An Ideal Halloween

Maybe next year.

I was considering writing about the "Ideal Halloween" and noting the irony that I wrote all about Thanksgiving getting passed over for Christmas when Halloween was getting even more eclipsed by both. I never did get around to it. The thing about Halloween though, is that it doesn't just lay around and feel bad about itself. It gets back at you. Hard.

Things had been going well enough, we went to a party on the 23rd. We dressed up as Napoleon and Deb from Napoleon Dynamite and made a sweet spider cake named Rufus.

This past Friday I rode the bus to school as usual, but this time Aubrey came and picked me up from school afterward so we could go on a date. We went to Tucano's with a 1/2-off coupon. Yeah suckahs. That was almost 100% amazing (I quite nearly puked after eating. Turns out you can eat too much of that bacon-wrapped fillet minon). And then we went to Boarders for a couple hours and got a Christmas present for one of the small children we're related to. All in all, a great night. We got home pretty late though, so we didn't go get my car. (We've done this a couple times before. Not a big deal.)

In Utah and, I suspect, many other places the 30th was the (in this case, very rainy) night for Trick-or-Treating. We spent most of the day at Aubrey's parents jarring tomatoes. Aubrey loves tomatoes and will not tolerate canned ones. So every fall she needs to find a source of jarred tomatoes from someone in her family. This year it fell to her to jar her own for the first time. This took approximately 6 hours and we didn't even finish. After she took a short nap, we ordered some pizza, went home, turned off all the lights so Trick-or-Treaters would think we weren't home, and watched a scary movie (Psycho, which was awesome).

Sunday morning-Halloween proper-we got up and went back to Aubrey's parents to finish those freaking tomatoes. We ended up with 32ish quart jars, which was a bit more than Aubrey anticipated, but it doesn't look like we'll be running out any time soon. At about 1, we finally went back to the Park and Ride to get my car. Which was not there. There were 5 or 6 other cars there. But not ours.

After some digging around, we've come to the conclusion that it was stolen. We've filed a report and everything, and now we're playing the waiting game. One could question the wisdom behind leaving a car out in an unsupervised parking lot for a period of 54 hours. But the real lesson here is this: If you piss off Halloween, it'll mess you up.

That's right, I slighted Halloween and then Halloween stole my car. Normally I might put up a fight to something like this, but at this point I'm ready to just come to a compromise with Halloween. From this point on, I'll always make sure to write about Halloweens before Thanksgivings or Christmas, and in return Halloween won't royally screw me over.

Deal.

It's been (possibly) an entire week since it was stolen now. Therefore, it could be pretty much anywhere in the continental United States. So in case you've got any spare time, feel free to check classifieds all over the country for a silver 2003 Subaru Forester with about 130K miles, possibly Alaska plates, and a big dent on the left rear bumper and light. Not just Craigslist, mind you, but local papers as well. Get back to me if you spot anything. Thanks.




Note to They-Who-Took-My-Car: Being that you have all of my personal information from my insurance card, you might have even found this blog. If you did, two things: (1) Feel free to return the car to the lot you removed it from. (2) I expect a full tank of gas. Seriously, it's the least you could do.

I fought the law...

...And we called it a draw.

Long story made short: just because your tail lights are out it doesn't mean the bulbs blew it. Sometimes it's just your fuse. But hey, you got new lights out of it in the meantime, didn't you? Also, the courthouse cops are much cooler than the traffic ones. I think working at midnight has something to do it (or just the jealousy of my car which is still very, very sexy The courthouse cop even complimented me on her).

On a sidenote: The Corn Refiners Association has started a PR campaign to try and defend High Fructose Corn Syrup. The general idea is not to refute any of the accusations, but to say rather arbitrary things like "It's made from corn! And it's fine in moderation!".

But! My favorite part is that a bunch of nerds got together to make informative spoofs of the commercials. Both can be found together here on my sister's post, Speaking of Corn. (I might add that I showed her these, she just posted them first so I'm leaching).

On a note even farther to the side: The comments on each of vids are pretty interesting. Specifically, there was one for the spoof version that read "[Dang]! He just blasted that [girl] with information!" that made me laugh for quite some time.

How to be an Overwhelming Butthead

This post is dedicated to Laurs.

There are many simple, apparently painless ways to do this to harass your co-workers. Let's list a few.

1. Identify something your co-worker doesn't do very well. Point it out every time they do it wrong. Repetition is key.
2. Think of something bad that's happened to them recently, talk about it often.
3. Think of/Make up ways that they handled the aforementioned event poorly. Comment often.
4. Find out one of their goals, something that they've been working on for a while and are proud of, like a competition. Then, have someone else do it for you and take the award to work. Double points if this person comes to work and presents it to you in your co-worker's presence. Yay for gloating!
5. If your co-worker struggles with an assignment, instead of providing constructive criticism, just criticize.
6. Think up menial tasks you don't want to do yourself. Impose them upon your co-worker.
7. Make slights on the type of art and or/music your co-worker enjoys.
8. If something nice does happen to your co-worker, be sure to belittle it.
9. If your co-worker is sick (and male), spray their workstation down with a feminine hygiene product to "disinfect" it. Extra points if you can manage a spray onto the phone between calls.

