Odds and Ends:

1. House Stuff:
My trashcan wasn't stolen by a crackhead. It was taken mistakenly by a neighbor who, like me, was too lazy to write their house number on it. I spotted my old trashcan (the one where the rat, errr, raccoon that was hungry had chewed a hole in it). I could've let my neighbor keep my old trashcan (he took it so he must like it better, right?), but I switched them back. I like the new traschcan better but Catholic guilt, like herpes, is something that you can never really be completely cured from.

And speaking of Catholic guilt, I 'm not apologizing to the crackheads of DC for accusing them on the internets of stealing my trashcan. I'm sure they are not really offended because

1. they are on crack and probably too high to be offended by anything; and
2. they probably didn't read my post because they probably sold their computer to buy money for crack.
   

So....no harm, no foul.

2. More House Stuff:
My free tools didn't arrive because some lazy UPS Driver lied to his dispatcher and claimed he came by the fortress five times and the final time delivery was refused. He only came twice and I wouldn't refuse something that's free (especially power tools). I think he must've been out getting "massages" from a whorehouse and lied about delivering his packages. I put in a call to UPS and I'm gonna call the supplier and see if they can re send it. I hate UPS now. Not as much as hate olives or people who stand in your way on the escalator, but I do hate them.

3. My iPod:
Re-loading every single CD I own into my MacBook because I accidentally erased them off my iPod which had been "sync'd" to my old iMac is even less fun than it was the first time I did it. This is probably like saying "getting my wisdom teeth removed the second time isn't as fun as the first time" but I'm trying to keep positive here. I'm starting to hate Steve Jobs and his pretentious hipster black turtlenecks. Not as much as I hate UPS, but I hate him.

4. Ninja Stock Picks:
Today was a good day for the stock market (and the Ninja Porfolio). My portfolio went up $2700 today. That sounds great until I mention that it went down $9000 yesterday.



Smith and Wesson, the second largest holding in the Ninja Portfolio went down 40% yesterday. I don't want to blame Dubya, but what the hell kind of a country do we live in where Republicans get elected and a gun company still can't make enough money to let me be rich enough to move to a tropical island and drink myself into a stupor for the rest of my life. Instead of worrying out bailing out subprime borrowers, who made their own mess, how about some nice government contracts for some American gun manufacturers. And by "some" I mean Smith and Wesson (the other gun manufacturers can go fcuk themselves for all I care).

Anyway, since I'm down a few thousand bucks, I may start charging a subscription fee for this site...anyone wanna buy some CDs? How about some art from people who's names you don't recognize? Maybe you could "invest" in my blog as a (very) silent partner?

5. Halloween:
Despite my not decorating the ninja fortress for Halloween (partly because it's a military facility and shouldn't be decorated and partly because I've been busy, but mostly because I've been lazy) I've had some extortionists come by and I've had to pay them mafia-style protection money in chocolate mini Hershey bars and Kit Kats. It's funny how people are so forgiving when it comes to children. If I put on a ski-mask and threatened to vandalize my neighbors houses unless they paid me, I don't think the police would be as forgiving.

6. Random: I'm debating about whether or not to post about my recent encounter with a crackhead/mugger. The people I've told the story to think it's funny, but I get angry thinking about it so I don't know if I will. Does anyone care about that or should we keep it light?

Odds and Ends

I guess it's time for more randomness.

1. Stolen Trashcan
Another blogger had their trashcan stolen recently in DC. They jumped through the proper hoops and got a new one in a couple of weeks. I can't go that route because I HATE dealing with the DC goverment and I can't go two weeks without throwing out garbage while I wait for a new can. (if you put the bags on the street without a trashcan, you will be fined). The smells from my attempts at cooking are bad enough, but if it was mixed with the smell from two weeks worth of rotting garbage then it would smell worse than Rosie O'Donnell's va-jay-jay, and who wants that?

