Hey, it's January.  Those of you who are observant will notice that my last post was in October.  Yeah, that's how it goes for me... not much time for the unnecessities of life.  But... I took 3 days off work just before I start up classes again... ya know, need a LITTLE relaxation before I do 35-hours a week of work, alongside full-time college and a band practicing 2 times a week (that's our new agreement) and a girlfriend who wishes I would spend time with her.  So, I'm sitting here playing some Starcraft with my friends at 1:45am, because.i.can.

I like Story Of The Year.... they play good rockin' music.

So this Thursday is a special day.  Mandy and I will have spent 4 years together.  4 years is a very, very long time.  It feels that way, but then I reconsider and think about what we've done with the time, and suddenly it doesn't seem so long.  It feels like we've wasted some of the time, and I kinda regret that, but I guess that just brings us back to why I do this journal... so I can remember at least a bit of what I've done with my life.  Sooooo Mandy doesn't know it yet, but she's getting flowers at work... a big arrangement with some roses in the middle and a stuffed penguin (her favorite animal and her collection obsession).  Good thing she doesn't read this, so she can't spoil the surprise for herself.  We're a little too poor to do anything extraordinarily huge for the anniversary, but it'll be great none-the-less.  She's the best.

Oh, and I had the day off work today.  It felt so effing strange to have time to sit around... I constantly prowled, searching for something I could fill the time with... started a project for a few minutes, then realized I'm too antsy to focus, so I gave that up... watched a little TV with Mandy's dad... Matlock knows his shizzle.  Oh, and I think I might clean the room.  Yay.

    got the new Soilwork Cd the other day.  rocks hard.  you should get it.

I finished my program for File Structures.  I can't imagine anything more exciting than reading and writing to and from binary files, using an STL vector index.  Right.

So, I got the new Thursday album... yeah, that one everybody's talking about.  It seems people either love it 100% or hate it completely.  As usual, I'm the exception.  I love the album.  It's powerful, it's eclectic, and yet it still grasps the raw emotion that brought them here.  But for some reason, it feels like it's lacking something... maybe it's just that "rough cut" sound that cheaper labels afforded them.  But the album is great.  9 out of 10.

Thrice's Artist In the Ambulance rocked to.  Similar situation... I effing love the album, but I still like the last one a little more.  Either way, it's 2 great albums each from 2 bands that I love.

        oh, and i'm skipping statistics as we speak. 

  that doesn't happen too often, but i think i deserve it.