Ramblings of a Crowe

Unicorns Fight to the Death

Commie unicorns can now battle it out with their Capitalist foes, the Freedom unicorns! Complete with dramatic poses (there's also a good vs evil selection, but I figure that point is moot).

If the unicorn war becomes too desperate, never fear! Just send your Jesus action figure into the fray and all will be saved. But if you're feeling a little crazy, let Pope Innocent III take over and see what happens. If the Pope gets out of hand, you can always send in the elite of elite unicorns, The Avenger, to clean up the "mess".

Honestly though, the war won't end until Black Beard shows up to take care of business. Of course a little help from Alexander the Great and Sherlock Holmes will help bring the war to an end.

And will some one please tell my why Fairy Land is listed under "evil"? Someone, please think of the fairies! Looks like a job for Annie Oakley!

Jeff, your state is sending me mail...make it stop...

Today I came home from work and found a rather large manila envelope sitting on the counter. It was an ominous looking envelope of the legal or governmental type, so I was sort of nervous when I saw it. Big mail is never good mail.

Gathering my courage, I picked it up and turned it over. It was addressed to S. Lastname. Curious, considering my sister and I are both S. Lastname. Granted, she got married but we still get all sorts of creepy mail for her under her maiden name (Sis, your copy of Satanist Are People Too is under my bed! I'll bring it up to you when I visit, K?). I assume it is most likely hers, since she's been attracting money-beggars from the ripe age of five (how those hearing aides doing, btw?).

But was more intriguing was that the mail came from some place called, "C@liforin@ns for Popul@tion St@bliz@tion". That's all and very nice...but I'm not a Californian. I've been there maybe three or four times, but that's about all I've ever cared to visit. My sis isn't one either. We don't even live near California. So, neither of us really care about population control in the Sunshine State. Well, maybe I care a little. We all know Cali has WAY too many weird people--liketomcruiseandarnold--maybe we should police their population...

Anyway, I contacted my sister to make sure she was still sane. I asked her if she knew her name and what state she lived in. When that was clear, I asked if she'd joined some sort of Californian cult against immigration population. Thankfully, she said no (for a second I was worried about my brother in law).

I had to shovel through the piles of garbled scientific jargon about the death of Smokey the Bear and his little forest friends, some boy named Teddy sitting in a portable behind the school sweltering in the heat because school is too small thanks to voters vetoing levies too many munchkins, that oxygen will soon become a thing of the past, and a number of other apocalyptic catastrophes looming on the American (Californian?) horizon to finally get to the point:

Ho ho! They almost had me fooled! For a moment, I thought the envio-nazi's found out I play with pesticides all day. Imagine my relief when I realized I didn't have to move.

C A P S, as this organization calls itself (is that like 'cap in you ass'?), does something in California...though I'm not sure what. One minute they're talking about ozone and population differentials, the next they're going on about the word moron and immigration reform. I didn't really get it. What I do get is that California weirdness has seeped into my state via the post office. I am not pleased.

Jeff, please tell your fellow states-people to keep their mail to themselves. Us Washingtonians have enough to worry about--like dairy cows, Bill Gates, how sucky the Seahawks are, Amazon.com, whether or not Alaska will take their boats away from us, and if Ichiro is going to have a perfect batting average this year. We can't be bothered with stuff like 'smog' (what's that?), road rage, Arnold, the SPF factor of suntan lotion, or earthquakes.

Okay?

;oP

Oh Customs...you're so silly!

"すでに日本へ届いているようなのですが、空港の郵便局に保管されていると連絡がありました。それはプレゼントの中身を検査しなければならないとの事です。"

It seems my present to Yuuko's son has been seized by Customs. I recieved an e-mail from her this morning, asking my permission to have the post office open the box and examine the present. Once they do that, they'll mail it to her house. Of course, I told her that was fine, and apologized for causing her such a problem. I really do feel bad about it. :(

What I find so blog worthy about this is that back in January my son recieved a toy sword via mail from her. The sword was about three feet long, not sharp (of course), but very realistic. The present I sent last week was a small game which has pieces made of metal and magnets (which is probably the problem). Oh, and a book.

Her present got here with no problems at all. Not so much as a call from the post office. Mine raises suspicion though. *laughs*

Well, not much I can do from here. I hope that the present gets shipped to their house soon and in one piece. :(

J-lo blows? Wait, no...um...

