Radio Killed The Internet Star

I'm going to be on this here internet radio thingy around 8 tonight. Give it a listen.

Can I Pull Myself Up By My Bootstraps If I'm Wearing Sneakers?

I had today off, and I gave myself a goal for the day: Retrieve my Amazon order from UPS, and go to the new Philly Trader Joe's. I like to set myself little tasks on my days off, because it makes me feel very self satisfied when I complete them.

It turned out that my Amazon package was on 15 Oregon Ave. For those of you who (like me before this morning) don't know where that is, it's way the fuck in South Philly. I try to avoid South Philly, because they park in the middle of the street there and it upsets me. Once I figured out where it was with the help of mapquest, I had myself a brief little freak out, but then I pulled myself together and looked up how to get there on SEPTA. And I did it! I got all the way there with the power of my bus pass alone! All Hail Cyn, Queen of Public Transit! W00t!

Of course, when I got there I discovered that Amazon had packaged two books in a box larger than my head. (Seriously, this box was huge. And predominantly filled with those weird ass packing ballons.) But then I just went all punk rock and ripped open my package and jettisoned all unnecessary packaging in the UPS parking lot.

Then I went to Trader Joe's! Trader Joe's! I am so fucking excited about this Trader Joe's! When I lived in LA I basically fed entirely on Trader Joe's products. Once I went to one of the original Trader Joe's in Pasadena, and it was kind of like visiting Mecca. Except with cheap brie. The Trader Joe's in Philly is smaller than the ones in LA, and does not have cheap ass booze. (Curse you, Pennsylvania liquor laws!) It also was not as well organized, but it is new and probably still working some kinks out. Most importantly, I got two things of Trader Joe's coffee, or, as I like to refer to it, "my lifeblood."

Then I came home and cleaned. Or at least, I cleaned until the motivational beer I drunk caused me to lie on the bed and go, "Ooooh, ceiling fan swirly." Then I was like, "Why am I all fucked up on one beer? Oh, perhaps I should eat something that's not Ramen."

So, in summation: Packages are retrieved, yummy food is purchased, house is cleaner. Yay, me!

I Don't Think This Is Good

I've gone from unpacking to rearranging the boxes into more pleasing patterns.

It's not entirely my fault - in order to really be able to unpack, I need to aquire a tarp, a bookshelf and a bar.

Opinions on Outdated Television

I finished watching season 2 of Buffy last night.

I have to say, I like Angel better when he's evil. When he's good, he's all boring and mopey, but when he's evil he's all funny and he actually does stuff. He's got evil gumption! I like that.

Also, is it wrong to find it just a teeny tinsy bit hot when Angel tortures Giles? Yes? That's what I thought.

I Wouldn't Give My Problems To A Monkey On A Rock (And A Monkey On A Rock Wouldn't Take 'Em)

• My skin has decided it wants to be greasy and dry at the same time. I'm not sure how it's doing this, or why, but the end result is decidedly unpleasant. I'm totally breakout city over here. It's gross.
• One of the straps on my backpack broke.
• Our doorbell doesn't work. It's supposed to be hooked up to a phone number, and it's not. I've called the realty people, and they said they'd send it to my cell phone, which should prove entertaining when people ring the doorbell when I'm not home. This wouldn't be a problem, since everyone worth knowing has a cell phone and thus can call me and tell me to come down and let them in, but . . .
• Amazon mysteriously decided to ship my knitting book by UPS. And since my doorbell doesn't work, I have no way of knowing when the UPS guy is there and thus cannot retrieve it. I'm hoping they'll fix my doorbell soon so I can have it redelivered, as my other option is to trek out to the UPS depot on Spring Garden, and that's a total pain the ass. I'm assuming that Amazon did this because I chose free shipping, but the weird thing is that they chose to ship the other part of my order by US Mail. The really sad thing about this was that I was disapointed that I ended up getting the erotica and not the knitting book. I really need to reevaluate my priorities.
• My apartment now has even more vermin! We now have this really gross little flies. We think it's because . . .
• Our garbage disposal is broken! We now have the "garbage" part without the "disposal" part.
• My current estimate on being unpacked: Fall of 2006. In the meantime, my apartment is a complete and utter mess.
• My only pair of jeans now has a hole in the crotch, as well as being far too big for me.
• I can't find my Mountain Goats cd. (You know, I hear that cd fucking rocks.)
• I'm kind of having some body issues right now. (The "issues" being mainly that I kind of hate this body, and would like a new one, please.) I think it's because I haven't hung up my big mirror yet (I have to tap for studs. Heh.), and so it's propped against the wall across from my bed and I'm always accidentally catching myself at really unflattering angles. Oh, and also because I'm fat and ugly.
• Work. Blah.
• I haven't been to yoga in like, a month. There's this yoga place right by me, too, but I've been insanely busy. Also, I'm intimidated by the new yoga place. What if they're mean there? And it's "power" yoga. That does not sound overly promising, considering that my favorite parts of yoga are 1) the part where I stretch my back a lot and 2) the nap time part at the end.
• Hey, stress! How ya doing?
• All I do in my blog is bitch and moan. Oh, wait . . .

