I hate to do consecutive posts on the front page, but since I don't post all that often, maybe I can get away with it.
Anyway, I can't remember if I've shared with y'all my current employment situation. I work in a warehouse, packing and shipping books. Sometimes, I shred books. But mostly, it's packing and shipping. I've seen some mighty strange books pass by in the last 3+ weeks. Did you know, for example, that there are NASCAR-themed romance novels? And we're not talking tawdry ripoffs, either. These are officially licensed NASCAR products, with the logo and everything! Of course, I won't delve too deeply into the sub-genres of romance novels, because, frankly, some of them are kinda creepy.
Tonight, on my shift, a book passed thru my hands that actually caused me to guffaw, and exclaim aloud, "Haha! Brandon!" Fortunately, I don't work with anyone named Brandon, so I didn't have to explain myself. The book in question?
It is swollen and painful, and hot to the touch. It started out as a small "bump" on or around Friday, right where my nail ends and my thumb begins. There is no laceration which might have become infected; the skin is intact (although swollen in the affected area). The swelling and painfulness have spread to pretty much the entire area past the knuckle.
I have no medical insurance, and no money. Anyone have any cheap home remedies they can recommend? I'm thinking I may go get some epsom salts in the morning, but am open to other suggestions.
Within the next coupla hours, I'm going to take my cablemodem back down to the cable company and have my service shut off. I'm blasting off to the future tomorrow. Picking up the uhaul at 9, then loading it & driving up and unloading as much as I can tomorrow. I have the uhaul until Friday evening, so I should be golden.
I don't have internet set up at the new place yet, and honestly, it isn't a super-high priority at the moment. It will become moreso as I begin to jones, I'm sure, but I'll burn that bridge when I come to it.
This evening, I met my second Killoggian. He's so legendary he has his own category. And his face, surprisingly enough, looked nothing like a question mark.
Yay!
Art and I met in (surprisingly quaint and non-crappy) downtown Gadsden, Alabama. We quaffed a coupla beers, chowed on some mighty tasty burgers, and hung out and shot the breeze. It was pretty doggone cool. Everyone I've known from the internet before actually meeting has turned out to be just as cool in real life as they are online. I'm just guessing, here, but I suppose that's pretty extraordinary, since I hear horror stories all the time about people who meet up with "internet friends" and end up dead, pregnant, missing a kidney, a victim of identity theft, or a combination thereof.
If I continue this blistering pace of meeting one head every four years, I should have met you all by the year 2525.
Last night, at 9:44PM, just as someone was joining someone else on the roof (and a third party was leaving to find a needed object)... I lost my satellite signal. Thunderstorm. About a half hour later, my signal returned.
So I missed the last 15 minutes of Heroes. I will admit, I cursed a little bit. But not much. I knew I'd be able to download it this morning. And I am. In about 3 hours, I'll be able to see what I missed.
PS - Did the product placement bother anyone else? I mean, I never really paid attention to it last year, but it became super-obvious right off the bat this year. You-know-who (no, not Voldemort!) gets a "Rogue" as a birthday present. I was like, WTF is a Rogue? First commercial break? THREE CONSECUTIVE ADS for the new Nissan Rogue. Blech. Then it made me think about how many times last season they mentioned the Nissan Versa specifically by make and model. I guess it's all part of how things are done these days. That sponsorship money pays for all kinds of cool special effects, I'm sure. But it still sucks to be slapped in the face with it that badly.
I no longer have the ability to convert vinyl to digital, but I just discovered an album (via 9412.com) that I'm totally jonesing for. It was never released on CD. If I buy the vinyl, is there anyone out there who has the ability and willingness to convert it for me? You could keep the vinyl copy for your collection, and any other compensation (within reason) would be acceptable. The album in question is Out There Tonight by Garfield.
I accidentally found out today that my DirecTV still works, when Buddy Guy stepped on the remote in my bedroom and turned the TV on. I had assumed I had no DirecTV, because when I turned on the living room TV to watch DVDs, I got nothing.
