Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in dealusions' LiveJournal:

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Friday, November 7th, 2008
11:57 pm	Revelation This has been eating me for fucking days, so I finally gotta post it here, my only semi-private area on the Net. I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere, but doesn't it bother anyone that this election was full of blatant "reverse" racism? On election morning, all I saw was interviews with blacks going on about how they were out to vote since it was a historic day. What that says to me is that they are voting for a guy because of the color of his skin. Now don't get me wrong, if you think Obama and crew are good for the country because of his qualifications (like my buddy JP), more power to you. But if you are one of the apparently hundreds, thousands, millions (?) of people who voted for him so he would be the first black president, you are a racist, plain and simple. If I were still registered in the States, I probably would have voted for McCain, not because he was white, but because I've liked the guy for about 10 years now, since I first read about his past in Vietnam as a prisoner of war. I respect the guy. Palin made me kind of rethink that decision since she's sort of a nutball, and I hate the religious aspect of the Republican party, but I just felt he was a good guy. After being over in Europe recently, I realize perception-wise, Obama was a good choice to raise our country in other people's eyes, but still, it has nothing to do with skin color. Maybe it's the fact that I lived in Atlanta for 6 years and saw just how quick racism runs the other way when whites are the minority, but something about the comments I heard on CNN really rubbed me the wrong way. That's about all I have to say about that, and it felt good to finally get that off my chest. And in order to keep this from getting too serious...Palin? Regardless of her religious affiliation, I'd plow that like farmland in Kansas. I'll be here all week, folks. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, March 22nd, 2008
6:20 pm	Chicks... Miley Cyrus makes me happy I had a boy. What the hell is wrong with girls? She's a fucking mediocre singer on cable TV. Get the fuck over it. Of course, most girls graduate from this to being enthralled by shiny objects (ie, jewelry) so whether things get better or not is debatable. That's all I have to say for now... (Comment on this)
Friday, September 21st, 2007
11:17 pm	What the hell have I? Every couple of years I find myself liking a song that makes me feel a dark, dirty shame. Some of the past skeletons in my closet include songs from N'sync, Britney Spears, and...wait for it...the Spice Girls. Hell, I OWNED two Spice Girls CDs at some point in my life. These are hard words to confess for someone who has worshiped at the altar of metal for so, so long, naming Queensryche, Megadeth, and Faith No More among my favorite bands of all time. Well, this year's descent into the bowels of music madness come at the hands of Nelly Furtado, an artist I'm only vaguely aware of. Hell, my total knowledge of her is that I think she used to be a "good girl" in music and now she's become skankified. At least I think that's right. I don't watch Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood, or other shows of their ilk. What pop culture nuggets I consume come from the headlines of Yahoo news and I don't so much open my mouth and accept them as they enter unbidden like spiders into a sleeping mouth. Okay, weird analogy time is over. The song in question is Nelly Furtado's "Maneater," and as I said before, I feel such, such shame. Did you ever read The DaVinci Code? Not unlike the mad monk within that tome, I feel penance by self-mutilation or violence is my only recourse for accepting Furtado's siren song into my heart. A dark day in my household, it is. (Comment on this)
Sunday, September 9th, 2007
1:10 am	Euphoria I'm, like, giddy happy right now. My school (University of South Florida) just beat 19th-ranked Auburn in college football. It's our first win over a non-conference, ranked opponent, and it should put us into the top 25. I know that probably means jack squat diddly to anyone reading this right now, but let me have my moment. Ooh, it just occurred to me that one of the people who is likely to read this is an Auburn grad. Um, good game? :) (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, August 31st, 2007
11:29 pm	While perusing YouTube a short time ago, I came across a fairly new Poison (yes, the hair metal band) cover of Justin Timberlake's "Sexyback." I do believe my world has just imploded. (Comment on this)
Friday, August 24th, 2007
9:52 pm	Cast iron stomach I'm about to eat a plate of jerk chicken mixed in with soy sauce-saturated rice. But that's not all. I've also made one of my more dangerous drink concoctions. I don't know if it's got an official name, but it's a variant on the "Russian" series of drinks (Black, White, etc). 2 shots each of vodka, Bailey's, and Kahlua over ice. Fill the remainder of the glass (what little there is) with milk. So a sickly sweet drink, spicy chicken, and salty rice. Yeah, this is gonna be bad in a few hours. (11 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, March 24th, 2007
