abadinfluence

Alright ... here's an update on my life.

My computer decided to crash and burn around the end of July. That quite annoyed me, as I wasn't working then and the computer was my only salvation for fun.

Then I rediscovered my Xbox and Gamecube. NHL 2004 rocks. As does, Star Wars and the Knights of the old Republic, Mario Party 4, Mario Kart, Zelda and whatever else I could get my hands on.

Shortly after the computer died, I went on vacation for a week to Sauble Beach - the place where I have gone on vacation for pretty much my whole life. While there, I met a dude who is a Thalidomide baby. I found this really cool as I once saw a motivational speaker that was a Thalidomide baby and he completely changed my life. Turns out that Paul (the guy I met on vacation) knows Alvin. It was cool getting to know him and eventually smoke a J with him. Gotta love meeting fellow tokers when you least expect it.

After getting back from vacation, I started packing to move. My parents had sold the house I grew up in to a developer last year and the close date was approaching. With a month and a half before the deal closed, we found a new house. The deal was supposed to close September 7th, but the developer that bought our house is a shady motherfucker and didn't have the money to give us. So we almost lost the new house, but we luckily got an extension and had the money the day it ended. It was a nail biter.

I'm still getting used to the new house. It was kinda hard leaving my old house, as ... as I said, I lived there my whole life. But at the same time ... I needed to get out of the area. In the end, I only moved six streets away ... but six streets has made a world of difference.

See ... in a one block radius, from my old house to my friends house a street away, I was jumped and held up six times within the last three years. Yes ... with a gun. While the area used to be nice when I was a kid ... it really has turned to shit. There are two schools right beside each other - a K-6 and then a 7-8. So there were kids around at all hours of the day ... always loud, always obnoxious. There are multiple gangs in the area, including Bloods and Crips. It's really sad how crappy the neighbourhood became.

My new street ... only six streets away ... completely different. I have been here for a month now and still haven't seen a cop car go down my street. I haven't had any instances of loud people walking down the street ... no shady looking people lurking around ... and it's generally quiet. My neighbours on both sides are fucking amazing older people who have lived there since the '50s. I hate shovelling snow ... but these people are so kick ass that they are totally getting their drive way shoveled for them.

Let's see ... I started a job at a temporary warehouse sale for Procter and Gamble. The sale closed last Sunday and we're pretty much just cleaning up now. Last day will prolly be next Thursday. I didn't even clear $2,000 at the job and I really haven't had much in the way of spending money ... I owed a lot ... and I still owe some.

So I gotta find a new job.

I've been getting some job offers for photography though ... hopefully something will come out of that. One is for a lingerie store and the other is for a maternity store. Both is for catalouge work. And of course ... for both, I need portfolios.

Which is my problem. I really don't have a base of female friends/acquaintences that will model for stuff for me. Nor do I know any pregnant females willing to pose. *sigh* If there are any kind souls on here that might be willing to help out, please let me know. I don't really have much in the way of money to repay for the work ... but I'm sure something could be worked out. I'd be extremely appriciative. I'm wanting to re-submerge myself in photography as I've been out of it for a few months now.

And ... uh ... yeah. I'm back!

So ... I ask of you three things:

1) Suggest a good song for me to .. um ... illegally pilfer off the internet.

2) Tell me some good photo sets that I've missed in the past few months.

3) I want you to really think about this one. Babygirl pretty much gave me this idea months ago ... but with no computer, I couldn't do it. I want you to think of all the people on your friends list and then play a little friend matchmaker and figure out which friend of yours I would get along with the most and tell me why.

I just think it would be kinda cool to have interspersed friends. And it would also be cool to know how to spell.