codemonkeyx.org

First things first I'm still doing well on the being a quitter front. I'm creeping up on 2 1/2 weeks now…but it feels like an eternity. I held a cigarette in my hand yesterday and considered lighting it up just because I felt like I had forgotten what I was missing. When I held it in my hand it felt so weird like it was in the wrong place. It was like one of those awkward moments on a blind date when you both realize it was a mistake. Anyway, enough obsessing about smoking. Surely there are other happenings in my life worth of being blogged….surely…..ummm….let see….blogable happening…hmmmm…. I got a new dog. While quite technically my mother might be taking him in a few weeks, more than likely he will be staying with us. He is a Brownish/Red and White Border Collie. Border Collies are touted as the smartest breed of dog in the world, and have an incredible hearding instinct. They will heard anything from sheep, horses, and cattle to chicken, kids and cats. Of course the cats don't really like being hearded, and will make themselves heard when they are…ya heard!? (lol…i dunno man?) He has really cool electric yellow eyes. On the left eye 1/2 of the iris is this silverish/bluey color, and on the right eye about 1/4 of the iris is that silver color. I'm not really much of a dog person myself…they are just too needy and smell most of the time. He's a great dog though, and I like him, but part of me is kind of hoping that my mom will end up taking him in a few weeks. I think i'll save the other crap for another post….

Ok….I know I said I was going to avoid those smoking related acivities to reduce the chance that I might be tempted to start smoking again. Well I realized that's impossible. On top of it being impossible it just not a good way to go. I wouldn't be solving the problem, which of course is to break a habit. So I've decided to face my normal smoker life with out cigarettes. So far so good…i've survived hanging out with friends who smoke constantly, drinking on Saturday, and each and every meal since last Tuesday. I know it probably doesn't sound like much, but I seem to crave cigarettes the most when i'm drinking alcohol, or after a good meal, and while i'm just sitting around bull shitting with friends. The fact that I have skated right through all three activities several times during my initial week is a good sign. That's not to say I didn't crave one. There were times when the crave was strong. But, I managed to keep my cool, and resist the urge. This has to be the easiest of my many attempts to quit smoking. While I have quit previously for almost an entire month, this time feel different. Maybe i'm just ready to quit now, maybe my reasons for quiting have finally started to out weight the reason for smoking? Who knows?! Oddly enough the first few days where much easier than the last couple of days have been. I'm not sure if it was all of the cigarette smoke I was exposed to on Saturday or not though. But I have felt my will bending a bit. It feels something like me saying to myself "Wow…i'm so proud of you….your doing so well…you deserve a reward! You know? A 'Reeeewaaard'? Wink, wink, nudge, nudge…know whadda mean, know whadda mean?" I i'm all like "Nuff said….nuff saaaid!" back to me…

Well it feel like its been a month. I basically done with craves, but the fighting off the urge to smoke at all of those moments that a usually do is proving difficult. Each and everytime I reach a stopping point while coding something at work the first thing that runs through my mind is going outside to smoke a cigarette. As a matter of fact everytime I need to take a break from coding I think about smoking. I still havn't found a way of taking a break to replace the old smoke break. So far all i've come up with is to take a walk to the conference room and pace around a bit, but it seems like such a waste. Any ideas for replacement breaks that take roughly 10 minutes?

I'm not normally a quiter, as a matter of fact sometime I just don't know when to let things go even when its pointless. (i.e. Beating a dead horse) But, here I am again trying to become a quiter in a big way. I'm 30 now and i've been smoking for a long ass time. My lungs are probably already a nasty sticky tar clogged cesspools. Which is exactly why i'm trying, once again to quit. Life is catching up with me at an incredible rate. I'm tired of growing old, putting on weight, and slowing down. I want to do healthy things for myself. Such as

1. Stop drinking so much damn caffeine. (Coke and coffee)
2. Stop smoking cigarettes.
3. Exercise and get my early/mid-20's body back.
4. Take better care of my aging skin before it become leathery and wrinkled.
5. Fast food should be a rarity in my life. Most of it makes me feel like crap anyway because of all of the free glutamic acid (MSG) added to them to make you think it taste good.

Well, i figured if I was going to quit smoking then I was going to need a life style change to go with it. You can't stop being a crack head and still hang out in the crack house. It just doesn't work. So i'll be avoiding situations associated with smoking. Everything else on the above list is good for me, but its mostly supportive behaviour that will hopefully encourage me to keep on being a quiter. You would be suprised to find just how much time each day is filled with smoking and smoking related task. When you quit all of these chunks of time suddenly become voids…big gaping voids that need to be filled with something. I've decided to fill these voids with exersice of some sort. And i'm going to compile a list of all of those little things around the house that never seem to get done and take less time to do than smoking a cigarette. Another tough area is work. I need to take a 5 minute break each hour or so to stretch and let me mind process things away from the keyboard. I traditionally filled this time with smoking, and finding something else to do while i'm at work will be tough. (wow i just reread this and it hardly makes sense, and jumps all over the place…I suppose i'll become more coherent as the craves subside.)

So I log in today to see what’s happening on MySpace. And I see a little ad for a E-40 myspace exclusive so I click to check it out. I sit patiently through the 28 second intro, and then “Yay Area” starts to play. Suddenly I hear “Rebirth of the Slick” by Digable Planets, and I’m thinking “Ok, thats hot, wonder where they are going with this?”. A very simple hard bass beat drops and my head is bobbing, i’m getting excited cause I just know the hotness is coming. “We be to rap what key be to lock” loops in the foreground (go ahead bob ya head it ok…you gotta). I patiently wait for it to suddenly stop and some furiously slick lyrics to take over.

Then like a unsuspecting wrestler getting cracked in the back of the fucking head with a chair I get crushed with the shittiest lyrical skills I’ve heard in my entire life. The loop never stops and stays in the foreground constantly clashing with E-40 lyrics (if they can be called that). But the atrocities don’t stop there, while a sample of some of the best hip hop lyrics plays, some of the worst lyrics ever are see-sawed out by E-40. I can’t even continue…i’ll just leave you with a semi-quote from another one of the songs. I believe it was in the beginning of “Tell Me When To Go” and it went something like this: “Jesus had dreds so shake um…i aint got none but i’m planning on growing some”.

The Bloodhound Gang had some great advice that E-40 should heed. “Hold ya head up high…and…blow ya brains out!”

I had almost forgotten just how much I enjoyed playing M:TG and constructing decks. If you’ve never played check it out. It’s something like chess but with 11,000+ different pieces. You just never know at any point in the game just where you stand. A single card can easily turn the tables. At the same time with the right combination of moves you can effectively check mate your opponent. There are many well crafted decks online that anyone can put together, but a good deck doesn’t always guarentee a win. You really have to understand the deck, and know how it should respond to various tactic. If you have the time to check it out, find a friend that plays and have them walk you through the basic.

Magic: The GatheringÂ

I was trying to convert a rose looking theme to something usable for the site, but just wasn’t turning out right…and i’m way to lazy to invest the time into making it work right. I think i’m going to send some images I have to someone who has designed a nice theme for Wordpress and offer them some cash…

Ok, so after a few hickups moving Serendipity over to the new host I decided to give the One-Click install of Wordpress a shot. Wordpress rocks! Nuff said…

Ok..not nuff said…not even close…but i’m too lazy to go into all of it right now so download Wordpress and check it out!