I think Facebook is to blame for the decline in the number of posts that I make on SVC. It used to be that I'd save up every little thought and occasionally combine them into a blog. But now that I essentially tweet, those little thoughts leak out until I have nothing left to say when a blog comes around. Even todays post has generally been addressed already on Facebook. I already posted this picture. But I think it is badass enough to warrant showing it to my Sidesho Viewers who may not be avid social networkers.

So we paid painters to come in and paint every last inch of wall space in the condo. And they did an amazing job. If you ever need painters, let me know and I'll recommend them to you. But in the bedroom we knew that we wanted to do something funky, something with stripes, and we wanted to do it ourselves. After the base coat of regal plum went down, I was already in love with the palette. The white trim really pops out against the dark, dark purple. And since the lights are rarely very high in this space, it's not really purple, it's just rich and dark. But I wanted to kind of vomit color on it, make it a little cacophonous. And the design I came up with was a technicolor barcode. It cost a lot of money for a bunch of little cans of paint, and took two solid days of taping and painting and taping and painting, but we finally arrived at this final result:

And I love it. I think its the best bedroom I've done so far. Now you KNOW I don't like to toot my own horn, but just this once, in this special situation, I think it's well deserved. TOOT! TOOT!

After a few trips to Lowe's and a late night of carpentry and electry, we finally finished the bar. All we really need to do is touch up the areas where the hinges of the closet doors were with a little white paint. I also need to buy a beer fridge, obviously. Then we are open for business. Praise me.

This is our new entry way. I painted it while Daniel was in New York.

Do you like it?

What's up with these new Total Gym commercials? I was thinking about buying one until this mustachioed gentleman thought he could fool everybody. But I will tell you what is. No fucking way am I buying a Total Gym from Chuck Norris' evil twin brother. Period.

If you think the only thing I ever really talk about on my webpage these days is my bar, you are only half right. The only thing I ever talk about all the time now is the bar. I can't wait until it's done so I can shut the hell up about it. I made some good progress this weekend. I got the tile and some mortar and laid the tile and embedded the cutting board and hammered some copper and raised the microwave so the door would open. Later this week I have to grout everything. Anyway, here's a picture.

It's really starting to take shape. You can see where I put copper around the trash hole. I just wanted to add another natural element to the overall design. It was originally going to be a trash chute but since I couldn't really do that, I thought this was a nice compromise. And the cutting board couldn't look nicer against the tile. Turns out they don't make rectangular tile like I wanted so these 1x1 mosaics work just fine.

Sooo yeah. That's all I got. Late.

I have been working feverishly on my bar this week to make up for my weekend warrior frustrations. Tonight I took the drawers (that I fucking built) and attached them to the cabinetry with these badass $15 rails. That may not sound like a lot of money to you, but in the land of drawer slides, that is just about as good as it gets. The only thing nicer is those ones you slam but they automatically slow themselves down and shut quietly. Too bad they didn't sell them at Home Depot.

Speaking of Home Depot: Why is it that every time I'm in that fucking store I am like the only person in the store. I mean the ONLY person in the store. When I bought the plywood, I was looking for someone to tell me what kind of plywood to buy and to help me cut it in half. And I walked through every aisle of lumber. And then proceeded through every aisle in the store. When I'd made it all the way to flooring without seeing an orange apron, I went straight for the customer service desk. No one there! I'm like 97% sure they were open. That has been the consistent pattern with that store. Fuck them. I hate them. If you need something from Home Depot, just go to Lowe's, cause they'll say hi, ask you if you need help, help you find what you need, make suggestions, and load it in your car for you. Way better.

Where was I? Oh yeah... DRAWERS!

Can you believe it? These drawers are major. (If you haven't been watching Victoria Beckham's new reality show, you are truly missing out. I fucking love her. I am going to attempt to call everything in my life "major" from now on.) The drawers are 18"x21"x6". They are so deep and big that we've decided we're going to inlay some foam covered in velvet and shape it to hold the various items we had planned for the drawer space. A knife. A bottle opener. Um... maybe like a backup knife? Too much storage for sure. One could most definitely hold 3 emergency liquor bottles.

