It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.

...pictures of my new apartment!

You know you've been dying to see it. I cleaned like crazy today. Immediately after I finished vacuuming the living room, my stupid cat decided to voluntarily shed on the carpet.

Notes are on the photos. As of now, they're still uploading.

Get it while it's hot!

I got bored today, so I sorted my batteries. I tested them all with my multimeter so I could figure out which ones are new, almost-new, and partially used (those are still good for low-powered things like remote controls and backup batteries for clocks). Then I converted a small box into individual compartments.

Craft time FTW!



Also: it really sucks having a V6 now that I don't drive on the interstate at all. I haven't gotten on the highway since the day I finished moving. It's a little surreal, when you think about it. The speed limit never gets above 30mph on my route to work. My car is begging me to go 80 on I-65, but with gas at four-fucking-dollars-a-gallon, I just can't indulge poor Scarlett.



I think this mold deal is starting to affect my allergies. It's been raining a lot lately, so moisture in that wall is really at a maximum. Fuckers.

I really want some sushi. Damn.

I was marginally productive yesterday - go me. I cleaned the place up a bit; it looks better, but the kitchen is still a wreck. My kitchen table and breakfast bar are pretty much a big dumping ground. I need to get out of that habit, srsly.

Jason's coming up tonight tomorrow night and spending the night, and probably working remotely from here. Maybe. I don't know.

The water damage/mold situation in my office/guest room is getting worse. I'm going to be good and wait until the end of the month to bitch them out.

Sigh.

I just got an email from an Intellectual Property lawyer with my old employer about the stuff I had on my resume.

So *that's* all been taken down.

They won't even let me link to a site that is accessible from the Internet and hosted on their servers.

Oops. I took the stuff down the minute I saw the email, so I don't think they'll be charging me with anything.

Let's not forget this, shall we?

Leaving anonymous comments about how you think I'm full of myself, stupid, naïve, intolerant, close-minded, bigoted, egotistical, etc. constitutes "[hiding] behind the anonymity of the Internet to leave inane, mindless, and unintelligent anonymous comments in a weak attempt to attack me". As previously stated, said comments will be ignored and deleted.

Intelligent discussion about a viewpoint (read: not personal attacks against me because of my opinions) is embraced and welcomed. Talking about how you think I'm a worthless piece of shit != intelligent discussion.

Thanks for playing!

I know that in the long run, a long-distance relationship is just begging to be ended. You know it won't last. You know it'll get complicated and bring problems into the relationship.

But we had to try. And what was there was amazing and it kills me that it can't last, but I know it can't last. 90 miles and two full-time jobs and $4 gasoline come together to create a big cosmological stop sign.

I tried the long-distance thing when I was 18. It didn't work. Maybe if I were more mature this would work, but Jason knows as well as I do that it just gets worse with time.

I told him I was pretty sure I was in love with him. He told me he was close to being able to say the same, and that it doesn't happen often.

I love him and I want to be with him, but I'm just not strong enough for this long distance bullshit. I know that makes me sound immature and selfish and stupid, but I just can't do it. It takes too much out of you.

I wish I could say that how I feel about him could translate into unwavering commitment, but I'm not that naïve. I'm not that idealistic anymore.

We could stay in denial, or just admit it can't last long-term. Maturity and common sense won over the heart in this battle. I don't see it ending other way, and dragging it out will only make it harder and make the emotions harder to get over.

Dammit I really loved him.

He's still coming up on Sunday evening, but I'm betting that's going to be the last time.

At least he'll buy me IHOP one more time.

Fuck.

As previously mentioned, I'm turning back into a TV addict and thus watched Law & Order: SVU last night. I had forgotten how unbelievably hot Chris Meloni and Mariska Hargitay both are. She's a lucky bitch to be that pretty.

Anyhow.

The show also guest-starred Stephen Collins. That's right. The dad from 7th Heaven. I guess he finally decided to start acting. *rimshot*

ANYHOW.

The plot goes something like this : gold-digger finds multimillionaire son of coffee empire owner. She lies about being preggers so he'd marry her. Once she had the ring, she nailed his father and got preggers with his baby. Ten days after she conceives, her fiancé comes over and wants her to sign a prenup. She flips out, they argue, he leaves. His friend from college (who, incidentally is a lawyer), comes over and murders Gold Digger, because she (Lawyer Girl) is still in love with Coffee Son. In the middle of the trial (Coffee Father and Son are both accused of murdering Gold Digger to keep her from continuing to blackmail them - they've been sending her $10k a month to shut her up about the fake pregnancy), Lawyer Girl pays off one of the jurors on the case with $50k so that the jury would be unable to come to a unanimous decision.

