonest, and they'd probably find some way to ruin my credit, but it was a risk on their part, and they knew my birthdate. It is annoying to find other banks won't take that risk.) After going over to ComFed to deposit my check there (begrudgingly--though the teller was so sweet), I withdrew some funds, and happily I went to Baker's grocery store. I picked up a 24-pack of waters, a Mango Madness Snapple, a "Chicken Enchilada Suizo" Lean Cuisine, some "lite" Dannon Strawberry yogurt that was on sale, and some cheap protein bar that was supposedly "Caramel Apple" in flavor. You know, trying to eat a healthy lunch until I buy groceries tonight to make my own lunches. I was afraid to buy more than one of any of the above, because I might not like them.
Sure enough. With the exception of the Canadian Spring Water (everything Canadian tastes better *winks*), gross. The Snapple was okay (won't bother with that flavor again though). I neglected to read the details of the Lean Cuisine (and of course I don't know Spanish), so I didn't realize that the "suizo" apparently means something to do with being sour cream-based. I generally dislike sour cream in anything you can taste it in. It was gross. The protein bar was like a big chunk of chewy bland material that had a spattering of some wax-looking material on top (which was supposed to faintly taste of Caramel Apple). I had to force myself to swallow it through all the gagging. I knew it was good for me. The yogurt is nearly tasteless. So that was my delicious lunch. I snuck a few Wheatables that a coworker had brought in.
I was playing with the haiku generator.. got this pretty awesome one amongst many nonsensical haiku.
So my friend xpurple has inspired me to do an audio (blog) post. I just have to stop being paranoid and insecure and give it a try. Though I don't think I could ever possibly be as hilarious or interesting as comes naturally to dear Tom--I am going to make one. A few of my other great friends have done audio posts (besides xpurple, I can think of mart, realmac, iworshipsatin SORT OF, I'm thinking maybe vorpal and underthebridge too? who else?!), and I'm all about mixing it up. So maybe I'll try later tonight with my internal mic. Any ideas for topics? Any questions you'd like me to answer? :)
Current Music: Sarah Vaughn - Whatever Lola Wants (on my 7135)
friday, 08|22|033:31p: heavy duty breaker not included
I made meself a new icon, for when I am posting at work. I really just wanted to make another icon, but I'm saying it is for use while I am making work posts. I actually already had an icon described as "work," and it was a picture of me in my old Sears shirt, so you know how old that one is. Anyhow, I'm going to try to remember to use it.
*flaunts his permanent user 15 icons*
Shocking as it might seem to all of you, the icon is not me. If you know what it is from, you get a cookie.
thursday, 08|21|036:54a: curious digital cable box, and a new icon
I went to go watch the morning news, and the digital cable box started flashing all kinds of crazy numbers and lights, then I try to turn it off and it starts turning itself on and off every few seconds. There was no way to stop it short of unplugging it. How odd. I have a feeling they may have shut that service off, it is far past the middle of the month. Cable internet seems to still be working, but who knows for how long.
So, I figured I might as well upload my new user icon that I put together. I'd say that I made it, but I didn't really. Slightly modified video capture, resized and cropped, color modified, 1px border and text added. I didn't want it to be completely unoriginal, or as easily stolen as my yip-yips have proven to be. Then, I shouldn't feel guilty because 75% of LiveJournal uses user icons that aren't their own. (Which kind of annoys me.. especially if you have a paid account, and all 10 or 12 pictures are anime or something. It's wasteful, get a picture of you up there... But that is a rant for another day.)
So who remembers the teeny little super guy?! From Sesame Street?! Episodes that didn't have the TLSG, the YYAs (Yip Yip Aliens), Cecille, or at least the dancing pigs, used to make me mad.. I loved those guys so much when I was little.
