Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Houston, hopefully we don't have a problem
Well tomorrow I’m off to visit my sister for the first time in her new house in Houston. I’ll probably be jealous. Houses are a lot more affordable there than they are in California. Then again you’d have to put up with high heat and humidity. And the possibility of being covered by water should the country ever get ripped in half.
Okay probably not. I watched a really bad movie while my sweety was away, called 10.5 Apocolypse. What is it about the Sci Fi channel that attracts bad made-for-TV movies and me at the same time? The plot was so outlandishly contrived, and yet I watched all four hours of it. I must’ve been bored or felt some strange need to punish myself. Anyway, the whole silly premise is the continental drift suddenly goes in reverse, and by suddenly I mean like overnight and accelerating in speed. A gigantic dormant faultline appears in the midwest and starts to rip its way down to Texas. The U.S. is basically torn in half with the rift being filled in by the ocean. So yeah, Houston becomes Atlantis. The nation grieves, boohoo, the end. You know a lot of land owners are rejoicing over the new beachfront property they now own.
So anyway… um… my point… oh yeah, there wasn’t one. Sorry. See you in a week.
Friday, April 25, 2008
Please explain these poop bag instructions to me
Last week I had asked about what I should use for picking up dog poop that would be environmentally friendly yet still convenient. Zoe helpfully suggested Poopbags.com. I checked them out, liked what I saw, and thought they were reasonably priced, so I ordered a sample.
The bags are made of corn or corn husks or something, but they totally feel like soft plastic. They’re not brittle either, so I don’t have to be afraid of it falling apart on me. According to the site, it doesn’t start to biodegrade until after it’s exposed to the environmental factors that cause things to decompose—dampness, soil, bacteria, sunlight, etc. So I can totally throw the dog poop I collect into the greens bin now. (The city has three trash bins, one for recyclables, one for plant material and other mulchables, and one for everything else.) I feel more responsible already.
The only thing that completely baffles me about these bags are the instructions that are printed on them. First of all, what kind of a moron do you have to be to require instructions on how to use a freaking bag to pick up poop? I’m actually surprised it doesn’t have a warning label telling me not to put it over my head because it’s not a toy. That being said, maybe I am a moron, because I just can’t understand part of it.
It has illustrations and instructions in seven different languages on how to “properly” use this bag. See for yourself:
(Click image for bigger version)
Step 1 - Put my hand in the bag, okay got it.
Step 2 - Collect the droppings, right, duh.
Step 3 - Push the top through the hole… uh… what?
Step 4 - Pull the tip through the hole… wait, the tip of what? Which part??
Step 5 - The bag is closed… no it isn’t, wait! What is this, oragami??
Okay… so it’s got this round hole punched through the top of the bag. I thought it was like a handle or something. But the intructions say it’s somehow used to tie off the bag. The only way I can get my bag to look like Step 5 is if I do the traditional yet simple granny knot I always tie on all the bags I use for dog shit. I tried stuffing the top corners of the bag through this little hole, and it looked weird. Step three seems to be the crucial point that I’m just not getting, and that diagram is completely unhelpful. I mean look at it… does it not look like he’s opening a bag of chips?
Don’t get me wrong, I still like these bio-bags and will likely order a bunch more. I just don’t like being made fun of by a set of deceptively simple instructions on how to pick up poop. I ask you, does Step 3 make sense in any language?
Posted by
Geeky Dragon Girl on 04/25 at 09:29 AM
(16)
Comments •
Permalink
Categories: •
I'm such a dolt
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Hey la hey la my girlfriend's back!
This past Sunday was a joyous reunion. She finally was able to catch a flight home. Finally! I probably don’t have to include any details about what we did for most of the day after we got home. Let’s just say I had a few sore muscles the next day.
I tried to keep the house relatively clean while she was away, but of course my standards are far below hers. I didn’t do quite as well as I thought. However she said it wasn’t as bad as she expected, so that’s a good thing, right?
I’m so happy she’s back. I was half empty when she was away. Or perhaps I was half full? Well I’m whole again, and that’s what matters. Now we can finally empty the queue that’s been stacking up in the Tivo.
Posted by
Geeky Dragon Girl on 04/23 at 09:22 AM
(6)
Comments •
Permalink
Categories: •
Lesbian Love
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
My sweety is still stuck in Miami
What was supposed to be a one week trip is turning out to be an unexpected extended stay. She gets to fly for free thanks to her sister, but it has to be on standby, basically last priority out of all the passengers who need seats. Getting over there was easy. Coming back, however… what an ordeal. American Airlines canceled thousands of flights, causing major delays for tons of travelers, not to mention jacking up ticket prices because desperate travelers didn’t have much choice if they wanted to go home.
I was curious why the FAA would order the airline to ground so many planes at once, so I read some news articles. Basically they want them to inspect the grounded planes for correct wiring. More specifically, to ensure that the wires are tied off in a particular direction. ...Excuse me? I don’t know much about engineering, but is it really necessary to ground hundreds of planes at once to make emergency repairs on… the direction some wire ties are facing?? WTF? Sounds to me like someone in the FAA is on a power trip. Yeah I know, safety first. But come on, they couldn’t inspect them in batches? Exactly how dangerous is a wire tie when it’s facing left instead of right?