Stay with me; there's a point to all this...

So Mariska goes over to this juror's apartment in New York. Turns out she's a single mom with a disabled son (he has cerebral palsy), and she took the money to keep her apartment from getting foreclosed on (she has an all-interest mortgage and couldn't afford it after interest rates went up), because she was convinced that her son would be put into foster care since she'd "be homeless" if she lost her apartment.

(a) What possesses someone to buy an apartment in one of the most expensive areas of the United States with an all-interest loan?

(b) If you could afford whatever your mortgage payments were before rates went up, wouldn't it occur to you to dump the money drain loan and go back to renting a place that you can afford?

(c) I am sick of prime time shows being political mouthpieces. I mean, I know it's inevitable, but shit. Seriously.

I understand that being a single mother with a disabled kid has to be nearly impossible to handle. But I also understand that you probably aren't obligated to live in NYC, in which case you could move somewhere more affordable and not get a freaking interest-only loan.

This isn't rocket science. It's not advanced economics. It's not calculus. It's the simple logical, common-sense fact that getting an interest-only loan for anything is completely irresponsible and, for lack of a better word, insane.

You aren't entitled to own a house. More Americans own homes than citizens in any other country. Why is this? Because Americans are convinced that they're entitled to own a home, and they'll do anything to collect what they think is their right. So rather than rent until they can afford to buy, and rather than live below one's means, most Americans go off and get a mortgage they can't afford, and end up running to the government for help when their finances go up in flames.

Not only that, but let's take this particular example. Let's say this woman could only afford the absolute minimum before she got preggers. Does she have any business having a child - even a healthy one? No. Bearing children is more a privilege than it is a right. You don't have a "right" to bring into this world a human being who you cannot afford to adequately care for. Keep your knees together, go on the pill, use a condom - do whatever it takes to keep being a responsible adult.

Let's say this woman got married, had a husband with an actual income, got preggers, and he left her because the kid was gimpy. Now what? Why not move somewhere cheaper? There are other places in New York state and elsewhere on the East coast that are more affordable than fucking New York City.

This is just so asinine. I don't understand how people can even be convinced that those with these shitty, overpriced mortgages are victims. Nobody forced you to sign for the loan. Nobody forced you to buy a home you couldn't afford. Stop bitching and take responsibility for the mess you've made. If that means that you have to live in a one-room apartment for a year so that you can get your finances in order, too damn bad. That just isn't my problem.

What's really amazing is that subprime loans are targeted to people who can't qualify for even a shitty ARM. If your credit is so poor that you can't even get approved for a mortgage at all, what the hell are you doing buying a house? Chances are, you still have thousands of dollars in credit card and car loan debt to pay off, and maybe student loan debt. Suck it up and rent until that debt is paid off. Nobody must pay for mortgage insurance and escrow. You know how you avoid it? By saving up at least 20% of the home's purchase price. If you live in an area where the average price for even a starter home is $600,000 (San Francisco, for instance), it's time to move. Period. A 20% down payment there is going to be $120,000. You can find decent condos and houses in Indianapolis for that much!

So your whole family lives in California? Too damn bad. Take the plunge and make a change. Mike's extended family lives in the SF Bay area. His dad took a job at IUPUI and moved to Indianapolis. You really think he could've afforded to pay for both his kids to go to college debt-free if he lived in California? It's pretty doubtful.

Not only that, but these terrible interest-only mortgages don't even amount to an investment. You may as well be paying rent, except that your mortgage payment doesn't cover maintenance on your home the way that rent does. When all you're paying is interest in your home for the first ten to twenty years, you're not investing shit. The bank still more or less owns your home.

It's just sad. It's sad and pathetic that people are so selfish and demanding that the average American today has nearly $10,000 just in credit card debt. That is nobody's fault but the person who racked up the debt, either.

People tell me that I'm idealistic. They say I "don't know what it's like when the money just isn't there". My response to that is that "the money should always be there". If you can't even keep a thousand dollars in a slush fund when you are gainfully employed, there's a problem somewhere with your finances.

