Riddle me this

The Great Wall of China was built to keep out foreigners. Now, it attracts millions of foreigners every year. When the Chinese do irony, they do it hardcore.

Some odd precipitate.

It's been a really warm fall. Only now is it snowing. I'm ok with this, as it means there isn't already a foot of snow on the ground. All those fake plastic snowmen people put on their lawns are now indiscernible mounds under the real thing. I look out the window as I type this noticing that it's only getting worse and worse. A slight chuckle as I consider those that have to travel through this.

Then I remember I'm looking through the 4th floor window of the Lockwood library... and I'm walking home.

Karmic schadenfreude.

Bruce and the extra cheese

Bruce Springsteen played Buffalo last night. The show ended at midnight, not because I knew the schedule, but that's when the phones lit up, preceding the flow of burnouts and cougars. While the smell wasn't as strong, more than a few were high as a kite.

I've never seen so many 45 year olds ordering so much pizza in my life.

The archivist

I've been corresponding lately with individuals I've known for a long time. Ten years, to be precise. What this person might not know, is that ten years ago I kept a journal. A very detailed, complete journal. I recorded... everything. I can tell you the day it all started, the day it escalated, and the day it all fell apart.

But then again, dates were really my thing. You know who you are. Take that thought with you. :p

spoiled

My media-panic overblown illness having beset me a week ago or so, it's pretty much run its course. What this means is that I've been indoors for almost an entire week, save a trip to the doctors office.

Cabin fever vs. Stir crazy. (Only on Pay-per-view)

One unintended side effect of this was my sleep schedule auto-reset itself back to nighttime. I go back to work tonight, and it's not a normal 8 hour shift, oh no.

Daylight saving time.

That's right kids, when you get an extra hour of sleep, I get an extra hour of work. This when I'm trying to fight off sleep. Anyway...

So this illness having run its course, I decided to venture out in public once again. I did so mere hours before this posting - 10AM or so. Such a time is not one where I'm normally out in public. 10PM is more likely. (For perspective, I do most of my grocery shopping at 6 AM)

This is what I mean by spoiled. When I do any grocery shopping, I need only navigate vendors, early risers, stock boys, and the occasional grandma. Typically one or two of each. The pharmacy is still closed. One checkout lane is open. The 4 foot Pillsbury dough boy display at the end of the row my only companion. My cart is one with the floor buffer.

Fast forward a mere four hours. Crowds. Throngs. Masses. HORDES! People everywhere, clogging every spot you can imagine. I couldn't even *see* the deli case! Everywhere I turned there was another fat mom with a cartload of kids spilling over, another old man that can't remember which way to go, and the endless pains of people that leave their cart sideways in the middle of the aisle while they walk away to painstakingly examine every can of whatever is so important while hordes of people get jammed in trying to get around it.

I was always a night person.

p.s. It's Halloween, yet they already tore down the Halloween display, and set up the Christmas display. (it starts...)

After Dark

I'm awesome. I found a working copy of After Dark. It doesn't run properly on Win 7. (Any of you that had it on windows might remember that you didn't configure it from the screen saver menu. It would add a tab to the display properties menu. Win 7 doesn't even have the same menu style, so it's Starry Night or nothing) My laptop, however, still runs XP. Now the flying toasters have graced my machine once more.

Envy it.

sick?

I've been coughing since Thursday. A little nagging cough that wouldn't leave me alone. Monday morning it decided to hit me like a brick gently soaring through my skull.

Sleep it off. Class? Sorry class, you'll have to wait.

Now I'm short of breath. That's bad. I need my lungs. I can't sing opera without my full lung capacity, so I need to nix this bug, now. (Never mind that I can't sing opera, let alone in the shower. That's not the point) I had bronchitis awhile back, feels the same. Doc gave me some nice powerful meds for it, let's see.

"H1N1"

What? I know you came in here wearing a mask, I figured that was standard procedure at this point. You may have poked and prodded me all over, violating me in ways that would make a frat boy blush, but seriously?

