I am not superstitious, at least in this regards. But today is Friday the 13th, and it certainly seems to be living up to the legend.

A power transformer caught on fire, knocking out most of, if not all of, Morristown. I’d estimate at least 5 square miles. The news estimates about 12k customers.

But that’s Ok. We have a natural gas generator at work which should kick in when we lose commercial power. Should. It didn’t.

But that’s Ok. We have a UPS which should hold us, until either power comes back, or the generator kicks in.

Problem with that is, it’s an 80KVA UPS, and under load provides about 10 minutes backup, normally sufficient for the generator to kick on, or commercial power to return.

I sat in the server room reading off from 10% to zero, in less than three minutes, at which point, we went dark.

5 minutes later, the generator kicks in. Still no estimate on commercial power, but I’m not worried. At this scale, they’re working as hard as they can, and they don’t need me asking for updates every 5 minutes.

This will probably be the last posting of this nature. I’ve basically said everything I can, and any more would probably push me into the territory of buffoonery. If I’ve not already crossed that line.

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People probably aren’t interested in my soul searching, but in a way, it is kind of a type of therapy. And if people (and certain people) happen to read this and come out with positive impressions of me, so much the better.

Of course there’s the fear that the impressions will be quite the opposite, but hopefully you can see that I’m not “putting on a persona”. The sentiments are just as real as the person writing this.

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Not entirely unrelated to my previous posts, but the tie-in is there. So if you don’t wanna read more about my whining, feel free to skip  :p

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 soliloquy: (noun) 1.  an utterance or discourse by a person who is talking to himself or herself or is disregardful of or oblivious to any hearers present (often used as a device in drama to disclose a character’s innermost thoughts) 2.  the act of talking while or as if alone.

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I deleted a few of my latest postings. I dunno why I do that. I already embarrassed one women with my unwanted attention, I guess I don’t want to do that again. But here I am, posting the same thing, so am I being stupid anyways? I told her how I feel, and in a way, I hope she sees this. Not to embarrass her, but so that she might see that I’m not playing games or joking. Maybe gain favor in her eyes? I just don’t want her to get mad at me! :(

*sigh* Sometimes I feel like such a wreck, why would someone look favorably on me when I get all worked up like this?

I feel like running away.

Went to the NY Anime Fest. Didn’t buy anything, and didn’t cosplay. But it was still fun. It was at the Javits Convention Center, which is right across the Hudson via the ferry. About an hour drive to the ferry, and 10 minutes across, so it’s not too bad. Worse thing about it is Route 3 traffic. The ferry is the last exit before the Lincoln Tunnel, so you might be stuck at the mercy of traffic.

Anyways, here are a few photos. Between me and my friend, we actually took quite a few, more than I could post here, so I posted about 60 of them on my Facebook profile. If you wanna see, just feel free to send a friend invite.

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Home from Atlantic City after seeing Heaven and Hell. Great show. All of these guys are living legends, and without exaggerating, there’s probably at least 100 years of combined musical experience among them. Geezer and Iommi have been in Sabbath from the start (altho there was a gap in Geezer’s membership), Dio was with Rainbow from the start, and Vinnie was been with Sabbath when Dio came on-board.

Although they didn’t headline, a local (PA) band named Halestorm opened.

Took some pix, and tried to take a vid, but my cellphone camera (Palm Centro) isn’t really that fantastic, so everything came out pretty lousey. CJ took some pix, but it’ll be a few days before I can get a copy of those. I’m not even gonna bother with the vid, cause it’s all blown out, light and music.

But here are two pix for you to enjoy. Or even if you don’t enjoy, here are two pix anyways. One thing I am impressed with is the respect they all give each other on-stage. Dio doesn’t take the spot from Iommi, and Iommi gives the stage to Dio, and all of them recognized Geezer’s and Vince’s solos. You can see Dio in front here on the first pic.

Then Dio backs off for Tony to play a solo.

