I Put The OVER in Overtime

After about 3 months of working OT, this week I am gonna finally take myself off this schedule. I have been looking forward to this point for a long time, when I get to leave work at 4:30 and go home to a place closer than 10 minutes away.

What to do with this extra time? I don't know yet. Yesterday after work, I went to Jewel to pick up some garlic and oranges. Went home, made rice, a dish of spinach, and microwaved a bowl of beef I brought from home. I make a mean spiznatch, by the way. Anyways, I ate dinner, washed the dishes, and it was not even 6:30 yet. I felt so proud of accomplishing all that by myself, when only a few weeks ago, I would only be just getting home at 6:30.

Next, I watched Everybody Loves Raymond. This is one of those shows I never really watched before but now I wish I did, cause I discovered that it is very entertaining. Up until last week, I had only seen about 3 episodes and it seems like one of the three was always on whenever I happen to catch the show. But anyways, I now think it is one of the funniest sitcoms on TV after watching it a couple times in the past week. Even though all of the people in the show are annoying, it just cracks me up so much.

The only thing is, I would rather shoot myself than be in a marriage like Raymond and his wife. To me, that's like the definition of lifelong misery right there. I don't care if she is attractive for a housewife-aged woman, can you imagine being ripped on by your spouse all the time? And I don't think I have ever seen them even kiss (let alone anything else), instead he is always saying stuff like "don't worry honey, I won't bother you for sex tonight." I mean, that's hilarious to watch, but it wouldn't be so funny if that was me. That's not what I picture a happy marriage to be.

I guess it's partly a reminder to me that love is more important than looks. This coming from a guy that has Britney Spears stickers in his wallet. But seriously, I don't wanna marry her, I just wanna admire her from afar. haha...

Maybe I will write a more in-depth blog about love vs. looks sometime, but I had a different plan for this blog so that will have to wait. Since I have 2-3 extra non-work, non-sleep hours in the day now, I'm gonna list some goals I would like to accomplish with this gift of time.

1. Learn to cook - I routinely mess up fried rice and boiling eggs, so this could be tough. I don't expect to be Iron Chef Chen, but it would be nice if I knew at least a few more dishes. In this day and age, I don't think guys can really count on the girlfriend or wife to cook anymore. Simply not gonna happen, so get used to it. It's good for me to be more self-sufficient anyways. But yeah, the first step should come later this week, when I will pick up a book at Barnes to get me started.

2. Get a telescope and learn about stars and shiznit - Except for a couple of my nicer friends, almost everyone I know either looked at me funny or flat out called me a nerd when I told them I wanted to do this. So SCREW YOU ALL. I'm getting a tizzelescope, and looking at frickin stars. I was gonna do it alone anyways. I already have the vision in my mind: open up the big window of my room on a clear summer night, put some Chopin on in the background, lose myself in the craters of the moon, engaged in deep thought and personal discovery. All you haters will be missing out.

3. Watch Godfather movies - I have wanted to watch Godfather for the longest time. Haven't seen it before, but I liked Goodfellas and Casino, and I'm sure the Godfather series is even better than those. You might even say they are the "godfather" of all mafia drama movies (yeah, I'm so clever). Well, Brian has them on video and I will have to make time to watch them in the coming weeks. After that, maybe the Sopranos. Then, possibly 24 or Sex and the City. Also The Natural and Field of Dreams. While we're at it, why not Major League? Caddyshack sounds good too. There's too much stuff I haven't seen.

4. Get Pocket PC - I talked about the Toshiba e750 about a month ago, well, now I'm waiting either for the price to come down a little, or rebates to be offered, or maybe newer and cooler models to come out. There are rumors of a new HP IPaq model to be released soon. But definitely, within another month, I want to pick one up. There's so many things I think I could use it for, that I won't bother to list them all here. Basically, they are all nerdy purposes anyways so there's no point in feeding my nerd-image. We'll see whose productivity will be skyrocketed in a few months, and who will be laughing then. muahahaaha

5. Spend at least one night/week at the library - Last week, my favorite Palatine-native Cindy showed me around the Palatine Library. I was seriously in awe. I mean, Indian Prairie Public Library at Darien was pretty nice, but there's just no comparison. This place has an underground parking deck. The magazine section and video section are huge, not to mention computers everywhere. I even saw Mech Chick there, the obsession of Master P's college freshman year (which faded later on). I can't wait until I get two things in writing with my name and Palatine address on them so I can apply for my library card. Then not only will I be able to borrow books, but I could also use my pickup line on Olivia: "Good thing I got my library card, cause I'm CHECKING YOU OUT!!" Yes, she'll love that one.

6. Organize a game of softball - This is one of the things I miss most from school last year. Getting a bunch of us together, going to an open field, and just playing for a couple hours. Using folded up 24-pack beer cases as the bases, hitting until the ball unraveled and then driving with Chras to Dick's Sporting Goods to buy another one. Hopefully we can pull at least one game together sometime soon, and multiple games to follow in the summer months.

7. Find Sean Paul and kick his ass - I hate that song. Maybe it's partly because I understand zero words in it, but it's just annoying. The only good part is the little kid dancing in the video, but that's only like 10 seconds.

*****

Nobody knew the origin of the quote from my blog about my computer: "Why you gotta be wastin my flava?!" Interestingly enough, I saw this movie on TV last night as VH1's "Movies That Rock". For those that might be wondering, it was said by Kenny (Special K) in "Can't Hardly Wait".