n i c k y n a x . c o m

This is week 119 in my personal “If… Project” in which I answer questions from the book “If… (Questions for the Game of Life)”

There are 125 pages of this book, each with four questions. I plan to take one page each week and answer the questions as thoroughly and honestly as I am able. In addition, I invite you to answer the questions along with me, whether it be in the comments section, your own personal blog, or just within your own thoughts.

Perhaps in doing so, we will get to know each other better, but even more importantly, get to know ourselves better.

This week’s questions:

If you could have been the hero from any war, which war would it be, and for what heroic deed?

I don’t want to be in any war. Hero or not.

If you were to inhabit the world of any video or computer game, which one would you select?

Back when I played City of Heroes (very briefly), I always thought it would be fun to inhabit Paragon City and to be a real superhero.

If you could leave only one existing book for the world to have five hundred years from now, which book would you leave?

Conversations With God. But hopefully they won’t even need it by then.

If you just learned that tomorrow morning you were to be permanently exiled from your country and could take just three things with you, what would they be?

My family (includes Miss Jackson), my friends, and my computer. (Everything else can be shipped to me. Duh)

Those are my answers to this week’s questions. What are yours?

1 comment

This is week 118 in my personal “If… Project” in which I answer questions from the book “If… (Questions for the Game of Life)”

There are 125 pages of this book, each with four questions. I plan to take one page each week and answer the questions as thoroughly and honestly as I am able. In addition, I invite you to answer the questions along with me, whether it be in the comments section, your own personal blog, or just within your own thoughts.

Perhaps in doing so, we will get to know each other better, but even more importantly, get to know ourselves better.

This week’s questions:

If you could have the autograph of one person from history, who would it be?

Walt Disney. But it has to be one that I received in person, and with a personalized message as well. Not just the name.

If you could have any view from your home, what would it be of?

Can I be selfish and ask for four views? One from each direction? In one direction I’d like a view of the Magic Kingdom so I can see/hear it whenever I wanted and get a fireworks show every night. In another direction I’d like a tropical island view looking out at the ocean with palm trees and mountains (a la Hawaii). In another direction I’d like a view as if from a highrise in midtown Manhattan. And from my fourth view I would like something epic like a Rocky Mountain or Grand Canyon sort of western untouched terrain view with no signs of human interference.

If you could have asked Richard Nixon one thing, what would you have asked?

I don’t have anything I’d like to ask Richard Nixon. (when was this book written?)

If you could have the world’s largest collection of one thing, what would it be?

At one point in my early 20s I had a collection of Pez dispensers that totaled over 300 unique ones. I’ve since gotten rid of all of them, and haven’t really fallen in love with anything to the point of wanting to collect.

Those are my answers to this week’s questions. What are yours?

1 comment

Perhaps it’s a sign of my getting older, but I find I’m taking more and more naps lately. Not necessarily naps where I actually sleep, but some time to lay down and unwind and zone out for awhile.

Everyday after work and after getting home from the gym, I lay down in bed and give myself about an hour to just relax.

A catnap, if you will.

An appropriate name for it as someone else in my house has taken to enjoying these naps with me.

Can you blame her though? Who wouldn’t love cuddling with me?!

1 comment

This is week 117 in my personal “If… Project” in which I answer questions from the book “If… (Questions for the Game of Life)”

There are 125 pages of this book, each with four questions. I plan to take one page each week and answer the questions as thoroughly and honestly as I am able. In addition, I invite you to answer the questions along with me, whether it be in the comments section, your own personal blog, or just within your own thoughts.

Perhaps in doing so, we will get to know each other better, but even more importantly, get to know ourselves better.

This week’s questions:

If you could receive all the products from a single company for free (but could not resell them), which company would you choose?

I suppose it’s appropriate this question came mere days after receiving my brand spankin’ new iPhone 4, because the company I would choose would be Apple.

If you had to name the one thing that makes you angriest about a relative, what would it be?

I don’t think angry is quite the right word, but perhaps frustrated or saddened. It makes me a little sad that my mom won’t/doesn’t date. I kind of wish she would and hopefully meet a nice man who she can spend her time with. She gave so much of herself being a single mother and it’s time she got to experience some happiness and have someone show her the love the showed all of her children.

If you were to become the sex slave of one person from history, who would you want it to be?

Does this question seriously have to come right after I talked about wanting my mother to find love? I’m not necessarily attracted to anyone from “history” but history technically includes yesterday, so I suppose picking someone modern day is allowed. I’ve said it once (ok, plenty more than once), and I’ll say it again. I’m a sucker for a good Abercrombie model.

If you had to describe the perfect body, what would you say about it.

I don’t think I’d be able to say anything with my tongue hanging out.

Those are my answers to this week’s questions. What are yours?

1 comment

I’m sitting in Panera in Queens right now for the sole purpose of basking in the cool divinity of their air conditioning on this disgustingly hot day because I’m broke and I don’t want to have mine on any more than necessary. I have to eventually pay for mine. I don’t have to pay for Panera’s.

