Seriously, I can't take it anymore. The banner ads for crappy smilies and nasty women on True are too much. As such, I'll be using myspace purely as a networking hub with my friends. As for my own blogs, look for the majority of them on wordpress because I really can't help but feel dirty after spending more than 10 minutes in myspace. I love you guys, but I can't stand the medium.

That said, I will continue to check here to see what's new and happening, and if anything of import happens, I'll make a special post here. Wordpress is just too good to pass up. No banners, MUCH more freedom with layout and such, and if I decide it's worth the investment, I could set up their software on my own domain and do whatever I want with it. It's not likely, but just knowing that the power and freedom are there is much more comforting to me. Besides, Tom is not my friend. I don't know him, and I'm sure he doesn't know me.

Summary: If you're wondering why I post a lot less often, it's because you're looking in the wrong place. ^.^

Here's some contact info for all those sad, sorry folks currently deprived of my awesomeness.  When you need a fix:

.. Kafajem  (Use gaim and make me happy!)
E-mail: Russell.Stelts@gmail.com
Address and/or Phone: Send me an e-mail first. No real addresses on the first date...

Any questions? Good. Go away, and leave me in peace with my amaretto.

I'm not dead!

Repeat: I'm not dead!

This report has been made possible by:

FOOD! That tasty treat that lets you continue to live, poop, and all the other things you enjoy in life;  AND....

SHELTER! That's right, it's everybody's favorite household item: the roof! Now 10 times more helpful than before. It not only performs amazing feats such as keeping your fresh-baked rolls dry in a torrential downpour, or keep your skin as pasty-white as could be in the swealtering summer sun. Now, your roof can do things like hold up a satellite dish for attempted communications with intelligent life off Earth, or just ordering a pizza. Amazing!

And now, we return to your regularly scheduled boredom.

(PS - IHAVEBROADBANDANDI'MSOHAPPYIJUSTCAN'TSTOPTALKINGNOTEVENLONGENOUGHFORASPACE!)

It just occured to me that this is, in all likelihood, my last chance ever to post from my bedroom in my parents' house. After tomorrow, it will slowly be transformed from my bedroom for the last 10 years, to an office where my dad can actually get stuff done when he works from home. Right now, everything feels so surreal, almost ethereal. Though the weight of it all is still a crushing burden, so much that breathing can become a labor in itself at times.

I'm finally taking a large step forward. In fact, it feels more like a leap of faith. I have no guarantee that I will land on my feet when I do reach my destination, and there will be nobody there to hold me up anymore. Sure, there will be people around to catch me if I fall, but I feel like a toddler taking his first steps without somebody there holding his hand, balancing him to ensure he doesn't fall down. I feel vulnerable and a bit frightened at what might be ahead, but I'm also excited by what this really means. I'm finally becoming independent. That holy grail for which I've toiled through droves of books and endless nights to achieve is finally in my hand, and my hand is shaking from both the sheer weight of this newfound treasure in my posession, and from the excitement of knowing that it wasn't all for naught. The long uphill climb is ended, and I have reached the top of the mountain. I can see the horizon ahead, and though I am blinded by the sun, I know that I can now always move forward. I'm excited to know that my friends aren't far behind me, and a few even are climbing down the other side ahead of me, instilling a sense of confidence that I'm not alone now, nor shall I fear that I shall be in the future.

*Ahem* Sorry for the theatrics. I get carried away sometimes. ^.^

Anywho... I'm pretty nervous/excited about the move and new job, if a bit sad for all that I'm leaving behind. I'm confident, though, that my friends who haven't yet found their calling will do thus very soon and that perhaps we'll be able to live out even just a small taste of the idealistic dreams of our youth. Also, it will be awesome to be 3 times closer to Chrissy, which will be awesome. For, as awesome as I am, my awesomeness is exponentiated by her mere presence, and when we're together, awesomeness levels rise to such an extent, the masses surrounding us must somehow sheild their eyes or close them altogether to avoid becoming blinded by the nova-like explosion of awesome we exude. So yeah, that'll be pretty awesome.

In other news: A woman tried to pass a drug test by using a microwaved penis in Pittsburgh, PA. Oil prices are on the rise again due to a FAILED attack on a Saudi refinery. Russell is going to bed now, and a Yahoo! exec speaks against DRM, citing its cause of numerous compatibility issues in addition to the fact that it stops only legitimate users from using their media, not pirates, becaue pirates are, in fact, unstoppable.

Seriously. I want to see MELTED ashes and liquid diamonds.

When walking down the ailes of a shopping center, browsing the wares available for purchase and having my attention brought to a brightly packaged toy labeled only as the "Fiber Optic Moose," I'm inclined to wonder yet again whether we have become all too enamored with "cool new stuff." (Translation: I saw a "Fiber Optic Moose" in Target today and wanted to use it in a sentence.)

