Blogging Moments To Live For

Background for this entry:

First, you need to go read this: Day in the Life It's Ally's most recent entry. In it, she pays me the best compliment, I could ever get. Seriously.

I explained it a little, in her comment, but that threatened to turn into a whole huge thing, so I brought it here to expound on. That's what these things are for, right? Expounding. So, read that for background, and then continue on here, to see why.

First of all, I make it my business to be well read and informed on anything I undertake, or care enough to form an opinion about. I don't make decisions lightly, and (oh hello narcisissm) I try to be correct, in everything I do. Call it one of my weird quirks, but I don't argue with anyone unless I know I'm right. Add that to what I'm doing with my life right now, being a 25-26 year old little girl, acting as a general contractor, and you can see where my problems start. Every single day of my life, since I undertook this effort, has been an uphill battle, of arguing, bigotry (yes, I used that term, and I mean it's because of the way men feel about having a woman call the shots, in a field like contracting), and a lot of "Not Taking Lisa Serious" which is the fastest way to piss me off, EVER.

I'm running things the best way I know how, and I'm making good, thoroughly thought out decisions, regarding this house and family, but I'm seriously underappreciated. I mean, listen, I don't bitch about underappreciation for no reason. I know what it's like to be a housewife, and I've had that level of underappreciation. That is NOTHING to me, now. This trancends that, to the nth level.

Every single thing I propose is an uphill battle, with the mister, for starters. I'll say something miniscule, like "what do you think about this kind of rug, for the living room" and he'll argue and froth, and carry on for days. Even though he knows NOTHING about rugs, or colors, or anything, and has repeatedly said "oh, I let you handle that stuff, I don't have time to think about it" (lets not even get into what would happen if I didn't consult him on every little thing...I know I've mentioned his micromanagement, before). Till I drop it, and let him have his way. Then he comes back a week later, and says "you know, lets go take a look, at least, maybe that will be good." Every thing. Paint colors, flooring choices, who to have come do this, and that. Sometimes, he'll "win" (like with his buddy, Joe, the contractor "we go way back, he'll take good care of us") and you see where that gets us. Sometimes we come to a stalemate, and then he comes back after some amount of time, to concede that I was right, and we could try it that way. So far, (hello narcisissm) 99% of the things I have done, or ideas I've had, or whatever, have been beneficial for us. Call it a knack, but I won't even bring things up unless they've been thoroughly researched.

What I'm getting at, though, is every single day of my life, since I agreed to all this, from the day the house burned (I agreed in gradients, see. First it was "sure I'll help you clean the place out, and try to get situated elsewhere" then it was "yes, I'll handle the paperwork, the lawyers, and all the mortgage dealings" then "sure, I'll be responsible for everything operating smoothly, with the rehab of his house.") there has been arguements, people not taking me serious, going over my head, behind my back, generally rolling me over the hurdles and fucking me over. Including, and a majority of it has been my husband. He goes off half cocked, believing everything that everyone tells him, and makes rash ridiculous decisions, that wind up hurting us, bigtime. He never gets anything in writing, EVER (he didn't even have books for his business, till I came around)...I digress... Half of my life, since I've been with him, has been spent putting out his fires. Moreso, now, of course, with the house. When it is all said and done, I am going to make a Fuck You Very Much, list, and I will name names, I swear. It'll be theraputic.

So. I consider myself to have some wisdom. A lot of experience, and a burning hard core drive to do things right.

Ally, you of all people, you a near-stranger, relatively speaking, noticed. You're the first person, ever, to compliment me on something that I take to heart.

For that, I thank you.

[Listening to: Dumptruck - Blind Melon - (3:40)]

I want to get angry at Best Buy

But, I can't. All told, they're a pretty good store. I can, however get mad at the bitch customer service rep, that stonewalled me. I can get mad at the retarded "Geek Squad" as they're now known, in store repair guys.

iPod. It broke, AGAIN. The damn thing heated up as I was holding it, to red hot, and the screen faded and died. It never went back on, again. I brought it in, on October 23, for servicing, they said "a week, two tops" When I brought it in, there was one miniscule dent, in the lower left hand corner. I asked the guy "does this count as mistreated?" He was all "ohhh, nooo, that's NOTHING, when they say abused, they mean a cracked cover, or a really bad dent, that's nothing" K. Cool.

I called after two and a half weeks, it was still out. I called last week, they said it shipped, that it would arrive midweek. Mid-week came and went, and I'm getting annoyed. I show up today, and WHOA, there it was, waiting for me! It arrived November 19! (No one contacted me. I figured out why, later) I was like, well, I wasn't near the phone that day, perhaps I missed the call....no biggie, here I am now, gimme my thing back.