Current Mood: waking up
wednesday, 08|20|035:30p: a whole entry about laundry detergents, prepare yourselves
Laundry detergent is not an exception to the rule of "You get what you pay for." You might think that most all soaps clean the same, and they probably do; all of this talk of releasing dirt and powering away grease or grass stains is mainly hype. You can't always get the stains out, but you can if you are lucky and do it right, pretty much regardless of what detergent you may use. However, the real selling point as far as I am concerned, is fragrance. Let me tell you why. I bought a huge jug of no-name laundry detergent at Wal-Mart the other day. It seemed to smell acceptable when I opened the bottle and took a hurried whiff of the concentrated form. Plus it was $2-3-4 more in price than other detergents (e.g. Gain, Tide, or Oxydol, respectively), so it was a deal that I couldn't pass up, and I honestly thought these savings would benefit me. I don't need oxygen action, and I sort my clothes so I don't need color protection, or any of that other bs.
I got home and started to do some laundry; starting the water filling the tub of the washing machine, pouring in a cupful of the detergent. Then I notice a foul stench that I imagine can only be described as Wet Dog or maybe Sewer Fresh. I reexamine the label to make sure that I got the correct scent. No, not what I was expecting, "Original Scent." Well, not exactly descriptive, I can't argue with that. I have never had the displeasure of smelling any cleaning product this foul ever before. The bottle of it is so big, and I am so tight, that I cannot bear to throw it away and go buy new detergent, so instead I use twice as much fabric softener just to foster clean clothes with a pleasant odor. And thank goodness for dryer sheets. Almost a week later, it still smells nasty when I use it.
Needless to say I'll be going back to something else. I really liked Gain's Tropical Island scent, it was very faint and not feminine, and the price was not exorbitant.. not to mention the packaging has really garish and distracting colors all over it (possibly the biggest selling point). I don't know how I can make this journal entry more domestic, though a poll about laundry would be a great start. Here's an lj-poll about laundry, detergent, and softener in case you are really bored and enjoy statistics like me. ( THE EXCITING LAUNDRY POLL OF DQQM!!1 )
monday, 08|18|0312:29p: interview from dreamattack
1. Do you follow Omaha city politics?
I try not to. They're fittingly hopeless to bother with. Omaha just disagrees with me.
2. Which "fill-in-the-blank"roads Mall do you prefer?
Southroads is dead, Crossroads is a dump, though I do like Westroads--the stores are acceptable and location is convenient. I much prefer Oakview Mall, mostly because of the surrounding businesses and fun stuff. But compared to some malls in other parts of the country.. heh, no.
3. Could you deliver a baby? "Now you're going to put your hands inside of mommy, and take out this baby!!!" (sorry - watching Malcolm in the Middle, quoting Lois)
I would never be able to handle it, as a man. The idea of something living and growing inside of me is a little disconcerting. But I'd try, I guess. 'Cause stretch marks are DAMN sexy.
4. Sneakers, Birkenstocks or flip-flops?
If those are the choices, Birks. Otherwise none of the above.. snazzy or retro leather lace-up dress shoes are more my taste.
5. Is Bush orchestrating the beginning of the Apocalypse?
Of course. Isn't that what we signed up for? Oh wait, no.
1 -- Leave a comment, saying you want to be interviewed.
2 -- I will respond; I'll ask you five questions.
3 -- You'll update your journal with my five questions, and your five answers.
4 -- You'll include this explanation.
5 -- You'll ask other people five questions when they want to be interviewed
Current Music: Bjork in my head
friday, 08|15|0310:56a: wong.ulo.us, laundry backup
I changed the design of wong.ulo.us a bit (my newest project), got Movable Type and gallery working and installed, had some CSS fun, played with templates, and then got gallery integrated with MT's templating system. Two different templating systems for each but always an interesting solution. I am going to use Movable Type's integrated templating to add design continuity and dynamic MT blog information to every page on the site. Despite the static template-editing interface, this is already contributing to easier web-based code-editing. Anyhow, now I've just been tweaking things and waxing philosophical about content and demand (or lack thereof). Some IE 6 users were complaining about horizontal scrollbars, and I realized why that was happening and made a more elegant CSS fix. I have yet to make all of the templates for the lesser- and never-used MT/gallery documents, make the junk/linkage/contact areas, and go through all of the HTML/XHTML/CSS with a fine-toothed comb (and feebly attempt to get it to validate). It has been so long since I have done anything of this nature, I feel strange talking about it. So, as usual, I want to know what the website feels like to you, if it works okay, and if anyone has any suggestions! You can even go comment on the site itself if you wish.
