Thursday, December 21, 2006

Happy Holidays.... or Merry Christmas... or just enjoy the day off

So the holidays are here.... Great. Tomorrow, I'm flying here to see my grandparents. I have to say, I'm looking forward to getting out of the city for a while. The last time I left, I went to D.C. for the day and was sick the entire time. I'll be out of town until Wednesday, a significant amount of time away from work and this city. But I have to say, I'm just not in the holiday spirit this year.

It always happens to me every year: Christmas sort of sneaks up on me while I'm not looking and by the time I take notice, it's a new year and new projects at work and the cycle starts all over again. One of my favorite things about Christmas used to be cutting down a REAL Christmas tree every year. Not only would I NEVER allow a fake tree in the house, I also had to make sure we cut it down fresh.

UPDATE: I'm back from the grandparents'. I like how earlier (last week) I commented that I wanted to get out of the city for a while. Put it this way: I should have stayed in the city. Between airport delays, grumpy family members, and the non-stop eating that apparently happens everywhere but New York, I'm not exactly pleased with the trip. Plus you always hear about "Christmas in New York", but who really stays here for the actual holiday? Most people are gone until after New Years; I'm sitting in my mostly empty office this week wondering why I'm not off.

Sunday, December 17, 2006

Time for a change

I really couldn't stand my layout anymore, so i changed it to this. I'm into it; it's green, it's serene, and (one more thing that rhymes with green.... think, dammit) it's...... mean? Whatever, hope you like this layout. This will have to suffice until I can get my "good friend Frank" to cave and design something really cool for me.

Friday, December 15, 2006

"Noonan" syndrome

Before you all go ahead and accuse me of making this one up, or tell me that "Yeah, I've heard of Noonan syndrome... it's when you get black-out drunk.", there is in fact a Noonan syndrome. And apparently, it's quite debilitating.

Noonan syndrome is a genetic disorder that effects the growth of body parts in children. Symptoms include "webbing of the neck" as well as "different shapes of the chest".

I'm not quite sure (that's not true, I just found out: Jacqueline Noonan.. helps if you read the Wikipedia entry) how my last name became synonymous with some horrible, debilitating disease (and I'm sure that one of you out there will spend more time researching this than I did on Friday afternoon). Apparently, 1 in every 2,500 kids will be born with NS, or Noonan syndrome.

I think after reading about Noonan syndrome, I'd much rather prefer the disease to be "ability to become black-out drunk" rather than what it is now. Then again, neither of those are really that great. I think I'll discover Paul Noonan syndrome, where an individual is incredibly handsome, smart, funny, and above all, has a good heart..... Think it will catch on?

Saturday, December 09, 2006

So I'm 25 now

And I guess I'm supposed to grow up at some point.

I can rent a car now. I can still legally drink. What else comes with 25? A co-worker informed me that this is the last year that "you can still act like a jackass and get drunk a lot." Apparently, at 26, you start realizing that you're getting old and need to "settle down" and find the right girl. Does that mean my tastes in women is going to completely change next year? Have I been looking for the "wrong" girl? I suppose that as you get older, the need to settle down becomes stronger. Just not at the top of my list right now, though, spending some more time with the fairer sex would be a start.

So far, 25 has brought the following with it:
1) raging hangover
2) the flu (still planning on going out tonight, though)
3) freezing cold
4) rapid depletion of my bank account

Oh, and, only 5 more years until I'm 30. I should have appreciated 24 more when it was still around.

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

There's no title that fits this

I was walking through the HEET turnstile last night in the Times Square station heading home. This lady was headed out of the subway up to the street. I figured she'd wait as I had this expression on my face that probably said "You better wait or I'll hurt you". Instead of waiting, she grabs one of the bars on the turnstile (mind you, I'm speaking of the ones that are floor to ceiling height and are not "jumpable), attempts to walk through the turnstile ON THE OTHER SIDE as I walk through entering the subway. Stop and think about this for a minute. She tried to walk through the side that has corresponding, parallel bars which prevent people from going through the turnstile on that side. (Picture for reference.)
Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us

See those things on the left? The prohibitive bars that if you try to walk into, will stop you, dead in your tracks? So as I'm walking through, she attempts her magic, only to get her hand pinched in between the two sets of bars, to which she exclaims "ow, damn, oh.... you can't go that way". No, no you can't go that way, moron. There are large metal bars that, short of having "You can't go this way" printed on them, pretty much SCREAM out, "You can't go this way."

