Check it out, Tom Morello (Rage Against the Machine, Audioslave, The Nightwatchman) and Boots Riley have teamed up to form SSSC. Apparently Tom handed Boots a tape of 24 songs and told him they were now in a band. :-) Tom has a long history of fighting for social justice and was tired of going to rallies where all he heard was Kumbaya and other 60's protest songs. He wanted to form a group with the goal of writing protest anthems for a new generation.
Ack - it's almost the 15th!! Just sayin!
Spent over 10 hours yesterday cleaning the house and staging it with a couple of friends. Gawd. That was a long damn day. I have to say that their help was invaluable. There are times on a project like that where I get tired of what I'm doing and move on - leaving everything half finished. Friends were awesome though, they could see the light at the end of the tunnel and the results are stunning. They think the place will sell right quick now that it has sparkle factor. We really still have three rooms left to do (kitchen, living and sitting room), but they're in limbo until the painter comes in and does his thing. Then we can finish. Well, the kitchen we can do now, but it was after 8 when they left yesterday and we were all totally spent. Mr. Val and I will go down tomorrow night and have a go at the remainder. House should be on the market mid-week!
We're still going through changes in the bugpartment. We've moved on from fruit flies and meal worms to house flies and ants. I opened the window on Thursday and proceded to kill 20+ flies in a period of 5 minutes. It was a massacre. There were half as many on Friday and only one or two still kicking around today. I killed two ants this morning. It always starts with one or two. I swear, you'd think this place was made of Kool-Aid.
I received a fabulous present in the mail from my fabulous Chicago roommate. You're the best, sweets, I love it when my friends try to scare the pants off me! Love you, mean it, don't ever change.
In other news, the teevee and blu-ray player have arrived! We haven't decided on a name for either yet, so we had to leave their birth certificates blank. Any suggestions? They're both Panasonics, the tv is 50" and is plasma. Got any creative ideas besides Panny? I was thinking Bertha or Ben, but I do like Panny too! And what about Old Blu? He needs a good name too. Let's hear 'em!
Doesn't the NES look nice sitting right there? He's not at all intimidated by the new puppies.
I'm taking Mr. Val to see dreamhouse tonight. I have Time Warner doing a survey to find out if they'll run cable for us. We were early adopters of RoadRunner in '97 so maybe they'll throw us a bone for being loyal customers. Shyea, like that ever happens.
Let's wrap this up with a bit of church music for your Sunday morning pleasure.
An update on the bugs. Oh god, I couldn't even take pictures, it was awful.
Was tidying up the kitchen the other night. My cooler was still sitting out from my trip and just needed to be stashed in the closet. When I moved it, I saw these tiny leaves underneath of it that I thought must've fallen off of a dead plant and just needed to be swept. No biggie. I dragged the cooler into the closet and was walking through the kitchen. I stepped on one of the leaves and felt a POP.
Pop?
Even the crunchiest of dead leaves don't pop.
Upon closer inspection I realized it was a gorged mealworm that had exploded underfoot. And there were about a dozen of them under the cooler (it was up on wheels). [[[[[shiver]]]]]. I called Mr. Val in to look at the horribleness of it all. It was so gross.
We've kept some boxes stacked in the kitchen and weren't planning on unpacking them until we move into a house. We decided to shift them about to make sure nothing was underneath and what do you think we found? More gorged mealworms.
It was so nasty. What's worse is that they weren't even near food! Our food is all put away in cupboards and we haven't seen any mealworms in there. My dad used to get mealworms in his pantry on the farm when I was a kid and it grossed me out to no end. So I've always been a fanatic about sealing up grains and crap like that since I've been on my own. We have no idea what they got into or where they're coming from.
We haven't seen any since we swept up that lot but it's still giving me nightmares.
In other news, our fruit fly problem is no longer an issue. I've only seen one or two strays since yesterday, so that's not too bad.
I hate living in an apartment. Get me the fuck outta here.
Oh, and in other-other news, the rural house that I've fallen in love with had potential buyers out there for an hour and a half the other night. I think the listing agent is trying to push us but we can't do anything more than a contingency offer right now.
Edit: Upon reflection I realized that we also have a couple of Nintendo DS's kicking around, but with a release date of November 2001, the GameCube is our newest non-handheld console. I was bitching at the dude at GameStop a few weeks ago about the lack of used GameCube games. They're totally phasing them out. It's so damn sad.
I swear, this apartment has more bugs than any place I've lived. It's probably the cleanest my place of dwelling has been since being on my own too. That's what kills me. I've always been a slob, but not with food or anything that might attract critters. There are all sorts of weird bugs in here I've never seen before, and a few I haven't seen since my dad had his farm in Illinois (boxelder bugs). I've seen weird spiders, a carpenter ant, flies, wasps, mosquitoes and a variety of odd bugs I can't identify. We've had meal worms in the oddest places (bathroom corner and in a large glass candle holder - usually you tend to see those in your cupboards near the dry goods). Last night we were dealing with fruit flies. We always had fruit in our house with no trouble, but apparently I can't leave bananas out on the counter here in the apartment. We took out the garbage, wiped down the counters and this morning I set out a treat of three strawberries floating in red wine vinegar and covered it with plastic wrap and poked holes in it. I have my fingers crossed that this will slowly and painfully kill the remaining fruit flies. Killing them by hand seems to be a fruitless (ahem) effort.
