Today was Brian's mother's birthday and we had to put Belle, our family dog of 14 years to sleep. She was 18, and had a nice long life, but that doesn't make it any easier.

This year has certainly been a mixed bag to say the least.

Amazing. Yes, yes, yes. We finally got it right, America. Amazing.

So I started the new job on Monday. So far so good. Way better than my old one. I don't have to talk to people on the phone! And it's actually kind of interesting and the day goes quickly. I also like the fact that I get home around 5 instead of like 6 or 7.

Saturday and Sunday were movie days. Saturday was Iron Man. Good movie, I reccomend it. I'm not huge on super hero movies, but I liked it as much as I liked Batman Begins, which means I liked the movie a lot, but, not enough to go buy the DVD. But I would watch it again. (I also saw Forgetting Sarah Marshall a few weeks ago - totally hilarious! It was a very funny movie and I'll definitely be buying that DVD.)

That night we discovered that my friend not only had never seen the Aviator, barely excusable in my book, but HAD NEVER HEARD OF HOWARD HUGHES!! What?! So we dug out our copy from one of our already packed boxes and watched. Love that movie. One of my favorites for sure.

So. It ended up not being ovarian cancer, but small intestine cancer. (which is rare and a very small amount of people get.) They took a chunk of it and intestine out, and chemo should take care of the rest, so she should be okay. I'm still trying to figure out how they mistook small intestine cancer for ovarian cancer with doing an ultrasound and all.

Otherwise I'm doing well. I've been working hard core on my book and I got a job that starts Monday. So things are finally looking up.

It's about time!

I know I've been MIA for some time and every time I update I have crappy news. But seriously it's been like one thing after another after another. It seems I do have a job on the horizon at last, but the money is not very good - less than what I was making. And this whole thing seems unimportant next to the latest bad news - my mother in law has stage 3 ovarian cancer. She had surgery this morning, and I haven't heard anything yet, but I assume it went okay.

April is such a shitty month. I wish my birthday wasn't in this month sometimes. Seriously, if you look back at history, tons of horrible things happened in April. Ugh.

So the Oscars last night...so boring. Wow. Maybe it was because I really didn't see/care about most of the nomimated films, maybe it was the fact that Jon Stewart, who I normally love, wasn't really that funny, or maybe it was because I honestly didn't care about who was nominated. Total bore. The best parts were the montage of all the past films that have won best picture (I had only seen a small percentage, and of that small percentage I would say I disliked about half those films.) and all the past Oscar moments. Those were cool. I would have rather watched a whole show about that! For the *80th* show, it was a BIG disappointment. Even the opening sucked.

Anyway, speaking of movies, I have a review:

( Be Kind Rewind )

Yesterday...

I did a total of 9 miles at the gym on various equipment...

We put an offer on a townhouse...

The Giants won the Super Bowl.

Pretty good day.

I clicked onto TMZ yesterday just on a whim like I normally do. And when I saw the headline, that Heath Ledger was dead, I seriously gasped out loud and my stomach dropped. I'm not one of those people who gets obsessed with celebrities, but I always thought he was a very good actor. Brokeback Mountain is one of my favorite movies of all time. It's very sad, really.

So last night I was asleep, and I suddenly woke up at 1 a.m. the TV was still on because I had fallen asleep watching it, and the Lifetime network was on. NO, I did not fall asleep watching that channel. But TiVo had changed the channel because The Golden Girls come on at 1 and I've been recording all the episodes. (Yeah, I love that show. I'll admit it.) Anyway, I'm half awake and trying to go back to sleep, when suddenly the show freezes halfway through the theme song. I wait. And wait. But it's still frozen.

Wondering if it's just this station, I fumble for the remote and start to change the channel. Frozen. Frozen. Frozen. I'm thinking something's wrong with the cable.

But then I change the channel again. To the Sci-Fi channel. And it's not frozen.

And The Twilight Zone was on.

At the time I didn't really think twice about it, but when I thought about it this morning I thought it was pretty funny -- a very Twilight Zone moment.

It's so funny that sometimes I actually get the idea in my head that I'm a good writer.

Hahahaha.

Idiot.

So the year is back to being an even number. Yay. Odd numbered years never seem to go very well for some reason.

But sadly the friend drama has crossed over into this fresh new year, spoiling it from the start. Some people...

I saw Juno a little while ago. Very good movie which I recommend. I'm kinda done doing full reviews on here. I'm going to stick to doing them on MySpace.

