Tony’s Journal

Every couple of months, we need to take a step back and laugh at Chris again.

Now with movies!

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Hehe, I head David Lee Roth on the radio last night and I had to download it at once to both computers. . .

“I ain’t got no-body! Sad and lonely sad and lonely sad and lonely. . .”

Went to Mitch’s last night. It was nice. It was pretty dead in there, what with it being Memorial Day and summer and whatnot. Cherry annoyed the waitress by screwing with the TV. That waitress was not very nice anyhow, so I couldn’t care less. I had never seen her before, and I hope not to again. It’s funny that I like Mitch’s so much despite its being a russian roulette of illin’ waitresses.

Think we’re going to go to Cherry’s beach house sometime this summer. No A/C, no TV, 10 beds, small house, hogs floating by. . . paradise on the Neuse!

But I want to take another vacation sometime this summer. I want it to be exotic. So exotic that it might even take us. . [dramatic suspense]. . . out of the state of NC!

Yeah, I dare to dream. I might also dare to bare, but that is an issue for I-95 south.

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Bought a coat, pants, belt, socks, and shirt for the weddings this weekend. I think I will look okay. I damn well better, I spent lots of money on that crap. I had been bitching a lot about having to buy all that in the first place, but it has diminished somewhat now that Cynthia said it looks good on me.

SO bored. I spent the last couple of hours fixing the php problems with our webpages. The inability to access files in certain ways is a very inefficient process, but I hear that this particular “opportunity” is being looked at by the systems supergroup. For now, it works.

Still looking for that 8-track player. Come on. I know you have one that you don’t need.

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So Chris and I have been compiling a list of songs that belong on AM radio. As in, songs that sound most at home on the AM dial.

So far we have:

• Bread – Guitar Man
• Chicago – If You Leave Me Now
• Bob Dylan – Mr. Tambourine Man
• Janis Ian – Seventeen
• Carole King – I Feel the Earth Move
• anything by Gordon Lightfoot (Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, Sundown, Carefree Highway. If You Could Read My Mind…)
• anything by America (Horse With No Name, Ventura Highway, Sister Goldenhair, Tin Man…)

I think I’ll buy an 8-track player. I used to have one. I want one of the component players, with an 8-track player and a backlit AM/FM dial. And RCA-out jacks. Anyone have one? Your parents maybe? It would be nice to have one.

Man, what a sad song this is.

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Man, for all that has happened lately, I have been quite a slacker in the journal department.

So yeah, all kinds of people graduated on Saturday. (Anyone with photos: I will post them if you will get them to me.) I gather that I made the correct decision in sleeping rather than going to the Big Graduation Thing at the ESA. As might be expected, I went to Cynthia’s Chemistry graduation in Dabney. It was a pleasant surprise that she won an award she didn’t even know about – “Undergraduate Award for Analytical Chemisty” or something to that effect, signed by the Fuzzy Doctor Boss himself. I was impressed and proud. She worked so hard, especially this semester.

People who worked hard are all around me, and I am impressed and proud about that. I know at least four valedictorians off the top of my head. I live with someone who graduated 1st in her department*. I know 4 people who are going to grad school for free and then some.

Of course, it can not be ignored that if I would have graduated, too, had I not wasted my full scholarship and dropped out nearly as soon as I got to school. It was a tiny bit weird, but was really something that I had anticipated for the last three years. I actually may be taking a class or two soon — I have a meeting with Dr. Lavelle on Wednesday to see about that. I found that if a suspended student does not attend class at NCSU for three years, it is made easier for them to get back in with a semi-clean slate. Details are here, and it’s called Contractual Readmission. Basically I have to come up with a plan of action, and then get it signed by the department head and the dean. There are all kinds of questions here that need to be answered. Why am I considering taking classes? What is my objective? Am I allowed to get the hookup from professors I know, or do I have to take all prereqs? and so on and so forth. Dr. Lavelle is a really easy guy to talk to, so I should have no worries.

Dayo’s staying over tonight before he rolls out to FL. Billy and Mandy are in 40-degree Erie, PA, waiting on a wedding scheduled for Saturday. Melissa, our very own mountain mama, leaves for West Virginny on Wednesday.

I wish it was Thursday. I could use another weekend.

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* – okay, so she was the only graduating geology major, but still 1st in her class, right?

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So all my people graduated. I’m so proud of them.

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Last night was a lot of fun. Billymander, Chris, Cynthia, Cherry, and I went to Mitch’s, and were met there by J.M. and Melissa, who wasted no time in hilariously asking our waitress “Do you have buttery nipples?” I enjoyed a Guinness and a whiskey sour. Melissa then expressed her desire for one of my increasingly famous apple martinis, and I could do nothing but oblige. So back to 29 Dixie we went.

This turned into me making 4 apple martinis, plus Melissa wanted seconds, plus I made some unholy combination of Sunny D + peach schnapps + Absolut Mandrin + pineapple rum for me & Cherry. Photos will be coming soon. I can not get enough of my new shaker. We watched Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back as well, which is quite a hilarious flick.

As soon as I went to bed I fell asleep, and as soon as I woke up I went to work. And here I am.

I’m going to the Computer & Technology Showcase at the Jim Graham Building this noon. Hopefully I can score some free schwag. Aaron and I are referring to this “showcase” as “Schwagfest,” so I better get some loot.

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Traci alerted me to this last night: Remember our friend, the lion at Busch Gardens? We visited him over Spring Break. He lives near the hippos. We saw him as Brian Cherry tried to hippo-knowledge his way into that young female zookeeper’s pants.

Well, it seems that a 21-year-old female zookeeper was taking her parents, her boyfriend and his parents on a VIP behind-the-scenes tour yesterday. What a fine Mother’s Day present! She showed them the giraffes, the antelopes, the silly hippos, and OH MY GOD THAT DAMN LION JUST BIT HER ARM OFF!

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! The keeper from Busch Gardens only got one arm! The keeper from Busch Gardens only got one arm!

I don’t care if you are a zookeeper. Moral of the story: It is always dumb to stick your arm into the lion’s pen while he is standing right there.

So the question is: is the keeper the very same one that Cherry so coveted? Seems likely. The person he was talking to was a zookeeper, female, and about our age. And if she is now drummer-from-Def Leppardesque, well, it would be sad.

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I went to take pictures of the flowers at the Rose Garden on Saturday morning. I did so because it rained Friday night, and I knew that water would still be all over the roses. Sure enough, I went and the roses were in full bloom. Only a month ago the rosebushes were brown sticks. I took 89 pictures and posted them here. Alternatively, you can view the slideshow.

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Back to work. . .

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Layoffs Likely

“NCSU would lay off 97 employees,” eh? I bet I am among them.

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The power went out this morning in Pork Chops and Page. I have a laptop with a DVD drive, so I spent the outage watching Michael Jackson videos. Cause this is Thriller, Thriller Night, and no one’s gonna save you from the beast about to strike. . . I also watched “Rock With You” and “Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough,” both of which are hilarious early-80s videos.

It is toasty out. Not August toasty, but toasty enough. I was telling Aaron at lunch that I would be pleased if it was always snowing out, with the exception of campus, which would be under our own big 80-degree BioSphere.

That would have been swell last night, as Billy, Chris and I played basketball in the humid hot weather. I got tired pretty easily. The Rose Garden court was mysteriously empty. . .only a ~10-year-old and his grandmother were there when we arrived, and they ended up leaving. I did notice that Grandma had game.

And since I worked overtime last week, I get to leave early today! Yesssss

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