Category Archives: Life

You Can Do It, I Promise

Blurbs

In which this email is old, but still makes me laugh every time I receive it.

Fall Classes for Men at THE ADULT LEARNING CENTER
REGISTRATION MUST BE COMPLETED by Monday, Aug 30, 2007
NOTE: DUE TO THE COMPLEXITY AND DIFFICULTY LEVEL OF THEIR CONTENTS, CLASS SIZES WILL BE LIMITED TO 8 PARTICIPANTS MAXIMUM.

Class 1
How To Fill Up The Ice Cube Trays–Step by Step, with Slide Presentation.
Meets 4 weeks, Monday and Wednesday for 2 hours beginning at 7:00 PM.

Class 2
The Toilet Paper Roll–Does It Change Itself?
Round Table Discussion.
! Meets 2 weeks, Saturday 12:00 for 2 hours.

Class 3
Is It Possible To Urinate Using The Technique Of Lifting The Seat and Avoiding The Floor, Walls and Nearby Bathtub?–Group Practice.
Meets 4 weeks, Saturday 10:00 PM for 2 hours.

Class 4
Fundamental Differences Between The Laundry Hamper and The Floor–Pictures and Explanatory Graphics.
Meets Saturdays at 2:00 PM for 3 weeks.

Class 5
Dinner Dishes–Can They Levitate and Fly Into The Kitchen Sink?
Examples on Video.
Meets 4 weeks, Tuesday and Thursday for 2 hours beginning
at 7:00 PM

Class 6
Loss Of Identity–Losing The Remote To Your Significant Other.
Help Line Support and Support Groups.
Meets 4 Weeks, Friday and Sunday 7:00 PM

Class 7
Learning How To Find Things–Starting With Looking In The Right Places And Not Turning The House Upside Down While Screaming.
Open Forum.
Monday at 8:00 PM, 2 hours.

Class 8
Health Watch–Bringing Her Flowers Is Not Harmful To Your Health.
Graphics and Audio Tapes.
Three nights; Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 7:00 PM for 2 hours.

Class 9
Real Men Ask For Directions When Lost–Real Life Testimonials.
Tuesdays at 6:00 PM Location to be determined.

Class 10
Is It Genetically Impossible To Sit Quietly While She Parallel Parks?
Driving Simulations.
4 weeks, Saturday’s noon, 2 hours.

Class 11
Learning to Live–Basic Differences Between Mother and Wife.
Online Classes and role-playing.
Tuesdays at 7:00 PM, location to be determined

Class 12
How to be the Ideal Shopping Companion
Relaxation Exercises, Meditation and Breathing Techniques.
Meets 4 weeks, Tuesday and Thursday for 2 hours beginning at 7:00 PM.

Class 13
How to Fight Cerebral Atrophy–Remembering Birthdays, Anniversaries and Other Important Dates and Calling When You’re Going To Be Late
Cerebral Shock Therapy Sessions and Full Lobotomies Offered.
Three nights; Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 7:00 PM for 2 hours.

Class 14
The Stove/Oven–What It Is and How It Is Used.
Live Demonstration.
Tuesdays at 6:00 PM, location to be determined.

Upon completion of any of the above courses, diplomas will be issued to the survivors.

“Fundamental differences between laundry hamper and floor” and “basic differences between mother and wife” make me chortle. So funny. In a sort of that really shouldn’t be funny sort of way. Ghod I love being single!

This Cold Ain't Funny!

Weather

In which this weather is giving me a sore throat.

I’m cold.

It’s 28 degrees out and there are flurries. SNOW FLURRIES! The neighbors across the street have half their yard covered in towels to keep their tender young plants from freezing to death.

Brrr.

In other news, I suck at balancing checking accounts. (That’s what I’m doing at work this morning: balancing the checkbook. Badly.)

In other news, here’s my desktop. (It’s a huge file because I have no graphics software on this machine and couldn’t convert and compress it. Don’t click if you’re on dial-up!)

Money. Underwear. Chocolate. Luncheon.

Finance, Gadgets, Weather

In which my financial situation gives me The Dread whenever I think about it, which is not very often. Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.

Last night, my roommates went to see Clapton in Moline, IL so I had the whole blessed house to myself for the evening. I sat in front of the computer and dicked around with my PPC — the surgery appears to have worked! — and worked on this page, which I still haven’t been able to update without breaking. Grr.

