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[valley_parade]

relative to what?

I'd actually like to know this. I was there and there was definitely a justice of the peace.

Unless it was a fake justice.

[Jazz Hands Tribute Band]

So my older sister got a book at Christmas time worth $50, she already had a copy so she got the receipt off of the gifting aunt. Neither my sister nor my mother thought it was prudent to check the store's refund policy (store credit, within 30 days of purchase) and follow through. Fast forward to today, I'm on mid-year break and I need some books to read. When mum asks me what my plans are today I say I'm going to the same bookstore to use my gift-voucher, naturally: oh in that case you can return your sisters book and get a refund. I tell her to hold on a sec while I check the refund policy. She suggests taking the book with me and trying even though 6 months is a hella long time from purchase. I then send an email to store just to placate her. The reply email says: unfortunately we cannot return the book that you requested, simply because if we extended our policy for you it would mean we would have to do it for everyone. Yea fair enough, I know the world doesn't owe me shit. When I tell mum about it she tells me I would have had a better chance if I tried in store and once again it was my defeatist attitude that brought about this inevitable response. This is bull of course because regardless of how emotive and persuasive you are rules are rules and there are no speech checks.

Sometimes showing up in person can work though, if you're willing to be difficult about it. Eventually they might give you store credit or something. My dad has practically made a career out of that. He could probably star on a Travel Network show about buying things and returning them 4 months later.

[Zingoleb]

So I went up to Buffalo and met Jace! He is kind of an asshole and I'm pretty sure he beats up homeless people, but that's okay, I'm not homeless yet, so I like him.

I went going to a party that night afterwards. I wound up running down Main Street at two am flying a kite in five inch heels. I've never worn heels before! It was fantastic. I had a crowd of very drunk and very gay men cheering me on.

[Tom]

I'm amazed you didn't fall over.

[Zingoleb]

I tend to walk on my toes all the time. Heels were a natural transition. They also make me six foot fucking nine.

There was a statue of a horse balancing a fish on its nose. I put my hat on it.

Edit:



THIS STATUE RIGHT HERE

[valley_parade]

So I went up to Buffalo and met Jace! He is kind of an asshole and I'm pretty sure he beats up homeless people, but that's okay, I'm not homeless yet, so I like him.

So THAT'S why I got two similar texts from you and him almost simultaneously.

[McTaggart]

I finally bothered installing printer drivers on this computer because it was getting irritating having to turn on the old computer or go all the way to uni to print something out and I saw how painless windows 7 made it look.

So then later I'm working through this c++ book because that's totally a skill I should have if I'm going to try and direct my degree more towards high performance scientific computing and I write in a gvim window the word 'print'. Immediately thereafter, the whole computer locks up (something I've never seen windows 7 do) and I have to do a hard reset.

After it reboots I fire up eventvwr and have a look for what might have caused the problem. It's the network printer sharing service. I turned off printer sharing and I got through this post ok so it looks like that solved it but I'm really hoping it was a weird coincidence and printer sharing isn't reading everything I type.

[Patrick]

My friend told me that his work is hiring so I am applying there. It's a ten minute bus ride from the Dublin/P-town BART and I can put my bike on a rack at the front of the bus so fuck yeah I'ma work at some Shell gas station with a Wendy's in it.

Dear blerg,

I had a falling out with a friend yesterday. But that friend is super shitty and inconsiderate and downright manipulative, and fuck that fool.

Today I went to my old roomie's place and we kicked it for a bit. I miss the shit out of that dude, we got to be good buds while we lived together, so it was a really good visit. We watched Bully Beatdown and Top Gear (the infinitely superior British version, duh) and made wisecracks the whole time. It was awesome.

At the moment I'm kinda crushingly homesick for Albania; I've been able to talk with some of my old friends there more often recently, and it makes me want to cry every time that happens because I realize suddenly that it's been almost two years to the day since I saw any of them. Breaks my fucking heart, man.

[Barmymoo]

I didn't get the amazing job with the National Trust They told me they were interviewing eight or nine people today (out of a large number of applicants, so I'm pleased I made the shortlist) and that it was really tough to choose between me and the other person, but the other person got it because they are already doing something similar somewhere else. So that was upsetting but also it means that I can still go on the choir course. I'd like to just give up and stop looking for jobs, and devote my time to doing interesting voluntary work, but sadly I have to prove I am actively seeking work to get my benefits, and I can't spend the next three months haemorraging money and not earning anything at all.

[Tom]

I'm reading about krokodil (bookmarked a week ago) and the only thing it seems not to do is make your voice all gravelly.