Are you new to life?

Monday, December 04, 2006

I really hate to do this....

... but this is going to be a post about things I HATE!.

1) attitude from co-workers (none of those who read this, don' t worry).
2) other people doing my job (relax people, I do, in fact, know what I'm doing).
3) the fact that it has yet to get above 40 degrees today.
4) the complete lack of room in my freezer (you'd think with 3 guys living in one apartment, we'd have no food at all, ever.... not so in the BPC).
5) people who follow up on tasks (not just at work) just so they can say "well, I followed up, so that's that...". Work still continues regardless of your ability to "follow up" which basically consists of annoying the crap out of the person actually doing the project (again, not work specific).
6) this haircut I got today from this place. (don't let the French name fool you; I look like a 10 year old boy now).

Alright, enough of that. Some cool things going on:

7) anything that has to do with this blog or any of these blogs.
8) taking a co-worker/friend's name that ends in "ey" and making it end in "ette" (for instance, someone named "Audrey" would become "Audrette")
9) meeting new people, in general.
10) 7 days smoke free!
11) going to the gym tonight to work out aggression from #'s 1-6 above.
12) headed to Outer Banks for Christmas to see my grandparents (not sure if this is good or bad, but good for now.)


Anyway, just as many good things as bad. Hopefully this week gets a little better.

Saturday, December 02, 2006

All-consuming panic

I don't know what my deal is these past few days. Being awake at 5 a.m. on a Saturday is probably a good indicator of what I feel like right now. I wound up having one of these types of Fridays again. Let's recap the past 24 hours, just in case you weren't bored enough.

-went to work where I spent entirely too much time writing a survey for this page (please take the survey) and then battling with a designer to get the thing to launch "on activity" as a pop-under (only in IE; Firefox displays it as a pop-up). spent some time in an interesting conversation at work throughout the day (clearly much better than exercising my java script skills) with a friend.

-in the middle of all that above, we had somewhat of an impromptu pizza party at work where everyone had to go around and introduce themselves, state their position, how long they've been with the company, where they were prior to this place, where they were born, and what song they would sing if they were playing "I'm going to kill you unless you sing karaoke". (for what it's worth, I would sing this.)

-went home at 5:45 after getting the pop-under and cookie to work after 5 hours of screwing around with the thing and ordered some Chinese food. (seeing as I'm broke and it was time to pay the rent yesterday, I stayed in, watched a movie/passed out around 10:30, which is why I'm up now, at 5:11 a.m.)

Back to the title of the post. I'm not sure what the hell is going on, but as I woke up a few minutes ago, I had this feeling of sheer terror running through me. I think it might have something to do with the cheap Chinese food I ate last night, but I'm really having a hard time sleeping lately. I woke up yesterday morning to find I had removed my shirt, for some reason, in my sleep. That's clearly no reason to panic but strange crap is going on when I shut down. On more than several occasions, I've had that falling dream, when you wake up as you hit the ground and you feel like you just plummeted several hundred feet only to land on your mattress.

I keep getting the feeling that I'm being haunted. Not in the creepy ghost way (man, that would freak me out) but in the "remember when" way. Like "remember when you lived in Brooklyn and hated it because your apartment was a shit-hole?" to which I follow with "and now you miss it because you live in a soul-less neighborhood in Manhattan"? Or "remember when your company paid for 100 people to go to Puerto Rico for a week and get wasted and how much simpler your life was then"? (no need to follow up on that one).

Point is, through all this rambling muck, I've got to snap out of this funk. I'll be turning 25 soon, I suppose that has me down a bit. But it's not like I can help turning 25. Plus, as people keep telling me when I tell them I'm going to be 25, it's not like I'm turning 40. You're still young, Noonan, start acting like it! (that's the point in the post where I resort to talking to myself as an authority figure..... ). Now I think I'll try and get some sleep... or I'll stay up and panic some more.