To say that 2007 got off to a bad start is an understatement, but this isn’t a post about how my life is so messed up or how depressed I am and blah blah blah this and blah blah blah that. If 2007 I haven’t learned anything so far in 2007, it’s to cope with what comes my way in life; to per verbally make lemonade. No pity parties.

So it’s Monday, I can look forward to a episode of Heroes, I can attempt to get an 100% in Bully, I can call the auto shop to check on my POS or I can prep myself for a week of hiking I have to do to get work since I don’t have my car. See there’s nothing like keeping a stiff upper lip. Well at least it’ll be warm.

Remember in last days of high school, in that fine time between finals and graduation where classes didn’t matter, teachers didn’t matter and yet my dumb ass still trekked across Philadelphia and went to school just so I could be marked as present. I walked around aimlessly during first period before running into some whites girls from my anatomy class (my first period), who sat behind me. With nothing better to do, we skipped school the rest of the day, went to the movies and saw Godzilla (no man in suit), and drove around (Black card revoked in 3.. 2.. 1..) singing One Headlight by the Wallflowers. School was the furthest thing on my mind. I had no worries, I was a day I easily enjoyed by not doing much of anything.

That was almost ten years and I’m in dire need of a cut day. A day where I don’t have to listen to phones ringing, machines running or bill collectors hounding me down. So I’m serving notice that starting at Thursday, February 1^st, 2007 at 12:00 AM to 11:59PM Tony Mercer will be completely off the radar. I’m will not be online, I will not be answering email, and all phone calls will go straight to voicemail.

I will enjoy my day by taking care of me. Maybe I’ll sit back and finally finish Prince of Persia or Devil May Cry 3, partake in some couch yoga aka Sit and Be Fit but gluing myself into some daytime television or maybe I’ll just say “fuck it” and sleep in the entire day.

So have good morning, and in case I don’t see ya, good afternoon, good evening, and good night!

Sometimes I enjoy being by myself. Alone to collect my thoughts and reflex on the details of life. I tend to perform this introspective around January, a time when the year is still new and I finally get a chance to catch my breath from the hectic and rush of the holidays. The lack of sufficient work hours affects my pay, which also affects my lifestyle, mood and disposition. Simply put, my money fluxes and my bills are constant thus I’m sit home, broke and stuck on a lame mission on Devil May Cry 3. It’s a classic (-A) + B = C scenario.

The search for a second job is exhausting. I’m either finding places that aren’t willing to work around my schedule or claim that I’m over-qualified. At one point I seriously considered dropping an application off at McDonald’s, but I’ve made in 26 years without flipping burgers, I guess I can pull those boot straps a little tighter, cut back on more stuff and work it out.

Despite the money issues, I try to keep a Happy Face. Even with the series of flat tires on the car, the rough days at work and the large strips of skin shaved off my scalp I have faith and determination that is all going to work out. I’m getting a nice chunk of change via my income tax returns, and I might be getting a housemate soon as well. Now I just wish gas was back to fewer than two dollars.

Will two thousand seven be the year of prosperity and happiness for Tony? Unfortunately I won’t really know until this time in two thousand eight. But I do know that two thousand seven will be another year where I grow a little older, hopefully a wiser but probably not more patient. I pray that two thousand seven will be a year I get to spend with family, Phamily and friends. I want two thousand seven to be three hundred sixty-five days of living for me, fifty-two weeks of enjoying the small things, twelve months of having good times sprinkled with the bad, one year of being Tony.

What will two thousand seven be for you?

Alabastard

I was pretty shocked that the Apple store just replaced my beat-up 12in G4 Powerbook with a brand new Macbook. I’ve been busy the last few days replacing all of my power pc programs with universal ones and spending a great deal of time playing with Parallels Desktop for Mac. I had it all set and ready to go until I realized that I don’t have anything that needs to run on Windows so I scrapped it all. I even found this really cool script that lets me use my Blackberry 8100 Pearl as a bluetooth modem.

The only downside to my new MacBook is that my PowerBook (Long-Dong Aluminum) had a Superdrive and Alabastard has a standard combo-drive. But the fact that I exchanged a 3 year-old piece of obsolete technology for the new hotness, easily helps me get over it.

Things have been fairly stagnant here at Phillybred.com mostly because I’m finding it more and more difficult to sit in front of computer nowadays. Ironically I work in technology and sit in front of a monitor all day. My days have been filled with 3:30am wake ups, long work days, ibuprofen, Sickie-Deez, pledge sessions and early bed times. And not only has all of that caught up with me, it has surpassed me and lapped me twice.

So within the last few days, I have yet to speak to my mother, not because I don’t want to talk to her, just don’t know how to go about it. I’ve also been getting the house ready for the winter which only led to more problems like my washer blowing up in the midst of doing my whites and trying to get my cub appeal together by raking up falling leaves to only have twice as much leave fall the next day and various trash from my next-door neighbors. Been trying to eat out less and cook more, but I guess I should attempt to put food in my fridge so I would have something to cook. And atlas the gut gets bigger and bigger. But none of this has gotten me down, since I really don’t have any time outside of work and fraternity to dwell on it. Actually I don’t have much time period, I’m sure there are some folks who I’m pissed off by not calling.

Speaking of calling folks, I when out of my way to go and get the new Blackberry Pearl, which I love by the way and I barely talk to people on the phone. I guess it’s another situation where my inner-technophile beat out my common sense. Yes, I admit I don’t use the common sense I was born with but isn’t admission the first step of recovery.

So I’ve been really incognegro as of late, some of it is because my HR Department at work is aware of my site, the various work on my teeth leaves me worn out, high medicated and half-sleep most of the time and I’ve been feeling really fucked about making my mother cry the other day. So the last ten days have been a series of low blows and I really need some encouragement.

I Know I’ve been kinda absence from here but I needed to extend my time away from the computer. But I’m back and definitely have things to share. Plus I’ve decided to utlitize the dead space call Yahoo! 360, so check that out in the near future. And there’s a specific reason why I’m not direcylt linking to it, but that’s one of the stories for later.

So where have you been Tony? Simply put, when I’m not at work I’ve been sitting at home, dodging phone calls and playing video games. I really wish I say that I was out being productive but it is what it is. I’ve become more accepting that my life is slowing down. I tend to go out less (even though I didn’t go out that much to begin with) and I look to hang out with folks who think that sitting at home is not a bad thing.

After the debacle with NIPSCO, I really needed some time to collect my thoughts and with subtle urgings from my mom (who thinks I’m severely depressed), I started to see a therapist. And it’s been good to get some things out in the open and trying to come to term with things from my past. Without getting into specifics, I’m slowing learn how to forgive, realized how much I cut people out of life and admitted that I am very confrontational.

So I’m working on making a better Tony, spending time with my Pham and button-mashing my way through Mortal Kombat Armageddon but I’ve haven’t gone anywhere and I don’t plan on going anywhere anytime soon.