Rant: Procrastination. I have two papers, the portfolio they're supposed to come in, and a handful of essays due in...oh, about seven hours. Obviously I am still dicking around on the internet rather than getting my shit done and going to sleep. Rave: Finals will be over with my next Friday. I can do this, I can do this, I can do this. Rant: Without getting into too many details, I slipped a withdrawal form under my prof's door last week. He claims he never got it. It's always possible that the cleaning staff picked it up, but his office is such a fucking disaster zone that I'm positive it's lost somewhere in there. He gave a half-hearted search for it earlier today, then gave it up in favor of pulling out my grades and telling me that I can totally pass this class if I just take the final. No, dude. I was withdrawing for a reason. I do not want to/cannot take your final(s). I finally arranged for he & the dean to do some emailing in order to sort this shit out, and he promised me that he'd let me know about the outcome of those emails. Of course, he didn't. I am already beyond stressed about my other courses. I can't take this shit, and I can't take his final(s). I need this to happen, and I am worried sick that he a) forgot to email, or b) misrepresented the situation with the dean in order to coerce me into taking his finals. He is really against the idea of me retaking the class in the spring, and I don't know why. Rant/Rave: The Dude's birthday is this weekend. I'm excited to hang with him and celebrate, but we've got a busy weekend planned. I don't know if I can handle all of the festivities after a week of little/no sleep due to finals/projects.
Rant: I'm originally from Mississippi, but moved to Wash. DC last August. I've been nervous as all get out the last week and a half due to the bad tornadoes (and the accompanying floods) that just keep coming through, but today almost did me in. My best friend's house was hit by the tornado in Oxford (did some damage, but nothing bad), but it spared the town thank the Lord. All of my family is safe, but it just kills me to see footage of these small towns like Smithville, MS that have been completely wiped off of the map. Moving away from MS was the best decision ever, but being this far away during tornado season makes me worry basically 24/7. Here's hoping we've seen the last of it. Thoughts/prayers please for those affected tonight.
Rave: Deeeeeeeeuuuuuuuuuucccccce Rave: The Bruins won their game 7 and will be facing the Flyers in round 2. Having lived in Boston for 6 years and gone to school there, I have a ton of Bruins fan friends. Let the shit talking and constant reminders of the Broad Street Bullies' epic comeback in last year's playoffs commence.
Rant: I'm from Northeast Mississippi and I would just like to say that mother nature is a fucking cunt. Quite a few of my friends are now homeless, thank god that they are safe though. An entire town was pretty much wiped from the face of the earth. Death count so far is 77 and rising, many more missing. Not going to be a good day.
Rant about Verizon (spoilered for length): Spoiler My phone and my wife's phones were on the fritz. Her phone hasn't accessed the internet in 4 months now, and calling Verizon has only yielded a trip to a random Verizon store in the area. My phone became garbled on telephone calls to the point that a client yelled at me about the horrible reception. A call to Verizon yielded nothing except for a trip to the Verizon store (who they told me could help). I couldn't get there until 7:25, and the store closes at 8:00. The gentleman there was no help, and sent me across town to another Verizon store. I rushed over to the next store, and they said I needed to replace my phone (which, luckily, was due for an early replacement). My wife's phone (despite the fact they were purchased at the exact same time under the same plan) is not eligable for upgrade at this point. After the gentleman here spoke to Verizon technical support, they decided to do a hard reboot on my wife's phone. This left the phone completely useless and unable to make/recieve calls. Fuck me. I begin talking to the technical support lady there, and she offers a CPO (Certified Pre Owned) phone. She goes through the list, and I choose one. She then proceeds to tell me that it will be $89 dollars. I tell her that it was the reboot they did instore, and I'm not going to purchase a phone I can get for half the price in 4 months. She tells me that I can buy a CPO phone, a new phone at full price, or go to Ebay for one (We turn our old phones into the domestic violence shelters.). At this point, the salesman takes my phone into the backroom, disassembles it, and cleans it. It now works, but it's not the one that I need to work. But I got an idea. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I remembered that phones can be interchanged within a plan for no charge. So, I upgraded to another phone, and changed my old phone to my wife's number temporarily. I now have to spend some time on the phone today with Verizon explaining to them that they are pieces of shit, and all I really wanted was the option of upgrading both phones simultaneously once one was completely broken because we (1) signed with Verizon together (2) on the same plan (3) and they fucking broke it! Rant: I'm fucking old. This is my first touch screen phone, and I fucking hate it. I'm getting a Jitterbug.
RANT: My six month old, top of the range, still under warranty washing machine crapped itself and died Tuesday night. As in, won't even turn on anymore. It had had zero problems and gave no indication - one minute fine, one minute cactus. I call the company and they get their repairer to call me. The earliest they can come out is 9 May. Fuck that shit. RANT: So off to the laundromat I go. The cheapest machine is $4 a wash, and always taken. The next up is $8. Thieving bastards. I used to own a laundromat, and we used to only charge $4 for the commercial size machine to do quilts and the like. Time for the four way underwear routine I think.
RANT: I need to learn to not say stupid shit. It all could have been avoided if I had just been sweet and moved along but I'm not smart enough to do that. I'm acting like a little kid who doesn't get to play with his favorite toy.