They were holding it at another part of the desk, three or four people were circling it, looking concerned. It looked like the buck got passed from one guy to another, to another, till this woman came out. Said "You signed off, that it was dented, they said they won't fix it, due to abuse." Then, I reminded them that THAT guy (who was way on the other side of the counter, investing himself deeply in shelf rearranging) said that it wasn't dented enough, to count as abused. This bitch pulls it out of the box, and WHOA HOLY FUCKING SHIT WHAT THE HELL IS THAT...there was an ENORMOUS dent in the lower corner, a nice scrape, even. I took one look at it, and said "THAT isn't my dent. I didn't sign off on THAT. I signed off on this one, this small one right here." (Meanwhile, the mister is starting to bubble. The mercury is rising) She said, "you signed off that it was dented, and there's dents, there's no way of knowing how badly or where" I said "What can we do?" She kept repeating over and over, about the fucking abuse, how it's dented, how the PSP doesn't cover mistreatment (yeah no shit, lady, it wasn't mistreated, it's a COMPLETE PIECE OF SHIT, this is the second one I've had to return for the same bullshit internal problems).

She stonewalled, worst possible customer service move, EVER. No "well, we can send it back to be fixed, but you'll have to pay for it" No, "how about you call our service desk, and they can help you better." No nothing. Just the "You broke it, we're not fixing it" speech. Did she pack it back into the box, and apologize? No. I didn't know what to do, it was just esclating, I kept repeating, "What can I do? What can we do? I need this fixed, I didn't spend over $600 on this thing and the accesories for it, to write it off, it's GOT to be fixable." She kept shuffling stuff, avoiding my eyes, and mumbling that it wasn't their problem, yet she wasn't offering me any solutions. As a matter of fact, becase the mister was pacing, and mumbling (no, I swear it, he wasn't yelling yet, which was exemplary restraint on his part, I think) someone called the Holmdel cops, yes, folks, a cop showed up. How's that for customer service.

The mister finally grabbed it from her, and the box, and paperwork, and stormed out, yelling "DON'T BUY SHIT HERE, THE SERVICE SUCKS THEY'RE ONLY TRYING TO FUCK YOU" on the way out the door. Some woman was buying a laptop, and he was like "I WOULDN'T GET THAT IF I WERE YOU THEY'LL BREAK IT MORE IF YOU SEND IT FOR SERVICE" as we left. The cop was outside, and followed us to our car.

I cooled down, after we got home, and called the customer service number, they agreed, that the store handled it poorly, and that it could be fixed, but I had to pay for it. I was like "ok, I can handle that, but is there any way of proving that it wasn't ME that put this enormous dent on it?" They said, not really, that it was all just heresay, and I'd have to find out the name of the asshole who took it from me in the first place, and if the service center had more thorough notes than "dented" like how and where, when it arrived, etc. Whatever, I'd rather just have it fixed, than get mired in all that bullshit.

What I AM gonna do, though, is when whatever place fixes it, I'm gonna get a copy of their service order, and compare it to the original problem, the heating up and dying thing, which is what I sent this one in for, heating up and dying. I'll prove that it wasn't the dent that caused it, because it didn't because I didn't put the goddamn dent in it... The Best Buy service people just took one look at it, said "dented, we're not fixing it" and didn't even bother to crack it open. That's on the notes that the customer service lady had. She said they should have diagnosed the ACTUAL problem, and called me (back when they got it, early November) with a repair estimate. Which I would have been annoyed about, but I would have done it. Not this bullshit.

You know what? I am going to call the Holmdel Best Buy, and make a formal complaint, too, against the Customer Service counter. Even the Customer Service rep on the phone said they mishandled it. That was a fucking nightmare. I have quite the tension headache now.

[Listening to: Zero Signal - Fear Factory - (5:56)]

Welcome to the Abandonedland...

Sorry guys, for not updating.

Three cookies and a wet tounge kiss, for whoever guesses what song/band this entry's title comes from.

K, my dad left tonight. Well, not left, perse, he's still in NJ, staying at the Wyndham up in Newark, by the airport. His slut is coming to visit tonight, and probably stay with him tomorrow. He says he's departing on the 20th, but his itinerary says the 21st...Not that I'm supposed to know that, or anything.

Since I haven't blogged in AGES, I have all these fragmenty weird thoughts zooming around in my skull. I don't even know where to start, honestly.

