Apartment'd!

I headed up to Bellingham today to do a number of things (some NYT stuff, some WWU stuff), the coolest of which was paying my first month's rent and picking up the keys to my place. My new landlords are confirmed cool - they didn't try to get me to pay for prorated rent for picking up the keys a day and a half early.

The sexy apartment chica (amazingly sexiliy cute for a white chick) told me that I shouldn't have anything to worry about cleanliness-wise, as the previous tenant had a bunch of friends who had a "Professional Janitorial Business" over to clean it. Professional or not, they did a horrible job of cleaning out the apartment. From what I saw, they vacuumed. Nothing else. There was a whole bunch of crap left behind, including, but not limited to, a filthy George Foreman grill knockoff, all his shampoo and shower crap, a towel, some paper towels, a bunch of trash in this little nook, and some Coke from Christmas 1999! The walls had wacky marks upon them and needed to be painted. The space above the heaters were stained with soot, making it look as if the heaters had caught fire at some point. The guy was a definite hippie, as I found a toolbox with a bunch of hippie stuff in it and some dirty old hippie sandals. Hippies do not please me.

Anyways, I was fine with all that, cause I got the vibe that my landlords were awfully cool and would take care of the mess for me. I called them up and told them about, and they told me they'd have a cleaning crew out the next day. Awesome! I hooked up my cable modem and checked up on some intarweb thingies. I found that I had to take a dump after awhile, and proceeded to do so with the door open. Why? Because I could, dammit. While I'm dropping the kids off at the pool, in wanders sexy apartment chica! We have an "AAAA" moment, I finish up, and find her chilling outside my apartment. She was quite cool about seeing my junk while I dumped, and we proceeded to make jokes at the previous tenants expense as we loaded some of his crap into the back of her truck.

I found out that she was a diver, and that you actually can dive in Washington and not be immediately blinded by the murk of the sea. She says she usually has about thirty foot visibility. She also told me that I can get my diver's license in a weekend. She also managed to sleep in "my boyfriend and I" while talking about diving. Boyfriend? No! Even though she was probably about twenty-five years old, she shattered my fantasy prospects. Oh well, it's still awesome to know that I've got someone cool as my landlord, and that we get along. Unlike Landmark. Fuck Landmark.

Macintosh'd!

I'm completing my exodus from the PC world.

• I bought an iBook in May.


• I stopped using my PC for anything except webserving and playing Doom 3 and Civ III this summer.


• I stopped using my PC just a couple weeks ago. My room is much quieter and about ten degrees cooler.


• I'm selling my PC. I listed an ad up on SA-Mart and stickied it until the 31st. If anyone who is reading is interested, some basic specs are that its got an Athlon 1600+, Radeon AIW 9000, 512 MB RAM, 200 GB HD, and an Abit AN7 mobo. Asking $850 with 17" Sony Trinitron, $750 without. Email/comment me.


• Just today I received my awesome Mac keyboard! No more using the Windows key to quit apps or Get Info!

I stopped by TD Curran in Bellingham and played with one of the 15" Powerbooks. Man, those Powerbooks be sexy. My ideal system would be a 15" Powerbook with a 23" HD Cinema display and a keyboard and mouse for home use. I also discovered that Sherlock is actually a useful app and not a rehash of the channels that were a part of IE4. Movie times, addresses, etc are all available in a kind of XML (not sure if it uses XML or not) reader. Rawk.

Wouldst thou like Gmail?

I'm offering Gmail invites for people that complete a referral for me on freeipods.com. Email me at sockonaREMOVETHISTEXTfish@gmail.com and I'll email you the proper referral link. As soon as I've seen that you've completed the referral, you'll get a Gmail invite. I've got five invites to give away, and I need five referrals. Make sure to remove "REMOVETHISTEXT" from my email address. I don't want spambots assaulting my nice, clean Gmail account.

Rain is my bane

It's been awhile since I've posted, mostly because nothing has happened lately.

It's been raining, so I cannot work.

I took care of some NYT/NSCS business.

I watched Spun (an awesome fictional movie centered around meth addicts) with John and Joyce.

Denied!

I would have liked to watch the hour-long block of Cops that is in Fox every Saturday night at 8:00 p.m., but I'm unable to. Dave brilliantly failed to pay his bills. Last time I paid $150 to have service reinstated he paid me back a week later. This time I don't have that kind of cash to throw around. I've tried to enjoy playing some computer games, but I can't. I just want to lie down and relax. Maybe I'll read Return of the King. That sounds good. Even though it does involve holding a book. Holding a remote is just so much easier - it weighs less, there are no pages to turn, I can get in a comfortable position and not have to shift that position every time my eyes jump on to a new page.