Hrm... I miss my blogdrive and manually entering all of my HTML for text. I don't know if I can handle this WYSIWYG stuff. It's too much for me. (What You See Is What You Get, for those who were wondering.) It's a sad, sad day when I'm turning once more to code and binary to draw my intellectual sustenance, because my job most assuredly provides no such thing. Quite the opposite, in fact. I find my mind wandering WHILE I'm talking to customers and I can sense myself leaving the place, listening only faintly to the familiar voice, vaguely aware of the subject matter to which it refers, buy my true attentions are set on things like pointers, classes, virtual functions, and the developmental direction of the C language as a whole. It is at this point that I am suddenly jarred back into reality, struck by an unfamiliar question that is not pre-loaded in my answer buffer. I then quickly recover and return to sprinting across lush, green fields and riding on unfamiliar paths for hours on end while the person in front of my body decides whether to believe my outlandish stories of cameras spontaneously ceasing to exist after falling a mere 3 stories, and computer screens developing unexplainable cracks from the force of falling text books. The look of astonishment I receive when conveying the fact that electronics do, in fact, wear out over time is both entertaining and disheartening as I find myself starting to wonder why exactly it is that they can't understand basic, fundamental laws of physical science. I find the burden to educate these poor souls in the facts of metallurgy, chemistry, electrical engineering, and so forth, but find only unwilling and frustrated pupils. So, I am drawn once again to the fantastical world of joy and happiness, floating effortlessly above the masses.

This blog really didn't convey a single thing that I believe I had intended to write, but it was fun to write!

Ok, that's a lie. I do sleep, just usually at inopportune times, like right before dinner. Not a good time to sleep, as it is a better time to eat!

So, as I sit here wondering why an internet "dating" (read: pimping) service banner is flashing boobies in my face and nobody seems to care except perhaps that skimpy top, it occured to me that I really don't like my job. No, really. I hate customers with a passion shared only by my liking for tasty cookies. Ok, I don't actually hate customers, I just don't like having to talk with them. Sales is definitely not my bag. Give me a day or two alone with Visual Studio and a Project Scope Statement, throw in a couple of Use-Case scenarios, and I'm one happy panda, let me tell you. Actually, having swore off programming in college as a career may have been a tad hasty. Now there are still some things I just WILL NOT do, like two's complement and drive, but I'm finding that it may be wise for me to be more flexible, career-wise. Just thought I'd share that snippet of brain-juice.

Also: Cupcakes? Yeah, they still totally freakin' rock. Most awesome piece of anything anywhere, with the possible exception of my girlfriend, but it's really REALLY close. Maybe if she made me cupcakes more often than just when I'm sick... *wink, wink, nudge, nudge*

Tonight was the first night in a painfully long stretch of time which I don't wish to recall that I have felt as though I am part of this world. For quite some time now, probably around my second month of college or so, I have felt as though I was merely a spectator in my own life; a pawn being pushed around not by the hand of a wisened grandmaster guiding my movements in a grand strategy, but by the pudgy little hand of a wide-eyed toddler who, not knowing the rules of the game, simply pushed my body around to no real purpose other than possibly to see what may become of one movement or another until in disinterest he wandered off.
Now it has occured to me this very night in a moment of lucidity long missed, and in fact earlier today nostalgically mentioned, that I could once again feel in control of my own body, and that this control was afforded me by a greater power awakened and resuming his brilliant stratagems. Now, I have always been aware of my many, powerfully debilitating shortcomings, but have used my awareness to work around them. Lately I'd found myself simply driving straight through the potholes in my being rather than either devising a patch for them or just swerving to avoid them. This dangerously lethargic behavior was noticed by me and others who I hold particularly close, and while they had rarely if ever addressed my accelerating melancholy, it was always on the back of my mind.
I believe this depression of sorts was akin to that of a sponge held tightly by the unrelenting grip of a powerful vice, only to be suddenly relieved of its burden. Instead of springing back to shape immediately, the sponge maintains the position to which it had grown accustomed to under the now relinquished pressure. Slowly, it regains its original full, round shape once again. Through the tenderness of my dear Christine, and the stalwart loyalty of my close friends, I have found myself to be a man bent on one knee; no longer from being knocked down, but as a stubborn fighter who refuses to stay down, rising once again to his feet. Like the sponge, I am regaining those things which I lost under my vice, and refuse to relent them any longer.
In an excruciatingly wonderful moment of clarity, I saw what I once was, and that I can become that again. I refuse to lie prostrate before my vices any longer simply because inertia holds me there. Determination alone will not get me there, and tonight I have formulated a plan. My future lies bright before me, and though it is obscured as it shines through the mists of time, I will pick myself up, and continue once more to make my way forward, however difficult it may be.
</soapbox>

Purple monkey dishwashers with teeth that look ferocious!