a simple man in a complex world

an odd bit of melancholy.

2011-07-10T23:28:00.000-07:00

this weekend has been unusual. it's also marked the first time I've felt "depressed" since I started taking anti-depressants over a year ago. the odd thing is, there's really nothing I should be depressed about.

my sleep schedule ended up really messed up. this was unavoidable. I had to drive the boss to auburn at 4am because she was working at her company's golf tournament. since I insisted she work it (ten hours of OT is very valuable in this economy), the least I could do was taxi her too and from. this meant waking up at 4am, driving for two hours, and then going back to bed. I didn't plan on sleeping another five hours, but I did.

I made several attempts to be social this weekend. they all failed. unsurprisingly, it's summer time and people were busy. many were entertaining friends and family from out of town. still more were out of town themselves. it's just disheartening to know that of everyone I know, I couldn't find a single person available to hang out. so I slept more.

now, it's 11:30pm on a sunday, I have to be awake at 6am, and I can't sleep. probably because I slept approximately thirty of the past forty-eight hours.

what also weighs heavily on my mind, for no obvious reason, is the death of a girl I don't know and never would have met anyway. she was the friend of several old friends of mine, most of whom I haven't seen in years, and only really keep in contact because of social media like facebook. I have nothing in common with them anymore, so it's not surprising we rarely see each other. but she was 32, and drowned in a rafting accident. from what I can tell, she was being stupid. no life vest, got caught in some underwater branches or something, and couldn't be resuscitated. playing in rivers this time of year is always dangerous. the water is cold and quick because of snow runoff, and there's always debris just below the surface from spring flooding. I suspect she wasn't the strongest swimmer, and compounding all of this by not wearing a life vest makes it worse. I don't know if alcohol or drugs were involved. probably? even without, there was enough bad ideas in that equation to warrant the bad ending.

so I witnessed a lot of people freaking out and a lot of mourning on social media this weekend, which only added to my awkwardness and ill-feeling. and it's impacted me, despite not knowing the deceased. it hit me the same way it hit everyone else. she was 32. she's dead. it could happen to anyone.

but unlike everyone else, I'm enough of an asshole to recognize I only feel bad because I can put myself, or someone I care about, in her position. I did some searching for stories on the incident online, and saw so many people offering prayers, whatever, for someone they never knew. I find it hard to believe people can be that empathic towards other human beings with no self-interest in the relationship. they all feel bad because it makes them think of their own mortality. they just hide it behind trying to be polite or whatever. really, what does offering prayers do? bupkis.

so I'm in a pissy mood. I have an irrational feeling of being abandoned, and an annoyance about a dead girl. of course my brains adds these together and starts thinking about what would happen if I were that dead girl. and I have a difficult time thinking it would make much impact. my family would be upset. a few friends, sure. but I can't imagine people writing glowing prose about my "beautiful soul" or how much my smile will be missed. and they're probably right. I don't have a beautiful soul, and I don't smile very often. when I do, it's usually mean spirited or at the expense of someone else. but I remember back to my grandfather's funeral, and how the preacher sat there and lied to the congregation about how wonderful a husband and father he was, and it has me wondering if ANYONE ever actually means what they say about the deceased. how can you tell who is sincerely missed, and who is just getting lipservice for the sake of social politeness?

I've been thinking about kids a lot lately too. I'm in the midst of a baby boom. I can think of at least eight people who either have had kids in the past two years, or are expecting in the next six months. it's just my age and a reflection of my peers. but it has me wondering why people bother. I have a house I can't afford, a job I don't particularly like, and I'm just waiting out the next thirty to forty years before I shrug off this mortal coil. everyone talks about how great their children are, but I also see how difficult they make life, and I know how difficult life can be already. I know I wouldn't be a good parent. I'm too moody, too angry, and too intolerant. I feel bad for mooki, and her family, because they deserve better. my parents have three grandkids already, and they're all messed up as it is. I don't think they need any more. but my in-laws would probably like to see some. I just don't think I'm the right person to sire them.

in seven hours, I'll be back at work. I'll have real, honest-to-goodness social interaction with real people. it doesn't matter that I only talk to any of them because we work together. we don't have anything in common outside of work, I'm the weird pariah that no one understands. at least I'll get to talk to people who aren't obligated to put up with me put of marriage, or cats. I get that luxury for the next thirty-one years. I have no idea what I'll do for social interaction upon retirement.

I am such a moody bitch. I wish I could sleep.

the IRS can suck my balls.

2009-08-24T19:03:00.001-07:00

so a lot's happened in the past few months. most notably, we bought a house.

recently, as part of the stimulus package, the US govt is now ponying up an $8000 tax credit (ie, free money) to first time homebuyers. y'know, us.

so we bought a house. and the thing about this market, any house for sale needs work. a lot of it. more than $8k worth. it's all foreclosures and short sales and dumps. we bought the latter two...

so we filed an extension on our taxes, since we knew we'd be buying shortly after april 15. we closed on the house june 4. I made the mistake of trying to file our taxes june 2, before the paperwork had gone through... red flag. waited, filed again on june 4. was told great, we have your tax return, and you'll have $8k deposited into your account june 18!

it's now august 24. we still don't have our money.

back on july 12, we got something in the mail asking us to prove we actually bought the damn house. as if sending mail to us at the new address didn't suffice... so we contacted the escrow company, had them send a copy of the HUD-1 statement with all the signatures, and faxed that off. nothing happened. called two weeks later, was told it could take 30-45 days. called two weeks after that, still told it could take up to 45 days. called today. "oh, it's been six weeks, I don't see that we ever got the documents you faxed." should probably send them again. why it took them six weeks to realise they never got them is beyond me. for all I know, I'll probably be penalized somehow for not responding to their original request within thirty days. y'know, 'cos it's MY fault they're fucking retarded.

fucking great. I have a fax confirmation in my hand of the documents I faxed to the number they told me to send to. they're covered in all sorts of sensitive info, like my SSN and all that. and they can't find it.

so I faxed the documents off AGAIN today. they tell me to write my name and SSN on EVERY PAGE this time. sure, why not my DOB, mother's maiden and a DNA sample while you're at it?

meanwhile, there's a lot of work that still needs to be done on the house, we have a contractor lined up to begin a very expensive bathroom remodel next month, and we still don't have that tax credit. the one that was supposed to entice us to buy a house right away. y'know, the one that was supposed to help pay for repairs on the obviously inferior house you'd have to buy in this market...

fuck. the. IRS. up. their. stupid. ass.

four weeks and counting.

2009-04-24T15:06:00.000-07:00

it's been over four weeks since I was let go. over four weeks of doing very little aside from household chores.

even tho I have unemployment benefits that are paying nearly as much as I would have brought home in paycheque form, I can't help but feel like I'm not pulling my weight. I've read articles about how layoffs affect men harder than women, because men tie up so much of their self-worth in their jobs. and it's true. maybe if I had kids, I could focus on being a father or something. but really, other than picking up a few extra chores around the house, it's not as if my role as "husband" has expanded greatly.

no, I'm just starting to feel kind of worthless. and to add insult to injury, if I'm not employed by next friday, I have to go into the unemployment office for a three hour orientation to services the UO offers. so far I've yet to actually deal with anyone, it's all been automated and painless. I keep a log of my job searches and that's it. as of next friday, I'll actually have to face other people, in a public setting, and I'll feel ashamed for being unemployed. I may not have the strongest work ethic out there, but I've always taken some pride in my work, and especially in the fact that I'd never been fired from a job.

I have two strong leads for work, both wholesalers and competition of my former employer. both have expressed interest, but progress towards an actual job offer has been very slow, due to the economy. I've even been through the drug screen portion of the hiring process with one, yet it's been three days since I've heard anything back from them.

more than anything, I'd like to begin working while it's still april. that way, on my resume if will simply list my last job ending 3/09 and new job beginning 4/09. that won't look bad ten or fifteen years down the road if I'm looking for a new job, it won't look like a gap at all. if this drags into may (or beyond), I'll suddenly have a gap to explain. and sure, people will remember the recession (depression?) of '09, but that still doesn't look good.

I want to go back to work. I want to do what I know and have been doing most of the past decade. I don't want to start over at the bottom rung of some unfamiliar industry, and need to build a new network of contacts and start with an entry level salary again...

I want someone to call me with a job offer, dammit.

'cos my life needed to get worse.

2009-04-16T11:35:00.000-07:00

lost my job. lost "my" house. starting to lose my mind. and now, lost my identity.

my oldest credit card, from bank of america (formerly mbna, formerly wamu) has been compromised. about a dozen fraudulent charges showed up, BoA caught them and closed the account. in the meantime, someone also got their hands my cell phone number and an old email address. I was receiving text spams until I called AT&T to block all texting (at twenty cent a pop, that's fucking expensive spam), and have been receiving a call or two every hour from various places that claim I signed up with them online... bankruptcy lawyers, car loans, weight loss programs, criminal justice distance education... the kind of shite you see advertised on telly, and generally less than reputable business endeavours. one of them suspected fraud and tried to verify the email addy, was surprised to find it was my old hotmail addy. my disposable account that I use for places I don't want to get spammed from.

weird thing is tho, I never use the BoA card online. even the online purchases I've made with that contact addy, it's always been amex. there was a fraud alert from BoA on that addy, looked legit (most phishing scams are pretty weak), so I called them. they said they don't have that addy on file. he pulled up an old account, which was closed year ago, and it DID have hotmail on file. he didn't know where that alert came from, so I forwarded it to their phishing department. they've closed the account and flagged all of the fraudulent charges as bogus.

this still sucks a lot of balls. I'm getting a ton of phone calls I don't want, and feel as though my whole life has been compromised. I've contacted the credit bureaus to put alerts on my accounts, but I can't do an actual freeze without a police report, and I can't file a police report until BoA responds to me with their investigation.

when it rains, it really fucking pours. napalm.

I hate my life.

sigh.

2009-04-05T09:53:00.000-07:00

I get my first unemployment cheque in the next couple days. it will be my first taste of "welfare" and I'm not proud of it.

I've been looking for work, but it's not easy in this economy. I have one promising lead, and should hear back on that next week. I had another interview last week at a wholesaler in kent, but they were only looking for outside sales. the commute would have been awful, and i don't have the personality for outside sales.

I've been trying to keep my spirits up, but I'm getting bored. I've been playing video games, and recently decided to netflix the entire BSG series and finally get around to watching it. I've been pacing myself on the job apps and searches to three a week, since I need to make three contacts a week to keep the unemployment rolling in.

in three weeks, I can go into the seattle animal shelter for an orientation and start volunteering there, working with kitties and puppies in the shelter. hoping that will offer some sort of fulfillment.

I've also been bugging miyuki about getting a baby kitty, in the hopes playing with a kitten would cheer me up during the day. she's not convinced yet.

all of this has been a mixed blessing. I was truly unhappy with my old job. but I was also really looking forward to having my own house, and knowing that we've missed a golden opportunity hurts. by the time we've recovered and will be ready to buy, the recession could be over, and the historically low interest rates will have certainly gone up. we won't be able to afford as much house, and will likely need to settle for something less than what we hoped for. that makes me sad.

I do have to wonder why all the crap has been piled up all at once, and I'm wondering what's going to fall on my head next.

whoops.

2009-03-29T19:40:00.001-07:00

so yeah. we were supposed to sign the final paperwork on the pinehurst house friday, so we could close and move end of april.

funny thing. I got laid off wednesday. "laid off" probably isn't the right word... "fired" was more like it. details are sketchy, but it sounds like has to do with a personality conflict with a "woman" I worked with, who I am pretty sure is the antichrist. since she's threatened 2.3 lawsuits per year for the past 35+ years (seriously), they decided to just get rid of me rather than call her bluff.

I was pretty upset at first. but I applied for unemployment right away, found out I'll qualify for about 85% of what I was taking home anyway, and immediately started networking. I've had several kind words and offers of reference come in, and even had an interview 9am thursday. the interview went well, last over an hour with the manager who has known me since I was six years old. he said he thought he could find something for me if I could give him a few weeks, which in this economy is all I could ask for. the company is better than my former employer (my dad used to work there for twenty years), offering a smaller, more family-oriented environment. plus, the branch is within walking distance of our apartment.

in the meantime, I'm going to enjoy my time off, rake in some unemployment for a few weeks, and hope to be back to work in may. we definitely lost out on the pinehurst house, but I'm planning to still buy later in the summer. I want to get back into the saddle for a couple months, make sure everything is stable, and then see what is available on the market.

the real irony is, the original house we wanted on 199th may be through the foreclosure process by then and back on the market as a bank-owned, which means it'd be even cheaper than what we offered...

funny how quickly things change...

2009-03-22T15:50:00.000-07:00

couple things happened recently.

we found out we weren't going to get the house on 199th, which put us back to square one. and the US treasury pumped three hundred billion dollars into the banking system to buy up mortgages and free up money for lending. this drove the interest rates down considerably. like as much as half a percent.

so for the same monthly payment, we realised we could afford a lot more. still would have been nice to have gotten 199th, since the lower interest rate would have meant saving a few hundred a month, but we knew we weren't going to find anything in that old price bracket. so we started looking at the up to $400k range. amazingly, we started finding nice houses we liked a lot.

we found three the first day out that were nice. first was a huge (2100 sf) split level, but very bland and boring. it reminded me of houses my friends grew up in back in the 80s... I just don't know if I'm ready to settle down for that yet. second was essentially a townhouse without shared walls. a small development of several cookie cutter houses squished onto a couple lots. not much yard of privacy, but amazing space and amenities indoors. if not for the busy street it was on, we would have gone for it.

we ended up choosing a bit smaller house that was also a bit less expensive, ONLY a paltry $383k. it's 70 years old, and has the accompanying issues with older houses, namely a small kitchen and tiny bathrooms. but it was immaculately maintained and had gorgeous detail work, as well as a large yard and a 1.5 car garage. we put in an offer that night.

miyuki would have preferred to see more houses in that price range, but I was worried about losing out on this house. it just went on the market, and an open house was planned for this weekend. we offered thursday night, and agreed to a counter the next day. amazingly, we paid full list price, but received a $5k closing cost concession. we did pay $10k less than the assessed value, so while we probably did leave a bit on the table by acting to quickly, we didn't get screwed or anything.

the inspection is tuesday. if all goes well then, we'll proceed with the financing and close april 24. we'll be completely moved in that following weekend.

the house doesn't need much work. we'll want to replace the washer and dryer soon, as they're pretty old. we'll want to pull the wallpaper out of the main bedroom and paint. mostly, we'll want to work on the yard. I want to rip up some of the grass and lay down gravel for extra parking, and tear up the back yard grass to put a vegetable garden in.

we went to the open house today, just to get a second look and make sure we didn't miss anything. while we were there, we met the neighbours from two doors down, and they seemed nice. a couple a bit older than us (late 30s, maybe?) with a son who looked about seven. they told us a bit about the 'hood. only a couple of the houses are rentals, it's a quiet dead end street, and there are a few kids around, as well as a shoreline sheriff and seattle PD officer who live nearby.

as we were leaving the open house, we figured we should introduce ourselves to the neighbours directly behind the house (there's a shared driveway on "our" lot, so it's probably good to make sure we get along), and that was an odd conversation. the guy barely opened his door, maybe four inches, and shook my hand but not miyuki's (I think he may have been muslim? african guy with a big beard that said he didn't shake women's hands). he said they'd raised kids there and been there about twenty years. I imagine we won't see them much. he seemed nice enough, it was just odd that he didn't really open the door.

we've been watching a lot of HGTV and getting ideas for what we want to do. I've also put calls in to a couple local movers to get quotes. I helped a friend move saturday and threw out my back. I'm just getting old, and would rather pay movers a few hundred dollars to do the heavy lifting for us...

so all in all, good news. we'll be out of this shitty apartment and into our first "home" by the end of april!

so much for that...

2009-03-18T19:12:00.000-07:00

we were just dealt some seriously bad news.

the new bank that took over the mortgage on the house we're trying to buy has decided to be grade A douchebags, for reasons we don't understand. they've told us they will not give us a written approval so we can proceed with the inspections et al, and that they will not forgive the deficiency judgment. which basically means we're fucked.

the whole nature of a short sale is the bank agreeing to accept less than is currently owed on the house (forgiving the deficiency) to avoid taking a larger loss in foreclosure.

we offered $315k. we don't know how much is actually owed on the house. all we know is it was purchased in 1998 for $176k and somehow the current owners owe more than $315k. you'd think after ten years of payments it wouldn't be possible for them to owe twice what they originally borrowed, but they did have an audi and two jeeps parked out front last time we tried to look at the house. they obviously weren't smart with their money or equity.

that's neither here nor there... houses that go through the foreclosure process and end up sold at auction typically go for $80k less than they'd get in a normal or short sale situation. assuming $350k is owed on the house, they're going to screw us and end up losing $80k instead of $40k. this, ladies and gentlemen, is the industry that required an $800 BILLION bailout. do you see why? give the option of losing $40k or losing $80k, they're opting for the latter.

there are three possible explanations. 1.) the "loss mitigator" we were assigned is a complete asswipe. 2.) said loss mitigator is an idiot who doesn't know what he's doing. 3.) he doesn't have the authority to make that call.

we're really hoping it.s #3. that's the ONLY shot we have at still getting this house. if that's the case, we escalate the process over his head until we get someone who CAN override the decision. the pisser is, the original bank had already signed off on all of this. we don't know why the new bank didn't do the same.

our only other recourse is possibly trying to pay the difference, but we don't know how much the bank needs to forgive. if it's more than $20k, we're screwed. we just can't afford to go more than that and still make the mortgage payment each month.

things are looking bleak, we don't have any other backup houses out there we like. I'm about ready to just go sign a lease on one of the new luxury apartments in ballard and say fuck it... at least we'd have a nice place. and for $1000 less a month than we'd pay for a mortgage.

the world cannot end soon enough.

2009-03-17T17:59:00.000-07:00

today marks the four week anniversary of our house offer being transferred to the new bank. tomorrow marks the eight week anniversary of receiving the approved paperwork back from the seller. we still have no idea what's going on.

some backstory: we found a house two months ago that we liked. it's farther north than we had planned, but it's a good location two blocks from a transit hub, has a nice yard and two car garage. the kitchen is a bit small, but otherwise it's a three bedroom, 1.5 bath house with a second bonus room, a "secret" office in the two car garage, and we really liked it. it was originally listed for $388k, dropped to $348k, and we ultimately offered $315k. we found out it was a short sale, but decided to run with it... it was by far the best house we'd seen, and was within our budget.

two months later, we're no closer to having it than we were when we offered. we actually got an acceptance from the bank, but with a note that they sold the note to a new company. we waited two weeks for the new bank to take the file, hoping they would rubber stamp the previous approval and we'd be set. that hasn't happened.

we were warned going in not to get too attached to a short sale, that we should make an offer and if it didn't work, be willing to walk away and move on. the problem is, we haven't found anything else. we've looked at over eighty houses now, and there have been exactly three we'd considered. two of them (both of our backups) are off the market already, with offers of over $340k each. we've stuck with this one offer because we've been told over and over we have a good shot at it, and even that's it's "meant to be", but mostly because of the bargain. there's just nothing in the seattle area that we want that's under $350k. in this economy, you're only seeing the dregs and the people that HAVE to sell listing their property. it's mostly garbage. the areas we like all start in the $400k range, and we just can't afford that.

the past several weeks have been extremely frustrating. I haven't been sleeping well. I've had near chronic heartburn and recurring headaches. I've been surly and depressed. it's so frustrating knowing that I've worked incredibly hard to repair my credit from past mistakes (ie, first marriage), saved money for a downayment, and despite doing everything right, we can't get the house we want.

I've been tempted to just walk away from the whole idea, and blow the tens of thousands of dollars we have pegged for this house on the track instead. I really do wonder if we'd be better off just moving to a better apartment and renting. the idea of taking on $300k worth of debt terrifies me, but I was willing to do it. I just can't convince anyone to take that $300k worth of debt in exchange for something I'd be happy with.

I've had four vanilla white russians (aka "the honky") tonight, plus my token st paddy's day drink, the "baby guinness" (see below, bailey's floated on kahlua)... combine that with not sleeping well recently, and I'm bloody sleepy. I'll likely go to bed early tonight, and with any luck, a comet will hit the earth and wipe out humanity before I wake up tomorrow.

housing update

2009-01-26T18:38:00.000-08:00

we definitely didn't get that blocker house. the list price has since come down to $348k, still well over our offer. we just weren't willing to spend more on a house that didn't have a garage or even a family room.

shortly after the those negotiations broke down, we found another house we liked. it's fifty blocks farther north, practically on the county line. it's more suburban than I had intended to look, but we like the house. while it's smaller than the previous one, it feels bigger, with a better layout. it's three bedrooms but only 1.5 baths, a smaller kitchen but a bonus room and a two car garage. the backyard is big enough that we could eventually knock out a wall in the main bedroom and add a full bath there. it's also a few blocks from a transit centre, so while the commute wouldn't be ideal, it's possible to bus to and from work fairly easily.

the downside is we found out it was a short sale when we offered. it was originally listed at $388k, and dropped to $348k. we knew the sellers were motivated, but were caught off guard by the short sale status. we offered two weeks ago, and it was accepted, but we're waiting on the bank. this can take weeks. the house was appraised by the bank currently holding the paper on the house, and they need to make a decision soon. they'll write off whatever the difference is between what's currently owed on the house and what we're offering ($315k), but it will still be less of a hit than if it goes into foreclosure.

currently there's an auction for the house set for feb 8, but we're trying to get that canceled. if it goes to auction, we're definitely screwed. we couldn't front the cash for it, even tho it'd sell for $100k less than we're currently offering, because we don't have everything up front.

the waiting has been really annoying. we're going out looking at other houses tomorrow night, on the off chance we find something else we like that isn't a short sale. at this point, I'd rather pay a bit more to get that certainty, these past couple weeks have just been brutal.

househunting sucks.

2009-01-08T18:00:00.000-08:00

we made our second offer last weekend. the first house we offered on we weren't sure about, and we rushed into it because we thought we'd lose it. we ended up losing it anyway, but we were relieved. we weren't ready for the commitment or sure about the house. in hindsight, it wasn't that great... new floors would have been expensive, and fixing up the kitchen would have been more trouble than it was worth.

the second offer was a different story. I even had my parents up for the weekend to look at a few, and they approved of it. they've hated everything we've sent them pictures of. so that's big.

it's a really nice house in shoreline, kinda small but in a great location. it's a "block" house made of concrete cinderblocks, but is still cute. the downsides are no second "living" space, so no nerd den or rec room, and that there's no garage or carport. otherwise it was really nice. gorgeous kitchen, three bedrooms, cute little woodstove... yard was perfect size for us, and we liked the neighbourhood.

problem was, the list price on it is $355k. while we COULD pay that much (we're pre-approved anyway), we don't want to take on that much of a monthly payment. we set a self-imposed cap of $325k just to keep the monthlies under control. we offered $300k hoping to meet in the middle, but they spurned us. said they'd only drop $10k and they were willing to wait out the recession to get their money out of it. not sure how they figure that works, but oh well. we walked away, but we're not-so-secretly hoping they change their minds and come crawling back to us. it's a flip, and at some point they need to face the fact that they picked a bad time to flip a house and they probably over-did the house for the neighbourhood. our $325k offer was reasonable, what they are asking is not, at least not for this economy.

so we're still looking. but nothing we've seen before or since has held a flame to the one we like. we've looked at over fifty houses now, and only a handful have been what we'd consider a good fit for us. a couple have gone off the market. at least the one we really like is still available, only because it's priced too high.

we'll keep looking. the idea of being in a house by presidents' day is no longer viable, so using the long weekend to move furniture up from nana's house is pretty much out of the question. if we find something else, great. but realistically, we're just waiting out the house we want, waiting for the sellers to blink in this game of financial chicken. they're paying a mortgage and HELOC on it, and losing money every month. we're sitting on a downpayment earning three percent interest and paying the same rent we have been for a couple years. unless someone else comes along and is stupid enough to pay what they want, we should win this, they'll have to blink first.

even so, I'm tired of househunting. I just want to find something we like, make and offer and move in.

best of 2008 recap

2009-01-01T17:07:00.000-08:00

was a bit of a down year, both for music and film... we just didn't get out as much this year as year's past. we'll see how 2009 shakes out. with a sizable mortgage payment looming, I doubt it'll be much better on the entertainment front.

albums

1. vampire weekend - vampire weekend
2. ode to j. smith - travis
3. oracular spectacular - mgmt
4. viva la vida - coldplay
5. golden delicious - mike doughty
6. narrow stairs - death cab for cutie
7. the odd couple - gnarls barkley
8. með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust - sigur ros
9. accelerate - r.e.m.
10. dear science - tv on the radio
11. way to normal - ben folds

honourable mention: boxer - the national (discovered way too late, fave album of the year)

movies

1. forgetting sarah marshall
2. dark knight
3. iron man
4. pineapple express
5. be kind rewind
6. hamlet 2
7. tropic thunder
8. hellboy 2
9. zach and miri make a porno
10. wall-e
11. role models

sorry I missed: slumdog millionaire, let the right one in, rachel getting married, frost/nixon, milk

fuck video only. fuck it hard.

