But even when I did, I didn't really go out on New Years Eve except a few years. One of those years I had a lady friend who was probably the woman I have kissed the most in my life. I wasn't in love with her but I was deeply in "like" with her and I think the feeling was mutual. Then one night I was kissing her goodnight and I thought she was nibbling on my ear lol but she whispered that she had been a rock musician. She was semi-famous and I was familiar with her work but didn't know it. I found this clip of a movie she was in when she was basically playing herself as she was a friend of the artist Basquiat. This is exactly how she acted when she would come up to me, except unlike with Basquiat, she would throw her arms around me. Besides being a great kisser, she was the most fascinating person I ever knew. She shows up around the 20 second mark here:

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I think I have found a good one and one I am fairly sure I can accomplish. I'm going to make at least one person happy in 2012. It may be more than one person. It might be for a few seconds or a lifetime. I could do it the first day of the year or the last. It could be as simple as a single sincere compliment or making someone laugh. Or much more. Or it could be something I have already done, like someone I don't know finding and enjoying one of my youtubes in 2012. I am pretty sure I can do this.

I posted an online comment to a story on Newsday's website yesterday. The physical newspaper prints what they select as the best online comments from the previous day and there was my comment in the newspaper!

2011 had its ups and downs but for me it was an exciting, fun, and pleasantly surprising year. I feel like I am living much closer to my potential than I have in a long time. I'm going to make these lyrics from MacArthur Park part of my consciousness for 2012:

There will be another song for me
For I will sing it
There will be another dream for me
Someone will bring it
I will drink the wine while it is warm
And never let you catch me looking at the sun
And after all the loves of my life
After all the loves of my life
You'll still be the one.

I will take my life into my hands and I will use it
I will win the worship in their eyes and I will lose it
I will have the things that I desire
And my passion flow like rivers through the sky.

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I waited til after Christmas to go to the jewelers to get the watch bracelet adjusted. The Citizen watch website says not to try to do it yourself.

It said women's underwear 25% off. Sounded kind of sexy.

I didn't go to Christmas Mass today. I am Catholic and stopped going to Mass when I was a teenager, but started going again as an adult. I did that for about 15 years. I stopped when it seemed like too many of the sermons were about raising money for the church. I understand the need for some of that, but it seemed like every other week there was a sermon devoted to increasing weekly donations, or a special building/improvement fund for the church, or the Bishop's annual appeal, or some visiting Missionary priest, or some special cause. I didn't get too much spiritual enlightenment hearing these fairly constant appeals for money. Don't get me wrong, I think formal church attendance can be good especially if you have been away for awhile and need to get back into hearing the teachings of your church. But it had gotten for me that I was going out of routine and a sense of guilt if I didn't go.

What I did do this weekend was for the first time I read in full the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. It's like 80+ pages. I was familiar with many of the passages but had never read them through beginning to end. I thought if I am a Christian, I should read the Gospels at some time in my life so I did. Beyond the purely religious context, the Bible has some practical ways to connect to the power of God through Jesus.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to write this, but it is now 15 years ago and I don't feel much emotionally about this now. But Christmas Eve 1996 was pretty tough, love wise.

I had met this girl in September of 1996. It was a Friday night and I am pretty sure it was September 13th though I am not positive. I had felt a void in my love life and I felt like I had to meet someone. And I did. Her name was Beatrice and she was flirting with me and maybe that was a little dangerous for both of us. I felt like she was the one for me. So much so, that I told her that within minutes of meeting her. Now I am not the type to do something like that. She told me she was living with a boyfriend of several years. I told her to ditch him and go with me. Once again, that is unlike me most of the time. But it definitely got her attention.

For the next couple of months I saw her at a place we used to hang out and I worked on her to be my girl. Then on November 21, 1996, she gave in. Shortly after she moved out of the boyfriend's house and moved back to her parents house. Everything was going great with us for the next month. We hung out in December and I couldn't imagine things could get better with us. We spent the evening of December 23rd together, and I was planning a great Christmas and New Years. But everything came crashing down the next day, Christmas Eve. She called me up at work and said she was back with her old boyfriend. After I was certain she wasn't kidding, I just hung up on her. There was nothing to discuss but I guess she wanted a nice ending of our relationship. She called back a half dozen times and I just hung up everytime. Finally she stopped calling. So my Christmas Eve I was devastated since I thought she was the one for me.