7:20 pm	New baby blog Ok, I said I was planning to create a baby blog way back in November, and I actually did. However, I've only just now gotten around to adding the first entry. Yeah, I'm a slacker. Now that I've actually made the first move (and removed a humongous time waster from my life...I'm looking at you World of Warcraft), I expect I'll be updating at least that blog more frequently. If you're interested, you can find it at babydeal.blogspot.com. Hope to see you over there, even those of you who haven't posted in forever! (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 7th, 2006
5:36 pm	The latest... So, been a while since I've been here. I moved on to a Blogspot account some time ago, but I haven't even been updating there in months. Just not in the mood to write, I guess. Well, I figure the latest news in my life merited an entry everywhere I can think to post. I done got the little lady pregnant. If all goes well, our first kid should pop out around June 29, 2007. I plan to create a new blog (probably on blogspot since it's real easy to post photos there) devoted to the time leading up to and then following the birth. I'll post the name of it and the URL once I get around to creating it. That is all. You may return to your regularly scheduled activities... (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, July 9th, 2005
1:24 am	Who needs subjects? By the way, I've posted a ridiculous number of pictures at the new place in the past month or so. If you haven't been there since I announced it, you may want to check it out to see what kind of hijinks I'm up to. If you can't remember the URL, it's listed a couple of entries down (though you gotta be a friend for it to show up). (Comment on this)
1:11 am	The Bang List You can blame hamano_kumiko for my triumphant return to LJ. She "tagged" me to do this little thigamajig below... Directions: List 10 celebrities that you think are the most attractive and then tag 5 of your friends to do the same. This is completely off the top of my head and in no particular order: 1) Natalie Portman (when she has hair) 2) Jessica Biel (my wife's favorite chick, by the way) 3) Angelina Jolie 4) Kate Beckinsdale 5) Mandy Moore 6) Eliza Dushku 7) Jessica Alba 8) Lacey Chabert 9) Jennifer Connelly 10) Caroline Dhavernas (she was on Wonderfalls...you probably never saw it) Hmm, 10 out of 10 brunettes. I guess blondes don't have more fun in MY house. Not that I have any faith in all of them responding since some of them haven't updated in a while, but I now tag firegyrl, akajules, lunafate, snowbirdstac, and, oh, what the hell, johnpowers. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, May 19th, 2005
10:33 pm	May the Force be with you About 20 minutes ago, I got back from seeing Revenge of the Sith. I'm not going to give anything away since some of you may be nearly as excited as I was to see it and won't want spoilers. I will agree with what many have said in that it's easily the darkest movie of the series. I'll also say that I felt it was phenomenal and that I can now die happy. So with that said, if you have any interest in the Star Wars franchise at all, you need to see this movie. I had a few Star Wars geek moments while watching it, but my worst was when I started getting teary-eyed toward the end, knowing that this was it, no more Star Wars. I was 6 when the first one came out, and one of my claims to fame is that I saw it on opening night in Los Angeles. So Star Wars has been a part of my life for nearly 30 freakin' years. I know there's going to be plenty of SW in other mediums (can't wait for the live action series in 2007), but tonight was truly the end of an era for me. I'm gonna miss it. Out. (Comment on this)
Friday, May 13th, 2005
1:38 am	I'm such a dork As if my love for all things Star Wars wasn't bad enough (btw, May 19...Revenge of the Sith), I stayed up way past my bedtime tonight to watch the Canadian replay of MTV's Xbox 360 world premiere special. Now I can't wait for November to get here, because I want one bad. It's a good thing E3 is next week since I'll get to see plenty of game previews for the 360. Sadly, I've actually been looking forward to E3 for several months now. I'm freakin' giddy with anticipation. Yep, I'm never growing up. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, May 1st, 2005
10:22 pm	Perfect End to a Damn Good Weekend What a way to end a weekend that was already going pretty well. The Family Guy made its triumphant return tonight, and it obviously hasn't missed a beat since it left prime time a few years ago. I laughed out loud at least 3 times, and for most of the rest of the half hour, I at least had a smile on my face. Family Guy is definitely in my top 10 shows of all time, and I honestly think it could challenge for number one, if this season continues to go as well. As mentioned, the rest of the weekend wasn't too bad either. We drove over to Montreal yesterday, and last night we saw the newest Cirque du Soleil show, Corteo. