captain_sam

This is how the internet has warped me:

I'm friends with this couple, although we see each other like once a year. Through the miracle of facebook, we manage to keep in touch and they're the kind of people who don't mind just picking back up after an extended period of time. But we don't really have that much in common and they always reach out to me, and never vice-versa, even though I enjoy spending time with them.

So obviously, my first conclusion is that this couple is trying to lure me into a threesome. Right? That makes sense. It's not that they're just nice people and they consider me a friend. I'm about 40% convinced this threesome scenario is the correct one.

Note to self: don't get drunk this Thanksgiving and blurt out your theory in front of them, or else you'll probably be minus two friends.

East Cambridge Animal Clinic owner, wife die in car crash

My old vet died in a car crash back in August; I had no idea, until I googled some local animal clinics today.

I didn't really appreciate him as a vet, but it still feels odd when someone you know passes. It's weirder (and more awful) that he and his wife were both in that car crash. Dr. Taqiuddin was always available for appointments and was always kind and gentle with my cat. You can always trust a man who's kind to animals, I think.

Anyway. Thanks, doc, for being decent.

Dear panhandler playing bongos at the Chinatown T stop,

I think "God bless you" is supposed to be a benediction, not an accusation. Perhaps if you didn't shout "God bless you!" at everyone as though it were a curse, they would give you change. I can do some market research and get back to you, if you like.

Sincerely,
captain_sam

Now is when I shake my tiny fist at the sky and curse C-mcast for everything I'm worth. A POX on your thrice-cursed internet service, C-mcast.

I thought initially it was the router; I'd seen Isabelle chewing on the antennae and when I plugged my computer directly into the router, I seemed to be able to make a connection. Well and good, maybe it was just that the router couldn't broadcast anymore. So I got a new router with an internal antenna and set it up and things were just dandy for a few hours.

Then came some weird problems--not being able to connect to the network, having to power cycle the router (I like how "power cycle" is the fancy term they use for unplug-and-plug-back-in) and then fiddle with the ethernet cable to make things work. And then it just stopped working altogether.

Well, that's not strictly true. Currently I can connect to the network and the broadcast signal is nice and strong, but the speed is severely throttled. I can get pages to load, but I have to sit there and wait for about three minutes, and sometimes I have to try two or three times. I ran a speed test, and while my download speed seemed fine, the program was unable to gauge my upload speed at all.

At first I thought it was my computer, but my roommate is having the same issue. Also, we can both connect to other networks outside of the apartment just fine. So I'm pretty sure it's time to break out the "FUCK YOU C-MCAST" tag.

Any nerds got ideas?

Feeling angsty today, but in a high school way. So I'm dealing with it in a high school way: awful poetry.

You can point
To a thousand different reasons
Why you might love someone
And every single one
Could be true and wrong at the same time
Because really you don't know why
And that makes you fearful,
A splash in your stomach kind of fear
That sits inside you until
You hardly notice it
Except when it reaches up
And throttles you
And then you remember that
You wanted someone
No matter the cost

Maybe if I translate this into a different language, it'll sound classier.

You know that Van de Kamp's commercial where the little girl complains to her mother about getting fed minced fishsticks? And then when her mom gives her the Van de Kamp's she's all "About time!"

I would smack the hell out of that kid if she were my daughter. You ungrateful little brat, you'll eat what I GIVE YOU TO EAT. Did you ever stop to think that maybe mommy can't afford name brand fishsticks because she's saddled with the financial burden of a four year old? Maybe you also have a "pre-existing condition," so mommy has to pay your hospital bills out of pocket. Maybe mommy is trying to save to send you to a private school. Maybe mommy just spent the day cleaning the entire house and still found the time to buy you new winter clothes. Maybe you should shut the fuck up and be GRATEFUL for what you're given.

I hate "precocious" children. Shut up. You're to be seen and not heard.

I have a cavity. It doesn't hurt. That makes me think it's not a cavity. That's pretty much the most exciting thing in my life. I'm actually waiting for some other results that might change up my routine like whoa. I'm kind of excited--it would be an extremely drastic left turn in my life, and I'm fairly certain my parents won't approve in the least. I've never really done anything they don't approve of. I've cajoled, wheedled, and begged to get my own way on occasion, but this would be the first thing I've done purely on my own.

I saw Bright Star and I'm apparently a hell of a lot more cynical than I realized, because I spent most of it squinting at what was supposed to be an intense romantic affair, but seemed to me to be kind of silly. I feel like my father when I write that; he still doesn't like it when people kiss on TV. Except at the end; they finally got me to cry near the end. Well played, Bright Star. I will say that I appreciated Jane Campion's directing, and that I eventually became immersed in some of the characters, but for the most part I was not sympathetic to poor Fannie Brawne.