Rave: My new hobby when I'm bored at work: Dig up and comment on facebook status updates from 2008. Spoiler
Rant: I had to go shopping for jeans last night because the ol' Levi's sprung a leak in the crotch. 28 inch thighs with a 32 inch waist make buying jeans very difficult. I had to buy jeans with a 36 inch waist and now they're falling off me.
RAVE: Exchange with a pack of extremely obnoxious and painfully unattractive 35-year-old cougars at the bar last night. Head Cougar: What is this game you're playing? Me: Flip cup HC: You college kids play the silliest games. Me: I'm not in college HC: Back when I was in college we just played quarters Me: I bet the 80s were insane HC: FUCK YOU
MEGA RAVE: I had The Talk with my immediate boss today about my impending decision, and he offered me more money and more project work for me to stay. He told me that I've been deserving of a raise simply because of the amount of ass I've been kicking. He's going to talk to the owner and throw some numbers my way tomorrow. I totally feel like the hot girl at prom right now.
Rave I'm about to watch the O's sweep the Chouda-head(Red Sox) tonight live from the best baseball stadium in the world!
Rant: Fuck! I have until tomorrow to meet a deadline. Unfortunately, this means submitting paperwork for review to a lady who fucking lives for the minutiae of paperwork. Of course this could all be corrected after the fact, but she won't give me clearance until every little fucking cosmetic detail is fixed to her liking. My job is on the line over this and I have had two different people back out and scrambled today to line up a third and all the thanks I get is the "your i's need their dots to be slightly more precise" type of shit. Rave: My dad got a job after being out of work for something like 11 months. So this means that all of my family is now employed again. Speaking of which my mom is headed to Dubai in late August to be a curriculum director for a girl's school, so if you know anything about Dubai and would be willing to answer a few questions or just give some general pointers that I could relay to my mom I would appreciate it.
Rant Having a two-year-old daughter is somewhat similar to having a funnel cloud as a roomate, only you can't hide from her in the basement. She finds you. Rave I still love it.
RANT: Mild cough, and the maddening feeling of snot running down the back of my throat. I'm about to stuff a roll of toilet paper back in there. If I asphyxiate, well, should be a nice baffling death.
Rant: My flunkies are useless incompetents. Rave: There exists a children's book called Go the fuck to sleep The 'About the Author' information is fucking priceless. (Emphasis mine)
Rave: I picked up two gigs today. One as a contributer to a site that is unpaid but is balanced out by it being one of my favorite blogs, the other as a columnist for a quarterly local magazine that is, indeed, paid. I'm so excited. Fucking Rant: This was from two days ago: This evening, when I left my house I noticed that the pots were gone. Somebody stole my fucking garden. I mean, I know I live in freaking Bedstuy, but I even felt guilty at getting nervous someone would pick the herbs and veggies once they're grown if I had to leave it out front. I never once imagined that someone would steal three pots of mystery dirt from someone. I didn't go all out with buying stuff, but that wasn't exactly an inexpensive little endeavor, either. I feel violated and sad and mad at the state of humanity and I want my freaking garden back waaah. Side Rant: I like living in my neighborhood for a lot of reasons, and I love my apartment and the price I'm paying for it, but I'm growing weary of living in a sketchy area. There has been at least one shooting in the two-block radius in every direction from my house in the ten months since I moved in (that I know of) and I'm constantly hearing stories or stumbling across the aftermath of crime scenes. There's a crazy lady living to our left, and a drug addict living to our right. Even the freaking Haisidim -supposed beacons of holiness- are propositioning me to be their sex slave on the street. (I'm not kidding. But that's funny. I'm barely upset about that.) Super gentrified areas bore me, but I'm tired of constantly having at least some level of alert/fear whenever I go outside. And I'm not even in that bad of an area of Bedstuy. I can only imagine what it's like in the heart of it. But, it's all I can afford and at least I get to feel like a badass. Possible Rave: There is a chance that my downstairs neighbors brought the pots out back for me. It was dark so I couldn't see out the window and I couldn't see the lock to go back there myself. I would think they would tell me to avoid this freak out, but maybe not. I'm trying to hold on to this possibility, but I've been anxiously waiting for tomorrow so I can see if they're really gone or not. Rant: I sat down at noon to start a totally manageable list of writerly things to do today. I didn't even start writing until midnight. It's 4am and I only completed 4 of the 6 things I assigned myself. Although one of the 4 things was to write the email securing my apparently imminent columnist gig and I got it right away, and one of the 2 unfinished things has many parts to it, so I don't feel too guilty. But still, how does that happen?
Rave: I just watched the Princes' arrive at Westminster Abbey. I totally want to bone Prince Harry. (I saw a photo of him a few years back riding a horse. His trousers were pulled quite tight around his naughty bits, revealing a privilege beyond his royalty, and wow, he NEEDS a horse to carry that horse around.) Plus: Dear David Beckham, Dump that Posh chick. She's no good for you. I will be there to assist you through the rough patches, because I'm compassionate like that. Respectfully, Queen-Bee Edit Bonus Rave: I glimpsed the stunning bride Kate and I'm a little smiley/weepy now. Just lovely. Shhhh, don't tell anyone I have a heart.
Rave: We fought, and won, a war so we don't have to give a shit about the British Royal Family anymore.