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised, but it was fantastic. This was the fourth Cirque show I've seen (after Alegria, Dralion, and Varekai), and I'd have to put this in the top 2. Although there were one or two slow acts, the rest of the show was amazing, and the music was probably the best I've heard yet from one of their shows. It was also a neat experience to see the show at their home base. (Nifty little tidbit: you can see the Cirque tent via Google Map's nifty satellite map thingamajig) Another highlight of Montreal was dinner. We had reservations at a Brazilian steakhouse called Le Milsa. As you may remember, one of our favorite restaurants in Atlanta was Fogo de Chao, also a Brazilian restaurant (the official "genre" is churrascaria). Well, this place was definitely on par with Fogo, but it was only half the price. You can't go wrong with that. Considering we haven't seen any other churrascarias up here, it was good to find one in relatively close proximity (we're about 1 3/4 hours from Montreal). Lastly, we stayed in a very nice hotel with easily the most comfortable bed I've ever slept in. We liked the mattress so much, we pulled up the sheets this morning to see what kind it was. It was a Simmons BeautyRest, which you may recall from the commercial where they drop a bowling ball on the bed and the pins stay upright. It's a cheesy commercial, but we'll definitely keep Simmons in mind when we look for a king size mattress in the fall/winter. That's about the time we'll probably be looking to buy a house, in case you're wondering. So that was the stellar weekend I had. Le Milsa, Corteo, Simmons, and Family Guy. Throw in some great sex yesterday afternoon, and it was about as good a 2-day period as I could ask for. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, April 28th, 2005
9:52 pm	Tom Should Just Eat Jerry Anybody else ever have a mouse problem? They're annoying, let me tell ya. We're currently renting a townhouse in a fieldy (fieldsy?) area, and as I found out last summer, mice are fairly common in all of the apartments/houses around here. When I first set out a trap under the sink last June or July, I ended up catching three mice the first night. After that, one would get caught about every 5 weeks, on average, so I got used to it. Then winter came around and they disappeared completely. That's one nice thing about the cold, it gets rid of pests almost entirely. Well, pests of the non-human variety anyway. Anyway, spring has returned and so too have the mice, apparently. I haven't caught one in the trap yet, but there have been definite signs. Then I heard from my wife that while she was watching TV this afternoon, a mouse wandered into the living room. She, not being your stereotypical terrified woman, tried to catch it and ended up chasing it back into the kitchen where it disappeared behind the fridge. As a result, I stopped by the local Can@dian Tire tonight and picked up two new traps and a shitload of mouse poison. Some of you out there may like the humane way of doing things, but I have every intention of killing every last one of these fuckers. The last thing I want are a bunch of dirty mice infiltrating my home. I'm sure as hell not going to catch them in a "safe" trap and then release them back into the wild. Screw that, they'll probably just find their way back into my house if I do that. I want to break their necks in a trap or have the satisfaction of knowing they hemmorhaged to death via the big red blocks of poisony goodness I've left around the house (worry not, no children or pets here to get into said blocks). Anyway, I'm sure I'll keep y'all informed on my war with the rodents. In other news, work is going spectacularly well. It's about 99.9% certain that the 2-month placement will be followed by a 1-year contract. My supervisor is already trying to figure out what she needs to do to keep me after THAT contract is up. So once again, things seem to have worked out well jobwise. I swear, I must have some superpower for that. Superman can fly, the Flash is real quick, Spider-Man can stick to walls, and I fall ass backwards into good jobs without really trying. Go figure. I'll probably write more about it next week. I plan to bring my digital camera into work and take a picture of my view, so expect more once I've got that done. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
7:29 am	What Kind of Woman? I was just listening to the morning news show, and they had the daily report from a woman who is part of a team that is climbing Mt Everest. She was referring to another team made up of North Americans, and she made the comment, "They've got a woman--a female woman, actually." Um, that's a pretty creative use of THAT adjective. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, April 23rd, 2005
11:01 am	How I'm Wasting My Day Proving that I am a typical, red-blooded, American-born male, my plans for the day are to plop my ass in front of the TV at noon and watch as much of the NFL draft as I can. It's on until 5, but I'm getting kicked out at approx 3 since my wife is hosting a wedding shower. Bah. I want to watch for 5 hours. Proving even further that I'm that person described above, as I wrote this, I just about had a heart attack when I realized that the draft is on ESPN in the States. Since we don't ESPN up here, I quickly ran over and checked the program guide and found that TSN has me covered. Whew! The world is a better place. Yep, I'm living the life of a rock star. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, April 21st, 2005
12:56 am	I'm Talking About What?! This is about two weeks late, but I've finally decided to weigh in on the whole pope situation. I was going to use the correct term 'papal,' but I wasn't sure if anyone would know what I was talking about. Heck, I had to look it up just to make sure it was the right adjective. Wow, so far that's two on-a-tangent sentences to one on-topic one. I'm off to a great start. ( Read more... ) (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, April 17th, 2005