I never thought it would be shaping up this well this fast. If you look closely there are many, many construction mistakes to be seen. One reason I greyed out the background was to hide some rough edges. But that will all be invisible with the finishing tile work and trim. I am so excited. I will let you all know when the bar warming party is. Until then, keep cheering me on!

P.S. Today is my brother, Stephen's birthday. Happy Birthday, brother! This picture is your gift.

Fourth of July was good. Had a few people over, drank some beers. Birthday was good. Had a few people over, drank some beers. My brother, Stephen, even dropped in for a little bit, which was a special surprise ... kind of ... I mean, it was really special, but only kind of a surprise. Taking a week off was a really good idea. I wish I could do it again, but alas, I need mo money.

I'm taking this opportunity to update because I wore out 3 of the DeWalt batteries on my handheld drill. I've been a busy little boy this evening. Every time I make progress on the bar, I go into work and discuss it with my coworker/coach. He's the one that lent me all the power tools. He was disappointed that I'd gone through the whole weekend without making any progress. His only rule is that I make progress every week. So I couldn't let him down. I went and spent another 60 bucks at Home Depot and brought home some 1x6s, some 2x4s, and some drawer mounts. I am now the proud owner of 1.95 finished drawers. They are not half bad, if I do say so myself. A little wonky, but that's to be expected when you're doing construction with all hand tools. I got one all the way done but as I was screwing the bottom onto the second drawer my third battery went dead. I just have to chill out for about an hour and two of them will be full speed again. The drawers are damn huge. You know how I am -- larger than life and out of control. So these are 18" wide, 21" long, and 6" deep. We don't intend on using the drawers for anything, I only made them to fill some of the gap between the fridge and the bar. But if we ever do use them, we could store like quilts and stuff in them. Boom!

I guess I'll go eat some dinner while I'm waiting for a recharge. I hope Daniel is impressed with my progress ... and doesn't mind vacuuming up large amounts of sawdust. Later skaters.

Well then. As most of you already know, I've been back from Mexico for quite some time now. Just haven't found the motivation to update. You know how it is. Mexico was a blast. Not quite the unmitigated boozefest you might have imagined since we had 5 children under the age of 3 in tow. But it was very relaxing to spend the day by the pool or by the beach indulging in way too much delicious all-included food and the occasional drink. I would highly recommend and all inclusive Mexico package. The only excursion I took outside of the resort aside from a little light shopping was snorkeling out on some reefs about an hour away near Cozumel. It was pretty cool in the shallow water. I was about 4 feet away from a shark that was as tall as me. I don't think he could have killed me but he probably could have eaten my leg before I was able to gouge out his eyes, so that was exhilarating. By the end of the trip though I was feeling quite sea sick and had "maintain" for about 30 minutes until we hit the shore. But I was successful, so that was good. My nieces are all adorable and a trip and I think everyone had as much fun as me ... even if they didn't get the opportunity to take as many naps as I did.

Since I've been back I haven't done much in the way of excitement. But that's all about to change. My birthday weekened extravaganza begins tomorrow after work. Then it's time for Kaboomtown fireworks and I have the rest of the week off to just lounge around and work on my bar. Believe it or not, progress has been made. I got the supports up on the wall and the plywood base cut out and put on the supports. A lot of planning has been done at work to figure out what comes next. Near as I can figure it, I'm going to put the middle "legs" that will encase the trash can in next followed by the wooden lighting encasement for the back. Then it's time to tile and cut trash holes and cutting board holes. Then just staining and trimming everything out to hide the many, many, many mistakes I have made and likely will make before I'm done. If I work on it throughout my time off, there is a good chance that this bitch could be done before the end of summer. And then it's time to have a party to show off the bar.