2008-12-30T20:06:00.001-08:00

we decided to take advantage of the impending financial apocalypse by buying a new telly to go in our new house that we plan to buy soon. the deals right after xmas were supposed to be insanely good, so we stopped on our way back from canada. it took us half an hour to drive the approximately 200 meters off the freeway and into the video only parking lot.

the telly they had advertised that I wanted was sold out, but they offered me instead a 50" samsung that was very nice, for only a hundred dollars more. we figured what the hell, and bought it. unfortunately, it wouldn't fit in our car, being a Very Large Television. we scheduled delivery for the following day, and all was good.

ten minutes after leaving the parking lot, video only calls to tell me tomorrow's delivery is a no-go, they're booked up. that's fine, we'll reschedule for thursday, a holiday when we know we'll be home from work.

tuesday rolls around, and video only calls to tell me that my telly is gone. they don't have it in stock. something about them sucking a LOT of ass, not having a computer system that keeps track of their inventory. when the jackass sold me the tv on saturday, he thought he had it in stock, because his little printout he received that morning said he did. why it took him THREE DAYS to realise he didn't is beyond me. but if I'd like, I could just take a lesser panasonic model instead? it's the same size, but the contrast isn't as good and it's not as nice looking. all I need to do is come back into the store and change my paperwork and he'll get it taken care of. and did he mention this is a great deal, because he'll match the original price?

so we drive up to lynnwood. it takes AN HOUR to get there in rush hour traffic. only I'd done some research.

the model we bought, a samsung PN50A550, is not "exactly the same" as the panasonic TH50PN80U, as I was assured. in fact, a comparison shop of several other retailers showed the panasonic to cost anywhere from $200 to $500 less than the samsung I wanted. but video only had the panasonic on sale for $1399, down from their list of $1499. the samsung was on sale for $1299, from $1499. if they're both 50" and both $1499, they must be the same telly, right?

after taxes, my cost was $1415. fry's offered the panasonic for $1199, but I was assured I couldn't find it there. when I pointed out I could buy it from newegg for $1349 with free shipping and no tax, he assured me they wouldn't have stock, even tho he had no idea what newegg was.

I took in with me a stack of specifications and reviews, as well as pricing from best buy, buy.com, newegg, amazon and fry's, all showing the price discrepancy. I was fully prepared to take the lesser panasonic telly, once he marked it down a couple hundred bucks for my trouble. times are tough, right? no retailer wants to lose a sale.

well, this asshole did. guy's name is ron something, he took his business card back from me (it had previously been folded and possibly stapled, he can probably only give his cards out to people who actually buy shit). when I told him I didn't think the two sets were comparable, and that the pricing was cheaper elsewhere, he simply snatched my paperwork back from me and started processing the credit. didn't try to convince me to take another set, didn't offer any discounts, nothing. I was ready to drive a hard bargain, and ended up thrown out the door within five minutes instead.

worst part of all this is, we paid for it on mastercard, because they don't take american express. and since we were planning to get a mortgage next week, I paid off the mastercard already, since I wanted our balances to be as close to zero as possible. every little bit helps your credit score when you're pulling a $300k+ loan.

now I'm going to have a $1000 credit on a card I rarely use. it doesn't offer any rewards or points, unlike my amex, so I only use it when places don't take amex. we spend less than $200 a month on that card, it's going to take months to burn through that credit.

all because ron at the lynnwood video only is an asshole.

and I still don't have a nice telly.

obligatory xmas post

2008-12-25T13:26:00.000-08:00

we barely made it to canada yesterday. lot of ugly on the roads, especially once we hit burnaby. tried to claim my usual parking spot on the side of the in-laws house, and found my shitty little hyundai couldn't handle eighteen inches of powder on the ground, snow tires be damned. so I parked in the driveway whilst bro-in-law and I carved a little spot out on the corner. damn near had a heart attack doing it too. finally got the car parked, only to find last night some assface decided to park RIGHT behind me, justting out partially into the main road (I was on a side street) and completely blocking me in. as soon as they left, I made sure to back up a bit to prevent that from happening in the future.

there's certainly been a low of snow. and while I love snow, and really have no problems driving in it (see above mention of snow tires mixed with a healthy dose of common sense), I was disappointed to learn my employer changed their snow policy. used to be if you showed up to work and they closed early, you got paid for the whole day. now, if they send you home early, it's unpaid. seeing as Iw as sent home three hours after I got there friday, I didn't bother going in monday or tuesday, and instead had to burn vacation. I instead spent much time bonding with my xbox.

for the xmas loot...

sister bought the babies some cat toys, and the cats love them. felix got a green stick thing with a feathery ball on the end, he goes APESHIT over it. they also got some treat balls that roll around and drop treats. felix monopolises it, but isn't smart enough to figure out where the treats come from. saku just waits til felix gets bored and eats the rest.

mom and dad got me mass effect and saints row 1 for xbox, stuff white people like and dilbert 2.0, and jpod books, and some dvds: forgetting sarah marshall, dark knight, and wristcutters.

mom- and dad-in-law got me guitar hero world tour for xbox and the office season 4 dvd.

bro-in-law got me iron man dvd, a little simpsons robot dude (I got apu) and a really disturbing looking johnny cupcakes t-shirt.

sis-in-law and her boyfriend are due over for dinner... don't know if I'm getting anything token from them. boyfriend gets four bottles of fancy imported beer (german marzen and belgian delerium), I imagine I'll get something similar. beer = good.

it is funny how tame xmas seems the older I get. I went to bed about 11 last night, had no problem whatsoever falling asleep (all the shoveling snow surely wiped me out), and despitemom-in-laws concerns about the basement being too cold, I slept just fine. I woke up around 8am, realised no one else (except mooki) was up yet, and went back to bed for a couple hours. twenty years ago, I never would have been able to sleep, would have been too greedy and excited.

I imagine being near kids changes the tone of things considerably. bro-in-law is the closest thing to a kid in this house, and he's college age.

we'll be holed up here for another couple days. need to try to get out for 'foo on saturday and then head home, hopefully the weather is better then than it was yesterday.

sunday we're supposed to go out househunting again, but I'm not optimistic the weather will cooperate. our current frontrunner has already sold. that's three now that have been swept out from under us, mostly because we haven't been willing to act quickly enough. we're hoping by the middle of january we'll be more comfortable to offer on something we like almost immediately.

so how was everyone else's crimbo?

ich bin der hausjäger.

2008-12-14T19:30:00.000-08:00

went looking at more houses today. we didn't get the one we liked in shoreline (that we made an offer on), and our contingency plan is already off the market...

we found two today that were decent. was was very large but not as nice and in a somewhat sketchy neighbourhood... other was much nicer, in a better neighbourhood, but quite a bit smaller.

between these two, we'd have to decide what is more important.... having that nice size rec room in the basement, but sacrifice elsewhere (garage, neighbourhood, etc) or go for something nicer, but without as much space?

again, there's no slam-dunk, home-run, generic-sport-reference decision to be made. both of these houses have positives and negatives. we're leaning towards the smaller, nicer house closer to downtown, but won't make a decision until next month. we want to go look at some more houses, and our agent assures us there will be a surge of new listings after new years.

hopefully we'll make an offer on something we like by the second week of january. it be nice to be moved into something by the end of february.

house not get.

2008-12-11T18:57:00.000-08:00

we didn't get the house. miyuki is relieved, I'm more ambivalent... I was fine either way. there were some things we didn't like about it. the kitchen was too small and would be difficult to expand. the yard was big but kinda crappy. miyuki didn't like that the exterior of the house had no personality.

it sounds mostly like rationalising, which is basically is.

we're going to take a break from looking for a couple weeks, try to enjoy the holidays... we'll start looking again after xmas. it'd be nice to find a house we like in the next couple months. we'll see what happens.

meh.

2008-12-08T21:32:00.001-08:00

paul thinks I should blog more. paul is a git who keeps moving to third world countries in some feeble attempt to avoid adult responsibility and/or get himself killed. suicidal peter pan syndrome types shouldn't get to tell me what to do.

mooki and I made an offer on a house today. we didn't want to. we saw the house yesterday, I really liked it, but mooki wasn't convinced on it. we wanted to wait a couple weeks, see a few more options, and then come to a rational decision. instead we got a call that there was an offer on the house, it was low, and we could put in a bid as well. we don't know if ours is higher than the other, but it could start a bidding war. exactly what we didn't want.

the house is about twenty minutes outside seattle, in a border suburb called shoreline. it's essentially like burnaby, for the vancouver-centric crowd. the house is very spacious, over 1800 square feet. it has four bedrooms, two baths, a large living room and even larger rec room in the basement. the yard is huge but would need some work. there's no garage. nor is there proper flooring in the house. we'd have to install new hard wood floors before we even moved in.

miyuki would get a remodeled kitchen down the road, we have some more inheritance coming to us and could use a portion of that. we may or may not build a separate garage.

if all goes well, we'll actually be homeowners by new years. the house is a smiking hot deal, listed at $295,000. it sold two years ago for $299,000, had a ton of work put into it and was on the market for $440,000 six months ago, before the bottom fell out of the market. because it is now owned by the bank, the sale itself should go quickly. if we manage to get it closed out in december, we'll save some money too. the current FHA requirements have us pay 3% down. in january the requirements go to 3.5%. that's basically an extra $1500 we'd be forced to put into equity, as opposed to using for improvements or moving expenses.

to be completely honest, we're scared shitless. we signed all the paperwork for the offer today and it was faxed off. we'll know by wednesday afternoon if it was accepted. if accepted, we have five days to back out for any reason without penalty. after five days, it gets more difficult to change our minds, and we will rapidly reach a point of no return, where backing out would cost us the $5000 cheque I wrote in earnest, currently sitting in escrow.

the next couple of weeks will be a whirlwind of insanity. here's hoping it works out for us.

halfway through the gauntlet...

2008-09-20T17:26:00.001-07:00

we go to hawaii in five weeks. if I can survive long enough to make it, I'll be incredibly happy.

one of my coworkers, a truly horrible woman that I can't stand (and have likely bitched about previously) went in for knee surgery and will miss eight weeks of work because of it. why they'd perform knee surgery on a woman a hundred pounds overweight I don't know, nor do I understand why it'll take two months for her to rehab it. while she's out, I have to do my job AND hers. and her job sucks. it's incredibly tedious and frustrating. so I've been going into work every morning at 6am, and putting in 55-60 hour work weeks. I worked today, I'll have to work tomorrow as well. weekends have been more or less non-existent. as it stands, I'm in the middle of what will likely end up being twenty-six work days in a row. I just can't afford to take any more days off, even if they're saturdays or sundays.

sure, I'll rake in about $3k in overtime over those two months, but it's not worth it. I'm growing to truly hate my job, and I'm getting increasingly frustrated with my coworkers and managers.

I've been drinking more. I've been going to bed as early as 7pm. I haven't been able to go see a movie in weeks. hell, I've only managed one netflix in that time period. we haven't been to the gym in weeks. my life has been reduced to work and sleep. I can't keep up at work, and yet despite repeated pleas for help, none will ever come.

making matters worse is the election coming up in november. there's a LOT of bullshit flying around, and I just don't know if I can handle the idea of another four years of republican rule. what's even more frightening is the local governor's race. if mccain and/or rossi manage to win, I'm fully prepared to move. it's not like there's anything holding me to seattle that I cherish. my job sucks, our apartment sucks, the economy sucks, and our government is well on its way to suckage. I've already downloaded the immigration paperwork, and plan to have it prepared and ready to drop in the mail november 5, if need be. I don't know how that will work tho, since the immigration forms seem to think I'd be applying from within canada. I don't want to move there until I can work, but I can't work until I move there. it's a catch-22.

on a slightly better note, I do have two pints of manny's in me, a belly full of jones' bbq ribs, and have a nice slice of sweet potato pie waiting for me for dessert. maybe I'll try to watch son of rambow before bed....

I hate politics.

2008-07-17T17:07:00.001-07:00

actually, that's not true. usually I find politics interesting, sometimes even fascinating.

I hate elections.

I hate elections because I hate stupid people, and stupid people always do stupid things in elections.

I just heard an attack ad against washington's governor, christine gregoire. by all accounts, she has been one of the most effective governors in the country the past several years. that doesn't stop her ~~republican~~ GOP opponent for attacking her for all sorts of shit. (you know, the fucker who used a loophole to actually list himself as a member of the "GOP party" instead of as a republican, so he could trick people into voting for him. what the fuck is the Grand Old Party party?!)

this ad had a "concerned sounding mother" lamenting traffic in seattle. she was complaining about how gregoire raised the gas tax and how traffic keeps getting worse...

gregoire raised the gas tax, but with inflation we actually pay less than we did ten years ago. she didn't raise it ENOUGH. the state actually has LESS gas tax revenue now than they did a decade ago. and the national gas tax is one-TWENTIETH the amount of tax most european countries pay. is it any wonder our roads are clogged with idiots driving SUVs?

as for the congestion... every time a light rail or transit bill comes up on the ballot, the geniuses that live here (or at least in the suburbs) vote it down. the city wasted tens (possibly hundreds) of millions of dollars on a monorail that was eventually scrapped before they even broke ground. last year, proposition 1, which allowed for a blend of light rail and transit expansion, was voted down. the republicans wants to build more roads. they want to expand the floating bridges to eight lanes, but they don't want anyone to be able to take the train or bus to get around.

it's a fucking joke. blaming gregoire for traffic, or the high price of gas, makes about as much sense as blaming my cat for global warming.

I hate elections. I hate stupid people. and I have to put up with another four months of this bullshit. mudslinging, slander, lies, all so people can go out and make uninformed, short sighted, self-serving votes and make this city, state and country and even worse shithole than it already is.

seriously, when is that fucking comet going to get here and wipe out humanity?

mixed bag weekend...

2008-06-29T10:44:00.000-07:00

this weekend has been up and down. not really sure what to think. it was okay, I suppose, but not nearly as grand as I had envisioned...

I took friday off work, since I didn't feel like working on my birthday. instead I slept in, got biscuits and gravy for breakfast up the street, and cleaned house a bit during the day. I made what turned out to be way too much food for the party that night.

we had some friends over, but quickly abandoned the idea of going bar hopping. instead we went to to zak's for burgers, and I got packed full of "little johnson" before heading back to the apartment for drinks, mario kart and boom blox. by 2am, everyone had gone home. I was entirely prepared for the party to go til 3 or 4am and for people to crash here, so that was odd. getting older, I suppose.

saturday I ventured out to greenwood because I needed some storage boxes for my nerd cards, and the hobby shop out there sold them. only when we got to greenwood, we realised there was a car show that had closed down several blocks of greenwood ave. we had to park and walk nine blocks from the store in glaring ninety degree heat, and witnessed what had to be some of the ugliest fucking people on the planet. it never really occurred to e why I was never drawn to fixing up old cars until that moment: looking around I knew I never wanted to be associated with that sort of white trash.

on the way out of greenwood, we nearly got run over by some asshole in an SUV holding a kiddie pool to the top of his car. we were going through a roundabout, and despite being halfway through it, he barged in front of us and was screaming at me that he had the right of way. I'm not sure how someone can have the right of way in an uncontrolled intersection when the other person was there much earlier and was already going... it's people like that who make me wish for a comet to wipe out all of humanity.

we tried a "minnesota style" pizza place for an early dinner, place called zayda buddy's (I think), and it was okay. the service was horrible, but the pizza wasn't bad, really thin crust. the place was decorated with all sorts of old midwest beer ads, sports memorabilia from minnesota and wisonsin, and old farrah fawcett posters. they had an impressive looking menu, I want to go back and try some of their comfort foods. their sandwiches looked okay, but the burgers were scary... they had a pepperjack cheese stuffed burger that was breaded and deep fried. that doesn't sound healthy. at all.

we went out to see wall-e afterwards, breaking my usual tradition of waiting two or three weeks to see popular movies. we sat in the third row, as we got there only ten minutes before showtime, and it was alright. I can see why kids would like it, but I don't understand why my coworkers were insisting it was going to be so amazing. to me, the toy story movies are the best animation and everything's been downhill from there. the incredibles, to quote sick boy, was merely a blip on an otherwise downward trajectory... I just have been impressed with any of the stuff that's come out since toy story, either pixar or dreamworks... I don't include "wallace and gromit" in this category, since plasticene is still cool.

the worst part about wall-e was the preview for some fucking chihuahua movie. I'd call it "incredibly gay" but I don't want to disparage homosexuality in that way... even calling it "retarded" isn't fair to all the 'tards out there. it just looks wrong on so many levels.

the best part? the "cartoon" at the beginning. the rabbit and magician was pretty cute. but then again, the short before the pixar movies usually are amazing.

don't stay through the closing credits. there's nothing there.

today is going to be a lazy culmination of the weekend. it feels like a bonus day anyway. anytime we're up late on friday, saturday always seems like sunday. we tried, in vain, to get wii fit from toys r us, but were told to try back next sunday. I doubt we'll do much else today, it's too bloody hot for anything. maybe go buy some more fans for the apartment, and probably watch "wristcutters" from netflix.

joy.

there's always something...

2008-06-14T14:56:00.000-07:00

got one credit card paid off. had a chance to pay off a second card, but miyuki wisely mentioned maybe we should wait until the end of the month. just 'cos we have the extra money now doesn't mean we HAVE to pay it off right away, no? after all, it's been there for over five years, another couple weeks won't hurt.

turns out she was right. I just sank $400 into the ShitCar. this is after dropping $800 into it last month for its 60k tuneup. the tires had started squealing, and my AC stopped working. it was still cold, but there was no pressure behind it unless I turned it all the way up, and even then it was feeble.

turns out the blower motor fried. and despite having a "100,000 mile bumper to bumper warranty" the dash electronics are only covered for the first sixty thousand miles. remember what I mentioned the previous paragraph about my 60k tuneup? yeah, I'm sitting at 62k miles. the damn motor literally crapped out six weeks after the warranty ended.

oh, and the squealing tires? turns out my brake pads were down under two millimeters. that's kinda like, bad, and stuff. so I had to have my brakes redone. you'd think they would have mentioned that during the tuneup... I'm sure it would have been cheaper to have the brakes done somewhere other than the dealership, but I had already been there 90 minutes and didn't want to bother. so I forked over a hundred bucks to get the AC fixed and another three hundred for the brakes. I'm gonna pissed if I have to put anything other than gas and oil into this car before it's paid off next year. I really shouldn't have to fix anything for another three years or so, but I won't hold my breath.

never, EVER buy a hyundai. seriously. they suck ass.

my birthday is in two weeks. I'm debating whether or not to go bar hopping or invite people over. the decision will likely be made for me. we tried going to a bar last weekend with the canadian hordes, and every bar in ballard was packed. I'm not all that excited about my birthday. I just want to go out drinking with friends, and go to a nice dinner with miyuki. monies I get from family (we don't do gifts anymore, which seems kinda silly) will go towards debt. miyuki's mom is getting me a set of scary go round books, because I'd feel bad taking money from her and I don't know if I could ever justify shelling out $85 for some comic books on my own. it'd be nice to find volumes one and two but they're OOP. I may never find them. I'm not as big a fan of his earlier work anyway, his art has dramatically improved over the years. he draws really purdy girls. we also have a karaoke party planned two weeks later in canada. I'm gonna try some new material if I can. and get very drunk, knowing I can crawl two blocks back to "home" at the in-laws.

I've been foiled in several attempts to buy wii fit or mario kart. guess I learned my lesson and will pre-order shit from now on. we did pick up the last copy of lego indiana jones at fred meyer, but I've been frustrated by the gameplay. I've never been very good at the nunchuk controller, I'm not coordinated enough to use both hands independently of one another. I could barely manage the PS2 controller, and that was button mashing with only my right hand 98% of the time. I have a really difficult time using my left hand for buttons AND movement at the same time. hoping mario kart will be easier on me. and we did play wii fit, it seemed like fun. if anyone can recommend where to buy either fit or mario kart, I'd muchly appreciate it. and if you happen to see a copy somewhere, by all means grab it! I'll gladly pay you back for purchase price plus beer or whatever. mmmm, beer.

I also had my first close-up iphone experience. pretty sure I need one now, especially with the 3g price drop. I'll try to hold out til the car is paid off in six months, since I don't want to ADD expenses if I can avoid it. still trying to figure out how the rate plans work, looks like at&t charges for voice and data separately. I wish they had a smaller voice plan, we barely use any of our shared 450 minutes, and it looks like if I upgrade, the smallest family plan now starts at 700 minutes. it'll mean adding $50 or so a month to our phone bill, but I won't feel too guilty splurging on it. it looked REALLY cool.

haven't really lost much weight this month. only two or three pounds. but I was sick for a week and didn't go to the gym. I've also been bad for a few meals. I won't get down to 220 by the end of the month, but 225 is still feasible with some effort. 25 pounds in sixty days still seems impressive. I'm just a bit disappointed that I can't actually tell that I've lost any weight just looking at me. except for the hair, anyway. everyone notices the lack of hair.

UPDATE: found mario kart sunday morning, picked it up and an extra wii wheel. still looking for wii fit, however. at least if the barhopping doesn't pan out, we can play mario kart back at the house. drunk. woooo.

the man with the plan.

2008-06-02T20:59:00.001-07:00

after several years of toiling away, seeming as though I'd never dig myself out, I'm on the cusp of being revolving debt free.

I've put in some overtime at work, and should be seeing a fat commission on sales next payday. that will pay off the first of three cards. I've dipped into saving a bit to pay off a huge chunk of the second. the remainder of that big card will be paid off in july, as well as my third card.

I only have three cards.

I'll still owe another $4k or so on my car, it'll be paid off by the end of the year.

oh sure, the student loan will take another five or six years to pay off, but that's a given. $28k just doesn't disappear overnight.

but it'll be really damn nice to have those credit cards paid off. at that point, we can really start saving for a downpayment on a house (I'm still hoping to be able to afford a mortgage by next summer), and miyuki will be rewarded for all of her patience. she'll be able to go shopping and buy herself pretty things when she wants, and we won't have to worry about it.

everything's going to start going on my air miles card, figure if we buy everything on it (gas, groceries, etc), we'll be building up a thousand miles or so each month. that'll add up quickly and enable us to travel more often.

most surprising, however, was that I finally worked up the courage to check my credit score. I'd been scared shitless to check, knowing how badly the ex-wife raped my credit. turns out, I'm in pretty good shape. sure, the number she did on the car payment hurts, but it looks like everything else she did is now gone. that, combined with rapidly paying down everything I could resulted in a score of 749. by the time we're looking at mortgages, I'm hoping to get it up to 800. even so, anything over 740 for FICO is considered very good, so I'm in good shape.

woot!

the stupidest $400 I've ever won.

2008-05-29T19:58:00.000-07:00

I won my contest. I lost twenty pounds, barely edging out the guy who went in weighing 191 and decided to starve himself on a lemonade diet. he dropped fifteen pounds, meaning I beat him by 0.15%.

I've learned a lot about my coworkers. mostly that I really don't like them. and don't get me wrong, I didn't like most of them to begin with. pretty sure the feeling was mutual.

we decided to end the contest a day early because the district manager (who had thrown in an extra hundred to the prize) had to leave for california early in the morning. since we weren't going to give him an extra several days of weekend, and it didn't seem fair to make him lose a day, it was agreed that we'd all just end a day early.

turns out that was a mistake. one person complained it wasn't fair, that we all signed up for thirty days and blah blah blah. the guy lost three pounds. he wasn't in the running, and it just pissed me off.

the guy I barely beat lied about his progress, and kept talking smack about how he had lost seventeen pounds (nine in the last week) and how he was going to win, blah blah blah. so I essentially starved myself the last two hours. I ate a small lunch and very little else. I went to the gym and nearly passed out from trying to swim too many laps. I had to do anything I possibly could do to win.

and then the fucker tried weighing in without his shoes.

it's that sort of petty bullshit that was going on. one guy was intentionally weighing himself down previous weeks, planning to shed all the weight in his pockets for the final weigh-in. two skinny kids tried starving themselves even though they weren't fat. the most overweight guy in the contest (271 pounds) actually GAINED weight as of last week's weigh in and refused to weigh in today. guy was easting big macs and fries for lunch several times a week. people saw $400 up for grabs and tried to win, fuck the spirit of the competition, fuck their health, and fuck anyone who tried getting in their way.

I limited my diet to reasonable portions of vegetarian foods, avoided anything fried, cut beer out of my diet entirely for the whole month, and went the gym harder and more often than I'd ever been. I did everything I could do to meet my goals, and I did it with my original game plan of being healthy, up until the last 24 hours. and I'm pissed that I had to abandon my gameplan to lose those last two pounds.

making matters worse is that I'm coming down with a bad cold, and starving myself and pushing too hard has made it worse. I didn't sleep well last night, I've been overly irritable, and I really don't much care for most of my coworkers anymore.

and the worst aspect? the bitchy coworker who kept putting tons of junk food (cookies, cakes, chips, etc) out on the grazing table all month, trying to derail everyone's efforts, has decided that I have to buy lunch for the whole branch with my winnings. fuck her.

