But I digress

Dream Blog: Day 46

2006-10-01T14:29:00.000-04:00

***
I am at some sort of video game presentation with a lot of people in a room. The people in charge give me the controller and let me play a game I've never played before so I'm really bad on it. Two teenage asshole types start making fun of how I suck and I get into a little tiff with them. Later I walk into my house or apartment or whatever and realize that one of the guys is my roommate. It's awkward for us but we make up. His girlfriend's in my bed so I start tickling her.
***

Dream Blog: Day 43

2006-09-29T16:36:00.000-04:00

I think this is my second dream where I'm at the intersection of Ben Franklin Parkway and 16th street in Center City Philadelphia. I'll have to look into this.

***
Me and a few people were at some gameshow taking place in a big warehouse at night. It's sort of like a dating show with girls and guys. The winner of each round goes and sits in a jacuzzi. The first winner was this blonde guy who looked like Abram from Road Rules or Nick Carter, and I hated him. When the next guy went into the hot tub, the Abram looking guy started splashing and jumping on the other guy, being really immature.

Some cops came in to bust it all up, as if it were illegal, and they started gassing the place. A hole opened up in the wall and we made a run for it, except I was naked as I ran out. I covered up my shlong with one hand and my butt crack with the other, although as I was running I thought to myself whether it was really worthwhile to cover up my butt crack. So we're running through the streets of Philadelphia and I suggest either in my head or out loud that we go to Breigh Court, this development that my company in real life owns, although the place in the dream was just a rowhouse. We were all waiting at an intersection, I believe the one at Ben Franklin Parkway and 16th Street, I look to the right to take account of who's with us. Maged, Anthony, and I think Matt Behen and Artie Lange are there. I consider leaving some of them behind to make my escape faster.
***

Dream Blog: Day 41

2006-09-27T19:03:00.000-04:00

I've been seeing a lot of dream signs lately, including small hands, flying, corpses, etc. I guess my head is trying to throw me a bone and wait for me to recognize what's going on and "wake up" in the dream. I'll make a strong effort tonight remember to recognize dream signs.

***
Lance Armstrong is with us but he’s supposed to be some kind of politician. He comes with a big group of us and we go to dinner. I see him at a table with a girl and he’s a giant mouse, which I don’t think is strange. We go to another room in the restaurant and as we sit down, we see an upside down bloody head stuck to the wall, apparently there was some sort of murder the night before. I suspect Lance did it. I see a flashback of someone using a wood staff to kill the person. Later, Lance starts hooking up with the teacher or some other woman and the killer comes into the room and sticks the stick through his throat. I guess he wasn’t the killer.

Big concert for school with a lot of celebrities.

I’m flying with some regular orange helium balloons over this beautiful tree filled area, it reminds me of upstate NY. I get to a big lake and on the other side is like a big reservoir type thing, a concrete park area kind of like a big concrete cliff with lots of people hannging out. Gillian is down at the bottom and off to the side by herself doing work or something. I fly up to the top and walk around, talk to people. I get more balloons to fly back and get wet fom this sprinkler near a young boxer who looks like the devil from last night's Nip/Tuck episode. I grab one balloon and start flying back, but Marilyn from work calls something out to me (she’s at the bottom in a picnic type area with some friends) and I grab another balloon to fly back over the lake to where Gillian is.
***

Dream Blog: Day 40

2006-09-26T20:38:00.000-04:00

***
Gillian is painting a picture, it's really good and colorful, like an Egyptian sky at sundown. Very vibrant colors with 3 different sky color separated by clouds. I make her mad by starting out saying something stupid kidding around and she gives me attitude the rest of the time. Dave and Shannon are there. Later she tries to kiss me but I don’t want to.
***

Dream Blog: Day 35

2006-09-21T07:04:00.000-04:00

***
A group of us are on a barge type thing and we’re traveling on a bay, it’s almost like Survivor where you try to get goods at the end.

I’m in a hotel/airport/conference center, I go upstairs to a different floor bathroom and I pass by Dr. Scot. I think, wait he knows about this floor? Then I realize that I’m actually on the ground floor. I look around through giant windows and see different planes, lots of young people in a big lounge, some are smoking. As you go to board a plane, you take a raft down a little passage of water, almost like those Jetson conveyer belts. There’s a group of guys though that are like hijacking people, they have guns.

I compare my hand to Steve Thompson (from high school). He mentions how he has big fingers, and when I look at my hand alone it looks normal but against his my fingers look like baby hands. I keep comparing, and Gillian comes over to look. Steve leaves, I feel like Gillian is embarrassed by my body and I put on a black shirt.
***

Dream Blog: Day 34

2006-09-20T21:49:00.000-04:00

Wow, 34 days is a long time. Here's to the lucid coming soon:

***
On a vacation with the family and Gilly. I'm in the back bathroom, it's like at Grandma’s Kinneybrook house. Gilly is showering behind Mike and I get mad at them. She’s like ‘What? It’s ok’ and I’m like yeah right you guys are definitely looking at each other and they sneak peaks. I leave, it’s really cloudy outside. I decide to walk to a different beach on my own, I see a no door jeep coming with the parents and Mike, they’re gonna go left so I go right but they follow me. I go up a road that’s surrounded on all sides by corn, as they come up I jump into the corn. Mike tries to follow me but I jump out and surprise them in a laughing way.
***

Dream Blog: Day 30

2006-09-16T10:15:00.000-04:00

***
Difference between two hang gliders, one computer controlled and one person controlled. Or one is the new model. Some sort of attack is happening on the planet, the whole world seems more fantastic. There are big open fields, volcanoes. We gather for a meting to try to figure out what to do now.

At a hotel/pool with three girls, possibly Gilly, her sister, and one of their friends. They talk about their one friend who is a crack head, single mom, and drives a nice car.
***

Dream Blog: Day 29

2006-09-15T07:14:00.000-04:00

***
I'm in my room, different room though, possible at the Oxford Ave house. A small black bird flies in a hole in the wall/window. I try to get it out. I drive around Oxford Circle afterwards, don't really remember what happens here.

I crash/land on an island in one of those small planes, I guess with Dave. We're trying to get to the endzone, it's like a video game. Sort of a cross between Final Fantasy and Madden, Dave's on offense I'm on defense, and our players look mystical, a lot of them like V from V for Vendetta. Instead of being on the island now we're playing the game on a TV. I beat Dave on several plays and I'm very confident I'll beat him on the last play, I use the Fox Blitz play but Dave wins. I get confused and I watch the replay to see what happened. Turns out my players that were blitzing got hit by Dave's players and ran out of hit points and died. I told him that it wasn't fair, that I should have won if I would have took the time to heal my players and he disagreed with me.
***

Dream Blog: Day 28

2006-09-14T08:13:00.000-04:00

***
Sitting around a table with Gillian and two girls, one looks like Monica from a past job of mine and she's reading a Hebrew book for school with all these symbols all over it. She asks if Gillian was raised Democrat to which she says yes. I said no, her parents were conservative but socially liberal, to which I later changed my mind. I started making fun of the girl by saying liberal terms like ‘consumer rights.’

Same dream, filming a movie where Don Vito gets blown up. It’s ghetto effects but on purpose. James is in it too and Mike takes his polo shirt.
***
(real life) 6:30 rolls around, I'm awake before the alarm goes off. I try to hit alarm before it goes off every time it's about to ring this morning.

Dream Blog: Day 23

2006-09-09T09:24:00.000-04:00

***
I'm at some snow mountain, my parents are leaving in their van but I'm staying and someone's staying with me. There's a party at a lodge type thing and we're out on a dock, but we come in and Cristin my cousin (maybe) is the bartender and she's not having success. We do something to start getting people excited and more people start buying drinks and having fun.

Me and Jay Z at a schoolfunction/making a music video. Someone says "Oh they're so competitive" and the whole time we follow each other back and forth to the gym walls playing a tag type game where we the person behind waits a while then tags the guy in front, then he runs back to the other wall while the tagged guy tries to tag him. After a while we start wrestling around (he’s now a white guy with semi long blond hair) and I get him in a leg lock and grab his ankle and tell him he's going to have to give up but he says something like "now what are you gonna do?" and he’s right because I can’t remember any submission moves. Someone in my family comes in with Alyssa and I try to go do some more of my responsibilities at this school function but she's hanging on me and i have to get her off of me cause my pants are starting to fall down.

Dream Blog: Day 22

2006-09-08T07:37:00.000-04:00

***
We’re at a party and a skinny tall white guy (who looks like this nerdy guy I used to work with at the library) really likes this girl but she’s not interested. Gillian ends up hooking up with her I think, or someone else cause she gets really drunk. She’s apologetic sometime later. I tell her to be fair I’ll hook up with the same girl or someone else and she doesn’t want me to. They nerd guy wants to keep me away from the girl.

Winter, at a twin house (half is mine) and I’m with someone else. I go to the other side to talk to an old lady (Mrs. B?) and she gets out of her house and she has two dogs (Laura and Newman - Gilly's dogs). I pet them an talk to her.

New dream (don't remember any of this and some "words" I typed were incomprenhensible so I added letters/substituted as best I could): We go to an amusement park type thing where you have to buy an extra pass to go to the water park. Gilly regrets not getting it, cause wee could go in but not in the water. Mike points out some "doctor trees" and Gilly’s amazed. They’re pine trees that grow super tall and they need to b e trimmed down. I don’t like the guy who runs this (younger guy) and I give him attitude.
***

Dream Blog: Day 21

2006-09-07T07:56:00.000-04:00

So this whole lucid dream thing does in fact take a while! I was hoping to get it right out of the gate, but I need to spend more time reviewing my dreams so my brain learns to recognize typical dream scenarios. Here's the latest from last night:

***
I'm playing Madden, or something like Madden and I keep waking up in real life. Each time I wake up I try to become a different position, and "exploit my early wakeup and try to get the attention of the ne baby." (I don't know what that means, but it's what I typed. "ne baby" could be one baby, new baby, etc. I do remember when I was typing this morning I was thinking to myself wait no this isn't realy Madden, it's something else why am I calling it Madden.)

I’m at an obstacle course that’s fun that I’ve done before. It’s supposed to be a series of challenges likes Survivor. (vaguely remember this)

Me and someone else jump off a bridge at night to escape somewhere. We go to swim away, but the water is shallow and stoney, it's like crawling on mud. We go in opposite directios and there are people looking for us from the bridge, flashing flashlights down toward us. It’s dark and they can't see us so we swim off in opposite directions.
***

Dream Blog: Day 18

2006-09-04T08:23:00.000-04:00

***
I'm in high school but the campus is all spread out like a college campus and we have to walk all together to the next class. We walk down Philmont to the intersection with Bustleton.

I'm in the Sea Duck from Tail Spin the cartoon, and it's under control of some villian. After a while of being under capture I ask if we can go get a first mate, to which the villain agrees although I'm really going to get my mom cause she can save us. I leave the plane and somehow get to my mom, who is like Jean Grey and she has some powers. I give her some explosives to help her in case the villain takes her powers away. I also give some explosives to a little girl who I'm going to take on the plane too.
***

Dream Blog: Day 17

2006-09-03T08:46:00.000-04:00

***
Traveling over hills and mountains with a camera trying to get a good shot of the ocean. On the way I see some Arab towers that would make for good pictures so I try to get all the way up to the cliff for a good shot. When I get over the last hill, I see a huge valley of all these golden Arab looking buildings all packed together. The houses might have even been just small statues since as I got close they looked small, but the whole scene looked really cool and impressive. There were a few guys in turbans with their mouths covered with cloth from this community near there and I was nervous about them. One came over and called his friend over and they wanted to see my camera. I tried to avoid it and the one shady guy jokingly said ohh we're not going to take it. I also remember taking a handful of sand and they were like gold pebbles.

