Well, I got my first paycheck today, so I am officially back in the workforce. Here is a picture, and I would like to remind everybody that I earned this money from home, by answering phone calls for just 18 hours.

For those of you that don't know, and that's probably all of you, because I only talk to like two people regularly, I recently got a job. I take phone calls for companies selling things on TV, or help people get quotes, things like that. Just random little calls that don't need anything too fancy. So I wake up, roll out of bed every morning, turn on my monitor, and click a few buttons. A couple of hours later, I hit a few more buttons, hang up my phone for the day, and do whatever. All without ever leaving the house. The pay is good, but you only get it for time actually spent on the phone. I was actually sitting around earlier today, when the calls were coming in real slow and far apart. A few extra hours opened up on the schedule, so I tacked them on to the end of my shift. Of course, right after I did that, the phone didn't ring for 20 minutes, so I kind of knew I was in for a real long, boring, and quiet time. Anyway, I finished up tonight a couple of hours ago, I think I was logged in for nine and a half hours today. My schedule for the weekend consists of forty-nine hours, and I'm hoping to cover them all. So I really should be in bed right now, but eh, I can't ever just fall asleep. I have become very good at coming up with stall tactics to keep me awake. So, since I'll be in front of my computer a lot for the next couple of days, and probably with a lot of down time (I mean, how many people really order stuff at 9:00AM on Wednesday morning?) so there is a possibility that I'll come here and tell a story or two.

So, I know I have been posting a lot of links lately, but this one is actually very very good. The game that started it all for me, is now available for free off of the internet. I suggest everyone goes and gets it. Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon, the original, classic, addictive as hell game.

Well, there are a few other things that I could be writing about, but this article caught my attention. The Internet is Only 1% Porn. I know, shocking. On the one hand, the argument that the internet is mostly porn has been shot down. On the other hand, we may have lost the long time favorite phrase/song/mantra, The Internet is for Porn. Oh well.

Despite the fact that I really don't like the whole web 2.0 thing, I find myself signing up for more of these little services everywhere. Google now offers free online document editing, so I put the few random documents I have on there. It only took three clicks to set up an ad account and start serving carefully-matched advertisements to the three people who visit this place. There are of course some good things. The amount of collaborative effort going on out there is amazing. Daily updates of software, integration and user-friendliness all over. But let's not forget, that things rarely connect so nicely without an underlying business reason. The more you do, the more you contribute and connect, network, tag, syndicate, the more information about you becomes available to the people giving you all of these nice free things. For example, even though I am not a massive internet trend-setter information farm company, I can easily find out your IP address, what browser your using, where you came from, and where in the world you are located. I know, it doesn't seem like such a big deal, because, by itself, it's not much information, but think of what you put out the all the time. Disk space is cheap, and once you've got the data it just takes a bit of time to comb through it all to make it useful. I kind of get the feeling I have lost my point in here somewhere. It is all still a bit murky, but something bad could very definitely be happening here.

So I was looking over my blog just now and noticed an ad for a book called "Why Mommy's a Democrat" and after looking over the page, I'd have to say I'm disgusted. Using children's books to spread propaganda is one of the worst things I've ever heard of. Go look, there are sample pages, and its just crap. Man, I really don't know about this place sometimes.

Hmmm, you would think with all the flashy new easy editing options around here I would be able to make the posts section a little wider. Looks terrible with all that empty room.

So there have been some big happenings lately on the web. Firefox 2.0 is out, and I recommend everyone upgrades, or downloads it for the first time. Internet Explorer 7.0 has also been released, and you should probably get that too, for the security updates it brings. Then you can also sample how ugly it is, giving you all the more reason to switch to Firefox. Blogger has also been further integrated into the Google family of conglomerated interests. Which has brought on another template change. The color is in honor of the black background of my telnet client (yeah, another mudding thing, consider yourself lucky though, I could have just as easily changed the text to this. But most people haven't spent a good deal of their time online wading through leeted-up conversations on IRC, so they aren't used to the color clash. And that's why I'm sticking with this. Thanksgiving is coming up, which should be a lot of fun, and after that just a few more weeks until I leave for South Carolina and christmas break with my family. I'm not so sure how that will go yet. Oh well.

So, it's the holidays again, which means a return to mudding. I don't know why, I didn't even think of it this year until Jon mentioned it to me. Anyway, this means more typing, which means I will hopefully start writing again. Of course, I tend to make this promise a lot, so I won't blame anyone for saying it won't happen. With the weather outside changing for the cooler, and random drives made more possible by falling gas prices, it's a good time to sit back and reflect a bit. Plus there are a few holidays coming up, so a change in scenery helps as well. I'm looking forward to seeing everybody again, since it's been a while, and since I love all those people. Ah, the holidays.

I have also been thinking that this page looks a little simple and empty, so I might fiddle around with the colors and fonts, but probably not, because I am such a fan of default settings after all. We shall see.