I'm putting three hundred in savings for our trip to hawaii, and the other hundred will go towards our mariners weekend. miyuki got free tickets from work for tomorrow's game, and they're pretty good seats. my dad called me today tho, and said he got our company's owner's tickets for sunday's game. six rows behind the third base dugout. these are REALLY sweet seats. I'm hoping it'll make up for the fact that we'll be forced to watch carlos silva and miguel batista pitch for seattle, and they're likely to lose both games...

the hardest part about tomorrow's game will be avoiding beer at pyramid for dinner and then during the game. it's still within my "diet month"... at least I can have a beer on sunday if I want. and the way they've been playing this season, I'll want. guaranteed.

weekend update

2008-05-23T21:14:00.000-07:00

the weight loss competition is going well. I'm down fifteen pounds in just over three weeks, good for a 6% weight reduction. I was originally hoping to lose 10% (25 pounds), but I'm thinking I'd settle for twenty pounds, or 8% and be just fine with that. realistically, I won't lose another five pounds in the next week. I've definitely plateaued. first week I lost nine pounds, second week I lost seven... last week I only dropped one.

I've started swimming at the gym, so I'm hoping that will kick things up a bit and I can drop another two or three pounds. the way things are shaking up, if I lose two or three and no one else loses more than five, I walk away with $400. the odds of anyone dropping five pounds in a week is slim, but I want to try to drop another couple just to be safe. that $400 would go into our vacation fund.

we've decided to use my parents' timeshare in hawaii this year, so we're going to need everything we can save up. airfare alone will be $1500 or more. even with free lodging, the trip could cost us three grand by the time all is said and done. we're taking miyuki's mom with us.

that was part of the weight loss goal. I figured if I could drop twenty pounds in may, and another ten in june, that would get me down to 220 by my birthday. if I could drop another ten in the three months before the trip, I'd be down to 210 and be in the best shape I've been in for over a decade. it's an audacious goal, but I think it's doable. we've been really good about going to the gym, and the diet has been pretty consistent. I haven't had any meat or beer in 23 days, and plan on gradually reintroducing it to me diet after the month is over. I'm only allowing myself one bad meal a week after the contest ends. my first "bad" meal will be a gyros, btw.

I decided to try my one-on-one training session at the gym tonight, we got one freebie when we enrolled several months ago, and I never used it. I figured it'd give me a little intro to some of the machines I've never used. turns out it was just a sales pitch. I was only shown how to do a half dozen leg exercises (the part of my body I need to work least), given numerous lectures on building "lean muscle" and the evils of cardio, and then got over twenty minutes of hard sell for signing up for more training sessions. at a minimum of forty dollars per session (with a year long commitment) and a recommendation of several training sessions per week, I had to bite my tongue to keep from laughing in their faces. even with doing a single session each MONTH (which seems kind of pointless, if I'm going to the gym 12-15 times a month), I'd end up more than doubling my financial commitment.

I'm sorry, but I'm taking the tack that ANY exercise is better than none, and if I'm not going to get "ripped" or "cut" doing my own thing, even if it's just half an hour on an elliptical four times a week, so be it. I'm also not convinced they had my best interest in mind, since they were REALLY pushing weights and slagging cardio pretty heavily. weights take help, any idiot can use a cardio machine. when the guy starting telling me that my target heart rate should be 120-160, I called bullshit on him. my resting heart rate is between 100-110. always has been. he told me when I get in better shape, it'll get back to "normal" of 70-80. even when I told him that when I swam 4000 yards a day in high school, was in the best shape of my life I still had a high pulse and my mom needs medication to keep her pulse in check, he wouldn't budge. I'm thirty years old, therefore my heart rate should be exactly the same as every other thirty year old. whatever.

the funniest bit was when they asked me if I'd ever take my shirt off in hawaii, thinking it would shame me into wanting to throw hundreds of dollars a month at them to give me six pack abs and eighteen inch guns. they obviously did not know who they were dealing with. I have zero shame with being a tubby bitch. if other people don't want to see my pale, hairy flab, that's their problem. if I leave my shirt on in hawaii, it's because I don't want to get sunburned, not because I'm ashamed of how I look.

I think I'm done.

2008-05-04T10:29:00.000-07:00

so the habs just got eliminated in pathetic fashion. the mariners had their two "ace" pitchers trounced on back to back days to fall into last place in their division.

I think I'm ready to swear off sports for good. I invest too much of my happiness into the success of "my" teams, be they geographic (mariners), nationalistic (koivu/finland) or simply nostalgic (habs). my teams never win.

the habs finished first in their conference for the first time in nearly two decades. they had a hotshot rookie goaltender who seemed poised to follow in the footsteps of ken dryden and patrick roy, leading his surprising team to a championship in his rookie campaign. it didn't happen. they barely survived their first round matchup against boston, a team they had dominated (11 straight wins dating back to last season) and looked outplayed five of the seven games. they looked like utter shite against philadelphia, another team they should have easily beaten and pretty much owned in the regular season. instead, they're eliminated in five, and last night's game was fucking ugly.

I'm stuck hoping the penguins win the cup, since I placed a sports bet in vegas last year on them and would at least win some money. that, and I fucking hate the red wings and stars.

the mariners are a completely difference scenario... they're more or less ALWAYS sucked, but I've been going to baseball games as long as I can remember. they overachieved last year and gave their idiotic management the idea that maybe they were close to contending. so said idiotic management traded five players, including a future all-star outfielder and their second best pitcher out of the bullpen, for a very good but very fragile pitcher. the guy has already missed four starts. of, and their outfield defense SUCKS because of that trade. jj putz, their closer, got hurt right out of the gate and the bullpen has blown ever since, whereas having george sherrill in there would have been a great anchor to hold them over.

we have tickets to a couple more mariners games this year, and I do enjoy going out to the ballpark. but I'm not going to be turning the channel to the games anymore, and I'm not going to participate in fantasy sports after this season.

I'll reconsider my position AFTER one of my teams manages to win a championship. in the meantime, my collection of jerseys is going into storage for the foreseeable future.

now I need a new hobby.

there are last meals, and then there are last meals...

2008-04-30T21:52:00.000-07:00

went for my last supper before my month pf penance... miyuki recommended the lunchbox laboratory in ballard. damn, was it worth it.

I got the "bad karma" burger... a heaping mount of lamb patty, oozing melted gruyere, dripping sauteed onions... for my side I got the cheesiest damn mac and cheese ever, and washed it all down with the most amazing boston creme pie milkshake I can possibly imagine... we're definitely going back there in june. and we're walking next time, all thirty-some blocks to get there. I'm pretty sure I consumed about 2000 calories for dinner tonight.

but that's good, 'cos 8am tomorrow is weigh in. the prize pool is up to four hundred dollars (!), as our district manager not only joined in, but kicked in an extra benjamin to the pool.

$400 for the person who loses the most... pretty sure I'll clock in third or fourth in the overall weight category (out of ten entrants), and I'm the youngest of the top six by weight. given the amount of weight I could potentially lose, and my relative young age, I'm feeling good about my odds. throw in the fact I plan to go vegetarian for the entire month, and I'm pretty sure I'm the only one with a gym membership, and I'll be pretty damn disappointed if I lose.

I'm setting the ridiculous goal of losing 25 pounds in 30 days, or 10% of my body weight. realistically, I'll be happy with 15 pounds lost, but it's good to have lofty goals...

this just got interesting...

2008-04-24T09:45:00.000-07:00

the weight loss contest is getting ridiculously big.

I was bugging my boss for "corporate sponsorship" thinking he'd match our prize cashpot out of the branch party fund. he refused. his logic was my dad (another branch manager) would never throw money away like that.

my dad called me last night, so I mentioned it to him. he told me HE would double it for us. just to make my boss look bad (they've know each other for 20+ years, it's a friendly rivalry sort of thing).

so our pool went from $50 to $100 right there. so my boss finally caved and offered to throw in another $100.

the thought of $200 waiting to be claimed enticed some of the skinny kids in the branch to ante up as well, so we're now up to eight contestants and $260 in prizes. I'm hoping to find another two people and make it an even $300.

the crazy thing is, some of the newbie kids aren't fat. one guy is 184, and he's in great shape. his logic is since we're going by body weight percentage lost, not total pounds (to level the playing field), he wouldn't have to lose as much.

my goal is to drop 25 pounds, or 10%. for him to beat that, he'd have to lose over 18 pounds, basically dropping to 165. that sounds REALLY unhealthy to me. I'd love to be in the shape he is.

I'm not sure why the skinny kids are doing it... seems odd. it originally started out as some incentive for the fatties to lose some weight before summer. these kids are just joining out of greed. they're talking about gimmick diets and shit. I'm hoping I can lose weight and maintain it, by getting used to eating healthier, controlling my portions, and even eating more slowly. I want to get into good habits and continue with them, not just give up on the "diet" after a month and gain all the weight back.

I'm shooting for 25 pounds. I'd be happy with 20. winning the money would just be gravy.

delicious gravy.

I hate reality television.

2008-04-23T12:44:00.000-07:00

so word of my plan to go vegetarian for an entire month has quickly spread around my office. there has been much ridicule, and several comments of how I will be easily tormented... one girl even threatened to eat a plate of bacon for lunch every day in front of me. she weighs 95 pounds, so she just might.

one of my coworkers mentioned we should do a branch wide "biggest loser" competition. and he's actually got four people signed up. his logic is, we all kick in $10 at the beginning, and whoever loses the most weight by the end of the month takes the cashpot.

I'm not sure what to think of this. for one thing, I have an advantage that I had to point out. I weigh close to 250, two of the other three guys are around 200. it would be a LOT easier for me to lose ten pounds than them, so I think we agreed to go with % of weight lost as opposed to actual weight.

but the other thing is my vegetarian diet. if I really do cut out all meat from my diet (I may still eat fish, not sure yet. my logic is "if it don't got feet, it ain't meat".), I'll have a distinct advantage with that as well. plus, I don't think any of the other guys have gym memberships. they're all older (forty-ish to early fifties). it's gonna be REALLY sad if I can't take their money.

I just wish they'd call it something OTHER than "biggest loser"... it makes me feel cheap and dirty.

why do I bother?

2008-04-19T19:25:00.000-07:00

I've noticed something that warrants scientific study. the more interested I am in something, the worse it ends up. this is particularly relevant to the matter of sport.

I wasn't able towatch much hockey this year. my fave team, the montreal canadiens, finished first in their conference, something they hadn't accomplished in nearly twenty years. the only games I got to watch were against toronto or ottawa, and it seems like they lost just about all of them.

now that it's the playoffs, I can watch EVERY game. and save for one, every game I've watched, they've lost. every game I haven't, they've won.

I try not to be superstitious. sure, I'll bribe the cats to get me goals, but that rarely works (since that implies I'm watching, and therefore they are losing). but I don't actually believe they have any sway over the outcome.

this goes back for years. perhaps its the paranoia of growing up in seattle. in 2001, the mariners tied a record by winning 116 games in a season. they didn't make it to the world series. a few years back, the stinkhawks made it to the stupidbowl, only to have the outcome pretty obviously rigged (when national telecasters are pointing out how bullshit the officiating is, I'm willing to chalk that up as more than "hometown bias").

if I have a vested interest in a positive outcome, it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy of doom. and it's really putting me off of sports.

it doesn't help that the group of people I've been playing fantasy hockey and baseball with is about ready to lynch me (considering near constant interaction with many of them for over five years, that isn't surprising), I'm giving some serious thought to just quitting sports altogether.

it's not even that I'm all that interested in sports. I've mostly just followed them as the one conersation piece I can have with those around me. the industry I work in is hardly sophistimacated, I don't get very far discussing foreign films or classic literature. sports are about the only thing I can have anything resembling a "normal" conversation with the simpletons I work around without being dismissed as weird.

I'm about to say "fuck it" and write off those conversations. it's not like the small talk has gotten me anywhere anyway. and they all know I'm a freak. why pretend?

so habs fans, I apologise... I'll quit watching hockey at once, and maybe they can salvage their stanley cup run...

my brainmeats hurt.

2008-04-15T09:47:00.000-07:00

one of the drivers at my work scares the fuck out of me. he's really creepy. I do my best to avoid him, because he freaks me out so much. I've only had three conversations with him in two months. I'm pretty sure he has at least three bodies buried in his backyard.

the first conversation:

max: those are cool glasses.
me: thanks?
max: you should get them tinted so no one can see your eyes!
me: uhhh... [walks away]

second conversation, interrupting me talking with boss:

max: I need to go to the dentist, and I don't have my insurance card yet. who do I call?
boss: beth in human resources.
max: what's her number?
boss: 1-2-3-4.
max: is that all I have to dial?
me: it's [actual number].
max: wow, you have that memorized?
me: I used to work at corporate, and can remember numbers easily.
max: I don't even know my phone number. I know both of my library card numbers though!
me: uhhhh... [walks away]

the third one, and perhaps the most surreal, happened today on the phone:

max: hello?
me: max, this is christian. are you still in auburn?
max: christian... [last name]?
me: yes. are you in auburn still?
max: I don't know where I am.
me: are you anywhere near sumner? I need to pick up some pallets at our DC in sumner.
max: I'm next to Lowe's hardware.
me: in auburn?
max: sumner... washington?
me: yes. are you near there?
max: no, I'm back in seattle.
me: nevermind. [hangs up]

there are several problems with this conversation... the first is, how many people named "christian" are calling this fucker on his work-provided nextel? it's not exactly a common name. in fact, of the 400+ employees in my entire company, I'm the only one named "christian". second, why would anyone assume "sumner" to refer to anything OTHER than the town called sumner twenty miles from seattle, for a conversation in seattle? especially when I told him I needed something at our DC. in sumner. washington. and third, why the fuck does a professional truck driver not know where the hell he is while making a delivery?

what kind of day has it been?

2008-04-13T19:35:00.000-07:00

today started off with the potential to be awesome. it has pretty much failed to live up to billing at every turn.

miyuki got mariners tickets from work for today's game. erik bedard was scheduled to pitch. he's the "ace" pitcher the mariners traded their top prospects to get. five players in all went to baltimore, including their would-be starting right fielder (and future all star) and their best left-handed relief pitcher.

so what happened today? bedard was scratched from a second straight start due to a hip condition. instead, a south korean kid got the start, pitched fairly well, but got yanked in the fifth inning after giving up two runs. a respectable outing, really. the guy who replaced him? let two more of baek's baserunners score before letting six across the dish himself.

but it wasn't entirely his fault. no, some of the other joys we got to see were miguel cairo playing third base, instead of the gold glove adrian beltre. cairo played terribly. beltre would have made at least three outs on plays cairo couldn't pull off. but what was worse, the right fielder today was mike morse. I really like morse, the guy can rake. but he's a shortstop who probably should play first base or designated hitter. he badly misplayed two fly balls in the outfield leading to several runs. and just when he would have had the opportunity to redeem himself, to atone for his sins, he was replaced. he was up with the bases loaded, down by six runs, and they yanked him in favour of a pinch hitter. the guy right after him? miguel cairo, who proceeded to ground out. they pinch hit for the guy who mashed all spring long, trying to prove himself and had some obvious incentive to hit well, and then let the worst hitter on the team effectively kill any rally they may have had. pure genius.

so the star pitcher didn't play. the right fielder botched several plays (adam jones would have made them). and the bullpen REALLY sucked today. it's a bill bavasi hat trick! how that guy still has a job amazes me... almost as much as I'm amazed at how the manager still has a job. he obviously doesn't know how to utilize the assets he's given.

worst part was, it was much colder at the stadium than I anticipated, so I was really uncomfortable as well. I missed catching a foul ball by inches because some moron in front of me (without a mitt) made a half assed attempt at it and blocked me out. he didn't even bend down to reach for it at his feet after he dropped it. I've been to hundreds of baseball games and never caught a ball. that would have meant a LOT to me.

but the day was already shit. we went to pyramid for lunch. my beer was skunky, the food wasn't good, and it was ridiculously overpriced.

so we left the game during the seventh inning stretch, so I could get home in time for the puck drop in boston. habs played like shit, and the refs certainly didn't help them out.

I really do wonder why I even bother with sports. I invest too much of my happiness in the outcomes, and end up in a REALLY pissy mood when my teams lose.

so today has been about as shitty as it could have been. which is sad, since it seemed like it'd be so good. I was going to my first baseball game of the year, going to watch bedard dominate the division rivals, and then come home to watch montreal beat boston for the fourteenth straight time.

I'm a big fat 0-fer on the day.

and now I have to go back to work tomorrow. I may not even bother watching the simpsons tonight. instead I'll probably just go to bed.

I've already shaved a bit. was planning on not shaving during the habs run, but my attempts at facial hair are always tragic. so I've pared it down to sideburns and a chinstrap. if they lose tuesday in boston, I'll probably take the chin strap down to a chin beard. lose again, it goes and I'll be left with 'burns. lose again and even they're gone. I'm trying to stick to facial hair I have a proven track record with. unfortunately, it all looks ridiculous no matter what I do.

just another disappointment.

more fun(damentalism) from the stupid parents file...

2008-03-28T09:25:00.000-07:00

Parents Pick Prayer Over Docs; Girl Dies

By ROBERT IMRIE – 16 hours ago

WESTON, Wis. (AP) — Police are investigating an 11-year-old girl's death from an undiagnosed, treatable form of diabetes after her parents chose to pray for her rather than take her to a doctor.

An autopsy showed Madeline Neumann died Sunday of diabetic ketoacidosis, a condition that left too little insulin in her body, Everest Metro Police Chief Dan Vergin said.

She had probably been ill for about a month, suffering symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, excessive thirst, loss of appetite and weakness, the chief said Wednesday, noting that he expects to complete the investigation by Friday and forward the results to the district attorney.

The girl's mother, Leilani Neumann, said that she and her family believe in the Bible and that healing comes from God, but that they do not belong to an organized religion or faith, are not fanatics and have nothing against doctors.

She insisted her youngest child, a wiry girl known to wear her straight brown hair in a ponytail, was in good health until recently.

"We just noticed a tiredness within the past two weeks," she said Wednesday. "And then just the day before and that day (she died), it suddenly just went to a more serious situation. We stayed fast in prayer then. We believed that she would recover. We saw signs that to us, it looked like she was recovering."

Her daughter — who hadn't seen a doctor since she got some shots as a 3-year-old, according to Vergin — had no fever and there was warmth in her body, she said.

The girl's father, Dale Neumann, a former police officer, said he started CPR "as soon as the breath of life left" his daughter's body.

Family members elsewhere called authorities to seek help for the girl.

"My sister-in-law, she's very religious, she believes in faith instead of doctors ...," the girl's aunt told a sheriff's dispatcher Sunday afternoon in a call from California. "And she called my mother-in-law today ... and she explained to us that she believes her daughter's in a coma now and she's relying on faith."

The dispatcher got more information from the caller and asked whether an ambulance should be sent.

"Please," the woman replied. "I mean, she's refusing. She's going to fight it. ... We've been trying to get her to take her to the hospital for a week, a few days now."

The aunt called back with more information on the family's location, emergency logs show. Family friends also made a 911 call from the home. Police and paramedics arrived within minutes and immediately called for an ambulance that took her to a hospital.

But less than an hour after authorities reached the home, Madeline — a bright student who left public school for home schooling this semester — was declared dead.

She is survived by her parents and three older siblings.

"We are remaining strong for our children," Leilani Neumann said. "Only our faith in God is giving us strength at this time."

The Neumanns said they moved from California to a modern, middle-class home in woodsy Weston, just outside Wassau in central Wisconsin, about two years ago to open a coffee shop and be closer to other relatives. A basketball hoop is set up in the driveway.

Leilani Neumann said she and her husband are not worried about the investigation because "our lives are in God's hands. We know we did not do anything criminal. We know we did the best for our daughter we knew how to do."

big fish, little pond.

2008-03-23T09:08:00.001-07:00

there haven't been many times in my life where I've felt overwhelmed by a situation. this is by design. I go out of my way to avoid failure. I set the bar REALLY low and generally do just enough to get by. I often fall short of other people's expectations based on "potential" but it rarely bothers me.

I've worked at my current job, off and on, since 1996. I've worked my way up from warehouse monkey to purchasing to my current position, "quotations department lead". the title is more impressive than it should be. I'm in charge of three people. one is a former manager, semi-retired, with about 30 years experience in the industry. he's great, and I never boss him around. another is a woman who has been doing the same job, badly, for 35 years. she's a dinosaur and an utter bitch. I just try to avoid her. the third is the former receptionist, not good for much. she has a bad attitude and has been talking about getting a job at REI since the day she was hired.

my job is to coordinate commercial projects. usually, someone else quotes the job, and when we win it, I take over. I bring the required material in and release it as necessary to the jobsite. for the most part, it's really easy. I typically juggle around twenty jobs at a time.

I've got one right now that's kicking my ass. it's a two million dollar condo structure in bellevue. I was provided a spreadsheet breaking down each unit's requirements and due dates. there are over five hundred individual units to coordinate. each has slightly different material. and due to the customer request, I have to release three separate orders for each unit. I'm having to keep track of around 1800 separate orders, making sure the material is here on time and the orders are printed for delivery per the schedule.

I'm not that good. at least not without, you know, WORKING on it.

I fucked up. I procrastinated and let the job slide a bit too long. I ordered some fancy faucets from germany six weeks before I needed them. it's now been twelve and some still haven't arrived. the customer is pissed. I'm catching hell from every angle for dropping the ball like this.

every job has problems. we usually end up expediting material in to cover for them. stuff gets broken, or the customer changes their mind, of the factory sends the wrong item... there's always someone to blame.

this time, it's me. I should have ordered the shit long ago.

I don't like this feeling of mortality. I like feeling invincible. like I said, my job is easy. I get paid pretty well considering what I have to put into it. but I really don't like getting yelled at. I don't like failing.

the last time I found myself in this situation was college. I had coasted all through school, and the first few years of college, on nothing but native intelligence, manipulating the system, and bullshit. when I got to advanced classes I realised I had no idea how to actually study. I'd never highlighted a book. I usually only skimmed them. I was terrible at taking notes in lectures. I'd never needed to do any of this before. I got to my fourth year of uni, and I quit. I was completely lost and figured it was too late to learn. it's not like I WANTED to be there anyway. so I left school 30 credits shy of a bachelors degree and $40k in debt.

I'm to the same point at work. I'd never had to do much before now. I was always able to find quick and easy ways to cheat, ways of doing things more efficiently and yet taking as long as everyone else, and enjoying the surplus free time. as long as I was doing just a teensy bit more than those around me, that was good enough. who cares that I could do it with 20% of the effort they needed? if I really WANTED to, I could do just about anything in this company. I've been offered management positions and turned them down. too much work. too much risk of failure.

and it's not like this problem I have now will be difficult to dig myself out of. for the most part, each floor follows the same basic plans. room 613 is pretty much the same as room 713, I just have to make sure I catch any modifications. otherwise, I can just copy the order (most people would re-enter it by hand) and have it ready. I just can't procrastinate. I have to keep at this, not slack off, and make sure I stay six weeks ahead of things, at least. I can't pull shit out of my ass at the last minute anymore.

that's difficult during the day. there are too many distractions. too many phone calls, too many fires to put out. so I have to come in on weekends, when there are no distractions, to get everything set up. I'll basically have to work two saturdays a month for the next year or so to keep up on this. my incentive is not getting yelled at. well, and overtime. the extra money is nice too..

I need to work my way back to that little pond... life needs to come with cheat modes. you know how much easier things would be if there was an invincibility code?

ouch.

2008-03-22T01:05:00.000-07:00

my parents came up for a quick visit today and dropped off some new furniture for us. my mom bought new furniture for their house, couch, loveseat, etc to match their remodeling, and offered us their old leather furniture. a huge green couch, a comfy green chair and two ottomans... it's a nice upgrade over the ugly brown hand-me-down couch we had, especially as saku had used it as a scratching post.

problem is, the couch wouldn't fit in the elevator, and we're on the second floor. I fuggered up my back something fierce getting it up the stairs with my dad.

it's an unusual back pain for me, since it's quite high on my back, right on my spine about mid-back. I've had back problems for years, but it was always located in my lower back. this kinda sucks. I haven't been able to sleep (hence the posting at 1am), and it's really difficult to get comfy. I had miyuki dig her elbow in real good before she fell asleep and that offered some temporary comfort. I've decided to medicated with a very stiff white russian and some painkillers, hoping that'll help me fall asleep.

I suppose it's still worth it, getting new furniture (to us, at least). we also got a nice dinner out of the deal, since my mom wanted to go to anthony's for a late birthday dinner (she didn't get to go when they were up in january). I still speculate they went out of their way to deliver the furniture (three hour drive) to "even things up" between me and my sister. sis lives fives minutes from them and abuses them for free babysitting more or less constantly. we only see them about once a month and don't get nearly as many perks. then again, I don't live in vancouver washington and have three demon children, so I'm not not really complaining.

no to try to sleep again. hoping it works this time. need to go into work in the morning to fix some fuckups. for once, they're my own mistakes, I got lazy and fell WAAAAAAY behind on a two million dollar condo job, and I'm getting yelled at from every angle on that one. I gotta screw around less at work and actually pay attention to deadlines from now on, at least one those big jobs. oops. hey, at least it's overtime...

daylight saving time sucks.

