The Inner Workings of a Very Complicated Cheeze.

2011-02-09T20:33:00.003-07:00

My redemption at the 6th Annual 2011 West Side Cake Competition:

Nuff said...

2010-02-09T17:20:00.005-07:00

West Side Cake Club 5th Annual Cake Competition was this past Saturday. I remade the Nintendo cake from the cake I made for Toby's birthday last year. I tied with another cake for second place:

This was the cake I tied with (which by the way was made of styrofoam):

And this was the butt ugly 1st place cake:

Due to the uglyness of the winning cake, I really feel like I won this one.

2009-11-30T00:46:00.003-07:00

Lessons you just can't learn from an mmorpg:

Lilith (my not declawed cat) jumped up on my lap tonight, then decided that was a mistake but already had the front 2 claws in. So she kinda just fell until my clothes twisted as far as they would go. She at that point tried to climb back up... until i knocked her off. All this in the span of a few seconds.

Then I realized that it didn't hurt, I felt her claws scraping against my thigh, but no pain or tearing of my flesh....where I wore heavy cloth feet pjs and a long nighty thing, so about 3 regular layers.

I thought, "and light armor is prolly just a little more durable, how bout that."

2009-10-24T02:23:00.002-07:00

As I was driving home from gaming tonight with the windows down (nice night for once), I was almost home and off the freeway. My nose was all stuffy and so I grabbed a tissue and opened it up again. Immediately I smelled this terrible rotting smell - I think it was a rotting smell, hard to describe, just really bad. My first instinct was to quickly look in the back seat. Then I realized why I did that and said to myself, "oh I know I did NOT just look in the backseat for zombies." At least I will be ready when they attack, apparently enough movies and dreams have been great practice for my skills.

2009-08-17T23:44:00.002-07:00

Got my pup vacinnated last week. Wrote the check for the Maricopa County Animal Control and filled out the renewel form for her registration this week. As I put the envelope in the mail today, I thought: is it racist to say that my dog is more legal than the mexican dood I work with at the restaurant?

2009-07-26T17:59:00.002-07:00

This is why I love being friends with other gamers:

Standing in Jo's apartment at 5am this morning, preparing to pack all her stuff into a U-Haul truck, I mentioned how tired I was because I was up til 2am leveling my new farmer, and that the crops weren't going to harvest themselves. Seth says, 2:30am, I was invading a city, that city wasn't going to invade itself. Than another guy, who's name escapes me, said that he was up late as well, moving his army into position, because they weren't going to move themselves. Hehe.

Also, I spilled Mountain Dew on my shoe the other day...I think it made me go faster.

2009-06-16T16:39:00.011-07:00

Guess I did it again, here is the progress I've made in my cake endevours:

Tiered Cake from Class 3:

My first fondant cake:

A cake Ang and I made for her friend's baby shower:

Cake with gumpaste flowers and a fondant sash:

Toby's birthday Cake and a close up of the figures Angela made and the controller:

A cake for no reason, wedding style:

It was rushed so I didn't have time to match the flowers, oh well.

2008-12-01T12:33:00.007-07:00

The end result of being behind on posting in my blog and taking cake decorating classes is that I will now post all the cakes I've made thusfar:

More to come, class 3 starts tomorrow.

2008-11-14T17:51:00.003-07:00

I made this photo receipe so that you, too, can share in the greatness that is bacon sushi:

Click here to enlarge

2008-10-01T14:21:00.002-07:00

This afternoon at work, I was driving a consumer home from her DR appt. She's Korean and does not speak very good English. My car mp3 player decided to play Taco - Putting on the Ritz, Daft Punk - Technologic, and Scooter - Ramp. I swear it's trying to make me look like an absolute fruit cake in front of my consumer.

2008-06-04T17:41:00.004-07:00

1) I work for Magellan Health Services. Our company's motto is "Getting Better Every Day."

My view on this motto is this:

Of course we are getting better every day. When you start at the bottom of the barrel you have nowhere else to go but up.

2) Magellan bitches that they can't pay us overtime or have petti cash ready at hand for consumers but expects hourly employees to work after hours as there is not enough time during the day to get everything done.

My view on this motto is this:

Perhaps if you didn't spend money on stupid shit, you would have more of it. Example: each consumer's service plan used to be 4-7 pages long, now the minimum it can be is 17 pages for no other reason than blank pages are spit out with a "page x of x" on them so they cannot be discarded. Oh, and I find it insulting when they send us quarterly emails about how much money they made last quarter.

This blog entry was written while waiting for the printer to spit out 17 pages of a service plan which took approximately 10 minutes.

2008-03-24T21:48:00.003-07:00

New House....check,
New Puppy....check,
New Car....vrrrrm vrrrrm!

I got a 2008 Honda Civic this past Saturday. This car is so fancy it makes me feel inadequate...like the car is too good for me. But I'll adjust to luxury I'm sure.

2007-12-20T19:05:00.001-07:00

I ate spinach today. And I didn't spit it out.

2007-09-11T10:19:00.000-07:00

Meet Ninja:

She is 4 months old. The kitties are adjusting.

2007-09-04T15:27:00.000-07:00

The birthday bash was quite the success with only minimal injuries to people and home. Friday night, Toby took me out on a fun excursion of Cheesecake Factory and to see "Balls of Fury." It was a relaxing gaming and fun filled weekend with lots of sleep, fun, and kitties. Since no one brought a Wii, I busted out with Katamari. It is the most gay video game ever made, but a good one for groups.

As for the first workday of Magellan taking over, it's been a tough Magellan Tuesday. I finally have access to all the computer systems but nobody has bothered to update me on how to convert the way I know to write progress notes to the new way. It's paper and pen for now!

So for the moment here's a haiku about my leveling status:

I'm Twenty-seven
in life, 32 ingame.
And I'm so Gellan.

I get the house in less than 2 weeks. :) Eeeeeee!

2007-08-06T13:09:00.000-07:00

I'm going to be a homeowner again! This time I'm going to have a garage and a backyard. Booyah!

2007-06-21T17:42:00.000-07:00

A haiku based on my experiences at 2am last night with Lord of the Rings Online:

Freakin' NPCs!
I'm not your damn errand girl,
Give up the XP!

I just wanted to be lvl 20 before I went to sleep, is that too much to ask for?

2007-05-17T10:13:00.000-07:00

I'm so bad at keeping up the blogs of my life. I meant to write this on this past Monday:

I made my final student loan payment today! Arizona State no longer lingers in my mind like an old sports injury, I am done with you! ....now to get cracking on the credit cards. Oh yes, once all the debt is gone, there will be a monstrous celebration where I (yes I said "I") supply the booze.

2007-05-07T16:06:00.000-07:00

After over 7 hours of work on my computer, I'm proud to say the following:

My computer has a 512mb ram video card and 5 hard drives totalling 900GB storage space. Oh yeah, I went there. :)

San Diego trip pictures to come, my website is being a jerk at the moment.

2007-05-02T11:06:00.000-07:00

My world has been upsidedown since I heard the news and confirmed it on imdb.com today:
Steve Martin played the dentist in Little Shop of Horrors! I cannot trust my senses any longer.

2007-04-09T10:59:00.000-07:00

I've been published on Board Game Geek! I just earned more lifetime geek points. Check out my painted Silver Mimrig on Board Game Geek:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/201594

2007-04-06T14:26:00.000-07:00

Here are some of the oddities in the last week of my life:

1) I walked past a coworker as she was staring at her computer screen and says " I wish I had a drug problem, this would be so much less boring."

2) Conversation between Toby and I last night:
Me: If I gave you a mellon baller could you get rid of my uterus, it's hurting.
Toby: I don't think so, we'd need something bigger, like a toilet plunger.
Me: Are you calling me fat?

3) Angela to me over IM: "I need to poop but im out of origami paper. I like to make cranes."

2007-03-13T23:51:00.000-07:00

Fry's had an incredible 50% off sale to get rid of their Heroscape stuff. I have all of Wave 5 now and the super neato dragon sets. But I wanted my 2nd master set figures to be discernable on the battle field, so I painted them. Here's the best one:

Silver Mimrig

2007-02-15T01:09:00.000-07:00

Ladies be jealous, the most beautiful arrangement I've ever been given:

Valentines Day Pic 2007

This ranks in the top of best v-days. I still wish grownups gave each other those box-o-vday-cards like we did when we were in elementary school. Maybe I'll start doing that next year.

2007-01-31T13:44:00.000-07:00

In the last 2 days, I have learned the following lessons:
1) What you learned in driver's ED when you were 15 is true, you can hydroplane even when the ground barely looks damp. I am ok, was only going 40mph....I did not panic and remembered to pump the brakes.
2) The nice police officer who stopped to see if I needed help when I blew my tire on the 202 told me that he often receives calls stating that people are "driving crazy and trying to kill themselves" on this freeway (after I told him I work for ValueOptions). I told them that doesn't suprise me after the things I've seen and stories I've heard about.
3) Do not mess with Toby's car's seatbelts! They will make you punch yourself in the face and split your own lip.
4) When you are hungry, everything looks like food. There is a collage at work and I thought the word "friendship" said "fried shrimp." I'm glad no one was around when I was standing there saying "mmmm, fried shrimp."
5) Buying the Bushisms calendar was a bad idea. I feel more dumb everyday reading it and knowing that logical human beings actually voted for this man. Oh and I mean voted, not just voted him into office. He is a monkey! And not even an articulate speaking one at that. Jan 31st quote: "Free societies are hopeful societies. And free societies will be allies against these hateful few who have no conscience, who kill at the whim of a hat." Didn't past presidents have people to write their speeches for them? I could write better crap in 4th grade. He reminds me of Biff from Back to the Future. America, what a country!

2007-01-15T13:12:00.000-07:00

I have a "Bushisms" desk calendar at work and this past weekend's quote was good enough to put up for all you to see. Bushisms are stupid things our leader says and boy are there a lot of them.

Here is the one for January 13/14:
"It's important for us to explain to our nation that life is important. It's not only life of babies, but it's life of children living in, you know, the dark dungeons of the Internet."

2007-01-13T15:01:00.000-07:00

So sitting here with no pressing obligations on a Saturday afternoon. What should I do? I know! I'll write the post I've been meaning to post about.

GenCon SoCal in November:
Was super fun! There weren't as many board and card game choices but I kept busy the whole time and did have quite a lack of sleep. I'm sure it annoyed Toby that I was jumping on him at 8am everyday so we could get breakfast and start a 15 hour gaming day. There was this awesome booth were you could have a miniature and paint it. They gave us tips and stuff and was a great social atmosphere. My mini (link in the previous post) took 2 hours to complete and I see mistakes I made, but for my first one I think it's super. I'd like to get a bunch of ppl together to paint the 100 Zombies!! I have. I plan to pay helpers a Fudruckers 1lb burger challenge, my treat. Gotta buy paints though, I got brushes and trays. There was a dance that Saturday night at GenCon and while sitting with a friend talking a few hours prior, 2 guys walked up to us and asked us to it. I have never had someone randomly ask me out before and they weren't even 300lb smelly gamer boys. Finally get to check something off my list of things I want before I die. Seeing as how we both had bfs that were pooping at the time, we politely declined but ended up going anyway (not with them, I don't even remember what they looked like). I cut up a rug after my 2 drink minimum....they played pretty fun songs to dance to for the 45 minutes Toby let me be there.

My Job:
I interviewed and transferred to the 2nd closest ValueOptions site to my house. I have a bigger desk that I have to stretch to reach the phone (no short person jokes!), we have an office suite that is about 4 times the size of both pink team rooms from my last clinic, and a good supervisor. She yells a lot, but she's funny too. She laughed when it was 5:55p on Friday (I go home at 6), she tells me she can't accept the service plan it took 3 hours to write and revise because the consumer signed it before the date that the computer put on it and would need to get resigned, and I yelled "son of a bitch." I'm in a good place, it's not a bad team, but its not the Pink Team. Gosh I miss those people and how much fun we used to have. It pisses me off to no end that at the very last minute they kept the person who was hired most recently of all case managers....and she isn't even good at the job. Roberto did most of her work cause they had a thing even though she's engaged to someone else. Prolly should forget that last part....I couldn't avoid the gossip train entirely there, much as I try. Also, they had Gary stay at the last last minute. He had secured a position at Thomas Rd much like me at the Alma School clinic. He is a great guy from what I can tell, and I am glad he's going to a better team (green). But if they were firing people left and right all over the Valley, and claimed it was all by hire date, then I should have been the first person to be asked to stay. So I do take it quite personal that my caseload of great people was ripped apart and the best desk in the place was overtaken (though I am glad by who took it), I am also the person who lives closest to that building. As for my caseload, I am slowly meeting the people. It's sad that since my new place is a priority for State Audits, they focus on paperwork more then helping people in the field. It also decreases my mileage reimbursement check every month.

My Car:
I have my precious back! In some ways, it drives better then before....I knew there was a problem with the alignment before but alignment places said there wasn't. Had to pay for it myself because nobody was doing anything about it and my back was killing me not having a car that I could sit upright in. Went to physical therapy for nearly 2 months. Not only did that leave me with no lunch break many times but was very unpleasant (the process not the place). The insurance company took nearly 2 fucking months to make an offer, it was just rediculously fucked up. I've submitted all the paperwork I believe I need to and am waiting for them to reimburse me. It's just been an awful experience and I know that this isn't the way it's suppose to happen as I have been hit by people making retarded decisions several times in the past. It's like Elliot got away with ruining me for a time and there aren't AZ laws to protect the victim, it protects insurance companies thus encouraging bad driving. My accident was 100% avoidable if the other guy hadn't made a fucking obvious mistake. Things are getting better, stress level is lower and my asthma isn't so bad anymore - had an asthma attack for about 5 days after the accident.

Non-Denominational Winter Holiday:
Was great! I made a huge Non-Denominational Winter Holiday (Christmas) Dinner feast for Toby and I. It included my very first try at a turkey - which turned out very well, only a tiny bit dry in the white meat. I'm still making turkey & stuffing burritos and sandwiches, heh. Presents were great too, mostly got Heroscape stuff. I am so excited to play my first game with the Castle set and new units. Dibs on the Massachusetts Minute Men. Ang got me an amazing 6 foot long puzzle of the most advanced map of the world in 1375, 4000 pieces. I'm hoping to start a puzzle night weekly. I don't own a puzzle surface big enough for the whole thing...will have to do it half and half.

Lastly:
Let's end with a picture:
http://members.cox.net/mgaza/blogpics/frigamegroup.jpg
It is a large chunk of the Friday gaming group at Seth and Kirstin's wedding. From left to right: Toby, Me, Jo, Ben, Katie, and Chris.

2007-01-04T13:40:00.000-07:00

Yeah yeah yeah, been meaning to post, so much has happened in the last couple of months. This one will be quick and then when I have time, a much more in depth one to follow.

First: It is the new year, and with that comes tallying up how many trivia questions I got right and wrong on the 2006 Simpsons trivia desk calendar that Matt gave me for Christmas '05. I win, but not by much. 166 correct, 147 wrong....I'll need to watch more Simpsons to get a better score in the future. (Yes that doesn't add up to 365....a bunch of the weekends were combined on a page with just 1 question.)

Last but not least: Check out my first ever painted miniature that I did at GenCon SoCal:
http://members.cox.net/mgaza/blogpics/myfirstpaintedmini.jpg

2006-11-15T19:11:00.000-07:00

GenCon SoCal here I come! Time to pop my gaming con cherry!

2006-11-10T23:16:00.000-07:00

I haven't been good at returning calls and messages, so here's the update:

Wednesday night, I was driving straight minding my business and singing in the car when a red Dodge Durango came out of nowhere and turned left into me. I have bad back and neck problems with pain and crap range of motion. I have a very messed up car. And best yet, the other guy got to drive away. I've never gotten to drive away from an accident and I've never caused an accident. :( Elliot Johnson from Tempe, AZ never even apologized for destroying my pretty purple car with his idiocy. Elliot, I hope this stays on your conscience for the rest of your life.

Thursday morning, I was informed that due to downsizing, my position at ValueOptions will no longer exist on December 15th and they are prepared to give me a whopping 1 week's severence pay. I have the option of interviewing for another site, but with everyone getting canned, it'll be like feeding time in the lion's den. The kick in the pants thing is that they only got rid of the last 5 people to be hired. What's that you say? Oh, yes, I have been working there almost a year and am senior to half the case managers in the clinic. But the man says that my time as a temp doesn't count and I am not a real person in the clinic til April and a bunch of the new new people had non case manager jobs with the company before transfering here.

This morning I received a text message on my phone stating I have 44 minutes left on my cell phone until Nov 20th. Checking messages takes minutes and there are no "night time minutes" with my plan. I won't be available by phone because of all this crap wasting my minutes. But when I can get to other people's phones, I can call back. I prefer email and aim and always have.

This afternoon I received a call from Geico saying they are totalling my car because repairs are $300 more than the cost of my car. I told them to shove it in a 25 minute yelling conversation. I will get my precious back!

So I don't want to hear anything about this from anyone. I know I'm the person you are glad you aren't. I would be to if this was you. So thank you for the calls, maybe I'll be more social when my life gets put back together.

2006-11-04T09:12:00.000-07:00

What the fuck happened to Saturday morning cartoons?!?!

2006-10-05T12:13:00.000-07:00

I have made 2 great accomplishments this week. I finally beat the Warcraft 3 campaign after starting it over 2 years ago. I also finally finished reading 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea since begining it 5 months ago. I am installing War3 Frozen Throne tonight and starting on the Da Vinci Code. I'm sure these endeavors will go faster.

2006-10-01T23:50:00.000-07:00

This is a true story:

Last Saturday I made a midnight run to the store because I was jonesing for some cookies. As I stood in the bakery looking at the cookies I wanted, I had a sudden guilt pain in my gut. I knew full well that I shouldn't be eating a whole thing of cookies late at night. I thought, "if God didn't want me eating these cookies, I'd see a sign." Then I saw the sign... and it said "2 packages for $5." I bought the cookies.

2006-10-01T01:50:00.000-07:00

I was talking about wills (been talking to a lot of consumers at work about it lately - as mandated by protocols) and the kitties in the car today and Toby said that if he accidently or purposely caused my death, he would feel obligated to take care of the kitties but would try to pawn Lilith off on Angela. You don't find many people with that kind of ethical standing, isn't he sweet?

2006-09-01T12:29:00.000-07:00

OMG!

I leveled up today, I'm level 26 now!

Praise me.

