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wow, the past few months have been a blur. as everyone who might venture to do such a foolish thing as reading this site already knows, my life has changed dramatically. this is mainly due to the fact that I've met the greatest girl in the world, and it turns out that she thinks I'm okay too. her name's amanda, and we met in October '06 at the gym in our office building. the next few months were a fairy tale. we dated, fell in love, and on valentine's day I asked her to marry me, and she said yes! I've never been this happy in my life, and every day with her is like a dream come true. she is a dream come true.
this wednesday, after tons of research, stress, and driving, we booked a site and a date for the wedding. the day will be september 30, 2007. sometimes, I still can't believe all this is happening to me and I don't know what I've done to deserve being so lucky, but I just can't imagine my life without her any more - for that matter, I can't even fathom how I got through my life to this point without her.
I know that I don't exactly update this site, um, regularly, but I thought that this recent turn of events at least deserved a mention on this forgotten shadow of a blog. some may point out that I have failed to post more than just that one tv review, and yeah, well, let's just not talk about that, shall we? not much else that is interesting has happened to me since last I posted, however, I think the fact that I found true love and got engaged should be substantial enough news to satiate my loyal readers (snort) for a few more lonely months.
- anthony
the 2006 fall TV season begins on a high note with the second season premiere of prison break. for those unlucky few that did not watch the first season of this show, prison break is the story of michael scofield (played by wentworth miller), whose brother lincoln burrows (dominic purcell) is sentenced to death by the electric chair for a crime he did not commit. scofield robs a bank and gets himself sent to jail as well so that he can help his brother break out of prison from the inside. scofield is an engineer, and actually helped design the prison where they are carrying out their sentences, so he knows how to escape. however, before they can escape, a much larger conspiracy is discovered that traces the framing of lincoln for murder all the way to the highest echelons of the united states government. even still, at the end of the first season, michael, his brother, and 6 other convicts that either helped them along the way or just discovered their plan and wanted a free ticket out of jail, succeed in breaking out of fox river penitentiary.
the second season picks up with all the cons on the run from the law. in the first few minutes of this season, it's very apparent that the show has changed quite a bit. it seems a lot more fast paced, and it feels as though the writers are enjoying being outside the walls of the prison nearly as much as the convicts themselves are. the first season was definitely very interesting, but the show was confined mostly to inside the prison, which started to get old by the end. also, much of the escape plan took place in very small, careful, methodical steps - most episodes, not a whole lot happened to advance the escape storyline. now that the escape is over and done with, the show can focus more on the intriguing government conspiracy, and delve deeper into the backstories and lives of the convicts themselves.
we are introduced to a few new characters, the most notable being william fitchner starring as the FBI agent called in to lead up the manhunt. he plays the part very well, you can tell early on that his "interactions" with capt. bellick, the leading officer of the prison guards, will be an interesting theme throughout the season. the resentment between FBI and local law enforcment is a common topic in TV and movies, but I have to admit that it always makes for some good dialogue. we also lose one of the major characters of the show right here in the first episode of the season. I won't spoil here who dies, but it's a fairly unexpected loss if you ask me.
overall, I'm pretty psyched about the new season of this show. I really hope that they can succeed in keeping up with the frantic pacing and tension they've set up with the premiere, but history has shown that most shows cannot. there are always exceptions though (like 24 - premiering in january!). also, I hope that this season, fox does not choose for this show to have a giant 5-month gap between the first and second halves of the season, like they did last year. in such a high-octane show as this, it really hurts the momentum.
cancellation forecast: 10%
- anthony
I decided to add a "categories" feature to the website. if you look just to the left, you will see that you can now view posts by category as well as date, which I am sure you are ever so excited about. I wanted to add this feature in preparation for a new kind of post that I hope to be making frequently: tv show reviews! as many of you know, I watch entirely too much television and I thought that it might be a nice idea to share my knowledge of which shows I think are good, so that you might watch them and be happy. the new fall season starts this week, and I'll do my best to write a review of each premiere that I watch. please do not expect to find reviews of anything that might qualify as reality television. :) I'm planning on watching quite a lot of the premieres this fall so there's a good chance that if you've heard of it, I'm gonna be watching it, but if there's a show that sounds interesting to you and you want to be sure I review it, please let me know and I'll be sure to check it out. Prison Break and Vanished both start tonight, so look for the first of many reviews to appear within a day or two!
- anthony
as promised, I have posted the pictures from my trip to wyoming in the photo gallery. I even captioned every single one for your reading and viewing pleasure! hope you enjoy them, leave me a comment and let me know what you think!
we went out to a bar in boston called tonic last night to celebrate a friend's birthday, that was okay I guess. I didn't know most of the people there, but I knew enough that it wasn't completely boring. I didn't puke in the back of will's car on the way home this time, so it's definitely an improvement over the last time we went out.
