Nov. 30th, 2005|12:38 pm: Today I got my T-Mobile bill in the mail. And I skim over it and notice one unusual thing…it appears that I called my brother and talked to him for 48 minutes. Now, I like my brother and everything, but I can’t imagine holding a 48 minute conversation with him. What’s even weirder was that the conversation started at 12:27am. So I referred to a calendar and checked my journal to see what I was up to that night.

It’s from when I was in Orlando with the Yomamas and Jammie. Then I remember my brother calling me the next morning and telling me that my cell phone had accidentally dialed him the previous night. Which I can see happening since my “send” button is stupidly located on the outside part of the phone. The fucked up part is…my brother sat there and listened to Jammie and I for 48 minutes. And I can just imagine what we were doing after midnight on a Friday night. Geez, what a perv my brother is. I hope he enjoyed it.

Nov. 29th, 2005|12:00 pm: I checked my mailbox today to find a rain-soaked green envelope full of gifts from Spessa. Among the gifts, I got my very own T-Mobile Hotspot window decal and about a dozen Qwest temporary tattoos. The tattoos have a dog on them wearing some kind of bib that says “Spirit of Service” on it. She addressed those to the kids, but I stole one for myself and put it on my arm. I stuck the window decal on my office window. Here’s some pics…the Qwest logo is a little obscured by the camera flash glare. You know you’ve got a true friend when you’re constantly giving each other phone company memorabilia as gifts.

Nov. 22nd, 2005|09:40 am: I was bored all day so I ended up picking up the kids from their after-school thing about 30 minutes earlier than normal. Speaking of that place, it’s pure madness there. A thousand wild kids running all over the place with only a handful of high school aged kids keeping an eye on them all and a few random adults scattered around. They were doing some kind of Thanksgiving feast and the kids really wanted to stay for that, but we had to wait for it to start so we sat down at a table and played dominoes for 30 minutes. Then went to the gym for the feast – turkey, corn, mashed potatoes, milk, pumpkin pie and a few other random things I couldn’t identify. So even if I’m going to be completely bored this Thanksgiving, at least I got a small thanksgiving feast!

Came home, did homework, ate, played video games/Legos. I think the thing I’ve missed most about having my kids for the past year and a half is not being able to do homework with them. Even though I had them on all the holidays, I never got to do any homework with them during all that time. It’s even more fun now than it used to be since Emily’s homework is getting more advanced. I’m going to be screwed once they get into high school and start surpassing my own knowledge.

I built a really cool Lego windmill. It towers about 4 times as high as the rest of the buildings in their Lego town and it spins on it’s own, powered by battery. I built an identical tower next to it with a shaft between the two which spins a bunch of random gears on the front of the 2nd tower while the windmill is running. I asked Payton if it was an okay Windmill. He responded, “Are you KIDDING?? This is the best windmill I’ve ever SEEN!”

Hopefully zoomshare allows hotlinking, but probably not.

I got DSL yesterday and it rocks. 7mbps – my cable in Illinois was a mere 3mbps. Not that it really matters. I think once I hit 256kbps or so, I stop noticing much difference. But at least now I’m more likely to be able to talk on my Vonage line and download stuff from Bittorrent at the same time. It sure beats the approximate 20kbps I’ve been getting through my cell phone connection for the past 3 weeks.

I also moved everything from my laptop to the desktop computer, which is much faster. All this speed is crazy! It’s so nice to have my Launchcast back, especially since I don’t have a radio in the house, except for my clock radio.

Convenience store girl: Looks like you’re getting a little pre-Thanksgiving snack!
Me: Actually this is the entire Thanksgiving feast here!
Convenience store girl: ….. Oh.

So far the appetizer (Nutter Butters and milk) is delicious!

Lit candles, sang Christmas carols, lit the tree, walked around the mall for awhile, visited an art show, stopped by the Book Bin to pet the cats, went to a magic store, came home and played tons of Ratchet & Clank. We’ve all become addicted to that game again.

Before the Christmas tree lighting	And it’s lit	Weird electrical box sculptures	Cat & kids

In other news, my new camera phone sure seems to take really great pictures. Oh yeah, I finally finished that Mark Twain bio that I started over a month ago. And I started on War of the Worlds. Pretty amazing book, considering it was written in the late 1800’s.