You guys have to watch this. I laughed my ass off. Why can't I be watching the news when reporters screw up like this?

May 22nd

Is the date I register for my Fall class! I'm really excited. I'm going to take my first official Japanese class. Now all those pieces of 'huh' will start to fall into place. Okay, not all of them, but quite a few. My Japanese friends will be relieved. ha ha!

My only fear is the class will be filled up.

So...I'm going to have to set my alarm clock for 7am and get online!

I decided to pay for it on my own too. Now that I'll be working full time (with a significant pay increase), I shouldn't have a problem.

In other news...

Today I had my first exprience with waxing. No, not a bikini wax, for those of you with gutter trash minds. But...

Sweet Jesus! People actually have this done all over their body? I was just getting rid of those pesky little side-burn things that some of us girls get and I thought someone had shot me in the head. I couldn't imagine having a full body wax, let along being waxed down there. WTFing H.E.L.L?

I'd considered doing my eye brows too, but rapidly thought better of that course of action. I'll stick to tweezers, thanks.

Ding Dong the Witch is Dead

Today has been an interesting day, to say the least.

I spent all day hanging out at home, waiting for the cable people to show up and fix my internet. They finally got here at 4pm. I didn't get to work until 6pm. When I got there, all my work had been done except a couple menial tasks.

My plans to buy a new fan (or two) was thwarted by an ungodly dust storm. Honestly, it was one of those freaky ones. One minute it's calm and smoldering hot, and the next (fifteen mintues later) I can't even see 30 feet infront of me. The wind was howling and the sky turned ugly brown. I think the worst part, besides my horrible allergies, was the wind was hot. Hot wind just plain sucks. It got up to 100 degrees here again today. Not. Pleasant.

And the entire job thing has taken an unexpected turn. Definitly in my favor, but I'm not going to discuss it right now. I honestly didn't expect this scenerio at all. So, things seem to be getting back on track. I'm very happy.

I got a job!

Listen up folks! I got a job! A full time job! With benefits! Hot-F***ing-Damn!

I'm so excited. No, that doesn't sum it up really. Excited. Relieved. Nervous. Elated. Relieved. I'm so happy I want to jump up and down and dance a friggen jig!

Even better, the pay is only about a dollar less than what I make now, and after 30 days, it could go up 75 cents. So technically, I won't be getting much of a 'pay-cut'. Oh, and it's full time. FULL-TIME! With a pretty much gaurentee of overtime. And vacation. I'll be able to get vacation again. And a retirement plan!

Oh! Oh! And it's not a corporate owned business! Private business all the way. Good-bye manager from hell!

God, I am so happy. Four months of uncertainty and hell. Four months. Maybe 2006 will start looking up now?

Meev Does Nirvana

For not being able to speak English at all, he does fairly well. And his guitar--jesus, this guy can friggen play. One of the reasons I love his music so much.

*those 'bells' you hear are actually on his foot--Meev can play several instruments at once--guitar, harmonica, tamborine, and cymbols*

More Meev guitar goodness (muscians who can play *really play* their own instruments kick ass):

And check it out, as I said, musicians who play their own instruments kick ass. Here, Meev is playing --four-- at once

He's such a rocker...

(big kudos to the you tube people who upload these!)

Stupid Charter

So, it seems my internet connection has gone all wonky. I'm amazed I even got this far. I called the cable company and spent a half an hour on the phone with them only to find out that...

The modem is screwed.

It sort of pisses me off, since this is the second modem they've given us that has been shit. Maybe even the third (I can't remember). It took me a year to get them off their asses to give me a new modem. Oddly enough, the current modem is only a year old.

How strange. Something about boot error and dropping packets. Webpages, especially email pages refuse to load, and everything is slowing down to a crawl. I thought it was my computer, but I'm relieved to learn that's not the problem.

So, they're supposed to come out Thursday and fix it.

That being said...

This pisses me off too. It's supposed to be 99 degrees tomorrow. This morning, it was 85 at 9am. WTH? To make matters worse, my mom doesn't like to run the air conditioner. We got into a squabble about that this evening. Sure, it's cooler outside but that doesn't mean it's COMFORTABLE.

Now I can't sleep. It's too damn hot.

I hate summer.

Listen Up Class!

"I want you to write a paper on who you would kill and how you would do it. 2000 words, double spaced, due on Friday. Chop-chop...ha ha, no pun intended."

