Not Swept

Darn it. I’m not tired right now, but I’m also not currently angry at idiots I went to high school with. And it seems dumb to court anger by writing about the idiots. I should save it for when I’m actually angry, right?  So I guess I won’t be writing about that today.

I avoid conflict so much that I try to avoid making myself angry. This is why I don’t watch the news. And why I tried not to pay any attention to the Republican primaries and the RNC. I like my horrifying political news delivered through a prism of humor, so thank God for Twitter.

In other news, I (actually) did the reading for one of my classes today and I’m pretty sure it’s “how to use a computer.” For graduate students. In library school. This is slightly horrifying. But if I’m right, it should be ridiculously easy, which isn’t a bad thing in my last semester. I understand library students not knowing how to use Excel or whatever (even though I am an Excel power user, but I was also an accountant for eight years), but the introductory chapter in the text legitimately explained how to turn a computer on. I will take my A+ now, thankyouverymuch.

Plus and also, the Phillies beat the Mets today behind another solid outing by Kyle Kendrick. And thank God for it, because getting swept by the Mets at home is very high on my list of terrible sports outcomes. But can someone seriously explain what kind of weird, Freaky Friday stuff is going on so that Kyle Kendrick has a better record than Cliff Lee? And I know that Wins is a terrible, useless stat for a pitcher, but still. Last year, a Cliff Lee start was practically a guaranteed win (especially in June and August) and this year that hasn’t really been the case. Man, this has been a weird freaking season. (I would say that I can’t wait for it to be over, but we all remember what happened when Cole Hamels said that during the ’09 Postseason.)

Y’know, I’ve missed these stream of consciousness blog posts. I should try to blog at a decent hour more often. I don’t know if you’ve missed them, but they amuse the hell out of me 🙂

Until tomorrow.

Phooey

It’s late and I’m tired, which means that I shall have to defer my complaining about the morons I went to high school with for yet another day.

Plus, the giant spider materialized in my room again, meaning that I will be sleeping on the couch. Double phooey. And if anyone thinks that it would make more sense for me to kill the damn thing than sleep on the couch, I have two words for you: irrational fear (see also: phobia).

Until tomorrow.

What A Day

Man, today has consisted of massive amounts of suck. Starting at 12:30 in the morning, when I turned the TV on to watch Craig Ferguson. Except, instead of seeing Neon Trees on Letterman, I saw Jake Gyllenhaal (this will probably be the only time I ever complain about seeing Jake Gyllenhaal on TV). Apparently the RNC requires the local news to bloat from half an hour to an hour (because, obviously, a thing which lasted 10 minutes yesterday required 30 minutes to discuss). And if that had been the only problem I encountered while trying to watch Ferguson, it would’ve been fine. But the second Ferguson started it appeared that the person pushing the buttons at the local CBS affiliate had no idea what he or she was doing. Technical difficulties out the ying yang. My personal favorite was during the monologue, when the screen went black for God knows how long and then they started the tape over at Letterman. And proceeded to fast forward all the way through Letterman. I’d never seen my TV fast forward before when it wasn’t my DVR in use. And I have no idea what we learned on the show last night because when 2 AM rolled around the person pushing the buttons decided that, by golly, they were going to start the repeat of the 11:00 news on time. Who cares about the Ferguson fans who were completely screwed by his or her incompetence?

So that was a whole lot of “fun.” The same way that tonight’s Phillies game was “fun.” Man, that was brutal. Especially the 8th and 10th innings. I am so glad that I watched most of the game on mute. Then I made the mistake of going on Facebook and saw the most ridiculous shit from one of the morons I went to high school with. But more on that at another date.

Okay I cannot post this without adding something positive. I mean, today wasn’t all bad. For instance, today brought us this amazing Zoo With Roy post. Which is only a teaser for the video awesomeness to come. (By the bye, those pictures of Chase Utley with Awesome Emma? I die.)

Until tomorrow.

One More Time

Today was the first day of my last semester in the Master of Library and Information Science program at the University of South Florida. Woo freakin’ hoo! (Even though classes were cancelled today that never made a difference to me and my online classes.)

