another waste of time

super want

2010-06-26T16:46:00.003-05:00

holy shit am i ever a terrible blogger. nothing new for damned near a year. that's just sad.

so anyway. since i don't drive and have never managed to ride a bicycle more than about 4 feet without falling over, i decided a long time ago that it would be awesome if i had an adult tricycle. specifically a recumbent trike because a regular trike in adult size always makes me think of old men who ride around raiding the trash for soda cans to sell. the problem with this idea is that recumbent trikes are ridiculously expensive. if i had the balancing skills of your average kindergartner, i could pick up a bike at a yard sale for like 5 bucks, but a trike is a much harder thing to find, so this whole idea has been a someday sort of thing.

the other night, though, i had a serious dose of want on and decided to find out how feasible the idea of buying a trike would really be. it was pretty darned disheartening. even a used trike is way outside my price range, and no one is looking to get rid of one in my area anyway.

then i found this thing that is technically a recumbent trike, but the ultra dumbed down version. it's practically a big metal bigwheel. which honestly appeals to me because i wouldn't know what to do with a 28-speed racing trike anyway and less complicated means less maintenance. of course, it's still not cheap. the manufacturer sells them on their website for $500, which is less than half what a low priced recumbent trike like you would buy from a bicycle dealer goes for, but is still a chunk of change. i managed to find them for sale from a reputable online retailer (a csn store) for only a little more than i make in a pay period. of course, it would be $75 cheaper if i could get the slightly smaller version, and being 5'1" i totally would, except there's 30 lb. difference in the weight limit and the weight limit on the big one is about me and frank. technically it's me plus 2 franks, but since frank weighs less than a gallon of milk, a frank here or there hardly matters.

so while i still can't actually afford to buy a trike, i do now know that there is a trike that i could afford sooner than i could afford other things, like moving the hell out of my parents house. i honestly have no idea why i decided that was something i needed to blog about, except that i'm entirely too excited about it at the moment and felt like sharing.

good monday

2009-07-15T03:29:00.004-05:00

so monday i had to go back to the orthopedist for another follow up on my foot. i'm still pretty sure the doctor is under the mistaken impression that i'm a minor. not only does he call my "kiddo" he tends to address a fair dose of my care instructions to my mother. i know this amuses me, but i can't decide if it bothers me. i know that i apparently don't look my age, but most people guess i'm in my early to mid 20s, not my late teens. i know i bring my mother with me to my appointments, but even if i could drive, i couldn't do it with a giant boot on, so i'd have to have someone there with me. being single, wouldn't my mother be a logical choice to con into it even at 27, or if you go by appearance 22-24? also, my birth date, including year, is clearly printed on the front of my file.

anyway, the good news is, i'm cleared to de-boot. he wants me to wear an air splint for a while, just to make sure i don't roll my ankle again while the bone is so freshly healed and vulnerable. i'm not actually doing that right now since the inside of the air splint is the kind of plastic that sticks to bare skin. until i get a chance to go buy a long sock to protect my leg, i'm wearing the boot to work and just my pull-on brace around the house.

after the doctor's visit, frank and took a nap on the love seat before i went grocery shopping and then to work. since someone decided to document that, i thought i'd share.

in case you give a crap

2009-07-06T23:30:00.003-05:00

it's time for another reading update.

having reached the 6 month mark for 2009, it's time to recap. and the totals are: 59 manga (j-8, f-13, m-15,a-11, m-9, j-3) and 43 books (j-7, f-7, m-8, a-9, m-9, j-12). in comparison to the previous 6 month period, i'm down 14 books but up 38 manga, so i think that probably kind of evens out.

two in one day! it's a miracle

2009-04-01T03:41:00.003-05:00

so i realized it had been forever since i checked my sitemeter. of course then i decided i should, and as it was marginally interesting, i thought i'd tell you all about it.

we've got one more person looking to cheat on a bmv eye exam, which i so do not get. i mean, really, if you can't handle the eye exam, please do not drive. get some glasses, take the bus, but don't drive.

also got a handful of hits about my great love, the empty firehouses of this town. this always makes me happy because i feel like maybe i helped somebody learn something about something awesome. which would be a great thing, since i know i'm not holding up to the real purpose of this blog most the time, which is being entertaining and informative to my friends. on a similar note i also had few hits related to the awesome book i got about the fire department from my equally awesome friends for my last birthday.

otherwise all of my interesting search hits were from the various quotes from the movie meme i did a while back. mostly these were for the one from blazing saddles about dimes, but i also had one each for o brother, where art thou?, delores claiborne, and the changeling.

reading update

2009-04-01T03:15:00.004-05:00

yeah, i know, i suck because i don't post enough. anyway, here a quarterly update on my reading. so far this year i've read 36 manga (j-8, f-13, m-15) and 22 books (j-7, f-7, m-8).

in other news, i still really hate the dress code at work, mostly because i have to wear pants that i split last week and am holding together with a number of patches because my new pants are too long and i can't just wear some freaking jeans while i wait for them to get hemmed.

also, gratuitous cuteness:

2009-01-29T02:56:00.000-06:00

the verdict

2009-01-05T02:28:00.002-06:00

so, now that the year has ended, it's time for the final tally of my reading since the first of july. in the last 6 months i have read a grand total of 21 manga (july-7, august-7, september-1, october-3, november-1, december-2) and 57 books (j-14, a-11, s-13, o-6, n-7, d-6). the drop off toward the end of the year was caused by working a lot more and developing a habit of skimming books i'd already read when i didn't feel like digging up a new one, and of course it doesn't count if i only read parts of a book.

i've continued keeping track, and so far i'm a book and half into the new year, so if you find this concept even remotely interesting, you can look forward to maybe getting periodic updates. or maybe not, since i'm not so good about updates.

on the plus side, i recently got a good deal on a used digital camera, so once i get around to putting batteries in it and figuring out how to use it, there could theoretically be more activity on the blog.

look! a new post!

2008-12-19T03:37:00.004-06:00

we all know i'm a really bad blogger. what you might not know is that quite often i have ideas for blog posts, but then i don't have time to blog when i think of them, and then i forget and they never happen. example, i never got around to telling all of you about being reunited with my mother's family back in august. i'm not going to get into it now, because it was a while ago, but if you're curious you can ask me about it in person and i can tell you about what my youngest cousin has in common with her mother and how big an ass my other cousin's ex-husband is.

so, what's new with me? with any luck i'll be starting my christmas shopping tomorrow. yes, i said starting, not finishing. you see, i've been working a lot. a whole hell of a lot. about two months ago one of the women who also does my job, the only one of us that is full time, had to take some time off to have surgery. that left a lot of hours to be covered. on top of my share of that, it turns out there's a little problem with the girl our manager decided to train to do the job while we were shorthanded. she seems to have a problems with showing up for work. out of the last 6 or 7 weeks, there has been one week that i didn't have to come in on one of my days off and work because she called in. it's not just me though. she's also part of our ad set team, or at least she was, but after she called in on that 4 weeks in a row, the manager decided to stop sheduling her for it, and gave those hours to the guy who kept having to work them anyway.

now that the head of our front end is back (as of monday), i should go back to actually having two days off a week and not having to worry about can i finish my shift on saturday without running over on hours. well, unless she kills the new girl on saturday night. there's this new hire at work who has not only managed to annoy the crap out of me and all the female managers (we are a cranky bunch of bitches), she's also seriously peeved off the other front end supervisor, who is widely know to be sweet as pie and get along with everybody. the beef i have with her is that i keep getting stuck with her by management because they don't want her on the floor. this should be great because when we're crazy busy like we are coming up to christmas, i need a cashier to keep up front so i can get off register long enough to straighten my front end. the problem is, while she has no problem staying up front, i can't seem to get her to stay on register. every chance she gets she's dusting something or sweeping the floor i'm going to have to sweep again anyway or something. and if no one is standing at a register when they come up to check out, where do customers go? to my register. so i have to stop what i'm doing (something that has to get done before we can leave) and wait on them, while she continues to do things that don't need to be done or that i will have to do again in an hour anyway. the problem that everyone else has with her is another matter entirely, and something i actually haven't had to deal with since her second day: backtalk. i gotta tell you, it's really stupid, but it proves the girl's got balls, big brass balls. you don't sass management anyway, but if you know my managers these are not women you want to sass even if you don't work for them. i've stood right there and heard her say some shit to the floral manager and the assistant store manager, and i've heard about some of what she's said to the craft manager and the other fes. enough of this has gotten back to the store manager that she's already getting shorted on hours and it's not even christmas yet. in fact the only day she works this week in saturday night, the only night that the head fes is closing. this could get damned interesting, because that woman doesn't take well to sass, and she seems a little frayed from being thrown into christmas in retail cold after two months off anyway.

in other work news, we got new music. the old music was this mind-numbing instrumental crap that i know we had three cds of despite the fact that it all sounded like the same song over and over and over again. now we have real music, real songs that you would recognize, with words and everything. the only down side is that there's this one christmas song that kind of annoys me anyway, the kind that sticks in your head even though you don't even like it, and i swear it played three time during my 7.5 hours shift tonight. other than that it's been pretty awesome. i even caught one of the managers singing along twice the other night, once when i was, too.

a lot of stuff

2008-11-07T02:18:00.002-06:00

i'm going to get this started by saying "OMG my state is blue!!!" the last time my state was blue, neither of my parents were old enough to vote (dad had just turned 18, but voting age was 21 then). even with the damned electoral college, my vote counted, and that my friends is freaking awesome. a related very neat story? one of my cousins, who lives in kentucky, knowing that her state was hopelessly red, did volunteer work calling people in indiana to help us be blue.

speaking of cousins, one of mine is dead. tuesday morning, just about the time i was getting out of bed, a guy who grew up just around the corner called my dad because he read in the paper that my cousin died. we bought a paper to confirm and also called the uncle who did not spawn the dead cousin to see what he knew about it. c.o.d.: cirrhosis of the liver. thanks to the obit, we also found out that his little brother is dead. the younger one is not technically my cousin because they're half brothers (although there's speculation about that within my immediate family because dude looks way more like my uncle that he does his dad). checked the internet and his c.o.d. was a "contact gunshot wound to the head." don't know if it was suicide or murder or what, but still odd.

also, i owe you an update on the book project, and hope to get to that very soon.

i have a book problem

2008-08-03T03:05:00.004-05:00

so, a bit ago i decided i wanted to keep track of how much i was reading. since it was sort of a 'how much i read in a year' thing and i didn't want to wait until the new year, i decided to start at the half way point. it's now been a month, and this is what i know: in the month of july i read 8 volumes of manga, 14 novels, and two novella. just thought i would share.

only 21 more shopping days

2008-07-28T04:36:00.002-05:00

if anyone's wondering what i want for my birthday, i want a book. it's called Time served is not in vain : history of the Evansville Fire Department by Kenny Gest. you might remember it from the excersion posts. i have no idea where you can buy it or what it costs, but i want it. amazon has never heard of it and barnes and noble says it's out of stock on the website.

random quiz

2008-05-11T03:33:00.001-05:00

You paid attention during 91% of high school!

85-100% You must be an autodidact, because American high schools don't get scores that high! Good show, old chap!

Do you deserve your high school diploma?
Create a Quiz

i went back and fiddled until i figured out which two questions i missed, so if you want to know all the right answers i can tell you.

since i was off work today, too

2008-05-01T01:57:00.002-05:00

so, a few weeks ago my brother was complaining that he hasn't been able to afford to eat out recently, and i took pity on him and told him that the next time i had a tuesday off i'd take he and amy out for a burrito combo. it was ridiculously crowded and loud, and we sat at the very last empty table. because of the noise level i think it was an honest mistake that when the waitress asked him if he wanted another margarita and he said, "no, just a glass of water" she brought him another margarita and a glass of water. the sour cream and guacamole was a different story. i'm 99.98% sure that the reason they ask you every time you order something if you want sour cream or guacamole is that it's free. after all, she didn't charge me for the sour cream he said he didn't want but she brought him anyway. i'm pretty sure the reason i was charged for his guacamole, and double charged for amy's sour cream and guacamole is that the waitress entered it in the computer wrong when she logged the order. so, i'll admit that had a noticeable negative effect on her tip. not the full $3.25 i was charged for free condiments, but noticeable.

that's not the point of this post, though. the point is that after dinner, when i was going to buy them gas because they didn't think about the fact that they didn't have enough to drive here and back for free dinner, the idea was mentioned that i could go back with them and come back today. since i was off work today too, we did it (the other half of we being the fuzzy frank). so i got to see the large areas of dirt that will be the vegetable gardens once the teeny tiny green things grow into actual plants, and i got to meet sammy jenkins, the newest addition to their household. she's pretty darn cute, all white with a brown face. she does have this weird ocd thing about toys, so she spent the entire morning out in the yard by herself because she refused to stop playing ball until he practically dragged her inside when he was leaving to bring me home.

other highlight include: sleeping for shit because i move around a fair bit in my sleep which was prevented by the fact that monk was sleeping on my back, ass, legs, and so forth, depending the time in question. we also payed a visit to his friend who lives across town where i got a free bonsai pot that dusty was going to sell at a yard sale for 50 cents, and i got to see paco, reggie and louie (but not their new dog sammy, because he's shy and hid in the laundry room). plus, i got to pet the very cute stray kitty that they've been feeding which dusty has decided to call "boo boo kitty fuck".

speaking of random movie references, you know there's still one quote left. if you can guess what it is, you should do that, especially of you're one of the two people currently tied for most correct identifications, because the prize i bought was the last one, and any second prize i got wouldn't be as cool.

meme time

2008-04-06T01:20:00.016-05:00

i stole this meme from VBG, so enjoy.

The rules:

-- Pick 10 (or so) of your favorite movies.
-- Find, remember, or look up a quote from each movie.
-- Post them here for everyone to guess.
-- Strike it out (not really sure yet how i'll mark them, but i'll mark them)
-- NO googling or cheating by doing an online search. Cheaters never prosper.
-- Commenters should share the fun and only guess one movie.

so, here they are, give it a go, and we'll see what happens.

edit: as of right now (3:16 am central time on 4-12-08), all movies not yet identified are getting an extra quote. that includes the two people have said they know but haven't indentified yet.

addendum to edit: so, after 8 days with the second quotes, there's still one movie left. so, what shall i do? give you a third quote. that better do the trick because if i have to hunt down a forth quote, we're having a movie night for sure. so, will it break the tie for the lead, or will someone else get it and keep the tie alive?

1. “Geology is the study of pressure and time. That's all it takes really, pressure, and time. That, and a big god-damned poster.”

“That's where I want to live the rest of my life. A warm place with no memory.”

Danger came back to say that this one is The Shawshank Redemption.

2. “Salsa shark! We're gonna need a bigger boat! Man goes into cage, cage goes into salsa. Shark's in the salsa. Our shark.”

the apathetic one snagged this one from Clerks. and it's a good thing, too. i didn't have a second quote prepared for this one since two people had said they knew it.

3. “I figure fuck it, while I'm at it why not just shoot my buddy, take his job, give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? I could be elected president.”

“Look, you're my best friend, so don't take this the wrong way. In twenty years, if you're still livin' here, comin' over to my house to watch the Patriots games, still workin' construction, I'll fuckin' kill you. That's not a threat. Now, that's a fact. I'll fuckin' kill you.”

danger worked out that these are from Good Will Hunting, tying the apathethic one. sorry, bibliophile, that means you're out of the prize running.

4. “That house is not fit to live in. No one's been able to live in it. It doesn't want people.”

the bibliophile picked this one as being from The Changeling. if you don't know what that is, go find it and watch it. it's from like 1980 and has goerge c. scott in it. it's great. i think she only knew it because she knew i loved the movie enough one of them had to be from it.

5. “I felt his presence. He's come for me. He can feel when I'm near. That's why I have to go. As long as I stay, I'm endangering the group and our mission. I have to face him.”

the bass commando recognized this from Return of the Jedi. that is my favorite star wars movie, proving that i really am a girl. in my experience guys prefer empire, while chicks tend to favor jedi.

6. “I insist that all women who have hysterics in my drawing room call me by my Christian name.”

“Sometimes you have to be a high-riding bitch to survive. Sometimes being a bitch is all a woman has to hold onto.”

“Husbands die every day, -------. Why... one is probably dying right now while you're sitting here weeping. They die... and leave their wives their money. I should know, shouldn't I? Sometimes they're driving home from their mistress' apartment and their brakes suddenly fail.”
(note: the dashes replace a name, a very important name, which is why i edited it out)

woo freaking hoo! someone (the bibliophile) finally nailed this one as Dolores Claiborne, even if she can't spell it. so, the tie stands and i gotta figure out how to devide the spoils.

7. “Well, ain't this place a geographical oddity. Two weeks from everywhere!”

VBG knew that this is from 'O Brother, Where Art Thou?

8. “The LePetomane Thru-Way? Now what'll that asshole think of next? Does anybody have a dime? Somebody has to go back and get a shitload of dimes.”

“No, thank you. Fifteen is my limit on schnitzengruben.”

the apathetic one worked out that this is from Blazing Saddles. she's really showing everyone else up.

9. “Hey! Don't say shit like that to me. People can hear you.”

danger recognized this one from 10 Things I Hate About You.