[Zingoleb]

I just got an email from Barack Obama (just a newsletter, nothing individualized).  It is the only thing my spam filter has ever marked as spam. I find this uproariously hilarious for some reason.

Also, last night I ended up throwing out a bunch of CDs. Out the window. Along with some records* and my shoes.

*don't worry! they were only Peter Frampton

[Tom]

I get russian sex spam occasionally but always hetero.

[bainidhe_dub]

For a while I got a bunch of spam with random words as the title, and snippets of Pride and Prejudice in the body.

[valley_parade]

*don't worry! they were only Peter Frampton

Why did you have them to begin with?

[Patrick]

Last night while I was drumming at an open mic I rimshot my left middle finger and now it is kinda purple and very sore where the drum rim hit my finger. Worth it, though, a friend of mine introduced me to her friend, and I got her number in the best display of awkward smoothness I've ever put on. All said and done, a solid night.

I also managed to get a lot of work done on my Fender Jag yesterday, she plays well again! It's only been, like, a solid year since the original nut broke, no worries...

(dogg Shane's right, Frampton sucks)

[valley_parade]

So you're keeping her, now?

I've got my Allparts cart filled up with "I'll have some expendable cash in a couple weeks" parts to finally get my Trump fixed. And a spare Strat pickup to drop into it. Just need to order a pair of treble bleed kits for that and the Jagmaster.

[Patrick]

A treble bleed kit is what normal people call a 'tone knob' sir

And I'd love to sell my Jag, but let's be real a minute. With all the buckle rash and the body damage and the fact that my dumbass friend took steel wool to it (to get rid of the grime I'd lovingly built up), that thing won't sell in a million years. I'm still picking steel wool pieces out of the pickups with tweezers every other fucking day.

(combined with his other trespasses, which were actually intentional, it's a wonder I didn't murder that fuck when I had the chance; alas, I moved the fuck out of AK instead)

[valley_parade]

Maybe "treble bleed" is not what I'm thinking of.

It's wiring a .22uf cap and a 100k resistor onto your volume knob so you don't lose treble when you turn down the volume.

[LTK]

Isn't that great. More attempts to socialize blow up in my face. It's the end-of-year barbecue at the university and I find myself invited to an evening session of an Aikido class, by a girl who tells me that she's slightly scared of participating but "if you're gonna go, I will too". So that either means she might be into me (shock and horror, I know) or doesn't want to be outdone by me. If it's the latter, no worries there, because an hour into the class, after a lot of judo rolls, I couldn't keep down the aforementioned barbecue food, although thankfully that didn't happen inside the gym. I decided not to stick around for the second hour and catch the train, but that certainly didn't leave a good impression. I was cursing myself the entire ride home.

This post was brought to you by FML Experiences.

I'm hoping I can find an apartment in the coming summer and move out. Hopefully that makes some difference in meeting some people, maybe go to that gym more regularly. Still not sure if moving out of your parents' house and going to the gym suddenly means being less of a loser though.

[TinPenguin]

This morning, I walked into the walled garden where I work, to find a huge swarm of honey bees, er, swarming, all around the pear tree in the middle of the garden. We had to keep the visitors out of the way and call in the beekeepers. Three of them.* It was quite exciting, really, watching them do battle with the fuzzy foe until they captured the queen and gained the buzzing horde's surrender. So there's the highlight of my day. To hell with gardening, I wanna be a beekeeper now.

*I feel obliged by the God of Puns to refer to them as 'The Three Must-get-bees'.

[Patrick]

Dear blag,

Night before last, I got literally zero sleep. I was staying over at a lady's house and she kept fucking doing shit to turn me on. All. Night. I got home blueballed to fuck at 7:30am (after riding my bike home, with my poor balls desperately wishing for a different way home) only to wind up cleaning the house with the guy I live with.

At like 11, I got a text from my buddy saying "Hey dude. Shit. Problem. One of the bands tonight dropped, can you do a set?" and so I threw together a 45-minute set list (it was supposed to be 30; I would rather have too much than too little).

Got my gear dropped off an hour early, practiced a few of the songs for lulz. I was second in the lineup, so I started around 9:40. First three songs? Awesome! Middle of song 4, sound guy completely killed my monitor. I kept asking for it back, and he kept not giving it back, so the rest of my set sucked DICKS. Fuck that guy.

Whatever, I got paid $15. Went to a different bar with my buddy and his band, got a single beer. Waited 15 damn minutes to get my card back, my pint (Fat Tire!) was 3/4 done by time I even got the attention of the SUUUUUUUPER bitchy bartender. She was seriously the nastiest person I ever met! So unnecessarily harsh! Fuck that bitch I didn't tip her shit, on the receipt where it read "TIP" I wrote in "OF MY DICK" because fuck that shit, I ain't about to be given no attitude for the fact that I waited patiently.

