In which it weirds me out that I’d never heard of this.

So my roomie AmmZon is totally sick today, the poor monster.

When she gets sick, she always wants her comfort food, which happens to be, and I quote, “an All American cheeseburger – ketchup only! – and fries and a Coke,” from McDonald’s. This is the only thing she wants when she’s sick. It helps her get well. (She even has a particular order in which she eats this restorative meal, but I can’t remember exactly what it is.)

What happens when you order an “All American cheeseburger,” rather than just a plain ol’ cheeseburger, is that you get your small fries for free. It’s like an adult Happy Meal or something because it only costs $2.14.

Apparently this item hasn’t actually been on the menu in the twenty years I’ve been eating there (and I begin to suspect that it might be the very first combo meal ever) and it’s nowhere to be found on the website, but when you ask for it at a drive-thru they always seem to know exactly what it is. This weirds me out because I worked at a McDonald’s once — even ran the register — and I’d never heard of it, but I’ve asked around and AmmZon’s not the only person who possesses this arcane knowledge.

So there you go, my babies: how to get a small fries for free.

Use your powers for good!

In which I’m lazy. And broke.

I slept all day not because I was tired but because I had nothing to do and nowhere to go and no one was home to talk to. I had two cigarettes in my pack and no money to get any more, and one thing that poverty has taught me is that the best way to conserve resources is to be asleep so you can’t use any.

I got up twice to let the dog out, but not wanting to knit or watch TV I just went back to bed again. I can always drop off to sleep, even if I’ve already slept ten hours. Napping is my superhero power.

I keep my money in AmmZon’s account (because mine has a levy on it), and my balance has recently dropped below $300. Now I’m nickling and diming her to death: “Get me $20, please?” “Get me $50, please?” She’ll bring me $20 tonight and I’ll buy smokes and dog food and $6 worth of gas and be out of cash again.

All is not lost, though. I’m not so lazy and useless that I eat badly: today I had leftover broccoli-cheddar soup with a grilled cheese sandwich of utmost deliciousness!

Behold its ingredients: American and jack and brie cheeses, red peppers, green onions, tomato, lettuce, black olives, and pesto, on light rye. It was freaking amazing.

But the very best news is I have another job interview, here, next Thursday. Maybe I’ll get two p/t jobs! Wouldn’t that be wonderful?

In other news, I finally surfed over to check out Windows Vista. It’s a blatant copy of OSX. I mean, blatant! I can’t believe they can even get away with that shit: they copied the Dashboard concept and took Widgets and cleverly renamed them Gadgets. And while the new mobile Sync Center feature does seem cool, they probably should have released it back in Windows 95.

I am totally switching to Mac… if my circumstances should ever permit me to buy a computer again, that is.

In which it came from here.

Allegedly, these are the words most commonly found on goblinbox.com:

The inclusion of the words “bed,” “sucks,” and “shit” is so amusing! I don’t think it scanned my archives, though, because all of these words can be found on the index page. But still, pretty funny. I totally want their Capulet vs. Montague t-shirt. (Thanks for the link, Vuboq!)

In other news, is the coolest web site EVAR.

In which it worked this time!

Sorry for the brief outage.

I just upgraded to the latest version of WordPress, because mine was three versions old and, you know, security updates and such.

Now I’m off to see if all my plugins still work…

In which there’s a super groovy snow sculpture in the neighborhood!

(Click to enlarge images.)

When I went out to extract my jeep from the snow drift I’d parked it in, Raybo hollered at me from her yard up the street: “Mush! Come down here and see what we made!”

So I started up my engine, swept off the windshield, and leaving the defrost running full-tilt, I walked right over there. I gushed all over their excellent Siberian tiger snow sculpture and immediately pulled out my cell phone to snap a few images. Isn’t it just the very most awesome snow tiger ever?!

Perhaps the dingo ate your baby, but that vicious snow kitty ate your loser Frosty the Snowman!

In which I keep busy indoors because it’s too fuckin’ cold to go outside!

I started another pair of gauntlets/wristwarmers. I decided that, as much as I love knitting the bamboo yarn ’cause it’s so freakin’ gorgeous, the colorway doesn’t actually match my clothes. I might finish them and give them away.

I’ve found three jobs at iowajobs.org that I’m about to apply for. Two of them are part-time, and one I think I may have already applied for. It’s a pain because I have to call the job center to get the company contact info. I hate calling.

Truck and Bread are watching Jackass in the living room, and they’re giggling like schoolgirls.

Do you realize that people who earn $7 an hour are earning only $280 a week? Who the fuck can live on $280 a week? I mean, I can’t afford to take a job that pays less than $10 an hour — it would be better to remain jobless and go on public assistance. Jesus.