Yes, it is a Saturday night and I know that most of the population likes to party on Saturday night. Rooming with my friends for my first year of college ruined partying for me, though. It's not a party if it happens every night. Now, for whatever reason (most likely psychological), I no longer have any euphoria when I drink. Just dizziness and sleepiness. PARTY!!!

money for nothing! (chicks for free?)

I received glorious news today - I've received a $1,000 scholarship that I never had to apply for!

The letter:

Dear Brandon:

Congratulations on completing your first year at Western! Last year you were awarded a one-year Presidentail Scholarship and today I write with some exciting news.

You have been selected as the recipient of the Dunn Lumber Scholarship. Awarded to four freshman or sophomores with an outstanding academic record, this $1,000 award will be applied to your tuition and fees in three equal payments over the fall, winter, and spring quarters of the 2004-2005 academic year. Not a bad surprise for late August, wouldn't you agree?

Please note that in order to receive these scholarship funds you must complete a minimum of 12 credits per quarter and maintain a minimum grade point average of 2.0 for every quarter of the 2004-2005 academic year.

To receive your Dunn Lumber Scholarship, please complete and return the enclosed Scholarship Acceptance Form to the Western Foundation office (address is ont he attached form). In addition, a letter of appreciation addressed to Mr. Tom Dunn must be received by the Western Foundation prior to teh disbursement of your scholarship funds. Your thank you goes a long way in recognizing the donor's generosity and support of education.

If you need assistance as you plan for Fall quarter, please don't hisitate to call me directly at (360) 650-xxxx. On behalf of the faculty and staff at Western, I wish you the best this year and in the future.

Sincerely,

Micheal C. Barr
Assistant Director of Admissions
Scholarship Commitee Chair

Nice! I ought to start applying for scholarships in order to reduce my debt load after graduation. I love little surprises like this that demonstrate that not all of humanity are selfish, stupid, and lazy. Though, I am sure Mr. Dunn will be writing this off on his taxes next April.

for free? yes.

Today was mostly unremarkable. I finished reading the Two Towers. This series is finally starting to get some speed - I'm guessing Return of the King is the best of the three.

In other news, I read this article on Wired about freeipods.com. I thought it was a scam, just like I think everything I see in banner ads (shoot the monkey and win a crack whore!) are scams. It turns out that it is not a scam at all. I signed up. Time to whore myself:

Please click this link in order to secure your free iPod!


Really, click it! I suggest signing up for the free AOL offer. It doesn't require you to pay any shipping and handling charges like some of the others do, so as long as you cancel before the trial runs out and get five others to do the same, an iPod will magically appear at your door.

Added bonus: freeipods.com exists because advertisers pay for these trial signups. So, if you follow the money, you'll be making AOL (a wretched corporation) pay for your iPod.

No more anonymity

I put a genuine picture of myself (replacing the oh-so-cool picture of Martha Stewart downing a 40 of Olde English 800 on Conan) and my real name on my profile. I realized I have no reason to hide my Blogger, since I don't post anything hide-worthy.

nine days later

i haven't updated in nine days. i'm going to post a new post now.

i didn't get the damn job. my group interview went surprisingly well. i had been worried about getting spectacularly nervous and sweaty around a bunch of people i didn't know. my only gaffe was telling a dirty joke - one of our group exercises was for everyone in the group to draw a question out of a hat, answer the question, and for everyone else to answer the question just answered. the prompt was to tell a joke. i sat while everyone recited their joke, trying to think of something that wasn't filthy, and this was the best thing i got:

A penguin is driving his car when it conveniently breaks down in front of a mechanic's shop. The penguin pushes his car to the garage and asks to have it looked at. The mechanic tells him it'll take a little while, so the penguin strolls outside and spies an ice cream shop next door. He heads on over and proceeds to pig out on a number of flavors, focusing mainly on vanilla. He returns to the garage an hour later to find out what's wrong with his car. The mechanic sees him and tells him, "Looks like you blew a seal." The penguin replies, "Oh no, I was just eating ice cream!"

I had been weighing whether I should tell that joke or no joke at all (I was having a hardcore brainfart at the moment and could only recall that one joke), and decided anything would be better than a zero. People laughed, but it just may have scored me negative points. A few hours after the group interview was over with, I had my personal interview. I had been working the Help Desk, so I was in a fairly good mood, and didn't think I had anything to worry about as far as getting wacky nervous. I was wrong. About midway through the interview I broke into a sweat. I wasn't answering questions in detail. I was drawing blanks on some things. One of the questions asked what the best piece of criticism a supervisor had ever given me, and I think I came off as an ass saying that I had never received any helpful criticism and proceeded to tell them about the worst piece of criticism I had ever received (my fat cow of a manager at McDonald's telling me not to work so hard because I was making her tired - fucking bitch). I probably would've gotten the job if it weren't for that. I even wore a flashy shirt and tie - I was one of three to do that.