I guess I *could* borrow one from one of my neighbors (but not the Sudanese guy, because of our border wars over the driveway) but then I would owe them something and the image of one of my neighbors showing up in the middle of the night with a dead hooker in the trunk of his car and saying "c'mon bro, you owe me one...I lent you that trashcan, remember?" just keeps popping up in my head. I don't think my neighbors are the kind of people who go around killing hookers and then asking you to help them get rid of the body, but if I don't borrow their trashcan, then I will never find out. So I like my way better. Besides, despite the disturbing number of Google searches for "dead hooker jokes" (thanks for that, Rock Creek Rambler), and "how do you get rid of a dead hooker" which bring people to my blog, I don't know how to get rid of a dead hooker, and I don't know any dead hooker jokes. Well...except for one:

Q: How come it's not a crime to kill a hooker or a lawyer?

A: Because they are both already dead on the inside.

Anywho...I need that trashcan for other reasons too. I have some debris left over from some projects and I put a leeetle bit in each bag of trash bag that I throw out. I put enough to get rid of everything, eventually, but not enough that the trash men will notice I'm using them to get rid of my crap instead of driving it to the dump because I don't want to get fined.

2. House
A. I'm gonna have someone come out in the next week or two to give me an estimate on the kitchen countertops. I need the countertops to have a working sink. I'm getting really tired of washing my dishes in the bathroom sink. It could be worse, I guess. If I had to wash them in the toilet, that would be worse, but I digress...

B. It's getting cold out so I need to check out the perimiter of the ninja fortress and seal any holes so that mice don't come in and want to hang out inside when it gets cold out. I guess I could buy a cat and not worry about the mice but

1. cat's poop *inside* the house, which is pretty disgusting;
2. they shed hair, which is pretty annoying too;
3. lot's of people are allergic to them, and it's kinda creepy the way they watch you having sex;
4. the only people who should own cat's are women in their 60s, and only if they have several of them and throw birthday parties for them.

C. I bought one of those digital thermostats last year and was too lazy to install it, but I think I will do it this weekend. I like the fact that you can program it to turn on and off whenever you feel like it. It's kind of annoying to manually turn the heat off when I leave for work and then come back to a freezing house and turn it back on. I guess I could leave the heat on all day, but I don't want to do anything to make my place more hospitable for the mice. When they are deciding which house on my block to move to, I want my place to be dead last on their list. When looking for a place to crash, the mice should think of my place should be the equivalant of sleeping on a old futon with funny stains on it, in your friend's drafty basement with the dog who likes to hump your leg.

3. Money:

I was thinking of taking out a home equity loan to pay for the countertops (and to hire someone to drywall the basement because I am sick of working on the place), but I should be coming into some money soon. I just finished my taxes last night. Yes, you read that right. Because I am a procrastinator (and I was missing a few documents) I filed for a 6 month extension on my income taxes on April 15th. The deadline for the extension also passed, and I still hadn't gotten it done when my "friend with benefits" came up with an ingenious idea to motivate me: No sex until you file your taxes. Twenty four hours later, I am glad to report that I should be getting back a LOT of money. I'm kinda pissed off that I gave the Federal and DC goverments a free loan for all this time. But I'm gonna try to do it on time next year.

4. The World Series

Sometimes people don't believe me when I say that I don't really follow most sports. In fact, until yesterday, I had no idea that the World's series was on and which teams were in it. And to be honest, I have about as much interest in following this as watching the Competitive Eating championships in Vegas on Spike TV.*

There is a sport I do follow though. I like to watch the Ultimate Fighting events. I was at a friend's house last week to watch it on pay-per-view (because pay-per-view events are always more fun if someone else does the paying and you do the viewing). My "friend with benefits" wasn't there, which is a good thing. There was so much testosterone in that room that if she showed up, she might have instantaneously sprouted a moustache. Not good. If I was into girls with moustaches, I would move to Italy.**

5. My iPod

I accidentally deleted EVERY song on my iPod. D'oh! I usually charge the thing on my clock radio, but I wasn't thinking and I plugged it into my Macbook to recharge it. Since all my songs were on iTunes in my old iMac and I never loaded the CDs onto my new Macbook (because it takes forever and I'd rather have other hobbies more interesting than "putting CDs in my laptop and waiting...". Not that I actually have hobbies that are more interesting than that, but I'd like to keep my options open.