2008-03-14T08:41:00.000-07:00

the guy who invented daylight saving time can eat my ass. with a spoon.

I've never understood it. you're not actually CHANGING anything. if farmers (or whoever DST is actually supposed to benefit, I've never actually been sure - most people just assume it's those damn farmers) want to get up when it's light out, maybe they should just get up an hour earlier in the summer? it's not like anything changes if your clock says 6am or 5am. it's still the same time. the planet is at the same exact point in its daily rotation. you're not SAVING anything, you're just moving it around.

seriously, what is the fucking point? I've been cranky all week. I haven't gotten enough sleep. I've had to get up an hour early every day, and I can't fall asleep an hour earlier at night.

plus, there have been numerous studies that have shown the whole notion is retarded.

did you know that changing out clocks doesn't actually save any electricity, and actually uses more? granted, usa today and wall street journal aren't exactly peer reviewed scientific journals, but they get the point across.

then there's the fact that more people are killed in crosswalks immediately following a time change, due to the sudden darkness you're not used to driving in. see this for further details.

in the spring, you've got a whole lot of people who are waking up earlier than they're used to and trying to drive to work now. it's causing more accidents. the commute to work this week has been hellish. not to mention the fact that by moving DST up six weeks, I'm now driving to work in the dark. again. and yet it's light until 7:30pm. what is the fucking point of that?

last week, it was already light out when I left for work at 7am. and it got dark around dinner time. that seems perfectly reasonable to me. in another six weeks, switching the time wouldn't matter as much, it'd be getting light much earlier and I'd still drive to work in daylight.

I really fucking hate DST. I don't know anyone who actually thinks it's a good idea. so why do we even bother with it?

the masses need to heed the words of rilo kiley. we need to rise up with fists, and slaughter the sick fuckos who mess around with our time. it's OUR time dammit, we don't have to let them change it up on us, arbitrarily, twice a year!

reminders of why we should move back to canada...

2008-02-23T16:49:00.000-08:00

the day seemed to start off so promisingly. I was going to head downtown with some friends for a flash mob, the "seattle freeze"... seattle's own take on this... vancouver and portland were also doing them today, and I'm sure most other metropolitan areas had their own too.

the facebook page for the vancouver event had well over 200 people confirmed. seattle had barely fifty. if I had to guess how many people showed up for the seattle freeze, I'd say maybe 75 at most, seven were just our group. I dunno if we just had a poor locale, or not enough people, or what... but there didn't seem to be the same kind of confusion caused as the original new york freeze. I heard a couple security guards complaining that they didn't know what was going on, but otherwise didn't notice much reaction at all. I guess I'll have to wait for the video to see if there was any reaction I missed.

on our way home, we tried to catch a bus. the bus stop we were at was backed up, there were four buses trying to stop there, ours being the fourth. and rather than waiting until it got to the actual stop, the driver opened the doors half a block away, and some people ran down to get on. then the fucker didn't stop AT the bus stop. we missed the bus, and then had to walk three blocks and wait another ten minutes to catch the other bus that goes to ballard. it's bad enough there are only two buses that go from downtown to our neighborhood (not exactly a tiny borough, mind you), but then those buses can't even manage to stop when and where they're supposed to.

so between a half-assed flash mob that assuredly pales in comparison to vancouver's turnout, to the horrendous transit getting home from said failure, it just has me wondering what again what I'm actually missing by not living in vancouver.

I'm predicting will be back in canadaland within a couple years, basically as soon as I can get my debt paid down and save up a nest egg for a place we can't afford. that's the one area that vancouver might actually suck worse than seattle, we'd definitely never be able to afford a house or condo up there. but at least we could move out to the burbs up there and still have reliable transit into the city. FSM bless the skytrain...

"...except for that whole keating five thing."

2008-02-21T06:54:00.000-08:00

I normally don't stoop to the level of politics, but this is just too stupid.

john mccain got a little too cozy with a female lobbyist awhile back. she's not bad looking for an older lady, especially to a guy who can't lift his arms. no one is saying for certain that he porked her, they've both denied a "romantic" relationship (which, as he's married, to me means "it was strictly sex, no wooing"), but I can't wait to see how this turns out.

slick willy harpoons a whale and it's a scandal. he nearly got impeached over it, because that obviously had everything to do with shady business dealings from his past. it seemed pretty obvious to damn near everyone that the lewinsky thing was purely for pleasure. what mccain did was for profit. so how is what he did any better than what clinton did? well, I guess since mccain is a republican, the GOP will probaby throw him a damn ticket tape parade for nailing a WOMAN... how long has it been since they had any sort of heterosexual sex scandal?

his communications director, jill hazelbaker, released this statement: "It is a shame that the New York Times has lowered its standards to engage in a hit and run smear campaign. John McCain has a 24-year record of serving our country with honor and integrity. He has never violated the public trust, never done favors for special interests or lobbyists, and he will not allow a smear campaign to distract from the issues at stake in this election. Americans are sick and tired of this kind of gutter politics, and there is nothing in this story to suggest that John McCain has ever violated the principles that have guided his career."

so how do we interpret this? it's obviously a lie if she's trying to say the guy is an honest dood. the "never violated the principles that have guided his career" bit is interesting tho... I guess if you consider that he's ALWAYS been a complete and utter douchebag, this move would just be par for the course and thus consistent with his "principles"... the guy has shown himself to be a huckster and a fraud his entire career, why should this be any different? he has pretty much "violated the public trust" any chance he could to make a dime.

I hate politics.

paul owes me $9.75.

2008-02-15T21:18:00.000-08:00

after weeks of cajoling, I finally went to see no country for old men.

miyuki and I decided to have our belated valentine's date tonight, we went out for dinner and a movie.

I can sum up the movie in one word:

meh.

the acting was good. the cinematography was good. the story was utter shite. I feel like I've wasted $19.50 on admission when we could have just netflixed the damn thing for next to nothing. what an utterly pointless movie.

that wouldn't have even made my top ten movies for 2007. and I think I only saw about twelve moves from 2007.

paul, I'm not listening to your recommendations again for a looooong time.

I'm going to follow paul's advice...

2008-02-15T12:16:00.001-08:00

I'm going to quit my job and follow my dream... I love marlins baseball, and I love grotesque displays of man-flesh... it's perfect.

today will be a good day...

2008-02-14T07:33:00.000-08:00

how could it not, with this soundtrack to start my day?

new order - blue monday
the buggles - video killed the radio star
a-ha - take on me
wham! - wake me up when you go-go
the cure - boys don't cry
soft cell - tainted love
emf - unbelievable
murray head - one night in bangkok

FSM bless c-89. the only songs this list is missing are falco, nena and baltimora... and I'm sure they're in the post.

speak of the fucking devil, here's tarzan boy!

eighteen kinds of suck.

2008-02-12T08:28:00.000-08:00

something has got to change, and soon.

I was in bed at 6pm last night. I just couldn't cope with the day anymore. I had a truly brutal day at work, which I had half expected... what with leaving early friday to take miyuki to homey security, I knew there was a lot left undone. I just didn't know HOW bad it was going to be.

I had fifteen emails waiting for me. by 9am, I had seven voice mails. I had to drive to bellevue to help a large customer sort through a botched delivery we made. I had people harassing me all day with really stupid "favours" (hey, my buddy wants a sink, can you hook him up with the 'brother' discount?) I'm trying to coordinate a two million dollar condo job, and several other six figure jobs, dealing with a warehouse that doesn't give a shit about picking material properly or delivering it on time, appeasing customers with preposterous expectations, and I'm supposed to drop everything to help your BUDDY find a hundred dollar sink for his house? call a fucking showroom.

my job normally isn't that difficult. there are some challenges, sure, but it's all easily handled. it's been my attitude lately. and not just with work. paul pointed out my blood lust for minor insults and petty sleights is out of proportion to reality.

I stopped using the testosterone months ago because miyuki pointed out I had "teh rage"... when she had to physically restrain me from smashing the guitar hero controller out of frustration, I figured she had a point.

but my temperament hasn't improved much. we started going to the gym 3-4 times a week, but have tailed off recently. it's been over a week since we've gone. the motivation just isn't there, it's been too easy to find other excuses not to go. at first I wanted to go, and made the effort to make sure we went whenever we could. now I just don't give a shit.

this isn't a new thing. for years I've been lamenting to doctors about the various symptoms... feeling run down all the time, not being social, not having patience for those around me, contempt for everyone around me, etc. several times they've tried to send me off the therapists and whatnot. I went a couple times in college. I tried taking zoloft for a couple days in my early 20s, and ended up with such horrible migraines that I swore I'd never take "happy pills" again. now the idea of therapy just seems like too much trouble and expense. and I don't like the side effects of medication... seems like best case scenario, you get a lobotomy in pill form, cutting out the lows AND the highs.

I really don't think I'm depressed. for the most part I'm happy, sarcastic, and pretty easy to please. it's just that I also succumb to easily to pressures around me. I've always argued that "ignorance is bliss" has an equal and opposite corollary... and there have been many times I have wished I could have been a member of the idiot masses, oblivious to all the shit around me. but I'm not. it's too easy to recognise all the horrible things wrong with the world, all of the ways people are stupid and selfish and make everything worse for everyone else. the idea that bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people.

I've wondered if I could ever just find religion and forget about all the bad stuff, I'd be happy. it seems to easy for everyone around me. they just ignore the bad stuff and pretend good stuff exists. but then again, these people are supremely entertained by reality television and don't believe in global warming, so do I REALLY want to have to dumb myself down that much to be happy? is that even being alive anymore?

I hate politics.

2008-02-09T21:19:00.000-08:00

I'm normally not a very political person. this is mostly due to my cynicism and understanding that my fellow human beings are, more often than not, complete morons. so I try not to care too much, apathy saves me many frustrations and much heartbreak. I still don't know how paul does it. it's like he never saw spaceballs: "evil will always triumph over good, because good is dumb."

I seem to recall being blamed last presidential election, by either paul or toby (possibly both) that I JINXED the election by saying dubya would get reelected. he pulled it off once, he'd likely pull it off again. because I had the cynicism to believe the system would fail, and that either through trickery (ie, karl rove) or stupidity (ie, the south and midwest) the republicans would win a second term, somehow the fact that they pulled it off was MY fault.

so this weekend, we're down in the shitty vancouver, otherwise known as vanloser, visiting my family. and since I'm a bit of an annoying asshole, even to my family, politics have come up a few times.

my family is weird. for the most part, we're a fairly liberal lot. most of my family votes democrat, my dad votes republican out of spite (to "cancel one of us out"), and I generally vote as far left as I can. I was so proud to vote for the gay ex-hippie socialist in 2000, and was actually ashamed that I voted for kerry in 2004 (because paul had me believing that washington would be MUCH closer than it was). I had fully expected to vote for kucinich this go around, knowing full well he'd be long gone by the time I got a shot. I had actually hoped to write in for mrs kucinich 'cos she's hot, but as a brit she's not even eligible.

but in talking to my family, I'm downright frightened. my mom said today she'd be happy to vote for hillary, but if it came down to obama or mccain, she'd have to vote for maccain.

WHAT. THE. FUCK.

when I pressed on this a bit, I found out she doesn't trust obama. she's worried he's secretly a muslim. and secretly a terrorist. and his devious plan is to get into office and then destroy america.

my mom is normally a rational person. this is completely dumbfounding. I'm still in shock.

later on, we went to visit HER mother. in talking to nana, she said much the same thing. she spewed all the typical republican bullshit about how he's a muslim and a terrorist and doesn't salute the flag and was sworn in a koran and all that. it's horseshit. but this is the same place whose county's GOP posted an article outlining all of that shit. and everyone here believed it. nana tells me one of her friends printed something out, and it said right on the printout that it was CONFIRMED by who knows what! I really don't like the fact that my family has gone from rational people to dumbshits who will believe anything they're told, throwing reason out the window for knee-jerk hysteria. the worst part was, when nana said he was secretly a muslim, I asked her why that would even matter if it were true. she equates "muslim" with "terrorist"... she didn't realise there are enarly as many muslims as christians, that most muslims don't want to kill anyone, and that they both worship the same fucking god. again, a normally rational, intelligent, liberal person. what the hell is wrong with this country?

I've since printed off a whole slew of "propaganda" (ie, the truth) dispelling all of this shit, showing what a total douche mccain is, and how hillary in any other election would be considered a conservative... my mom read it, and has at least decided now that if it came down to obama and mccain, she just wouldn't vote. but she still doesn't like obama. I doubt nana will change her mind either. my dad said he'd read it, and told me he's "more open-minded than I give him credit for"... I doubt it. he'll read it, scoff and say it's all bullshit. this is the same guy who refuses to watch an inconvenient truth because it wasn't real. he voted for washington's ridiculous $30 car tabs initiative because he just bought a new truck and didn't want to pay $500 to license it. he doesn't vote for schools because his kids are grown (his grandchildren aren't), doesn't vote for transit because he never takes the bus and doesn't vote for health care because he already has it. he refused to vote for gore OR kerry because he "doesn't like clinton"... he also thinks bill clinton was the worst president ever, despite having witnessed first hand the presidencies of dubya, reagan and nixon. he doesn't actually watch fox news, so I don't know how he comes up with this shit...

this kind of idiocy has me jumping on the obama bandwagon. I know I'll be disappointed. best case scenario, he's jimmy carter version 2.0. he gets to office with dreams and ideals and a plan for a better future, and he's kicked out four years later having accomplished nothing. worst case scenario? he gets into office, some asshole assassinates him and we really do end up with obamelot, and he goes down in history next to JFK as a great american martyr, having accomplished little and leaving us all with a tainted view of the past, wondering what might have been.

somewhere in between those two is hillary winning, 'cos I really gotta believe that losing an election isn't nearly as abd as losing your life. hell, even mccain winning is probably better than a martyred obama. I just REALLY hope he's got good security. and a good bulletproof vest. too many fuckos out there have too many reasons to hate him. he's black. his dad's a muslim. they think HE'S a muslim. he wants to change the system. he's liberal.

I'm really disappointed in my family. and I'm beginning to agree with miyuki that it's horrible to come down here to visit... we really don't belong here.

reason # 4,057 humanity deserves extinction

2008-02-07T20:33:00.000-08:00

one of the worst parts of our current living situation is the laundry room. there are 38 apartments in our building, and three sets of washers and dryers in the laundry room to service all of them. we don't have assigned times for laundry, so it's basically first come, first serve.

a wash cycle lasts about 25 minutes. a dry cycle takes 55 minutes. I have this down to an art form. I set a timer as soon as I get back to my apartment so I know when the cycle will be over and can head down to change things out. I usually catch the washer as it's spinning down, and the dryer as it's in cool down.

I was doing three loads of laundry tonight. I never liked to use ALL of the machines, because that's a douchebag move. I'll use two and leave the other one for someone else. if I'm there first, I don't feel using two is wrong. it's that classic precedent of "snooze v lose"... tonight, the other one was already being used, so when I moved my two loads to the dryer, I started my third load in one of the recently emptied washers. I didn't check on it right away, because I knew all three dryers would be used for at LEAST forty minutes, if not more. I checked after 45, and saw the third dryer wasn't going to free up anytime soon, so I went back to watching hockey (fucking maple leaves, btw).

after the timer beeped, I went down to catch the first dryer starting its cool down cycle, and the other one shortly behind. my third load, a bunch of towels, was sitting on top of one of the dryers, soaking wet.

our laundry room is a fucking sty. I don't even like to think about what sorts of shit is coating every surface down there. and now coating my wet towels that I used to dry off after getting clean in the shower.

there is no possible way this asshole could have possibly expected to get both of his loads of wash into a dryer at the same time. at the very least, I'd have one of the dryers myself, and the other set had a load of wash in both machines, so it'd likely be tied up.

why on fucking earth would someone pull wet clothes out in this situation? the person who did this is a grade A asshole. there is no other possible explanation for their actions. I hope they die a slow, painful death. I hope I get to witness it. I hope I get to kick them in the nuts right before they die, so their final breath is a gasp of pain before they expire.

I actually pulled my laundry out of the dryer early. I'm going to finish drying it on our rack in the apartment. there was too great a risk I'd actually run into this fucker if I left the towels until the end of their cycle. and if I did bump into this person down there, I would likely end up in jail, because I would have gotten very violent.

I don't like the fact that I'm getting MORE disillusioned with humanity as I get older. I'm supposed to mellow with age. to shrug things off, to appreciate the happy things more. that's not the case. it's just building up exponentially, the bitterness and the hatred for my fellow man. every time someone does something considerate or selfless, six other people do something horrible to cancel it out and then some.

where is this fucking comet I was promised?

you can never go back again.

2008-02-06T23:08:00.001-08:00

warning: massive nerd content.

I started playing teh magic again. miyuki got a nice necklace for valentine's day (ordered from england early so it'd be here in time), so I got magic cards (also early, because we're horrible people that don't celebrate holidays properly). I've spent over a hundred dollars on cards in the past three weeks. enough to put together what I thought were a few decent decks.

boy, was I wrong.

things have changed a lot since I last played. first of all, in high school, my friends and I had missed the ridiculously powerful cards already... we came in during revised, when wizards of the coast had already purged the ridiculous cards. sure, the purged cards still existed, but they were really expensive due to scarcity, and weren't "legal" anyway. we made due with what we had. we all spent roughly the same amount of money, from the same core set(s), and generally had a good time. the only advantages or disadvantages we had was our own ingenuity. it was an otherwise even playing field.

the expansion sets wotc came out with, the less interested I became. the expansion sets were very gimmicky, and complicated, and annoying. turns out they've only gotten worse since.

last friday, I went to play with my friend tony and some of his friends. I got raped. hard. these were people that had been playing non-stop for ten plus years. they had tens of thousands of cards. they were using cards I'd never heard of and combinations I never thought possible. really cheap, lame combinations. "if I have 200 life, I automatically win. here's something that gives me fifty life every turn". "I have an artifact that gives this effect. I can combine it with this other card to give me really annoying creature INFINITE toughness. or I can give myself INFINITE life." that sort of shit. I didn't have much fun.

tonight, I went to a "magic meetup" on queen anne... generally a half dozen people or so get together, supposedly all levels of skill represented. wrong. I got raped 100x worse than I did friday. at least friday there were a couple people who were normal. and to be fair, nobody friday night was a dick.

tonight, I was reminded why I hated expansion sets. they're all built on themes. and the themes are pretty much unstoppable unless you're playing a different theme from the same expansion. I was destroyed in under five minutes four different times by people playing with these theme decks. "this card creates tokens." "this card makes all of my creatures/tokens better." "this card makes you lose cards every time I create a token." before I knew it, I was overwhelmed with fucking TOKENS that were all causing me to hemorrhage cards at a ridiculous pace. the one time I thought I was going to get close to winning, the other guy played an eight year old, long banned card that destroyed EVERYTHING: creatures, artifacts, land, etc. I never drew another land card. I lost because of this. if I would have kept my land, I could have beat him.

that was the problem I was having... 98% of my cards are from one core set. the core set doesn't include any gimmicky cards, they're all straightforward, basic shit. everyone else I played against was either using older cards, which were either cheaper or improved versions of what I had, or were outright banned because they were so ridiculously powerful (sol ring, fork, channel, etc), or they were using these expansion killer combinations I had no hope of countering. soldier deck. merfolk deck. cleric deck. every card they played compounded the effect of another card. a card that on its own would have been a simple creature, not very powerful and easily destroyed, very quickly becomes unstoppable.

I was there for three hours. there was one game that was going on the entire time I was there, I don't even know when it started. when I left, one guy had 304 life, the other guy had 79. you start with 20. the idea is to reduce the other guy to zero. one of them had a 90-something power creature on the table, I think it was originally a 6/6. he just kept sacrificing tokens to it to make it bigger. that game had at least a dozen DICE on the table, counting different tokens and shit like that. card games should not require dice. hell, the guy with 304 life was using three d10 dice to keep track of his life total. I use a d20. why? because I start with 20 life, and it's supposed to go down.

I know I wasn't the only person there that was frustrated. I guess it was the highest turnout they've ever had (eleven people) and there were other newbies (to that group, I was the only true newbie there). I kept hearing terminology I've never heard before... I'm pretty sure "standard" means the current set of legal cards. I have no idea what "aggro" means, but it was in regards to a deck that was all over the place and ridiculously powerful... it could mean "aggregate" or it could mean "aggressive" or something else entirely. there were several other words I can't even remember. lots of the annoying cards had rules I'd never heard of... morph. echo. there were a bunch of others. gone are the days of having just summon, enchant, instant and sorcery... now everything has like six rules or types attached to it. it's really confusing.

I really doubt I'll ever go back to that group. these were people that played in tournaments and have probably never had sexual relations with another human being. they took the game way too seriously. after I got beat badly twice, I resigned to just watching for awhile. a latecomer showed up and asked if I'd like to play. I explained my situation, I hadn't played in ten years and didn't have very good cards. no worries, he says, he'll go easy on me...

yeah, I was about ready to punch him in the throat. he was playing one of those token counter/stacking creatures from hell types. after I was visibly pissed at him for the first game, he said he'd try a different deck that should be more fair, and then proceeded to do the same thing with a different deck with all the same types of cards.

now, I don't go around beating up three year olds. I'm pretty sure I could. they're usually quite small and not very smart. I don't do it because it's not very fun after the first few minutes. what's the point? they can't put up a fight. I don't understand what compels someone to want to do the magic equivalent of beating up a toddler... especially after the first game and seeing I was clearly not playing in the same league, or even on the same planet. I really did want to hurt that guy. I'm pretty sure that's why I'm sitting here hammering away on my keyboard two hours after I should have been in bed.

I really do want to play this fucking game again, but I want to play it under a closed set of parameters. I want to play in a fun way, not an uber-competitive way. I want to play on a more or less even playing field. and I don't want to have anything to do with those annoying fucking expansion cards. I want to win my share of the games, but feel like I earned the win and that any given game could go either way. I basically want to play as if it was 1994 again, with my friends from when I was seventeen. back when it was fun. I don't know if I'm ever going to be able to recreate those circumstances. I think I have a few people I can play with, and I'm hoping it doesn't get out of hand, but I really doubt it will ever be the same.

times like this make me realise I'm NEVER going to be happy with anything along these lines. this make me angry, and makes me want to lash out at the world. and it makes me really not like myself. right now I really DO want to kick the shit out of a three year old, just so I can feel like I'm good at something, and got something accomplished.

I really do want to feel like I'm good at something. I'm not athletic, I'm not artistic, I'm no good at games, I'm generally just not motivated to do anything.

there's nothing quite as humiliating as being "outclassed" by a bunch of twenty- and thirty-something virgins who still live with their parents. the fact that I actually showed up and stooped to their level is the worst part. of COURSE they're going to beat me, that's all they do with their. but why did I LET them? I have the common sense to not walk into an astrophysics conference and throw down over quantum theory with anyone there, so what made me think I could hold my own against people whose sole existence is this pathetic game, when they've spent thousands of dollars and tens of thousands of hours on it since I last even looked at it?

so yeah, some stuff happened...

2008-02-04T09:02:00.000-08:00

eventful weekend. I learned a lot about myself and those around me.

perhaps most importantly, it's really bad for me to drink thirteen cans of pabst in a single sitting. I'm 36 hours removed from the incident and still concerned that if I sneeze I may violently and spontaneously crap my pants. I still think it was probably worth it, but I won't be going on a binge like that a few months.

I also got my come-uppance from paul for years of abuse. he dare-aoked tori amos "cornflake girl" for me to sing. not only is that about the single most retarded song ever written (lyrically speaking), it's also nigh-impossible to sing (definitely would never knock tori's vocal skillz). he watched me suffer and murder the song with great relish. so much was the torture (for everyone else in the room as well), that I got my revenge not once, not twice, but three times. first, a cock-punch was in order. and despite being ten beers in and barely landing a glancing blow, he seemed to be in a lot of pain. the best revenge was served swedish... he thought he was getting up to sing INXS, only to find he was stuck with dancing queen. I bailed him out with our second gay duet of the night (he already had made me duet "breakfast at tiffany's" with him). his suffering wasn't nearly bad enough yet tho, so when kj duke offered me a second dare-aoke, I had to go with "total eclipse of the heart" and AGAIN helped him out (this time backing vocals only). it was the hat trick of gay karaoke duets. paul is proud that he won that round. I will concede he did, but next time he's going to REALLY pay. saturday night I gave him karaoke GOLD, he gave me karaoke equivalent to gargling 151 proof rum. I'll find something suitably evil for him to sing next time. kj duke was looking for someone to sing der kommissar in german...

other highlights of the night including "kiss me deadly" which, unfortunately, was done so late that only about eight people were left to enjoy. I never got around to "lola" by the kinks... I was able to get through a rendition of GnR's version of "live and let die"... fastball's "the way" fell surprisingly flat. miyuki had already left before my tom jones, so she didn't hear me serenade her with "she's a lady"... "don't stop believin'" went as well as could be expected, since I already had no voice by that point thanks to the aforementioned tori.