My office secret santa never gave me my last gift or said who they were...boo. Like I need that. Merry Christmas.

Tree will come down this coming weekend...boo. At least the cute bunny will have more room to frolic now, should I choose to give him this freedom. Not sure yet. I'm kind of used to having him confined. He's got a decent amount of space.

Hopefully by the end of this month something good will happen. I need something good to happen.

Well, it's hard to keep Christmas cheer when you're stuck going to work the day after. (Yeah, can't tell you how much that sucks) But I had a nice Christmas and got many nice things, including clothes, earrings and games to name a few. Brian liked his gifts which made me happy. Everyone seemed to like the gifts I gave them, which I was glad to see since I do put a lot of thought into the gifts I give.

Also saw a movie on Friday, Sweeney Todd, of course. Being a musical freak I wasn't about to pass that one up. It being about a serial killer, starring Johnny Depp was the things that attracted Brian the most, and he was eager to see it as well.

( We all deserve to die. Even you, Mrs. Lovetts, even I )

So 2007 overall, SUCKED ASS. I will not be sad to see this year yes. Yeah, I got married and went on some pretty good trips. There were some fun times. But overall? Awful. I won't be sad to see it go.

At best, I'm sporadic and not totally honest with this journal. There were quite a few entries over the past few months that were totally locked - for my eyes only. That's because that as summer yielded to fall, the shit hit the fan, and I've been trying to sweep up the pieces ever since. Only every time I'm headed for the garbage can I trip and fall and the pieces go everywhere again. How's that for a lame metaphor? But that's really what it feels like. And going into the new year, sadly, nothing seems to be getting much better.

But I have to have hope, right? Positive thinking is supposed to be a good thing. It's not my strong point, but...

There was a thread today on a message board I frequent. (though don't often post on.) The question was, "What motivates you to get up in the morning"?

I didn't post my response.

I was to embarassed to admit that I have no fucking idea.

Two movies I've seen recently, both of which I'd highly recommend.

Enchanted - a really cute Disney film where a Princess from out of a typical Disney movie gets transported to modern day NYC by her wicked stepmother-to-be. And she shacks up with a single-parent lawyer dad while she waits for her Princes husband to be to come to her rescue. It's cute, funny, and very entertaining. Has some great songs too. The acting is also wonderful. A must see. 9.5 out of 10.

I Am Legend - Honestly, I didn't know what I was going to think of this movie before going in. I almost didn't see it but I'm so glad I did. It was truly great. Will Smith just shows what am amazing actor he is. This film is (rather loosely) based on the graphic novel of the same title. Will Smith plays a former army doctor (I guess, they never fully explain what exactly he does...) who is the only person left alive in NYC after a "cancer cure" basically killed everyone else and turns them all into vampire type creatures. Every day his goal is to survive and try and find a cure for this awful disease. Great, great movie. Very entertaining, and for once it's not just another overly long action flick, as it runs only an hour and 40 minutes. So much more than an action movie, so much more than a thriller/horror film. This movie is really about a man who is struggling to make things right. 9.5 out of 10.

Yay for good movies! Make up for that crappy summer.

So Thanksgiving was fine. I love that little Thanksgiving break. 4 lovely days of not going to work and that holiday atmosphere in the air. It's hard to beat.

I have been so down lately, though. For many reasons, none of which I feel like getting into right now because it'll really only make me feel worse.

So I FINALLY picked up and finished the second Phoenix Wright game. Overall, the first game was better. The original reason I stopped playing was because I got rather bored with the second case. But I enjoyed the third case and the fourth case was hardcore awesome. I loved the ending. It really made me smile, which I kind of needed.

Honestly, I think that's weird.

Brian's heterosexual friend called him up one day and sang the praises of a game called Enchanted Arms for PS3 (and XBOX 360.) It was the greatest game, according to him. So great, in fact, that he didn't want it to end. The best part is that the game costs only $20. Now. When games usually cost $60, and this game costs $20, that should be a warning sign. But not to Brian. Trusting the recommendation he went out and purchased said game.

When he started playing it finally (after it would not load for awhile because the PS3 was downloading something else) I wasn't paying much attention. That is until I heard the disco music and what has to be the most gay sounding voice acting job I had ever heard in my life.

I looked up at the screen and saw a character who looked as gay as he sounded. "What are you playing?!" I exclaimed. The music in the background sounded like that song that goes, 'I believe in miracles! Where you from? You sexy thing (You sexy thing you)'. Needless to say, he stopped playing quickly.

