Friend Trent was recently sent to Norway by his company. Friend Dodds’ company just upgraded their office to a campus. Meanwhile, here at my work, we armed David with a Raid for Flying Insects so he could go forth and battle the locust-like plague of flies the workers on the roof have knocked loose with their constant hootenanneries.
Life: never so glorious as right now.
Things I Bought
- Low Sodium Soy Sauce (for der office) / $2.69
Harold’s eyes, normally downcast, away from all things garish and brightly lit, cast desultory eyes upon the place. He waged a mental battle against its cheery kitsch, its brazenly gauche decor. What kind of people would eat in such a place? And he knew what kind, would know even without looking: the kind of people who threw caution to the wind and filed their own taxes. The kind of people who never itemized. The kind who made charitable donations and never kept the receipts.
Harold dismissed them in his mind, but secretly ached. In his deepest heart, he, too, wanted to be cheery and devil-may-care. The corners of his mouth wilted. What good had it done him to be so proper and clever all these years? What good, when life – the bright and exciting kind, announced in neon! – had passed him by, again and again?
Suddenly deciding to be bold and unexpected, Harold put both his hands on the hard red door of the diner, and gave it a determined push.
The door did not budge. Harold blinked, nonplussed. And then, sheepishly, he beheld the “PULL” sign to the left of the handle, and, looking about to make sure he hadn’t been observed, entered.
How well he still remembered the first, deep whiff of the place! Whatever shortcomings there were in decor was more than made up for by the sweet, warm, succulent smell of waffles that filled Harold’s nostrils when he walked through the door. Like a rabbit testing the air, Harold remembered lifting his head, nose twitching in anticipation. His senses led him straight towards the counter, which was fairly busy, even given the lateness of the hour.
There was a large, scowling man behind the counter, eyeing Harold unpleasantly. He wore a nametag that said My name is Theodore, how can I help you?
“Well? What do you want?”
Taken aback, it took Harold a moment before he found his voice. “I – I would like to see a menu, please.”
A smirk brightened the corners of the Theodore the Goon’s mouth. “Menu? What d’you think this is?”
He moved one hand over his shoulder and jerked a beefy finger towards the wall. “There’s the menu, fella.”
Harold’s eyes moved to where Theodore’d pointed. A large, bright yellow placard posted boasted four items:
1 Waffle
2 Waffles
3 Waffles
Wally’s Wonder Waffle Special Combo Supreme– VIPs ONLY!!!
Harold looked around himself. The people around him were eating, most of them one or two waffles – he couldn’t even imagine what it would be like to eat three. But what was a Wonder Waffle? VIPs Only!!!, huh? Probably some ridiculous birthday promotion, Harold decided. When he looked back to order, Theodore’s back was turned to him.
“Ah – excuse me.”
Theodore turned. “You made up your mind?”
“I’ll have a waffle. The one. Please.”
Theodore smirked at him, eyes moving up and down him, sizing him up. “Yeah,” he said finally. “One’s about your speed.”
The teriyaki pork chops I put in the oven are making the apartment smell very good indeed. I’m using this pre-made marinade called “Soy Vay” – purportedly created by a Jewish boy and a Chinese girl, using no preservatives, and probably with some sort of soy product in it. Mmm.
Curt is not home yet. I’m playing hooky from homework for a few minutes so I can blog about the latest harebrained thing that’s come to my head: in an attempt (oh, yet again, and ever after) to save money, I am going to only purchase the bare minimum for the next few weeks, and blog everything I WANT to buy, every day, and compare it with everything I ACTUALLY buy. This exercise serves two purposes. No, no, it serves three:
1. It’ll help me to keep track of what I’m buying, so that I can have a more transparent (and therefore, more shameful [remember, shame is a motivator!]) record of what I’m spending my money on.
2. I’ll be more inclined to wait before I purchase something, since I am a notorious “MUST HAVE THAT THING RIGHT THIS INSTANT” type of buyer (read: no better than a three year old).
3. I have something to blog about every day for the next few weeks. Which is good because to start off my list of things I want:
Things I Want To Buy
- A book of things to blog about when I’m too lazy and/or empty-headed to think up something on my own
- Yogurt
Things I Bought
- A bunch of bananas
- A box of Cutie Clementines
Okay, enough slackery. Back later with the picture of the day, etc. Here are the thingies of the day:
Freakin’ Annie made me cry like three times this weekend. Stupid movie. * grump, grump *
So, the search for the desk was unfruitful. All the tables were either too rickety are just too freakin’ big. I guess I will have to make do with the silly little card desk for a little while longer.
