i think this may be the last blog of the year for me, as i’m still internetless at home and it seems that this is going to take a lot longer than i expected to remedy the situation.

so i’m at my home away from home, tapioca express, where it is too cold and too loud to do any sort of rational blogging, so instead i will just do a stream of consciousness blog to sum up two thousand and four.

this year seemed rather uneventful. i’m not sure if it is because there haven’t been any huge life-changing events or if it is because i’m just forgetful, but it didn’t seem like a lot has happened this year.

in fact, i can’t really remember much of anything that happened this year. i think this was the year that i hurt my ankle pretty bad. that was unpleasant.

oh well, so much for the year end recap. =P

happy new year, folks! see ya in the new year.

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it’s the last day of the work week for me, i’m going on vacation and it starts in…JUST…A…FEW…HOURS.

i’m not sure what i’ve got planned, really. i know that i have to clean up the apartment before the new year, but aside from that i don’t really have much plans for my two days off.

i think that i’ll rather enjoy them, though. still need to fix the DSL in my apartment though. grrrr.

i’m ready to start my vacation and end the year, though.

i went snowboarding yesterday. i forgot how painful day trips were, but this time it was even worse because i took a bad fall on my first run. my back was hurting pretty bad and it was hard for me to do any boarding after that. i went back to the lodge and i rested up for a while and then i went out to hit the slopes again. i repeated this process several times until i just couldn’t handle it anymore. i don’t think that i will be going boarding anytime soon.

my back still hurts and my right shoulder hurts quite a bit too. i’m hoping that continued rest will make it better, but we’ll see.

this christmas was pretty low key. i spent the holiday with my family and we opened each other’s gifts.

aside from that, it’s been a pretty easy going weekend, not much to think about, but the long weekend was really nice. i enjoyed every moment of it. this week is a two day week for me, so i’m going to try and enjoy that too! half of the work week is ALMOST over.

i took a bunch of pictures from paul and leeya’s gift exchange, but i don’t have a fast internet connection to upload the pictures yet so we’ll just have to wait and see about that.

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last night i went to tapioca express to catch up with a friend of mine. i feel like i haven’t seen the person in a long time so it was good to be able to catch up on each other’s lives and see what’s going on. it was as if all of that time hadn’t passed and that time didn’t create a void between us.

that isn’t necessarily true for all of the people i know. there are some people who flitter in and out of my life. time and distance does seem to grow a great divide between us and though we may have been great friends before, we seem to no longer share that connection that we once had.

sometimes i wonder if i’m an island. i wonder if maybe i’m the only one around and though i know that other people exist, i wonder if i’m just sort of out there by myself. so every so often i decide that i really need to get off my butt and make the effort to go and do something about it and i’ll reach out and get in touch with people who i’ve fallen out of touch with. sometimes it’s a good thing to catch up, other times it just magnifies the distance that has grown between us.

in any event, with my DSL out, i feel even more disconnected than ever. even though i don’t spend too much time chatting away, just knowing that the people are out there provided some kind of weird comfort. strange, isn’t it? man, i am so dependent on broadband, it’s ridiculous. it’s a good thing i’m going boarding this weekend so i can just get away from it all and recharage a bit.

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the unthinkable has happened. my DSL is dead.

let me make sure the gravity of the situation is fully appreciated because this is no light matter.

my DSL is dead.

due to unfortunately circumstances beyond my control, my DSL is dead and i don’t really want to talk about the huge nightmare that is called my life without broadband.

thoughts like, “wow, i can’t leave work now, i won’t be able to connect to the internet!” occur in my head and then i am saddened that the quality of my life seems to be directly related to the speed of my internet connection…which, by the way, is no way true.

i do have other things to do in my life…really, i do.

but for some unthinkable reason, all i can really concentrate on at the moment is the lack of DSL at my apartment. so, i’ve resorted to staying out late at my favorite tapioca express location that offers free wireless internet and i’m doing the sorts of things that one does with a fast internet connection: blogging.

because, you know, you NEED a really fast internet connection to blog.

and, you know, you NEED a really fast internet connection to IM…of course, no one is responding to my IMs anyway, so i guess it doesn’t REALLY matter…but somehow, i am comforted by the fact that i can browse the web really fast if i wanted to. or i can download things really fast, if i were so inclined.

i guess it’s really the comfort of knowing that it is there more than anything else.

go figure. oh well, tapioca express is closing soon so i’ll have to venture out and go home i guess…to the dark ages…but i will resist the temptation to dial up with my backup internet connection. because i liken using a modem to dialing up as eating your food without your hands: you could do it, and it technically would work, but it’s just barbaric.

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[url=http://gdch.org/havinga/badday.htm]having a bad day?[/url]

too bad the last image is doctored and is a fake. but still, pretty entertaining nonetheless.

let’s play catch up a little, shall we? my brother threw a gigantic christmas dinner at home over the weekend. 78 people showed up in all and i have never seen so many people in the house before in my life. my parents decided to go out on a date that evening while my brother entertained the masses. the whole event was rather amazing, though i’m sure that clean up must have been a nightmare. still, it was very impressive that he was able to put the whole thing together and there was plenty of food to be had by all.

i left dinner early to arrive at warren’s holiday party late. there were some familiar faces around and we eventually sat down to play some poker. josh took third place, danny took second, and i ended up winning that evening. it was getting late at night and so the game had to be ended with a round of acey-duecy. i am not a fan of the game and much would have prefered to keep playing poker, but still it was nice to play a little bit.

i’m behind in my christmas shopping. really, really behind. it’s no joke. i think that i’m going to have to go on a bit of a shopping spree this week to be able to finish up all of the shopping that i have to do. kind of scary. oh well, maybe people will get their gifts late this year.

and as always, the brilliant idea i had of making xmas cards this year stayed just that…an idea.

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i had dinner last night at [url=http://www.soifour.com]soi 4[/url] last night with anita in oakland. it was actually quite good and i’m eager to try it out again. anita and i have been meaning to catch up and have dinner for a long while now but due to our busy schedules we don’t get the chance to meet up very often.

still it was good to catch up with her. soi 4 is a nice restaurant. it makes me want to try out other little places like that with good food and reasonable prices.

kristin kreuk is in a new tv mini series! it’s called [url=http://earthsea.scifi.com]legend of earthsea[/url]. how can i haven’t heard about it until now?

i wonder if she’s any good in it. i don’t really like how smallville seems to be trying to become more adult and they are trying to sex up the series. it is becoming another one of those 90210 shows where everyone is sleeping with everyone else. superman’s gotta learn to fly already!