Yes indeed, I did actually turn FORTY on Thursday!

I have to say, my birthday really did surpass my expectations.

I didn't have any sort of party, although I did get some pretty nice gifts.

I spent the evening with my girlfriend, which was pretty much what I wanted more than anything. Although I was feeling a little under the weather, I soldiered on and we went out to a very nice restaurant downtown called Veritable Quandary. Although we sat next to a somewhat noisy party of senior citizens, the ambiance was pleasant and the waitstaff were extremely attentive. We had bacon-wrapped dates as appetizers--and even though my girlfriend is technically a pescetarian, she did have a couple of them (how cool is that?) I also had french onion soup and pork tenderloin stuff with house-made chorizo sausage, corona beans & cipollini onions. Tracy had grilled trout with fingerling potatoes, dungeness crab with an apple/pear/arugula slaw. Even though I'm not very keen on fish, I thought that was pretty tasty as well. She gave me all sorts of interesting gifts, including a work-excuse magic 8-ball.

Today, I got my TV after a two-week wait. The thing is fucking huge--maybe a little bit bigger than I really want. Being a plasma, it runs really hot and I almost have to keep the window open when it's on. I got my surround-sound connected, as well as my DVD, VCR and video game systems. I popped in my Iron Man DVD and I pretty much got my hair blown back like in the old Maxell ad. I'm still working on deciphering the byzantine remotes that run both the TV and the DVD/sound-sound system. Football looks awesome as well.

My girlfriend brought over a couple new pet rats she bought so Aria could take a look at them. Needless to say, she fell in love with them. I talked with her mom about the possibility of get some for xmas, but she's not too keen of having a cage to clean out. If Aria steps up and agrees to take care of them, I think it's a possibility. Unfortunately, there really isn't enough room at my place for ani-mules. Oh, Aria also made me a mug for work--and it's really nice as it's a bigger one than the tiny one I have on my desk now. In the winter time, I like to have a hot chocolate to start out the morning and this looks to do the trick!

Are we--as a society--getting ruder?

Having worked many customer service jobs in my life, I have experience common civility seemingly going by the wayside. Sometimes it's a class thing...they feel they are ABOVE you and are therefore entitled to treat you like shit. Sometimes over the phone or online, there is a degree of anonymity that gives people the opportunity to be a total asshole without fear of reprisal. It used to be that older people automatically garnered a level of respect simply because they had seem more of life and had (likely) acquired wisdom that would be valuable if they shared it with you. Snarkiness and backstabbing seems universal to every workplace. There seems to be a consistent mindset of tearing those you perceive to be more successful than yourself to being them down to your level (i.e. gossip magazines and tabloids).

A couple of "newsworthy" events have happened recently to spark this mini-rant.  The first is Kayne West interrupting an award presentation to complain about the results. Now I have never heard a Kanye West "song"--nor do I believe MTV has really had anything to do with music since the early 90's...but Kayne seems to be an extremely popular musician and is undoubtedly an influential person in the realm of pop culture. I hate to sound like an old fuddy-duddy, but this type of behavior isn't exactly the kind you want to see your kids emulate. When events don't unfold as you wish, it doesn't give you license to ruin the moment for someone else.

Now while the aforementioned story might be considered trivial in the whole scheme of things, this one is a bit more disturbing: Rep. Joe Wilson's heckling of President Obama during his House Chamber address. Regardless of whether you subscribe to their political ideology, I think most of us agree that the individual holding the office of the presidency does deserve a measure of respect--especially by a fellow elected official. There are constructive and productive ways to voice your dissent in our government; yelling at the president and calling him a liar is not one of them! Not only has Mr. Wilson embarrassed himself, his constituents and his entire state, the whole thing reflects badly on our government as a whole. I'm sure everyone has seen video of fist-fights and chair throwing brouhahas between elected representatives from other backwater countries. I believe America prides itself in having a free and civilized governmental process that is steeped in decorum and respect. These are the kinds of qualities that separate us from the animals.

And you know, Bush lied about pretty much everything during his 8 years, and I don't recall a single instance of him getting razzed like a bombing stand-up comic (not that he didn't deserve it).

I've heard the theory floated on occasion that the neocon's deep disrespect for Obama stems from racial hatred...and initially I was skeptical about this. I live in a very progressive city that is very accepting of minorities. You don't typical see outward and overt racist behavior. It's interesting seem Obama labeled everything from a fascist to a communist to a Marxist. Although these terms are all used interchangeably, they are quite contradictory to one another. It is clear they the people using these terms don't understand what they mean and are just trying to attach negative connotations to Obama's name. Perhaps because the term "nigger" is no longer socially acceptable, they are trying to find another "evil" term to attach to him to make him appear subhuman. 

Man, it's been ages since I've blogged about anything!

I'll have to check the date, but I'm pretty sure that I stopped right around the time I lost my job. I'm not really the type to vent my spleen for all the world to see and wallow in my own crapulence. I am very much a worry-wart about where my next paycheck is coming from, so I channeled all of my energies into finding a new gig. After a couple of months of applying 3-4 jobs a day, 7 days a week, I FINALLY started to score some interviews...which eventually lead to a couple of job offers within days of each other. I took one, then immediately dumped it when I was offered the second. It's with a very small company near downtown with a great 8-5/M-F schedule, good pay and excellent bosses & coworkers. It can often be pretty busy, but I enjoy my own office (!!!) space, driving out to merchant locations and fiddling around with technology. This is the closest I've ever come to actually *enjoying* my job and not minding having to go every day.