And that's just for things like car repairs and unexpected vet bills. What happens if you lose your job? Do you really want to end up like one of the guys I used to work with? After his wife lost her job (he was still employed), they racked up $34,000 in debt in only four months. Why? Because they own a house they can't afford, two brand-new cars on payments, and cannot control their spending even a tiny smidge.

It's possible to live debt-free. It really is. It's possible to only have debt with a mortgage and not carry a balance on credit cards. It's possible to live a cash-only lifestyle. People used to do it all the time. It's no longer the norm, sadly - but who said you had to be normal?

Jason can't come up this weekend.

Three weeks in a row. Three fucking weeks before I get to see him. What the hell is up with this?

This weekend is going to suck ass.

I opened up Microsoft OneNote 2007 for the first time, and I'm reading through the tabs on why OneNote is so awesome, and I see this:



That's when I realized that indispensable is spelled incorrectly in Office's internal dictionary.

My eyes are bleeding from this one.

I took bheaton1 out for his birthday last night, along with a couple he's friends with. We ate at O'Charley's and then went bowling at the most ancient bowling alley I've ever seen. It was awesome, though - the little console for changing player names and stuff looked like something out of the mid-80s, complete with little ASCII characters to make up the scoring grid. The white-trashy boy at the counter was flirting with me when I was up there, and ended up giving me a discount when I paid. Yay me.

It was a fun night, though. Brian was just going to stay home, so I'm glad I made him go out.

I really, really need to be productive today. That is all.

This is my printer:



The HP LaserJet 2100tn. I love it. It has two paper trays, Jet Direct, and it has yet to fail me. Everyone should own an HP LaserJet printer at some point in life. It's mandatory.

My weekend sucked ass. Friday night was ok, and Saturday was pretty decent, but Sunday took a major blow since I didn't get to see Jason.

Which means I have to wait another five days before I can see him again. What the fuck. That makes me a sad, sad panda.

I need two more wiimotes, nunchucks, and battery packs for my Nyko charging station. Then I can have Wii parties.

I also need a bigger TV to facilitate said Wii-partying.

Today is sucking for my allergies. I think the new meds I'm on are helping, though.

I was going through my LJ reading about my past birthdays. It seems like ever since I technically became an adult (18), they've all sucked.

( this is where I start bitching )

My last two birthdays weren't horrible like the first three on the list, but they probably could have been better. Jason says he'll come up for my 24th, but I'm not going to make him do that - assuming he's still talking to me at that point, that is. I plan on just taking the day off (if I'm allowed to - I might still be on probation from my start date at this job), staying at home, watching hours of soap operas and gilmore girls, and feeling supremely sorry for myself. I might even drink, too.

I've been in kind of a shit mood all week. Life is annoying these days.

• Gain 5lb and keep it on
  I have gained weight from Jason taking me out every weekend (and every night a week and a half ago, before I moved). I'm up to about 107 and staying there, so that's pretty good. I think.
• Make at least three more friends - at least one female
  I think blnkpage and I can be IRL friends, so that's a big plus. I've met both girls who live in the house I'm in, and they seem pretty nice. dan185818 came over this past Saturday and hung out, so that was fun. I think I'm doing good in the friends department. I've also been hanging out with bheaton1 more. Yay for socializing.
• Keep apartment clean all the time
  Dude. I just moved. I did pick up a bit last night, though, so you can walk through my entire place without tripping on stuff now.
• Work out every day - get in shape
  Yeah...no. I might get the Wii Fit if I see it cheap, but other than that, I should just kill this goal entirely. There are loads of hills between me and my office, so biking to work is not an option.
• Do yoga
  This one is getting the axe. Sorry.
• Eat better and more regularly
  I'm actually doing well with this one. I have a huge fridge at my new apartment, so I'm buying more food and actually making stuff...hence the weight change.
• Save money for condo down payment by end of 2009 (at least $25,000)
  I've done okay. I had to actually move money out of savings into checking to pay my last credit card bill, because I haven't gotten my last (and final) Cummins paycheck yet, and I haven't gotten a paycheck from Purdue at all yet. I have like $20k in the bank though, so I should easily have $35k or so saved up by the end of 2009. I haven't decided how I want to invest any of it yet. The economy is doing so shit-poor right now that I'm scared to put my money anywhere at all risky.
• Dress nicer for work/going out
  Booooo. Jeans FTW. I wear jeans and random shirts to work every day. Nobody has said anything yet, so I think I'm ok at this point. I wear nice shoes and decent shirts, so I think it's ok.
• Get hair done and/or permed
  I need a haircut. My hair is so long now that it actually gets caught between my back and the seat of my car. That's just not cool.