Christmas morning came and I couldn't bear to listen or watch anything Christmas related. I spent my afternoon watching a movie from Blockbuster, I think it was Casino. In the middle of the movie my phone rang, and it was Beatrice, in tears, begging me not to hang up. Since she was crying I didn't hang up. She said her old boyfriend was a little crazy and forced her to go back to him, that she really loved me, and that she would leave him once again after the holidays. I guess I didn't really believe her but wanted to. It was better than not having that small hope.

Well no big surprise, the holidays passed and she came up with another excuse why she couldn't leave him at that time. But she kept telling me to wait for her. My head said not to believe her but her body language was convincing. We would talk and while she was asking me to wait she would hold my hands and kiss them. So I waited. Months went by and it was the same deal. So around October of 1997 I pretty much said it was over even though she was still playing the wait game.

After the initial anger I wasn't really mad with her. I would have been angrier if she had just ditched me on Christmas Eve and didn't try to resume the relationship. Anyway in 1998 I found someone else who loved me mucho. I ran into Beatrice once that year when I was with my new girlfriend. I was kind of glad that I did, so she could see that I did find someone else. I spent a minute or two alone with Beatrice and I still had warm feelings toward her, no anger whatsoever. She was still with the old boyfriend, he had no particular plans to marry her, and she seemed kind of sad. I gave her a kiss on the cheek and that was the last time I saw her.

This is the song that was popular when I met her, and I remember once it was playing and she said to me "Don't Speak" once when I was talking about loving her.

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From 2 minutes ago:

I have one squirrel in my backyard trained so I can call him from 40 feet away and he comes running to me for a peanut. If I talk to him he takes it from my hand. Today he came around and I gave him a couple. Then he came back and climbed on a ledge inches from me. I pretended I didn't have anymore and after a minute or two he started hopping away. When he was about 10 feet away I called out "hey squirrel". He came right back I gave him another peanut. Squirrels look like intelligent animals especially because they hold their food with their paws when they eat. And this one responds to my voice.

...somebody loves you

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When I was in college, I used to try to have at least one buddy in each class. Either male or female, it made the class much more fun. My last semester I saw this girl who I thought had good friend potential. She had a kind of cool quality but didn't seem to have a lot of friends. I wasn't trying to date her or anything like that just be friends. So we got along very well that last semester in our accounting class. We used to make fun of other people in the class and laugh a lot. Then at the end of the semester she sent me a graduation card addressed to "one of the nicest people I have met in my four years at Queens College". I'll remember that comment as long as I live.

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I have this book of Plato, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius that I got free when I was a kid. I never read it thinking it was beyond my comprehension. But I am going to take a look at the section on the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, who I have heard was a very wise man. I opened it at random and found this:

Everything harmonizes with me which is harmonious to thee, O Universe. Nothing for me is too early nor too late, which is in due time for thee. Everything is fruit to me which thy seasons bring, O Nature: from thee are all things, in thee are all things, to thee all things return.

I kind of think I understand that, which I think is sort of the message of this song from Ecclesiastes:

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As I previously blogged, I tried out a sampler of 5 Calvin Klein fragrances. The one that stood out was Eternity Aqua. I really like the smell and I have been getting good reactions from strangers. People on the street are stopping to talk to me and in stores the help is very friendly and seem to want to make conversation. I think Eternity Aqua goes well with my body chemistry because what works for one person might not work for another. A good fragrance is helpful because it can attract people without their thinking about you. Plus it gives me more confidence, knowing you smell good you can be more sure of yourself and expect good reactions.

I am unashamed to say I like the TV show Friends. It still makes me laugh even though I have seen most if not all episodes. This is the Christmas armadillo scene (embedding disabled):

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Youtube has several analytical tools that let you know how your youtube is performing. There is an interesting one called "hot spots". It measures audience attention by whether they leave the video early or stay, and if they replay portions. For example, this is the graph of hot spots for one of my more popular youtubes. The "average" youtube is represented by the horizontal line on the graph. Above the line is good, and the graph of the hot spots for one of mine is very good:

I am in a group on the web where one of the members said she was diagnosed with terminal cervix cancer, where most people live about three months. I don't really know her but I think she is in her 30s. As far as I can tell, she is not really feeling the effects of the cancer. However she is talking about her joy in going to heaven and meeting her maker. That's fine but she seems to have given in a little too easily and may actually hasten her death. I felt like I should say something, but not something meaningless or make her feel guilty. I wrote her this: (martin is my alias on that site)

Christine,

It's good that you seem to have made peace with your situation. Everyone alive is "terminal" whether it is hours or decades away. I don't know the current state of how you are feeling, but if it is fairly good, please stay with us awhile, OK?

martin in nyc

I did a little day trading last week with Research in Motion stock and made a few bucks and bought this Citizen watch. It's true I could have lost money buying the stock, but I didn't.