The doctor won't let me to go work. Nor will he let me go to school. Ok, not bad. It's like a terrible vacation where all I have to do is get bad sleep and eat the same boring food over and over again. Between coughs. On the bright side, I can still type... between coughs.

Excuse me, I need a cough drop.

The pants problem

Consider fashion for a moment: men have fewer options, women can get away with pretty much anything. This is made up for by mens sizes.

Mens sizes are a measurement. Womens sizes are just an arbitrary number tacked on with no regard for dimension, each being different according to manufacturer and store. Another reason it's great to be a guy, right?

I'm stuck. Trapped. Caught in the middle. Mens pant sizes only come in even numbers. I'm a size 33. Everything is either too big, or two small. Do I get pants and a belt, or do I get pants and a treadmill? The real question is: which way am I headed? Am I losing weight, or am I gaining it?

If stress tells me anything, it's that I'm losing weight. Planning for it would change it. Meanwhile, my clothing doesn't fit.

Football?

They call it football, but it's played by hand. It's not shaped like a ball, either. It's shaped like an egg. American football should be named HandEgg. They stretch 20 minutes of gameplay into four hours of watching and waiting. (Most of that 20 minutes is simply running the clock) They run for 15 seconds, then sit on the sidelines for 10 minutes, likely heaving into an oxygen mask because, lets face it, these fat boys are hauling both themselves and enough body armor to make Iraq sweat.

Ok, so I'm not a fan. I only bring it up because the season started. I only know this fact because I work in a hotel... and the Bills live in town.

Last Saturday night was a world of trouble. On top of the 100 or so guests there for the game, there were five wedding parties and three tour groups. One didn't speak much English, one was nice and quiet upstairs, and the third was 98% drunken idiots.

...really, what do you expect is going to happen when you have one girl so drunk she's shaking, so big she's falling out of her shirt, and 5 guys all trying to trip each other up to try to land her in their rooms? Of COURSE it's going to be a freakin nightmare. Constant noise complaints, the police had to come, and then Travelocity called.

Have I mentioned that I hate Travelocity? Saturday night was sold out. Zero rooms available. Every room full up. Nowhere to put anyone. Checkout is at 12 noon. That means nobody has to leave until the clock strikes lunch. Travelocity booked a room for someone for Sunday night, then called us to tell us they were on their way.

"Where exactly am I supposed to put them?"
"Our inventory says you have open rooms"
"Your inventory is wrong"

That fact didn't matter to him. The girl coming in was doing so under her aunt, who had just made the reservation and proceeded to badger Travelocity into calling us to guarantee that her niece had a place when she arrived at 6:45AM.

Her aunt also called us. First thing she did was demand a first and last name. I didn't realize what was happening until my colleague had already done so. She then demanded to know if a room was open.
What he said:
"We may have a room open, I'll have to check"
What she heard:
"We definitely have rooms open. There will be no problems whatsoever. By the way, you're amazing and deserve the world"

You can imagine how things panned out when she arrived. She also had no credit card. (Hotel policy: must have a CC for incidentals. Even if the room is paid for. Any number of things can be charged to the room, and we need to be able to cover it)

Auntie calls back furious. After the night I already had, I surprised myself by lashing out the rules to her, a very clear explanation of why she wasn't getting a room that very second, and a concise definition of what incidentals are. This strongly conflicted with her fantasy land where everything was 100% perfect.

Most people at this point would accept it, albeit grudgingly. Her indigence was astonishing.

"I know you have rooms, that's what I was told, so what you said - no."

Every attempt to further explain the situation resulted in my getting cut off with her repeating that line, ending with a sharp NO.

I hung up on her and kicked her niece out.

Old hardware

So in the mess of my moving my entire life around (under an open ceiling), I came across an old toy of mine. An old school 2 inch hand-held TV. An ultra low-def image that uses a scanner button rather than preset channels. One of the single best way to drain AAA batteries I've ever seen.

Came in handy during a particularly long blackout, much to the lament of a pack of Duracell.

