Today is National AIDS Awareness Day. AIDS is on the rise. Around 40 million people are living with HIV/AIDS, 2.5 million of which are young children. This is more than 50% higher than the figures supplied by WHO in '91. There were 3 million deaths caused by AIDS this year, half a million of which were children. By the end of 2001 14 million children (14 or younger) had been made orphans by AIDS. 14,000 new HIV infections occur every day. Over 8,000 people die every single day from AIDS.

youthaids.org   avert.org

I haven't missed a UNC game yet. Tonight's was pretty close. Carlyn and I usually watch 'em in the living room together. My whole family likes Carolina, but my dad rarely watches much of the games. He gets far too worked up. He could seriously have a heart attack. He has high blood pressure and has been taking medicine for it for about a decade. Anyway, they're 4-0 now. Duke sucks.

The Norwood Christmas parade was today. I've felt like crap all day, but I forced myself to go. There were a lot of marching bands, including Anson. South Stanly's was the smallest. People were throwing out candy like always. A group on one float was throwing out stuffed animals and one group of people was even handing out hot chocolate. There were hobos and horses and all the other usual things. Santa came last, throwing out tons of candy. I wonder if Jimmy was Santa again this year. Only a little of Santa's face was visible, so I couldn't tell.

I just returned from my brother's game. He's on the middle school basketball team, on which he's been starting lately. They lost, again. They're now 0-6. Ha. Oh well, he got four points.

I met with Tony for about an hour yesterday morning. We talked about school, teaching, and life in general. He agreed with my assumption that everything is going well for me at the moment. He even complimented me on this website. Leslie had shown it to him. He's going to help me figure out which school would be best, which classes I need to finish up the AA degree for transfer, and stuff like that.

I need to get certified in some things. I'll probably end up taking the A+ and CIW. I have about 19 trillion pages of study material that I'll have to wade through beforehand. I could probably already pass the one for webmaster.

Christmas break is almost here. A few finals and then I'll have a month off. One day during last year's break I sat down and taught myself html. I need to do something like that again. Maybe I should go for some basic Spanish. If I go to UNCC I'll have to take a foreign language. I remember very few things from high school Spanish class. Andrew and I were too busy cracking jokes and pondering the mentality of our teacher. One of the few things I actually remember is watching Selena. "Anything for Selenas!"

stupidity   idiocy   and, just to sound smart... hebetudinous

It was warm enough for some basketball today. Well, technically it was yesterday. Carlyn keeps on getting better. It's not surprising. We've been playing regularly for at least five years. Even though his team is 0-6 he's still getting experience, ridding any fears about playing, and practice, of course. And it's fun. He's obviously good; he's been starting the past few games. I was really getting into the last one. They were down by a dozen points in the second quarter, but came back within four. I wish I had played when I was in school. I think I could have made the basketball team. I certainly couldn't have made us any worse.

I rented Rising Sun. It's not bad. I'll take Frontline over it any day though.

I just finished watching Saturday Night Live. Al Sharpton hosted, which was kind of weird. Saturday Night Live holds a lot of memories for me. I started watching in the early 90s around the time Wayne's World was so huge. Speaking of Wayne's World, they're showing an old Christmas episode of SNL right now, and Wayne and Garth are reviewing movies. I remember riding the Wayne's World ride at Carowinds when our class went in 8th grade. James Lambert, Andrew, Taylor, and I separated from the group and eventually split up because of a disagreement. Taylor and I wanted to go to some Star Wars section, and James didn't. So, we ended up getting mad. Kids are so petty, eh? Canadians are a mixed bag. What?

truth   torture   wow   hmm

At the end of some junk e-mail there will be strange, random text. I found this one funny:

As the dafoh went nuxap the doma
While wokah the yela where narac
I naw as if teja and suyey were raz
Do buke it and puxu the kud
In piga goh, kaz is an diqe of pib

My final grades: 96.35, 100.37, 96, 98, and 92. Not too shabby. The only reason I made over a 100 in one class is because of the funky way in which he grades, but I'm not complaining. In my hardware class I made 91 on the skills exam (putting that CPU together and everything) and 96.7 on the final.

I made a lot of friends over this semester, so a lot of today (and yesterday) was spent hanging around talking to people about everything. If it hadn't been for Kevin, the three classes I have with him would have been boring as anything can be. I hope I see him around next semester. The same goes for Tom, Jan, Gina, and a lot of others. I'll miss Janet next semester, too. She's only taking medical classes, so I probably won't see her any. She was just about the nicest person in the world.

After a week of the flu and finals, I'll thoroughly enjoy this month off.

Dad and I went to Albemarle to buy stuff. It was very busy, of course. We bought some things for my brother and mom, and some general things. I have no idea what to get my brother. I wish he were still six. I could buy him some legos or something. You know, toys. I remember when I was little how significant toys were. Maybe significant isn't the right word, but the joy brought about by unwrapping a special toy was nearly vomit-inducing. I remember getting my Knight Rider car, K.I.T and the corresponding action figure of Michael Knight himself. A few years later it was being run over by the turtle van, though.

The childrens' Christmas plays went on at church tonight as they do every year around this time. Afterward, Christmas bags with fruit, nuts, and candy are given out to everyone. The mere site of that large, brown bag makes me happy. The coarse, rumpled paper in my hand lets me know it's Christmas. Another yearly tradition took place today. We always make M&M cookies and fudge here at Christmas time. They're both extremely good. It's been cold and rainy, so the remainder of today was spent watching ACC games and playing Playstation 2.

When I was at Norwood Elementary I wrote for the school newspaper, The Patriot Press. I also did little political cartoons. Here's one I drew for the special "Election '92" issue we put out. Looking at it now, it seems really crappy. Since it was 1992 I was either 10 or 11, so not bad for my age.

