I can finally take a breather. I just handed in Exam #1 of this stats class. Only 1 more week and an exam and hopefully I wont' have to deal with another Hyposthesis Test or an ANOVA for a while.

Other than that I'm just been pretty boring. Working early trying to stay healthy and sane the usual.

Then again there's always the Feb 14 conundrum....

I've noticed that pretty much every day that I"m here it is 90% of the same group of people here everyday. Given I work in the Poker Room and it is a bit differentl than the regular casino floor. Where people just dump their money. Poker is more of a grind.

There are these guys playing the "Big Game" that were here last evening are are still here playing the same game. Given these guys have $8,000-$12,000 in front of them at the moment but still there is more to life than a big poker game.

I went over to Fallsview last night with my Dad to use up all of this remaining comp dollars for the month playing slots. I ended up just blowing $60 or the equilevant of the meal myself. I just find that place too sterile "vegas stripish" If I want to go to Mandalay Bay I'll go to Vegas and hit the real thing.

The highlight on the night was talking to M* a cocktail waitress over there that used to come into our poker room. From what she told me she is staying away until the next Ladies Only tournament in 2 weeks. I'm just blown away to hear that a cocktail waitress has taken too much of a hit from a casino that she has to totally bar herself from coming. We know better from watching degenerates "blow their brains out" on a daily basis to get sucked into it.

Then what do I know, I was just stoked to be talking to someone like her and have her actually wanting to converse back. Then reality hit as she was being pulled 3 or 4 different directions of people needing drinks.

It's strange to actually be part of this casino "scene" and have that casual commardary going on with the people across the ditch. They come to our place and we go over to theirs since we can't gamble at the place that we get our W-2's from.

I think that this sinus cold is really putting me to the test. It has been since Monday and only now it is starting to subside. Feeilng stupid due your head being congested is just a helpess sensation.

In the mean time I have to grab some lunch and head back for the second half of my Saturday class.

Then I'm off to Canada tonight for dinner @ my Uncle's place.

Other than that nothing too exciting. It's just that the women in my life right now have are not having the best luck at things lately...

SO I was just watching the SOTU and I get a text, "Are you up?" Now I had taken a nap earlier toay since I started to come down with a cold earlier today at work. Then right after FW finished his speech I get a phone call from my friend T*. She's crying and tells me that her cousin that just been shipped over to Iraq about a week ago was shot dead. Apparently he was a translater and when we left a crowd of people after asking a few questions he was shot in the back as he turned away to leave.

The irony of me getting that call right after the end of the speech just is scary.

I hate being able to know how she is feeling right now. Since he was 24 they basically grew up together. There is nothing worse that realizing that your family has been mutilated by the actions of some piece of shit.

On another note the Democratic Response by Jim Webb D-Virginia was most likely the best counter speech that I have seen in a very long time. The brilliance of bringing out a military guy that obviously isn't a socialist wacko, was a great move. He is the poster child of the whole recapture of congress.

I watched MSNBC for the post part and feel great that Keith Olberman has finally eclipsed his best work from back in the day on Sportscenter.

With the return of winter I'm a bit jealous of my parents being down in Florida while I'm stuck up here working and going to school. My parents have more of a life than I do. I work a miserable job surrounded by degenerates of all kinds fellow employees and patrons. They are in Florida Dad on business/pleasure and Mom on a mental health sebatical.

I just wish I had those years back in which I was a bum and went down there all the time. The winter of 00/01 was the best I spent about 2 months down there spread out from December to April basically every college break and long weekend I could get. I suppose it was (e:imk2) and her desire for 8 weeks vacation that triggered the nostolgia.

I guess if I had the rescourses and had a job where I could get away without needing the paid time off I would live that kind of lilfestyle once again. Now I think it woudl entail heading out west every month or so instead of Florida. I just don't have any desire to go down there anymore except to enjoy the sunshine.

What reminded me of the area where my Mom is was the show "Underage and Engaged" last night on MTV. I think the young couple was from along the gulf coast since the bride's brother was late coming in from Sarasota. It was another one of thsoe "trainwreck" MTV reality shows but again I just felt compelled to watch it. i'm going to stick with the Florida thing as being the "hook."

Basically the best line from the show was the brides brother who is in the military mind you and said to her, "When I tell people that my sister is getting married no one says congradulations; they look at me in shock and say WHY she's so young!"