Somehow during this time, I also managed to score myself a girlfriend...don't ask me how! I'm not going to go into details on a public forum like this, but suffice it to say that this is one of the best things to happen to me in quite some time. I haven't had a girlfriend in ages due to a combination of introversion, apathy and severe pickiness. Although it's likely still in the "honeymoon" phase, this is honestly someone that I don't mind being around 24/7--which is saying a lot for me. It's easy though when it's someone as smart, interesting and funny as she is. I'm really excited to see where things go with this relationship. I am taking her to meet the parents this weekend, which should be fun.

My daughter just started 4th grade yesterday--and to celebrate the occasion, she got a short stylish 'do with purple (!!!) highlights. I saw her for dinner tonight, and she was wearing a purple dress that matched her hair perfectly. I was very striking! Apparently her classmates like it too. She likes her teacher, and is really eager to get back in the swing of school. I'm please I have a kid that likes to learn!

So what else? Oh yeah--I turn FORTY on the 17th. Damn. I don't have a lawn, but I'm starting to get the urge to tell kids to get off of it anyway. I really don't look OR feel 40, so I don't feel too badly about it. My dad was telling how old HE felt having a kid turning 40. I certainly don't blame him! Anyway...since I'm making a little extra dough these days, I decided to treat myself to a new television for my birthday. 50 inch plasma! And considering how small my living room is, this is going to be like having my own personal movie theater. I can't wait to watch one of my favorite flicks in HD and surround sound. (I don't have a Blu-Ray player, but my new DVD player will upconvert.) My old TV (which I inherited from my parents) is about a dozen years old and has been falling apart for years. I hope to acquire a new computer around xmas time as well, as it has been showing its age as of late.

There's plenty of political stuff to talk about, of course...I'm sure I'll get to that eventually. Thank god the Michael Jackson stuff has finally died down. Damn, I was getting really sick of that.

Sounds like a great name for a Noize band. Anyway, here you go...

Tell me this wouldn't make you wet your pants if you were a kid...
 
Even so, it's pretty darn scary!



(At first I thought it was an elaborate animatronic...but SPOILER...


 
...look at the legs!)

I've been checking out some get rich quick sche--er, business opportunities online and have found that some folks have had some luck with paid blogging. Of course, you can only make real money having a well-established and high-traffic blog. However, apparently you can easily score a quick fiver for only 5-10 minutes worth of work on even a relatively obscure blog.

The problem is, I don't want to be a total whore about it; I'm not going to write a review on something I know nothing about and fib to make a few bucks. It's going to take a little poking around in these pay-for-posting sites to see what types of "opps" (opportunities/products) they want blogs about. If it's something I know a bit about, I have not problem for "pausing for a commercial break" to pop something in to make a few bucks.

Obviously, Myspace is ill-suited to this type of work. I'll probably have to whip up something on Blogger and get a whole new blog going. Maybe I'll post a link over here and hope the folks that visit here will check it out. I'm not sure what the blog is going to be about, but I have some ideas. I'll let you know when more details surface.

Again, I'm not expecting to generate any significant amount of dough from this, but having an extra $50 a month would be cool!

Works better for me than Obama, quite honestly.

Yeah, the economy sucks...I'm just glad I have a job at this point!

However, life is not easy. My rent has gone up $100 is the last year, and I did not get a cost-of-living increase this year. I live pretty frugally as it is, but now it looks like I'm going to have to cut back even more.

My thought is to throw a last bit of change at paying off my car completely, and then I can (legally) drop my insurance down to the bare minimum. That ought to save me at least the extra interest I pay every month on my car loan.

I've already started to change my food-purchasing habits to healthier fare. Not only can I get more meals for less out of freshly-made food, it's more satisfying and better for me. The pre-processed crapola has a tendency to pack on the pounds while you absent-mindedly shovel away sugar and salt. Just in the last three weeks, I've lost about 7 pounds just eating better and doing a minimal amount of exercise.

I tried looking at other apartments in my area, and sadly I'm still in one of the cheaper places for the neighborhood I'm in. I could get a better deal moving into more of the ghetto-esque parts of Portland, but I'm not too eager to do that. The only reason I can think of for the dramatic increase in rent lately is the fact that LOTS of people are likely renting due to them not being able to afford housing. With high demand comes high prices, and Portland is a fairly popular place to move to these days. I'm determined not to be forced out into some podunk satellite town to endure white trash and soccer moms. Call me an elitist...

I'm also investigating the possibility of getting some kind of part-time job...preferrably the stay-at-home variety. I kill a lot of time on the computer as it is, so perhaps something in that vein? There's tons of freelancing types of sites out there, but it's a matter of getting your foot in the door and establishing a reputation. Even something brainless that gets me an extra $50-$100 a month would be helpful!

I'm not sure I want to take the chance of moving to another job at this time. I have done this before with the promise of a long-term commitment, only to get shafted once I got there. Getting a job at all is so difficult these days it seems just a bit too risky to make a move at this point. This is only the second time in the last 15 years that my job has passed on the cost-of-living increase for everyone, so hopefully it's just an anomaly.