It's a spoof of the classic Peanuts strip where Lucy pulls the football away from Charlie Brown. Bill takes the place of Lucy, pulling the ball (the Presidential election) away from Bush, as Charlie Brown. Again, not bad for an eleven-year-old. Oh, and I made this before the election. I knew Clinton was going to win.

It's been really busy lately. Christmas stuff has been going on the past couple days so I haven't had time to sit at my computer. I saw Return of the King tonight. I didn't really like it much. Talk about over dramatic. I rolled my eyes many times. I liked Fellowship of the Ring a lot, but the last two just didn't do it for me. This one was filled with unnecessary pauses and redundancies. I couldn't wait for it to end, and I thought it never would. The battle sequences were nice, but they didn't make up for the rest of the movie. All but about one percent of the Internet community is proclaiming this the best movie ever. I don't see why. It seemed like a fourth of the movie was in slow motion. Another fourth was simply shouting to the audience, "HEY! I'm a big, important movie!" Special effects do not necessarily equal a good movie, just as excessive slow motion sequences do not necessarily make art. Overall, Return of the King was an average movie. It's ego brought it down a notch. I think it was all the cheese...made it bloated. Cheesy and bloated it certainly was, accounting for another fourth. That leaves twenty-five percent of tolerability. I'm probably being too hard on it, but that's okay because everyone else is going overboard with the praise. I did like, though, when they went into that cave and met the pirates of the Caribbean.

Christmas is a few days away; I have nearly everything I'd planned to buy bought; Christmas lights are everywhere; and I saw Mickey's Christmas Carol yesterday. That's a good one. I've always loved Christmas. People seem so much nicer around the end of December. I think that's the main reason. The world just seems a better place for a little while.

I finished 1984 this morning. Everyone should read it.

Last night we went to visit Papa. As we were going in, Nathan was going out. I decided to stay outside with Nathan because I don't see him as much as I used to. By the time I turned around he was already kneeling beside his Acura applying to one of the rims, of all things, Armor All. We had already exhausted the general pleasantries and [déjà vu just began] he immediately said, "Man, my girlfriend and I broke up." There was a brief silence. "We'd been together for two years." It hit me that when Sam and I broke up (also having been together for two years) he was the first person I saw other than my immediate family. I tried to [the déjà vu just ended] comfort him as best I could. I think I faired well. The description of his reaction and current feelings was nearly an exact match for mine seventeen months ago. I love my cousins as if they were brothers. I hated to see him that way; I could tell he had really been hurt, and still does. From his comments, though, I know he's getting back to normal. I made it clear that if he ever feels that way again, about anything, he could always come to see me. And to end this paragraph on a bit of sentimentality, that goes for any of you. I hear the collective "aww".

After conversing for twenty-five minutes or so he had to leave. I went in and found my place on the couch beside my brother and directly across from Papa (as I and rest the grandchildren lovingly refer to him). I love visiting him. I could sit on that old, familiar couch for hours just listening to him talk. I've said before, and surely I will again, that I love the past. So, hearing family events prior to my arrival interests me greatly. He told me of the time shortly after Pearl Harbor had been attacked. Before the news had become common knowledge an acquaintance of his remarked something similar to, "They bombed Pearl Harbor? Who is she?" I found that funny.

Warning: the following will be quite boring to anyone other than myself.

Seriously, this is going to be very boring. We had the usual Christmas. We all assembled at grampa's house the night before. Everyone who still lives was there except for Eddie and Jeremy. I haven't even seen Jeremy since he married, so that was a disappointment. It was a nice night, though. We mumbled and laughed our way through it. Grampa told me of when my dad was little. One morning he was the first of the six boys to get up and went into the kitchen where his mother was cooking breakfast. She told him to go wake the others. When he did he also told them there was a robber in the house. I have no idea why. They crawled through their windows and went to a neighbor's yard. They stood under an awning in the rain until they were called back. I know I'm the only one who finds these things interesting, but what do you expect from my journal? I put this stuff in here so I won't forget.

After we had had enough of each other we went to our homes. It was 10:30 by then. Carlyn and I watched Ernest Saves Christmas until we went to bed, which was around 12:30. I woke up a little after four. I heard something in the living room (I wonder what) and decided to stay up. After the footsteps ceased, I went in and placed the presents I had wrapped only yesterday under the tree. At 5:45 I made my way back to Carlyn's room and checked to see if his camcorder (which he received last Christmas) was charged. He had attempted to start the charging process before he went to bed, but it somehow was set to the Player mode, so it hadn't charged at all. So we used it by plugging it into the wall in the living room while presents were opened.

After that was done, my parents rushed to cook breakfast. They were set to arrive around 9, which they did (Grampa first, of course). Everyone was there except Eddie, Jeremy, and Sue. The food was really good. I think everyone had a fine time. Since Grampa arrived first I had time to squeeze some more tales of the past out of him. I asked him what Christmas was like when he was young. He described a time during the depression when the best they could hope for was fruit, nuts, and maybe candy. Once they each got a 25¢ toy. He and another brother, Carl, I think, got cap pistols. Ralph received a toy banjo but later tried to shove it up the chimney back to Santa Claus because he didn't want it.

I actually have a new picture of ordinary old me.

My new digital camera can record crappy video as well. Here's a short clip of a game between my brother and I that I made just to test it out.

I guess the video on this cheap, little camera isn't too bad.

I'm an unshaven slob (that's not my normal smile, I was making a weird face). I've done nothing since Christmas. I'll put it this way: the most constructive thing I've done is change the trash. I need a new book to read. I started to read As I Lay Dying, but I don't know if I'm going to go through with it. Anyone have suggestions?