I love my father, and I miss him when he's not here, but living with the guy for 2+ weeks in an exersise in patience, and tolerance. I really like hanging around the house in my underwear. I like drinking on weekends (not that I had to tell YOU GUYS that), etc. He listens to the TV really loud all the time, and I hate the TV in general. I hate noise, too. I'd be playing WoW or TS2 or something, and get up to pee, and I come back to him planted in my chair, game minimized, guffawing to some forwarded email joke. You get the idea. I like my privacy, I like my peace. I'm muy territorial about My Chair.

No time to read any blogs. Didn't want him to get curious and go a'snoopin. He saw me reading Adam's and grilled me about the idea of blogging, why, how, where...and if I did it. I gracefully ignored that last bit, and closed out of blogs, vowing not to open one more in his presence. Some of you guys are linked here, etc...I would be unhappy if my sanctity got destroyed. So, please don't feel like I've been neglecting anyone, you know how it is, though.

We're nearly done with the house. The loan should be closed out by the first week in December. The house is fully functioning, and livable. Electric, gas, water. All the appliances are installed and in place. We even have *gasp* a coffee maker in there. Joe's just gotta get his burned out ass in there and do a few more final shits, and we're good to go. Naturally, he's still of the attitude "we're not doing anything till we get paid" He's gonna get brought up short, though, when Graff deducts all the stuff they didn't do, off the final check. It's gonna be more than half of the final draw. Hah. Screw them.

My mom is going away for a week, leaving tomorrow at the crack of dawn. She's gonna be gone for Thanksgiving, and that sorta sucked. I was planning on hosting a family dinner at her house, and cooking etc. Then it was just gonna be the three of us. Quiet, but I have free reign to cook what I want, how I want (none of that "Tom doesn't like garlic, so he won't eat the potatoes...Earl can't eat onions so leave that out of the stuffing...oh...you put WHAT in the cranberries?! I'm not eating that" bullshit.) BUUUUT...my favorite Aunt in the whole entire universe just emailed me, saying "Heard your mom was leaving, wanna come down here and spend it with us?" Her, her brother, and mother, and their dogs. AWESOME. I get to bring food (which they love anything I cook, so I have free reign, still) so that'll solve my total urge to cook. We get AWESOME company, I really love them so much. Perfect way for things to turn out, as far as I'm concerned.

We found out that the mister's criminal white trash stepfamily has been stealing our mail, and cashed a very large check coming to us from the mortgage company (to the tune of $2,585.00). We have our lawyer, the town police, and the county prosecuter on the jobby. I have faith that that super mega mega bitch stepmother of his has finally conned her last con, and shot herself in the foot (that's a lot of money to be thievin).

K. I think I'm done. For now. Oh there's more, believe me. My fingers are tired.

It's Weird

My dad's here, right. There's all sorts of stuff I want to blog about, regarding him, his visit, etc, but every time I sit down to write some huge thing, either I get interrupted, or he materializes, or something. I'm having a hard time keeping my blogging inspirations in my head long enough to expound on them.

It's like "ooh, that'll be good to write about, but I can't right now" *time passes* "what was I gonna say...crap...ah well, I'll go play some WoW"

With the mister on vacation, and my dad around, my Alone Time is nil. Sometimes I complain about being solitary, so much, but my god when I don't have it, I REALLY miss it. Having people around at all times is really making me appreciate the "me time".

It's not even like we're doing anything. Every day since Sunday has been much of the same. Get up at 7, take the boy to school, get home, shower, wait around till Dad gets up...then go out to this store or that one, shopping. We're back home by 3, and by then Dad's so shot, from shopping all morning, he wants to just chill around the house.

That's good, though, beacuse we're really doing a lot with the house, in that time. The house is so incredibly busy, right now. It really does look like we'll be moving by December. For real.

The Good old New Feeling

So, I've been playing WoW at night, when everyone goes to bed. It's the only time I get the chance to, so, I stay up far too late, but it's so worth it.

This game has done it, the thing that no other MMO since AC has done for me. It's recaptured the newb essence, the thrill of discovery and being a low level char.

Last night, Afe and I spent a good deal of time trying to get from the night elf island, Teldrassil, to the human/dwarven lands. It took two boats, (omg SHIPS!) and about a half hour worth of running through misty swamps, dank forest, changing into snowy, high mountain passes. It was a dangerous run. I must have died about six times, on the way. Generally in WoW, in lower level areas, if you stick to the road proper, monsters nearby will ignore you, and you can pass among them unmolested.

The devs, knowing that this would be a well traveled route, probably, left some suprises along the way, for unsuspecting tourists... Luckily, when you die, your corpse lands where you fell, and your spirit goes to the nearest graveyard. You have to run your ghosty ass (or in night elves case, wispy ass) back to your corpse, and ressurect. It's a damn good system. There were a good amount of graveyards along The Longest Run, so things weren't terribly inconvienient. But, it captured the "omg, see that thing up there...how are we gonna sneak by it!?" (yes, rogues can actually sneak, literally going partly invisible) feeling. The fear of the unknown.

