This is my story.

I have two Dreamwidth invite codes up for grabs. If you want one, let me know where to send it.

Katie went to Vintage Vinyl (local new/used music store) yesterday to trade in some CDs and DVDs so she could hopefully get enough money to buy the new Utada Hikaru CD. She asked me if there was anything I wanted in case she had enough money left over to get it. I discovered that Lacuna Coil just released a new album last month, and Katie did end up with enough money to get the CD for me. I've listened to it four times since last night, and I have to say it fucking rocks! Love it.

My oldest sis and her family were in the area this weekend so all the family (except for my oldest brother and his son, who are in North Carolina) went to The Old Spaghetti Factory in St. Louis. Yummy food. We were a little bummed because due to our rather large group of 10 we were relegated to an upstairs seating area where it appeared they put all the big groups, and it didn't quite have the same ambiance as sitting downstairs. The ambiance was pretty much the main reason we went there. We could have had similar food for similar prices at Olive Garden and wouldn't have had to drive as far. Oh well, it was still fun. The kids were all pretty well behaved, and we all got to chat and visit. I was sitting next to my youngest niece, Anna, who is two. They brought out our spumoni, but they didn't bring us new spoons. Anna had used her spoon for her mac and cheese, so I wiped it off with a napkin and handed it to her. She immediately said 'Thank you!' without prompting. I was so surprised because usually with kids that young, they always have to be prompted by mom and dad to use please and thank you.

Worked at the Hut for five and a half hours today. Shipment day. Blargh. Then I mowed the front lawn when I got home. I think I can sufficiently count putting shipment away and mowing the lawn as my exercise for the day. You try lugging 20 to 40 pound boxes of frozen dough around and then using a push mower on a horribly uneven lawn and tell me you didn't get some exercise. :p

*pokes Imp* Tori's new album, Abnormally Attracted To Sin, which is due to release on Tuesday can be heard in its entirety, streaming on her MySpace page.

If I were a teenager right now and still in high school, I don't know if I'd have the guts to do the Day of Silence. Especially in Mascoutah. Good luck to anyone out there participating.

Today will be a busy day, and I'm kind of dreading it because I didn't get very good sleep last night. I've been having sinus issues the past couple days and have been too congested to use my bipap machine. Then last night I woke up about 4 a.m. with a major headache. So I took some Excedrin and moved out to the recliner where I finally fell asleep and managed to stay asleep until about 7:30.

But anyway, today:

-Go to court to get my license back. I got a speeding ticket last week, and the managers at the Hut have been kind of annoyed that I haven't been able to make deliveries to the Air Force base because I haven't had photo I.D.
-Go pick up Katie's prescriptions at Walgreens and Walmart.
-Go to Katie's old high school in St. Charles, MO so she can get her high school transcripts.
-Work at the Hut from 5:30 until midnight.

Hopefully I'll be able to get some good sleep tonight. All I have to do tomorrow is help do set work for CHARIS that involves sitting and cutting and pasting colored paper, and then I have awards for my bowling league at 7 p.m. Probably one of the least busy Saturdays I've had in a while. But first, I have today.

Katie has her music playing on shuffle on her computer right now, and a song came on.

Me: (after a couple seconds of the song) Why do you have Sonic the Hedgehog music on your computer?
Her: Because it's part of the Super Smash Brothers Brawl (video game on the Wii, in case you don't know) soundtrack that I downloaded.
Me: Oh. [pause] Actually it's kind of scary that I knew that was Sonic the Hedgehog music after only a couple seconds.
Her: Yeah, it was.

I played a lot of Sonic the Hedgehog when all my family had was the Sega Genesis and Game Gear. :op

Apparently, some gay Republicans, upset with the Log Cabin Republicans, have formed a new 527 political organization for gay Republicans, called GOProud. They claim to be taking a more "Reaganite" approach to politics than the Log Cabin, but what that actually means remains to be seen.

This is from a recent locked post in gsa_lj. When I told Katie this she asked, "Reaganite? What does that even mean? They're going to be senile and eat jelly beans?"

I giggled.

It's 1 a.m. I will make stupid jokes if I want. Actually, Valentine's Day is technically over. Oh well. Late sentiments will have to suffice.

Tonight was the Valentine's Day Dance hosted by CHARIS, the choir Katie, Amy, and I are in. Katie was the DJ and it was a lot of fun. There were a few minor hiccups because Katie wasn't used to using the touchpad on my laptop (note to self: next time, bring external mouse) and this caused her to accidentally delete the play list a couple times and switch to the next song before the current song was over. But overall it went well.