I'm trying to decide which song was best on the night... alex did a VERY poignant rendition of "my humps" alanis-style... but christine pretty much NAILED "cabaret" in a truly amazing way. I posted video on facebook of brendan's cover of "with a little help from my friends" complete with joe cocker-esque tweaking... but the camera work was REALLY shoddy 'cos I was quite drunk. I think the shaky-cam just adds to the tweaking, personally.

the truly big news of the night was graeme dropping the bombshell that he knocked up his wife. this was a bit of a shock as they had been firmly in the "non-breeder" camp for as long as I've known them (nearly ten years now). I am now deathly afraid that the "biological clock" isn't just some stupid myth like jesus or the female orgasm, but is actually quite real. I am brazenly forecasting a baby boom amongst clubhousers and expect at least two more pregnancies by 2010. I have my theories of who will succumb to parenthood first, but will keep them to myself. personally, I find this to be a much bigger deal than toby's conversion to teh jesus. finding religion isn't as big a commitment, because if necessary, it's pretty easily lost again. found children are a tad bit harder to lose a few years down the road if you change your mind again. I wish all the best to grae and bean, but for the love of all that is holy, don't go giving miyuki any damn ideas...

sunday wasn't as exciting. high point was setting a record at teh chineefoo, a bill of $111.80 for fourteen people. we were there over two hours and for the first time ever left a sizable amount of food still on the table. they had fancy new menus, but otherwise everything was pretty much the same. I think I've overdone the curry chicken chow mein. it doesn't seem as good anymore. but I REALLY liked the black bean beef chow foon, so all is well.

we got home at a reasonable hour, and I checked the stupidbowl score just in time to see I was in line to collect $40 from the pool at work, with only a minute left in the game. then with 51 seconds left, the giants scored, the patriots lost and so did I. stupid patriots. can't even hold a retarded quarterback in check when the game was on the line? I thought they were supposed to be perfect?

I went to bed too late last night (ie, the usual 10pm), so I'm REALLY tired after only getting six hours of sleep the night before. my throat really hurts. I would have just called in sick, but I have shit to do today that couldn't wait until tomorrow.

so of course, I'm blogging instead.

this is just sad.

2008-01-29T18:05:00.000-08:00

one the way home from work tonight, we heard a commercial for smash mouth playing the emerald queen casino. has smash mouth really sunk so far as to be playing the tribal casino circuit? have they even been around long enough to pull off such a feat?

most of the acts playing the casino circuit are 70s and 80s has-beens... this has got to be a first for the mid to late 90's set... jesus, didn't they just have a hit on the shrek soundtrack not that long ago?

I will admit, I had half considered going to see joan jett when she played there, but it was a weeknight, it's like a forty mile drive, and I just couldn't be bothered. she's still hot tho.

but smash mouth? that's just sad... you'd think they could catch on to some reunion type tour for frat boy nostalgia from 1999... what's third eye blind doing?

shamrock pitch.

2008-01-26T08:59:00.000-08:00

we went to see cloverfield the other night. I went in with low expectations, and upon leaving got pretty much what I expected, plus a really horrendous headache.

but after thinking about the movie a bit, I've realised it was a really awful movie, actually.

I'm all for suspension of disbelief, especially in the case of a ginormous monster devouring new york city. but this movie was pushing it a bit. I would have have done things a bit differently...

for one, why was the monster so frickin' huge? pretty sure that would have been the largest creature on earth by far. was it supposed to be an alien or something? 'cos while they made a reference to coelacanth as the possibilities of the abyss and how no one knows what exists deep in the oceans, I'm pretty sure we can rule out a thousand foot long creature the size of a city block. hell, even those gargantuan squid are only a couple hundred feet long, and they don't weigh thousands of tons. hell, even the blue whale is only 200 tons, and it can't survive outside of water, it would be crushed under its own weight on land. why couldn't they have made a smaller monster? maybe more of them? a brood of a dozen or so of those fuckers, maybe fifty feet tall? that would have been a lot more terrifying, and believable.

the parasites were pretty cool, but weren't fleshed out enough. they could have had a much larger role in the carnage. and if these parasites lived off the host monster, wouldn't that mean they'd have some way of getting to its gooey insides? most parasites nourish themselves with blood or something, tho I suppose it's possible they ate dead skin cells or something. but if that was the case, why would the monster be rubbing them off in annoyance? larger creatures, like sharks and sunfish, tend to encourage those symbiotic relationships because they're beneficial. if these were harmful or annoying parasites, they must have been hurting the creature somehow. which means one of two things: they should have either ripped humans (and our soft, pink skins) to shreds, or the monster shouldn't be invincible.

neither of those criteria appeared to happen. while the side effect of a parasite bite WAS cool (probably the best part of the movie), it was no way as instantly damaging as yo would have expected. and seeing as the military was having some trouble with the monster, it would appear impervious to the best the military could offer. so how do you posit a parasite that is kinda bad for humans for not ridiculously powerful, and yet able to get through skin that smart bombs couldn't penetrate?

the worst part had to be the ending... it had the same problem as AI, in that it should have ended about ten minutes before it did. they had a perfectly framed shot for the end credits, and they blew right past it for a cheesy ending that defied logic. either that, or those kids were nearly as invulnerable as the monster. they managed to get up and run away from injuries that should have killed them ten times over, and they just kept doing it. it's sad when the most unrealistic part of a movie about a giant space mutant (or whatever) devouring a metropolis is that the damn kids just won't die.

I probably wouldn't have been as annoyed with the movie if the shaky cam would have stopped. I understand the idea behind it, that it added a sense of urgency and authenticity for the audience, but did they really have to give the RETARDED guy the camera? there were several scenes (the bridge, for instance) that I had no idea what was going on, and was only able to infer from after the fact. I don't know if that was intended or not. but running down a corridor, with the camera bobbing all over the place, or worse, pointed at your feet, is a great way of having me feel REALLY unwell by the end of the movie. I'm wishing I would have brought some dramamine. or watched it at home on the small screen.

after the movie, as we were walking back to the car and staring up at the space needle, we were pondering why seattle never has any apocalypse type movies. I guess it's easy to attack places like new york, where you have millions of people in a small space. to get that kind of carnage in seattle, you'd have to traipse all over several suburbs, and it's just not as exciting (or efficient).

I guess if I want to see bad things happen to the space needle, I'll just have to settle for this.

I'm "scary".

2008-01-25T19:54:00.000-08:00

in the past week at work or with co-workers, I've heard the phrase "you're scaring me" about eight times. I'm not sure why this is. some of the things that have "scared" co-workers...

- eating tofu for lunch

- admitting ownership of a pink nintendo DS

- making a joke that a co-worker friend "tosses the salad" in response to him saying if he drank too much he'd "toss his cookies", and then having to define "toss the salad" to everyone, as none of them had heard the expression

- making another joke at the aforementioned co-worker, claiming we weren't that much different, "I'm in MENSA, you're in NAMBLA" and then having to again explain my joke (which really ruins the humour, but these people aren't the most cultured or intelligent lot)

- reminiscing about my pastel T&C Surf t-shirts from childhood

- making a reference to jonathan swift's a modest proposal (and, you guessed it, having to explain the reference)

- recommending brokeback mountain to people after heath ledger died

- knowing of and having seen nude pictures of the deceased posted on the internet

- insisting that the aforementioned movie was not gay porn, and pointing out there was actually more boob than wang in the damn movie

- opining that jake gyllenhaal was better looking than heath ledger

- when the receptionist mentioned seeing a trailer for "the hobbit" online, I asked if it wasn't actually hobbit porn she saw, as I wasn't aware a trailer existed (making the connection of fetish pornography to something obscure viewed on the internet is too sophisticated of humour, I guess)

- invoking rule 34 as explanation for the above

- finding the idea of naked midgets with furry feet somewhat amusing and not at all unusual in this day and/or age

as I was leaving the office today, it was pointed out that it was a common theme for people to express fear of me, and the co-worker asked why I thought that was. I don't think she was impressed with my answer:

I work with small minded idiots.

seriously, if the people I work with can't handle pop culture, basic internet culture and even mildly homosexual innuendo, they're pretty much dead to me.

and they wonder why I do my damnedest to make them uncomfortable and refuse to conform to their values.

too old to be juvenile, but I'll never outgrow puerile

2008-01-24T08:50:00.000-08:00

I'm a very immature person in a lot of ways. I find scatological humour to be the second funniest type of humour, a close runner-up to the schadenfreudistic joy I get from watching people hurt themselves. really, is there anything more amusing that seeing a guy take a football to the groin? or a punk kid on a skateboard try a trick only to fail miserably and land on his face? or better yet, catch a railing with his crotch? it's not like I'm holier than thou on this either, I know perfectly well that other people laugh at me when I hurt myself comically, and encourage this. after all, if I weren't wincing in pain, I'd be laughing my ass off right next to you.

so it should stand to reason that I talk about poo a lot. it hasn't gone unnoticed by pretty much anyone I've spent more than five minutes with that I can steer a conversation to some bodily function or another within four minutes. it's a talent.

so why should my blog be any different?

I've long held the belief that pooping at work is one of the most satisfying feelings in the worth. YOU'RE GETTING PAID TO POOP! obviously, this is 50% better if you poop during overtime. perhaps the only thing more satisfying (in a slacker mindset) than pooping at work is blogging about pooping at work.

in high school, one of my friends had a poster that illustrated the shit list. it had some omissions, however. I'm pretty sure I've invented these new shits myself...

my favourite is the "gay porn shit"... I love these poops. it's the sudden realisation that, upon turning around to flush and setting eyes on the behemoth monstrosity to crawl from your butt, that you realise if such a beat could come OUT of you, you should be able to fit the same IN you. I've made a few of these poos over the year, and am confident that if I hit truly dire straights, I could fall back on a career in gay porn without much discomfort.

much more rare, and thus more special, is a shit I haven't come up with a catchy name for... but it's only happened to me once. after doing my business and cleaning up, I stood up to flush and essentially reloaded the chamber. I realised I had to sit right back down and double down. this wasn't a liquishit food poisoning thing either... this was a normal, healthy, solid poo and its sequel. it was a peculiar feeling, and one I will cherish until I go senile.

new prezzie.

2008-01-23T20:33:00.000-08:00

miyuki bought me a prezzie today. I'd commented for years how I always wanted an artist manikin, but never had a reason to buy one. I'm a terrible artist, can't draw to save my life, but always thought it would be cool to play with.

my first pose? walk like an egyptian, of course. she didn't like that, so I went with the universal pose every man would recognise.

she didn't get it. help her out, guys?

pretty sure I'm dying.

2008-01-21T21:21:00.000-08:00

I woke up this morning with a headache. this isn't unusual for me, I get headaches all the time. but this headache was worse than normal. I originally chalked it up as an odd hangover, as the night before I drank three bottles of OB at ann & jules' place with dinner. I had a hankering for korean beer, and just couldn't resist something called "oriental brew"... I also couldn't help but giggling at OB being some sort of "original [gangsta] beer" or something. it wasn't a bad beer, tho I was surprised to read the label mentioned it was made from rice. figured rice beer probably makes for a different hangover, and left it at that.

headache continued throughout the morning. it was bearable, but annoying.

around 11am, I had to load a drinking fountain into my car and deliver it. this required lugging an awkward, fifty plus pound box across the warehouse and wedging it into my back seat. not exactly a sisyphean task, but enough to get my heartrate going. and as my pulse went up, so did the pain in my skull. a horrible throbbing right behind my left eyebrow, stretching all the way over to my temple. at this point I first postulated to my fave non-mooki canadian, paul that I likely had a brain aneurysm and would likely die. he lightened my spirits by pointing out it's more like a tumour and I would be dead within hours.

I took some of my loverly canadian tylenol (the good shit with the codeine in it) with a monster energy drink (1000mg of taurine) and my headache had mostly waned by mid afternoon. it had subsided into a normal dull pain, the kind I live with nearly daily. by the time miyuki and I decided to go to the gym, I was feeling as good as I normally do.

two minutes on a stair-stepper had me wishing for merciful death. I couldn't even make it ten minutes on a stationary bike after that, and we left early. I called my mom (a former RN) ont he way home, hoping she'd tell me something important (like go to the hospital now, you dumbass) but she came up devoid of useful help, other than it might be a sinus headache. instead, we stopped at the drugstore, bought some antihistamines and excedrin sinus. I took an antihistamine, an excedrin sinus and an aforementioned canadian tylenol with a stiff double white russian (technically a "honky", my variant using vanilla vodka to make it extra "white"). that, and a long, scalding hot shower (lots of steam) will hopefully have me feeling good/unconscious in no time.

either that, or I'll be dead by dawn. miyuki is terrified of this theory, but I think that has more to do with my telling her I would likely crap my pyjamas after death, leaving her a disgusting legacy to clean up in the morning. she's currently sitting on the couch, watching dirty jobs and weighing the pros & cons right now, counting the life insurance and wondering if it's worth the mess... I've assured her my deathly dookie would definitely be enough to inspire much vomitus, just to keep her on my side.

still, if I die of a brain aneurysm, I expect both of my readers to avenge my death...

bullet dodged. almost.

2008-01-20T10:47:00.000-08:00

it was more a glancing blow, I guess. no REAL harm, but it'll sting a little bit.

my W-2 showed up in the mail yesterday. so I did our taxes today, as that was the final piece of the puzzle... miyuki got hers last week, and we had all of our other stuff already done.

last year, we ended up owing over $1100 in taxes. that sucked ass and our savings took a sizable hit from it. it's the whole concept of us both making a decent salary, but not owning a home or having any children (the IRS frowns on using cats as tax deductions). we both reduced our deductions from 1 (as in each of us) to zero, and bumped up our retirement a little bit. it wasn't enough to get us in the black.

despite the fact that we put about $9k into tax-deferred retirement plans and I had nearly $1800 in deductible student loan interest, we still owe money. but at least this time we only owe 10% of what we owed last year, so that's easy enough to swallow.

the plan for 2008? I've already had EXTRA taxes taken out of my cheque. we're going to max out our retirement contributions, from 10 to 15% (which we should have been doing all along). between paying extra tax and reducing our taxable income, I'm hoping we might actually get a little bit back next year, instead of owing.

and for 2009, we should be in the drivers seat for taking on a mortgage. all our finances should fall into place, the debt will be gone and we can afford to take on the extra expense. and seeing as mortgage interest is deductible, we'll be sitting on a HUGE refund from that point on. those first few years of mortgage payments are basically nothing BUT interest payments... and hey, unlike children, a mortgage actually builds equity instead of robbing it... the timing is looking good, too. dubya's little recession should be pulling out of its nosedive with a (hopefully) democratic president in office, so the market will have bottomed out and some of those condo or house prices in seattle will have fallen back to earth a it into a more reasonable range.

it's good to have a plan. it's even better to have that plan fall into a timeframe that seems reasonable, as opposed to "in ten years, blah blah blah..." we're right around the corner. woot.

what a rip-off.

2008-01-19T19:03:00.000-08:00

we ordered a large pizza from zagi's tonight... this is what they sent us:

seriously, they call that a LARGE? it's barely as big as our entire stovetop, and won't even fit in our fridge. way to go half-assed, zagi's.

it was really tasty. the "some velvet morning" specialty pie... white sauce, prosciutto, guinness carmelised onions, and we added roasted yukon potatoes... very tasty.

relapse.

2008-01-17T21:33:00.000-08:00

I'm on the cusp of doing something bad. I'm really close to falling off the wagon. I'm about to renew my addiction to cardboard crack.

in high school, I played magic the gathering. my friends had been playing it for months, but I had a girlfriend. boobs trump nerds, hands down. but when we split up, I spent a LOT more time with my friends. and all they did was play magic. since it was boring to watch, they set me up with a starter deck. we went to the hobby shop and I paid ten bucks for a "precon" deck. it sucked. I got my ass handed to me every time. and since I'm incredibly competitive and more than a little neurotic, I started buying cards. that's the downside of the game, money usually equates to winning. kinda like everything else in life. your ability will take you so far, but your bankroll can make you unstoppable. if I spent more than my friends, I'd win more.

I had a better job than my friends. I worked in a library for about $7 an hour while they made less than $5 at a movie theatre (this was 1994, mind you). over the next several years, I dropped close to a thousand dollars on cards. and I was damn near unstoppable. the only one who could match me was moe, and he's the friggin' master at all things games. well, and piper, but he's a freak. he built a deck out of nothing but our cast off commons and pwned all of us. before pwned even meant anything. but he's a genius, and he rarely played.

I've been REALLY nostalgic for those halcyon days, ages 17-20. and the two themes of those years, more than anything else, were drugs and magic cards. now that I'm thirty, married and have a stable job, drugs don't seem like such a hot idea. magic cards are relatively harmless, with the exception of the hit my wallet will take. and my street cred, of which I have none anyway.

I'm drawn to the customisable nature of the game. I played with three of my friends in high school almost exclusively, and we all interpreted the game very differently.

moe always played white, or sometimes white with a red tint for direct damage. he liked the notion of a "weenie horde" to overrun opponents with simple infantry type, easy to cast and easy to replace. he was also drawn to the "pure" notion of the white knight/paladin/hero/etc. he loved playing shit like "wrath of god" and wiping everything off the table. fucker.

steve prided himself on being "black and blue". steve is an asshole, even moreso than me. he enjoyed more than anything else the idea of fucking with people. those two colours offered the most disruptive combos and he ran with it.

wilson played black and red, the two most destructive colours. he did a lot of damage, but always lacked balance and ended up losing, usually by harming himself as much as everyone else. he didn't seem to care. he just enjoyed the chaos.

I played an italian deck, with equal parts green/white/red. I started out with just green and white because I thought those colours best represented my personality, but also came to figure out that they suited my playing style as well. I only added red because playing without direct damage is for pussies.

we had various theme decks too. moe's "quicker than shit" was incredible... red/green, lots of creature based mana and direct damage. he usually won within two minutes. I made a novelty deck called "tossed thallid" that was a variation on weenie horde using thallid spore counters and hurricanes for the direct damage (hence the tossing). it wasn't very effective, but it was cheeky.

I'm trying to find people to play with again. I looked it up, and they're up to series ten. I quit playing after series four was released, and bought a shit-ton of revised (series three) cards (including a full sealed box) when I realised they were getting rid of the best cards. I'm scared to see what they've done by series ten. every time they released a new set, it seems like they weakened the best cards (or killed them entirely) and things got gimmicky. I'm going to start off slow, buy a couple decks and a few booster packs, and see if I can even recognise the game. if it looks too lame I'll chalk it up to "you can never go back again" and give up. but if it's remotely promising, I'll probably sink a ton of money into it and fuel my compulsive desire to do whatever the hell it is I feel I need to do but can't properly explain.

I just hope this doesn't end up like that damn pirates game, and I have some people to play with. it'll suck to drop a hundred bucks or more on shit I'll never get to use. again.

may the flying spaghetti monster have mercy on my soul...

what the pho?

2008-01-16T20:25:00.000-08:00

after the gym tonight, we stopped for pho at our friendly neighbourhood pho place. the good one. I decided to try something new. I ordered the soft tendon. I probably won't be doing that again. but I can say I tried it.

it was disgusting to look at. it tasted alright, a bit salty, and kinda slimy like beef fat. if it didn't look so repulsive, I'd probably get it again. I still won't get tripe. I do think I'll switch to brisket from the round eye steak (am I the only one who speculates that "round eye steak" refers to white people they've cut up and put in the soup?). the brisket is something too marbled for my liking, but it tastes so much better...

I also had a bit of a "seattle freeze" moment. there weren't many people in the place. a couple tables over there were two guys, meathead looking types. a couple of hoochie girls came in shortly after and sat behind us. one of the meathead guys ordered an extra large combo. this is a roughly two litre bowl of soup, and it had pretty much every part of the cow in it. it was an ambitious order, but they have it on the menu for a reason. oh, and a diet coke. 'cos after all, you have to have everything in moderation.

when he ordered, one of the hoochies said, really loudly, something along the lines of "jesus christ, where will you stick all of that?!" he responded, "all of what?" and the two hoochies started giggling.

this was mostly disturbing to me because it was so loud as to completely drown out the conversation mooki and I were having. but it also seemed really annoying. I'm sure she thought she was flirting. he probably did too. but I'm from seattle. I'll be the first to admit that I am not overly friendly to random strangers striking up unusual conversations with me. to be approached in such a matter, completely unprovoked, just seems weird to me. it would make me uncomfortable if it happened to me (mostly because these were hoochies and not attractive ladies, but attractive ladies have pretty much never struck up conversations with ME for no reason). hell, it made me uncomfortable just witnessing it.

I'm sure by now the four of them have all gone to some seedy motel and/or one of their places for raunchy sex with each other. I'm debating taking up a collection for the mutant children they are likely conceiving as I type this. but mostly I just don't give a shit.

is it any wonder I expect to end up a hermit in a unabomber shack with a bare bulb swinging over my head and little else by way of furniture?

I need me one of them guvment jobs...

2008-01-16T08:44:00.000-08:00

a few days ago, we got confirmation from homey security of mooki's application to remove conditional status from her permanent residency... they gave us a receipt number (used for tracking and all future correspondence on the case) and cashed our cheque for $545. the notice was dated january 4. we received it january 12.

on monday the 14th, I went to the homey security website to add this receipt number to my "portfolio" so I'd receive email updates as the status changes, but it wouldn't accept the number. I called the 800 number and tried the automated system with the same result. so I sat on hold for twenty minutes to ask if there was a typo or something (don't get me started about how the guvment doesn't make mistakes, they originally set her green card's expiration date at one year instead of two).

they asked me when the notice was mailed. "on the 4th, ten days ago."

"that's too new! you need to wait at least fifteen MORE days before it'll show up!"

it takes them four weeks to punch a damn number into the system for filing purposes. in the meantime, we have zero visibility on the case and have no way of verifying they're doing everything properly. by the time we DO get to see a status, it'll be much more difficult to correct any errors because the process will have moved on to another department.

four weeks to put a label on a folder and log it into a system. at least four weeks before we'll get a notice that she needs to go in and have her "biometrics" registered. again. when I first heard about biometrics, I was impressed. I imagined this whole system where they took all sorts of samples for cloning of an illegal army for the next gulf war or something. turns out that's just a fancy word for fingerprinting.

yup, we're paying another $80 to they can make sure her fingerprints haven't changed in the past two years. I was always under the impression that fingerprints were kinda like, y'know, PERMANENT, but obviously homey security disagrees. after all, I may have had mooki replaced with an illegal mexican or stepford robut in the past two years, so they need to make sure she's still the same person she was before.

talk about retarded. gotta love bureaucracy...

awesome.

2008-01-15T17:07:00.000-08:00

I get the impression this kid puts all of paul's high school parties to shame. they were talking about this on the radio on the way home, and various party tricks you can do to people's houses when you don't know them. throwing a grandfather clock out a second storey window into a pool was pretty bad. pissing into someone's VCR was bad too.

I always go for the simple (and scatological) route... who doesn't love an upper decker?

the psyche of xian: a primer

2008-01-13T08:22:00.002-08:00

this morning miyuki pointed out that sometimes I rub people the wrong way, and that I should be nicer. I tend to tease people, and I'm too sarcastic in nature.

the notion that I should just turn the volume down on my "mean" dial doesn't make much sense. there's a great anecdote from the crying game that is really fitting (swiped from the wikipedia page):

The scorpion, wishing to cross a stream, asked the frog to let him ride his back over the stream. When the frog asked the scorpion how he could be sure that the scorpion would not sting him, the scorpion replied that if he did sting him, it would mean death by drowning for both of them. The frog complies, carrying the scorpion on its back across the stream. Before they reach the other side, however, the frog feels pain and realizes that the scorpion has stung him. He protests, "Why did you sting me, Mr. Scorpion? For now we both will drown!" The scorpion replies, "I can't help it, it's in my nature."

I hated childhood, and my extension, most children. this is the logic I give when people ask me why I haven't bred yet. and the ONLY reason I hated childhood was other children.

my family upbringing was fine. sure, I fought with my sister, but that's normal. my dad instilled a bit too much competitive drive in me, but he thought that was for the best. probably would have been too, had I had any innate talent. my mom was nurturing and all that, and to be honest, the first five years of my life covered the bases about as well as anyone could ask.

then I went to school. I didn't have much social interaction with other kids before school. there was one boy down the street who, already at the age of four, was a bit of a hooligan, and has probably been in and out of jail since. the only other kids on my block were two home-schooled wiener-kids. they were, what is called in modern parlance, "special" in every way. I look back and realise how naive I was, and wonder how the hell those two ever survived. seriously, think of rod and todd flanders, but without the street smarts. these two kids were retarded for jesus and probably just retarded. odds are pretty good they're running some church somewhere and diddling little boys.

growing up, I got picked on a lot. I was a year younger than everyone else in my class, but still one of the biggest kids. a lot of my teachers didn't understand why I got teased so much, and several of them figured I just should have taken care of myself. morons didn't realise I was at a pretty good disadvantage there. I was smarter than most of the other kids, but definitely not tougher. I got beat up more or less constantly. my dad told me to fight back, but that was a mistake. the more I fought back, the more kids that jumped in to help the other guy. kids are such a chivalrous lot. did I mention I was usually getting beat up by kids much older than me, too? like 4-5 years older. I learned pretty quick that my only defense was to turtle, go down and start bawling. this reaction stuck with me through middle school, when I finally snapped. some pretty boy popular kid decided to augment his "rep" by picking a fight with me, thinking he'd have it easy. I snapped. threw the fucker around like a rag doll, slammed him several times into a brick wall. I don't think I ever landed a punch, 'cos I didn't (and still don't, to be honest) know how to hit people. as I was walking away, he went for round two and tried to tackle me from behind. he ended up eating dirt until a teacher broke it up. literally. I just sat on him and mashed his face into a flowerbed. it was the first, and only, time I ever won a fight. that kid instantly lost his "cool" status, and I gained bupkis.

