So, very tired. For the first time in over a week, I think I'm going to get some sleep. I remember high school, and the feeling I felt each day when I got up in the fall while running cross-country. It felt bad. Things simply ached. One was filled with a certain level of tiredness that inspired sloth for years to come. I'm not tired from exertion, just from distance. A good kind of tired.

So the blue room will be opening up on May 10th...if you're interested in living in the dredwerkz, drop me a line. I've gone ahead and updated pictures of the werkz to include more of the blue room. The rent is pegged at $950 a month, plus utilities. Needless to say, this is actually below what it is costing me to live in the werkz, so it's a sweet deal. The best part of all? You don't have to pay a security deposit. I know if I had had that deal when I moved into the 'werkz years ago it would've been a welcome change from the standard one month's worth of money arrangement. With two months left...I'm interested in lining up someone as soon as possible. Back to your regular schedule program now.

Too busy at work yesterday (and too tired) to do much else. In the interim, click the link above to join the DNC or cough up some cash for the Democrats. Either way, I love that advertisement. Someone at the DNC deserves a raise for thinking of the whole "kicking ass" concept.

So I work until 11:30 this evening at a coworker's house, doing boring computer stuff. I hop on the red line and catch the final metro home. As soon as I walk in, I check the internet, and for a lark check my office mail.

The mail server doesn't respond. Grr.

I end up walking over halfway there and catching a cab the rest of the way. I walk into my office to discover: the server is fine. The room is blazing hot, but the computer is okay. Confused, I check the logs and discover that the fix I thought of last time, namely, having the server reboot when it gets too hot, has worked like a charm. Except, of course, that it hasn't cooled down any. I do some tweaking, and then chill out to make sure it doesn't reboot again.

Then I try to catch a cab home. Again, I make it halfway before one appears. Total money lost on cab rides this evening: $20. It makes me wonder why I bothered trying to earn any spare cash.

I'm very tired now. Time to get some well-deserved rest.

I'm dirt poor and still owe a couple grand to AmEx and friends. So this weekend (unlike the last two, when I fell victim to socializing) I am doing nothing social. If it is nice weather, I will be outside, hopefully riding. If it is bad weather, I will be enjoying Chiaotzu. But other than those two possibilities, I will not be spending money or time on any activities. I will be an island. A tiny, anti-social island.

Consider yourself warned. If I have to embody a hermit-like existence to staunch the flow of cash, so be it. I'm already whoring myself out for cash this evening, instead of going to the gym or perfoming maintenance.

This site is simply too funny. It's the official Bush/Cheney'04 election site...but they let you create your own custom posters.

So many liberal blogosphere people are hitting it that occasionally it screws up. I typed in "We Love Bush" to test it (because they've put in a few lines of code that reject words like "kill" and "hate") and it spit out the image above. I laughed out loud...it's almost as if someone at BC04 headquarters realized people would screw with it. Give it a try yourself, although it doesn't seem to work with Firefox. (Stupid Bushies!)

I've been up since 3:30...why, you ask? I realized after last Friday's debacle that I needed to get some sleep before attempting a tricky maintenance manuever. So I went to bed insanely early (after a dinner consultation with some landscape people), got some rest, then rose before the sun to go to the office.

This time, the maintenance went smoothly, enough so to let me hit the gym and then walk back home to write this. Time to clean up and head back to the office.

Today has been incredibly busy: in addition to plowing through most of the e-mail I neglected during my sleep deprived Friday, I also got to spent over an hour standing in line downtown waiting for the Post Office employees to have an interview for a passport. Total time spent waiting in line: 1 hour, 15 minutes. Total time spent during interview itself: 3 minutes. Total time spent during interview fixing official USPS stapler because USPS employee was unable to: 2 minutes. So the overall time spent doing what I was supposed to be doing was a single minute, despite blowing an hour simply waiting in line. Grr. Now I know why the idiots at Stacks take so long: they are used to serving the USPS people next door and feel they need to slow things down.

I came back to even more e-mails and work, plus the exciting chance to do more maintenance this evening, since last time's effort went so poorly. Yay! On the bright side, check out these three websites. Lots of fun to be had at all three. Trust me. And Leto. And Deborah.

The last three days have sped by quickly. Everything since Thursday night/Friday morning has been too short, as if I'm only catching every third frame in the my own movie, which has veered between action and drama in an inversion of the tragic/farce historical cliche.