Yesterday I came home to learn that my mother was in the hospital for being exposed to meningitis, a potentially fatal disease. That had me tweaked out for about three hours. I was getting ready to gather some things and head off to chill with my mom at the hospital when I got a phone call from her. The doctors think she's just fine, even though they didn't pull any blood to test or do a single fucking thing to conclusively rule out the possibility of a meningitis infection. I picked up my mom from Whidbey General and got to hear a story about a time when she was in the army and went to some guy's birthday party in which the birthday boy was seated on a chair in his birthday suit. What did this have to do with anything? I don't know. It's cool hearing odd little stories I've never heard from my mom before. She's more complex than I ever thought.

After coming home with my mama I went out to see a triple feature which was two-thirds crap and one-third chick flick. I, Robot; White Girls; and Little Black Book were the feature presentations. The best movie I saw was a chick flick. I, Robot pissed me off in the same way all movies piss me off that incorrectly portray technological whatnot. Also, Will Smith: "Aw, HELL NAW!!!" White Girls has the stupidest premise I've ever heard of and turned out to be one of the least worthwhile movies I've ever seen. I don't think the Wayanses have done anything good since Don't Be a Menace To Southcentral While Drinking Your Juice In The Hood. Little Black Book was okay. Formulaic in places, but not entirely terrible. It had a nice twist that I nearly didn't see coming, but then did.

Wow, I'm typing with proper capitalization. Maybe I'll do that from now on. Kaptilzation is Kewl, d00dz.

ho-ray

today at the beach i was semi-flirtatious with a semi-cute customer. i think she may have been pissed when she sat at a picnic table near mine after her rental was up and i didn't mosy on over and continue the semi-flirtation. oh, well. its very rare that i retain interest in a white chick after the novelty of 'OMG BOOBS!' has worn off.

i've got an interview on thursday for that mad sweet job that i'm wanting with the DLC! i'm hoping i get the job, i'd really like to get away from my pervert boss and the chain smokers that work at the proprietership next door. its also a great cause to work for - providing classes online for high school students who otherwise wouldn't have access to the kind of curriculum without it being online. i wish i could have had something like it at my high school, we had slim pickins when it came to ap stuff. we had ap chem, lit, calc, statistics, and government. well, not that slim, but still not a full complement.

rudest canadian ever

today at work this jackass canadian guy was a bitch.

when i first met the guy, he was already uppity about things. i told him we didn't take plastic, and he got all uppity. he flashed some canadian bills, and i asked if he had any american cause i didn't know the exchange rate, he get more uppity.

he couldn't do simple math either, he kept thinking our rates were outrageous cause he thought it was $25 american an hour, when it was $25 canadian an hour ($15 american).

later on he was trying to get on the water trike that he rented and was complaining that he was going to have to get wet. he tried to solve the problem by putting a canoe between the shore and the trike. the canoe ended up floating off, and i hade to wade in to retrieve it. i got my damn shorts wet.

after all that, he tried to get a fucking refund cause he didn't like the damn trike. i hate that guy.

i was graced by the presence of this uber-hot chick today, so i guess that makes up for the rude canadian. she ended up flipping her canoe and losing her wallet and stuff, which was too bad. if i knew how to scuba dive, i probably could've wrangled up a date with her. too bad i don't know how to scuba dive.

YES!

DOOM 3, bitches!

RAWK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111

rainy rain day

it is raining, and i shan't be working.

YES! i <3 judo hobo.

in other news, rick james is dead, bitch.

i solved the piracy problem, i'm guessing that torrent just sucked somehow. dreamweaver for brandon.

sweet

my boss called around noon requesting me to worketh, for the sun had come out, and i obliged.