2006-08-31T17:44:00.000-07:00

My team at work celebrated my bday today by having tacos from Chili Pepper in Yuma. I ate 11 and only stopped because Ella fried them too long and they were so tough to crunch into but OH SO GOOD and my jaw started hurting - like when you chew gum for 6 hours. They got me a nice card but didn't decorate my desk. Everyone to date has gotten their desk decorated before they get to work, but mine was only decorated with normal me things like pictures of my kitties, my dinosaur and cow, and my Phx Con Games badge. That was a bit sad, but I was more focused on the tacos; they are a blessing to humanity. I also have been so busy I got 123 units in only 4 days of work.

2006-08-29T16:14:00.000-07:00

Toby and I were watching Psych last weekend, it was an episode about finding a missing gamer geek. When the camera panned around to show his room as a gamer geek room I stood up and yelled "ooh ooh that's a Heroscape mini on the night stand!" Yeah, I'm a hot gamer chick.

2006-07-20T21:36:00.000-07:00

I developed super healing powers, in case you wanted to know. I had a deep cut from when I got gas in the car shortly after that last post and it healed incredibly faster than I normally regenerate.

Phx Con games is the weekend after this coming one....eeeee....so excited!

I have 47 people on my caseload at work now that my team is down to 6 of us...it takes so long to hire ppl :( It is trying to say the least and I feel just exhausted, both body and mind, at the end of the day.

...oh, and that wasn't styrofoam that I ingested...it was "pieces" in my vitamin drink I have in the morning. They look like styrofoam and I was drinking out of a styrofoam cup. My mistake.

2006-06-27T19:46:00.000-07:00

I accidently ingested styrofoam this morning. I wonder what super power I'll develop. I hope it's telekinesis because I sure don't feel like getting up to turn the lightswitch a lot of the time.

2006-06-24T15:11:00.000-07:00

The zoo bracelet fell off sometime last night. It lasted 43 days on my wrist.

2006-06-12T20:13:00.000-07:00

Angela messaged me about a month ago stating that I needed to write something happy as the latest post so here it is:

In early May, I broke a Tempe parking meter with my BARE HANDS! [thinking of the movie Cool Hand Luke about now aren't you...well I was] I had to take a consumer (if anyone doesn't know, I work at ValueOptions as a case manager) to the Tempe Section 8 Housing office to get her signed up. No one told me the fucking office is directly downtown on Mill Ave which requires money to park. I have recently started putting all my change in a bowl when I get home and so only had a dime on me (I had a few dollars but no change). I put this dime in and it gave me 8 minutes. My consumer was gracious enough to lend me her only nickel which I also put in the meter. Nothing happened. This made me angry. I could tell it just hadn't gone down the chute all the way so I started to hit it to unjam it. Similar to when the vending machine screws you over and that little $2 package of fritos is dangling from the silver round thing and gaping over empty space to touch the plexi glass that shouldn't be so damn close. After a few good hits it starts flashing "FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL." I just start laughing my ass off. No need to pay now. You wouldn't like me when I'm "frustrated" heh.

Oh yeah, and I was hired on as a full employee, I'm no longer a temp. On April 17th after my orientation to benefits class, I was skipping around the hallways stating that I felt like pinnochio...."I'm a real employee now!" They also gave me a key to the building....pfft, time to go a little crazy! My benefits start just in time for the gaming convention at the end of July (Phx Con Games)...I have already taken off those days + a recovery day on the Monday afterwards...oh yeah, 20 hours of gaming per day for 4 days straight - that is so hot. Incidently, my office laughed at me when I said why I needed those days off. But in a nice way. :P

2006-02-24T00:22:00.000-07:00

Two years, eleven months, and three days...

I loved Michael with all my heart. That wasn't good enough. He broke up with me tonight. I feel numb outside and dead inside.

The blog was his idea, I don't think I'll be posting for a long time.

2005-12-16T14:04:00.000-07:00

So Matthew, best friend of 23 years by now, and someone I talk to more than some of my good arizona friends, instant messaged me just a bit ago to mention he graduates college today. You get a big WTF! Perhaps if I'd have known I would have taken my christmas to a place where you get to see snow AND best friends. Bah, so busy telling me so much about the ladies you forget the big things!

PS: Congradulations! You caught up to me finally! Hehehe.

Shameless advertising: Matthew graduated with a degree in rockstardom, check it out: http://www.mirrorblack.com/

2005-12-16T10:50:00.000-07:00

Jason is graduating today! Woooooo! And then he goes on to be the sugar daddy of them all with his spiffy new job. Even if its in the bathroom where nobody is watching, you must do the happy dance at least just a little today.

In other news, I finally admit I have a problem. I'm a rice-a-roni addict. But I see no reason to change.

2005-08-10T21:28:00.000-07:00

The wonderful thing about sugar-free Red Bull is that when spilled and wiped up, it didn't leave my desk all sticky. Thanks Mike!

Unfortunately it tends to leave a pee-like stain on telephone subject screening sheets....especially the kind that are already filled out :(

Job is going well though it makes me very sleepy. I took on the 8 hour randomization visit (the most in depth and longest visit for my studies) for 2 of Arslan's subjects yesterday by myself and it went swimmingly. I also accidently overheard the CEO and another girl talking about how great I am... happy vibes!

My birthday is coming up...I should get a nice present from Brady who is now the richest man I know *wink wink*! Party details to be announced soon - it'll be the first one at my house since last year.

Currently I'm renovating the upstairs bathroom the cheap way - where I am the labor. It's going slow and it's a lot of work, but it's gonna look sooooo nice!

Talk more later!

2005-08-05T13:09:00.000-07:00

Internet has been on and off at home for quite a while now and so I couldn't post. My main computer is completely screwed because of things frying while I had no AC for 7 weeks. And speaking of which, even after 7 weeks of the firey temperatures of hell, replacing the entire outside unit for a 2nd time in a year and a half, and a whole bunch of money down the drain, it stopped working AGAIN. Been out over a week now and I'm starting to seriously consider selling this place because this is just fucking retarded. At least the AC ppl finally showed up today...I can hear him stomping around on the roof right now. So maybe tonight will be a pleasant sleeping night. I think I handle getting extremely few hours of sleep better than getting 9 hours of crappy sleep because of the heat. Currently I still need to buy a new cable modem but for now I'm on someone elses wireless network here at home because I finally fixed my laptop - with great help from Ang.

So other than the ac and other random things breaking, things have been going well. I miss Mike a lot because even though he doesn't do anything all day, our schedules don't match. We haven't spent any time on the weekend together in almost a month because either he is out of town or I am...mostly him though. The trip to Vegas was horribly sucky. Before we left, the other people decided to eat at Whataburger and I got food poisoning. Threw up 4 times in the car on the way up there, but not a drop on the inside of the car thank goodness. Spent that night in the hotel room throwing up somemore. But the 2.5 hour bath in the tub meant for 5 people was the only good thing really. By Saturday night all the indoor smokers were really getting to me and my asthma was so bad I had to cut short everything and lock myself up in the hotel room again. My lungs from then on were pretty much burning all the time. But I think the worst of all was that it was implied to me by the other people that I went with that I was faking it and being a "bitch" on purpose. Needless to say, I was quite happy to be going home as soon as possible at the end of the weekend.

But back to happy things. Today is the best kind of Friday, the kind where it's the end of the work week AND it's pay day. New job has been going great. I got matched up with drug studies that I am interested in, namely the central nervous system. I'm a backup research coordinator for a transdermal pain med patch for lower back pain and tennis elbow. It's really fun. Even though I have to get up at 5:45 every morning and commute for a half hour, I enjoy going to work every day. I feel so prestigious...I have a desk, business cards, voice mail, a rolodex, and pictures of my kitties on the wall to my right. I finally have a career that is right in line with what I've always wanted to do. It's a great feeling. And I should be out of credit card debt by next week. At this moment I'm finishing the token apple sauce that's been in the fridge for a very long time. The reason this is a monumental occasion is that it was the only food I had in my fridge and freezer several months ago and was selling plasma to afford going grocery shopping. Everytime I looked in the fridge, I'd see the apple sauce and realize just how bad my monetary situation was. As of today, my first salary pay day at the new job, I'm eating the apple sauce as a gesture that things are getting better and will *knock on wood* stay that way.

Things have been calming down and I'm trying to finish all these projects I've got in my mind. Hopefully I can host a party soon...my quarter of a century birthday is coming up soon, that is a reason to get completely plastered with my friends whom I feel like I haven't seen in forever. I do miss working with and seeing my friends everyday, but I sure don't miss ASU and its tuition/parking/politics bs.

I have a lot more freetime now that I'm gone from ASU. Email me, we'll hang out. Any DDR challenges are welcome, I have gotten much much better...almost had an AA in Rhythem & Police on light mode yesterday.

Post more later, it's nap time now.

2005-07-10T12:57:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to post for a while now. Internet is usually down at home so can't do it then - need to buy a new cable modem, I think this one is really begging to just die in peace - my guess is it fried during the no AC period of 2005.

Speaking of which:

I didn't have air conditioning for over 7 weeks which put much strain on my computer equipment, my pets, and my sanity because it felt like I didn't have a day off that entire time. A day off should be a time to sleep in and relax in your home and I couldn't because at least half that time it was 95 degrees or more in the house. The reason was not due to money or lack of effort dealing with it. The main problem other than having a defective new unit put up last year, was that no AC company that my warrenty company paid was willing to admit that was the problem and kept telling me I had a freon leak in my walls - something not covered by the warrenty company and would cost ~$2000 to fix. Eventually I ended paying my own company to come out (approximately 15 days after the defective unit's warrenty ran out) and tell me the truth. Went back to the warrenty and was like "wtf assholes! Gimmie my money back." And instead they charged me an additional $360 for renting equipment to get the new unit up there - this is after several hundred dollars of service fees I've paid to wrongly diagnose the problem. Last year when the unit was installed I didn't have to pay that fee. They owe me - I lost my tenant because of their idiocy. I'll be looking to sue them and get my money back the hard way once I can afford a lawyer to talk to me. Hopefully within 2 months.

Seems like life is always the drama whore. I swore something super happy better happen after dealing with hours upon hours of bullshit with the AC. And it actually did! The people I talk to on a daily basis know this, but I will guess most do not, so here's my massive good news that I'm only typing once. I am leaving ASU, after 7 short years (5 to get my degree, ~2 just working) and going to work at the HOPE Research Institute in Paradise Valley. This is a dream come true. I will be doing clinical trial (drugs) research on humans to try to get everything from oncology drugs to acid reflux drugs approved by the FDA. We are funded solely from the research portion of pharmaceutical companies which basically means there is a HELLUVALOTTA $ invovled. It's my first salary job and they said that they encourage people to train to be 'Clinical Research Coordinators' which means you head studies along with all the usual stuff and they start at $12k more per year. I was told its possible to get to that level in a year. So my dream of research on people is back to practical even without a Ph.D. My parents are exstatic that I'm finally entering the "real world" as if living on my own without help, and buying a house isn't for some reason. Mike is happy for me because I can now be his sugar mamma. :) It's funny that my mom was just looking around for jobs in the newspaper I might be interested in, found this one and emailed me. The morning after I faxed in my resume, they called and set up an interview. After my first interview, I got a tour and set up a time for a 2nd interview 2 days later. The next week they called and told me the happy news. I am very excited. I'll be leaving the lab and ASU on the 13th (this Wednesday) and taking a bit of a vacation. Going to Vegas to celebrate Laura's long-awaited 21st birthday this Friday, coming back Sunday, and starting the new job on the 18th. Credit card debt be gone!

In other news, I got a new roommate for the 3rd floor. His name is Dana and he's got an adorable pitbull puppy named Dutch. Cats aren't too happy but Baby is the only one that makes a big deal out of it, he just can't leave the dog alone and throws fits when the dog wants to sniff him. Ah well, he better get used to it because someday I'll get a dog for myself.

Also, the March 6th party video is technically done, however due to computer equipment frying when it was so hot for so long, it has been postponed. My laptop is also out for the count so I can't use that one. Had massive hard drive failure. It's still under warrenty, it is just the wait that is annoying. Toshiba said they would ship the new one back at the end of last week, so soon, hopefully, I can get back to work on the videos.

I'm sure there's more but I can't think of it at the moment.

Laterz!

2005-05-16T11:55:00.000-07:00

Notice the new design? It's because blogger wouldn't allow me to have my links in the other template so I told it where it could shove its posts! I like this better, I can have my pics and links and especially that snazzy, photoshopped pic of me next to my profile link.

New things: I've started to donate my plasma to fund a Game Cube that I am buying off Angela....I'm a little over half-way there. I will call it my plasma Game Cube. The house is clean - that includes the kitchen! The new rats have sufficiently become spoiled and will not eat their old nutritious diet anymore...what would you choose: healthy or taquitos and fritos?

Looking for roommates, if you know anyone who wants to move, send em my way...both rooms will be empty at the end of this month.

I had my wisdom tooth pulled a couple weeks ago and lost a bunch of weight because eating hurt too much and a leftover side effect is now hunger doesn't bother me so much. Which is good since I can't really afford food anymore. I have been living quite meagerly lately in order to finally get out of debt. But with roommate Mike leaving, things will prolly stay like this for quite a while. Plus my hours at work just got cut - I have a lot more free time right now.

I have been working a lot with the videos I've shot with my digital camcorder (at least that is one expensive item that is actually paid off). I want to get caught up on everything I've shot in the last year, finish the dvds, and backup the original mpgs. I spent several hours yesterday finding and cracking video snapshot capturing software to make some nifty labels for the party dvds. I will have a "release party" when I'm done with the one I'm finishing now (the Post-Ren Fair party for those in the know), shouldn't be too long now that I have 3 days off per week.

I'm going to go eat lunch - oooooh oatmeal! I will write more later.

TTFN

I can't seem to make anymore of those cute little sims-ulators...bummer :(

2005-04-25T15:38:00.000-07:00

Ode to Spam - a haiku:

My spam keeps saying
I'll get laid 3 times this week.
Tell me, are they right?

...no seriously...I want to know!

2005-04-21T14:23:00.000-07:00

Just got back from picking up my tax crap from the accountant...apparently the people at payroll at ASU are completely incompetent and used my tax forms to wipe their ass instead of putting my changes through last year and have since been taking waaaay too little out of my checks. And so I get to pay.... a lot. Hurray for more debt that I'm not even getting anything out of. It's like the more I make, the more poor I am.

But there's good news. I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by switching to Geiko (saved exactly $250/6 months).

A big thank you to Allstate for raising my rates without reason and caused me to find such a bargain!

2005-04-19T13:09:00.000-07:00

This was a paragraph in one of the articles I had to read for the lab meeting later today, it's hilarious:

In a 1991 science-fiction story by Terry Bisson, we listen in on a conversation between the robotic commander of an interplanetary expedition and his equally electronic leader, reporting with astonishment that the human inhabitants of Earth are "made out of meat":

"Meat?" "There's no doubt about it. ... " "That's impossible. ... How can meat make a machine? You're asking me to believe in sentient meat." "I'm not asking you. I'm telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in the sector, and they're made out of meat." ... "Spare me. Okay, maybe they're only part meat. ... " "Nope, we thought of that, since they do have meat heads. ... But ... they're meat all the way through." "No brain?" "Oh, there is a brain all right. It's just that the brain is made out of meat!" "So ... what does the thinking?" "You're not understanding, are you? The brain does the thinking. The meat." "Thinking meat! You're asking me to believe in thinking meat?" "Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Dreaming meat! The meat is the whole deal! Are you getting the picture?"

2005-04-05T23:33:00.000-07:00

I just can't fucking win at this game of life. For once, after being rather depressed for at least 3 months now, I finally have a fucking good day! The kind of day that just makes you think that for once there are people out there that are appreciative that you are alive and you are practically "high" from all the good vibes. And then you innocently grab the remote control to turn to a channel to watch the show that we have all gathered at the house to watch and lo and behold...I get completely shit on by Mike's roommate. I was caught so offguard by the unprovoked comment that I just can't think of anything to say, so I walk away. Now here's the trouble. Do I say anything to resolve the fact that all my happy feelings from earlier have now been pissed away for no reason? I can't talk to Chris because at this point I'm too angry to look at him. Even his laughing at the show fuels my anger because he gets to shit on me because "he's in a mood" and my happiness is now gone, but that doesn't matter because no one was mean to him... no one cares about my feelings. But, as it so happened, I get doubly shit on when I talk to Mike about trying to keep the peace in his house since I'm forced to see Chris every time I'm there. It didn't used to be a problem, he used to be nice and just play around. Now he seems almost constantly bitter and vicious. Mike gets angry at me for not fighting my own battles and since I complain about not knowing what to do, he doesn't even want to touch me or finish the discussion with me. I don't even understand his line of thinking on this because he wouldn't be straightforward with what he was thinking. But it doesn't matter. I'm the only one crying myself to sleep tonight. Shame on me for thinking I could have 1 fucking happy day in 3 months. I finally get it and I'm ready to give up.

2005-03-15T12:16:00.000-07:00

I was forced to post because I received a very funny spam. The subject line is mundane crap so that didn't catch my eye. Normally I would've deleted it right away, but it opened after I had deleted a non-spam message and the footer caught my eye. I'm sure you are all familiar with the spam that has random english words either in the subject line or at the bottom of the email. They never make any sense. I always wondered why they did this. My 2 theories are 1) inserting random english makes the Americans trust the source of where they are getting their prescription drugs because 3rd world countries don't speak English (sarcasm) or 2) some mean english speaking people traveled to a bunch of 3rd world countries and told the people they would teach them english but instead they taught them english words but with the wrong meaning. So we see these words, and the words themselves have meaning, but as a whole, they are gibberish. And its these poor unsuspecting people trying to send out distress messages at the bottom of the spam they are forced to send out for 25 cents an hour. AND NOBODY COMES FOR THEM!!! It's the most diabolical plot ever devised! So without further adou, here's the funny message at the bottom of my spam:

a long walk on the beach eating hot dogs with mustard
isnt mustard good. i like it. mustard can be used on a variety
of things. like hamburgers and potatoes. potatoes are good
with butter too. a long walk on the beach eating hot dogs with mustard
isnt mustard good. i like it. mustard can be used on a variety
of things. like hamburgers and potatoes. potatoes are good
with butter too. a long walk on the beach eating hot dogs with mustard
isnt mustard good. i like it. mustard can be used on a variety
of things. like hamburgers and potatoes. potatoes are good
with butter too. a long walk on the beach eating hot dogs with mustard
isnt mustard good. i like it. mustard can be used on a variety
of things. like hamburgers and potatoes. potatoes are good
with butter too. a long walk on the beach eating hot dogs with mustard
isnt mustard good. i like it. mustard can be used on a variety
of things. like hamburgers and potatoes. potatoes are good
with butter too.