I'm at upstairs at a coffee shop and I take some pictures to the downstairs because I like the way the place looks.

I take Kashka outside to go check out some animals. There are different kinds of geese and chipmunks that I want her to look at but not chase. I hold her close and tight to my chest so she can't escape. I also see a big turtle coming out of some swamp type spot and go over towards that, but then I see there's a hippo or rhino close by so I start to turn left because I get worried that the hippo might start running at me and then I might drop Kashka. The hippo starts getting aggressive and messing with the turtle, flipping him over onto his back. I get worried about him and consider going back to flip him back over but then the turtle flips over on his own. I walk back to my house and into the kitchen.

I'm in the downstairs of my house but it's compltely different, almost set up like Grandma Sands' house. I go down to the basement to my bedroom and all the walls throughout the house are painted white with primer. I see a ladybug on the floor and I pick it up and make a wish, blow it outside. I think about how I don't have to put it in my mouth and blow it, I just have to put it on my hand and blow. I look at the windows and think how they're crappy and wonder why we didn't replace them along with all the other windows. I figure they're in the basement so it doesn't matter too much, I'll just clean them and paint them.

Upstairs with Dave, Michael, Tara, and a few other girls. The walls are primed and there is writing here and there in black permanent marker on the walls. The words are small and sloppy. We're talking about me trying to get the universe to do what you want and how that works out. Dave says "For a smart logical guy, he can be really stupid." Everyone laughs and starts talking at the same time. I try to explain myself, talk about how I think things can work and talk about the butterfly but everyone keeps talking loudly and I can't defend myself. I get really frustrated.

Little Michael (I think, could be another cousin) is there now but he's a long white/gold goat. His face is sometimes Little Michael's and sometimes a goat's (he may have two heads). He lives up in the 3rd floor attic room and his transformation was gradual. I joke about how his body is twelve feet long but his legs are only a foot and a half long. He says he's still interested in girls and jokingly jumps up on one to the right of me.
***

Dream Blog: Day 16

2006-09-02T16:11:00.000-04:00

Sleeping in TR, but ended up having a very in depth cool dream. After I woke up I wanted to go back to it but I was too awake. Eventually I fell back asleep and dreamed about something else. Here we go:

***
I'm at some sort of hotel/resort, in a room with some guy. I go down to Travis and his girlfriend's room but I'm waiting for the guy from upstairs to leave the room because I want to do something or get something out of there. I go in the elevators and stairs, all this tricky stuff so he doesn't see me. I also somewhat remember going on some wagon ride somewhere and possibly in a pool.

Gilly and I are on a boardwalk fighting, and we're in water at some points. She tries to avoid the fight and just go play a game but I didn't want to so I walked away. We walk together somewhere else in the fair when we see two dead bodies lying on the boardwalk with the boards broken underneath them (apparently they fell from high). One had blood on his head, the other was bleeding out of his eye. Their eyes were open and I remember pondering their blood and thinking how it was the first time I saw a dead body that wasn't at a wake.

Someone in the background was shouting and explaining how the bodies fell out of a plane or something. I looked up and there was a guy with wings flying pretty high above us and he dropped another person. The person looked Italian like Ron Jeremy/my old uncle Vinnie and he bounced off grass and under a chain link fence. He wasn't dead but he hit his head and his arm looked all broken and twisted.

The winged guy continued flying around, picking people up and dropping them. We ran to a spot with picnic tables, watching. We had to dodge bodies sometimes as they fell. There were two cops there, one was a young guy with black hair that was buzzed on the sides and short on top; the other cop was John McQ from my networking group. The cops looked worried but weren't doing much to stop this guy.

The winged guy suddenly swooped down close to us. He was wearing a regular t-shirt and pants, had a fat belly, a moustache, and was sort of bald. The wings might have been some sort of contraption or detachable, although they were white and looked real. I think he tried to swoop me up after yelling at him but instead he just grabbed a bunch of pizza and other food and flew straight up. He started gobbling it up quickly and flew towards Gilly, I thought he was going to puke it up on her like a mama bird style. Instead he grabbed her and tried to fly up, but I jumped up and wrapped my arms around her and he couldn't hold onto both of us so he dropped us. I think I jumped up and started wrestling with him in the air but I got tossed to the ground near the cops.

I yelled to the young cop 'shoot him shoot him!' and he said that he couldn't. I ran to John McQ and grabbed his gun, started to fire at the winged man while his back was turned toward me but the gun had no bullets. John said it wasn't loaded. I got mad that these cops carried unloaded gun, then woke up.

In my dream later, I'm at a bar in a pool and I go to another room to go get Maged. There are columns and statues inside, it's dark and the walls are maroon I think. We go to the main room with a pool, and it's just like a regular swimming area at gym except everyone in the pool is naked and one girl is walking on her hands doing weird acrobatic stuff. Gilly's in the pool by me, and I see a B-list celebrity who is the host/guy in charge or whatever, but he's annoyed that he has to be there.
***

Dream Blog: Catchup

2006-08-31T07:55:00.000-04:00

I haven't been writing consistently because I haven't really remembered any dreams. This week I've been out of my element, either because I've gone to bed really late and got little sleep, got up early, slept in places other than my bed, etc. But here are some drips and drabs:

***
August 28, 2006

Went on a yacht with this rich guy. Group of two other people, one was telling us about him. He may have been an older version of Justin. The guy was semi obnoxious, showing off all his stuff.

Driving to my house at night (in a rural area) and there are cops driving around looking for people.

Watching tv in a movie theatre, but it’s at work. I decide to tivo what I’m watching.

August 31, 2006

I’m in Philly, looking for a barber shop. I want an old fashioned one with a Man Show fat guy from the 50’s picture on it. I wind all up all over the place and end up at the intersection by Ben Franklin Parkway & 16th St, and I have to stop with an old lady because some cops are nearby and we don’t want to jaywalk.

Later, a neighbor’s black dog is growling at me from behind a fence, but maybe it’s mine. I feel/sound like/am Howard Stern and I'm talking about it and how I was mad at Beth for not training the dog to just attack or be outside at night instead of just the winter.

I was on my way to an old house to put an offer in on it, and I call the owner from the house aross the street on their porch. I pick up a piece of wood, a 2x4, while doing this. I think we can’t work out a price.

A dog at the house that's barking slips out from an opening in the fence and we fight for a bit.

I’m at Maged’s house with Gillian, we go to his room and start to bang, in order to get back at him for something. I try to put some semen on his lock, Gilly asks if we can keep going and we do although I’m pretty much spent.

Cait's going back to Penn State, after we go somewhere they are in a hot tub (this is all on camera, and she, Dana, Gilly, and Rodney are naked in a hot tub although you can't see anything because they're underwater from the chest down. I’m watching this with Mike and Gilly and Cait. Cait says this is basically porn cause you can see half of her nip.
***

Dream Blog: Day 8

2006-08-25T10:15:00.000-04:00

I'm in a bit of a dream slump it seems. I can only remember a tiny bit of one, where I walk upstairs into a restaurant, and I think my friend Shawn is at the host stand. He brings me over to a table in the middle of the room and there are many people around. I don't remember who they are or what else happened, but I believe it was lively.

This is the third dream since that start of this dream blog that have involved restaurants/tables in the middle of the room. The first was from the first day when I pushed John Locke in a wheelchair to an empty table, the second was when those people were chasing me around that room full of tables and the maitre d' threw 'Ask and it is Given' at me, and now this. I just googled "dream symbols - table" and this is what came up: Delaying an idea or decision, tabling it. Hmmmmmm.

Let's work with that for a sec. I do have feelings of procrastination, particularly in regards to my budding real estate career. Let's take the analysis a step forward now. In my dream with all the tables and the waiter chasing me, he was chucking the book at me so he probably wanted me to read it. I wish I would have stopped running, picked it up, and asked him about it. So maybe I should finish that book and follow its advice. Also in my dream where we quit work and ran away, I ran down a narrow curvy bridge over an ocean and it scared me. So maybe all this is criticizing me not taking enough action or something.

I just checked another site and this is what came up: The table stands for your responsibilities and obligations at work. Looking at an empty table is a signal that you need to take care of your family and house. Holy crap!

Hopefully I'll be able to sleep long hours this weekend so I can get to the bottom of some of these dreams, and hopefully get some hot lucidity action while I'm at it.

Dream Blog: Day 7

2006-08-24T14:34:00.000-04:00

What better way to celebrate my one week anniversary of attempting to lucid dream than to not remember any dreams at all? To be fair, I went to bed very late, some time between 1:30 and 2 and then got up at 6:30 so the hot dream time never happened. But still, I would have liked to have had the tiniest recollection. I did wake up in the middle of the night and sort of remember something happening, but the only thing I could recall was the word 'earthquake.' I didn't remember seeing any earthquake or anything, just the word earthquake.

I'll try to get some earlier sleep tonight to get some quality dream time. Hope there's lots to report!

Dream Blog: Day 6

2006-08-23T10:58:00.000-04:00

Last night I had another challenge: unfamiliar environment. The gf just got a new apartment and so it was the first night either of us slept there. Some differences between this sleeping environment and my normal one is no wall against the bed (which I find comforting), not being in control of the lamp and alarm clock, and not having my laptop to quickly type up the stories from my dreams. This last part was a problem, since this is the product from the first time I woke up last night scribbled on a piece of paper:

Rescue Rangers
Rescue
Olde[sic] lady having
heart attack

Awesome. I don't remember any of this. I tried out the MILD technique (Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams) from my new book after this. The MILD technique you use after you already had a dream, and you tell yourself 'ok I just dreamed...but next time I dream, I'm going to remember to remember I'm dreaming.' Similar to how you tell yourself 'next time I'm in the super market I need to remember to get tissues.' You're supposed to repeat this to yourself and make sure that it's the last thought on your mind as you fall back asleep.

Also you should recall your previous dream and envision yourself recognizing one of the dream signs and becoming lucid. You sort of play a 'what if' from your last dream. Like what if I recognized that Chip and Dale don't typically rescue old ladies from heart attacks or whatever they were doing? If I actually remembered that dream, I could have played it back in my head but then stopped it when something crazy happened. This I guess brings your mind into a state where it's used to recognizing dream signs.

I woke up to the alarm and was disappointed to not have any more dreams. I laid down for a while and eventually got up. At some point it dawned on me that wait a minute, I did have a dream, and I do remember it! I quickly jumped back in bad and closed my eyes. According to my book, when you wake up you shouldn't get out of bed right away or think about your daily tasks. You should keep your eyes closed, remain in your sleeping position, and go through your dream from end to beginning. Then get up and write stuff down. Here's what I recalled:

***
I'm at some sort of national park, talking to a park ranger. There are other cars there and people. The ranger tells me about how he had to cross a creek in his car to get here.

