Well I ended up finishing the site changes tonight, so the new modifications are now up. As you’ve probably noticed, this weblog is now the main page of the site, thanks to Greymatter. It lets me host this page on my own server instead of through a third party, as I used to.

If you see any mistakes or glitches that I may have made (I’m so tired right now that I probably made a lot), let me know so I can fix them.

Many thanks to Wil Wheaton for telling me about Server Side Includes and thus saving me a great deal of time in the future, and also to Charles Sweeney at Ableinternet for helping me to install and configure Greymatter.

G’night, all.

JAB

Hello, everyone. I apologize for the lack of posts lately, but it has been a busy week. I’ve had to work everyday since having Christmas, and as many know, after I get off work, seldom do I feel like doing anything. Also, in my spare time at night, I’ve been making some major changes to this site. Sadly, you won’t notice many of them, because they’re all the code, but you will notice some increased functionality. These changes will take effect after the New Year, so only a little longer to go (as if anyone aside from me cared).

I saw CATCH ME IF YOU CAN today. The movie is about Frank Abagnale Jr., whom in the late sixties successfully impersonated a doctor, an airline pilot, and an attorney, all before the age of nineteen. Oh yeah, he also forged over four million dollars in checks. This story would be completely unbelievable if it wasn’t a true story.

I give the movie three stars (out of four) because it was quite engaging, and Leonardo DiCaprio portrayed Abagnale with humor and charm, while Tom Hanks played the no-nonsense Carl Hanratty, the FBI agent whose mission in life is to capture Abagnale. The only negative thing I have to say about CATCH ME IF YOU CAN is that it is overly long, clocking in at 140 minutes. It could easily have been trimmed to under two hours without damaging the story.

There was a hilarious scene in the movie where Hanratty and another FBI agent are driving. The other agent tells a humorous story which the seemingly humorless Hanratty doesn’t find amusing. The other agent tells Hanratty that he has no sense of humor, and Hanratty then asks if the other agent would like to hear a joke. Their exchange goes as follows:

HANRATTY: Knock-knock.

OTHER AGENT: Who’s there?

HANRATTY (deadpan): Go fuck yourself.

I’m gonna have to remember that one.

JAB

Having a white Christmas this year has only made me realize how much I hate snow. Yes, it looks nice and pretty, but it makes driving quite hazardous. I had to go to Richmond last night and again today, and it wasn’t much fun traveling there. Icy roads, abandoned cars in ditches…unpleasant.

Christmas, however, did rock. I got some clothes, some DVDs (including the newly released BACK TO THE FUTUTRE trilogy!), and…something else…damn, I can’t remember. Oh yeah: a laptop. That’s right, the thing that I’ve been wanting for so long I finally got. My parents were able to get it cheap (long story behind that) and it’s a combination Christmas/birthday gift. So yeah, I’m obviously quite happy. I spent the last few hours setting it up to suit my purposes. It’s been kind of boring but very worth it.

I hung out with Nate today. We played the game I got him for Christmas: ALIENS VS. PREDATOR II, It’s a fun game, but for some reason there are no bots to play against, so it was just Nate vs. me. It was an entertaining time, though.

I grow weary of staring at the LCD, so I’m going to bed.

JAB

I must say, I really didn’t care for FUTURAMA tonight. It was mostly boring and not very funny. The only part that I found humorous was when “Ensign Hugh Mann” stole the plans for the space defense network, or whatever the hell it was called. Zap Brannigan and Kiff proved to be the highlight of the episode.

I also watched the unaired pilot of FIREFLY, which fortunately made up for FUTURAMA. It was so good, and Fox has only themselves to blame that the show got cancelled. If they’d aired this pilot instead of making Joss Whedon create something more “action-packed,” the show may have done a whole lot better.

Today has been a real relaxing day, one that I think I needed. I’d had plans with Sarah, but that didn’t work out, so I finished my Christmas shopping and wrapped presents. All in all, a good day. And I even get to see Sarah tomorrow.

JAB

I went with Nate and Erin to a “solstice party” hosted by Nate’s aunt, Sam. For those of you unfamiliar with the (winter) solstice, it’s the shortest day of the year. That means from here on out, there will be more daylight until the summer solstice, which happens to be the longest day (in terms of daylight) of the year. The party was entertaining, for the most part. It dragged a little, just because most people there were older than thirty and I couldn’t “relate” to them. What made the party rock, however, was seeing this girl, Kelly, who is extremely hot. She worked for Sam for a while (I dunno if she still does) and I first knew her from when li’l Nate and I went to Cathartic Dreams back in our junior high years. Anyway, she is still hot, and it was nice to see her and her cute butt.

