Abject failure.

I was quite successful in avoiding working on my bedroom yesterday. Late lunch at Panbiche, getting in the way while Sean fixed computers at New Seasons, setting up a projector at the gym, but today I had to start in.

The day started a bit weird too. I had a couple of beers and watched Better Off Dead, a 1985 movie I saw in college, and I had nightmares about being back at MIT. My stuff was in my old dorm room though the dorm architecture had changed. The kids in the adjacent rooms were driving me nuts. I don’t know why I’d have to go back at my age, but it’s not the first time I had this dream.

The closet I painted looks like hell. Actually, it really just looks like I missed a few spots and I need to get a brush to do the corners. If watching paint dry is supposed to be the most boring thing you can do, painting must be close second. I put a hole in the ceiling where I want another light, but I can’t seem to fish the electrical wire to the existing light. I spent HOURS on this and I foresee many more hours before I get this finished. I guess that’s why electricians make so much.

Not helping my cause.

I was told today that there were two teams after a couple’s breakup. Somehow I was assigned to one of the teams without knowing it. It’s just as well.

I suppose many think they know what team I’m on, and it doesn’t help that I bought a doughnut that was described to me as, “tasting pink,” and was called the, “Fairy Princess.” I will say it was tasty.

At least the day ended at Laurelhurst Market.

The day started out meh, and about 11AM my sister called me to tell me our ma fell and hit her head and had swelling around the eye. I asked quite pointedly why she was calling ME instead of the doctor and she said our ma said she was fine. I hung up on her soon after that and called the doctor to see if I could get my mom an appointment today. I got the run-around from a receptionist and just drove the hell home. My mom had a mouse the size of a half-ping-pong ball on her left brow, and I called the advice nurse. We ended up going to “Immediate Care” where they determined she didn’t have any fractures and my ma, while looking horrific, seemed to be doing fine. I’m pretty sure she’s going to be sore tomorrow, but that’s about it.

Oh, and it turns out she tripped on the curb and fell onto the sidewalk because she was looking in a window to look for Craig, who is about to become a father of twins.

I discovered after all this that maybe my usual Thursday lunch of boneless chicken wings is less than ideal for the gym. I had a half of a turkey sandwich for lunch and did much better.

Burger club this week went to Laurelhurst Market. It’s nice that a burger I’ve been talking up for months is as good as I remember. As was their cheesecake. And that’s it for now. It’s almost tomorrow.

Kobe beef burger at Laurelwood.

OK, whose idea was it to stay up so late on a Wednesday? And I’ve been in a foul mood all day anyway. Stupid medical insurance anyway.

OK, so the Kobe beef burger (I’m not cropping the picture tonight, you’ll have to wait) at Laurelwood is TASTY, as is their chili and their beer. However, for $15 I think I’d go somewhere else. Still, if you find yourself at Laurelwood, there’s no reason not to get the burger if you can afford it.

That’s it, andiamo.

Into the Labyrinth.

My HDTV has always set on a wooden box that is really where I stash all my sweaters with a bunch of cedar planks. I don’t wear sweaters that often because I’m usually dressed like a schlub so it wasn’t that much of a problem, but as soon as I saw a Costco ad for a super rocking 80’s TV stand, I started thinking about my newest piece of furniture. I was getting my interior decorating consultant involved (my sister) and she suggested going to Ikea.

I’ve only set up one piece of Ikea furniture, which was really easy, but that was for my last girlfriend and we haven’t been going out since 2001. Back then you had to make a pilgrimage up to the Seattle-Tacoma area to get Ikea furniture. Nowadays you just have to drive to a shopping area near the Portland airport. The only time I’ve been to Ikea was for the meatballs, and I had to ask someone how to get the hell out of the building. They told me to go through an unmarked door and “just keep walking”. I wonder if the employees would have tackled me if they knew I wasn’t going through their windy maze.

