things I’ve learned this week…

  • Sometimes good customer service is only a smile and a polite word away.Today I called Sprint to see about finally changing up my cellular plan because A) I was way overdue anyways and B) I managed to exchange about 80 text messages with a special someone over the course of about seven hours yesterday alone…and my old plan only allotted for 100 over the entire month! Luckily I got a very friendly rep on the phone who hooked me up nicely – not only did she drop my Vision charges down to $5 / month from $15 after I mentioned that I might just drop the service because I really only use it for messaging anyways, but after learning that I was also willing to renew my contract with them for another two years, she gave me a new plan that bundled roaming and my nights & weekends so I’d be saving another ten bucks there, too! After adding on an extra eight for some more text messages, I’m still coming out twelve bucks cheaper than before; nights and weekends now start at a staggering 6pm, and Scott is once again a happy Sprint PCS customer.
  • Replacement parts for my elliptical are fucking impossible to find.Earlier this week I had to cut one of my exercise routines short because the handle bars on my elliptical started slipping. As it turns out, one of the spring washers that keeps them tight broke – three months after buying the thing – and now until I get a replacement, said torture device is pretty much useless. I tried using a regular washer that I picked up from Lowe’s yesterday and that worked for a while, but tonight it started slipping about 15 minutes in and I can’t see anything else that can be done other than just order the replacement parts. Sure, they’ll probably send them for free because it must have a warranty of some kind, but that’s still a good week minimum without it and I shouldn’t go that long without exercising. I might even be forced to do the unthinkable – go outside.
  • It might be nearing time to buy me a new laptop.In typing this post, I just learned that neither my down arrow, nor the delete key seem to be working anymore…and I think there’s at least one other one that’s being goofy as well, but I can’t remember which one at the present time. Coupled with the classy, red line exactly one pixel wide that runs down the left side of my display, I’m thinking that five years might be just about all that this little Dell has in her. Lord knows how much food and drink I’ve spilled in her over the years and let’s face it, these things just don’t last forever anymore. Great – another prize for my bonus to fight over come April…
  • Enthusiasm is a dish best served…period.Despite my energetic post about getting my writing kick-started again last week, I honestly haven’t written a damn thing since … at least not as far as columns are concerned. Even tonight, sure I could’ve probably finished a column or two, but instead here I am blogging – go figure! I still don’t know what my problem is – motivation, a lack of organization, or perhaps simply too much stuff on my plate – but it’s not like I didn’t get anything done this week. The calendar is now officially done and up for sale, last night and again this evening I made some progress with the graphical frontend for the new Just Laugh, and I’ve even spent a good deal of time talking to a new girl that I’ve recently met and am growing rather fond of (more about that in a minute…). I think I just need to sit down and do it – it sounds simple enough, but look where it’s gotten me so far lately! Maybe I’ll pack up old Sticky Keys here and see if I can fit in a few paragraphs here and there on my trip down south this weekend.

    That’s right – what better way to spend quality time with family than to bring along the old compruder…

  • It’s all about COMMUNICATION.You know that girl that I mentioned a few minutes ago? Well, I certainly don’t want to jinx anything by letting loose here too soon (also, I’m not sure if she’s managed to stumble onto this page of mine yet or not), but I will say this – despite what anybody wants to say about playing games and not tipping your hand and keeping your cool, the best practice – in my opinion – is to simply talk to each other where romantic intent is concerned…as much as humanly possible, really. Maybe such “strategies” work well for other people, but I’ve always been a sucker for honesty and trustworthiness anyways, so it just seems to me that when one is trying to build a new foundation with somebody, it would make sense to start off strong from the ground up. I can probably count on one hand the number of people who I can honestly say that I’ve had truly open lines of communication with over the years and it really shows in the friendships that I have with those people. Plus, we actually know what each other likes and doesn’t like instead of guessing, which is a plus!

    I think at the end of the day, it’s a whole lot easier to just say what you mean without sugar-coating things – the trick is to find someone who you can actually say those things to. No bets just yet, but I’ve got a good hunch about this one. More news as the story breaks… šŸ˜‰

AND LASTLY…

  • I don’t think that I’m giving my fish the attention that they deserve.