And it’s really not even that hot out. It’s in the high 80’s right now. That would send most normal people running from their homes to the parks and beaches to enjoy the weather. But not me. For some reason, hot weather (or in this case, warmish hot weather) and I do not mix. I just can’t tolerate it well. I get cranky and obnoxious. And I sweat. A lot. And it’s gross. And then I just get crankier and crankier.

So, I tend to hate summer.

I sometimes play a game this time of year in which I figure out all the places I can go that are air conditioned but won’t require me to spend copious amounts of money in order to be there. Today, Panera won. So, I’ve been sitting here for about an hour and a half nursing a lemonade and a bottle of water as slowly as humanly possible.

There’s something about being here with my laptop that makes me feel like I should be doing more than just killing time on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. Whenever I see someone else in a coffee shop with their computer, I always envision them writing a paper, or a novel, or something else respectable. I never imagine that their trying to come up with a brilliant tweet or sassy comment to post on someone’s profile.

So, I peer pressured myself into doing something a bit more productive and settled on writing a blog entry. I already wrote tomorrow’s “If…” entry, but felt I should do a non-If entry as well, because, well, I haven’t done many of those in awhile.

I don’t really have much going on in my life lately though, to be quite honest. I’ve discovered that I’m kinda going through a period of “the blahs.” I don’t want to call it depression, because that’s far more serious that what I think I have.

I think I can trace my “non-depression depression” back to my finances. And I know I’m not alone in that boat, but sometimes I feel like I’m the only one and trying to paddle against a current that is quickly pushing me downstream.

I recently had something happen at work that is both a great thing and a horrible thing all at the same time. It seems like one of those instance where the Lord gaveth and tooketh away at the exact same time. For the past seven years (I can’t believe I’ve been at the same job for seven years) I’ve been working far more than 40 hours a week. There were points when I was clocking in at 55 hours. And after seven years of this just being my standard schedule, I guess I took it for granted.

A couple weeks ago, I was told I would no longer be able to work the same amount of overtime to which I had grown accustomed. And by quite a bit.

The good news in this is that I will now have much more time off from work. Instead of my normal schedule of only have one day off each week, I will now have normal weekends more often. And that’s fantastic.

But…

That also means without the overtime, I’ve taken a huge pay cut. To the point where I’m now making over $400 less each month. Even before this pay cut, I was just barely making ends meet and living paycheck to paycheck. Just barely.

I’m seriously having mild panic attacks when I think about how I am going to afford to live now that I’ll be making substantially less money each month. I’ve already, in the past couple months, begun to carry a balance on my credit card for the first time in my life. Up until now, I’ve always paid it off in full each month. I’m scared I’m dancing on a slippery slope of debt and don’t want to get in over my head.

I’ve already begun making cutbacks on things to try to slow my descent into homelessness.

In two weeks I supposed to be flying to Seattle to meet up with my friend Brett who is currently performing on a cruise ship. I was going to be his guest for one week and get a free cruise to Alaska, which is a place I’ve wanted to visit for a long time now. But, unfortunately with this new development in my life, I can’t even afford a FREE cruise. The flight to Seattle was just too expensive to warrant doing something that isn’t a necessity of life right now.

That’s not to say I’m completely giving up any and all entertainment or travel. There are a few things coming up that are already paid for or were partially paid for that I have to stick with otherwise I’ve wasted the money I’ve already spent on them.

I keep trying to focus on those and not the financial situation right now to keep my spirits high.

In ten days, I’ll be seeing Lady Gaga at Madison Square Garden. I’m pretty excited about that. Not only do I love her music, but I haven’t been a concert (excluding Glee Live) since Erin and I went to see Rufus Wainwright about eight or nine years ago. And I’ve never been to a concert in a giant arena like MSG. Plus I got fantastic seats, so it should be a fun night.

As far as travel goes, at the end of August and beginning of September I am going to be heading out to California. The main reason for the trip is to visit Disneyland over Labor Day to run the half marathon there. This marks the fifth anniversary of it, and since I did the inaugural one back in 2006, I figured the fifth annual was a good time to go back and do it again. Plus, it will be a good training run for the upcoming Goofy Challenge in January.

How’s the training been going, you may ask? Yeah, probably better to just not ask.

Every year I say I’ll be more persistent and better at it, and every year I make a liar out of myself and live to regret it on race day.

In addition to Disneyland, I am trying to get together with Rodney and go out a few days early and just focus those days on seeing and experience Los Angeles. In my previous trips to Disneyland, I never left Anaheim, so this time I want to see some more of what Southern California and Los Angeles have to offer the tourist in me.

And these trips will be easier to schedule now that I will have a more open schedule and less overtime. That’s the ironic part of it. I will have so much more free time, but no money with which to actually do anything other than sit in my living room watching tv all day.

Or running to Panera to sip on a bottle of water and steal their air conditioning and wifi.

I keep telling myself that things will get better and things will work out. That they always do. That God doesn’t give us anything we can’t handle.