I registered at Manpower (and tried to register at Supreme Staffing) today, but neither site lists temp jobs within a 40-mile radius of Fairfield. *sigh* I applied for a month-long temp gig in Cedar Rapids through Kelly Services; if they hire me I’ll have to find someone in Iowa City to crash with.

In which I have neither, and it’s bummin’ me out.

January is half-over. The spectre of that 1st of February deadline looms ever-nearer, and I still don’t have a job or a place to live lined up.

I have not received any response whatsoever from the last eight resumes I sent out. I do not understand why it has gone out of vogue to REPLY TO AN APPLICANT and let her know what the fuck she can expect in the way of a time frame. I don’t know if these places actually received my applications; I do not know if they have a close date; I do not know if they’ve filled the position. Feels like I’m dropping my resumes into a black hole.

Today I applied online for a job… at a gas station. (Yes, that’s what I’m looking at: trying to work swing shift in a convenience store.) The online application contained a six-minute IQ test; knowing these things to be geared at idiots I took the test slowly, and it timed out on the final question. This made me suspect that I’m an idiot.

I would have applied at Hy-Vee and EconoFoods, too, but they’re not hiring.

As for housing, my current roommates and three other friends have invited me to crash with them for a bit but I can’t decide where to stay.

I had decided not to move with AmmZon and Truck because I will (hopefully) be moving into my own apartment in the near future, and I didn’t want them to rent a place depending on me for my financial input. Also, I’m in a phase of life wherein I hate all couples: I hate listening to them bitch at each other, and I hate listening to them get along. (All couples drive me nuts lately. It’s not them, it’s me. I just hate couplehood these days.) Another couple offered me a room in their place for the few weeks I’ll need… and a few nights later they had a huge fight while I was there and I started to think, “What if they do this even more frequently than my current roommates do? Will I go totally batshit?” (In defense of my current roommates, they claim they don’t fight and that they get along great. This may mean that I’m currently incapable of properly parsing male-female interaction.)

The other places I’ve been offered are rooms in the homes of single males. I could resort to one of these options to avoid the couplehood issues, but to be utterly honest I’m not enamored of the idea of using a man’s bathroom. Even if only for a month.

The bottom line is that it seems like I really need to get my own place — like I’m finally ready to get my own place — but I don’t have that elusive job… and I wonder if I can even get utilities in my own name, considering the difficulty AmmZon’s having and my own utterly fucked up credit rating.

Please, Universe, I need a job!

In which IE drives me apeshit.

If you came by earlier, you saw that I was working on a new template. I can’t get it to render properly in Internet Exploder, though, so we’re back to the old standby until I can get it worked out.

I emailed my resume a few times today, worked on the gauntlets I’m knitting, watched TV, made tomato bisque, visited Baby Girl at the bar (she gave notice and won’t be working there much longer so’s I’s gotsta go visit her), and received two paperbacks off of my Amazon Wishlist in the mail (!!!).

A friend of mine was DDing for a drunk friend of his, so I was recruited to follow him in his friend’s cage to the friend’s house and then take him back to his car. I got free McDonald’s out of the deal, so that was groovy. It’s snowing out right now* but doesn’t look like it’s going to stick.

Now I’m off to bed; I’m trying to get back onto a ‘normal’ schedule so if someone decides to actually interview me it won’t feel like the middle of the night to me.

In other news, that Indian dude on Heroes is SO PRETTY. Omfg.

*The time on the server seems to be wrong; I’m actually posting at two-thirty, not four-thirty.

In which the outage is over.

There was some bookkeeping issue with the hosting provider, but it’s all better now.

Christmas day I slept until five, then I went to NLW’s and we ate chips and drank coffee and knitted and talked about knitting and watched a couple of movies. It was awesome.

Yesterday I was supposed to go to a bridal shower, but it was at 11:30 AM and I slept through my alarm… by about five hours.

Today I had lunch with my TM teacher. I used to be in love with him. He’d completely forgotten he’d taught me to meditate, which is the best part. He told me to meditate more.

Tonight I’m going to a bachelorette party. There’s a bus, so I’ll probably get drunk. Right now I’m going out for Mexican food with AmmZon to build a nice foundation for the evening’s booze.

At four o’clock this morning I made breakfast: scrambled eggs, sauteed spinach, hash browns, and veggie sausage gravy. I had an icy cold Coke. It was delicious.

In which I wish you a merry Xmas!

There are people in town, so I’m gonna go out and see some of them. Tomorrow, I’ll hang with Nasty Little Whore at her house; her man’s leaving town so she and I are gonna make a girls’ night in of it.

My roommates will be gone for two nights, so I’ll have cat-feeding duty. Truck bought AmmZon an iPod nano for Xmas and boy-oh-boy is it tiny and cute!

Oh, and Merry Xmas! *smooch*