I Heart Technology (Perhaps A Little Too Much.)

The other day I wrote a small computer program that displays how much time is left until my nipples are completely healed, based on a 4 month estimate.

(It's currently 106 days, 11 hours, 12 minutes and 54 seconds.)

WIFIIIIIIIIII!!!!

Guess who's wireless, baby?

Also, I've discovered the secret to great tech support: Call at 3 am. I didn't have to wait on hold and I talked someone who was helpful, friendly, easy to understand and solved my problem. After I got internet I said, "This is the best tech support experience ever!" and he was very amused.

Giddy! Yet sleepy!

More Tidbits From My Former Classics Class

So one of the great things that I learned in that class was that every house in ancient Greece had one of these in front of it. (Link not safe for work! Hot ancient Greek action!) They're called Herms.

So of course at the end of class review for the final when the professor asks if there are any slides that we'd like to see again, I'm all, "Can we see the herm again? Har har har." Cause I'm a classy, classy broad.

Twitchy

So in the midst of my tech support orgy today, I decided it would be a good idea to drink an entire pot of coffee and not get around to eating anything.

Hey, guess what! It totally wasn't!

Garrrrrrrrrrr! Arrrrrgh!

So I spent all day trying to get to the bottom of this wireless card thing, and this is where I am: Doesn't work, nosirree. I spent an hour on the phone to tech support, during which time they transferred me to three different departments but never actually let me talk to anyone about my problem. I emailed tech support, and they sent me an email telling me to configure things in menus that as far as I can tell do not exist on my computer. They also seem to think it's a firewall problem, which it may be but I doubt it.

I also posted a message to the compaq customer support message board, and got a reply telling me that I needed to configure my router and Internet Explorer. I'm like, "Hi! I'm not an idiot! The router works fine with the non-wireless ethernet card! It's internet-o-rama when I'm plugged in!" Whenever I post things on support boards like this I feel like I get about ten answers that are obviously designed for morons. I guess it's understandable, because a lot of people post questions that are all, "WHY MY INTERNET NO WORK!?!", but it annoys the hell out of me because I am not a moron, I usually spend significant time poking around at the problem before giving up, I search for relevant posts already up on the message board, etc, and it's a waste of everyone's time when people post non-answers for idiots.

I'm beginning to wonder how much it would cost to go plop this thing down in front of some geekboy and be like, "Service me, baby." I searched the compaq site for nearby service centers and it referred me to a lot of Radio Shacks. Speaking as someone who has been to Radio Shack, I don't want those people touching my computer. The last time I was there I was looking for a KVM switch, and the guy I asked about it was like, "Well, I don't think something like that exists, but if it does you should try a computer store." I was like, "Hi, it exists and it's in your catalog, dumb ass! Thanks for the attitude, Mr. Works At Radio Shack!" Also, what's up with the word "Shack" in that store name? It seems like a shack would be a very bad place to keep electronic goods, as I picture shacks as being rickety and having leaking roofs and things. This is exactly the same sort of horrible naming idea as "Dress Barn."

The Compaq website also told me to try calling customer service first. Well, I did, and it was all a big fun game of transfer-and-hold. Depending on how I'm feeling, I may call when I get off work at 1:30 am, as hopefully there will at least be less hold time then.