Before I took my new-to-me PPC apart, it had WM2003SE on it. Taking it apart caused it to lose power, which caused it to reset itself to factory default… and now it has WM2003 on it. Which bugs me, because I want SE dammit! (The only difference between 2003 and 2003SE is landscape mode, which I don’t even use. It’s the principal of the thing.) Now, I just happen to have a 2003SE image and I found instructions (gawd I love the intarwebs) on how to to force-flash the ROM, though, so I might try to do a little illegal upgrade tonight. *evil genius laugh* I’ll need an assistant, though, because one needs to press and hold the “reset + press scroll in + contacts + power” buttons — all at the same time! — in order to force a ROM update.

Yes, I realize that none of you care about any of that. So I’ll move on and tell you that I bought new underwear at Walmart the other day! (I buy cheap-ass Walmart underwear because they’re cheap, they’re cotton, my dog will eventually eat them anyway, and because there’s nowhere else in town to buy undies that aren’t organic cotton and way out of my current budget.) New underwear = happiness. Continue reading Money. Underwear. Chocolate. Luncheon. →

A Brief Overview

Blurbs, Gadgets

In which this is all the news that’s fit to print, and it ain’t much.

We had friends over so I stayed up way too late last night, and now I’m sleepy. You’d think someone pushing 40 would have figured out how to go to bed on time, but no. I act like a little kid and stay up too late even though I know I’m gonna suffer.

Today I had a Subway sandwich for lunch because I’m not convinced that Mexican food alone provides enough dietary variation.

My new PPC arrived yesterday! It’s not refurbished, it’s used. Fairly heavily used. It’s a little glitchy — it doesn’t respond to the touchscreen properly while the sync cable is plugged into it — but I surfed around and found out that the glitch is something I can easily fix if I’m willing to take the unit apart, which I am.

The best news in the PPC so far world is that the latest version of Mobipocket Reader Desktop is fuckin’ hawt! It puts me in mind of iTunes, actually. One can finally organize books in useful ways, and it connects directly to ebook stores (my favorites Mobipocket and Fictionwise, as well as several others) so that purchasing, downloading, and syncing ebooks is effortless. Yay! And the Pocket PC version is also updated, and allows one to have more control over how the library is organized.

In other news… I feel this terrible, dark, foreboding depression this afternoon… it feels hormonal, like I’ve got PMS, but it’s not time for PMS. I sure hope an after-work nap takes care of it because I don’t particularly enjoy feeling as if my dog just died.

Update: A nap totally helped. Now… what to do this evening? Laundry? Dinner? Hmm.

Springtime for Hitler

Weather

In which it is really entirely too damned nice outside.

The weather is gorgeous. Breezy, warm, balmy, just gorgeous. The lawns have turned emerald green in the past three days. I’m wearing a strappy backless hippy dress, people. It’s wonderful.

It also makes me fear for the upcoming summer. It’s only March and it’s acting like May which makes me think that May will feel like August… and August in the Midwest? Totally. SUCKS. ASS. (And not in the fun way!)

otherlandI’m devouring Otherland, one of the books my mom sent me. In hardback, even, which one would assume would be a more luxurious reading experience but in actual fact is unwieldy and irritating. (I can’t wait to start reading ebooks on a palmtop again; they’re lightweight, small, and backlit, bitches! Such a superior reading experience, when you’re a voracious reader. I mean, it’s not that I don’t dig an old musty tome when I’m in an Indiana Jones movie, but for general consumption the e-device is the way to go.)

The reviews at Amazon are divided between yum and suck, but I think it’s delicious. I devoured 500 pages over the weekend. I’d tell you all about it, but it’s such a broad story with so many characters that not even the professionals at the publishing house could write a decent jacket blurb. (The jacket blurb sucked, omfg, what a ramblingly unattractive piece of shit.) (The only reason I started reading the book in the first place was that it was not only over 700 pages long, but the first in a series of five and all were present in the boxes my mom sent. I’m always looking for a long-term reading relationship.) It’s cyberpunk. There’s a tiny little bushman character with an ! in his name. The descriptions of the future web are awesome and I want VR gear installed in my head, I totally do. Typing is so 21st century; wouldn’t it be cooler to simply gesture at icons in an all-enveloping, 3D scape?

Yes, it would totally be better!

I have a job, good books to read, and a new Pocket PC on the way via UPS. I’m so happy!

In other news, according to the bartender Aki, who is sitting in my living room chatting with Truck and Peach, Southern Comfort should be called “bitch whiskey” because that’s what it is. Hah!