That's probably not exactly how the assignment was presented, but just WTFing Hell was this teacher thinking when he asked his students to write a paper about who they would kill and how they would carry out the crime? Obviously, to a normal, sane, sentient being, this isn't a good idea.

Apparently, this San Jose school is just full of geniuses. The Superintendent had this to say about the whole thing:

"I'm just very sad for the school, and I'm sad for him. This has rocked his world, as it has rocked our world."

I'm sad too. Sad that there are teachers this stupid in our schools.

Update

So, a heads up to everyone. I've changed my email once again. The other's still work, but I'll be checking them less frequently. So, if you're trying to reach me via e-mail, send it to:

zosocrowe (at) gmail (dot) com

Tomorrow I have a second interview for a job. The first one went really well, but this time I'll be talking with a different manager. I hope it goes well. But being the pessimist I am, I'm not counting on anything. I have another interview on Wednesday for a different company. Wish me luck! Maybe I'll get a full time job soon!

(ha ha)

I would really like to download this PV, but I can't find it anywhere. My search-fu skills suck. I'm not a huge Gackt fan, his music is either big hit or massive ick with me. There seems to be no middle ground. *laughs* But I love this song and the video is just awesome (so sad *sniffle*)

Why does technology hate me?

Or perhaps I'm just impatient. Once more, I'm plagued with some sort of computer bug. Well, I don't know if it's a bug or not, but for some reason my internet connection is CRAWLING. I can't get pages to load. Can't check my e-mail. Nada.

And for some reason my computer shut itself off last night. At least I think it did, because I don't remember turning it off. That sort of creeps me out. I can't seem to figure out what happened to my Microsoft Spyware thingy either. It's gone. Poof. No where to be found. AND my sound card was all whacky. I got that fixed though...I hope.

*sigh*

I think I'm gonna have to take this stupid thing in pretty soon. A year old...computers certainly don't have long life spans. I'm already dreaming about getting a new one.

Brings Back Memories...

And this is such a beautiful song...

What My Weekend Looked Like: A Picture Blog

Mom and I bought flowers on Saturday to plant in our barren flowerbeds. Well, so I could plant them. How this became my job, I don't know. But here's how it went:

I also got nominated to change the water on the lawn. We have an old sprinkler system. No wussy pop-ups for us. Impacts all the way!

Car Fungus

So today has been another one of those days. I woke up this morning to find my cell phone not working. I had an error message on it that wouldn't clear so after a minor freak-out, I spent three hours trying to find a Cingular store open in my town (two of those hours were wasted at the mall). After getting that remedied, I went to pick up my mother's day gift at the flower shop, only to learn it wasn't done yet. They were gracious enough to give me someone else’s order, which was supposed to go out on delivery later in the day. Sorry unknown person! But thanks for the flowers!

For some reason my car wouldn't start while I was at the mall. It's been doing this off and on for months. I suppose I should take it in but that whole job thing kinda puts a damper on things. So far, after a little fiddling, it always starts back up--but I know there will be that ONE TIME when it won't.

Hopefully my cell phone will be working when that happens.

Anyway, I finally get home around 11am. Dink around on the net, call back the company who wants me to do an interview on Wednesday. Dink around some more, then go check the mail. Not that I'm expecting anything--except rejection letters and an ungodly cell phone bill. But I'd been sitting on my ass for the past hour so a breath of fresh air would do be good.

I'm blasted with gale force winds. Typical of this area. Kinda scary too sometimes. Plus I have this stupid phobia of wind. Yeah. I know. Almost thirty and the wind scares the shit out of me. So sue me. It probably stems from that one time I was picked up by an ginormous dust devil and spun around into a barbed-wire fence. I cut up my lip, freaked out the neighbors horses, and cried like a banshee. Very traumatizing for a five year old.

I put on my brave face and march out there. Of course, nothing of interest expect my car insurance statement and my new proof of insurance cards. I usually just toss the envelope into the car unopened, but since I was bored and figured I might as well take the time to read what they had to say. I'd just refinanced my car, so I'm sure some of the language had been reworded to fit my credit union and so forth.

Oh boy, reworded is an understatement.

Imagine my surprised to discover that my insurance doesn't cover fungus. Yes. Fungus. As in mushrooms, spores, mold, the stuff they put on pizzas. I had to read it several times just to make sure they'd sent me the right policy.

