Save a horse.
My life has been changed forever.

On those Chinese placemats with their zodiac on it, they always said I'm a goat. 1979 is the year of the goat. Or sheep. Depends on what placemat you get, I guess.

But it wasn't until two days ago that I learned that I was in fact a horse, because the Chinese New Year doesn't start 'til the end of January, sometimes the beginning of February.

I feel like I've been lied to for 28 years. It's not since I discovered that London broil is a cheap cut of meat have I felt so disoriented.

On the plus side, as a horse, I have plenty of sex appeal. Giddy up. "Unless it's a farm."
I've been eyeing this collection of games called The Orange Box (check out the Portal trailer!), which rivals Call of Duty 4 as what could be the PC game(s) of the year according to several gaming sites out there. I waited until Friday to try and get it, as I expected I would get (and did get) a gift card to a local electronics retail outlet.

I went to their website, it told me the game was in stock; but instead of placing an order online, I just went to the store. I couldn't find it in the store. Perhaps they had some in the back room? I don't know. I didn't ask; it was pretty busy. Instead, I went back home and placed an order online where I would pick it up in the store. I got a confirmation email almost immediately.

Two days later, I finally went to go get it, and it turned out that they didn't have any in stock, let alone did they have a copy with my name on it. This inconvenience forced them to refund my money, and I scored a separate $24 gift card on top of that. Did I mention the game was only $40? I guess that's how they do things.

Apparently, this company doesn't have this important middle step that the company I used to work for has. When an order is placed online to be picked up in the store, it would come over to our computer and notify us that someone wants items X, Y, and Z. Someone would go get the items, and then come back to the computer to acknowledge which items were "picked" successfully. Then, the person who placed the order would get a confirmation email letting them know they can come get all of their shit, or that we were able to secure items X and Y but not Z, or whatever.

It's important to note that how many units a store may claim to have in its computers doesn't necessarily mean how many are in the store. Because of theft, inaccurate counts when items get received, display models, or stuff being sent out for service, you may have, in fact, two units for sale when the computer says you have four. Hence why you need that middle step mentioned above.

This other company, apparently, just looks at that store's inventory according to its computer system and tells you to go get it. I don't know how they know I've placed an order, or what they do if it turns out they don't have the product, because I got my confirmation email right away. And it cost them $24.

I could have a lot of fun with this in the future. If I can't find something, I'll just order it online for on-site pickup instead of getting a hold of an associate. Easy cash. Or just order everything online. The store's close enough, though, that it not particularly inconvenient for me to make two trips to the store for an item I can't find. It's easy money, too. I don't understand how they can be in business with half-assed implementations like that. I wouldn't mind seeing them go under and get replaced with the store I once worked for. I'd work there, too. I need something to make it through winter without causing myself bodily harm. :p Fatty.
Haven't written in a while. I like to think I've been kept busy. That is somewhat true, but at the same time, I don't really have anything to say that is even worth saying in spoken form, let alone warrants typing out.

It was a very long work week, despite having Tuesday off and being let out early on Monday and Friday. It's been dead. Not only were a lot of the vendors we deal with daily weren't around, but those that were couldn't get anything done because they couldn't get a hold of people that supply them with the product that we buy. One would think that it being the end of the year, a lot of companies would try to flood the market with shit to meet their volume goals or whatever, but such was not the case. I don't think a lot of companies use a January-to-December fiscal year anymore. I'm hoping the upcoming work week will go better, but I doubt it. Business won't be back to normal 'til the 2nd or 3rd, most likely.

Christmas wasn't terribly exciting. Went to my mother's on the eve and her side of the family came up for a while. Went to my dad's on Christmas morning, and to my sister's for dinner. Loot-wise, I scored mostly just gift cards. And bed sheets. I asked for the sheets, though.

Funny that I didn't have any problem knowing what to get my coworker friends for Christmas, but I couldn't come up with anything clever for family. Similarly, the only gifts I got that required a little thought came from friends, and not family. I can always use more frisbees. :)

That's about it for Christmas stories.

