September 18, 2003 - 6:41 p.m.
Wow, look at that! Since when could you change the size of this text entry box? Has that option always been there and I just never noticed? I am now taking full advantage of my obscenely large monitor resolution and I have a GIANT BOX now. Nay, it is a CANVAS!
I have this rule about playing hooky from work: I can think about it, but I can't actually do it. Bear in mind that I have a very rare sort of job, a job I can simply not attend at my leisure. I don't think they'd fire me if I was absent for a year, though they might assume I'd quit around the nine-month mark when somebody would be bound to notice. So basically, it's sheer willpower that I'm relying on to motivate me to get up every morning at seven and go to work. There's no fear, it's all responsibility and crap.
In the past, when I wasn't paying rent, that became a problem because I would rationalize my way into working the bare minimum to survive. Now I have rent to think of, so I must work full-time hours. I must!
The problem-- and it's a small one, but it is a problem nonetheless-- is that I have run out of music. I'd been taking chunks of my CD collection to work, even the really embarrasing chunks. (In fact, some of the most fun I've had at work has been hearing CDs I haven't heard since ninth grade. Fun fact: I apparently still know Eddie Vedder's every grunt and groan on the album "Ten" by heart.) And I have some MP3 CDs there, but they're full of songs I was already sick of when they were on my hard drive, in my Napster folder. Yes, NAPSTER.
So I have to wake up every day fully knowing that the only music I'll have is music I've heard so many times that I have every note, every beat, every word and every annoying studio production trick memorized. So I can't concentrate on the music and my mind has no choice but to wander. Don't get me wrong, I love letting my mind wander. The problem is, around five hours into my shift, my mind runs out of places to go.
You might at this point be thinking that I should consider myself lucky just to have the ability to listen to music at my job. This is probably because you have a job where you have many responsibilities, such as "customers" or "tasks" or "interacting with others." But my job (which I detailed, sort of, in this entry) is a robot job. And sometimes I'm one restless robot.
I keep thinking things like, "if I wasn't here, I could be working on my comic / updating my diary / answering my e-mail / just generally smarter and happier." But then I have to force myself to think: "No. You're allowed to think about it. But you're not allowed to do it."
So basically I'm starting to regret not leaving any of my last paycheck (the "fun and bills check," not the "rent check") aside for new CDs. I'll have to wait exactly one month to freshen up my music. Can I make it? LET'S ASSUME SO! Because being an optimist is super cool!
So yeah, I got my Fun And Bills Check last Friday. And since I had been very thrifty with my food (mostly Ramen) and gas (to work and back, almost exclusively), I had more free dough than I'd estimated. So I went and bought F-Zero GX for the Gamecube. I felt a little wrong paying full price for a brand new copy, but... F-Zero! It was my duty! Trying not to think of all the things I could have had instead of that game (regular meals with ingredients beyond "starch" and "salt," for example), I called up Scott and we played for a long time. It was exciting, for me, the writer, and not so much you, the reader, but it really was thrilling because our skill levels were nearly equal and we'd be winning or losing by margins of more hundredths of seconds. And that's even cooler when you are regularily traveling video speeds of 1000 kilometers per hour.
So you know how I had this theory that all I needed to be happy was F-Zero? Turns out I was totally right! I love it when that happens!
There are other issues in my life, naturally, but I think I'll tackle those this weekend, when I won't feel quite as much like my spine has been fused to an anvil. See, when I got home today, my back was like "ahh, I can relax now" but my dad showed up and he was all "nuh-uh, I just got new furniture that needs moving so no you can't." And now I'm paying for it. Let's hope I'm not still paying for it tomorrow morning, or I might consider playing hooky, and think: "No. You can think about it, but you can't do it. Unless your back hurts a lot. Oh, it does? Yeah. Maybe you should stay home."
Oh yeah, before I go, here's a funny story: remember the magic generic soda machine that likes Matt? Well, he must have smiled at it in just the right way the other day. I was in line at Subway, as usual, but as not-usual Matt was outside doing what appeared to be a dance. I couldn't see why, and I had no idea why he wasn't coming in the restaurant. When I got our sandwiches, I went outside. Matt was next to a shopping cart that held 13 cans of grape soda. Matt pointed to it. "I won!" he said.
Okay, I guess you had to be there.