I don't suppose it helped that, due to my extensive time at ohnotheydidnt, I thought "Ben Whoshaw?" throughout every scene with John Keats.

Oh god, I'm that lout who wishes the movie had had some tits and guns to make it more interesting.

A while ago I signed up for OKCupid, but I filled out the surveys as a dude to see who I'd match if it weren't for that pesky gender issue. As it turns out, the options were only marginally better than when I took the surveys as myself. Anyway. This is the message I received from them today.



It just as good as a phone call from my mother. And that's all I have to say about that.

Thanks, roommate, for canceling your account with Comcast so I could open a new one after you moved out.

Oh right, the keyword there was AFTER. AFTER you moved out. NOT RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE MONTH.

So now I'm back on campus, using their internet to
a) catch up on LJ, which is really not that bad because I have a manageable flist, and I only had to go to skip=40

b) watch Criminal Minds and Bones

c) not work on things I should be working on. I have the beginning of what I think could be a really great short story, but I'm procrastinating.

Still scrambling for a new roommate. I really don't want to have to pay the full rent for all of October because my asshat of a landlord doesn't care how he gets his money. Whatever. I'll just delay Isabelle's vet appointment for a month. I'll put the cone back on her head so she stops scratching, which I guess is also a nice substitute for television.

Well, we try to fight it, but we always end up just like our parents, don't we?

I just cleaned the apartment under the ruling tenet that "clean enough" is not a concept that exists. Thanks, mom.

I'm talking get-in-the-corners, work-the-baseboards, disinfect-then-cleanse-then-wipe-down clean. Once I started, I couldn't stop. But at least the kitchen only looks like purgatory instead of, say, the fifth level of hell. Thanks, roomie who knows I'm showing the apartment to people but still leaves a whirlwind of unclean behind during the moving out process. Peachy.

Also, my landlord is an ass who is scared of his mother.

What did my fucking roommate do to me? Decide to move in with her boyfriend.

That's not the bad part. Whatever, they're in love. She gave me *one month's notice.* You might think that's a long time, but really it's not. I've been scrabbling to find a new roommate all month, and with October rounding the bases like it's game 7 of the World Series, I might be stuck with the rent for the entire month of October. I have just about enough money to cover it, but it would really dent my savings. I suppose if someone moved in early enough in October, they would just pay me a hefty percentage of that month's rent and that would help cover it.

But still. Really dude? You're going to pick now? You couldn't have told me at the beginning of August, when people were actually trying to move to Boston for the beginning of the school year?

Now it's all Indian grad students responding to my ad. Male Indian grad students. I don't have a problem with that demo per se, I just find it weird and statistically significant that only male Indian grad students are responding to my ad.

I think Isabelle is missing. I can't find her anywhere in the apartment. She can't have gotten far, because I heard her meowing desperately to be let out at about 10:30 this morning. Then I showed the apartment to a potential roommate at 12:30, and I think she might have slipped out of an open door then. I've just combed the neighborhood, rattling her favorite toy. I'm worried she won't be able to find her way back if she really is lost.

I guess I'll keep looking.

ETA: Second tour of neighborhood revealed nothing. Hoping she's just sleeping it off in a corner somewhere. The one time she got out without me knowing, I heard her meowing outside of my window. Maybe once she's hungry she'll wander back?

ETA 2: FOUND. She was in the bathroom closet, buried under...everything. I have no idea how she got down there, but she burrowed back out when she heard me taking out the garbage. You'll not be escaping any time soon, cat, by my halidome.

What did I do today?

Well, I was up early (technically, up all night), but I wasn't sleepy at 6:30 so I went for a little 4 mile run around the river. Super beautiful running weather: light, crisp, gradually getting warmer the closer I got to home.

I had a hearty brunch, went to the hardware store, got some spackle and a new toolbox (finally, a place for my awl), and then went and got a tattoo that I had decided I wanted a few hours ago.



I didn't think it would take an hour. It took an hour! My last one only took about 30 minutes. At least my artist was really nice, and talked a lot to take my mind off the incessant pricking. She made me feel really comfortable about having my pants off. Also, props to her for facing my clenching butt for an hour.

At least it's where I can reach it. Daily applications of A&D to the one on my back were an exercise in patience and flexibility.

And so our heroine returned home from her workout, feeling limp and empty and not at all pumped up on endorphins as she'd hoped. She had started her day on bingo fuel to begin with, having succumbed to an attack of insomnia the night before. Despite her trainer's pleasant countenance, the extended stretching session, and her own exhaustion, she was left craving more from the evening. Certain of her friends were indisposed; others were not picking up their phones or were not online (Tina Fey was right, she thought, There are just so many ways for people to not call you these days.). It was her and the cat tonight, and the cat had recently re-developed a skin condition that even the veterinarian was hard-pressed to diagnose.