I was going to be done, but I just glanced over and noticed a distinct lack of fish in my fishtank this evening. There’s currently only three left, plus the plecostamus, and that can’t be a good thing. This is going to sound mean, but I was kind of ready for some new fish anyways – most of these guys were kind of traumatized from the move last year anyways. I’ll have to make a trip over to the good PetCo next week one night after work to see what they’ve got to offer. Hopefully they’ll have something big – those are always more fun that the little ones to me anyways…

new Dave Barry book!!!

Dave Barry’s Money Secrets

Finally a new calm for my humor fix … it’s been way too long since Boogers Are My Beat, which I think I purchased right when I got down here two and a half years ago. I can already tell that this one is going to be just as good as the rest, as this is a writer who calls his entire audience a bunch of stupid morons (with regards to money, anyways) before he even gets past the Introduction…and I like that. Almost just makes me want to stay home and read all day…

a not-so-sticky situation…

Ok, folks – need some ideas!

I want to hang Christmas lights out on my balcony along the railing of the screen, but I can’t seem to get anything to stick to the damn thing. I’ve tried those special 3M cup hooks, regular adhesive tape, putty – you name it. I really don’t want to use a type of glue, as I am renting and I can only imagine the headaches if it won’t come off later. The railing is pretty much a flat piece of aluminum that runs the length of the balcony – no ledges or really anything to work with, unfortunately.

About the only other option that comes to mind would be to run ornament hooks / paperclips / wire through the screen and tie them up, but I’ve done that before and it has a tendency to tear out squares of the screen over time. Help!!!

Under the Sea

Went to The Florida Aquarium for the first time with my Dad today. Pretty cool place – better than a lot of aquariums I’ve visited. A lot of junk pictures until I remembered to change the shutter speed on my camera, but there’s a few good ones in there…

http://www.comedic-genius.com/gallery/flaquarium

There’s a fruit fly zipping around my office and it’s driving me nuts…

And that line reminded me of this joke…

A bunch of guys are sitting at the bar talking when a pirate walks in – the hat, the eyepatch, wooden leg, parrot – everything, but what actually catches their attention is that the man has the captain’s wheel of a ship sticking out of his fly.

He sits at the end of the bar and they ignore him most of the night, but finally five minutes to close, one of the guys finally takes the initiative and approaches the pirate.

“Excuse me, Sir,” he begins, “I don’t mean to be rude or anything, but my friends and I couldn’t help but wonder … what’s with the captain’s wheel???”

“Arrrrggghhhh,” the pirate replies, shaking his head, “it’s driving me nuts!”

blisters suck

Ok, so I’m confused…

I bought new shoes last night – 1/2 a size larger than what I normally wear so they won’t be so tight – but after putting in 45 minutes on the old elliptical this evening, I still came out of it with the same kind of blisters that I had before. One long one on the inside of each heel and boy, do they hurt! (especially after realizing that I’ve been sitting on my foot for the past hour while using the computer!) I’ve been reading around online and it sounds like trying a different kind of socks might be in order, but if that’s not it, I’m kind of stumped.

They also started tingling a bit when I got to the 30 minute mark, but maybe that’s just the blisters forming or something? My shoes aren’t tight at all anymore now, so I can’t see how that could be the problem, but at this point my feet and I are certainly open to suggestions!

…again, with the Valentine’s Day already???

