escape to insanity

Paul over at boagworld.com has posted a Christmas appeal, and I want to pass it along to anyone who reads this but not that.

For a while now I have been supporting a charity run by a friend I grew up with. They run a orphanage and school in the heart of rural India (Chinnia Kalvarayan hills,Tamil Nadu). They take in kids that have no family left and teach many others who would normally have little in the way of formal education. They give these kids a chance to change their lives and to become something more. In fact they have been so successful that the children are starting to look at higher education. For example one girl called Rachel is now training to be a doctor in China even though she had never been on a bus let alone flown to another country.

The trouble is sending somebody to study as a doctor in China is expensive and they have more kids that want to do similar things. That is why I am after your money.

So come on. Be mindful of those less fortunate than you this holiday season, and consider donating some cash to help someone who needs it.

Here's a direct link to the PayPal page for donations: Christmas Appeal

Oooh this is good.

Today I was checking my e-mail, as I'm wont to do, and decided to check my “junk” folder to see if there was anything of interest that was mistakenly flagged as spam. Bear in mind this is an e-mail account on the tigerblade.net server, so the spam filter isn't quite as good or efficient as GMail's.

I see an e-mail with a subject line that intrigues me, so I move it to the inbox to read it.

Your e-mail has been received by the City of Janesville.

Hmm. What e-mail is that? OHH! I remember now.

About a year ago, I had moved into a townhouse back in Whitewater, and was temporarily out of work. While I was diligently looking for a real-person job, I was also trying to find some sort of work on the side just to keep some sort of cash flow going. I was occasionally pounding the pavement writing down names and addresses of small businesses around town that I thought might benefit from some sort of web work, then sending out e-mails or snail-mail letters asking if they were at all interested in having a website built (or updated if they already had one). Along with small businesses (mostly mom-and-pop places) I had contacted a few of the surrounding cities to ask the same thing. Some just had “webmaster@ci.blahblah.gov” whatever addresses, some had contact forms, some had nothing at all.

In any case, I sent e-mails or filled out contact forms inquiring about web work. Eventually I got a real job and stopped worrying about freelance stuff since none of it panned out. Fast forward a few months… I finished my four-month contract at that job and picked up a new job (which I love), which I've now been working at for about seven months. Today I get an e-mail back from the City of Janesville stating that… that what? That they'd like me to do some work for them? No. This e-mail is to inform me that they've received my submission, and that I can “expect a response shortly.”

Sweet! They've received my submission. Just to be sure, I checked the timestamp on the original form entry (which they conveniently have available to review), and it was submitted September 16th, 2006. Today is November 30th, 2007.

It took them 14 months to receive my note and send an “auto-reply.”

I'd send them a note back to tell them they're a year and some months late, and that I've had two long-term jobs in the meantime, but alas… it was sent from an address that doesn't accept incoming e-mail. Figures.

Ahh, FedEx.

Not exactly the greatest experience thus far. I'll back up for those of you who aren't as familiar with the situation as I've been. I bid on and won a “platinum” (aka “silver”) Nintendo GameCube on eBay last Sunday, November the fourth. I promptly paid the seller, and she dropped it off at her local FedEx location on Wednesday the seventh. (Nevermind that it was supposed to be UPS Ground handling the damn thing. UPS are good people.) I've already bought the controllers and some games, I'm just waiting on the console itself.

By 6pm Wednesday I had a tracking number and was able to use FedEx's tracking page to see the general, uber-vague status of my shipment. I could see that around noon on Thursday, it had been “In FedEx possession” in Texas. Estimated delivery is stated as Tuesday November 13. I was hoping to have gotten it by Friday to have it hooked up for my party, but alas… 'twas not to be. Fine. Such is life.

Six hours later it was “Picked up” by FedEx at a different facility, still in Texas, in a town only 20 miles away. Another two hours, and it's listed as “Arrived at FedEx location.” Good, progress! Oh wait, still in that same town somehow. It took two hours to go from “picked up” to “arrived” at the same facility?

By midnight Thursday, going into Friday, it had finally “Left origin” and was supposedly on its way to me. Sweet nectar!

Well… they must have put it in a backpack and walked it north, because 19 and a half hours later it had only made it to Chicago. I'm pretty sure I could have launched it from a trebuchet and gotten it here quicker. Meh. Traffic must have been bad, right? Alright, so it's in Chicago. Almost here!! Oh wait… another six hours til it left the Chicago location, and four more after that to make it to the “local” office that's sort of near-ish to me.

Saturday, early afternoon, I get around to checking the status again. Amazingly, the package is now “on FedEx vehicle for delivery.” HOLY SWEETNESS, BATMAN! I could have it today! What time is it? *checks clock* It's 12:30pm, so it's been on a truck for… let's see… 9:30am… minus the… carry the one… three hours! It should be here any minute!