*Yes, this is a real "sport" on SpikeTV. Is everything a sport now?

**I am 1/16 Italian, so I'm allowed to make jokes like this. And if you are reading this and in the mafia and want "vendetta", all I have to say is that "my name is Karl Rove and come and get it, bitchez!"

Thief!

I stole a trashcan today. You might be wondering why I stole something that the city gives away for free. Well, I put my trash out this morning and when I came back this afternoon, my trashcan was gone. Initially I thought someone stole it.

HIN: I'm calling the cops. It should be pretty easy to find. It's green and plastic, like every other trashcan in DC, but mine has a whole near the top where a racoon chewed a hole in it.* (at least someone appreciates my cooking) The DC Cops are so competent that they should find it in no time.

Friend: Why would someone steal your trashcan with a hole in it, if they could steal one without a hole in it?

HIN: Because crackheads will steal anything, that's why!

Friend: Why would a crackhead steal something that's free?

HIN: Because he's a crackhead!

This circular logic even confused me. Now I guess I could've called the city and asked for another one, in which case they will probably ask me to write a letter, then tell me they never got it, then I would write another letter, then they will relent and give me another trashcan and charge me a meelyun dollars and when I complain about the cost they will refer me to some obscure section of DC trash regulations and then tell me to go fcuk myself.

So I did the next best thing. I stole one from my crazy Sudanese neighbor. The one who dumps dirt in my driveway and rents to 30 illegal immigrants who all want to park their cars (with no license plates) in my driveway. Let him deal with the city. How do you say 'Karma' in sudanese?

*I assume it was a racoon because the thought of a rat doing that scared the bejeesus out of me.

Adventures in Law Part 4: The Green Eyed Monster Named Carl

In the next installment, I'll talk about the Capitol Hill Internship I did while in law school, but in order to put into proper context I think you need to know how I got the job (and I hate excessively long posts, so I'll break it up into 2 posts).

Now, I'm gonna be politically incorrect and say that women who go to law school are not known for their physical beauty. Let's face it, unless a girl is pretty and so smart that she doesn't have to study to get good grades, she's not going to law school because it takes a lot of hard work to get grades that are good enough to get into a good law school and the prettiest girls in your sorority are not sitting in the library on a Saturday night. Jus' sayin'


I got the internship because of my friend from school, who we'll call "Carl" (even though his name is Chris).* Now, Carl is one of those people that you want to hate, but can't. At orientation I met Carl shortly after I met Dirty Dave (who upon seeing the girls at orientation said "this looks like a fcukin' battered women's shelter"). As we've discussed previously, Dave is not known for his tact. At orientation, there were two stunning women who stood out from the pack--like they didn't belong there. There was Kelly (who got a modeling contract in NYC for a couple of years before college, but was born smart enough to get good grades without ever studying), and another stunner who said she wasn't a law student, but rather a CPA. When I asked what she was doing there if she wasn't a student she said she was here with her husband, and introduced me to Carl. Now Carl wasn't the least bit jealous of people talking to his wife because Carl had everything going for him (including a smoking hot wife who worked to support him while he read law books by the pool).

Carl was:

1. blonde hair, blue eyed, and looked like a Ken Doll;


2. Smart;


3. Althletic--Carl does triathlons in his spare time;


4. Tall--he was about 6'4" tall; and


5. a REALLY nice guy;

Carl had so much going for him that it proved that life was unfair, because if it had been fair, then he would've been born with only one testicle or something to make up for all the gifts that nature had bestowed upon him. (actually, Carl was from New Jersey, but I don't think that even bothered him).