Friday began things on an odd note. I stumbled outside my office in a daze and attempted to hail a cab. The first guy mumbled that he wouldn't take me, and instead of fighting I meekly turned to the cab he indicated. Then that cab driver told me I should chew out the first guy, and when I demurred, agreed to take me. Once home, I collapsed into a brief, dreamless sleep awoken all too early by Leto, who wanted to know my plans for the weekend. Half-awake, I mumbled something about seeing a movie with Deborah, so we agreed to hit Best Buy instead and I shook the cobwebs off. A lengthy shower and shave later, I strode outside at two in the post meridiem to a wonderful blue sky.

An hour later I posted a short sentence. It had taken me about half an hour to walk to work, my mind somewhat distracted and still sleepy. I stumbled into the office at three, a mere half hour before the staff meeting at work. I managed to stay awake through the entire meeting, which went surprisingly well, considering that half of the items mentioned had some tiny thing to do with me. Yay! More work is definitely in my future, good or bad as that may sound. I, personally, am looking forward to the challenge. After the meeting the entire office moved next door to a fishy happy hour (it being at the newest McCormick & Schmick's where Angelo & Maxie's used to be) which also was very well received. My body had already begun to protest slightly against the abuse I was dishing out, but I ignored it and continued to enjoy myself.

One of my coworkers next invited me to join him at Gazuza, where he was meeting some friends. Halfway there, his compatriots call to say that they're running a bit late. No big, right? Well, for a decent amount of time no one else shows, but when the two do appear, they seem like good people. Meanwhile, I get a call from Nikki saying that she and a friend want to hang out, but that they are starting a bit later as well. Ignoring common sense, I directed them to Helix, where Sean, Heidi and some other kids were gathering.

After my coworker and his friends indicated they were staying indefinitely at Gazuza (did I mention that they still have the worst service ever?) I bailed to roll over to Helix and Heidi. A short walk later (keep it together...keep it together) I arrive at Helix with a couple of coupons burning a hole in my pocket from the opening I attended over a year ago. I talked to Heidi (whom I hadn't seen in quite some time) as well as Sean, before the group began to get super-large. Eventually Nikki and a friend (who I'd met before) arrived so I talked to them as well. In an odd bit of foreshadow, and seemingly appropriate given Nikki's newly single status, a guy came up from the bar, announced "he had been looking at her all night" and presented his phone number before departing. It was as if we had entered a sit-com. Nikki asked if she should call the guy, and I responded in the negative. Sure, such a move takes cajones...but in reality, if every guy who "had been looking all night" at a certain woman gave up his phone number, men would be completely emasculated. Plus, even if he pulled a gutsy move, it was still sketchy in the extreme. A singularity, I thought with naivete.

After the hedonistic Helix waffle crisps and Buddha's hands began to slow my senses further, I decided to move to the next establishment. Idiotically, Sean and Heidi's group (they've pulled this before) wanted to hit the little strip (pun intended) near the last remaining gentleman's club in town. Not feeling it, I rolled with Nikki and the third musketeer up to Saint Ex, where we discovered a healthy line outside my local establishment. Drat! After a brief survey of the different opportunities on U St. we returned back to St. Ex where things had died down enough for us to gain admittance.

While waiting for two seconds to get inside, I managed to get a front row seat to a drive-by egging of a local girl. Hit hard, she began spewing profanities in a vain attempt to gain respect back from those of us noticing the egg detritus spreading down her back. Odd. Once inside, we moved to the flight lounge to enjoy some beats and beverages. A short time after our arrival, some other guy starts to hit on Nikki somewhat aggresively. (Something in the DC water, perhaps? Oh, actually...) I step in, make some absurd comment about him waiting a couple weeks to hit on her, and the guys backs off. The rest of our stay was uneventful, with Nikki's friend and I sharing our disbelief at the odd male behavior during the evening. My body continued to whine, but by this point it was winning time, so we headed over to Local 16. After a brief sojourn there, we parted company just as the heavens opened up to wash the scum from the streets.

I made it home and collapsed, my energy level at precisely zero. If one is going to end up at one's house, alone after a night of raucous revelry, there really is no better end (again, note the word "alone" above) than to reach one's bed and run completely out of energy. Kind of like finishing a race and passing out. In other words, pushing your body until it hits you back, hard. One of the few things I'm good at.

Aside: it's so much fun to be writing with music from chiaotzu playing...I feel like I could keep this up for hours.