In any case, I wandered through the maze and got my loot and I’m glad I saw the TV stands in person. I almost got this aluminum and glass monstrosity that would have taken up way too much space. Here’s what I did get:

So now I have a huge TV set up on a stand in my small office. I kind of wish there was a comfortable sofa and someone to sit beside, or a cat to have on my lap, but I just have my plastic Herman Miller office chair that kind of hurts my bony ass. And a giant TV. And a DVR with TV I like. It’s not ideal, but it’s good enough for who it’s for.

Not 100%.

My stomach still feels funny lately and that sort of slows me down during the day. I don’t need to be physically 100% at work, but it kind of slows me down when I get to the gym. Back squats take core strength, and alternating minute rows/ball slams kind of do as well. A percolating stomach doesn’t help.

I don’t suppose I’m going to change very soon, but I still don’t have any sensibility about going to sleep on time. I should be in bed, not reading (like I’m planning to do), already. But here I am, still sorting out some of the paperwork on the floor. Oh, and rebooting my computers, like a tool.

Oh, and since someone I trust tells me not to do eHarmony, now what? A.G. needs some help with his non-existent game. (“Asian Geek” not “Asian Gangster” if you didn’t figure it out.)

Wow, I didn’t leave the house today.

The sad part of not leaving the house is that I’d expect that I would have gotten a lot done. In fact, the main goal of the weekend was to paint my closet. What happened was installing that damn light in the closet made all the flaws in the walls quite obvious, and I had to do a little more prep before deciding that, hey, this is a closet and who the hell cares what it looks like? But I also moved the DirecTV outlets around and had to patch the holes in the wall which are going to take some time to dry. I moved more furniture, not that anyone would notice, and tried to organize more files but ended up just spreading more papers on the floor.

I know there’s no reason to keep my dad’s old income tax returns, but I found some from 1946-1955 and I’m curious to see what he made back then. If I had any sense, they’d just go straight into the shredder. I also found old grade-school pictures and some of my sister’s medical records and a bunch of weird-shaped batteries. Funny the things my dad had squirreled away.

I also signed up for eHarmony at the suggestion of Nurse Tiff. Somehow it uploaded a picture from my computer that I didn’t select that looks quite foolish. I don’t seem to have a whole lot of pictures of myself besides the ones in Photo Booth which is where the picture came from. I’m sure that will increase my popularity on the site.

Well, it’s time to pretend to go to bed early. I have a book I need to read.

My procrastination button is broken.

I blame TV. My DirecTV deal was ending so I had to change my package or they were going to charge me for EVERYTHING. I usually just watch network TV so I was going to switch to the minimum service but the minimum service doesn’t have ESPN! What the hell good is that? Anyway, I’m going to get the privilege of paying close to $90 a month and I’m paying another $200 to upgrade two TVs to HD. I’m such a sucker.

Well, all that happened partially because I was AVOIDING REAL WORK on Friday, though I was fairly unsuccessful at that. I was arguing with right-wing lawyers on Facebook and ordering TV service while I was supposed to be writing a self-assessment. Turns out I had some “real” work to do — making a Powerpoint presentation. Oh how dirty I feel now. Oh, and I had them add my iPhone to the work email server so I can’t get away from work now.

Last night we went out for Il’s birthday to Ringside. $200 down the tubes, or at least down my gullet. My problem is that he has a girlfriend and so I can’t call him my heterosexual life partner any longer. Even Nurse Tiff thinks I should start up on eHarmony.

I made a list for today to move the DirecTV outlets and paint the closet. I tried to procrastinate, but I went to the paint store, put in a light and light switch in the closet, moved furniture, cut in two electrical outlets where I want the DirecTV outlets to go, and was generally overly ambitious. I’m waiting for the DirecTV guy to do the wiring before I patch up a couple more holes and actually start painting, but is this what I have to look forward to now that football season is almost over? It’s so much easier when I can just sit inside and tell myself that I’m paying so much for TV that I need to watch it.

Well, I guess I did spend the evening watching TV again. No matter how you slice it, I am still pretty boring, but I caught up on all the shows on my DVR. Time to start reading!

