My gift from ChaCha

I'm sick. As in my internal organs have begun an open revolt.

My office is so lucky I'm even here today. Granted, I'm not going to accomplish much, but at least I'm present.

I feel bad because she wasn't feeling well the past few weeks, and I didn't realize the severity of the overall ick. But that's a little justifiable. My ex (wow, um, I haven't come up with a pseudonym for her yet... anyway) was a hypochondriac. Seriously. She was ALWAYS sick. And so it got to the point that I was very unsympathetic to her various illnesses-du-jour. So this made me realize that when ChaCha says she's not feeling well, she means it.

My dentist cancelled my appointment yesterday afternoon because of the SARS/Hanta/Ebola that I am currently hacking up regularly, and rescheduled for Monday.

I better get a lollipop this time...

Too nice a guy

I've heard that before. I'm a good guy. I'm a gentleman.

I hold a door open for a lady, I stand when she enters a room, I pull out her chair, I help her up from her seat. It's not anything chauvanistic, it's that my momma taught me to respect a lady.

ChaCha would like to see me as a "bad boy," which translates to me as "kind of a dick." I've pulled it off a couple of times, and she REALLY likes it.

COMMA

I don't think I can ever truly me "that" guy. I've lost many a girlfriend in the past to them.

The thing is, I can't see what draws that line. Dangerous? Eh, I've been the motorcycle-riding, chain-smoking, joyriding, fight-starting guy. Adventurous? Chalk up skydiving, spelunking, rock-climbing to that. Anti-establishment? No question there. Aloof? Definitely. Forward? Absolutely. Charismatic? Have you MET me?

But still I maintain the stigma of "nice guy." I'll admit, it is tons o' fun taking full control of a situation. But I still maintain that label.

Eh, fuck it. I am who I am.

YAY NEW VACUUM!

Update on the Vacuum saga...

ChaCha's lease is ending, so she used that as a bartering tool to get $109 back for the vacuum.

She's so amazing.

Slappy Kiester everyone!

I'm gonna talk seriously here for a bit, then I promise I'll go back to being a smartass. Promise.

I love my family.

I hear so much about dysfunction, abuse, hatred, distancing, etc among other families that it makes me appreciate mine that much more.

My parents are amazing. Married 41 years on the 30th of this month. That is a statement in itself. They're cute as hell, and still hold hands. They are a testament to finding the right person.

I have two older sisters, and they have succeeded in their lives consistently in career, family, and happiness.

Then there's me.

One of my own deep-seated psychological problems is that I will always be striving for their approval, especially with the folks. I want them to be proud of me. They SHOULD be proud of me. But to them, I will always be the kid that wrecked two cars, got drunk in high school, was kicked out of college TWICE, etc etc. Somehow I don't think there will ever be a time where they will ever think of me in any way but the messed up kid I once was.

Sure, I screwed up in the past. You've had to bail me out more than a few times. But damn, what's the statute of limitations on that?
See me for who this guy is now. The one with a good job, money in the bank, the awesomeness known as ChaCha on my arm. That old B is gone. Look past that.

Last October there was a major screwup at my bank, and I had zero funds on the morning that I was taking out the Dad for his birthday. I called ChaCha to vent, and she told me to call them and explain. They'd understand. I couldn't. Although in the past few years I've had some lean times, even though the situations were entirely understandable it was not an option to let them know. It would only justify and validate how they view me.

I love all of you, but get over it.

...

The dinner was awesome, I had a friggin blast with my sister's kids, and had great conversations. The wine helped.

I love my family.

Sad day for appliances

My vacuum died yesterday. Not in the stopped-working-for-no-apparent-reason or works-but-not-as-well-as-it-should way. I mean died in a blaze of glory, with sparks and a poof.

It's partly my fault. Partly.

It's mostly ChaCha's apartment complex's fault, but I'll let her feel free to state what originally happened to it.

Turning back the clock to 6 months ago...

