Oh fuck me I'm glad I still have this icon attached to my account because honestly, it was the inspiration for this.

I'm torn between names:

COMPARING APPLES TO ORANGES = plays off of the ingredients I'm actually using
ORCHARD SHOT = allows creativity on the part of the bartender like you can use blueberry or strawberry ingredients look I'm in Florida these are the things we go pick ok?

1/2 oz Apple Pucker
1/4-1/2 oz Cranberry juice (optional; I basically just used because I am not a big apple^ fan)
1 oz your choice of orange flavored* vodka
The smallest squeeze you can muster of your flavor enhancer of choice**

Pour all ingredients into a shaker with ice. Shake and strain into vessel of choice.


*You can use whatever flavor and/or brand you want, I don't give a fuck. I used Smirnoff Orange.
**As I was initially playing on the "apples vs. oranges" concept, and also to reiterate I'm not a big apple-flavor fan, I wanted to make sure I wasn't just burning my throat out AND suffering an overdose of an unpleasant flavor
^I am, however, a Big Apple(tm) fan. ;)


Anyway, all of that being said... fuck, this is actually really good to just throw back like a bawss.

Sooooo how is YOUR quarantine going? :D

(Incoming FO post about how I'm not really quarantined because I'm ~EsSeNtIaL~ lolz)

So I'm 35 now.

New year, new tracker. :D

This morning I went to work. Road moron incident (RMI) #1: I drove past the front row, realized there was a parking space, backed up but there was someone behind me so I didn't want to back up TOO much; but, I thought I had enough room to turn into the row to park. I did not. I ran over the curb pretty hardcore. My tire seems fine for now but I will be checking on it periodically.

Upon entering the office and approaching the customer support area I immediately realized two things:

1)I forgot my laptop like an idiot
2)Based on the way everyone was standing around and not working, we were probably just going to go home anyway because the internet is down. (It has been down since late yesterday afternoon which is why my work laptop was home in the first place.)

So we all left. The plus side of this, is that it gave me some time to stop and get gas. This required me to make a left-hand turn, and with that I bring you RMI #2: When I approached the arrow, it was just turning red. There was one car in front of me, who decided that since the arrow was now red he'd just merge a little bit in front of the stop line so he could go straight. Except we didn't get the green light. So now this jackass is just kinda chillin' in the middle (but not so close as to get hit) of the intersection, and I'm like WHAT IS HE GONNA DO? He stayed there, and then eventually we got the green arrow again. I honestly thought he would just revert to turning left, and became so distracted by "what's he gonna do!?" that... I forgot to turn left myself. So I am RMI #1 AND RMI #3. Whoooooops. (RMI #2 ultimately went straight when the light turned green.)

In retrospect I'm glad that I didn't go at the arrow. It was a short arrow, only myself and the deadhead truck behind me would have made it, and if I *had* gone and so had RMI #2, there would have been an accident. Plus there was a break during the green light in which I had plenty of time to safely turn (and did).

(P.S. For those unfamiliar - deadhead is a trucking term. I am not insinuating anyone's taste in music, haha. Although it is kind of funny that both "deadhead" and "reefer" are trucking terms.)

Anyway, time to log on for work, I just wanted to post this real quick because I thought it was pretty funny. :D

Icon in celebration of the launch of MTV Classic - at least I'll have a pretty dope soundtrack to the first couple of hours of work today!

I really wanted to use the one I have on SparkPeople but it doesn't seem like they give you the HTML for that.

Edit 7/7: So it took me half the year to get one-seventh of the way there lol. This sounds self-defeating but I'm actually proud of it! Truth be told that from the initial weight I entered in here, I gained 5 lbs at some point, so even though this is a full 2016 ticker I count that I've lost 15 lbs since my hemorrhoid surgery which was in April so like 2.5 months (last time I weighed myself was 6/24). Not bad, me!

Edit 12/31: Total weight loss for 2016 = net 15; peak 20. Woohoo!

Whoa, a public post! Anyway, I usually try to make a post right at 12:33am since that is what time I was born, but my mom called and I actually missed the clock hitting that exact time for probably the first time in my adult life. Close enough! :D

I had a birthday gathering at my house on Saturday. It was also sort of a housewarming party but mostly birthday. It was a good time! There were people in and out for most of the day, then I got about a half-hour intermission lol, then Danny and Rich came over and we drank beer and watched The IT Crowd on Netflix for like 4 and a half hours. We know how to party lol.

I got to see a lot of people I haven't seen in a while so that was super cool! Everyone seemed to mesh well together which was also cool, I always worry about that when bringing people from different sections of my life together.

I am going to volunteer at this place today. My friend Jeremy posted a bunch of dates that he was volunteering and when I saw that one of them was my birthday I immediately decided to do it. I just think it's cool to do something for others on my own birthday for some reason.

Hey, trigger warnings. Fuck 'em.