Unearthing this old thing, I almost felt sorry for it. The world's changed. An analog receiver in a digital world. I can turn it on, but it can't hear anything. No converter box for you, tiny. You work just fine, but the world ignores you now.

No, I don't have a metaphor. It's just really early and I'm bored.

fire water burn

School started last Monday. Remember the schedule I posted? At some point, I'm gonna completely freak out and start to kill people.

Female company started her new job. Her sister arrived, my office is moved out into the front room... and I still have no ceiling. Looks like 'ol "ownerofthehousethatneedstorepairtheplace" is gonna have to work around it.

Speaking of the repairs: it's all been outdoor so far. Working on the roof and side wall. A large pile of debris formed in front of the house. It was mostly collected before the weekend started, but alas, it wouldn't all fit in the truck.

"Oh, I can get that Tuesday morning when we get started again" thinks Mr Landlord.

It used to be a reasonably small pile of wood and assorted crap. I used to be almost asleep in the back of the house. It wasn't her voice that got me, it was the sound of her rushing through the house that first got my attention. It was in that subtle, yet alarming state of mind that says "something's not right" that arouses the senses while the rest of my body fights it off. Of course, her bursting through the door was the cavalry that aided my brain in overcoming my poor self and brought me to a disgruntled state of mostly-aware.

"THEWOODINFRONTOFTHEHOUSEISONFIRE"

"...what wood?"

As I stood in front of the house, I saw the pile of wood engulfed in flame. Some blamed a tossed cigarette butt, others blamed a bored opportunist. It reeked of smoke more-so than foul play. Either way, it was universally agreed that such things could be avoided by not having piles of wood laying about next to the sidewalk.

(On a side note: this is why I love rain in the summer and the winter cold. It keeps such bored opportunists indoors and away from me)

"No way am I using my fire extinguisher for this"

It was far enough away from the house to not be a worry, but still... A bucket brigade was my only option, until a much welcomed neighbor brought a garden hose. Someone called the fire department (not I, nor did I request it). A fire truck arrived in time to watch a pajama clad barefoot night auditor hosing off a pile of ash and smoke. In a moment of levity odd for such a moment, I turned to my sister in law and with a big grin, said:

"Welcome to Buffalo!"

drip drip crash

A couple weeks ago, it rained rather heavily. A small drip appeared in my ceiling below the upstairs neighbors terrace, where their outer wall sits. An e-mail was sent to the landlord, and Mr fix-it took a look.

Found nothing.

Next rainstorm, again came the drip. He didn't come. My upstairs neighbor was experiencing a good deal of unwanted H two Oh herself.

Next rainstorm. Now the drip was FOUR FEET WIDE sending half my front room into a much wetter state than I prefer. My landlord's response to this was that he was under the impression it had been worked on, and was going to see to it.

That was last night. I went to work. Then, I came home. I got the bad news right away. That part of the ceiling was so water logged that it had collapsed.

The ceiling was on the floor. (Note: that is not where it belongs)

I decided to forgo my usual "e-mail the problem away" approach and called him. Within 2 hours, he was actually at my apartment-

Ok, I need to cut here. This is the man that took my deposit check and disappeared. I never saw him the first 11 months I lived in this house. Every other issue was delegated to someone with a beard, so this struck me as significant.

*ahem*

He was actually at my apartment with his fix-it guy, cleaning, examining, and diagnosing. I am now told that by Monday, my apartment will no longer look like said leak had occurred. The leak is "fixed" (a temporary fix, he says, so it won't leak between now and Monday when he has that section of the house overhauled).

My upstairs neighbor pretty much lost a couch. Color me lucky on that one.

gee, thanks. It's not like I have enough to worry about already.

August

So, August is ending. The semester starts on the 31st. I work nights (11PM - 7AM). I learn days. (8AM - 2PM) I sleep... maybe.

Female company landed* a job in a school in Alden. Starts the 1st of September. Her work hours would keep her out of the house somewhere around when I'm also gone. That would be fine... if there wasn't one massive detail putting a kink in that schedule. Though I'm assured that her sister is more than willing to help out. Problem there is that her sister is on the other side of the Mayo clinic.