At any rate, ESPN was on, and the talking heads were discussing the momentous occasion of Virginia Tech playing their first football game since the massacre.
Mind you, I'm not a completely heartless bastard. I understand that this will be a Big Deal. But the on-scene reporter, who has been there for "months", had this to say. I'm paraphrasing, but the money quote is for real.
"I'm struck by the emotional aspects of this game. I've talked with the coaches, I've talked with the players, and I've talked with the students who have passed away."
Holy crap, dude! You can do that and you're wasting your time on ESPN?!
I slept with the windows open last night, knowing it was supposed to be chilly.
It got freakin' COLD.
I woke up shivering when my alarm (which I forgot to turn off) jarred me awake at 5:30AM. I almost couldn't stand the idea of getting out of bed, but I had to, to SHUT THE DAMNED WINDOWS. It was 31 degrees, according to the news.
It's 9AM now, and I have been fully dressed - with a sweatshirt on - since I jumped out of bed. And I have not yet stopped shivering. I feel like I've got Parkinsons disease. It's 45 degrees outside. According to the thermostat, it's 56 in here, but it feels much colder than that.
I like cool weather, but residing in South Florida for the last 25+ years has thinned my blood, apparently. If I had gloves, I'd put them on. And yes, I could turn on the heater. But that would be admitting defeat. So I just sit here and pretend I've got palsy instead.
We've had a SonicWall firewall w/content filtering since late May. Killoggs somehow managed to fly under the filter's radar until just this past week. Well done, my fellow 'loggians! We have hit the big time! Killoggs.com is now filtered to everyone who has a SonicWall system.
It hasn't been a good few months for me, technology-wise. First, in deciding to reformat my laptop to clean it up (first reformat in almost 3 years!), I saved all my pictures, documents, and music to a USB drive, then wiped the laptop and started clean. I copied back all the stuff I'd saved, and then it dawned on me: I had neglected to preserve my outlook.pst file. Yes, the file with all my email contacts, all the emails I'd saved over about the last 10 years (including all the ones from Barb) and all my passwords was gone. I was devastated.
A series of meltdowns at work - including our entire phone system being down for three days - kept me hopiing like a one-legged-man at an asskicking contest.
And then, on September 26th, my cable went out. No TV, no internet. I called. "Yes, there are outages in your area. We're working on it." I called back two more times in the next two days, with the same canned reply. I could not get an ETA. The third day, I called back, got the same response, and told them that if they couldn't get my service back I would drop them and go with Bellsouth DSL and DirecTV. The guy's response? "I'll make a note of that in your records, sir." WTF?! That was it, they'd lost me as a customer. The next day, my TV finally came back, but no internet. I fumed. Financially, I had to wait a couple of weeks before I could get the dough to pay all the connection and equipment fees, but as soon as I could swing it, I called Bellsouth.
They were more than happy to hook me up with a DSL/DirecTV package that includes TiVo, for almost the exact same price I have been paying Comcrap. I happened to have a DSL modem that a buddy gave me, so I saved $75 in initial outlay (the money would have come back as a rebate, but less out-of-pocket is key). So they sent me the self-install kit, which I got last Monday. I tried my nerdy best, but couldn't get it to work. Man, I hate calling tech support, but a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. I called, and after troubleshooting, it became apparent that the modem was bad. Bummed. But the nice lady said there was a free modem upgrade promo going on, and although I technically didn't qualify, she would check with her supervisor and see if she could get me the hookup. Score! Free modem coming my way.
It got here yesterday. At about 6:30 last night, I got internet back at my apartment. Three days shy of a month with no internet at home.
And this morning, I am posting from home, because I'm here waiting on my DirecTV installer to come out and get me connected. Once that's done, I get to make the much-awaited call to Comcast and tell them what they can do with their crap service and crappier customer service.
While wandering aimlessly around wipkipedia on my lunch break, I discovered that one of my all-time favoite late, lamented TV series is out on DVD. Guess what just got bumped to the top of my queue?
First Animaniacs, and now this? God Bless Netflix.
