Manic Oppressive

There’s a bunch of police tape (well, yellow tape that says, “Danger! — Do Not Enter”) cordoning off a large chunk of the complex’s parking lot. A police helicopter is circling over head.

Who knows.

Ok. Bear with me.

Every couple of days I check to see that my finances are ok and there aren’t any surprises. Well, my suprise tonight was that I was (am) spending $350 a month on my car (gas and insurance). So I say, “gee, I should watch that” because I’m trying not to spend any money right now so I can be relaxed when I take my month vacation in November. Which might turn into more than a month if I can’t get a job…

Then I get in my car to fill the tank. I notice that the grade that I put in is at $3.20 a gallon, which is 24% more than what I’m used to. So while I’m pumping the gas, I decide to slip into emergency money mode, where I leave the cards at home and wander around with limited cash.

So before plunging into the depths of ramen noodles, cheap beer and badly cooked rice, I splurge and go to Subway.

And so the story begins…

The Subway that I went to is accross the street from where I used to work. And many years ago, back when I was still living at my parent’s pad down the street, I used to go there all the time. One time I went there with some weird thing on my cheeck (zit out of control?). Anyway, I had a band-aid over it but it was big enough that it was distracting I guess. No one ever told me that my eyes were pretty when I had that (not that I get that a lot, but I digress). Anyway, at Subway, the girl behind the counter was obsessed with it.

Sort of verbatim:
“O-my god! That is so cool! You should let me pop it!”

Um… no, thanks? (Keep in mind that I’m buying a sandwich at this point, and there are people waiting in line behind me looking very very distrurbed).

So as I’m paying, she hands me a piece of reciept paper and says, “Hey, here’s my phone number. Give me a call when you pop it!”

Now, normally when a girl gives me a phone number (their phone number), I’m excited. That is, until the girl turns into a three-headed Janet Reno, pulls out a sword and decapitates me. At which point I wake up in a cold sweat wondering why I don’t have a night light. Usually. But I digress.

Any way, later that night I was shaving and the mound was gone yada yada yada well, and I never saw her again. Until tonight. I recognized her immediately when I walked in, and I almost turned around to go eat some dirt-clods or something, but I found the inner strength to continue.

She kind of remembered me, and suggested that I used to go there all the time. ” A while back,” I responded, “And some provolone on that please?”

“You have beautiful hair…” She said.

---

Footnote:
The Colonel would be the first to point out that psychotic people are attracted to me for some reason. Or no reason at all, maybe. But I beat him to it. I think that it’s fair to predict that I’ll move in with some one that barks at stop signs.

I made an omelette just now. First time since Freshman Home Ec class that I attempted such a feat, and I have to say that it came out rather well. Not that I would cook it for my mother or anything, though.

Come to think of it, when was the last time that I did that? But then, when was the last time she cooked for me? I suspect that there’s a reason for all of this. “Oh no!” I hear her saying, “Don’t bring up the ravioli!” And don’t worry, I won’t, that’s just food for thought.

We normally only tell the ravioli story to folks that will soon be marrying into my family, so I can’t mention it here. There are boatloads of weird stories that we tend to drop on people that get too close. My older brother and I created a legacy. Several generations from now, I envision the following conversation:

“Granpa! Is it true that Your great uncle whacked his brother with a shovel?”
“Ah, yes me lad, that story is true. But the younger one got ‘em back though, many years later…”
“How did he get him back?”
“With a spatula.”
“What?”

And so on.

Hurricane Katrina hit land today at 5:10 AM Mountain time as a category 4 hurricate with estimated speeds of 140 MPH. The landing point was Buras, LA, about 30 miles south east of New Orleans.

Crazy stuff.

(Source: National Hurricane Center)

For further bulletins, contact a legitimate news source. Forecaster Pasch is informative, but the guy never sleeps.