I likened it to the noob run from Shoushi to Hebian To, in AC. When you're about level 4, and you have to get to Heb...some of you guys know what that's all about. Especially if you were mages... running along, slower than most people walk, seemingly, with crazy high level stuff at the edges of the narrow road, waiting for nothing more than to chase you, till you can't run anymore, then bite your face off. This was that exact feeling, only more intense, because there's all this dark gloomy music, the environment is infinitely more immersive, and the road was longer and even more perilous.

The feeling of arriving at Stormforge, and seeing that glorious mountain keep unfold itself in front of you...it was about as close to exhilirating as you can get, in a game. I'm hooked. It did what I never thought another MMO could do. It's Sucked Me In.

[Listening to: Feathery Wings - Voltaire - (5:05)]

zzzZZzz

Hey, how nice is this, I can blog in the middle of the night. Thanks guys, for the commenting!

I just played the first open beta night, of WoW...and oh my god, what a crowd. As expected, all the b.net babies are around, and the newbie areas are superbly crowded, but it's still omg awesome. Have I mentioned? This is The Perfect MMO. I'm in love with this game.

As expected, my dad's first day here involved a lot of eating, shopping, and frequent trips home to relax, in between. Tomorrow will be more of the same.

I have to be up in 4 hours. I think it's time to go to bed.

Really quick

While my dad's in the shower...

This past week has been hectic, to say the least. The house is nearly done. We have heat, hot water, a dryer, etc. The electrician came and finished up almost everything, except the ceiling fan still doesn't work. The plumber is DONE finally, save for the inspection. The garage roof was a bigger project than we had planned, and the mister took time off from work, he's up there now finishing it. Things are moving along, housewise at a whirlwind clip, so I've been up to my ass in that.

Then, WoW. When I'm not painting wood, or meeting with various subcontractors, I'm playing WoW, and it is GOOD. Besides a few minor cosmetic things, I can easily say it is The Perfect MMO. I'm having loads of fun with it, experimenting, trying out all sorts of characters.

Then, Red, yesterday, that was a lot of fun, but we were sooo late. We got a bit of a late start, because the heating guy showed up as we were leaving, which was bad...then I decided to drive, because the train would take longer. Oops. What should have been a 57 minute long trip...turned into a 4 hour ride. Between the car overheating on the Turnpike, because it was low on antifreeze, and having to make an emergency stop...and the OMFGWTF tunnel traffic...yeah, we didn't get there till 4. It was still fun, Ashley is a cool chick, and the Met is simply beautiful. We saw a lot of dead Egyptian stuff, canopic jars, mummies, sarcophagi, a fully restored temple, etc. Lots of armor and swords, and morbid Christian mideval art. My favorite parts were the Greek and Egyptian areas. When I look at those sculptures and various totems and figures, I feel like I'm looking at the face of God, it's all so divinely wrought, and divinely inspired, to me.

Yesterday, we blasted the house clean, agressively, and went to go pick up teh dad, he's here now, and I'm gonna go =)

WoW...just wow.

Today, I feel that I have reached the epitome of sad geekyness. Last night, I signed up for Fileplanet, so that I may get into the Stress Test/Open Beta, for World of Warcraft, a week early.

It was supposed to be easy. Subscribe. Apply for Beta. Get accepted. Get my key. Download and play. I was planning on downloading it last night, to wake up to a brandee spankin new game <3 But nooooooo. After taking my money, like thieves in the night, they said "k, there's a lot of other people doing this, you'll have to wait in line, we're releasing the keys in groups" I'm still waiting. 12+ hours. Of course I am, because I WOULDN'T BE HERE RIGHT NOW IF I WASN'T. I'd be sneaking like a good little rogue should.

So, the geeky sadness comes in, that this has pretty much affected my whole day. I have to finish painting the porch, see. I have this WHOLE house to clean...my dad is going to be here on SUNDAY. Yes, it looks like a bomb hit the house. A stinky bomb. Instead, I'm camping my beta center page, and my inbox, and allowing myself to get worked into a frenzy about things.

When it comes in, I am going to be officially Done For The Day, and I bet it'll cause a fight with Mister Motivated.

Maybe the smart thing to do would be to go do some painting now...oooh, and get my mind off it. When it comes in, it comes in. Time to go be zen.

[Listening to: It Had To Be You - Frank Sinatra - (3:55)]

Bastids.

Buncha non commenty quiet bastids. I see you out there. I can hear your shoes squeaking.

