So, here I was, staring at this empty box on the WordPress “Write Post” page thinking that I’d written something and I hadn’t. And I was talking to women at the gym again, not the gay guys that my sister thinks I talk to. Do I pick them for attractiveness, for buffness, for the size of their, er, PERSONALITY?

Nope. I talk to them if they have iPods! Last week I saw someone with an iPod Shuffle. It’s quite cute practical but we all know I don’t need THREE iPods. I’m sure if I didn’t have two I’d want the second one, but now that I have two I only use one. I asked her if she’d reloaded the songs and she said she hasn’t gone through her first 100 yet. Of course, I listened to Richard Marx twice today…

The game is over, the team I was rooting for lost, and I didn’t get to beat my wife. I don’t actually have a wife, and I don’t know if I’m supposed to really beat her, but there was some statistic that my friend’s wife saw and she was telling us it was her day to get beat. Not so funny if it’s really happening, but it was interesting when she mentioned it.

I was rooting for the Eagles. I was also rooting against the Patriots. I think my time in New England was not my favorite experience, and I’d be happy if that part of the country just went back to being the insular losers they deserve to be.

I root for the Eagles because of the quarterback, Donovan McNabb. He’s a great quarterback, and also the one that Rush F*cking Limbaugh said was “overrated” because what we have here is a little social concern in the NFL. The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback can do well. So I wanted to see the Eagles win, and I wanted someone to shove a replica of the Lombardi trophy up Rush F*cking Limbaugh’s big pompous ass. But that didn’t happen.

What I did get was an interesting football game and a few interesting ads.

I’ve also been admonished for not posting over the weekend. Well, that’s mainly because I don’t do that much and couldn’t think of anything to write about. Really. “Today I helped my friend set up his wireless network and then I came home to watch reruns while doing the crossword puzzle.” How interesting is that?

Actually, I’ve seen people with livejournal blogs where they post several times a day and it’s just short postings like, “I’m so depressed…” Oh, what a joy that is to read! What skill it must take to write such effective prose! And while I really don’t know the reason I’m writing on this blog, I think it has something to do with practicing my dangling participles.

I have this picture on a bulletin board on my wall. It’s the only thing I think I’ve ever had on the bulletin board. You’ll notice that the bulletin board says “L.A. Rams.” The Rams moved to St. Louis in 1995 and I got this bulletin board back when I was in high school. The picture on it is from a girl I sat next to on a plane in the mid-80’s. She and her sister, 7 and 5, were flying from Denver to Portland to meet their parents. I can’t remember if they were flying through Portland to somewhere else. I guess that means she’s in her late 20’s now.

The picture is supposed to be me, playing soccer and has been on the wall for over 20 years.

Did I mention I’m getting more obsessed about these shoes?

I seem to be going through my shoes about every three months. I guess it doesn’t help that I had a stockpile of my expensive running shoes and I wear them to walk to work. I don’t think they’re meant for my plodding commute, 40 minutes each way. My quick calculation would indicate that 40 minutes is only two miles, but whatever. $100 * 4 isn’t exactly cheap.

So I thought I should get shoes that are a bit more rugged. I thought I saw some interesting ones on House, MD but on closer inspection, they just look like some sort of Nikes.

You can see the springy things towards the heels.

Dunno why I wanted shoes like the arrogant doctors on the show, but you have to start somewhere. I think I’ll probably end up going to REI and buying whatever fits. I think I also need a bigger belt.

Some one set us up the bomb.

I get email from time to time telling me not to give up on applying to medical school. Hah. Fat chance I’m going to try that again. I’m pretty frigging bitter already. A few more rounds of not getting in and I’d have to hurt someone. Anyway, that was all about TEN YEARS AGO and I’m pretty much over it. I had to find something else to be bitter about, and that’s my vestigial Master of Science in Computer Science. I’m now making less money than the 20-year-old high school dropout I’m working with and happy for it since most of the CS jobs are going off-shore and I don’t think I could find another job.

After all the time and money I spent applying to medical school, I’m not taking down the web site I put up with all my rejection letters. People ask me what I did wrong and the answers are all there. I did a lot of things right, and the medical schools I contacted even told me they had NO idea why I didn’t make it off of the wait list. The last rejection letters I received were AFTER classes had begun at Creighton University, St. Louis University, and Case Western Reserve University. OK, maybe Creighton sent the letter a little earlier. I can’t remember that far back. But I do know I was looking at the calendar and even called the schools to ask when classes started.

So I know I need to get over it, but then what would I do? “Get on with your life,” right? Well, on with my life is serving as an example, a bad example, to others.

