Circuit Shitty doesn't give out free RENT posters

I remember Michelle Kwan going for gold four years ago and being pushed out by the unknown Sarah Hughes who took the gold out from under her, and now tonight Emily Hughes kicks some major ascii. Woo! But show her the love, by God! Third place in the short program?? Come on! Of course I missed Kimmie’s performance but still. We’ll see what Sasha can do. Of course, my jury is out on her because of the goofy watch commercial she did last year. I didn’t realize they could get paid for stuff like that and still do this. Oh well.

As for Circuit City (or Circuit Shitty) as I call it. In the circular this weekend the ad from Circuit City said that they would have RENT calendars for free with the purchase of the DVD. I went in there and nothing. Nada. They didn’t have the calendar. The woman said that they just didn’t get any in. She was very nonplussed and utterly unapologetic. So I wrote them a nasty letter before imagining myself throwing my little daughter over the counter to stick her pudgy hands down the woman’s throat while she giggled uncontrollably through crooked baby teeth.

Jacobellis blew it

I don't really care what Lindsey Jacobellis said after her run, she grabbed her board to showboat at the end of her race and BLEW IT. She blew it. Totally blew it. Her interview comments were BS! Totally. That's all I've got to say about it.

Computers suck

Friday morning I almost drooled over an iMac in Einstein's Brother's. I remember when I was required to use one at work and how I never had any problems with it. And I did get my PC back from the shop but it still doesn't work. The nice man at the store told me it was my fault because I had installed bad bad bad software (like LimeWire) on it. I tried to explain I'd not been online, but he told me to go home and reformat it. Like that solves everything. I called my friend who said to bring it over, but then he got himself in a pissy mood and cancelled me, so I went back to Best Buy. I made up a story about needing it for work, and so they had the "Business Manager" talk to me. Asked me if I had a business, and of course I said "Yes". So he said I could create a business account and get a loaner laptop :) So while he went to get the paperwork, my wife and I made up a name on the spot. Then he came back with a Gateway (I can deal with that). But I still cannot get it to connect here at home. I am posting this little ditty through my neighbors unsecure network access point (thank God for idiots). If I can just find a few hour window when my good friend isn't freaking out about the house, the job, etc... (not that those things don't suck for him) I can get some help. I even promised to feed him. I ended up with the daughter and wife at PF Changes eating black mushrooms and sticky rice tonight. Yum.

Chuck was found and I am happy

Picked up my laptop the other day and I was thrilled that they had not only replaced my motherboard, but they also replaced my LCD display. I had some odd goobily gook on it from sometime ago and I could never get it off. It wasn’t what you think it could be, but I think something rubbed against it the wrong way (Once again, the pun is not intended). And I took it home to connect to the plethora of wireless networks that ran rampant in my neighborhood, but as I booted my new machine in an older, scratched body, all of a sudden, nothing. Nada. Nope. NO CONNECTION! I checked for the little blinking light that told me all was right in the world and there it was smiling up at me like a solitaire little light brite. But Nothing. No connection. I wanted to throw the laptop through the sliding glass door to where my dog sat happily like his crotch, but I steeled myself. I then took it to work to try to connect to the oh-so-stable wireless network there, but it wouldn’t. So I took it to my other work, and that didn’t work either. Now I am going back to Best Buy to complain that they put my computer back together again and didn’t connect the wireless adapters. Damnit.

I'm back from outer space

So I had a kid this year, and with a kid you realize that you're no longer the person you once were. So now I am this man who never gets to see a new movie and never goes anywhere and goes to bed at 9pm and now loves that and her very much.

But the OSCARS are coming, so I need to prep myself. Since my laptop was in the shop I rented several "worthy" nominated movies, and let me start by telling you....... DO NOT SEE JUNEBUG! RUN SCREAMING! This movie was horrible and made no sense WHATSOEVER. Of course the next day I realigned the world by watching The Constant Gardener, which was pretty damn good. A few nominations, but well worth it!

I picked up my laptop from the Geek Squad today. Only 8 days. Not bad. A new motherboard, LCD displace and hinges. Woohoo. Ok the painkillers are making this harder and harder to write, but this site is blocked from work. Damn those jobs.

