You are in the Brett Bugle archives right now. The HOMEPAGE is much more important.
2006-09-30
While working in Danville today (yes, on a Saturday — I am a very dedicated programmer), I noticed some cans of Sunkist soda in the refrigerator. Know how many grams of sugar are in one can?
We have a new winner in the oversweetened sodas race, and it is Sunkist Orange with 52 grams of sugar per can. Nutritionists everywhere are recommending that you put down your orange soda and drink Cheerwine instead.
In other food news, I'd like to extend my deepest thanks to Panera Bread Company, who just put a "free Crispani hand-crafted pizza" coupon in my mailbox today. They must have read on my MySpace profile that I want lots and lots of something for nothing.
2006-09-29
Today I went to Wendy's for lunch, and I could not believe what I heard on the overhead music. It was "King of the Mountain" by Kate Bush! Can you believe it? I know; I can't believe it either. That's the last song you'd expect to hear playing at my local Wendy's, which almost always has stupid country songs blaring on the speakers.
2006-09-28
My close friend Danielle has taken a strong interest in the Enneagram personality survey, so tonight she and I went through the questions and figured out that I am a type 9 ("Peacemaker"). Look it up; chew on it; figure me out.
2006-09-27
Big night tonight. An attractive MySpace friend got together with me at Grapevine in order to see me do karaoke. Not long after the fun began, another attractive MySpace user came up to me to tell me she recognized me from my MySpace picture and profile! That is unreal.
The night just got better and better after that, with me getting amazing responses from the crowd and the DJ whenever I sang. What else? {1} Dance partners. {2} Delightful companionship of Barbara on stage with me. {3} At one point, the DJ played a recording of me singing "Kiss," a recording that he had just made minutes earlier without my knowledge. It was unreal.
There will probably more news related to this night as October passes. The Magic Eight Ball tells me that "all signs point to yes."
2006-09-26
Been soliciting advice from my sisters, nieces, and confidantes on a relationship question, and I'm tempted to post it here just to get more comments. But no, I've just changed my mind.
2006-09-24
Four quick notes:
My Toshiba e310 PocketPC won't boot up anymore. Somebody tell me how to fix it.
The ChickFilA at Turfland Mall has been offering a free breakfast item every Monday for the past 7 weeks, and the final offer is tomorrow morning, September 25th, probably in honor of D.T.'s birthday. Go get some free Chick-N-Minis, then tell D.T. "happy birthday."
The Doonesbury comic in today's paper (the Sunday paper, for those of you reading this entry after September 24) is very relevant to the entry about friends I posted yesterday. Check it out.
My logfiles tell me that I am the top search result for IKEA Lexington KY. I never would have guessed that, had I not seen it in my logfiles.
2006-09-23
No one wants to hear me complain, but I need to write about this because it's been on my mind a lot lately.
I feel like I have no close friends anymore, just workday friends. Most of the folks I call my friends are people who are only available to spend time with me before 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, as in the typical situation where I call 'em up and say "want to go to lunch?" and they say "of course!"
Alas, when 5 o'clock rolls around, they go back to their faraway lives, mingling with loved ones or whatever, so I can't call these same people and say "want to go to dinner?" because I know the answer will always be "sorry, gotta do blah blah blah."
S.R. was great to me last night, going with me to dinner and a dance, so she's a good friend, but she's not someone I'm close to. R.S. is a good friend, too, getting me out of the house and showing me a wild side of Lexington when the mood strikes him, but then he gets unreachable for weeks at a time. As for D.T., she's always a mystery; P.E., too.
I'd love to have a best friend, something I haven't had for many years. Until I find one, however, I have to distract myself with downloaded movies. (One example distraction: do you know that one part in that one movie where Phil says, "I've come to the end of me, Rita" and kisses her goodbye?)
2006-09-22
every night should be polka-karaoke night
Today's Garfield comic really spoke to me because tonight I actually did the polka (twice with Salina and once with Carma) at a ballroom dance held by the Highpoint Singles group of Calvary Baptist Church. Then when I got home I had a voicemail message from Catherine asking me where she and I could do karaoke.