Me and some people have jobs as auditors in a typical office floor. Dave is a regular and Andy appears later. New auditors were coming in and hanging in our room, one of them even lounges on Dave's bed (no it's not normal to have a bed in a break room), and we didn't want them there. We go through various tasks and then decide we're going to quit today, purposefully screwing the company. I guess Andy and Dave were with me and we come across a narrow, sharp-curving bridge. It's almost like a ramp and there is an ocean underneath. It's a scary bridge and we're running so I'm scared I can fall in. I believe we get to the end safely.

At some point we're back at a house, and Dave has a few six packs of beer for me that he left outside the house.
***
After I wrote that down, I tried to use the MILD technique with it. Now it was a race against the snooze button though. I started to have some dream about Gilly's dad in some political hearing or meeting, and he was being forced to resign because his higher-up had to resign. The alarm rang again and I was left wondering whether it was a real dream or just those weird thoughts you have as you fall asleep sometimes, I think they're called hypnagogic images, which aren't the same as dreams.

I should be done with my lucid dream book in a day or two, and it'll be closing on a week of this experiment tomorrow. Although I wish I had become lucid by now, 7 days isn't that much time really. Most of the books and guides I have been reading say it often takes weeks or months to have your first lucid dream, but for some reason I feel like I should/will have one before then.

Dream Blog: Day 5

2006-08-22T10:03:00.000-04:00

I knew last night was going to be rough. I had to go straight from work to the chiropractor then straight to help Gilly move into her new apartment. After that, I had to go home to pick up Dave to get to the video game store at 10pm to wait for Madden 07 to release at midnight. Really we just paid the remaining balance, took some pizza, brownies, and Hi-C and went home, coming back at 11:30 pm and had the pleasure of annoying high school 'Laguna Beachites' blabbering in front of us. We finally got home around 12:30 and fooled around with the game for a while. I got in bed around 1:15 am and had to get up for a 7 am meeting the next day, so I estimated I'd get about 5 hours sleep. Turns out I couldn't fall asleep at all, and neither could Gilly. I woke up and didn't remember any dreams, very disappointing.

I've learned from my research that as the night goes on, your dreams become longer and easier to remember. So after 5 1/2 to 6 hours you get into the really good stuff. Me going on 3-4 hours sleep isn't conducive to this experiment. There was an incident though: At one point in the night Gilly was getting out of bed to go downstairs to see if she could fall asleep down there. She was leaning forward to exit the foot of the bed and I grabbed her foot and said "Where are you going?? Your back is red." I sort of remember seeing this too.

Gilly: What?
Me: It's red, red spots on your back. It's like a character from Madden, that I'm controlling with my controller.
G: Are you sleeping or awake?
Me: I'm awake now.
G: Does that make any sense?
Me: No.
G: Do a reality check {i've versed her in the lingo}. Check the clock.
Me: {looked at clock}
G: Ok now look again.
Me: {stayed still}

I didn't tell her, but I didn't feel the need to look at the clock because I had another reality check in place. Yesterday when I was at the mall I was thinking about all this reality check stuff, and everything seemed big and I thought to myself how I'd like to see some sort of sign that there was a behind the scenes type force or whatever. I was also thinking about sensations and how I felt a little distant from my feelings and how I'd like some clarity there. As I was getting into my car from the mall, somehow as I was slipping into the driver's seat the door slammed on my ear. It didn't squish between the door and the car, it either slammed against it or closed as I was sitting and I just plopped all my weight on the seat while my ear was on the other side of the door, or something. I have no idea exactly how that happened but it KILLED, I'm takling serious pain and still hurts right now. I do not usually make such clumsy errors, and I thought maybe this was some sort of sign, or maybe just a good reality check. I decided that if I got conscious in a dream, I would squeeze my ear to check. That's what I did in bed instead of checking the time.

I got my book from Amazon yesterday also. I was a little surprised to see it is only 84 pages and very small. I guess I'll be checking the number of pages from now on when shopping on Amazon. The good thing is I'll be able to go through it quick. Maybe I'll buy Stephen LaBerge's original book too.

Dream Blog: Day 4

2006-08-21T07:53:00.000-04:00

So I was kind of bummed this morning because I only remembered one short dream. I had trouble getting to sleep last night because I slept in the morning before, and I tried to have that laptop program running but the random reality checks scared me and jolted me awake sometimes. While I was in the shower this morning though I started to remember another dream, a long one. I was glad that I actually had some stuff to work with now.

I sent Erin Pavlina an email this morning asking her if she always lucid dreams or if she has regular dreams too, to which she responded: Most of my dreams are non-lucid. When I go lucid I sometimes feel like I've been "up all night" and sometimes I just want to rest. Plus I like for my subconscious to get a shot at me. If I fight crime all night flying around and killing the bad guys then I don't always get messages from my subconscious. :)

I didn't see anything in the dreams that were blatant violations of reality checks, although there were unusual things like Shannon's son's age and being on a roller coaster subway. I need to get some reality checky type stuff in my dreams so that I hopefully notice and realize what's going on. Here's my daily summary:

I’m getting on the subway in Philly and I see this 30-ish homeless guy getting on each train, which looks more like a roller coaster that comes out of the ground and you can see the city skyline in the background. He sits next to me and tries to touch me and joke around but I give him a scowl and pull away. The guy gets offended and claims he owns all sorts of cars and stuff.

I’m at some party in a college type setting. I live in the house I think and it’s very open with hardwood floors. There aren’t that many people there, it seems like a bust. I ride a bicycle around and then I leave the house to go talk to someone or get someone. While I’m riding on the sidewalk there’s a group of big guys sitting around talking to each other and blocking the sidewalk. I quickly ride through and say ‘excuse me’ and one guy reluctantly moves and they seem pissed. After I do whatever it is I wanted to do, I come back to the house and as I get back a few girls that I recognized came in to say that some guys were mad at me. I explained the situation and the girls calmed down. The party now had more people in it and I went upstairs. This guy John from my work was there, apparently he lived there and he was changing the diaper of his baby son. We talked a little and I went back downstairs. My cousin Shannon came in with her son, who looked about 5 years old and looked just like her but with short blond hair.

Dream Blog: Day 3

2006-08-20T15:51:00.000-04:00

I'm starting to remember more dreams and also remembering the dreams for longer periods of time. I was worried last night that I might not remember any because I had been drinking and I was very congested so I thought I might not get a good night sleep. Turns out I had the best night so far. I downloaded a program where a wizard 'guides' you into sleep by giving you instructions, and then periodically during the night asks you to do some reality checks. He'll say things like 'Are you dreaming?' and 'Look at your hands, do you see anything strange?' I ended up closing up my laptop though cause it was too bright and Gilly was sleeping over so I didn't want to wake her up with a creepy robot voice in the middle of the night. I'll try it again tonight.

Although there were many opportunity for reality checks in my dreams last night, I didn't recognize them while I was dreaming. It's almost like my subconscious was throwing out these reality checks and trying to get me to bite. Here are some examples: In one dream I saw some text on a chalkboard. When I looked again, the words were different. Another dream I jumped down to another floor and floated down without any harm. In that same dream, a man I know that is black was a tall white man. In my dream with Mike Drew, I had a "false awakening" where I "woke up" in the dream and throught that it was real life. If I were more diligent with performing reality checks every time I wake up, I might be able to catch the dream during these false awakenings. I feel as though I'm making progress though be recognizing these opportunities and should be able to move onto the next step soon, which is to become conscious during the dream. Once I achieve that, then I'll move on to describing "stabilizing" the dream. Here's my journal entry from last night:

I’m at a boardwalk with Gillian. I see some girl with really short shorts on, and her frilly pink underwear is sticking out the bottom. I follow to see where she’s going, she works at a place on the boardwalk. Gilly comes back from somewhere ad I tell her about it.

I “wake up” in Mike Drew’s bed with him and another girl (false awakening). She leaves the room to do something. We’re in Pittsburg, and I ask him if he had sex with her and he sheepishly said yes. Turns out we out drinking last night and I got really wasted and didn’t remember anything. He knew her beforehand and she’s from the University of Rhode Island. His real girlfriend slept in the other room with her daughter. She still had her dreadlocks in the dream. The new girl may have been the same one from my earlier dream, but she looked different and not as pretty although I’m not sure I got a look at her face in the previous dream.

I’m at a play/concert with Gilly, Caitlin and her boyfriend. There’s a mean ticket lady at the counter and Cait says “oh that’s the nice one”. I get a call on my cell from "Pres Pick" (name changed to avoid search engine problems) and I meet up with him in the basement. He’s tall and white and obviously doesn’t look like the real life Pres. Although I notice that he looks different, I don’t realize it’s a dream. He gives me the number of this guy who’s got some hot leads. I go back up and it’s a fancy dinner. I sit down at a table and I recognize some people. Cait’s trying to call my phone but I ignore it. Strange things start to happen. I think I see Pres Pick face-down on the floor somewhere. There are knives at the table that are shaped sort of like spade or cheese-cutting knives and some angry looking guy starts to put them in a violin case, but people’s expressions turn to hateful and I can tell they are planning something bad. This one bald guy at the table pretends or tries to slit his own throat but there’s no blood. I run through the many fancy tables and it seems like people at each table are being grabbed and attacked. The maitre d' is running after me, a tall guy in a tux with longish dark sort of slicked back hair. He has the book ‘Ask and it is Given’ and he tries to throw it at me as he chases me. I jump through a large opening in the middle of the floor where you can look down onto the first floor. I land without hurting myself (float) and I run through an elevator that’s closing and make it through while someone else chasing me can’t get through in time. The maitre d' is running towards me from the other direction and I think he has the book again. I run outside the restaurant and escape. I start to figure out that maybe everyone there was trying to set up someone they knew to be killed and everyone was in on it. Then I woke up.

I’m in a ‘catch me if you can’ type scenario. Me and two other guys are on the run and in hiding, but we were in a movie. We realized we were caught when we looked at a chalkboard at the place we were staying saying something about all movies needing to do something and then only our movie was listed, so it was obvious they were trying to trick us and catch us. When I looked at it again, the text changed. That reality check didn’t sink in though. We jumped into some sewer/pool to escape. We had some contact with the detective trying to find us to mess with him.

Dream Blog: Day 2

2006-08-19T10:00:00.000-04:00

Look I'm posting a blog on a Saturday, how consistent I am. Remember, I'm looking to do this for 30 days so if anyone is reading this (big IF) then stay on me if I miss any time.

So last night I had many different dreams, and I actually remembered to sit up and type them out after most of them. Two of them I forgot to type out after they happened but later when I woke up for good I was able to remember most of them so I added them on. I'll paste my typings in a minute but first I want to talk more about how to become lucid in a dream. This is an excerpt on "reality checks" from that wikibook I linked to yesterday:

"Reality checks are a method of discerning between dreams and reality. It is extremely important to perform these. One could say they are the “keys” to lucid dreaming. It is also extremely important to make sure that you expect these to produce dream results — you accept your reality, even when it is a dream. It would be counterproductive to expect real-life results in a dream, as the outcome of a reality check can be modified by the placebo effect. It won't affect outcomes in real-life (unless you are mentally ill!), but you will probably have a higher success rate in dreams."

Here are some reality checks it lists: Breathing while holding your nose, floating after you jump, words on books/signs changing when you look at them again, your hands having different amounts of fingers or strange colors, clocks displaying nonsensical numbers or symbols, and light switches not working properly (for some reason, light switches rarely work correctly in dreams).

"Choose a few reality checks which you will do regularly. Keep doing reality checks until you are convinced that you aren't dreaming. You should always carry out more than one reality check. If you find that it is not a dream, look around you and think of what would be different if it was a dream. If you do this it will make it more likely that you will do a reality check in a dream.