Not at 100%.

I felt a lot better today and I even made it to the gym, but I realized quite early that I wasn’t running on all cylinders. Sprinting around the block was more like limping around the block. It’s just as well anyway.

From a guy who thinks Presidents Obama and Clinton lean too far to the right, this has been a shitty week politically. I suppose it’s just as well and just points out to me two things, that not everyone agrees with my stilted point of view, and that whitey owns my ass either way. I am used to it, however, and probably can live with whitey owning my ass easier than the day when China owns my ass. By that time I’ll probably be old and decrepit and even more demented than I am now.

I should also get off the computer before the Republicans come to get me. I just posted this to a facebook comment supporting the Supreme Court’s decision to free corporations and labor unions from some campaign financing restrictions.

Without the benefit of a background in law or a modicum of sobriety, I must point out that a corporation is an artificial entity whose purpose is the amoral maximization of profit and will destroy any competitors in its primary purpose of creating a return for the stockholders. I say that with no knowledge of legal precedent, but since the right-wing Supreme Court seems to have thrown one hundred years of legal precedent out the window, I can probably just pull anything out of my ass and be as correct as they are.

See? More proof that I need to turn off my computer and go to bed. Andiamo.

Crap, it’s late, and I feel like doodie.

I had to come home midday because I felt like crap. Of course the most important thing I’m watching over at work went to shit while I was gone, so that was a nice touch. I passed out from noon until about 4:30 and now I’m up late doing whatever the hell it is I’m doing.

I found a stack of papers and decided it was time to sort through the old bills I’d paid and started stacking up in my old office, much like my dad used to do. I found out that I’ve been doing that since 2000! I’d pay a bill and put it on the stack. Old utility bills, old medical bills, whatever. Now they’re in stacks all over my new office because I ran out of manila folders. Time for a trip to Officemax because this is the excitement that is my life.

I think this may be genetic, because here’s an old picture of my dad’s room with his piles of crap.

Here’s my new office that I’ve only been using for a month or so.

I’m well on my way to making it a mess.

For a second night, I’m in a bad mood.

Last night, the d*ckwads at Panic were pissing me off with the sh*tty update to their program Unison. The piece of sh*t program refuses to work properly and if you read the reviews on MacUpdate, lots of people are having the same f*cking problems I am. Customer service is p*ss-poor and absolutely useless in this case and I can’t tell you how little I think of the sh*t they pulled by selling me a non-working pile of sh*t like Unison 2. Do not support these Portland *ssholes and their lame*ss products if this is the kind of sh*t they pull.

Tonight I tried to print out a simple f*cking postage label from the g*dd*mn US Post Office and of course their sh*tty program doesn’t just download a label for you, it tries to launch f*cking Adobe Reader through some non-working cleverness and it doesn’t f*cking work on my f*cking Mac. Or on f*cking Windows. It’s too late for those b*stards to be answering their f*cking phones, so I called VISA to see if they were declining my card and it was VISA’s problem. No, the charge has gone through TWICE but I haven’t seen sh*t printed out. Motherf*ckers.

So now what the hell am I supposed to do?

Did I mention the Masshole elections haven’t made me any happier, either?

UPDATE:
Found the problem with the post office — don’t ship too late in the evening because their credit card processing might be down. Sheesh.

No more 24.

I quit watching 24 a while ago. I backslid one season where I was happy watching Jack shoot someone every single week, but then it got back to torturing Jack week to week. My brother-in-law said he’s done with 24 because it just makes him hate people, and I think I agree. I just can’t be bothered any longer.

My sister brought me a few books and I really should read them. Somewhere among all my crap is The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Devil of Nanking, and she just brought me Black Out. I also bought That Old Cape Magic last summer and I haven’t even opened it yet and THMFIC at the gym has a couple of thriller/mysteries he’s lending me. Football season is just about over and I should have more time to read, but I wonder if I can read something that’s not on my Kindle 2?