I Am Self Indulgent With Words

I have this problem - there are a great many turns of phrases that I find really amusing, and I cannot stop using them. Sometimes it's not even particular turns of phrase, it's just slightly innapropriate language in general.

For example, one of the programmers at work sent me an email today that basically said, "Are you trying to do this thing, which we can't do, or that thing, which we can do?" I replied, "I am interested in the latter, rather than the former. Which is lucky for me, seeing as it is the one which is within the realm of the possible."

Ha ha ha! I crack myself up!

I do this sort of thing all the time. I had this classics class my senior year of college, which was seriously just the best class ever, with this adorable professor named Kirk. (If you go to Oberlin, you should take any classes by him that you can. If it hadn't been my last semester, I totally would have become a classics major.) The class was filled with all these clueless first years since it was a one hundred level, and I would raise my hand and just say the most random shit because I found it amusing. And Kirk would just be like, "Um, interesting point, Cyn . . ." (In the spirit of full disclosure, I should note that I was doped out of my mind on Percoset for most of that semester, and I got an A in the class.)

I do this in sort stories, too. I'm always putting random things into stories that I think is the funniest shit ever, and then whoever gets to criticize it is like, "Um, this part? That makes no sense? Cut it."

I suppose as my self indulgences go, this one is pretty harmless. It's definitely way better than my problem being self indulgent with black tar heroin.

Solve My Problems, Please

So I got my WiFi router up and working, and it appears to be working just fine and dandy, and I can get my laptop to get internet when I hook it up via ethernet cable to the router, but Fredricka (my laptop) is simply refusing to work with the wireless network.

I tried playing around with the settings and making it encrypted and unencrypted and some other things, but it just did not work. It's insanely frustrating, because she's seeing the wireless network - the little icon is all, "I have a wireless network! It's your wireless network! I am connected! The connection is excellent!" and my wireless card info is all, "Hey! I'm working fine!" but when I try to actually make the internet work, it doesn't. No web pages, no AIM, no email, no nothing.

I'm pretty sure that it's my wireless card, as I tried it with a friends WiFi network and got the same results. (Well, okay, to be fair, I didn't really "try" anything. I pretty much thrust my laptop at him and was like "EHHHHHHHHHH!" and he was like, "Nope, doesn't work," and I was like, "MEHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" and then we went out and got lunch.)

So, um, does anyone know what's up with this? I'm going to try downloading some new device drivers (Oooh! Device drivers!) and check out the manufactorers website and crap, but is there like a setting or something I have to change? Help me out here, people!

I Like To Consume

My friends have a Movie Night every Wednesday where someone brings a movie and we all sit around and eat oreos and make jokes and it is a fun, happening time. Movie Night starts around 8 pm. I get off work around 5:30 pm, usually. Dan, whose house it is at, is a very gracious host and does not go, "What the hell are you doing here?" when I show up at 6:30 with my little take-out dinner in hand, but I still am left with this awkward bit of time on Wednesday evenings. Not enough time to bother to take the El or the bus back to West Philly, but enough time that I need something to do.

So I've been kind of saving up little errands for myself to run in Center City on Wednesdays. Unfortunately, in my world, errands = buying shit.

Last Wednesday I decided that I would go to the Philadelphia Soap Company to see if they were still having their going out of business sale, in the hopes of scoring home-made soap on the cheap. Unfortunately, it turned out that they had done gone out of business, so I decided to try to hunt down this knitting book, The Knit Stitch, because I'd heard that it was really good from various sources. So I trekked to the yarn store, and to Borders, and neither had it, and I was forced to later order it on Amazon.com. (Along with two other books so I would get free shipping. Must have free shipping, you know.)

(I never used to be very into Amazon, because I am all about the instant gratification. However, now that I have a job and a life and if I do have free time, I want to spend it knitting and watching Buffy on DVD, I am all about Amazon. You know, you can buy things, without leaving your apartment! And then, they get delivered! To your apartment! In less than a week! The future is now, people.)

So, anyway, I became very frustrated in my inability to obtain this knitting book, despite my willingness to walk all over Center City for it, and so I bought these items instead:

In Which I Perform Cosmetic Surgery With My Fingernails

So I'm at work today, kind of absent mindedly staring off into space, as I am wont to do, and I notice that I have this weird little blob of skin on the inside of my elbow. So without even really thinking about it, I pluck it off with my fingernails.