My birthday party on Friday was canceled because Metro Retro won't be open. After I found out they would be closed, I just kind of said fuck it. I'm going to dinner with my parents and then I'm just gonna hang out at home. If anybody wants to come over and drink beer with me and shower me with gifts, you are all invited to do just that. I'll let you know if plans change, but I'm 99.34% sure they won't. So get shopping because you only have 4 more days left to make your purchases. Thaaaaaanks.

I started work on the bar this weekend. I think I'm going to extend my original construction schedule from two years to three. I went and bought a couple 8' sections of 2x2 pieces of wood (although I was already confused since the actual dimensions seemed like 1x1 to me). I managed to cut it to length using this big, mean looking power saw that my coworker lent to me. And I managed to get it up against the wall, level it out, and drill a pilot hole through it. I even got a screw into the wall to hold it up. I was feeling pretty good about myself. Until I started drilling a second hole and managed to rip the whole thing down. Apparently the screws I got were only long enough to go through the wood and about halfway through the drywall. So I guess I need longer screws.

I also got this stupid stud finder that beeps in different places and is indicating to me that the studs are about a half inch thick and spaced randomly anywhere from 6" to 12" apart. My little instruction booklet suggests that studs are always 1.5" thick and spaced 16" or 24". So I'm confused and worried that I'm going to drill through an electrical wire or a pipe or something. So I put everything back in the closet and shut the doors. I'll worry about it some other time. But seriously, does anybody know anything about this that could help me?

I would resume work next weekend, but I'll be in beautiful Playa del Carmen, Mex-i-co. My whole family is taking a five day all inclusive trip together. It should be really fun taking all the nieces and nephews to the beach. We only have two confirmed cases of serious distaste for sand ... and one that allegedly really likes the taste of sand. So it should keep us all moderately sober for some of the time. Too bad my base tan is hovering somewhere around eggshell right now, so I'm going to be employing some serious SPF the whole time.

The rest of this weekend was punctuated by drinking and downloading the entire Ace of Base album and dancing and laughing at Daniel for knowing every single word to every single song. I have this theory that everyone on earth likes Ace of Base. There are only varying degrees of how much you admit it. But you know and I know that when you're alone in your car and "The Sign" comes on, you be rockin and singing along. Wouldn't it just feel better to admit it?

I just went and looked at the gym here in Addison! Circle. It looks pretty nice and has the free weights I've been missing. I think I'm going to join but I have to see what Daniel thinks about it first. I might sign up anyway and just go there on days when he is in class late. My company will pay for me anyway. They invited me to come back and work out today and I should really take them up on it, but methinks I am too lazy. We shall see.

Last order of business, I sent out a MySpace invitation to my birthday party on Friday, July 6th. If you didn't get it or you aren't on MySpace, shoot me an email (sideshovid@sideshovid.com) and I'll give you the wheres and whens you so desperately desire.

This past weekend, Daniel and I set about painting the master bedroom. We had originally thought that maybe we should just redo the bedroom I had in my old apartment since that was so badass. Toot! Toot! But what a horrendous waste of a opportunity that would be! Am I right? Ultimately, we decided to go with a variation on the theme of vertical stripes.

I'm really obsessed with Kenneth Brown. He's an interior designer who stars on reDesign. Every room he does turns out absolutely badass. He always puts this "spa-like feel" in every room and I wanted a piece of that. So I went a little bit out there and chose a nice soothing green for the walls. For the stripes, we masked off some that were much wider than my old ones. Then we painted them a light shade of yellow, let it dry, and painted this muddy matte brown on top. Before the brown dried, I scraped it off with a wire bristled brush to achieve a really cool fox finish. It's got great texture and almost ended up looking kind of safari. So we're gonna get some bamboo for the corner and maybe a zebra skin rug or something. We're still working out the details. Anywho, in the meantime, I wanted you all to see it. I hope this picture comes up okay on your screens cause it didn't look great on my camera, but it should give you a good idea.