2005-02-15T19:33:00.000-07:00

I took pictures of the beautiful flowers Mike got me for Valentine's Day. They are so impressive I wanted to be able to remember them even when they are long gone. Mike said he got them because they reminded him of a cat, I can see the resemblance.

2005-02-15T10:36:00.000-07:00

"Sending lots of love to Mike, we are going to be spending a 2nd Valentine's holiday together and it will be super no matter what we do, I know it." - Feb 8th Post

This past Valentine's Day was the worst ever. I don't think it even bothered me really when a V-day would pass at times I was single. But the above comment was based on the silly assumption that we were going to spend Valentine's Day together. Mike left me crying in my bedroom Sunday morning to go have a Happy Valentine's Day lunch with Chris. Never helped me out with plans for the day even though I asked, and so the ideas I had were the only ones available. Trying to have fun doing them that night was not quite as difficult as trying to walk a cat on a leash, but it sure mentally felt like I was tugging along. And to top it off, even after dousing the wooden logs in lighter fuel and burning half the phone book, our first fire in my house kept going out. Which is odd because my tv dinner lasagna ignited in the microwave yesterday afternoon....and it was still cold when I ate it. No there was no metal in or around the lasagna....talk about discouragement in cooking, I can't even microwave something properly. I love Mike to death, but things like this really really make me so sad. I hope my birthday isn't on a Sunday.

2005-02-08T13:46:00.000-07:00

OMG a post after more than 3 months!!

Brian emailed me saying that he's glad to see that I still have voted - meaning that is the last thing I've written about - and so I promised him an update. And here it is:

I purposely did not write in here during Nov and Dec because I ended up going to war (in court) with Nick. See, the neurotic/delusional state of affairs that we call his mind somehow came up with the idea to not pay me 2 months of rent and break his lease. Normally I would just say that is a severly dickish thing to do, after all, he lived there, happy home or not. BUT he became a mega-asshole about it (yes even after Mike drove us home and we drageed him inside from face down in the flower bed and set him up with my puke bucket on his 21st bday) and told me that this is all in his best interest and it's "just business." I call this the "My name is Nick Syndrome" which basically means "My name is Nick and so I'm allowed to live for free and the world should get down on its knees and thank the heavens that I am me." That's when it became war and I evicted him. The crazy thing is, he whole-heartedly believes that he hasn't done anything wrong and that I'm the one who is cheating him - even though I'm the one in big time credit card debt over it. Bleh, this started the week after Seth found my bag and up til the end of the year, was such a stressful drag. Multiple court hearings, tons of court fees and process server fees, blah blah blah. I don't wanna talk about it. But my point was that that ordeal was about the only thing on my mind and I didn't want to say something that I'd regret later in court. It has somewhat of a happy ending, ask me if you care enough to.

About the end of November I got a new roommate off roommates.com. His name is Mike and his hobbies remind me a lot of Brian, ie. wrestling, beer, football. I barely ever see him because he works when I'm home, I work when he's sleeping, etc. If I haven't mentioned it yet, I've almost became accustomed to being awake in the morning. At first it was solely because of Mike that I got up before noon. But now that we don't hang out in the morning or daytime, I guess I can't blame him anymore. I tend to go to sleep around 1-2am now instead of 4-5am....that'll do it. Anyhoot, its similar to living alone except that there are tons of empty beer cans and empty beer boxes in the kitchen at all times. I was skeptical about him at first (especially since that 3rd floor just turns ppl into big meanie heads) but he's turned out to be really great; pays on time - usually way early, and is easy to get along with. His friends are a different story, but I barely see them once a week if that, so whatever, I don't care.

Miguel moved at the end of December to go live with his brother. Milo missed him soooooooooooooo much. He stopped grooming himself for several days and was constantly either sitting in the empty room or *gasp* coming to me for attention and even sleeping on my bed again. Of course his pride takes over when Miguel comes to visit and he acts like he doesn't even care that Miguel wants to pet him. Baby goes into total purr/sweet kitty mode when Miguel comes back. Neither of us realized how much Baby liked Miguel...I mean he bitched like crazy whenever Miguel touched him....weirdo cat.

Baby had his 12th birthday on Groundhog's Day last week. We (me and the pets) gathered round to sing happy birthday and serve delicious special canned food (that Milo can eat). They really go ape-shit over it but its not good for their teeth in big quanities so its a special treat on special days only. The day before this, Stripe, one of my rats, died. She was well groomed and not sick, it was quite a sad shocker. My only clue was that 2 days before, she was hacking a lot, I thought it was just a hairball.

Bush won the election. That's all I'm going to say. I've done enough public and private ranting. But OMG!! Have you actually listened to his speeches? He contradicted himself repeatedly just in his State of the somethingorother Speech alone. Monkeys can fly in space AND be president....whodathunkit? The Daily Show episode where he was sworn in again was the funniest episode I've ever seen, I was literally in tears. Man, I wish I had taped it!!!

I've seen 2of3 LOTR movies....that's more than I can say for the progress of watching the Star War movies. If you don't already know, I want to be the oldest person who sees them in numerical order. So, I'll get around to watching them whenever the 3rd one gets finished and release on DVD, well maybe. I always did promise Brian I'd watch them with him since he's prolly one of the biggest SW fan ever. It's scary really... :)

There's a bunch more new stuff but I have 15 minutes to walk from Goldwater to Gammage for my class - I'll be cutting it quite short. My class is ASU's Women's Choir, our first concert is this Friday. If you want to come watch me, lemme know, its at 7:30. Bye for now. Sending lots of love to Mike, we are going to be spending a 2nd Valentine's holiday together and it will be super no matter what we do, I know it.

Also, new fav SPAM subject line:
"but the shoe"
Oh yeah, I went there!

2004-11-02T17:42:00.000-07:00

Today is the big day. I have voted, it was my first time and also the first time I cared. Hopefully you did and do too. :)

I have faith that the American people will realize that there is more pressing issues than just big business, making the rich richer, and killing all the Muslim terrorists that "threaten our freedom".

We'll know in a few hours. And I'll try to think on the bright side of things either way. If Kerry wins, things will stop going down the shitter...or at least trickle down slower....and if Bush wins...well, I'll get a really good refinance rate on my house next year.

2004-10-05T11:05:00.000-07:00

Before you decide who to vote for on Nov. 2nd, read this if you are between 18-25; both male AND YES female should read:
http://news.myway.com/top/article/id/294628|top|06-02-2004::10:47|reuters.html

I have finally started to become popular with the search engines, just like Mike's page! Here are my favorite searches of the day:
-jewish cheeze
-couples caught fucking outdoors
-pizza and speeding laws
-cheeze store online

Hunger

Comfort

Hygiene

Energy

Fun

Social

Bladder

Room

New Draft is Shit

Reach for the lasers with Antic's Sims-ulator!

2004-09-29T15:48:00.001-07:00

Seth is wonderful! He brought my bag to my house so that it was there waiting for me when I got home!!! Everything is there except $1. I had a credit card cutting fest to get rid of all the old cards that were canceled. There was a note inside with a lady's name and an asu phone number on it and not in my handwriting. So today I called the number and the lady recognized me right away. She said she found my bag in the loading dock of the bookstore parking lot (which means it wasn't taken from work but somehow fell off my shoulder when I got in my mom's car because that is where she picked me up) and she works doing payroll for my department and recognized my name right away. The next day (Thursday) she brought the bag to the front desk of Computing Commons but the guy she talked to was brand new and didn't know me. What are the odds that she picked a CA who didn't know who I was? What are the odds that she did know me? So since he was new, he didn't follow ANY of our proper procedures for valueable items. First off, he should've looked in the bag for a wallet. If there is money in the wallet (which there was) it goes in the safe. Aside from that, even if he was new, if he'd looked in there, he would've saw a nametag that looks like HIS nametag. Also, he did not tell a staff member, who could've contacted me, nor did he try to look me up when Dawn said my name and that I worked there...I'm right on the schedule for goodness sakes! So, a million cheers to Dawn Bowen at ASU and a bunch of boos to the new guy who could've saved me a bunch of time and money. I will find out who he is and give him a stern talking to...I'm allowed cause I'm a supervisor :)

In other news, Mike is super for no particular reason. Nip/Tuck's season finale is next Tuesday :( and I called the policeman who helped me with my bag and reporting it, etc and told him and thanked him...so...case closed. And there was much rejoicing in the GWC.

Hunger

Comfort

Hygiene

Energy

Fun

Social

Bladder

Room

Dawn Bowen & Seth

Reach for the lasers with Antic's Sims-ulator!

2004-09-28T14:04:00.000-07:00

The best spam subject line I've seen in a while:
"Michelle money by tomorrow"
This made me think of a brand new form of currency which I have created here.

So, for the people that don't know, I have this sorta obsession with reading the bullshit, stereotyping dating articles on msn.com. Don't worry, I'm not trying to find out the 101 ways to make my man...well, you know. Its more of a "omfg, there are people actually following this bullshit as a guide on how to understand the sex of their romantic interest!!??!?!?" Basically, I've found several common grounds in these articles for the heterosexual (I don't really read the homosexual ones because it just doesn't apply to me - sorry). They teach men that all women want is a breadwinner and someone good in the sack and that the way to do it is to be an asshole because that's what we expect anyway. They teach women to be neurotic freaks because that's what men are used to. Additionally, I'd like to say that these articles are very anti-femanist, so if you are one, you will be offended. Or if you are a woman with ideas of a career and an equally giving relationship you will be offended. Or if you aren't a neurotic freak you'll be offended. So today I was reading them - I get the links from the sidebars of my hotmail account - and one of the Ph. D Psychologists had her website listed...of course I clicked. If you are wondering what the poo I'm talking about when I ramble about the retardedness of these neurotic fear-playing articles just look around this lady's website and read these "helpful" hints: http://www.drdebbiemagids.com/index.html.

On to the unhappy things in life right now. What is even worse than not having enough gaming hours in the week is having to go thru the painstaking process of recovering everything you had in the bag that was stolen last Wednesday. The unhappiness keeps piling up. I couldn't even go work out last Wednesday night because I no longer had a student ID and couldn't afford to go get a new one ($25). My new licence and 2 credit cards came in the mail yesterday so at least I'm not toting my passport all over. Still waiting for 1 of my debit cards, though I don't know why I'm ansy, not like I have more than $7 in the account anyway. The pain in the ass thing though is finding a bag and wallet that are just as awesome and have everything I need as I had before. Also, my cell phone and usb drive is gone. It was $91 to replace the phone I had only gotten a few weeks ago + I had to extend my service contract another year. There was only 5 or so hours of work that I was taking home to back up from the usb drive...that made me even more sad. I did take my keys and sunglasses out just before it was taken though, so I still have those. But the theif got away with 3 of my inhalers worth $135! WTF!! I need those, you can't even sell them because they are used!! WTF!! Not only do I have a hard time understanding the mindset of someone who would just up and take someone else's bag AND get to sleep at night, but there is something seriously wrong with a person when they take the bag, find only (maybe) $3 and an unemployment check and DO NOT return at least the rest of the contents that have no monetary value like my bag and calander. The world breeds some major assholes and its not fair to the rest of us. At least Chris2 got his revenge...the day after my bag got stolen, he had his wallet pickpocketed. Click here to read the heroic tale of what he did when he found out. While looking for a new bag that is worthy of me (as in, dirt cheap & convenient - fuck all those designer bags that start at $125!), I searched Target's website with the words "mini backpack" and it came up with "GI Joe - The Original MiniSeries DVD." It's a sign, I feel it in my bones.

One good thing though, on Saturday night, Mike and I made soup. This may not sound awesome so let me embellish. It took the both of us a bunch of money and over an hour of working together when decided to make the Olive Garden version of Zuppa Tuscana. We added 4 times the meat... and let me say, cooking onions and bacon together is INGENIOUS! This was, by far, the best soup ever! Even though it was only similar to the Olive Garden's version, I think it whooped its ass.

Hunger

Comfort

Hygiene

Energy

Fun

Social

Bladder

Room

Mish Money!

Reach for the lasers with Antic's Sims-ulator!

2004-09-21T15:10:00.000-07:00

Chris2 says he is jealous that my resume has the word "baking" in it.

I applied to a genetic non-profit research company today, that is my major accomplishment at work for the day. Also, I called the Southwest Autism Research Center to talk to them about a job. The person I need to talk to isn't in today so hopefully she'll call me back tomorrow. I didn't realize that she is the executive director and is friends with my mom...hopefully nepotism will work to my advantage for once.

Hmm, so I spent much time over the weekend painting the door and frame to Nick's room. Painting was Saturday, then on Sunday I removed the painter's tape on the fixtures and cleaned them up and spent another hour and a half putting spackle in the cracks between the wood on the door frame where the paint didn't cover. Gonna paint over the spackle on Thursday and then my painting project will be complete! Mwahahaha! Oh, and I discovered some white paint on my bathroom faucet this morning...gotta clean that. Even though you'll never notice all the work I put into this project, you will notice that it looks nice and not like an unfinished ghetto door from home depot. Been meaning to do this since last December so I feel accomplished. I have other projects in my head...but not enough funds ATM.

AC is busted again, been so since Friday night. They are coming tomorrow hopefully. Ima bitch at them to give me a new inside unit because this bullshit AC problem has got to stop. At least the death heat is abating.

Also, I've noticed on the weekly emails I get on this site's statistics, that whenever I post, there is about 3 times as many hits on the same day. I want to know how you people know I've posted!! Get outta my mind you aliens! Or do you have some sorta "Michelle posted" listserv?

Hunger

Comfort

Hygiene

Energy

Fun

Social

Bladder

Room

Mish Listserv

Reach for the lasers with Antic's Sims-ulator!

2004-09-17T13:30:00.000-07:00

Q. Why did Nick get sent home from work yesterday morning?
A. Because he threw up on a customer.
I choked on the class of milk I was drinking when he told me. He works as a salesman at a fancy motorcycle and atv store. Apparently Nick was the lucky one picked by the man who lives in the wilderness, hunts and kills his own food and lives off the land to help him. So after a week of not bathing after skinning carcasses and living in the woods, his ATV breaks down and he needs a new one. Guess he didn't feel the need to clean up before going into a business establishment. I wonder if he realizes he's stinky now?

Also amazing is this:

Marijuana is now legal in Alaska, and not just for medicinal purposes. It is now legal to have up to 4 ounces (and this is quite a lot) in your house. They are now trying to get the initiative passed that would make laws for the state to legally cultivate, regulate, and tax pot. This will be the first of its kind in the entire world. Even Holland has certain penalties for pot. I don't know what they are but they are rarely enforced (according to what I read). I wonder if all the people who are against Marijuana solely on the basis that its illegal (as in, they are ok with Alcohol consumption, caffeine, sleeping pills, smoking cigarettes, etc) would treat it the same if it became legal in the state they lived in...possibly even try it.

Whether it even becomes legal or not, I think the government should waste less tax dollars trying to punish people for it and maybe use the money for something useful...like actually fullfilling the financial obligations set forth in the "Leave No Child Behind" Act. According to my co-worker, Mike D who is in school to become a math teacher, the Act made by the Bush Administration calls for extra funding if a certain porportion of children aren't passing those stupid standardized tests for two years. And if the kids still aren't doing well after the 2 years, the funding is cut. Of course this was passed, its a great idea and it would provide for better education...even the title makes people like it. But according to Mike, VERY few of the schools promised this money actually got it because even though we are getting further and further into national debt, Bush didn't allocate hardly any money for the program. Remember that in November...even though I know all you guys are smart enough not to vote for him anyways because you've watched the news occasionally in the last 4 years.

And, as long as I'm on a rant about Bush, read the following artical from the State Press last week, its awesome:

Alamoodi: Decision 2004-- The Bin Laden Vote
by Yaser Alamoodi
Every four years our presidential election reminds us how lucky we are to live in a true democracy. As the race heats up, we grow curious about other people's choices of who will steer our country for the next term. We sometimes take note of friends, family members, entertainers and athletes when they speak of their preference. Yet no person, if given the chance, could pique my curiosity more than Osama bin Laden.

Bin Laden would make an interesting case study in the field of voting patterns. Assuming that he was an American citizen, he would be faced with two primary choices. A fast review of his politics could help us speculate as to where his vote would end up.

His stance on women's rights is obvious. He is firmly against any notion of gender equality, (including any reproductive rights) since that's within the male sphere of dominance. Furthermore, any advocacy of feminist ideas should be crushed for fear it might undermine family values, or what's left of them.

Gay marriages should be opposed at all costs, bin Laden might say, since it's immoral, inhuman and threatens heterosexual marriage's peace and harmony. He would probably support another attempt at a constitutional ban. If it fails again, well, hopefully AIDS will take care of them.

Bin Laden always wants to be a tough guy, so military campaigns are foremost on his mind. He would go to war for unconfirmed threats just to prove a point or for nothing at all. Feeling the heat from his own people or his allies would not stop him. As far as he is concerned, he is on a divine mission and he will prevail. Human sacrifices from both sides just add to the glory of his mission.

Judging by the scholastic standards in Afghanistan, education is not really of great concern to bin Laden. A lot of it goes to waste and no military gains from it. If any problems arise, faith-based initiatives will take care of it. After all, everybody dies some day; in the hereafter only sacred knowledge will save you.

Nothing would piss off bin Laden more than separation of religion and politics. To him, secular politics is nothing but a big Jewish conspiracy to undermine his holy war against evildoers. On the road to heaven, there are passengers and there are drivers. Secularist should keep out of the car.

For a guy who built his own trans-national militia, gun ownership is a clear choice. Bin Laden is for any endeavor to ease the possession of guns, rockets and tanks, since the constitution does not specify what the word "arms" means. To him, guns don't kill people, they only kill people who threaten our manhood by taking our weapons away, and rightfully so.

As for the economy, bin Laden would invite us to take a look at him. The financial backer of terrorism would argue for free enterprise and less government intervention. Economic disparities to him would seem insignificant, normal, or even fair, 'cause poor people are lazy. Terms like the "haves" and the "have-nots" would remind him of communist propaganda. Even though it's no longer a threat, it's still a possibility.

If given the choice, bin Laden would definitely replace Al Jazeera with Fox News. He would divide up the world into "us" versus "them" camps, like he did in his caves. Idealist as always, he might consider a cultural war to save the world. Certainly, bin Laden would accuse his critics of giving "comfort to the enemy" or would just ignore them. Now, how do you think bin Laden would vote in November?
yaser.alamoodi@hotmail.com

So yeah, that's enough of that. Check out this pic of Super Sexy Mike
That was taken at the Ren Fest this year, that leather coat costs like $700 so we just took a picture instead.

