For those of you keeping up, this years blogathon has managed to raise up to $15,265.42 in pledges, and there are now 223 bloggers blogging for the blogathon! (there were too many “blogs” in that sentence!)

If you’ve noticed, I’ve now created a whole separate page for the blogathon, and have created a small incentive for those of you who live near me. You can find the true details either by the link on the right side bar, or by following this link. I’ll be cooking a home cooked meal for you and yours, and you’ll like it!

Think of it as Take Home Chef, except you don’t get a good looking Aussie bloke, but instead get a short japanese chef, sans samurai sword. (thank god for that!) But in all serious, I’ll offer to cook your meal!

For those of you who do not live near me, well, I’m sorry, but I’m not quite going on my benihana world tour (just yet). Maybe I too can be like Bobby Flay, and come knocking on your door. I somehow doubt it though. But Really, I’ll be thinking of something that I can do for those out of towners.

For now, however, with the Blogathon merely weeks away, I’m looking for any kind of blogging theme or perhaps some kind of a game we could probably play. I’m thinking that it would be great to hear from you folks while I’m blogging for 24 hours without sleep. I’m not afraid of the not sleeping part. I’m much more afraid of the running out of ideas part. So please help me out here and give a comment and throw some suggestions out there. I’ll have the webcam on, so please, if you have any requests for crazy webcam tricks, let me know! (let’s keep it clean, i mean hell, no one wants to see this body!)

Today, I thought of the song Hurt by Nine In Nails. But oddly enough, I wasn’t thinking of that version, but instead of the version by Johnny Cash. For some crazy reason I like that version better. I’m not quite sure what it is, since essentially they are the same song, they are just delivered by a different artist. Perhaps because before I heard Johnny Cash sing that song, I never Really knew that much about him. I mean Really, I did know he was the Man in Black, and sang some great songs. But I never knew about his life. I never knew that the song Hurt when he sang it had a deeper meaning to him than just a cover song. I’ve watched Walk the Line, and while both Jaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon did great jobs, there is so much more to Johnny Cash that’s not told.

Perhaps in the end, that’s what we all want. We want the whole story told. They say when you die, you see your life pass before your eyes. Is that a way for us to remember at the last moment the whole story? The whole story of our lives? When I’m gone, who will be there to tell my story? Will I be remembered as a dork, or as a great person, or maybe just a good person. Or a bad person? Morbid thoughts.

Randomness often takes me into the crazy part of my brain, the part that Seriously thinks of things that I shouldn’t be thinking.

What’s Really crazy of course is that during times like this, it’s quite amazing how silly cliches often make sense, or how situations seem to turn to certain topics. All the music you listen to on the radio is sad. it’s depressing, it hurts. But you know, we move on, even if we don’t want to. It’s just craziness!

“I hurt myself today.

to see if I still feel…”

- Hurt

This past week, a good friend of ours, Jenny Rebecca lost her life in a motorcylce accident. While going down a hill, a truck coming from the opposite direction suddenly made to take a left turn, and she was not able to stop in time. On the back of the motorcycle was her roommate’s daughter, Jess, and as far as anyone can tell it looked as if at the last moment, Jen with all her efforts tried to minimize any injuries to Jess. Jess survived the accident with a broken leg, and is currently recovering at home.

We will all remember Jen as a great woman who, while battling breast cancer, was still able to fill our lives with joy and happiness. There was nothing too small for Jen to do, and there was never a room that did not light up that much more when she entered it. We will all miss her and will always love her.