Since we have three bedrooms in our apartment now, we turned the middle one into a TV lounge, hangout room. It has just about everything you could ever want in a TV room: a TV with all the accoutrement, surround sound, super comfy sofa, mood lighting. Everybody loves hanging out in there. Really, the only thing that sucks about it is when you're drinking and you have to keep getting up and going to the kitchen to throw out an empty beer can and grab a new one. It is seriously far.

Solution! The day we moved in I vowed that I would convert the TV room closet into a swank bar complete with my wine fridge, a beer fridge, trash can, cutting board, glassware. You name it, this shit is going to be nice. The more I plan, the more complicated my dream becomes. Now bear in mind that I have zero experience and absolutely no tools. But I have a dream, damnit, and sometimes that's all you need.

But seriously, if anybody has any experience or tools, I could really use your help.

The past couple of days at work I've spent drawing this conceptual drawing. I first measured the closet and then learned how to use AutoCAD to do a really nice isometric drawing as a first draft for getting my thoughts onto paper. Today I took that finished AutoCAD drawing into Photoshop and googled the different materials to overlay into this finished product. I'm obviously pretty proud of myself. Toot! Toot!

The whole thing is roughly 8' by 2' and will be covered in slate tiles. The back has four holes in the wood trim for accent lighting. There will be glass shelves above it with all my glassware, so this should create a cool lighting effect. The cutting board is actually recessed into the two-ply-wood shelf. After it's tiled, it will be flush with the rest of the surfaces. The copper flashing you see is actually just a hole that leads down to a trashcan that will be concealed by the large cabinet. Drawers flank on either side for spoons and knives and whatnot. Where you see no cabinetry is where the closet walls will actually be hiding those areas. And below each drawer will be a wine fridge or a beer fridge.

I really think I've thought of it all here, but if you have any suggestions on how to improve my little design let me know. I estimated the construction time at 2 years but Daniel thinks we can accomplish it in a few weekends. I guess all we can do is try ... and kiss our deposit goodbye. Let me know what you think!

My wine fridge fit almost perfectly under the "bar" area in my living room. It couldn't have been any better if it were custom built. However, the depth was an issue. It had about a 6" overhang. It wasn't a big deal, since that isn't a high traffic area, but still, I thought maybe I could do a little better. I have these built in shelves recessed into a corner of my living room. They occupy the perfect little nook. I think I've shown you a picture of them before when I debuted my Beethoven bust. The only problem was that the bottom shelf would need to be removed.

Let me preface this by saying I'd been laying on the couch watching home improvement shows all day, which sadly, always inspires me to do something to my own apartment. Usually it's painting, but today it was demolition. I got out my biggest hammer and started swinging upward as hard I could. All I really accomplished was some noise pollution. I was on the verge of just giving up when I had an idea.

I ran down to the garage to the trunk of my car and retrieved my jack. I figured if it could hold up my car, it could certainly exert enough force to pry off a book shelf. And I was right. I jacked the shit out of that thing, bending nails and removing them from the framework. It was brilliant. After I finished destroying the shelf, I painted the exposed wall red to match the rest and the results are perfect. You'd never know there was a shelf there to begin with. I popped in the wine fridge and it looks like it was always meant to be there. So excited.

That's all I really had to tell you. I'm leaving tomorrow for Seattle so it depends on how busy I am how much I'll update. This time I have Stuart's phone number so we're hopefully going to hang out a lot. Oh! And yesterday I was walking into my building and ran into Grande. He fuckin' moved into my building just down the stairs from me. So welcome to the neighborhood, friend. Sorry I am leaving for two weeks right when you got here but we'll have a house warming when I get back.

Peace out, have-nots.