*cricket* *cricket* *rolling tumbleweed* *cricket*

Nada. I had to make a run to the grocery store, so I left a note with instructions to leave the package there if they showed up in the time I was gone. No more than an hour later, I was back, still no package. Alas, forgot some quick little things that I still needed, so to the local grocery store I went, back in under fifteen minutes.

Still nothing.

By 7:30pm Saturday, still nothing, and now the tracking results show a “delivery exception - customer not available.” Terrific. Of the 12 hours my GameCube was on their truck, they came during the one hour I was gone. Alright, I called FedEx to see if they could drop it at a local FedEx location (there's one very close to me) and I could pick it up myself. “Well sir, it looks like they're closed for the day.” Great. “But we'll attempt to deliver it again on Monday, or we can have it kept at the location and you can pick it up.” Alright… well… I'll let them try to deliver it.

Monday I call back to see if I can get them to deliver to my work address, or maybe still hold it at the store by me. “Oh, sorry, we can't change the address. And oh, sorry, we don't deliver on Mondays.” What? “We deliver on Saturdays, so Mondays are off.” Well… what the hell? Why was I told on Saturday that Monday would be the day? “Oh I'm so sorry you were told that sir.” Ok, can you give me a timeframe I can expect it to be delivered, so I can be home this time? “Well sir, our delivery drivers are independent contractors, so we don't have any control over them. Based on previous deliveries, I'd guess sometime between 4 and 8pm.”

So today's the day. I hope. Sometime in that four-hour window I'm hoping to hear my doorbell ring. We'll see if that happens.

And then Smash Brothers Melee will be rockin.

Looks like I managed a new record last month - only one post all month, and it was about how I haven't written anything in a while. How ironic, but how true. In any case, my writer's block/lack of usable material as of late hasn't really changed much.

However, I have in fact managed to finally move out. Once again I'm on my own. This past weekend I moved out of my parents' house where I've been living for the last six months and into my own apartment. It was a long and painful process, but… it is worth it.

One thing I've learned is, moving into an apartment of your own is freaking expensive. Everywhere I've ever lived prior to this, some of the cost and supplies have been taken care of by someone else. In the dorms, things like beds, desks, dressers, and utilities were provided from day one. In my house senior year with friends, the rent was split four ways, we all brought miscellaneous stuff that added up to make a complete household. In my townhouse after that, between my roommate and I, we had just about everything.

Now it's all on me. I'm amazed at how much I had to spend to stock up a place with the most basic stuff. Garbage cans, garbage bags, dish racks, handsoap, utensils I never realized I needed, tape, lights, the whole works. All on me, and all out of my wallet. It's gonna be fun paying that off. Luckily tomorrow's payday!

In any case… yep. Now I just have to sort out the nuances of the new neighborhood, the new mailman (who appears to be an idiot), etc. We'll see how that goes.

In the meantime, I'm still open to suggestions for stuff to write about. I also need some suggestions for movies to watch - my Netflix queue is empty, and I'm finding myself hard-pressed to come up with movies I want to see but haven't yet. Ideas?

Remember, remember, the fifth of November,
The gunpowder treason and plot.
I know of no reason why the gunpowder treason should ever be forgot.

So it's been a while since I last posted, I know. I've been busy. Between work and my new, absolutely amazing girlfriend, I've not as much time on my hands as I used to.

And I haven't seen or done much that justified any sort of posts on here.

I was going to work on a sequel to “Irrational” seeing as it got to be quite popular on Newsvine for about two days, but just haven't had time to come up with a proper list of stories to use. I have a list in the works, but it's not long enough to use yet.

So… any requests for something I should write about? I'm open to suggestions. Doesn't mean I'm going to write about just anything but you can certainly ask. Go ahead… c'mon… I'm dyin' here.

I'm pretty sure I have some form of OCD. Maybe not the full-blown type, but still. There are just some things that bug me. Not pet peeves, really, just stuff that I have to have a particular way or risk losing my mind.

Orientation of paper money. Whenever I get paper bills from a cashier or bank teller, for some reason it just bugs me if all the bills aren't facing the same way. I'll have to stop and take the time to make sure they're all facing the same direction, and all right side up. I can't let them be upside-down, or back-to-back — all the Presidents need to be facing forward.

Stacked notepads. On my desk at work, I have two square Post-it notepads, in different colors. One is sitting on the other, at an angle. A 45 degree angle, that is. If you looked at it from above, it would make a perfect 8-point star. If I accidentally bump them while reaching for something, or if someone else stops by my desk while I'm away and moves them, I have to adjust them so they line up again either in the 8-point star or so they're a perfect square, one on top the other. They can't just be tossed about willy-nilly.