So I mentioned Blingo the other day. I read about it in one of my technerd magazines, and went and checked it out. If you use their portal (they license Google's content for the results) while doing searches, you might win stuff. Only your first 10 or so searches count each day, but you can win iPods, gift cards, movie tickets, and iTunes gift certificates. So I signed up (you don't have to to win, but I did anyway). And today, I won a movie ticket. Woohoo!
Then, Ghana beat the US, 2-1 in the world cup. Last time I refilled my balance at allofmp3, they had a deal going where you picked a world cup game and predict the outcome correctly, you get bonus credit. Predicting the winner gets you 10%. Picking the winner and right score gets you 50%. Guess who picked Ghana over the US, 2-1? That's $7.50 worth of mp3s, man!
So I was doing my 10 daily random searches over at Blingo and listening to Norah Jones. Sunrise was playing. So I typed Sunrise into the search box, and then because live in Sunrise, I added FL to the search and submitted it. A coupla spots from the top, there was a link to Wikipedia. It hadn't occured to me that there would be a Wikipedia entry for my little town, so I clicked on it. And I learned something new, and I actually laughed aloud...
Sunrise is a city in Broward County, Florida, United States. Originally called "Sunset," the name did not sit well with the retirees whom developers wanted to attract, so a change was made to "Sunrise."
On the way to work this morning, I pulled up to a traffic light behind one of these behemoth pickup trucks. I mean, Gracie's a full-size F-150, but you know the ones I mean... the ones that dwarf even full-size trucks. Well this morning, I rode Greta, which is considerably smaller than Gracie. Shoot, Greta's considerably smaller than a Yugo.
So anyway, I'm behind this big truck. And dangling and swaying in the breeze from the trailer hitch were a pair of rubber testicles similar to these. Now, I've never been all that impressed with the Truck Nutz, but these were different. The ones I linked to, you can tell what they're supposed to be, but they're not all that realistic. The ones I saw? The detail was unsettling. I felt like I was about to get teabagged by a giant.
But the best part? The oh-so-awesome part that made me wish the light hadn't been about to change, so I could get my phone out and take a picture? The license plate, right above these magnificent and terrifying rubber nads read: LICKUM.
And last but not least, from the “out of the mouths of babes” department, one of my four year old friends had a nugget of wisdom for me yesterday. Leah, with her curly brown locks, and her big blue eyes, looked up at me with the most serious expression ever and asked, “You know what?” When I asked her, what, she replied “George Bush lied to the whooole world.” I wanted to smile and hug her. I wanted to tell her she was the smartest little girl in the history of little girls. Instead, I just kind of nodded and said “Ahhh”, as if I hadn’t known that.
Pretty heady stuff. Today, another of my wee lasses informed me during snack time that "Theodore Roosevelt created the National Parks system." I had to ask her to repeat herself, and she did. She's four. years. old. And she knew that. One of my student assistants (who's in high school) asked me if Michaela was correct. I nodded, kinda dumbfounded, and the SA said, "Wow, I didn't know that."
Michaela is going to be a force to be reckoned with.
Obviously, this subject is near and dear to my heart. So won't you please take 30 seconds of your life to help protect the nation's boobies from the insurance companies and the lawmakers who want to line their deep pockets even further?
This is directly from the American Cancer Society's site:
Are you nervous about Americans slipping back into the complacent way we were before the terrorist attacks on 9/11? Are you nervous we'll start trusting in ourselves again, not in God? Are you nervous we'll stop praying for His protections? I am.
Since 9/11/01, our enemies have not suffered from a shortage of commitment. They are still dedicated to our destruction. We need to be just as devoted to prayer as they are to hatred and violence! We need to be prayerfully supporting our troops, our nation and our President, as 1 Timothy 2:1-2 says.
There's more, but these two paragraphs pretty much tell the story of this email.
The fact that I, as a Christian, am lumped in with these people is just galling. It makes me wince. A lot.
I know that all do not share my beliefs, but I still wish a very happy Easter to all of you. If you can't stomach that, then take it as a "Happy Sunday" or a "Happy Fertility Festival" or even just a "Happy Day".