I think one of the easiest and most efficient methods I have for determining who my friends will be resides in the bathroom. If I meet someone new and go to use their bathroom and there is an empty beer can or bottle in the bathroom trashcan, it's a pretty sure bet that we're gonna get along finejustfine. I woke up this morning to find this Kerrs Lat can in my bathroom trashcan and it gave me a warm and fuzzy feeling because I wanted to be friends with myself. Even though, I have my suspicions that my most sabulous friend put it there instead of me. But still.

Last night I was layin around drinkin beer after a hard day at work. I had a case of Kerrs Lat and the History Channel and couldn't have been happier. Then I got a text message from my new friend who works at a bar near me. I'm avoiding names to protect the guilty. Only because I'm dying to tell you that I went to go keep him company while business was slow and started drinking. Brett Sabulous texted me shortly thereafter saying he was bored so he joined me. We sat and drank for a few hours, probably had a tab of around 70 dollars, and walked out without paying a dime. So fucking awesome. But I also didn't tip so I told my friend I'd buy him dinner next time he was around and hungry. Gotta love friends behind bars.

I was really drinking so much in an effort to produce a really raging headache so I could spend all day in bed in my newly darkened bedroom. It worked. And now, ladies and gentlement, I present to you, a new picture of my bedroom -- at 3 o'fuckin'clock in the damn afternoon. It is so awesome. Not exactly black, but close enough. It has been so nice -- dark and cool. I have my suspicions that this is going to save me a hell of a lot on air conditioning bills. But seriously, folks, I have a splitting headache. I gotta go back into my cave.

I finally did it. I've waited for 2 full years and the other day, I just decided to do it. I'm speaking, of course, about curtains for my bedroom. I was really daunted by the task of keeping my vertical blinds up. I could take them down, but then I'd have to store them and I have nowhere to store them. And to cover them means curtain rod extenders and screwing into studs, and I know nothing about any of that. So I came up with an idea. Instead of big beautiful curtains, I got blackout fabric. It's thin, it's light, and it blocks 100% of the light. I measured each window, cut out a piece of fabric that fit it perfectly, folded the top over, put a few grommets in it and hung it on nails. I can take them down, put them up, fold them in half to get some heat in the winter -- you name it. From the outside it looks all white, just like the vertical blinds, and from the inside, all you see is the vertical blinds, just like the vertical blinds. I couldn't be happier with myself. I have had a string of successful projects. I hope it doesn't end. I can't wait to be hungover this weekend and spend allllll fucking day in bed.

Speaking of bed ... my sleeping is much better. I have been on time to work 3 of the 4 days this week. That's unheard of. I even started showering in the morning instead of at night because I have so much extra time. I was pretty ecstatic. That, sadly and predictably, has faded. I could feel myself building up a sleep debt as each day went by and this morning I finally had to pay it back. I was one hour late to work. Today, coincidentally, was also the day I got the results of my take-home sleep test. I no longer stop breathing 70-90 times an hour. Now it's 22. 22 is the magick number. The lady from the doctor's office asked me how I'd been feeling and I said, "Much better, but not great." And she said, "Oh, how funny. I was just about to say your test results look much better, but not great." At least I'm no longer severe and am now considered moderate. It's looking like the tonsil are going to come out. I'm shying away from it, but I know that I'll eventually do it. I'll keep you all posted.

I bought a pumpkin today. It was an impulse buy. All I wanted were the seeds. I tossed them with butter and salt and roasted them in the oven. They're delicious. My culinary skill grows little by little every day. I can add that to the list with roasted chicken and blueberry pancakes. Rawk.

