A Slight Distraction

Well, for someone who didn't have work i sure was busy. here are the events that followed the humping condoms post:

-I did yard work at my parents house on Thursday, it was the earliest I've woken up in weeks and i spent the whole day trimming trees, bushes, and palm trees with four inch needles. (i hate those things). To top it off it kept raining on and off, not enough to stop working, but enough to make the ladder very slippery.

-Friday i woke up with a severe respiratory infection, ever since i got back from the ER with grandma i was feeling sickish, and it finally took hold. "luckily" because i had the week off of work i took care of things real quick like. got into the urgent care, got my meds, picked up my prescriptions, and got back on the road to healthy. (i put luckily in quotes because that's the only positive thing i can get out of missing a week's worth of f'n pay.

-On my way home from the urgent care i stopped by Petco (a pet store chain) to use up a store credit on some expendable fish. here's what happened after twenty minutes of waiting for service:
Employee- Can i help you?
Exile- yeah, i would like to buy some fish
Employee- Is your tank already established?
Exile- Of course (this is a novice question, it means has the tank been running long enough to support fish)
Employee- did you have fish in there before?
Exile- yeah, they didn't last, i'm hoping these one will.
Employee- they didn't last? what did you have in there with them?
Exile- a few Barbs (a type of fish) and a turtle (a type of turtle.)
Employee- and you're trying to put fish in with a turtle?
Exile- well, sometimes you can get fish and turtles to live together.
Employee- No you can't.
Exile- actually...
Employee- (interrupts) NO YOU CAN'T.
Exile- What? I've...
Employee- (interrupts a story of my boy hood about turtle/fish cohabitation) No sir.
Exile- You're not going to sell me a fish?
Employee- No. (with contempt) The only fish i would sell you is a feeder goldfish.

With that she walked away... So i just went down the street to the next Petco and bought the fish i wanted.

-Saturday and Sunday were spent doing some gaming and hanging out with the girl from the bowling alley (we both have insomnia). while the things with the girl went alright, the gaming put me only 12 trophies behind Gary! And that just happens to be the amount of trophies in the new Penny Arcade Adventures Game. (Exile is closing in).

-On Monday i showed up bright eyed and bushy tailed ready to put in some major work at work (my job is redundant and so is the description) only to find out that they're cutting all over time. now, seeing as though my survival is based solely on the extra cash from overtime (i get about six hours worth a week). So with short week before, the week off last week, and now not getting overtime... i'm pretty screwed.

-tomorrow i'm going to have to square off with my Chiropractor about money she owes me. Remember me talking about running fliers and such? yeah, well, she owes me for $170 for the work i did in September and October. all through November and December i've called all three phone lines, mailed invoices, and slipped them under the door, and delivered them in person to the receptionist. it's been too long to assume she's simply "forgotten" to call me back, so now i have to go down there and demand payment. And with my money situation, i can't walk out of there without it.



On A Positive Note:
I played Buzz: Quiz TV (a PS3 game) and managed to get over 5000 points on the single player match by answering 20 questions correctly each one under a second. (ba ba BOOM!)


and now, a happy song.



Exile

What’s New In ‘09

What’s New In ‘09

With the new year starting out I’ve decided to catch everyone up (all five of you) on the things that’s are caught up in the maelstrom that Exile’s life. And as a true nerd does, I’m doing it all with “bullet points” in Microsoft Word.

· Slow Goings- the company I work for is heavily immersed in the automotive industry. In fact, the majority of our products we produce is for cars. (air bag sensors and stuff). Well, for those of you following the news, the three major car companies in America are struggling, and as they struggle the people making their parts suffer. “What does this mean,” you ask? Well, if they’re not making cars, they don’t need the parts to make the cars. Ipso facto, our company has nothing to do. And if we have nothing to do, well, we don’t need stay open. Yep, if you compare the number of employees we had in January of 08 to January of 09 we’re down to 1/5 of our staff and dropping… to quote the owner of the company “Even at our best in 2009, we won’t come near the worst in 2008.” In other words, the best we can hope for is the worst we’ve done.