I'm actually looking forward to going back to work tomorrow, surprisingly. I've been away for quite a while now, almost two weeks, because of the vacation to wyoming and the business trip to arkansas. it'll be good to see all my co-workers again and get back into the swing of things. I'm sure I would be dreading my return to work, though, if my business trip had not gone as well as it did. even more suprisingly, I miss the gym! as I said, there was a gym at the hotel where I stayed, but it had no weights, only cardio machines, so it'll be nice to get back into my lifting routine - although it probably didn't hurt to give my body a rest and let it rebuild a while.
I don't have much other news to report... probably because I just posted three days ago. I'm used to having about 8-10 months between posts to accrue interesting stories to relate here. even still, let's hope that I can continue this relative deluge of posts despite the return to my normal daily routine tomorrow.
- anthony
so, like I said before, I'm in arkansas. I'm here on a business trip, helping support one of our clients while they make some big changes to our software in their production environment. I was pretty scared at first when I heard I would have to go and do this, I've only been at this job for about half a year, and although I think I know pretty well what I'm doing from day to day, there is still a lot that I'm unsure of. despite my fears, the trip went pretty well. I got there on monday and within two hours of my arrival I had solved their biggest problem and saved them about 4 days of work. they were impressed and that took the heat off of me for the rest of the week. I've just been helping out with other less significant problems since then. there was talk that I may have to come back next week as well to help out more, but since we got so much done this week, there's really nothing specific for me to do other than just be there for support. also, my manager really wants me back in boston so I can work on some other projects. not that I'm complaining - I can't wait to get back. it's not that I had a bad time here, everyone was really nice, and the hotel was great (gym, pool, jacuzzi, and free internet in the rooms!), but I miss my friends back home, so it'll be good to be back. besides, I can support them remotely anyway, there's this great thing they have called the internet that I think we can use. so that's my arkansas story.
I've got the pictures from wyoming almost ready to post. I've captioned about half of the 90 or so pictures, and as soon as I'm done it'll be up. I'd expect the album to show up tomorrow sometime. in the meantime, here is a little preview. the photo on the left is from my trip to florida in late 2003. the photo on the right was taken last week in Yellowstone park. I barely recognize that guy on the left!
- anthony
hey y'all! I told you I'd post again soon... and even though that was back in may, I think considering my previous posting history, three months qualifies as "soon". I've actually been working on the photo gallery a bit in preparation for uploading a few new albums! I made it easier to manage the captions for the photos so that I'll actually be more likely to add captions. previously it was quite hard to do so for large galleries. but you don't care about that boring technical mumbo-jumbo! you just want the photos to actually be up in the gallery! well, they're not ready yet. should be the next couple days. in the meantime, here's some juicy gossip on what's been going on in my life!
a lot has happened since I posted the last life-related update. I got a new job in january. still working as a software engineer, but at a different company that agreed to pay me much more money, which was an agreeable proposition to me. the job has been going well, the software I'm working on now is much more complicated than my last company, and it can be overwhelming at times... but management has somehow developed the idea that I'm doing a good job there, so who am I to argue? anyway, the new job is old news to just about anyone who would deign to read this page, so let's move on.
constant readers of my ramblings may remember I mentioned that I began a workout program last year. thanks to the free gym at work and a much healthier diet, I've dropped a total of 80 pounds. I'm down to 170 now, which is actually a pretty normal weight for my height - I haven't been at a healthy weight since I don't even know when. it seems so weird to say that I've lost that much weight. I was helping friends move a couple weeks ago, and I was carrying in a few of the weight plates for their weight bench that weighed about 80 lbs altogether. I could barely walk while carrying around all that weight! I have no clue how I was able to handle daily life while carrying around all those extra pounds. I'm not sure that I've completely come to terms with this drastic change in my lifestyle and appearance, but it's something I'm working on, and I think the experience has made me a stronger person. I wasn't sure this was something I was going to be able to do, but I gave it my best effort and it worked. there are a few other aspects of my life in which I have not yet had the courage to take the same plunge, but I'm hoping that my own success will inspire me.
last week I went on vacation with my mom to wyoming. she had a nursing conference there so we decided to take the opportunity to make a vacation out of it. it's really, really beautiful out there! I have no idea how they get anything productive done when in every direction you look there is a majestic, snow-capped mountain, or rolling hills of thick pine forests, or winding streams leading to rushing waterfalls and sparkling lakes - I would just have to go exploring and sightseeing all the time. I guess maybe you get used to it? massachusetts certainly isn't the ugliest state, but no sight that it contains, natural or man-made, can compare to the views I saw on my trip, so perhaps I am easily impressed since the scenery I am exposed to on most days of the year is pretty boring. you can judge for yourself when I post the 91 pictures that I took during the trip! coming soon to a photo gallery near you.
speaking of photo galleries, I will also FINALLY be posting the pictures from my trip to japan soon as well. what's that you say? the trip was in 2003 and I'm really lazy? yeah, well, screw you, you'd better shut up or I won't post them at all. this is usually the point where I'd make an excuse as to why they have not been posted yet, but it really is just laziness. I think there's about 700 pictures so it's going take a while to go through them and decide which I will post here. there are some really cool pictures in that set though, so I am looking forward to having them publically available.