Have you ever heard of the mosquito frequency? It's this thing that businesses are using to cut down on teenagers loitering outside. It emits a sound at around 17kHz. Apparently teenagers can hear it and it annoys the fuck out of them, but adults cannot hear it. Trey told me about it at work today so we googled it. I found an MP3 of the sound and hit play. It was maddening. Trey accused me of not really hitting play. He couldn't fuckin' hear it! It didn't take long for everyone 25 and under in my immediate area to come over and ask what the hell the sound was. Then Trey believed me it was real. Which is funny because I'm the one that didn't believe him it existed. We gathered up all the old people around us and not one of them could hear it. One guy put it as his ring tone on his cell phone. Apparently teenagers are also using it to their advantage to allow their cell phones to ring during class without the teacher hearing it. I thought it was fascinating enough to share it with you all. CLICK HERE to listen to the most annoying sound in the world. And tell me if you can hear it.

Methinks it's time for me to go to bed. Gotta stick with the sleep rules now that they're slightly effective. Night, sluts.

This pain is bordering on unbearable. I've already burned through my first prescription for painkillers and my attempts to ration the lone refill aren't going so well. I pretty much have to take one every 4 hours. I haven't been able to stay a full day at work yet because of the pain. My throat is so swollen that my tonsils are nearly touching. It's probably infected because it's so bright red. If you're thinking about having a uvulectomy, I suggest you plan ahead and take a week off of work. The only relief I get is after a pill kicks in and I sleep for a few hours. If I sleep much more than that, it's really painful when I wake up, so I'm going to try to spend the weekend doing nothing but healing and sleeping.

It hurts so much to eat, well, swallow. I am supposed to drink ice water in small sips to try and take the swelling down, but the cold hurts on top of swallowing. I eat a lot at each meal to try and space them out as much as possible. I have a huge, gaping open wound directly in the path of all food and liquids on their path to my stomach. Since I don't have an IV, I don't know much choice but to keep doing it, but I dread the thought.

My wishlist hasn't turned out exactly like I thought it would. It was intended to help me plan far in advance for the purchases I wanted to make. Instead, it's become a grocery list for the past few days. Whenever I'm hurting, I find that spending large sums of money always brings a smile to my face. Today I got a couple new pillows and all new pillowcases for every pillow I have. It's not enough to just put one pillowcase per pillow though, because then sometimes the case folds back and you can see the pillow. Unacceptable, so we put two on each pillow. Not exactly cheap when you're dealing with DaMask Stripe sheets, which also happens to be the product placement for today. These sheets are so comfy and stylish. Pick your favorite color and then pick yourself up a set. I have the chocolate brown to match my ceiling and wall stripes and then I got red for the pillows that I keep on the couch. Rawk!

Oh, Daniel and I will be in Washington D.C. August 8th through the 16th with an excursion up to NYC the 11th through the 14th. Yes, I'm returning to New York despite my vow to never do that. I have a feeling this trip will be exponentially better than the last. Anyway, if you reside in either of these cities, let's plan a get-together. Til then!

Well hello there, everybody. This is Sidesho reporting to you live from Ryan Short's fabulously newly painted apartment ... oh, and also drunk as hail. He was supposed to wake up and drink more with me when I got home but that has proven unpossible. Me fail English?

So tonight I had planned on going out on account that I do not have to work tomorrow. RAWK! But then, lo and behold, I get a call from the callbox of my apartment and it is JennyCole and her mother. They had been at the Kaboom Town hoopla hosted by my gracious landlord and wanted to cool off. Okay, no problem. But then they managed to convince me to join them for the fireworks. More and more, as the years pass, I have found myself less and less interested in the traditional festivities dictacted by every holiday. I couldn't have cared less whether or not I saw fireworks. (Although fireworks do hold a special place in my heart since when I was little my parents used to tell me that the fireworks were in honor of my birthday.) So, I find myself on the top floor of a parking garage watching fireworks. In their defense, it was the best finale I have ever seen in my life. Probably 5 fireworks a second for about 5 minutes. RAD!

After that, we eat at a piss-poor restaurant inside Addison Circle and then I go home. Turns out, every fucking road in Addison is a parking lot. At this point, I've resolved myself to not go out, on account that I cannot leave the parking garage. A few IMs with Ryan Short later, I am on the road bound for downtown Dallas. It was rigoddamndiculous getting to the Tollway, but when I finally did, we were en route to JRs. Keith and Lauren and some girl named Katie that I met for the first time tonight (?) joined us. I managed to get drunk as hail between 12:30 and 2:00am. But that couldn't possibly be enough for me, right? Right?!