· The Big Number Two- my department at work (which was ten people last year) now consists of three people. In order to accommodate our diminished ranks I have been moved to second shift. Well, more like second/third shift. So now, my hours are 4pm to 2am Monday through Friday. So now I have no chance at a social life during the week… ok, I didn’t have much of a chance before, but now I have something to blame for it. On an upside, because I just came back from three weeks off I’m kinda used to going to bed at 3am and waking up at noon.

· Technological Emersion- I’ve decided to be spontaneous and try waving my hands around while hang’n on by my finger nails. Exploiting a deal over at Best Buy I bought a 42” 1080P LCD HD TV (on the QT) and a couple games. The deal was on the “no interest for 18 months” which means I get to keep the behemoth without paying interest so long as I pay at least Sixty bucks a month on it all.

· Those Fucking Fuckers Fucked Me!- (this was originally it’s own post, thus it’s out of the bullet format… please stand by.)
Bastards!

Fucking Bastards!

Betrayer!

Judas!

I trusted you, you cock-snot!

who am i talking about? American Express


Check this shit out.

I, like every one else, carry a balance on my Amex. on average it's about a third of my credit limit. Nothing too bad. In the past couple months I’ve gone through some financial hardships and have had to lean on the card a bit. (That is what credit cards are for, right?)

well, I’ve had this card for years, and I’ve always, and i mean always, paid well over the minimum amount. Well, i guess, that's just not good enough.

turns out they reviewed my account and decided that I’m just not paying them enough and cut my limit down to exactly what i have in my account.

now, in order to survive the financial quagmire that is my life i use my amex to juggle the books, so to speak. I make all the purchases I can on the card, then, when it's due I pay off (nearly) everything I’ve bought. for the most part it works, but last month I had to made a few big purchases, mainly truck work and X-mas presents. What I didn't expect was for Amex to fuck me for this.

they decided, in some dark council no doubt, that while I was paying well over my minimum due, it wasn't enough for them. so, with a fiendish grin and a bit of foam upon chapped lips they smiled and decreed that they would adjust my Limit.

wait, allow me to rephrase, they anal-ly raped my limit, rough, and dry like.

they "adjusted" my limit (raped it) down to sixty dollars above how much i owed. SIXTY DOLLARS! are you fucking kidding me?

sweet dead baby Jesus, they left me no breathing room. groceries, gas, pornography, I have no money for any of it.

and I found out about this, not through a phone call, not a letter, not a carrier pigeon. no, I find out when I’m at the mechanic trying to get my truck out of hock and they tell me my card is declined. I call and they say "yeah, we lowered your limit, and you can suck our balls."

so sitting in the mechanic's office with a worthless credit card, a three hundred dollar debt, and a debit card that you have to put in a plastic back to make it work. (Yeah, this... this is where I am now.)

so now I’m directly drawing out of my checking account to pay off the bill I planned on putting on my amex to pay later.

· Trophy Whore-As some of you may recall I’m in a bit of a “Trophy Competition” with some of the guys at work on the PS3. I’ve jumped from 100 Trophies behind to only 40 behind. This means that I’m spending most of my free time (12pm to 3pm) playing games to pick up extra trophies. This is my life, and it’s ending one trophy at a time

· What The Truck?- After all the work I had done on my truck: replacing the catalytic converter to pass smog, and replacing an O2 sensor with the oil change my check engine light is back on AGAIN! I’m ignoring it because, frankly, I don’t have the money to fix it. But that’s ok, the sound of the “door chime” and cab light staying on for at least fifteen min after I start driving is taking my mind off it.

· Being Poor Bites- I have the time, but not the money, to fix my tooth from the Full Contact Guitar Hero.

· Better Living Through Chemistry- A while back I realized I could combat depression from being so alone with love. At the time I thought this was not only a full solution to the problem, but far more reliable than drugs. I now see that I was wrong. The fact is that love is far too fickle to count on as anything closely resembling reliable. Ironically, love has been like a bad relationship, I’m putting so much of my self into it and getting so little, that I just have nothing left. With any luck I’ll find the right little pill that will make me ok with being what I am, because I know see that I will never find the same result in a person.