After my divorce, my ex got the vacuum. Fine with me, I never really did like it anyway. Plus, it gave me an opportunity to shop for shiny things with flashing lights and noises and bells and whistles and and and... So I went for a groovy little Bissel number which was far better than I really needed, but me being a guy bought it. How sad is it that I'm such a geek that I get a vacuum for bragging rights?


Pretty, n'est-ce pas?

So enter ChaCha. She has allergies, and three cats (I know, I'm seeing the crazy cat lady). So I offered to loan her Ol' Red. The next part is for her to explain, but she ended up pulling eight pounds of a white powder. No telling what the street value was of her carpet. Anyway, after I got it back, it never did work right again. I cleaned out all three filters, including actually removing the hepa filter and it still wouldn't work.

Three weeks of it sitting idly downstairs in my dining room really started to bug me. Since I was off yesterday and had vowed to actually do stuff I took it to the upstairs bathroom to see if I can make it work again.

Disassembling it, it turned out to be much worse than I thought. Every piece I removed dumped tons more of the carpet coke onto my bathroom floor. Every piece that didn't have electronics attached were cleaned out in the tub, and the rest got a good rubbing from a dry washcloth. I felt happy about the results, especially once I saw that certain pieces were in fact NOT white. Then came the reassembly.

Let me pause for a second to mention that I am not a mechanic. I don't know much, but I do know electronics. I did have all the wiring hooked back up in minutes, the actual reassembly of the rest of it took a bit longer. I was very pleased with the result. In fact, I did so well in putting it back together that I even had a screw left over. That, I'm convinced shows a natural aptitude.

So here's where it's partly my fault. Even though water came nowhere near the electronic components, I should have let it sit for a day or so to let any residual water elsewhere in the unit (hehe..."unit") dry.
But, all caution to the wind, I plugged it in.
Ok, all the power is still on. Good sign.
I reach over and flip the switch.

...

It wasn't as dramatic as I hinted at earlier. But there was a flash of light from the base, the bulb blew, and a spark jumped out and landed near my foot. A tiny puff of smoke wisped from the front.

I stood there blankly, long enough to let the faint smell of ozone waft to my nostrils. Moment of silence. Let us pray.

So if anyone out there is interested in a slightly used vacuum, I can make you a helluva deal (In accordance with Texas disclosure laws: it does have a slight electrical problem).

Bollywood Martial Arts

I stumbled across this this morning. Pure awesome kung-fu, Bollywood style!

(NOTE: Watch all the way through. The ending makes the clip legendary)

Vicodin, take me away...

Ouch.

The pain has hit me in full force. Let this be a lesson to everyone. Go see your dentist regularly. When Captain Hook was elbow-deep in my mouth yesterday, he was doing what he described to another hygenist (or assistant, or janitor; I never caught what his exact title was) as "scaling under the gum, hitting bone," which meant using an angle grinder to find the pain resonance of my jaw. He found it, BTW. And this was while he was saying that I DID take good care of my teeth. Heaven help me if there was anything actually wrong with them. So yeah. I'll be going to get the cleaning done a bit more often. "You haven't been in a while... you must be punished."

My gums are still bleeding, and the entire right side of my head is one big ouch. In all fairness, it wasn't really that bad during. They shot so much novocaine into me that they could have been setting off fireworks from my bicuspids and I would have been none the wiser.

What made it worse was that there was a huge screwup yesterday at work, and after my appointment I had to go back to save my own ass from someone else's mistake. I didn't get out of there until almost 11.

I'll be counting the hours until 5pm, when I can start popping pain pills by the handful.

Where the hell is my Lollipop?

A toothbrush. A friggin toothbrush. THAT'S what they gave me. And it's a boring one. I would have been okay if it was a Spiderman toothbrush, or maybe even a muppet one.

Well, in all fairness, Captain Hook DID get me a prescription for Vicodin, so he's not a complete tool.