Whatever. The other musicians were nice as fuck, and I saw some old friends in the audience. Ooooooold friends, hadn't heard from 'em in years. Awesome!

Love,
Me

[Barmymoo]

I just got back from my two-night trip down to uni (four and a half hour journey there, six hours back... ARGH). It was successful! I saw my DoS and we agreed that a sensible thing to do would be for me to have my Contract law supervisions one-to-one with her, which is a terrifying prospect but hopefully will help me to actually understand what the hell contract law actually is. She also said that she thought there was no reason for me not to come back in the autumn. It isn't up to her, but if she thought I should leave it for another year then I'd have to think very hard about whether or not I agreed.

Then I saw the doctor, who quite happily wrote me a letter stating that I'm medically fit to return, although she also imposed a curfew on me. I'm not allowed to commit to any activities which would mean I wasn't in bed by 11pm. It sounds draconian and ridiculous but I'm glad she did it, because I know that I need to sleep more than most people but it's hard to stick to that when people are pressuring me into going out or doing a show or whatever. Now it's official!

Then I had my choral scholarship audition, which I've been really anxious about. I'd chosen to sing Thou That Tellest Good Tiding To Zion from Handel's Messiah without really considering it very much, and up until three days ago I was finding it impossible to get through some of the longer phrases without running out of breath. But in the audition it all came together and I just got an email from the lady who auditioned me which specifically congratulates me on my breath control! And I got the scholarship

I kind of wish I had just come home after all that, because I didn't actually have anything I had to do on Friday afternoon and I was tired. But I went punting with a friend and saw lots of theatre friends and did have fun. I'm just headachey and grumpy because there was an unusually high number of morons on the trains home.

[bainidhe_dub]

Congrats on the scholarship May!

I'm in southern MD right now for the Solomon's Island fireworks show tomorrow. This has been The Longest Day, we got up and drove for 4 hours, and then did 7 hours of setup on a barge on the river. Friday and Saturday we were up in Harper's Ferry, WV to do their show last night. (Sean, you're from up there, right? Did you see it?) I just wanna say though, fuck Shepherdstown and fuck their no-thru-truck roads and fuck their trucks-no-turns intersections and fuck their no-legal-way-to-get-a-truck-from-one-side-of-town-to-the-other. Now I just need to make it 2 more days without getting a sunburn (like last year) and either me or Robert getting heat exhaustion (again this weekend) and we will be all good.

[sean]

nah, im from rockville, MD. i go to school up in shepherdstown tho, ill actually be up there again on tuesday.

[BrittanyMarie]

IMPORTANT NEWS

my cat is super catnip-high at my boyfriend's place and meeting his cat and my cat is so cute and i have a little automatic laser pointer circle thing projecting to the wall and my cat is chirping and trilling and doing jumpy things. also the cat in question is huge.

this is made all the more exciting by being really high.

i'm also really sunburned and hungry.

[Zingoleb]

I went to a festival! I saw bands and they camped near me. Things were fun. It ended two days ago. I still have glitter pouring out of every orifice. I went skinnydipping with friends, and we ran back to the campsite giggling. I wasn't naked, I was wearing a hula hoop. I'm sunburned, except where I got the glitter tattoos.

[Katherine]

That sounds like a fantastic weekend!

[Thomas Edison]

Our Alaskan malamute is only a day or two away from giving birth puppppiiiies yaaaaay

[The Seldom Killer]

FFS, more cute animals I gotta google so I know what the hell people are talking about.

[The Seldom Killer]

OK, that was worth it. You have an aces dog.

[Lines]

Our Alaskan malamute is only a day or two away from giving birth puppppiiiies yaaaaay

!!!

[Patrick]

My fourth of July consisted of beer, music, and makeouts. Can't imagine a better day. After jamming with a bunch of random people at a friend's party, the host's band's singer approached me about filling in for their bassist at a gig in San Diego. Next thing you know, I'm booked. Fuck yeah! Networking rules. It's a dad-rock band, but hey, it could be something difficult to slay. Hella stoked!

Yesterday I went and barbecued some stuff with my bestie and his lady, and then I went and spent the night at a friend's house. Tonight is open mic night, where I will continue my networking and see about getting in with some reliable music-folks. If I can do that and get myself enough work to pay some shit off, I might even be able to just start living off of it. Who knows? Summer's half over, so it's not a safe bet, but still.

[Radical AC]

That sounds like my kind of time Patrick!  Life is better when you have an extensive group of friends who all happen to be musicians.