Ok, no problem. I'll just move my office into the front room of the house. It's empty anyway. Still, this all starts in less than two weeks, and I'm the obsessive type that wants to make sure everything is set up before my schedule keeps me busy 22 hours a day.

But by saying this in a public forum, I have doomed myself to the inevitable monkey wrench getting tossed at me.

*by landed, I mean they keep telling her they want her, but haven't actually solidified it yet. Yay for school bureaucracy.

Transit

Ah, the Transit Drive in. A glorious relic of the past where you stay in your car to watch not one, but two movies back to back. All the benefits of weather related peril plus the ultra low-def sound provided by your own car stereo. The biggest benefit to this is that if you stay for both movies, your battery dies unless you idle the car.

I expected some kind of speaker to pull up to. Whatever.

I wouldn't have known such a place even existed, but I live with someone who's always looking out for something to do. The movie selection was her idea too. G.I. Joe and Transformers 2, back to back. A glorious pair of testosterone fueled 80's nostalgia with explosions, chicks, and awesome storyline. Although not so much chicks and storyline on Transformers. It was Michael Bay's latest disaster. G.I. Joe was the clear winner here. Allow me to demonstrate.

G.I. Joe:
"Plot element D has just happened!"
"Move on to plot element E!"

Transformers 2:
*Firey crash* "Has plot element B happened yet?" *BOOM*
*man gets thrown in an explosion* "No!" *BOOM*
"Keep firing!" *BOOM*

Both movies opened themselves to a sequel, leaving the Hasbro double-header with loose ends. School starts in 2 weeks, how am I going to concentrate?

Love comes in a 3 pack.

I just got home from work. The night was... manageable. The audit was, unpleasant, for lack of better words. Things just felt tense. Not 'everyone is miffed about stuff' tense, just 'oh wow the world needs a massage' tense.

But I'm feeling pretty bold.

The vending machine guy came in again. Usually he's through the lobby so fast I barely see him. This time, I caught him.

"Hey, can we make requests?"
"If I got it, yea"
"Ho Ho's!"

He comes back in with a giant box on his shoulder to stuff the machine with. In his hand is a small stack of white packages. He drops them on the counter. The awe-inspiring Hostess delight, and not just in the standard 2 pack. No, these were the 3 pack. Four of them. Twelve snack cakes total. I just scored a stack of free Ho Ho's.



Kitchen staff was calling in. The hotel was pretty full, and very few people working breakfast. The guy running the kitchen came to the desk for a moment, hoping to catch if anyone was coming. He was clearly not having a good morning.

"You know what makes everything better?" I asked. "Ho Ho's" I said as I dropped one on the counter in front of him.

He looks at it, puzzled, then smiles: "Man... I *love* Ho Ho's"

My manager just took 4 days off. A number of things piled up whilst he was gone, including a policy change he argued against. When he arrived, it took him all of 4 minutes to see it all and nearly freak out.

"I think I can help," says I, "Here" I add as I drop a Ho Ho in front of him.

He reaches for it while smiling, "Holy crap, I love Ho Ho's. That's awesome"

The girl taking over for me in the morning, clearly didn't like the idea of even being up at that hour. Once again, the delectable snack cake produced the word 'love', and smiles were abundant.

I felt like I was riding a unicorn that was pooping rainbows.

The Nationals

The Nationals - that's what it's called on our banquet list. Whether or not they eat doesn't matter, it's a generic term. Some groups book the ballrooms/banquet rooms downstairs for whatever reason. Since I show up at 11PM, they're pretty much always long gone. Then I saw a sign announcing "Ms Teen USA -->"

?

Apparently, the place was full of "attractive" girls for the better part of the day. (said so in quotes because I never saw any of them, only heard tales). The auditors (us) noticed that we missed a hotel full of girls. Regret and lament was expressed, but I quickly corrected them.