Hunger

Comfort

Hygiene

Energy

Fun

Social

Bladder

Room

Alaska Legislature

Reach for the lasers with Antic's Sims-ulator!

2004-09-13T14:22:00.000-07:00

My sea monkeys have all died. :( They are suppose to live for 2 years according to the package and I did eveything the instructions said to. Now I am down to only 5 pets.

Coffe Plantation on Mill Ave. SUCKS ASS. Do not buy from there so maybe they'll close down. I had a meeting with people from the student organization I belong to: The Gamer's Society. Not only did only 1 other person show up (Tiffany, the Game Master and our fearless leader) but the service was unbelievably horrible. When I went to order, the guy who was taking my order was talking to this ditsy blonde in between taking my order. I am not customer service person of the month, but at least I don't make the customer take turns talking to me and a visiting friend. Then, since it wasn't listed on their food menu, I asked how much a plain bagel. He looked it up and told me $1.60. "For what? I did say a PLAIN BAGEL," I exclaimed. He said that it comes with all this extra crap. I said I just want a plain bagel, and he said I had to get the extra crap. So forget it, I'll live with just a hot chocolate. I order and pay and sit back down at the table that is barely 10 feet from the counter. For the next 10 minutes I wait and wait, and see them not doing much with that weirdo guy with bad customer service staring at me every once in a while. I finally go up there and ask where my hot chocolate was. They say, "Oh the abandoned one, we've been calling and calling and calling you." I point at my chair, "I've been sitting there the entire time and neither myself or the person I am with heard so oviously you need to do more than a whisper." Plus that stupid guy was staring at me. I know you are suppose to be nice to your food service providers, but these idiots were over the line. Plus, even after sitting by itself for 10 minutes, the hot chocolate still burned my mouth. Beh. So yeah, don't go there, hopefully together, we can put them out of business.

My dad finally reached an agreement with a leasing company downtown and its official, he's starting up a greek restaurant. So there will finally be GOOD gyros sandwiches in Arizona (they just can't seem to make them right here). Go to Oakland Gyros in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to eat authentic greek food. Well, at least until the restaurant is open downtown here. :)

The tenant revolt is down to civil talks but the battle is far from over. Peace negotiations still have to be set up and negotiated. Additionally, I'm still not comfortable going home. I spent nearly all the weekend at Mike's house to get away from the bullshit.

I heard that Tracy and James moved into their new house in the desert this past weekend. I cannot wait to see it! The pics posted on their website have made it look pretty neato. Go you guys! Owning has its pain in the asses, but its cheaper than renting. And no stupid office people telling me that I can't have cats or I have to pay extra for them. Speaking of which, I cannot wait to refinance, which is allowed on January 1st, 2006 - because of the prepayment penalty. Lower payments=happy. I also want a dog when I have more time to walk it. So many ideas floating in my head, not enough money to support them. I finally found a curtain rod long enough to fit my bedroom window (went to 5 different stores that only went to 84 inches) and I turned my ghetto pushpinned bedsheets on the window into some very pretty, snazy curtains that keep me fairly light-tight like I like it.

I am on the 2nd chapter of the Undead Campaign in Warcraft 3. I have also made significant progress on Peak 2 of SSX3. With my birthday monies from my dad, I bought DDR Max and the dance pad. Exercise while playing games and listening to techno/dance, doesn't get much better than this. More gaming coming soon.

Hunger

Comfort

Hygiene

Energy

Fun

Social

Bladder

Room

Ups & Downs

Reach for the lasers with Antic's Sims-ulator!

2004-09-09T13:41:00.000-07:00

Birthday was ok. We went bar hopping because Nick was turning 21 the same day I was turning 24. I have decided that the bar scene is not for me. It's expensive and loud and I just get way better blackmail material from the comfort of home. It was fun enough though, nice to hang out with friends. Wish Kirstin and Chris2 could've come but they aren't 21 just yet...well, at the rate Chris2 is going, he'll never be 21. But he is really fun when drunk...as he put it after Kirstin's housewarming party "they just had to say 'Chris2 boxers' and then BAM! I was pantless." We finally left the bars a little after 1am - YAY NEW BAR CLOSING TIME!!! About a mile and a half later, Nick stopped responding to us completely so Mike pulled the car over and Nick threw up all over the bike lane. (Sorry Chris2). We got home, hung out for a bit and then Mike was leaving so I walked him out and found Nick sleeping upright in the patio chair with an unlit cigarette in his hand and a pile of vomit at and on his shoes. Walked Mike to the car and walked back, sat in the chair for some fresh air and heard god awful car sounds. A guy named Dennis was mysteriously in the parking lot at that time (around 2am) and helped him. After jumping the car didn't work, he took his battery out of his truck, touched it to the leads on Mike's car and it started immediately. In the meantime, I went back to check on Nick who at this time was now face first in the flower bed. After Mike got the car started, he helped Nick inside who eventually fell asleep hunched over the garbage can vomiting.

Birthday party day was Saturday which started out amazingly sucky. First, Mike forgot to turn the alarm on for me so I overslept. Then after going to the grocery store, I found out Nick mistakenly got the wrong cake for that night. So I had to go back. It took so long to bake the cake and clean the house (though it was pretty tidy, I was just severly behind) that I had no time for laser tag which made me very sad. People showed up promptly after 8pm when I said it started at 7 so that means, me estimates were correct. It was more a gaming party than a drinking party which was dissappointing. Furthmore, because of cords everywhere, I spilled my only drink and was too inebriated to go to the store for more mixers. There was also much hostility between the dating couples there. Tiffany was angry at her Chris, Seth was mega angry with Kirstin, and me and Mike had quite the squabble which wasn't at all happy especially at my birthday party. Meh, the rest of the weekend was great minus the rant I will write coming up soon. I played a lot (8+ hours) of Warcraft 3 campaign over 2 days, its the first time I've done it. The story is neato, and it is a very fun game.

"Angry Miguel" Rant:
Monday night I come home from Warcraft3 at Mike's and I was putting my leftovers in the fridge when I noticed the post it with the utilities that everyone owes me (because the bills are in my name). The money for the yard work was crossed off with new totals written in at the bottom. Let me mention now that the amount for the yard work was a whopping $6 which is actually less than a 3rd of what I paid the guy. This makes me angry that they protest reimbursing me for the money I paid the yard guy after we had agreed on it. Whatever, so I write on the white board on the fridge that if they don't want to pay the bill, fine, they have to do the work and as long as we are talking about money, they are not allowed to pay me late anymore. Because 7 out of ten times between them, its always at the very least, a few days late. Lets not forget in late July when Miguel paid his credit card off instead of the rent and never bothered to discuss it with me until I asked almost a week later. At least Nick has always been very good about communicating when he will pay bills. In both their leases it says I can impose late fees - which I haven't done yet - UNLESS we talk about it and come up with a compromise that works for us...just so that I know I can depend on the money at a certain date. So anyways, I went up to my room, closed the door, and called Mike to discuss if I was being fair or not. He agreed that I was being completely reasonable and that's when I heard banging on the door. When I got off the phone and finally went out there, Nick was sitting at the bottom of his steps behind where Miguel was standing so I could barely see him. Miguel immediately starts yelling (and oh do I mean yelling) about why didn't I confront him about this instead of writing a note on the fridge. In a calm voice (although shaky because he was being scary), I asked him why he didn't confront me about the yard bill. That note has been on the fridge for several days and he didn't mention anything when he saw the yard looking awesome when it was cleaned up. Of course he shrugged it off saying that it wasn't the same thing but it seems pretty hypocritical to me. Then after that he goes off saying that I make a profit off him and Nick and that I'm taking advantage of them. "How is it possible that I make a profit when I also pay?" I rebuted. He came up with excuses that made it sound like I was raping them financially but he had no answer and shut up when I asked what this has to do with the yard? He seems to think the mortgage is the only monthly bill for the house and that his and Nick's rent more than covers it. Not only is that not true, but its none of his business. I've showed them where all my bills are and where they are stored once paid, its not my problem if they didn't look up the expenses earlier. Miguel also conveniently forgot that I just lowered his rent, bought him a ceiling fan, and even a birthday present whereas he didn't for me. While its not a big deal to me, if he wants to get nit-picky, I can play too. He also pointed at his room and yelled, "I can tear that up and go somewhere else." If he is refering to his copy of the lease, I think the rage has eaten his mind because tearing up his lease doesn't get him out of it. So while I was being threatened, I didn't take it to heart at all and just chalked it up to his being insanely violent at the moment. Anyhoot, after a lot of yelling, we agreed that if he didn't want to reimburse me, then its his turn to clean the yard next, and Nick after that. Apparently this wasn't the end of Miguel's rampage. He started in on how I always nag him to do chores and he's sick of it and does them timely. (This was much yelling that I paraphrased). Its true, he is very tidy and that's great so I think he's refering to the time I wrote on the fridge to please take the stuff that was sitting there for over a month up to their rooms. I would've done it myself, but I didn't know which stuff belonged to which roommate. And then there was Friday night when I asking whoever it was suppse to do the dished to do them before the birthday party Saturday night because we always clean the house before people come over....for lack of a better word...duh. Not like he did it anyway, I ended up doing them, so what the hell is he complaining about? Not only do I feel uncomfortable when I'm home, but I'm actually scared to go home now. Mike has been very supportive surrounding this crap though, he is very helpful and comforting.

Tenants Revolt - Day 2:
So after a lot of procrastinating, I finally went home a little after 11. It's been a crappy day. I can't get this bullshit drama out of my head and am having trouble concentrating on just about everything else. Work with Chris2 took my mind off it as we bitched about the usual stuff all day. Chris2 would like to remind everybody that he is awesome. I made it to my room without having to talk to anyone and started writing out some checks for a few of my non-house bills. Maybe 20 minutes later I see Miguel's light go off and door go shut (sleeping) and Nick knocks on my door. I said "if you are planning on telling me what a horrible person I am I'm really not in the mood to talk." He said that he was only there yesterday because Miguel asked him to be there and that I shouldn't associate him with anything that Miguel said. That put me a little less on the defensive side but still very uncomfortable. So we chit chatted a bit and he mentioned how his doctor visit went that day. His shoulder will eventually heal fine and he won't need surgery on it BUT that he needs a ligament replaced in his knee that he's been draining at least once a day since the motorcycle accident. (Oh and before you say, "he deserved it, he rides a motorcycle" I'll just let you know that the car was speeding and tried to mow him down and he took a fall to not get run over and then they took off without helping.) Eventually the "there's this one thing" came up. Nick started in on how the leases that everybody signed aren't valid and that he doesn't have to pay me the money his owes me from the month he was unemployed. I will explain the logic behind this. Nick says that leases are not valid unless they were notorized when they are signed. I said that that didn't make sense because my previous leases with apartments were not notorized. He said that all those people have their realtor liscense or something similar which lets them be official notaries. I highly doubt that so I said, we would talk more about this when I have time to look it up. He said fine but that he was faxing a copy of the lease to his dad in CA the next day and he would see if its valid or not. I said whatever, there isn't much to say until we can look this up. Now what brought up this string of attacking me as a landlord is this: he says that before he signed the lease I said to him, "we split all the household bills between the 3 of us" and took that to mean every single bill. He also says Miguel heard me say this too, even though this was in early May. If I did say this, it meant utilities or the word utilities was somewhere in this sentence. I suppose what I said could be interpreted in several ways but here is my logic....I am the owner, therefore I have HOA fees and a mortgage, they are tenants therefore they have rent. The mortgage is solely my bill as well as the HOA fees and the rent paid to me goes toward that bill, but I am free to use it for whatever purpose I choose by law. AND, as an owner, I can designate the rent amounts, the end. So his argument is that I mislead him into thinking that we split the mortgage and HOA evenly. Of course I didn't do that. Its no secret where I keep my bills and store paid bills and I encourage them to take a peek once in a while so that they don't think I'm dividing them wrong. Additionally, Miguel knew that he paid less than Nick, so I guess techinically we have all been deceiving him. I've always treated him as a friend and have never imposed the late fees that are mentioned in the lease. I believe this is his way of trying to get out of paying me for June's rent that I still do not have. So instead of being a friend, he goes on the "we can renegotiate if you want, but this lease isn't valid and I can leave and go somewhere else if you want." This is just an asshole way to approach a misunderstanding...as Mike said it. So eventually we ended our conversation by agreeing to talk the next day when we both had more information. Hard to get to sleep, hard to concentrate on anything.

Tenants Revolt - Day 3:
Not wanting to take any chances, I have taken all the original copies of leases and paperwork and put it in a safe place that is not in my house. This may seem a bit harsh, but then again, I'm afraid to go home so what does that tell you? Most of my day was spent in distraction of all the bs. I called a lawyer and inthe time I waited to hear back about the matter, Mike called his office people to ask if they were official notaries and they said no. Then the lawyer called back and said that of course notaries are not required just to have a contract or lease. That takes care of that. I spend most of the rest of the day practicing what to say to Nick so that its nice but fair. Again I took my time to go home, when I got there, Miguel wasn't home! Score! Nick's door was open but according to aim, he was asleep so I closed my door, turned off the lights, and assumed the talk was postponed. Good, I didn't want to do it anyway. I saw later from my window that he was outside smoking but by then I was about to hop into bed. I heard a bunch of banging around and it sounded like it was coming from Miguel's room. My first thoughts were that he believed Nick about the notary and was packing up to leave. I eventually went out there to see if I was right and the noise wasn't coming from his room, it was coming from the bathroom. I knocked and entered to find him scrubbing the tub. We had a 30 second civil conversation about why he was cleaning the tub at 11:30pm and I left. That was the first time I have talked to him since the yelling. In the morning before I left for work, I told him I got a movie from the library and he was welcome to watch it. Don't know why I said it, I think I just have a girly inclination to be nice to guys that are jerks to me. It must be inherent. I will talk to Nick tonight hopefully and get this bullshit over with. We'll see.

Wow this was a long post that took me 2 days to write.

Hunger

Comfort

Hygiene

Energy

Fun

Social

Bladder

Room

Drama Bullshit

Reach for the lasers with Antic's Sims-ulator!

2004-08-25T14:39:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since my last post. Not much has happened though. Mike is the sweetest bf in the world, he brought me lunch because I was starving and stuck at the computer lab all day today armed only with a bottle of water and a banana. Mmmm, Safeway chicken in my tummy. I made it through my 2 week schedule from hell. Monday morning my body woke me shortly after 6 as if to say "lets do it again this week!" Speaking of the lab, we are getting raises soon! An extra $.50 per hour, whee! [does a little dance]. I have been getting much more sleep and still feeling like crap lately. I think the last 2 weeks have messed me up quite a bit...this is more annoying than jetlag.

Next Wednesday, Sept. 1st is my birthday, I will be [shudders] 24. I am just shy of getting another discount on auto insurance and being a quarter of a century old. The day should be filled with fun fun fun and the party will be Saturday night. If I hadn't mentioned it before, its a DOUBLE birthday party because roommate Nick has the same bday as me and he is turning 21! This will only happen once folks, don't miss the opportunity to rock out to a double birthday bash! We are still working on times of events, food, themes, etc.

And now, for the best spam subject line I've ever seen...straight from Jason's inbox:
Naked Dwarf Tossing

Some Sea Monkeys have perished, but most are living strong, swimmy lives.

The overhaul of my website is done, it looks awesome and only took about 10 hours of work. Go look at it and praise me. Speaking of web stuff, I am going to be starting on a new project. I was asked to do the website for a new ASU student organization called TGS (The Gamer Society). The site is already done and functional, I am only to maintain it and add new stuff. But he wrote it in FRONTPAGE, icky icky icky! Oh the bain of my web designing existence. Microsoft and html do NOT mix. I am looking forward to the gaming as well. Its been many years since I gamed on a regular basis. You should join too: http://www.asu.edu/clubs/tgs.

Yesterday I ran into a guy I haven't seen in about 5-6 years. I didn't recognize him right away because he has grown but I knew he was from high school when I turned to him after he said, "Hi Bob, its been a long time." When I inquired as to who he was because he looked familiar he said, "I was one of that group of freshman that you and your friends made quite an interesting high school experience for...it was terrifying." I laughed and we talked briefly...good times good times.

This weekend is Kirstin's housewarming party, next week is my Double Birthday Bash, should be fun times ahead! Although I'm really not feeling like it should be the start of the semester again. Summer weather needs to be about 30 degrees cooler and summertime should be 50% longer.

Hunger

Comfort

Hygiene

Energy

Fun

Social

Bladder

Room

Double Birthdays!

Reach for the lasers with Antic's Sims-ulator!

2004-08-10T08:44:00.000-07:00

I created life last night...in a small tank! My sea-monkeys hatched instantly and settled into their new existance in a tank on my desk. I wonder if it'll be like that episode of South Park where the life forms erected statues in the honor of their creators and eventually had thermonuclear war. Well, we'll see anyway.

Oh God, I have been awake for almost 3 hours and its only 8:42 in the morning! Yesterday my day started at a fresh butt crack of dawn time of 5:50AM! 2 more days, 2 more days, I can do it. I WILL do it! All to pay off my fucking Structue 5 parking pass which cost a whopping $225. This allows me to 1) put my car on some cement 2) let ASU fuck me because I need to drive to campus. At least I didn't get stuck with lot 59. I've managed to avoid this lot thru my entire ASU career as a student.

AVP (Alien vs Predator) comes out this Friday. I am not sure if I will be wisked away to that or not. Why can't people make plans more than 24 hours in advance? Why can't we play FF:CC for 10 hours straight? Why the fuck are there so many people in the lab at 7:30am when school isn't even in session? I remember on Veteran's Day a few years ago when a guy and his friend needed to finish a project that was due the next day, we were the only lab open because of the holiday, the line for people waiting to use the computers was almost out the door, the team rooms were full, and we closed in an hour. He asked me half jokingly what he was suppose to do because by the time he would get through the line and get a computer it would be almost closing time. In front of my new boss, Aaron (who, incidently peed in my crappy neighbor's yard at my last shindig), I said, "well, you can wait in line, go to the store and buy a computer because they aren't that expensive, or you can use mine at home for $20 an hour after I get off work." Oh that felt good. After the guys left to go wait in line and Aaron regained speech control from having his jaw drop down, he said, "I can't believe you just said that to him!" I replied, "What? He asked." Good times, good times. Nowadays all I get is: "how do you work the stapler?" and then there are those people who ask for help and then tell me I'm wrong when I suggest how to fix it.

