As if my life didn't suck enough already, balancing necessary expenses that surpassed my income, regaining 20 lbs that I had worked so hard to lose, while dealing wit the perpetual gut rot and lethargy that comes with not being able to afford real food on under a dollar a day... I now need to make some decisions on how to live with no income at all.

I have a very short time ahead of me, in which I need to find another job, or be unemployed, bankrupt, and homeless.

It may be time to reconsider plan B, and join the army.

I haven't done anything like this before, because it feels like leeching off of my friends and taking advantage of the goodwill of others... the truth is, it makes me sick to even consider taking charity, and those who know me must know how desperate I am and how hard it is for me to ask this...

I need money.
I can barely scrape by, paycheck-to-paycheck, on what I make with my full-time job. It's been increasingly hard to pay the bills after the economic downturn, and I have no cash buffer left for emergencies. Now I have an emergency.

The short version is this: I had a large filling some years ago due to a chipped molar that had gone too long without work. The filling broke since then, and damaged the nerve. I need a root canal and crown, and after all the other dental work I need along with it, the bill comes out at around $3100. I need it done sometime in the next month, or I'm likely to lose the tooth, or worse, from infection.

So... if you want to help, I'll be taking donations... every little bit helps... but know that I'm not selling favors, nor will I in all likelihood be able to pay anyone back. If you're interested in helping, please contact me privately in notes, and I'll give you an email address you can paypal to.

The layoff couldn't possibly have come at a less convenient time.... Two weeks earlier, and I could have gotten back into college and been set up to ride out the first part of the recession getting the skills I needed to succeed.... Two weeks later, and I would have had the savings I needed to find a new place to live and seek employment abroad. Likewise if I had been notified in advance rather than just let go, I could have made plans to work around it... so here I am, rather stuck.

The foremost concern is finding a new job. I've given up on pursuing a decent salary in my career field at this point, and am looking to settle for much lower, which means even tighter budgets, even less money for food, rent, transportation, digging my way out of college debt, etc... so I will need supplementary income. If at all possible I will be delegating my time to working two jobs, at least one full-time if not both. In any case, whether looking for jobs, or working them, I will not have the liberty of much free time to post here, or work on my stories, so they will probably be put off indefinitely, not that I believe anyone expected them to come anytime soon by now anyway.

Depending on how things go over the spring and summer, I may be able to pursue college one more time in the fall... I only hope I can scrape together the time between everything else to get my tuition, loans, schedules and courses in order far enough in advance this time to make it workable.

The other possibility is still to save enough money to move... for that I will need one of two things: an assured job at a decent salary within the next two weeks before the accumulated pay stops coming from my last job, plus a week to prepare and some lucky opportunities to travel affordably, OR, to work my ass clean off at two jobs for long enough to afford the opportunity again.

The former would take a stroke of luck such as I've never before experienced in my life, and given my track record, I'm not going to count on it, but it's definitely the more pleasant possibility at this point... because the latter is going to require an incredible amount of hard work and near-perfect focus amidst such an overabundance of stress that I'm likely to snap, and never an hour much less a day's rest for months to a year.

The good news, is that I don't have to worry about losing my mind... since it's such a near certainty that it will happen either way, I can just accept it and move on... that's always the best part about having no choice in a matter -- the hardships lose their significance.

Oh, and the third option? The services may take me now... some friends say the Army, the others say the Air Force... I'm still carefully considering the costs and benefits of each... For my friends' sake, I want to choose the Air Force, for mine... I don't know. I could use the pain of the Army right now, to take my mind off other things.

I welcome any guidance on the matter.

Well since the last post, things have taken another turn for the worse... I got laid off, or rather 'fired', since my employer decided to make up a shtty excuse for letting me go rather than just call a spade a spade... In the end, I know he's just trying to protect his assets, since he can't afford me filing for unemployment on the grounds of an illegal termination... and since he's a former lawyer, I suppose that means he's already got it figured out how he'll defend his case in court if I took it there, so I'm kinda in the shit, especially with the eviction looming only a couple weeks away.

Anyway... the search for a new job has not gone well... there's simply nobody hiring in my field, and even the lesser-paying jobs that can't meet cost of living are taken by highschoolers these days. The most common thing I've been called when asking for an interview is 'overqualified'. The fact of the matter is that nobody wants to pay anyone enough to make a living, and they know that I'll ask it, if not up front, down the road....