It was also amusing to see myself watch what I'm eating during this holiday. Because I'm not running around out in the woods, throwing the frisbee around at lunch time, or unloading trucks for a retail outlet, I'm not getting any sort of exercise. I don't expect my metabolism to be awesome forever, either. I was hitting the veggies platters a lot more than I was cutting myself some pie. I could probably benefit with some added weight on me, but I'd prefer it it was a little muscle instead of some fatness. Those truffles go straight to my thighs! Christmas in Keene
The tree in the center circle:


On Main Street looking towards the center:


Not sure what the "Adventure Taxi" is. Sounds epic, though. Tuesday Funnies
"What about Brett Favre?"
T'was the first time in my work fantasy football league where I didn't break even or turn a profit. Nice to see that the players I relied on the most all season didn't do a damn thing Sunday. Sigh. Tapioca is just a root starch, by the way.
My sister has a "book of questions," where she writes down questions to things that she would like to know the answer to some time during her life. For example, what does "S.O.S." stand for? Though I quickly answered her with "save our ship," it turns out that S.O.S. doesn't stand for anything in Morse code. Three dots, three dashes, and three dots is easy to identify, and thus makes it a good signal for distress calls.

Clearly, she's an internet newbie, as there's nothing a good Google search won't tell you. No one needs a book of questions! Silly girl. News and updates
Fantasy football didn't go my way this past week. I lost by a mere seven points. Had I have started Ben Roethlisberger (sore shoulder vs Jacksonville) instead of Derek Anderson (vs the Bills in the snow), I would have won by ten. Hell, if any of my players got another touchdown and maybe two yards, I'd be looking at making a minimum of $100. But alas, I have to win this coming week to get my $50 back. Sigh.

In the first year and the fourth year (last year), my final opponent was the same guy. This year, he's also my last round opponent, though this time we're playing for the #3 spot instead. I was really hoping to play him for the grand prize again this year. Turns out that we both sucked last week. Oh well.

On an unrelated note, if you're one of those people that visit this site daily (why?), I've put up a total of four posts today. I was behind on my writing, so I had to tweak the dates of some of them so they fall in line better. They're all in order, though. This post and the three below are the newer ones. Ye fuck ye. Tuesday Funnies

REMAIN SILENT

A female officer arrests a drunk. She warns him, "You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say will be held against you."

The drunk replies, "Boobs."

ENJOYING IT

A guy arrives at his friend house and finds him beating his member with a hammer. "What are you doing?" the guy asks.

His friend says, "I'm masturbating."

The guy's baffled and inquires further, "Masturbating with a hammer? Are you enjoying it at all?"

His friend says, "Yes, every time I miss it."

SALESMAN

A little old lady answered a knock on the door one day, only to be confronted by a well-dressed young man carrying a vacuum cleaner. "Good morning," said the young man. "If I could take a couple minutes of your time, I would like to demonstrate the very latest in high-powered vacuum cleaners."

"Go away!" said the old lady. "I haven't got any money."

She proceeded to close the door. Quick as a flash, the young man wedged his foot in the door and pushed it wide open. "Don't be too hasty," he said. "Not until you have at least seen my demonstration." And with that, he emptied a bucket of horse manure onto her hallway carpet. "If this vacuum cleaner does not remove all traces of this horse manure from your carpet, I will personally eat the remainder."

"Well," she said, "I hope you have a damned good appetite, because the electricity was cut off this morning."

Shut your mouth. Mind your business.
During work today, we had our departmental holiday feasting of Chinese food, along with some Secret Santa action. The person who drew my name last year drew my name again this year, and I thought he did a much better job getting me some gifts I can appreciate (I still have the unopened box of TAG stuff, by the way):

I sit in front of my dear Vikki, who is easily my "best friend" I have at work. We have a very unique and unmatched work relationship. We get all of our shit done, and help each other out whenever we can. We're never slacking off, but we are always and constantly talking shit and hurling insults at the other person. :) We will throw the other person under the bus whenever possible. This goes on eight hours a day, five days a week. It never ends. It's quite fucking ridiculous. Vikki always has something to yell about, and calls my name countless times each day. She intentionally interrupts conversations I'm having with others with her incessant bitching and nagging. I give her her due share of backhanded compliments and question her mother's moral standards quite frequently. It has to be done. It's all in good fun, though.

