So yeah. Made the move. Like I said, I'll be publishing to both for a little bit, but eventually (and soon) I'll only publish to aliwolly.homeip.net/blog.html.

Watched the "Wasting Time" videos Eric made way back when. I always get so nostalgic when I watch them. I can't believe how grown up we all are. Wilson is soon finishing college. Eric's getting married this summer. And I'm... (sigh) a young adult. I just can't bite the bullet and call myself an adult yet. I wonder when that happens... that you're able to do that. I'm thinking that you never realize that you're grown up until one day it hits you. And that's gotta be hella depressing.

Beh. Quiet weekend. Yesterday I made dinner for Alex and me (stir-fry chicken and veggies with rice) and then I went with Alex and Dodi and Scott (her friend from Friday's, he lives down the street from my parents' house in his parents' old house and his parents' are friends with mine) to McGeary's to see HOTD. I had an awesome time. It was so great seeing HOTD again, I felt like it's been a while. There was this group of girls there celebrating one of the girl's 22nd birthday, and among the group were two asian girls who looked like twins. Well, this old (ok, middle-aged, but compared to the girls he was old) guy showed up, and he was all close with the one asian girl. Like, wispering things to each other and hugging and dancing. I was pretty grossed out. I mean they were just so opposite. He was approaching old, she was just leaving young. He was big and tall, she was petite and tiny. I think one of the girls in the group noticed me making a face or something, and she said to Dodi that the guy was the girl's father. See, I don't think so. I mean, he could have been, but I sort of got the impression that the two asian girls were twins, or at least sisters. But the other girl didn't go near the guy at all, or really even talk to him. So ew. Also, it'd be kind of really weird to have your dad come to a bar with you and your friends. I guess if he was divorced or something... I dunno. Anyway. It was a good night. :)

Today we slept in late and then went out for lunch and picked up a new battery for Alex's car. He was stuck here all day Thursday because when he went to leave the battery was dead. When I got home from work I found him vacuuming the floors, dishes done, and no food left in the house. Not that there was much to begin with. I felt so bad! All I had here for him to eat was half a bag of "treasure crisps", two non-frosted strawberry poptarts, and some crackers. I'm glad I didn't go to the gym after work or anything and I came right home! We'd tried to jump his car that night but it just wasn't happening, so he had to borrow his dad's car Friday to get around in. But we got a new battery today and he installed it no problem and the car's working fine. So rock :) The unfortunate thing about his having to get a new battery is that it took the rest of his $ (after last night) and so he had no $ to go out tonight (we were going to go to either his CPHM Ambulance banquet or up to 'Toga). I'm tight on the cash as well, and we did go out last night, and he has to work a 24 hour shift anyways tomorrow, so it's no big deal. So Alex is home tonight and I'm here. I tried to call Dodi, but she's unavailable, so I'm spending the night in updating the site and then playing the sims. I have about a million chores I could do tonight (last night's dishes... change the sheets... swiffer the floors... clean the bathroom... take down the tree...) but I refuse to do chores on a Saturday night and instead I'm planning on taking the entire day tomorrow to get shit like that done.

So yeah. Sims are calling... morelater...

RASH DESICION::

I've decided to move the blog! Please update your favorites/bookmarks/links (if you've graced me with a spot there) to: http://aliwolly.homeip.net/blog.html.

I'll be publishing to both spots for a little while, but eventually just posting to aliwolly.homeip.net/blog.html. I used to publish to my own server but my old computer was crapping out so I'd stopped. But now that I've got the new one (for almost a year now) I'm going to go back to my own server. I may actually turn my old one into a little dedicated server on its own. Also, I was feeling bad about violating the TOS with blogspot and covering up the ad... So yeah. New blog address: aliwolly.homeip.net/blog.html. Thanks for reading!

I fixed the skin so it looks good on both IE and Mozilla Firebird. So rock. My only regret is that I'm not useing the butterfly image at the top as a background image, but instead using it just as an image at the top because I'm hosting this on blogspot and If I use it as a background image the ad at the top covers up part of it and it looks shitty so instead I'm covering the ad with it. I feel bad that I'm violating the TOS, so be warned that I may host this blog off of my own server in the near future, which would mean a url change to http://aliwolly.homeip.net/blog.html or something like that.

Yeah. So now I'm working on the photo album. I think i'm keeping the main page, aliwolly.homeip.net and the photo album index, aliwolly.homeip.net/photo.html hot pink, because I just love how striking that color is. I think I'm going to add some albums that should have been up long ago and update other albums, so feel free to take a look.

Morelater. Ali.

Decided to try a new skin. This will look weird/shitty till I get home. There's an image to go across the top, but I haven't put it on my server yet and I don't want to steal bandwidth. Let me know what you think!

i just realized that my server is down. i feel dumb, because it took me at least 2 days to figure that out. suck, 'cause i'm at work and can't fix it until i get home. beh. ah well. i guess i'll just have to live without pics until then and own that my site will look crappy till i can fix it.

