I feel bored this afternoon, but I am not sure if it is really boredom (as opposed to not being used to the concept of having nothing to do). Perhaps I will give Amy a call and see what she is doing…

By the way, I just want to reiterate my extraordinary hatred for Anime.

I just got back from seeing Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring. I went to see it with Amy and James, and overall I liked the film… This kind of surprised me because I read the book that this movie was based on many moons ago and didn’t really enjoy it all that much… Perhaps I will go back and read it again, and perhaps the entire trilogy (I stopped at the first book last time around)..

Did the film have it’s flaws? Of course. Did the film end abruptly? Of course (but no more abruptly than Empire). But overall, I was very impressed with it. I don’t believe the hype it is receiving is unjust….

James and I exchanged xmas gifts… I got him the DVD of The Elephant Man and he got me Miles Davis’ " Kind of Blue", which is way cool.

Actually, looking back at my Journal, I guess I never really addressed the whole Christmas thing after the fact… =) I had a great time with my family and friends, everyone seemed to really like their gifts, and I got lots of cool stuff as well…

Well, in about 15 minutes it will be Christmas here, so Merry Christmas…. I am having a blast, and I am finally in the Christmas Spirit… I love this time of year, and I hope everyone is enjoying themselves, however they are spending their holiday… Time for bed…

I hung out with most of today, exchanging gifts, doing some knick-knack store shopping for her mom, eating dinner (Chi-Chi’s), and playing Monopoly (the .com edition). She ended up not feeling quite right, and just left a little while ago… She was still bothered when she left, but hopefully after a full night’s sleep she will be better. I offered to let her stay, but she has to do something tomorrow, so being here would have been a pain…

I am exhausted, so I am gonna go to bed… l8r.

I brought the Sopranos DVDs home for my dad to watch, and he began to tear into the second season this morning.. (not quite sure why he started with the 2nd season… I think he saw a good deal of the first season last year) I am not paying too much attention just yet, since I watched the first two disks over the past week or two…

I left work around 4pm and made it to the airport around 4:30… It probably took me about 30 minutes, maybe 45 to get through the security checkpoint. When I got to the front, I put all my stuff on the belt.. The lady noticed I had my wallet in my pocket, so she asked me (in broken english) to place it on the belt. I asked for a little tray, and she said she didn’t have any and to just put it on the belt…. I guess I was being a bit stubborn, but I had visions of my wallet disappearing into the belt and never returning (i mean, it’s pretty small), so I said to her “I’m sorry, but I would really prefer to put it in a tray”. You would have thought I curb-kicked her first born… Anyway, after 30 seconds she walked the long 5 feet to the end of the belt to get me a tray and all was well… I got patted down again, but I think they were doing that to everyone at Logan this time around…

When I got to the counter to check in (around 5:15p), the lady behind the counter offered to put me on a flight that was leaving an hour earlier. I hadn’t checked any luggage, so I accepted the offer and only had to wait around for about 20 minutes before boarding began. The boarding process is really slow now, they triple check ID and also randomly send people off to get their bags searched… I wasn’t chosen for this.. I don’t really mind all this new “security”, but I also don’t really feel that it is doing much of anything.. I did see two people of middle-eastern descent being questioned by security… I don’t like that too much, but what can you do.. The strange thing was that when they decided that these two guys were cool, they put them on the plane first, a good 5 minutes before boarding began… I am not quite sure what all these policies are…

I arrived in Newark around 7:30, and met my parents at the pick-up location… We went to the Hibernia Diner for dinner, and I celebrated my arrival in the mother country with a beautiful Taylor Ham & Cheese on a hard roll… Mmmmm…. I spent the rest of the evening wrapping gifts and chillin’ with my parents… I am now going to check up on the world before going to bed…

I was pretty casual about my arrival time getting into work today… I spent my time this morning sleeping and making sure I had everything I needed for the trip… Once that was settled, and I also got all the “spoilables” out of the fridge, I set off for work, arriving at 11:30p. As soon as I arrived I was told to turn around and head for the Border Cafe in Harvard Sq. It is a Tex-Mex place, and it was pretty good. I actually decided to have a few drinks, to get me a little loose for the upcoming airport hell, and it turns out that Matt and Mac were taking us all out on them, so the whole meal was free.

I am not looking forward to being in the airport today…. My flight is allegedly at 7pm, and I have heard people who said the radio this morning said to give yourself 3-4 hours at the airport, but I think that is nonsense… I looked at the airline webpage and they said that peak wait times at the security desk were 1.25 hours.. I guess I will let you know if a few hours.. :)

Call me paranoid, but I spent a considerable amount of time moving my CD/DVD collection into my bedroom this evening… If I am going to be gone for 10 days, I at least want to make it difficult to steal my shit… The stereo equipment is pretty easy to file insurance claims for, but the CD’s and DVD’s might be a bit more of a hassle… I fired up some video capture software and did some Coppola work over the media rack, panning back and forth across each row so I at least have some evidence if some douchebag decides to break into my apartment again… I also have a few other “safeguards” in place to help me out if I get screwed again, but I will tell you about those AFTER break (I don’t want to give away ALL my secrets… :P).

Ok, time to finish packing for the trip.. :)

I am working on a secret personal project using Mozilla, and I need to use sockets to accomplish this goal.. I am trying to use the JabberXMSocket component, but it throws an exception when I close the socket…. Sigh…

I am glad to see that LJ is back, tho…

The Rovia holiday party was much fun, and the Parade of Meat was as wonderful as always.. Now I want to go home… :)