I have basically two options open to me now... take out more loans, and go deeper into debt, to go back to college, in the perhaps false hopes that another 2 years will get me a job that can pay it all off in the end, or join the military.

I'm going to MCTC Tomorrow (Monday) to see if the loans might be manageable after cost of living this term, and for the next 2 years... though after the failure at USF, and being forced to drop out of all my classes without refund at no fault of my own, while being stuck in a $900/mo rent contract with the college, and all of it tallying up at a >10% interest rate, I'm not sure I'm willing to bend over for the educational system again.

On Tuesday I go to the army recruiter's... I may sign. If I do, you probably won't see much of me for 4 years or more. In my present condition, it will be hell... but in the end, it will help me get the education I need, give me a place to live, pay off my debt, and possibly whip me into shape well enough to add several years onto my life beyond what I devote to it.

I can't go on like I have been, anyway... there's nobody for me here, and losing my job now dashed any hopes of moving somewhere near friends. The army is a long commitment, and I will hate the separation it brings, and while I welcome much of the change it will bring in my life, I don't know what else it will do to me, or if I will like who I will become... but it may be my only real option, and when it comes down to it, I'm willing to serve my country in that way.

1982 Kawasaki KZ1100-A2 Touring bike with shaft drive, yellow. Aftermarket shocks, oil cooler, heated handgrips.

Rides beautifully.

Who can say no to 100HP of <3 between their legs?

You remember what happened to Schrödinger's cat...
and you're probably familiar with Murphy's Law....

Well, if Murphy had a cat, I would be that cat....

The new computer is only giving me issues... Windows is virtually inoperable without right-click functionality, context menus and a delete key, while OSX leopard is just plain inoperable, the date keeps resetting itself to 2001 every time I reboot, and the wireless stopped working after less than 24 hours of owning it... which is the whole reason I needed this computer in the first place - my old one could no longer support wireless.

I guess my luck really DOESN'T change... though I don't see why I should have expected it to... it's only sucked harder than a Hoover at a movie theater for my ENTIRE LIFE.

Meanwhile, I'm too far behind in 2 of my classes already to catch up and pass at this point, because I've spent all of my time trying to fix the impossibly extensive technical issues that were preventing me from getting my work done, rather than, you know, getting my work done. Without passing those two classes I'll be forced out of the program, so I may as well consider just dropping out now so I can get a head start at flipping burgers to pay off the thousands of dollars I now owe... Christ, who do I even owe it to? the money wasn't even MINE, I got a deferment on good faith so I could get some loans in order, but if I drop out, I can't get the loans, and I'LL STILL OWE THE MONEY! They'll probably send a collection agency after me. I'm fucked! >.<

I suddenly feel ill... as in, more ill than I've physically been for the duration of this term to date thanks to whatever pneumonia-like illness I've been unable to get rid of in spite of the antibiotics and everything else I've tried... I think I'm going to throw up, which should look nice with all the blood in my throat.

Do you ever get the feeling that you're being tested? That all life puts you through is one trial after another to push you to the edge of your sanity, then teasing you with just enough hope for you to keep going anyway, on into the next trial?

Yea, I get that feeling too...

But there is hope. And hope arrived today by mail.

I have a solution now to the laptop problem, and also real food and household supplies to help ease the stress....

I am now officially giving up on my old laptop and retiring it. RIP, Ghost.

I now have a MacBook.

1. Plunge myself thousands into dept and immediately max out all possible loans without fully covering the cost of tuition and housing.

2. My laptop breaks, and I can't afofrd to replace it

3. Fall behind in all four courses and drop a gradepoint already in calc because I need my laptop to keep up in class.

4. My bicycle breaks that I just bought a week and a half ago, and I can't afford to replace it.

5. The $100 parking permit I bought 2 weeks ago to park my car for the semester slides down the dashboard, and I get hit with $120 in parking fines that I can't afford to pay.

6. I'm forced to consider the possibility of dropping out of school without refund and paying off all that debt the hard wya because my luck is simply too bad to have any hope of recovery if I don't.

edit: it would take -years- working at the best-paying (shitty) job available to me just to pay that off, assuming I can live without anything but basic shelter and ramen noodles during that time :/
I hate having to consider the reality of my position at this point.