So I took Ryan Short home to his beatiful and newly painted apartment and proceeded to drink some more when disaster struck. We are out of cigarettes! Unacceptable when plastered. So he goes to bed and I walk my happy ass to the 24-7 Wally Mart nearby to get some. I talked to my lover Marshall the whole way there. That was fun since I haven't talked to him in 4-eva, and he claims to have blonde hair now. So anyway, I bought some squares, as Joseph would call them, and then walked home to find Ryan - surprise - passed the fuck out and me drinking alone.

So there we are. By my records, I have made zero grammatical mistakes. You're more than welcome to double check that assertion. You'll notice that when I'm drunk I just ramble; I don't skimp on the important stuff. Please don't forget that my birthday is on Wednesday. No one that I know of has made any plans for me, so I think I'm going to take Thursday off of work and go out Wednesday with Andrew. I'll definitely keep you all posted on that. Later sk8ers!

My brother went to some flea market in Humble and found a vendor with a bunch of belt buckles. When he saw this one, he thought of me and bought it for me. Luckily I still have my old cowboy belt to slap it onto and I wore it out on Friday. I called Stephen to tell him I was pimpin' the van buckle but that I couldn't tuck my shirt in or else I'd look stupid. He said, "Then just tell your friends about it when you see them and show them." The first thing I did when I got to Ryan Short's apartment was lift up my shirt and say, "Did you see my belt buckle?" and when he started laughing, I followed it up with, "Idn't that wild? You ever seen anything like dat?" Wouldn't you know, I ended up saying that to everyone I saw on Friday ... and Saturday. Idn't that funny how alcohol can bring out the obnoxious catch phrases that are living inside you, dying to get out? Idn't that wild? I just wanted Steve to know that I do like the belt buckle and I definitely did make sure everyone saw it.

The other thing I wanted to show you was my new Beethoven bust. When we were in Wisconsin we went to my grandmother's old house and were invited to loot anything we wanted. This had been on her piano for many, many, many years. I just knew it would look awesome on my shelves in my living room. I think I was right. It adds just a touch of class. This morning I got a productivity bug (also known as a hangover) and decided to touch up the red paint in my living room that I originally put on the wall months ago. Now all the edges are cleeeeaaaan. I still have to do my entire bedroom, but I just never got around to it. I will probably do that in the coming days. Well, that's enough for the picture pages. Hope you enjoyed your visit to my apartment (and my crotch).

I can only assume I did not win the HGTV Dream Home. Alas. To console myself, I decided to beautify my own little space just a little bit. As you all know, I've been collecting wine bottles for some time now with this grand idea in my little head about how I would arrange them fabulously atop my kitchen cabinets. Today, I got the last two bottles I needed, and the gumption to git'erdone.

What do you think? Say nice things about it. And by "nice things" I don't mean "bitchy things followed by less-than-threes." I spent my entire afternoon and evening putting together my new decorations. I must say thank you, thank you, thank you to Ryan Short for helping me buy those little pewter-inlayed shelves with my Pier 1 gift certificate he got me for x-mas. It just wouldn't have pulled together with out it.

Since I had my camera out, I took a quick pic of Tuna's new tank that I told you all about. It's just a little bit more sophistocated, a little bit more Tuna's taste. He was always a little bit patronized by the rainbow castle, so I could see his sigh of relief when I inserted this shroom-tastic rock. Literally. Little sigh bubbles. Then we high-fived.