But you couldn't hate, or even be jealous of Carl, because he was such a nice guy, that he deserved all the blessings of heaven that came his way. How nice a guy was he? Let me illustrate:

Before class one day we were playing a game (I think Dave came up with it) where you assume the world will end in a nuclear holocaust in 30 minutes. The game consisted of us going around and discussing which girl in the class you would nail in your last 3o minutes on earth. My answer was that I would go next door to Kelly's class, and if she was out that day, I'd come back and do the girl in the front row who always wears the slutty skirts and no bra.

When it was Carl's turn, he refused to play.

Ninja: Look, if the world is going to end, then your wife will never find out because all the witnesses will be dead. Just pick one!

Carl: No way...I love my wife and I wouldn't spend my last 3o minutes on earth being unfaithful to her.

Wow. He was such a nice guy that not only would not cheat on her in real life, he couldn't even be unfaithful to her hypothetically. If he was single, I would introduce him to my sister...although she probably wouldn't date him because he has a job and no tattoos.

Another time, I missed class and asked Carl for the notes from that day. Instead, he made me a floppy disk with all the notes from every class that semester. See? Nice guy.

Now, the way Carl got to work for Senator Shinebox, was that he mentioned to someone he met that he wanted to do an internship on Capitol Hill, and that person (an ex Hill Staffer) liked him so much (even though she only met him 15 minutes before) that she got him a job there. When I needed an extra line on my resume, Carl offerred to get me a job at his office. I had the shortest interview ever because as soon as they found out I was Carl's friend, I was hired.

Next Time: A Chris By By any other Name would be a Carl.

*the Carl/Chris thing will be explained in the next post.

Odds and Ends

1. Sickness:

Okay, I think the worst of the illness is past. Because the new trend in blogging in to give updates on bowel movements: My stool is starting to look normal now. I mean, the consistency, not the color which is darker than normal because of the after effects of Pepto Bismol (which tastes like you are drinking pink chalk). I used my Wolverine-esque mutant healing powers to destroy the virus before it could escape the fortress and destroy all mankind. No need to thank me, people.

Okay, I think I'll avoid this latest blogging trend and leave that for the people who's blogging content is identical to their stool samples.

2. Home Improvement Experiments

I bought a pneumatic framing nailer the other day, and because it came with safety goggles, I was gonna do some work-related experiments by shooting it into dangerous surfaces and seeing what happens (hey, don't give me safety goggles and not expect me to use them, jus' sayin'). But I'll put that off for a couple of weeks because I'm gonna be reviewing some other stuff. Someone from one of the tool manufacturers is gonna mail me a cordless power tool with a new battery that they want me to review on my site. UPS tried to deliver it today, but because I'm not a hausfrau sitting around watching The View, I wasn't home when they came. But this could mark a turning point on my blog. I have foregone the use of advertisers on my blog because I don't believe blogging should be corrupted by capitalism (and because I have no idea how to put up banners, and because I don't trust "the Google" with my bank account info). I heard that some people get laid from blogging, but I didn't know you could get other free stuff (besides pooty-tang) from blogging. Who knew? If anyone else wants to give me stuff (including pooty-tang), please contact me at HomeImprovementNinja@gmail.com.

3. Art:

Okay, in the comments to the art post someone asked me what my art looked like because they wanted to get laid too, I guess (who doesn't?). I'll post pics of the 3 pieces that I bought recently.


This is the piece that the artsy fartsy chick with the tattoos and piercings got all horny for. This piece is about 2 feet by 2 feet. The Title is "Accountability" and, yes, those are bullet holes. I don't know how art can make a girl hot, but then again I have no idea how millions of women can sit through an hour of Grey's Anatomy each week, so there you go.



This piece is about 3 feet by 2 feet. The piece is titled "Blue Stars", in case you didn't know. I don't know the effect that it will have on women because it hasn't been field tested yet, but it looks good on my wall, which can't hurt.






