Author: Cj B

Verizon Contract Changes

So. I talked to the Verizon people and they are NOT changing the costs to people who CURRENTLY have a TXT messaging option on the plan they have. I do sadly, so it means that I can’t get out of the contract on the material change issue. However, they ARE upping the prices on International TXT messages, so all you International people send me a txt so that I can complain about that and get out of the contract! hahaha. J/k, please don’t txt me from ot of the country! I went ahead and just changed my TXT plan from the $2.99/250 message plan to the Unlimited IN + 500 messages plan which is only $10 a month. If only I could go back to last month and apply it then!

I ended up just spending all day Sunday on the couch. It felt nice and yet lonely. I made Chicken and Rice which was amazing and then Jello for desert! Yumm!

Next weekend I really wanna escape somewhere for a camping trip.. Anyone game?

I love that the news sites are now directly quoting Bush.. “Quite the contrary. My spirits are strong, and I’m– I’m– I’m– I’m blessed to be the president,” he said.

[private]Perhaps I’m reading too much into it, but Mayko randmly txted me last night saying “I am making some tea with my cute present and telling my roommate’s gf that you gave it to me”… And the point of that is? lol And then later said that he would invite me over to have some tea this week… Boys.[/private]

Bank Account

Usually I’m really anal about my bank account, checking it every day, putting in descriptions of what the purchase was for, etc. But this week I have been way to pre-occupied with other stuff. So I go and check it today.. There’s seriously almost $2,000 more dollars in there then there should be! I’m a bit worried by this. I want to spend it, but it must be there for some reason.. Right? I know last month I only withdrew 50% of my normal savings, but that only accounts for $700 of the 2k… And that $700 is allocated towards a credit card bill. I’m just waiting for it to post so that I get my points! haha. So yeah. I’m going to be trying to figure that shit out!

Out of all the people I invited to GGB, nearly 10, only 2 of them showed up. VERY annoying. Some excuses I got were, “It’s to cold”.. WTF! I went out on CHRISTMAS DAY, it was like 20 degrees out. We still had an amazing time. You’re in a fucking BAR who cares what it’s like outside. God I fucking hate people! I can understand if you’re going someplace like the Abbey or what not that’s open to the outside, but for gods sake people! That has to be the most ridiculous reason I’ve ever heard for not going to a bar. I was going to invite the neighboor lady, but her parents are here. 🙁 The group that ended up going consisted of 4 people, including myself. We had a good time, but just weren’t social enough with the crowd so we left at like 12:30 or so. I did however have two random people come up and talk to me.. One was a writer for the Gilmore Girls (so that was UBER exciting for me) and the other was one of the organizers. He was uber cute. 🙂 haha.

I ran a 10 min mile Friday, my fastest ever… But it was a bad idea, because now I can barely move my knees.

After GGB, Nic came back over and we watched Zoolander and cuddled on the couch and made out. He was here till nearly 4am and then I crashed in bed all alone…

It was SOO cold here! Like, soooo cold. They are having these “winter weather” watches and stuff, and it’s just barely freezing! They even opened the state’s Emergency Response Center because of the cold! You know the big ass things they build incase of terrorist attacks!?!? However, it is SO cold in my apartment. I’ve turned up the heat to 80 and it just won’t come on! I checked the pilot light and everything. 🙁 You try living in a 60 degree house! It’s not fun!

Saturday I signed up for my class, I did Japanese. I really think that’ll be the most exciting and interesting. Good news too is that my Prof seems to have EXCELLENT reviews.

Saturday afternoon I went out flying with Jason. That was really cool. We only had an hour in the plane, but I was excited! We started out in Hawthorne and flew south west over Long Beach and then back up the coast by San Pedro, PV, etc. Verrrrry cool. After that we went out and chatted about boys and life, etc. I just dunno what to do about my boy problems! Ugh! You can see the photos, as always on the photodump. From there I came home and had all the fun of cleaning out my old mail and stuff from 2006. God I have a lot of unopened mail! But the files are now all cleaned up and ready for taxes. I’m going to owe so much. 🙁

That night I was planning on just staying in and cuddling up with the cats and watching a movie then hitting bed to go biking in the morning.. But when I went to take my bike out to my car at like 6:30pm, it was SOOO fucking cold! No way was I going to go bike in this weather. So I just laid on the couch. Mayko called at like 10 and said he was still at work but invited me to go out to Abbey. I said sure, since I wasn’t doing anything else. Got dressed and headed up there. He got there shortly after that and the bar tender gave us free drinks since I had to stand there for like 20 minutes. He was so nice. I tipped him $5 anyways. So Mayko and I just hung out and talked and stuff. It was annoying though, becuse like when he first got there he gave me this HUGE hug, and then by the end of the night he was being very boyfriendy again!! Like holding my hand when we walked around, and getting very close and stuff. Not that I didn’t love every minute of it though, and enjoy hanging out with him again…. But still if he doesn’t wanna be bf’s, then I wish he wouldn’t be so hand holdy and stuff, cause it just makes me confused. About 1ish we headed over to Here and danced for a while. Yes, I actually danced! I’m sure not very well, but I did!