I still want my lollipop. Or a muppet toothbrush. Or a rocket.

D-Day is here

I'm going to the dentist today, and I'm not looking forward to it. It's been 4, maybe 5 years since I've been. You'd think someone with as much of an oral fixation as myself would go 4 times a year (My dear sir, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar). I think my dislike of dentists goes back to when I was a kid. Up until I was about 15, everyone in my family went to the same guy, a "family" dentist (which means they went to him out of routine). Now, what I remember most was that he had hairy hands. Very. Shag-carpeting-wookie-fur hairy. Mind you, this was back in the 70s when they didn't wear gloves. Ick.

So I need a major overhaul. As a matter of fact, they're only doing half my teeth today, the rest on the 11th. It's a result of the lack of dental visits, plus all the coffee, red wine, smoking, poppyseed bagels, plus plus plus. Don't get me wrong, I take care of my teeth. I brush at least once a day, I floss about once a week. I use the burny stuff. After all this time I only have one small cavity.

But yet I'm still nervous. They're going to give me novocaine. I'm not adverse to the N, but I would much more prefer a Xanax, tequila shot, and nitrous. Make me not care that you're digging around my mouth with Nazi war doctor tools. And then give me a fucking lollipop. I deserve it.

Why the Democrats need Hillary

I don't like Hillary Clinton. For starters, she's not really qualified to hold office as opposed to many other Dems out there. Also, there's that business with her distancing herself from Bill when he needed her most. Yes, I still hold a grudge about that. In addition, she talks a lot of smack but you never hear about anything she's actually done as a Senator.

That being said, she's the "Great White Hope" for the Democratic party in '08. They need her. Last year, the American people said that enough was enough with our current leaders, and changed teams in an almost unprecidented rally. So what happened after that? Nothing. Zilch. Nada. Tons of Non-binding resolutions, which mean (for wont of a better term) absolutely dick. To me, this was them being that smart little kid in the back of the class with great ideas saying, "We should maybe do this if it's ok with everyone else, but it's fine if you don't want to."Geez, grow some cojones, why don't you?

Which brings us back to Hillary. Laughably, she has the biggest pair of jewels on the Senate floor. She's outspoken, and a way of making people rally to her. She's a very strong speaker, and to be honest doesn't really take any shit. If you haven't seen the last State of the Union address, I encourage you to. Not for the rediculous sludge spewing from Dubya, but for the moments that the camera turns to Hill. I laughed out loud seeing her responses and golf claps. She also seemed to have a smirk on her face that I interpreted as "I can't wait to be the one giving this speech." She's ready to stir the pot, and I think we should let her. She has the personality, the huevos, the charisma, as well as the ability to call it as she sees it. I can't wait to see her in a debate.

Which brings up the question: Is America ready for a woman president? Honestly, with who the American people have elected into office in the last couple of decades, I don't think they'd really care. I'm sure that people ignorant enough to use that as a reason to not vote for someone don't vote anyway.

Besides, who else do the Dems have?
-Obama's there, but even though he's young, charismatic AND black, he doesn't have the ability to raise support, and nobody's taking him seriously. Plus, I haven't been too impressed with his speeches. Go to his website and watch the vids. You'll see what I mean.
-Lieberman is the most intelligent and best qualified for the job. However he has the personality of a wet mop. I get the feeling that during debates in the HSGA Committee, Susan Collins continually sneaks up behind him and gives him a wedgie. Plus, he's one of the few Dems that support the war. BOOOOOOOOO!
-Dodd. Dodd who? It's saying something when he shows up in the polls at LESS than the margin of error.
-John Edwards. He's a smart guy, and arguably the best-looking out of the bunch. But it'll take a while to get the stench of the losing Kerry 2004 ticket off of him.

We need someone to be able to take control of the beurocracy and give it a stern talking to. Since Dean declined the nomination, my support goes to Hillary. Ick.