Pardon my crankiness while I face my third week without my sweetheart. I haven’t been away from her for more than a few days until now. To fill the void, I’ve been catching up on some sci fi shows, particularly Star Trek: Enterprise. It’s the only Star Trek series (besides the original series) that I didn’t follow. I rather like it. I just started Season 3. I’d rather have my baby back though. (And I’m not talking about ribs.)
Monday, April 14, 2008
Environmentally friendly
If using paper bags kills trees, and plastic bags aren’t biodegradeable, then it’s been suggested you bring your own tote bag to the grocery store. I actually do this (when I can remember to get the thing out of my trunk). But what I wanna know is what do I use to pick up dog poop? I am not picking that shit up in a reuseable bag. Gack. I’m not that dedicated to the environment.
Actually I’ve been told that paper is really made from sawdust, not actual trees. This makes sense because you don’t need slabs of wood to make paper, just the little fibers. Just a side note.
But anyway, until I figure out this little dilemma, I’m just going to keep on using plastic grocery bags from my stockpile to pick up the dog poop. What do YOU use?
Posted by
Geeky Dragon Girl on 04/14 at 01:17 PM
(10)
Comments •
Permalink
Categories: •
Thinking aloud
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Convergence
Take a deep breath, hold it, let it out slowly… that’s what I have to keep telling myself.
April is being very mean to me. Too bad April isn’t a person. This month seems to be an unexpected conglomeration of numerous blows against my financial well-being. Allow me to summarize:
- I’m getting a modest refund from my federal taxes, but I owe state taxes double that amount.
- We have to pay the tax lady for doing our taxes.
- Car registration due on two vehicles.
- My sweety’s unemployment checks just ran out, and nobody seems to be hiring.
- There are still monthly payments to be made for one car, three credit cards and a fucking mortgage that just won’t go away even though we got rid of the fucking house (we sold at a loss).
- Oh yeah, and rent too.
Take a deep breath, hold it, let it out slowly…
I started to panic this morning. It’s very rare for me to have any kind of anxiety attack, but the thought of being financially destitute can do that to me sometimes. Or maybe I was just due for an attack. I don’t know. I was just made aware of some once-a-year bills, all magically due within a one-month time frame. It’s an uncanny convergence of events. Had I thought about these things earlier, I wouldn’t have bought those plane tickets to go see my sisiter. I went to refund them this morning, but because they were a discounted special price, no refunds allowed. Fuck fuck fuck you Southwest.
Take a deep breath, hold it, let it out slowly…
My heart was just sinking as I drove in to work this morning, all this shit on my mind. I’ve always been horrible at managing money. I just figure if I’m a cheapskate then I’ll be fine. Doesn’t work like that. You actually have to plan things. Ugh, financial planning is one of the most distasteful tasks in the world to me. I wish somebody else would do it. But then I’d have to pay them. Bah.
Luckily I recognized my anxiety and the irrationality that tends to accompany it. So I sat down and added together all the things that needed to be paid this month. Do I have the savings to cover it? Luckily, yes, I’ve been doing all right saving up since the house fiasco. Okay, transfer funds then. Next I added up all the month-to-month bills that we get and compared that to my income… am I covered? Why… yes! With some extra to spare. So we’re in no danger of being financially destitute after all.
So why did I panic? I’m normally a calm, rational person. All I had to do was think it through instead of going off the deep end. I guess it was the sudden realization that I was standing on the edge of what seemed like a shit storm with no umbrella. I tend to live in the here and now, only occasionally glancing at the future. So long as I don’t have to worry about being able to buy what I need, I’m happy. I guess this time I pulled my head out of the sand to look around and found that security threatened. I don’t like being off-balance. I’m a stable person, who likes stability. Sounds boring, doesn’t it? I’ve never denied it. I’m a boring person. That was established years ago.
But anyway, I’m okay now. I just needed to vent what was left of my frustration here so I could get my heart rate back to normal. And maybe do some work too. These people expect me to earn my paycheck, imagine that.
Thursday, April 03, 2008
Big Ass Fan
The gym I go to is pretty decent. It rarely smells funny because they keep the air circulating well. I remember the first day I ever went in there, I was taking stock of what equipment they had and happened to look up. There, bolted to the high ceiling, was the biggest fan I had ever seen in my life. It was bigger than any airplane propeller. I remember commenting, “Whoa… that’s a big-ass fan!” It wasn’t spinning that day, so I got a closer look at it. In the center of the monstrous thing was its logo, “Big Ass Fan”. It was the funniest thing, it really was a big ass fan. Check it out for yourself: http://www.bigassfans.com.
I’m not posting a commercial for them or anything, I just love it when companies take risks with their name. Not everything has to be so spine-stiffeningly professional.
