I *am* glad that I don’t have to pack this week.

August 20, 2003

I ran a couple of errands yesterday (including mailing out another job application) and talked with Mike, my friend who stood me up last week at McMenamin’s when we were supposed to have a beer or two. Turns out he had gone home after work and then his car wouldn’t start, but he couldn’t find my number to let me know. No harm, no foul. I hate going out to eat by myself, but I had an OK time. He said that he and the band he plays in are playing at a local bar this Saturday night, so I think I may go by and give it a listen. I don’t particularly care for the beer that this bar has (Bud, Miller, Coors, and the individual “light” beers), but they do have Heineken in bottles. Not a great beer, but certainly not bad, either. I can’t stand the crap the big three American brewers put out. I mean, if you’re going to drink beer, at least drink the good stuff. At least then it shows you’re not just drinking for the buzz. I knew so many people in college who would buy cases of stuff like Red Dog, Keystone Light, and other bad beers just because it was cheap and they could get drunk off it. Hell, if you want to get drunk, buy hard alcohol. A handle of vodka will get you pretty drunk, and there isn’t as much of an obvious difference between quality. I’ve had enough types of vodka to know that there’s adifference in the tastes and quality, but do yourself a favor: if you’re going to buy beer to drink, buy something good. I did know a group of people that would buy cases of Leinenkugel’s beer to get drunk off every week (Leinenkugel’s is a Wisconsin brew that I liked), so at least they had some taste.

Speaking of beer, it’s remarkable how little beer I’ve been drinking at home. When I was at school, I drank a lot of beer, both because I would hang out with friends and we’d all crack open a bottle or two, plus I’d go sit outside after classes and have one or two in the sun (I still have the tan lines on my feet from doing that). Now that I’m home, though–even at my Dad’s house where he drinks a couple beers every afternoon–the number of beers I’ve had in bottles has been very small. I’ve had a lot when I’ve gone out, sure, but I have bottles and bottles of beer in my fridge here in my room that I brought back from Beloit across the country.

Well, this is the week that I’d be headed back to school if I were still going. It’s kind of strange to not be packing stuff up to head back, but I guess that it’s just a chapter of my life that’s behind me now. You get in a habit of doing the same thing for four years in a row, and look what happens? In May, I didn’t have any idea what I’d be doing at this point in time, whether I’d have a job, where I’d be working, what I’d be doing, or whether I’d still be unemployed and running out of funds. Well I’m certainly still unemployed, although it’s certainly not my choice. Various people keep telling me I should get a part time job, but the answer to that is a resounding no. I’m not going back to food service, I don’t care how little money I have left in the future or how desperately I need it. I worked food service for close to three years of my life, and that’s nearly three years too many. I’m not just talking about going back to Papa Murphy’s, but working in a coffee shop, flipping burgers, whatever. Not again, not anymore. We’ll just have to see what develops with the jobs I’ve applied for.

I’ve been working primarily on my laptop instead of my desktop for the last few days because I still don’t have my monitor back from the repair shop yet. I got a call yesterday saying it would be ready on Friday around 11 AM, so I figure that until then I’ll just keep all my email on my laptop and use it as my primary machine. Truth be told, when I use my laptop for long periods of time, I keep dreaming about a new one. This one has served me well, but it’s out of warranty and thus a ticking time bomb of failure, plus one of the ports on the back on the machine doesn’t work anymore. I figure that if I get a suitable replacement laptop, it’s going to cost me about $1500. Yes, I’ve actually priced specific models from the Dell website, just fo fun. Dell hasn’t refreshed their line of laptops in awhile, though. Neither has Apple. Yes, I’ve been looking at Apple laptops. I’m still googly-eyed over their line of G4 Powerbooks with the titanium shell, and they have just about everything that I’d want in a laptop. I figure that I rarely use my laptop for antyhing besides checking my email, browsing the web, chatting online, and word processing that I could definitely use a PowerBook, though it would have a price premium attached to it. It’s all moot anyhow since I don’t have money for a laptop. I think in the interim I may buy some additional RAM for my current laptop and extend the life a bit.

That’s about all I have to say today. I’m going to clean up my room today, methinks. That’ll be a nice change.

Miniature candy of the Gods.

Posted in Beloit, Geekery, General