I think it’s time for me to write some new V-Day humor, but until then…

Scott and Matt’s Guide to Getting Women…
http://www.justlaugh.com/online/vol3issue2/women1.php

What Women Don’t Want…
http://www.comedic-genius.com/writing/columns/20030205_women.php

The Dating Game
http://www.comedic-genius.com/writing/columns/20030212_dating.php

True Love Means Never Having to Say, “Get Off Me – You’re Heavy…”
http://www.comedic-genius.com/writing/columns/20030219_heavy.php

All’s Fair in Love and War…Including Cyanide
http://www.comedic-genius.com/writing/columns/20030226_cyanide.php

Can We Still Be Friends?
http://www.comedic-genius.com/writing/columns/20030228_friends.php

Ten Things I Really Canā€™t Stand About You – a Valentineā€™s Day Blitzkrieg
http://www.comedic-genius.com/writing/columns/20040211_10things.php

Better luck next year!

weekend stuff

  • Stayed up until about 4 AM Friday night / Saturday morning and made some great progress where databases are concerned. It’s very nice to see my thoughts finally coming off the paper and onto the computer screen, and I’m looking forward to possibly even getting close to setting a deadline for the revamped site to go online!
  • Discovered the other day that I think I need bigger athletic shoes. šŸ™ The last couple of times I’ve exercised, my left foot was getting a little tingly about twenty or so minutes in…which scared the hell out of me because isn’t that one of the major symptoms for diabetes or something?! Well, I’ve been noticing blisters a few hours after I finish working out, so I think it’s just that my shoes are too tight. Weird because they’re the same size as my regular shoes, but whatever. There goes another forty bucks…
  • Renewed my Disney pass last Friday, so I’m good to go for another year…at least as soon as the new one shows up in the mail. Probably won’t go again until March because the rest of my February weekends are filling up quick, but no doubt I’ll need a break by then!
  • Am about ready to let my match.com membership lapse again if I don’t come across someone with a hint of manners, though. It’s pretty bad when my current standards as far as meeting women is concerned are limited only to “replies to my e-mails”! I don’t care if you’re interested or not (well, I do, but…) – just reply or hit the “No thanks” button within a few days time. Don’t ignore me altogether – that’s all I ask. :<
  • Weight Loss Update: no change whatsoever. In fact, I’ve been fluctuating between 215 and 220 for a while now, so something’s got to change. One idea is that I might start keeping better track of calories and such again (yay spreadsheets), which is a pain but should help me to figure out portions better; another is that I need to incorporate more variety into my exercise routine because my body might be “getting used to” the all-cardio deal. Any suggestions???
  • Went to Leeroy Selmon’s with Dad tonight for dinner and surprisingly had a very good salad that I’m definitely going to try to imitate the next time I go to the grocery store. Grilled shrimp, water chestnuts, egg, bacon, corn, bits of guda cheese (I think) with a mustard vinegrette – talk about a salad I could get used to! Of course, lord only knows what the calorie count for that bad boy was…
  • And lastly, I think I’ve finally got a do-able plan to kickstart my writing once again. A nice pep talk Friday evening reminded me that if I really want to write professionally for a living, I should be writing pretty much every waking moment when I get home in the evenings and…for lack of a better descriptor…that’s just not happening. There are a lot of motivational and mental roadblocks that I need to break down and really, the only way for me to do that is simply by writing every single day. It might not have to be the Great American Novel, but the only way to break out of a rut like this is to keep working at it until it gives. And it’s tough for me because I haven’t written a truly good (in my opinion) humor column in nearly a year – I’ve got several dozen opinion columns that have never been published anywhere simply because although I wrote them, even I am afraid that they’re a bit too sarcastic and bitchy to be worth reading…and you know something’s wrong when I’m concerned about being too sarcastic!Even lately it’s all I’ve been able to write and I don’t want to ruin the image that people have of my work, but maybe it’s just a stage that I need to work through.So anyways, my plan for the immediate future is to sit down each night, after exercise and dinner, and write one column…or story, or chapter, or whatever. Seven columns a week on a regular basis is more than I’ve put out in a while, but maybe it’s time for a change. I know that there are a lot of reasons that I’ve enjoyed writing in the past … it’s time to get back to those days … so here’s to a wordier, happier tomorrow! And I’ll try to put a little something simple together to offer my musings online again by the end of the week – it won’t be pretty, but then again, I can’t guarantee that the writing will be, either… šŸ˜‰

    P.S. Thanks for the pep talk, Court. I’ll have those memoirs on your desk in no time!