So today I got a D on a compsci test (Will be a C after the curve, but that doesn't make me feel better), and broke up with my girlfriend of 9 months.  I feel really low right now.  I'm going to drink until I can't remember math.

[Zingoleb]

I changed my name today! \o/

[Jimor]

Congrats, Zingo! I really get the impression that for a while now, even though things aren't perfect yet, you've been more in 1 step back, 2 steps forward mode rather than the other way around.  And this is a big indication of how it's because you're taking control of your life instead of letting it control you.

Radical, sorry to hear that. As long as you only lose Fourier transforms, I think you'll be ok, nobody needs that shit.

[snalin]

yay Zingo!



I've finally gotten all my grades for last semester - it's a healthy looking ABC combo, and I didn't really care that much about the stuff I got C in. If I can keep this up, and fix that horrendous maths D from first semester (I'm supposed to be good at maths!), it's looking up from the initial ACD outset.

[nekowafer]

Here, in these forums, is the only place I've ever seen someone add an S to the end of the word math. Do a lot of people do that?

[CardinalFang]

It's a UK thing.
It's because 'maths' is short for 'mathematics'.
So it makes sense.
Still looks funny though.

[Jace]

whereas, in the USA, math is short for Mathifiyicatin'

[Inlander]

It's also an Australian thing.

Actually, it's an everywhere-where-English-is-the-first-language-except-North-America thing.

[nekowafer]

It looks AND sounds funny to me. I think I sound like I have a lisp if I say it that way.

Is math'n one-a them there things they learned me in school?

[StaedlerMars]

It's a UK thing.
It's because 'maths' is short for 'mathematics'.
So it makes sense.
Still looks funny though.

I never got this logic. It's a short a shortification, so why add an s?

[pwhodges]

Maths is short for Mathematics - no problem there, surely?

In the past, Oxford University's Internet addresses had two forms: "long" and "short".  My department's were "clinical-pharmacology.oxford.ac.uk" and "clinpharm.ox.ac.uk".

The Department of Mathematics had "math.oxford.ac.uk" and "maths.ox.ac.uk" - in other words, the "long" form was shorter (in that part of the name).  The rationale was that it made it easier for Americans to find them...

[valley_parade]

I changed my name today! \o/

Hells yeah, you tall-ass sonofabitch! o/

[Barmymoo]

I changed my name today! \o/

Hells yeah, you tall-ass daughterofabitch! o/

What's the female form of Zingo? Zinga? Zingette?

[Patrick]

Can I still call you Ed as a Cowboy Bebop reference?

Dear blog,

Last night, I went to open mic at the place where I used to run it. My bestie Lukas was there too. He and his lady and another friend all got to meet the girl I've been kinda seeing for the last week or so, and everybody seemed to be friendly enough! Then Lukas and I borrowed guitars and rocked out on hella Beatles jams for the first time at that open mic since March. We haven't played together in that place since March, and we were as solid as we've ever been on our playing and on our harmonies, so it felt pretty fuckin' awesome. And people really enjoyed it! Another excellent night involving music. (RadAC you should basically just come to the Bay Area and we can hang out and jam if that will help with yr breakup! Those really suck, I'm sorry!)

Today, I turn in job apps I picked up yesterday. Tonight, my lady-thing's friends are apparently throwing a party, where I will get to meet them all. Stoked!

Love,
Me!

[Zingoleb]

Can I still call you Ed as a Cowboy Bebop reference?

The librarian does this, actually.

[BrittanyMarie]

today i watched two very attractive firemen help a duck and her ducklings cross the road.

[Tom]

Okay Zing, I'll bite, what's your new name?

[Slick]

man I am totally bummed out right now I am so tired but that is not why I am bummed. I am living with my mom (we are like roommates now, it is good) and anyways so I got home from work today at 4:30 so I was like 'hey mom I am going to put this frozen steak on the counter so it thaws can you put it in the fridge when you leave for the evening in an hour' and then she was like 'yeah sure' and I was like great and then I went to second work where I worked from five till now.
but the steak is still on the counter. It's internal temperature is presently 25ºC. It is a warm day here. It has been on the counter for seven hours. I do not think it is safe but goddamn I want to eat it I have been looking forwards to it since about 10AM when I was still working the first job and thinking 'man I am going to be working a long time and biking a lot today, I totally deserve one of those steaks that I bought and froze for just such an occasion'.
goddamn man I want to eat my food, I turned on the barbecue before I even walked into the house. I can reasonably have the other steak thawed in fifteen minutes by running under warm water but god-damn, that is such a long time I have been awake for 17 hours and working or cycling for 16 and a half hours goddamn man
the grill is going to be like almost perfect-hot right now and I have nothing to put on it.
man.