Last but most importantly:

10. Giggle incessantly when you do any of the above things. The more girlier, the better.

You cannot trust a southerner

I realize that might seem a little out of date, but apparently they just want to steal your money.

It all began with a friend telling me that on horse.com, you can buy that awesome medical tape that only sticks to itself really cheap (and upon my own investigation, lots of colors). I was pretty excited about this. I've been using ton of the stuff since my accident and it's very expensive. I recently got a great deal on some at my university Student Health Center, so I didn't need any more. But it was a great thing to know (Plus shipping was like $5).

I then made an alarming discovery:
Not even kidding. They carry wonders such as these:
Doesn't that little tie just make you want to vomit? It just seems to strange to have formal wear for your domesticated rodent. I don't get it.

Anyway, back to the point. I decided to at least give Horse.com a shot. As with all my online purchases, I searched deep into the Wilds of the Internets (come back to this link when you get a chance) for coupon codes that thoughtful people have posted online for the use of all. If I could score free shipping, I'd go for another roll or two of tape in crazy colors. And I did! However... you had to sign up and stuff at Horse.com before you could apply the coupon to your basket (REI does this too, it's annoying). I've been around the coupons-on-the-internet block before, so I knew that it probably wouldn't work anyway but I still wanted to give it a shot.

So I did the only right thing to do this situation: put in all jibberish for the information. It looked like this:
M H
5616 jiosdfioo
provo, UT 84606
USA
907.912.5856

That's right: my address is 5616 jiosdfioo. Maybe I should have put some letters in the phone number for good measure, but whatever. Then it wanted a CC number. A little exasperated, I got my card out and typed the number in, and clicked OK, expecting page to review my order (and finally see if that coupon worked). What I got was this:

Thank You for ordering from Horse.com! This message is an automated response to confirm we have received your order in our system.

Your order will be sent to the warehouse soon so you still have time to edit your order. You will receive an email confirmation letting you know that your order has been sent to processing and is completed.

Until then you can edit your order by clicking here: [there was a link provided here]

You can expect to receive your order of in-stock items by Economy Shipping in 7-10 business days*.
* - (not including Saturday or Sunday)

Um. Not good. And the free shipping did NOT work. Double suck. That's okay though, right? I can just cancel it. I clicked the link and changed my shopping cart to empty. I then saw the "cancel order" button, which I clicked as well, receiving a confirmation that it was canceled. And just for good measure, I changed all my billing and shipping information in my profile to hyphens.

About 5 minutes later, I got this email:

Greetings from Countrysupply.com.
Your order has been sent to the warehouse today, 6/17/2009 5:16:23 PM to be shipped.
These are the items that we are now packing to be shipped:...

Excuse me? It was time to work the White Male in me and get things done. I responded to the email informing them that I had canceled that order and would appreciate it if they didn't ship anything, especially since the address was gibberish. I then called the number provided and was informed by a woman with a deep southern twang (that's right: The Confederates, or the KKK at the very least did this to me) that they didn't have my order anywhere in the system (good sign), but I should called back later.

This morning, I awoke to find this message in my inbox:

Dear Michael,

Unfortunately, the order has shipped this morning. You must have canceled the order after it had came through to our website. Once the package returns, the credit card will be refunded. Please let us know if we can be of further assistance.

Sincerely,
[Customer Service Agent]

What!? Really? Who did they send it TO? hyphen street? 5616 jiosdfioo? That doesn't even make sense! Nor does it resemble my CC's billing address in any way. However, I do currently have a charge on my account for it (thanks for nothing Wells Fargo, as usual). Did anyone ever look at the address? Or is "Jiosdfioo" just one of those things The Mormons talk about over there in Utah while the men sacrifice the babies and the women hide their horns under those poofy hair styles. A perfectly normal Utah address, thank you very much.

Play with fire; you get burned. That's what I learned from this experience. My emails with them are ongoing, but don't need mention here. SOMEONE really needs to work on the efficiency of their website. And someone else needs to stop playing with things that don't belong to him i.e. internet coupons.

P.S. The the case of someone getting offended that I immediately drew the connection of a southern accent to the Confederacy and the KKK, I was joking. While it is possible that she's a racist and supports slavery and segregation, it isn't likely and I know that. You do not need to explain how wrong I am or how offended you are to me. My entire family is from the south, it's entirely my privilege to make fun of them if I like. Count to 10 slowly and then comment.

P.P.S. As for the poofy Utah hair comment, I'm not retracting it. I'm totally right. Why else would women have hair like that? It isn't attractive and it looks like a pain to do. Must be utility that keeps it in vogue.

Something Bad Happened...

...and I'm still not over it.

I love this guy:

Problem though, is that he's also Dr. Cockroach PhD

Jasper on 101 Dalmatians
Whiney Mr. Palmer
And whoever the crap this guy is supposed to be

You might ask, "So wait, an actor has played more than one character? And you're complaining?". Yes, yes I am. Because whenever I see my boy House in any other role, I get really confused. And that right there is my problem in the first place. He isn't Hugh Laurie, he's Gregory House, so any time I see him with his normal accent or in another role I think "Woah woah wait, who the heck is that guy?" But nothing could have ever prepared me for what I saw this weekend:

And then I suffered a case of sudden-onset epilepsy and slithered off my couch in tremors.

