I was supposed to go see Cha and Specka play cello today at Druid Hills High School, but something came up with my dad's work and the late afternoon was shot, so I didn't get to go. But I am going to Specka's birthday party tomorrow evening, so that's good at least.

Today I stayed home because the AT&T guy was supposed to come by between 11 and 2, and of course he showed up at 1:55. But he fixed it, so I can't complain.

Last night I went to a survey at the Century Center Marriott that paid me $50. It was two hours long, with a bunch of other people in my target age. What we did was, we had 450+ songs played for us, about 9 seconds of each, with a number announced before each one. We had bubble sheets just like for tests where we said whether the song was Unfamiliar, Tired, Hated, Disliked, Liked, or a Favorite. It was awesome. It was like a nostalgia trip, because all the songs were ones played on 99x in the past 6 years or so. It was Proustian; a lot of them I associated with certain people or places and times. I made notes of some of the artists and songs:

STP, PJ (I hadn't realized how many PJ songs irritate me, but I do love "Wish List"), SP (did you know Billy Corgan covered "Landslide"? Ew), RHCP, Garbage, Wallflowers, Cake, BNL, Counting Crows, drivin n cryin, RATM, Creed (I happily filled in the Hate bubble for all of them), Marvelous 3, Jane's Addiction, Moby, Oasis, Live, Nirvana, Beck, Bush,Foo Fighters, U2, Radiohead, Weezer, INXS (I really don't like them), Collective Soul, the Sundays, the Clash, REM, Lenny Kravitz (ewwww), the Cure, Violent Femmes (do all their songs sound the same?), Green Day, 311, No Doubt, "Letters" (Stroke 9), "I Wanna Be Sedated," Bob Marley (a hit with the college-age crowd), Dave Matthews Band, the Beastie Boys, Bsuh (I filled in a lot of Tired for them), NIN ("Hurt" and "Closer"; I laughed quietly), and "Teenage Dirtbag," one of my guilty pleasures. I enjoyed giving a Hate to all Kid Rock and Limp Bizkit songs. It just occurred to me that people doing a search for any of those artists will hit on my diary. Oh well. Sorry, searchers.

I think the purpose for the survey was either to help 99x decide what to play and stop playing, or for the creation of a new "classic alternative" station. I read an article a while back about how we don't have very many radio formats in Atlanta as compared to other cities, so that might be it. Anyway, it was fun. I wish I could have other surveys like it.

I gave Diaryland some money and put up a banner; maybe you've seen it. I have had one person add me to their favorites list and two people have signed my guestbook because of it, so that's cool. The stats are also interesting. I have gotten some weird hits from it, though, once from senate.gov.

Julie has made a Jump SIMS family, and hearing her describe it is really, really funny. Yesterday Evan peed on the floor and started crying because he was embarrassed. Julie wants to get the expansion pack. "Jump" lives next door to me and Julie and our friends, but we have a lot more money and cooler things than they do. They didn't even have a shower until she bought them one. They're big losers. She wanted them all to be burglars, but they were too poor and too stupid. Evan just got fired from the Army and Matt and Jay are cops. Ward was unemployed. "I'll let him stay home. He can be a house-Ward."