I got gropped hard core there too, and I don’t mean like just accidental ass touches and what not. I mean full on people GRABBING my ass and my chest and grabbing my arm and trying to get me to talk to them. UGH! Left there just after last call and headed to the typical Pizza place, on the way there he interlinked arms and walked like that!?! Boys are so confusing! Hung out at the pizza place and saw a huge fight, the cops were called.

Now just imagine though,it’s this TINY pizza place, PACKED TO THE GILLS with DRUNK ASS HOMOS. There’s this BIG ass guy in there talking shit to everyone that walks by. Not really sure what happened but all of a sudden he was completely shirtless, and had his pants half undone and people are screaming at him. Then punches are thrown! It was crazyness. Then as the cops were walking in he starts throwing punchs again. Boy they sure took him down FAST! lol.

So anyways, Pizza place was cool, we chatted and as always random ass people came and sat with us and talked to us. I LOVE that about going out with him. I dunno what it is, but people just sit and talk to us completely randomly! So strange. About 3ish we were going to go Hooka with some of his friends at UCLA, but as we were walking back to his car (linked arms again), they called and said that they were leaving. So I drove him to his car and he gave me a big hug and he said maybe we can do Beige (Falcon) on Tuesday night. So we’ll see what comes of it. Again, Boys are SOOO confusing!

On the drive home, the 405South was closed, of course! So I had to take the long way home. Very annoying. So that’s two nights in a row of being up till 4am! And yet here I am awake at 10:30.

Verizon is increasing TXT message rates from $0.10 to $0.15 per message. Seriously you can’t tell me that’s at all justified! But in the good news apparently that constitutes a “material change” to their contracts, which means I can cancell without paying the ETF, hello iPhone! Now the only problem would be arranging with Cingular so that I can get a contract in March and then still be able to buy the iPhone in June when it comes out!

Also, for christmas I made the Astro-Weenie Christmas Tree… Well the pic was posted on the blog recently. Check it out here. Thanks to the Aunt for pointing out that it was up!

Ok. Today, Sunday, I’m not sure what I’m going to do. I really want to go out hiking with Jason or Nic, because I bought this “82 Great Hikes in LA” book. But it’s just so damn cold. I also need to go replenish the cleaning ladys money because I took $20 of it to go out last night. And I need to do work as well! It’s just so damn cold I just want to lay on the couch under my blankets and cuddle up with the kitties, or someone cute. 🙂

But anyways, this blog is REALLY long. I’m sorry they’ve all been coming every day pretty much for the last two weeks. But I have so many saved up that I’m trying to get those posted and then also tell you about my life! I mean, this blog is “The life of Me!” haha.

Adios!

Now Friends!

So, first it was boys who I like just randomly up and disappearing and not talking to me… and NOW it’s friends! OMG! You might remember the other day I talked about how Hector just randomly blocked me… Well I messaged him again and got an answer…

Hey

You didn’t do anything and I apologize for the deleting and the blocking and shit. I was just upset.

I don’t play games and I don’t mean to make people upset but I just wanted to think for a weekend.

I really like you. I like your morals, your ambitions, your work, your humor, everything. It made me so jealous to hear you talk about Mayko and pining over him. If he only knew how lucky he was (is?) to have someone like you wanting him, talking about him nonstop and all that. I also didn’t want to be one of those guys to hear the “But Were Such Good Friends” Speech knowing that while friends are nice to have, I want to find a guy to date on a grander level than what I have been experiencing.

I knew after Wednesday I was getting too close and sooner or later I would hear that speech. That was one of the things I had to think about.

(1) Do I continue to be his friend and hope he returns my feelings one day?

(2) Do I continue to be his friend and snap one day and confess all this in person and get that speech?

(3) Do I realize my feelings won’t be returned but continue to be friends while he talks about his other boys, dates, heartaches, etc?

(4) Do I realize my feelings won’t be returned and just quit now while I’m ahead?

This probably makes me sound insane but after the # of boys that have pissed me off, I start streamlining my thinking process and subsequent decision.

I guess I just got to close when there was no reason too and it scared me/pissed me off that I was wandering down that road again.

Anyway. I knew I owed you an explanation. Sorry it came so late.

UGH! So now it’s people that I just wanted to be friends with disappearing. OMG. Seriously though. There are a lot of people who I really like and enjoy benig around but I know that I can’t be more then just friends with them. I don’t just up and block them and stop hanging out with them. I make the best of the friendship we have! This is totally not the way to go about things. So annoying.

And then yesterday like three people from my past just randomly IMed me wanting to talk. First it was this Stephen guy from Chapman, then some other random, and then VegasMike.. So strange! Stephen and I are going to hang out sometime next week.