By the way, one of the polka dances I did with Salina was to the song "Stars are Blind" by Paris Hilton. That cracks me up — Paris Hilton polka. What a trip.
2006-09-21
Relieved to be caught up on sleep today. See, on the 18th, Rob kept me out really late because he needed me to be his designated driver again for his trip to Gambino's, and whenever I am Rob's chauffeur I am held captive until 2 or 3. It's hard for me to get a full night's sleep when I go to bed at 3. Then, on the 19th, I went to bed knowing that I'd have to wake up early to an alarm clock in order to work in Danville first thing yesterday morning. So that is never very satisfying, sleeping with the subconscious anticipation of an alarm clock.
This morning I woke up at 9:45 after going to bed at 11 last night. No interruptions, no alarm clocks, just a gooood night's sleep. (The Kroger version of Nyquil probably contributed to the level of goodness.)
2006-09-18
Lots of news to share; here are brief summaries of my days.
10 Sept. While Quest Community Church was having their big Questapalooza celebration, I was launching a Heatherpalooza celebration of my own by going out to Bogart's with Rob and meeting a Minnesota hottie named Heather. More on this later.
11 Sept. A very calm day. Nothing to report. But, hey, happy birthday to MKHenzel!
12 Sept. Concluded my webcomic and got my butt back to work. The company I work for has recently experienced a serious hardware problem, and today I started working on software solutions for reclaiming all the information that was lost when the hardware died.
13 Sept. Pretty busy workday, and then Rob recruited me to be his designated driver as we (with his girlfriend and other friends) went around several nightspots from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m.
14 Sept. Today I taught little neighbor boy Zach how to be more dangerous and reckless with his childhood. How? I'll tell ya. I taught him how to climb the tree in my front yard, which he'd never done before. Plus, I built a small wooden ramp specially designed for launching a bicycle high into the air across a hard concrete sidewalk. Fun, fun.
15 Sept. Added a third Heather — a coworker from the Nicholasville office — to my MySpace friends list and immediately (and impulsively) decided to promote all Heathers to my top three friends. Cheryl got jealous and changed her name to Heather, so then I made her my Number One. If you are not on MySpace, you're missing out on some silly craziness!
16 Sept. Danielle has become addicted to the "Prison Break" TV show; today she invited me over to watch some episodes from the Season 1 DVD she recently bought. What a thrill; one of my anti-TV friends has just become a TV-watching friend.
17 Sept. When Rachel changed her name to "Heather / Sophie Marceau," she won the grand prize of Heatherpalooza 2006.
screenshot of Heatherpalooza 2006
2006-09-15
I guess y'all are probably itching for an update, but I have to go to work in Nicholasville today. This week has been a good one for me in relation to work because I've racked up several billable hours resulting from a catastrophic server failure. I could write about this in detail, later, but I probably won't.
In this entry, I want to update you on the sugar content of sodas. Recently I wrote that Cheerwine had the most sugar of all the sodas I've seen, but then last night I discovered that my can of Code Red Mountain Dew is even higher. And a good friend wrote today to tell me that her can of regular Mountain Dew has more than 42 grams per can, also.
Can a person die from a sinus infection? If so, thank goodness for MySpace. It tells you the last time I logged in, so if a few days pass by and you see that I haven't logged in there to check my messages and comments, call the authorities. The sinus infection took me down faster and farther than I ever thought possible.
Because I'm single with no kids, I've never bothered to write a will. Who should get my house? Who should get my car? Should I give my elephant collection to the Wilmore girl I like who also has an elephant collection of her own?
Sorry! an unexpected error has occurred.
This error has been forwarded to MySpace's technical group.
2006-09-07
I've got 99 problems... warning: this Jay-Z lyric is not safe for work
Just got home from the Kroger grocery store, and I think the dream is over. I think Cheerwine soda has been taken out of production here in Lexington — the shelf tag is no longer there — and that's a bummer. On the other hand, the last time I gave someone a can of Cheerwine, they immediately noticed (and pointed out to me) that it has 42 grams of sugar per can, which is the highest of any soda on the market. So maybe I'm better off without Cheerwine in my life. Oh, well. It was fun while it lasted.