I thought of a new idea today for any of you going into a position of power in the political world. The state of Arizona should issue vouchers for people driving in cars with no air conditioning, whether it isn't a "feature" (how AC is not standard, I don't understand) or its broken and you can't afford to fix it. These vouchers will either go to the mechanic to fix the AC or towards the purchase of a vehicle that has AC. Its really dangerous out there these days...if you get stuck in a 2 hour traffic jam at 1pm you could easily get heat stroke. Or we could all be issued air conditioned space suits so when we walk to and from our classes and cars, we won't melt.

Saw The Village and Catwoman this past weekend, both were good, but I was a little angry at the marketing agency that promoted The Village. While it was a very good and entertaining movie, it wasn't at all like what the trailers and commercials made it out to be. Catwoman was more in the style of the Catwoman comic books and no, there is no Gotham or Batman which is probably where most people who don't like this movie are mentally stuck at. I enjoyed it a lot even though by far Michelle Pfiefer's Catwoman character was much much better, but then again, probably because it is the traditional Catwoman. I was glad to see an alternate dimension of sorts with the movie because its interesting to pick up the comics that aren't by DC and see what concoction that author has cooked up for the feline heroine. Spike Lee's version was pretty wacky and interesting, too bad he only made 1 book.

Dare I say I almost feel awake? I think its time to do some photoshop work. Been working on my current project for 7 hours since Friday and counting...this is quite possibly my chef d'oeuvre of digital art.

Hunger

Comfort

Hygiene

Energy

Fun

Social

Bladder

Room

alarm @ 5:50am!

Reach for the lasers with Antic's Sims-ulator!

2004-08-04T12:17:00.000-07:00

New funny spam:
1) "We help to put the b in boom boom"
2) "you shouldnt install pirated software" <-wonder what THEY are selling
3) "click to click with someone"

So I recently looked at the statistics for my mom's website that I've been doing since February 2003 and was quite shocked at how successful it is doing. Last month we had 56664 hits, the highest was this past March with 84738 hits, and we have an average of 46639 per month and over 1500 per day. So I finally created something that people have an interest in! <- Makes me feel all warm and squishy inside...moreso. If you are interested in raising those numbers, here is the site: http://www.abckidstuff.com

What else is new? Hmm, well I WAS going to have a leisurely 2 weeks before school starts. I've been working my ass off (46-51 hours/5 days a week) since finals ended in May to try to save some money - which worked if my tenants would pay the rent on time grr, but that's another story. Instead, I'm getting royally fucked and I hope that I will even live through the next 2 weeks.
My schedule request: 15-20 hours per week, Mon-Thurs, with my shift ending at 4p cause I go to my other job at 4:30 (I work 16 hrs per week babysitting from 4:30-8:30 Mon-Thurs)
My schedule for the next 2 weeks on top of babysitting: 7am-4pm Mon-Thurs
This will make me a very sad panda even though all my bills will be paid with ease. Do the math and you come up with 48 hours of work, starting at 7am, in 4 days! This is not including my volunteer time in the Psychology Lab every week. Oh well, I can be Mike's sugar mamma once again :P

Hunger

Comfort

Hygiene

Energy

Fun

Social

Bladder

Room

ABCKidstuff.com Hits

Reach for the lasers with Antic's Sims-ulator!

2004-07-29T14:49:00.000-07:00

It sure has been a while since my last post. Mainly because of my trip to the UK. Which was quite fun except for the few times my mom went psycho towards the end. Here's the quick rundown of what we did:

Sunday: Got in with 3 crappy hours of sleep during the 10 hour plane ride. Checked into our hotel which was very fancy smancy and we were on the top floor. Took a nap, then walked to the nearby Hydes Park (big, beautiful, & royal park). We got ice cream and just enjoyed being outdoors (which you just can't do until October here in AZ).

Monday: Rode on a Subway for the first time ever and it took us to the first train I ever rode on which took us to World of Chessington. This is a decently fun amusement park that is a kids version of 6 Flags.

Tuesday: Took the subway to the train station again which took us to Stratford Upon Avon (better known as the place where Shakespeare was born and grew up). It was a 2 hour train ride that I got enough sleep on to be functional for the rest of the day. This place is awesome, we looked around the shops, toured the 500 year old historic house that Shakespear was born in, took many pictures and video footage, ate at a 300 year old pub (the building was about 500 years old, the pub had been in business for about 300 years). We walked down to the river Avon and then took a horse-carraige ride around the city with the guide telling us all the neato things about Stratford. I was going to see Hamlet in the Royal Shakespeare theater there but the show started only an hour before the train left and there was no time. :(

Wednesday: First we saw Chitty Chitty Bang Bang - its was amazing, even the children's theater was fucking cool! We then took the train to Westminster Port and saw Big Ben, Parlament, and the anti-war demonstration outside of Parlament. Again, many pictures were taken. Then to make my brother be quiet, we hit up the McDonalds across the bridge. After that we took a guided boat tour down the river Thames.

Thursday: We got up somewhat late and took our time with breakfast and getting to the subway station. We tried to get afternoon theater show tickets but they were sold out. So we went to the London Aquarium which is across the river from Big Ben. It was very informative and we heard a short lecture about sharks and watched the tropical fish feeding demonstation. I was dissappointed with the aquarium as a whole. Perhaps I was spoiled living 2 hours away from Chicago's awesome museums and displays, but there just didn't seem to be that many fish there and there was only 1 small shark tank. After that we went back to the hotel to rest a while and then to Victoria Sation and ate food and then we split up. I took the subway to Leichester Square (pronounced Lester Square - the subway guy I had a conversation with asked if I was American when I said "Lie-Kester") and from there I walked to the theater a few blocks away to finally see Les Miserables. I've always wanted to see it and it was nice to just be out on my own. At the same time, mom and Yahya went to the Rod Stuart Musical "Tonight's the Night." And her's got out early so she met me at my theater and then we took the subway back to the hotel. Those theater productions were so amazing...I have developed a new love for the theater.

Friday: This was the day! Finally a day all for my brother Yahya. Our personal guide picked us up and we were off even before morning traffic started for our very own Harry Potter tour consisting of Oxford (Hogwarts and the Great Hall), lunch, King's Cross (Platform 9 3/4), the area used for Diagon Alley, and of course Gringot's Bank (better known as the Australian Embassy). Oxford was neat, beautiful architecture, neato history up the wazoo! We saw the place where the kids in the movie first met Professor McGonagall on those steps and we saw the Great Hall. I have many pictures and video footage. Then we choose the first country-side inn we could find. This is where I learned that a smoked salmon sandwich is cold and quite slimy. But I ordered it so I ate it. The inn was called the White Horse Inn next to the White Horse Hotel, better known as the Flemming Hotel. The reason this is significant is that its Ian Flemming's Town: he grew up there and now he owns it. Ian Flemming wrote Chitty Chitty Bang Bang as well as all the James Bond movies. And we landed there completely by chance! After that we went back to London to King's Cross which is the train station that they used for Platform 9 3/4. Then we saw Diagon Alley and finally the Australian Embassy which is so tall I could get barely the front doors into my frame for the camera. Its a beautiful building. Then we got back to the hotel at about 7:30p and just took it easy til bedtime.

Saturday: 6:50am wake up call! We got up, got breakfast, and the tour bus picked us up from the hotel a little after 8am. We first went to the outskirts of London to tour Windsor Castle, where the Queen lives for a part of the year. It was beautiful and we have pics and video footage. Then on to the City of Bath to see the Roman Baths which is a restored bathhouse that the Romans originally built in 1100 AD. It is built on a hot spring all the water flows and is heated naturally. Darn neat!! And then we went to Stonehenge!!! I was so so happy! We didn't get much time there compared to the other sites...I only had about 2 minutes to look thru the gift shop after seeing the beautiful site. The tour was excellent, the food was not, and also we didn't see some things that were listed in the brochure like the Changing of the Guards and the Magna Carta which made us quite mad. Oh, and the tour bus dropped us off several blocks away from the hotel instead of back at the hotel, we were none too happy about that.

Sunday: Got up leisurely and had breakfast. Tried to see the Changing of the Guards but there were too many people and we couldn't see hardly anything. Then we tried to get tickets to see the Lion King in the theater, all sold out except for a few shitty seats where you can't see anything. So after looking for tickets for about 3 hours, I finally convinced the other two to go to a museum with me. We choose the Science Museum. It was ok, that's about it (again, I think I'm spoiled from so many Chicago Museums). Then we went back to the hotel, had roomservice, mom packed while I was playing the Sims, and that was our last night.

All in all, I rate it as a super great trip! Oh, and why the fuck don't we have a subway here in Phoenix? The Underground in London is just about the most efficient and cheap public transportation I've ever seen - even faster than driving! I hope to get the DVD of my trip out within a month or so, it has so much cool stuff on it.

2004-07-08T10:28:00.000-07:00

Whee! I get to work to find the computing site that I am working in today closed for maintainance. I was completely confused but apparently at the last minute they decided to upgrade to XP this morning and thought they'd be done by now. Being the bitch that it is, of course they are not quite done. I asked what I should do and they just told me to stay here and hang out til the site is open. Kick ass!

So, things to talk about. This past weekend was awesome. Got my gaming on, Sims works fine now and I have played a lot and am looking forward to playing more. Also played some Rachet & Clank and Final Fantasy Crystal Cronicles, fun games! Got a bunch of long-awaited Mike time on and I also got pretty drunk at my party on Friday. It was a small turn out but it was awesome to see my old friends from high school, they haven't changed much and its great. I had a great time...plus Mike from work finally brought back my sleeping bag that he has been hording for over a month now. Saw fireworks on the 4th, I thoroughly enjoyed it and I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who had a good time. Nick was suppose to come with us but he didn't get there in time because he got pulled over by a cop for not wearing his helmet visor down and a bonus ticket for not having the insurance that goes into effect this Saturday. Mike was wonderfully generous enough to help pull the rest of the root system out of the poison berry tree - it is now officially gone. I'll get a lemon tree when I get back from vacation, no time right now to browse plant nurseries. I'm also going to be starting a garden now that I hired someone to clean it up, it looks 10x better than before. Since I pretty much don't like fruits or veggies, its up to my friends to eat the watermelon, tomatos, and other things I grow. And there will always be a fresh pitcher of lemonade in the fridge. Eeee! I'm excited.

I find it funny that on Tuesday at work, during my whole 6 hour shift, I only helped one person and it was getting a splinter out of Mike's foot because it was out of his reach. My boss was cracking up when she came out of her cube to find me holding Mike's foot, poking at it with tweezers and a needle. I told her that he got the splinter while web surfing and its just one of the many services we offer at Information Technology.

Battery Update: I went to the address that UPS delivered my package to. Its houses inside gates that enclose a golf course. The gates go all the way around and there's no gaurd or anything and I cannot get in. Bleh, so mad! Ang was nice enough to lend me one of her laptop batteries because hers is just a model down from mine so they are compatible. This solves the current crises but I'm still irritated at the whole situation. Plus now the seller isn't answering my emails. Whee! I'ma start killing if my battery isn't here by the time I get back from London.

Some good news for once: I finally found the only copy of a website I made. It was a really nice layout that I was proud of and the owner took the site down without telling me. I've been in a panic the last few weeks because all the copies I could find were a version before the main page was finished. I finally found the right copy on a zip disk that has been in my backpack for over 6 months.

Now its time to read a book...since the computer lab is still not open and they are paying me to do nuthin'...sometimes I really really like my job.

Hunger

Comfort

Hygiene

Energy

Fun

Social

Bladder

Room

Good Times&Fireworks

Reach for the lasers with Antic's Sims-ulator!

2004-07-07T11:07:00.000-07:00

While I was watching my brother yesterday afternoon, my mom ordered a pizza from Little Caesers and I went to pick it up. Its just around the corner so I grabbed my keys, sunglasses, and money and headed out leaving my bag in the house. When I turned into the parking lot I was confused at its set up. Instead of having parking at the curb by the restaurant, it was in the exact middle of the parking lot, but evenso, there were about 4-5 open spaces and I was in 2 of them. I put the car in reverse to straighten out so that I wouldn't be taken up so much space but a woman pulled up behind me (which was in the middle of the lot - not where parking is). I was annoyed that she was being dumb so instead of backing out to straighten up, I went forward. As I inched forward so did she until she had fully stolen my parking spot with 4 others right next to me. I was completely dumbfounded as to the stupidity of this woman. I should have just let the car be crooked. But I made a quick U-turn to let her know I was pissed and parked as close to her as that u-turn would allow. She gave me this look like "I didn't know you were trying to park." I avoided confrontation and ONLY gave her a dirty look and slammed my door and went inside. But I could've taken her. Then I got to deal with the wonderful dim-witted trained food professionals at Little Caesers. Here's an excerpt from my conversation with the guy at the counter:

Me: Hello, we called in an order for a cheese pizza and breadsticks.
Trained Professional: Okay, that'll be $6.xx
Me: A no, I think our order is a bit more than that, could you check it again please.
Trained Professional: You said you wanted a cheese pizza and breadsticks.
Me: No, we called it in...about 40 minutes ago, I don't remember the order exactly.
Trained Professional: Oh, well we make it hot and ready to go at all times so you don't need to put in an order.
Me: Ok, I didn't know that, but still we did put in an order so is it ready?
Trained Professional: You don't need to order, but I'll look for a ticket [searches, can't find it] nope I don't have one for your order. Just tell me the order and we'll make it for you.
Me: Ok, well, we phoned it in and I don't know exactly what we ordered because it was 40 minutes ago, I don't have my phone on me to call and ask.
[Trained Professional gives me their phone for me to call and ask my mom - then relay the info to the guy and pay for it.]
Trained Professional: Ok, I'll get that ready, it'll be a while.
Me: What? Why? I thought it was hot and ready when you order it?
Trained Professional: It is. But you'll have to wait for the bread.
Me: Isn't the bread hot and ready to go?
Trained Professional: Yes, but you'll have to wait.
Me: Ok, but we phoned it in 40 minutes ago, I see that you must not have gotten our order, but you said that everything is hot and ready to go.
Trained Professional: It is.
Me: Then why do I have to wait?
Trained Professional: Because we have to make the bread.

At this point I gave up. I told Nick this story last night...he was silent as he tried to comprehend and then said, "wow...huh...all I can think of is that I bet that guy doesn't get paid much."

After this, I think the only reason I would continue to go back is because their pizza is very good for the price. How can you beat the normal price of $.99 for 5 breaksticks? I pay almost $3 for 3 breadsticks at the pizza hut at school. Ah well, there was no lesson learned except you'll never win an argument with someone who doesn't know what the fuck is going on. And remember kids, always be nice to food service providers...see the movie Super Troopers to understand what I mean.

Hunger

Comfort

Hygiene

Energy

Fun

Social

Bladder

Room

Parking Spot Stealer

Reach for the lasers with Antic's Sims-ulator!

2004-07-01T11:25:00.000-07:00

OMFG UPS IS STUPID!

Because of one of Mike's friend's family's cat peeing on my laptop, I was forced to buy a new battery. These batteries retail for $169.00 on Dell's website. So seeing as how I'll need the battery when I leave on the 10th, I decided not to procrastinate and to get the battery off ebay. I did a buy it now auction on the 23rd of June for $80 including shipping. It was suppose to arrive yesterday. And it did, but not to my address. After being on the phone with them for a half hour, I have the following information: the address that it was left at WITHOUT A SIGNATURE and the knowledge that both on my package and in their system they have my address written in. How the fuck does a driver deliver a package to an address that is so blatently not mine? So assuming UPS can get ahold of these people, a driver will be sent there to pick it up and deliver it to me the same day. If they can't, there will be an investigation and the seller can send out a new battery after it is concluded which will take 1-8 business days. Whee!! That's is shortly after I'm already gone. How is this helpful? Fucking brainless assholes! I'm going to the address myself to get the damn battery.

New funny spam subject lines:
"Re: ground bombproof"
"Re: punctual yeast"
"Eliminate your bills the Christian way"

Hunger

Comfort

Hygiene

Energy

Fun

Social

Bladder

Room

UPS & the Cat

Reach for the lasers with Antic's Sims-ulator!

2004-06-23T14:48:00.000-07:00

So I'm 628 pages into my 666 page borrowed Photoshop: Classroom in a Book. I have learned a lot in the last 3 weeks...didn't realize there was so much to photoshop and imageready that I did not know already. I'm on chapter 19 out of 20 and these last ones mainly deal with Color Management and Printing so without further ado, here are the 4 pictures I'm proud of:

Golf Vector Poster
Matte
Funky Bird
Montage

I would like to try out my new skillz and create more Michelle originals once I am done with the book, but I'm stumped on ideas. I have 30 hours a week at work to think so they'll come in time.

Mike has me reading this awesome series called the Incarnations of Immortality by Piers Anthony. Took a month to finish the first book, which is about the office of Death. Started reading the 2nd book that is about the office of Time and by the 2nd day I was already on chapter 5. I had so forgotten my passion for reading for fun during my many years in college. Probably read another 2 chapters tonight while I'm waiting for Yahya to get out of his karate class.

I'm so so tired all week. Leave the house by 9:30 in the morning, get done working at 8:30-9 at night depending on the day and then trek off to some other activity. Mondays and Wednesdays I meet Mike at the SRC and we work out for an hour or so. Tuesdays are tv night, Thursdays are Mike night (or rather, hang out with Mike for about 2 hours)...in any event I don't get home til 10p-11:30p. So sleepy! Seems like after I leave work on Friday, I spin around a few times and then its time to go to bed because its Sunday at midnight and work is early in the morning. But as much as I complain, I'd rather be doing this than not have a job. And I'm happy to be able to see Mike as often as I do.

Not much else to say at the moment. Probably plan on having at least 1 party before I leave for London in mid-July. Afterall, other than the mini-Memorial Day BBQ, we haven't really rocked the house since Nick moved in. He needs to see us all at our "peaks." I'm open to ideas, themes, etc that we could do.

Ta ta for now.

2004-06-14T15:47:00.000-07:00

I went to the dentist today, he said my teeth were super excellent (that's a paraphrase) but that if I don't keep brushing good they may take away my only upper wisdom tooth left. This makes me sad. I asked why they couldn't just fill it and they said they were lazy and just wanted to take my tooth away from me (again a paraphrase). I replied to that by saying you do whatever you need to do to keep my teeth in my mouth...end of story.

I've noticed an increasingly number of customers at work that don't see a problem with standing outside of my periphereal vision waiting until I notice them and help them. Call me crazy but even when I'm just screwing around on the computer, I'm not capable of seeing all 360 degrees around me. New rule: if I cannot see you, you cannot be mad or annoyed that I'm not helping you.