"Gentlemen, they were a handful of underage *girls* artificially placed in a high pressure lifestyle harboring a princess complex. I wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere near them"

A brief moment of pause preceded the thoughtful nod.

Obvious call is obvious

*ring ring*

*the thing I say when I answer the phone at the hotel*

"Hi. Does your hotel have a pool"

"Yes"

"Is it an outdoor pool?"

"...yes"

"Ok, thanks"

*click*

Every time a car entered the lot and nobody came to the door, I checked the pool. Of course I kicked out a bunch of teenagers.

No reason to fear...

So... I get home from work this morning to find the window on the side door broken and the door slightly open.

!

I go through to the stairwell to check my kitchen door, glad it's still secure. So I go around to the front door and find my neighbors door in a similar state. Window broken, door open.

"Oh, wonderful. My new neighbor has a psychotic ex boyfriend and now she's lying in a pool of blood upstairs. I hope it doesn't seep through the floor, that would be gross"

I later find my neighbor cleaning glass.

"Let's play a game called, what the heck happened last night?"

The lock on her front door was always very difficult to work. I tried it myself and it's a real pain to turn. It finally broke on her, leaving her stranded outside at 4:30 in the morning. So she tried the side door, and whomped on it, breaking the glass. She didn't have her key to the inner kitchen door, so she was just as stuck. Knowing her roomie wasn't coming back until a day or so later, she just gave up and wailed on the glass on her front door and proved how insecure her apartment really is.

She's outside fixing the damage as I type.

Binanas

So this girl walks into the lobby...

Wait, back up. Let's rewind to last week.

It's one in the morning. The phone rings, and it's this girl that wants to confirm her reservation. She booked it online, and wanted to make sure we got it.

Um... ok. Whatever.

Then she has a world of questions. Innocuous questions about how to get there from whatever transit hub you came in from, where she can get plastered, ect. Of course, she asks when the earliest she can check in. What really got me was how many times she asked me what my name was. I think it was four times. This girl clearly wanted to know.

Everything she asked was printed out when she made her reservation. She didn't need to call. I wanted to call her a retard, I really did.

I simply told her our check in time was at 3. You know where this is going, right? Of course you do, this is a lot of buildup.

So at three in the morning, this piece of ghetto trash rolls in and wants her room.

Full house, girl, and check out is at noon. You gotta wait, because I'm not kicking anyone out. Her natural response, of course, is to completely flip.

And this is why she wanted to know my name.

"Now, I talked to SALTINE *slaps her hand on the counter*, and SALTINE *slaps her hand on the counter* told me I could check in at 3, and SALTINE *slaps her hand on the counter* assured me I had a room here when I called you from...

new...YORK...CITY!

now I called here at 12 from the bus and talked to the manager and he said I could check right in"

Allow me to interject here. At 12, there were only 3 of us in the hotel. 2 auditors and security. Clearly, one of us has a split personality, and has been promoted.

I wanted to call her on her obvious stupidity, but my associate took over (and later informed me that this was a rather common scam, where they try to check in at some scary early hour to score the room an extra day) and simply stuck to the rules. He didn't relent, and once she realized this, in proper ghetto fashion (complete with the wagging finger)

"Dis is binanas. B-I-N-A-N-A-S, bi-nanas!"

Saying it slowly

Why is it that everyone that calls, visits, or otherwise comes from New York city feels the need to tell me this fact? And for some crazy reason, they always start to talk like William Shatner when they do.

"I am calling you from ...New...York...City...

I'm not from NYC, so I must be some country bumpkin that needs to pay real close attention otherwise I'm not going to understand, right? (Never mind Buffalo had electricity and luxury hotels before NYC ever did)

It's not just the unnecessary name dropping. It doesn't matter where you are, and I frankly don't care. The hotel had a group in from London two weeks ago and they didn't feel the need to let everyone know this. What gets me is the attitude.

Misinterpret my statement all you want, sir. It won't help you get a room when we're already overbooked.