I only had a few friends before high school. and often they weren't the most loyal bunch. I can really relate to arnold rimmer in a lot of ways. his one "friend" once tried to eat him, and later threw his favourite sneakers (with a compass in the heel) into a septic tank. rimmer was wearing them at the time. while my childhood betrayals weren't nearly as dramatic, they were frequent. they left me jaded and unwilling to trust most people, even those who present themselves as allies. high school was a little better, I fell into a group with other rejects and misfits. I haven't seen most of them in years. with most of them, all we really had in common was the proximity and being forced to be in school at the same time. take away those restrictions, and the friendships pretty much fell apart.

I've always acknowledged the likelihood of me ending up in a unabomber shack, bare bulb swinging over my head in the breeze, as I write out poorly written diatribes against humanity. I often tell people that I'm waiting for the comet to crash into earth, and I certainly hope bruce willis (or whoever else they send to stop it) fails miserably and we all die. it just seems fitting. people can be so shitty to one another for no good reason, and it really bothers me.

I think I may have just gotten kicked out of my fantasy hockey league. every year I do fantasy baseball and hockey with the same core group of people, and a few new people. and every year, I end up in a pissing match with one or more of the newbies. I'm usually right, but I go too far. I can't resist mashing their faces in a flowerbed, and it gets old for everyone else. it's entirely possible i won't be invited back after this latest outburst.

like miyuki said, I need to be nicer to people. less caustic, less abrasive. I need to tone down the sarcasm and quit trying to tease other people before they can tease me. I just don't think it's going to happen. the behaviour has been reinforced over the past twenty plus years, it's not going anywhere. it's my one defense mechanism against a horrible world. I really can't help it that I'm happiest when I see other people suffer. schadenfreude is a real thing, and when bad things happen to deserving people, I find it amusing. maybe because it makes up for just a tiny bit of the bad things that happened to me when I was too young, naive and innocent to know any better.

instead, I'm half prepared for the time when everyone ultimately gets sick of my attitude and walks away, leaving me alone in my shack. because sooner or later, everyone does indeed walk away.

I'm not sure how I pulled this off...

2008-01-11T17:10:00.000-08:00

I may have just talked myself into a nice little raise. sort of.

I had already convinced my boss to give me a nice raise. it wasn't what I asked for, but it was close. I think I just closed the gap.

my company offers a small commission program. it's basically 1% of the profit you make in a month beyond $10k. most inside sales and counter sales types, this amounts to maybe $20 a month if they're lucky.

I don't work on the counter. I do commercial quotations. I deal with million dollar condo jobs, and some of them are pretty high end. I'm not supposed to be eligible for this program. no one at my branch in my position has ever gotten it. but I did.

a typical month for me will net me an extra hundred bucks, maybe two hundred in commission. a monster month will net me like five hundred extra.

I'm just peeved this didn't go into effect a year ago... I had a REALLY nice job that we got some amazingly deep backside discounts on, would have been an extra $500 in my pocket back then. but oh well. I'm gonna be happy that I have it now, since I probably shouldn't. an extra hundred bucks or two each month is nothing to sneeze at. I'm definitely going to be looking for ways to break the system tho. I'm pretty sure I can figure out ways to manipulate numbers in a beneficial way for myself.

it's a minor victory. but a victory nonetheless. and it does put me in a better position down the road if we ever move and I leave the company, since I'll be able to tack a couple thousand extra on my annual salary...

she's nearly bona fide...

2008-01-04T07:19:00.000-08:00

Label/Receipt Number: 7007 2560 0000 1880 9728
Status: Delivered

Your item was delivered at 7:12 AM on January 4, 2008 in LINCOLN, NE 68501.

we sent off miyuki's application to remove the conditional status on her permanent residency. threw in a ton of "proofs" that our marriage is legit, as well as a cheque for $545 (stupid greedy governments). hopefully they won't need another interview and they'll just accept things as is. we sent off a copy of our lease, car insurance, bank statements, various pictures and thank you cards addressed to us, and even the plane ticket confirmations for our vegas trip. I'd certainly hope that's enough...

it's just too bad I so horribly botched the pictures from the grand canyon. we would have had some good shots of us in front of a giant gaping hole, had I not screwed up loading the film in my antique SLR camera. we're going all digital from now on. next big trip we make, I'm plunking down several hundred on a digital SLR...

so yeah, we should hear back within a few weeks, and then we won't have to deal with this again until it's time to renew in ten years. and I'm hoping the renewal process is like renewing a driver's license...

best albums of '07.

2007-12-31T11:44:00.000-08:00

I'll put together my top ten fave albums from '07. as always, not all of these albums were RELEASED in '07... I'm usually doing pretty good if I find the bandwagon within eighteen months of everyone else, so cut me some slack.

20. silversun pickups - carnavas
19. gnarls barkley - st elsewhere
18. iron & wine - the shepherd's dog
17. hellogoodbye - zombies! aliens! vampires! dinosaurs!
16. the kaiser chiefs - yours truly, angry mob
15. band of horses - cease to begin
14. tegan & sara - the con
13. lily allen - alright, still
12. muse - black holes and revelations
11. feist - the reminder
10. the arctic monkeys - favourite worst nightmare
9. rilo kiley - under the black light
8. the thrills - teenager
7. bloc party - weekend in the city
6. the weakerthans - reunion tour
5. modest mouse - we were dead before the ship even sank
4. the arcade fire - neon bible
3. the shins - wincing the night away
2. peter bjorn & john - writer's blocks
1. the fratellis - costello music

honorable mentions - albums downloaded but not purchased (yet):
battles - mirrored
rogue wave - asleep at heaven's gate
wilco - sky blue sky

albums I plan to look into based on hype (ie, check next year's list):
lcd sound system - sound of silver
of montreal - hissing fauna, are you the destroyer?

I really didn't see enough movies this year to make a comprehensive list, even a top ten. and seeing as there were gaping holes in what I managed to see, a top five would probably be insulting... so that just won't happen this year.

shitty customer service, redux.

2007-12-28T07:29:00.000-08:00

we dediced to use some of our xmas monies to buy a new digital camera. our old one is crap, and it's quite bulky. miyuki wanted something she could keep in her purse. I did some research, asked some friends, and decided to get a canon powershot.

the initial reviews I'd read lead me to think I wanted the G9. it has a ton of professional quality features and was supposed to be sturdily built. it was also in our price range, albeit at the high end of it. the only place local that had it was circuit shitty in lynnwood. so I drove up there last night. their website said they had it in stock (as well as several other powershots). I stood around for fifteen minutes waiting for someone to help me. during that time, I noticed how HUGE the G9 was, and called miyuki to ask about the alternatives. the SD950IS is a sexy camera, with a sleek titanium body, but the performance wasn't as good as the SD870IS. given that shutter speed and lag was my primary concern, I opted for the SD870. it's not as durable or pretty, but it's supposed to perform better. I told them I wanted one. and I wanted it at the website price of $300, not the sticker price of $350 (the G9 was $430 on the website, $500 in the store). I asked them why they charged more online, when they offered in-store pickup, and they couldn't tell me other than "the website is corporate, and they don't update it as often"... turns out the website also lied. the only powershot they had in stock was the SD750, which didn't have image stabilization. when I asked why I just drove half an hour based on their website's false information, I got the same "corporate" line of bullshit...

so I drove across the street to best buy. within thirty seconds, someone asked if they could help me. I picked up the display SD870IS and was amzed that it had a charged battery and I was able to take some practice shots (none of the displays at circuit shitty worked). I asked about availability, they had one left after selling two that day. I asked about the $350 price tag, and mentioned the aforementioned $300 price on their competitor's website. they said they couldn't match web deals, but she asked her boss and they agreed to knock 10% off. I asked for $50 off, they gave me $35 off. for five seconds of haggling. I'll take it. they didn't give me a bunch of crap about not buying the warranty or accessories, either. I gotta say, for an evil box store chain, best buy ain't bad. and these seems awfully similar to my record store experiences the night before... I used to shop exclusively at circuit city, often blowing as much as $100 a month on CDs and gadgets there when I was living at my parents and had disposable income. I probably bought 200 CDs there in a two year span. I haven't bought anything there in years. I've been in several times, and always walked out empty handed. yet best buy gets a lot of my business. sure, their inventory can't rival amazon or other online stores for the obscure and foreign stuff, but they've got great stock of current and new release type stuff. I don't mind popping in there to grab a DVD I want immediately.

we also stopped at easy street last night. dropped about $75 there, money I had planned to drop at sonic boom. they had at least fifteen copies of the new band of horses. arctic monkeys was $14, not $17. I picked up that lily allen cd (I have a weak spot for eurotrash, okay?) and saw that the mighty mighty bosstones had a new album, grabbed it since it was only $9. miyuki picked ip via audio and jens lekman. we're now one purchase away from another free CD. and when the cashier asked if I found everything okay, I gave him the nutshell blog rant from yesterday and complimented his store on always having what I was looking for, mentioning it was worth the extra effort of getting there. he was gracious about it, and even apologetic for sonic boom which was surprising. knowing how rarely we get those kind of comments at my work, I thought it was important to pass along the feedback, even if it didn't go any higher than him. I'd certainly hope he mentions it to his superiors tho.

so now we have plenty of new music for our trip to canada this weekend, and we have a nice new digital camera to take some pictures at that hockey game tonight. yay! consumerism!

I don't know why I even bother...

2007-12-26T21:19:00.000-08:00

I wanted to pick up a couple cds tonight. I've heard both arctic monkeys and band of horses on the radio lately, liked what I've heard and have read tons of praise for both bands as well, so I thought I'd check them out. better late than never, right?

there's a record store about three blocks from our apartment called sonic boom. over the past five years, I've probably dropped $500 there. hell, my first trip into the store cost me about two hundred, but that was my first volley towards replenishing a divorce depleted music library. I don't think we've bought anything there in at least a year. and it's not for lack of trying. they just suck ass.

see, there's this other record store called easy street that's about ten minutes from here. we drive home from it every day from work. it's a semi-regular tuesday tradition for the two of us to stop in there, pick up some new releases and a slice of pie at pagliacci across the street. easy street is amazing. it has everything. it's generally cheaper than sonic boom (usually by $1-$4 per cd), they have 10x the used selection, and they offer a frequent buyer card (buy fifteen, get one free). we've redeemed at least four free cds in the past couple years... hell, they even have free parking, which is a premium on queen anne. my biggest beef with them is they don't count dvds on their frequent buyer stamp cards, but that's fairly minor.

but most importantly, they actually stock the music their target demographic is shopping for. sure, they have a small amount of pop40 crap at ridiculous prices (does anyone actually pay $18 for britney spears?), but most of their indie stuff is under $14, and it's ALWAYS in stock. there has literally been ONE time I've gone in there and been turned away (tv on the radio - return to cookie mountian). but when I asked, they were very apologetic and gave me a $2 off voucher for my next trip in, when they had it in stock.

I have NEVER received that courtesy from sonic boom. and I don't really care. 95% of my business goes to easy street anyway, so I figure I just try to throw sonic boom a bone every now and then. we stopped in there for the juno soundtrack after seeing the movie, but were turned away because it hadn't been released yet, fair enough. but we've tried at least a half dozen times and always been turned away. they didn't have band of horses tonight, despite it being #2 on their best sellers for last week. in fact, about 60% of their "top sellers" rack was empty. maybe they didn't get their shipment because of the holiday... but it's REALLY shitty business practice to allow yourself to run out of your best selling product, especially around the holidays. right now, their target demographic is looking to spend ill-gotten xmas monies on hipster music, and they can't find it. that kind of shit will drive customers away like you wouldn't believe. they did have arctic monkeys, but it was $17. I bet it's $14 at easy street. I nearly picked up a lily allen cd for $12, but decided against it.

I'm going to punish sonic boom for their poor business practices. and if they go out of business, I won't feel bad. I'm not going to even bother trying to give them my money anymore. they obviously don't want it very badly.

xmas loot.

2007-12-24T23:23:00.000-08:00

so my family does things a bit weird. we did our xmas stuff on xmas eve. had a nice ham, got the family together and then we opened all of our gifts. this is partially because of various custody issues with the nephew(s), partly the logistics of getting everyone together, and mostly just because we're horrible people. it started when I was a kid as a means of insuring everyone slept in til a reasonable hour (I used to make the argument that 2am was technically xmas morning, etc), the the idea of opening at least some gifts xmas eve dates back to my mom's childhood.

for the past several years, the loot has consisted of books and movies, thanks to my mom's employment at barnes and noble. this year was no different. it was a nice little haul.

the dvds...

studio 60 - complete series
red dwarf VII
red dwarf VIII (finally completing my set on dvd, making the vhs obsolete)
slither
the office - season 2
the office - season 3
elizabethtown (I think I'm the only person on earth who liked this flick)
300

and the books...

non campus mentis - world history according to college students (both the funniest and most depressing read I've ever had - simultaneously)
world war z by max brooks (follow up to zombie survival guide)
made in america - an informal history of the english language in the US) by bill bryson
only revolutions by mark z danielewski (poe's brother, author of "house of leaves")
lamb - the gospel according to biff, christ's childhood pal by christopher moore

I'm happy. I have several days worth of entertainment in both mediums. it'll keep me busy. I just need to make time to read more often, I've been really awful the past few years.

this is disturbing...

2007-12-20T08:33:00.000-08:00

Uninsured cancer patients more likely to die

am I the only one who thinks this is a ridiculous thing to study? cancer is exactly something that you can cure with bedrest and a bowl of chicken noodle soup. chemo and radiation therapy, to say nothing of invasive surgeries to remove tumours, are incredibly expensive. odds are pretty good if you don't have insurance, you don't have fat stacks of cash lying around either.

so gee, if you don't have insurance and can't pay for treatment, you mean you're more likely to die of cancer? I'd be curious to see how strong the correlation is between "not getting treatment" and "not surviving" is...

jesus christ, people are stupid... where do I sign up to get in on that government grant to study whether or not water is wet?

it seems to me that fixing the health care system could be better suited by spending money on things that aren't blatantly obvious. I still contend that insurance companies are WHY the health care industry is so fucked up. if they weren't constantly fucking with the prices, maybe people could actually afford to pay for procedures themselves. or heaven forbid our government actually subsidise health care, like they do in civilised countries...

but hey, at least c-89 is playing "tarzan boy" for the second time this morning.

I love bizarre love thursday.

2007-12-20T07:38:00.000-08:00

thursday mornings are my fave morning of the week. every thursday from 7-9, c-89 plays the "save the wave" mix, formally known as bizarre love thursday (a much better name). you can stream this anywhere in the world, as I do every thursday morning (we get crap reception in our concrete prison here at work).

so far, I've heard the following:

the icicle works - birds fly (whisper to a scream)
new order - blue monday
baltimora - tarzan boy
thomas dolby - she blinded me with science
men without hats - the safety dance
depeche mode - route 66

seriously, it doesn't get any better than this.I wish c-89 did this 24/7...

newsflash: redneck teen pregnant! father is unknown, cousins being questioned...

2007-12-18T19:47:00.001-08:00

it's a sad state of affairs when this is a top news story on yahoo.

those spearseses must be kicking themselves about now. they just watched their SECOND meal ticket fuck up its life and likely derail a lucrative career in the entertainent industry. most families don't get ONE meal ticket child to take advantage of, and they've managed to fuck up two of them.

it's a sad day when billy ray cyrus seems like a swell example of how to raise a kid.

I guess I just have to wonder why, when you have a teenage daughter who is raking in millions of dollars in tv, music, movies, etc, you let her go out and get knocked up. wouldn't you recognise that her value is pretty much optimal when she appears pure and chaste and therefore can be looked up to by stupid little girls everywhere? y'know, something like a role model.

not to say juno wasn't an awesome movie or anything. I'm just saying that's not exactly the role model most parents look to for their young daughters. if I was those spearses, and I recognised the cash cow I had in that little tramp, I would totally lock her away in a dungeon when she wasn't acting on tv. and build a moat.

it's not like she's going to have a "normal" life in showbiz anyway. look at big sis, after all! but I guess she's going to be "normal" after all... and unwed teen mother in the deep south... yeah, that sounds pretty typical. especially if it turns out the father is also a not-so-distant relation...

I promise to only use my powers for truth and justice...

2007-12-14T07:22:00.000-08:00

sometimes I wish I could turn off my survival instinct. right after I dropped you off, I nearly got into a car accident. as I was turning from stewart onto fifth (that little triangle @ westlake), there were two lanes turning. there was a bus in the center lane, so I got in the far left lane. there was a brand new silver maserati behind the bus, and I could just tell he was going to cut me off.

he did. sort of. problem was, he wasn't in FRONT of me at the time. he was beside me. I had to slam on my brakes and lay on the horn. fucker didn't even flinch, he just kept going.

I'm really wishing I would have just let him plow into me. our car is a piece of shit anyway, and the pleasure of knowing he fucked up his cherry italian sports car, AND he would have been 100% in the wrong, likely would have offset the pain in the ass of getting my car fixed.

stupid survival instinct. I was even doing the calculations in my head right before it happened, too. I knew it was going to happen, and I chose to prevent it. and the fucker goes off scot-free without any consequences for being a complete douchebag.

this is why I need the power to give people brain cancer.

I don't get it...

2007-12-10T11:17:00.000-08:00

we were in canada over the weekend, and as we were driving home, I tried to get a traffic report to know what we were in for at the border. it can vary, seemingly randomly, from ten minutes to several hours on a sunday night. I generally like to know how pissed off I'll be before I actually get there.

problem was, there was no traffic report. the news station was supposed to do it every ten minutes, but there was non-stop coverage of a verdict in the robert pickton case. I had heard about this earlier in the day, as it was all over the news.

for those unaware, pickton is a pig farmer and serial killer rivaling washington's green river killer. he focused mainly on prostitutes, probably believing they wouldn't be missed or something. he's most known in canada for disposing of the bodies by putting them through a meat grinder and allegedly into sausages he then served to neighbours. it's a notorious case in canada, and the investigation has gone on for years. he was on trial for the first six murders, with twenty more charges queued up, and possibly twice as many unsolved murders with charges yet to be filed.

so as I'm waiting for the damn traffic report, I'm stuck listening to a really boring press release, in both english and french, as they recount just how hard they've worked and how much evidence they've collected. if you stack the boxes on top of each other, it's taller than the space needle. if you lined up the paperwork end to end, it would reach from vancouver to revelstoke. why the police have been spending time quantifying their efforts in such ridiculous means is beyond me... but then they cut to public reactions, including victims families, to the guilty verdicts in the first six cases.

one woman mentioned how it was good for the families of those six victims, but the rest of them still had to wait for justice.

what?

the guy is in jail. he's going to stay there for a long time (and likely get killed there, as serial killers often do). there will likely be years of further trials as they proceed with more charges. the guy is probably never going to get out of jail.

so why does it matter that he's in jail right now because he killed someone OTHER than YOUR daughter? the dude is in jail. he's being punished. they'll get to the rest of the counts eventually. do we really need to divide up his time served based on some arbitrary victim assignment? "these first ten years are for tiffany, the next ten are for susan, etc"... what about those who get tried last? surely the guy isn't going to live to be 300, he's going to be dead long before THOSE sentences come into play. does that mean those women's families won't get to feel justice has been served for them, since he didn't rot in jail for THEIR sentences?

it just seems like a really stupid, almost selfish way of looking at the case. the guy is in jail. you have your closure. even if another charge is never laid, he'll never see life outside those bars ever again. no parole board would ever let him out, and he's already facing six 10-year terms for second degree murder.

I really don't understand people.

I can't help but appreciate the irony...

2007-12-06T11:52:00.000-08:00

as pretty much everyone in north america has likely heard by now, a good chunk of western washington has been underwater for the past week or so. it's so bad that a twenty mile stretch of interstate-5 (the main thoroughfare between the canadian and mexican borders along the west coast) is closed south of olympia. this is really the ONLY way to get between seattle and portland, short of a 300 mile detour through eastern washington. it's some serious shit.

this stretch of highway is used by tens of thousands of vehicles each day, and I think I read somewhere that it's costing the local economy four million dollars a day in lost revenues, to say nothing of all of the damage to homes, buildings and infrastructure...

the good news is, they're getting close to re-opening the freeway. the flooding is down to four feet (it crested around twenty feet!) and they hope to have it opened up again by tomorrow. the governor (christine gregoire) has been onhand to oversee the repairs and all that poop, but has been hesitant to dip into the budget surplus to cover the repairs. I saw this in a seattle-pi article and had to chuckle...

At the briefing, Gregoire said she hopes to do any needed work without touching the state's rainy day fund, which currently holds about $450 million.

"I'd like to keep the rainy day fund there and intact," she said.

if this isn't the very definition of need for a RAINY DAY FUND, I don't know what the hell is...

I'm famous on the interwebs!

2007-12-04T09:46:00.000-08:00

my fifteen seconds of fame

a first-name only mention in a news post on a fairly popular webcomic... unless I go out of my way to tell people that "good buddy christian" in seattle is ME, no one would ever know.

hence, I'm telling both of my readers. woot!

all for scanning a comic out of the PI and emailing it off... seems kinda weird that mr. rstevens didn't know for sure that his work was being used in a newspaper, but what do I know?

this is retarded.

2007-12-03T20:20:00.001-08:00

Sperm donor liable for child support, judge rules

this has got to be about the stupidest thing I've seen in a long time. I don't even know where to begin.

the kid has two parents, a lesbian couple. the kid was raised with two moms. he knew he had a father, and had even had contact over the years. the guy was nice enough to send birthday cards and crap like that. he was doing what he thought was right. it could be argued the kid is better off knowing who his father was, even if he didn't know the guy personally. a sense of familial history, knowing where you came from and all that, to say nothing of having an accurate genetic background when it comes to medical problems down the road.

but now that he's eighteen, and ready for college, evidently his moms didn't want to pony up the bill? that's a fucking joke. it flies in the face of gay rights when it comes to rearing children, it flies in the face of feminism by showing that these two women DO need a man for something, and it just flies in the face of common sense.

the guy donated sperm. he had nothing to do with the kid otherwise. he didn't get to make decisions on how the kid was raised, probably didn't get a say in the kid moving across the country, and essentially had no rights as a parent for the first eighteen years of the kid's life. so why should he have to fork over tens of thousands of dollars to pay for this kid's college education? that's utter horseshit. the relationship between father and son consisted of a damn zygote.

the women that are perpetuating this strongarm tactic, this blatant robbery, should have their damn kid taken away. they're horrible human beings, and don't deserve the privilege of warping a young mind.

pinched nerves, snow and idiots.

2007-12-02T09:14:00.000-08:00

somehow I woke up friday morning and couldn't move my head. my neck had seized up on the left side, I wouldn't turn my head or anything. I tried going to work, but only made it through half a day before I had to some home and try to sleep it off. I took a bunch of muscle relaxers left over from the last time my back went out, and they helped a bit. I even went into the chiropractor, but he didn't have any witch doctor trips to fix it. he adjusted in a couple times and said I'd feel "about 75% tomorrow"... we even missed out on a friend's birthday party because I couldn't go out...

turns out he was right. it still hurt like hell yesterday, but at least it had stretched enough that I could turn y head, albeit in pain. since we were driving to canada, it's generally a good thing when you can turn to check your blind spots. unfortunately, we didn't make it to canada.

mother nature can be a cruel bitch. it started snowing around burlington. no worries, I slowed down to about forty mph and kept going. unfortunately, other people in washington don't know how to drive in the snow. we watched a big stupid looking SUV (chevy avalanche, I think) spin about 540 degrees and end up with its back wheels in the ditch. it was going about twenty mph at the time, and was on a straightaway. I'm still not sure about the physics of that. another ten minutes of driving resulted in six more cars in ditches. mind you, this was with less than an inch of snow on the ground. at that point, I decided it wasn't worth the trip. at the rate we going, it would take another four to five hours to get there (we were an hour away at normal speeds) and I didn't want to risk some moron crashing into me. we turned around and came home. I spent three hours at les schwab getting my snow tires put on, so we'll be prepared for the trip next weekend v2.0, and for our trip south at xmas. of course the snow is all gone today. it's not supposed to snow again for while... but paying $50 to put the snow tires on seemed like a worthy investment, just in case.

my neck still hurts today, but it's better than yesterday, and the pain is pretty much bearable. I'm hoping by tomorrow it's completely healed itself.

now we just need to decide what to do today. I think miyuki just plans to play super mario galaxy all day.

