Hi all. For some reason, after daily testing to no avail, my keyboard has decided suddenly to work again. We've got G!

Great Green Globs of Gooey Gopher Guts! Oh yeah.

But, seeing as it's 2:53 am, I've neither time, will, nor energy to check email. Here's life in a nutshell, for those of you whose curiosity is so inclined: School is going fantastic, and I'm totally rocking the Casbah, especially in lighting class. I've made a new friend (kinda). She's hard to read, but really nice, and she has a Bachelor's in fine art photography so she knows darkroom inside-out and backward. I'll have to think of a blog nickname for her if she continues being a character in my life. I was thinking about "APG", as in "Art Photography Girl". Anyway, asked her to lunch the other day (kinda). Since she had another class shortly after our Image Management let out, it was more like a trip to the Taco Bell drive through, but a pleasant one nonetheless.

No, there's no romantic undertones, undercurrent, underpinnings, or underwear. Definitely no underwear, unless my boxer shorts' elastic band creeps up above my trouser waist (as happens with all too humiliating frequency). I'm further away now from getting a date than I've ever been, don't get your hopes up.

Big dramatic *sigh*.

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I still think about Texas Gurl all the time, and want to email her, but what would I say? "Sorry I talked so big and failed to deliver?" Behind the scenes last fall/winter, the dialogue between us got semi-serious, and I feel like the one who dropped the ball.

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I lost the install file for my pirated version of Photoshop. Meaning: unless it somehow becomes practical to upload 6 meg JPEGs over a dialup connection, no mo photos until I can get some piece of software to resize them. I took some fucking brilliant photos last night. I really want to show them off. :-(

Thassabout it for now. Oh yeah, Viv came and took the cats today. I'm actually rather relieved, now knowing they're in an apartment where they can run around and get lots more love and attention than I had time to give them here. But, it'll be weird without Cozy curling up on my pillow, or Armand's allergy-ridden snoring and whistley purring. Life goes on.

It never ends...

So now that I'm back up and running... the 'G' on my keyboard stops working. Kinda hard to go to gmail, or blogger, or groverflanagan. So here I am at the library's computers again. Le sigh. The weird thing is, last night my brother calls me with a computer problem: his keyboard died completely. And then mine starts to go. Jeepers, it's like the digital twilight zone around here.

At least you don't need 'g' to get to XNXX.com. Oh yeah.

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It was nice seeing (most) everybody from last quarter in Lighting class last night, and great to bullshit again with Rodney (my instructor for lighting this quarter, and last quarter for Camera Skills). I'd called Elizabeth once during the break, but for the most part fell out of contact with her, so it was nice to catch up with her again. Was supposed to run around with her today shooting for projects, but that girl is so damned hard to get a hold of in the morning... quite the nocturnal life she has. She's hosting some photographic industry event at her studio later this month and invited me to attend. $10 for the ticket, but what a wonderful opportunity to shmooze.

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I've been taking a boatload of photos, and I'm dying to post them, but... well, you know the situation. :-( I was actually going to post a few last night when the keyboard went on the blink.

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Am I the only one to notice how the Geico Gecko's accent changed earlier this year? At first he had this nice upper-class Londoner accent, and now it's more Cockney... what I call the "wif" accent like all the bad guys in British gangster movies have.

The new quarter started today. It's SOOOOOOOOO nice to be back at OIP&T. I was on the phone with Dark Haired Girl tonight, and I mentioned what a lack of shyness I have there. She's been out with me. She's seen how I go damn near completely withdrawn in certain social situations, and I was telling her how when I'm there at school, I don't feel awkward about talking to anybody.

Speaking of...

I met a very lovely young lady who's in my Image Management class. As the class took breaks and we all shuffled out of the computer lab to chat in the hallways, she and I passed several times with big awkward smiles. Then after class, as I was developing a roll of film, she came into the lab to chat with the bookstore lady (bookstore and lab being in the same room. OIP&T is a tiny place). I noticed her noticing me doing my tank-shakin' thang at the developing sink, so I said hi and we got to talking. Turns out she has a degree in fine art photography and knows darkroom inside-out and backwards. I asked if she had any examples online, but she only had prints, and said she'd bring them in next week to show me.

Now, call me Mr. Ego, but I couldn't help but feel a little mutual diggage going on. Or maybe it's just wishful thinking. There was a friendly click for sure, but I could've sworn there was a little active interest. Shit, how would I know...

But the negs turned out well.

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Been hanging out more than usual with Dark Haired Girl lately. Just chillin, no monkey business. It's really kinda nice. Just last friday night I picked up some movie snacks after work and went to her place to watch Brokeback Mountain with her and a friend. I just plopped down on her loveseat and we ate chex mix and cookies, and had the most pleasant time. She called again the next night, and we rolled around with her friend (the one who initially approached me at Dunaway's that fateful night), and a guy friend of theirs. It felt so good to be riding around with people, although I didn't get most of their inside jokes. But it felt good to be invited into "the crew". Almost surreally good. It was like losing a certain portion of my social virginity.

It's alive! ALIIIIIIIIIVE!!!

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Yes, folks, your dear Grover is back in the game! $70 and 120 brand-spanking-new gigs later, I'm resorting on piggybacking off of mom's aol account until I can afford my own. That, and I haven't tried plugging in my old drive to see if I can pull any info off of it. It's Easter weekend and the fam is over, so I've been sneaking away for bits at a time to work on installing things, and I must log off and return to the festivities. Happy Easter y'all!

I'm still banished to the library to get on the internet. :-( Wish I had better news, but it looks like I'm gonna hafta shell out $50 to Computer Zoo this saturday for another hard drive. Diagnostics say that my current one is mechanically fine, but the index is corrupt. I don't want to wipe it clean, so I'm going to do a fresh install of XP on a new drive and try to find some way to recover my un-backed-up photos (shame on me) from the old drive.

In other news, I'm still in regular but infrequent contact with Dark Haired Girl. No other dating/girlfriend prospects... have actually been told to fuck off on multiple occasions upon saying hello. Women are so defensive around here, and I don't blame them. Men can be flat-out disgusting in their behavior in bars. I've come to the conclusion that dancing/alcohol establishments are NOT ideal places for meeting people.

But all is well... the birds are chirping, spring has sprung, I'm driving around with my windows down, and I'm in a fantastic mood because of it. TTFN!

oh, and thanks Barbara, for the comment :-)

Greetings from Michelle and Daniel's house. The 'puter is still dead as a doornail, but I think I may have a solution... a bootable diagnostic floppy from Seagate's website. Hopefully this will tell me at least if the drive is dead and any attempts at recovery are futile. Then I'll have to cough up the cash for a new HD. Andy is not thrilled.

Till then, keep checking back.. I'm sure to be back in the swing of things eventually.

Hi all. My computer is on the fritz, and I'll check back when I can... but for now, just think of this a a brief hiatus from the online world, except for when I can get on at friends' houses and whatnot.

"whatnot." I've been watching too much American Chopper.