Today didn’t get off to the most auspicious start. (Staying in bed until almost noon will do that.) But I did accomplish some things today, even school things, so it wasn’t a complete loss. Plus, the class I focused on today seems interesting and the professor seems cool, so that’s awesome.

Now I’ll just go back to reading Dracula until The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson/em> starts. The new season starts tonight and I am dying to see the new, larger studio. Craig tweeted some pictures earlier and they really piqued my interest. But, of course, I don’t have a DVR, so I have to watch it live. Besides, it’s not like I wouldn’t be awake anyway; I just tend to forget that the show is on when it airs in my region.

Until tomorrow.

Wait, What?

My last semester begins tomorrow. (Technically, anyway. USF finally cancelled all classes a couple of hours ago.) I have all of my textbooks. Ordered from Amazon, of course, because I buy almost everything I don’t need immediately from Amazon. Why wouldn’t I? Things are almost always cheaper on Amazon. Plus, since Amazon exists solely in cyberspace, they never charge sales tax. (My understanding of interstate commerce law is that online retailers can only charge sales tax if they have a brick and mortar retail outlet in the state where the customer lives. So, for example, Old Navy’s online store can charge me sales tax, but Amazon can’t.)

Except here’s the thing, I was looking at the order confirmation emails for these textbooks and it appears that I was charged sales tax. What the hell is that about? I haven’t looked into it at all (because it’s more fun to whinge on my blog), but is this a thing? Is Amazon gonna start charging sales tax? ‘Cause I’ve gotta tell you, it will make a difference in my shopping habits. If I can buy a movie from Target or Amazon and the prices are roughly the same, I will buy from Target every time. The instant gratification that Target offers will hold much more sway over me in a world where either retailer will charge me sales tax.

Now, maybe you think I’m blowing this whole sales tax thing way out of proportion. But I’d bet that you have never lived in or a near a state that offers tax-free shopping. You may not even know that such states exist, but I assure you that they do and they are wonderful. Delaware is such a state. I’ve lived there twice and spent most of my life a mere 20 to 30 minute car ride away. I used to go to Delaware to buy damn near everything but clothes and food (considered necessities and therefore not taxed by Pennsylvania) and my old car (you had to pay PA sales tax on a car, even if you bought it in Delaware). So I have always been hyper-aware of sales tax. It’s one of the reasons I fell in love with Amazon over a decade ago; shopping on Amazon was not unlike shopping in Delaware.

So, yeah, I need to look into this because if Amazon really is going to charge me sales tax going forward, I need to know. Gotta be an informed consumer, right?

Until tomorrow.

Something Wicked This Way Comes

So there’s a big, scary, evil thing bearing down on Tampa this weekend. And also a storm named Isaac.

(See what I did there?)

I’m talking, of course, about the Republican National Convention, which is scheduled to start on Monday. Although I’ve seen it reported in quite a few places that Monday is pretty much cancelled on account of Ike. Even before the weather decided to complicate things, I was not looking forward to the Convention. There are already enough people around here that I don’t agree with on damn near anything, I don’t need an influx of more.

(I know that I’ve said that I didn’t want to be political on my blog, but fuck it. Besides, I think I’ve mentioned enough things in the past year that make it fairly clear that the Republican Party and I are pretty much diametrically opposed on pretty much every issue. Plus, I’ve decided that I’m going to be slightly political on Facebook [by liking Obama so FB will stop telling me to like Romney because the morons I went to high school with like him], so why not carry it over to my blog.)

The Convention is one of those things that I would forget about for a while, and then I’d get bummed out when I remembered it again. I was planning to hole up in my house (even more than I usually do) for the next week even before Ike. Traffic is going to be a billion times worse than usual even without flooding and all the other shit that comes with a storm. Plus, there’s the possibility that I might run into a Republican delegate (gasp!). These are both good reasons to embrace my inner hermit (although I may end up being a hermit at my parents’ house depending on how things look tomorrow).

Even though I am more concerned about the influx of Republicans, I realize that Tropical Storm/Hurricane Isaac is nothing to sneeze at. I am apparently under a Tropical Storm Warning for the next 24 hours. Fun.