10:35 pm	1 Day Down, 30 Years to Go Sorry for the delay in updating about my first day of work. Unfortunately, my school week doesn't end until this Thursday so even though I have no work-related activities this weekend, I still have one last relatively large assignment for school that I put off. I have to teach an hour and a half class with a fellow student, and I decided to do it on soft skills in the workplace. As such, our main (and probably only) source is Dale C@rnegie's book about influencing people and making friends. It's somewhat interesting stuff, but at this point, I just don't care about school anymore so I've been reading it VERY slowly. It's a good thing my teaching partner already has notes for the whole book since it looks like I'm only going to have notes for the first half. That's the downside to already having started work, not to mention the fact that it looks like I'll have a position there once my placement is over. ( Read more... ) (Comment on this)
Thursday, April 14th, 2005
11:10 pm	Gainfully Employed For those of you keeping score at home, my first day of work at the new job is tomorrow morning. No, I'm not sure why they had me start on a Friday either, but I'm always up for a one day work week, so I'm not complaining. This will be my first day of honest work (ie, not counting school stuff) since January 19, 2004. Has a year and several month break been fun? You bet your ass. Am I now itching to get back to work? Unlike the masochists who say otherwise, no, I'm not. I realize I could very easily sit around and do nothing of substance for the rest of my life, if I were financially able. I'm not, however, and that's why I'm going back. I'm not nervous at all since it's a corporate environment, and I already have over seven years of experience with that. This place is significantly smaller than the last place I worked (45 employees versus a couple thousand, I think), so the corporate culture is probably going to be a lot closer. With 45 people, it's hard for everyone to be just a number. The people I've met so far seem cool, so I'm definitely looking forward to getting to know them better. Lord knows no one can be near as bad as the trobbit I used to work with. In case you forgot, trobbit was the woman who looked like the offspring of a troll and a hobbit. Ring any bells? I don't know if I mentioned it already, but the view from our office is awesome, as it's a 7th floor corner office (I'll post a picture of the view as soon as I take one). There's four of us in there sharing a large office, but I don't think the non-cubicle, less-private environment is going to bother me. This job is much more team-oriented than ones I've had in the past so it's kind of a necessity to be able to easily talk to the other members. True, I won't be able to surf the web or make personal calls all day, but since this is going to be a job I'm taking seriously, that's not really a problem. Besides, there are always cell phones for the latter and breaks for the former. So anyway, I'l probably pop back up sometime this weekend and fill y'all in on how the first day went. I'd say tomorrow night, but my wife and I have already got plans to go out after work. Chicken wings and beer! You can't really argue with that. Dinner should be followed up by wild sex, so all in all, it'll be a fine way to wrap up the first work day, no? Talk at ya when I talk at ya. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, April 12th, 2005
4:21 am	Taxes and Fur In case you're waiting with bated breath for what I did in response to my last entry, I ended up filing my tax status as married filing jointly. After doing the math, I realized that I was getting everything back no matter how you add things up. So even if the powers that be disagree with my means, the end results are the same. I tell ya, being a kept man all year really paid off. I ended up getting all my state and federal taxes back, to the tune of about $1200. My wife needs to have some dental work done that will set us back $750 (nope, dental care isn't free in Canada), so the tax money couldn't come at a better time (figuratively speaking, I'm sure it'll be a couple months before I see the check). Also, on Wednesday, I plan to pick up a new Xbox since my old one has been glitchy for months now. I guess the rest of the refund will go toward bills. Switching topics, a question for any psycho PETA/animal rights advocates out there...what's the big deal with fur? I just skimmed over an article that talked about how Anna Nic0le Smith wanted to travel up to Newfoundl@nd to protest the seal clubbings and a big part of the article talked about how she and PETA found killing animals for their furs to be a horrible thing. Here's what I don't understand. How is mink fur or seal fur or whatever fur any different than wearing a leather jacket or leather shoes or shark/alligator skin boots? I don't see any difference whatsoever, so feel free to enlighten me. It's not like they kill the seals just for their furs. I can tell you from personal experience that seal meat gets eaten up in north, north Canada. Can't imagine why since it was pretty gross...think of a black meat that tastes vaguely like stroganoff. Yeah, weird. Anyway, I'm just perplexed about the fur issue. I suspect it's one of these cases where way too many people with way too much time or money on their hands have decided to adopt a cause they know nothing about. Wouldn't be the first time, and I'm sure it won't be the last. On an amusing side note, I couldn't remember Anna Nic0le Smith's name when I was typing the paragraph above, so I went to Yahoo, typed in "reality gold digger playboy" and she popped up in the third result. I don't know if I'd want to have someone with that kind of resume espousing my cause in any way, shape, or form. (1 Comment |Comment on this)