10. "All gay men have track lightin'. And all gay men are named Mark, Rick, or Steve."

the apathetic one pegged this one as Steel Magnolias. not the person i was expecting to get that one, but what the hell.

fucking shoot me

2008-03-13T03:01:00.003-05:00

first, i'm going to hereby stop apologizing for or making reference to the infrequency of my posts. why? because if i apologize every time it's been over a month since i posted, i'll apologize every post. besides, i keep doing it, so i can't really be that sorry, can i?

second, i either need to stop hanging out with people who think dinner takes place around 5:30-6:00, or stop living with people who think dinner takes place around 8:00-9:00. honestly, since neither of these things is going to happen, i need to start thinking about it more, and take action to make sure i get to eat at some point. see, the other day i was meeting my girls at 7:00 to watch some cool celtic music. dinner at my house was not even in the works, and i didn't think about the fact that everyone i was with would have already had it until it was too late to go buy myself some before the concert. suffice it to say that by the time the musical portion of my evening was over, i was seriously hungry (my lunch having been a hot dog around 3). i was also starting to get a headache, which i assumed was because i hadn't eaten.

so we all went back to the bibliophile's house, where i had an integral role in the decimation of a package of hawaiian rolls, and then did some baby shower planning, followed by group bookshelf assembly. through this my head was still aching, which i was still assuming was caused by my lack of food, because 4 rolls does not a dinner make, but it wasn't too bad and i was having a good time. then because of the discovery that one of the adjustable shelves had been put together upside down, i was bent over putting some screws in when my head started to pound very painfully, at which point i delegated the task's completion.

although the pounding stopped when i stood up, my headache starting building in strength all through the ride home and i demanded advil as soon as i walked in the door. unfortunately for me, the advil did NOTHING to help, not even reversing the building of pain. i tried to eat something, but the chewing only made the pain worse. i specifically remember wanting to cry but knowing that would only make it worse, so i managed to hold back on that particular urge. unfortunately that was the extent of my holding back skills.

hello second migraine headache in my life. if only you had been like the first one and been identified in time for me to go to sleep and miss the part where you grew until i the throbbing got so bad i thought the top of my head would blow off and spew grey matter all over my walls. that's about the time i threw up. after that it slacked off enough that i thought it best to get to sleep before it built up again.

so, in recap, tuesday night i had no dinner, but i had fun, and then i really, really didn't.

maybe i AM a patient person

2008-01-12T05:21:00.000-06:00

otherwise how can you explain my not killing a woman today at work. so, this woman comes to my register today and asks if we have this stamp cleaner in a larger size bottle. i tell her that if we did it would be in the same place as the smaller one, so if she didn't see it there, then no. so she asks if we can order it in a large size. and i told her that we can only order items that we stock so unless there was an empty place for it, then no. so she decides to buy it, and this is the point where things go south.

she set the cleaner, a postcard style mailer with a coupon on it, and her credit card on the counter. i pick up the cleaner and scan it. meanwhile she picks up the mailer and starts tearing the coupon loose. then i take the coupon and scan it. meanwhile she puts her credit card away. i tell her her total and she stands there expectantly, then says that she doesn't need a bag. i tell her that that's fine, but she does need to pay me. she says that she gave me her credit card, and i tell her that she put away before i could swipe it. she says i should have swiped it before she put it away. i tell her that i was still scanning her merchandise at that time and couldn't swipe her card then. she says if i hadn't swiped it i shouldn't have given it back to her. i explain that i didn't give it back, as i never picked it up. she tells me that i should have. i explain that i was busy scanning her merchandise. she gives me a dirty look and hands me a five dollar bill. despite desperately wanted to bash her in the head with something heavy and maybe also sharp, i hand her her change and tell her to have a nice day. SHE ACTUALLY HAS THE AUDACITY TO SAY THAT IT WOULD BE BETTER IF SHE DIDN'T HAVE TO DEAL WITH STUPID PEOPLE!!!

and the most amazing part of this story? i didn't kill her! i even waited until she walked out the door to attract odd looks from the woman checking out at the next register by kicking one of the supports under my counter so hard that i knocked the phone off the hook. she pissed me off so bad i'm shaking with anger just thinking about it now, several hours later.

a day late and a dollar short

2008-01-12T04:11:00.000-06:00

i hear tell that yesterday was delurking day (i haven't slept so it's still friday). if i don't know you're here, now your chance to say hello. if i don't know you at all, why would you hang around for this lame shit?

i also wanted to do a googleage report, but it's not massively interesting. my traffic is quite interesting geographically speaking and seriously large in quantity all of a sudden, but it seems to mostly be coming in via the blogger navbar. i'm still getting a few hits about the bmv eye exam and various glasses retailers.

someone wants to know about good places to get married in canton, ohio. i can't really help with that since i've never been to canton, or the state of ohio. i don't even remember mentioning ohio, despite the fact that one of my closest friends lives there now (but not in canton).

i got a few hits about firehouses (and churches). one was even specifically for evansville. it made me happy to think that i might have actually been marginally useful to someone wanting to know something. unfortunately, it was a pre-excursion post they hit, so not as useful as it could have been.

christmas update 2.0

2007-12-21T04:43:00.000-06:00

well, batches 3 and 4 of 6 batches of fudge are mostly set and will be ready for cutting by morning. truffles making is planned for saturday after work. mini muffins are made for the christmas feed tomorrow at work, although additional mini muffins may or may not be made in the morning. shopping has progressed very little.

it's beginning to look a lot like the ornament project is a complete wash. i bought 18 ornament to paint. i have painted 9 of them. it looks like two of them might be dry enough for the tops to go back on by the time i need them to be ready. so, um, maybe they'll be dry by next christmas?

my boys

2007-12-20T00:58:00.000-06:00

my fuzzy boy had another seizure today while i was at work. it's been about 6 or 7 months since his last one, and i'm not sure if i should take him in and get him medicated for it or not. is it worth making him take medicine every day to prevent something that might happen twice a year?

the seizure itself only lasts about half a minute, but then he's wobbly on his feet for a while, and his gums and tongue go really pale, and he throws up afterword. and he's not graceful at that. i'm sure you don't want details, but he's pathetic when he hurks, and he needs a napkin. just imagine if your whole face was covered in long hair when that happens to you. but then again within a hour it's like the whole thing never even took place. he's his usual hoppy self. and if you've met him you know that's not a typo.

another bit of news. earlier tonight my brother and his girlfriend took us and her family out to dinner for christmas instead of buying individual presents. at dinner, they announced that they haven't set a date yet, but they're going to get married. mom and i are hoping for a small ceremony (like 10 people including the justice of the peace), but they're talking about just going to the court house, with maybe a party later. we really like her (and her family too, or at least the ones we've met), and honestly i like him better since they got together. she's really good for him, as far as encouraging his art and not enabling his immature and destructive impulses. she even gets along great with most of his friends, which considering some of the boy's friends is saying something. plus, not meaning to be shallow, but she has her own car and the ability to hold a job, which is more than could be said for a lot of the girls he's been involved with.

well, that's it for now. gotta sleep and whatnot.

christmas update

2007-12-15T04:07:00.000-06:00

so, about getting ready for christmas. so far i have gifts for the dogs and my father. i have no idea what to get mom, and i think i'll get the brother and his woman a gift card for going out to dinner, but haven't picked a restaurant or purchased it. i normally get a small gift for monk (the brother's dog), but am not sure if it would be fair to do so and not get anything for the other 2 dogs now living there. i did see the perfect thing for him, though. you can get a fairly realistic squirrel, and i've seen the boy sit in the window and bark at squirrels in the side yard. i know it must sound really weird to put this much effort into gifts for a dog, but i'm not the only one who has told my parents that the only grandchildren they'll be getting will be furry and four-legged.

as far as the 4 birthday gifts i need in time for the christmas party. the big project is totally complete, except that i realized earlier that after augmenting it, i think i put it back in the box wrong. i may decide to fix that. for someone else i have purchased a gift, but intend to purchase an additional and similar gift and give them together. for yet another person i found the perfect gift by accident, but it's a) out of stock in the appropriate size and b) out of my price range. found a decent alternative along the same lines, but with shipping it's still a bit outside the price range and i'm not sure it would be here in time. so, i'm basically at square one there. that leave just one more person to gift, for which i am totally lost.

otherwise, my cards are sent and my mail project will be boxed tonight and sent tomorrow before work. i'm hopeful that will be soon enough to reach there destinations in time. my ornaments are killing me on drying time, but i'm hoping to prevail there.

work has been getting more and more retarded by the day. tonight, despite requisitioning and getting a dedicated cashier to stay on register, at 9:00 i had only been able to get off register long enough to straighten two small grids. by closing (at 10) i still hadn't swept. enough people were coming to the doors after closing that we couldn't leave them unlocked while carts were rounded up. instead someone stood inside to unlock them and let the manager push carts in. this included someone who pulled up across the only spot in the sidewalk that slopes, allowing for the pushing up of carts, then sat there while a passenger sauntered up to check our hours. needless to say they were severely tempting said manager to ram into them with a row of carts, but she was able to restrain herself until they moved allowing her to come in and yell obscenities about them. the "eat me" fudge (so named because it was in an unassuming container with a post-it note labeled "eat me!") went over well. honestly, though, i'm not how much of it got eaten by anyone other that the closing manager and my favorite experienced cashier. i know the two of them hit it pretty hard.

i'm seriously not looking forward to next week, when we will be open until 11:00. especially since i close friday night and then have to be back at 7:00 saturday morning to count money. in fact, in addition to being against company rules about having a register the day before being in the cash office (which my store manager seems to have totally thrown by the wayside), i'm also pretty sure that's a violation of labor laws, since there's only 7.5 hours between my shifts, and i think there are supposed to be at least 8. oh well, money's money, eh?

that is all for now.

okay...

2007-12-13T14:57:00.000-06:00

i've resisted putting in a word verification for comments, because i hate having to verify that i am indeed a person on everyone else's blog. also, for reasons unknown i seem to have problems with them and sometimes have to do two because i got the first one wrong.

unfortunately, thanks to some damned spammer named adam, i've been forced to put in verification. he posted no less than 6 of the exact same comment on my last post. unfortunately no one else commented. have you all forgotten about me because of my infrequent posts?

okay, i suck big time

2007-12-03T03:17:00.000-06:00

holy crap. i managed to avoid posting entirely in the month of november. geeze, i know i'm bad about not posting, but even i know that's not good.

sadder yet, i still don't really have anything to post about. i've got a few projects in the works, most of which i can't talk about because i don't want various parties who might read this to know about them. i will say that if i asked you to do something for me toward a gift for someone else, i'm sorry i haven't gotten you the roughs yet, i will soon i promise. and if you know what the surprise mail project is, i've got all my supplies and am planning to make major progress on that thursday, since that's my day off this week. i was going to do it today, but that turned out to not be my day off. then, at some point i need to make use of all the supplies i bought saturday night, and for that matter finish the necklace i started for my brother's girlfriend and planned to give her for her birthday back in october. it's hard to say how well my christmas/winter birthday shopping is going. i've bought about half my christmas gifts, but have no idea what to get for the rest of them or any of my winter birthdays (aside from the above mentioned project not involving the usps).

work has been insane, mostly because i don't have the good sense not to work in retail at christmas time. i swear today while trying to get from the front of the store to the back of the store i was stopped no less than eight times. oddly enough that particular trip it was all customers. i quite often get stopped and asked questions by employees, including saturday night while i was shopping. although that was fairly understandable since it's not at all surprising that the newest framer doesn't know where to find things outside his department.

oddest thing about the new framer, he is male, not old, not jail bait, and doesn't seem to be gay. this is quite unusual for the craft store. in other news, our young guy of indeterminate preference is home from art school for christmas and decided to work over break. i like it when people come back to work, but i don't know why. i guess it's nice to see a familiar face.

well, that's all i've got for now and i promise to make every effort to post again before the new year.

happy halloween

2007-10-31T04:07:00.000-05:00

now i'm thinking about getting a small pumpkin from work, so i can emulate this.

random work stuff

2007-09-28T02:48:00.000-05:00

not to say i do nothing but work, because that would imply that i get enough hours, but i have to admit that unless you care about what i ate for dinner or you want to hear about the fight my parents had about our broken a/c blower, or that my dog is cute but the housebreaking is still very much a work in non-progress, etc., i've got nothing to tell you.

so yesterday (wednesday) night, i was working with our newest cashier. it was her second day. when i went on break i had to stop by the frame shop just to tell the framing manager how much i like the new cashier. (this was relevant because the cashier's sister works in framing.) i was like, "i had to walk her through a return once as a reminder, but that's it. and she's had two more returns since then, and she hasn't had any problems!" and the manager was like, "i know, it was the same way training her sister. isn't it great?"

granted, she hasn't learned tax exempts yet, or how to sign people up for classes, and i don't think she knows all the void functions. she probably hasn't checked a gift card balance or done a split tender yet, but still, i'm very confident in this one. after all, there's plenty of stuff on those registers that i've had to show people who've worked there longer than me how to do.

she probably thinks i'm insane, though, because i must have seemed entirely too happy that she shows some aptitude for preforming simple tasks. at one point i told her that if they have any more relative who need jobs, they should come work with us. not to say that most of our new hires are idiots, after all this isn't the deli, but i find myself helping the rest of the new people a lot more, and they aren't as new.

it can't help the situation that the night before my back-up cashier was a girl who i'm not sure how she still has a job there. i'm not sure exactly how long she's been there, but i remember her head brushing christmas stockings hung above the registers and we haven't quite reached that point in the seasonal cycle this year. and yet faced with a cart of about 18 items that needed to be put back, she picked up around 4 of them and said, "i know where these go." i then proceeded to hand her the items while rattling off locations. you know, "32, wedding, wedding, cake decorating, halloween grid,..." honestly, the girl is useless enough that our manager pulled the old 'no hours' number on her for a while, to the point i think she worked one day in three months, but now we seem to be hurting for cashiers so she's getting some hours again, and it's almost as bad as having new hires, since she knows about as much.

i'm not sure what the deal is with the lack of cashiers all of a sudden. i don't remember more than maybe one person quitting, and the only one i can think of who seems to have disappeared off the schedule without me knowing they left is our high school boy of indeterminate orientation, and yet suddenly we only have 3 cashiers who've been there more than a month and a half, including tall girl who doesn't know her head from a hole in the ground. now, part of that is because i'm not a cashier anymore, and apparently (as of the schedule that came out yesterday) neither is the girl who's been picking up a little slack in the FES department because of my cash office days, but still.

speaking of, i'm not overjoyed at that particular new development. not that i begrudge her the job, although i'm not sure she's 100% qualified, but neither are any of the others. the issue i have with it is that i have 3 days off next week. doesn't sound so bad, does it? except the 4 days i work are only 4-5.5 hour days. 19 hour weeks is not going to cut it. i'm planning to wait until the next schedule comes out, but if i'm still down to only 4 days, i'm going to have to talk to the manager, because i'm not giving up hours to a high schooler who doesn't do my job as well as i do.

anyway, that was a long enough rant about work. in other news, i bought pretty new red shoes the other day, and i'm really enjoying the new ken burns documentary about WWII.

chicago

2007-08-24T05:25:00.000-05:00

alright, well, all i have to say, other than i had a blast, is that progress is going well on the awesome cross-stitch pattern of a frank lloyd wright window, even though it turned out to be more complicated than it looked. and the chart gives the web address of the company that makes it, so i could get more if i wanted to, including stuff they didn't have in the gift shop.

also, this blog would be so much better if i owned a digital camera, since it would be kind of silly for me to post pictures taken by my cohorts, most of whom have their own blogs to post said pictures on anyway.

i was there...