Words cannot describe how much WIN... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biqnL84l85s

OVER 9000 Hours in MSPaint! http://gprime.net/video.php/mspaintcar

http://totallymetal.livejournal.com

I had to do it... please don't hurt me!

Seriously though, from now on any music-related journals will go there. Feel free to watch if you dig that stuff. See the profile for a sampling of bands you're likely to hear about.

Madness?
THIS IS ATLANTA!!

Hell of a drive... 23 hours nonstop each way... and I75 through Atlanta at 11pm.

Seriously though, it was madness... I was doing 70-75 in the HOV, and the majority of the traffic was still whipping by me on the right like I was standing still. I think I saw one guy in that whole city that was doing the speed limit, and other vehicles were slamming on their brakes to avoid creaming his backside.

We came within 20 miles of Cincinnati on the return trip... wish I'd known we would be beforehand, and maybe we could have stopped there for lunch instead of just the other side of the Indiana border.

Finished a gift story for Nyghtwulf during the hours of the return trip that I wasn't driving.

Also, DAMMIT FA, YOU SAID 24 HOURS, LIKE, LAST WEDNESDAY! START WORKING ALREADY!

That is all.

Screenshot for truth


let it be known that mods=fags, and CNET is full of egotistical nazi fags.

I finally decided to go with BioShock instead of the Orange Box this year... bought it, installed it... 3 hours, several driver updates and much frustration later, I still can't get it to run - it just crashes to the desktop after a brief black screen on startup. I even tried injecting arguments into the shortcut to force display at my monitor resolution in case that was the problem, but that didn't work either.

product Tech Support is no help.

I hate my luck.

To quote Bill Gates: "There are no significant bugs in [Windows] that any significant number of users want fixed."
Microsoft doesn't care about bugs, because fixing them doesn't make them enough money. Instead, they have an entire department dedicated to sweeping the various bugs and glitches under the rug and denying they exist when the public complains about them.

Windows is inherently buggy shit. For example, every installation of XP I have used so far needs to be rebooted from once a day to once a week just to keep the networking components working. Then there's the stickykeys bug - you know, the one where you turn off that annoying feature, only to have it bother you again next time because it's activated itself again. You can also uninstall Windows Messenger from the component removal control panel (this is Microsoft's official advice for how to remove it), but the very next time you update windows, it re-installs itself and starts running on boot-up again.

And then there's this little gem... I'd known of this bug for years, and have encountered it on both Win98 and WinXP. Today I googled it to see if there was any fix, and it turns out there is - by a third party (read: a couple of guys fixed a bug in windows, which Microsoft would/could not). To quote them:
"ToolTipFixer is a "patch" of sorts by NeoSmart Technologies created to permenantly fix one of Windows' most annoying & oldest bugs to date. The "hidden tooltip" bug has been around since the days of Windows 95, and became progressively worse with each Windows Upgrade – until Windows Vista, where it only appears from time to time; but it is still there nevertheless." ... "This bug has been around since the very first day Microsoft invented "the shell" with explorer.exe, the taskbar, and the concept of a tooltip - with Windows 95. In 2006, Microsoft finally admitted that this bug exists in Windows XP... But their "solution"?

To resolve this issue, use one of the following methods:
• Log off and then log back on to the current account.
• Restart your computer.

Gee! How helpful!"

Wow, Microsoft, your hundred-billion-dollar budget just got beat to fixing bugs in your own shitty proprietary software by a bunch of nerds working out of the kindness of their hearts. Just shows that money doesn't solve everything, especially incompetence.

If you are annoyed by that windows bug where the tooltips appear behind the taskbar rather than on top, you can download the patch here, for free: http://neosmart.net/wiki/display/TTF/ToolTipFixer+Home

Movie in a Minute: 28 Days Later.

Notice: This contains spoilers... so you won't have to put yourself through watching it.

==============

*a couple of teenage punks break into a monkey lab*

Teenage Punks: let's free the monkeys!

Skinny Intern Lab Assistant: I know you got past our security because it's limited to a camera and a sleeping watchman, but I assure you that in spite of our complete lack of any bio-hazard containment or protective equipment that the monkeys are infected with the most dangerous virus ever known to man, and if you release them, we'll all die in 20 seconds.

Teenage Punks: o rly?

Skinny Intern Lab Assistant: ya rly.