Enter me, the yaoi fangirl.

We had a (male) friend over, and I just HAD to show him this game. But I didn't just show him the beginning and stop this time. This time I kept playing. Because this game is just so lame and weird that we just couldn't wait to see what sexually suggestive thing these characters said next.

So what is this game about? Well, you start at a place called Enchant University (I know.). And there are these students there studying to be enchanters. And they fight with these golems. And at the beginning the characters grab lunch at the cafeteria and then sneak out of glass to attend this festival in the town. And that's when things go horribly arry.

Well the three main characters right now are Atsuma, Toya and Makoto.

Atsuma is the main character. If Zell and Tidus somehow got morphed into one person, and got smacked on the head with something really hard, Atsuma would be the result. He's really freakin' stupid. He has to have every little thing explained to him by Toya. Seriously, he's an idiot. And one of his arms for some reason has the power to remove enchantments from things. This just suddenly comes up in random conversation, like it expects us, the gamers who jsut started playing this, to already be familiar with the story. Everyone talks about how dangerous his stupid arm is, which makes one wonder why the hell they let him in Enchant University anyway.

Toya is like the big man on campus. He's just soooo handsome and sooo smart that he even has his own stalker fanclub! Toya knows everything and is constantly explaining everything to Atsuma's dumb ass. He randomly puts on glasses. We've come to the conclusion that he only wears the glasses when things are really serious.

Makoto...well, the other two characters in this game are pretty gay as well. There's a lot of innuendo flying around, intentional or otherwise. But with Makoto there's nothing to imply. He is gay. In fact, he's a transvestite, and the game manual says so. Yeah. It does. We could hardly believe it either, even though Makoto is wearing eye shadow and sounds like a man who is trying to do a bad impression of a girl's voice. And hits on Toya. CONSTANTLY. Game developers just don't do things like that. Do they? They do now. Makoto doesn't really care for Atsuma too much. He only has eyes for Toya and will follow him anywhere, singing his praises all the while.

This is the game so far.

Atsuma: "I'm going to this place!"

Toya: "You really think you should do that?"

Makoto: "I'm not going!"

Atsuma: "I'm going!"

Toya: "...I'll go too."

Makoto: "Me too, I guess."

The gameplay is rather strange and the game never explains it, which is kind of weird because it explains every other stupid thing. You use your SP to up your stats and learn skills and stuff. (It's really stupid that you have to buy a skill from a shop, then use SP points to learn it.) You move on a 4x4 grid and different attacks have different ranges. It's not too bad and combat is pretty quick.

But what is annoying is that the game explains everything to you like you're a totally idiot. There's this part where you basically have to step on these blocks and move them, and Toya explains it to you like you're a two year old. All you have to do is press X and move the freakin' analog stick in the direction you want to go! Not rocket science! And after the explanation Toya asks you if you got all that. And a choice actually comes up that lets you choose between saying I got it, or no, that explanation aimed at pre-school children was too much for my brain to handle - please explain again.

Oh, and there's dancing.

Yeah.

So, aside from the innuendo flying and Makoto himself, you need to dance from time to time to get your EX (for special attacks) back up. When you push the R1 button, which initiates the dancing part, a rainbow of colors and stars flys across the screen (I am totally serious). Then you shake the controller to make Atsuma dance. And the dancing...well...words alone cannot describe it. It is a sight to see. Every lameass dance move or totally girly thing you can think of? You bet your ass Atsuma is doing it. It's hilarious.

There are other things in this game that are worth making fun of. In general the dialouge is pretty terrible, the game takes forever to load and the money is called TB. One of the attacks is called 'blow'. But really, this game is so stupid and so ridiculous, I just want to keep playing. I need to see what I can laugh over next.

I just can't take much more of this drama.

Don't even get me started on yesterday.

So, I've kinda disappeared. I guess. Why haven't I been journaling more, even though I keep saying I SHOULD well, several reasons.

It's not because I'm never near a computer, that's for sure.

And it's not because I don't have anything to say. Well, it's funny. Sometimes I do have nothing to say. These are often the times when I'm sitting in front of the computer. When I do have something to say it's often something I'm not comfortable sharing in a public forum anymore.

It's not because I have nothing going on right now. I do. Unfortunately most of it is not good stuff. I have nothing to gush over, nothing to brag about. Just stuff to hide.

I guess the real reason is that I just have nothing worth sharing anymore.