2007-08-21T03:53:00.000-05:00

and several other cool places to boot. i spent 4 days in chicago recently when myself and 4 friends went up to visit j-dog and her husband. we didn't do half the stuff we were planning to, let alone any of the stuff we were going to try to squeeze in there if we had time, but a good time was had by all (unless someone is hiding it well).

so, the trip got me thinking, my friends have done pretty well in the husband finding department. i mean, they've got themselves some pretty nice guys. sure, there's the recently rectified situation of evilducky's brit (who seemed nice enough, proving that things aren't always as they seem), but he never really fit in anyway. it's nice to be able to say that unless we're talking about an all girl occasion (bachelorette party, happy divorce celebration, etc.), i can't see myself being sorry that my good friend brought a spouse to the party.

i get the impression that sometimes when people get married it causes problems with friends, like some man has stolen their friend and is monopolizing her time, but instead my friends found awesome, fun guys and gatherings really can be the more the merrier. how many people can say that their friend came home and found them in the living room with her husband, playing video games?

i can't seem to make this come across quite right, but if you're reading this, and we hang out on a regular basis, and you have a husband, thanks for picking out a good one, the rest of us are grateful. not that we would expect you to marry some humorless ass, but still.

also, it's official, i got the apathetic one's job now that she not my co-worker anymore. although, i'm still counting moneys on weekends and vacations.

i thought of other news

2007-08-14T03:06:00.000-05:00

so, did you know my brother doesn't work at the hotel anymore? yep. it turns out that his new boss (his old boss' boss) is an ass. he was already trying to do his job, cover shifts for a bartender who had just quit, and try to find time to interview people to be a bartender and weekend night auditor (to replace the one who had moved up to during the week after that one had quit already). plus he had one desk clerk who was out for injuries from a car wreck, and another about to go on maternity leave. and then his whole staff starting turning in two week notices hand over fist after the boss had a particularly asshole-y week. and what was the boss (owner son-in-law, by the way) doing while my brother was running around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to hold the place together and clean up boss' messes? golfing and picking out hardwood floors for his new house. so the boy decided he couldn't take it anymore and quit, complete with yelling, and an apologetic phone call a few hours later from the boss.

he has a new job now, although he hasn't started yet. more money for less responsibility (although less hours, so about the same money really), at another nice hotel MUCH closer to his house. he'll get benefits and a free meal per shift at the restaurant that's affiliated with the hotel. i think it's a hell of an improvement really, and i'm sure they'll be finding him some extra responsibility soon enough. his employers always do.

also, if all goes as planned, i'll be a redhead when i see you next. unless i'll see you in about 12 hours when you give me a ride to work, or you happen to need some craft stuff tomorrow evening.

for people finding this via google

2007-08-13T19:18:00.000-05:00

for the last time, i don't know anything about the shoes in the lenscrafters commercials, and i don't care. although since about a freaking dozen people seem to be looking for them, i might pay attention to what the hell they look like the next time i see one of those commercials.

also, shout out to whoever is looking for a video of the state skit about eating muppets. if you find it leave me a link, because i want it too.

and to all the people looking for firehouses and churches for sale: it's good to know i'm not alone.

p.s. yes, i know i haven't updated in over a month, and i'm sorry. if you want to know what's up with me, read every other post about what's up with me, because nothing here ever seems to change.

oh, except it turns out the reason my mother has been feeling crappy is because she had severe hypertension (high blood pressure) and no one had bothered to tell her that it was dangerously high every time she's gone to the convenient care in the last few years. they have been noting it in her charts, but i guess they thought she would magically know that without being shown said chart or told about it. she's seen a regular doctor about it and is now on medicine for it, and feeling some better.

and i'm going to chicago for four days (including my birthday) at the end of this week. YAY!

oh, random note. i'm currently (for about the last hour and half) having what feels like a mild panic attack for no reason whatsoever. i haven't gone into any tight spaces or crowded places, and i haven't been thinking about anything stressful, so i don't know what the problem is. all i know is that my heart is racing and my hands are shaking. i ate a small salad a bit ago and it seemed to calm down a little, but not enough. hopefully a little more time is all i need.

i apologize

2007-06-29T05:03:00.000-05:00

so, i just realized i hadn't posted in about a month and a half. that's horrible. so, now i've added a few interesting fluff posts, but here's one for to tell you what is new with me.

since you've last heard from me i've been to two small amusement parks, without getting sunburned hardly at all. i swear i have never ever gotten sunburned anywhere else, but every time i go to our local amusement park, holiday world, it's a battle between the sun and my spf 50, the outcome of which is uncertain. the other park i visited was beech bend in bowling green, where i briefly attended college and never knew there was an amusement park. i had fun but wasn't extremely impressed. if you ever go, i recommend hiding beverages somewhere on your person (and leaving for lunch) because in addition to being outrageously expensive the portions are pitiful.

we finished the latest project house, the one for the money guy's grandmother. i think it turned out nicely. mom's on the lookout for a new one for him to make some profit on.

this week and next at my job i'll be doing a job that isn't mine and technically outranks me, because one of the woman who actually does it has run away to florida with her family for 9 days. i can't complain about doing a job i'm not getting paid for, though, because even though i do make less that any of the three people who actually hold the position, it's not by much, since i just got a 56 cent raise. my manager didn't say why, but i'm guessing this has something to do with working in the cash office sometimes. i don't want to get too greedy, but since i still make crap wages, i may make some inquires about a few more cents closer to my impending two year anniversary.

speaking of work, can i just say that i think it's sad and wrong that we already have fall floral, halloween starts arriving tomorrow and the first christmas stuff will be coming in mid-july.

sadly, that's about all that is new with me. hopefully it won't take quite as long before another new post is forthcoming. also, this post will finally bump the last of my excursion posts off the main page, so here's a fond farewell from me to them.

someone in germany is stalking me

2007-06-29T04:16:00.000-05:00

no, really. someone in hamburg was looking for rabidmonkey. and someone with a mac somewhere in america actually did a blog search for my blog. why i could not say.

most of my search hits have been about glasses ever since i chronicled the purchase of my new ones. some gems out of those are: where are the shoes from on the lens crafter commercial, unlevel ears (from singapore, and i'm hoping this was about glasses on their end too, not some odd fetish), and how to beat the bmv eye exam (note: be very aware if driving near canton ohio, because someone there wants to drive without being able to see.)

almost all of my other search hits have some connection to my posts about old buildings. several are out-of-towners looking for things here in my hometown. someone is seattle was looking for the upstage dinner theater in evansville (hmm...i know someone who lives in seattle but is from here, wouldn't that be an interesting coincidence.) someone is florida is interested in haynie's corner here in town, and down in georgia there's interest in the old marine hospital (well, they didn't say old, but we don't have a new one.) there's also some interest in buildings for sale, specifically firehouses in kentucky and evansville, and churches in chicago and washington (state i'm guessing, since the person looking is there).

one building search (firehouse bassemier) reminded me of something. a little while ago i was poking around old local news articles (this involves in a roundabout way the local library and my personal librarian, so thanx). now, i think i've mentioned before that hose house 12 on first ave. used to be a bassemier's store. in addition the guy who owns bassemier's (i think you can guess his last name) also used to own #8 on columbia, and as some point was hoping to make a restaurant there with his brother, although it seems that never panned out. funny thing about it is he had some zoning trouble (totally unrelated to the restaurant idea). it seems that an old firehouse automatically reverts to residential zoning when the fire department stops using it. also, you can't park large commercial vehicles in a residential zoned area. so what did he own that he had trouble for parking at his firehouse? a decommissioned fire truck.

in case you were wondering

2007-06-29T04:06:00.000-05:00

news and visuals

2007-05-17T03:49:00.000-05:00

so, my brother got promoted today. technically, he got transferred to a better job at another hotel owned by the same company. they've been trying to fill the opening for a while, but he didn't apply because it requires 2 years hotel experience, which he won't have until july. so, last night when he got to work he had a message from his boss about it, as in "hey, if your interested come back at noon and i'll interview you." from the way he talks the interview basically only had two questions: "why didn't you apply?" and "do you want it?" he doesn't know yet what it pays, but has been told it will definitely pay more. he starts the new job in about 4 hours.

he also has apparently recommended me as a replacement for his old job. i'm not sure how i feel about that. it is full time and does pay more on the hour than i make. on the other hand third shift might play hell with my social schedule, and i'd have to wear a skirt (crazy sexist dress code).

on a completely different note: puppy picks!

frankie says, "pet me! pet me! no one can resist my incredible cuteness! i am soft and fuzzy!" actually, i think right about then he would have said, "hey, what's that black thing you're holding?" but the other applies pretty much any other time. just ask anyone who has met him.

bitsy would like to know if you have any food about your person. and if so, can she have it? she would be willing to whine, bark, or sit up like a prairie dog if that would make a difference. if you don't have any food, perhaps you might be interested in a nice game of fetch/tug-of-war with a stuffed hedgehog, tennis ball, or anything that squeaks and fits in her mouth? walkies would be much appreciated, but care must be taken as she can easily slip out of her collar because her head is smaller than her neck.

petey wants to know why you won't let him sleep in peace. no honestly, if you were really there he would be jumping around like a lunatic, trying to lick you all over your face and possibly would get so excited he might lose bladder control in the vicinity of your shoes/pant leg. but you weren't there. it's was only me, and i am old news, unless i have stepped outside the door for two milliseconds, then it's another story. besides, i was holding the black thing that makes the flashy light and the funny noises. funny noises will not be tolerated in pete's house. therefore, i got this wary look from the safety of his bed. and if you're wondering, yes that's a cat bed, not a dog bed, but he loves it. it's more den like with it's partial overhang. he cries and prods it with his nose if he doesn't have a blanket though, or if he's gotten his blanket down in it so he can't burrow under the covers.

mission almost accomplished

2007-05-02T03:01:00.000-05:00

so, remember how i needed to get new glasses because mine spontaneously fell apart? i got the tax check a few weeks ago, but didn't get a chance to go shopping for them until last week. here's the story.

so, i had been planning on returning to lens crafters because even though they tend to be a tad pricey, i had an $80 off coupon that my brother gave me, and that was where i had managed to get decent frames last time after trying at least two more moderately priced stores first. but then i saw that sears optical department was running a sale for $200 off any complete pair over $300. i was excited, thinking i'd be getting glasses for 100 and something dollars, maybe as much as $250 if they had a nice pair of the ones with magnetic sunglasses in titanium. after i found a pair i liked (with the sunglasses, yes) that was tagged as costing $219 for the frames, i asked what they would run with lenses and all. $413! after the $200 off! i'm guessing that the $219 is for the frame only and they change extra for the actual sunglasses (even though they are a set), because there is no way in hell that my lenses could possibly cost $400, no matter how many special features or coatings i got.

so, figuring there was no way it could hurt to see if i could get a better price, i then tried lens crafters. unfortunately, the titanium selection in their moderately priced brands was pretty crappy. what brand were the best frames for me they had? freaking prada. so, that's $295 just for the frames. add lenses and subtract the $100 off sale they were having, and it was about the same as sears. it's true that the lady at lens crafters was really nice and helpful, and the chick at sears seemed to be only marginally familiar with what the hell she was doing. (she told me all of some certain kind of flex frames were titanium, which was not true. it's true that they contain titanium because that helps to allow them flexibility, but since i told her that i needed titanium for allergy reasons, that means i need titanium frames, not frames with some titanium content. in fact from the few pair i tried on before i figured out for myself that some of them specified titanium and this meant the other probably weren't really, i ended up with an itchy face for a couple of days.) despite that, it was true that i liked the sears frames better, so i was planning to go back for those, even though i really didn't want to pay that much, especially when i wasn't sure what the hell i was paying for since the frames were only $219.

in the interest of my bottom line, i decided to go see what they had at eyemart, even though i remember being rather disappointed in the selection of titanium frames they had last time i went glasses shopping. (still it was better than eyeglass world which as i recall had about 3 pairs, all of which were almost identical and totally sucky.) well, it seems that things have changed quite a bit in almost 6 years, as they had tons of titanium options, even a few in some of the lower price points. plus they had some really great options in another hypoallergenic choice, stainless steel, which is cheaper. (of course, i'm a freak and am actually still allergic to that, but a lot of people aren't.) i picked out a pair i liked best and had them hold them until a time when i could get an exam (the doctors got off work the same time i did that day).

today was that day. i had my eye exam, and i even managed to refrain from flinching enough that they didn't have to redo my glaucoma test. the doctor said my prescription had changed slightly, but didn't tell me what it is now (at least not in a 20/something format that i can understand.) even though i picked out one of the most expensive frames they had (i've never heard of the brand, though, so at least i'm not paying for a name, like freaking prada), and i got the ultra thin and light lenses (which cost almost 3 times what regular lenses do, but still less that regular lenses at lens crafters), and there was an extra charge for my left eye being really bad, and i popped for all the extra coatings (scratch protection and uv), i only had to pay $321. at that included the exam, which would have cost an extra 50 bucks at either of the other places. now, that is what i expected glasses to cost. unfortunately, i won't get them until next week because they didn't have my right lens in stock so they have to order one before they can make my glasses.

so, do they have an attached pair of awesome magnetic sunglasses, which i might remember to carry with me, unlike the bulky pair that i have to switch for my regular glasses? no. are they an awesome gunmetal grey/pewter color? no. will there actually be a noticeable contrast between the matte black coating and the metal underneath when the acids in my face eat said coating off? yes, but if i have to i can cover it with sharpie marker. are those drawbacks made up for by the $150 dollars less i paid for them? you bet your ass. honestly, the $413 at sears would have been fairly palatable since those were some damned good frames, except a) that was after $200 off (i mean $600 glasses, wtf?) and b) they totally sprung something on me somewhere cost wise (how does $219 jump to $613 that fast?) besides, i'm sure that didn't include any extra charges they would have added for my bad eye or any coating i might have wanted. i can always get a pair of high end clip-ons if i feel the urge. eyemart carries the exact same ones we had at sunglass works (umpteen shapes and six or eight colors so they can come pretty close to matching most frames.) i don't know what they charge for them, but we were asking $40, and it can't be that much different. it has to beat the $200 or so it must have been for the ones at sears.

on another subject, while i was at sears not buying glasses, i did get 3 new pairs of shoes. only $40 for all of them. and i got my brother a shirt for only $3, which will be a nice addition to what i've already bought him for his birthday later this month. yay for clearance!

stolen meme time

2007-04-30T02:03:00.000-05:00

snagged this from the apathetic one. enjoy.

1. Go to Wikipedia and enter your birthday without the year:
- August 17

2. List three events that occurred that day:
- 1863 - American Civil War: In Charleston, South Carolina, Union batteries and ships bombard Confederate-held Fort Sumter.
- 1943 - World War II: The U.S. Seventh Army under General George S. Patton arrive in Messina, Italy, followed several hours later by the British 8th Army under Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery, thus completing the Allied conquest of Sicily.
- 1969 - Category 5 Hurricane Camille hits the Mississippi coast, killing 248 people and causing $1.5 billion in damage.

3. List two important birthdays:
- 1473 - Richard, Duke of York, one of the Princes in the Tower (d. 1483?)
- 1786 - Davy Crockett, American frontiersman and soldier (d. 1836)

4. List one death:
- 1987 - Rudolf Hess, Nazi deputy (b. 1894)
bonus: 1896 - Bridget Driscoll, world's first automobile fatality

5. List one holiday or observance:
- Roman Empire - Portunalia in honor of Portunes.

i'm batman

2007-04-13T02:24:00.000-05:00

You scored as Batman, the Dark Knight.

As the Dark Knight of Gotham, Batman is a vigilante who deals out his own brand of justice to the criminals and corrupt of the city. He follows his own code and is often misunderstood. He has few friends or allies, but finds comfort in his cause.

Batman, the Dark Knight

75%

Captain Jack Sparrow

63%

Maximus

58%

Lara Croft

58%

The Terminator

54%

The Amazing Spider-Man

46%

Neo, the "One"

46%

William Wallace

46%

Indiana Jones

42%

James Bond, Agent 007

42%

El Zorro

33%

Which Action Hero Would You Be? v. 2.0
created with QuizFarm.com

think dammit!

2007-04-04T03:44:00.000-05:00

so, if you were operating a retail store, and you had place (or two) in the roof that leaked every time if rained heavily, but that place was in a large aisle where you didn't have to keep merchandise, would you still keep putting displays of product there? and even if you did, might you think before putting something that really shouldn't get wet there, like boxes of cement mix for making stepping stones? apparently not.

oh, and in trying to move the display out of the way, we totally broke it. not the products, the metal rack thing they sit in/on. i think it would have been less likely to happen if it wasn't one of the ones we rigged together using zip ties. if was annoying at the time, but makes a pretty amusing story. especially watching the manager who actually broke it try to catch it as the side slid off the plastic pallet thing and the whole thing jerked at a funny angle.

can i get a rush on that check?