Just like nature

Car camping, suburbia's lame excuse for being outdoors that doesn't involve a well manicured field. Like any outdoor excursion, it's a venue packed with idiots. The better experienced campers have a few rules, one of which is never ignored.

NEVER LEAVE A COOLER IN PLAIN SIGHT IN YOUR CAR OVERNIGHT.

A co worker of mine told a story of inexperienced urbanites who thought it impossible that bears could get into their car. Their response? "They can't pull the handle. Even if they could, it's locked, see?" as they pull the handle to the unresponsive door.

A bear thoroughly destroyed their car. Ripped the door off to get inside, and shredded the interior while it traipsed through the once pristine status symbol they so cherished (and probably under insured).

Last night, someone broke into a car in the hotel lot. Hotel employees noticed that she had a lot of loot in the front of her car, and suggested she bring it inside. She did, but like a complete moron, she brought it back to the car and left it there. So this morning, she panics her way back into the lobby. Losses include her purse, GPS, cell phone, and who knows what else. Icing on the cake is that this woman wants the hotel to reimburse her for it all.

Nobody blames the bear, but it takes a special kind of stupid to blame the park for having them.

Schedule... or something.

I used to have some type of sleeping pattern. Mostly unconscious when it was dark, mostly awake when the sun was up. Funny thing about summer, there's more light than there is dark, so... I'm up at night, when it's dark. So do I sleep when it's light, or light?

And I've had R.E.M - Daysleeper stuck in my head for a week now.

Gone

I lost a friend yesterday morning. She fought with cancer for 2 years. This sucks.

Pineapple inside out clock

I couldn't wait for the semester to end. It's always like that. I want so much for it to start, the enthusiasm kicks in, then the plateau...

The plateau rolls along for a few weeks, then it breaks into a downhill slide. It doesn't start gently, nooooooooo. It's more like you're on the side of a snow covered mountain when you realize that just the wrong move will send millions of tons of snow crashing down on you. Then, like a jerk on a cell phone in a theater, something fires off a cannon into it and it becomes a mad dash to the last day of finals.

I've been doing this far too long.

The breaks aren't as bad, but they're bad nonetheless. School got out 2 weeks ago, and I kinda wanted to coast for awhile. Financially, it looked feasible. (read: short term) Then begins the job hunt.

How the heck can something be both boring and stressful? This was the first time in the history of Saltine that I've ever been driven crazy by a literal nothing. An actual absence. But it ended. Your favorite sodium encrusted wafer is gainfully employed.

At night. Yes, I found another* job auditing a hotel. Now begins the annoying process of re-training my rebellious body. I forgot how tired I was when I started that before.

(*if you don't already know, I'm not telling)

Inconvenient gardening

I've been trying to get my little one to bed earlier - and so far it's been working. He was down by 8. Why then did my next door neighbor decide that 8:30 was the perfect time to mow the lawn?

Funniest answer gets a cookie.

Scarecrow

For some reason, I've been thinking about The Wizard of Oz lately, and I realized something. The story may have been written in 1900, and the movie made in 1939, but it still hits the mark on social commentary.

Dorothy keeps looking for the perfect guy that can take care of all her problems and she keeps running into entirely unsuitable men? Sure, that too. I was thinking more about the scarecrow. The man is brainless, and the wizard "cures" this by giving him a diploma.

Is this why we so many complete morons that think they have credibility just because they went to school? I propose that whenever we see people like this, we simply call them what they are. Scarecrow.

H1N1

H1N1 - the same influenza subtype that caused the 1918 Spanish Flu outbreak that killed an estimated 20 - 100 million people. Ok, that's a pretty big range, but at its lowest, 20 million is a lot of people. For perspective, WW1 ended in 1918, and it took about 15 million lives. I think the war ended because everyone was running out of men.

Anyway...

As much as I'm trying to avoid it, I keep hearing the media panic about 'swine flu'. Swine flu? Is that the best they could come up with? A bunch of students caught it in Mexico, why not call it Mexican flu? But that did get me thinking...