$44 for brandon, bizatches.

i'm trying to install myself some bit-torrented software on my ibook, but i'm fucking stuck. i've discovered why there is so little piracy on macs - because mac pirates suck at pirating.

the weather outside is frightful

damn it all, my shift has been canceled because of rain. i hate that my job is so easily derailed by the weather. what am i, a baseball player? at least the mariners have a retractable roof. i really needed that money too, cause at&t was all trixie the last time i paid them. i paid my bill on like 7/25, and the charges didn't show up until yesterday, which nearly meant that i was going to be overdrawn when wwu cashed my check for $161.90. luckily i still had cash from my truncated shift yesterday, so i went and deposited that, and now i have enough money to handle that check.

i think i'll watch da ali g show.

who's my candidate?

i found this dealy on the SA forums. my results:

1. Your ideal theoretical candidate. (100%)
2. Cobb, David - Green Party (78%)
3. Nader, Ralph - Independent (78%)
4. Dean, Gov. Howard, VT - Democrat (77%)
5. Clark, Retired General Wesley K., AR - Democrat (71%)
6. Brown, Walt - Socialist Party (69%)
7. Sharpton, Reverend Al - Democrat (64%)
8. Kucinich, Rep. Dennis, OH - Democrat (64%)
9. Kerry, Senator John, MA - Democrat (63%)
10. Moseley-Braun, Former Senator Carol, IL - Democrat (62%)
11. Edwards, Senator John, NC - Democrat (62%)
12. Gephardt, Rep. Dick, MO - Democrat (61%)
13. Lieberman, Senator Joe, CT - Democrat (43%)
14. Badnarik, Michael - Libertarian (40%)
15. LaRouche, Lyndon H. Jr. - Democrat (32%)
16. Bush, President George W. - Republican (24%)
17. Peroutka, Michael - Constitution Party (15%)

well, i know i'm not green party, the greens have more than a few dealbreakers. they call for a minimum wage of $12.50 and the implementation of a 30 hour work week. that's just dumb. if you've taken introductory econ, you know that that is dumb. they're also opposed to school vouchers, and for affirmative action. my vote is not going to be a vote for the green party.

i think i'll list what i believe, the platform i'd publish if i were a candidate:

taxes and spending: maintain a healthy level of government spending that may exceed tax revenue. economists have shown that government spending is beneficial to gdp and the economy, even if it does generate a deficit. spending out to be tied to the business cycle, with more spending in recessions and less spending during expansionary periods. something kind of like an automatic 'new deal' program that kicks in when needed - spending could be limited to hiring the unemployed for public works projects. any deficit could be eliminated during the next expansion. i would maintain a minimum wage similar to what we have now. a person ought to be able to support themselves working forty hours a week on minimum wage, but they ought not be able to support a family of four.

social services funding: i oppose bush's faith-based initatives. church and state ought to be kept separate. partnering with churches amounts to an endorsement of religion. aid ought to be secular - a person down on their luck shouldn't be made to feel unwelcome at an institution that receives federal funds to help the needy.

welfare: welfare that is necessary ought to be maintained. those who aren't working, but are able to work, ought to receive unemployment insurance. if they can work, they ought to be seeking work - not seeking to have another child to inflate their welfare check.

security and terrorism: we ought not compromise national security to maintain a politically correct image. if the fbi can successfully profile serial murders, we ought to be able to profile terrorists. at the same time, we should never trample the bill of rights to achieve our goal of national security. remember, "those who would sacrifice liberty for safety deserve neither."

foreign affairs: the united states should honor any treaties it has with another nation, and ought to abide by the rules of any organization of which it is a member. the united states should recognize that it is the most powerful nation in the world, and should recognize its responsibility to intervene, when logistically possible, in situations of humanitarian injustice.

education: higher education should be guranteed to all those accepted to instituions of higher education. our current system is quite good - i believe that the financial aid available should be advertised better, though. i might be at cornell right now if i hadn't though i wouldn't have been able to afford it. currently, one can never be too poor to attend school, only not poor enough. middle class kids find themselves with parents who could make sacrifices in order to send them to school, but don't. i see no way to solve this problem outside of making public universities free, but i fear that that could lead to a decline in the quality of education available at public universities. the best solution i can think of at the moment is making subsidized loans (only up to the cost of attendance) available to all students, regardless of income levels.

healthcare: healthcare ought to be free to all american citizens. a person should never have to weigh the possible benefits of a doctor's visit with the financial hit their bank account would suffer because of it. a person should never find themselves in inescapable debt because of circumstances that were beyond their control.

social security: i've always wondered where privatization proponents think that this money to be invested in the stock market would come from. the way social security works is tha the working public pays taxes which are issued to retirees on their social security checks. taking money out of that loop would mean less money for retirees today. the current system works - social security was never created to allow retirees to live in luxury. as long as retirees are not starving, the system does not need to be changed.

illicit drugs: the war on drugs is more of an unwinnable situation than ending hatred between palestinians and jews. certain drugs (those that can't easily kill or maim; inhalant parlors ought to be illegal) should be available to adults. we ought to eliminate the black market and use the revenue that used to belong to it to better our country's schools, fund universal healthcare, and help our police to tackle real criminals.