Mike's bday is Saturday...time to paaarty! Once again, he will have caught up, numerically, to me and I wont feel like the older woman seducing him at every turn. Luckily I look, at the very least, several years younger than him.

This past weekend was craaaazy, hardly no time for just me. I spent Saturday night fighting with my computer and my new Sims expansions. Ima gonna be pissed if I have to get a no cd crack for a game I bought legitimately. This is total crap! I spent most of Sunday installing my new computer parts. I got a firewire card, a 160 gb hard drive, and a dvd burner. Putting in the parts didn't take too long and it was with minimal fuss. Just learning the basics of the dvd burning software took up a large chunk of time and by the time my new hd was partitioned and formatted it was time to go to Mike's house for some hanging out time before The Dead Zone started. Watch it, its gooood.

Work is over, I'll write more later.

2004-06-07T13:16:00.000-07:00

Blogger seems to be amused with constantly changing that sidebar you see to the right without my permission. So if you think it looks weird or redundant, that's just Blogger being a fucker and reverting to previous saves and I'll get to fixing it in a little while (or rather, as soon as I notice it).

On a new note, before me and Mike went out on Friday night, I was driving home after work and ran into some idiocy I'd like to share in hopes of preventing future death. I was driving East on the 60 from Rural to Dobson. The guy in front of me was going 15 mph under the speed limit after we both took the Dobson exit (which is almost a mile before the actual street and is only 1 lane so I could not pass). This annoyed me greatly. Then he started swerving a whole bunch so I slowed down (moreso) so that I wouldn't be near what I thought was a drunkard. At the light, I pulled up next to him to give him a dirty look and the fucking idiot was READING! For fuck sake, why the hell are people reading and driving? THE END.

Hunger

Comfort

Hygiene

Energy

Fun

Social

Bladder

Room

AZ Drivers

Reach for the lasers with Antic's Sims-ulator!

2004-06-04T21:22:00.000-07:00

It is a Friday night, just got back from Sammy's Woodfired Pizza on Mill Ave. I'm glad Mike and I didn't spend too much money there because it was a pretty bad experience. Mike is in the bathroom right now dealing with his body trying to rid itself of the pizza. I'm sure I'll follow suit in a little while. I was very very hungry and so the first 3 slices of this tiny $10 pizza went down easily but something was off and I couldn't figure out what. At least one of the 5 cheeses on my 5-Cheese pizza (oh like I would get any other kind! :) ) was very bad tasting but it wasn't that. When Mike and I had finished 80% of our pizza and the waitress finally got around to bringing the parmesan we asked for when we first got our pizzas, I noticed that my "pizza" was completely devoid of any pizza sauce - it was 5 cheeses and crust. When Mike was able to flag down our increasingly absent waitress, I inquired if it was suppose to be that way or if it was an error. Apparently they have gotten numerous food awards because they lack an essential pizza ingredient and thus have created something to OOoooh and Aaaah over. But I vote it as one of the worst pizza experiences ever...I think I'd rather order from Dominos....ick! Mike's exact words when reviewing a bite of my pizza were, "I would love to eat this if I were in prison." The one good thing was the $7.50 sundae that had more fudge than ice cream and whip cream combined. Mike said that he was not impressed but I liked it a lot. I probably would not have been so impressed if we had not had the coupon that made it free, but I like to think some good came of it all. And we didn't get a parking ticket! (We parked in some obscure parking lot a few blocks from the restaurant...didn't see any signs that said we couldn't park there so I crossed my fingers). Now we are home, I think its my turn for the bathroom. So that's my story for the night. Going to see the new Harry Potter movie tomorrow with Mike, mom, and my little brother. I think it will be a good time. I've heard many good reviews on the movie already. Ta ta for now.

Hunger

Comfort

Hygiene

Energy

Fun

Social

Bladder

Room

Tonight's Restaurant

Reach for the lasers with Antic's Sims-ulator!

2004-06-02T13:49:00.000-07:00

I believe I am a victim of this proverb: "In any organization there is one person who knows what is going on. This person must be fired."

On a completely non-related note:

So I was searching through my M: Drive at work today and found these old tests I took, here are the results:

Geek Test
I am 44% Geek

You probably work in computers, or a history deptartment at a college. You never really fit in with the "normal" crowd. But you have friends, and this is a good thing.

Take the GEEK test at Fuali.com

Internet Addict
I am 55% Internet Addict

I am pretty addicted, but there is hope. I think I'm just well connected to the internet and technology, but it's really a start of a drug-like addiction. I must act now! Unplug this computer!

Take the Internet Addict Test at fuali.com

Evil Genius:
I am 51% Evil Genius

Evil courses through my blood. Lies and deceit motivate my evil deeds. Crushing the weaklings and idiots that do nothing but interfere in my doings.

Take the Evil Genius Test at fuali.com

I think these numbers are fixed, I am a mega internet addict and I got enough geek in me to fill up a Myrrh bucket.

2004-06-01T14:30:00.000-07:00

Peak 1 is finished! It was my bitch this weekend! I played massive amounts of SSX3 this past Memorial Day weekend. And what a great weekend it was. Played hours upon hours of video games - mostly with Mike, got some reading done, saw The Day After Tomorrow the day after it came out...I'll let you think about that one for a while (good movie btw, Cheeze says SEE THAT MOVIE WHILE ITS STILL IN THE THEATER), and spent just about every minute of my 3-day weekend with Mike...it was super-excellent! Had a small group over yesterday for gaming, bbqing, and swimming in honor of the holiday. Got some of the people launching each other off into the pool on tape. We were being so so silly. Fun times but I sure am tired today.

I can't seem to find any recent updates of the AC Saga so here goes:
2 Thursdays Ago ~9pm: I come home to find a hot house again. Rage consumes me as I tear open the vent in the hall. No, just kidding, I used a screw driver and my step ladder, but I was pretty peeved. Entire inside unit is frozen over. I have dealt with this before and I actually knew what to do. Use my hair dryer to thaw it and then a tough scrubby brush to remove the nasties up there. It works fine for about 40 minutes before freezing over again.
Next Morning: After waking in a pool of sweat, I go to the shower in hopes of not being disgusting and find the water turned off for the day (found a notice in the dirt behind the grill after this). The rage continues. Put in a service call with the warrenty company, all goes well with that. 45 minutes later get a call from AC company #1, they apologize that the soonest they can come is Sunday so that gets scheduled.
Saturday: AC isn't freezing at higher temps such as ~82 degrees. We turn it down little by little and it seems to work.
Sunday: Turn the AC to 68 degrees to try to replicate the problem before the fix-it guy comes. No dice. I cancel the appt.
Monday Morning: I wake up in a pool of sweat again. I call the warrenty people, reopen the claim, 45 minutes later, AC Company #1 calls to schedule for that day. I am in a good mood.
Monday Night: I get home to a cool house.
Wednesday Night: I get around to looking over the bill and seeing what was wrong. It needed Freon, that's it. Funny, I had the outside unit replaced last month, why would it need Freon so soon?
Friday: I called the company and talked to the tech who serviced my house. He said that it isn't normal for it to need Freon so soon and that the company that replaced the unit last month didn't put the caps on the Freon chamber and also didn't charge it correctly. They advise me to call the warrenty company about getting my $40 (service fee deductable) back.
Today: Was on hold for a pretty long while with the warrenty company but I should be expecting a check within 7-14 business days.

Moral of the story: Old Republic Warrenty Company is awesome and I highly recommend them if you own your house - they are worth it.

I'm still hunting for jobs. All previous happenings have either fallen thru or don't exist anymore.

On Saturday I purchased a new 160 GB hard drive, a DVD Burner, and a firewire card. They should come in the mail hopefully before the weekend. Once installed I can get all my videos from my digital camcorder tapes into a more practical data form. I will be the talk of Kazaa yet! Mwahahaha! Currently all my computers and all my mom's computers work without problems... hell may have frozen over but this also may only be a test. But we'll see what happens when I install the new parts next week. That outta shut me up...unless I bleed on it and satisfy the computing gods that is. Once these parts and also my $216 one credit summer class at ASU is paid for, I priced building a nice compact little server for less than $400. This will drop the load my main computer has as it currently shares out the internet connection to the rest of the computers in the house (only 4 others at the moment) and will allow Miguel to have his ftp server back up and running for everyone who likes downloading all his goodies. And I will be able to turn my main computer OFF once in a while thus preserving its life span and the temperature in my room. Hopefully this will be done before I head to London in mid-July. It could be done right now but getting fired kinda sets me back a few bucks. Lets be frank here, I'm bitter and will always be bitter because the only thing wrong that I did was be too enthusiastic about working at my super cool job. (No, there was not any sarcasm in that last sentence, that is what happened - I finally found out the reason but am not posting because technically I shouldn't know and the names have been changed to protect the innocent).

More stuff to come later...mainly cause I have a bit of a headache right now. Ciao!

Hunger

Comfort

Hygiene

Energy

Fun

Social

Bladder

Room

Upgrading

Reach for the lasers with Antic's Sims-ulator!

2004-05-19T00:00:00.000-07:00

I think from recent events that it seems to be human nature for people to kick others when they're down and also to be two-faced. Don't see much of that in the animal kingdom. Not much else to say other than I don't have any respect for these people. I'm learning who my true friends are every day.

2004-05-18T14:02:00.000-07:00

The Mario Bros. Video part 4 has been released. The links have been updated in my March 31st post.

Got one of the best Spam subject lines yet:
"Living Smokers Wanted"

The semester is over and I still feel like I have no time. Seems there is constantly something that needs attention at home, mostly cleaning. And I'm starting to get real sick of it. Spent 2 hours cleaning the carpet and doing dishes last night. We have no paper plates because Miguel doesn't seem to feel like getting them (its his turn) so that means mountains of dishes everywhere. I finally finish laundry but still have to put it away. My closet reaks of the Fixer (a photography chemical) that somehow got out of its sealed container and leaked all over the other bottles on the same shelf. Nothing got ruined thankfully but its going to take a while to clean up. I've been constantly tired since Sunday night when we got back from the cabin trip this weekend. Me, Mike, Chris, Ryan and Brooke went up to 50 miles past Payson for the weekend because it was Ryan's bday. His parent's cabin that we stayed in was just darn beautiful. The whole area was pretty with its live trees and vegetation (as compared to here) and it was so peaceful and quiet with great weather. Hope you had a happy birthday! You are now numerically as old as I am!

On the way home we heard there was a wildfire and the highway was backed up and closed to one lane. By the time we got there the traffic was gone and I got a whole bunch of pictures of the fire from the car. Most of them are rather blurry...its hard to get good pics from the car. I've never seen a wildfire so up close before, its rather fascinating. I'm not saying its a good thing or anything but it was an experience. Currently its all over the news and papers.

We also saw Van Helsing on Friday. See the Sims-ulator below for my review of the movie.

Mike is going to Yuma this weekend. Sucks that we've spent only a few hours of us time together in the last few weeks. I'll prolly hit up the video games with Jason, maybe even finally finish Peak 1 in SSX3...here's to hoping. And I know there'll be more to clean at the house. I think I've almost completely forgotten how it feels to be bored. I feel drained and not very happy. Mike had to even remind me of watching the Shield tonight. I can't believe I forgot about it, I look forward to it every week. I've been quite absent-minded lately and I don't like it one bit.

Oh, and I'm still on the prowl about a new full time job. Send em my way if ya hear about any openings.

Hunger

Comfort

Hygiene

Energy

Fun

Social

Bladder

Room

Van Helsing

Reach for the lasers with Antic's Sims-ulator!

2004-05-12T18:52:00.000-07:00

The following topic is dedicated to all the morons at ASU that leave nasty notes on people's cars:

Parking isn't bad enough at ASU with the high prices ($150 & up) just to leave your car on some asphault and the 15 minute walk to wherever you have to go in the 120 degree death heat. But there is an unnecessary evil lurking in the parking lots. I'm talking about the assholes that leave nasty letters under the windshield wipers of yours and mine car. So if you are one of these assholes, I'd like to point out a few smidgets of information that you may not have thought about. 1) You are stupid to think that I even read these anymore, you cannot hurt my feelings when your paper is crumpled up on the ground. 2) You are littering. I believe this illegal activity is a $500 fine if you are caught and I surely hope you are one day. 3 and most important) Do you actually think I am the first person in the fucking parking lot in the morning? Because if I was, you could blame me for my retarded parking job. However, I was smack dab in the middle of the 2 cars to the side and the car in front of me. So if you can't get into the spot next to me, its not my fucking fault. Maybe you should buy a smaller car since you obviously have problems with the parking jobs. If I ever catch you littering on my car again just because you got drunk with 15 members of the opposite sex the night before your final and bombed it because the answer to #2 was not "I puked so much 3 hours ago," you can bet that your car will have a few flat tires when you get back from business at ASU. In addition, I'd like to add that every time this happens to me, I take a step back and look at my parking job, ironically I'm always inside the lines.

On a different note, here is the winner of the best spam subject line from last week:
"Do you give her enough 413143b?"

Hunger

Comfort

Hygiene

Energy

Fun

Social

Bladder

Room

Parking at ASU

Reach for the lasers with Antic's Sims-ulator!

2004-05-10T17:01:00.000-07:00

Got home late last night from Mike's house, took off my shoes, and started to walk upstairs to my room. Turned around to talk to roommates and felt something bite me on my toe. Looked down and saw an ant so I kicked him off and proceeded to give him the worst beat-down ever in life. That's when I noticed at least 200 of his friends next to my foot. Ugh, so tired and not wanting to deal with this. Miguel was nice enough to drive us all to Albertsons to get insect killer which is strategically in the same aisle as the other poisons and children's toys. We barely made it before 1am, because before leaving the house we had to get all the cats and food and water into my room and put the rats in a reptile tank donated by Nick. Went back home, proceeded thru the mass murder of ants, and then eventually went to bed. Tonight is gonna be fun, cleaning the rat cage (which is where the ants were going) and the carpet from the ant poison so that it doesn't hurt any of the pets. I think I'll use the garden hose on one of em, I'll let you think about which one though.

This brings me to my next point, I have a new roomy. He is Nick. He loves kitties, games, and the internet. Whee! He's fun to talk to and the best part is that Mike is cool with another guy in the house. Miguel is happy because he wanted another guy after having to deal with massive amounts of Aileen's feminine products all over the place.

I have a job interview on Thursday with the Autism Research Center downtown. They are starting up a new research project this summer and need more people. I have all my fingers crossed.

Today was the deadline for me to register with Arizona's job finder service and I completely forgot because of dealing with those stupid ants. On top of that, Nathan at work came up to me today to tell me of a new rule by student employment. Non-degree grad students have to take classes during the summer or they aren't allowed to work. So unless I fork over a few hundred dollars to the man, I lose this job too. This is because they are working on a new system in student employment that tracks VISAS. How this pertains to a US Citizen just trying to get by is beyond me but its all due to the fucking stupid Homeland Security Act. If I haven't said it before, I hate that fucking bastard known as Baby Bush. So now, he is forcing people out of jobs just because he has this notion that terrorists are everywhere and once we destroy all the little countries we'll be ok....and I think I saw Anthrax in my laundry detergent the other day. But if I loose my job, I'll have to stick with the Anthrax-ridden detergent as I cannot afford any other. For all the stupid people that found my blog by typing "I love big green monster trucks" into a search engine, those last few sentences were heavily injected with sarcasm.

I think that if I didn't have a most wonderful weekend with Mike, that I'm sure I would be purchasing a flame thrower about now so that I could at least go to jail after having some fun instead of trying to fit my belongings into a cardboard box once my house is repossessed because everybody is such a dick to me in my endeavors to stay employed.

Whee!!

Hunger

Comfort

Hygiene

Energy

Fun

Social

Bladder

Room

Bush & Unemployment

Reach for the lasers with Antic's Sims-ulator!

2004-04-29T19:13:00.000-07:00

Got fired today from the best and most fun job I've ever had. Don't know why, they refused to tell me.

2004-04-23T18:00:00.000-07:00

No fun and exciting sporn lately, mostly just yucky ones.

I have had an upper respitory infection since Wednesday. The doc put me back on the miracle asthma drug called Singular to see if it indeed was causing the last upper respitory infection which lasted over a month - that really really sucked. So I was taking this one drug called Advair which is the new form of the 2 inhalers I've been taking for years and I wasn't getting sick from the Singular. After the Advair ran out I went back to using my normal inhalers because I had already bought them (and they are expensive) and 2 days later I get sick again. So my doc finally got back to me today and refilled my presriptions for me and told me to try the Singular with only the Advair and see if I get sick again....I will do this AFTER school is done because I am not getting crappy grades just cause my doc doesn't think this medicine is causing the sickness.

I have been talking to many car sales people and I spent many hours last Saturday car shopping. Almost got a new Mitsubishi Lancer and got a heck of a deal offered but I stood my ground because it was looking day, not buying day. I picked up a brochure on Ford Focuses at the Earnhardts in Awautukee, and browsed thru options and models to find the absolute perfect car for me. I want a Ford Focus ZTS in Light Tundra. I will stand my ground thru any sales pitches to get it. One guy from Lou Grub Ford proposed customized building of my car since he could not find any ZTS's in Light Tundra in Arizona that did NOT have a leather interior. Who would want leather in Arizona anyway? I don't want to pay an extra $900 to pry my skin off of the seats with a crowbar, its just not pleasant. He said there's only a $500 down payment to make the car and that is just so that they know I'm serious about buying it since its a custom order. Then I go there and tell them exactly what I want, down to the fabric of the seats and its no extra charge. I get the car in about 3 months (just in time for my birthday) and pay for it when its done. I am super excited cause I wasn't planning on actually buying the car til August anyway. This is the best of all worlds! Oooh I cannot wait to have an mp3 player/cd player in the car, whee!

Laura from work and I came up with an interesting punishment of criminals of the future. We thought that instead of jail time, murderers and other convicts that have commited hanis crimes but do not get the death penalty (ie., the 25-lifers) should be forced thru the court system to have their brain removed from their body and switched with a severely disabled person's body. That way, the convict cannot hurt anybody because they will be bed and/or wheelchair-ridden and the handicapped person will have a chance at a new life in the healthy convict's body. I think this would be fair retribution. This idea is now being copyrighted and Laura gets 20% of the profits.