Apart from doing reality checks throughout the day, you also need to do a reality check immediately after you wake up. This helps you become lucid in false awakenings, when you begin to act out the following day in a dream."

So there you go, you need to get into the habit of testing reality so that this habit will follow you into dreams. This is easier said than done because it's easy to to forget to test reality throughout the day and when you first wake up. I'm going to try it out though. Here's a summary of the dreams I wrote down from last night (notice another fantasy football reference, I clearly spend too much time on FF sites):

I’m in a library or video game store. I’m looking for a guide for Zelda and one other game. The old worker takes a long time to get it for me (not Zelda, Mario world actually) and so I just take what I got and sit down and read. There are a lot of old people. The guide is actually about fantasy football. It has a few nuggets of info on each page and them some candy. There is a dishwasher near the old Nintendo manuals that is wet and possibly broken.

On the enterprise at ten forward, this scene is like the one where data is unsure about yar’s sister. Data and riker are talking about.

New dream: girl/woman just got an ‘amazing fact’, I can’t remember what it is though. Sort of one sentence advice.

I am somewhere exploring hallways, seems like people are getting crazy. I go down into a dark basement. I think I might be in a Home Depot type store but there is some crisis.

I’m with a group sort of like my Spain group. We’re waiting in a field for our plane to arrive. For some reason I’m naked as I’m laying down but some big tall girl is covering me up. Mary Kate Salerno comes off a plane and some of her DG friends in our group greet her and I go over to greet her.

Dream Blog: Day 1

2006-08-18T09:07:00.000-04:00

Since the work nazis took away myspace and Howard Stern radio streaming yesterday, I've been forced to look for other forms of internet entertainment. I went back to Erin Pavlina's blog and started looking at her articles. Man, there was some good stuff there! I generally go to her husband Steve's blog which is about personal productivity and development, and that is where I heard his wife Erin on a podcast talking about lucid dreaming.

This is something that has fascinated me for some while and I remember taking out some library books on it maybe 7 years ago but nothing ever came of it. In case you don't know, a lucid dream is one in which you know it's a dream and you can control yourself and everything else in the dream if you want. Erin's blog has some really interesting stuff - she's a psychic and gives accounts of stuff she does and also her lucid dreaming. Her most recent blog about the dreaming describes the place she goes in her dreams called 'Naptown'. It's interesting because she didn't create it on purpose, she just kept waking up there. Also cool is that time passes in Naptown in real time, so she lives a sort of double life.

About a month ago I started a dream journal on my laptop to help me remember my dreams. That's the first step to having lucid dreams, remembering them in the first place. I stopped after a week or so though, I think I just forgot to keep up with it. But since falling in love with Erin's blog again, I made a renewed commitment. I downloaded a wikibook on lucid dreaming and ordered another book from amazon. Before I go to bed I keep my laptop at the foot of the bed and I lay down and repeat in my head that I am going to remember my dream. Eventually I fall asleep and I usually remember my dream in the morning.

I am going to report my progress and my dreams in this blog in order to have some accountability for this project. I really want to be able to lucid dream and I need some discipline so hopefully this will provide it to me. For one thing, I think it would be fun to be able to control your dreams, but also probably insightful since you get a one-on-one interaction with your subconscious. And as has been said before, it's not like you have something better to do while you're sleeping anyway.

So I'll talk about my dreams last night. I woke up this morning two or three times and sprung up, typed on my laptop what I remembered, closed it and fell back asleep. Sometimes my alarm woke me up (I abuse that snooze button), sometimes I woke up on my own.

The first dream I remember was at a fantasy football draft, and Reggie Bush got taken first overall. I'm the first pick in my draft FYI and I don't plan on taking him as my first pick. In a separate dream, I was pushing a guy around in a wheelchair for a while, he may have been John Locke from Lost. I remember thinking that he's not really paralyzed. At some point I took him to a restaurant where we saw a middle-aged woman in business attire sitting alone at a table. She winked and gestured for us to come over, but we went to a different table in the middle of the aisle. It was also empty but I believe we were waiting for other people. In a later dream I saw Jessica K in a parking lot, possibly outside of some sort of sporting event or party. We were going to the same party later so we went together, although she seemed sort of disinterested in general. The last thing I remember about it was us walking up to a house and some tall guys inside yelling out for us to come in. It too may have been some sort of fantasy draft.

I think these were separate dreams but all in the same cycle. I'll go over some other methods for remembering dreams and inciting lucid dreams in future blogs.

The Perfect Day of Work?

2006-07-13T09:06:00.000-04:00

It's rainy today. When it rains, I don't really feel like doing anything - I say "ahhh I don't wanna go to work, it's raining." On days like this I just want to lay down on my couch with a fleece blanket and watch TBS all day, while getting mad at how much they censor great movies beyond recognition. The irony is though that you should want to go to work on rainy days, since it's not sunny outside and you can't enjoy the weather so why not work.

Of course, when it's sunny out you say "ahhh I want to be outside! I don't want to work today." So when it's awesome out I don't want to go to work, and when it sucks out I don't want to go to work. That only leaves average days left. So I guess I feel like working on overcast dry days, or sunny days with a cold wind. Snow? Forget about it, that's a ticket to TBS *and* TNT all day. Maybe hope for a teen movie marathon.

The Wandering Generality vs. The Meaningful Specific

2006-07-10T12:06:00.000-04:00

As often happens when buying a book or two on Amazon.com, you get to the checkout and see that you've spent $19. Crap. If you spend $25 you get free shipping. So you go back to the search engine and try to find something somewhat cheap to put you over the $25 mark but still good enough to warrant buying. I was having a tough time figuring out what to buy sice nothing immediately came to mind, but then I thought 'hey let's give Zig Ziglar a crack'.

Zig is a motivational speaker I've heard about for some time. Many of the instructors from real estate investing courses as well as authors of other books rave about how this guy gets you moving. I wanted something general from him, so I passed on his CDs on selling and instead got his one on goal setting. I already have plenty of material on goal setting, but I really need something to motivate me to actually do it, and possibly listen on a semi regular basis to keep me in line.

The guy has a fun southern accent and seems like a warm old man you'd like to know. He's got a bunch of quaint expressions and metaphors that work for him. One of the opening things he said on the CD was "You cannot make it as a wandering generality. You must become a meaningful specific." That sorta struck me, I liked the words he used that I wasn't even sure were nouns. Can a person be a 'specific'? The sentiment makes sense though. People bob here and there, go from place to place, job to job, wandering and general. A goal person doesn't have this vagueness of purpose and lack of direction. It reminds me of a quote from Fight Club (the book, not the movie) where Tyler is motivating his followers: "All a gun does is focus an explosion in one direction." We have all this wandering time and energy that could fill a room, but it's almost useless unless you shoot it a direction.

I have my gun, and it's focused. I just need to pull the trigger.

Quitting work in 1984

2006-06-28T16:46:00.000-04:00

While I was at the copy machine, I was thinking of the impending confrontation of leaving work. Would people miss me, I wondered? You would think so at first. I'm well-liked in the office for being very non serious, playing jokes on people, have a lackadaisical approach to work in general, and for frequent discussions with people mixed in with occasional flirtations to make the day go by. Older women are not excluded. Plus I've been here for over a year and a half. For these reasons you would expect people to miss me, but I have to take the opposing viewpoint for a moment.

Also while at the copier, I thought of Janet. She was an eccentric older woman, probably around 50 or so, with butch-short bright purple hair and a rock hard body from constant working out. Smoking took a toll on her face and voice though. Very nice and personable, everyone liked her. She worked here for 27 years and got fired a few months ago. Once she was gone, it's almost as if she was never here. Someone came in and replaced her, life moved on.

Keith was my fantasy football buddy, and he quit about a month ago. The only time I ever hear his name now is when someone talks about a task he used to ("I'm doing the bank rec that Keith used to do.") No one speaks of his personality, their memories with him, etc. He doesn't work here. He never worked here.

The tone of this blog is very 1984, the masterpiece written by George Orwell about a futuristic government that controls everything in the country, even thoughts and the past. They control the books, newspapers, etc, so when they want a fact about a person changed they just rewrite all the books and destroy the old ones. The people in this world are so conditioned to accept these contradictions that they have no problem conflicting evidence. When people started to get a little suspicious or rebellious, the "thought police" would take care of them. Since they controlled the past, the only thing that existed was the present. The main character would note that "Roger didn't come into work today. He doesn't work here. He never worked here."

Similarly, what ever happened to Alicia? Bridget? Jeremy? All gone. Maleka? Never worked here. So many people just disappear one day, and management doesn't even tell anyone why or give explanations. I usually make some sort of joke indicating that the owner of the company chops them up and creates "Orleansburgers" with them.

They say that the average work friendship lasts 2 years. That seems way high to me.

Desire - Manifest

2006-06-28T15:57:00.000-04:00

Just now, while at work, I was looking over some notes for some job and I needed an answer to answer a question someone had about this particular job. I didn't particularly feel like going through the hassle of tracking down the man who had the answer, but I really needed to get an answer from him. As I sat here wondering if I should try calling this guy or not, I hear the person in the next cube over call him on his phone. I went over and grabbed the phone from him to ask my question and it was all done in 10 seconds. Thought - Desire - Manifestation. coo.

I'm re-listening to Erin Pavlina's podcast about lucid dreaming. Since taking her steps outlined in the podcast, I have been remembering dreams more and more. She says that you have 4 or 5 dreams per night, and the first step to lucid dreaming is to remember those dreams. I'm at a point where I remember one or two, and only short clips. She makes a good point, that since you are currently spending 1/3 of your life sleeping, you might as well get some use out of that time and spend it "awake".

Currently Reading: Ask and It is Given by Jerry and Esther Hicks. Apparently they are the leading experts/auhorities on the Law of Attraction, which is detailed in The Secret. On Jerry and Esther's page they have a 74 minute introduction about their whole thing but my work isn't letting me download it, so I'll have to wait to listen at home. Also I have the book to satisfy my curiosity. I'll keep this blog updated with my thoughts and experiences in regard to this topic.

I think I've made more plugs for other sites in this blog than any other.

Positive Thoughts

2006-06-27T11:35:00.000-04:00

Though I haven't blogged in a while, a lot of my past ones were rants/angry. This has a place in the world, but it would probably be a good idea to have some constructive blogs. Lately I've been reading a lot of 'feel good' stuff and it would probably be a good idea to document some of it to 1) help me collect my thoughts and 2) have a record to look back on and keep me accountable.

Mentors
Finding a mentor in business is not an easy thing to do, especially when any mentor you find would likely be a competitor. One thing I got out of Think and Grow Rich was the importance of not only having a support group around you (Master Mind group) but also to have a group of advisors, alive or dead, to look up to. These "advisors" are people you admire, research, and imitate. Some people I thought would be good to emulate were Benjamin Franklin, Bill Gates, Caesar (reaching far back), Einstein, and several others. Each person in my little group are there for a particular strength or characteristic.

Real Estate
My "Master Mind" group has been a pretty good help lately. There are five of us in the group and we have a phone conference every one or two weeks. Half the meeting we focus on one person designated to be the central person on the call. I was that person last week and I talked about my goals in real estate, becoming self-employed, and threw some ideas around with the guys. The rest of the call is around five minutes per person going over what's going on with their goals.