Five seconds later, I'm bleeding all over the place, all, "Oh, there's blood inside of my skin, isn't there?" And it's the inside of my elbow, which means that there's lots of blood there and I'm moving it around a lot, so I finally have to go get a band aid from the office first aid kit. So then I've got a band aid on the inside of my arm, all, "Hi, I love me some black tar heroin" style.

Then about five minutes later, I do the exact some thing, only on my face. Cause bleeding from your face is extra attractive!

My Mom Thinks I'm Cool

Today at Whole Foods, I was deciding which flavor of soy ice cream I wanted when a small girl and her dad walked by. The dad said, "Hey, what color is that girl's hair?" and the small girl smiled at me, so I smiled and waved at them. Then as they were walking away, the dad turned to the girl and said, "You're not allowed to have pink hair."

I really wanted to yell, "Hey, my parents think my hair is cool!" at them, but they were too far away by that time.

Of course, if my dad had been there, he probably would have said, "Watch out, they're cute when they're little, but then they grow up and turn out like her." (Don't deny it, Daddy, you say that to people all the time.)

I was also wearing my "Babies: Fun To Make, Fun To Eat" shirt today, which meant that I kept being like, "Why is everyone staring at me? Oh, right, because I'm a freak."

The guy working the cosmetics counter at Whole Foods said, "Babies aren't fun to eat!" to me, and I said, "That's what you think."

He was pretty cute, too, so if I was thinking I would have said, "But they sure are fun to make."

I think in this situations I'm just going to start saying, "Hey, just because I have pink hair and bits of metal in me and wear freaky t-shirts doesn't mean I didn't graduate from a very good school, goddammit!"

I Am A Big Scaredy Cat

I had the following conversation with Rowan yesterday:
Me: I'm off to see Underworld!
Him: Don't you hate scarey movies?
Me: Yes, but I like vampire movies.
Him: Good luck with that.

The thing is, it's true. I am, generally, a huge pussy when it comes to scary movies. I blame it on not having a tv as a child, but really, anything even vaguelly creepy just freaks my shit out. I can't handle it. I will walk out of theaters if movies are too scary. (Movies I've walked out of include Mad Max, Resident Evil, and Dumbo (I was five, okay? Also, Disney is scary! Scary!)

But I also really enjoy "dark" movies with vampires and goths and things. I think the thing that really freaks me out is suspense - I really don't like not knowing what will happen next. I totally shriek like a big ol' girl at loud noises or sudden movements in movies. (Just ask anyone who was around when I watched The Others or The Devil's Backbone.)

I'm also not crazy about horror. I just don't like seeing people get cut up, okay? People's insides belong on the inside.

If you try to get me to watch a scary movie, I will totally: shriek, cover my eyes, squeeze your hand, ask "is it over yet?" while my eyes are closed, and whimper.

But in real life, I'm totally not a wuss at all. I get scared sometimes, but I tend to ignore my fear and do whatever frightens me anyway. I'm not afraid of bugs (which works out nicely in my Vermin House), or snakes, or really any of those irrational frightening objects. I tend to find certain things creepy, but there's a difference between being creeped out and being frightened.

I know there are people who enjoy being scared by things. Those people are freaks. Fear exists for a reason, and it's to keep people away from bad shit. I don't enjoy scary movies. They make me all tense and edgy and unhappy.

Bad teen movies, however, are quite another story.

Vampires = Sexy

I saw Underworld last night.

I would like to be a sexy vampire lady with big guns, please.

Actually, I would really like to have a sexy vampire lady. And can I also get a side of hottie werewolf boyfriend?

In any case, I'd settle for some sexy vampire lady boots.

My Underworld review: Pretty! Not a life changing or "deep" movie by any stretch of the imagination, but nice eye candy.

Overheard In the Phil-Cyn Household

"The guy you hooked up with this summer reminds me of pork chops in my vagina."

We've come up with a new word for the level of discourse in our abode: It's porkchopstrual!

More Deranged Tidbits

The other day I was sitting on my couch, reading The New Yorker Style Issue, and upon discovering an article in the back by Mr. Updike I said, aloud, to my completely empty apartment, "God I hate you, John Updike."