*Teenage Punks release the monkeys, everyone dies*

28 Days Later...

*Flaky Bicycle Messenger wakes up in the hospital for no apparent reason*

Flaky Bicycle Messenger: I guess I'm the sole survivor of a city-wide holocaust.

Infectious Apeshit Crazy People: Rawr!

Flaky Bicycle Messenger: O SNAP!

*they chase him, but he is rescued by Survivalist Black Girl and Random Dude*

Flaky Bicycle Messenger: Hi.

Survivalist Black Girl: You're a flake.

Flaky Bicycle Messenger [pointing to Random Dude]: Who's that guy?

Survivalist Black Girl: Oh, nobody, he dies in the next scene.

*Random Dude gets infected and Survivalist Black Girl kills him, then Flaky Bicycle Messenger with Survivalist Black Girl go on to meet Disheveled Santa and Quiet Daughter*

Disheveled Santa: Hey, I know a place where there are some people that can save us!

Everyone Else: o rly?

Disheveled Santa: no, not rly.

*they get in an ugly station wagon and drive to the entrance of a tunnel*

Disheveled Santa: This is the most direct route, let's go through!

Flaky Bicycle Messenger: No! The tunnel will be blocked with wreckage, we'll get a flat tire, and be attacked by Infectious Apeshit Crazy People in the dark!

Everyone: *gasp*

Disheveled Santa: My car, bitches!

*Disheveled Santa floors it and drives through anyway, and they're almost killed changing the tire in the dark*

Flaky Bicycle Messenger: Told you so.

Disheveled Santa: Hey, we're here!

Survivalist Black Girl: There's nobody here, they're all dead. Let's go.

Disheveled Santa: Dammit, no!

*Disheveled Santa gets infected, demented soldiers pop up out of nowhere and fill him full of lead*

Quiet Daughter: daddy?

Demented Soldiers: hey, we were really here all along, but didn't show ourselves until after it was too late to save your friend. Come with us!

Everyone Else: k.

Demented Soldiers [to Survivalist Black Girl]: We're going to convince you to help us procreate and save the human race by gang-raping you and killing your boyfriend.

Survivalist Black Girl: fuck you!

*Demented Soldiers haul Flaky Bicycle Messenger off into the woods and try to shoot him, but fail*

Flaky Bicycle Messenger: I'm going to try and kill all the Demented Soldiers by releasing an Infectious Apeshit Crazy Person in their fortress, disregarding the fact that the girls I'm trying to save are held hostage there and the only two people not armed to the teeth. Hopefully I will be able to save them using only my two bloody hands and rugged good looks without getting infected.

Demented Soldiers: O SNAP!

*he does, the soldiers die and he rescues the girls*

Survivalist Black Girl: you're a flake, but I love you.

THE END

this menu is made of every form LOL.

http://www.rahoi.com/2006/03/may-i-take-your-order/

New legislation lobbied by the RIAA could impede all internet radio and deal a killing blow to nonprofit and independant stations such as NPR, and Pandora. Please take a moment to call or email your congress representative and urge them to keep internet radio alive. For more information, please visit SaveNetRadio.org and find out what you can do today. Finally, help this message get out by passing it on and spreading the word.

I am not fucking kidding... This entire week, month, year, DECADE has been nothing but one long ass streak of fucking bad luck.

I'm on an incredibly tight food budget, between $10 and $15 a week for food. I've been eating nothing but ramen and mac and cheese for the last couple weeks, and so I saved up about $12 and spent it on ingredients for pizza.

I just spent the last hour and a half and most of that money making a big pizza... but when I go to put it in the oven, it's stuck to the cardboard paddle I made for it. I try to lever it off, but instead of sliding, it sticks to the oven rack, pulls off, and falls in a heap into the bottom of the oven. FUCK.

So now I get to spend the afternoon scraping about $10 of would-be pizza out of the bottom of the oven and throwing it away... it's ramen noodles for lunch again.

You know, maybe it's just my lot in life to suffer or something, because this is just fucking rediculous. Nothing I try to do ever works out the way I want. EVER. It rains on my every fucking parade, all my money is spent on emergencies or stolen, and anytime I try to go do something, something comes up to stop me. I can't even succeed in a relationship with someone I love. I just fail, and most of the time, it's not even my fucking fault.