There’s an App For That

Well, I have my Motorola Droid, and for the most part, I love it. I have a few gripes about it, but I’ll go into detail about that in my secondary review to be posted on GearLive.com.

What I’m really psyched about is this app I found called WPtoGo. It allows you to post to WordPress blogs like this one. I can view and edit older posts, view and review comments, and it even has some basic formatting tools.

So maybe I can post just a little more often on the personal blog, eh? We’ll see. Maybe write some more of my idle thoughts. I’ve worked very hard to tone the emo down, and it has become easier as I work through my divorce and find out who I really am. I believe I’ve made some great strides. I am a much different person than the man who struggled with self-hate and loathing, blaming himself for his cheating wife, unable to truly put the blame where it truly lied and wash his hands of it.

I lost a lot of friends along the way: those who hate me for who I was, and those who drop my various social network friendships for being tired of hearing my depressed rants and avoid me in person. It is unlikely I’ll get either group of people back, but in the end, I can only rely on myself.

So, we’ll see.

My Wedding Ring

This is a piece I wrote over a year ago.  I found it, and realized it is not posted publicly.  So, here it is, just as I wrote it back then.

When I was growing up, I was subjected to the usually comical routine of the Wedding Ring Dropped Down the Drain. The ring would be dropped or put or misplaced somewhere ridiculously difficult to get to, and the rest of the show/episode/story would play out the mishappenings of whoever was supposed to retrieve it, usually before Significant Other found out it was lost.

I was never understanding of why the wedding ring was a big deal. Then I learned how much they can cost… and “realized” that losing a wedding ring was the equivalent of accidentally dropping thousands of dollars into the sewer, never to be seen again. And that, to me, was the justification for said attempts at retrieval of said item.

I had been thinking recently, looking at the wedding ring on my left hand, thinking of my wife, gone thousands of miles away. I find it interesting to note that until now, I never ever considered the emotional attachment of a wedding ring.

Read the rest of this entry »

Great Weekend!

Although lack of sleep is the prominent issue at the moment, this weekend was a lot of fun.

Friday night was me and Ken and Edna staying up late to clean the house so that we could have guests over.  We had some music playing, and everyone worked together.  We got a whole lot accomplished, and were rather proud of ourselves.  I got to bed at 4 A.M.

Waking up at 10 A.M. (which, for me, six hours is not good for sleep ), I headed out to New Jersey to pick up my two youngest brothers, who were hanging out with me for the day.  Back in Pennsylvania, we gamed for a while until it was time for the Ravens-Titans game.  We broke out all the snacks, and our friends showed up.  Jacob and Johanna came, and so did Edwin, along with a friend of his who I thought was pretty awesome and got on well with everyone there.

Read the rest of this entry »

Legend of the Seeker

A new show on Hulu from ABC, called “Legend of the Seeker” is your typical medieval-with-magic with EVERY cliché you can think of: a witty and comical wizard, a beautiful magic-wielding damsel, the old blind witch-doctor, the faithful fighter companion, dark evil preparing for its ruling of the world, dark mystery, good and evil, friendship and betrayal, love and hatred, protection and sacrifice, and of course the courageous hero who, armed with a book of secrets and his trusty magic sword inherits his previously-unknown heritage and destiny to save the world, single-handedly.

And I love it.

Devil, the Rivercat

I spoke to my coworker who took my cats into his family for me when I moved a few months back.  It really made me feel good, that they are all getting along and loving the cats.  I walked up and asked how they were doing, and he looks at me and says “Are you sure Devil isn’t a rivercat?”

I was not sure how to answer, so he explained.  He and his wife apparently went to the zoo and saw a rivercat, who apparently enjoys water, and they said it bore some resemblance to Devil.

But the physical resemblance was not all: Devil loves to play in the water!  I had mentioned this when I gave the cats to them, but I guess it is really coming to light now.  Devil apparently “mops the floor” with the water dish, splashing water everywhere, and is absolutely enthralled with the running water in the shower.  He said that sometimes it seems like Devil’s just gonna jump in the shower!

It brought back a lot of good memories.  I miss them, and I miss being a real family, with my wife.  Good times.

First Day of Work in the New Year

…is incredibly slow.  But who would have said otherwise?

I spent the majority of today finishing the new designs on the websites.  I found two new themes that I was absolutely enthralled with, and have been tweaking non-stop.  Made some internal changes, ditched the guestbook over at Spheric which was just collecting dust, and rolled out the new designs today.  Comment, give me your opinions!

Throughout that time, just thinking about life in general.  I wrote a goodbye letter to Dewi.  People may hate me, but I did literally everything I could to save my marriage.  Unfortunately, she simply didn’t want the same thing since the day we were married, and lied and cheated the whole time.  Well, she finally gave me an explanation on Christmas Eve.  She said, and I quote.  “Cheating is in my nature.  It is who I am.  YOU wouldn’t let me sleep with anyone else.  There are men out there who are okay with that.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Goodbye, Jack Thompson

THANK YOU.

