The New Musings of a Quiet Geek

Wednesday was the Seminary's end of the year party. Despite no homemade feast this time, this was more fun to me than the last Christmas party. Once again, graduating students rang the bell for every semester they attended. This year, we had two 16s! But, Josh, you work on Wednesday night. Yes, I was working I just didn't get the money I'm used to. The dance group was canceled so we could use the space. The seminary gives more money to my church in terms of rent so there you go... The family crisis group still met so I had to give directions. To both groups actually. My mother and aunt came down to visit their mother as my aunt was on vacation this week. I went over for dinner on Monday and then they took me, my cousin and my other aunt out to lunch. (Well, actually, only me and my roommate hadn't actually eaten yet but whatever...) While they were down, their brother's cat was very sickly so they offered to pay to have him (the cat, not my uncle) put down. It wa...

On Friday after work, I helped set up for Saturday's string quartet concert and then walked to the bank in the pouring rain. Fun times but I suppose if you walked in a nor'easter, that was nothing. Besides, I had Chinese food waiting... Saturday was the concert itself. I showed up when I was told but I really think I could wait at least another half hour before going. Since I'm "the guy" now, I may negotiate this. Nothing really that exciting happened. I did get approached by a woman who complained the water fountain just gave a "weak stream." She must have been using only one finger or something because I found, when I "palmed" it, it worked fine. I liked that they do afternoon concerts now as I can be home for dinner but attendance at this one in particular wasn't good. I arrived home to discover our movie-loving friend who I knew was coming up for the day was still there so we had pizza and beer and watched the following movies... Hel...

Related in the order it appears in my head: 1. My parents and I watched two movies on TV. the 1939 Hunchback of Notre Dame with Charles Laughton and Maureen O'Hara; who isn't Scarlett's sister, we explained to my father, because Scarlett is a fictional character...This was on TCM so it was unedited. I thought it was being shown because of Halloween approaching but my feeling at the time of that thought was that this movie is even less of a Halloween movie than Frankenstein since it's just about a guy who's deaf and deformed. It turns out it was actually shown because of RKO's anniversary which is a much better reason. I loved the part where Quasimodo was throwing stones off the bell tower on the attacking peasants and then, when he dumped the vat of molten metal, I laughed so hard! 2. We also saw The 40 Year Old Virgin on NBC. (With an 8pm start time no less!) Yeah the language was edited out ("Forget you!") but I really don't think it's appr...

We've been eating a lot of cake lately. Two ice cream cakes and Monday, our friend brought a chocolate mousse cake. All of this was to celebrate my roommate's birthday last week. We saw two movies. Mad Money with Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah, Katie Holmes and Ted Danson. This movie was really good despite the having to blast the volume because none of us could hear it. This wasn't the best movie I've seen Katie Holmes in but it was certainly the best role I've ever seen her in. I don't know if that makes any sense. Let me clarify. Jackie is a better character than Rachel Dawes from Batman Begins which this film wasn't... We also saw I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry . Going into this movie I had low expectations (I mean it starred Kevin James and Adam Sandler...) but it's not the derogatory mess one might think it would be and was, of course, hilarious! I didn't expect all the cameos from the openly gay Richard Chamberlain and Lance Bass to Dan Ac...

Friday night, my parents came down because my grandfather's birthday party was yesterday. The three of us went to Friendly's. I hadn't been there in awhile so that was different. My mother and I went in to get a table while my father parked. We told the hostess there was three us. She asked if the other person needed a kid's menu. Thinking about this question later, "Yeah we have a two year old parking the car." When my mother said this, I responded, "Well, this is Maine..." Afterwards we soaked in the hot tub at their motel. This may have been the first time I went hot tubbing since my move to Portland... The party the next day was in two parts. We were joined by my grandfather and his wife at Applebee's. Also in attendance were two aunts, an uncle and one of my young cousins. Most of us were set to order from their "pick two item lunch menu" when the waitress noticed us reading it and informed us that was just Monday through Friday. I...

Yesterday afternoon, my parents came down to celebrate my father's birthday. Because of my dance group commitment, we ate an early dinner at Applebee's. I had a beer with my Cheddar-Jack Mac and Cheese (which turned out to be Pepper Jack) because, as I pointed out to my mother, all I do is unlock doors and read. After dinner, I took them on a tour of the church and seminary downstairs where I volunteer. Exciting, no? The night got even better during the dance group when I laid down on the floor behind the desk and took a nap. I wonder if anyone saw me as they were much more expedient than normal getting out of the building so I could lock back up. No one said anything to me about it but still I wonder... The birthday "excitement" continued when I stayed home from the library and they took me grocery shopping and then we were joined by my roommate for a walk down to the local Starbucks where I tried their "Leprechaun Latte." I don't know how green it ...