Then I skipped the article, because in addition to clearly being completely insane I have a John Updike boycott in effect.

Just So You Know

I got very excited earlier tonight when I found out Quicksort Algorithm wanted to be my Friendster. And by "my" I mean "Alan Turing's."

I think I would have been even more excited if it had been Bubblesort Algorithm, though. Every so often I think to myself "Bubblesort your mama!" Then I kind of giggle to myself, like that combination of words is in any way funny or makes any sort of sense to any one, any where.

Don't even get me started on Dijkstra, man. It is only by a superior strength of will that I do not giggle like a schoolgirl on crack every single time the phrase "Dijkstra's algorithm" is spoken.

Does anyone who is not me understand this entry at all? 7 am = Awake for 19 hours = now with less coherency than ever!

In Which I Over Share About Sex Toys, No Really, It Is 5 AM and I Am Over Sharing

In general I am in favor of sex toys that are shaped like cute little animals and Hello Kitty and little British guards and whatnot. I do own a Hello Kitty vibrator, although I have not actually used it as such because I enjoy having it kind of on display in my room, and also using it as a rave toy, and also it would be kind of a shitty vibrator what with being hard plastic and oddly shaped and all.

However, despite my pro-cute-animal-sex-toy status, I have to say that if I was in any sort of sexual situation that involved seeing a plastic bunny wrapped around a man's penis, I would not feel so much "turned on" as "in need of therapy."

I was just having a conversation today about how I am against overly realistic sex toys. I find both that "cyberskin" stuff and anything veiny intensely creepy. I do not want my sex toys to look at all like anything that would be found on an actual human being, thank you. I want my sex toys to look like they are machines from the future with a lot of technology in them, and all that technology is orgasm technology. Sex toys that look like they belong on anything I would have to take out to dinner = Bad. Sex toys that look like they belong on special sex robots from the future that use superior alien technology to render earth women helpless due to constant orgasming = Good.

Also, perhaps it is sexist to be all "vibrator good, plastic vagina bad," but man, are those fake vaginas just like totally fucking scary or what? Once Julie and I were in a sex shop in Montreal, and as we were perusing the merchandise I casually said something to Julie along the lines of, "Why are the fake vaginas so much creepier than the dildoes?" and Julie was all, "I don't know, but they sure are," and this woman next to us totally gave me a dirty look and made this "hmmph" noise at me, and I was like, "Whatever, you're looking at plastic vaginas too, lady, who are you to judge?" Unless, of course, it was a hmmph in defense of the plastic vaginas, which is even stranger, because what, exactly, would she be doing with them? (Please don't answer that.)

(Link via Mimi Smartypants, whose archives I am reading as though there will be a pop quiz.)

I Can't Sleep At Night

I haven't gotten a decent night's sleep since I moved into my new apartment. At first, it was a new surroundings anxiety thing, where I was irrationally worried about my alarm clock not going off, and thus would wake up in a panic at around 6 am.

I'm not sure how you go about waking up in a panic, but when I wake up in a panic I get this sudden surge of fear adrenalin while I'm still asleep, and then my mind is pushed out of its sleep state towards awakeness, much like when you dive into a pool and are pushed up towards the surface by momentum and the buoyancy of your body. So then I'm awake and I'm totally freaking out and I look at the clock and it's 6 am, and I'm like, "Goddammit brain, if you keep pulling this shit I swear to god I'm going to start listening to hair metal just to punish you."

After a couple of weeks my brain managed to settle the fuck down a little, and I was doing pretty good at sleeping all the way through nights when I had to wake up at 7 am or 7:30 am. Although this weekend my alarm has started doing this them where when it displays the current time it puts a space in between the hours and the minutes, so instead of displaying, say "12:03" it displays "12: 03." But it only does this when you display the current time, and not when you display the alarm time. I'm not sure how this is even possible, but given that what I know about LED displays is nothing, I'm going with demonic possesion or possibly gremlins.