2007-04-02T03:32:00.000-05:00

so, i love the earned income credit. you see, i don't make very much money. while i like my current job more than most, if not all, the other crappy retail jobs i've had before, i generally get less hours now than i ever have before, including when my availability was only 3 days a week. yes, i know i need a different/additional job, but i keep applying to no avail, so for now i'm stuck. because i make so little money, i don't actually have to pay federal taxes, in fact i never have. i pay them, but i just get everything back on my return. but when you don't make squat, that's still not very impressive. the nice thing this year is that i'm too old to be considered a dependent in any way, so i can get an EIC. i'm actually getting more than twice what i paid in back.

knowing that i'd be getting this money i was trying to decide what splurge it would facilitate. the two things i had narrowed it down to were new glasses or a trip to the dentist. i must say i was leaning toward glasses though because the one thing i need most from the dentist is my wisdom teeth removed, and since the bottom ones probably aren't in far enough to pull, that would mean surgery, and the check just isn't that big.

i've been needing new glasses for a while now, as mine are 5.5 years old. yes, i know, that's horrible and all that, but remember that i'm poor and have certain special issues that resulted in my current glasses totaling up to about $300. basically, i have a metal allergy and the only thing i can wear is titanium. i've never tried plastic frames, but plastic sunglasses make my face ultra sweaty, and i can never get them adjusted properly for my extremely unlevel ears. also, i find it worth the extra money to get the ultra lightweight lenses because my prescription is so unbalanced, and my left lens is so thick.

so, even though they seem to still be fine for my vision correction needs, my glasses are suffering from some age problems. some chipped finish, a few small blemishes on one lens, i had to get the nosepads replaced, that sort of thing, but they were holding up pretty well. not so anymore. saturday when i was getting ready for work, one whole side just fell off. it's not the hinge because that i could fix. the problem is that the hinge has broken free from the side piece, which is not reparable (trust me i got up early to take them in and see if i could have them repaired until my check gets here).

i have not broken out the super glue and/or tape yet, but will be very soon. so far i've just been going without. this is not fun, but is doable. because my right eye is actually not too bad (20/30-40 or so) it takes over and does most of the seeing. this is because my left eye is basically only good for not running into things, as i am legally blind in that eye (20/200) and can't even read the computer screen with it (i.e. the paragraphs are fuzzy blocks of grey). really, other than the lack of depth perception, it wouldn't be that bad if i hadn't gotten so used to having glasses and therefore good vision. i went without glasses for seven years before i discovered titanium frames, but now i just stand there and can notice the concentric circles of progressive fuzziness emanating from my location, and it drives me crazy.

the funny part is, after i keep telling my coworkers that no, i did not get contacts, they keep asking me how i got to work. if you found your way here and are bothering to read this without knowing me, i don't drive, with or without glasses. the funniest part is that i can actually pass a BMV vision exam because it's only required to have vision of 20/40 or better in one eye, regardless of how bad the other eye is. if you do have my vision issues, you must have exterior mirrors on your car, which is the only reason i know that you apparently don't have to have them as long as your vision is okay.

so, i'm really hoping it ends up being on the low end of the 2-3 weeks until my money gets here. and kicking myself for taking the slower check option instead of going direct deposit. i didn't know i was going to need it so soon.

at last...the other kind of building

2007-03-29T03:51:00.000-05:00

honestly, what a building is (or was actually) isn't the biggest draw for me, i really just care what it looks like. on the other hand, there are some kinds of buildings that tend to have been pretty damned cool looking. obviously, one of them is fire stations. i'm also fond of old libraries, and schools, among others.

schools do tend to be too large though, even a lot of older schools like my alma mater (and others that have been torn down). most that are of a reasonable size to live in are too small to be used as schools, and without a use few buildings survive around here. there are only a handful of small school buildings left, although there's one i am particularly fond of that has since been a library and is now home to a law office, an insurance agent, and a title company. for the life of me a can't find a picture of it anywhere on the internet, so i can't share. in fact the only one of a fairly reasonable size, that i know for a fact is still there, and i can find a picture of is this one, although i know for sure of one other.

but the point of this post was not to talk about old schools. it was something else altogether: churches. i've been told that the idea of living in a church (me specifically, i think) is discomforting to one of my friends. honestly, the same thing that i'm sure bothers her about it appeals to me, the odd juxtaposition of me and a religious place (not that i'm anti-religion, i just don't prescribe personally). besides, churches get some of the best architecture. that's not to say i'd want to live in any old church. i don't want to live in a church like this any more than i want this firehouse.

as i mentioned back in november when i first alluded to this post, finding a church for sale is a bit rare around here. yes, i know most of the old firehouses aren't for sale either, but they aren't being used for their original purposes anymore, and the churches tend to be, if not by the original occupant. according to my mother, a rather awesome church not to far from here was for sale a few years ago. i can't be too upset by it having been bought and currently being used as a church, since i didn't and still don't have the money to buy it.

a new development is that there is a church for sale in my lovely city, and while it's certainly not up to par with my aesthetic standards on the outside, the inside picture isn't bad, and it is worth mentioning since it's local. there are a couple more in indiana that i like, but they're both in fort wayne, and as i mentioned before fort wayne just doesn't hold any appeal for me as a new hometown. this tabernacle has been for sale since i first decided to look, and is both gorgeous inside (check the flyer for inside pics) and out, and reasonably priced. too bad it's far away and i don't have the money to buy a shed let alone a real building. this church is new enough it should have an icky look about it, but it's done old school church style, quite possibly because it's lutheran (and they tend to have some damned fine church buildings). on the other hand, since it comes with a school, it's far too large to live in.

so if fort wayne doesn't do it for me, where wouldn't i mind moving to? well, i sure do like chicago. of all the churches i found the most interesting was in the chicago MSA. it wasn't too ornate, pretty simple really, but after having been a church it was a public library, which sways my opinion some. two problems with it though. first, i can't link it for you because it sold before i got my links together. also, it inspire the name i had been planning to give to this post, "too far for public transit", as the small town of peotone is a bit past the metra system. and with my inablity to drive, i'd have been trapped in a village of less than 3,500. plus, it may or may not even have a library since everything still lists that building as the only library in town.

the chicago area still has a few good churches, though. yes, this one really is too large, but that's nothing compared to the fact it's in an alarming state of disrepair. nothing like a place with plastic caution fencing, where the listing even points out the multiple city violations, but it sure is interesting. or there's this one in brookfield. it's a tad more modern, but not too, and it's convenient for public transit, which is a great for those of us who find our multitasking ability not up to the act of driving.

another city i like is saint louis. the options in that area are more attractive, but possibly less practical (yes, i know my looking for a church to buy when i don't have any money is inherently impractical). the smallest of the three in this area is still too big for a single dwelling, not to mention it's location in the notorious city of east saint louis. then there's one in centreville that would still be too large but considerably less so if it didn't come with a school and a convent/rectory. but then again, it's still not as big in total as the one in saint louis proper. church may be smaller, but on top of a school plus convent and (not or) rectory, it comes with 2 storage buildings. it does have 1.1 less acres of land, though. i don't know for sure, but i think that picture is of the school, not the church.

okay, that's my post about churches, and schools to boot. i decided to use links instead of adding pictures directly to the post because they're easier to insert, it gives you guys more information that way, and it's easier to fit more than one in a paragraph. if you've been sad that you couldn't just scroll down and look at all the pretty pictures, here's a little appeasement.

this is quite possibly the most awesome looking firehouse ever. and no, it's not for sale. so, here's the deal. obviously, this is not here in our splendid little burg, but can anyone guess where it is? i'll even been nice and give you a few hints. it's apparently on lafayette street, two blocks south of canal. oh, and it's in a city i don't have any particular desire to live, but wouldn't mind visiting. so, any idea where to find this gothic beauty?

p.s. talk about a fixer-upper. and you guys think old number 10 on columbia is really rough. hell of a bell tower, though.

procrastination in progress

2007-03-20T03:34:00.000-05:00

the other day i compiled some reference material (a word document of links) for a building post i promised you back in november. i could be writing that right now.

or i could be coming up with rpg character ideas. of course, what my dm seems to be forgetting is that i have no idea what i'm doing and if would be mostly pointless to think on it too much without being able to ask him basic and/or random questions for context information.

instead i'm going to go read more ouran, because reading is my default setting. if that disappoints you, you have my apologies, but no promise that it won't happen again... repeatedly.

happy anniversary?

2007-03-12T06:23:00.000-05:00

it appears that this blog is now one year (and 2 days) old. just in case anyone cares.

the oddity of pets

2007-03-12T06:01:00.000-05:00

i love my dogs, but sometimes i find myself sayings strange things to them. here are a few examples of things i never want to say to any of my human associates:

"quit rubbing on me, you freak"

"hey! genital licking is not allowed on my bed"

"that's my tit you're standing on"

"quit licking the floor; i didn't drop any food"

"you can crap in the house when you learn to use the toilet"

"this is why you shouldn't eat string"

"the carpet is not toilet paper"

"you can't eat that [cat, dog, bicycle, pedestrian]; it's bigger than you"

"exactly what does it have to smell like for you to shit on it?"

just thought i'd share.

new pictures = new post

2007-03-05T02:28:00.000-06:00

thanks to the generous use of the badgers' scanner, here are some pictures i wasn't able to share before from the book, with a few others for comparison.

this is hose house #2. so you don't have to page down, it was on vine, and was later a USO, but is now parking lots.

here's a shot of #9, also quite gone. this was the all black hose house. honestly, when i saw the picture i thought that it could be a store and i could have seen it a dozen times and not known it was a firehouse. alas, nothing remotely resembling this building is anywhere within a reasonable distance of that intersection.

at left, the picture i wanted to share so badly, #6 while in use. at right, for comparison, #6 as it looks today. shorter, shabbier, and sans bay window.

in the list of register historic places in indiana for vanderburgh county, you'll find old hose house #4 (also #10 and #12). at 623 ingle street, you'll find only a parking lot. why they haven't removed it from the list, or at least made a note about it no longer being there, in the last 13 years i couldn't say.

i apologize that the scanned pictures aren't really clear, but they are old pictures and were about that grainy in the book. i would have made them bigger so you could see them better, but then the comparison pics wouldn't fit side by side.

the excursion

2007-02-28T04:41:00.000-06:00

so this is the long awaited (and long) tale of my fieldtrip (or excursion as my accomplice dubbed it), but first the background. the bibliophile has been known to send me a library book or two that she feels that i would enjoy, and i have never been happier about it. i'm actually not looking forward to having to turn this one in; i want to keep it. it's full of fabulous pictures and tells me where all the firehouses in evansville ever were. so, after a fair dose of internet research, i bribed the apathetic one with red lobster and we headed out with my two pages of notes from the book and her digital camera. so, here's the rundown of all the firehouses, including info from the book, the internet and our trip. some locations from before the fire department became official, especially those that were temporary or not specified in the book have been omitted.

#1 - forgetting a bit of number trading very early on, hose house #1/headquarters was originally located on 3rd between walnut and locust, right next to city hall (this is the firehouse, i just wanted to show how awesome city hall was, although you can see the firehouse in the picture if you know what to look for) from 1887 until 1971. now a parking garage sits on the location of both of those buildings and several others on the block. we walked over to see it while we were having gelato, it being right behind the gelato place. i vented mightily. yes, i love old firehouses, but it pains me a lot more that we've replaced the splendor that was city hall with a parking garage. we've replaced a lot of old buildings (this, igleheart brothers' flour mill, one of the old theaters, etc.) with parking garages. but why won't people go downtown? no parking. because they're too good to use a parking garage; they want a big ugly barren lot, right in front of where they're going.

in 1971, house #1 was moved to it's present location on the corner of 8th and gum. i drive past it almost every time i go to the library. it screams "built in the 70's."

#2 - it was on vine between 2nd and 3rd from 1887 until 1942, at which time the number was taken out of service and the building was used as a USO during WWII. i don't know which side of the street it was on, but either way it's a parking lot. i missed catching what businesses the lots belong to. in 1988, #2 was reinstated at it's present location, off lynch on maxx road.

#3 - finally one that's still there. on the corner of 4th and indiana, this is the one that now houses local 357 of the international association of firefighters, the firefighter union hall basically. i really love that they're using an old hose house for that. this was a working firehouse from 1895-1955, and was the largest in the state when it was built. oh yeah, and that's the back of it. yep, the indiana side is actually the back, although aside from a bell tower the original front and back looked really similar. the thing is that the front's not exactly there anymore. see, as you may recall from the post where my parents found this one, it was (and the address still is) on pennsylvania, and now the lloyd expressway is where pennsylvania used to be. and it seems that it sat a bit too close to the street to accommodate the much wider expressway. luckily, instead of just tearing it down, they seem to have shortened it. the lloyd side is rather unassuming with just a regular door and brick that matches what's been used to fill the original windows and bay doors. this explains why i'd driven by it so many times and not noticed it. the book makes up for the bibliophile knowing it was there and not telling me.

in 1955, number three was moved to the old farmers market building. in 1979 it moved again to the corner of 4th and franklin, just a couple of blocks north of it's original location, where it still is.

#4 - the "old hose house #4" that i found on the list of registered historic places, on ingle between 6th and 7th, was built for the crescent fire company (a volunteer company) in 1858. it was then used by another volunteer company, the jackson fire company, before being taken over by the evansville fire department in 1874. there's a picture of it in the book and it was a rather unassuming building, but being historically recognized and all, it's a little disappointing that it was torn down in 1994, and is now a parking lot.

from 1897 until 1962 #4 was on the corner of illinois and baker, a scant block from my mom's old office on north main. it has also been torn down. it's amazingly not a parking lot, just a vacant lot, although in theory you could park on what's left of the old concrete floor. that location wasn't a total letdown though, because the old alarm and dispatch station that sat behind the firehouse on baker is still there (the empty lot you see next to it is where the firehouse was). i have no idea who owns it or if they're doing anything at all with it, but it appears to be in good shape. plus we saw the oddest sight just down the alley, but you'll have to wait until after the firehouse rundown for that picture.

in 1962, #4 moved to it's present location on oak hill road.

#5 - much like the original #4, the first #5 was built in the 1850's for a volunteer company, in this case the ben franklin fire company, and was taken over by the evansville fire department in 1874 (although at that time they were also volunteer, until becoming an official fire department in 1888). used until 1894, it was on locust between 7th and 8th. again i don't know what side of the street, by where it used to be is either the centre or the civic center. it is definitely quite gone, and doesn't even get to be pictured in the book.

when the original house closed the number was taken out of service until 1907 when a new firehouse #5 was built on the corner of st. joe and michigan. it was in operation until 1988, and when it closed, "it marked the closure of the last hose house with a fire pole in the city." it's still there and i know you all know this one; it's down by the fall festival. it's currently for sale, and i'd LOVE to have it, but even if i won the lottery i'm not sure i'd shell out what they're asking for it.

the new building built in 1988 is the current home of #5, on the corner of maryland and st. joe.

#6 - built in 1875 to protect the new "elite" haynies corner area, the original #6 was used until 1962 and was located on powell street near 8th. oh, and by the way, IT'S STILL THERE! this is actually the only firehouse i found because of the book that hasn't been torn down. i wanted so badly to find an old picture of what it looked like when it was still being used, since it looks so different, but i can't find any on the internet and i can't scan the ones in the book since my scanner isn't compatible with my computer and the computer it is compatible with doesn't have a working disc drive. it was notably taller, with an intricate roof line (and i think it had a flat roof instead of a gable.) there was a huge bay window on the front, and an inset where the door and bay door were. the only way i was sure it was the same building is from the designs in the brick. it seems to currently be a commercial garage.

the second #6, like the first, was placed to protect an expanding area of the city. it's on washington near arcadian acres.

#7 - the first #7, in use from 1875 to 1886, like the first #5 doesn't actually have a picture in the book. while i can't say what it looked like, i can say that it was on the corner of wabash and franklin, meaning that depending on what corner of the intersection it was on it's either been replaced by one of two strip malls, a commercial garage or some of the park that surrounds west branch library.

in 1886 it moved to the corner of 9th and illinois, where it stayed until the annexation of howell (around 1918). again the building is gone and i don't know which corner it was on. i don't think it was where the commercial garage is because that's not the original ground floor of the fire house (general shape is off and window and door placement isn't right) but that building looks old enough to have been there already by the time the firehouse shut down. that leaves a rundown parking lot or an ugly modern warehouse building.

with the annexation of howell #7 was moved to cover that area. they used the building previously used by the howell volunteer company until their new building was built in 1921 on dearborn. you may notice i haven't mentioned this one, but i said #6 was the only one i didn't know about before. my mother told me this one was still there, and i'd seen an old picture of it, but i hadn't seen it or even been able to get a modern picture of it (because the pic on the assessor's site doesn't work), and i didn't want to write a post about a building when i couldn't even say what it currently looked like. in fact, i knew about this one before the original post about firehouses. i learned about it the same time i did #15, but unlike that one, it's never on the way to swing past this one and look. the only time i'm ever in howell is when i used to take the howell bus home from college some days, and it doesn't go down dearborn. anyway, this was the first hose house in evansville built for mechanized fire trucks. also, there was a library in the upper story until 1936, when a new building was built for the branch (redbank i guess, since west is much older and not so far west). and yes, that's slate on the upper part; very pretty. it's gorgeous in person, much better than the picture shows.

#8 - yet another firehouse that i've already talked about, the first #8 was in use from 1878 until 1955 and is located on the corner of columbia and 3rd. this is the one with the outcroppings on the sides of the front, a trashy liquor store across the street, and a bus stop right out front. it was for sale in late 2005 but it never sold.

in 1955 #8 moved to it's present location on the corner of keck and north kentucky. this is the only current firehouse not built for that purpose and also not built in the last 50 years. it has been remodeled and was used as an ordinance plant during WWII, which explains why it has 2 foot thick concrete walls.

#9 - located on the corner of olive and governor, this hose house was used from 1880-1970, when it was closed and basically combined with #1. it was built to protect "working class residents of [the] southeast part of the city," which just goes to show how much the city has grown in the last 127 years. that's well west of 41 and barely south of the lloyd. i also learned what made a picture of this house relevant to "black hoosier heritage" (if you remember that from another post). from 1895 until 1968 the evansville fire department was segregated by race, and this is the hose house where all the black firefighters worked. mind you, they went to the same fires as the other stations and fought those fires alongside the white guys, but they all worked at one house. of course, it's not there anymore. if olive used to go through, then it might be part of the courier-press parking lot now. if not, it's some other parking lot or a icky modern industrial/commercial building that i think has a heating and air business in it.

in 1989, #9 was reinstated and now is located on keystone street.

#10 - another firehouse on columbia, this one on the corner of heidelbach, old #10 was used from 1889 until 1977. it's still there, and i think i may have seen a band play there once (little help remembering from someone else who was there: is that the one?) it's replacement is located directly across the street.

#11 was never used for a local firehouse because it sounds too much like 7 for dispatch purposes.

#12 - located on the corner of 1st avenue and eichel from 1908 to 1974, #12 was built on land purchased and donated by businesses in the area so that a firehouse could be built to protect their factories. when it was closed, no replacement was built. the number was taken out of service and has not been reused as of yet. at some point it was used by bassemier's, and it currently appears to be a music business of some kind although the front door says use the side door and the side door says knock for deliveries, so i guess if it's a store it's currently closed.