ATTENTION NICKELBACK HATERS OF PORTUGAL: You are reFUCKINGtarded!
I heard on the radio last week that Nickelback was on tour in Portugal and during their 2nd song they started getting pelted by rocks. The lead singer said "Do you wanna go home or do you wanna hear some rock and roll?" This was met by more rocks hitting him, the band, and the microfone (the audio clip was played on the air while the dj was talking about it). So they thru their shit down and left...I say good for them! So yeah, a bunch of stupid idiots in Portugal spent minimum $50 on Nickelback tickets to throw rocks at the band. God they are stupid. Mike suggested that from now on every interview conducted by Nickelback should end with the lead singer giving the camera the finger and saying "oh yeah, and fuck Portugal!" I agree that this would be more than appropriate. I'm not a big fan of this band but I don't change the station when they come on the radio....but geez...well, at least the band got the stupid Portugeses' money. The only band I am truely angry at (still), is the Violent Femmes...I spent a good deal of my money several years ago on concert tickets and risked my life in a huge crowd-surfing mosh pit only to hear 2-3 songs before they walked off stage because someone threw a fucking shoe (and it wasn't even aimed at them). What a fucking waste of money, stupid Violent Femmes and their pansy-ass attitudes. And I was in the second row too. :( I hate all the people that ruin good concerts, but sometimes its the band's fault too. Now I can't even listen to them on the radio or mp3s because it makes me too angry. Violent Femmes suck-ass as much as Popov. See the special bonus video of my "Lilith in a Box" party to understand that reference.

That's it for me for now - LAN party is tomorrow starting at 5pm, bring meat if'n ya wanta grill.

Hunger

Comfort

Hygiene

Energy

Fun

Social

Bladder

Room

Singular

Reach for the lasers with Antic's Sims-ulator!

2004-04-16T17:49:00.000-07:00

My car battery died this morning and just clicked at me when I turned the key in the ignition, how irritating! It has been dying for two months now and it couldn't have waited til the weekend! Oh well, I'm $55 poorer and have a working automobile once again. Thank goodness today is payday.

The other day the automatic soap dispenser at my fancy new job's bathroom kept spitting soap out at me even though I wasn't near it....I think it was trying to tell me that I am unclean.

My left knee is hurting increasingly more every couple of days, I think I may have to break down and see the doc about it...especially since this knee is not the one that is world renowned for dislocating every once in a while. But speaking of my "bad" knee, it tried to pull its trick again last night but I stopped it before it could pop out all the way. I know going to the doc will be a waste of time, he's either going to tell me he has no idea and won't know unless we go in there and do some exploritory surgery OR he will tell me that my left knee is having sympathy pains for all the pain my right one will cause me soon.

Mike D is having a party tomorrow night, prolly won't go to that cause Mike's mom is in town. Then we got my LAN next Saturday and Kirstin is having a party the following Friday. Don't think I've ever experienced so many pre-finals' parties in a row. Its time to leave work soon, I think I will go to the front desk for the last 10 minutes.

Hunger

Comfort

Hygiene

Energy

Fun

Social

Bladder

Room

Dead Car Batteries

Reach for the lasers with Antic's Sims-ulator!

2004-04-14T17:27:00.000-07:00

Jason says that he wished he got my sporn emails because mine are funnier than his. So in the interest of entertaining everyone, here are my favorite subject lines out of today's 93 new emails:
1) "Stupid girl tasting horse"
2) "Turn your spud into a stud" - I get a few of these per week
3) "Passions in the Farm"
Now we can all benefit from ASU selling my email addy! Expect more later, they just keep on coming!

Its been an ok day so far. Ever see a movie where at some point a bus of hot chicks in bikinis pulls up to 2 guys and want them to come with them on their bikini tour? Didn't think it actually happens though right? Well it doesn't. BUT...I had a similar experience today. I was walking across the ASU campus going to work and this bus pulls up to me, a guy hangs out the door holding two SOBEs and says "do you want a SOBE?" That is when I looked at the bus and it was covered in painted green lizards with "SOBE" written on the side. I asked which one and he said either so I picked the non-opaque one, I seem to not like all the opaque flavors. And then the bus kept going. I was pretty dumbfounded, but happy nonetheless. It totally made up for the irritating wait of the 69 car train that kept me from getting to school...I'd like to punch whoever thought it was a good idea to put an active train track on the busiest streets that lead to the biggest university in the state...and yes, I did count the number of cars, I had nothing better to do.

I think I may be starting to like the weekdays more than the weekends...which is scary. With the exception of last Sunday, the last 2 weekends have been pretty crummy. Me and Mike saw a lot of movies and ate at good food places but something was lacking and I can't put my finger on it. But last Sunday was great. Chris invited us over to his mom's house for a wonderful Easter lunch. Then he and Ryan were nice enough to come with me and Mike to put room for rent flyers all over MCC. Afterwards me and Mike did homework and then went back to his house and started up a new PS2 game that Jason lent me called "Jak and Daxter." It was so fun that I didnt even touch the food Mike put in front of me til he asked the second time in about 10 minutes if I would eat at least a few bites. I did open the Citrus Drop without him having to remind me of that. We must have played for about 3.5 hours and I was so tired when I went home I could barely see straight. We will continue the game tomorrow night after Mike gets out of Latin class - I cannot wait.

I also loaded up on the reduced price left-over Easter candy. Two large bag fulls for only $12! Its not all for me, some of it is for Mike, some is for the rats and some is for you if you can solve the puzzle in this picture: http://www.public.asu.edu/~bob1wzrd/pictures/hashiparty3-13-04/ and then click on "870.jpg". Ah the power of blackmail material - but what fun is it when you are compelled by the guilty party to take it down? Ehhh!

I still need a roommate! You can have Easter candy! Please?!?!

Oh, and Chris, if you are reading this you are a pervert! Pretending you are assleep on the couch is just dirty. You owe me $10 now.

FYI: I'm having a LAN party on Saturday the 24th starting at 5pm. It will be fun and so you must come. That's all I can think of right now.

Hunger

Comfort

Hygiene

Energy

Fun

Social

Bladder

Room

SOBE Bus Rules!

Reach for the lasers with Antic's Sims-ulator!

2004-04-07T20:41:00.000-07:00

This is sick: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4685961/ ... seriously, why do people do this shit to themselves? That "I'm now trendy" excuse is total bullshit, you just spent at least $600 mutilating your eye for crying out loud!

2004-04-07T19:44:00.000-07:00

I've messaged 92 people on roommates.com, got 4 replies, 1 who actually set up a time to come look at the house, called during that time saying he had to go to work early, set up a new time and then never showed. This is quite irritating, it shouldn't be this hard to find someone!

My knee decided to act up again today, it is quite sore and a bit swollen but at least I can walk without crutches. I was showing Chris2 how to do the hip part of belly dancing because he couldn't do it. I told him just let your hips follow your knees...and then my knee cap followed my hip while the rest of my knee stayed put. As always it immediately returned to its rightful place but a little damage has been done. Luckily I had barely any weight on it when it happened! Odd thing is that my other (left) knee has been hurting all week...this is so confusing! I either have 2 bad knees, or my left one is having pre-emptive sympathy pains. Whee, hobling all over ASU!! Not that this is new, my freshman year of high school I sprained my right knee 3 times in 5 months, the first 1 wasn't too bad, though I'll never go ice skating again, I could still walk that night. The other 2 times, I tore the ligament (same one) and was on crutches for a week and physical therapy for 2 months. Then I did it again my freshman year of college, approx. Nov. '98 during a fencing match. I'm afraid to be a freshman again. Is there a freshman of Graduate school?

I came home yesterday to a house that was freezing, horray for air conditioning! Its finally fixed! Last night it was 65 degrees in the house! It makes me so happy.

Rat experiment is chugging along. I'm on the final day of the 1st (of 2) parts of the actual experiment, as opposed to training. I should be done by Sunday, assuming everything goes ok. So far the evidence from the trials everyday have provided much empiracle support of my hypothesis: "Animals communicate and can tell each other how to solve puzzles or problems even if they don't do it thru observing each other". My teacher is very intriged with my work and how its going, she even requested that I email her some of the stats that I have. I smell a very high A headed towards me; this paper is worth more than 2 tests worth of points.

Aileen's dad did my taxes and said "ok" when I told him to get his $50 from Aileen who owes me a good deal of $$ from taking off. I said she can pay half a months rent plus a cleaning fee since she didn't clean the whole thing which comes to $230 OR I can take her to court for breaking her lease and that grand total with court costs is prolly over $1000. She can pick which one she wants to pay...I am still being too nice, I know. On the negative side, instead of getting $900 back like I was expecting, I get to pay about $100. This would be a good time to mention the big money troubles I'm experiencing because of the stupid AC and meanie-head Aileen. I will have to review all the paperwork tax crap and make sure I understand why its about a thousand less than I was expecting. I'm so stressed. I need hugs. Please send me hugs. I can't wait til this semester is over and I'm making boat loads of money and everything will be happier in the realm of owing money.

Hunger

Comfort

Hygiene

Energy

Fun

Social

Bladder

Room

My Right Knee

Reach for the lasers with Antic's Sims-ulator!

2004-04-02T17:10:00.000-07:00

So today I learned how to view private feedback, I still have no idea who left it though...I'll never be a Private Eye Dectective. :(

Things of noteworthy interest:

Aileen is gone. Yup gone. She must have gotten confused about how to tell me because she mistook giving me a written 30 day notice (which is required by her lease) for a scribbled note on my desk 3 days before the end of the month to explain why half her stuff was gone. She also didn't finish cleaning and told me she may have time in a week and a half to clean. Um yeah, so she broke her lease, gave me barely any notice, and started moving while I was at work. My patience is up with her, no more mister nice Michelle. And boy have I been super nice. All I get for going out of my way to accomodate her and her money trouble is to be bent over and screwed. Not in a nice way either. So I am searching desperately for a roommate. I msged over 60 people from roommates.com and got 2 answers. I put up flyers around ASU and also hung a "room for rent" sign on my front gate. Any prospective roommate will get a party thrown in their honor...cmon please!

Sure will be fun trying to explain to a potential roommate that the AC is still broken but it will be fixed soon. Side note: I need an entire new unit. The warranty people have approved it and we are waiting for the parts to be delivered. I am starting to be able to tell the difference in the temperature just based on sweating. The other day I was sweating less than normal while not at all moving around and I looked at the thermometer and it said 84 instead of 86, damn I'm good. This morning I woke up not sweating and was content at the temperature in the house because ITS A RAINY DAY. Huzzah! Thermometer read a mere 78 degrees and I was jumping for joy, even though it was 8 in the morning.

I got an A on my last test in my psych class "Analysis of Behavior." I thought I was doomed when the teacher walked in and said it was the worse test scores yet and she was worried about us....and then proceded to thank the few people that got A's so she knows its not her that is causing all the stupidity. I, like my teacher, gave waaaaay too much credit to the "people" in my class. By "people" I mean the species are suppose to have a decent sized frontal lobe....but I think most of my classmates traded their frontal lobes for something shiny or perhaps for a chance to be on one of the many sucky reality tv shows. So after we went over the test, we broke off into groups of 3 to do group activities. Normally I like these activities for the sole reason that anything we get right is extra credit....and apparently these "people" need it, but this turned out to be what I'll put simply as "the dumbest psychology major students ever." And when dumb gets together, the following happens: We were asked to list 5 examples of negative reinforcement and then answer this question: "which is used more often in our society, negative or positive reinforcement?" While this seems to be something that would be done in psych 101, my other 2 group members surely popped some blood vessels trying to come up with some crap that didn't even make a coherent sentance. But for some god-forsaken reason, they understood each other perfectly!! I rattled off 2-3 examples so that we could get the show on the road and was met by complete opposition from my group. I was totally dumbfounded and somehow we got into an argument on the basic definition of negative reinforcement....as if it were argueable? Its a definition, it doesn't fucking change! So I just put my head in my hand, closed my eyes, and stopped talking til we got the teacher over to settle the argument. I don't think I'll ever forget the look on her face when she was listening to the other 2 rattle off what can only be described as incoherent crap. She looked like she wanted to ask them if they were either 1) in the right class? 2) completely retarded? 3) had even bothered to buy the book? But also she had this look like she didn't want to be mean and didn't know how to tell them that they are soooo far away from the correct definition that one would wonder if they could even pass the electronic stapler test. (For those of you who do not know the stapler test, please ask.) My group then told me to say my examples, so they could get the teacher's disapproval as well and she pointed at me and said "that's exactly right." So then we finally were able to get the assignment done. Afterwards we were just chatting and my group members were bitching about how much they hate this class and guess what!? The guy in my group is graduating with a psychology degree this semester and has already gotten accepted to grad school. These are the experiences in life that make me think it may not be all that hard to get into grad school. They accept people who don't even know the definitions to basic psych terminology so I should be a shoe-in!

The rat experiment is going ok so far. I completed the 15 days of training the rats to not be scared of being out of the cage and to eat when food is presented. They are still a bit skidish but not even close to the first few days. I am currently "magazine training" them which basically means that I am training them to go where I want them to go by placing no obsticals in the way of the food. Currently they just have to climb up 3 increasingly taller boxes and then eat what they want. Later, I will not have the boxes right next to each other and they will have to problem solve how to get up to the tall box. The answer is that they need to push the boxes back together. The dependant variable is the amount of time from when I place them on the table to when they get to the top and start eating the food. Should be on that by Sunday at the most. The experiment with the cats is simple and will only take 4 days, I'll do that after I'm done with the rats. I was thinking the other day that if my hypothesis on animal communication proves to be right, I wonder what my chances of getting my study published are? And if by some miracle, some journal cared to publish something by a loley Bachelor Degree person, my chances at grad school would skyrocket! So now what used to be just a simple research paper due at the end of the semester has become possibly my career saviour. I'm excited, once I finish and write up a first draft (the methodology section is already pretty much done, just need to tweak it a little) I should ask my teacher to see if publication is even possible. Eeeeee!

K, that's enough for now, my wrists hurt.

Hunger

Comfort

Hygiene

Energy

Fun

Social

Bladder

Room

Aileen & No AC

Reach for the lasers with Antic's Sims-ulator!

2004-03-31T17:08:00.000-07:00

If you are reading this, it means you have nothing better to do. So you might as well do some online gaming:

Sim Girls
Crazy Flash Puzzle Game

And then, after you have beaten both those games, watch these videos:
Mario Video1
Mario Video2
Mario Video3
Mario Video4

2004-03-29T15:40:00.000-07:00

So...yeah...the ac is still busted...its pretty hot but not as bad as last week. And I got the electric bill yesterday, its still dirt cheap so can't complain there. Here's a quick time line of the ac saga:

-Monday: Guardian Heating and Cooling calls me to make an appointment. Soonest they can come out is Wednesday but I work from 9am to 11:30pm on Wednesdays. So they schedule a tech to come out between 8 & Noon on Thursday.
-Wednesday: Guardian Heating and Cooling calls to say their tech is sick and cannot come out in the morning and that a new person can come out that afternoon instead. I then procede to bitch them out saying that I am of the working class and cannot be home all day every day to accomodate their needs. I am put on hold for about 3 minutes and the guy comes back and says that a tech will be there between 7 & 10 instead.
-Thursday @ 10:50am: Wake up to the same guy from Guarding calling to say he cannot get ahold of his tech by radio. I said that is ok because I am sleepy. Approx. 3 minutes later the doorbell rings. I talked to the tech for a moment and he says that he doesn't have a ladder big enough to get on my roof so he ditches me instead of going to get a bigger ladder. I call both Guardian to say "wtf?" and my home warrenty people to tell them.
-Thursday @ 2pm: Get a call from Ambient Air to set a new appt. A long story short, the warrenty people will foot the bill for an "after-hours" call for Friday @ 6:15pm.
-Friday @ 6:15pm: I'm driving like mad trying to get home in time. The tech calls and says he's about 10 minutes away...whew!
-Friday @ 6:30pm: Tech shows up. We have a brief argument about who is suppose to pay the "after hours" fee and I win. AC is fixed by 7:15pm. Huzzah! I leave with Miguel almost immediately for Brady's party.
-Saturday @ 9pm: Me and Mike come home to feed the rats before we go out to a movie and then back to his place. It is very hot in the house (hotter than outside). I turn on the AC and proceed to feed the rats. Half hour later its still hot, I check the vents and its blowing hot air again. Grr! I leave a message on Ambient Air's Emergency line that its broke again and that the AC man said there may be a freon leak....well apparently there's a pretty big freon leak. Incidently they never call me back. "Emergency line" my ass!
-Today @ 8:10am: Set my alarm to call Ambient Air first thing in the morning today. Same tech is suppose to come by tomorrow between 7 and 9am tomorrow. I hope they just give me a new AC unit.

Other events of interest, hmm, I almost bought a brand new Ford Focus on Saturday at the huge Ford tent sale at Bank One Ballpark. Me and Mike carpooled down there and didn't intend to buy a car, we just wanted to get the free shit they were giving away, but I was introduced to all the many safety features of the Focus and was very impressed; its a cute design and super high safety rating. Plus, though my current car is paid off and that is nice, it does have over 112K miles on it. Its been very reliable and it may just decide to have a major thing break at any time....just for fun ya know?

On Sunday I got an email from Jason that Wizards of the Coast in Fiesta Mall is going out of business and has a 50-70% off sale. So I got Cranium for less than $20, if anyone wants to get together to play, we need at least 6 people...hint hint. I got a decent amount of homework done throughout the weekend. I'm not exactly as far as I want to be but I have a chapter and a half left to read before the test next Tuesday (not to be confused with tomorrow) so that isn't too bad. Mike has some competition with being the most favorite human male of the kitties, Miguel has been brushing Milo and Baby (Lilith doesn't really like to be brushed because she is loca) most every day. Baby is getting so soft and his dandruff is much much less. Mike says that he won't win because of time constraints and Miguel just has too much kitty opportunity time. I say Mike should actually hang out at my house once in a while besides at rat-feeding time; but Mike likes his house and his bed so I guess me liking my house doesn't count. Oh and me and Mike had a most wonderful date night on Saturday. We went to Black Angus with a coupon that made our meal, which otherwise would prolly be around $60, affordable. And afterwards saw Dawn of the Dead. It may be that it just hit way to close to home being that I'm from Wisconsin but after about 10 minutes I was scared enough to leave the theater. I stuck it out with my eyes closed a lot of the time and I'm glad I did. It was a very good and definitely scary zombie movie with some humor mixed in. I highly recommend that movie if you do not get quesy at the sight of human innerds (or zombie innerds for that matter).

That's all for now, here's my Sim-ulator for the day:

Hunger

Comfort

Hygiene

Energy

Fun

Social

Bladder

Room

Air Conditioning

Reach for the lasers with Antic's Sims-ulator!

2004-03-22T17:35:00.000-07:00

What is the #1 reason to be happy that you are at work on a Monday after Spring Break? Answer: Because you are living in Arizona and the air conditioning broke yesterday. My goodness it was hot. I ran my hair under cold water every few hours to keep cool and took several mini car-riding trips to use the AC in the car.