· Apparently I Have A Girlfriend- this is one that caught me off guard. A while back I wrote a post about a girl I asked out laughing in my face. Well, the moron that I am had asked her out again months later and she said yes. I was completely shocked, but not nearly as shocked as I was when she stood me up for that date. Making my only smart move in areas of this nature, I deleted her number and considered the case closed. Of course, coming back from the three-week vacation a guy at work (her ex-boyfriend) asks me why I didn’t tell him I was dating said girl. When I told him I wasn’t he informed me that she’s been telling him that we’ve been dating for weeks at that I took her out to a restaurant on new years eve. Moral of the story: it’s better to pretend to date me that it is to actually do so.

· No More Wetness- after dealing with it for over two years I finally fixed my fridge so it will stop leaking water into the bottom of it (where I keep my lunch meats and stuff). Here’s what happened (please refrain from eating): when I bought my condo the people who lived in it before weren’t happy to leave. In fact during the conversion from apartments to condos a lot of people did unique things to fuck up the condos. In mine, they heathens decided to leave a gallon of ice cream in the freezer. Well, during a typical Elsinore summer it gets hotter than hell, and when you shut down the power to the unit the freezer doesn’t do much to keep ice cream as ice cream. (the ice melts and the cream turns to a kind of cheese). So in these months while the fridge sat idle somehow flies got into the freezer and not only formed a colony but raised many generations of young in there. So when I came in to buy the condo they “cleaned out the freezer” by wiping down the sides and removing the ice cream (which technically had more of a right to live there than I did at this point.) but what they didn’t do was remove all the maggot casings. (See, maggots enter a chrysalis stage leaving a tiny little husk behind when they emerge.) Well, you get a summer’s worth of these things left behind and they tend to clog up tiny little tubes, most importantly the ones that let moisture escape from the freezer. With nowhere to go the water froze (in a freezer, go figure) and began exacerbating the problem until it was raining in the back of my fridge. To make a long story short (too late) my dad came over and we melted through the iced over tube and grossness until it emptied. So no more water in the fridge… now I’m kinda grossed out by keeping my food in there…

· Slum Lord- well, the guy renting my garage has given me notice that he’s going to move his stuff out at the beginning of February, while this does suck, it means that I can move the girl who’s renting my spare room for storage (yeah), down to the garage and possibly take on a roommate. Roommates are slim pick’ns, but my friends brother and girlfriend are looking for a place, so I might be renting the room to a couple (with two people living in there at least one of them has to have rent, right?)

· “Go Get Vinnie”- it’s been two and a half months since the last time that I ran fliers for the chiropractor and she hasn’t returned any calls regarding the money she owes me (about $170). With my schedule changed I now have the ability to visit during prime business hours and make sure she gets the invoice. (I’ve slid one under the door after hours; I’ve mailed one, now I have to go in person… sigh). I hope this doesn’t get messy, but then again, you don’t get between an Italian and his money.

· Cash Only- not that Amex has cut the legs from under me I’ve had to go back to a cash only financial strategy. Unfortunately, I was using the card because I couldn’t do cash only, so I don’t know how the hell I’m going to pull this off… Mental note: buy Ramen Noodles.

· Heavy Balls- my dad was very sad when I had to tell him that I couldn’t join the bowling league this year. But honestly, I’m sadder. I liked bowling with the league (even though I was a sub) and the free practice card I got for joining made it so I had something to do when I had free time that didn’t cost me anything. *sigh* Oh well, I at least I don’t have to see the girl at the alley that shot me down. (Because then I’d have to try and act like it didn’t bother me.)

· Light Weight- No money equals no food. No food means no weight gain, so I’m still hanging around at about 170lbs. Not too shabby, but seeing as though no one is seeing me naked it really doesn’t matter how much I weigh.

· Les-Bo-Love- my little pet lesbian is all squishy over some new girl, and the new girl feels the same way about her. It’s been so long since either Elena or I have been with someone worthwhile that it’s just nice to see it can happen. If I can say I’m actually happy about something, it would be that I’m happy for her. Oh, and if this girl breaks her heart they’ll never find the body… I’m a bit protective, you see.