Windows XP can be amuisingamusing at times. I clicked my little icon to login to my home machine today, and it said,

Dylan has 5 programs running

Running too many programs can slow down your computer

IIt doesn’t normally say that. So I took a peek at the system resources being used, and there was less than 1% of total resources commited. So I decided to mess with my computer’s small, feeble mind:

Interestingly enough, I could only create 49 explorer windows before it would not let me create any more windows. However, I wrote a very simple program and I was able to launch a few hundred of them before I couldn’t launch anything else. I’m not sure what limits explorer ran into, but I found it amusing. The final resource commit value was about half of what my machine can handle (assuming it had a real operating system installed.

I just recieved a record from my leasing office, stating that they would give me a 10-14 month lease for a “low price”. The price they quoted was $6.00/mo more then I’m paying now.

Seriously, what the hell?

So, my beautiful apartment complex…

• A while back, as some of my faithful readers will recall, the mail box in my building was broken into. I sent out a buch of letters/emails to various people, including my local representative (who told me to contact everyone else I contacted, and he was the only one who replied…). About a month later, we saw notices that all of the mailboxes were to be replaced with nice, shiny, secure new ones.

  Every other building has their new mailbox installed, but my building doesn’t. Something about it being custom didn’t make it to the guys building the thing. So we still have the mail box built circa 1979. And broken into twice in the past six months!

• Two bedroom apartments, much like the one I moved out of into a “cheaper” 1 bedroom apartment, are now going for $60 a month less then what I’m paying now. Whatever.
• The above point brings interesting people to the complex. To live, to die, or whatever it is that they do here. You know the people that crawl out of the woodwork on $0.50 Pitcher Night at the local bar? Yup. I live with those people now. They’re awesome.
• I heard a story about a girl “falling off the third floor” of the building I live in. (Didn’t happen). Someone was asking why, and I responded, “Well, you drop your cigarette, you gotta go get it.” To which she asked, “Well, why didn’t she take the elevator?”. The answer is that you only take the elevator if you’re willing to risk your life. Out of a Hitchcock movie, that elevator.
• Recently, the exterior lighting in my complex was a bunch of light-posts with cheap plastic domes that the kids kept knocking off and wearing as space helmets. They took those out and mounted some real lights on the building, which is really good, because the outside courtyard is lit nicely, which makes it safer. Kudos to management for that one. Unfortunately, the idiots forgot to remove the wiring. Or at least, turn off the circuit to where the lights were. The outside lights came on today, and we heard a popping sound from next to the pool. We took a peek, and found exposed wires, safely concealed by a rock. Not that there’s kids playing around there or anything, though.
• The aforementioned wires are in flood area. Whenever it rains more then 1/60th of an inch or when they water, there’s a huge puddle of water there (man, you should of seen it when they over filled the pool and afterwards it rained. Fantastic!). But yeah, hot wires and huge puddles.

  Because it’s flooded, the grass around that area is pretty swamp-like all the time. The maintenance folk drive though it in their golf carts, tearing these huge gashes into the ground. Looks real purdy.

• So have we have these electronic locks, instead of traditional tumbler pin locks. They were installed about a year ago. (maybe?) They’re fine, except for the fact that the batteries have a tendency to run out. No, that’s a bunch of crock. They suck. They don’t always open even when the batteries are fine. Seeing as the only benefit is that you can’t leave the key inside, They have been the source of a lot of grief for everyone. Word on the street is that they are replacing them with more traditional tumbler pin locks.

Stay tuned for future installments of Adventures in Living.

Occassionaly, I feel a need to take a test so that others can “rate” me. I took this one, and I feel as though I failed it, but that’s ok.

the Wit (52% dark, 30% spontaneous, 21% vulgar)

your humor style: CLEAN | COMPLEX | DARK You like things edgy, subtle, and smart. I guess that means you’re probably an intellectual, but don’t take that to mean pretentious. You realize ‘dumb’ can be witty–after all isn’t that the Simpsons’ philosophy?–but rudeness for its own sake, ‘gross-out’ humor and most other things found in a fraternity leave you totally flat. I guess you just have a more cerebral approach than most. You have the perfect mindset for a joke writer or staff writer. Your sense of humor takes the most thought to appreciate, but it’s also the best, in my opinion. You probably loved the Office. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, check it out here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/theoffice/. PEOPLE LIKE YOU: Jon Stewart – Woody Allen – Ricky Gervais