I feel terrible about not sending Christmas cards to claireh and mortonofski. I'm going to make it up to you; I'm just trying to figure out the awesomest way to do so.

If nothing else, so far 2008 has been remarkably drama-free. None of my friends are dramallamas. About a month ago, someone from #arsclan came out of the woodwork to see if I'd be interested in boning him (that got a big WTF from me, but whatever), but other than that, noooo drama. Yay.

Go me.

...Maybe not.

• I haven't seen anymore bugs since the Night of the Killer Centipedes™, thankfully.
• I saw Jason on Saturday night and all day Sunday. I'm pretty sure he's awesome. I miss him.
• I easily spent $300 in the past six days on shit for my apartment - lighting, shelving, and various accoutrements for the new pad. Pics forthcoming, I swear.
• No cable modem yet = no internet at home. Fuck. I hope the guy I bought mine from (on eBay) ships it soon.
• Going to the leasing office today to ask about the wall, among other things. I really hope they get that shit taken care of soon, srsly.
• My car gets ungodly mileage when it's not on the interstate. I mean, the little computer in my dashboard tells me I'm getting fourteen fucking miles per gallon right now. That's just sick. I need to start taking the damn bus.
• I think I like my job. I'm not sure yet, though.
• I made yaki-soba for Jason last night, and he loved it. Yay. I have leftovers for lunch today. Double yay.

That's it; I'm tapped. What did you all do this weekend? I don't want to go through my entire fpage just to see a few updates in between shit from techsupport and kittypix, so...

Yay!

Also: I hope my stupid cable modem gets here soon. I be needing it. Badly.

Scenario: It's 10:30. I'm reading A Wrinkle In Time in bed, getting tired, about to fall asleep...and I see something move in my peripheral vision. I hope it's a shadow. I put my glasses on and look up at the wall above my bathroom.

That was no shadow. That was a fucking 2" long house centipede.

I hate these things with a passion.

I'm serious. I don't do bugs. I can sort of deal with ladybugs and ants and those roly-poly bugs and little shit like that. I don't do spiders. I don't do roaches. And I really, really don't do centipedes. They have fifteen pairs of legs and these flat bodies that allow them to tear across walls, ceilings, and my face at an alarming velocity.

I freaked. I called up bheaton1 and made him come over and kill it. We couldn't find it. We drove to Wal-Mart at 11:45 to get a glue trap and an industrial-size can of Raid. We came back. We sprayed. The little bastard finally fell to the floor, where Sumi decided it was a new toy. Brian saw it and killed it. I went to bed in terror of having another one of the fuckers eat my face off in my sleep.

This means war.

I did research at work today (I just bought a cable modem on eBay last night, so it'll be at least a week before I'm online at home...boo), and these things like humidity, moisture, and other bugs.

I have a two-pronged battle plan:

First off, I'm buying a dehumidifier. My bathroom has no vent, fan, or door, so steam gets into my bedroom. I'll run the thing whenever I'm showering (and for awhile after) to suck all the moisture out of the air.

Secondly, I'm setting glue traps under my sinks where bugs like to reside, and I'm spraying pesticide around all my windows, doors, and any cracks in the walls and woodwork.

I cannot have these bastards running around my apartment. They scare the living fuck out of me.

This is a phobia. I am aware that a house centipede is not going to eat my face, nor will it kill me or my cat. It doesn't fucking matter. If they weren't so damn fast it wouldn't be so bad, but if you've never seen one of these things go scurrying across a wall, floor, or ceiling before...I about had a panic attack the second time I saw it on my wall. I'm serious. I was literally crying and hyperventilating over this thing.

Fuckers.

Office 2007 sucks balls.

Seriously.

But I can't downgrade because 2007 is fast becoming the standard, so I'm going to suck it up and use it. I'm going to install 2003 on my laptop (when I get one), though.

Internet's coming on Saturday - $45/mo for basic cable and the lowest tier of cable internet through Comcast, which isn't too bad. I decided not to reactivate my TiVo - all it would do is bring back my hardcore TV addiction from my college years.

I miss Jason.

I'm going to be without internet access at home until next weekend, so I may go AWOL sometime next week. I can't be posting in my stupid LJ from work until I've been there for at least a month...