Is this something I should be worried about? Should I call and complain that my car isn't protected from athletes foot? I'm a little worried. The statement didn't say WHAT kind of fungus, so I'm not sure if there's some new car eating mold roaming around on the *gasp* wind, waiting to infect my poor little car.

I have half the mind to call them and ask them to clarify, "fungus" for me. Just to see what they have to say.

I know that certain microbes (Zoso's busting out the big words now), can live in gasoline. But they aren't a problem and I doubt the FDA would allow for high doses of penicillin or dimethyl sulfoxide to become additives to our fuel source. Ha ha.

Maybe they mean lichens. They're classified in the fungus kingdom, though really they are made up of fungal filaments and algae (plant) or cyanobacterium (bacteria). I guess if you left your car out long enough...like 100 years...the lichens would come (like in Field of Dreams).

Weird...

Photography cont.

Today was pretty sucky, mostly because of this foul mood I can't seem to shake. I got to leave work early, which was a bonus. I got all my work finished. My boss thinks it's weird that I just don't hang out to get that extra hour. Yeah, it's another 11 bucks, but I would have to sit in an huge office alone, with nothing to do.

No thanks.

On a better note, my mom said she'd go halvesies on a digital camera for my birthday! She's going to give me 150 bucks, which is more than I expected. Thank mom! This made my day! I'm so happy!

Speaking of moms, this weekend is mothers day. In my family, it's also a week of birthdays and anniversaries too. LOL I took my grandma her present yesterday. She seemed to like it. I hope so. It wasn't much, so I felt pretty pathetic when I gave it to her.

I have to pick up my mom's mother day present on Friday. I suppose I could've had it delivered, but I was paranoid it would get broken. I went with the cliche flowers bit. HOWEVER--I happened across a mothers day deal that includes a very pretty Fenton vase. Mom loves Fenton stuff.

...well, she likes fairy glass and eggs. I'm not so sure about a vase. I think she'll like it though. She better. It's all she's getting. Ha ha! ;P After I bought it I got kinda worried she already had a vase like it. I've been checking out the house whenever she's not looking. So far so good.

I also found the perfect present for my sister. Not for mothers day though. I have to find some other stupid reason to send it to her. Perhaps just from the sheer joy of imagining her face when she gets it. That might be enough. :P Sis, I need your work address! J/K

Photography

So I'm on this photography kick right now. I really want a digital camera. I looked at some of the cheaper ones, though right now even those are out of my price range. (Maybe I'll see if mom will pay for half as a birthday present. Turning 30 should count for something, right? LOL)

I think it would be cool to start a photoblog. Mostly for my friends overseas, but for family and friends here too. It would give me something to do to get my mind off of all this stupid shit that's been happening in my life. I'm seriously depressed...

I'm debating on not taking that state job these days. With the school situation, it might be best to stick it out with my former job. Sometimes we do things we hate to do to get ahead. Though the thought almost brings me to tears. But I really want to go back to school. I don't see any other option for myself. Without a Bachelors, I'm stuck in a rut... Also, I'm fairly sure my part time job is secure for the time being, and I have been actively searching for more stable work. With the state job, I'll work three months and be left with nothing. Then again, I could get canned tomorrow, though it seems unlikely.

I dunno. I'm at this point where I don't want to think about anything right now. I'm sick of everything.

A First Look at FFXIII?

Wow, Square surely dropped the bomb on everyone with a trailer of FFXIII. And the lead is a GIRL?

I really don't care as long as she kicks ass.

Excitement Deficiant

Maybe the picture above will motivate me to get off my ass and find something to slay this boredom that's been plaguing me for the past few months.

...nah. It's just pretty to look at.

My life has become totally stagnant. Each day is the same. I wake up, hang around the house. Go to work for five hours at a job I loathe. Then I come home. At home, I find myself desperatly browsing the want ads, stuffing envelops with resumes or emailing them off to some employer who won't ever call me back.

My school idea seems to have hit a road block. That's seriously depressing. I'm supposed to write up a petition to why I should get an extention on my financial aid. Yay.

On a plus note, I did manage to get my car refinanced. My payments dropped from 244 dollars each month, to 137 dollars. That's a relief. A small victory, you could say.

I don't think I'd be so bummed out if I wasn't so bored. God, the monotony of my life is awful. I thought of taking a trip, but sadly on my budget right now, that's not possible.

*sigh*

I guess I have my new job to look forward to. That's a change I'll embrace--even it it's only for three months.