· An Optimistic Pessimist?- I had a long talk with my friend Jenni the other day about everything that’s been going on with me. One subject we touched on was that I need to distance my self from the people that are looking for me to help them because they’re bringing me down. I told her that it’s not that I’m intentionally looking to be around these people but we seem to just gravitate towards each other. (I have a really bad hero’s complex, so I always want to rush in and save everyone. That’s probably why I play as a medic in Resistance 2 hehehe). But pointed out that I’m giving up too much of my self to help these people (which I already knew) and that a lot of these people don’t really want to be helped, but rather they just want to make me feel like shit. (she didn’t actually say shit, I don’t think she could. Jenni’s the kind of girl that would rather say poo…) it was she said this that I had a realization, every time I talk to her I’m always a downer, I’m this little dark cloud that grazes through her life. It made me sick to my stomach to think that with everything bringing me down that I’m what brings her down. (there’s no way she gets off the phone with me and feels good about the conversation.) with that I realized there are only two possible things I can do change this 1) I could stop being her friend to protect her from the plague of depression that I am, or 2) I could try and be more positive, if for no other reason than for her. When I told her this she said she would love to hear me tell her something positive “even if it’s about a really pretty cloud you saw that day.” (sometimes she’s so sweet she could give you a cavity.) So with that I’ve decided that I’m going to try and leave “A Positive Note” on my blog every day. Even if it’s just a txt from my cell. Chances are it will be mostly about video games, but you never know, I might see a pretty cloud sometime.


On A Positive Note- for a while now I’ve been neglecting my blog because while I love to write I need to feel it to write it. It felt good to write this all out and I think I’m ready to start writing again.




Exile

Enough Fairy Tales

Twenty Eight years old is a bit too old to still believe in fairy tails, yet for some reason my stupid ass still does.

i still believe in childish concepts like love, and i still have some hope that hope carry me through. but it won't.

now, i know all two of my remaining readers are thinking that this is untrue, that love is real, and that hope prevails. but unfortunately you're forgetting that I'm not talking about anyone else, I'm talking about myself.

love does not exist for me, it's a fantasy. things like me don't find love, we're supposed to just live on the fringe of humanity, dwelling in the darkness. i should be feeding on the flesh that is thrown my way, and when said scraps don't come my way the i should use this wretched, malfunctioning mind to make sure it does.

for some reason, i got it stuck in this foul contraption that being a good person, something which defies my nature in every facet, would result in my finding the right girl. someone who could love me for who i am and what i am. again, childish logic. "a shit leopard can't change it's shit spots," and i can't be anything I'm not.

no don't me wrong, i tried. oh sweat dead baby Jesus I've tried. I've tried with girls that i thought would understand. girls that have been taken for granted, used, abused, mistreated, and cheated on. And what did i find? i found that i am the one who is taken for granted, used, thrown away, treated like shit, and left for dead.

hell, the last girlfriend was so terrified that i was going to leave her "for being overweight" (which she wasn't) that she was reduced to to tears in the shower. yet she had no problem fucking around with another couple (yes couple) behind my back. (turns out that scene from Old School isn't so funny when it happens to you.) the rational behind this was that i was giving her what she needed, but not what she wanted. luckily you can't break a broken heart, right? i mean after the ugliness that had happened before, i still managed to get my worthless heart to open up again to let someone in and all i got was cut for it. i knew my heart was worthless, but she made sure to drive the point home. but hey, i deserved it, i was treating her better than any one had before, it was obviously better than she deserved.

you would think that i would have learned, two chicks in a row cheat on me. the said they loved me to my face, they said it with a smile full of daggers, they said it with alligator tears. And i wanted to believe in my little fairy tale so much that i swallowed down these heaps of shit and asked for more.

and still, still i haven't fucking learned.

just look at me now. for the past three months i have been trying to ask out this bowling alley angle that i've had my heart set on. a beautiful girl that managed to get my worthless heart to flutter when she smiled. idiotically i though "maybe this is the one, maybe she'll get me." such a moron, every time i talked to her i couldn't' say a word. i couldn't string the phrase "will you go out with me" together and instead just made a joke and mumbled when she'd turn around.