My alarm is also a four year old clock radio which I lost the instructions to around 3 and 1/2 years ago, and I have absolutely no idea how to set it to beep at me instead of playing the radio. There are mysterious markings on it which seem to indicate that it is capable of beeping, but I have never been able to make it beep. So instead I have it set to a completely random radio station that seems to have something to do with sports, and I have the volume set to the max, so every morning I wake up to strange men shouting incomprehensible things that I could care less about, and it motivates me to leap out of bed and turn it the fuck off. Every so often the volume gets turned down or the station gets changed to something staticy, and the next morning it completely fails as an alarm clock, so my brain is not completely in the wrong with this whole panicking-about-it-not-going-off thing.

Unfortunately, I can't even manage to get a decent night's sleep on the days when I don't have to get up the next morning and thus have no alarm panic. I think it might have something to do with the light coming in through my blinds, despite the fact that I have them closed. I'm insanely light sensitive and generally can't sleep if there's any sort of light anywhere.

And of course, now there's the whole nipple sitch, which means I can't sleep on my stomach anymore. Sleeping on my back seems to make my back get mad about three quarters of the way through the night, and then I try to sleep on my side, but I can never seem to balance myself on my side right and it all seems very precarious. I can also never seem to figure out what to do with my arms while sleeping on my back. When I sleep on my stomach I fold them under my pillow and they support my head, and it's all very lovely except for when they go completely numb during the night and I have to spend the first five minutes of being awake wondering if I'll ever regain movement in my hands. On my back I've been alternating between sleeping with them spread out, Jesus-style, and sleeping with them over my head, crossed at the wrist, vaguelly S&M-style.

I should probaby invest in one of those sleep masks, but I'm not sure how much having something wrapped around my face would help me out, since I strongly dislike having to wear any sort of clothing while I sleep. It does have a vague sort of Holly Golightly appeal, though.

The not being able to sleep when I don't have to get up is not entirely a bad thing, as it causes me to only sleep say, seven hours a night, instead of say, twelve. As I find being awake to generally be more interesting than being sleep, I kind of enjoy this. However, I would probably be more pleasant to be around if I got a little more sleep, as I would probably be less cranky and better at forming coherent sentences.

Arrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day. (I am not only talking like a pirate, I am also wearing my pirate outfit. Ahoy! Where's me grog?)

Also, a freaking hilareous conversation with Emily about kittens.

Bad Google!

I just had the uniquely disapointing experience of googling something only to have it return my own website. This is even worse than that time the NetOps guy referred me to software I wrote. Stupid google! I don't want me! If I knew the answer, I wouldn't be asking you, now, would I?

Anyway, I'm looking for the origin of the phrase "in the in between of things," which google appears to believe I made up. It's been stuck in my head for like, years now, at random intervals, and it's way too good for me to have come up with myself. (If I did, don't steal it, okay? Thanks.) For some reason I thought it came from this Yeats poem, but it clearly didn't.

This Makes Me Way Happier Than It Should

If I were a Springer-Verlag Graduate Text in Mathematics, I would be J.L. Doob's Measure Theory. I am different from other books on measure theory in that I accept probability theory as an essential part of measure theory. This means that many examples are taken from probability; that probabilistic concepts such as independence, Markov processes, and conditional expectations are integrated into me rather than being relegated to an appendix; that more attention is paid to the role of algebras than is customary; and that the metric defining the distance between sets as the measure of their symmetric difference is exploited more than is customary. Which Springer GTM would you be? The Springer GTM Test

Yer Momma

This "your momma" joke is my gift to you. Unless you know me in real life, in which case you have probably recieved this gift. Repeatidly.

"Your momma's so fat, I fucked her anyway."

Haaaaaaaaaaaa! Isn't it great? It combines the fat theme with the sex theme! It's totally the platonic your mom joke!

Some people don't see the inherent beauty in this joke, but you probably shouldn't be friends with those sorts of people anyway.

El Fuego es Muy Bueno

El Fuego being the name of the burrito place on Walnut and 8th. (And thus very, very near my place of employment.) I'm not sure anyone who is not a SoCal transplant to the East Coast can really understand my love of this burrito place. It is not quite as good as having an actual decent Mexican restuarant that is not in Fishtown or some goddamned place (And no, El Azteca is not a decent Mexican restuarant, I don't care what any of you say, and if you dare to suggest that what The Taco House on Pine serves counts as "Mexican" or even "Food" I will punch you right in the goddamned face.)