This is a huge piece. It's about 5 feet wide by 4 feet high. The title is "The Overwhelming Nature of Contemplating the Universe and the Desire to Embrace Complexity" (no, I'm not making that up). The artist is a friend of mine who's got a solo show coming up that I'll be pimping in an upcoming episode of "Free Plug Fridays".

Sicko.

I am sick. Realllllly sick. Because I don't ever get sick (even my immune system is badass), if this bug has gotten the better of me, then it's some kind of superbug that will destroy will destroy all mankind (and most of womankind) if not stopped.

I haven't been able to get up for almost 24 hours and I'm hurting bad. For the good of mankind (and womankind) someone should come over to my place and put a bullet in me to end this. If you do decide to come over and kill me, please be aware of certain things:

1. my place is a mess, because I am sick (and lazy) so don't judge me;
2. if you kill me, please return my Netflix movies (Apocalypto has been out for almost 2 weeks and it still sux as bad as the day I got it);
3. if you need to wash up to get the blood off, you should use the garden hose outside. You REALLY don't want to go in that bathroom after what's been going on in that toilet for the past two days. Jus' sayin'.
4. Also, could you set my VCR (my old skool TiVo) to tape tonight's Ultimate Fighter. When I come back to haunt the ninja fortress I'd like to see it.

Thanks!

More Work Gets Done

Because this is, theoretically, a home improvement blog, and because I like to have people over at my house without having them sign a waiver and warning them not to touch anything, and to maybe get a tetanus shot before they come over, I do occasionally get stuff done.

I've been noticing over the past couple of years that the porch paint was peeling and the iron was rusting. This has been low on my list of priorities because I was distracted by other frivolities like having heat and a working toilet, but I digress.

I decided to tackle it recently. I scraped the peeling paint off and the loose bits of rust. I didn't know how bad the rust was, but if it kept going, there would eventually be a hole in my porch. I hope I caught it in time. Well, in time for future buyers not to notice anything wrong.


Here is a pic of all the big chunks of rust I scraped off. It's still sitting there because I have been too lazy to sweep it up, but I'm hoping that the squirrels will eat it and save me the trouble.

There was so much rusty metal that came off, that I'm afraid to have fat people walk on the steps anymore. I don't know if the porch is strong enough to support it. I guess my brother will have to come in from the basement from now on.


Then I painted it with some anti-rusty stuff that is supposed to act as a primer and a rust stoppy thingy. I kinda ran out, because there was so much rust, but this should give you and idea.







Then I painted it with the enamel paint and stuff. Since I don't believe in cleaning unnecessarily, it's pretty obvious where the work was done.

There was another big patch on the other end of the porch, but my camera batteries were dying...and I'm lazy.



I'm gonna try to get some stuff done on the MacGuyver kitchen this weekend. Will keep you posted.

Odds and Ends: The Many Purposes of Modern Art

1. Art Makes Girls Hot, Apparently.

Well, it's been an interesting couple of weeks. I've purchased three new pieces of art in the past two weeks. One of which may or may not have contributed to me getting laid. I think when the artsy fartsy chick in the gallery saw me buying it, she was fooled into thinking I have good taste in art. Luckily she hasn't seen my complete collection, which includes some of the finest examples of the Dogs Playing Poker genre in the greater DC area. Even though the ninja fortress is not complete (no working kitchen sink yet) it's complete enough to hang stuff on the walls and have it look like those kind of houses where normal people live.

Now I usually don't talk about dating on this blog (because only chicks write dating blogs, and I don't have a uterus), but this story was too good to pass up. As I stared at my new purchase, I was approached by the artsy fartsy hottie with tattoos and piercings:

Girl: That's a great piece you bought. What is it that you like about that?

Ninja: Me? Well, it's art...but with bullet holes in it. What's not to like?

Girl: That piece is so visceral. It's got nice elements of brutalism and outsider art influences. It's so political too!

Ninja: Yeah...I thought the same thing. I like the visceral-ality-ness of it...and the outsider thing too...and the bullet holes. It's like a statement on Iraq, but with paradigms and synergies and stuff...or something.

