Here's something that troubles me: On IMDB's Top 250 movies as voted by their users, all three Lord of the Rings movies make it in the top 10. Ok, now, admittedly it's my own fault for seeing the third movie without knowing anything about the other two, but still. Was it visually impressive? Sure. Was it entertaining? Why not. Was it so great it belongs among the top 10 movies of all time? Doubtful. I mean, how can those three movies beat out such awesome films as The Usual Suspects, Rear Window, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Dr. Strangelove, Memento, American Beauty, and a slew of others? I don't get it. However, if there's one thing I do like on that list, it's Citizen Kane not making the top 10 by a hair. I understand its importance, but if you make me watch that movie one more time, I'll projectile vomit on your face, Exorcist style. Like that? A movie joke when I'm talking about movies... Yeah, no one cares.

Here's something else that troubles me: The Old Navy commercial(s) where they take a well known and highly despised Christmas carol and change the words to fit whatever it is they're trying to sell. Old Navy has really done a great job producing commercials that make me want to chuck the TV out the window whenever one of their spots comes on. Remember that one from last summer, or two summers ago, with the ultra-buff surfer guy saying, "Toes on the nose, bro!" Yeah, that's a good enough excuse to execute the genius who came up with that lovely line.

I'm really not feeling that Scrooge-ish or anything, but that commercial makes me think bad thoughts about the holiday season. So, for the record, I'm not really that humbuggish.

Adam's birthday is today/tomorrow/last week, depending on when you're reading this. So let's all take a moment to, with fancy font techniques, wish him a Happy Birthday. That looks way too girly, but I don't care enough to change it. And, much like the nice message he ended with in his last entry (creating a nice contrast with my curmudgeonly entry), I'd like to wish the fine people I know a wonderful holiday season and a great new year. If you read this, then you fall under that category. And if you don't read this, then you're none the wiser, so I won't have to mention you anyway, jackass.

I went to the dentist yesterday. That's always a pleasant and enjoyable experience, huh? So they told me I have a cavity (albeit a very, very small one) on my back molar. What's up with this? I brush my teeth at least twice a day (and for a very long time) and I floss! I floss, damn it! Shouldn't that count for anything? But I guess not. A cavity is my punishment. Figures. Moral of the story: Don't floss, it doesn't account for shit. I guess I can grow up to be that 5th dentist, then. The one, just to spite statistics, that refuses to go with the consensus.

In other news, today we finally broke free from the shackles of a dial-up modem and converted to Verizon DSL. It's great. And my soul feels healed from not having to rely on AOL any longer. I think I might just be a better person from here on out. Now, don't go thinking these crazy thoughts like "Oh, that means he'll be able to update this thing more often!" or anything, since that's just not happening. But hey, who knows. Stranger things have happened.

It's winter break and that means no reading for me. Well, that's not true, since I've been reading America: The Book by Jon Stewart and the other funny and intelligent writers of The Daily Show. It's hilarious, as if "by Jon Stewart and the other funny and intelligent writers of The Daily Show" wasn't a give-away. Highly recommended, so pick it up you hooligans.

All right, I think I've wasted enough of everyone's time. But before I go, let me leave you with these words: This is a time to be happy. We're all discouraged, we're all fed-up, we're all tired of something, but hey, let's forget about that for a little while. It's going to be 2005 soon. 2005. How crazy is that? Remember all the Y2K hype? Remember the excitement that came along with the approach of the first palindromatic year of the millennium? Remember how we all looked forward to 2004 with hopes that we'd be able to evict that moron Bush out of office by the end of the year? Well, that's all past. It's done. Let's bury our defeat with the other days and weeks and months and years we've already catalogued. This is a new chapter, and it's labeled "All The Things You Could Want... And Then Some." And it's opening at a theater near you. Check it out sometime.

I'm going home today and to Georgia tomorrow. I'll be back on January 2, so after that date, you, dear reader, and I, enlightened writer, should hang out. My birthday is December 23, so when I come back I'll actually be able to go places with those of my friends who are older than me (basically everyone I know except Eric and Charlie).

Monday I had this class party for my creative writing class, which I expected to suck, but turned out to be pretty fun. I didn't do anything to alter my mind, but I did like hanging out with the folks (most of them) from that class. There's some interesting characters in there. It makes me wish I'd tried talking to some of them earlier. Oh well. Caleb is graduating on Saturday, so happy graduation to him. Max and Justin and Kate and Brooke and Melissa, I guess I'll see you guys next semester at some point.

Me and Leslie (yes, that's right, me and Leslie) played dominoes with Caleb and a couple of his friends last night. I don't think I've ever actually played dominoes, but it was pretty fun. It was hard to think for various reasons, such as it being ridiculously late, but I won. Because I am the master of cards (except for that I never win) and dominoes is basically like a card game. Good stuff. Maybe I'll ask for some dominoes for my birthday or Christmas, and teach everyone how to play.