#13 was also never used, because it's an "unlucky" number.

#14 - located on willow road near lincoln, #14 was built in 1928. the original building was torn down and replaced by the current building in 1982.

#15 - the first hose house #15, the "park hose house," is located on the corner of grand and washington and was used from 1909 to 1962. they launched rescue boats from the second story during the infamous flood of '37. what was an upscale neighborhood when this building was constructed has deteriorated into the ghetto. i think i've made it clear how i feel about the addition the building is now sporting, which has been used as a laundry, but is now a barber shop. the author of the book was as confused as i am by why #15 was used before #14.

the current #15 is on weinbach just south of cass, which is a few streets south of covert. some of the guys used to walk to my previous job at the gas station to buy drinks and lottery tickets.

#16 - this is the one near my house, on washington and villa. it was originally built in 1950, but like #14 was raised to make room for a new firehouse, this one in 1998. i remember the old building, and while it wasn't really anything special i did find it more attractive than it's replacement.

#17 - the only company still using it's original hose house, #17 is on mill road and has been since 1965. like all the current firehouses, i'm sure it's quite good from a utilitarian standpoint, but aesthetically it leaves something to be desired.

talk about a code violation - your eyes do not deceive you; that is a room addition over an alley, and no it is not connected to the green building, that building is well past it. this is what we saw by the alarm station. unless we're talking about one really long house, i think it's most likely attached to a garage. we didn't go up the alley for a closer inspection, but it's supported by wooden posts (like a deck would be) across the alley. and yes that car is parked under it. in case this has given you some strange idea, don't do it. i promise you this was built with no permits, because you would never get the go-ahead to build anything on or above a public easement. my brother recommended turning it in to the city, but i figure whoever did it will learn better when he can never sell his house, or when it falls on his car, whichever comes first.

anybody know what this thing is? - so, because my normal bus home from college was combined with the howell to make one route after a certain time of day, i used to take a different ride home on days i had night class. this route involved crossing the lloyd at fulton, and i noticed an odd little building near there, which it turns out is on the corner of illinois. in the dark from a bus all i could tell was that it was small and brick with a tile roof. i thought maybe it was an outbuilding for some old factory that had been torn down or something. since we were in the area i decided to check it out. this was the first time i had ever seen it in daylight, and i think i'm even more confused now. my dad says it was the building for a used car lot several decades ago, but he has no idea what it was before that. the most common suggestion is a very old gas station, although my mom also wonders if it could have been a guard shack for a factory.

the best you can expect, i guess - the day after our original outing we made a mini excursion to find this historic marker, after i got directions from my brother who found it back in his sig school days. we decided to track it down after we saw the plaque identifying a parking garage as the location of the igleheart flour mill. in case you're having trouble reading it, it says that this is the original homesite of robert m. evans, the man our lovely city was named after. where might you ask is this located? right here. the red circle is added to indicate the exact location of the plaque because i know the picture is a little dark. so, the location of our namesake's house has been given a little alley-like park downtown. in the way of further explaining where this is, we're standing in a parking lot right behind the old central library building (now the children's museum) and the other end of the park opens onto the part of main street i will probably always call "the walkway." how i never found this when we were out and about during sig school i can't say.

one more thing from the book. a description of the trouble they had fighting a fire there at 23 degrees below zero and the pictures after of it covered in ice got my mother wondering about the upstage dinner theater. with a little help from my accomplise's mother i found the parking lot where it used to be and i was able to find out for my mother what it used to be before becoming a theater: the elks home (as in the club/organization). the porch was gone by it's dinner theater days.

well, it only took three days to put together, but i think this post is long enough, and i hope you enjoy it since i made you wait so long.

coming right up...in a day or so

2007-02-26T06:27:00.000-06:00

as you can see, i've switched to new blogger. so, why no new firehouse post, you ask? because i'm tired and i need sleep. it's sitting in my account as a draft, and i'm going to be really optimistic and say it's half done. i did warn you it was going to be long, right?

there's a taste for you. a stone medallion from #12, and yes that buildings needs tuck-pointed something fierce.

happy birthday

2007-02-19T03:15:00.000-06:00

no, not the blog. that's next month i think. this is for two of my good friends. today, well technically yesterday since it's after midnight, one turned 27, and the other turned 28 saturday. so if either of you see this, you're awesome and i miss you. and for the one of you who is no longer living in another state, and also more likely to see this: call me sometime so we can hang out. you've been back like 3 months and the only time i've seen you is at thanksmas, and i've got a birthday present for you.

for everyone who hasn't had a birthday this weekend: i like you, too. and if it's been a while since we've hung out, you're also welcome to call me so we can rectify the situation.

also, expect a new post after my research fieldtrip tuesday. just as soon after as i feel like switching over to new blogger. if you're dreading reading another long post about old buildings, a) blame the bibliophile for sending me a book about them and b) too freaking bad.

cupid is coming... hide your valuables

2007-02-07T04:12:00.000-06:00

there are a number of things i've been meaning to post about for a while now, but i'm not going to. instead, i present you with my thoughts on valentines day.

now, i'm down with the concept of a holiday for romance. a nice excuse to take your significant other out for dinner and whatnot. hell, candy and flowers would be nice, if they hadn't been inflated to like 4 times their normal price just for the occasion. but some of the valentine's crap is just that. here are a few examples, provided by commercials that seem to be running non-stop at this point.

pajama-gram. you can send your lady anything from some sexy lingerie to a nice set of flannels. but how many guys do you really think are buying their wives something as sensible and utilitarian as a nice new set of flannel jammies, as opposed to the number who are plunking down serious cash for an outfit that is uncomfortable and serves no purpose beyond making him horny? that's not a gift for their girl, it's for themselves. guys, save some cash and just fuck her naked.

vermont teddy bears. in the commercial all the girls in an office are oooing and aahing over the "love bandit" teddy bear one of them got. not only is this pretty damned corny, but somewhere not too prominent this commercial will tell you that these bears cost $80. yes, 80 freaking dollars. i don't know about most women, but if some guy ever bought me an $80 teddy bear, i would bash him in the head with something heavy for being such an idiot.

and no, i'm not down on this stuff because i'm single, but because i'm sane. how much more would a little romance from your partner mean if it was "just because" instead of because it was that time of year again.

take me somewhere, please. this is just sad.

2007-01-26T04:57:00.000-06:00

and i've only barely been to three of those states. i've only been to st. louis is missouri, barely across the border into georgia from tennessee, and i was once in a park that was in kentucky, tennessee and virginia, but that's as far into virginia as i've made it.

on the plus side i did spend 10 day in england 7 years ago.

paths of entrance

2007-01-25T03:31:00.000-06:00

now, most people who read this blog know me, in the real world even. and i get a occasional stray wanderer from one of my friends' blogs, but that's not what this post is about. this a recap of all the google searches that have led the unsuspecting person to my boring little blog.

since my last post, 5 people have now found me through various searches involving locks of love. they were searching from such places as minnesota, portugal, and canada.

several came looking for info about firehouses. someone is georgia wants to know about firehouses for sale. someone at one of our local colleges was curious about hose house # 15. and oddly enough someone from ohio was looking for an old firehouse here in e-ville, in.

some poor soul in virginia ended up here while looking for james r. duncan. but since all i know about him is that a tall man with an unkept beard lives in his house, i'm guessing they were disappointed.

also, someone in oregon wanted to know about getting the same cold twice. and someone got here looking for a local uncle mark's popcorn store. which is odd because i don't remember ever mentioning uncle mark's popcorn, though it's quite delicious and i've been know in the past to get it for my dad for christmas, although not since i started this blog.

that is all. maybe we can do this again sometime. i promise i won't bring it up again unless i get something a little more interesting.

i finally did it

2007-01-20T01:08:00.000-06:00

i've been meaning to get my hair cut for several months, but haven't. mostly because i'm cheap and i didn't want to shell out the money. but it was just bugging me way to much, what with having to contort my arm trying to reach to brush it and all, and besides i had a coupon.

my hair had reached it's maximum length (at which breakage keeps up with growth) some time ago, like summer. if you're wondering, that length is right around the waist band of my jeans. i told him to cut it to right below my shoulders, and he did. but what he didn't know, and i didn't remember, was how much it curls when it doesn't have all that weight on it. so, now that it's dry it barely brushes my shoulders. i don't think it's been this short in years, but then again it will grow out to where i meant for it to be in no time. besides, some of the curl should fall out when i brush it (so far i've only combed it since the cut).

now i just have to figure out what to do with the foot of disembodied pony tail i have sitting on my table. anybody know the address for locks of love?

sorry no pics, but i don't have a digital camera. if anyone wants to give me one, i promise to post lot of pictures of things, like hair and shoes.

6 weird things about me

2007-01-09T06:36:00.000-06:00

i was tagged for this a while back, but am just now getting around to it. so, i'm just going to start listing things, and if it runs over 6, we'll consider it interest for waiting so long.

"According to the rules... Each player of this game starts with the '6 Weird Things about You'. People who get tagged need to write a blog of their own 6 weird things as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose 6 people to be tagged and list their names. Don't forget to leave a comment that says 'you are tagged' in their comments and tell them to read your blog!"

1. Physical - this is a lot more than one thing, but separating them would make this all i listed, so i've decided to group them.
a.) of my eight fingers (not counting thumbs) only 3 of them are straight. the other 5 all kink at the last knuckle. my pinkies kink in, as does my right ring finger, and my middle fingers kink out toward the pinkies. i get the pinkies from my uncle on my dad's side, the middles from my mom.
b.) i have too many bones in my feet. you know that one that makes a lump on the outside of your ankle? i have two of those. my brother and i both got that from my mom. this may be related to the fact that i can stand on the side of my foot with ease (either actually, though both tends to be a balance problem). it doesn't hurt, unless i'm not expecting it and put all my weight on it. then i tend to sprain it.
c.) i can move my knee caps around with my hand, as long as my leg is propped up, and it doesn't even hurt. sometimes, if i'm laying on the floor and i roll from my stomach to my side, my knee cap doesn't roll with me. that hurts like hell.
d.) i am incredibly flexible. this is easier demonstrated than explained. all i'm going to say is that the only reason i can't still put my leg behind my head is the collision of a fat thigh and a large breast.
e.) i am oddly proportioned. i was trying to measure myself for using a size chart and i learned than my ass is 14 inches larger than my waist. typically this means that my ass is a size (occasionally 2) larger than my waist. odder yet, the difference between my thigh and my waist is a mere 7 inches. i have huge thighs. also, my legs are longer than they should be for my height. this does not mean i have long legs mind you, as i'm almost 5'1", just that i have the leg length of someone who's only short instead of really short. also, are you familiar with the concept of larger bracelets for plus size woman? i don't need those, because even though i'm a big girl, my wrists are actually quite small. i have a big head, so i have to wear men's or unisex glasses and hats. i do have small ears though, so i can't wear earbud headphones and i couldn't even use children's ear plugs when i was taking swimming lessons at age 11.
f.) my toes curl under when i'm standing, so that the ends of them are what touches the ground. even though i know i'm the one who's weird, i always think other people's feet look funny because their toes lay flat.
g.) i run for shit. right now i don't run at all because i'm an obese smoker with shin splints and arthritis, but even as a scrawny child i ran really slow.
f.) even though i'm only 25, i have arthritis, and have had for over a decade. mostly in my hands and wrists, although sometimes my ankles and knees give my trouble. also, my joints pop a lot. i actually find it amusing because when i walk around barefoot and it's quiet, my ankles sound like somebody's making popcorn. i guess that's one more reason i'd make a bad ninja, can't sneak up on anybody.

2. of the five jobs i've ever had, i worked with by brother at 3 of them. the first 3, so at some point i could say i'd worked with him at all my jobs. then i got a job working for my first boss at her new job, and then working with some friends. i've never actually gotten a job where i didn't know somebody. i'm not sure why people aren't inclined to hire me without at least a reference from one of their employees.

3. i own around 40-45 pairs of shoes. this may not sound that strange for a 25 year old chick, except when you consider what they are. mostly, they're boys skate sneakers, although some are ladies skate sneakers, and also several pairs or converse chucks and doc martens, plus a few sandals. i only have like 2 pairs of dress shoes.

4. my internal clock, the one that tells you it's time to go to bed or wake up, is not set for the 24 hour day. your body is supposed to be programmed for 16 hours awake and 8 asleep, although some people seem more inclined to an 18/6. mine is set for 20-24 awake followed by 7-9 of sleep. it's not that i get involved in things and end up staying up 20 hours; i don't get tired until i've been up that long. needless to say that makes being awake at normal times a bit tricky. without a set time activity, like work, to force me to out of bed regardless of how long i've slept (3-4 hours sometimes), i will slowly cycle through getting up and going to bed later and later until i've gone full circle. right now i'm awake because i got up at 4:30 pm yesterday, after going to sleep sometime after 8 am.

5. i hate ketchup, and also mayonnaise. miracle whip is fine, but mayonnaise is disgusting. i also don't care for popcorn, or cake icing. in addition to all these things that practically everyone else eats, i also hate foods that are less popular, like most vegetables. i do like spinach in a salad, quiche, etc. i only like corn if it's on the cob. i'm okay with tomato sauce, like marinara, and sun dried tomatoes, but that's about as far as i go with the tomato.

6. i know entirely to much about construction, particularly since i don't do it. i think if i had to i could, but it's never come up. instead i just find myself supplying people with the correct terminology when they use phrases like "the little skinny pipes under the sink," or explaining the difference between hip and gable roofs, or why you use difference types of drywall for things.

7. i am a master of the long sentence. i haven't put that to much use here, at least not in this post. i do know that college professors don't seem to notice if your term paper includes two sentence paragraphs, at least not when they take up half a page or more. mind you, these aren't run-on sentences, just sentences with many clauses and a healthy dose of commas in all the right places.

8. i lack the ability to either drive a car or ride a bike. the car thing is because i have very little practice, although it doesn't help that most of that was is a car where i had enough trouble seeing over the dash that i had about a 30 foot blind spot right in front of the car. i would have seen another car or something else tall, but i couldn't see the ground, which i know for a fact makes knowing when you're in a parking spot difficult. the bike problem is a balance issue. as in my balance is so bad, it's a wonder i don't fall down more while just walking. occasionally, i lose my balance while standing still. this may have something to do with the fact that i also am an abysmal dancer, although i think that's actually from my total lack of rhythm. speaking of things i can't do worth a crap, add singing to that. unless, your into off-key. the bad part of that is, i love to sing along to music, and when i'm drunk you can add the word loud in there somewhere.

9. part of the reason i don't post more often is that it requires so much proof reading. while spell check is a huge blessing for me as a horrible speller, my typos tend to make actual words. like 'that' instead of 'the' or mixing up my 'or's, 'of's, and 'on's.

10. i like math. i'm also fairly good at it. how that can be possible when i tend to transpose numbers just trying to tell someone their total at work is anyone's guess.

i think that's enough for now. i won't be tagging 6 people, since i don't know 6 people who have blogs and haven't done this yet. instead i'll just tag sharon again, since she hasn't gotten around to it yet, either.

a note

2006-12-30T03:01:00.000-06:00

in case you were wondering i have not forgot i have a blog, nor am i at a loss for things to blog about.

i am just quite lazy, as usual.

plus, i've been reading a lot and some other stuff, which has kept me too busy to write a proper blog post.

perhaps soon i will take the time, but no guarantees.

new quiz

2006-12-12T04:49:00.000-06:00

What horrible Edward Gorey Death will you die?