But although it did make me feel a bit old at the same time when you're a married couple and you live in a shed located in your parents back yard, you have nothing on me. Shit at least I had an apartment back in my married time frame of my life, it sucked but it was still better than being married AND living at home.

That chick had to be chasing some kind of father figure since it was her brother and not her estranged Dad that walked her down the isle.

There are just a few things floating through my mind right now.

What desktop system to get for my Dad and myself [Although it has to be a PC since it will split between us]

What kind of new phone to get?

Should I quit my job in the relative future to focus on going back to school full time and study for the CPA?

Should I get serious with someone?

Those are just a few questions that are floating through my head and have been for a considerable amount of time.

On top of the party and my class that got out early (thanks to the professor being a die hard purple eagles fan and a game going on at the same time as our class so he coudl sneak out) I ended up seeing two excellent movies.

The first one was Children of Men. It was scary in the sense that it was pretty much a commentary of current events. It had quite a bit of symbolism and subtle ideas going for it. What I really enjoyed was the sense that I'm pretty sure it appeared that it was shot entirely in the U.K. It reminded me on the movie Nineteen Eighty-Four in some aspects. It is just great to see a movie that is pretty much British or at least plays it self as such. The Prestige came pretty close, but then again it just may be that Sir Michael Caine is in every movie that I have seen in the past 6 months.

Last night I ended up seeing Running with Scissors with T* was Running with Scissors. I have to give her credit for point us to check it out at that scary movie theater behind Wal-Mart on Walden on the grounds of the former Thruway Mall. For $10 2 movie admissions 2 small popcorn and 2 diet pepsi's you just can't beat the price. I haven't seen Borat yet but when it does show up there I'm going back for sure. Even with the Gas I'll still be ahead.

I just loved it. Then again I am a sucker for the 1970's and find the the fashion, decor and the drug use fascinating. For some reason I just kept on thinking The Royal Tenenbaums but again I think Gwyneth Paltrow may have done that in shifting my perception of association. For some reason I think she has reached the point in her career where she just can't full off being the daughter/child now in her career. She just looked a bit too old and unbelievable, it's time to play the Mom not a Daughter. Although Evan Rachel Wood was just amazing, OMG! Then again I think I may have a soft spot for women from North Carolina.

You know it's a great movie when you have people walking out in the first half hour. It is eirther they are offended or just don't get it.

I was just looking over on LJ when I came across a journal that I haven't read in over a year. This author was once on my friends list a long while back and took her self off for whatever reason. To be honest I'm not quite sure but from my guess it must seem weird to have a single guy on your friends list when you're with a guy for over 1.5 years and all of the rainbows and puppies are floating around your head. I guess at some level I was jealous and wished my life was so young and innocent, ect.

Well I cam across her blog today. Basically it stated on a early Jan entry that 2006 was a miserable year, she got engagged and it fell apart and her life was karmically bad last year.

For some reason I got some satisfaction out of reading about her troubles. Then I realized that I don't know anyone who is happy that gets joy out of someone elses misery.

Yea, I felt like a total asshole.

In the grand scheme of things I donb't think it would have mattered much, except for the fact that she was one of the first journals I stumbled across on LJ about 4 years ago.

It's insane how you can measure someone's life from their blog if they keep it up consistently.

I have come to terms with my bad initial reaction and now have some empathy...

But Damn, Where did that nasty inital reaction come from?

I hope I'm not really an asshat deep down inside :-/

It was a interesting game last night. I ended up going with my Allentown friend last night and had a descent time. The Leafs pulled out a moral victory over a tired Sabres team that just hit E on the gas tank. All I can say is I love the seats that I do get get from time to time. There's nothing like people watching in the 200 level and watching the Lexus Shootout live.

So after droping off my friend and stopping by spot to grab a decaf tea for the ride home I find myself awake at 4am this morning. I had a really bad nightmare.

It started out in my friend Tom's '94 Dodge Caravan and I think we had another friend of ours in the backseat. We were someplace warm and the windows were open. I noticed a car of three women about 19 or so in a Honda Civic next to us on a gravel parking strip. They were singing to the top of their lungs some really braindead pop song about love & relationships in the bubble gum drama type of way. I turned to Tom and said, "They actually take that shit seriously!" As I said that an beefy in an athletic way Italian woman cop comes out of a convience store across the street and says something along of the lines of "You boys better watch it!" We speed out of there, make a right and a left and come to a dead end street with what looked like a washed out road. We hit the brakes and skid on this white sea shell Florida beach type of roadway.

