"I'm just keeeeeding!"

I've been meaning to post for a couple days now, but I wanted to wait until my phone was working properly enough to send pictures to my email to post. (Rereading that sentence is really confusing me, but I don't really care enough to rewrite it.)

On Tuesday, Z and I drove down to Ikea and shopped for a new mattress. As the absolute hilarity of the event has subsided, I will just have to make due with pictures.











Here's Z, doing his best impression of Fred Armisen as the Venezuelen nightclub comedien Fericito.

(This is the only way we could fit the foam, queen-sized mattress into my Dodge Neon. )

Housemates II

For the past week or so, I've done some "investigative research," yet no one in the house could tell me who resided in the room next to mine.

As I mentioned before, there are four rooms on the second floor: Z, me, an open, empty room and a closed door next to mine. I was starting to worry about the possibility of smelling the horrible stench of death permeate the hallways until, to my amazement, yesterday morning I heard the distinct sound of jangling keys closer the Z's room. My door was open, so (I thought) I had a pretty good view of the open area just beyond my door.

After a bit of confusion and a sudden belief and then disbelief of invisibility among humans, I finally met Vincent, the newest addition (to me, at least) in the house. Vincent has apparently lived here for over a year, but was gone for the past two months to be at home in Hong Kong (?). He's a grad student at UW studying Speech & Hearing Sciences.

It makes me slightly curious as to why no one had a clue as to who lived in that room, since he's only been gone two months, though the housemates that have lived here for awhile did recognise him ("oh yeah, Vincent! I remember him!").

He doesn't seem that unforgettable.

Neighbors

Now that I've posted about my housemates, I'd like to say a few words about my neighbors.

To the lovely boys across the street, if you don't stop jumping on that damn trampoline, I'm going to come over and snap your legs in half. I can tolerate the bouncing noises for 15 minutes or so, but don't you think five hours straight is pushing it a bit? How about this: you get ahold of Richard Branson and the three of us will have a little chat about sending you on a one-way ticket to space. That way you can experience anti-gravity all you want.

And you people across the street: if I wanted to listen to death metal on repeat all morning, I'd have already downloaded all of Slipknot's music collection. I'm not saying classical music would be any better, but really, come on now. When my relatives come up to visit, I don't want them asking me with gaping mouths "you live here?!" Could you turn it down a notch? Why don't you use this handy little idea: see that pretty street divider between our houses? You know, the one with all the pretty trees in it? If you stand there and still can hear your music, do us a favor and turn that shit down.

And to whomever was playing techno music twenty minutes ago: play some Paul Oakenfold or something. Even Strongbad's techno was better than that crap you were playing!

Housemates

As I mentioned before, my new house has fourteen rooms and at least eight people so far. For my sake (and possibly yours), let's break it down:

Basement (two rooms, I think):

Alex/Sasha: I still haven't met this guy, but I heard he's Russian.

Chris: long haired, scruffy guy who I thought was homeless and was just wandering around. Apparently he works at Bon Appetit, a restaurant inside Nordstrom downtown.

Main floor (five rooms):

Tony: Have seen him once and his girlfriend, Bianca, much more. He's a construction management major at UW and Bianca goes to Western. She told me they fight a lot but "don't feel uncomfortable! We do it all the time!"

OrthoJew II: From what I heard from Z, she isn't very nice and gets really pissy. I tried to make conversation with her, but she just left after telling me her name.

Robert: Older guy. No idea what he does.

Kevin (?): Asian guy who let me use his filtered water pitcher.

Second floor (four rooms):

Z: Hot Tunisian doctor here to study Public Health at UW. He speaks three languages (french, arabic and english) and last year, was with the group of students studying at the American University of Beirut who were forced to evacuate when the bombing started in Lebanon. He has a thick accent and uses the word "retarded" a lot. His blog is in french, but can be translated with Google.

me

Third floor (three rooms):

J: the tall, skinny one I met first, on my way up the stairs on moving day. He likes rap and rock and specialises in stealing guys' girlfriends.

Tom: Older guy. Like in his forties.

R/D: was convinced his name was Tony until last night. Claims he doesn't do anything, job-wise, and pays his rent by being "blessed".