It was an age range, from the “too old to rock and roll, too young to die” group to the 20somethings. I wanted seats, so I got balcony seating, but the majority of people in the balcony were pretty dull. All the energy was in general admission on the floor. The women sitting in front of me even turned around and told me to cool it. Well. Aren’t we the mature lass?

Got body-checked when Vince tossed his drum-sticks up to the balcony. It was IN MY HAND, and the guy next to me slammed me. I still have the mark. Couldn’t get any of Iommi’s picks, tho, they were too light to be thrown up into balcony. Tried to scour the floor afterwards, but that offered no joy.

And finally, we didn’t gamble either. We checked out the craps tables (three of them) at the Showboat, where the House of Blues is, but man, talk about no energy there, either.

Like a lot of people, I like to collect certain things. But instead of collecting Disney or Pokemon, I seem to have rather a odd collecting bent.

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Some emo stuff here. You might want to skip it.

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Today is the first day that our weather hits 70 degrees, so as a kind of rite of passage, on my way home from work, I decided to wash my car. Unfortunately, by Tuesday, we’ll be back at 40 degrees.

So here are some pictures that I decided to take after I finished washing and trying to dry the car. I say trying because I picked up some of those ShamWow clothes, which are supposed to be great. Well, the sham part is pretty much correct.

Kinda image heavy, just so you’re aware…

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I made this a little while ago, but was hesitant to post it.  I have no idea why I did this. But rather than my usual buffoonery, I’ll try to keep the commentary to a minimum. Other than that, all I ask is that you please be gentle.

I wanted to upload it to the Dream Studio, but they limit mpeg uploads to 50mb, and this is almost double, about 90mb. So while I did upload it to a video hosting service, comments are disabled there.

The lighting is horrible, it looks like I have hideous bags under my eyes; I am having hair malfunctions. That day, it could not decide to rain or snow, so it did both. Between going going in and out the door several times, this is what happens.

Woke up this morning sick as a dog. Fever, headache, sinus congestion, and at least one other impolite body function. Went to the doctor, got prescriptions and other OTC stuff. Didn’t go to work, won’t tomorrow, doubtful for even Thursday.

Since I live alone, I really have nobody to cry to when I’m sick. All my friends are married or otherwise engaged. So I’ll post here, a semi-captive audience,and hope for at least one pity “awww” from someone :)

For the long New Years holiday weekend, a friend and I decided to go to Atlantic City, and we stayed at the Trump Plaza, which was a bit of a disappointment. The actual hotel had that old and worn-down feeling, and the casino floor was not very big. We both like to play craps, so we checked out the tables here. I wasn’t feeling the love. The tables did not have many players, there was no energy, and the dice were not being kind. I didn’t play, but my friend came out $21 in the hole. Not a huge loss, but still…

We went over to the Borgata, where we had much better luck. There were twice as many tables open, most of them were full to capacity and the players were very energetic. I came out $500 ahead. Sweet. That pays for the entire trip with some leftover.

Probably the best I could say about the Trump hotel was the view of the Atlantic Ocean. From the room:

Due to the angle and the building, you can’t see it, but we are directly over the boardwalk. We walked out to the water, and I dug up a nice shell.

I’m not a “beach person”. I don’t flock to the beach in the summer and tan myself to leather. I’m more of an “ocean” person I guess.

It is the middle of winter, and kind of cold, probably about 38 degrees right now. It’s also very windy. Standing here, listening to the tide, watching the restless sea roll in and out, you can start to forget about modern day issues: no cellphones, no computers, no traffic or cars. About five minutes, most of the cares feel like they’re washing away. I’m definitely not a “romantic” in terms of the word, but there is a poem titled “Sea Fever” which captures some of the emotion.

And of course, no beach would be complete without the ever-present birds.

Not too far away from Atlantic City is Lucy the Elephant,  who is actually on the National Historic Register.

The town is very proud of Lucy.

Here is me, standing on the beach near Lucy. You can see Atlantic City in the distance.

Here is a zoom to Atlantic City. It’s about 5 miles from here, I imagine you could walk.