So it is a few hours later, I suppose you could call it late evening, and I am continually hounded by this desire to reach out, to communicate, to create. All that good stuff, and this is the best I can come up with. I'm not sure if I trust the new typewriter yet and anything that doesn't involve typing seems to be destroyed anytime I come near it. So yeah, I might be back a few times tonight, or, and this is much more possible, I will pass out in my chair sometime, and nothing will come of it, until the sun comes up, and the day starts over. At the very least I might hear back about some work. Excellent. Work would give me something to do during the day aside from arranging things in my room and going to the post office. Classes start soon, and I have worked my schedule down to pretty much what it is going to be. That should be fun. Well, duty calls.

Wow, I just noticed how many of these posts begin with the word so. Hopefully that will stop, well, at least it might, because I'm going to start paying attention to that. It's Thursday night, it's nice and dark, there is some long recording of a thunderstorm playing in the background, and I get to sit on my floor among the big piles of all my stuff. It's fun I guess, it is a bit lonely. Oh well, at least I've been sleeping regularly. My giant empty bed has helped with that. Awe, where are the ladies? Too far away.

So here we are, a few days before the move into the new apartment. The room is a horrible horrible mess, but that's alright, I'm just going to throw everything in the car and drive it over there anyway. Work should start soon, but who knows with these guys. The Jeep is defiantly dieing, and there isn't much I can do about it. It needs to last until 100,000 miles at least, at which point I think I might just drive it off a cliff, but keep the steering wheel and the shifter head. That is if the poor thing can even make it up to a cliff anymore. I just don't even know what's wrong with it, and that means it will be expensive. Also, the Jeep will return to El Paso, and perhaps be put to rest there. School should start soon, which will be good, I'm ready to do some learning, specially in the new direction I've decided to take. I also get to go buy furniture, which really should be a lot of fun, a new comfy bed, just for me and somebody special. Well, we don't have any dishes or food, but I'm gonna go scrounge around the kitchen for food, so take it easy.

So I keep finding all of these great methods of keeping in contact with people, and then none of them ever work for very long. I find myself sitting alone, unable to talk to anybody, because any voice communication is screwed up. So in an attempt to reach out a little bit I have decided to write some things down here, and maybe send off a few communiques. But who knows, all of that could just fall apart. So I'm gonna go eat something, and maybe listen to some records.

I've done this so many times now I don't really know how to start it anymore. Oh well. I wandered across this page again, and decided to write something. It is pretty much a guarantee that when I intend to write something, it will be aweful. It needs to be more accidental than this. No other option though I suppose. I wonder if anybody even comes here anymore? I guess I could go check my tracker, but that's so vain. So I'm here in Denton still, about a month left of summer. Work starts soon, or so they keep telling me, I've got a place to live next year, almost ready to register for classes. So all in all it is going alright. My electronics have been on the fritz lately, which sucks, but not too much I can do about it. Pretty soon I'll have to move on out of here, and that is probably gonna be a crappy couple of days of lugging stuff around in the blazing heat.

So let's see. I got back from my trip to South Carolina, it was fun, nice to see the family and all that. Came back and found that the Jeep got broken into, so no more radio and no more Final Fantasy X save file. On top of that the lights starting flickering on and off on their own again, and the inspection had expired. It just never ends does it. Ah well. I went ahead and renewed the domain name www.timsmomnaked.com just because I like it, and eight bucks isn't much. So yeah, you guys should use it. Also, there is now an e-mail address at ebert@timsmomnaked.com or you could throw it at any address at that domain and I'll get it. That is if I remember to check it or not. Well, I'm off to tinker around some more.

So here we are again. It is saturday afternoon, partly cloudy sky. The terrible storm from last night is long gone, and it looks like the drunks in the living room did more damage then the tornado flying around outside somewhere. But I always like hearing the klaxon, and the fact that there was a bunch of thunder and lightning at the same time just added to the effect. An excellent time for a trenchcoated cigarette. The calm after the storm is always nice, but if you go outside right before things get really serious you have it all to yourself, because no one else is stupid enough to come outside. So if Thomas can shake off his hangover and find his pants, maybe I can borrow his oil pan and change the oil on the Jeep. And so ends another Saturday. Gotta love the perpetual twilight of the new curtain.

Oh, also, the domain name www.timsmomnaked.com will soon expire, and I don't really see too much of a reason to renew it, unless they offer me some super awesome deal. So anyway, if you are using that and it stops working, try http://echris1.blogspot.com. Of course, if you can't get to this page you can't see that, so think ahead.