I just finished one of the books I received from my birthday. Maybe I have been reading too many Star Trek books lately but Act of Treason by Vince Flynn was a totally awesome book and his best book to date. Remember when I discussed his last book, Consent to Kill and given what happened in that book I wondered where Flynn planned to go with the series? I'm still not entirely sure as this book could be considered a transition book on at least two fronts but I will say this book was even more awesome in that Flynn gives Irene Kennedy, DCI in his books, certainly not a background character anyway, a bit more to do than he has in the past. I hope this continues. The biggest thing I enjoyed about it though was the villains of the piece for series protagonist Mitch Rapp weren't Arab terrorists as they have been pretty much starting with his second book which really kicks off the series. (His debut novel, Term Limits , was more of a stand alone novel though it was made clear in th...

So this weekend, well, Thursday, I went up north to the parental units to celebrate my natal day. The bus ride was pretty good thanks to my aforementioned mixes. My parents were both there at the station and we drove home where my father, bless him, had a six pack of my favorite beer (Amstel Light because domestic is skank) waiting in the fridge. Friday, the actual day, I organized some of my books in my bedroom or the room that is mine when I'm up and there isn't any more important guests. My grandmother and uncle arrived in the afternoon and then was present time! I received some good stuff this year. The Traveling Wilbury Collection with both albums and a DVD. (The DVD has a documentary of how the band was formed and all their videos. Yes! They have videos!) I also received the third volume of The Superfriends otherwise known as "the Firestorm series" and a DVD of Paul McCartney's 2005 tour. Finally, I received Vince Flynn's latest paperback and an autogra...

I'm leaving this afternoon for my parent's house and a weekend of wild birthday fun.(Yeah, right...) Over the past couple weeks I've burned three mixes for the trip up (and back down). Should be fun. I'm also looking forward to the bus trip only being half as long. Last night, was the first week of dance I had to get tough to get them out. They started to clean up at the right time but they were going way too slow so I went into Event Staff mode and shut the lights off on them... I leave you with a fairly accurate quiz result to tide you over until I return: You are Oscar Wilde Charming and Witty. You are incredibly popular because of your wry and satirical sense of humor. You are also incredibly talented at writing, and pushing the conventional boundaries of your society. Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

The major event of my birthday this year was going to another play but, unlike last year, this was at the Ivoryton Playhouse instead of on Broadway. We saw "An Inspector Calls." The play was very well acted and the plot was very suspenseful. The only drawback I can stress is that when the first act ends, there was some confusion as to if it was intermission or actually over. It could have been over but no one came out to give bows or anything. There was no mention of how many acts in the program as is usual and the director never gave a hint either way when she introduced it. It turned out all right but... This was the most "community theater" experience I've had here in Connecticut in that you could eat in the theater but the actors were still mostly professional. It was a very good time. Yesterday, I went with my mother and a colleague of hers to a Christian Education conference. I personally went to a workshop on children's literature where most age app...

Tomorrow is my birthday. Yay! Last night, I discovered some trivia about the day I'm going to now share with you because I'm geeky like that: I knew I shared a birthday with Hillary Clinton, Pat Sajak and Jaclyn Smith but I also share the day with Natalie Merchant and Dylan McDermott. Quite the posse... What really blew my mind was the events of the day. I knew about the Shootout at the OK Corral and that The Who recorded "My Generation" like 12 years earlier (than my birth not the Shootout) but I discovered last night a possible reason I have a huge interest in Star Trek : The spaceshuttle Enterprise, named by President Ford for the ship on the show, had its fifth and final test on that same day in the same year as my birth! In an unrelated matter, I have Jessica Simpson's new song "I Belong to Me" stuck in my head and I want it out!

So Thursday I started a new temp assignment at a waste management company. The day went well I thought. I did some job shadowing of an account manager and helped her do a Fed-EX mailing. I come home and check in with my agency as I was asked to do by them and I'm informed they received an e-mail saying the company didn't want me back as I wasn't a good fit. No other explanation was given to them. I think it was really that my skills were best suited for keeping the clients they already had happy which I assume they already had enough people to do that and really wanted people to bring more clients in which is not me. Once again, it seems the corporate world is not for me. So mainly because I'm trying to be responsible and build up my bank account and not really because my mother keeps hounding me about it, I've decided to begin my birthday moratorium even though the actual day isn't for about two months. This means I didn't buy the new Bob Dylan CD yester...

Not sure you're interested but let me tell you about my birthday celebration yesterday. For dinner we had roast beef and gravy with mashed potato and gravy and broccoli. It was very good. This year, instead of cake we had pie. I know it sounds a bit unusual but I think it's good we shook things up a bit. I received no books this year which is very odd. I also only received one CD: Bob Dylan's "Live at the Gaslight 1962" (You know the one only available at Starbuck's.) It wasn't on my list but is a very good album nonetheless. In fact, I had a buttload of CDs on the list this year and I left off a few others so it would have been nice to receive at least a couple of them. I did get a few DVDs this year. Only one was on the list: Batman Begins which my father and I watched again last night. I love this movie. The casting is spectacular just taking into account Gary Oldman as Jim Gordon which is so much more accurate than Pat Hingle who acted more like Harve...