She was also worried that she had inadvertently referred in her head to her personal trainer as her "personal therapist," and felt a good conversation in equally good company would help resolve her mortification.

In the end, she decided upon a short round of video game violence and bed. Things would seem better in the morning.

Just searched for Can't Hardly Wait on a whim at Amazon.

Amazon returned:
Can't Hardly Wait
She's All That
10 Things I Hate About You
Empire Records
Clueless

WHY AREN'T YOU A REAL PERSON WHO I CAN DATE, AMAZON?

Also, that sounds like a good movie night. I'm penciling it into my schedule. This weekend would probably be a good time; some friends of mine are going to be hanging with their novios and it's not that I dislike the guys, but I don't particularly enjoy being a fifth wheel. The other four wheels don't like it either, because the fifth wheel is usually real drag.

I have to hit the pet store tomorrow anyway, and Best Buy just happens to be across the street. So if I just happen to wander in, who can blame me?

You know those little time management games where you control a character (usually an entrepreneurial young woman) who has to coordinate a series of different activities in order to fulfill some kind of monetary requirement? Yeah, I love those. The iPhone is not helping; so far I've acquired Sally's Spa, Cooking Dash, and Ranch Rush. There's something really appealing about a game that basically accumulates a list of time-critical items that you must clear. It's just satisfying, on a small, insignificant level.

Now, these are supposedly family-friendly games. We all know family-friendly means a bunch of straight white people with some ethnicities sprinkled in, and maybe an old person or two.

Imagine my surprise when an interracial lesbian couple showed up in Sally's Spa. Interracial! Lesbian! Couple! My my, how progressive we are, time management game. There was no special mention, they just kind of sprung into existence on the cruise ship level (which made me laugh to no end--Lesbians love whalewatching! They fucking love it!).

I googled the "Sally's spa" + lesbian couple to see if there was any controversy, because I felt like maybe I'd read an article a while back about some parents' group something or other kicking up a fuss. But no, I got nothing.

So here's to you, Sally's Spa, for some low-key lesbian action.

I joined a gym recently. I'm trying to lose weight/get in shape for a 10k. Right now I could run a 5k, but I'm struggling to get past mile 4.

Anyway, part of this whole get-fit thing is also eating right. You can run run run all you want, but if you don't eat right, it's like, what was it all for? I'm thinking about this particularly hard at the moment, because I'm hungry.

Now, I could go over to Whole Foods and pick up a lovely Chilean sea bass filet and some veggies (and maybe some of that 365 mac and cheese) and have a fantastic dinner. OR, I could order a pizza.

Dammit dammit dammit.

Tonight's Adventures in Epic Desk Cleaning include:

1 cut finger + accompanying blood
approx. 2394872 pounds of dust
20 minutes of figuring out how to improvise and installing spacers to fix the keyboard pullout
1 curious cat nearly destroying everything
a lot of loud hammering at 3am that was sure to have woken the neighbors
the glee only a nerd takes in neatly bundling all the wires (I really need a USB keyboard and wireless printer)
I really am an inconsiderate jackass with a screwed up sleep schedule.

But my desk is going to look shiny and clean.

Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy dead at 77

Well. Goodbye, Senator Kennedy.

It's strange. You grow up seeing certain faces on TV and hearing certain voices in the news and when they're gone, it feels like part of you has been left behind. You wonder what it'll be like for a generation growing up without those faces and voices. It makes me understand why so many older folks like to reminisce about back-in-the-day, and when old-so-and-so was around. I think it's a way to visit the part of yourself that existed before your timeline got cut up. It's just so weird to think that there are kids around today who have no idea what life was like pre-9/11, or pre-George Bush, or pre-e-mail. By the hammer of Thor, I'm barely into my twenties, and already my friends and I can say "Remember when cell phones were huge? Remember when only the rich kids' parents had car phones? Remember when there was that one kid in school who had a CD burner and would make you a mix if you asked nicely? Omg, remember Napster?" And that's just on a technological level.

Remember when fast food portions were smaller? When it cost $0.50 to buy a coke? When we still gave a shit about the space program? When Nancy Kerrigan threw an epically justified tanty over her ruined knee? When women's soccer exploded in popularity? When all we thought we had to really worry about was how startlingly ugly Linda Tripp was?

Oh shit--remember what it was like before reality television?

I wonder what life will be like for me at 77, assuming zombies don't destroy us all first. And assuming I don't pass tragically early saving the Enterprise.

Avatar Teaser Trailer

A massive sign of gayness:

The trailer really isn't that exciting, especially considering the previous hype.

But then I saw a production still of Michelle Rodriguez, remembered she's in this film, and then got really excited.

I've heard that if you see an actual clip from the film, like a whole scene, the avatars actually seem very real. We'll see.