Like the Great Wall of China, just go ahead and destroy my personal space

So I am at work and my class is sitting in the computer lab and all of a sudden there’s this mass of people descending upon the library to find a new life partner on MySpace or to email each other in broken French. The librarian has warned me of such and put up a large placard so no one would enter and break the sanctity of me reading Dooce while my kiddies write research. But they begin to walk around the sign, so I shove something else in there way so they cannot just walk in unaware. Of course they then decide they’re going to crawl over my belongings like they’re scaling Kiliminjaro with no regard for the sanctity of public education whatsoever.

Gimme a friggin break.

“There’s a class in here! Do I need to build a titanium wall, install a humungous lock, and install blinky Vegas lights all over the entrance to the lab!"

Is your family as dysfunctional as mine

I pissed off the sister recently who thinks she's moving to Pittsburgh because I expressed concern for her well-bring-not-stressed-out-ness. Of course her current city is way too expensive and maybe some people should always live in Pittsburgh while others should never return. I guess we will see which is which sometime soon perhaps.

As for my brother, my mother and I have taken to talking in code when it comes to him. For our own sake and those subpoenas. So we will see where he ends up and what he ends up doing. As far as I know he's driving in a big black truck across the country to stay with a lawyer for an upscale expensive well-known ski resort where his oldest friend and former love of his life who has since moved to a seedy town in California will marry the man she met working in a bookstore who we always didn't like. Perhaps he will come his niece, too. She thinks her pet monkey that he gave her is an absolute gas.

Comps & Social Liberal Coups

So a few years ago my advisor met with a colleague and offered her an easy way out because he was sick of dealing with her, and he wanted to get her through her comps and out the door. I thought the offer he gave her sounded good to me, and I wanted something easy like he offered her. Then we met. Then he offered me the OTHER comp structure. Told me it'd be better for me, and it would be more "appropriate". Damnit. So then I stalled. I was stuck and asked for help, and sent him a very long email saying all of this and being nice about it.

He wrote back: Just Do It.

Goddamn it, Am I friggin' NIKE Ad??!! No, I am a person. I didn't talk to him for a year. We met Tuesday. He looked good. Asked about the kid and made idle chit chat. Told me that almost everyone I had worked with graduated already (didn't mention that I started before them all). Then I told him I was ready to work. He told me that I work too fast (DID I MENTION I TOOK A YEAR OFF?!???).

Anyway, so then surprise surprise, he offered me the same get-the-hell-outta-here-comp-structure! Woohoo. So now I needed to get moving and get done with all of this. Someone yesterday said "What're you going to do when you're done?" ....

My answer was, “nothing I am not doing now.” I love what I am doing. I like coming home, playing with the kid, hanging with my wife, blogging, taking out the trash, yelling at the dog, and sleeping at 9:30PM. Everyone said it. When you have a kid, your aspirations change. Mine did. I never thought they would. I am ready to have my daughter change the world. I am done. I am going to stay here and educate the next generation to takeover the world. A social liberal coup from the far left is the only thing I really want.

Then here's my office. I have migrated to the living room and my house is small. The office became a catch-all when the catch-all became nursery last year. For 10 months I had to climb Everest to get to our network printer. Now I can walk again and see the floor! And my wife hates (utterly hates) when I go elsewhere to work (doesn't she remember that I spent an entire year living in a coffee shop to do my Masters?). She instead of purchasing an ostentatiously large non-existent piece of office furniture to fit along the only wall without windows and book cases in the office, she said she wants to make me a study! A study! For Me! Of course I told her that she could not bitch about my listening to music with the door closed when she's screaming my name because the baby has eaten dog food. She needs to politely come and knock on the door while extracting the drool covered kibble from our kid's throat while trying to remember that she's pumped in over $25,000.00 into this degree and she'll kill me if I don't ever finish. Ah, education and young love.

Eventually Daddy will not be Numero Uno

I visited my daughter today in day care while she was having a bottle. Nearby a small boy sat playing with a plastic toy drum. I watched her ignore me and focus on him. He’d make small funny sounds and look at her. I sat watching the sides of her mouth curl up and smile at him, and I continued to try to get her attention. It never worked. I finally sat her down on the ground where she immediately crawled to him where he proceeded to give her the toy. The two of them sat and played for several long minutes while I watched, finally knowing (way too early) what every father of a daughter knows. Eventually she will leave me, and another man will take my place in her life.

