2007 Wrap-up

I survived the trip to the tundra, but only just barely. No one acted-up, misbehaved or was otherwise nasty. With the exception of one minor tiff, it was a very pleasant trip. I got to spend a lot of quality time with my nephew who staged a Christmas Pageant with his matchbox cars: "Hi, I'm motorcycle. Let's go to the North Pole."

My loving family did send me home with 2 wonderful gifts: the flu and a head cold. My nose starting running like faucet somewhere around mile 109 on the Ohio Turnpike. The flu induced fever hit shortly after I got home. For reasons that I'm going to leave unwritten, I had to drag myself into work on Thursday and Friday.

By the start of the weekend, I was completely out-of-it. Saturday to Wednesday is a giant blur in my mind. I do know Princess Hot Muffin, the Malator, Assley, the Mayordomo and I had a great meal at my favorite Thai place on Saturday. The rest of the time I was asleep or taking up space on the couch. 2007 went out the way I started it: sick and strung out on meds. I sure hope this isn't some portent that 2008 is going to be more of the same.

2007 -- without a doubt -- was the worst year of my life. I had some good times and reconnected with some old friends, one of whom I never thought I would speak to again. But The Great Nexorcism effectively made 2007 a great steaming pile of mierda. I figure I'm due for some good karma in 2008.

I hope everyone out there in cyberlandia had a great holiday and an even better New Year.

Going To The Tundra

Cookies have been baked. Presents have been bought and wrapped. House has been decorated, tree is up. Christmas cheer has been spread. I don't know about you all, but I'm pretty much set. All I have left to do is wrap one singing, talking, obnoxious stuffed "Learning Puppy" for my niece.

Tomorrow, I shall be making the great, yearly sojourn to the frozen hinterlands of Toledo, OH. Always a fun and pleasant drive. I'm looking forward to the holidays, and I'm hoping it will be a great time. I'll probably come back with many crazy stories to share. Until then, the best of the season to everyone.

And a special shout out to Pisco for watching the furbeasts! Little does he know, but they'll bring him hours of fun-filled excitement.

Juvenile Humor

I am not a morning person. I pretty much hate everything about getting up, getting ready and going to work. It's probably because I don't get enough sleep, or maybe I'm just hardwired to be happier at night. However, there is one part of the morning that I look forward to. E-mail.

I love looking at all the spam e-mail. I never open any of them (I'm not that stupid!), but the titles alone provide hours of entertainment. Things had been getting a little boring: Cialis, Hoodia, Megadick, Megadik, Small Cap Stock, Ciali$, Pharmacy. I'm always amazed at all the inventive ways spammers come up with misspelling words to get around spam filters. But even that's getting a little boring.

My spammers came through for me this morning. The must have known I was bored with all the e-mail inquiring about my penis. So they started sending me spam asking about my coworkers' penii. You know, stuff like "Betty, worried about your tiny dik? Don't be ...." or "Josie, this'll give you a large JohnSon!" Apparently, I work in an office full of trannies.

Finally, if anyone can tell me what exactly "Natural Male Enhancement" means, I'd be very appreciative. I've seen billions of Enzyte commercials, but I have no idea what that product actually does. I do know if you order now it comes with a free pack of Vazomyne. So call now, operators are standing by.

Lard-HO!

I've long had this theory about the intersection between junkfood, healthly living, the economically disadvantaged, and the general fat-assery in the US. The general premise behind my super-scientific idea was that it's cheaper to buy crap than it is to buy things that are good for you.

Anywho, the wonderful folks over at the NYT posted this. They conducted a much more thorough investigation and actually used methodology and whatnot. You know, things that I just can't be bothered with. Turns out, they agree.

There's something really wrong when 1 red bell pepper costs as much as a family size bag of Doritos. Or what about $8.00 for 2 chicken breasts? $8.00 will also get 2 frozen pizzas at Target. Marginal utility says the pizzas are a better deal. Am I the only one that thinks it's ridiculous that you have to be "rich" to eat healthy?

More Mayhem

While Pisco contemplates the finer points of theology and religion this morning, I'll take a more mundane approach to life. (I don't think or write as eloquently as Pisco does, so I'll try to corner the market on banalities and let the grown-ups handle things that are actually important.)

Walking to the bus stop this morning, I watched a car bobsled down the ice covered hill and sideswipe another car. Bonus: The car that got hit had just been involved in a different and unrelated accident. So it was like a 2 for 1 special. It made for a interesting change of scenery from the frozen crow sticking up like a lawn dart, hub cap, belt and dog poop I usually pass to the bus stop. Fortunately, no one appeared to be seriously injured. VDOT seriously needs to get to plowing or salting or something because the entire street was a 4 lane-downhill sheet of ice. I digress.

Of course, I missed the bus by that much, and the next bus was late. But what really has me intrigued is what was going on with Metro this a.m. They were single tracking trains through the 3 busiest stations on the Red Line due to a "sick" customer. Metro took great pains to make sure no one stood on the platforms on the 'closed' sides. Every 30 seconds or so they announced loudly that everyone needs to be on the opposite platform. I didn't feel like wading into the mosh pit, so I took a slight detour on the Green Line. Finally, 2 hours after I left my house, I make it to work. At the price of $4.00, that's like seeing a matinee show at the discount theater! Thanks WMATA!