After all of the horrible attacks on video games as the source of children’s misbehavior, this nutcase has finally been taken down.  It always amazed me how he could spout such nonsense.

If children play very violent video games, can they themselves have some kind of outward effect on society?  Absolutely!  But the solution was never to ban the games themselves.  No!  There are MANY types of available media that can cause these types of things: gory and sexual movies, books, music, television, AND video games.  It is up to the PARENTS to decide what their children do!

Do you think my dad was gonna let me buy BMX XXX because it was a video game?  (Bad example: that game sucked, even for softcore porn.)

Unfortunately, it seems he’s not “done” yet.  He’s not allowed in the courts, but he still has a big mouth.  We’ll see what he does with his supposed fame.

~Dan

7 years ago…

This was posted by one of my coworkers this morning, and I fully and wholeheartedly support the brave men and women of the time, both those who were going about their day, and those who sprang into action afterwards.

The time of the posting of this message is approx. 08:46:53, on September 11, 2008.

It was at this very moment 7 years ago that an event which would forever change the lives of us as Americans would begin to unfold.  At that very moment, FDNY battalion chief 1 Joe Pfeiffer transmitted an alarm to Manhattan Fire Alarm Dispatch relating what had happened in front of his eyes 15 seconds earlier.  This event would lead to the eventual death of 2,974 people, some members of various agencies in New York and at the Pentagon, but a majority of which were civilians who were just going about their business and were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, or happened to pick the wrong flight to get on.

Let us take a moment on this day to remember these events and those who lost their lives during them.

Cleveland: Tuesday Night

Tuesday night was more interesting!!!  The roommate and I went to “Harry Buffalo,” this bar down the road that has bison burgers.  Pretty good.  (Though it was funny when he pointed at the stuffed buffalo head on the wall and said I was making him angry for eating one of his friends.)

Today, I had my first Bacardi and Coke .  Then, I learned what a Buttery Nipple was… those were good!

We left there, and met up with a few of our friends, and went to Zocalo’s, a tequila bar… I kind of wussed out with the tequila though… I did get some Jack Daniel though, was good stuff.

But we weren’t wasted enough yet!  So we went to a third place after that one closed, where I had some more Jack and tried to play pool.  Somehow after like 5 shots I sank the eight ball… then my roommate’s alcohol really kicked in and he started antagonizing the folks playing the pool table after us.

Was fun!

~Dan

Cleveland Ho!

This week, I’m coming to you from Cleveland, Ohio, as I’m working out of the office my company has located here.  Needless to say, between the rough patch in my life recently and then this trip, not much writing has occurred.  But, I decided to keep myself occupied, I need to write more, and if not on the story, then to start making this a part personal blog as well.

We flew into the Pittsburgh airport, and left there at 6pm.  Got the rental car, and we drove all the way to Cleveland.  Took about two hours.  We were starving at that point, so we decided to go out into the city.

We started at the House of Blues.  Really nice place on 4th Street.  Now, we each get $40 a day for food, so we were all deciding what we wanted.  Everyone got like a $10 entree, mostly so they could drink .  I don’t drink that much, so I went for the $25 steak.  The others made fun of me a bit, but that was okay.  One guy had like 3 long islands, another was drinking Rum and Coke, and another coworker got the Jack and Coke.  I thought I was being funny asking for a Coke and Coke, but no one seemed to think it was so funny.

After too long, they were closing, and said we had to go somewhere else to drink (coincidentally right down the street, at the Blinking Lizard).  So we went there, and I watched some of the Colts game (they lost!), while everyone else had some more to drink… all the same stuff.

Then they said THEY were closing, and said we had to go somewhere else to drink (coincidentally right down the street, at Nick’s Sports Bar).  So we went there.  At this point, everyone was pretty toasty, and started making fun of me for not drinking.

Naturally, I give in to peer pressure!

I had a Long Island, mostly because I don’t really know any drink names, and it sounded the lightest out of what they were drinking.  Then one of my coworkers went and ordered another one…  so I had to drink that one.

Wooh, for someone that doesn’t drink, I got pretty toasty, my head hurt the next day… and I only had 2 long islands… we’re gonna practice this week drinking

That was Sunday.

Monday, I did not do a whole lot… was still feeling kind of tired from Sunday, lol.  Another friend from work came over and she cooked chocolate chip pancakes for me .  Honestly, i’ve never eaten chocolate chip pancakes on my own, and that was awesome, they were oozing chocolate.  Put the leftovers in the freezer for later.  Yum!

Then, I practically passed out and slept most of the night.  I woke up so we could order pizza, and that was it.

Today, we’re waiting to see if the girl who made the pancakes calls me back , and if not, me and and the coworker who is my roommate out here are gonna head out. 

More later!

~Dan