I love driving at night. I never really did it before, but the last two hours I was on the highway and I actually enjoyed it a lot. I like it for a couple reasons: Number one, I'm nocturnal. Nighttime is my time. Number two, since it's night (and cloudy), looking up you see nothing. I felt like I was in a cave, which just screams badass to me, 'cause driving through a cave at 65 and feeling like it never is going to end reminds me of the moonbase in Planetes. Or the underground crater in Evangelion, only, darker. Number three, it really makes me appreciate the color violet. Maybe my eyes are messed up, but I could see a definite difference in color between right above a city/town and the sky. Right above was violet, and it moved to a darker shade of blue as you looked higher. Looked really awesome. Number four, nobody is on the roads. I could go whatever speed I want, if I felt like it.

Call me crazy, but the only thing I felt that was missing was rain. Every other time I've driven down to visit friends at UIUC the weather has been terrible. Rain, snow, sleet, extreme winds... those are pars for the course, I felt like I got out easy for some reason. Plus driving in the rain keeps me awake.

I had a great time down there :) Haven't seen some of them in a while, and Jenny's party was pretty crazy :P Nice visiting with peoples.


There was an ad on the TV down there that seemed interesting. Apparently it's been running for a while, but it was for full time temporary positions as a video game tester. I can't remember who it was, but I've heard of them before, so I think that's probably a good thing. I think I'll try and check that out and see if I can steal a position there. If I can, it's the last piece to the question puzzle of what to do this summer.

Adion is currently listening to: Snow Patrol - Run [5:55]

Going to UIUC for the weekend. Happy day after your birthday to Jenny! Celebrations ensue in approximately 5 and a half hours. I'll be driving back late Saturday night.

As a sidenote, I didn't get the promotion. I'm not sure if they're going to just not fill the position, or if they're planning on promoting someone else. Either way, it only serves to help make my decision for summer. Before, I was leaning towards staying, now I'm leaning again towards going. I'll talk to HR Sunday and see if I can get transferred to the store down there around summertime. Gotta go eat some lunch and pack, so... Bye! :P Hopefully there will be tons of new pictures of me and friends on facebook within a week.

Adion is currently listening to: The Postal Service - Sleeping In [4:21]
My sisters bird really likes The Postal Service. He chirps a lot to them :)

The first interview went well, I think. Couple things that I could have answered better but that's alright, I think. Was supposed to get another interview with the store manager today which would finalize anything, but he was apparently really busy so I didn't get to. Hopefully tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

Adion is currently listening to: Masanori Takumi - Ooki Na Ken [1:44]

Last night while making futile attempts at sleeping I resolved to do a lot of things. I'm not sure how serious I was or just how much I wish my life could change on its own. I would love to get more physically active. I want to go climbing again. I haven't been in probably over a year and a half, maybe two. I would love to start learning Japanese. That book Sempai just got almost made me want to buy it just because of its purpose. I thought about downloading some software to help me learn Japanese. I watched a video last night of a friend of a friend who's currently in Japan (you can watch them over here, as well as other videos around the site). I really really really want to go to Japan now. Really really badly. God.

I made some decisions I'm not sure I can keep. I really want to go down to UIUC over the summer and live there, get a grasp of living almost by myself, cooking for myself, etc, while still being in an area where if I fail I can fall back and not lose everything.

Current goals and resolves I made last night:

• start exercising in the morning. Even if it's just 30 crunches and working up to 50, then more, and doing push-ups, etc. The one thing about my body that I've never been comfortable with is the amount of muscle on my arms. Feel so scrawny :(
  
• find a good climbing wall that I can go to on a more frequent basis than Vertical Endeavors, which is I believe at least an hour away, and costs roughly $40 a day I believe to visit. Maybe buy some climbing gear for myself?
  
• decide what I want to do with my life. Last night I resolved to finish my associates, get a business degree (maybe a minor in Japanese?), become an exchange student to Japan, and after graduating get in the JET Programme. After that's over, if I'm really lucky or like it a lot, start a business there. Probably something to do with computers.
  
• Find a new phone. I've been looking for a while. I'm starting to think I should just give up on finding a phone that calls to me, and just go with a phone that is fine, rather than perfect. Still thinking about the Sony-Ericsson w580i.
  