Girl: [blank stare]

Ninja: Uhhh, actually, I can't put it into words (because I don't know what I'm talking about), but for me art is about emotions which are like, too visceral to even, like, put into words and stuff(note to self, look up "visceral" in the dictionary when you get home). Art is, like, something you just feel on the inside and, like, get a sense of its energy.

Girl: Exactly! That's how I feel about art too!

Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet!


2. The Television is Evil

I re-connected my cable recently. I had it disconnected for a year to see if I could live without it. I figured it would force me to do more productive things like go to the gym more, and read more books. What it did, instead, was make me spend more time on "The Internets". So now it's back on and holy crap, is there some bad stuff on there. But, the shining beacon in the wasteland of TV nothingness is VH1, or "Reality TV Heroin” as I like to call it. Rock of Love (the stripper gets a “Bret” tattoo and still LOSES), Flavor of Love (runner up SPITS in winner’s face), The Pickup Artist (45 year old virgin goes to pickup school and STILL can’t pickup chicks), I love New York (group date degenerates into a fistfight), Scott Baiao is 45 and Still Single (he figures out over 2 months what everyone knows in the first 10 minutes…he’s single because he’s an asshole), Hogan Knows Best (pathetic washed up wrestler invents drama to boost his daughter’s “singing” career). Wow...seriously people.

I also got to renew my addiction to the home improvement shows on several channels, or "House Porn", as Mari likes to call it. I have a love-hate relationship with the flipping shows on there. They take inexperienced people, have them do everything wrong, then eventually sell their houses and still make a ton of money. While I hope that, despite my mistakes, I can sell my house in a year or two to a couple of yuppies with more money than brains, part of me wishes that they wouldn't. I try not to dwell on that because of Karma or Ju-ju, or whatever you call it in those religions that don't follow the teachings of the Pope and will therefore lead you to eternal damnation. Jus' sayin'


3. SAMBO Summit 2007 Update.

In other news, I'm really upset that the wedding in Illinois (Part 4 coming soon)
was on the same weekend as the SAMBO Summit 2007. It turns out that Oleg Taktarov showed up as a guest instructor and sparred with the students. That's right, THE Oleg Taktarov, bitchez! I reallllly wish I could've been there. If I sparred against a UFC champion like him, the first thing I would do is take a really cheap shot at him. Then, he would probably break my arm or give me a cool scar of some kind and when people ask me what happened I could say "I got into it with Oleg Taktarov, man...I mean, that guy's a UFC champ and all, but he got outta line and I'm not afraid to step to anybody, 'cuz that's just how I roll, baby." I mean, even if he knocked out all my teeth and I had to eat through a straw for a few months until they surgically reconstructed my jaw and ordered me new teeth, that would be a story I could tell my grandkids (except that by the time I got to be a grandpa, the story would eventually morph so much that I would be the winner...that's assuming that he only breaks my face, and doesn't rip my nuts off).

4. Britney Spears is Uber-white trash

I feel bad for anyone going through a divorce or losing her kids. But if anyone ever tells me again how Britney isn't white trash, I will laugh in their face. If she couldn't sing, she would be dancing on a stripper pole or advertising herself as a "Massage Therapist" on Craigslist, and living back in Louisiana in a single wide with no electricity with an alcoholic auto mechanic who beats her and her six kids (all by different babby daddies).

Sooooo....Britney fails to show up for court-ordered drug tests and is videotaped driving without a license, so the Judge gives her kids to K-Fed. (side note: If you suck at parenting so bad, that K-Fed is considered a better parent than you, then I feel sorry for your kids. There are kids that are raised by wolves who get better parenting than they would from K-Fed).

Anyway, she is ordered to turn over her kids, so she does...in the parking lot of a Carl's Jr. Then, instead of grieving like a normal person, she drives to a tanning salon. Prioritize much, Britney? I guess everyone grieves in their own way. Maybe she grieves by getting a Mystic Tan and a bikini wax?