One month...

Wow, it's been a month since I've updated the ol' personal blog! Sorry guys!!!

Ummm... not much has really happened. Hope to have some new poetry up soon, but that's about it... Still kicking around ideas for another book...

So I'll tell you about some of the weird stuff that's happened lately. I found "Christmas Crunch" (the Chrismas version of Cap'n Crunch) at the store the other day. WOOHOO!!!! I'll have pics soon (I took some, but they were too low quality to share). I also FINALLY found the Jones' Soda Holiday Pack, in both "dinner" and "desert" versions... My thoughts are as follows...

Some things should never, ever, EVER be made into soda. This includes peas, dinner rolls, turkey and gravy, and (most importantly) antacid. The sweet potato was ok, but even that was a stretch... If you find the dinner pack, get it for the novelty, but don't expect too much from it.

The desert pack, however, rocked my world. The five "pie" flavors were apple, cherry, key lime, banana creme, and blueberry. All were delicious. Some of them even had a hint of crust flavor, and I have no clue how they did it. If you find the desert pack, snatch up three or four of them, you're gonna want it!

In the end, the best reason to buy either of these is that you are doing a good deed as well as getting soda. A percentage of the sales of the dinner pack get donated to Toys for Tots, and the desert pack goes to St Judes Children's Hospital. The goal is to raise $25,000 from the first, and $50,000 from the latter. Both are great causes, but you hopefully already know which one has a spot in my heart...

Moving on. I know I've mentioned before that I love working downtown, and I know I've mentioned that it is due to the freak show. Between "nude" PETA protestors (they weren't really nude), people doing crazy things to get a dollar from you, and the various nutjobs wandering around, you get a true sense that anything can happen down here. I'm sure it's similar in other cities, but in my town, downtown is just like a magical circus side show. Today's attraction: drunk Santa, wandering around wishing everyone a "Meeeewy Chwishmassssh". I watched him con the local popcorn shack into giving him some red and green carmel corn (for his "reindeer") and a soda, then he wandered the street for a while generally being a nuisance. It's really hard not to laugh when you see something like that... Thank goodness the kids are all in school right now though, I can't imagine how much seeing that would scar a small child!

In work related stuff... I agreed to let a couple of temps come in and help me with some side projects (they needed the work, and my department isn't paying for it, so how could I say no?). At first I was psyched to have some help to do the "crap" projects (I don't wanna do them, and I don't wanna waste my coworkers time either), but now I'm kinda wishing they would just go away. I miss working alone! I like knowing that I can accidentally let out a squeaker without worrying who heard me, and I hate feeling like there is someone standing right over my shoulder all the time... I can't wait until these projects get done so I can have my office back to myself! GRRRRR!!!

On my computer front, I finally started playing around with GiMP hardcore. GiMP is the open-source equivilant of Photoshop, and (in my opinion, having spent a few hours with both) is much more powerful, due to it being easy to modify. I will have some cool pictures up later, but for now just know that if you ever wanted to try manipulating images, now is the time to get in!

Dr S