Meow?

Your Porn Star Name is: Albino Kitty

Get your own Porn Star Name

Halloween!

I got a handful of pics uploaded from Halloween. I put all the ones of Alden, with the various incarnations of The Mohawk, all in one place, plus a few new ones, from the school parade and the costume contest, hell, I even threw a few of us ugly old grownups in there, too.

You can find them here, if you're interested.

Alden took first prize of his grade, at school, and he was among the winners of the 1st-3rd grade age group for the townwide contest (they didn't have first second and third prize, they just picked a handful of winners from each group). We had a blast yesterday, walked three miles in the parade, then we went trick or treating all over my mom's neighborhood. Stopped for some food, then went back to our neighborhood closer to dark.

A house down the block had this enormous haunted house set up in the yard, it was great. Good scary stuff, untypical, too. Not your basic dummies, and people jumping out. I really liked it, because they had a few baskets here and there, for donations to the American Cancer Society. That really made it, for me. Using their yard, and what had to be thousands of dollars worth of props, and hours of manpower for a good cause. There's another guy that does that, here, has all these awesome holiday displays that people come from miles around, to see, and he donates to the Boy Scouts. We have a really huge yard, one day, I aspire to that. I want to have a setup like that, maybe with donations for the SPCA.

While we were trick or treating, we fell in with this group of kids that Alden knows from school, and the neighborhood. One of the kids, a kindergartener has a hip disorder. He's a tough kid, too. His mom whispered to me, as we were walking "I'm really glad you guys caught up to us, he was about to give up. With Alden here, he's all excited again." That alone made me smile, but what really touched me, was that even though there were about 5 kids, running from house to house, Alden hung out with the little guy the whole time. When he was tired, and just sat on the curb, Alden sat right with him, and engaged him in conversation. He waited, and walked slow, and was just being so patient. No one prompted him to do anything like that, no one even told him that the kid had a handicap. You couldn't really tell, except for the orthopedic shoes. There wasn't any big deal, about it, or anything, it was just easy concern. He just sort of stayed close to the kid the whole time. "Are you tired? You want to sit? Should I tell them to wait for us?" Yeah, I was really moved by that. One of those unexpected little moments in parenting, that's like a karmic payoff. Really great indication of his personality, I think, and hopefully a glimpse at what he's gonna be like as an adult.

So, yesterday was a fabulous day, all around, and now we have about eighteen lbs of candy to try to get rid of.

[Listening to: Rock N Roll Band - Boston - (3:00)]

November

October, my favorite month, is over. November is right up there, though. It's gonna be a great month, too. My dad's coming on Sunday. Going to NYC to hang out with Red, Saturday. I get to cook Thanksgiving dinner, etc. Last month raced by, and this one will too.

Of course, with everything going on, I sense that blogging will be at an all time low. I don't want my dad finding my blog, so I'll not be opening it, while he's here. Well, I still have bloggar...but what fun is blogging, when I can't check back at my replies!? Plus, the mister is on vacation this week. He's not cutting grass, he's just working on the house. See, for all the ranting he's done at me, over the years, about procrastinating...oh my goodness, turns out, he's done a little procrastinating of his own! :O I didn't know it, but he made a deal with the contractor, that HE would do all this work, around the house, including boxing in the windows of the little house, fix all the wood on the back porch, replace the soffits, gutters for both houses, hanging brackets for the plumbing, and replace that damned garage roof.

He's had well, at least a year, but this shit has been falling apart and in sore need of repair for about 10 years. He's known that they've been needing to be replaced, to be able to get our Code of Occupancy. He's been silently putting it off, for months. Only now does he get on the fucking stick about it, now, when we're nearly broke (yes, the money comes in waves around here, can you tell?). I'm pissed, because he spends so much time micromanaging my time, making sure I fucking produce...that he's no better. He's got so much shit to do, before the week is out, it's unreal. And guess...no guess who's gotta go help him. I wish, sometimes I could say "fuck you, sink or swim, buddy" Of course, I can't. He's got all this frustrated pissed off energy (is it any wonder why?) and he's sorta imposing that pissyness on me, though I'm sort of above it. I used to get all pissy and frustrated, when he did, just by default, but now I just sorta let it roll over me. Yes I'll help, but don't expect me to get worked into a froth about it.

Today, I have to paint all the wood on the front porch. Most of the front porch is wood. Fresh, unpainted wood. It's gonna take forever. So, yeah, I way digressed, there, but what I was getting at is, blogging is gonna be a little scarce this week...and for November in general, if things pan out the way I see them.

[Listening to: Dancing In The Dark - Bruce Springsteen - (4:02)]