I need to focus on wholesale deals. Specifically I need to play the numbers game. My priority for the next month is to find vacant houses, contact the owner, and put an offer on the house. After 30 of these, one should accept. Once I get the system down, it's just a short matter of time till I go full-time.

I've also been thinking about writing a real estate book. I wouldn't do it right now cause I'd feel like a fraud since I don't have a huge real estate portfolio, but maybe a year or two down the road. This came about because I just got a new real estate course and noticed that the chapter on finding motivated sellers was about 5 pages. Almost all real estate books I have only have a few pages on finding motivated sellers but to me this is the most critical part of being successful at real estate, particularly in the beginning of your career. On Amazon I searched for "Motivated Sellers" and only two audio CDs came up, not one book. I'm amazed that no one has written a book called "How to Find Motivated Sellers". It needs to be done.

I need to create a Vision Board too and think what I actually want to spend my money on when I get it, and keep up motivation in general. I think I'll use the blog for now to mostly talk about my real estate exploits so if you haven't seen a new blog in a few days that means that something's wrong and I am probably being lazy. Do not let me get away with this.

Ideas

Don't cross me yet - there will be drama

2005-11-07T09:53:00.000-05:00

I have done some things right in my real estate ventures and also a lot of things wrong. My number one mistake has been bad estimating of how long it takes to do certain things. For one, you can't make a good estimate on how long something will take someone else (a contractor for example) to do, because they tend to dictate when they'll come over and how long it will take. Also little things take a lot of time, like sweeping, moving stuff around, etc.

I bought the new house on August 1, and didn't move in until about a week before Halloween. But I got in and the place is mostly livable. My new focus has been renting out my previous house, which I bought April 04 and still isn't done partly because a relative of mine partially did the jobs and then never came back, but also due to my own ignorance/laziness. It seems so overbearing when so much needs to be done.

So now I'm in a rush, as I was hoping to have tenants in that place and a 3rd roommate in my new place by now to help pay the bills. Well November's mortgage payments are due for both of them and I still haven't paid them yet. I can but I'll be at $zero in the bank. There has been some interest in my Philly house from potential tenants, so that may work out soon, but I am going against two of the biggest rules of renting out a property:

1) Take time to screen and get the absolute best tenant
2) Start/end the rent term during the summertime

These two are actually part of the same thing. Most people move during the summer, because it's not all shitty outside and kids don't have school, so it's a lot easier for the little ones to accept a move in between school years rather than in the middle of one. Since you have a bigger pool of potential customers, you get more people to screen and make a good choice. Myself, I am in a situation where I'm stuck renting out at a bad time in the year so I have less to choose from, coupled with the fact that I have negative cash flow eating away at me. Best situation is you have a tenant give you the required 60 days notice in the spring and you then have two months to find a tenant for the summer, all along continuing to enjoy the rent from the previous tenant. So I don't have the time to wait for the perfect tenant, and I have a crappier pool to choose from.

So here is my goal: find asians and have them sign an 8 month lease. Such a lease would end 6/30/06, prime time for new renters should the asians decide to leave, and their asian-ness would have honor demand that they pay me on time and keep things neat. I'll give frequent updates on how my racial profiling is going.

I don't like Eugene Levy

2005-09-09T11:10:00.000-04:00

This new movie "The Man" looks pretty crappy. It's Eugene Levy being his usual character and Samuel L. Jackson being his usual character. You can expect some 'black culture meets white culture' humor including the stadard car ride/radio fight scene.

You know this scene very well. The white person tries to listen to white music and the black person gets mad and changes to an R&B song. Think White Men Can't Jump, Rush Hour, and the recent Guess Who with Ashton Kutcher and Bernie Mac. The 'black meets white' plot is about as played out as the 'man has to dress like a woman and no one seems to realize it's really a guy' plot (Tootsie, Mrs. Doubtfire, Big Mama's House, Juwana Man, Sorority Boys, White Chicks).

Back to Eugene Levy. He's what I call the anti-character actor. A character actor of course is an actor who can play many different roles. Euguene Levy plays the same guy every time. He's the un-hip tries-too-hard-to-be-cool jewish guy with glasses and a suit. Maybe he played a different character once or twice, but that's definitely the exception rather than the rule.

The same can be said for Samuel L's 'badass' character, although I don't mind as much for him because he's still pretty cool. There are many others. Robert DiNero and Vin Diesel, although occassionally taking other roles are always the impossibly tough hardass. Adam Sandler was always the same character in the 90s (kinda dumb but angry/violent and tough) but he's made a push recently to try to do other roles so I'll give him credit for that. Sandra Bullock is always an annoying overly sarcastic bitch. Ben Stiller is like a younger Eugene Levy, the un-hip tries to be cool jew for the most part, but his movies are still good for the most part. Will Farrell is kinda always the same too but still funny. While I'm in that circle of friend-actors I'll have to include Vince Vaugn as always being the same.

Who else?

Babies

2005-08-25T14:37:00.000-04:00

Apparently there was some party here at work during the lunch hour for a guy from the IT department who had a baby. I was on vacation when it went on but I found a flier announcing this mini party in the lunchroom. On it said:

Come celebrate Bill's new son!
CONNOR (middle name) (last name)
6 LBS
2 1/2 OZS
18 1/2 INCHES

And then I realized that for some reason, the baby's weight and height (length?) are always required conversation material when discussing a newborn baby. Maybe it's just women who talk about that stuff. Does anyone really care if a baby weights 6 lbs 2.5 ounces versus 6 lbs. 8 ounces?

I guess it's an indicator as to whether a baby is healthy or not, but that's kinda mean cause what if the baby doesn't weigh a lot? Then when Soccer Mom B asks how much Soccer Mom A's newborn weights, SMOMA has to feel shame when she admits her babe weighs a paltry 5 lbs 5 ozs, and SMOMB invariable has a disappointed/consoling look on her face when she says 'Ohhh...'

They jumped on the bandwagon when they picked Connor as a name. Connor's one of those good names that got sorta played out or is on the verge of getting played out. Currently, Irish names are the craze and I'm not talking about Sean or Patrick. I read a whole bunch Irish newcomers like Flaherty that are next to hit. Apparently the rich start the trend, then it creeps down to the middle and lower classes after 10 years or so, and eventually the poorest of the poor purposefully (or sometimes not) mispell the name to make a new one (i.e. Micheal).

Is there no hope for new creative names? Black people have already trademarked all cool Persian names like Cyrus, Darius, etc. Bastards. I'm just gonna name kids after pagan gods and be done with it.

Gasoline and Video Games

2005-08-20T00:06:00.000-04:00

So yeah gas prices went up like 40 cents in a week. No one knows exactly why but maybe if we invade more middle eastern countries prices will eventually level off.

But I guess it's ok for gas to go up as time goes on because inflation happens, wages increase, etc etc. That's the cycle with all consumer products right? WRONG. There is one thing that is immune to the evils of inflation, and that's the video game.

Do you remember how much new video games were in the 80s? Fifty bucks. How much are they now? Fifty bucks. Sure, Sega threw in a game every once in a while that went up to $70, but that was pretty rare. It's amazing, no matter the year, no matter the technological advance of the console, video games stay at the exact same price.

According to this inflation calculator, $50 in 1986 translates to $85.65 in 2005 dollars. Video games should have increased in cost by about 70% in the past 20 or so years, but they've stayed the same.

At least we can look forward to Christmases 15 years from now where we can buy our kids $50 video games.

Back in the game

2005-08-08T13:34:00.000-04:00

The game I started over a year ago was the real estate one. Bought a house in Philly, fixed it up, now I'm ready to repeat. Exchange four green houses for a red hotel (1031 tax-free exchange actually, for my fellow accountants). I've actually been able to keep my eye on the prize and follow through, which I sometimes have a difficult time doing. But now there's work to be done.

New house I bought from a guy in foreclosure, got it for $40,000 or so under market. The place smells like dog, and needs new paint/carpet everywhere. Still the potential for a lot of equity, and the area is awesomely woodsy and suburban, which will be a nice change from ghettodelphia. But what if it costs a lot more to fix it up? Luckily I made connections with other RE investors and I can get the place fixed up relatively cheaply I think. One guy's helping me out for cheap just because I give him advice on mortgages and real estate.

Still it was scary that something may/will go wrong and I'll have to pay for stuff and I wasn't 100% sure where it would come from. Then came a magic thing - a Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC). Because of the equity in my two houses (my Philly house is worth about 40-50k more than when I bought it) I can slap a line of credit on them and have like $60-$70,000 open to borrow. That means I can fix whatever I want and pay for it later. That also means I can use that to buy new opportunities should they come along and possibly flip them...hmmm very interesting. I may be out of the rat race soon enough.

Workicide

2005-07-18T14:26:00.000-04:00

Sometimes when I'm in my boss' office and he is explaining something to me/telling me to do something, I look at his window and envision jumping right through it. Up until today I thought that I envisioned this because I thought it'd be funny to see what his reaction would be to see me randomly jump out the window. But today as he babbled on and I was envisioning away I realized that it's not just to imagine his awkwardness in such a situation but the fact is that work really does make me want to jump out a window, or at least makes me want to fantasize about it.

This especially happens when I'm in his office, being really bored, and someone else equally or more boring than my boss comes in and they start talking about something work related. I'm ignored for 10 minutes or so, I'm usually standing, and I can't help but just picturing jumping backward right through that window. I don't get hurt in these dreams, I just want OUT. Then again it could just be symbolic of tedious work life doing the killing on me. I need to get out of the rat race!!!!

Invention: Choose your own Adventure

2005-07-15T11:19:00.000-04:00

Remember those books where at a certain point in the story, you came to a crossroads and it would say "If you'd like to stab the Mexican, turn to page 23. If you leave him be but steal his tequila, turn to page 38"? Well I think it would be cool to have a cartoon version of this, but with actual controls where you can choose with your remote control somehow. It would have to be hooked into On Demand somehow maybe.

My vision is to have several different recurring characters/different stories. One day may be a super futuristic star wars type episode, and then there could be like a teenage girl comedy/drama, and another day a medieval type fantasy, etc etc. Just before the commercial break, the screen freezes and it gives you two (or more) options. Will Jen, the awkward teen, go on the date with wholesome Charlie or Jake the badass? Should our medieval adventurers storm the castle walls or sneak in as a troupe of acrobats? A new decision and possibility before every commercial break.

Here are some upsides to this. For one, there is obvious replay value. You can watch the same episode 15 times and get a different story every time. The different stories also make it interesting, rather than just having one storyline throughout the whole series. Also for fun there could be a crossover between 'worlds,' maybe the futuristic space people go back in time and have to team up with the adventurers. Or they have to go on a date with Jen or whatever.

The obvious problem would be the technology to do it. I think On Demand should have the capabilities, since you surf through guides and stuff with your remote. And it would need another name besides Choose your Own Adventure since that's taken. The aforementioned story lines are just examples, not meant to be definite or restricted to those genres etc etc. Comment now.

A moment to stereotype

2005-06-22T09:06:00.000-04:00

I've been thinking about politics lately and various political groups, and how there are pretty much two sides that stick together like rabid wolves. They will back up their respective side no matter what usually, and I find it odd because the interests of the group are usually so diverse. So I'm going to take a moment to make some stereotypes, becauses judging people is cool. I'll start with conservatives because they have the biggest ideology gaps.

