Breaking the Silence

[Going down in flames dept.]

Note:

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I've been trying to put this post together for the last few weeks, but have been quite unsuccessful in doing so. It's been written, edited, re-written, stared at for a long time, and then edited again. If I were to write these posts out on a paper pad first, I would be drowning in a sea made of crumpled up wads of notepaper right about now. If it seems dis-jointed, that's because it is. Maintaining a focus isn't currently one of my better qualities. Things should get better soon.... I hope.

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Ouch! Mike hit it on the head when he said "This place is dead". This place is dead and starting to smell like rotting wildebeests (not that I personally know what a rotting wildebeest smells like, mind you, but I can imagine many things that probably smell a lot better.) Truth be told, I've been doing battle with some personal demons, which has been taking it's toll on me as of late. Therefore, I haven't really been in the mood for much of anything. I am still in the midst of dealing with some unresolved issues, but I'm attempting to work through all of that. I've come to the conclusion that I'd like to do nothing more than watch the History Channel in the dark until the wee hours of the morning. However, history does not pay the bills (coincidentally, neither does blogging, so I'm not sure why I'm writing this instead of watching television). Fret not, this will be one of only a few posts where I talk about this, as I don't need this place turning into a Continuous Blog of Woe (that's my goal anyway. If things do happen to go south, look for a new site at http://www.continousblogofwoe.com). So, in short, things are a little funky around here.

Normally, to keep things in check, I work on the web site and publish the neanderthal writings that fill the pages here at marcuslingl.net. I also turn to recreational activities such as racquetball and riding my bike for the relief of stress and the all-important anger management. (Have I mentioned I bought myself a very cool bike trainer so I can get in shape for summer by riding my bike everyday? The trainer basically turns my mountain bike into a stationary bike... only wickedly louder than a normal stationary bike, but hey, I can watch CSI: Crime Scene Investigators while I ride, so it's all good!). I am not sure what has pushed me over the edge lately. Maybe it's from the shock of finally receiving my copy of TechTool Pro 4 only after having it on "pre-order" for over a year, or residual ill feelings towards ABC for canceling Dragnet, or that register_globals is turned off in PHP 4.3+. For all I know, it's due to the fact I work with spyware-infested Wintel machines all day long, or my recent addiction to Baby-Back Ribs (while I'm on the subject of ribs, I have a question. What exactly is a riblet? Applebee's serves these tiny, hamster-like ribs called riblets. I questioned the waitress about the animal that these riblets come from, but she was of no help. **).

(This part used to contain a big 'ol rant about fonts and font usage. After writing it, I felt a lot better and decided I should just keep it to myself. All I am sparing you from is the gratuitous use of the F word!)

During my short hiatus, the Pepsi iTunes promotion finally kicked into gear. The promotion, giving away 100 million free songs from the iTunes Music Store, was supposed to start the day after the SuperBowl (that football game in January), but it was a seemingly easier task to finally find the Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq than locating a Pepsi with the yellow iTunes cap on it at your local convenience store. Last month, bottles of yellow-capped Pepsi finally made their appearance. It wasn't long after that, that someone discovered a sure-fire technique for always finding a winner. Pepsi doesn't fill their bottles to top with liquid, so if one merely tilted the bottle a little, one could read the underneath of the cap to see if it was a winner. Although I disapprove of this "cheating", I know of others who don't and have been reaping the rewards of their ill-gotten gains. Me, I put my honestly-attained free downloads to good use....



Between my personal struggles, driving around from convenience store to convenience store NOT tipping bottles, and watching the History Channel... alot, I did find a few spare minutes to post some new pictures to the photo gallery. I added a Friends gallery, where I posted some photos of Dave, Mike, and some RiskFest pictures. I also added some photos from a 4-wheeling trip to Coney Flats and a few pics from a bike trip along Gold Camp Road.




Now that Kill Bill Volume 2 is out, I was going to write a review, but I think I'll leave that up to Spurt, the soon-to-be-named official movie reviewer of marcuslingl.net. That's less work for me, and I'm down with that!

Speaking of reviews, Chris has yet to get a copy of his review of blow-up sheep to me. Perhaps he is still testing a few models. Hopefully I will have more on that soon....

Alright. That's enough for tonight. Rommel Versus Montgomery is on the History Channel, so I gotta go. I will try to get back into the swing of things around here, and back to a regular posting schedule, perhaps even on a more regular basis. Who knows.... For now, enjoy a picture of me training for biking season, which isn't that far off.




</marcus>

** As always, Google knows everything. An explanation of riblets was finally found here