This Spring Break wasn't that great, I've been pretty stressed during most of it and had way too much to do. Mike was gone so I didn't get to hang out with him, but I guess it turned out for the better since I had barely any time to myself anyways. He rocked out in Yuma, hanging out with parents and friends. I did not get Peak 1 finished in SSX3 but I did get close... just not enough time to play video games. I did manage to get all my homework done and bills paid so it wasn't a total loss. My stupid HOA sent me a bill for 27 cents because they told me the wrong amount to pay and then threatened to give me a late fee. I called the lady and got everything straightened out but geez, can't they get anything straight?

Last Monday I started my experiment with my rats. Currently all I am doing is taking 1 rat out of the cage at a time and giving them 10 minutes a day to eat as much as they want from a dish on my dining room table. This first phase of my experiment is designed to get my girls use to eating outside their cage by making it the only available option. Today is the 2nd week (8th day) and I'm bumping them up to 15 minutes a rat. Its a pain in the butt because sometimes I just don't feel like doing it, but its important and my research paper will kick ass.

I got my tetonis shot on Friday, that was not a pleasant experience. My arm is feeling better today, the searing pain is dying down. I thought that it would only hurt for 1 day, man was I wrong. But it was a necessary evil, I needed proof of the shot as a pre-req to being a research assistant in the ASU Operant Behavior Lab becaue we will work with rats and pigeons. This I will do in the summer.

This past weekend was awesome. It was definitely a break from the ironic stress of Spring Break. Friday night me and Mike went to a fancy smancy wine and fancy food event where everything was free. It was amazing! The food and drink was awesome. I tried food that would not normally appeal to me and I just had a darn good time. We even took a few pics so look at me and Mike. And then I gave these pics to Tracy who is the grand master of photoshop and she made this and this. I am amazed at her skills and how she made me into a glamor shot model in that last pic. She has got da skillz!

Saturday was me and Mike's 1 year anniversary. It was packed with hugs and kisses. We went to AZ Mills mall to reserve Resident Evil for the PS2 for Mike and while I was there I bought a used copy of Crazy Taxi. When we got home and tested it, it wouldn't work so we went back. I was just going to get my money back with a lesson learned from buying used non-cartridge games but the guy gave me a brand new copy instead...score!! We drove up to Sunset Point a bit later and had a picnic up there. It was great: wind, cool temperature, good company :), and tasty food. Only two things went wrong with our mini trip. First there was a traffic jam because every idiot on the highway had to gawk at a cop pulling someone over. This made us late and the sun had just hid behind the mountains when we got there. Two, we both forgot to bring a bottle opener for the apple cider - which incidently we've done more than just this one time. Mike, with the help of his house key, managed to pry the cap off with minimal fuss. After getting back into town we went to my house and fed the rats (see above for why this takes so long) and then headed off to AZ Mills mall for the 3rd time in 1 day to see Secret Window with Johnny Depp. I highly DO NOT recommend this movie. The ending was extremely dissappointing and cliche. I'm glad Mike liked it but I was very dissapointed with it. I really really want to see The Passion but Mike said that it most likely was depressing and he didn't want to watch a sad movie on our anniversary which is totally understandable. We will see it sometime, not sure when but it will happen.

This Friday Brady is having a poker, drinking and Monica-friendly gaming party. It should be fun. His new condo is so cool, the layout is awesome and I would have definitely looked into that place when I was looking for my house, but he is way far away on 19th Ave and Camelback which is just too far to even consider. Should be fun, I am looking forward to a night with games and friends where I don't have to be the one cleaning the next day. :)

Hunger

Comfort

Hygiene

Energy

Fun

Social

Bladder

Room

Luving Mike

Reach for the lasers with Antic's Sims-ulator!

2004-03-12T18:01:00.000-07:00

Went to the Ren Fair last weekend. It was a blast, though we got separated from just about everyone throughout the day. Hooray for no sunburns!! Afterwords was another of the multi-annual BYOMBBQ (bring your own meat bbq). This one will stay in my memory as the absolute messiest party ever. At least at the Lilith-in-the-Box party the kitchen just wreaked of alcohol but it wasn't a complete mess. (For those of you who are new, the Lilith-in-a-Box party is practically legendary now, pictures to come soon even though I've had them almost a year now.) I'm amazed I got the daquiri out of the carpet (thank you Kirstin for slapping it out of Seth's hand! And thank you Seth for handing a daquiri to a drunk person right over my head! FYI: that stuff, when gotten in the eyes, completely blinds you momentarily.) I bought a digital camcorder the day before, finally used the $500 gift certificate I won. This camera is so fucking cool, it does night vision! I can record in complete darkness. I want to go camping and run around in the woods and then watch what I filmed.

So if you don't work at IT and/or haven't already heard all the rumors, we have between 2-3 hrs of footage from the party and many people are already wanting to see it (and many people on tape are wanting it to be erased). So I figure I got to get it onto the computer, edited, and onto a dvd soon. The problem: the stupid Best Buy lady didn't tell me I needed a firewire card in my computer! Arg! Also, the tapes are 15gb each and I don't have enough hard drive space to allow that. So don't bother asking about the tape on DVD until I buy a firewire card, a new hard drive, and a dvd burner. Currently that will run me about $230, so unless you want to pitch in, don't bother asking. At some point when I don't have class and have some free time I will make a webpage that has still images from parties and a spot where for a minor donation to cover the cost of duplicating the videos, people can "order" them. Whadaya think about them apples? Put some holes in the Swiss!!

Spring Break starts in 5 minutes for me because that is when I get off of work! Plans for Spring Break: 1) Go to the Library and take all my animal handling certification tests so that I can be an RA in the Operant Behavior Lab at ASU during the summer, 2) Write up my Methods section to my research proposal for class (yes I am actually going to run an entire experiment with my rats and write a research paper on it for my final paper in my class: Analysis of Behavior!! I'm so excited! Grad school just try to keep me out now!), 3) Finish Peak 1 in SSX 3 and get a good chunk of Peak 2 done.

And somebody still needs to teach me Beer Pong! Maybe at Mike D's party tomorrow night?? Eh? Any takers? Come on, it'll get me drunk! We all know you want that to happen. We will be getting there at 9pm.

Hunger

Comfort

Hygiene

Energy

Fun

Social

Bladder

Room

Spring Break!

Reach for the lasers with Antic's Sims-ulator!

2004-03-05T16:03:00.000-07:00

"I don't accept IOU's for marriage."
-Me and Leslie got on the conversation of marrying a foreign guy so they could get their green card in exchange for money and that is what I said when we wondered what would happen if the guy was going to work off his debt to me in installments and then lost his job.

Rennaissance Fair is tomorrow, we are going to go super early and stay all day. Afterwards is a drinking/bbq/gaming party at my house. It will be good. Mike has promised to get sloshed along with the rest of us, he hasn't done that in a while. Here is a brief, summarized part of our AIM conversation:
Mike: I think I am going to get re-acquainted with Jose Cuervo.
Me: Oh baby no, don't do that.
Mike: :)
Me: I have off-white carpet.

Somebody teach me Beer Pong! That's it for now.

Hunger

Comfort

Hygiene

Energy

Fun

Social

Bladder

Room

Anticipation

Reach for the lasers with Antic's Sims-ulator!

2004-02-27T22:19:00.000-07:00

I have learned today that picking wedgies is soooo much easier than trying to pull up underwear that is forever trying to slide off of my butt. Damn you new underwear!!

Today after work I went over to Mike's and we watched his roommate, Chris, play Kingdom Hearts on the PS2 for a while. He was on a section that included almost all the characters from the Hundred Acre Woods (Winnie the Poo characters for those of you not in the know). Somehow we got on the subject that each character could represent one of the 7 deadly sins. Here is our list (explanations for our thoughts in parenthesis where its not so obvious):
Pride - Tigger
Envy - Roo (he is always following and imitating Tigger, he is the wannabe Tigger)
Greed - Rabbit
Gluttony - Winnie the Poo
Sloth - Eeyore
Lust - Kanga (she's an unmarried whore of a mom)
Wrath - Christopher Robin (you know he is going to have serious issues with this kind of imaginary world and no IRL friends)

Hunger

Comfort

Hygiene

Energy

Fun

Social

Bladder

Room

Silly Thoughts

Reach for the lasers with Antic's Sims-ulator!

2004-02-26T17:38:00.000-07:00

Tracy drew me a picture while I was at work this past Monday, click here to view it.

2004-02-25T22:05:00.000-07:00

I just created my own hell! Check it out:

Scientologists
Circle I Limbo

Parents who bring squalling brats to R-rated movies
Circle II Whirling in a Dark & Stormy Wind

General asshats
Circle III Mud, Rain, Cold, Hail & Snow

Rednecks
Circle IV Rolling Weights

Republicans
Circle V Stuck in Mud, Mangled

River Styx

George Bush
Circle VI Buried for Eternity

River Phlegyas

NAMBLA Members
Circle VII Burning Sands

Osama bin Laden
Circle IIX Immersed in Excrement

Saddam Hussein
Circle IX Frozen in Ice

Design your own hell

2004-02-25T21:27:00.000-07:00

I awoke this morning to my alarm...the odd thing was that Lilith, my kitten, was sitting on my stomach and I was petting her and giving her driving directions to Thirteenth St. and Mill.

The wedding was fun, saw some people I hadn't seen in a few years and completely cleaned up on the candy...oh I stuffed a lot of candy into my pockets. During the toast, Richard made me stand up and said that the wedding and everything wouldn't have been possible without me. I was so shocked that he was acknowloging me, I think I was almost on the verge of tears it was so sweet.

I got much farther in SSX3, I try to get in at least an hour of play everynight, but it doesn't always happen. Finding all the collectables and doing the Big Challenges takes a helluvalotta time. I also started my new job yesterday. Its going good, there's a lot of stuff to learn but I'm getting it. Kelly, the current manager, says I'm learning and catching on super fast, so that is really good. Mike is excited for me because now I can afford to buy him a lot of candy and be his sugar mamma. In an email he wrote me today, he said "I am very happy you've gotten such a perfect job. Soon I will have all the candy!" That made me laugh.

I went shopping with Tracy last Saturday night for new work clothes. My vast collection of black T-shirts with white lettering isn't "new-work worthy." I recruited her because she likes to shop and I hate to shop, I figured she would make the experience tolerable and we could have hang-out time. We were in "The Mall" for about 3.5 hours, I think that is a record for me. It was actually fun, I still hated the whole trying on the clothes, seeing what they look like on me, and putting them in the reject pile, but I'd have to say that I had a good time. And Tracy is amazing at finding deals. Only she could help me find 6 work shirts and 5 pairs of underwear for $63. We will also never forget the most God-awful ugly sweater that looked like someone had barfed sequens and sparkly glitter things on it...no matter how hard we try. This shirt was on the clearance rack for way more than it was worth (ie. about 13 and a half cents) and we pulled up the mark down stickers only to learn that it was originally priced at $128. This is why I hate malls and expensive clothes stores. Because they have these so-called "designer" clothes (which generally cover progressively less surface area of your body than normal priced clothes) that they jack up the price on, even though if you wore this ugly piece of crap, you probably look like a cleaned-up homeless person. To make matters worse, just trying to get to the over-priced clothes, you have to dodge all the really annoying commission-based sales people in the jewelry and make-up sections that try to entice you in with their horrible smelling liquid crap in a bottle which is now on sale for only $49.99 with the purchase of items totaling at least $199 and, as always, your soul.

Update to my 1st Rant - Published on Thu Feb 12:
Two Tuesdays ago, as in, a week before yesterday I was at work, like usual. I had been staying behind the front desk because I didn't want to get written up again for stupid shit I didn't do. Carl (very nice and courtious supervisor) asked everyone at the main desk if they wanted to go over to the Mac Help Desk. They all said no, as did I and we stated our reasons. Carl was shocked when I told him about the guy I didn't help and said that he would at least hear me out on the matter if it were to happen again. I said that I wanted an unconditional guarantee that I wouldn't get written up for things I didn't do if I went to the Mac desk. He said that he couldn't do that but that he would be more fair than the other staff. I agreed but said that if he wrote me up for stupid shit to expect sugar in his gas tank by the next day and he said ok. So I'm at the Mac desk now, not even really paying attention to the email I'm writing (does this sound familiar yet??). I am looking up and turning my head around a lot cause I don't have eyes in the back of my head...but you already new that from the first blog that I wrote, you are smart like that. Lo and behold there is a guy struggling with swiping his card in the print release station (getting more familiar??)...and you are not going to believe this...it was the same fucking guy that got me wrote up in the first place!!! Of all the fucking ironies!!! I swear he must have my work schedule and only have to print when I'm at the damn desk. So in the interest of not getting fucked by the man again, I went over to him and asked if he needed help. He says "no." Hmmm, that is the same thing I told Aaron the week before when he wrote me up. So I asked the guy what the problem was. He politely, though obviously irritated at his card not reading, told me that these stations are the only place his card won't read and he doesn't want to pay the stupid $25 for a new one, and that it will work eventually. I didn't really believe that it would work eventually but allowed him to continue to swipe the card furiously. He proved me wrong, it did eventually work and he got his printouts. So, I was right and Corporate Power was wrong, nah na nah na nah nah. He didn't want my help and got it to work himself [flips the bird to Central IT at ASU]. I would appeal this and get the guy's signature, because he was a nice guy, but I know I'd loose. Just like I've lost other appeals to write-ups that I didn't do. "Steve's door is always open" my ass!

New happy thought. I was reading Brady's LiveJournal and saw that he had a new way of expressing his mood. And since I'm an avid The Sims player, I thought it would be very appropriate to add this to my blog entries as I go along.

Hunger

Comfort

Hygiene

Energy

Fun

Social

Bladder

Room

New Job

Reach for the lasers with Antic's Sims-ulator!

2004-02-16T23:15:00.000-07:00

Click here to see a pic of my bad-ass biker pig.

2004-02-16T00:26:00.000-07:00

V-Day weekend is now officially over and I gotta say, this has prolly been the best Valentine's Day ever in my life. Friday night Mike gave me 3 beautiful roses and then we went out to Applebees. We stayed at my house. In the morning he made me a secret breakfast which turned out to be the yummiest breakfast burrito ever. Then he gave me a box of Sees Chocolates that he picked himself - I've never had Sees and have always wanted to try them....mmmm yummy. Miguel's parents came over in the afternoon but I didn't get a chance to meet them. That night me and Mike played some SSX3 and went out to Joe's Crab Shack and saw "50 First Dates." That movie is hilarious - go see it...now! Sunday Mike had driving school to get out of his ticket and I went to do some private Windows tutoring for a guy I've been helping for over a year. Then I went to Build-a-Bear and bought some clothes for my Pig that a friend from work gave me for my birthday. He is now a bad-ass biker Pig. That store is really neat but freakishly expensive. Afterwards Mike met me at my house for our usual Sunday night studying. I decided not to study and to play more SSX3 - got almost all the gold medals on Peak 1 now, much progress from last week. For those not in the know about SSX and Tricky (my only PS2 games at the moment) check this link out: http://www.easportsbig.com/games/ssx3/home.jsp I feel bad about not reading at all and interfering with Miguel's studying. In between his lab writing, Mike played a bit of SSX3 and got pretty far. He also finished his lab, so the night wasn't a complete waste of time. I will read some of my psych chapters tomorrow.

It sucks that I have to work tomorrow after such a nice, wonderful weekend. Oh well, that's life I guess. We can't all be rich millionaires and sit on our butts all the time playing games - but wouldn't that be nice?

Mike, if you are reading this, don't forget about the wedding this Tuesday night.

2004-02-12T20:08:00.000-07:00

So apparently I've had a blog account for several years without making an actual post page and then forgot about it. I tried to create a username and it said what I wanted was already taken. For those of you who know it, my username is extremely unique, so I took a stab at a random password I may have used in the past and it let me in to create this blog! Whee!!!

This blog has several purposes:
1) Many people have asked, begged, and/or continuously rammed their heads into the wall in order for me to finally give in and create one.
2) I've realized that there are many many things that go on during the day that make me want to ram my head into the wall repeatedly and so, instead, I will just complain... nay... bitch about all the stupid people that I encounter during my daily routine.
3) To look back into the past (once I'm in the future that is) and say "what the hell was I on when I wrote that?"

So without further adieu...my first rant:

I was at work on Tuesday and there were too many of us at the main desk so I decided to be the good little dubie and go do my training and check my email over at the PC help desk, not in that order. On the fly I changed the plan to writing a letter to my younger cousin whom I haven't talked to in about 9 years - since I moved to Arizona. So, of course, this took a little thought and a semi-decent amount of time. While writing I was still keeping my head up looking for customers and the email was not my absolute entire focus in life at that moment. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Aaron (one of my many bosses) coming around the desk so I turned to him. He had a pink slip of paper in his hand - the paper used for disciplinary points. 100 points in 4 months = termination. Apparently there was a guy who was "obviously having trouble" who was not in my peripheral vision (a whopping 180 degrees of eyesight here!) nor did he ask or give any indication of needing help. So yes, I got 15 points for not helping someone who didn't ask for help and who I couldn't see because (AND YOU ARE NOT GOING TO BELIEVE THIS) I do not have eyes in the back of my head. If you didn't think that is bad enough, I tried to argue that this was unfair and that I only came out to the help desk so that there weren't so many of us CA's at the main desk (a common complaint by our supervisors) and that I was just about to start my training. Aaron says quote "well you shouldn't do that." Meaning that coming out to the desk was the wrong solution. I dunno about you but..... eh??? I don't blame Aaron, he's just doing what the higher powers told him to do. I blame the hypocritical system that signs my paychecks with a stamper. Welcome to the wonderful world of Corporate Power.

Good News #1: I got a new job. I start part-time as a manager of a psychologist's office on the 24th. It will go full time in May with super good benefits, yay!! I am both excited and nervous.

Good News #2: My friend Richard from high school is getting married this Tuesday. I am happy for him and at the same time jealous because Rebecca wouldn't have met him if it weren't for me. I embellish a little, but I definitely had a role in the blossoming of this relationship.

Good News #3: Valentine's day is this Saturday and I am looking forward to spending a long, cuddly day with my Mike. We haven't made any definite plans yet, but I know it will be fun. He can't stay up too late though cause of driving school on Sunday, ew.

I know there is a whole lot more to say, but my brain is mush and my jaw hurts from the cavity that was drilled and filled earlier today. I'll put down the virtual pen for now and maybe do some homework.