The Redneck: These are the guys who still think/talk about the civil war. The most important thing to them is having guns. I don't believe they're particularly religious, nor are they really moral (note the 70% of country songs are about your cheating heart. The other 30%? Flat-bed pick up trucks of course). Characterized by low intelligence, low income, and the aforementioned gun zeal, this group votes against their economic self-interest by voting republican.

The Self-Serving Businessman: This is the corporate guy, who was socially liberal in college (and probably still is) but years of work life have dulled his sense of social responsibility and focused his politics on one issue: taxes. Conservatives typically slash taxes so the businessman is happy. He often dominates his wife and kids to have the same view. The hero of the conservative businessman is vice president Darth Cheney, seen to the right.

The Religious Right: Religious fanatics that have a stranglehold on the south, and probably the midwest which is basically the same thing. Being right is more important to this group than anything. If you don't agree with them, then you are wrong and will burn in a magical place for bad people. One of their prime activities is ostracizing others and creating conflict and hate. So what does a group that purports to follow a 1st century peaceful bearded middle eastern man have in common with Republican ideology? Only one issue really: anti-abortion. The "right to life" is the single issue the two groups have in common. You would figure that caring for the poor would be a stronger issue and thus they would side with Democrats (as they did up until the 1950s), but the religious right has somehow taken over the Republican party.

Seeing these three groups, it is no wonder that W. is president. He is a blue-blood born into a rich New England oil family, moved to Texas at a young age and became an ignorant redneck, and became 'born again' and obsessed with religion sometime after several drunk driving accidents and arrests for cocaine use. He is part hick, part fanatic, and part evil businessman. He is the ultimate conservative.

Coming soon, I'll do a similar write up on the various liberal groups, but it probably won't be as interesting.

Apples to Oranges

2005-06-01T12:09:00.000-04:00

Yes, the whole saying "it's like comparing apples to oranges!" is overused like our friends "what haaaappens in Cancun, staaaaaays in Cancun" and "I can sense when people are gay, I call it Gaydar" but I need this saying now to help make my point.

I just read another article comparing stocks to real estate, this time by Forbes. The headline reads something like "Stocks or Real Estate? Which one is a better investment??" Real estate has become the new 'chic' investment of choice. I blame Trading Spaces and its clones. My problem with such articles is that they cater to these dumb trendy people who want a simple answer as to which is better, using simple numbers. The article provides that much coveted useless simplicity.

The article claims real estate is better in the short term because housing prices rose 56% in past 5 years while the S&P 500 went down 6%. It then goes on to say "But if you take a longer view - say, 25 years - you'll find that the S&P 500 has actually stomped the real estate market, from Boston to Detroit to Dallas. From the start of 1980 to the end of 2004, home sales prices increased 247%. A pretty sweet deal, it would seem. Over the same period, however, the S&P 500 shot up more than 1,000%."

Aw, simple easy numbers. 1,000 is better than 247, so stocks are better than real estate. Look at that orchard of apples to apples. No. Let me ask you Mr. Forbes, how many people pay 100% of the price of their homes? Maybe like one out of every 500? Most people get a thing called a mortgage, where you put down 10% of your own money and leverage the rest. And it's relatively easy to get a mortgage because it's a reasonably safe investment. Try to get a bank to lend you $300,000 so you can buy a bunch of stocks, no one will do it. Why? Because any particular stock can be worth zero tomorrow. Not so with houses.

So if these MBA's at Forbes use this difficult concept of leverage, they'll see that the guy who puts down $10,000 on a $100,000 house in 1980, his house will be worth $247,000 (247% increase) in 2004. Assuming he rented it out and broke even with mortgage payments etc, he can sell the house at a gain of $212,000 (consult an amortization table to see how I came up with that number). His investment has increased 2,120%, not 247%. You pay 10% of the price but get all the profit. 2,120 is better than 1,000.

But that's ok. As I said earlier, there are too many people playing around in real estate right now. I hope stocks do well so people forget about real estate and I can swoop right in. Stay tuned for details.

Invention: Little League Baseball Cards

2005-05-24T11:07:00.000-04:00

I decided from time to time I'll babble about an invention idea. As a disclaimer, this "invention" may already exist, or some variation, but I'll write about it anyway.

How about baseball cards for little league players? I'm not talking about the cheesey baseball card pic your parent buys of you smiling on a fake baseball card. Hire a photographer to catch action shots of all the little league players hitting the ball or making a catch, whatever. Put stats from previous seasons on the back. It'd be like a real card, not just a forced-smile picture.

Here's the marketing end: sell them in booster packs. You won't be able to buy two 8x10's or a sheet of wallet size pics. No, you have to buy a 10 card booster pack and hope you get your darling son with a rat-tail. You might not find your kid until you buy 30 packs. That's money in the bank baby. It'll inspire kids to trade with other kids for their friends/teammates, look for rookie cards, try to collect whole sets, all sorts of fun.

Base America

2005-05-11T15:22:00.000-04:00

I’ve been formulating this concept on the term ‘base.’ I’m not sure if this is already a common use of the word or if I molded it due to my own arrogance, but I’m going to try and tackle that here.

When I say base, I sort of define it as low or primal. A base need is the very bottom of what you need, eating for example. Lust and anger are considered base emotions, because they’re just primal and pretty one dimensional. Usually I’m equating “base” with lower class of people, whether it’s economically or socially, although the two usually go hand in hand. Some examples are in order.

Food: You can usually spot base food by who is eating it. Children and white trash often participate in base foods. This type of food often taste very good, but again only in that primal sort of way. Deep-fry some fat in sugar and lard, it’ll probably taste great. But watch out, that’s base as hell. Fast food is base. Macaroni and cheese is base. Ketchup and salt are base. Yes we all eat some or most of these things, but the point is they should be eaten sparingly. They’re very flat and sort of fake tasting if you think about it. Compare a McDonalds Happy meal to a good dinner at an Italian restaurant. The good meal will be multi-faceted, involve numerous food groups at once, and make your taste buds think. McDonalds will destroy your body a la ‘Super Size Me.’ Stop eating fast food for a month or two, then try it again. You’ll taste that ‘base fastfood’ feeling in your mouth, a sort of dry guilt hanging out around the roof. Now compare soda with wine. Soda rots your teeth and fills you up. Wine can be enjoyed on many levels and has infinite complexity.

Humor: A good example of base humor is American Pie. While I enjoy the movie mostly, there is a lot of ‘shit/fart’ type humor, which is the epitome of base. Base humor is almost always excruciatingly predictable as well (think of any movie where a guy dresses up as a girl; another guy will inevitably fall in love with/try to hook up with the character in drag). Imagine three grown, overweight men in Kentucky at a local bar. They’re sitting on stools, watching Nascar, and one of them farts. The other two laugh like it’s the funniest thing they ever heard. Base.

The scary part is that base humor isn’t limited to rednecks, although it out to be. Non-base humor has the multi-faceted type of qualities like those mentioned above. “Good” humor makes you think, and is often subtle. Consider a movie like Office Space or I heart Huckabees. You can watch them many times over and catch new things that are funny each time. The humor is there, but it’s subtle and usually open to interpretation. There is no one-time shock value with this type of humor; it is to be enjoyed time and time again.

Ghetto habits: Smoking is base. Think of what percentage of your college friends smoke. Maybe 10%? Compare that to the amount of lower class people that smoke. They’re probably more like 60%. But how can that be, if they have less money wouldn’t they rather not waste it on cigs? No, that’s not how base works. Being base is all about the ‘quick fix,’ short term pleasure with little thought for long term effects. People who care about the long term don’t eat tons of fast food or smoke or buy rims when they can’t even afford rent.

There are many more examples of base behavior, as I use the term, but I think you get the idea. Do I feel better than base people? YES absolutely. But I realize that I and many others participate in base products/activities sometimes, and that’s ok as long as it’s controlled. Similar to the apex of the food pyramid, be base sparingly.

Apathy City

2005-04-08T13:45:00.000-04:00

I don't care for everybody. Some people are so tedious and mundane that I just want to run away rather than hear them drone on about useless facts in their lives that have no relevance to me.

This is especially the case with middle-aged women, like at my work. I try to keep any communication between us to an absolute minimum. Any interaction between us is so artificial, it's like you can see we each have a fuzzy translucent that ensures there's no connection between us.

The crappiness of the conversation is also noticeable in the rate, pitch, and "choppiness" of the speech. A lot of times the words are snippy and fast, very fabricated. And we speak one pitch higher than in normal conversations, like you would when you ask someone at a store behind a counter for something.

I asked for a 7-layer burrito and Chalupa with beans today at taco bell. I'm regretting it now, my stomach is not big enough for all that. Also, I saw the ugliest woman I've ever seen in my life working there. She's short (less than 5'), wide (about 3'), and she had sideburns. Big, unkempt sideburns. She's even uglier than the woman at my work who I had previously thought was the ugliest woman in the world. If i can figure out how to stealthily take pics with my camera phone without a loud 'snap' noise going off, you'll see them both soon.

How to Slack like a Pro

2005-03-09T15:56:00.000-05:00

So I came across this presentation about how to be a slacker at work. This is something I take very seriously. With 24 hours in the day, 7 hours sleeping, 1 hour to get ready in the morning, 10 or more hours at work when you include lunch and commute, 1 hour to eat, 1 hour to take care of miscellaneous bullshit in the house, you’re left with 3 or 4 hours of leisure time in the day, and it seems like a lot less than that. If you watch one or two TV shows, congratulations that takes up the remainder of the time.

The beauty of slacking is that it allows you to get more done in less time by multitasking, sort of. You can take care of the bullshit tasks like paying bills, making phone calls, dropping stuff off at the cleaners, going shopping, etc all during that big 10 hour black hole we call work. Some people feel guilty about this, but I do not. Time is going by so fast and I don’t want to wake up tomorrow and be 50 years old wondering what I’ve done for the past 30 years.

This ‘Slacker@Work’ article shares my philosophy beautifully. The author (Connelly) believes Slackers have the gift of being able to stop at “good enough,” and go home unburdened by what was left undone. And to quote my hero Peter Gibbons from Office Space, “It’s not that I’m lazy, it’s just that I don’t care.” Slackers are phenomenal at achieving things that are important to them. Aside from that, they don’t give a fuck. It is this efficient use of their mind that sets them apart from the standard over-achiever. While the basic intelligent work horse will stress out and blow up their mind with trivial details and pleasing the boss, the Slacker frees up his mind to use in more important areas of his/her life.

In the book “The 80/20 Principle,” a German military officer is quoted that he sees 4 types of soldiers in his army: stupid & lazy soldiers- they don’t mess up anything and are ok to keep; stupid & hard working soldiers- they boggle things and should be fired immediately; intelligent & hard working soldiers- they do a good job and are apt to run lower level positions; and the intelligent & lazy soldiers- are suited for the highest level of offices. They have enough laziness to cut out the extraneous shit and advance themselves.

I should state here that I don’t advocate the useless, lazy, going nowhere in life type slacker that gives us real Slackers a bad name (yes I didn’t capitalize the first one on purpose). Real Slackers have motivation and drive, it’s just that we’d rather do what we enjoy than do crappy work.

Back to Connelly’s article, he suggests that you figure out who the most influential people at work (the gossipers, the people who everyone tends to believe, etc NOT necessarily your boss) and befriend them. Give them the impression that you’re a hard worker. Talk about how many hours you supposedly worked at home the night before.