We think the Aerogarden is dead. Yes, everyone, not only did I manage to kill a whole bunch of plant seeds, I managed to obliterate the electronic garden from which they came. Suck. Tomorrow I’m going to try to call the Aerogarden people to see if they will give me free stuff for breaking it. Prolly not, but it never hurts to try.
Today, I attempted to make a stencil for our “I love bobcats” shirt, and discovered that I have no talent for detailed carving. If I’m good and we manage to find a desk for me tomorrow, I might treat myself to another craft buying mini-spree and get the stuff I need for detailed screen-painting. Then, my Bobcat shirt will live!
[...] talking about [...] appears to be behind in the pool. That’s very easy. He looks like a plastic guy. He doesn’t look real. Altered answers are very reversed(?) and he is not natural when he speaks and he sounds like he is a shelter, he is a shelter, that’s why he is behind, not because he is Marlene, although that doesn’t help either. [listen]
Powered by Jott
The actual quote goes:
John and Ken are talking about why Mitt Romney appears to be behind in the polls. That’s very easy: he looks like a plastic guy. He doen’st look real. All his answers are very, uh, rehearsed, and he’s not natural when he speaks, and he sounds like he’s a shyster. He’s a shyster! That’s why he’s behind, not because he’s a Mormon. Although, that doesn’t help either.
Although Jott’s rendition is a lot more fun than mine. ;) I should never translate them.
The Aerogarden is a go! I planted two garden salads, a basil plant, and a cilantro plant. Will they live, or will my murderousness strike again!? MWAHAHA!
I brought back my box of writing, which goes back through 15 years of my life. It’s full of melodramatic love, inexplicable segues, and angst, all in a way only understood by 13 year olds. What a n00b I was. ;)
So, I got home at around 10:00, and it’s midnight now. I’m tired. Time to go to sleep for me.
On the way to work today I heard a news story about a husband and wife living in Orange County who could not afford health insurance for themselves and their three children. They owned a $500,000 house. The wife stayed at home and the husband was self employed, making $70,000 a year. During one point of the interview, the wife exclaimed, “I just don’t like the fact that we’re being penalized for our choices.”
Are you fucking kidding me.
Yes, I too would like to live in a world where I am never penalized for making choices that negatively affect me. Or any choices at all! In fact, I’d like to stay home, and have Curt work and still be able to afford to pay our rent and eat, and go out and buy stuff and everything. That would be great, thanks.
It’s really not that I don’t sympathize. Health care costs are ridiculous these days (not that I believe that is entirely the fault of the insurance companies, though it is a shady, despicable business). But how can people THINK that way?
This is along the same lines as the news story about the couple who had eight children, were living in poverty and railing against the government for lack of support BUT they flat out refused to stop having children because the husband wanted a son. I just wanted to reach out my mighty smiting hand and strike them both down for their complete and utter stupidity: his for being a stupid, macho dickhead, and hers for not kicking his ass for being a stupid, macho dickhead.
AARARGHAGHAGHAHGAHGAGA!!!1!!!!
Back to scheduled programming.
I am recklessly shirking my C++ homework for blogging, and I imagine I will only moderately regret it. I’ll admit I am not really good with online courses. I have too little self discipline to force myself to do work when I could be – say, making a pillow!
Yes, I made a pillow tonight. It’s retarded looking! Also, I made a pillow case. It is a little too big for my pillow, but I think it’ll take a little bit of time before I can get really good at making anything with my sewing machine. Curt had a moment of panic when he thought I might be itching to fill the apartment with retarded pillows. Which is ridiculous. If I had that many pillows, I would start to foist them upon others, so that they may go forth and breed! The pillows, that is. I don’t mess with People Breeding.
So, I downloaded a plugin today that allows me to include and exclude categories from my main blog index at will. I was able to accomplish this previously only because I half-ass hacked into the Loop to create my never-looked-at Photoblog. So, I’m killing that. In its place, I’ll be sticking my never-looked-at Writing, and integrating the photos into the normal blog flow. Also, I’ve pared back on my resolution to write every day, since some days the writing will take up time that I want to channel into very important retarded pillow making. Whatever. It’ll all work out.
Today, I saw a blog that made me suddenly hate the design of this blog. I can do better! It’s a pain in the ass to modify each month, too. That’s certainly gotta go. Alright – off to homework.