Symptoms of swine flu, (taken from cdc.gov)
Fever, lethargy, lack of appetite and coughing, runny nose, sore throat, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.

Contrast that to drinking the water in Mexico:
Fever, lethargy, lack of appetite and coughing, runny nose, sore throat, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.

ok ok, I kid. But seriously, chew on this: The CDC issued a statement saying that about 36,000 people die from the regular flu every year.
That's 692 people per week.
That's 98 people per day.
So far, swine flu has killed about 8 people. (They suspect 168, but again, that's a pretty wide margin of error, and they can only confirm 8)

The world is run by a bunch of worthless fearmongering idiots...

An open letter to Dorothy.

Dear Wizard of Oz girl

You're the reason flying monkeys exist.

-Saltine

Slack

My professors have been cutting me a lot of slack lately. Frankly, I appreciate it. Especially after that bug I got visiting my parents for the weekend. I find that whenever I visit for a holiday weekend, I always suffer through the drive home.

My niece gave my sister chocolate. She gave me a sore throat.

This never happens when there isn't a holiday, though. Any random visit back home seems to end well, but tack on a holiday, and it never fails. Take Thanksgiving for example. I was fine the entire weekend, right up until Sunday night before my drive back. The traffic was bumper to bumper in an ice storm, so pulling over wasn't a safe option.

I'll spare you the details, but it wasn't pretty. (Unless you're into postmodernism. I call it, dinner on a '98 Contour)

Holidays. Side effects may include headache, dizziness, sore throat, earache, upset stomach, vomiting, muscle aches, and the feeling of a hangover without the benefit of a night out before. Holidays may not be right for everyone. Ask your doctor before ever going home again.

The greatest gift of all (not what you think)

Note: my glow worm doesn't glow any more.

Anyhoo, I noticed something. Though tiny over in the next room has a few words to say about how often I should sleep (or rather one word, repeated ad nauseum and in varying tones and styles), he has produced something I haven't seen before.

Free food.

My sister came into town yesterday. She, with my sister in law, cooked for four hours making various foodstuffs that can be stored for months in a freezer, but only need to be put into an oven when I want it. Not just that, but over the last week, I've been on the phone with three people who called asking what time was convenient to drop by with (wait for it...) free food.

I figure I'll teach him how to cook before this dries up.

80's cartoon/toy

So... Jr's bilirubin levels are through the roof. They went down in the lights at the hospital, so we went home. They almost doubled since then. The hospital sent us some funny light pad to help. It's this really bright bulb in a projector housing, but rather than a lens, it hooks up a a bunch of fiber optic cables that lead into a pad. Said pad then rests on Jr's back, and it breaks down the bilirubin.

Ok, my kid is hooked up to a machine, and only 3 days old. What the heck! I've been waiting way longer, why am I not a cyborg yet?

...he was wrapped up and put into his crib, and the light shut off. I peeked inside, and he looks like a glow worm.

Stupid bilirubin. Get out of my kid.

+1, different category

Well, I just had a baby today. Yay, right? I am so freakin tired. Welcome aboard, kid.

Telepath comic writer

It's been a decade and I'm still having this dream about high school. I swear Randall Munroe has been watching me, reading my mind, mining my subconscious for comic material. It's not the first time he's hit something in my head I've never said out loud.

Wax. Lots of wax.

Not long ago, I found myself at a wedding reception where guests received little votive candles as a gift. There was an abundance of extras, and I found myself (like many of the other guests) bringing home more than a few.

So these candles were sitting on top of the rather large (and completely useless) mantle in my living room. (The one over the gas fireplace that's been capped off, painted over, and had a wooden floor installed into it) Female companionship dictated that candles must be lit. So they were. After she'd removed herself from the candles, I found them to be more of a liability so long as they were lit. So I go down the line, puffing them out. One at a time. *POOF* out *POOF* out, etc, until the last one. *POOF*. Still lit. *POOF!* Still lit. So I go for the gusto with a blast of air that would make a compressor hide in shame. Just as quickly, I realized that it was a candle in a shot glass, not on a stick. Wax melts, but has nowhere to go. This runny liquid wax sat in a pool with a little flame atop the whole time. Such a blast of air at it felt dictated that not only must the flame depart, but so must the wax.