Here’s a nice trick he lists to get a half day and still seem like a hard worker: Call in the morning to your boss and to the aforementioned influential people and let them know that you’re sick and won’t make it into work. Then relax for a few hours. Drive into work around 12:30 and say that yes you’re sick, but you just had to come in because you have so much work to get done. You will look like a hero! A half day of slacking and you come out seeming like an extra hard worker. Note that this doesn’t work if you come in in the morning and then leave home mid-day. This will make you look like an extra slacker.

Connelly also has other suggestions that aren’t particularly interesting, but here’s a trick to take a nap I thought of once when I was really tired at work but never had the balls to try: Find a desolate spot that hardly ever gets any traffic. Drop a coffee mug (half full) on the ground, along with some papers maybe. Lie down face down on the ground and go to sleep. Hopefully no one finds you. If they do, claim that you must have fainted or hit your head on something, whatever (hence the coffee and paper props). They wouldn’t dare to think you were napping, you poor thing.

Here’s a computer tip that every slacker needs to know: ALT+TAB. If you’re surfing the internet at work (and you should be), it is very obvious if your right hand races to the mouse and starts closing down windows while your face turns white in panic mode. The solution is Alt+Tab. Hold the Alt button with your left thumb, and tap the Tab button with your left index or middle finger. Doing so brings up a little window that shows everything you have open. Keep hitting Tab until you get to the window you want, then let go of Alt. Presto, you’ve gotten to a different screen without using the mouse. Note that the order of the windows is the order that you last visited them, so the trick is to have actual work (a spreadsheet for example) be the last thing you were looking at before you go on the internet. This way you just hit Alt+Tab once and it will immediately bring you to the spreadsheet since that will be the first icon in the window. Try it out, you’ll get it.

Another good thing to do: take on work in bunches. Have a list of let’s say 10 things you need to accomplish, and knock out some easy fast ones first. Then slack. If your boss comes by to check on you, hold up your finished accomplishments, or ask him/her a question about one.
Here’s a link to a page that has all sorts of great tips and tools for slacking: Don’s Boss Page. It includes fake spreadsheets to switch to and fake typing noises (scroll down to see the whole page).

Broken Piggy Bank

2005-03-09T09:07:00.000-05:00

I've been hanging a lot of Japanese prints in my room lately to give it some sort of theme. The room's starting to look classy, and I've had to move other pictures around. This one framed pic of my parents I hung up not far from the light switch. Last night I reached my hand to switch off the light, and on the way back my hand hit the frame. It came down with the biggest crash and knocked over a little change jar I have on my desk corner.

I inspected the frame, figuring it was broken due to the loud noise it made and some bits of broken glass on my floor. It turns out that the frame smashed the glass change jar on its way down. Picture taking a hammer and smashing with one drop a 4 inch tall glass vase type thing with a bunch of pennies and Moroccan/Euro coins in it. I was surprised the frame did that, it was only a foot or so above the desk and it's not heavy.

The reason why this is significant is because of what that change thing represented. I put it in that spot because it's where the Feng Shui wealth corner is in my room. Here you put round, metallic type objects like tiny blue curvy vases filled with exotic coins. At first, I was a little concerned to have my wealth so figuratively smashed, but I tried to find some silver lining. Maybe the forces of Feng Shui are just being dramatic since I had to shell out $350 for the plumber that day (which is a lot less than I expected to pay). Or maybe it had something to do with my parents. Yesterday was their anniversary, and the picture was of them.

Then I thought maybe it’s symbolic of all the money that will be, um, exploding my way since I’ve been doing so many entrepreneurial activities lately, especially in the past few days. Maybe it’s symbolic of breaking open a piggy bank and coming into contact with a lot of money.

Some of these thoughts ventured out loud, and my girlfriend seeing my somewhat concern brought out the idea that maybe the money was just going to be so sizable that I need a bigger “piggy bank,” so Mr. Feng Shui sent me a little push. I like that one, I think I’ll keep it.

Quitter

2005-03-04T16:02:00.000-05:00

This guy at work, 28 years old, married, completely a corporate guy etc, keeps leaving early or coming in late. This is not normal for him, he's a hard worker (ew) stay late hours (ewww) type. He's been sick, had doctor's appointments, gotten stuck in traffic, had family parties, etc. I strongly suspect that he plans on quitting and going on job interviews.

When I quit my previous job in October, I had to make up some stories. One day I had to leave early for an "allergist appointment." This was convincing because I sneeze and blow my nose constantly. Or at least I used to, now it's just a regular occurrence. Then one morning I called in late because I got stuck in traffic or something, but it turned out no one was there anyway for some strange reason. My last day of interviews coincided with our “Impact Day” where we’re supposed to do community service instead of work. Yeah I skipped that and said I went, sure I’m going to hell.

You feel so bad about lying about why you’re not coming in, but I guess you can’t really tell them the truth. It’s especially bad in a high job turnover industry like the one I was in. Now whenever someone leaves early or comes in late, I’m always suspicious that they’re really out interviewing for another job. People should really interview after work to make things easier.

Along this vein, I will be reviewing someone else’s thoughts on Slacking. I capitalize it because it is an important Subject and should be taught um...somewhere.

Joys of Home Ownership

2005-03-03T15:42:00.000-05:00

Rewind: 2 months ago while in Florida, my roommate Davis gives me a call to let me know that the ceiling in the first floor dining room is dripping. Ummm ok I don't know what that means, I guess I'll wait till I get home to check it out. I get back from FL, inspect the ceiling, notice it looks a little stained yellowish. Press it, feels soft. Hmm water has to come from somewhere, and this spot looks like the shower might be overhead on the 2nd floor. Let me run the shower for about half an hour and see if any water comes down. None. Scratch head. Wait a few days...no water has been dripping. Problem must have solved itself! What a smart homeowner I am.

Fast forward: Last weekend while I was at a class on rehabbing real estate (ohh the irony) I get home and find out that the ceiling was dripping again. Now this time I take it very seriously. I spent all day looking at crappy houses that have all sorts of damage from water, termites, age, kids, smoke, gas, pets, and other sorts of wear and tear. I know the perils of H2O. Water is the enemy when it comes to houses, much like Oxygen is the enemy of prepared food.

I get home, poke around, ceiling's soft but not dripping right now. Does this mean the tub might fall through the ceiling and kill one of us? Is the water creating mold on the floorboards which will have long term health effects on future tenants? Will I get SUED?? Yes everything a landlord does should put 'will I get sued' in the front of his mind. Thanks rehab class, now I'm a paranoid schizophrenic. More on that later.

So I decide that I absolutely must find out what's causing the drip, cause it's not going to fix itself. I do some measurements, and realize that the drip is directly below the bathroom sink from the second floor, not the tub. I run the water in the sink for 5 minutes and sure enough, the drip starts up. Davis tells me to fix it whenever I get around to it. No way, this needs to be fixed immediately.

First I put a postit note on the sink to 'please not use it too much.' Then I call two plumbers for estimates. Apparently in these old rowhouses, the original plumbing starts falling apart after 40 years or so and this happens. Depending on how the plumbing wraps around the joists, the plumber can come up from the ceiling below and work from underneath (meaning I would just have to replace the piece of ceiling that was all rotted and drippy, which I would have to do anyway) OR if the plumbing goes over the joist, then he has to work from above and tear out the sink, rip apart the bathroom floor, tear out the toilet and i buy a new one, i pay to remove the concrete and miscellaneous shit and i have to buy/install a whole new bathroom floor. I am praying he can do it from below so it's less messy and so I can save hundreds of dollars, but we won't know till he cuts out a 'test piece' of the ceiling on Saturday to see where the joists are. Cross your fingers.

So this didn't faze me as much as it could have, probably because I've been attending these real estate investment classes. Whereas before I might have gotten really frazzled over paying $600-$1000 to repair something, now I see it as a necessary maintenance for a money producing investment. I saw a lot of examples of people buying a house for like $9,000 because no one else wanted it, fixed it up for $15,000 and sold it for $65,000. It's not as uncommon as you'd think apparently. This young guy taking the class with me bought a house off of foreclosure.com for $135,000 and has it contracted to sell in a few weeks for $216,900, in less than three months holding it. I'm sure none of these people cared about fixing plumbing, it's just something you do to get something you want (namely money).

Some other observations from my classes: Liability is a huge issue. Tenants will sue you all the time if they slip and fall. Well apparently mostly Section 8 tenants do that because they feel like the world owes them something. But cracked sidewalks, ceiling fans, and trees (sorry infiorno) are all a no-no. A lot of investors remove all trees from their property because if kids come by and hang out in your tree and fall, you get sued. Such a shame that so many trees must go just because courts award assholes money for nothing.

I heard of a 26 year old guy who own 40 rental properties. That's little more than 2 years older than me. He probably makes between $100 and $150k per year just in rents, after all taxes and expenses, and he doesn't have to do anything, just collect. He is set. That's where I'd love to be, but I don't know if I can pull it off in 3 years. 5 properties per year would be aggressive I think, but people say it's doable.

Excited about the prospect of this? I am. I feel like my day job is holding me back. I can't go to the courthouse and find good deals because I'm at work when they're open for example. I've been slacking so much lately and have no motivation to do anything at work. I can't wait to be done with it, someone just fire me already!

When you know you've grown up

2005-02-21T14:14:00.000-05:00

I walked out today and was greeted by a bunch of shitty snow. I don't have major gripes with it per se, it's mainly a big inconvenience when I need to leave for work or find parking when I get home. Then I thought of that old saying that everyone says yet everyone thinks that they themselves made it up, that you know you're grown up once snow stops being fun. Since I haven't written a blog in a few days, I decided I'd do a little list of other major turning points when you realized that you're not a kid (and hence, life starts to suck kinda) anymore:

1. Snow stops being fun - as stated before. You don't play in it anymore. You're not greeted with hot chocolate and tiny marshmallows cause you don't live with mom anymore. You don't get 2-hour delays or snow days at work. Somewhere along the line it became silly to wear snow pants.
2. Saturday mornings - you don't watch cartoons anymore and you certainly don't wake up at 7:30 a.m. on Saturdays.
3. You say "hang out" instead of "play," as in "Hi Mr. Bolden, can Johnny come hang out?"
4. You stop kissing your parents and saying 'I love you' every night before bed.
5. You no longer plan and host sleepovers with friends. Instead, you have the messier and less fun 'drunken friend passes out in a pool of his own vomit mixed with miller lite on your couch.'
6. You don't talk to friends on the phone as much. I'm referencing calling your friends when you have nothing particularly to talk to them about (i.e. you just saw them an hour ago at school, it's not like they're in a different state), you just call and a stream of consciousness commences.
7. You don't have to put your chair up on your desk at the end of the school day.
8. You start having to change for gym class. (can you believe we used to go to gym in jeans?)
9. It becomes unacceptable to wear sweatpants to school.
10. You stop hating cops, or even if you get mad at them, you like when they're around your neighborhood so it stays cleaner/safer.
11. You HATE taxes.

Am I missing anything?

Snots special ordered for Conservatives

2005-02-14T12:47:00.000-05:00

Today I was in a book store during my lunch break, and a massive sneeze came upon me. I've been sneezing all day and they've been very wet. I quickly blocked the sneeze with the back of my hand and a portion of my sleeve, leaving a very viscous glob of snot.

I immediately dropped my hand and pretended nothing happened. Shit, where can I find a napkin quick...wish I bought those tissues in a little packet at the dollar store...fuck fuck.