It looks like there might be a thunder storm today. I hope so. It's cool to sit on the back porch and watch them.

TAG! You're IT!

I'm sure you've all played this game once in awhile:

I played this game today. All morning, as a matter of fact. It finally ended when I called someone who I knew wouldn't have any clue about the information I was looking for. How silly of me to think that the Department of Education, Student Services and Financial Aid, or any of the other Education affiliated lenders have any idea on what to do with a person who doesn't qualify for Fedral Aid, but needs a loan to go to school.

What was I thinking!

Thankfully, I called the University counselor (of the 4 year school I'm trying to transfer to), and told her what was up. Now she's just a counselor, she doesn't know much about Financial Aid. Perhaps she should, but that's another gripe. This lady was nice enough to walk over the the Financial Aid office and find out what steps I needed to take now, as well as dig up information on private loan information AND find me the number of a bank who deals with private loans.

I pose this question, "Why couldn't the Financial Aid office at the community college give me this info when I asked them about it yesterday?" Instead, I was shrugged off. In fact, even the Department of Education shrugged me off.

I like to call this the, "Indifferent, Not My Problem" syndrome. People who work in customer service just don't give a damn. The only questions they want to answer are the easy ones, doing some research for harder questions just isn't part of their job! GASP! God forbid they actually have to do WORK!

Jesus. I've worked in customer service for seven years. I've never given a customer the run around like the one I've gotten today. Maybe that's because I have empathy. I dunno. I always figured since it's my job to answer questions, even the harder ones, I had a duty to earn my wages. If I had to look something up, or find the number for the person who had answers I didn't already know, so be it.

"Dhurrr, try this number," just doesn't cut it for me.

Anyway, my college plans are still unclear. I'm still not getting all the answers I need, nor do I expect to. But at least it's a start. I'm going to petition my Financial Aid status, and set up a plan B if that gets denied. I'll have to apply for a private loan, which sucks (and can still be denied).

We'll see what happens. But nothing beats feeling like an ingrate because you want to go back to school to get a better job.

de-NIED!

How depressing. I was disqualified for financial aide for college. All I need are five measly classes, but because I have over 12 quarters and three degrees (except a general degree to transfer), I'm not eligible for student aide.

Of course, silly me for asking Columbia Basin College's Financial Aide office what my next options are. Considering they were the ones who told me to go get on welfare the last time I applied for help for school, you can only imagine what ingenious insight they had to offer this time around...

NONE! I was pretty much told, "You're screwed."

Nice. So now I'm on a mission to find out about student loans and crap. The financial Aide Office had nothing useful to say. You could almost hear the shrug of the girls shoulders over the phone. Silly me for thinking they'd have helpful ideas about paying for college for people who want to go to school.

I don't understand any of this loan stuff. Stafford Loans, Perkins Loans, none of it. I know I'm not eligible for a Perkins Loan, since those are distributed through the college, but Stafford Loans seem to come from a lender of your choice and the government pays the interest...or something like that.

*sigh*

I have a massive headache.

I also called my bank to refinance my car. We'll see how that goes. I tried about two years ago and my credit was sucky (thanks to my stupidity and the help of my ex...grrr). It would be nice to have my payment cut in half, but I'm not holding my breath.

I'm still waiting to hear from the program director of my new job. I assume that'll happen sometime this month or the beginning of next month. Meanwhile, I'm still applying for jobs. Part time work is good and all, but you know how that goes...

Man, 2006 has been a sucky year. I'm followed around by this cloud of bitterness and uncertainty.

*listens to crickets*

So today was a day without immigrants. There weren't any protests that I saw, but there were a few cars driving around with American and Mexican flags.

The streets were pretty quiet. Traffic was down, but I thought it was kinda nice. I drove through the predominatly hispanic section of town and noticed nearly all the businesses were closed. That kind of makes me laugh, considering they are the only people who shop there. Over all, it was an interesting experiance.

As the debate heats up, I'm of the mind that legislation needs to be changed. Felonizing 11 million people is a bad idea. But so is giving them amnesty. I say fine them, give them an opportunity to become legal, make them pay taxes and SS. Also, fine the hell out of the businesses who hire illegals. Felonize THEM. Then build a big ass wall. BIG! With pterydactlys.

As for the Mexican protest in Mexico, you know that 'not racist' gringo boycott they got going on--wouldn't their efforts be better served fixing their own government? Then people wouldn't have to or want to leave.

Duh.