So I'm constantly trying to find new cool (free) things to do with my phone so that I don't get bored with it and buy a new one. I mean, I desperately want a new phone. Mine doesn't even have a camera built in! ;)

Dodi cured my need recently by giving me the old camera attachement to one of her old phones (she has one of those really cool camera-built-in phones...). So now I can take pictures with the mini-camera and upload them to my phone and have people's pictures displayed when they're calling. But only on the inside. So I have to open up my phone to see the picture, and I have my phone set to answer when flipped open, so the picture's only there for a second. So then I'm back to lusting after one of those new camera phones because their external LCDs are color and can display people's pictures on the outside. Sigh...

So I was playing online this weekend looking around for something new to add to my phone or some new way to use my phone so I wouldn't have such lackluster feelings about it for a while when I stumbled across pcsphonetones.com. This site has a lot of potential. It's a site that offers free ringers and backgrounds for SprintPCS Vision phones. ROCK! I downloaded the Indiana Jones theme song and "Everybody Hurts" by REM. The coolest thing I found on that site was this: Zelda (original Nintendo) backgrounds and ringers. Awesome!! So now my phone's background is the start screen to the original Zelda game (one of my all-time favorite games, ever) and when I get a voicemail it plays the beginning of the theme song and when I get a text message it plays the tune that played when you got another piece of the triforce. I know, I'm a dork. But I think that rules!!! Anyway, I say the site has potential because there's not much there yet. But I'm hoping that they'll add a lot of cool stuff, so I plan on checking back often. In fact, I think it might make it over into my links drop down ->

The other excellent thing that I found online this weekend to keep me from hating my phone is xingtones. This little app lets you convert any wav, midi, or mp3 into a polyphonic phone tone for your Sprint PCS Vision phone. It was really easy to use, and it's free as long as you give them 3 email referrals. And this is one program that I wouldn't mind getting a referral for. It's awesome! Or, it has the potential to be. It does exactly what I wanted it to do: converts your music file and then downloads it to your phone. The song clip can be a maximum of 30 seconds and the program has a very easy way to clip your songs. You have complete control over the length and position of the clip in the song. It is annoying that there isn't a running time when you play the song so that you can pinpoint exactly when you're trimming your clip. But they say they're constantly improving their product on the webpage, so perhaps in the future... The other dissappointing thing about it is the quality of the ringtones is not that great. I originally tried it with an mp3 - "Old Black Rum" by HOTD - and the quality was pretty shitty. But I was at the parents house and had nothing else to use (got that mp3 from the HOTD website) so when I got home I tried using a wav (because I figured that starting with a compressed mp3 and compressing it further was just no good). I ripped a wav of "All of the Hard Days Are Gone" off of my Let it Flow cd because I was intent on having a HOTD ringer. I had better results using the wav, but the quality was still crappy (see, we moved from shitty to crappy). So I figured that part of the problem was all the harmony and instruments, so I ripped a wav of "The Parting Glass" off of the At the Parting Glass cd and had much better results. Apparently accapella songs work best. The quality is still not that great, but it'll do. So then I did the same with "The Barley Mow" and now I have 2 decent HOTD ringers for my phone. Rock! I'm very excited about this app, and I hope they do improve the quality, because it'd be almost perfect but for the quality... :)

So yeah. Exciting phone weekend. I got a bunch of new ringers and backgrounds and a cool new app so that I can make as many new free ringers as my little heart desires. I also got a new, great deal with Sprint. I wanted to add the nights and weekends starting at 7 option, but I couldn't do it online for some reason, and I wanted to decrease the minutes on my plan to make it cheaper, but my plan had vision services included and I didn't want to lose that and have to pay an extra $10 a month for it or whatever they make you pay now. So I went to the Sprint store Saturday with Dodi and they couldn't help me there, but they gave me the number to customer service and I called there and spoke with Greg. Greg was very nice (and maybe he only seemed so because of the southern accent) and very helpful and gave me everything I wanted. Rock! So my new plan is $30/month for 300 anytime minutes and an extra $5/month for nights and weekends starting at 7 and my vision is included and he didn't extend my agreement with them for another 2 years like they are supposed to make you do if you want the nights and weekends at 7 thing. Awesome!

So i'm happy with Sprint again (for now) and I'm happy with my phone again (hopefully for a while).

I am just so sad to be back at work...

I had a four day weekend because of the holiday on New Year's Day and then I took Friday off of work, so it was just so nice to do basically nothing for four days. Getting up this morning after sleeping in for four days straight was annoying.

But not hell, because I tried this thing that my dad always said worked: when I was going to sleep last night, I kept telling myself that I was going to wake up in seven hours and that I'd be up by 6:35. And it worked! I totally never believed him when he said that he didn't need an alarm clock because he just told his body when he wanted to get up. I'm so psyched that it worked. I'm going to do that every night, because getting up at 6:35 makes the morning less hellish. I was totally (pretty much) on time to work today and I even had to start my car ahead of time and de-snow it. Awesome!

