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!"