I put the face of a local sports radio host in the picture of the lawman in the white suit with Oswald. I think it came out pretty good!

I saw a clip from the Barbara Walters interview with Obama. She asked him what he would do if he could have any super power. I was expecting him to say he would create world peace, or eliminate cancer or other diseases, or give everyone who wanted one a job. No, his answer was he would like to be able to speak other languages. What the heck?

I came home after running some errands and I was greeted by a family of tufted titmouses(titmice?) in a tree by my door, then a squirrel also stopped by in a branch and stood up to greet me. Now that is good karma.

I believe in karma, that the good and bad things you do go into a karma bank that eventually is realized in your life. Everybody has both good and bad things they do, but the goal should be that the good karma outweighs the bad. It's not that you have to do great things to realize good karma. For example, I was walking down a street this morning and there was a tree branch in part of the road. It was big enough that you really couldn't drive over but small enough that you could move it. There was no traffic at the time, no risk to me in moving it, but also no responsibility on my part to move it. I thought for a second and then moved it to the curb. It took about 10 seconds but I am glad I did it. I don't think you have to actively seek such opportunities to do a small good thing. If you pay attention you'll find them, and they are really easy to do.

It can be confusing when the title of the song is not in the lyrics. For example "Age of Consent" by New Order (my youtube).

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Won't you please let me go
These words lie inside they hurt me so
And I'm not the kind that likes to tell you
Just what I want to do
I'm not the kind that needs to tell you
Just what you want me to

I saw you this morning
I thought that you might like to know
I received your message in full a few days ago
I understood every word that it said
And now that I've actually heard it
You're going to regret

And I'm not the kind that likes to tell you
Just what you want me to
You're not the kind that needs to tell me
About the birds and the bees

Do you find this happens all the time
Crucial point one day becomes a crime
And I'm not the kind that likes to tell you
Just what I want to do
I'm not the kind that needs to tell you

I've lost you [x5]
I've lost you [x5]
I've lost you [x5]

Sometimes we impose limits on what we think we can accomplish. For example, I have a large unused refrigerator in my basement. The last time I painted my basement, over a dozen years ago, I just painted around it. I assumed it was too big and heavy for me to move by myself. I recently decided to paint my basement again, and was prepared to paint around it once more. Then I said to myself, there is no reason why I can't move it. And I was right. I rocked it a couple of times out of the corner it was in then pushed it away from the wall. Like a title from a Norman Vincent Peale book, "You Can If You Think You Can".

That's the guy from the band The Monroes. I am a little scared to call him. From writing to him in email he seems a bit like a soul brother to me. He has had a very different life but I feel a connection to him. So weird. This guy sung one of my favorite songs and I made contact with him. Now he wants me to call him. It's a bit like the feeling when you are afraid to call a girl. I'm not sure what he wants to talk about. Will we have anything to talk about? I am nervous about it but a little excited too.

In a bit of synchronicity he sings "When I called you on the phone".

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One of my youtubes was featured on the sports website awfulannouncing.com. It is number 5, "Mike Francesa meet Al Albuerquerque" on their list of the top 10 announcing gaffes of the year.

http://awfulannouncing.com/2011-articles/december/top-10-announcing-gaffes-of-2011.html

The NY Daily News has a story of a hawk in NYC today. I saw one in my backyard last weekend.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/hawk-wows-shoppers-brooklyn-fulton-mall-photographer-snaps-pictures-article-1.992674

My picture:

It has a red head but it's not a cardinal. I saw it eating the bird food I put out but didn't know what it was. A few days later I saw it in a tree and it is a woodpecker.

This stock has really lost a lot of its value so I bought some yesterday hoping to catch a bounce in the price. It went up a little and I sold this morning and made about $200. Sometimes you have to treat yourself so I took that money and ordered a Citizen watch from Macy's that was about 30% off its normal price of $250. So I am giving myself a nice little Christmas present this year.