So yeah. The extended weekend was good. New Year's Eve was fun. Beck, Kevin, Dodi, Tristan, Kevin's sister, Bergeron, and I went to the Macaroni Grill for dinner. Beck met me at my house beforehand and we had a couple of Vodkatini's (which turned out pretty good, considering I made them). Then Kevin picked us up and we met everyone at the Macaroni Grill where I had two Cosmopolitans. So I was pretty drunk by the time we were leaving to go to the Big House. I had another Cosmo at the Big House, but the one there sucked, it had sours mix or something in it. So the combination of the large amount of dinner and the bad drink that I had made me feel kind of sick. I hope I didn't bring the group down, but I was pretty "reserved" for the rest of the night. Kevin and Beck brought me home soon after the ball dropped, and I passed out pretty much immediately.

New Year's Day was quiet. Alex had worked a very busy 24 hour shift on New Year's Eve, so he wasn't around, and Beck was spending a quiet day at home and Dodi wasn't available for most of the day. So I hung out at the parents' house for a good part of the day, and then hung out with Dodi that night. We watched Cruel Intentions and ate buttery microwave popcorn and mini hot dogs wrapped in cresent rolls. It was a fabulous impromptu girl's night. :)

Friday I got up kind of late and cleaned up my room (which desperatly needed to be done). Then I went to the gym and brought shower stuff along so I could shower there afterwards and get right to my day. I've never showered at this gym before, and I found the shower facilities to be... adequate. They weren't as nice as those at the YMCA in Clifton Park, but they were better than most of the hostel showers in Europe... After the gym I went to the bank to deposit Christmas checks and then went shopping around for a liquor cabinet or other piece of furniture that I could repurpose as one. I was not lucky in my search. Ah well. Alex came over later that night and we went to dinner at Delmonico's. He had the Delmonico's Delmonico steak and I got some special that was steak tips in portobella sauce over garlic mashed potatoes. He let me have a bite of his steak and I instantly regretted not getting the steak. It was divine. My dinner was very good, but compared to the steak... ah well. Now I sound like my mom ;) Anyway, we came back to the apartment afterwards and watched Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom which is my favorite Indiana Jones movie. I was so into the movie and excited about watching it... and then I suddenly passed out. Ah well. But yeah, it was an excellent night. :)

Saturday morning I got up and left Alex sleeping while I went to the mall and met Dodi and Beck to see Mona Lisa Smile. First we went to Ruby Tuesday's for lunch, where we got awful service (again). It's like they hire idiots there. The movie was pretty good. Actually, it was really good, up until the end when they just decided to wrap the movie up really quick and it was kind of disappointing. Whatever. The theater was packed, in fact, we couldn't get three seats together, so Dodi and I sat in the row above Beck. That was kind of annoying... Afterwards we walked around the mall for a bit, and Beck met up with Kevin.
Dodi and I went back to her place where we ate Taco Bell (ghetto fabulous) and watched American Beauty. I'd never bothered to watch that movie before. I enjoyed it, but I didn't think it was as enormously amazing as everyone would have you believe. Dodi curled my hair while we watched the last hour of The Ring on HBO, and I was terrified... that I'd jump and knock my head into the curling iron and get burnt. We picked up her cousin, Jill, and then went to the Big House for drinks and dancing. I almost bailed on them, we didn't get to my apartment so I could change until almost 11 and I was tired, but they convinced me to go out with them and I'm glad I did. :) The drinks were strong Saturday night at the Big House... the bartenders were very free with their pouring of the Bombay Sapphire. But every time I drink Sapphire, my drunkness doesn't hit me right away, so I end up drinking a lot thinking it's not affecting me, and then suddenly I'm drunk. So thankfully I was pretty buzzed by the time we went to the third floor to go dancing, because usually I get a little self-concious about dancing, but I wasn't bothered by anything and had a great time. Dodi and Jill dropped me off at home around 2am, and being alone and drunk and a little hungry, I proceeded to pig out on junk food. I had potato chips, and then since I had something salty, I needed something sweet, so I broke out a bag of almond M&M's that Alex had bought the weekend before for our trip, but we never opened. I never buy almond M&M's so I wasn't immediately aware that the packaging is very boring and looks sort of like the new black and white packaging they have for the contest where if you find a bag of colored m&m's inside a black and white bag you win a convertible beetle and $20k and a trip. So yeah. So I opened the bag of almond M&M's thinking that they were in the new b&w packaging and when I saw colored M&M's on the inside, I was like, "woah... I WON!!!" And then I realized that there were all different colored M&M's inside the bag, and the winning bags have all just one color... and then I realized that I wasn't dreaming, and I never win contests, so I closely examined the exterior of the bag and came to the conclusion that I wasn't a winner and that the packaging for almond M&M's is boring. I mean, who associates the color, taupe, with almonds, anyway?

So yeah. Sunday was another quiet day. I went to the parents house for the afternoon and hung out with the family. I met Beck at Starbuck's that evening before she returned to Poughkeepsie. I went home and watched the season premiere of Sex and the City (I'm so sad there are only 7 episodes left!!) and then I played Sims and went to bed at a reasonable hour (10:30).

And now I'm back at work and that blows.