I’m hanging out with Sarah tomorrow. I’m not sure what the hell we’re doing, but I’m sure I’ll have a good time. Perhaps we can go and pick up dye for my hair. I also need to go and finish my Christmas shopping. I have just a few more things to get for people.

Ah, Christmas…the most commercial time of year.

JAB

I got my first rejection letter day! It’s from “Asimov’s Science Fiction” and it’s in response to REBIRTH, the story I sent them in October. It basically says that my submission is not what they’re looking for at this time for various reasons, but I should send them any new work I produce in the future because they are always interested in blah blah blah…

You get the picture.

I suppose this should be discouraging, but I don’t really feel discouraged. Instead I see it as motivation to try harder next time. I had low expectations that it would be accepted, anyway, so I’m not too disappointed and heartbroken.

This rejection slip is going on my wall, I do believe. Neat!

JAB

…all three of you, that is. I thought I’d publicize a little news about Nate tonight. He submitted a joke to this e-newsletter, The Daily Groaner, which delivers jokes daily (hence the title) to your inbox. TDG will only sometimes publish jokes that people send in, and Nate happened to be one of the few and the proud. I present his joke herewith for your enjoyment:

Q: What did the potato say after he was attacked by the headhunters?

A: “I’ve been scalloped!”

Pretty good, isn’t it?

JAB

Everyone remember how I had downloaded the unreleased movie THE FANTASTIC FOUR earlier this week? Well, I watched one small clip of it last night. It takes place shortly after the FF have been bombarded by cosmic rays and have crashed their space ship onto Earth. They’re all wandering around dazed and confused, unaware that they have super powers now. Johnny (the Human Torch) sneezes and a stream of flame shoots out of his mouth. The Thing (in pre-Thing mode at this point; I just can’t remember his real name) looks at Sue and comments, “Some head cold.”

Wow, I can’t wait to watch the whole thing.

I have a busy weekend ahead of me. I’d like to tell you my plans, but I need to go watch ENTERPRISE now.

G’night.
JAB

I went and did the annual Christmas shopping thing I do with my family every year. We went to some big mall in Cincinnati (which is the sweetest mall ever, I should say), and it was packed. I always forgot how crazy traffic gets around shopping centers this time of year. The shopping trip was successful, though. I got some clothes and a few gifts for others. I’m not looking forward to getting my credit card bill for December; it’s going to be painful. Fortunately, it’s got some big expenses that aren’t really mine. I got some expensive razor thing for Sarah at Wal-Mart, since she doesn’t have a discount there like I do. There are also a few other things that people have already paid me for. Regardless, it’s still unpleasant to look at a high credit card bill.

Some changes are brewing on the site. I might be taking on columnists again, as I did on the old site. I’ve already checked with Sarah, and she would like to do one again. I’ll check with Nate the next time I see him and see if he’d like another shot at a column. There’s also some other website-stuff that might be changing, but I won’t know for a few weeks.

One last thing: me and my cable modem downloaded the unreleased FANTASTIC FOUR movie which was made in 1994, but never released, namely because it was horrible. So once I get some free time, I’ll give it a viewing.

JAB

Yesterday was a whole lotta fun, let me tell you. From about 5 am to 2:30 pm, a cycle of events became apparent.

— Wake up

— Begin to sweat deeply while freezing to death

— Throw up

— Go back to sleep because I couldn’t do anything else

— Repeat twelve times

Sounds like a pretty fun time, eh? I was having a great time yesterday being laid up on the couch, especially since it was my day off and I was supposed to do some writing and other things. Fortunately, when I emerged from sleep the last time at 2:30, the horrific nausea was gone and I was sort of able to function as a normal human being.

Whilst puking up my guts I watched some movie, WHAT WOMEN WANT, with Mel Gibson and Helen Hunt (Mel and Helen were in the movie, not on the couch with me watching it). As far as romantic comedies go, it was pretty good. Gibson and Hunt have good chemistry together, which made watching them enjoyable.

I’m kind of dreading going to work later today. I think work (actually the stress of being at work) in part caused yesterday. I had an extremely bad stress headache on Tuesday, and it didn’t abate until the wee hours of that night.

Hmm…

Perhaps I shall just devise a brilliant and cunning plan to get out of work today. Something quite elaborate yet daring, that shows off my gentlemanly warrior talents.

Yes, that’s exactly what I’ll do.

JAB