You know what’s really awesome? I have yet to hear anything from USF about Isaac. Classes are supposed to start on Monday, for crying out loud. One would think that a named storm that could potentially disrupt the start of the semester is something a university would address a lot with students and faculty. But apparently one would be wrong. We did get a very long email earlier this week about the Convention. My favorite part of the email said that we won’t protect you from prosecution if you get arrested while protesting (to paraphrase).

Actually, I haven’t heard much about protesting yet (of course, I don’t watch the local news, either). There was a “threat” of a 40-person protesting “flash mob” at the Rays game, but I don’t know if that happened. (I’m inclined to think that it didn’t since I feel like the myriad baseball people I follow on Twitter would have told me if it had.) And I never really understood why the Rays game would be a target for protests anyway. If Republicans are like Tampa residents, then they couldn’t care less about the Rays and would never go to a game.

Wow, I wrote way more words than I expected to considering how late it was when I started.

Until tomorrow.

Nothing To Say

Today was just one of those days when I didn’t have much of anything to say to anyone (including my parents, who nevertheless decided to call me three times today; personally, I would’ve given up after the first attempt at conversation with someone [me] who was basically giving one word answers, but c’est la vie). I’m gonna blame my late posting on the whole not having anything to say thing. And I’m tired, so I’m gonna go to bed.

Until tomorrow.

Gutted (In A Good Way)

I’m late today, but that’s because I decided that finishing The Fault in Our Stars was more important than writing a blog post at my regularly scheduled time. Well, I just finished it, so now is the time for blogging. But my iPad is dying, so this will have to be brief. Which is just as well, since my head is so full of the book right now.

I read it in two days, so it should surprise no one that I absolutely loved it. Books with a teenage cancer patient protagonist should not be this awesome. But if it weren’t awesome it would probably be totally depressing, so I’m glad it was awesome 🙂 I also want to thank whatever magical spirit inspired me to listen to The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me while I read the last several chapters; it timed out beautifully and was just perfect.

The Fault in Our Stars was the first of 24 books I will be reading for my YA Literature class this semester. I chose it because I’d heard nothing but good things about it and my personal cheerleader just started it several days ago and she was raving. (It’s really, really good.) I’m glad I got my YA reading off to such a great start, but I’m also afraid that none of the 23 other books will be able to hold a candle to this one. If you have any suggestions of great YA books, please leave me a comment.

Until tomorrow.

Don’t Call It Retro

The Phillies celebrated 1990s Retro Night this evening at Citizens Bank Park. This was simultaneously awesome (yay 90s!) and awful (what do you mean “retro?”). The 90s were a very important decade for me (what with middle school, high school, starting college, and all) and they weren’t that long ago and it is so distressing to think of the 90s as retro. It’s like hearing 80s music on Oldies stations but so much worse.

It wasn’t all bad, though. The team rocked the old maroon pinstripes, which was awesome. A couple of guys even went fully retro with high socks and stirrups 🙂 I have a huge soft spot for the old powder blue and maroon uniform. Such a soft spot, in fact, that if I manage to move back to Philly next year, I want to make sure to go to 90s Retro Night just because the Majestic Clubhouse Store will (probably) have a sale on retro shirseys and whatnot.

Other good things included Dom Brown’s first home run of the year 🙂 I may have to wear my old Zoo With Roy “Domonate” shirt tomorrow (and undoubtedly get some very strange looks at Target, but whatever). Actually, that was pretty much the only good thing other than the uniforms. In true 90s fashion, the Phillies lost.

Until tomorrow.

Distracted

Crap, I hadn’t realized how late it was. That’s what I get for deciding that I must finish Fifty Shades of Grey tonight, I guess. But I did finish it, so mission accomplished.

So, yeah, I caved and read the first Fifty Shades book. How could I resist something with that much buzz? And I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. Hell, I enjoyed it more than I should have, given how incredibly bad it was. And I’m not making a moral judgment when I say it was bad; I’m making a literary judgment. The glacial pace. All the inner goddess/bitchy subconscious crap. The first-person narrator who was dull as dirt. (Sure, there were interesting parts, but they’d be followed by page after page of boring Ana.) And what kind of English major in 2011 has a negative attitude towards computers? Calling her MacBook a “mean machine,” really? Gah.

The worst part is that I’m tempted to read the next book. But maybe if I sleep on it, it will pass.

Until tomorrow.