The choir president actually asked Katie if she had business cards because she was going to pimp Katie out to the guests as a DJ, but Katie doesn't DJ on a regular basis. In fact, the equipment she was using, with the exception of the microphone, my laptop, and her external hard drives, belongs to our friend, Danny. So either Danny would have to rent/sell his equipment to Katie for gigs or she'd have to buy her own. Probably wouldn't work out well. But anyway... Everybody obviously had a lot of fun and the dance was sold out, so total kudos goes to everybody.

One (of the many, it really was fun) things that amused me was the reactions to songs. The crowd was 98% female and lesbian. Katie played Melissa Etheridge by request. Not many people dancing, kind of a bland reaction. Katie then played "It's Raining Men" and almost everybody went nuts and started dancing and singing along. Lesbians...singing with "It's Raining Men"...that's something.

The biggest reaction came for "Dancing Queen" though. Katie was in the restroom and still heard everybody scream. Poor Katie hates ABBA, too, but managed to give in to the request for one song. That's a pitfall of being a DJ. You have to play stuff you don't like. The Kanye West was proof of that. Ugh. Although she got about 5 requests for Katy Perry's "I Kissed a Girl" and refused to play it on principle. Well she didn't rudely say no to people, but she just told them she didn't have it. She played "Hot 'n' Cold" by Katy Perry. I think that's enough. I suggested she play Jill Sobule's "I Kissed a Girl" but unfortunately she truly didn't have that one.

Fun was had by all. This looks to be an annual event for CHARIS since we sold out this time. They're hoping for a bigger venue next year. Don't know if Katie will DJ again. It would be fun to be an attendee instead of a volunteer, though.

The NES system I gave Katie for her birthday turned out not to work. Got the flashy screen when we turned it on. I had forgotten that the ebayer I bought it from listed it as is and hadn't tested it. Yet we were not thwarted. Katie tinkered with it and discovered that a couple pins on the 72-pin connector were bent or loose. A common problem with the NES but easily fixable. Just buy a new connector and put it in. The new connector arrived today and Katie is now playing Super Mario Bros. 3. Yay for retro games!

On the politics side, Blago is out. By unanimous vote, he was impeached and barred from holding public office ever again. Good for that. Kind of like Dubya's re-election, I was left scratching my head when Blago was elected for a 2nd term. I very rarely vote Republican, but had there not been a Green Party candidate in that election, I would've voted for the Republican to avoid voting for Blagojevich. Now he's left facing federal corruption charges.

Dear Fellow Residents of Illinois,

Next time, could we please elect someone who isn't part of the whole Chicago good ol' boys group? The person can be from Chicago, but it'd be really nice if our next elected governor wasn't, you know, CORRUPT. If we keep this up, they're going to have to build a special former governors wing in the state prison.

So yeah, let's try to do better next time.

Love,
Me

I think I mentioned that I had found a listing for a legal secretary position with Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance Foundation. It was posted on Friday and the mail had already come and gone by the time I saw it and had my cover letter and resume ready. Then I realized I was out of business size envelopes. So I ended up not getting it sent out on Saturday. Then MLK Day was on Monday, so no mail went out. On Tuesday our mail carrier didn't arrive until after 5pm. So it didn't actually make transit to its destination until Wednesday.

I called today just to check on the status of the position and check on my resume. The lady asked when I sent my resume, and I said Tuesday (even though I know it didn't actually get on its way until Wednesday). She said that she thought Tuesday was the day they received 21 resumes and that they haven't started interviewing yet. I hope that the 21 they got on Tuesday was the majority of what they will get. Anymore competition and my hope for this job will start dwindling.

If they got 21 on Tuesday and mine certainly wasn't among them, then I can only imagine how many more they'll have. I hope I at least get an interview. I'll just keep hoping that the majority of those 21 resumes are from people who are sorely under-qualified and have less experience than me.

In other news I gave Katie her birthday present this morning. I got her an original NES game system with 2 controllers, 2 zapper guns, Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt, Super Mario 2, Super Mario 3, Dr. Mario, and Ice Climber. She was so very excited. Unfortunately the pin connectors on the inside were bent and have to be replaced. So we'll be getting a new 72 pin connector, probably off of eBay, and then hopefully that will fix the problem and we can get a little old school. :o)