It didn't burn my face, no. I just had a hard time explaining the dry wax in my eyebrows a few minutes later.

Unbalanced comodities

Overheard in Target yesterday:

Him: "They have Wii Fit here. I've never actually seen it in a store"

Her: "That's rare"

Him: "This is why we need to buy it today. Here. Now"

Her: "...it's expensive"

Him: "It's worse online. People are jacking the prices pretty bad"

Her: Clearly understanding that he'll buy it one day.. "I suppose it'll happen eventually"

Him: "So you're saying we can buy it"

Her: "I have a condition"

Him: "?"

Her: "I get new nail clippers"

Him: "Deal"

The moral of the story kids: personal hygiene paraphernalia ranks very highly with some women.

My fingers froze as I typed this.

So... a while ago last fall I had this notion that I should get one of those kerosene heaters. My dad has one. This mostly ceramic oddjob in a circular cage burns at a rate enough to be almost too warm. So far, I used it once when the pilot light went out.

The pilot light on this furnace is retarded. The day it went out, I trucked it down to the basement of doom and was thoroughly befuddled. I saw nothing that looked like a pilot light, and the dead remains of a thousand old matches were scattered in no apparent pattern, suggesting that tennants past had the same problem. The landlord sent someone over, who knew it quite well. When you look into this thing, there's a thick wall of pipes blocking the top half, and a tangle of wires webbed across the bottom half. You really can't see the pilot light even when it's on short of mirrors or flexibility that would make a gymnast blush.

Mr Maintenance showed me where it was. It was deeply hidden.

This morning, I discovered that once again I needed to cook up some hydrocarbons. Pilot light is on. When it tried to kick in and warm the place up, the beast sounded sick. The sickest part, though, is that I could see my breath when I woke up. Let me reiterate that:

I could see my own breath before I got out of bed this morning.

It's that freakin cold in here. Mr Landlord is sending over Mr Maintenance, but they're taking their sweet time. On the bright side, I think my CPU is running at optimal efficiency.

My inner geek

...is really my outer geek. I came across some conversation hearts. (which anyone knows is made of bone meal and earwig honey)
The first thing I noticed was:
a) The color
b) The words
c) The font type the letters are printed in

If you guessed C, you know me better than I do sometimes.

(I think the font is Dox Matrix. Does anyone actually know?)

Computers computers compu......

So I got a netbook. An Asus EEE, specifically. I managed to snag it for free through... various fully legal means.

Blogging on this thing is hard. It's one of the first models, so it's sporting the diminutive six inch screen. The keyboard isn't much bigger. Taking notes in class is easy, though. A few sentences here and there (and being able to look something up when the professor can't quite remember something is nice). It's very light. My other laptop was (is, really) a beast. Break my back every time I had to carry it around.

Sure it's nice, but wake me up when Apple builds a Macbook Air Tablet.

My inner old man

So I have a bad knee. I don't really know what to blame it on. I was never in an accident. Never had a sports injury. First came up when I was (get this) 18 years old and just standing in place. Suddenly I couldn't stand anymore. It comes and goes. The more I walk, the more I notice it. Living in Buffalo, I walk to school, wheras in Syracuse I drove.

I feel like an invalid waiting for the elevator to take me down 1 floor. Going upstairs is fine, I don't feel it much. But going down is murder.

I pretty much spend the weekends sitting down now.

Back to buff

No, not a return to nudity, but the end of my vacation. In fact, it ended this past Monday when classes started again. I think this is going to be a lot better. Last semester was pure anxiety. The classes themselves were an exercise in patience, but were only half the issue. I realized that the very layout of my classes never gave me reprieve. I could not simply relax. Drove me nuts.

Both problems solved. Better courses, better layout, and strangely enough, I find the tax season oddly soothing.