It's all a work in progress.
I am really thankful for the opportunity to have a great webhost and fitting subdomain for it. I haven't really had a working/reliable/updated personal website in a long time. My old brad.digistatic.net website is long gone, I never used or renewed any bradbower.* domain, my .Mac homepage is practically useless, and I had some troubles getting things to work on ibrad.net, and then began to wonder if the ubiquity of my @ibrad.net email addresses would lead to issues with privacy if I were to put too much on ibrad.net. Though I am still thinking of what I can do with ibrad.net. I want this new website to represent some of the nicer things in personal/vanity/blog websites today. I want it to be something that at least gets close to being finished, and I want to use it. I don't know yet how or how much I'll be using the MT blog to supplant this LiveJournal, but I don't think I could ever abandon LJ. I just want it to be a fun personal website that works and where I can try out things like MT, gallery, php-iCal, etc. I'm thinking that I would like for it to be more for my online persona and goings-on, hence the "wongulous," my AIM screenname for the uninitiated. However, just linking to it here, using my name therein, and telling a few friends about it has already caused its purpose to surpass that, so it will be some other strange breed of website. More to come regarding thoughts on privacy.
(Note: forgot to post the preceding entry portion last night.)
Ugh.. what a way to start the day. I was washing laundry this morning and I let it go for too long without checking, so I ran downstairs to find several inches of water in the laundry room/basement. Something is backed up. I don't really know what to do about all the water.. I am taking a break for a second to see if it is going to drain, and try to figure out what to do. Before I start carrying buckets of water out/around, I'm going to try plunging and using the pipe snake, but I hope icky things don't come up, because I don't know where any of my old irrigation boots are..
Current Mood:  aggravated
thursday, 08|14|031:11a: OMG, fate
So I get really annoyed at things generally being uncooperative with my attempts to make progress on my new website (check out the cool URL--thanks Steve! :), and I went crazy and went to look for something to drink.. and the house was ALL OUT OF POP. We're talking about a complete carbonated beverage emergency, folks. Plus I needed to do some of my grocery shopping anyway, so I decided to head down Saddlecreek to the Baker's that is open 24 hours, by Leavenworth.
I walk around the store a few times, getting the things I need, and a few things to replenish the store, and when I am about to leave I realize that I should get some lettuce. I push the cart back to the opposite side of the store where the produce is located, and as I am approaching the end of the aisle abutting the produce, I see a girl in a grey college sweatshirt with familiar brown wavy shoulder-length hair, talking on a cell phone. No, it couldn't be.. could it? Her? I'll just swing over to across from where she is examining bananas to get a closer look, and maybe cough to get her attention, or drop something.
But I didn't even get close before she turned around and her eyes lit up. "OMG!" "Catie Williams?!" "Brad Bower?!" and so on, so forth. This is the totally hot and adorable Catie that I worked with at Sears for a couple of months, helped train, got really close with, told a lot of things to, became friends with, and then left when I quit Sears. We caught up on everything.. we talked about how I left Sears, and the hardware department, how she left Sears, why, and previous coworkers, how they left Sears. Turns out the poor girl got fired along with other coworkers for silly things like ringing sales for others. We caught up on all of that, and where we each work now, talked about a mutual friend from APAC (Stacey), exchanged cellphone numbers, showed off cellphones (me with my 7135 palm phone and she showed me her Panasonic GU87 camera phone.. not too shabby), and then just chatted some more about life. It was so hilarious and refreshing and not as hard as I thought, or negative at all. I was glad to see her and know she is doing well. Turns out her and a guy from work that I had kinda set up went out for a year, and then broke up, and then he got shot at and moved to Des Moines, haha! What a crazy world. But after half an hour of chit-chatting at midnight in the produce section, we each had to get going.