Center City actually has a fair number of semi-decent burrito places, but they tend to lean more towards San Francisco style burritos than LA style burritos. (San Franciscans will put anything in a burrito. Hummus, sprouts, chicken with peanut sauce (that last one was called the "Thai Me Up" at the San Francisco burrito joint I frequented), anything at all! They have gone totally mad up there in NoCal!)

This place has good, simple, LA style burritos. They have this assembly line thing going on, so you get to choose what kind of beans, salsa, etc you want. (I go black beans, hot salsa, sour cream gauc cheese, please!) And the burritos have rice in them, unlike those fakey all bean and cheese burritos that are always just a bit much.

The salsa is actually spicy, too. Here on the East Coast, I have an insanely hard time finding salsa I consider even "medium" grade spice. Back in LA, I was a strictly medium/low spice girl, for my own personal safety. Here on the East Coast (and in the midwest), I'm like, "Bring it, bitch! I want that shit hot!" and it oh, oh so rarely is. And they have salsa verde! I love salsa verde!

They also seem to always be playing indie rock. It is as though god, in his/her infinite wisdom, has made this burrito place specifically for me! It is true that I have been cursed by god recently, but this almost makes up for it. Toss in some hot lesbo action, and we'll totally be even steven, God. (Also - don't think that I haven't noticed that all this smiting action has occured ever since my inapropriately-pierced, girl-luvin, irreverant-comment-making ass moved into the Muslim neighborhood. I'm onto you. I'm trying here, God! I totally closed the blinds before soaking my nipples last night.)

You Can't Take Me Anywhere

Walking to Jill's last night, I managed to talk loudly about my nipples to Phil just as three or four Islamic men left the mosque we were walking by.

That's right. Just when you thought I couldn't possibly get any more inappropriate, I moved within 3 blocks of two mosques and got pieces of steel put through my nipples.

Petulant Pink Haired Girl

One of my newish coworkers, who was being trained to do the same things I do, has resigned.

Which basically means that I will never get to sleep again, as we have gone back to having 3 people covering 15 shifts. In fact, even though he's not leaving until next Thursday, he's now not allowed to work by himself, so I had to redo the schedule yesterday so that I had other people covering all the shifts.

The head programmer, who is filling in for my manager, was like, "I feel your pain," to which I replied, "No you don't, you get to sleep." Then the random computer guy who was in my office said something obnoxious and I was like "I will punch you."

So I was filled with vitrol and killing rage for a while, and spent some time concentrating on trying to get fireballs to shoot out of my hands, but that didn't work out.

Then Rowan called and was like, "Hey, I have many heavy posessions I'm moving from Rittenhouse Square to my house via bus and a lot of walking. Want to help?" So I did, but wandering around carrying heavy shit did not help my mood one bit, plus I was really hungry. So by the time I got home I was basically one huge ball of crankiness ready to explode at any minute.

Luckily I have the best roommate ever, and I conned him into going out and buying beer for me by claiming I was busy cooking a delicious dinner. (Confession: This was a total lie. I was actually merely heating up delicious left overs from the dinner he made last night.) I gave him all the money in my wallet ($14) and told him to come back with as much beer as possible. He returned with a 30 pack of Pabst.

After several PBRs, a couple of Parliment Lights, and a delicious dinner of macaroni and red sauce, I moved from actively hating everyone and everything to a kind of resigned and weary hate.

Then I called Jill and invited myself over her place to see kittens! and watch Queer Eye for a Straight Guy. The kittens were way to freaking adorable. They are palm sized! Little wee fuzzy kittens. (I know, I know, we're not getting a kitten.)

Queer Eye wasn't as good as the last one I saw, mainly because the straight guy didn't seem very into it. In fact, his general response to the Fab 5 seemed to be, "Wuh? What's going on? Why are they touching me again?" The Fab 5 seemed to completely hate him in return, which I supported.

Then I returned to my apartment to find that Phil, Carl and Rowan all sitting around and drinking. They expressed their disapointment at being unable to find porn on my computer. Then we watched the Dirrty video. It turns out that much like cake, Christina Aguilera's ass makes my hatred go away.