Anyhoo, the first thing I pulled out of my gift bag was earplugs. I didn't understand why I got these at first, but there was a sticky note stuck to it that read something like, "these will help you ignore her." It took a few moments, but it eventually clicked that these had to do with my work relationship with Vikki. Ha!

Also included in my bag were two cans of Campbell's chicken noodle soup. Sticky notes were attached to each reading, "In case of SARS." Whenever I have cold symptoms, I tell everyone I have SARS. Even my stye I refer to as "SARS of the Eye." Hey, just because SARS hasn't really been in the news for the last five years doesn't mean I'm gonna let its legacy die! It's very well known that the cure for SARS is Campbell's chicken noodle soup, DayQuil, and Sprite. I prefer ginger ale to Sprite for such an occasion, but to each their own. I'm no doctor. So hence the soup.

Finally, I had a large M&M's mug (good for soup!) filled with M&M's candies in it. Who doesn't like M&M's? Communists. And I'm not one of those.

So yeah. Much better this time around.

I still haven't watched my Swingblade dvd I got two years ago. I should get on that soon. Mmm hmm. Bubbly
One of the reasons happy hour is so enjoyable (aside from the recent news that all pool games are free now during happy hour!) is because I can get wasted and pass out early enough that by the time I wake up, I can still get a bunch of shit done Saturday. And I had plenty to get done.

I was up early, and I headed to Mom's to take advantage of the washer and dryer. No surprise there. It's what I do. But as that was going on, I was able to high tail it to Concord and finish up most of what remained of my Christmas shopping. Though that did involve a quick trip into the mall and visiting people at my former place of employment, I was still able to get everything I wanted to get done and be back at Mom's by 1:00. It was great.

A few hours later, my mother and I, along with my sister and her husband, took off for Hudson and then to Hollis because one of my cousins decided to get married. The wedding itself wasn't out of the ordinary, but it was a little weird because I've probably seen my uncle Pete's kids once in the last 15 years. And one of them was the groom. It safe to say that I'm not close to any of them; they used my mother's maiden name as my last name on the invitation. I didn't recognize any of them. They recognized me, and I'll have to take each of their words for it that we are, in fact, related in some way.

I don't care for wine, though I can tolerate small amounts of white wine if I have to. But they were serving this stuff called Ballatore Gran Spumante for the toast that was just fantastic. I could probably pound the whole bottle down by myself. That would make for a fun time, eh? It's very inexpensive. I'm gonna have to find me some decent wine glasses and a corkscrew and have myself a party. New Year's is right around the corner, you know. Yipee. In other news
In case anyone cares:

* I won in Week 14. The winners of Week 15 are guaranteed to turn a profit, whereas the losers will have to play each other and the victor will break even. My Week 15 opponent is quite a doozy, but not impossible to defeat. Though he's got Peyton Manning and Randy Moss, if we would have played head-to-head each week, I would have won nine or ten of those games. Most of those games would have been really close, though, especially in more recent weeks. It'll be interesting to see what happens.

* I called the clinic about my eye and the soonest I can be seen by an ophthalmologist would be December 21. By then, my eye should be fine, no? I tried to get into the "after hours" clinic, but since I've never been admitted for anything, I don't have a primary physician and they wouldn't let me in that way. I was told to check into the emergency room, but doing so isn't worth the deductible I'd have to pay. I have no fucking clue why I'm paying for health insurance... $24 a week and I can't get my eye looked at soon or for cheap? It doesn't matter, though, as my eye has been improving each day, even though I haven't been doing anything to take care of it (like hot compresses).