There's this girl at my local Staples that has gotten my attention. When I first saw her earlier this year I had a question on something and she got real close to me that it got me nervous. Then another time I was checking out and she started telling me some joke about something going on in the store. I had no idea what she was talking about but I took it as a good sign. Then today I saw she was working and I glanced in her direction and she did that quick turn of her head and locked eyes with me and turned away just as quickly. Then when checking out she was very nice but slightly nervous, in a good way, when you know someone thinks you are fine. And her name is Lauren and many girls and women I have liked had a first name beginning with L. But heck I am old enough to be her, well, uh teacher. I'm guessing she is about 24, thin, tall, smart, and a little unhappy. Well I don't plan on doing anything other than being nice and letting her know subconsciously how fine I think she is.

I have to pause and think how magical it is to become friends with the singer of one of my favorite songs. Wow.

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So I made that youtube for the song by the singer from The Monroes. He asked me to add something with a message for a girl he is in love with but she thinks of him as a friend. That was kind of what the original song was about, again life imitating art. I am loving this but it is surreal.

This is the updated youtube where I added his message to "Bee" at the end:

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They make the Blackberry. Sales have been off and the stock has dropped about 75 per cent in value this year. The stock is around 15 dollars and earnings are announced tomorrow. It seems like bad news have already been figured in the price. I'm tempted to buy some stock with a chance it will rebound a bit if earnings aren't that bad tomorrow. But it's a very risky play. I am undecided.

Game of Love - Michelle Branch and Carlos Santana

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He sent me the song, and I added some still pictures I took off his old video, then at the end some recent pictures of him that he sent me. He was a pretty good looking dude back then, now well he is older. It's not a bad song actually. I hope he likes it.

Missing Man - Tony Ortiz of The Monroes

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I have been exchanging emails with Tony Ortiz from The Monroes. I must say he is extremely friendly...he wants me to phone him this weekend. Uh I think we are moving a little too fast. I did tell him I would upload his new song to youtube.

The singer from the Monroes that I blogged earlier wrote me back and he wants to be friends! Life is good.

Hello Sam,

So glad that we have connected over our Song WDATPK and also I am sending a new song that I have co-written with Ryan Smith of “The Melismatics” He is a raising new artist on the scene. Google him for more info.

He is my Soul Brother for sure, he is a 30 something from Minneapolis and he is very much in my corner and we are writing new tunes to debut next year on his indie label and touring to support that across the USA next year God Willing!

Where do you live Sam, me I live in Minneapolis, have been for 20 years now.

Here is a WDATPK and new song called “Missing Man” due out next year as a B side to the single that I am working on right now.

Please let me know what you think about it?

Wishing you and yours Happy holidays Sam,

Keep in touch please?

Thanks,

Tony

Maybe the only hit song with "Golden Showers" in the lyrics.

When I Grow Up - Garbage

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This is absolutely one of my favorite all time songs. It speaks about the confusion of being in love, "Could you be the girl I really love?" The guy who sang it , Tony Ortiz, posted this live clip from the Merv Griffin show and replies to comments. I commented this morning, he thanked me and even subscribed to my youtube channel (where I have my own version of his song). This is one of those times where I feel that a certain magic is working, where you have a song that touched your soul, then you end up "meeting" the singer years later. This is his live version:

What do all the people know - The Monroes

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This is my youtube of the studio version of the song:

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He is one of my favorite self help authors. I believe in his teachings and his books are written in a very easy to read style. I bought most of his books about 15 years ago and I am reading them again.

Thinking about dogs, I remember my encounter with my neighbor's pit bull. It was in the early 90s I think and it was a pit bull owned by the son of my neighbor. The son didn't live there but was visiting. My parents did not get along with this family though I personally did not have any encounters with them. One day I was working on my car in my driveway and the son let his pit bull in the backyard. I think he sicced him on me because the dog went into attack mode and was growling and leaning over a 3 foot chain link fence. The dog wanted to attack. I think the son's intent was to scare me into going into my house. I would have felt like a coward to run inside so I got another idea. In my garage I have an ax I used to chop down small trees. I retrieved the ax and held it across my body facing the dog. I had two plans of action. If the dog came over the fence I figured I would have one chance to bring down the ax on its head before it got me. I also figured if I chickened out at the last minute I could close the garage door. After a few more seconds, the neighbor's son called off his dog. I don't know what I would have done but I was glad I didn't run away. A footnote to the story, a few years later the son died of AIDS. I took no joy in hearing that, but sometimes karma catches up. I sincerely hope he has found peace now.