As a side note to metro, if your "sick" customer forces single tracking in 3 stations, "sick" isn't the appropriate term anymore. Critically injured, awaiting medivac, or radioactive are all better descriptors for what's going on. Passengers don't need to know everything, but a little more information might keep everyone calmer and more collected. Otherwise, we're going to be thinking "Unless the "sick" person hosed 3 stations down with toxic waste, there's no need for this."

Snow? Snow!!! SNOW (#*$^#$!!!!

It's snowing in the greater DC-toilet-bowl area today. It's the first snow of the season, so I'm pretty happy about this. I'm happier than I was last night, because the weather forecast called just for snow showers. We're now supposed to get 1 to 3 inches.

My happiness has been pretty short lived though. I forgot to factor in what snow does to the commute. It's so bad that if people hear that it's going to snow -- it doesn't have to actually be snowing -- traffic gets all snarled up. Seriously. Traffic was at a standstill on parts of 395 this morning and there was no snow in sight. Metro placed speed restrictions on all their trains. I bet there's going to be a run on bread, milk and toilet paper at all the grocery stores tonight as well.

I love snow. I love living in DC. I don't love the 2 of them together. It's like the difference between online stats and real-world reality. Where it might take 12 inches of snow to shut down Columbus, Ohio or Igloo-Sur-La-Lac, Montana, the mention of a possible 1 inch will do the trick in DC. You'd think it's a blizzard outside.

This was the requisite moan and whine about wintertime in DC post. We all do it every year. Because we've had 9 months to forget about how heinous it is.

Farewell, Oh Ye Political Giant

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Victory Is Mine!

I had a knit pair of slipper boots/mukluks in college that were my favorite things ever. I wore them everywhere, including on rounds. They even went to Mexico with me. Sadly, they died a rather violent death by dog mauling.

For the past 10 years or so, I've been looking for a new pair. I've scoured the internets, tried every variation in search engines and came up empty handed. I could have planned a trip back to OU to go to the store where I originally purchased these, but I'm not going to take a 7 hour trip (one way) just to buy a pair of $20 slipperboots.

Today, I finally found a site that sells them -- just as I remember them, leather soles and all. You know the first thing I did, after I got over the initial shock, was click on the "Buy These Bitches Now" button. I should have them in my greedy bootslipper loving hands in 3-5 business days. Pictures will be posted. Seriously. And maybe I'll even post the pictures of Roxy and Ginger that I was supposed to have posted months ago.

[If you doubt my love for these boots, there is at least one semi-regular commenter that has witnessed these boots in all their glory. They even went on rounds with me in said boots. I'll let you all figure out who s/he is.]

Oooooh, Barracuda

Do you like to rock? Do you like guitars? What about hair bands, indie punk rockers, and KISS? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then maybe you should come over to my Bitchin' Condo and play some Guitar Hero.

On a whim, the Mayordomo and I bought Guitar Hero III and 2 guitar controllers. It's been non-stop rockin' at our place since Monday. Mayordomo particularly likes "Barracuda" and "I Wanna Rock 'n' Roll" -- or whatever that Poison song is called. I'm more partial to the alternative songs: Social Distorion, Sonic Youth, and the like. Of course, Mayordomo hates this when we play together because it gives me an advantage. He never got into college rock, indie bands, or alternative music so he has never heard these songs before. Whereas, while I've never been a huge fan of heavy metal, you don't grow up in the 80's not knowing these songs.

And for some bizarre reason I've got "Carry On Wayward Son" by Kansas stuck in my head. It's been there all week. The last time I actually remember hearing that song was over the summer when I was watching Supernatural. (You can laugh all you want, and I'll agree: The show is nothing but eye-candy.)

I've gotta go practice my power stance now. If you need me, I'll be in the 'concert hall' (OK, fine game room/guest bedroom) rockin. Just knock before you come in -- I might have some groupies in there with me.

Please, Recompete

We've got some serious issues with our property management company. Unfortunately, our Board decided that we're going to stick with them for at least another year. This despite the fact that there is wide-spread discontent with the antics of the property management company. (I know there were some compelling reasons to hold off on the recompete, but seriously ... )

Things got pretty interesting this weekend. Without any advance notice, we were advised that our garages are going to be power-washed, "effective immediately" and starting on Monday. A schedule, by level, with poorly written instructions followed. The notice finished with a disclaimer that all cars will be towed -- at the owner's expense -- if they are not removed prior to the power washing, and that the Association is not responsible for any damages.

Never mind that Monday was a Holiday. Never mind that many people had already left for a long weekend. Never mind that there aren't enough guest spaces to accommodate 5% of the cars on any given parking deck. Never mind they knew about this for 2 weeks prior to the event. We won't even talk about how ridiculous it is to clean a garage right before all the salt and grime of winter is going to start accumulating. And, finally, never mind that the Board was never asked for approval of this project.

There are going to be some seriously pissed off residents/owners when they discover their cars are missing from their assigned parking spots. Hopefully, this will be the last nail in our property management's coffin, because they are getting seriously out-of-hand. Someone needs to remind them that they are not running an apartment complex, so heavy-handed mandates from on high are not acceptable. They need to be reminded that while they exist to manage the complex and to a certain extent enforce our by-laws, at the end of the day, they work at our discretion. As far as I'm concerned, these people are going to find themselves out of a job.