I try to use The Secret to attract the things I want/need to me, but I’m not quite sure I actually believe that stuff works yet, which is probably why that stuff hasn’t worked yet.

I can say “My income is growing more and more by the day” and “I am a money magnet” as much as I want, but when each passing day proves that the opposite seems to be true, it becomes much more difficult to believe anything of this stuff actually works.

I may be down right now, but I’m certainly not out.

it’s time likes this when some lyrics I never paid attention to before suddenly resonate with me and remind me of what’s truly important in life.

“Poverty stole your golden shoes. It didn’t steal your laughter” -Jewel

“Got my dreams. Got my life. Got my love. Got my friends. Got the sunshine above. Why am I making this hard on myself when there’s so many beautiful reasons I have to be happy?” -Natasha Bedingfield

And it’s true. There are so many things to be happy about in life that really do matter a lot more than all of this crap. And as long as I can keep those close to me, I’ll be a very rich man.

2 comments

This is week 116 in my personal “If… Project” in which I answer questions from the book “If… (Questions for the Game of Life)”

There are 125 pages of this book, each with four questions. I plan to take one page each week and answer the questions as thoroughly and honestly as I am able. In addition, I invite you to answer the questions along with me, whether it be in the comments section, your own personal blog, or just within your own thoughts.

Perhaps in doing so, we will get to know each other better, but even more importantly, get to know ourselves better.

This week’s questions:

If you could plan the perfect evening out, what would it involve?

The weather would be cooperative. Not hot; not cold. A gourmet Vegan dinner outdoors with some sort of unreal view. Some live ambiance music. Capped with an epic fireworks show for the fun of it.

If you could program the perfect evening of television shows, which ones would you select, and in what order?

The order doesn’t matter, but it would include the best episodes of My So-Calle Life, The Golden Girls, and Friends…among others.

If you had to kill one person you work with, who would you off.

Socko. He’s already dead so it wouldn’t land me in jail.

If you had to name the dumbest purchase you’ve ever made, which would it be?

Oh lord, there’s been plenty. I tend to make many stupid/impulsive purchases. Jumping to mind at the moment is a couple of those robotic dogs that came around back in 2000. So stupid.

Those are my answers to this week’s questions. What are yours?

2 comments

No comments

This is week 115 in my personal “If… Project” in which I answer questions from the book “If… (Questions for the Game of Life)”

There are 125 pages of this book, each with four questions. I plan to take one page each week and answer the questions as thoroughly and honestly as I am able. In addition, I invite you to answer the questions along with me, whether it be in the comments section, your own personal blog, or just within your own thoughts.

Perhaps in doing so, we will get to know each other better, but even more importantly, get to know ourselves better.

This week’s questions:

If you had to drop a nuclear bomb on one country, where would you drop it?

I’d want to cause as little damage as possible (good luck with a nuclear bomb, right?), so I’d choose the most remote country with the fewest number of inhabitants. So, perhaps an isolated island in the middle of the ocean?

If you could have witnessed any biblical event, what would you want to have seen?

The musical theatre lover in me is wanting to pick some Joseph with his amazing technicolor dreamcoat.

If you could work for any corporation for which you don’t currently work, which would you choose?

A television network? As a host of a show? Travel Channel maybe?

If your own ashes were to be kept in an urn, after you die, where would you want the urn kept?

I’d choose for my ashes to be divided amongst several urns. Some would go to any surviving family members. One somewhere here in NYC to honor the city I love. And one kept inside the Magic Kingdom at WDW to honor the other place that’s so special to me.

Those are my answers to this week’s questions. What are yours?

1 comment

This is week 114 in my personal “If… Project” in which I answer questions from the book “If… (Questions for the Game of Life)”

There are 125 pages of this book, each with four questions. I plan to take one page each week and answer the questions as thoroughly and honestly as I am able. In addition, I invite you to answer the questions along with me, whether it be in the comments section, your own personal blog, or just within your own thoughts.

Perhaps in doing so, we will get to know each other better, but even more importantly, get to know ourselves better.

This week’s questions:

If you could have one current politician removed from office, who would you get rid of?

I don’t follow politics. I find it only makes me angry. Yes, you can tell me I need to be an informed citizen, and how that’s the only responsible way to live. But, as of now, politics just do not hold any interest to me, and so I don’t really follow them all that closely.

If you had to name one thing your mate could do to assure that you would leave them forever, what would it be?

Physically harm me.

If you could eliminate one habit you have, what would you stop doing?

I’d stop worrying about every tiny, little thing in life.

If you just learned that you were to die in exactly one hour, what would you do?

Freak the shit out.

Those are my answers to this week’s questions. What are yours?

No comments

Look who makes an appearance, BRIEFLY, in the most recent episode of the What the Buck Show on YouTube. (pay attention at the :50 mark)

Endless thanks to Michael Buckley for being so gracious at the show! Please follow/subscribe/love him if you don’t already. He’s fantastic!

No comments