An old love interest of mine once told me that the way to stop a couple of dogs fighting is to throw water on them. I never had dogs or needed to stop any from fighting but that sounds like a good piece of information to have.

This is one of my uploads to youtube. I always loved this song. I usually put a picture of the artist when I make a youtube, but I didn't have one and didn't feel like googling for one. So I checked the stock pictures that came with my computer and I found this picture of a flower. I think it works. Flowers have love connotations and well in a way are sexy.

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This is another new bird I saw today. It's got a reddish head and a blue body.

I don't know what kind of bird it was. It was very big and from the back looked a little like a pigeon but I don't think it was one.

It's an artificial one but a very nice six and a half foot spruce. I'm not sure when I last had a Christmas tree, maybe 10 years. I didn't feel any reason for it for awhile. But heck I am going to enjoy this Christmas!

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I got this squirrel to take a peanut from my fingers this morning. Here is the video:

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And a bird is staying out of the rain by sitting on a ledge under my awning.

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On a lighter note, the last fragrance in the Calvin Klein collection I am trying is Obsession. It's a nice scent, not too strong and seems to last. My favorite fragrances in this collection are Eternity Aqua then Obsession.

Today is the 18th anniversary of the Long Island Railroad Massacre. I was on that train and got off the stop before the shooting. I was waiting for the train to leave the station when I heard several explosions. I thought it was a car backfiring at the time but I later realized I was hearing the gunshots. I think there is a reason why I was in that situation and why I was spared, but it is beyond my complete understanding.

From wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Ferguson_(mass_murderer)

This is what they gave us on the train the next day:

I wanted to see if it tasted the same because some people said it tasted different in the white cans. It was OK but seemed almost tasteless. I don't pay attention normally to how Coke tastes so maybe it is the same. But it was very bland.

I found that the actor/comedian Joe Rogan put my youtube of Dave Loggins song "Please Come To Boston" on his webpage apparently after seeing Kevin Smith tweet it. It's on this page if you scroll left to right through the youtubes on the "Media" section of his webpage. (This site is a little weird on my computer, it tells me a script is running slow.)

http://paper.li/joerogan/2011/11/24

I got a package from Amazon yesterday in the mail that was addressed to someone at the end of my block. I don't know that person. I checked out their house and it has a fence and I didn't see a mailbox. I feel strange going over there and going on their property and putting something in their mailbox if I can find one. Few people on my block know each other and if they see a "stranger" doing something with their mailbox they might think it is theft. In the past I have left misdelivered mail in my mailbox for the mailman to pick it up, but today it is raining and the package would get soaked before he arrives. Also my mailman delivers at different times, usually anywhere between 2-6 PM so I couldn't even guess when he would arrive. I am considering leaving it at the post office but I don't know if they would take it. Or I guess I could also drop it in a regular mailbox.

My fragrance of the day is Euphoria for Men by Calvin Klein. It is very subtle and it took me awhile to detect the fragrance after I applied it. Not bad, but I think so far in my fragrance of the day testing I like Eternity Aqua.

I found this fragrance set from Calvin Klein that has about six small bottles of different fragrances. I am trying them out one a day. Yesterday was Eternity. Today I tried Eternity Aqua. I like this one alot, and initial reactions were favorable. I went to the hardware story and a Mexican stockboy was eager to help me. In fact he kind of stayed by me after I found my item. Heck it's not a woman but it's a start.

Christmas Wrapping - The Waitresses

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The sunrise today was beautiful, but for a second there was sun glare when I snapped this pic. You might say I was temporarily blinded by the light.

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I have the highest rated comment on this video. I said that Janis Ian wrote a song about being an ugly duckling at 17 but is now a beautiful woman at 60.

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Yes, a cover of The Police song.

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Coke designed new white cans for regular Coca Cola for the polar bears or something like that. People said it looks like Diet Coke cans and doesn't taste the same so they went back to the old cans. I have a pack of the white cans so I will find out how they taste.

I did that in my blog when Gingrich was trailing badly in the polls. I said he was the best Republican candidate. Now he is leading the polls. Sometimes I have insight in these things.

If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with.

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