You will be smothered under a rug. You're a little anti-social, and may want to start gaining new social skills by making prank phone calls.
Take this quiz!

quiz thingy

2006-12-10T04:18:00.000-06:00

not so much i don't think. no. but it was fun to take. i wonder how they got that from my answers? too bad, it sounds so nice.

tidbits

2006-12-06T04:20:00.000-06:00

sometimes annoying things are good, or how i outsmarted first-come first-served.

so, most of my library reading is manga, which comes in volumes. the problem is, when a new volume is on order it's listed separate from the old volumes, but when it comes in and is combined with the other volumes, your hold on that volume becomes a general hold on all volumes. so then, they try to give you the first one that comes in even if it's not the right one. this sucks because the staff looks at you like your retarded when you tell them the book they try to give you is the wrong one, even if you try to explain the problem with their system. sometimes you get all excited and go to get you new hold, only to find it's the same book you just turned in earlier that day.

but this time i caught the two holds i have that just came in before some other volume came in so i won't have to look like an idiot. also, i had had the second hold on them both but since i got it switched and the other person didn't, i'll be getting the copies coming for the main library downtown, handy because they typically are ready first and won't have to travel around since that's where i pick up my books. so for now, yay for library system glitches.

and if you are reading this and have a problem with my reading so much manga, i just want to say that unlike some people i do read real books, so don't worry about me or try to find me real books to read. i'm doing just fine on my own, thank you.

stupid-ass broken phone cost me money

our phone is broken. not our actual phone mind you, our phone line. in retrospect our house phone has miraculously not been ringing off the hook with telemarketers who want to consolidate our debt, sell us crappy overpriced products for charity, offer us more credit cards, and generally mumble in broken english at us since the big wind storm a few days ago. we didn't notice this until my mother tried to call home and got a busy signal, which makes no sense since we have call waiting. we even tried plugging the fax machine into the regular phone line, but still no dial tone. so, yes, one of our two phone lines is out, and it's the one that matters (fax line doesn't matter so much since the fax machine is on the fritz and won't pull paper right so it can't print faxes, only useful for sending them).

we aren't in any major hurry to get this fixed because no one calls our house who doesn't have the cell number of whoever they want to talk to, except those damned telemarketers. only apparently, my boss has my two numbers written in totally different places, which is why it's a toss-up as to which number he calls when he wants me to come in and work because someone called in. i learned this today when i returned a missed call i had from him on my cell phone, and i got the impression that he's been trying to call me for a couple of days. and i even missed my chance today, because my stupid phone had somehow gotten turned to vibrate so i didn't notice he'd called until he'd already gotten someone else to cover it. and i really needed the money, too.

next post (maybe): too far for public transit. it has to wait because it requires pictures, and i don't have time right now for all that. this is the promised post about another kind of building, by the way.

p.s. if anyone has some clear return address labels that you print on the computer (avery brand is what i normally use), can a borrow some? they are kind of pricey, like cost notably more than white ones, and i hate to have to buy a whole pack for the 12 i need to send out my christmas cards. but i can't use white because my envelopes are off-white.

i love my mother

2006-11-22T05:38:00.000-06:00

look what she found this morning while i was snoozing in bed. it's ANOTHER OLD FIREHOUSE! i know the picture sucks, but i didn't take it. you'll have to blame the assessor's office for that. if you can't read the stone on the front, it's says "house no. 3." it's owned by the firefighters' union, and is located on the corner of w. indiana and 4th ave.

mom was showing a house today and as she was leaving she noticed it as she was driving down indiana. she didn't even get too annoyed that after she told me about it, i insisted on finding it on the assessor's page before we could go grocery shopping. dad, who was with her when she found it, says it's in really good shape, better than the bad picture shows.

there's a sad bit coming here, though. if you haven't hunted up a map and don't have one in your head, i'll give you a hint as to where it is. the assessor's site lists the address as being on pennsylvania, the road that runs behind the building. or it would run behind it, if pennsylvania hadn't been replaced by the loyyd back in the 80's. and it's a short block from fulton, which mean that when they widen the expressway and/or put in on/off ramps, whatever it is they're planning, house no. 3 is most likely going to be torn down.

in other firehouse news, #5 is for sale again. the interior pictures from the flyer look a lot less gaudy than i remember it looking last time. some really cool elements in fact, but not at all what i had planned for it. on the other hand, the price jumped up 25 grand, and it doesn't even come with a trashy rental house this time.

okay, barring any more unexpected discoveries, the next post about cool buildings will be about the other kind of building i'd like to live in. as far as i know, there aren't any cool ones in town that aren't being used for their intended purpose, but i did find a couple of nice ones for sale up in northern indiana. of course, while i'm not totally opposed to moving out of our crappy city, fort wayne is just not cool enough to make me leave my family and friends. chicago or st. louis maybe, somewhere big enough to have good public transit and things to do at night, but not fort wayne.

in news that relates in no way to cool buildings, i think i might own a chihuahua. chris has still never taken frankie back to his house, and the adorable little hairball really likes me. speaking of dogs, if i bought a pattern and yarn, does anyone have the skill to knit a hooded dog sweater? the bittums has cold ears.

because i have the pictures

2006-11-10T03:29:00.000-06:00

oh, how the mighty have fallen. well, not actually fallen, but been neglected and are looking pretty bad. this is hose house #15 on the corner of grand and washington, from the grand side. the photo is thanks to my wonderful badger friend. you may contrast it to the top picture from my last post about old buildings and be saddened. the staining on the stone is bad, but the condition of the tile roof alarms me.

speaking of it being #15, since i now know the numbers of all the old firehouses, i find this to be the easiest way of refering to them, but i know it might be confusing for those who don't. so, i shall now teach you all. as i've already said, this is #15. the one on saint joseph is #5, and the one on first avenue is #12. the one on columbia that's kind of run-down and looks similar to the saint joe one but with a gable roof is #10. the other one on columbia, which was the first picture on the original firehouse post, is #8.
if you zoom that picture and try to read it, it looks like a 9, but this is a picture i found of hosehouse #9. i have no idea were it was, when it was torn down, or what the building actually looked like. all i know is that this was taken around 1910, and has something to do with "black hoosier heritage," as that was the name of the article where i found it.

i also have to bitch about something, i have found several references to old hose house #4, including in the list of registered historic buildings. the only problem is, when i searched for it on the assessor's website, i found a parking lot. sometimes the assessor has issues with addresses being a little off, but there isn't an old firehouse on the 600 block of ingle, and there was a building of appropriate description where that parking lot is until the mid 1990's. so, i'm guessing the address is right, but what's wrong is that some ass torn the damned thing down.

i was going to put in a picture of #5 before it lost its belltower, because i found one in color, but blogger is being difficult and won't let me, so here's a link instead. see the headquaters next to it? it's a parking lot now, too. well, maybe a parking garage because i don't know exactly which corner of that intersection it was on.

election thoughts

2006-11-09T04:54:00.000-06:00

as you may have guessed, i am happy, happy, giddy-like-a-schoolgirl (well maybe not like a schoolgirl, but damned happy) about the election results. mostly i am massively happy that john hostettler had his ass handed to him. for a county by county breakdown of the beating he took go here. let's be honest, i didn't really vote for brad ellsworth, though he seems a nice enough guy, i voted against hostettler. i have every chance i got since i was old enough to vote, and i wanted to before that. i have giggled and cackled and clapped my hands (even made a chihuahua dance) at the thought of finally being rid of him. today, i was driving down the street (okay, my dad was driving, i was riding) and saw a big hostettler sign and i just pointed and laughed.

also a plus, over in the 9th district baron hill won. this makes me happy because before i found out exactly what race that was, i kept seeing ads on the tv for it. i'd see all these attack ads against hill and was like, "damn, i wanna vote for him." because i'm all for a candidate who voted to fund research for an abortion pill (the morning after pill i'm guessing), and doesn't support the ban on flag burning, and doesn't support the banning of gay marriage. really, i don't get this ban on gay marriage thing. recently, indiana decided to ban gay marriage despite the fact that before that gay marriage was not legal. i mean, even if you don't support gay marriage, how fucking insecure do you have to be to ban something that is already not legal? isn't it bad enough that the only things we seem to be known for besides corn are dan quayle and woody from cheers, now we have to start making things double illegal?

about the fat thing

2006-11-05T04:09:00.000-06:00

so, someone got me thinking about my being a tubby ass. up until the 2nd grade i was really thin. i mean, really thin. i didn't look funny or anything because i have a tiny bone structure, but i was very slim. then i started to hit puberty. i didn't get my period for another 4 years, but i started gaining weight, mostly in the chest and hips. in 3rd grade i wore normal size clothes for the first time (instead of slims) and by 4th grade i was wearing girls plus sizes. i wasn't fat yet at that point but i thought i was because i had to wear plus sizes. by the summer between elementary and middle schools i started getting stretch marks, on my thighs and chest. i still wasn't fat (a rapid enough increase in size to get stretch marks but i started out so thin), but i really felt i was at the time.

by the time i started high school, i was getting kind of big, but i don't know that i would say looking back that i was really 'fat'. my doctor still swore i was within the normal range (although i don't know if that range was based on age or height, and if it was age it wasn't fair because i might have been 5', maybe). by the time i graduated high school and was starting college, my doctor expressed alarm at my weight and recommended testing for tyroid disorder. since then i have gained at least 20 pounds and 2 pants sizes.

there is a number i've come up with as my ideal weight based on the weight of people i've known who weren't too much taller than me and built about like i feel like i should be for my bone structure (a size 3-5) plus 10-20 pounds for extra chest and ass (because no matter how much weight i lost, they would always be bigger than is proportional). i have now exceeded twice that weight, plus a little more. the stretch marks on my legs now reach half way down my calves. i've got some on my arms down to about half way between my elbow and wrist, a few on my lower stomach, sides and outside hip. on my chest they've all run together into just thin skin, and it only shows around the edges where they turn back into stretch marks. i measured my thigh a while back out of curiousity, and it's bigger than some of my friends waists.

i know why normal sized girls complain about being too fat, because chicks on tv and in movies are abnormally small, and if you ever see a famous chick who isn't then people talk about how big she is. and plus size models are smaller than i was when my doctor swore i wasn't too heavy, but they're at least 8 or 9 inches taller. i know it must make them feel bad, but when i hear friends of mine talk about how they're getting so fat and i know i was in middle school when i was that size, and i outweigh them by the size of some people, it's frustrating. i really want to be understanding, but instead it makes me angry or want to cry. i'm not saying that i want people to stop talking about these things around me, and i don't want to make anyone feel uncomfortable. but think about how it would feel to not always fit in chairs, or to not be able to ride some amusement park rides that you used to love, to have to worry if you want to take a plane ride if the seat will be wide enough. maybe saying goodbye to 2 piece bathing suits isn't so bad.

how i die

2006-11-05T04:07:00.000-06:00

laurie wilke: At age 57 you will participate in the newest reality game show. Contestants battle each other in an arena with swords and spears. You will have a good run (12+ victories) but eventually be killed, much to the audience's dismay.

how will you die?

more old buildings

2006-10-22T02:42:00.000-05:00

so, i was looking for an old picture of hose house #15 on the corner of washington and grand (->) to prove it was there, and i did find a few, but man did i find some really awesome stuff while i was at it. i found a few websites where they have old pictures of evansville but there are two i like best. Willard Library's historic photo collection rocks, providing not only good pictures but informative captions. Old Evansville isn't as informative, but i like that you can click through them without going back to the index.

so, anyway, what, might you ask, did i find? i found the third carnegie library for one thing. i think this story starts with a time during the 8034B years when a certain bibliophile had a book about evansville that mentioned carnegie donating funds for three libraries, including a 'colored' library. only, we couldn't figure out where it was, and the evpl history says he donated for east and west branches, but makes no mention of this third carnegie library. later we found another mention of it somewhere, but still couldn't figure out where it was. well, here it is. it was opened in 1914 and was located at 515 cherry street, which is now smack in the middle of welborn hospital's campus. i don't know when it was torn down, but there's another picture of it in 1964, when it was being used as the local boy scout headquarters. it strikes me as a little plain compared to east or west, but i guess that stands to reason, considering it was for african-americans.

chris and i figured out where the old marine hospital was. the land is still undeveloped (although chris said he noticed recently it's been cleared so it may not stay that was), but the buildings have been torn down. i might believe that the wood framed ones fell down since they didn't look all that stable in the pictures from 1979, but considering the 1984 photo of the main brick building looked more structurally sound than old hose house #10 does now, it had to be torn down, sometime before 2000, because that was the earliest aerial pictures we could get. and we're talking about an OLD marine hospital because it was already vacant when st. mary's started there in 1872. so, we may sound like big nerds, but it was so cool finding the location of something that old from vague descriptions and comparing new aerial photos to old post card pictures. and i love that my brother can get that excited about something so geeky, too. just like the carnegie library thing had been bugging him since i first told him there had once been three.

also, rather neat. so, there's this apartment building that i think looks cool that was on my bus route to college. it's had a fresh coat of white paint since this was taken, and it looks better in person. anyway, i like the unusual corner bits and such. so, i asked my dad about it because he lived a few blocks from there as a kid, and he said it had always been an apartment building. well, as it happens he was a little mistaken. it may have been an apartment building in the 50's but it hasn't always been one.

i was looking through the willard pictures when i saw that this picture of gilbert hospital (never heard of it before) said it was on the corner of harriet and michigan streets. and i was like, "well, that's not there anymore. wait a minute...yes it is. holy shit!" although, now i don't like it as much, because it was so much cooler with a third story; much more awesome weird corner bits detail.

speaking of old pictures sometimes being disappointing. so, i really like looking at them, but it makes me sad that so many cool building have been torn down. there are a few exceptions because the st. george hotel was nice, but i like the mcCurdy better. and while i have nothing against evan's hall, i'm happy to have traded it for the old central library. but sometimes i wonder why we have to replace everything instead of renovating it, and how badly do we need one more parking lot.

and thanks to the evpl having ebook copies of all the little pamphlets about historic neighborhoods, particularly the one my mother doesn't have, i now know that my brother's good friend just bought the james r. duncan house. and he thought it was cool too, as soon as we explained that living in a historic house wasn't the same as living in the historic preservation district, so he didn't have to clear it with anyone before he did home improvements.

and because i can, here's another firehouse picture. it's the firehouse on saint joe in 1984, four years before they stopped using it as a firehouse. well, that's all for now, and if you go looking through the pictures, there's one in 'streets' of the badger's neighborhood in the early 1900s, but you'd probably never know if the address wasn't a tipoff.

what's new with me

2006-10-22T01:56:00.000-05:00

well, the cold from hell has returned. i gave it to my mom, and then my dad. and dad was so kind as to give it back to us. i know you aren't supposed to be able to get the same cold twice, but maybe it mutated, or maybe he got his cold from someone else and it only seemed like he got it from mom and i, but the bottom line is i am miserably ill again. i went 5 years without calling in to work, then 6 months, and now i've called in 5 times in the last month. i hate it; absolutely hate it. today i went to work, but at one point i had to sit down to keep from falling down. a sane person might have asked about going home, but it was time to start recovering the store and that's when they really needed me a lot more than they had earlier in the night, so i would have felt like a total ass if i'd wussed out on them.

in other news, my house is full of little dogs. my brother had to work 20 days straight because the girl who covered his nights off quit/got fired. technically, she gave the boss the hours she would be available to work, which did not include the hours she was supposed to work, so he assumed she was saying he had to move her to days or she was quitting, so when she showed up for work after that, he gave her the boot. well, a week into his three weeks of no days off, the pontiac gave out again. he thought he had a bad brake although now that it's fixed we know that it was a combination of his having one wheel smaller than the others (because finding the size he has for his car is impossible) and the severe need to rotate his tires, and replace one. so he's been having to crash here and drive mom's car to work.

so, a week in to that he realized that having his friend/ex-roommate/semi-neighbor come by and feed the dogs and let them out wasn't working because he could only come by once a day and they needed to go out more often. so, they came to stay with us, too. as of this afternoon his car is fixed and he is back home, but he left the boys with us until he can clean up. he says he'll get monk monday morning on his way home from work and plans to leave frankie here until friday for an extended visit. if i remember to get some film, i'll try to get some pictures of the little fuzz butt, and some of bitsy too while i'm at it.

holy crap i am posting a lot recently

2006-10-15T04:19:00.000-05:00

if you've ever heard me, or anyone else for that matter, use the phrase "penguins ain't natural" and wondered where the hell that came from, go watch this clip from the state, a sketch comedy show that mtv made a long time ago and showed in the middle of the night when i was in middle school or so. youtube doesn't seem to have the one about eating muppets, though, which was another favorite of mine.

i have to win the lottery...

2006-10-14T02:34:00.000-05:00

because that is the only way i'm going to have the money to buy and fix up a firehouse, and i want one BAD.

i mean, who could resist something so awesomely cool? last night out of curiosity i was poking around and realized that the one that had been for sale (<- that one) isn't anymore. but the assessor's website doesn't show it changing hands. that could mean it was really recent and it hasn't been updated yet, or that it's been taken off the market without having sold.

so then i ended up screwing around on the assessor's website for hours finding and coveting all the cool old firehouses in evansville that i know about. not that any of them are for sale or anything, though.

there's the one on st. joe that i really like because i love that neighborhood, and it really is the nicest neighborhood you can get an old firehouse in as far as i know. and according to the assessor it's in the best shape of any of them, too. but when it sold recently it was uber-expensive, and the inside pictures showed it to be massively gaudy. of course, i'd have to gut it anyway because it wasn't set up as a house.

the one that was for sale on columbia is cool, and much cheaper, although also noteably smaller. and that massively trashy liquor store across the street doesn't make me jump for joy either, but i think it would still be cool.

the other one on columbia is really similar to the st joe one, and i thought i liked it less because of the main difference, the gable roof. but the more i see it the more i love the stuff up under the overhang (sorry i don't know the word for it). sure it screws up my roof garden plan, but it comes with a much bigger lot than st joe does, so that takes care of that right there. sure the nasty brown asphalt shingles would have to go, in favor of that great artificial slate roofing they make out recycled tires, but when the place has crumbling brick and the windows are all boarded up, what's a new set of roof shingles? the main issue with it would be all the cost to repair it. any of them would need work to be a house, but this thing needs work to be anything but falling down. but it looks so damned awesome.

the least appealing is the one on washington and grand. first, it's in a bad neighborhood. sure none of them are great neighborhoods, but that one is straight ghetto. also, there's the addition issue. if you get curious and want to go look at it, you have to check it out from grand because the washington side is obscured by an abysmal addition. sure that could be ripped off, but in old historic pictures you can tell that there used to be a fabulous round piece with lots of windows there, which was most likely torn off and would have to be replaced. at least i would have to replace it because i couldn't not, knowing how fabulous it had once been with that there.

plus, this morning i was telling my dad what i'd been doing all night while he was getting ready for work and he clued me in to another old firehouse in evansville. once i looked it up i realized i'd seen it bunches of times, but had never put two and two together and realized it was a firehouse. it's pretty cool, although it's got some crappy additions, but they're stuck on the back and side where you could pull them off pretty easy and they don't seem to have replaced the coolest feature of the old structure. in fact, the coolest feature has to be that bell tower. i mean, damn, is that thing awesome or what? but while i like it, i just don't think i like it as much as the columbia ones or st joe.

of course, while i was looking at commercial properties for sale trying to find that firehouse, i did find a couple of non-firehouse building i wouldn't mind having. sure this was originally a house and converting it back wouldn't be like converting a firehouse, but it still rocks. this one definately wasn't ever a house, in fact it was apparently once the republican headquarters (might be fun to laugh about that if i lived there). it's a little big though, i might have to split it up and share. plus there's a place for sale on the walkway, and one just off on 3rd.

okay, the massively long post about buildings i can't afford to buy is now complete. if you've gotten this far, thank you for your time and i hope you enjoyed it.

keeping tabs on my obsession

2006-10-14T02:03:00.000-05:00

so, i've bought some more stuff on the big hottopic sale, which by the way has escalated with even lower prices. the other day i got an awesome new pair of converse chucks. they're a really fabulous purple/burgundy/wine color. at the same time i picked up a red vs. blue shirt, but i didn't get my good charlotte shirt because it was out of stock in my size (which sucks because i'm pretty sure the lettering is exactly the same color as my chucks and they would have gone so well together). today, at the same time they lowered the prices again they got my gir hoodie back in stock. so barring my getting an email from them saying somebody beat me to it by a few seconds, i'm going to be very happy in few day when it gets here, and for only $14.06 including tax and shipping.