Our momentum keeps going as we skid and then teeter on the ledge of the end of this sudden dead end street. Then we fall over rear over front and fall into this small beach and then the water. As we are falling I am just thinkg, "This is what I get for not driving myself and leaving it up to someone else." Then after I brace myself for the impact I felt my head bump the ceiling. As I then feel the water rush into the van I can't find the seatbelt to get out and I just think to myself, "So this is how it ends? My parents are really going to love getting this call of their other kid dying in the passenger seat."

I obviously woke up at that moment and in a blury daze checked my email on my phone to read (e:carolinian) and his comment that he left me on my previous journal.

So all I can take from this dream is just my subconscious is telling me to take charge in some way. The falling and drowning I'll have to look up I suppose. But Yea, I pretty disturbing dream sequence I never had or remember a falling and drowning dream before.

I was bored today @ work and I was basically trolling around the Buffalo CL and came across this What really hit home was

[box]4) Most people there, have been there, for a very, very long time, and yet, they are afraid of "commitments". When it comes to people on Match.com, the ones who are there for what seems like an eternity, there is reasoning you need to be aware of. First of all, there are far too many people on the site who simply do not have the TIME to devote to serious dating or serious relationships. They know this, and yet, they continue to troll around on Match, having the occasional interaction that usually leads no where. For them, this is the 'best' they can do as far as 'dating' goes. For them, it's not the same as being 'single', and, it's all an illusion they are very comfortable being a part of. Next we have the ones who are never happy with anyone. These people will talk to and make dates with several people at one time. They will keep a 'line up' of potential mates going at all times, so that they are forever 'upgrading' and keeping themselves in the 'life is too short to settle' scenario. Sadly, what happens with all these people, is none of their dates pan out, and they wind up being on the site longer than any other people. Some of them are probably eligible for free lifetime memberships.[/box]

Basically I was thinking that sometime soon I just should settle down and take a "full court press" in getting myself married, again. The last time I got into this mindset I found myself in a bit of trouble. Well actually it wasn't too bad until the skeletons started flying out of her ass.

Seriously, I'm starting to realize that I just don't want to be some single zombie walking through life messing with someone here and there when it is convient for me. There are two imprints that are fueling this round of me thinking to myself, "Maybe Eharmony is a good idea kind of logic." The first being that I am currently surrounded by 3 pregnant women at work, 19, 24 and 30 all of them on their 2 or 3rd kid. Then there is this 31 year old that has been after me ever since her "boyfriend" loose term there was fired about 7 months ago. Now she is a nice person but in terms of life made me realize that I'm really not all that inadequate. Yes, there are many things that am not even close to being on par with most societal norms and expectations, but I'm not pathetic. Although I did get a jabbing from my shift manager today about: being younger, married, making more money, owning 3 houses, having 2 kids, ect... Although I am pretty sure he was setting me up in getting me to buy his 2nd house on Grand Island.

The kicker today was when I stopped by the Orange Cat I overhead a conversation these two guys were having about relationships. The short of it was they were discussing if it was prudent for this guy to continue in a relationship with a woman 10 years older than him [she's 45, he's 35] if he wanted a shot at having kids. The older guys basically told the younger guy to just take the person at face value and ignore everything else. To me that's a tough one. Everyone has some kind of criteria and basic standards. Although it seems that every guy in every part of the country wants that skinny 20 year old, no matter what he looks like or is as a person, women have their own hangups in their own ways. The lifetime members to match.com are equally split down both genders, there is no right or wrong.

My own personal question is: What is in my head that has kept me single for a whiile now?

With the team's sucess I haven't been able to get as many tickets as I have in the past. So when I end up going to the game against my native Toronto Maple Leafs on Thursday it may be the only game that I end up attending. So with that in mind the other ticket that I possess became quite a stressful problem. So in regards to my nature of being someone who thinks way too much I ended up doing something that probaly should not have done.

So I ended up posting a CL ad to see if there were any takers for a guy with a extra 200 level ticket. Well the responses I got freaked me out. I consider myself about above average in regards to attractiveness but I was shocked to see what kind of pepple resonded and what they had in mind for me. Talk about leverage and parlaying material things into an interesting date. It made me think of that Good Charlotte lyric, "Girls don't like boys, girls like cars and money..."

Damn

I am taking a friend of mine that I owe a favor/makeup event for having to bail on her back in October during that snow hurricane.

Now my only problem is not getting too depressed as Toronto gets beat for the upteenth time @ HSBC ;-/