I used to get really mad when people sent me chain mail. Especially the kind that said horrible things would happen to me if I didn’t pass it on. Basically, my “friends” are threatening me, and telling me to threaten my friends. Well, my friends are my friends and if I have to take the figurative bullet, I will. Anyway, I always break chain letters and I’m often cursed.

The latest is this music meme thing. I’m supposed to pass it to three people I know, probably three people who have blogs. Well, I only know three people with blogs and that’s where the meme came from.

Back to my curse, I’m getting hit by lots of comment spam tonight. And since all my tax forms aren’t in yet, I thought I’d send in my $50 rebate for my cell phone. Guess who went on a cleaning kick and threw out the box? I was supposed to cut the IMEI number out of the box for the rebate. Gaaah. Well, that was my own fault.

Oh, and I decided to go look at one of my old “online dating” accounts and it looks like it’s gone, and gone with it is my $25. I paid up to send an email back to someone who said she was “interested” but who then quit emailing me. Probably for the better, since I’m not a dog person and she had two very large and mean looking dogs.

I cleaned out the laundry room and headed to the Waste Transfer Station (where I used to work) to get rid of all the Household Hazardous Waste. They weren’t open! Well, the guy told me 7AM-4PM Mon-Fri was my only chance. What do they expect me to do to get rid of this stuff? I’ll call them tomorrow to see what the party line is. And no, I don’t plan to pour it down the sink.

Other than that, I spent most of the day wishing there were football games on. You know how that is. I saw The Replacements which was a whole lot better than I was expecting. Entertaining and silly, but mostly entertaining.

I watched Mortal Kombat Annihilation and, of course, it was bad. But even worse, there wasn’t enough cheesy techno nor enough cartoonish fighting. What is the world coming to?

I had to help my old Explorer Post Advisor with his computer (a hopeless P90 with 32MB of RAM) and his radio controller. I think we convinced him to head to Fry’s and buy a $500 Compaq instead of dorking with the old, nasty P90. Anyway, it kept me from sitting around and watching the washing machine work. But I think so far, so good.

I guess I’m supposed to answer some questions.

THE MUSIC MEME

1. Total amount of music files on your computer:

8133 files, 23.3 days, 30.28 GB

And now, thanks to my sister, two iPods, one 4GB mini and one 40GB 3G.

2. The last CD you bought was:

A set of three: Fatboy Slim‘s Palookaville and Cake‘s Pressure Chief back in October. I also got the latest Dreams Come True album Diamond 15 in mid-December which was kind of a disappointment. I think I also bought Maroon 5, Basement Jaxx, and No Doubt recently, though those three werent’ very recent albums.

3. What is the song you last listened to before reading this message?

The last song, if you don’t count the Alias theme or the Mortal Kombat theme on the TV, was the Propellerheads remix of Soul Coughing‘s Super Bon Bon that kind of came up on my computer. I was also just listening to the new iPod mini (thanks to my sister, as I said before) and the shuffle played My Girl (Gone, Gone, Gone) by Chilliwack! Do you remember that music video when it was on MTV’s heavy rotation? Back when MTV showed music videos? The one where you could see the fillings in the lead singer’s teeth? HAHAHA

4. Write down 5 songs you often listen to or that mean a lot to you:

1. Oh, Sherry by Steve Perry. Why? I don’t know. It’s just the first song I bought on iTunes and a good measure of cheese. Or was it Break Out by Swing Out Sister?
2. The Humpty Dance by Digital Underground. OK, I talk about my ex too much because, well, I haven’t gone out with anyone since she dumped me back in September of 2001, but the first time I met her I was drunk and trying to get people to go see Digital Underground (which I couldn’t say because I was drunk) and probably drunk enough to do my imitation of the Humpty Dance. How’s that for a run-on sentence?

   First I limp to the side like my leg was broken
   Shakin’ and twitchin’ kinda like I was smokin’
   Crazy wack funky
   People say ya look like M.C. Hammer on crack, Humpty
   That’s all right ’cause my body’s in motion
   It’s supposed to look like a fit or a convulsion
   Anyone can play this game
   This is my dance, y’all, Humpty Hump’s my name
   No two people will do it the same
   Ya got it down when ya appear to be in pain
   Humpin’, funkin’, jumpin’,
   jig around, shakin’ ya rump,
   and when the dude a chump pump points a finger like a stump
   tell him step off, I’m doin’ the Hump.