Lets see, not too much else to do. I got my student ID and a welcome letter from SMC already in e-mail. So I guess that means that I can sign up for the class…

Working out of Newport thursday. Just wasn’t in the mood to sit in that dark annoying Santa Monica office. That night it was too damn cold to go riding and looked like rain, so I stayed home and Nic came over. We watched Dirty Love. That was fun, very funny movie. He got his goodnight kiss. He’s a nice enough guy, but not “book smart” in his words. Plus we haven’t done anything but sit around my apartment and talk and hang out. I need more activity!

Got an e-mail from our answering service the other day.. It said that the client “Defrogged the internet”… I’m going to start telling everyone to defrog the internet, apparently it makes it go faster!

70% of Americans disapprove sending more troops to Iraq.. How in the HELL can Bush think that’s a good idea. What a fucking idiot.

I just watched the Apple KeyNote where Jobs introduced the AMAZING iPhone. I get goooooose bumps! Amazing! Go watch a demo here. Also check out this COOL Unofficial AppleTablet.

And one last thing… Niels Hoven is HOT! Watch him on Beauty and the Geek!

Loneliness and Technology

Forty year old Joyce Vincent had been lying dead in her London apartment for two straight years before the badly decomposed body was discovered by her landlord in April 2006. The story, quietly tucked away in British newspapers, profoundly upset readers around the world who saw her isolation as a failing of modern communities. As one outraged blogger put it, Two years. She lay there. Alone, dead, unnoticed, and unmissed. How is it possible that in a city of about seven million, not one person noticed that a neighbor, sister, cousin or friend was missing?

How, indeed: in an era of advanced communication technologies in which loved ones can be reached with a few clicks of a mouse or dial of a phone, it seems implausible that the number of solitary deaths have been on the rise in countries like the UK and Japan in recent years. Alienation, dubbed the great emotional sickness of our era by Italian filmmaker Michaelangelo Antonioni, remains a disease that even email, cell phones and online networking has been powerless to remedy. These days, some experts are even suggesting that our social bonds may be breaking down not in spite of these new technologies, but because of it.

A decade ago, when many North Americans were still just starting to go online, Apple, AT&T, Hewlett Packard and Intel funded a research project by Washington University to study the psychological and social effects of using the Internet. While most first-time users went online for social purposes, the studies showed a rapid decline in participation for social activities beyond the net and increases in depression and loneliness. While magazines like Fortune and BusinessWeek boasted the virtues of interactive sites such as MySpace and YouTube, most internet users were found to be joining fewer clubs, talking less in-person and hanging out with friends less often. While new tools were allowing people to network faster than ever, studies around the world have pointed to the shrinking social circles of tech-savvy consumers. A June 2006 study by Duke University concluded that the average American today only has two close confidants, while SwissCom Inc. found that 80 percent of all cell phone conversations took place with only four people.

Some critics have rebuffed the suggestion that technology has eroded traditional human bonds, noting that the interaction is simply taking place in different forms. What it’s really doing is shifting the means of socializing, says Barry Wellman, a sociology professor at the University of Toronto. In other words, the seemingly quiet and withdrawn teenager at family dinners could in fact be a witty conversationalist in online forums. This didn’t necessarily make her anti-social; it was simply a different mode of communication. While heavy internet users were spending less time with family and friends offline, they were keeping more regular contact through cell phone calls and email. The Internet has moreover been a godsend for some people who lacked opportunities for human contact, such as the elderly and disabled. Vilify it though we may, technology has so far played an invaluable role in keeping people integrated.

In themselves, email and cell phones are only a small part of the broader causes of loneliness in modern society. What these tools have done, however, is fundamentally change the nature of our communication with other people. While our new tools grant us the convenience of talking from a distance over a screen, they also exempt us from the intimacy that comes with face-to-face communication. The subtle nuances of facial expressions and body language are lost, and in return, we are spared the awkwardness and inconveniences of in-person meetings.

There is something trying, even exhausting, about human interactions, writes Laura Pappano in her book, The Connection Gap. Why meet when you can e-mail? And digital video makes it seem like you’re there. Right? While interviewing a terminally ill woman who chatted online to escape loneliness, however, Pappano discovered that the woman gradually grew cynical of the superficial interactions with her friends’ to them, she was merely a name on a screen, disembodied from her cancer and the world around her. They didn’t perceive the pain in her eyes or voice as she communicated with them. Her life and death had no impact on their conscience.

I don’t want useless sounds. I want to select them, complains Monica Vitti’s character in Antonioni’s 1964 film, La Notte. In today’s age of virtual communication, it has become all too easy for people to select and filter out the voices they don’t want to hear. It’s a world in which voices of isolated, impoverished individuals like Joyce Vincent all too easily lose their place. In the last hour before her death, Vincent surrounded herself with unopened Christmas presents and drowned out the silence with sounds from her TV set a parting reminder to herself, perhaps, that she was still connected to a society that had long forgotten about her.

Jenny Uechi