YAY!

2006-09-25T03:06:00.000-05:00

Take the test!

more tales of acquisition

2006-09-22T01:30:00.000-05:00

if you didn't know, hottopic has been having a massive clearance blow-out sale for a while now. there were a lot of things that i wanted that sold out too fast including these two awesome jackets (if either is available in a 2x when you click on it, buy it and i'll pay you back). and despite the fact that i order it twice, i never got a ruroken shirt because it went out of stock in my size on me both times. i did get these awesome shoes, though, so i'm pretty happy.

halloween?

2006-09-22T00:32:00.000-05:00

so, what should i be this year for halloween? as much as i love my pirate outfit (thanks for the loan of the mini parret for the picture, evilducky), and need to get some more use out of it for the money i spent, i'd like to switch it up this year. my mother suggests that i be a wench, but that sounds rather uncomfortable. the best idea i've come up with so far is to be a nun, which would be funny. so, any ideas or opinions? please remember that i am poor and can't do anything custom. we're talking something i can put together from things i already own or stuff i can get on the cheap. and it has to be comfortable as party wear.

i know, i know. i've been neglecting the blog again.

2006-09-17T02:27:00.000-05:00

so, i met the cutest kid the other day at work. we're talking if i thought i could have one like him i'd have one cute. but for every one that's super cute and awesome there are 800 who beg for candy, use the counter as a jungle gym, or poke the buttons on the credit card thing. but this kid was awesome. i swear his mom said he was 3, but he was about the size of bobby's 1.5 year old, and he didn't talk at all so i kind of wonder if he does or if he's just really quiet.

his family was checking out at the register across from mine while i was between customers and his dad was trying to get him to look at me by telling him there was another pretty girl behind him. then when he realized he had stopped staring at christine and was watching the register screen instead he called him a tube-head. so, finally he decided to look at me, and we were talking about how he looked tuckered and so-on. then he started doing body-building poses. his mom said these are his incredible hulk poses because he loves the incredible hulk and even has baby hulk pajamas (if such a thing exists we have to get baby spiderman pj's for when there's a baby badger, don't you think).

so then, his dad said some word i didn't recognize and he started doing karate moves! apparently the dad teaches karate and he picked up the moves from watching the class. they said he had just started walking when he learned the back kick, so he would put his hands down on the ground first so he wouldn't fall forward when he did it. then his dad said touchdown and he put his hands up to signal that, at which point the mom said, "i wouldn't get him a puppy so he taught the kid to do tricks." as they were leaving he gave us his two waves. his "doorknob wave" where he holds his hand out and turns it like he's turning a knob, and the other wave where he opens and closes his hand.

basically, the kid was really cute and i just thought i'd share that with everyone. so, i'm not a heartless bitch and i don't hate all kids, i just like them well trained and quiet.

token blog

2006-09-08T05:15:00.000-05:00

so, have you ever had to get up from where you were sitting and walk into another room, only to find that the reason you were called there was to find someone's remote control, in the same room with them? then i had to go see why there was loud cussing coming from the shower (almost used up bar of soap). whatever would they do if i actually had enough money to move out?

sunday

2006-08-23T04:06:00.000-05:00

the celebration of my birth went well. i had fun and noone else seemed totally bored. we forgot to total all the minigolf scores, so i only know how it shaped up for the 5 of us on the card i have. mac and vb tied for winning with 58, then sharon at 65, me at 74, and mb got 75. despite the fact that i almost lost, i did hit the winning spot on the 19th hole so i get to play free next time we go. i'm actually pretty good at that, since hitting the ball way too hard seems to be a good thing for once on that hole.

i got lots of good gifts. i got some books, the shirt i wanted, a button, cash, pineapple candy, a planted pineapple that i hope survives (i'm not so good at remembering to water things that don't come whining when they're thirsty), and a real concrete gnome.

i also want to say that it was proof that being an adult isn't like i thought it would be, but not in a bad way. who knew that at 25 i'd still enjoy a nice retro-campy minigolf game with all my friends.

today at work...

2006-08-20T02:46:00.000-05:00

or, they don't pay me enough to ever do that again.

so, today on my worklist (a list of things you're supposed to do that day, unless someone else takes it on themselves to do it, or the mod has you too busy getting other things accomplished) i was supposed to empty the outside trash can. this doesn't sound too bad, right? wrong! i really only had one issue with it, that issue had a few parts though. what was my issue? SMELL!!!!!!!

i knew before i started that some kind soul had sat a couple of those styrofoam boxes you get your leftover in on top of the can (because they're bigger than the hole in the top). i did not know until i picked them up and felt their weight that they had included the food itself in the offering. this action also seemed to have unleashed their scent. from what i smelled i'm guessing it was barbecue, but i'm betting it had been in our lovely southern indiana august weather for a number of hours. foul would be a good word choice, but alas, that was merely the tip of the iceberg for my nasal abuse.

now, i never enjoy a leaky trash bag, particularly when my task is to take it from outside the front of a store all the way to the back door and out to the dumpster. but with my cunning use of industrial paper towels and a plastic bag slipped over the offending corner, i wouldn't really have had a problem. oh, except for the fact that the mostly clear liquid running like a stream from this particular bag was one of the most offensive odors i have ever encounter in my life. this stench smelled like rotten meat, spoiled milk, and used diapers all together, and left in the sun for a while. how customers didn't run away as i wheeled my cart of funk as rapidly as possible through the store i will never know.

needless to say, i was sickened by it, and have remained so for the last 8.5 hours. which sucks because my mom went to the effort of getting me some really good fried chicken that you have to drive to the far side of henderson to buy, because i didn't get a special birthday dinner on thursday, and i wasn't in much of an eating mood. oh, and i got some of the reeking wetness on my hands and had to scrub like a surgeon, doing more damage to my already fading henna sun.

other than that, work was fine (and busy). funny story, though. our floral manager was covered in glitter (and i mean covered) from stocking all the christmas picks we just got in (yes, it's christmas already in craftland). so, people kept pointing this out to her, and you could tell she really wanted to kick them, especially after about the third time. i know to the customers it must seem really unique and cute, but since she's in charge of floral and all christmas floral must apparently by law be smothered in glitter, she spends about four months a year likewise smothered in glitter. by christmas i will be smothered in glitter on a regular basis and all i have to do is ring it up at the register. my apron pockets are still full of glitter from last christmas. i never knew before that glitter was quite so essential to christmas.

happy birthday to me

2006-08-17T17:56:00.000-05:00

i'm a quarter of a century old today. yay! i just wanted to say that.

well, i'll see you sunday at 6:00. unless you live across the country, then i understand why you can't make it for celebration by minigolf.

a quiz counts as posting so i posted

2006-08-16T03:05:00.000-05:00

Which Sesame Street Muppet's Dark Secret Are You?

The Count's Obsessive-Compulsive DisorderIt started with a simple affection for counting and the terror it induced in others, didn't it? But now it's turned into a full-blown life-consuming chaotic nightmare of order, repetition, zealousness, and perfectionism. You used to be so grand, but now you find yourself obsessively worrying over the littlest things--like, maybe if you don't check the light switch at least once every two minutes, the electricity will go out (and damnit, you're a vampire--that shouldn't be a problem!), or maybe if you don't wash your hands until your seams are coming out, you'll get some fatal disease. Get yourself some treatment.
Take this quiz!

birthday gift ideas

2006-07-23T01:53:00.000-05:00

okay, so my birthday is coming up soon. now, i don't normally give hints about what i want because i kind of like finding gifts for people, but i know that not everyone feels that way, so if you're trying to think of something to give me, i would love to have this shirt. of course, i only want one of that shirt, so here are a few more ideas. if you're looking to spend a lot of money or go in together i would be happy to have any of these wonderful shoes (mens size 5). or, if you just need a little something to augment something you're already giving me, i wouldn't mind one of these. of course, if you get me something else entirely, that's a-okay with me.

if you think this post was all about me subtly trying to con people into buying me things i don't want to have to pay for myself, you are absolutely right. so as your reward here's a heads up about how you can get these shirts on clearance.

update

2006-07-16T01:27:00.000-05:00

so, i've been neglecting the blog. to anyone who actually cares, sorry. anyway, what's new with me? the short answer: not much.

still working the crappy retail job. going to hit the one year mark soon. had my evaluation today. it struck me as a little odd. he said all these fabulous things to me, and all the comments on my evaluation paper were really good, and yet all of my scores were 3/5. now that's apparently 'satisfactory' or something like that, so it's a good score, but if you're going to rave about someone, you could throw in a 4 or two. maybe he's just not into handing out the high numbers.

a freaking ton of my co-workers are leaving. several of the recent high school grads are heading out for college and so forth. i'm going to miss the guy who does the ad set. not only is he nice to have around because he's so good at his job, but he's also really funny. example: one night when we were cleaning up the store after closing and he was wearing a pirate hat, he got on the intercom and said "arrr." it was much funnier than it sounds.

the project house is getting there, but if i never paint anything again i'll be very happy. we are now working on getting the trim all painted a nice crisp white, while dad puts in wood flooring in the family room.

we love katamari is a nice game, although not as fabulous as the original. i still wish i had more time to play it, though, as i rarely get control of the living room tv, where my playstation is.

i set a new personal record at the library. the other week i had to go pick up my 19 holds. i felt like an ass, and even apologized to the clerk who checked me out. what was i to do? they all came in the same day, and i picked them up several days before i HAD to, so i feel like i did what i could.

if anyone wants to go bowling, we got a massive amount of free game coupons the other night at denny's. you still have to pay for shoes, and i haven't had a chance to check the website listed on them to see where locally you can use them, but free is always good, right?

well, there might be more, but i can't think of it right now. besides i have to get to bed because i actually work in the morning tomorrow.

new quiz

2006-06-26T06:45:00.000-05:00

Which of Henry VIII's wives are you?
this quiz was made by Lori Fury

fresh library woes

2006-06-26T05:38:00.000-05:00

i'm very annoyed with the library right now. i know i should actually be annoyed with their phone and internet company, but i can't make myself care about the distinction.

the library website has been down for days now, and the other day when i was in there i heard a couple of the employees say the phones were down too, and since my brother called mom last night thinking he had a cell phone problem because it wouldn't let him call the library, i'd say they still are.

so that begs the question, what if my holds come in? i can't check on the internet, and they can't call me to tell me, and i can't even call to check. so will they be nice and postpone the time limit for picking up holds or am i expected to con someone into taking me to the library just to see if i do have any holds in?

this sucks. damned library addiction.

how to be a good customer

2006-06-26T04:12:00.000-05:00

my lovely friend recently posted this comic. now, i can't say that i've heard it 1000 times, but the job i have now is the first one (of 5) where a "price check" was a real thing. it's hard to call someone to do that when you are the only one there. so, in my 10 months there, i've probably only heard it a couple hundred times. and it is annoying, but it's far from the worst thing people do to me. so for those of you who have not worked in retail, or may have forgotten about it, here are some tips.

if you have children, please keep them with you in the store. no matter how well behaved you think they are, they probably aren't. so it's best that you be there when they mess up stuff to fix it. and if you are there, at least try to fix it. even if you get it a little wrong, making the effort (especially when it's not obvious you're only doing it because you know we can see you) will make us less likely to hate you. oh, and if your child is a major screamer/tantrum thrower, please just leave them at home or something.

if you decide while waiting in the check-out line that there is an item that you have with you but you don't want to buy it after all, give it to the cashier. yes, it means we will have to put it back where you got it from. we would still have to do that if you just dump it in the candy display, only then we have to find it first. this also applies to leaving it on a shelf somewhere. if you really feel you must dump it, don't try to hide it behind things, leave it where we will see it faster and get it put back. if it's a grocery situation, absolutely never leave cold stuff in a non-cold place. if you really don't need that rump roast but you just can't make it back to the meat department, at least leave it in dairy or something. even in with tv dinners and frozen pizza beats plopping it on top of the canned corn to spoil.

speaking of price checks, if i have a scanning device, and your item doesn't have a barcode, i really do need a price check. telling me what it cost will do me no good. if it would, i would have asked. i need a BARCODE. i very well may already know the price, but with nothing to scan i can't do anything about it. if i am not already in a slightly crappy mood because of some other customer, you get to say it once. if after i say, "yeah, but i need a barcode to scan" you still tell me what the price is, i should by all rights be able to kill or at the very least maim you. and yes, there are really people who will tell you repeatedly what the price is, even after you've explained about the barcode thing.

always remember that the poor kid at the register did not write the return policy, or the check policy, or any other policy. chances are whoever did doesn't work at that store, maybe even not in the same state. also, it is always in poor taste to try to guilt them into violating said policy because you don't like it. no matter how sad an existence it may be, this is their livelihood. i'm not losing my job, or even making my bosses think i can't remember how to do my job right, for a friend, so i'm sure not doing it for someone i don't know. moreover, i don't care if someone the other day did it wrong, i will only do it right. if some other cashier gave you a cash return yesterday when you should have gotten store credit, that's their problem, as the return policy is printed right on the back of your receit where you could have read it and know to get back to return things within the stated time period. chances are they were one of the idiot high school (and yes some college, too) kids my boss keeps hiring who couldn't find their own asses with both hands and a map, and they will get a nasty note from the office troll about it.

if you are in the store at closing, it is true that we will not actually kick you out, but it's common courtesy to hurry. if you're looking for something, go ahead and find it before you leave (we'd be happy to help you, since it will speed up the process) but do not continue to browse leisurely through the store as if you have all freaking day. this goes triple if you are the very last customer in the store.

lastly, if you feel you must steal from the store, take the whole thing. if you only steal part of something, the rest will typically just get thrown away. imagine how weird it is to find a half empty pack of brushes or a 5-pack of soda. besides, it makes us think you're stupid.

tales of acquisition

2006-06-24T03:53:00.000-05:00

so there's this really awesome game that i have for the playstation, called katamari damacy. it's really strange, but totally cool. you are this little green prince, and you have to roll around this knobby ball called a katamari. things stick to the katamari, and the bigger it gets, the bigger the things that can stick to it get. at the very beginning you can barely pick up thumbtacks, later you can pick up cats and small children, and by the end you can get small islands and very large buildings stuck to your katamari. very strange i know, but it's SO much cooler than it sounds.

i first played it at a friends house and i enjoyed it so much that very soon after that i went out and picked up a used copy for myself. i have played it a lot and while i still do really like it, i have beaten it several times. therefore i have spent several weeks on eBay hunting down a copy of the sequel we love katamari. tonight i mailed the check, so soon it shall be here and i am so excited to get it. it apparently also has a new cooperative 2 player mode, which is super cool for sharing the joy. yay!

not dead!

2006-06-11T01:40:00.000-05:00

i've been meaning to write a new post for a while, but just haven't taken the time. i'm not taking the time now either. this is only so everyone knows i have not a) died, b) lost computer or internet function, c) forgotten i have a blog.

i won the lottery!

2006-05-26T03:55:00.000-05:00

okay, not exactly. i did win money playing the lottery, though. how much, you ask? $3. with it i bought... one each powerball and hoosier lottery tickets for the next drawing, and i kicked in with my mother to buy a book of stamps. exciting isn't it?

by the way, earlier there were swat team guys prowling around my front yard. according to the next door neighbor, who called to tell us so that we didn't find out by walking out there for a puppy potty break, the guy across the street had some guy at his house who was drunk with a gun. i'll give you details later if i find any out. as of right now there's still one police vehicle out there shining a spot light on the house, but the other cops seem to have left. i don't know if that means they captured him, he ran away, or they just lost interest. it's just weird to think that we had some swat cop leaning on the truck hood with a rifle.

when you've got nothing to blog about ... quiz

2006-05-24T05:14:00.000-05:00

Death through freak supernatural incident

You are going to die in a freak vampire/werewolf incident. I would start carrying garlic and silver bullets if I were you. There is something weird about your demeanor, and evil is attracted to you. Plus you may be a little attracted to evil too.

Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

boring tidbits

2006-05-18T03:48:00.000-05:00

it's about time i made a post, but i don't have anything cool to post about so all you get a brief list of what's new with me.

i have a new pirate monkey picture. yay! this one isn't as cool as the last one, but i was getting bored of the monkey and crossbones.

the jeep is fixed. we got it back tuesday. the warranty company didn't pay so we had to go with a used engine to save a couple grand.

bobby bought a new investment house and i've been helping out in order to make a little extra money (since i currently have the most part-time part-time job of my life). i spent several days using plyers to pull staples out of the hardwood floors so they can refinish them. now chris and i are working on dethatching the yard. the pay sucks, but money's money.

sallie mae's going to want thier money starting next month. i need a better/another job.

i had a missed call the other day from my old boss (well, actually the owner, not my direct boss). he didn't leave a message, but i left one when i called him back. carol said he was thinking about reopening, so if i can ever get ahold of him perhaps he wants to give me a job. since i'm out of school now i might even be able to swing being manager. that would be boring (slower paced than the current job), but i wouldn't have to worry about not getting enough hours.

to graduate or...

2006-05-04T01:47:00.000-05:00

ok, well i already graduated, as in finished all the classes for a degree. what i'm trying to decide is if i want to go to my own graduation. on the one hand, i already took off work for it (although i'm going to a party that night anyway, but it sounds so much better to tell my boss i have commencement) and it seems like i should go for closure. on the other hand, it's gonna be so long and boring and crowded, plus i don't know anybody else who'll be walking this year. oh, and i'd have to dress up, so add uncomfortable and hot. i've put off buying my cap and gown so long that i don't know if i'll be able to get one that fits, although i have to buy one no matter what so my mother can take pictures of me in it.

so really it comes down to several hours of uncomfortable, torturous bordom, or having to lie when my boss asks me how it was. i'm still thinking on it.

too lazy to write an actual post

2006-05-01T03:04:00.000-05:00

After you die...
Reincarnated as Yourself

After death, you will be reborn again as yourself. You will live the same life, unbeknownst to you. However, you will have vivid moments of déjà vu, as you probably have now.

Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

happy day - my return to the internet

2006-04-25T03:46:00.000-05:00

i was without the internet for about a week and a half. i have found: that i love the internet, that i interact with my real life friends mostly through the internet (except the one i work with who lives very near me and is extremely cool about my transportation needs, and tends to be awake and bored at night, too), that my brother sleeps a lot more when there is no internet, and rather annoyingly that the library does not always call when your holds are in, and therefore it is handy to have a friend there (who happens to run into the one friend i ever seem to see without an official event being involved).

the whole computer problem sucks majorly. the issue was that our hard drive totally failed and had to be replaced. apparently the problem was that it had gotten dirty inside, and dad has decided that it is all my brother's fault for chainsmoking in the office with the door shut, and while i'll admit this doesn't help, i've decided to blame hp and this is why. all the computers we have ever owned have been compaqs, but this is the first one since they were bought by hp. i'll give you that a laptop is considerably more sealed than a desktop, but my big grey paperweight was somewhere between 11 and 13 years old when my hard drive crashed and died. the other laptop is 7 years old and while massively slow and crappy (with frequent sightings of the blue screen of death), it does technically still work. this computer is less than 2 years old. that's just not right.

for a real mindblowing concept, the promised explanation of the jeep's issues. it has: 2 thrown rods, 4 twisted rods, one broken cylinder (most likely from being hit by thrown rod), 4 severely overheated cylinders (despite the fact that the temperature gauge never indicated that the engine was too hot), holes in the block (again from those thrown rods), cracks in the block, and coolant in the oil (although the coolant level is only very slightly low).

there are several issues with this. first, almost all of these problems (not the coolant) mean IMMEDIATE death to an engine, meaning that you can't have one and then the other, so they must have all happened simultaneously. secondly, throwing a rod is something that basically only happens if you have literally no oil, and it was full, although some of it was notably gummed up because that's what happens if you mix oil and coolant. also, there was no indication of problem from the temperature gauge or oil light (or anything else for that matter). just bam, loud noise (although not loud enough for all that) and dead car. but the most amazing of all, the adjuster from the warranty company, in his report, says it's my parents fault, citing poor maintenance. i guess they were supposed to know that the coolant was going to leak into the oil and turn it into goo.

so, she's waiting for official word from the company to see of they agree with the adjuster or the mechanics. if it's the former, then all hell will then ensue, for them, expressway dodge, and anybody else who gets in her way. basically, she'll be damned if she paid extra for an extended warranty, and still has to pop 6 grand for exactly the kind of things warranties are for. regardless, the next car will probably be a pontiac and she will never buy anything from expressway again.

recent silence

2006-04-22T02:18:00.000-05:00

our computer crashed last friday, so i am without until further notice. no blogger, no email, no online checking of those all-important library holds. it's fixed now, but needs a ride home and all the stuff reinstalled. once this has happened you can all get the full story on that, plus the bizarre solution to the question of what exactly the problem was with mom's jeep.

musings and fun links

2006-04-12T04:30:00.000-05:00

what is with this commercial i keep seeing? apparently tbs is going to be showing the lord of the rings, but one of the ads they're running is just freaky strange. it's a lot of clips of frodo and sam, and in the background they play the song "secret lover". it is totally bizarre.

for your viewing pleasure here are some links amassed by my brother and his wonderfully geeky internet RP friends in the Honor Guard. (visiting them there won't help you get more links since they keep them in a members only section, but he knew how bad i wanted them so he told me his password) lets start this link-stravaganza with the coolest thing ever (sound needed to get full effect)! while you've got the sound on, here's another fun (and massively geeky) musical site. this was billed as "the greatest music video of all time!!!", and i don't know about that, but it is quite amusing. i also highly recommend this video about minjas. also, this ukelele player is extremely talented. this is not massively cool, but definitely interesting.

now, for you star wars fans, you get a whole paragraph all your own. starting with these two awesome lightsaber duels, one with additude and the other more pretty (with great music). this one isn't really star wars, but it is hilarious in a purposely dumb kind of way, and includes references to star wars (look for "copyright infringement" and a funny bit as the end credits are wrapping up). last but not least: squirrel wars!

also, here's the geek test they've all been taking. sharon and i both took it the other day. we're both level 3 - true geeks (i beat her though, Mwahaha.) i don't think we have much hope of catching the HG boys, though. so far they have a non geek, 2 level 4 - uber geeks, 2 level 5 - jedi masters, and a level 7 - Maud’dib, The Chosen Master of the Illuminati, Lord of Silicon Valley and the Justicar of all he surveys (that's the highest level).

somewhat random

2006-04-11T04:53:00.000-05:00

what to post about?

i went bowling the other day, and it was massively great seeing all my lovely friends, many of whom i haven't actually seen since february. i finished 5 out of 7 people, which is pretty good for me, a 70-something. yes, i bowl for crap. there was cheesecake afterwards, and i'm much better at eating than bowling.

here's something totally random. does anyone think it's wrong that i'm considering starting to carry a purse, mostly just so i have someplace to put all my cool buttons and such now that i'm a college graduate and don't need a backpack? sure it might be nice to be able to keep my cell and smokes somewhere other than my pants, and i could even find room for things like headache drugs and a nail file (for when they break and are all jagged), but mostly it's about the buttons. is that too weird? of course, this does not mean i have any intention of giving up my awesome wallet.

quizzes are fun, right?

2006-04-03T15:03:00.000-05:00

You scored as Ginny Weasley. You definitely share your mother's (Molly Weasley) fiery resolve and slowly but surely people are learning to respect you because of it.

Ginny Weasley

75%

Ron Weasley

75%

Sirius Black

75%

Albus Dumbledore

75%

Hermione Granger

65%

Harry Potter

65%

Remus Lupin

65%

Draco Malfoy

65%

Severus Snape

50%

Lord Voldemort

45%

Your Harry Potter Alter Ego Is...?
created with QuizFarm.com

hey look, month two

2006-04-02T03:20:00.000-05:00

okay, so the blog isn't a month old yet, but it is the second month and it not only hasn't been abandoned, it's hardly even been neglected.

so i was trying to decide what i could blog about, and i thought i could try playing some kind of april fool's joke, but i'm a few hours late for that.

instead i think i shall contemplate something that's happening right now (or actually several minutes ago) -- the time change. i hate daylight savings time. actually i only hate it in the spring; i love the random extra hour of sleep in the fall. regardless of that, though, i always think it's dumb and pointless; not bad just pointless. now, that doesn't mean i think it's a great idea that most of my home state (not including my little corner, the bit up by chicago and a few other areas) has been ignoring it. everybody else does it, so even if it's kinda dumb, not doing it just makes us seem like a bunch of backward-ass hicks, already a problem for indiana. besides, it makes it weird and tricky trying to remember what the time difference is between places when it changes depending on the time of year.

well that my rant for today. oh, and happy, happy me, i just bought this. i know it's out of season right now, but i've been coveting it for over a year.

they're all gonna laugh at me

2006-03-24T03:07:00.000-06:00

okay, so i'm gonna look like some kinda freak when i get around to getting down to the library. i have 11 books out, which i've finished reading and am ready to take back (except the one i'm loaning to sharon so she doesn't have to hunt it up herself). but here the bad part. when i go to the library to return these 10 books, i can then pick up my 16 holds. yes, you read that right, 16 holds. and not 16 holds that i have, 16 hold that are ready for pick-up (out of 27).

this is partially because i forgot the danger of asking my personal librarian to send me 3 books from her branch to the one i go to, and therefore got an extra 3 that i didn't ask for. while i'm not saying this was a bad thing for her to do (as in, no i'm not actually mad at you) i really didn't need any help finding more things to read. of course, it also doesn't help that i forgot how much faster stuff gets out of processing at central. so now, with a little help from my friends, i may have shot myself in the foot here and become one of those people who don't return things really promptly, about whom i was bitching in my last library related post.

oh, and as long as i'm trying to blame others for the fact that i'm about to be buried in reading material: damn you sharon, for getting me to read manga in the first place! without that i'd only have two holds, one book to pick up (aside from anything extra katie decided to send along with it) and nothing to return.

we're starting a collection

2006-03-24T02:39:00.000-06:00

so, as you may know, ( i don't expect anyone to be reading this who doesn't know me, because why would they?) there has been a dead pontiac sunfire in our driveway for a few weeks now. my brother's lovely (ha ha) car has a blown head gasket, and since he has no money my parents are going to have to pay for it to get fixed. well, the guy who did his timing belt a few months ago is too busy, so he passed us to a guy he knows, who also didn't have time either, so he passed us to another guy, who wanted a lot more money. so the original guy is getting us a quote on what it would cost to actually have it done at the shop where he works.

well, i guess the pontiac got lonely, but now it has a jeep to keep it company. that's right, the jeep died last night while the boys were taking chris's girlfriend to work. like it just died without any warning as they were driving down 64. chris said it reminded him of when his timing belt broke, but the mechanic said it sounds more like it seized up. if that's true, that means a whole new engine. thankfully it's still (barely) under warrantee. of course, according to the forum posts my mom's been reading this seems to be slightly common for liberties around 40,000 miles (mom has 38,000) and they do their damnest to keep from having to pay for it.

so that mean that the only transport we (my parents, me, my brother, and his girlfriend) have is a dodge truck with only 2 seats. let the fun begin! and mom can't work without wheels, because real estate is an on-the-go job. so, yeah, it totally sucks major balls.

because i'm a massive geek

2006-03-23T06:01:00.000-06:00

i couldn't get the cool picture to work (dammit), but go here and vote for lauriew3180 (that's me) so i can go to england (with 3 friends). yay! i like england, and harry potter, and friends.

a set of fours

2006-03-23T05:32:00.000-06:00

i hear all the popular kids are doing it, but i just don't know...

Four jobs you have had in your life:
1. selling crafty stuff
2. selling sunglasses
3. selling gas and smokes
4. selling sausage and gifts

Four movies you would watch over and over:
1. o brother where art thou
2. the star wars trilogy
3. 10 things i hate about you
4. the changeling

Four places you have lived:
1. my parents' house
2. bowling green, KY
3. 8034B
4. with the big red whore

Four TV shows you love to watch:
1. ER
2. family feud
3. law and order
4. trigun

Places you have been on a TRUE vacation (as opposed to those pretend vactions?):
1. england (yay!)
2. tennessee
3. kentucky
4. tennessee

Four websites you visit daily:
1. hotmail
2. my college email
3. the group page (nothing been going on there in a while)
4. www.evpl.org (gotta check those holds)

Four of your favorite foods:
1. red lobster
2. alfredo sauce
3. ice cream (preferably ben and jerry's chubby hubby)
4. cheesecake

Four places you would rather be right now:
1. england
2. somewhere warm
3. somewhere with more books
4. bed

I'm tagging:
probably nobody since anybody likely to see this has already been tagged

a rant on a serious topic

2006-03-20T05:47:00.000-06:00

i was reading this just now, and felt that i must comment on it. and i think i have the right to, since i myself am obese.

i'm not saying that you shouldn't be able to sue food companies because you're obese. in fact i think that you should be able to sue anybody you want for anything you feel like, you just shouldn't win.

it's not like the food company execs were sitting around going, "you know that new product that tastes so great? we should totally make that bad for people." they didn't even decide to make the stuff that was bad for you taste so good. it's just that the same stuff that makes food taste good happens to be bad for you. cheeseburgers taste great, but they're bad for you. does that mean that mcdonald's (evil for other reasons) shouldn't sell them to you? no. you know they're bad for you; if you want to eat them anyway, that's your own problem. yeah, they should offer more healthy stuff, and put some effort into making it not taste like cardboard, but i'll be damned if anybody (the government, food industry, etc.) is going to say i can't have a cheeseburger.

i am not fat because they use cartoon characters to make me want unhealthy snacks. it's just that most of my favorite foods contain enough sugar and/or fat to choke a horse. there are very few foods that i enjoy that would qualify as healthy, and most of those i prefer prepared in an unhealthy fashion (i.e. breaded and fried, or smothered in butter). there are plenty of seriously unhealthy foods that i don't like and won't eat, like pork rinds or mayonnaise, but very few healthy ones i will eat.

it's a lot like smoking. if i end up with lung cancer or something, it's my own damned fault. i'm the one who decided to do it. and anyone who says they didn't know it was bad for them is fooling themselves. i don't need a freaking scientific report to know that. anyone who tells you that the first time they had a cigarette (and inhaled) didn't cough, is lying, or doesn't remember right. maybe they didn't know how bad it was for them, but they knew it wasn't good. you might not know drinking causes liver damage, but you're not likely to get past the morning after without realizing it's certainly not healthy.

okay, that's my rant. off to bed, have to work tomorrow... today, whatever.

weird videos

2006-03-14T04:54:00.000-06:00

the internet is full of strange and interesting things, like this recut terminator 2 trailer. don't like terminator movies? maybe you'd prefer to watch seven. are we detecting a pattern here? not you're kind of humor? maybe you'd rather see some profanity, or a new perspective on christmas? or maybe you're looking for something offensive, or just disturbing?

if you've enjoyed these links, thank my brother for bringing them to my attention.

thanks sharon

2006-03-14T03:46:00.000-06:00

man, talk about a time-suck, but it's cool.

library frustrations

2006-03-12T06:22:00.000-06:00

so, right now i'm thinking about the library. after many years of not allowing myself to read for fun two thirds of the time (the 8 months of school) because i knew i had things i really needed to be reading that would take a major backseat to a good piece of fiction, i've been reading like an junkie on a bender. and of course i have embraced the library because being that i love to read and am know to be cheap, the idea of getting to read massive amounts of books for free is just splendid.

but i have a problem with the other patrons. it's really very simple. i want to know why of the 18 books i have on hold (yes i have 18 holds), 4 of them are overdue. firstly, unless you are using them to write a paper or are taking home enough books to choke a horse, there is no reason that you should really need the whole three weeks. but these aren't even books books. we're talking about manga; it's mostly pictures. mentally handicapped children with brain damage wouldn't take three whole weeks to read a volume of manga. and now it's screwed my whole plan, because of course it's the first (and in one case first and second) volume of things that are overdue, and i can't read the others until i've read those. so of course, the only person before me who returns things as proptly as i do (i.e. rather early) had volume 6.

speaking of volume 6, why has my hold on FMA volume 6 been "in transit" for so long? are they sending it to central on foot? and yes, katie, if you see this, i know that since it's new that probably means they're processing it before they send it. but unless oaklyn branch in run by 3 people or less, it shouldn't take that freaking long. i mean, several of the other branches had theirs out (as in checked out or on hold) on monday or tuesday when i first discovered they had bought volume 6. mccollough's has already come back and is waiting on hold for it's second patron. but alas, mine is in transit limbo.

hmm, well, that rant went on a bit longer than expected, and now i must really be off to bed.

totally random

2006-03-10T23:36:00.000-06:00

nothing like sharing a computer with your family, eh? today i found this in a minimized window. i have no idea who left it there or why, but i thought it was worth sharing.