trade: trade ought to be kept as free as possible, and only restricted in clear cases of market failure. unemployment is not a market failure, but a natural part of an evolving economy. those who decry outsourcing are only making emotional appeals to those that have lost their jobs. my automatic new deal program would reduce the severity of structural unemployment more than trade restrictions would.

gun policy: gun registration is not a bad idea - there are too many guns bought and sold without proper records. it is law that auto sales must be reported to the federal government, why shouldn't sales of firearms have the same requirement? with a tighter record of which guns are where, we wouldn't need so many restrictions on what types of firearms are available to the public. with a good tracking system, the only way for someone to get a firearm and not have the government know that they have it would be to steal it - a person who tries to steal from a man with assault rifles just might find himself in the hospital. people ought to be able to keep semi-automatic assault rifles if they wish. i have no doubts that all terrorists fear that their plans to attack america could be derailed by an american with a gun. if al-qaeda ever wanted to attack a town in middle america, i would be pleased to know that responsible citizens were able to defend his town thanks to the availability of semi-automatic rifles with large magazines.

abortion policy: the issue of abortion rests entirely on whether or not fetuses are sentient, viable humans or not. we know that a zygote does not think, while we know that a fetus in the third trimester can survive outside the womb. until we know for sure, we ought to play it safe and only allow abortions during the first four months of pregnancy. any sane woman would seek a pregnancy test after she misses her period, and we shouldn't allow a person's laziness or indecisiveness to take precedence over human life. abortions outside that time period would only be allowed for rape victims (who may be too mentally scarred to admit to themselves that they are pregnant, or who may have been frightened of coming out about the rape) and when the mother's life is in danger.

environmental policy: my administration would expand funding for alternative fuels research. fossil fuels emissions aren't only damaging in the long-term, but are immediately dentrimental to the health of everyone who breathes air. i would also subsidize tree farms in order to make tree farms more profitable than clear cutting. clear cutters would be required to replant the land they've harvested from. a limited number of acres would be allowed to be cut during each year, and lumber companies would have to bid for a piece of the quota. the revenue that the government takes in from this bidding would be used for environmental research, cleanup, and restoration.

minority issues: affirmative action is racism. race should never be a factor for employers, universities, or any other such institution. if two candidates are equally qualified on paper, a decision should be made either by interviewing the two candidates or flipping a coin. racism should not be tolerated among employers, universities, banks, landlords, etc.

so booyah, there is my theoretical presidential platform. too bad i was born in germany and am thus ineligible to be president.

another mad update

i updated yesterday, why not update today?

today i went to work at eleven, hung out, and ended up getting off of work around three. it rained. there was a humongous, noisy church group hanging out in my general area. how did i know they were a church group? after being lined up along a wall by their leader, they belted out some indecipherable something and ended with a horrid, shouted-at-the-top-of-the-lungs 'amen!!!!' come on, is that really making a joyful noise unto the lord? they also completely disrespected park rules by parking their vehicles on the access road - rangers don't check for parking permits on access roads. thou shalt not steal parking, dammit!

getting off work early was cool, though. i lost some $$$, but i had things that needed to be done. i called up pse and comcast to get my electricity and l33t intarweb needs taken care of at my new place. for some reason comcast absolutely must ship my cable modem to my new place, and won't ship to my current residence. i was hoping to have the damn thing on hand so i could just plug it in when I get up there, but no dice. silly hoes. pse gave me no troubles.

i bought some new spark plugs and put them in the jeep. the jeep runs much better now. it had been sputtering going slow - the engine kept half-dying when i was on i-5 yesterday.

the wart remover dealies i got are working awesomely. its only my second day, and the wart is all white and malleable and i can pick pieces off of it. thats rather cool, i rekon.

i ate a muffin.

mad new post after not posting in a wacky long time

minh was telling me to get a xanga again, and i was like, no way, those are for asian girls. so i showed her my blogger.

i looked at my blogger, and realized it was wicked out of date. so, this is an update. (my first since june 18)

some things:

• i signed my lease for the apartment i'll be residing in next year (beginning august 28th). chuckanut was a lot more thorough in their paperwork than landmark was. i think thats a good thing. i am much psyched.


• i shipped off my dell dj, which i sold for $200 on ebay. that's not bad, considering i bought it from dell for that much. the case i bought with it was an extra $30 though. now i need to save up to get an ipod.


• i paid $161.90 back into our AS account for the leadership summit trip to DC. i wish i could've kept that money, because i could've bought cool things with it. like half of an ipod.


• priscilla sent me an email informing me that enchanted village is a no-go. well, dammit!


• i flashed the westside at my brother a lot

that's enough things for right now, i think. sealab 2020 is rather humorous.