I won this contest, the "Fan of the Week" contest, at Suburban Home Records. So if you go to www.suburbanhomerecords.com this week and click the "Fan of the Week" button at the top of the page, you can see me. I won a CD of my choice, and I chose the new Laymen Terms album, which is really really good. Their last full length, "Since Last December" was a good album,but the new one, "Drive to Nowhere: Verity's Novel" expands on it in just about every way. It's good stuff, believe you me. I also got the new Suburban Home Distro compilation CD. I don't know if anyone cares, but Suburban Home is a local record label with five bands on their roster, and they put out a bunch of stuff from other labels. So if you're at all into supporting music instead of big corporations, I'd really suggest you check out some bands on their label (The Gamits [catchy fun punk], Laymen Terms [excellent guitar driven rock], Love Me Destroyer [harder but still catchy rock], The Aeffect [interesting techno pop stuff]) or check out their distro catalog (Alkaline Trio, Against Me!, among others) and order some stuff from them. It gets to us here in Colorado in a day or so, and across the country in a week or two. And it's all really reasonably priced. So that's my spiel.

School and work are over for the semester. Thank Jove for that. I should be getting about all B's, because that's the amount of effort I put out this semester. That doesn't bother me at all. On a positive note about work, my good friend from last semester, Mackenzie, is coming back to Subway next semester. Hopefully she works with me because I enjoy her hateful attitude towards everyone, because I'm like that. It's a pessimism filled hate fest when we work together, and it makes things more bearable. On the negative side, my clothes smell like Subway and I want to vomit.

I sold my books back for some money. I went twice because I had a ton of books and I didn't want to see that "I'm going to kill you" look in the bookstore guy's eye. Last time I went I took all my books at once and the guy seriously looked like he could attack me at any second. So I was supposed to get a coupon for a free burrito for selling 75 bucks worth of books, but the first day I didn't get one even though I sold 90 bucks. The second day I only sold 72 bucks or so, but I got one because I flirted with the gay guy working there. I must be damn sexy in my contacts, which I wear on almost a daily basis now. I don't wear them on days when I sleep too late and have to get somewhere, because I'm still not all that quick about getting them on (5-10 minutes seems to be the norm). And getting them off is a debacle indeed. But I do like them better than glasses once they're in, because there's no weight on the nose, and there's no outline where I can't see. Now I just need to wait another couple months to get my supply refilled with the right prescription.

Happy Birthday to Trista, who turned 21 on December 10.

And happy holidays to the following people, and absolutely no one else: Leslie, Brian, Mom, Dad, Aaron, Afton, Grandma, Grandpa, Mary Beth, Janet, Kirsten, Alysia, Clay, Jeremy, Diane, Liz, Todd, Cam, Eric, Charlie, Carolina, Trista, Caleb, Michelle, Brooke, Max, Justin, the rest of my family, Brian's family, Leslie's family, and the guys who make South Park and Drawn Together.

I think if you took a poll of hair length related to what level a person is in college, you'd find that freshmen have the longest hair on average. I think this is because they're all "free" now that they're not at home and they don't have to cut their hair. They also have a little strut to their walk that goes away after freshman year when they realize that nobody thinks they're cool. This is my freshmen observation of the day.

So I'd appreciate it if this ice would melt on the sidewalks because I'm sick of looking like an ass almost falling down.

I got the foam thing for my bed yesterday and I put it on today and tonight should be comfortable.

Last night I went down to Greeley (where it smells strongly of ass) to hang out with Leslie and her friend Heather. We played Mario vs Donkey Kong at Borders until Heather got off, then went back to her house and ordered pizza and played Simpsons Life, which is Life, basically. I lost pretty bad. I only had 800,000 bucks at the end. Leslie won with like 1.16 million dollars. At this point in my life, losing the game of Life that bad was pretty depressing. It's just a board game, though, right?

I did my presentation on Saul Williams last week. It went fine. Thanks for your concern. People laughed, and I'm fairly sure it was with me and not at me, so that's always good.

Tomorrow is a homework day. Which means I'll find any excuse to not do homework. I only have a week of school left, you'd think I could muster up some enthusiasm for the last week, but no. I did write a paper today, though. It's solid B work, which is all I can handle right now because I hate all things English at this point in my education. At least I don't have any finals.

Tomorrow night is the Subway Christmas party. Every time I show up to work people ask if I'm going to the party. I might go, except for one thing. It's at Subway. But who knows, even though I checked the "No, I ain't coming to your party" box on the sign up form, I might go make a cameo. There's supposed to be some cake. Plus all my adoring fans at work would like to see me. But it's at Subway. And I hate that place. Meh. Cake.

You ever get the feeling that something's missing in your life, but you don't know what? That's a weird little feeling.

I watched the Eternal Sunshine commentary tonight. It was pretty weak. But I watched the movie anyway and it's still one of my all-time favorites. Which means when I make my parents watch it they won't get it, but whatever.

Leslie's supposed to come up tomorrow after she works. She IMed me while I was watching the movie and told me I could come down to Heather's house again tonight, but it's too late now. And I'm retarded and deleted the IM with Heather's phone number in it. So... yeah. My bad. I feel bad now. So... yeah. I think that's all.