A high school classmate pointed out in one of his ~facebook memories~ that it is 14 years ago since he started his first day of college. Which means it's roughly 14 years ago that I started my own first day of college. So, yeah, that. BUT BUT BUT. It also means that it is roughly 14 years ago since the week-ish BEFORE college, when my plan at the time was, "Fuck. I went to youth group and made all these bomb-ass friends. Now I am going to leave them to go 1200 miles away. Also, I am depressed as fuck, generally speaking. So what we're going to do is, 'say goodbye' to people, but actually take all of the pills and die all of the deaths, because fuck everything." Clearly this was not a real plan that held weight in my life, because I did not ever attempt anything of this nature. Granted for the next 6 months I did decide it was super cool to inflict some extremely minor injuries upon myself for like 0.00000000005 seconds, but yeah. As a dumb-ass teenager with dumb-ass teenage friends, I did dumb-ass teenage things. I don't know how many of you knew about this sector of my life, but now you know. I don't mean to marginalize the issue of self-injury to those who genuinely struggle with it, but at that time it was, like, ~a thing~ to do. I regret this for obvious reasons, but at the same time I am grateful it was never a legitimate issue or addiction in my life.

The point of me saying all this now just weeks before I turn 32, is that I am fucked up in the head. I struggle with anxiety daily. I struggle with depression daily. Yet thanks to the possible delusion (but possible reality) that things will get better, I no longer have either the desires or the patience to injure or destroy myself, because if there's something out there for me I'd damn sure like to stick around to experience it. Even if I have no reason right now to believe that there's something worth sticking around for, I know well enough that the risk of that assumption being wrong isn't fucking worth taking the chance of doing something fucking stupid.

I love you all and I know, somewhere in the back of my mind, that you all have vastly ranging levels of love for me as well. <3

Edit: Also, fuck it, this is going to be a public post. Because sure, nobody past the 42 or however many of you I call my Livejournal friends is reading this, but what if someone is? I am not the best writer who ever wrote, I'm certainly not winning the eloquence of the year award over here, but if someone can even remotely relate to this and talk to me about it and we can chat or we can hug/e-hug/whatever sort of connection, it's all going to be okay.

Friday night I decided that I was going to make some jello shots for the kickball tournament because one of my teammates vaguely suggested it as we were leaving our planning meeting to discuss who was bringing what. So later that night I was like I'm gonna make some freakin' jello shots. I made orange ones which were just orange jello with orange vodka so I don't think I need to post the recipe for that, but then I made purple(ish) ones which are probably the tastiest jello shots I've ever had. So I want to record this for future reference since I was kinda being creative with the ingredients but it worked out really, really well.

GRAPEBERRY JELLO SHOTS

1 packet (3oz) berry blue Jello mix
1 packet (3oz) grape Jello mix
1 cup (+ a little more) cranberry juice*
12oz unflavored vodka**
5 oz water

*I used Publix brand Diet Cranberry juice cocktail, but I don't think that's important
**I used Smirnoff 80 proof, but I don't think that's important either other than probably don't try and use the 100 proof

1. Mix together 11oz of the vodka and 5 oz of water and make sure it is chilled. I used vodka and water that were already cold, but I still stuck it in the fridge while I was doing the rest of the steps.
2. Add a little over a cup of cranberry juice to a pot and boil it. The idea is you want 1 cup, but when you boil liquid it evaporates, so you're making up for it.
3. Once it boils, measure out a cup of it and add to a heat-safe mixing bowl.
4. Add the jello mix and stir until dissolved.
5. Stir in your cold water/vodka mixture.
6. Realize that your mixture isn't purple enough and add another ounce or so of cranberry juice.
7. Realize that you've lowered your alcohol content by doing this, and add another ounce or so of vodka.
8. Give up on achieving the perfect shade of purple, and distribute your liquid into small plastic cups. Preferably the ones with the lids, but Walmart didn't have those when you went shopping, so you bought 3oz plastic Dixie cups instead. No biggie.
9. Put your jello shots in the fridge for several hours. 3-4 is what's called for but I did 6 because it was after midnight when I did this and I needed some sleep, yo.
10. GET CRUNK. Because I needed a 10th step ok!?!?!
11. After getting crunk, realize that actually it was not a 10th step you needed, but a 12th.
12. Stop making stupid alcohol jokes and drink some water, ya lush.

So yeah, that's the recipe. It's a thing. :D

January 26th is a lot of things for me. This year it's:

One year since the hockey game that wasn't.
Five years since Tyler passed away.
Thirteen years since Emily was kind enough to give me an invite code to the latest and greatest blogging website of the early 2000's. You might recall this relic from a past era as "LiveJournal."

Time goes by a lot fucking faster than you think it does.

What I was trying to type: "My friend just got diagnosed with MG too, weird"
What actually came out: "My fr just got diagsed with MG tweord"

Ughhhh. Can't wait to get a new battery. Also it's a Dell so hopefully I won't need to get it from Dell themselves. I've heard how that turns out (*cough* comitto *cough*) =P