Got the meeting from Hades tonight and we will see how it goes

Tonight I am meeting my advisor at a local restaurant and usually these conversations start politely with a nice brief meal after he arrives late. Small talk and chat eventually leads to discussing my work (or lack of) and all of the forceful things I’d like to say never get said.

In my perfect world I would tell him how I don’t appreciate his lack of advising, and how it’s not my fault I am not done. Also, I’d mention that I don’t appreciate him making comments about how I am taking my time finishing school because I don’t want to pay back my student loans. Or how he doesn’t contact me, and only talks to me when I contact him. Or how he never told me about certain classes I needed to take. Or all of that.

Now we will see what I actually say and do tonight, and what he says and does tonight.

Best Buy Sucks and The Steelers won the Superbowl - DEAL WITH IT

Best Buy annoys me. When I got this service plan for my laptop I had to give away my right hand or second born to get a 3-year service plan. Of course some idiot decided to create a typo where they had the expiration date a week from the date I bought it. This would’ve been a $300.00 warranty for ONE WEEK! Geek Squad sucks. They complained to me. TO ME. Like it’s my fault they screwed up. So my laptop doesn’t work, and it’s (hopefully) on its way to California. Finally a manager said he’d take care of me, which he had better do. I am being punished for buying a computer at Best Buy and according to the Consumer Report from December, you should NOT EVER BUY SERVICE PLANS FROM BEST BUY AT ALL EVER! So I am done doing that.

Another thing that bites my gonads right now are all of the people bitching about the officiating of the Superbowl. They all complained about the Steelers winning. BEN ROETHLISBERGER BROKE THE PLANE OF THE TOUCHDOWN LINE WITH THAT FOOTBALL!!!!! End of story. Drop it. Get off my goddamn back! They won. They were all going to win an they did win. That’s it. Idiots.

Look at the stats. 6# place, won all road games (against teams like the Bengals and Broncos and Colts) and won the Superbowl. Cowher’s waited 14 years and Jerome Bettis finally has a ring and can retire in peace. (Thank you, Bus).

That’s it.

I apologize now for not being on line as much this week. I will update you with the Laptop fiasco, and I am pissed the firewall at work blocks Blogger. Damn it. Well Heather learned her lesson so maybe I should make sure to learn mine the easier way.
Thanks to the wife for letting me write this. XOXOXOXO

Four Things

Four jobs I've had:

1. Teacher. I teach high school and college English to various kinds of students. (Some of whom have brains and can write complete sentences).
2. Taco maker. I made a mean taco for some Christian guy who always made sure to write JESUS LOVES YOU on everything he handed out.
3. Pizza Hut driver. I worked at Pizza Hut twice in my life, and I worked there as recently as 2001. I think I am the only Pizza Hut driver finishing a PhD ever. But I was able to eat free pizza and smoke too many cigarettes while driving around in circles with NPR droning on in a Peanut’s teacher monotone.
4. Grass cutter. My first job was for my uncle where I cut grass while listening to talented bands like Digital Underground and 3rd Base. I was always waiting for that weasel to go pop.

Four movies I can watch over and over:
1. Con Air
2. Wonderboys
3. Ground Hog Day
4. Real Genuis

Four places I've lived:
1. Pixburgh, PA.
2. Phoenix, AZ.
3. University Park.
4. Brentwood.

Four TV shows I love:
1. Lost
2. My Name is Earl
3. Real World/Road Rules Challenges
4. Smallville

Four places I've vacationed:
1. London
2. Rome
3. Paris, France
4. Dublin

Four of my favorite dishes:
1. Chipotle.
2. Primanti’s.
3. Dorido’s.
4. That small sandwhich restaurant in Napa.

Four sites I visit daily:
1. Dooce
2. A Picture of You
3. Astrid’s Site
4. Iziks

Four places I would rather be right now:
1. A small cabin in Southern PA
2. San Fran
3. A cabin in the woods under a feathered comforter with a thunderstorm outside the cracked open window.
4. My wife’s father’s parent’s house

Four bloggers people I am tagging:
1. Heather Armstrong
2. Astrid
3. A Picture of Me
4. Jill