Jewelry at odd angles. Now, while I hesitate to call it “jewelry,” I suppose that's what it is. I typically wear two pieces of what you could conceivably call “jewelry:” a silver-ish ring on my right hand with some sort of tribal markings, and a beaded necklace — I've got a few, so I just pick whichever one looks like it clashes the least with whatever else I'm wearing that day. My ring fits snugly enough that it doesn't really rotate much (my finger has fattened up just enough since I got the ring in high school). If I notice that my ring has twisted on my finger and the patterns aren't in the right positions on my finger, I'll stop and twist it back into place — basically just involves using my middle and pinkie fingers to adjust the ring. The same goes for my necklace — if I notice that the clasp on the back has slid sideways around my neck, I have to pull it back to dead-center, which I determine by just finding my spine and making sure the clasp is sitting there.

I know I've done more, but these were the more common ones. At one point at the house I lived in during my senior year of college, I'd lined up the cereal boxes in the pantry in order of descending height and thickness. My CDs and DVDs are all oriented as vertically as possible in their cases (so that the title is sitting perfectly for when you open the case).

Anyone else do these, or am I just way out there?

It's quite possibly the hardest thing I've ever set my mind to doing.

What is it? Is it climbing a mountain? Getting in shape? Flossing? Quitting smoking? No, nothing so mild. I've decided I want to quit biting my fingernails.

I've been a nail-biter for just about as long as I can remember. It's not a conscious thing, really; I don't bite my nails to keep them short, I don't bite them because I like the flavor, I don't bite them out of spite for keratin. I bite them more or less because I don't think about it and end up chewing on them anyway. Most of the time I don't realize I'm doing it until it's too late. It's not nervousness, it's usually just because my hands and mouth aren't doing anything else, so they decide to have a party together.

So my goal for this month, September 2007, is to quit biting my nails.

The problem is… it's hard. I've been doing it for so long that I can't imagine a good way to kick the habit. I can't necessarily just trust myself not to do it — because I'm rarely aware I'm even doing it, I can't consciously keep myself from doing it. My girlfriend bought me a bag of pretzels with the idea that if I'm nibbling on pretzels all day, I won't need to chew on my nails. That works out decently, but only if I'm actually at my desk or near the pretzels. If I'm in a meeting, or in the car, or… well… anywhere but at my desk, it doesn't help.

I've actually even considered getting a box of latex/rubber gloves to wear, just so my nails aren't even exposed. If I try biting them, I'll get a good taste of rubber in my mouth and realize it's not gonna work. I can't wear regular gloves, because 90% of my day is spent at a computer, and regular leather gloves would have a bit of a negative affect on my ability to use a keyboard. That would be bad.

So… any suggestions on how to kick the habit? Any former nail-biters out there with tips to share on what makes it easier to quit? C'mon… I'm desperate here.

Photo by Elsie esq. License: Creative Commons Attribution.

According to the What's Your Spiritual Type quiz, I'm a “Spiritual Straddler.”

You scored 57, on a scale of 25 to 100. Here's how to interpret your score:

25 - 29

Hardcore Skeptic — but interested or you wouldn't be here!

30 - 39

Spiritual Dabbler — Open to spiritual matters but far from impressed

40 - 49

Active Spiritual Seeker — Spiritual but turned off by organized religion

50 - 59

Spiritual Straddler — One foot in traditional religion, one foot in free-form spirituality

60 - 69

Old-fashioned Seeker — Happy with my religion but searching for the right expression of it

70 - 79

Questioning Believer — You have doubts about the particulars but not the Big Stuff

80 - 89

Confident Believer — You have little doubt you've found the right path

90 - 100

Candidate for Clergy

I thought it was an interesting set of questions on a range of religion/spirituality-related topics; overall I'd say the result is probably pretty accurate. I'd have actually pegged myself somewhere in the upper forties according to their scale, but whatever.

What's your Spiritual Score?

I've seen this “application” floating around Facebook and such, and I thought it might be interesting, so here it is for your enjoyment.

This is the Honesty Box. What it is is a way for you to tell me whatever it is you want to tell me, without me necessarily knowing who said it. You can be as anonymous as you wish.

Here's how it works: The Honesty Box Form has four fields. The only two that are required to use the honesty box are the security code and the message. (The security code is the same code I use on my comment form, just to prevent automated abuse of the form.)

Name and e-mail are entirely optional.

If you enter both a name and a valid e-mail, then those will be included in the message I receive. If you enter nothing in either of those fields, all I get is the message. Simple enough?

The honesty box will be available until 12pm (noon) on September 4th 2007 (CST).