I had a hundred last night. I debated getting out of bed and turning my computer back on so I could write them all down while I was thinking about it, but I didn't. Oh well.

I'm being interviewed tomorrow for a possible promotion. I'm freaking excited. Also, nervous as hell. My hair is still somewhat obnoxiously long. I like it, but I also don't like it. It's annoying to take care of, and always gets in my eyes. It's also reaching the point where I don't think it looks good on me. Picture here, if you'd like. Cell phone camera, woo. Another reason why I'm nervous is that they're interviewing three people. One was interviewed today. That's a lot of potential hirees. Considering I've been itching for this job probably since I came back, I'm almost hurt that they're offering it to other people, even if they are fellow employees. I've heard rumors that they're actually seeking two part time and one full time for this position. (which is creepy, because that's exactly who applied... I'm part time, there's another part timer and a full timer who applied) Fingers crossed.

I've been watching a lot of anime recently. I burned through Kasimasi ~Girl Meets Girl~ in probably two days. Loved it. Doesn't have a great score on AniDB which is interesting to me. Must be a niche. Currently watching Pumpkin Scissors, which has promise but so far I've found to be no better than "alright". Started Kimikiss Pure Rouge, the first episode is interesting. Have the next two ready to go whenever I get around to it. Still watching Ghost Hound, episode 13 was finally released after another month of waiting. Slow release schedule I guess. I finished watching Stratos 4, an anime I started watching wayyy back when I was on a space anime dig, after watching Planetes and Twin Spica. I stopped because I thought the story was lacking, but coming back to it for some reason I thought it was better. Maybe I just needed a break from the genre.

I bought Jade Empire off of Newegg recently because it was on sale for like $15, and it had good ratings. I've played it for something like 30 hours I think. Love it. Tried to get back into Battlefield 2142 couple nights ago, but realized the reason why I left in the first place: punkbuster is probably the second worst program in existence, behind Starforce, and in front of iTunes. Decided Gunbound would be a nice fall back point. Yay for St. Pat's events?

I haven't really touched the Wii recently. I blame it on my sister, because she demanded it be in the family room, and now I can't play it on a whim up here. I need to spend some time eventually on my PS2 so I can beat Disgaea 2, powerlevel in Kingdom Hearts to beat that. (and then move onto the second game which I still have in the cellophane...) Recently watched a couple videos trying to learn how to drift in cars, which got me interested in Gran Turismo again, but I haven't touched it either... Tried to get Need for Speed Most Wanted to work again, but it's buggy and thinks I don't have DirectX 9.0c installed, and I do. Stupid EA programmers.

Debating reinstalling Windows to fix random stupid issues I'm having with it, like the volume control not being in the taskbar when I start it up, or NOD32 taking a full minute for the splash screen to go away so I can actually use my computer. Currently thinking that I'll wait til Intel releases the new Penryn quad cores which are supposed to be cheaper than the one's already out, more powerful, and use less actual wattage. Win, win, win? Of course, with the purchase of that comes new motherboard and RAM, which means I'll have a BEAST inside of two months. It's almost funny to me that every time Linux drivers about catch up to the hardware I have, I upgrade. :P Hopefully CPU drivers aren't as unportable as video card drivers and this won't be an issue. I'd like to have a working distro of Linux sometime soon.

I've been picking up some new music recently. Found Telepopmusik the other day when Jordan linked me a youtube video showing off a new Nissan 350Z design with their song Breathe in the background. Grabbed an older Ferry Corsten CD and have been listening to that. A lot of classics on there I didn't realize were his. I've heard mixes of almost the entire cd before and never knew he was the man behind the scenes. Slowly been working on making a new cd to listen to in the car. The idea is to take all the anime OP/ED songs that I've loved and throw them on there until I hit 74 minutes and have to stop. Trouble is, that can be difficult, 1) because most OP/ED songs suck, and 2) they're not always easy to find.

Hmm. I think I've about exhausted my topic range for now. This super sized post is what you get in place of more frequent ones, I suppose :P

Adion is currently listening to: Ferry Corsten - Kyoto [4:49]

edit: just noticed that the pictures are all working again. I haven't touched the settings on the template, so I guess Comcast stopped being a douche and fixed their servers.