so nervous, so pathetic, that eventually my dad wound up setting me up to ask her out...

so i asked, i got a phone number, i got a smile, i got a flutter...

bull shit.

we set up a "lunch date" that she was too busy to show up for, but that's OK, she was too busy to return a phone call, or even a txt message. idiot, moron, buffoon, i was so hopeful that this stupid fairy tail could still happen that i built my hopes up.

the sad thing is that i didn't even build them up that much, all i wanted was to take a girl that i liked out. i wasn't planning on fucking her, i wasn't planning on any thing vile, all i wanted was to just take her out to dinner. (i just wanted to feel special).

two weeks without a phone call, two weeks without a txt. how little can you possibly mean to anyone if you're not even worth a phone call.

but it doesn't end there, see, i tried to set up another date with another girl, still haven't heard back from her either.

your average lab monkey usually learns by the third or forth jolt that the red lever on the food machine is bad. not me, on no, because i believe that I'll find love and i still hold out hope for this asinine concept.

stupid, stupid, little boy. still thinking that love will fix things when it doesn't even exist (doesn't exist for me, yeesh i already went over that).

I've had three weeks off of work, and i've spent the entire time alone. "but wait" someone in the crowd says, "didn't you spend time with your Christmas." yeah, i did, and we all know that when you're single and surrounded by family you never feel alone.

"well, what about snowboarding?" snowboarding was fun, but once again lonely. i mean, sure, we were drunk the majority of the time, but being up on the slopes and seeing tons of cute snow bunnies all over the place. and before you ask, no, i didn't ask any of them out, girls don't snowboard single, it's the same thing as laughlin... but colder. (single girls don't go to these places, they always go with guys who own a bunch of gear or pay for the trip.)

part of me wants to say that this is the "holiday depression" kicking in, but really, i've felt like this way before Christmas, and i have a feeling i'm going to be like this for a lot longer... they're already putting up Valentines Day crap up at Walmart.

oh, and just to add to the whole "i don't learn" thing, i found a post from three years ago saying nearly everything i've stated here.

I need to stop looking, i need to stop trying, i need to put on a pair of sweatpants and let the rest of my twenties be absorbed into the couch.


Exile

Broke And Broken

Lots of extra work is bad, but having some extra money is good.

speaking of good, I finally rented out my garage! yup, it's been vacant
since the incident with the homeless tweeker (who decided to store himself
in there.) I'm renting it for $75 a month with a $75 deposit, the guy who
came by last night is really cool and he had cash in hand and signed
everything without any craziness. then, just to make things more gooder, he
even bought some of my dads old tools that I was storing in the garage. so
with that and the money I made working for my dad this weekend I've got a
good sized deposit going into the bank today.

with the extra money I'm tempted, sooooo tempted, to buy fun stuff instead
of being responsible (like Red Vs Blue, the Blood Gulch Chronicles, The
Complete Series). but alas, I must be responsible because I'm an adult and
being an adult means that you can't do anything fun. (being an adult sucks).
so I decided to break out my "broken" list.

the broken list is a running tab I keep in my mind of all the things I need
to fix as soon as I have the money to do so... needless to say the list has
gotten long.


The Broken List

THE CONDO
-the couch has a tear in the back rest and is missing a cushion
-the blinds in the living room were broken by my ex-roommates booty call (he
was either going out for a smoke or contemplating jumping from the balcony,
neither would surprise me.)
-the AC unit needs to be recharged, also, the dick holes who painted the
complex painted the AC unit too. so the thing is running at 1/3 capacity.
-the front window has detached from the frame, so the lock is the only thing
holding it together.
-the washing machine has a leak somewhere under the drum. it randomly starts
to leak
-from numerous burger nights my carpet has gone Dalmatian on me.
-the toilet seat in my bathroom is all "bumpy" from water damage from the
previous owner/renter