* I scored a three-pound bag of gala apples for $1.17. I should have been charged $3.49. That's one-third the price! Whee! I go through apples like a madman, so I consider this to be a victory worth celebrating over.

* Female friends of mine seem to get jealous when I spend time with another woman that isn't them. I find this incredibly hilarious. Apparently, I'm some sort of prize worth claiming, and it's well documented that women are such bitches to each other.

* My nephews want tools and wood for Christmas. What the fuck? It's admirable that they want to build a tree fort some time next year, but it seems very silly for me to hit the nearby Home Depot to get a gift card for a 10-year-old. Before these crowded streets
Funny how after whining about how boring my life is this time of year, I've actually been kept busy each day this week. Not so much tonight courtesy of an ongoing snow storm, but I got stuff I can be doing.

Most time consuming was participating in a scavenger hunt with the Brownster (of Weinermobile and razor fame) up and down Main Street and the center of Keene. We had to hit up nearly 30 shops for information and submit our completed forms for a chance to win up to $250. Not really an activity I would have done alone -- it's pretty queer -- but I figure I didn't have anything better to do on a drizzly Tuesday night.

I've walked up and down Main Street several times, but I've never had a reason to go in most of those tiny shops. And because of this contest, we had to go inside most of them to get the answers we sought. Because of that, I discovered a bunch of shops I never knew existed. Some were hidden because it required stairs going up (or down!) from the sidewalk that would bring you to them.

I can't figure out how most of these stores stay in business, though. Though I can see myself hitting up this hidden-but-newly-found wine cellar, a lot of these stores are so incredibly niche that I can't see how they make enough money to even pay the rent. Is there really that much demand to warrant having a polished rock store? And a lot of the restaurants, though supposedly the best (and most expensive) in town, only have enough space to seat 12 or 16, if not less. I don't get it.

We then hit up the bar when we were done and I owned her repeatedly in pool. Served! Tuesday Funnies

An 85-year-old man was requested by his doctor for a sperm count as part of his physical exam.

The doctor gave the man a jar and said, "Take this jar home and bring back a semen sample tomorrow."

The next day the 85-year-old man reappeared at the doctor's office and gave him the jar, which was as clean and empty as on the previous day.

The doctor asked what happened and the man explained, "Well, doc, it's like this: first I tried with my right hand, but nothing. Then I tried with my left hand, but still nothing. Then I asked my wife for help. She tried with her right hand, then with her left, still nothing. She tried with her mouth, first with the teeth in, then with her teeth out, still nothing. We even called up Arleen, the lady next door and she tried, too; first with both hands, then an armpit, and she even tried squeezin' it between her knees, but still nothing."

The doctor was shocked. "You asked your neighbor?"

The old man replied, "Yep. None of us could get the jar open."

Slow news month.
I didn't do a single thing this past weekend. Not a thing.

It's getting a bit rough for me to write about stuff. My life is very much on the DL right now. I have nothing to look forward to now that it's essentially winter. Anything I do set out to do isn't worth writing about.

I'm very much a goal-oriented person, and I like to write about such things as I progress towards whatever goals I've set. However, I don't have any goals to strive towards right now. Not sure what to do about that.

I need to join a club some sort. Looks like there's a Cribbage league on Tuesday nights. Somehow I doubt I'll meet anyone under 50 there. I don't see myself banging too many broads there, either. Maybe a couple. "Eye's a letter!"
My eye isn't looking much better. It's not as puffy, though. It feels a little wrinkly where puffiness used to be. Kinda weirds me out, though. I hope they aren't permanent; I'm too young for eye wrinkles! On the plus side, it doesn't hurt to blink anymore.

One thing I thoroughly enjoy having this stye (I'm pretty certain it's a stye after days of self-examination) is that when I wake up each morning, that yellow crusty shit doesn't collect in the corner or the eye. It's kinda spread out across the entire eyelid. It takes a few minutes for me to clean it out well enough so I can actually open my affected eye and look at stuff. It's like trying to open a sandwich maker when you packed too much cheese in your grilled delight. It's quite awesome. Yeah, you're jealous.