I watched a really long special tonight on Prader-Willi Syndrome. It's this biological disorder where your brain will never tell you that you are full. In fact, you are in a state of constant starvation, not only mentally, but your body acts accordingly. It would be like if you were stuck on an island for 2 weeks starving and then someone walked by with a steak. You'd do anything to get that steak. That's how these people are every minute of every day. Can you imagine? This dude was like 400 lbs and he JUST got done eating and said that he was doing everything he could to not immediately eat again.

I don't know why I felt inclined to share that. I just thought it was fascinating. I rounded out the evening watching MRIs of people doing the dirrty on Discovery, and everything you never cared to know about booze on the History Channel. Best St. Patricia's Day EVER!1!!!

Here's the deal. The power jack on my laptop, like the thing inside my laptop, has come loose. This happened sometime around April, but hasn't really been an issue. Anytime I lost contact, I would jiggle the cord and all was well. But now, it seems, I have lost the ability to fix the problem with a jiggle. I took my laptop to Best Buy today for their service department to fix it. It's not so much a service department as it is a shipping department. I just wanted him to open it up and take a look, but he assured me that it had to be sent off for three weeks. I don't want to give up my computer for three weeks, but I also don't want to spend an hour getting the cord in just the right spot any time I want to use my computer (like I did tonight).

This was my thought. February is already going to be hellacious and productive. I am giving up alcohol for one month. I am giving up cigarettes for one month. I am giving up the night life for one month. Why not give up chatting for one month?

That's a terrible idea.

I don't know what other choice I have. I can't afford another laptop. Hell, I can't even afford lunch this week due to a savings miscalculation. Still gotta get to the bottom of that, I think somebody stole 125 dollars from me ... which would simply augment the 87 dollars the Velvet Hookah already stole from me (and won't give back, those rat bastards ... but their bartender is hot).

My bedroom is mostly green. Mostly. I need two more gallons to finish up the job. You would think I lived in a 8,000 sq. ft. apartment with how much time I spend painting. Truth be told, I just derive a certain pleasure from doing things slowly. I always have. I like to eat slow. I like to walk slow. I like to paint slow. And I like to tilt my head back and then bring it back up slow-ly.

I'm not 100% certain when to use "slow" and when to use "slowly." Can anybody shed some light?

Quick life update. Drank too much. Made it back to New Amsterdam Coffeehaus with Mr. Kenderdine. I haven't been back since I went with Ryan Cloutier who now lives in Port-land, so I have to call him to let him know. I think something good may be beginning, but I am always skeptical of optimism. Netflix continues to rawk my world and work is even less of a concern than it ever has been. I talk to Tuna too much for a well adjusted young man and I haven't worked out since I started painting. I will be sick within a few days and the only thing in my apartment suitable to ingest is water from the tap. And beer. I think that's about it. How are you?

Oh I am so excited. My wildflowers have only been planted for like 4 days now and they're already starting to sprout. Can you believe it? I actually thought there was a good chance that they would not grow for me. You see, I don't exactly have a green thumb. In fact, everything I touch turns brown, even my beloved cactus. But not this time, my friends, not this time. I love my wildflowers and I am going to nurture them and love them and make them bloom. It's almost time to hit them with another batch of plant food.

In fact, maybe I should give my new friend a hit of plant food as well. He is a palm tree and he now lives behind my TV. I've been wanting to rearrange the living room for a while now but Owen has not been very keen on the idea. So I decided to do it in stages while he was out of the apartment. I put the TV in the corner but it looked stupid with the speakers turned all inward so I brought the TV out flush with them, which looks good but created a huge empty gap. Long story short (which I know is ridiculous to say after you've already told the long story) I bought the palm tree to go in that space.

In case you're wondering that's Ben Affleck on the TV screen. I was watching my new Best of Molly Shannon DVD from Time Life video. It's turning into quite a collection now, I wasn't even aware more were on their way. Joy! Easter is almost upon us and everyone is kind of meandering home to celebrate, but I think I will just stay in College Station. I dunno, maybe I'm just jealous of jebus. It would be so awesome to have two birthdays.