escape to insanity

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.

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?

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.

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).

I had something really good to write about. It was brilliant. It was thought-provoking, and actually meaningful.

It was going to be awesome.

But I forgot what it was.

I saw this bumper sticker on my way home from work today… I did a double-take, as I thought there's no way someone would so blatantly advertise their addiction to a social networking site. But, upon looking closer, I saw that it was something quite different indeed. Note the characteristic blue globe of NASA to the left. Still… made me go “huh?” for a second.

And then there was this one from yesterday morning on my way to work. It took me a second to figure out what it said, then another second or ten to figure out why someone would have that as their plate. Oh well, I guess some people are just that driven to get to work. Got to work? Either they have some sort of compulsion about work, or they have to work or they'll die. Kind of like a really long, drawn-out version of Speed.

This meme seems to be circulating as of late, so I figured I'd give it a go 'round these parts. The name of the game is to post five things about yourself that others most likely don't already know.

So… for example… I can't say that my favorite animals are white tigers, because I'm guessing you probably already figured that one out. If you didn't know that about me already, well…. I guess you're not all that bright, are you? :P

Okay… so here goes.

Uno.
I couldn't write a poem if my life depended on it. My best efforts turn out something like this:

Roses are red,
violets are blue,
this line doesn't rhyme,
and neither does this one.

Two.
I'm deathly afraid of flying, stinging insects. It's the only thing I've ever come close to having a phobia of. I'll quite literally just freeze up if a wasp gets too close — I won't attempt to swat it away, I'll just freeze.

C.
I'm a sucker for girls with Australian accents.

Second-to-last.
I'm a grammar nazi. Okay, so that's something you might have already known. Hmm.

Real second-to-last.
I love the smell of fresh copies. Walking past the copy machine here after someone just slaughtered a tree is the greatest smell in the world next to freshly-cut grass and freshly-brewed coffee.

Fin.
I wasted four years and thousands of dollars on a college education, only to discover that what I went to school for was not even remotely what I wanted to do with my life. I've since had a few jobs that make use solely of the skills I taught myself, and absolutely loved them.

So that's me. Now it's your turn… I'm not going to tag specific people, I'm just going to let this one go to whoever wants to take thirty seconds of time to fill out a comment.

Go.

Courtesy of Calvin Tang over at Newsvine, I came across this awesome set of pictures of tigers diving for food. Those kitties are not to be messed with.

The only comment I could summon was such:

YES, MY BRETHREN! FEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED!!!!!!

Ahem. I mean… these were awesome.