"sensitivity" training.

2007-11-27T19:27:00.000-08:00

I had to undergo sensitivity training at work. it's not like when my dad did (he made a girl cry when he fired her), but rather a branch-wide course about harassment. pretty sure this is because the company is being sued because of some asshole that used to work there... but it could also have to do with a couple of the more crazy womens threatening lawsuits all the time.

anyway, the "training" was ridiculous. mostly it was a stupid video talking about all the different "protected classes" of people you can't offend. it covers the standards (race, gender, sexual orientation, etc) but also covers a ton of other things... military service, obesity, body odour, depression, marital status, being over 40, all sorts of shit like that.

basically, about the only "class" that isn't covered is being a middle class, 30 year old white, straight married male. so basically, I'm one of the few people at the branch that can't claim discrimination for something or another, unless I gain another fifty pounds or you have a REALLY liberal interpretation of "body odour"...

it seems so stupid. they said you couldn't listen to music, talk about politics, religion, movies you saw, or basically have any sort of personality whatsoever. basically, because anyone with a broomstick up their ass could be offended by pretty much anything, you have to walk on eggshells around everyone.

worst part was, they actually told people to talk to your supervisor if you have a problem, and if they don't "respond" to it, you file a harassment claim. so if management blows you off for being a moron, they basically told you to file a lawsuit. how can that be good for anyone?

simple fact is, everyone has to work with an asshole or three. everyone has to put up with people they don't like. why the hell should some people be able to win hundreds of thousands of dollars for whining about the same crap the rest of us just deal with?

I really loathe the human race sometimes. and by "sometimes" I mean pretty much constantly.

when is that comet gonna crash into the earth and wipe out humanity?

I don't get it.

2007-11-23T23:35:00.000-08:00

I'll troll the "strictly platonic" section of craigslist from time to time, since we've met a few friends through there and it seems like a good idea to keep an eye out for other geeky types in town.

now I can understand how there's a large number of stupid people out therewho don't understand what "platonic" means... and nearly as many who don't understand what the 't' in "m4t" means (boy are THEY in for a surprise!). there's a near constant stream of really lame attempts to hook up, both straight and gay, from morons who can't post in the right section. there's also the "I'm married but I want to chat with someone of the opposite sex" which is never a good thing... but this kind of shit is normal human nature. people are stupid.

what I don't get is the dozens of posts each day looking for "420"... are these people really that stupid? I gotta figure a full half of those posts are stings set up by the cops, and the other half (legit posts) are likely being answered by cops... I remember in high school when people bought weed, it was always from someone that SOMEBODY knew, even if it's "my friend's cousin's friend's sister"... it's not like it's THAT hard to find someone that can sell you weed. why the fuck would you broadcast on the internet that you want to engage in a crime?

just so you know, you fucking morons, the cops have cracked your little code... they know what "420" means...

rockin' out with my cock out.

2007-11-20T10:22:00.000-08:00

there was cock everywhere. it was pretty impressive.

the copy of guitar her 3 for wii I ordered showed up yesterday. I spent a good three hours last night playing it. my second attempt went a lot better than my first last year. that maiden voyage involved about the first forty seconds of "TROGDOR!" and me getting really pissed off.

playing on the easy level without an audience went a tad more smoothly. I got through about thirty songs, only got booed off stage once, and even managed a five star song. my fingers were pretty stiff when I went to bed last night, and my fingertips are pretty damn tender and more than a little numb today.

I don't know if I'll ever get to even the medium level of difficulty. I'm having plenty of trouble with the easiest level. I did notice that practicing on the slower settings increased the difficulty, which seemed counterintuitive. I managed to beat the first two bosses, both on my second attempt. I imagine by the end of the day wednesday I'll have the easy level beaten. I'm going to continue playing it indefinitely however, adding a fourth button would just lead to me smashing the guitar. I have enough trouble with three buttons.

I haven't yet figured out the hammer on and push offs. any time I try to use the whammy bar usually results in my dropping the note. star power ALWAYS results in me missing the next note (or five). and probably the most annoying thing, whenever I hit a fifty note string, it flashes across the screen and I nearly always flub the next note. I get too distracted by the various things on the screen, but haven't figured out how to turn that stuff off (if it's even possible).

I am a bit disappointed that I don't know a lot of the songs on there. a few of the songs I knew, but didn't know the artist or title... but a lot of them I've just plain never heard. especially the bonus songs you can buy: I only knew the kaiser chiefs. there's like ten other songs there I've never heard of. that's not necessarily a bad thing, the only song I managed five stars on was some crap song by AFI I'd never heard...

we also picked up super mario galaxy, so I imagine I'll need to share the wii with miyuki so she can play that. but for now I'm monopolising the thing in an effort to rock harder. it's pretty pathetic.

woooo hypochondria!

2007-11-15T12:50:00.001-08:00

I'm going into the doctor later. I've felt like crap all day, and have been really lethargic all week. been going to bed around 9pm and having difficulty waking up at 6:30am. miyuki said maybe I had sleep apnea, since I snore sometimes. it would make sense, my dad has it. but when I pressed the issue, it turns out I don't snore much.

I came home from work halfway through my day because my neck has swollen up. I essentially have no chin. I stopped and picked up a thermometer because I felt warm, and was a little concerned when it showed my body temp is around 96 degrees.

so I decided to look some stuff up to have ridiculous questions to ask the doctor tonight. the first thing I found was hypothyroidism, a condition my mom has. three of the top indicators of this are swollen glands, fatigue and low body temp.

hey, at least it's not leprosy.

this is hilarious...

2007-11-09T20:37:00.000-08:00

got this memo this morning:

"CONGRATULATIONS!!!!

You ALL have been volunteered to attend

"SENSITIVITY EDUCATION"
(Harassment in the Workplace)

THIS IS NOT VOLUNTARY
IT IS MANDATORY - ALL STAFF

Tuesday, November 27
1st session 3:30-4:30
2nd session 4:30-5:30
NO EXCUSES, NO NOTHING
MAKE ARRANGEMENTS NOW

Thank you, Management"

so I have two and a half weeks to come up with some good insensitive material to bring up at the meeting... any suggestions?

our little bundle of joy. and circuity. and plastic. mostly joy.

2007-11-09T07:52:00.000-08:00

we have our new compy set up. we named him mordecai. he's adorable. date of boot: 11/4/07. 6.5" x 6.5" x 2", 2.9 pounds. he's got a pasty white complexion, like his daddy.

last night we drove around looking for toys for the little bugger. we picked up a legit copy of iwork '08, so we can quit using the trial. we got a new matching keyboard and mouse. it'll take awhile to get use to that mighty mouse. I keep squeezing it in the wrong place and doing something weird to the screen. we also picked up an external hard disk enclosure. turns out best buy kinda sucks for those (they were all over $50, and by "all" I mean "both"), so we drove down to ren-ton to visit fry's, that mecca of electronic geekery. it had been years since I'd been in a fry's, I had forgotten how BIG they are. they had a selection of about twenty enclosures. we ended up picking the first one we saw, despite looking them all over. $35, AC powered (could not find a single USB powered one), not too horrendously ugly.

we got home, and I started playing whilst watching the office. I managed to get the hard drive installed with minimal cursing, and seem to have everything working. I've copied over all of the files from it, but didn't have chance last night to do a format. this weekend I'll wipe the drive and set up time warp (it's just a jump to the left...) and start playing with some of the other goodies as well. I may even go questing for a leopard dummies book, if there's one released already. it's been so long since I've used a mac, and I really never dabbled with os x much, I could use a thorough tutorial... I do wonder if we should have picked up some dvd-r's while we were at the store. I noticed we've already filled 100gb of the 120gb drive, mostly with torrents. I've been deleting the torrents as I buy the DVDs, but some of those torrents just aren't out yet or may never be released (I'm looking at you, "Cupid"!)... would be nice to burn them to dvd. I just need to figure out how. but hey, at least I've figured out how to use the RSS. a little bit. it's linked in my browser as "thegoogle.aol" for shits and giggles. now I just need to find a proper news feed to read. I'm thinking BBC or CBC, since I don't really trust the 'merkin media...

I imagine that will account for most of my weekend. I may come into work for a few hours to pick up some OT, but mostly I'm going to be geeking out. w00t.

gone to stumptown...

2007-11-03T07:03:00.000-07:00

we're on our way south this morning for the weekend. taking the nana out to lunch, watching one of the wiener-nephews play a soccer game, have a nice roast beef dinner with the fam...

the highlight of the weekend will be sunday tho, when we go shopping tax free in portland. I'm getting a new compy for the first time in seven years. the fan in our hand-me-down PC from miyuki's work is dying, and while that would be easy enough to replace, we're using it as an excuse to buy a new one. I want the mac mini, the high end one with the dvd burner and 2.0ghz dual core processor. it'll be nice to get back onto a mac, especially since I haven't used much of os X on a compy that can actually handle it. eventually we'll get the wireless keyboard and mouse, but for now we'll just have a mismatched set. I'm okay with that. I will bug jules into helping me replace the fan in the old pc (Der Waffle Haus) so we have a backup system... pretty sure I'll yank out 160gb hard drive out of it and get an external case for it. I do need to think up a good name for the new compy tho... I've named all of my computers. Waffle Haus, Hobbes, Nietzsche, Yossarian, Nebuchadnezzar, I can't remember any before that... suggestions are welcome.

miyuki is also going xmas shopping... we're terrible people. I already bought my xmas prezzie from her, a new montreal canadiens pro rbk sweater, customised with koivu's name and number. it's in my closet. so she's getting a nice winter coat. we're justifying it as we don't really care about xmas, and she needs the coat anyway. I got my jersey when I did because it was on sale and we saved fifty bucks. I've already finished all of my xmas shopping otherwise for my family. mooki still needs to do a little bit for her family, but they're only getting token gifts 'cos I'm cheap and we won't be in canada this year anyway. I like how my family does xmas. we have a $25 cap on spending per person. my mom ignores this because she can afford to, and nana always breaks out the chequebook in a ridiculous feat of generosity, but otherwise we limit our spending. my sister has three kids, and I have $30k in student loan debt. maybe ten years from now we'll spend more. but for now, I'm fine with not getting as much if I don't have to spend as much. bah humbug.

CBC can eat my asshole.

2007-10-27T12:09:00.001-07:00

I didn't pay for hockey this year, so I only get to see two games a week, at most. every saturday, CBC shows a double header called "hockey night in canada". one east coast game, one west coast game.

the east coast game is ALWAYS toronto against whoever toronto is playing. the second game is split pretty evenly between calgary, edmonton and vancouver, the three west coast canadian teams.

this sucks. why? because toronto sucks. I'm a huge habs fan, I'd much rather watch montreal. but if my choice was toronto or ottawa? I'd take the sens in a heartbeat. hell, I'd take ANYONE over toronto in a heartbeat. fourteen other teams in the eastern conference, and I'd rather watch any of them.

but this week is particularly terrible. montreal is playing the pittsburgh penguins. captained by sid the kid, sidney crosby, the pride and joy of nova scotia, and the best player to come out of canada since wayne gretzky. montreal, meanwhile, has won 24 championships and had several dynasties. the maple leaves haven't won a championship since 1967. they've had their fair share of scandals since then, however, including a nasty bout of pedophilia in the 70s and 80s. they're a team full of cheap-shotting prima donnas, and yet they are CANADA'S TEAM. thus, the national broadcast is toronto vs the new york rangers. only the quebec and maritime region will get to see sid square off against the habs.

so fuck CBC. fuck "hockey night in toronto". and may it be another forty years before the worthless maple leaves win another championship...

ch-ch-ch-changes.

2007-10-26T19:18:00.000-07:00

ann, the last blogger on earth, has bugged me into adding an RSS feed to my neglected blog... it took awhile to even figure out what the hell I was doing. there was a time when I was up on computer technology. I ran my own BBS, I hacked into the network in my high school's computer lab, I even coded my own html about ten years ago... but lately, technology is leaving me behind. I can barely manage bit torrents. I'm confused by and scared of social networking. I find text messages on my phone to be both annoying and expensive...

yet here I am. broadcasting via RSS on the inter-tubes. it's ann's fault. the hideous new template is her fault as well, the old template didn't have an RSS link and I was too lazy to figure out how to add it.

lots of poop has happened recently. several of us hit the fremont zombie walk '07. it was awesome. I was glad we didn't look like lame zombies, but we definitely weren't in the cream of the crop either. some of those folks just spent way too much time and money on costumes and makeup. they do a few a year, but we figure once annually is good enough for us. I dropped probably $50 on makeup and fake blood, and had to throw out the clothes soaked in fake blood. miyuki made me some awesome fake intestines too, but those had to go as well, they were starting to go off. the flick pics are here. there are quite a few of me in there...

I did end up with a nasty rash on my neck from the spirit gum used to attach my massive gash. it's a very pretty bright pink raised chunk. it looks like someone attacked me with digusting puff paint. the rash is only now going away, five days after the zombie walk.

I should be getting a sizable raise at work... not as sizable as I asked for, but they're not asking me to do as much as I offered too, either. there is a rumour that my old boss (the one that ran me out of the company to begin with) may be taking over my branch, which would be bad... but I don't know yet. the rumour doesn't make any sense, but that's never stopped them before. if he is my new boss, I imagine I'll be looking for work again soon. I really don't want to work for him again. fortunately, I've developed some good relationships with customers and reps, I could probably find work easily enough if I needed to.

I've also decided to get a new compy. the one miyuki got from work for free over a year ago is dying. it might just be the fan, but it's seeming awfully slow, and I want to switch back to a mac. we're going to get a mac mini next weekend (save the tax in portland). top of the line model, super drive and everything...

I already have my xmas prezzie from miyuki... "she" got me a new habs sweater, the 1946 retro reverse colour scheme, customised with koivu's name & number. my old habs sweater was ten years old, I needed a new one. and it was on sale, so we ordered it. she's getting her prezzie early too, because we're horrible people. she wants a nice new winter coat, we'll go shopping for that this weekend...

we're having some friends over and the in-laws down for thanksmurder. I'll be cooking again this year. the turkey turned out really well last year, I just need to perfect my gravy skills.

we've already done about half of our xmas shopping. yay! I just need lists from my sister's clan and we'll be done with my family. we're not doing much for miyuki's this year, since we won't be in canada for the holidays...

so yeah, that's life in a nutshell, for my audience of one...

fuck neumo's (or: what kind of day has it been?)

2007-10-05T21:58:00.001-07:00

today was supposed to be the awesomest day ever.

I was supposed to get the raise/promotion I was promised three months ago.

I was supposed to get the office I was promised six months ago.

I was supposed to go out for ethernopian food for dinner.

I was supposed to see my favouritist band, the weakerthans, in concert for the first of two concerts in as many nights.

well, at least I got ethernopian for dinner...

I didn't get my promotion. my boss decided he should drive a truck until 3pm. his boss decided to go to lunch at 11:30 and never come back. I needed both of them present to discuss my new job description and pay raise. now I won't get to talk to them until wednesday at the very earliest. and to be honest, I doubt it will even happen then. my boss has been promising me a promotion to department head (and a 20% or so raise to go along with it) for months now. but he's a lame duck, he's transferring at the end of the year. I've talked to HIS boss, and he won't do shit unless he's cornered. I've yet to get both of them in the building at the same time.

I was also supposed to get an office today. I finally whined enough, after being promised in the spring, to get someone to approve getting the phone company in to set up lines at the other end of the building. that's done, so the two people in "my" office just need to move out. it was supposed to happen thursday. it was supposed to happen today. it never did. and it probably never will. I'll be stuck out in a tiny cubicle with no privacy and even less working space. another example of my employer making empty promises to try to keep me happy.

I had an even bigger asshole moment today too... one of our printers jammed, but it didn't register. so it just kept printing orders all day long. since I found it, it was my problem to fix. I called out IT department and asked them to check the print log and tell me everything that had printed on that printer in the past 24 hours. I was told that was impossible, because once a print job spools it is purged from memory and can't be recovered. so I went about doing it the hard way, generating reports of open orders and shit. pain in the ass. two hours later, something came across the fax to a coworker with a list of 51 orders and a note, "here's the list you requested, [not xian]!" from the same bitch who told me she couldn't do anything. when I asked my coworker about it, he started giving me shit about "catching more flies with honey"... which is a load of shit. the woman who helped him (and was flirting with him) but wouldn't help me is a bitch. she's WORSE than the stereotypical BOFH. she's about 45, russian, and attractive. and she knows it. she uses her tits to get her way, and doesn't give a shit about you if you don't somehow improve her life somehow. I asked her politely to DO HER FUCKING JOB and she refused. but because my coworker called up, did the same thing, but also flattered her fucking ego, she did it for him. that's fucking horseshit. and I was about to deck the coworker who was lecturing me on how to deal with people nicely. fuck that. women who use their sexuality to get ahead are fucking whores.

so yeah, by the time I left work, I was in a pretty bad mood. I had a bad headache. I picked up miyuki, drove to the venue for the concert, and tried to pick up our tickets. I ordered our tickets online nearly three weeks ago, to be mailed to us. they never arrived. when I called earlier in the week, I was told "it can take 7-10 business days for tickets to be processed. they were printed on 9/20. if you don't have them by thursday, call back." thursday came, no tickets. I sat on hold for fifteen minutes at ticketswest (it's sad when you actually miss being anally raped by ticketmaster), and was told they put my tickets on will call.

I show up about 5:30, the box office is closed. I ask around, I'm told they open the box office closer to when they open the doors, around 8pm. so we went for dinner. we got back at 6:30, the box office still wasn't open. by 7:15, a line was forming at the back door, so I got into it. 8 comes and goes, they still haven't opened anything.

at 8:15, they finally open the box office window. they start distributing tickets, which are literally those little "admit one" tickets you get at a carnival. they then tell us to stand in another line IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STREET. at 8:30, they finally open the doors and start letting people in. the back door. the front door was never opened. everything happens through the back door. why even have a front door?

we notice the list on the door had the first opening band from 9-9:30, the second band from 10-10:30, and weakerthans from 11-12:15.

my urge to kill was rising. my headache was getting worse.

at 9:30, the opening act STILL hadn't taken the stage. I was ready to firebomb the whole fucking venue, so we left. total waste of $29.50. and about four hours of my life.

for all I know, they still haven't started the fucking concert.

neumo's is the worst fucking venue I have ever been to. it's run by retards who obviously can't tell time. I'm used to rock concerts starting a few minutes late... but for everything to start over 30 minutes after advertised? we could tell why the show hadn't started when we left at 9:30... there were still people in line out the door trying to get in. gee, y'think maybe if they opened the fucking box office before fifteen minutes AFTER the doors were supposed to open, that wouldn't happen? or maybe if they offered a separate window for ticket purchases and will call? they literally had ticketholders, will call and people looking to buy tickets in ONE line.

fucking retards. but hey, it's a fitting end to one of the worst days of my life. that's what I get for actually expecting things to go as planned and to be happy for a change.

the show tomorrow night had better be better.

just call me the professor...

2007-08-08T19:12:00.000-07:00

'cos I'm constantly edumacating my coworkers about their damn ignorances...

one coworker of mine was reading an article in the newspaper about indie music, and asked why the picture of the girl in the article was white, nerdy, wearing a cardigan and glasses... he said she didn't look like she was from india. swear to shit, he actually said that.

he did talk about how girls in big glasses were hot, and I mentioned how he should avoid suicide girls, what with their various fetish shit and hipster girls being all nekkid and whatnot. another coworker (younger girl, this time) asked what kind of music the suicide girls made. she added them on her myspace but didn't get it and just thought they were really skanky... I had to explain to her that suicide girls was actually pornography. she thought that meant hardcore, so I then had to explain all the "artistic" fetish type softcore poses and shit. quite the appropriate conversation for work, of course. she's kinda odd tho, she's very self conscious probably because her boyfriend is a schmuck.

a bit later, the "indie" coworker was talking about his daughter's avatar (she was there today 'cos he didn't have a babysitter or something). he was talking about her avatar as if it were a brand or something. I had to explain the cyberpunk notion of "avatar" as being a digital representation, an idea that's existed for decades, and how it was actually stolen from theology as the physical manifestation of a divine being...

it's kinda odd. I was terrible in school, never paid attention in class and I'm not very well read. and yet, the people who surround me in the plumbing industry are a constant reminder of how dumb people can be...

nuke the fucking south

2007-07-27T17:04:00.001-07:00

(or: why the hell didn't we let them secede when they had the chance, anyway?)

this is fucking deplorable.

****

It's still about race in Jena, La.

AMY GOODMAN
SYNDICATED COLUMNIST

Last week in Detroit, the NAACP held a mock funeral for the N-word. But a chilling case in Louisiana shows us how far we have to go to bury racism. This story begins in the small, central Louisiana town of Jena. Last September, a black high school student requested the school's permission to sit beneath a broad, leafy tree in the hot schoolyard. Until then, only white students sat there.

The next morning, three nooses were hanging from the tree. The black students responded en masse. Justin Purvis, the kid who first sat under the tree, told filmmaker Jacquie Soohen: "They said, 'Y'all want to go stand under the tree?' We said, 'Yeah.' They said, 'If you go, I'll go. If you go, I'll go.' One person went, the next person went, everybody else just went."

Then the police and the district attorney showed up. Substitute teacher Michelle Rogers recounts: "District Attorney Reed Walters proceeded to tell those kids that 'I could end your lives with the stroke of a pen.' "

It wouldn't happen for a few more months, but that is exactly what the district attorney is trying to do.

Jena, a community of 4,000, is about 85 percent white. While the black community gathered at a church to respond, others didn't see the significance. Soohen interviewed Jena town librarian Barbara Murphy, who reflected: "The nooses? I don't even know why they were there, what they were supposed to mean. There's pranks all the time, of one type or another, going on. And it just didn't seem to be racist to me." Tensions rose.

Robert Bailey, a black student, was beaten up at a white party. Then, a few nights later, Robert and two others were threatened by a white man with a sawed-off shotgun, at a convenience store. They wrestled the gun away and fled. Robert's mother, Caseptla Bailey, said: "I know they were in fear of their lives. They were afraid that this man was going to shoot them, you know, especially in the back, running away from the scene."

The next day, Dec. 4, 2006, a fight broke out at the school. A white student was injured, taken to the hospital and released. Robert Bailey and five other black students were charged ... with second-degree attempted murder. They each faced 100 years in prison. The black community was reeling.

Independent journalist Jordan Flaherty was the first to break the story nationally. He explained: "I'm sure it was a serious fight, and I'm sure it deserved real discipline within the school system, but he (the white student) was out later that day. He was smiling. He was with friends ... it was a serious school problem that came on the heels of a long series of other events ... as soon as black students were involved, that's when the hammer came down."

The African American community began to call them the Jena Six. The first to be tried was Mychal Bell, 17 years old and a talented football player, looking forward to a university scholarship. Bell was offered a plea deal, but refused. His father, Marcus Jones, took a few minutes off from work to talk to me: "Here in LaSalle Parish, whenever a black man is offered a plea bargain, he is innocent. That's a dead giveaway here in the South."

Right before the trial, the charges of attempted second-degree murder were lowered to aggravated battery, which under Louisiana law requires a dangerous weapon. The weapon? Tennis shoes.

Mychal Bell was convicted by an all-white jury. His court-appointed defense attorney called no witnesses. Bell will be sentenced on July 31, facing a possible 22 years. The remaining five teens, several of whom were jailed for months, unable to make bail, still face attempted second-degree murder charges and a hundred years each in prison.

Flaherty, who grew up in New Orleans, sums up the case of the Jena Six: "I don't think there is anyone around that would doubt that if this had been a fight between black students or a fight of white students beating up a black student, you would never be seeing this. It's completely about race. It's completely about two systems of justice."

Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco gained national prominence during Hurricane Katrina. There's another hurricane that's devastating the lives of her constituents: racism. The families of the Jena Six are asking her to intervene. The district attorney says he can end the boys' lives with his pen. But Blanco's pen is mightier. She should wield it, now, for justice for the Jena Six.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/324177_amygoodman19.html

ashamed to be an american...

2007-07-04T21:42:00.000-07:00

and this sums it up pretty succinctly. I spent nearly all day at work bitching about how asinine it was that my father's president commuted a thirty month prison sentence for TREASON as being "too excessive" for his little crony... but olbermann is a helluva lot more poetic than I ever could be.

terrorists can blow up my work anytime they want...

2007-07-03T18:57:00.000-07:00

I don't even care if I'm there when they do.

is it still considered a superiority complex when you actually ARE superior to everyone around you? when you hold them all in contempt because their incompetence makes your job ten times harder than it should? when you get yelled at by irate customers because you and your people can't seem to do simple tasks without fucking up?

everything I've touched the past month has turned to shit somehow. I've ended up looking like an asshole countless times because people around me can't seem to do their jobs properly. and I've done their jobs. they're not difficult. receiving. picking. driving. stocking. purchasing. inventory control.