While this apartment is only two years old and *seems* clean, there are gaps in the doors and windows that are clearly adding to our problem. Everything is put together so cheaply, I can't decide what's worse, our neighbors having sex four feet away from me on the other side of the wall or the yip dogs downstairs that bark incessantly when their owners do anything. I cannot wait to get the fuck outta here.
I think I've posted a bit about Rooster Teeth before. It's a bunch of guys who made hilarious machinima videos out of the Halo games. They're still making the excellent Red vs. Blue series, but that's not what I'm here to talk to you about today.
Lately, the guys have been making side-splitting short films. If you ever watched RVB you'll finally be able to put a face to the voices behind that series. We lucked out that they happen to be a pretty good lookin' bunch that can act IRL outside of a recording booth. Anyway, here's a collection of some of my favorites and a link to their shorts video page, as well as their YouTube page (all of their videos seem to be there, not just the shorts - click RT shorts on the right for the live action vids).
Here's Catch - a tribute to Father's Day:
Have to go to work soon. Here's some stuff.
Finished my IRS audit in an hour. That's unheard of! Of course, I'm still waiting for the follow-up letter from my agent. But overall it went really well and I was feeling great by the time it was over. Thanks for the good mojo!!
I woke up with a Charley Horse this morning. Guh.
There was a hairball right where my feets go under my computer chair. SOMEHOW, I managed to NOT step on it. Of course, I noticed just as I had scooped Cream of Wheat into my mouf. Yuck.
Did I mention anywhere that I did 9 hours of yardwork last weekend down at the house? Even the rain and thunder didn't stop me (thunder should've, but I was feeling stubborn). Take that stupid landscaper who wanted to charge me $5,000. Super thanks to my in-laws who also worked their assess of and gave me direction that I was sorely lacking.
I'm going to look at houses with my real estate agent tomorrow. Weeeee!!! I thought we might not be able to due to the holiday, but she's game. Woot! I'm charging my camera tonight!
My sister is awesome. Upon my arrival last week she bestowed the following gifts: bacon lip balm, bacon toothpicks and a bacon car air freshener. No one loves you quite like your sister!!! She's the best. Oh, and a tip for the bacon lip balm: it's really awesome if you put it on right before eating cheddar and sour cream ruffles.
My sister is awesome, part 2. Sister made me a couple of great mix tapes cds. LOVE them. Now I need to return the favor. Hmmm...where to start....Dear Music Studios Who Probably Won't Read This: Yes, Sister copied music for me, but guess what, I see it as a sample because I will go out and PURCHASE full album releases of the tunes I really like.
And here is the big news:
I spent loads of time reasearching a new teevee and was surprised, but happy, to land on Plasma. I really feel like the LCD equivilant to this would set us back a cool grand over what this cost. You can't beat the deal Amazon has right now. We wanted to get this a month ago and since then the price has dropped almost $200 and now they're practically throwing in a Blu-Ray player for free. So glad we waited on this. The even better news on this is that when our other in-laws caught wind of this they decided to gift this to us for the next year's worth of birfday, anniversary and Christmas gifts. Holy smokes! I was overwhelmed and stunned. I am incredibly lucky, I would have never in a million years expected such a thing and am so grateful.
That was how an AquaFresh commercial I recently heard started. I thought it was simultaneously hysterical and disturbing out of context.
Not much to report. I'm representing a client before the IRS at 9:30. I've never asked this of you guys, but if you could throw a kind word about me out to Xenu this morning it would be much appreciated.
You know, this whole "aunt" thing is a breeze. The kid totally digs me, she rarely cries and she freaking laughs and smiles all the damn time. I may not go home and visit as often when she's thirteen, but I am lovin' every bit with her so far.
Don't mind my mother's couch. Those flowers will wilt and die someday. (Sorry Ma)
We went to the zoo on the damn hottest day of the year. We left and passed a sign that it was 100 degrees.
I just did some googling. Looks like they brought her a companion elephant in 2000 who gave her the herpes that killed her. Now there are two elephants at the zoo (no Kathy) and both have tested positive. So sad. :-(
At one point we wanted to walk up to the ice cream shop. On the way I was stung by a bee. I swear, my feet are usually very slender.
We fed the kid a lemon and she couldn't get enough. Of course at the table I was all like, "it's like when Data on Star Trek got his emotion chip and kept drinking Guinan's horrible concoctions." Sister thought that was terribly nerdy. But it's true. (Both).
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