Two things I seem to see a lot of in Albany so far, aside from rain and fog – dogs in the back of trucks and rampant CB use. There’s actually a place called “CB World” here. And so far I’ve seen two different trucks that have stickers in their back windows, displaying which CB channel they hang out on. To still be a CB enthusiast just seems…weird to me. Not that I have any room to talk about being weird. But the last time I saw a truck or car advertising the driver’s CB channel was in 1996 – when I lived in Albany.

And I think having your dog in the back of your truck is usually illegal, isn’t it? It must not be around here because I see a lot of it. In the picture above, it was freezing out and the dog was pacing the truck, it’d lay down for a second, then get up again and pace some more. I think it was just too cold to lay down. Poor guy.

Nov. 19th, 2005|01:59 pm:

Why is it when you enter any laundromat in the country, you instantly feel like you’ve time traveled to the 1960’s…

I did laundry today, but not before visiting numerous garage sales. I scored a book by George Burns and a 4 foot Christmas tree for $3.25! One garage sale had a perfect dining table and chairs set for me for just $15.00 – but it was already sold. I was terrified to learn today that the JUGGALO STREET CREW does their laundry at the Elm Street Laundrymat. I don’t think it’ll be possible to feel safe at night anymore with the JSC out there. I took a few pictures of their crimes against bathroom walls…

Remember – if you wash lights with darks, then you’re not down with the clown!

Nov. 19th, 2005|09:00 am: I think I hurt this fly’s feelings. Or maybe I humbled him. Ever since I moved into this place, these two flies have been driving me crazy. I’ve said, “Goddammit!” a lot these past couple days because these flies keep landing on me and buzzing around my head while I’m trying to do things. So a few minutes ago, I pick up a LIFE magazine, swing at the fly and hit him really hard as he’s flying in the air. I don’t see him after that so I sit back down and get back to my mindless boring internet stuff.

Suddenly he’s back, but he’s staying away from me. He’s flying around and landing on walls and stuff but he refuses to come near me. I wonder if this particular fly is capable of reason and has figured out that I’m a bad motherfucker and he should keep his distance. It’s like he’s lost some of his spunk. I hope he tells the other fly to stay away from me too. There’s just two flies in this house, I think. I wish they’d hurry up and die so I don’t have to invest in a fly swatter.

I’m not sure how long flies live, but he was probably a really happy-go-lucky kind of fly and never suspected that there were bad things in the world until he received that beatdown from my LIFE magazine. I’ve probably ruined his whole outlook on life. If I haven’t given him brain damage, he’s probably just depressed now. He’s at the window right now, probably wanting to get out of here.

Anyway, on to more important things…I have to find a laundromat today. And I desperately need some breakfast since I haven’t eaten anything since breakfast yesterday. I might visit a few yard sales and see if there’s any furniture I can use. And I need to fix the phone jacks in this house – there’s a jack in every room but only the living room one works.

Nov. 19th, 2005|08:28 am: Cellular phone designers need to make surveillance camera software for your cell phone. Most cell phones already have a camera and plenty of storage. So why can’t they keep an eye on things while you’re away? It’d be a simple piece of software. All it needs to do it snap a picture at an interval that you decide on, based on how much memory is available in your phone. Or if you have a lot of memory (mine is capable of taking a 1 gig mini SD card) it could take video. Or if you don’t have a lot of storage, the phone could automatically upload the pictures to the internet. They could even make the software detect motion and instruct it only to snap pictures when motion is detected. This could be used for all kinds of things, such as…

• When you’re stay at a hotel and leave your room for the day, you could set the phone inconspicuously someplace to keep an eye on the maid to make sure she isn’t stealing everything in sight. Which would work great as long as she didn’t steal the phone.

• Nannycam! Watch the babysitter beat your kids while you’re out.

• Attention whores could wear their cell phone on a lanyard around their neck and have it take pictures of what they’re doing all day. One picture per minute could show up in their Livejournals. This could be the newest blogging fad! Even if you didn’t broadcast the pictures, it might be interesting to have nonstop photographic archives of your entire days. Especially if you’re actually doing anything interesting.

• Party Phonecast! You’re a hip teenager throwing a party. You invite everyone on your Buddy List to the party and everyone is having a great time, discoing and drinking Kool-aid. You should show all the losers who couldn’t make it what they’re missing out on by broadcasting the party to a website. They will be envious and they’ll eventually break down and come to your party too. And in the end you’ll be the most popular guy in school and a cheerleader will be your girlfriend! Plus you’ve got a nice little archive of this historic party to keep forever. Sure, you could do the same thing with Yahoo and a webcam. But that’s tethered to a desk somewhere. A cell phone broadcast can be done from anywhere, indoors or out.