M&M's has given me great comfort in this time of loss because they now sell dark chocolate M&M's in big bags, not just individual servings. Merci beaucoup, sugar dealer!
2006-09-04
Been listening to the performance CD that the Avio karaoke host created for me last Saturday night, and it does not please me. My voice is pretty unpleasant at times. Dang, all these years of getting amazing responses from karaoke audiences, I was fooled into thinking they liked my singing.
Now I know: they adored my presentation, and they happily tolerated my singing.
What a depressing discovery. For years, I've had TONS, waaaay too much, positive feedback on all the karaoke I've done. We're talking EXCESSIVE ego boosting, leading me to believe I am a good singer. The only negative feedback I can recall ever getting at a karaoke night was the time I performed "Superman" by Eminem (a rap song), which has incredibly harsh/misogynistic lyrics. I'd never done that song before, and I'm sure I'll never do it again, and it was a rap anyway, so that one bad reaction I got is a bit pointless. Why didn't anyone complain about my singing voice?
Thank you much, Avio DJ — by giving me this CD, you've helped me more than you'll ever know.
2006-09-03
You know how some people out there in blog world are afraid that future employers will punish them for the wild stuff they're writing now? Well, last night, I had a sudden jolt that got me thinking that I might be punished for all the mild-mannered and conservative stuff I've been uploading for a decade.
Here's the story: just around the corner from Thoroughbred Park is a multifunction club called Avio. It has a concert hall, a sports bar, a disco, a big outdoor patio w/volleyball, and a karaoke bar (among other things). I'd never been there before, but last night I felt like going there to do karaoke.
I arrived when karaoke was supposed to start, but I was the only singer who'd shown up at that point. So I chatted with the DJ to see if I should stick around. He gave me a big long list of reasons to stick around, so all right. I waited.
After a while, more people showed up; the karaoke began. Straight out of the gate, I made a big impression on these people with my rendition of Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy." The bartender begged me to stay until closing and sing songs for her — with free drinks as my reward. The DJ said to me, "I don't normally do this for people, but I'm going to burn all your performances to a CD so you can have them at the end of the night." Clearly, this was going to be a good night.
Then the biggest surprise of all happened. One of the regular singers arrived late, meaning he had missed several of my songs already. But soon after he showed up, I did my most-fine-tuned song, "Kiss" by Prince. He was really impressed, and he came up to me and suggested that if I'm not already singing for a band, he knows of a band I could join. Can you believe it? In all my years of singing for people, I've never been offered an opportunity like this. (Sure, there was that one countertenor conversation with the music teacher at UKy, but that was baroque opera stuff. This is a rock band I'm talking about now.)
So, anyway, after closing the karaoke bar down, getting my song CD, and heading home, I returned to my usual computer life, and that's when I had the notion that my family-friendly blog was going to get me expelled from my new Rock Star Supernova option.
September will probably be a better, more active month for me here in Lexington. (Sure, I had a semi-active week in Florida last month, but I'm talking about the joys of having things to do in one's hometown.)
For starters, the French Film Series is starting back up for the fall semester at UKy. This season's movies will be Queen Margot, Grand Illusion, A Very Long Engagement, The Sorrow and the Pity, A Man Escaped, Mr. Klein, and The Battle of Algiers. The French department website says "the French Film Series is held bi-weekly at the W.T. Young Library Auditorium at 7:00pm. The films offer students the ability to expand their listening comprehension skills while looking at culturally authentic realia. All films are subtitled in English and run approximately 2 hours."
Another thrilling event I just found out about: Calvary Baptist Church is holding singles dances twice a month now! How insane, when baptists hold dances. Can't wait to go shake that up. I give LetsDanceLex.com some major credit for alerting me to that happiness.
Okay, in anticipation of our exciting social season, let us first sit quietly and ponder the meaning of life.
2006-09-00
Would you like to read my blog entries from August 2006, July 2006, or June 2006? Sure you would! Feel free! Go read them! Gosh!
For search engines: Kentucky KY 40504 USA, Brett Mason, not in Lexinton