I do have other news, but this is approximately the longest blog post ever so I think
I'm going to go to sleep instead. I'm still stuck in arkansas through friday, so I'm sure I'll
have time to post more tomorrow evening. see, I told you I had other news - tune in next time to
find out why I'm stuck in arkanas. it's a really boring interesting story!
- anthony
apparently I broke the comment posting form at some point. at any rate, it works now, so whoever is listening out there can once again leave me witty and insightful comments.
I should probably post an actual blog entry since it's been like, oh, 7 months. again. maybe I'll do that sometime soon. life has been busy lately. for now, sleep.
- anthony
one less thing to worry about: I have now officially found a new apartment. I was hoping to put up another poll here to have people help me decide, but I ended up taking the first place that I looked at, probably because of the combination of the place being fairly nice and reasonably priced, and the fact that I'm lazy and really don't feel like looking very hard for an apartment right now. at any rate, it's all taken care of, and I've been approved. it's actually managed by the same people that manage my current apartment complex, which is nice, since they are pretty good landlords with a swift and reliable maintainance staff on hand. the apartment won't be ready until december, which would have been a problem since my lease expires on november 5th, but since it's the same management they allowed me to extend my current lease for a month without any fees, and as a bonus my roommate agreed to stay another month also, which is quite preferable to paying the entire rent for our two bedroom place myself. I'm really glad to have this taken care of now, and even though I'll be paying more, finally having my own place will be nice. or at least I've always imagined it will be. who knows? anyone interested in a free meal and free booze can use the comments to sign up to help me move. :)
in other news, my brain has adopted a new hobby that I'm not sure I'm okay with: forgetting to zip up my fly. I've had a nearly perfect track record overall in that area and I've now forgotten three times in the past two days. maybe I just need more sleep?
my exploits at the gym seem to be working, finally. I've now lost almost twenty pounds, and the scale continues to report success daily. the weight loss is nice, but I feel better, too, which is really what my goal was in the first place. not only physically, but mentally. I do still have a long way to go, but I don't plan on stopping any time soon.
I've been thinking more and more about applying for the JET Program. for those who don't clicky the linky, the Japanese Exchange and Teaching Program is an opportunity through the US & Japanese governments to go to Japan and become an assistant English teacher for a year. I heard about it in college, and it interested me very much, but I never got around to doing it. it would be a Really Big Deal for me, since it would entail quitting my job and basically abandoning everything in my life right now for one whole year (possibly two - you can extend your stay). I've become rather unhappy with several aspects of my life lately, and I know that running away is not at all the optimal solution, but it would give me a fresh start, and the chance to actually fulfill one of my dreams for once. so I've decided to make a promise to myself, and I'm putting it here for all to see, and to call me on it when and if I break it. if I am still here where I am today, in this same job, this same state of mind, this same underwhelming life, one year from today, October 19, 2005, I will fill out the application for the JET program, be accepted, and go do something better with my life. there, I said it. can't take it back now. anyone who catches me reneging on this promise, feel free to call me names or stab me or something.
- anthony
couple days ago we got the lease renewal paperwork for the apartment, which is not something we were expecting since our lease does not end until november. so we had to make a quick decision as to whether to stay here or move out come november. we were planning to go month-to-month so that we could then take our time finding new places to live. it's not that I have a problem with my current roommate, I just would really like to have my own place for once, now that I can (sort of) afford it. however, the paperwork informed us that if we were to go month-to-month, they would raise the rent by $100, and there would be a monthly $100 "month-to-month fee". kinda crappy. that would bring my share of the rent to $800, and for that price or a bit more, I think I could afford quite a pretty nice place for myself. so, we put in the paperwork to move out in november, and with that it looks like I'm in the market for a new apartment. that's good news for you, reader, since chances are you'll get to take part in another apartment poll! excitement! anyway, yeah, I'll keep you updated.
I mentioned previously that I was working on a new interface for the music section. I have since completed said endeavor, and the fruits of my labor are now on display for all to see. the most devoted of fans (HAH) may notice that some of the old translations have not been converted to the new format. however, rest assured that they will all be converted in time. let me know what you think!
- anthony
they've had Free Ice Cream at work for the past 3 days. the entire world is against me.
- anthony