You know, its kind of sad when the only reason I can think of to come here and write something is because I want to test out how I am adjusting to my new keyboard. It is of course, going rather well, but still, seems like there should be more to say. Oh yeah, today we are going ice skating. Woot. And school is almost over, so that should be fun, summer time, hang out for a bit, get some work. I have been looking actually, applied at the bookstore and picked up some other paperwork and such. I should probably start looking for a new apartment pretty soon too, since we aren't going to be able to live here next year because we waited too long. Which sucks, because I can pretty much do whatever I want here, be loud, stay awake, smoke inside, it's great. Alright, so a glaring problem has already come up with this keyboard actually, the backspace button is real small, which means I ussually hit \ instead. Also, there is a third row of buttons below the delete cluster, and it's a good thing they don't work because I hit them all the time, and if they worked they would turn the computer off when all I want to do is delete a file. Ah, such is life.

So here I am testing out my new keyboard. The buttons are a bit light to push down, and the backspace key is really small, but there are all adjustments that really only take a few days to get used to. In fact, even as I'm writing with it now, I am really starting to like this, I just sort of lightly press the keys down, and just kind of hope it was hard enough to make it register, and so far, it's working just fine. Now I'm off to drink.

Uh. *clears his throat* 4-20. That's the date. Yar.

Ugh. And the day drags on.

So here we are. It is four in the morning again, some crappy music is droning on in the background, and a sliver of cigarette smoke drifts past my eye. What am I doing? Who knows. I mean, seriously. No idea. Tried to sleep, doesn't seem to work out most of the time. Although, being awakened last night was nice, because I got to talk to my relatives in Germany, which I haven't had a chance to in a long time, and they mentioned how I hadn't been over there in forever, and I agreed. So there is the possibility of me going to Germany this summer, but who knows, I gotta earn some paper first. That is my task for tomorrow, find gainful employment. Spent the last bit of my cash today. So it's either off to the plasma bank, or off to cooking up country style chicken. Neither comes across as very appealing I know, but options are limited. Or at least that is how it looks. Summer could bring new prospects. Onward and upwards. Improvement is the goal. Change, evolve, all that good jazz. The day begins now and continues onward until something is done, or (and this is much more likely mind you) I'm just gonna pass out sometime around noon tomorrow. Of course, I can't do that because I'll be sitting around in classes all day, since wednesday is the long day. Ah well. Oh, also, anyone who talked to me on AIM in the last few years can rest easy, I have lost the logs of those conversations. History thrown away, with one keystroke. Enjoy anonymity.

So I have decided that today should be more documented then the usual day. And just to seem like a nice guy, I'm going to say it's because today is

JACQUI'S BIRTHDAY!!!!

So I sit here on hold, waiting to be brought back on to the line, and yet I can't think of a thing to say. All that happens is a feeling of warmth and a smile. Despite the inability to come up with fitting words to speak, I am somehow able to put them down here, the noise of the keys, the movement of the filthy buttons below my hands really does sort of relax me. The strumming of keys drives most people crazy, and I'm sure if it was someone else typing right now while I was trying to do something I wouldn't like it at all either, but since it's mine I tap away, only to be interrupted.

The massive time span covered in the front page here is just too pathetic. Because of that, more late night posts about nothing. Everything is where it needs to be, my latest project lies destroyed in the trash can, and I'm about to fall off into a wonderful slumber, and tomorrow is gonna be a fantastic day.

So here we are, but where is that really? I mean, this space here has been unused for quite some time. Random traffic floats by every day, but I'm pretty sure most of it is automated, or the last few readers checking in out of pure habit. Of course, I am just as out of touch with everyone else's works, so I suppose it's a fair trade. The real reason is that I have been having some trouble just getting my words out onto something. An arranged sequence of words isn't always the first thing that comes to my mind. However, I think that it is important to escape the jumbled mess of stuff floating inside your head and just put it all down. Even if you never read it again. I mean, there may have been a few times I've gone back and read things on here, but mostly I just leave it there in the archives. Of course, there is always the opposite as well, some people only show up to read the same thing over and over. Of course, most of the garbage on the front page hasn't really been worth a second glance, since it was just random nerd jargon from another realm. Enough of that however, because getting started is never good, specially on something like this, where it just keeps going, and things repeat themselves, ad nauseum. Of course I am aware of the irony of this statement in that most of the words written here have been used at least once in a similar way, when looked at with an acceptable margin of .375. Now that we have these figures in mind, lets look at some other ideas that have popped up in the last few days.

...

This concludes my opening remarks.

Ah El Paso. Sure it may be winter everywhere else, but here it's a toasty 80 degrees all day. And the scorching sun pounds down on you the moment you step outside. My poor little eyes aren't used to this harsh treatment anymore. But anyway, here we are in a new year, and so far things are going pretty well. I feel motivated and ready to go back to school and actually kick ass for once. Until then I get to spend my days lounging around El Paso, doing not much of anything and having a good time. Alas the close of my vacation is approaching rapidly, and I will once again be back in my apartment wasting time. On the weekend anyway. I'm sure the eleven history related classes I'm taking this semester will keep me busy. In case your wondering why I actually decided to post something, it's because right now I'm fixing this computer, and rather then just sit here watching progress bars I decided to go waste time on the internet while the computer does it's thing in the background. On that note it is done, and I'm out.