I think that even if the cellular companies have already thought of this, they worry that using a cell phone as a surveillance camera would mean that the cell phone is left behind too often, meaning that it won’t be used for things that they can charge you for. If it’s sitting in your hotel room snapping pictures, then you’re not using up all your minutes. Unless they could charge for it. Like 1 cent per picture, 1 picture per minute, that’s 60 cents an hour to keep an eye on something while you’re away. Except Verizon Wireless would charge more like a gazillion dollars for it.

Nov. 18th, 2005|11:12 pm: Took the kids to McDonald’s for breakfast this morning. I really need to get some groceries in the house next so we can stop going out to eat so often. I went by Staples and got a couple 5′ tables. A brown one for my office and a white one for the kids’ Legos. Also a bulletin board and a couple office trash cans and some envelopes. I love office supplies. It’s an addiction for me, going to an office supply store and just browsing the isles for hours. My house is completely empty, but I sure have a furnished office here! When I got busted for shoplifting at Walgreens in my Freshman year of high school, you know what I was stealing? Yep, office supplies.

I also got a bed today! See, I was going to buy some used matresses from the newspaper and beg the people to deliver them for me since I didn’t have a truck. I’ve bought matresses from the paper before and I’ve taken used beds from people before. I never really saw an issue with that. But at some point, I mentioned this to Spessa, and I get a couple of emails from her that grossed me out enough to convince me to just go to a bed store and buy them new. Here’s some parts of the emails…

Are you going to get one of those used beds with other people’s dust mites, mentrustation stains, and fecal flakes embedded within? Those are the best!

PS: We’ll never forgive you for making us sleep on that urine encrusted bed at your old house, damn you for not buying us a brand new tempurpedic mattress, made from the highest quality space age materials and invented by NASA.

So I went to The Sleep Center and purchased two shiney new mattresses. The cheapest they had, almost. They were able to deliver them to my house just a couple of hours later. My nights of sleeping on the living room floor are over. Now I just have to get some beds for the kids.

This evening I went to Home Depot and got some stuff to fix my phone jacks and some shelves for the office. Yes, more office stuff. I got the kind of shelves where you mount brackets to the wall, then you can adjust the shelves whenever you need to. I got them mounted already and they kick ass.

Nov. 17th, 2005|09:54 pm: My girlfriend just got accepted into NYU. She’s a smarter person than I. (Notice how I said “I” instead of “me” just to appear a little smarter?

Congrats, Jammie!

Nov. 17th, 2005|08:44 am: There’s nothing more spiritually enlightening than putting together new office furniture. Or any furniture for that matter. I think buying and shopping for office supplies comes in at a close 2nd. But nothing compares to the thrill of putting together cheap pressboard furniture, which I’ve been doing somewhat regularly since about age 16 when I bought my first entertainment center at Wal-Mart.

Yesterday I officially moved into my new house. I went to the thift store in hopes of finding a dining room table, but the one they had was in horrible shape so I passed on that. I got 6 Coca-cola glasses though. I went by Staples for a desk but they didn’t have the one I wanted. So I went back to Staples in the evening and got a different desk. Also went to Target just to pick up a few kitchen items (dish soap, garbage can, milk, etc). Spent about an hour putting the desk together. After I moved all my stuff onto the desk, I called this lady in Corvallis that had a file cabinet in the paper a few days ago to see if she still had it. She did, so I drove there and picked it up. It was only $30 – they usually go for at least $100 in the store. Anyway, here’s my new office…

Nov. 16th, 2005|02:33 pm:

ME: “Hey, quit biting that guy.”
HER: “Quit biting what guy?”
ME: “Your husband or boyfriend or whatever.”
HER: “Oh, I don’t bite nobody.”
ME: “Oh, we could hear him yelling at you to quit biting him.”
HER: “It’s just this little tiff that we get into, he teases me about biting. Who is this? Is this Selena?”
ME: “No, we’re here in your motel with you. Hey, can you be more creative next time? Like shake up a coke can and spray it in his face or something?”
HER: “Sure, I can do that.” (She’s like giggling now)
ME: “I’d appreciate it if you mix it up, and make it more interesting.”
HER: “No problem!”
ME: “Thanks!”
HER: “Oh, you’re _welcome_.” (It reads sarcastic, but she sounded completely sincere.)