Old People Rock

I went to the Dandy Warhols show last Saturday with Rowan and his Friendster Girl, Christy, who not only exists but is also insanely cute.

The trouble with going out with bloggers is, of course, that they will write about what happened before you get around to it. But I'm going to anyway, so if you like you can get a fun point/counterpoint going on.

The highlight of the show for me was the middle aged couple rocking out on the edge of the balcony. The guy looked older than the girl, probably in his mid 40s, while the girl looked to be in her late 30s or so. And they were just out of control. We're talking arm waving, ass shaking, grooving their respective thangs like it was going out of style. (Not that doing it the way they were doing it has ever been in style.) They were just so completely fucking adorable, I decided I wanted a Flash movie of them. Or a winAmp skin, so they could rock out to whatever I wanted. Or better yet, them, just hanging out in one corner of my living room constantly rocking out. God, I love rocking out old people.

And then it got better. Another couple joined the drunken dancing old people . . . and the chicks from the two couples started getting friendly. They were both obviously straight, but they started doing that straight girl grinding on each other dance thing. Then they started leaning into each other and kind of holding on to each other. Then they started full on making out. It was hot straight girl on straight girl action, of the best, "Oh my god, I was sooooo drunk!" kind.

Also, the Dandy Warhols played for three freaking hours. Longer than three freaking hours, actually, since I left before the end. They're definitely rockstars, but three hours of anything on Troc seats is a little bit much.

Best Headline Ever

"Johnny Come Fately"
- on the deaths of Johnny Cash and John Ritter

This amused me greatly, thus assuring me my proper place in hell. (My current theory is that I will be doing dinner theater in hell. Thanks, ladies and gents, I'll be here all night! Try the chicken fried steak, it's delish.)

Just So You Know

I followed up on my Poll Results.

PS. My nipples hurt a lot.

Sweet Sweet Internet Candy

I now have internet in my very own home.

If you need me, I'll be sorting through my 161 new emails.

Hot Water!

I now have hot water in my apartment! I repeat, there is hot water in my apartment! It comes out of the shower head and everything. (Lest you think I merely had a steaming pool of water in my living room or something.) Also, my stove works! And presumably whatever other things you use gas for, as well.

Unfortunately, when the maintance guys for my apartment let in the gas guys, they locked the lock on our door that our keys don't work for. So when Phil and I came home at 11 pm, we were locked out of our apartment.

So I called the emergency line, and they called me back, and I had the following conversation (through out which I became more and more irritated and attitudey.) -

Me: I'm locked out of my apartment.
Maintance Guy: Oh, and whose fault is that?
Me: Well, actually, I'm locked because someone was doing maintance in my building today and they locked the lock we don't have a key for.
MG: You should have a key that works for that lock. I opened that lock with a key that I gave to you.
Me: Well, neither me nor my roommate can open the door with either of the keys we have.
MG: I knew this was going to be a pain in the ass. (hangs up)

So I hang out in front of my apartment for a while, hoping he's going to show up, since he didn't actually indicate that he was actually going to let me in, and after twenty minutes or so he showed up and we got into another fight.

MG: You know, this is really your fault because you made us come to let the gas guys in, instead of staying home to do it yourself.
Me: I'm sorry, I had to work.
MG: I have to work too.
Me: The realty office said I could have the super let them in.
MG: Blah blah blah pilot light apartment lease blah blah

Then we got to my door, where he opened the top lock with his "working" key only after he hammered the key into the lock with his walkie-talkie.

But, on the plus side, they appeared to be fixing the top lock this morning. I know I've been bitching a lot about this move, but I must say that they actually are fixing up our apartment, unlike our last realty company which simply avoided any sort of hassle by not returning my calls.

Also, I have hot water! Hot water! Coming out of my shower! I washed my hair! My coworkers have already noticed a marked improvement in my attitude.

And I get internet on Saturday, hopefully. And we haven't seen any vermin in quite a bit! My apartment is like, totally habitable!

Things That Have Happened On My Walk To the El Stop

Yesterday I passed a guy smoking a joint on the sidewalk at 8 am and he said, "Hey, punk," at me, but not in a particularly mean way. I half turned my head in acknowledgement and he laughed.

Today I walked by a rooster and it crowed and wandered around the sidewalk