I've done all of those jobs, and I could pretty much do all of them while asleep. how difficult is it to match a part number on a box to a part number on a packing slip? or to put said part on the shelf labeled with the location on a stocking receipt? there are checks and balances all throughout the system to catch and correct mistakes. yet I have fucking warehouse monkeys who literally can't tell the difference between RIGHT and LEFT, or THIRTEEN and TWENTY.

I have a purchasing agent who rather than investigates where the discrepancy came from, reverts back to his years in receiving and simply says "that's impossible, we always double check everything!" I have an inventory control person who barely has the intelligence to tie her own shoes and will argue with me for hours at a time about shit she's obviously dead wrong about, but she thinks she's a fucking genius.

the past couple weeks have really made me miss the corporate office. for all the shit that happens there, and trust me, there's a lot, at least I don't have to deal with incompetent warehouse monkeys or pissed off customers. at corporate, you have some semblance of autonomy that allows you to plug along at your job for eight hours, and as long as you don't fuck up, you don't get yelled at for it...

seeing as they promised me a raise, a promotion and my own office where I'm at now, and none of that has come to fruition, I'm thinking it's a lot more likely I'll answer the call to go back to corporate when my old boss makes a space for me. and he said he was planning to, as soon as he could run one of the worthless people out.

serious, what the hell?!

2007-06-25T20:57:00.001-07:00

can someone explain to me what the hell is wrong with pro wrestling? I mean aside from the obvious...

"FAYETTEVILLE, Ga. - WWE wrestler Chris Benoit, his wife, and son were found dead Monday and police said they were investigating the deaths as a murder-suicide.

...

The station said that investigators believe the 40-year-old Benoit killed his wife, Nancy, and 7-year-old son, Daniel, over the weekend, then himself on Monday. A neighbor called police, and the bodies were found in three rooms.

...

The WWE canceled its live "Monday Night RAW" card in Corpus Christi, Texas, and USA Network aired a three-hour tribute to Benoit in place of the scheduled wrestling telecast."

now, I may not be the levelest bloke on the block, but I'm pretty sure if I killed my entire family, my employer wouldn't HONOUR me with a three hour friggin' tribute. people that kill themselves often have an illness and usually should be mourned. people that kill their families and then themselves, in the wrong order, should have any good they performed in life wiped clean and be remembered for the schmucks they are. then again, I'm not sure "pro wrestler" counts as "good" and not "schmuck" anyway...

I went to a witch doctor, and this is what she said...

2007-06-10T12:32:00.000-07:00

I hadn't had a proper physical exam since I was in high school. other than the very quick and not thorough DOT physical I had when I was 21, I hadn't seen a doctor for a regular checkup since I was seeing a pediatrician.

fortunately, I am still an ass virgin. they don't start buggering your prostate until you're 40.

but there was bad news. my cholesterol is terrible. I had my suspicions, given that I'm fifty pounds overweight and loves me the cheese and eggs. I need to get back to a gym to lose some weight, and watch my diet better. no more bacon, skimpy on the cheese, eggbeaters instead of eggs, more veggies, etc. fortunately, there is another gym within a few blocks of here, and it costs half as much as the one we quit (because it cost too much). this one doesn't have a pool or yoga classes or a basketball court. y'know, all the shit we didn't use anyway. it also doesn't have parking and free childcare, which was a paint o pay for before since we never used it. hopefully we'll stick to the gym this time, since it'll be cheaper. it's $35 a month for each of us, plus a $50 enrollment fee each. if we pay $400 upfront, we'd save a tiny amount, which doesn't seem worth it.

in all of the bloodwork the doc did, she also found I'm essentially a woman. she said the normal range of testosterone was "between 7 and 25"... I can only assume she meant milligrams. mine is at 4.5. so she prescribed a testosterone patch that I'll have to wear, likely for the rest of my life. it shoots and extra 5mg of manjuice into me each day. so far I haven't turned into the hulk, smashing things in a blind rage, nor have I had uncontrollable chubbies at awkward social moments. but hey, at least now I might be able to grow a beard. the news of me having a ridiculously low testosterone level has been of great amusement to pretty much everyone I know. because I'm a git, I have of course told everyone. hell, this coupled with going to the gym might even make my manboobs shrink a little bit...

very little else is going on. miyuki is now horribly addicted to elebits, to the point she's hallucinating seeing them beneath actual, physical structures in real life. I've started playing kickball again, and haven't made too much of an ass of myself yet. I've recorded more outs on defense than I have on offense, at least...

I also asked my boss about a raise, and he told me they want to put me in charge of my department, and that his boss would be talking to me about it shortly. it's been two weeks now. fucker isn't going to say anything, and I'm never going to get that raise. it's a bit of a joke. miyuki makes more money than I do now, despite having only been in the country less than two years. and when she originally got hired, I made over $5k a year more than her. her work is awesome, they take good care of her. mine, not so much...

all sorts of shit...

2007-05-23T18:30:00.000-07:00

so it's been six weeks or so. my life just isn't that interesting.

I asked for a raise at work today. my boss seems to think I'm in line for one, especially since I'll likely take over my department soon. granted, that department is three people, one of whom is retiring for a month, then coming back part time, three days a week. but since the burden will be dropped on my shoulders, it seems only fair that I get paid more. they finally shitcanned the worthless piece of crap who was the old department head... something about sleeping at least three hours a day, on the clock, and then turning in overtime as well. I found out he made almost twice as much as me. that shit ain't right. I took over all of his accounts. both of them. it added maybe three hours worth of work to my week. I'm hoping they give me a decent sized raise. $40k at the very least, $45k would be more in line with what I'd expect. it ain't gonna happen.

I actually got yelled at last week for doing my job exactly how I should have. I waived a freight charge to a customer. the job was worth over $30k, and we made an obnoxious profit margin on it, about three times what we normally made. but the vendor dropped the ball on an expedited shipment, so they split the freight charges with me. I couldn't go back and charge my customer $500 for material that was two weeks late. so I didn't. and I got yelled at. I was told if I wanted to waive the freight charge, it should come out of my own pocket, and that I gave away the company's money. this on an order that I MADE the company over ten grand in profit on. that's just pure greed and an asshole in charge. my boss told me not to worry about it.

SIFF is coming. I actually have miyuki volunteering with me. sadly, the selection of movies we want to see has dwindled for the third straight year. in 2004, I saw about fifteen movies. 2005, it was less than a dozen. last year, it was maybe eight. this year, I'd be surprised if we see more than five. I dunno why, most of the movies just don't appeal to me.

I've started collecting news stories about stupid parents. the past week has provided ot one, not two, but THREE amazing stories to make me proud to be a human... the first was about the idiot "vegan" parents in atlanta that fed their newborn nothing but apple juice and soy milk. when he died at six weeks old, he weighed 3.5 pounds. the second, parents of a seven year old with leukemia withheld chemotherapy treatment because they were worried about the long term effects of chemo. they obviously should have been more concerned with the long term effects of cancer, since the kid died of cancer. the third, and perhaps most awesome story, was about the 19 year old would-be preacher who put his two month old baby in the microwave. for twenty seconds. because he thought the baby was the devil. the mother later said that the father had some mental disabilities. gee, y'think? the kid didn't die. it will likely be fucked up for life, had to get skin grafts and everything. and who knows what the hell a microwave does to a newborn's brain. let's just hope this kid doesn't breed and pass on those amazing genes...

oh yeah, and I seem to have done it again on the friends front. somehow I got all paranoid and have likely alienated us from several of our friends. I have yet to figure out why I do this, but I know that it happens more or less constantly with any friends I make. some of them stick around and after the awkwardness subsides, we stay friends for years. others are basically just write-offs, and I'm back to square one. we'll see which happens this time...

mission accomplished.

2007-04-08T11:48:00.000-07:00

we officially warmed our house last night. for the most part, it seemed to be a rousing success. I made homemade pizzas that went over quite well, catered to a couple of allergies, and to the best of my knowledge, didn't kill anyone. turnout was larger than anticipated, so there wasn't a ton of pizza to go around, but it was tasty nonetheless.

there was ample boozage flowing, we're pretty sure that's the first time we've ever seen EVERYONE drunk simultaneously. we played a lengthy game of apples to apples, which was nice to finally get some use out of after buying it three years ago... we also rocked the house with several hours worth of karaoke revolution party... it started slow, with no one willing to sing much. after I Demonstrated how easy it was for a tone deaf moron to score platinum repeatedly, other people started up as well. by the end of the night, after most people had left, ann and miyuki pwned my ass hardcore. ann scored a perfect 50k points for "if you could only see" at 3am. miyuki scored a perfect 50k for "time after time," "do you really want to hurt me?," "material girl" and some song called "I'll be" that she'd never even heard before. four perfect scores. she only sang about six songs. and granted, she had to do "material girl" twice because she JUST missed it the first go around. to add insult to injury, while I was driving ann home at 3:30am, she had a perfect score on "dust in the wind" as well.

me = tone deaf moron
miyuki = karaoke revolution genius

it's sort of sad too, since I had mentioned earlier in the party that this was one of the few games I could actually hold my own against, and possibly even beat, gamers. I spoke too soon. in all, I must have sang at least twenty songs. I had NO voice whatsoever by the end of the night, which really didn't help my rendition of "the greatest love of all" go over very well. we've unlocked 39 of 50 songs, most with platinum or higher, and essentially the only ones left are either much too difficult for us ("me and bobby mcgee," "crazy in love") or songs none of us have ever heard of.

at least last night was the first time in over a week I went to bed and saw something other than bejeweled when I closed my eyes. I got to see the KR slider bar instead. puzzle quest has become somewhat of an obsession around here. to the point that my birthday arrived three months early in the form of my very own pink DS, so I'd stop stealing miyuki's. sadly, I spent half of my work day friday playing puzzle quest at my desk. I would have felt bad, except my "boss" (the guy who thinks he's my boss anyway) spent most of the day sleeping in an empty, darkened office. if he can get paid (about $60k/year) to sleep, I can get paid to sit at my desk and answer the phone when it rings...

we're hoping for a relaxing zombie jebus day... not much planned, other than a trip to the outlet mall to buy miyuki a new spring coat. I'll likely find a bench and play puzzle quest while she shops...

why I don't like bleu cheese.

2007-03-27T16:58:00.000-07:00

flickr photoset

those are some pics from our old apartment. several parts of it were covered in mold. we've had to throw out a fair amount from our closet, including the shoes pictures and many more.

we moved across the hall to the east side of the building. it doesn't have the moisture problems, and it was easier than trying to move elsewhere. we didn't have to pay all of the deposits again, and we didn't need to rent a truck. result: our savings account remains unscathed. we didn't want to move for another couple years, when we'll be able to afford to buy a condo, so this works okay.

the downside is while moving, we kicked up a shitload of mold, and it's wreaked havoc on my immune system. I've missed two days of work, and it brought our unpacking to a standstill, since I've been sleeping most of the past two days. I had a fever and chills sunday night (which is REALLY weird for me), and I've had at least three pints of snot come out of my nose since then. been having frequent nosebleeds too. we had hoped to be completely settled by now, but we're not even close.

we do have our new place tho. our address remains the same, we're just in apartment #209 instead of #206 now. all other contact info remains the same..

ridin' the pine.

2007-03-15T20:36:00.000-07:00

so work is just going peachy... to the point that I'm taking tomorrow off to get drunk instead, for st urho's day (patron saint of finland).

turns out the big account I've been put in charge of feels I'm "in over my head"... the reality is, this is an account that's avoided us for ten years over a perceived slight. I was told the story today, and it involved a bankruptcy on their part, and our insistence they re-apply for a new line of credit. standard shit, but they got offended and avoided us for a decade. our salesman has been pursuing them REALLY actively lately, so they awarded us a job. and it's all fucked up. they keep changing things around on us, usually at the last second, and then get pissy when we can't meet their demands.

so I've been benched. that bugs me a bit, since I feel I've been set up to fail from the beginning. but what bothers me more is I think the salesman is buying into this shit about me being incompetent, which will be REALLY bad. he's basically the one guy at the branch I really don't want to piss off, as he can keep me very busy and I need him to be successful. if he loses confidence in me, my job is going to suck even more.

rather than think bad thoughts about shooting up the place, I decided to burn a vacation day. I'm going to sleep in, try to catch up from daylight saving... fuck daylight saving time, by the way. I'm gonna run a few errands, and then I'm gonna head over to the lock and keel and get drunk with ann, who is gainfully unemployed for the time being, and thus the only available mid-day drinking buddy available...

I plan to be shitfaced by the time miyuki gets home from work at 4:30. yippee!

top ten reasons for shaving my head.

2007-03-07T21:13:00.000-08:00

I shorn my head tonight down to a 2. that's pretty damn short. I'm sure to take a lot of shit over it at work tomorrow, because my coworkers are annoying and seem to have nothing better to do. here's the reasons I'll give:

10. I joined the army
9. I was tired of that britney spears bitch getting all the attention
8. miyuki was punishing me for saying her dinner tasted like ass
7. I've been listening to a lot of ani difranco lately, and think I might be a lesbian
6. I was drunk
5. I can save $2.18 a month in shampoo costs
4. I felt I had no control over my life and wanted to exert dominance over something
3. I make this shit look goooooooooooooooooood
2. I was abducted by aliens
1. it seemed like a good idea at the time

I don't know why I did it. it certainly wasn't because I was drunk. a lot of it was frustration. and a lot of it really was trying to exert any sort of control over my life. it's a knee jerk response I've had for years. I've been shaving my head semi-regularly since I was ten. it doesn't look quite as good now as it used too, face is a bit too round now...

it'll be another several months before I have nice, luxurious curly blond hair tho. maybe if I'm lucky, it'll be back by my birthday. I doubt it tho.

where is that fucking comet?

2007-03-07T17:23:00.000-08:00

"PARIS - A new law in France makes it a crime for anyone who is not a professional journalist to film real-world violence and distribute the images on the Internet. Critics call it a clumsy effort by authorities to battle "happy slapping," the youth fad of filming violent acts — which most often they have provoked — and spreading the images on the Web or between mobile phones.

...

Last year, a student used a cell phone camera to film an attack by a fellow student on a teacher at a high school in the town of Porcheville. In another incident, photos were taken of a young girl who was gang-raped in Nice and the images were circulated at her school.

Some believe that shows such as MTV's "Jackass," in which the regulars perform stunts involving self-inflicted pain and humiliation, are the inspiration for the acts."

****

funny, I must have missed the episode of jackass where they gang raped someone, filmed it and then showed the video to all of their friends. last I checked, 'jackass' type antics didn't HARM anyone unwilling to be involved. confused, sure. embarrassed, certainly. but they didn't go around picking fights with strangers or raping people. that's just fucking stupid.

on an unrelated note, I had a shitty day at work, so I'm getting drunk tonight. I don't have a boss anymore, since he was promoted and they never bothered to replace him. so there's all sorts of pissy going on at work as people are at each other's throats and just generally being bitches. I got yelled at pretty much constantly today for shit that was at least 90% NOT my fault, and to top things off, the drunk lazy cocksucker who sits next to me (that they refuse to fire despite the fact that he's worthless, is being sued for sexual harassment, and steals from the company) broke my favourite coffee mug. it was an xmas gift to me from a plumber about six years ago, and I really liked it. he broke it today trying to get into shit at my desk he had no business getting into, and didn't even bother to apologise.

they cannot fire that cocksucker soon enough. I hope he gets fucking brain cancer.

I'm going to burn in hell.

2007-03-04T14:38:00.000-08:00

last night we went over to some friends' place for dinner, and watched the directors label DVDs. when the video for "frozen" came on, I made a comment that madonna was the worst thing to happen to judaism since the pogroms.

evidently this was a horribly offensive thing to say. I'm not sure if it's more offensive to jewish people or madonna fans, but I don't particularly care.

I'm a horrible person.

I don't get it...

2007-03-01T06:50:00.000-08:00

why is it no one around me appreciates a really good poop story?

yesterday I made an EPIC poop at work. it was incredible. I wished I had weighed myself before and after, it was that impressive.

every so often, I make such a poop, and it always reminds me that if I were to fall upon hard times, I have a fall-back career option in the gay porn industry. it's just simple algebra. if that much can come out of my butt, surely that much could go into it.

you wouldn't believe some of the looks I got yesterday by co-workers when I mentioned all this...

sometimes it pays to be an asshole.

2007-02-26T17:11:00.000-08:00

I heard back regarding my directv fiasco. a girl from the office of the president just called. not only do I not have to pay the $300 cancellation fee, THEY OWE ME MONEY.

they're going to issue me a refund in eight weeks for the $29.12 balance I had from my last payment. that doesn't quite cover the nearly half of the $130 nhl center ice package I gave up, but it's a hell of a lot better than having to fork over an extra $300.

I'm satisfied. we now have our $13 a month cable that gives us the local channels, discovery channel and mariners games. we have a $15 netflix account now as well. we're saving $20 a month on our tv bill (not to mention another $70 on phone/internet), and hopefully we won't waste as much time in front of the idiot box to boot.

in other news, I ended up with a harebrained scheme in my head over the weekend, and I can't shake it. we drove south for the weekend to spend time with my family. I got the usual guilt trip from my mom and sister and nana for not visiting enough. I also got to hear all about how much nana's life sucks because she's all alone and never gets out and no one has time to run her around. my dad, jokingly, said I should move in with her. she refuses to move into a home, since there is nothing wrong with her health, but she is getting frail and is afraid of being alone in case she falls or something.

it's actually not a half bad idea. she has a three bedroom house. it's in vancouver, wa, which is an armpit of a town, but it's close to portland. it's also REALLY close to my family. I could very easily transfer down there at my current job, and miyuki could even get away with not working if she wanted, or taking a part time job that she'd enjoy, since we wouldn't need the extra income. we'd have enough room for guests if they wanted to stay (there's a nice train ride from vancouver, bc for her family or friends that visited), and it would provide nana with some sorely needed social interaction. ideally, miyuki would even be freed up enough that she could chauffeur nana around to her various appointments she needs to go to (my mom is run ragged trying to work full time and take care of her mother). this would of course mean miyuki would need a car, and nana would likely make the car payments for her taxi (she's fairly well off). my dad figures I'd just be doing it to suck up (she doesn't like him, and I'm her favourite), but it actually would be a beneficial situation for everyone. we could afford to save a shitload of money (for an eventual return trip to canada), nana's quality of life would improve greatly, and my family would see more of us. trips north wouldn't even need to be endangered, as we'd likely just train up there and save me the hassle of driving.

there are some obvious downsides... most of all is living with nana. she can be downright nasty at times (as my dad so eloquently puts it, "she's a bitch!"), but she's usually nicer to me (see above re: favourite). there's also the matter of living in vancouver. it's a white trash town. there are certain finer aspects of life we'd miss out on (indie movie theatres, gourmet pizza, mac & jacks african amber ale, etc). but assuming we'd be down there five years, we would save roughly $50,000 in rent over that span. that's huge.

right now it's just a pipe dream. I get obsessed with stuff like this, of ways of securing a better future and all that. there's about a 95% chance this would NEVER happen. but for now, it's fun to think about. I like the idea of living in a house. possibly even inheriting it (and forgoing my share of the estate otherwise). I would feel a little bit bad about taking a house, like it would be some sort of charity, but the fact is everyone else in my family already owns their own houses. and to assuage my guilt, I'd want to move in with nana and help take care of her, to feel as tho I'd be "earning" my stake. I always try to spend at least a couple hours visiting when we're down, but we're only down there once a month or so. while that's still more time than my sister or dad spends with her, it doesn't seem like much. I do feel bad at times for being so far away, not only from nana, but also from my nephews. my sister is constantly flipping me crap for not being around her kids enough.

we'll see what happens. if anyone else actually takes the idea seriously, we'd consider it. for now, it's just something to keep my mind occupied...

one more reason to hate humanity in general...

2007-02-19T20:02:00.000-08:00

I check craigslist's strictly platonic section a few times a week. we've made some new friends that way, so I thought I'd keep at it just to diversify our lot. unfortunately, I keep seeing the same people's ads over and over... one of some frat boy looking for other idiots he can relive his college days with, drinking kegs of beer and lighting his own farts. the other is quote below. I have seen it no less than four times...

"Looking for Gay Hommies - m4m - 30

Reply to: pers-281371707@craigslist.org
Date: 2007-02-19, 4:05PM PST

To join you'll have to pass a rigorous test. We can't tell you our gang name, street signs, or our colors yet (but think fushcia pink girls), so you'll meet us at an undisclosed location on Capitol Hill.

First, you have to find an unsuspecting straight couple (preferably on a date) and mug them. Take their money, but only grab the wallet or purse if it is Burberry, Fendi, or something comparable. And be sure to mention that you thought [insert whatever the girl was wearing] went out two years ago.

Second, you have to mastermind a huge drug sale. This will be unbelievably easy, since you'll do it with E in the bathroom at Neighbors.

Third, you will be forced to get in a fight with one of the other gang hopefuls. The rest of us will be watching as you wrestle around, and you should be sure to tear some clothing and throw in a few light kisses and moans. I'm visually thinking seancody.com with Oliva Newton's song "Let's Get Physical" in the background.

So if you're tough enough, just email me and we can start our gang. It doesn't matter who you are or what you look like, as long as you are attractive and have a great body."

I responded with this:

"I keep seeing your ad over and over. this leads me to believe one of two things... either you're incredibly impatient, or your ad keeps getting flagged down. I'm tempted to believe it's the latter, as your ad is requesting a "gang" to perform various illegal acts. facetious or not, that sort of shit is just not a good idea...

one other bit of advice? "hommies" isn't a word. do you mean "homies"? also not a word, but at least it's phonetically correct...

try posting variations on your ad, and if you don't get any responses you like, wait a week or three and post something else. patience will make you look less desperate. most people don't troll the CL listings constantly, they just look until they find what they're after. by breaking up your posts by a week or two, you'll end up with a vastly different demographic looking at your ads. "

my reward for honest, constructive criticism? my junk mail folder has received 26 pieces of spam in the last half hour. I used to get about three pieces of spam a WEEK. considering several of them have been opt-in mailing lists addressed to "Christian Dipshit" I have a feeling I know who my culprit is.

I seriously was trying to help this worthless cocksucker. it was annoying to see the same ad over and over (with the same stupid pic from south park), and he obviously wasn't getting any responses. the guy needs brain cancer in the worst fucking way. either that or a swift lobotomy with a cricket bat.

and once again, I loathe all of humanity.

in case I hadn't mentioned it before...

2007-02-13T21:07:00.000-08:00

directv sucks ass.

I cancelled the fecking thing. problem is, instead of charging me the $140 they told me I'd owe before, they charged me a full $300 early termination fee. why? because by sending out a REFURBISHED receiver to replace the DEFECTIVE one, they re-upped me for another two year commitment. this is important... I didn't order a new service. in fact, I tried to cancel my service and they convinced me to replace a defective unit... and by doing so, they reset the timer on my two year contract. I owe them $300 to cancel.

I sat on the phone with customer service for half an hour explaining how much horseshit that was. I'm amazed I didn't raise my voice once or even use any profanities. it didn't help.

so what did I do? I wrote a letter. a NASTY one. detailing all the bullshit I've had to put up with over the past eighteen months from that company. oh, and all the times their customer service lied to me. and I mailed it to directv. four times. customer service issues got one. billing disputes got one. complaints got one. and the office of the president of directv got one. I also sent copies to the better business bureau of washington and the washington state attorney general.

and the worst part is? nothing is going to come of this. I'm going to have to pay them $300 or face my credit rating being raped. I'm completely fucking helpless, I've done all I can do. if I tried to hire a lawyer, it would likely cost several times what I allegedly "owe," which doesn't exactly seem like a bargain.

oddly enough, I called to cancel our phone service and had no difficulties whatsoever. they made one attempt to change my mind by offering a "retention rate" and when I declined, they set up the termination without incident. I won't owe anything, I just have to return my leased dsl modem in a package they'll send to me.

and when I called to set up the cable modem and tv, they offered me an insurance program that would cover all service calls for a whopping ninety-nine cents per month. $12 a year, and I never have to pay for service calls when something goes wrong. that's a far cry from the $75 directv tried to charge me each time. and they had to come out four times in eighteen months, on account of their product being so shitty and their technicians not installing anything properly.

it's a sad day when comcast has customer service that makes me weak in the knees. I've hated comcast for years, they suck some serious balls. and yet compared to directv, they treat me like fucking royalty.

I'm forfeiting the last several months of my hockey package, which I paid $140 for. it doesn't matter, the habs suck so hard right now it hurts to watch them. I'll still have CBC on comcast, so I can always watch hockey night in toronto if I want. which I won't. by cancelling directv and qwest, and going with comcast, we're going to be saving about $90 a month. we won't have 150 channels of crap to watch, but to be honest, that's addition by subtraction anyway. we waste so much time watching crap on cable, we really should be doing better things anyway.

I hate the fucking world. I'm still waiting for that comet to wipe out the human race.