THE TRUCK
-it needs a wash. either I pay someone else to do it, or I need to go buy
new supplies.
-my check engine light has been on for nearly five months. I know it's just
the O2 sensor in the exhaust system, but those little bastards are $90
minimum.
-there is a rip in my fill hose (the hose that goes from the gas cap to the
tank). I won't blow up or anything (I hope) but if I fill all the way up it
leaks gas and I think it's evaporating out of the tank quicker.
-the door won't open all the way. my truck has been making that "old man
truck" noise when I open the door. this weekend the pin fell half way out
and the door wouldn't close. I knocked it back into place and this morning
the door wouldn't open all the way.
-I'm still missing the front license plate off my truck. oddly enough while
I was at the gas station I saw a guy with a corvette and asked him if cops
harassed him for not having a plate, he said no one has ever said a word
about it.
-it just dawned on me that I don't remember the last time I paid my
registration on my truck.
-it need the air filter replaced, fluids filled, and some other stuff that
will probably break on my way to work in the morning
-the ignition switch (the thingy you put your key in) is broken, well after
the key is out I have to fondle my thingy to stop it from chiming.


with all that, we haven't even touched on my debts.
$3000 on the American Express
$4000 on the Chiropractor
$400 on the Best Buy Card (for the PS3)
$1 for Daniel at work (I wanted a bag of Fritos)

oh, damn near forgot about my Mortgage, Association dues, Gas, Water,
Electric, Cable/Internet, Gasoline, Cell Bill, Toll Road, life insurance,
and two automated savings accounts...

welp, there when that "whoo-who" I was feeling over my so-called extra
money. I think I'm going to go clip some coupons now.




exile

Powering Down For A Bit

crappy crap crap

welp, this sucks

not only did i damn near burn down my condo (again) but now it looks like this will be the last of my "at home blogging" for a bit.

here's the skinny, when they make laptops they make the unit it's self very capable of being transported. they make them light, they make them semi durable, they make them fold up. yay for that.

unfortunately they don't make the power supply so user friendly. the cords going into and coming out of the AC adapter are very cheap, so after packing mine up and unfurling it so many times the plastic wore out and the wires frayed.

so last night as i was returning from a relaxing shower, i went to retire my laptop (which provided the porn that led to the relaxing shower, hehehe) and accidentally tripped over the power cord.



yup, there was a bright flash a little pop, and a nice brown singe on my carpet. luckily the laptop was off so there was no harm there, but I'm writing this post on borrowed time, see, very very soon the power is going to evacuate the battery and when that goes i won't be able to do anything on my laptop until i get a new cord.

this means:
no catching up on Lost
no "at home blogging"
no e-mailing (there's a blog at the office)
no chatting
worst yet, no porn!

ugh...

Oh speaking of e-mail, Facebook can go fuck it's self.
why you ask?

well, they decided to put in a cute little feature that make it so if you unwittingly stumble into the wrong location of their site they will use your information to access your e-mail and send out an e-mail, on your behalf to everyone in your contacts list to come view your Facebook page. yeah, that's all fine and fucking good except i have a lot of e-mail address of a lot of people that i really would prefer to either remain anonymous with (like co workers) or just not have contact with me again (like people i don't consider friends anymore).

thanks Facebook for hacking my e-mail and fucking me over, oh, and btw, YOUR QUIZZES SUCK!



now that that's off my chest i'm going to scurry off and preserve what's left of my battery life.


Exile

Haiku Fridays

Do you see the pic?
six A.M., my truck broke down
stranded in the cold



Bad alternator
my dad and i fixed it up
didn't go to work



i did get lucky though
Alt was under warranty
replaced it for free!






Exile

Blogger Hates Me

Did you know Blogger hates me?

it's true. it does weird things to my posts and even my comments.

i was going back through my old posts (i have drafts that need to be published) and i noticed that one post that i know i posted was still in the draft mode.

i thought no one commented on it because i posted it on 911, but it turns out that blogger is a huge douche... a douche filled with dirty water (ewww).

so here's a link to the post that blogger forgot: click here

blogger also likes to delete the comments i leave on other peoples blogs. i can't count how many times I'll leave a comment on Hella's blog and the next day it's gone...

damn blogger make'n me look bad!
pttttthhh! like i need any help from blogger to make myself look bad, sheesh.

Exile