I think I'm gonna make an effort to get my eye looked at tomorrow. I have a wedding to go to this coming weekend, and it'd be nice if it cleared up by then. I don't want to look drunk, stoned, and/or retarded in any photos I'm part of. I doubt it'll clear up that quickly, but who knows. They probably won't be able to look at it until Thursday or Friday, anyway. Sight for sore eyes
Something is going on with my left eye. Last week, I had a stye on my lower eyelid for a couple days that went away. But over the last two days, my upper eyelid has gotten swollen and puffy and red and fucking irritating. It hurts to blink. You know how much that sucks? You know how many thousands of times that is per day? Not cool.

It's unclear what's going on. I don't think I have something under my eyelid causing an infection. One person hypothesizes that maybe I have an ingrown eyelash. It's not fucking with my vision (yet?), and now that I have health insurance, maybe I should exercise it and get some professional medical advice. Doing a Google search makes me wonder if I have a chalazion. Maybe my stye decided to relocate and have a crazier name.

Pictures? My eye open and my eye closed. The flash doesn't do it justice, but turning it off produces an even crappier picture.

I'm gonna start putting on warm compresses to see if that will alleviate the situation.

Any advice as to what I have or what to do would be most appreciated. Email me if you have an idea, please. Show me the money!
I've been doing a little better since last I reported on my oh-so-shitty start to the fantasy football season.

In a 10-team league that has run for 13 weeks, I have had the highest score four of those weeks, including THE HIGHEST SCORE EVER in the five years we have been doing this. I'm also on a good run, as I got the highest score last week and I had the second highest score the week before that. I also scored the most points across the entire season.

Did I mention that my first round pick hasn't done a damn thing all season? And I haven't been able to play him the last four weeks because he's injured. You gotta adjust to the times, Jerky. What's funny is that I own three of the Top 6 point scorers in the league, two of which I got in the fifth and sixth round of the draft (my quarterbacks). The third guy -- my best guy -- I picked up as a free agent. Go Derek Anderson!

The first 13 weeks don't hold much water, though. Week 14 is the week. First round of fantasy playoffs. Winning on Week 14 gives one a 75% of at least breaking even (we all put in $50). In five years, I have never lost in the first round of the playoffs. Hell, I've always at least broke even.

If I would have played my Week 14 opponent every week this season, I would have won 11 games to 2.

Yeah, I'm awesome. Tuesday Funnies

Hell

One day a guy died and found himself in hell. As he was wallowing in despair, he had his first meeting with a demon. The demon asked, "Why so glum?" The guy responded, "What do you think? I'm in hell!" "Hell's not so bad," the demon said. "We actually have a lot of fun down here. You a drinking man?" "Sure," the man said, "I love to drink." "Well you're gonna love Mondays then. On Mondays all we do is drink. Whiskey, tequila, Guinness, wine coolers, diet Tab and Fresca. We drink till we throw up and then we drink some more!" The guy is astounded. "Damn, that sounds great."

"You a smoker?" the demon asked. "You better believe it!" "You're gonna love Tuesdays. We get the finest cigars from all over the world and smoke our lungs out. If you get cancer, no biggie. You're already dead, remember?"

The demon continued. "I bet you like to gamble." "Why yes, as a matter of fact I do." "Wednesdays you can gamble all you want. Craps, blackjack, roulette, poker, slots, whatever. If you go bankrupt, well, you're dead anyhow".

You into drugs?" The guy said, "Are you kidding? I love drugs! You don't mean...?" "That's right! Thursday is drug day. Help yourself to a great big bowl of crack, or smack. Smoke a doobie the size of a submarine. You can do all the drugs you want, you're dead, who cares!"

"Wow," the guy said, starting to feel better about his situation, "I never realised Hell was such a cool place!" The demon said, "You gay?" "No," came the reply. "Ooooh, you're gonna hate Fridays!"

Deck the halls

This is about the extent of decorating I can do in my puny apartment. At least I'm in the season.

Mommy made the tree before I was born!