Farscape

Other presents I received were Arrested Development – Complete Series Seasons 1-3 [DVD] (Season 1 2 3)
(very excited about that), a copy of Pandemic, and some nice headphones.

JC Penny’s new ad “Stay Out of the Doghouse” starts out very cute and funny with a decent message for men: respect your ladies and don’t reduce them to be a stereotypical woman. Don’t get your lady a vacuum cleaner unless you want to hear that you are the one that sucks.

However, the whole ad falls flat because the one guy who “gets it” just buys his wife jewelry, communicating to the world that while domestic presents are bad, your woman still can’t get enough jewelry to sate her appetite. Ridiculous. Yes, it’s an ad for jewelry but please: the idea that you can get out of the doghouse by buying a necklace is rubbish. JC Penny could have amended this by simply saying something like “ask your wife what would she like for Christmas this year?” and then show the necklace. Instead the ad comes off as a double-standard that is still sexist. But it is mostly well done and funny.

Billy Dee, very cool that you did this.

This was possibly the worst move I’ve ever attempted.

The move began 6 days before our lease expired. We rented a storage unit from Uncle Bill’s Self-Storage and got a nice, climate-controlled 100 ft². space to keep most of our possessions. Danielle and I worked hard to pack things starting as soon as the 4^th (our lease was over on the 9^th).

For months my wife had been hoarding boxes from her old workplace. Thank goodness she did, as we ended up using dozens upon dozens of boxes of varying sizes to succeed in this move. We were feeling pretty good about our amount of preparation (last year when we were married a smaller-scale catastrophic move happened that we wanted to learn from).

We moved on Sunday; we moved on Monday; we moved on Tuesday; we skipped out on Wednesday; we moved on Thursday. We moved a lot. Friday rolled around, the last possible day to move. We began the day early and were surprised at how little seemed to have been accomplished. After a brief argument over how to store things in the storage space we were back on task and running hard towards the finish line of 8 p.m. I suppose this would be a good time to explain that at 8 p.m. our new landlords (our building was in April by our landlord’s rival company) would be inspecting the apartment, locking it and throwing away any possessions that were still inside.

Yes, that does sound ridiculous. No, I don’t know why they take such a “dickish” stance on that.

I arranged for a friend’s truck to be borrowed and our good friend Marcus dropped by to loan us his back. Did I mention he’s getting married in 7 days? Anyways, Marcus and I loaded my bed and various other large things into this truck and tried our hardest to deliver them in a timely manner.

This would be a good time to describe the truck I borrowed. It was a large, 8-cylinder beast of a truck (with probably only 3 cylinders actually working) with a rusted-out floor and lots of non-working parts (seat-belts for one). It’s name was Art, and it was a bit painful to drive. The engine wouldn’t seemingly rev down enough to shift back into first gear at times, so killing the engine was the only way to shift back into first gear after, say, reversing. Needless to say, I thought it adventuresome.

Due to the slow-pace of Art we didn’t return to the apartment for nearly 2 hours after leaving. This put us at 7:30 p.m. Marcus’ fiancée Karen was called in, and she called pretty much all of our friends she could think of. Within the span of 10 minutes we had six or seven extra pairs of hands packing and moving for us. It was truly a God-send.

Eight p.m. rolls around and everyone is still constantly moving around. Since no-one car pooled, every car we could find was packed to the gills. The landlord was nowhere to be found for an exit-interview. Again, thank God for that. The Red Bull™ I drank at 7:45 was not the best call. The landlord arrives nearly an hour after they’re supposed to.

I tell everyone to stop what they’re doing and just grab stuff and put it in the hallway. Soon my hallway was littered with frozen food items, unpacked cleaning supplies, and any other assorted miscellany. My wife is now unpacking across town and the landlord needs her key. A cell-phone call got her back before the landlord leaves. Fortunately, the inspection goes well and we’re nearly finished for the night.

My good friends and I were in the clear and a few trips to the storage unit later I was preparing to shower (shout-out to Frank Kerous) and wondering why I’m not just crying like a baby given the stress of the day.

I cannot begin to thank my friends enough for helping us in this move. Marcus, Karen, Susie, Chris, Kristi, and Molly: you were all wonderful. You really stepped up and helped us when we were incredibly stressed and erratic. Jerry, I know you would have helped more if you could walk and I thank you for the truck.

Danielle and I participated in Intersection.  Along with several students from IWU, ISU, and some folks around the community we worked at Kids Club East in Bloomington.  I really struggled with selfishness all week; every time I thought about getting up to start the day at 8:30 I was filled with dread and loathing that left me feeling pretty much like the scum of the earth.

We spent the day cleaning the daycare center.  It was quite a lot of work.  I’ve never cleaned so many toys in my life.  Some of them were quite grimy.  This is in no way a slight on the good people at Kids Club East, as I’m certain they are quite busy with the kids who come by.  Speaking of which there were some wonderful children there who were incredibly cute.

After spending the day cleaning and playing with kids Danielle and I were both happy to be child-less at this point in our lives.  Someday definitely, but thank goodness it’s not right now.

We missed out on the evening’s celebration of the day’s work due to a prior engagement.  It would have been nice to see photos and video of what the other two groups of folks were up to (either organizing a senior citizen’s dance or working with homeless people at the Jesus House).

One thing I’m realizing very much lately is just how many opportunities there are in this community to get involved; people are always organizing things and helping those in need.  Maybe it’s the presence of State Farm, but there are a lot of good neighbors here.

One of my “passions” would be playing board games.  I especially enjoy games with a deeper level of economy and politics.  I’m fascinated by what comes out of playing a game with friends: feelings of frustration at not getting your way, the joy of winning, the experience of helping someone else, etc.  I think games really teach us a lot about ourselves, if we’re willing to pay attention.

Through my experience I’ve learned about my beliefs by playing games (both board games and physical competition).  I used to put a lot of stock about myself as a person in how well I played games.  That’s changed a bit, and I’m happy to say that I am in a position to teach some of the vague lessons I’ve learned to others in the same context.  Gaming to me is an enjoyable time of self-discovery through an abstraction.

Of course, it’s not always this way, sometimes I just like playing Carcassonne.

And as for the “.com” part, ever hear of “dotcom”? Pronounced the same way, and I’m certain she’s doing this for the airtime on cable news anyway. Talking heads would have to promote the site then…