Looks like there's only one other girl so far, other than Bianca. Hmmm.

Movin' in

This weekend I moved to my new room in a lovely house in the U-District! I've gotten everything set up, with only a few boxes still somewhat full. I have this cute ledge around the corner under the two windows, which is big enough to display my pictures and things. It's even big enough to sit on!

I've met a couple of the people who live here. Surprisingly, a couple of them are older men. I'm trying not to get too creeped out by that, as I do have a lock on my door. Oh, and I found out that the house has fourteen rooms, not eight.

I also started my new job yesterday. Alice, age 2 1/2, is very articulate with her words, making her even cuter once she opens her mouth. We had a fun time coloring and playing ball, and her mum let me use the internet after Alice went to bed.

Looks like things will *hopefully* be working out for me; now, the wait until the 27th.

I always love free stuff!

Remember the post about me loving free stuff?

No? Well, go back and read it.

I'll wait...


From the same company that rewarded my with a year subscription to Budget Travel comes my newest gadget, a digital voice recorder (7500 points). Yeah, I know that the thing costs like $35 at Best Buy and that 75 surveys is a lot to take to get this for free, but I don't have $35 to be spending, k? Plus now I can pretend to be extra important like doctors do!

The last time I had one of these, it had a mini tape and the batteries ended up eroding in the back. I'd never seen anything like it before. I could never get it to work after that...

Much better than any trip to Idaho!

As I mentioned earlier, I got the Labor Day weekend off to attend a "family reunion in Idaho," and on Saturday, headed up to Seattle for a weekend of Bumbershoot! The festival bragged such acts as Kanye West, A Tribe Called Quest and AFI, but what they didn't mention was the lines. Seriously, I thought I had woken up in Disneyland.

At past festival-type shows, A and I have made a detailed plan of action before we even hit the venue and this time was no different. With schedule print-outs and a map of the Seattle Center in hand, we headed out for our first Bumbershoot experience.

We had planned to use our Warped Tour strategy and see whole shows if possible, but at the very least, leave stages early and catch the last of other bands' sets. But oh no. The lines were horrible. We arrived casually late on Saturday (about 2p) and headed over to the Comedy Stage South (Charlotte Martin Theatre) for the 3p Asssscat with Upright Citizens Brigade show. What we found was a line wrapping around the building. A Bumbershoot volunteer told us that the line was now forming for the 4.30p show behind the 3p line.

Discouraged, we decided to leave the line and head over to the other side of the venue to see The Epoxies at 4p. We waited on line for about an hour for a band I'd never heard of, and once the show started, I waited about twenty minutes before telling A that I was going to leave and get in line for the 5.30p north comedy stage. Good thing I left when I did.

The line was already at least a hundred deep when I got there at like 4.30p.


Bumbershoot was awesome, don't get me wrong. I saw my first live comedy show(s) (not including ComedySports in Spokane) and had lots of yummy food. And those reasons alone were worth the price I paid. Especially for buying a ticket for cheap on eBay three days before. But it's almost worth it to buy the "Platinum Pass" just to not wait in lines. Too bad that pass is $200 more than I paid for mine.

Movin' on

Quitting my job has been very anti-climactic. Two weeks ago, I asked for the Labor Day weekend off (Saturday-Monday) to go to a "family reunion in Idaho" and didn't expect to receive the days off. My plan was to come in and pick up my schedule last Tuesday, notice that I was scheduled to work over the weekend, tell them that I had specifically asked for it off and then quit. Because, hello! It's a family reunion! In Idaho! A 7-hour drive!

(Un)fortunately, and quite surprisingly, they scheduled around my shindig. So today is my last day. Since K-12 classes started on Tuesday, our town theatre has reduced the hours of operation and now opens at 3.30p instead of 11.30a. I'll be working by myself for three hours and then will turn in my stuff. Maybe I should shout "I QUIT!" really loudly before I leave and throw my things on the desk. Or, better yet, use a line from Half Baked, turn to my coworkers and point and yell "Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, you're cool, and fuck you, I'm out!"

Eh. We'll see.