Saturday dawns absurdly early and it's an imperfect day, cloudy, rainy and no fun at all. I roll over to see Gwyn and friends at the DC Caucus, my body aching from the inability to recover the hours of sleep I'd lost Thursday night. My Friday fun ended up diminishing my sleep time as well, so cumulatively I was even further behind than before. Not a good way to start the day, especially one so gray as this one. I reach the voting room at UDC, pay my respects to Gwyn and the few other souls I know, and proceed with voting.

Rolling back to the house, I realize I'm supposed to show the room to a person coming at two thirty. Problem: the house is a mess. So I decide to take a leisurely lunch, appreciating the sudden rainstorms that strike on two different occasions. With my back to the wall, I finally motivate my tired brain to pick up and clean the house. With minutes to spare, the house is still 25% dirty, but it looks 75% better than before. The sun has emerged, and when the prospective part-time summer tenant arrives, things seem as good as they could be, all things considered. She seemed somewhat interested, reminding me that I need to advertise starting tomorrow. Remember, Edward, remember!

Leto arrives to travel with me to Best Buy, with yet another rainstorm hitting us in the interim. (The sun emerged again afterwards, a strange cycle of water and light repeating ad infinitum) I pick up a copy of Dave Grohl's "Probot" which I discovered today is a great metal album. I'll try to throw a review up sometime soon. Then I head over to Leto's to help her setup her brand new TiVo. On the way to her house, we decide to stop off at the local 7-11 to snag some snacks. After entering, choosing our purchasing and making it to the counter, the manager tells his assistant (who is ringing us out) that the assistant has no change. Leto and I stare blankly at the assistant. I ask if the manager has change in his drawer. He replies no. At this point, I can see quite clearly that he does have change in his drawer. Leto's trying to break a twenty, so it's not like she needs a great deal back. The other customers start to realize there's no change and start to talk smack to the manager. He keeps repeating that "he has no options" although all of us point out running a store without any change is an idiotic way to run a business. He ends up making the assistant cancel the transaction, which involves the guy rescanning each of our items in turn. Bizarre. Leto and I are angry at this point, but even then we still have to point out to the manager that we still want to buy our goods, only with a credit-card. Worst. Service. Ever. We finally departed (this whole time Leto had left her vehicle in an illegal parking space, making the 7-11 shenanigans all the more painful because we could've scored a ticket while he was berating us for berating him about his lack of change) and headed to her house to install the TiVo. All the cool kids have one these days, and lengthy phone cords notwithstanding, I managed to get everything setup properly.

Gwyn calls during this escapade to tell me that the two people we supported in the DC Caucus had won. The guy who won managed to pull off a victory over a powerful DC politico by a mere 9 votes. Every vote counts, I guess. Go democracy.

Deborah calls next, as we're supposed to hit an early evening showing of "Starsky and Hutch" at AMC Hoffman. Leto drops me off, I freeze outside (shorts hurting now!) for a few minutes before D lets me in. A hop skip and a jump down 395 and we're at AMC Hoffman, horrifically late. By the time I make it with the food into the theatre, every seat save two, which are in completely different locations, have been taken up. Thinking quickly, we decide to sit on the steps, which turns out to have two side effects. One, after ten minutes my posterior goes completely numb. Two, the view from the stairs was quite good, with ample room to place the popcorn bag and drink containers. Yay!

Post movie Deborah shows me a dvd of some old, wacky BBC show called "The Young Ones" which must've had some drugged up screenwriters. It was almost as surreal as my 7-11 experience from earlier. Fine Saturday.

Today dawns as blue and beautiful as Saturday was dreary. I read for awhile, then do some gardening. Finally I go for a bike ride to see if the torches I purchased from Loaf were still around. Sure enough, they were. Returning home, I picked up some food for dinner. A couple hours later, I'm munching on some seriously tasty jerk chicken matched with plantain chips. A killer combination. Loaf drops by briefly to deliver the torches (I couldn't really carry them on my bike, actually) and offer an opinion about the garden.

I finish up my second Indiana Jones DVD, which was enjoyable. The Temple of Doom is actually much better in a widescreen format. Of course, it still sucks, not only because the first movie was better, but because it just isn't that exciting. The lack of Karen Allen is simply too great for any sequel to bear, especially when said sequel moves to Kate Capshaw. The numerous other problem are easily seen here. Let's just say that my idea that I should watch all 3 in order, rather than just the first and the third, was as stupid as the story of IJ:tToD itself.

To wash my mouth out, I headed upstairs just as another rainstorm finished, to type a bit. Now I'm tired and happy, an excellent way to end a slothful Sunday. Hopefully my body will be back to normal by tomorrow, just in time for work.