An industry that preys on fear.

Finance

In which I get totally incensed about something for, like, ten minutes and then totally get over it.

Today I logged into the Drive web site to pay my auto insurance premium.

My ex and I are still on the same policy, and he’s always asking me about the account when he’s here dropping Truck off after work. Is it paid? When is it due? Can he give me cash for his portion? Can’t I just handle paying it?

It’s a pain in the ass because the bill goes to his house. He should know when it’s due and he should handle paying it since he’s the one with the bank loan and the full coverage and the late model truck. But he doesn’t. He doesn’t have a checking account, he doesn’t have a credit card, it’s too hard, he’s decided it’s easier if I just pay it online.

Newsflash! I don’t have a checking account or credit cards either, so it’s equally difficult for me to pay it! And since my premium’s $200 a year and his is $900, I think he should endure the arduous chore of opening the bill, reading it, buying a money order and a stamp, and getting it in the mail on time.

Yeah. Right.

Long story short, it occurred to me this afternoon — as I was paying the bill online with a borrowed credit card — that the ex and I need to get separate policies.

I surfed around and ended up at Geico for a quote. In the process, I had a window open at Drive — to get my current coverage and VIN and such — and noticed archived PDFs of all the documents pertaining to my current policy. One document was called Notice of Continuing Action and the title intrigued me, so I opened it.

It’s basically a two-page document saying they’d reviewed my policy and did not give me the lowest rate available because of my driving or credit history. My driving record is spotless, so it appears they’re charging me more because I have lousy credit. Continue reading An industry that preys on fear. →

Thursday is the Day Before Payday

Weather, Work

In which no news is good news!

Today at work I’m listing some of the company’s extraneous hardware on eBay. It’s pretty fun, but the boss is out of the office right now so I don’t know if he wants me to put reserves on the switches or not.

Next I’ll be meticulously unfucking a 60+ page legal document I scanned and OCR’d yesterday. (I hate MS Word. I think I might just put all the text in Notepad, do all the needed find’n’replaces, and THEN put it back in Word. Word is a bossy, nosey bitch, who thinks it knows what I want BUT IT DOESN’T.)

After a few days of unseasonable balminess, it’s chilly again. I’m under-dressed and my desk sits in an Arctic zone so my fingers are freezing. (The rest of the building is at least five degrees warmer than the spot I sit in. I hope this spot doesn’t turn out to be the warmest zone in the summer. That would suck.) I’m half tempted to run home real quick and get, like, a down comforter or something. I can’t feel my toes.

My roommate Truck said something hysterical the other day. At the time I said, “I am so gonna blog that,” but now I can’t remember what it was. (Plus he’s so weird that most people don’t get half his schtick anyway.)

I can’t think of anything else to put parentheses around, so I think my work on this post is done.

Weather

Blurbs

In which it’s a beautiful day.

It’s gorgeous out. Gorgeous! Warm and breezy and balmy. If I weren’t still so pleased to be employed, I’d be bitching about wanting to go outside and play!

The site I mentioned yesterday went down about five minutes after I posted, and is still down. I wonder if I jinxed it. Maybe I should link to CNN.com and see if it goes down, too?

Update: ED is back up. Sort of. Unreliable bitches.

Monday

Blurbs, Work

In which I miss the loss of unlimited naptime, but otherwise feel pretty damn positive. Bonus: includes the return of nested parentheses!

Overheard at work today: “Yeah, I understand that. I just don’t understand how a buffer overflow translates to root access.”

(Rampant nerd-speak! I love my job!)

I spent about eleventy hours this weekend trolling through the Encyclopedia Dramatica, which is both an Internet cultural history wiki and the home of some of the foulest, rudest, and funniest crap ever written, ever ever EVAR.

The ED roundly bags on everyone (including, but not limited to: 16-year-old girls, women in general and your mom in particular, fucktards, fags, niggers, Jews, emo kids, and even you) and after that it just gets worse. Literally no one can read it without becoming offended. It’s raunchy, liberally decorated with filthy pictures, pretty much NSFW, and completely fucking hysterical. I laughed my ass off. (But do beware the ED, gentle readers, because you will get goatsed if you surf around in there. (And I’m not just talkin’ the original hello.jpg either; it’s empty 40’s in the arse these days. YHBW.))

I saw Alex today!

In other news, I still hate DST because it’s fucking stupid and I hate it.