That was just amazing. It's odd to think of all the things leading up to that experience that could have easily not happened or that I could have just done nothing about and ignored, never leading me to see her for maybe the rest of my life (who knows). Wow.
Current Mood:  pensive
tuesday, 08|12|034:24p: sold a camera, paid a bill, did something mean
I was able to sell my Veo VGA SD slot camera for my Palm, without even putting it on eBay. Hooray. I am going to pack it up and ship it out so that I can just drop it off tomorrow Priority Mail. I only got $50+shipping for it, which is a little over half of what I paid for it, but then it really was a cheap, silly little toy so it is barely worth that in the first place, and at least I got something. I only used it like 4 or 5 times to take pictures, never even could get them downloaded, carried it on my key ring for a whole day and realized it was stupid.
So today I went down to pay the MUD bill with my Mom, this is downtown at the main MUD building and payment office. I go inside and try to pay the bill, but the bitch tells me that they aren't going to take credit or debit cards, and to go to the ATM down the street somewhere. "Is it a Commercial Federal ATM?" I ask her. She doesn't know, but advises me that, "maybe you should go to your bank and get cash before you come to pay the bills. I can help who is next."
Sure enough, it is not a Com-Fed ATM down the street. So we drive around looking for one, no such luck. We ended up driving all the way down to one in South Omaha. We pulled up to the ATM, and then I told my mom to park because I am going in the bank. I went inside and asked for $300, in one dollar bills, very politely. I expected them to charge me, but no, and they were so courteous. (Just when I get tired of this bank they get all nice with me, argh!) So once she hands me the pile in a neat little plastic bag (about 4-5" thick!), I thank the teller and we go back to MUD. Now, I tried to wait for the same snitty old hag who ushered me out previously, but some other one really wanted me to come over, so I did. I handed her the bill, and then laid down the bag. She made some remark about how "It's not very nice to bring in money like this." So then I explained to her that I wasn't treated very nicely either, and because they can't accept credit/debit cards there like everyone else in this century, or like the OPPD/MUD payment centers inside of a couple of grocery stores can, and wasted my time coming in, ushered me out, and I had to go waste more of my time finding my bank so I wouldn't have to pay foreign ATM fees, and then driving back here, I was going to waste their time too. I told her that maybe she should relay the message to her manager that she had to waste her time counting money instead of swiping a happy customer's card! So she counted the money with her little attitude, threw my change on the counter, and told me to have a nice day while rolling her eyes. So that was mean of me, but they wasted my time, and hey, at least I paid the bill!
Current Music: Mirah - Cold Cold Water
thursday, 08|07|031:30p: any advice?
I can’t imagine talking to someone. Sometimes I look at what I am doing and how I am living and how I think about myself and how I relate to other people and I think that I need help. Sometimes I just cry. I don’t know what I am supposed to do. I am too embarrassed to talk to a shrink.
friday, 08|01|0311:53p: psa
Spammers, I don’t want you to think that I am starting to read your crap, but it is hard to glance away from the first message I select when selecting multiple messages to categorize as junk in my junk email filter I am training, before I delete them. But this one I did see, and from what I saw it was so kerrrazzy I just had to read it. The more I read, the better it got. And so I have to share it with everyone as a prime example of “this is your brain on drugs,” unsolicited advertisement version. At least I think this is an advertisement. Someone enlighten me.
( Crack kills. )
Now what the hell am I supposed to bring him, and where?!
Current Mood:  curious
Current Music: Barry Black - Duelling Elephants
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