A comb over. No, not that. Anything but that! Fine! Put him in a family movie. Make him all cheery and helpful and fatherly. Heck, you can even put Geena Davis in there too if you like. But then you go and make him all smiley and sweater vesty and give him a comb over. Do you hate me tv? Do you? Seems like it (But I must add, Geena Davis' red hair is pretty hot). How am I supposed to enjoy one of my favorite shows if every time I watch it I think about Mr. Fredrick Little? It just isn't fair. Fox really should get some kind of insurance against this kind of thing. Maybe some more marketing to help me forget about it. But, the damage is done. Does anyone have the number of a good therapist?



P.S. After two weeks I was finally able to make a fist with my right hand again, which was celebrated with a 13-mile bike ride. No one even got hurt.

Ease his Pain...

Last weekend I made two discoveries.

First: Kroger brand triple antibacterial ointment burns uncomfortably. So if you were to put liberal amounts on it all over your fingers and arm (which have previously had their skin removed) under your bandages to try and head of the forming infections, you would find yourself in some serious discomfort. This could be more noiticible if you were to do so right before going to sleep so you don't have anything to distract you. In fact, at this point you could find yourself in some serious pain. Then in your desperation you might take the last of your Loratab, with the sad knowledge that it takes a good 90 minutes to kick in. Now you need something to do for the next two hours.

Second discovery: Steve Martin's The Pleasure of my Company of your iPod will prove the perfect distraction.
Again read by Martin himself (so neat), TPomC is a narrative from the point of view of Daniel Pecan Cambridge, a young bachelor who's OCD has inhibited him from most of life's norms. His great obsession is "symmetry", with which he has limited himself to crossing the street where two scooped-out driveways are perfectly across from one another (no curbs...ever) and his clothing must never have a single wrinkle. Granted, he is a mathematical genius, but staying within his self-inflicted limitations are much more important than having a job.

His pitiful attempts at romance, daily trips to the local Rite-Aid, being a murder suspect, submissions to the "Most Average American" essay contest, and road trip to Texas are all hilarious and feel very real. However, at no point did I ever feel like at I was laughing at Daniel. By the end I was cheering him on, willing him accept the reality that he wasn't as independent and self-sufficient as he supposed and that he does need other people. As the book came to a close I felt a strong connection to Daniel. I loved the ending. It was happy and (more importantly for my taste) made sense.

It's a short read, with few characters and one of the least consequential plots of any novel I've ever read. But that's all it needs. Nothing is extraneous. Also interesting is Daniel's nonexistent relationship with his Father, which is mirrored in Martin's relationship with his own father. He even places a memorable instance of abuse from his own childhood as the one memory of that Daniel shares with about his Father.

Anyway, it was a good read. CoolBoy recommends it.

In which the CoolBoy did something uncool

For my first real post, I think I'll put something down about my recent bike indecent which occurred on June 1st.

Firstly, my bike (I'm still working on a name, but Black Beauty has potential) looks like this:

(Thanks to rscycle.com for the pic)

Isn't she hot? She's also a fixed-gear, meaning that the pedals and the rear wheel always move together. No coasting. I've installed a rear brake (which is sort of against the "track bike rules", but whatever) for safety reasons, but I mostly just push/pull against the pedals backwards to slow down and stop.

Anyway, I was at about mile 3 on a ride down the P-Towne River Trail going about 20mph around a bend, when a young girl of about 10 came out from behind the trees on my side of the path. Most unfortunately, her 2 sisters, brother, and parents were all on the left side of the path behind her presenting me with the following choice:

1) Hit little girl with bike - This would probably kill her (not to mention untold damage to Black Beauty).
2) Go off the trail to the right, into the very narrow space along the concrete barrier that separated us from the road - In a word, this would probably suck.

So I did the chivalrous thing and chose #2. After several feet of rubbing my arm and leg on the wall, it became apparent to me the BB was about to go over. Being that I would fall onto a row of those lovely, processed, garden-type rocks with the gleaming razor-edges I decided to grab onto the wall instead, leaving BB to flip over on her own. I then announced I was alright (her Dad sounded very worried and apologetic), surveyed the damage (scrapes and minimal blood), and jumped back on for another 8 miles.

I then got home and took an actual look at the situation. It wasn't good. Long story short, my good friend R--- had to come over and clean me up because it hurt too much to do it myself. Not to mention we don't even have band-aids in my apartment. And I was tired of going to the doctor after the whole Mono+Strep episode of April '09.

End result

And a couple days of staying home and playing video games later (I consider injury and illness a good enough reasons to play video games) I got another couple shots of it.

And

Things are actually going pretty well now though. My arm's almost healed up and the burn on my leg hasn't ever really been a problem. The my ring finger suffered a setback with an infection that had to be removed, but other than that everything's okay. That and bandages are really expensive. So lame. But I'm finally going back to work, so that's also a plus.