3. 1, 2, 3, 4 (Sumpin’ New) (Timber Mix) by Coolio. Huh. This is the top played song on my iTunes. Well at the same number of plays as The Beach (Posse – 1986) by Afrika & The Zulu Kings, Husan by Bhangra Knights vs. Husan, 2PiR by Clint Mansell from the Pi soundtrack, Si señor by Control Machete, What Do I Know by the late Josh Clayton-Felt, Like I Love You (Basement Jaxx Vocal Mix) by Justin Timberlake, Too Shy by Kajagoogoo, and The Way It by The Prodigy.

   Notable is The Beach because it took me so frigging long to find (and I ended up using illegitimate sources for that and the remixes.)

4. Copacabana by Barry Manilow. I don’t even own this song, but whenever I was cold on my scooter or my motorcycle, I’d sing this inside my helmet. Loudly. Just to keep my mind off of the cold, mind you.
5. Blue Monday by New Order. I have more copies and remixes of Blue Monday than anything else.

The sad thing is that those aren’t my favorite bands and I even refuse to listen to Copacabana or just about anything by Barry Manilow. If I were to list my favorite bands, I’m sure I’d have The Pet Shop Boys towards the top along with my past favorites like The Police, The English Beat, New Order, etc.

And more important songs that make me happy include lots of disco and 80’s hits. I mean, what about Look of Love by ABC, or Love and Pride by King, or Macho Man by The Village People? There’s a whole list of songs that just make me smirk. Why else would I be listening to Just Got Lucky by Jo Boxers?

Oh, and for songs I always sing in the car: Player’s Holiday by T.W.D.Y.. How can I not?

OK, so the shelf is cut out, the washer and dryer were delivered, and I WASHED MY COMFORTER. My ma decided to get in on the fun and we washed her comforter as well.

I still think I need to level the washer properly. I couldn’t sleep until I leveled the washer.

Do you realize they send you a DVD with the thing describing how to operate it?

OK, tired. That’s about all I can think of now.

I need to cut the bottom shelf off some cabinets, rewire a plug, and clear out some crap out of the laundry room before the guys get here tomorrow to deliver the washer and dryer! And it better frigging fit after all this mess I’ve gone through.

Since I’m obsessed with the laundry room, I have little else to talk about, except maybe that the pharmacy has a new TECHNICIAN working there. The name tags say:

• PHARMACIST
• TECHNICIAN
• TECHNICIAN
• Clerk

Note that the clerk has lowercase letters on his badge. They don’t have their names on the badges for some reason, but I figured out everybody’s name already. Heck, there’s only four of them (three previously) and they call each other by their names so it isn’t too hard to figure out. They’re awfully friendly and cheerful for the clientele they usually have. There are some office workers, but the people getting their prescriptions filled look fairly scruffy. It’s probably the closest pharmacy to the downtown flophouses. It doesn’t have all the junk my uncle’s pharmacy had (notably missing the comic books and magazines), but it has its charm.

I saw it from the inside, but then my mom told me she was itchy and she was breaking out in hives! I called the advice nurse and was about to take her to the hospital, but they said as long as she can breathe we didn’t have to go to the emergency room. Fortunately, I noticed we were out of Benadryl last night and bought some at the pharmacy near work. It doesn’t hurt that the pharmacy tech is cute, but really I was mainly thinking about my mom. 🙂

So sometime before the guys come with the washer/dryer on Friday, I have to cut out some shelves and replace an electrical outlet. Almost finished!

This is a world destruction, your life ain’t nothing. The human race is becoming a disgrace.

Whoops. Had another old song stuck in my head.

The guy from Doorworks came and put in a really nice door, but of course all the pounding dislodged some sort of THING my dad had on a shelf.

It fell on the new toaster oven my sister bought my mom for Xmas and dented it.

The pounding also broke the bulb in the light fixture, and the bottom of the bulb was stuck in the socket because of corrosion. I had to buy a new light fixture, $42 worth of insulation (because that’s the smallest amount they sell), and a doorknob and lock. My mom signed up to work on Friday, when the washer/dryer is supposed to be delivered, so I may have to miss even more work. This project better be finished soon, or I’m going to go nuts. Or maybe I just need an account at the hardware store.

I also had to cancel a wine tasting class because I forgot it was ham radio club meeting week and I’m the dummy who volunteered to be treasurer.

I won’t even start to tell you about the credit card company who required my mom to speak perfect English to get a card and wouldn’t take any information from me even though she was standing next to me and we were both on the phone. Federal regulations my ass. The SOB at the credit card bureau was Canadian; I could tell from his accent. I finally told him, “This is why your job is going to India,” and hung up on him. Even if my mom got a “Mileage Plus VISA card” I bet it would have so many restrictions that the miles would be worthless. Why is it that speed freaks can pretend to be someone else and get credit cards with ease, but my mom can’t get one for herself? Because WHITEY IS KEEPING US DOWN!