Then a fantastic idea dawned on me. I would not squander this snot, not here. I would find a book that really pisses me off, and wipe it in the book. It would be a symbolic victory for whatever ideal I was defending.

So what book? The easy answer was to pick a conservative's book. But I couldn't just do it because I disagreed with their ideas, that would be immature. I had to have some sort of personal reason to do it as well. Who was the most asshole conservative out there? Rush Limbaugh seemed a good candidate. I've read some of his stuff and it's ridiculous. But he stood against other conservatives when it came to the FCC trying to sensor the fuck shit damn out of everyone, and he defended free speech so I felt bad. The only viable option was Ann Coulter.

Ann Coulter is the megabitch of conservatives. She's not even one of those conservatives that has some sort of charm, she just comes across as an absolute cunt no matter what she says. Watch any video of her, and I guarantee the phrase 'what a cunt' will cross your mind several times. Everything she says is 100% partisan spin. One time in Maxim they had a picture of her with a voice bubble saying "Anyone who doesn't vote for George Bush is a pagan communist and should be put to death." Hah that is exactly what she sounds like. The only reason her crazy views get any attention is because she's reasonably attractive. Please click the link above for her web page, read any column of hers, and get irate. Oh, one time a group called "Al Pie-da" pied her at a speech she was giving, here's the video.

So I was looking around for a book by her, but the store wasn't big enough to have separate sections for things like political commentary or whatever so I had to do some searching, which isn't easy with a backhand loaded with snot. I kept my hand at about a 45 degree angle away from my body, trying to seem casual yet also trying to fight gravity enough that it wouldn't drip all over me. Of course, I succeeded at neither. But finally I found Coultercunt's newest book, "How to talk to a Liberal," opened up to the middle, and wiped my hand clean. I closed the book and put it back, feeling very very good about myself.

But then on the way home I started thinking about politics. Sadly, as I make more money, conservative values start creeping in. Although on social issues I'm sure I'll alwasy be liberal, fiscal issues always seem to favor conservatism (most young people are socially liberal and fiscally conservative, or so I hear). Taxes is the main issue. I pay $10 or so a month in taxes for my cell phone plan. My plan's only $40, so that's 25% of the bill. There are usage taxes, federal 911 tax, all sorts of stuff. It's crazy. And Philadelphia is ridiculous too. It has a 4.4% city wage tax, meaning 4.4% of your earnings are stripped from your paycheck if you workor live in Philly. I work in the burbs, but I have to pay it because I live in the city. It sucks. Plus it costs thousands of dollars more in closing costs to buy a house in Philly for no apparent reason. Sucks. Maybe Libertarians really are the answer?

Sound like someone's got a case of the Mondays

2005-02-11T14:33:00.000-05:00

My boss is on vacation today and Monday. This means several things:

1. I haven't shaven yesterday or today, and I won't shave for Monday.
2. I have accomplished and will continue to accomplish nothing work related.
3. Lunch hour has become the lunch two hours.
4. I get easily distracted by the internet, even moreso than on the average day.
5. The other people give me dirty looks when they see me pretty much laying down in my chair with one outstretched arm clutching the mouse.

I am getting closer to becoming Peter Gibbons. Once you've tasted this, you can't go back.

how to go on a random adventure

2005-02-07T15:04:00.000-05:00

i just found this site and thought of a good idea on how to have a random adventure.

1) go to this site and click on the map
2) type in five random numbers. do each slowly so you can see how your adventure destination narrows down in case the zip doesn't exist
3) go to wherever it indicates and find an adventure!

so simple. let me know when you wanna leave

Top 10 things to do when Zombies attack

2005-02-05T11:41:00.000-05:00

Because you know it's going to happen. Every zombie movie starts out with unsuspecting suburbanites living their happy little lives, then they don't know what to do when the horde of undead spring to life. My friends and I watch a decent amount of zombie movies, and we always critique the repeated errors that victims of a zombie attack make. We have very detailed plans if/when the zombies do eventually attack. We watched Resident Evil: Apocolypse last night, a fairly bad movie but there were the same mistakes made repeatedly so on to the list of the top 10 things to do (or not do) when zombies attack!

10) First stop: ammo shop! Even if you're holed up in your house and feel secure, the zombies will eventually get in. Also you'll need food and other supplies at some point, so you will need to venture out and it's better to get weapons and ammo before the zombie infestation is widespread and before all the shops get looted or overrun. Note: the owner of the gun store may very well have the idea to stay holed up in his shop. He may shoot you.

9) Find a black guy. Every zombie movie has one, so you just have to find yours. This may be difficult in very suburban areas, but keep trying. The black man often has very cool nerves and is a great leader in this situation. He probably has military or police training and can fire a weapon with great accuracy. Unfortunately, he will eventually get bitten while trying to help someone else and will turn into a zombie. This always happens to the black guy so just try to put it off as long as possible.

8) Decision time: where do we shelter? You need to find a place with very strong walls and doors, preferably with easy escape routes. Malls work well in movies because there're tons of supplies (and ammo if you live in a state that voted for George Bush), and there are often large flat roofs for helicopters to spot you and underground passages. Churches have strong walls, heavy doors, a second story, food in the form of the body of Christ, and symbolic hope value. Military bases and police stations may seem like a good idea but those types tend to be assholes and power trippers in situations like this and will try to control you and/or shoot you. Better to keep it real in your own fortified shelter.

7) Stay tight, in all aspects. Wear tight clothes, nothing baggy and no accessories. Shave your head. Walk close together. Don't give zombies anything extra to grab onto and drag you into their gaping maws.

6) Always carry your weapon! Even if going to the bathroom (and remember, do that in pairs too..oh wait I didn't get to that rule yet, keep going). Have a hand weapon also, such as an axe or small chainsaw.

5)Get comedy relief. Find some dipshit that screws everything up and is a drain on the resources, but make sure he's funny. Or if not funny then at least misfortunate. You will need something to cope with the depression that will sink in after realizing everyone you love is dead and you're probably the next to go.

4) Don't fall in love. For some reason there is a tendency in these heightened emotional situations to fall for the beautiful girl who you stumble into and form a protectorate bond with. Love dulls the senses and keeps you from staying sharp. Not right now Romeo, try her again after this whole zombie problem's all cleared up.

3) He's not your brother anymore. Shoot him. Don't stay emotionally attached to someone who is bitten, because he/she will turn and will eat you.

2) Don't have an emotional breakdown. Your mom's dead, your boyfriend tried to eat your flesh, and you'll never get to see another episode of Laguna Beach. Cry me a river, bitch. Stop freaking out and running off by yourself, because we're going to have to chase after you to protect you and you'll probably end up living while a more valuable member of the team dies trying to save you.

1) NEVER SPLIT UP! This always seems like a good idea in every zombie (and maybe every horror) movie but what does it accomplish? Maybe you save 10 minutes searching the perimeters, but you almost always lose an important member of your team or waste resources like bullets. Never ever ever ever split up.

Fairweather football fan bows down before the establishment

2005-02-04T13:11:00.000-05:00

We had a "tailgate" at work today to celebrate the Eagle's march to the super bowl this weekend, meaning tons of free pizza and soda. Everyone has authentic Eagles jersies today, or at least t-shirts. I'm wearing one of my favorite green sweaters with white stripes, figuring the colors were Eagles enough for me to pass.

They weren't. I got numerous complaints of "oh, that's not Eagles-green." The Eagles have their own color. Before the "tailgate" in the company kitchen, I was the first one there because well I was hungry, and as I was leaving the CEO/deity of my company, Mr. Hampshire of Hampshire Homebuilders was walking in. An older man, everyone talks about him as if he is a god and they refer to him by his last name prefaced with a mister. I've never thought anything much of his authority, maybe cause I've only worked here a few months, or maybe because his family has owned the company for 75 years or whatever and he's not self made.

Regardless, he made a comment on the pizza I was holding as he passed me, something along the lines of 'Oh that looks good.' And then I stumbled over a few things I was trying to say, but managed to spew out something like 'yes!' I was mad that this guy who's really no different than anyone else let his authority fuck me up, similar to how the CFO (different guy) from two blogs ago caused me to feel awkward from eye contact, but at least it was mutual that time.

Oh, I just reached for a cup that I thought had my sprite in it, took a big sip and found out it was water. My sprite's in the other cup. It's such a weird sensation to taste something you're not expecting...oh wait I'm starting to get boring, I'll go now.

Valentine's Day donkey punch

2005-02-02T13:52:00.000-05:00

I have a gf on Valentine's day for the first time in like four years....FUCK

What to get? Let's recap. We were going out for about two weeks and then Christmas happened. I got her a golden retriever tree ornament cause her family raises them, and Napoleon Dynamite DVD as the meat of the present, plus a nice hand written card. Not too bad.

BUT I also put up $480 for ballroom dance classes. Yes it's gay, fuck you. And I'll probably have to put up at least $100 more for those. Now I might get compensated if her dad sends me some business etc., but who knows.

Anyway, what do I get her for Valentines day? I'm assuming I should go for something cute and useless. I'm not sure if a picture in an frame will make the cut. Here are some things I'm thinking, along with the possible problem:

1) Massage oil - She may expect me to actually use them on a regular basis.
2) Name a star after her - This is pretty gay. Maybe I'll do this next year.
3) Stuffed animal type thing - Also gay. Not her style.
4) Jewelery - It's a little early for that (less than 2 months) doncha think?
5) Dance Classes - I already paid for them, so now they're expected. Should held out.
6) Draw a portrait of her with ugly exaggerated features a la Napoleon Dynamite - I think I'm DEFINITELY going to do this, and frame it. It would be the funniest thing ever.

But I need more ideas. If you're a random viewer that clicked on my blog because I wrote 'donkey punch' in the subject (yeah I put that there just to get attention), send me an e-mail and help me out, or leave it in a comment or something.

By the way, every search I did on technorati for Valentine's day gifts came up as some advertisement...they should do something about people who make blogs that are just long advertisements, it drowns out the good stuff.

observations on Work Awkwardness

2005-01-28T04:14:00.000-05:00

I'm usually such a fan of awkwardness, but only amongst peers I guess. I have trouble dealing with it when I'm around older work people.

Today the CFO of my company took me, his son, and two people higher than me on the corporate ladder out to lunch. I was on the periphery of the conversation of course, since I've only been working there 3 months and they're all older and married. There was a point of the conversation that two people were talking, and while my eyes were wandering around the table they accidentally caught the eyes of the CFO. We were both instantly awkward, and at the exact same time shot our eyes down toward the table and reached out to grab our drink and take a sip. The mirror image-ness of our awkard motions made it all the more obvious and worse.

I was so mad at myself...I hate when stuff like that takes control of my body and the destination my eyes move. Later in the lunch, I was looking out the window and I heard the conversation just stop. Aaaaand cue awkward silence I thought to myself. I didn't dare bring my eyes back to the table, because then I might have felt responsible to remedy the blazing silence at that table. Lucky for me, I was already looking away so I could be a casual observer on who would blurt out anything just to fill the space.

It was my boss who saved the day. But he started talking about work, something everyone could talk about without any fear of running out of things to say. I can't stand people who talk about work during the lunch break or after you leave work. These people really have very little in the way of personality and they're usually the type to work way more than they should. Unless you're like a video game tester or something along those lines. Then that'd be pretty cool.