What Spills from My Lips....

Carl broke his Blackberry Storm last night. And one of his wiper blades. It rained like a bitch last night AND was cold, which sucked. I got home at 130am, and have to be at work at 11am today.

On the bright side, I still made good money last night despite the weather, so IF Verizon decides to honor the insurance on the phone, we'll be able to replace it for $50, and I have blueberry/cranberry buckwheat pancakes for breakfast this morning, which is full of win because buckwheat is low glycemic. :D

Alex Finn got desanctioned. Because of an xp expenditure error. Really?

After calling Comcast this morning and getting through all the automated prompts to the right department, and verifying that I am the person on the account, this is the conversation I had.

Comcast: What can I help you with today?

Me: I'm calling to check the balance on my bill before I pay it to make sure it's right.

Comcast: Ok, what did you need clarification on?

Me: There was a lot of confusion on my account, and the last person I spoke to said that she would take all TV-related charges off, and that I should call to play the bill after the equipment got picked up from my house.

Comcast: Ok, well the bill we sent out was $141. 56.

Me: That's wrong.

Comcast: Oh, I see that. That isn't right. If you disregard those charges, your new balance is $35.17.

Me: By disregarding those charges, do you mean that they've been credited back to my account, or are they still on there and I'm just ignoring them? I don't want to have an overdue balance.

Comcast: The credits are already on there. The balance due is $35.17, but when you get your next bill, it will show a late balance. It's incorrect.

Me: Well, I never pay by mail anyways, I always pay by phone, so I'll talk to you next month.

We finally bought a cat tree for teh kittehs this past weekend, and I gleefully watched as Carl dragged it upstairs and settled it in the livingroom. The cats immediately went over to investigate. Darkie scratched on the carpet on the bottom, while Stella stretched herself up and explored the upper levels, and then proceeded to attack the post that is wrapped in sisal rope like she was going to kill it.

They like it a lot. This pleases me.

Darkie is about twice the size of Stella, and older, and the first level might be a little high for her to jump to, so we have a chair next to it for her to jump on. She's totally taken over the crow's nest on the top, and Stella lays on the level below, then they play-attack each other. *snicker*

I'll post a picture, at some point.

Normally, Carl and I avoid Black Friday like the plague. We sleep in and go out for brunch, and stay far far away from the crazy people who are sleep deprived, caffeinated, and desperate to get as many deals as possible.

Well, this year, I worked Thanksgiving evening(dinner at 3pm, then a nap from 6 to 8, then work at 9pm), and got off work at 2am. So I had the bright idea, "Hey! I'm awake anyways, might as well hit a store and get a deal!"

We played it smart(as smart as Black Friday can be played) and figured out what ONE item we really wanted to get a good deal on, then found a store that had said item on sale and wasn't such a big name that it would be mobbed before I even got off work. The item we wanted was an HP laptop, and Office Depot had one with Windows 7 and 4GB for $299. It had all the features Carl wanted, and most people think Best Buy or a department store like Walmart or Target if they're buying a computer, so we figured the crowds wouldn't be as bad at Office Depot.

We got over there at 2:30am, fully intending to leave and go home to bed if there were more than 30 people there. We passed Best Buy on the way, and there were so many people it wrapped around the building, and Office Depot was only guaranteed to have 10 minimum of this laptop. Yeah, we pulled up and laughed, there were only 7 people, and none of them were planning to get that particular laptop. I dropped off Carl and went on a run for hot chocolate and something to snack on.

It was in the upper 40's at some point, so I alternated between huddling with Carl and getting into the vehicle and turning on the heat to warm up. We finally got our voucher for the laptop that we wanted, plus one for a Tom-Tom since we've been planning to get one anyways. The doors opened at 6am, and the store filled immediately with crazy people looking to grab as much as possible as quickly as possible.

We picked up an 8MB card for my mom's camera, a couple of 4MB thumbdrives, some large photopaper, since I need to print a physical portfolio anyways and it was buy 1 get 2 free, and a copy of Norton 2010. It's $100, but free after a mail-in rebate, and I need to upgrade mine soon and put it on Carl's new laptop. It's good for 3 computers, so the third one will go on my mom's computer.

This took us all of 6 minutes, so then we got in line to check out and get our laptop and GPS. The line was already 150 people deep. I'm not kidding. It took us 2 hours to get through checkout. Yeah, I'm not kidding. We got out of there at 8am. Fortunately, Carl's mom called us from Walmart and told us she'd found a Tom-Tom for $18 less than the one at Office Depot and it had the same features, so we ended up having her pick that one up for us instead.

After escaping Office Depot with our goods, with Carl on guard for crazy people trying to steal our stuff, we got to the vehicle to find the headlights on. Apparently, the headlights don't turn off when you shut off the vehicle until the driver gets out, and since I'd been getting in and out on the passenger side when I was warming up.... yeah. Luckily, we got someone to jump us within a few minutes, and we were on our way.

We ran through McDonald's to grab a couple BEC biscuits, and devoured them on the way home, then collapsed into bed for four hours before having to get up. Both of us had to work Friday at 2pm at our respective jobs.

Woooooooo! And we don't caffeinate.

All in all, it was worth getting what we did, but I don't see us doing another Black Friday anytime soon. We'll probably end up calculating the saved-money-to-lost-time-and-sleep ratio in the future to determine whether or not to Black Friday shop again.

Dammit.... now I'm going to have to go play this game... http://xkcd.com/667/

The timbre of a pleasant masculine voice echoes over electronic signals, reaching halfway across the country and into the ear of the female Mekhet. She responds with smooth delivery, "Marquis, It is a pleasure to hear from you again. How fares your City?"

Her lips, a deep red reminiscent of the shade of fresh blood, curve into a small smile as she listens to his response, large dark eyes drifting away from the laptop screen illuminated before her. A small scrape sounds as she pushes her office chair back slightly, tilting back to cross stilettoed heels on the edge of her desk while they ( exchange small talk... )

I busted my shin *hard* on the edge of our new bedframe, and might have fractured my shin. It hurts to put any weight on that leg, and it's alternating between a stabbing and burning pain. That being said, while it hurts like a bitch, it's not the worst pain I've been in, I'm just not used to having it in my shin. And, strangely, at times it feels numb, like I'm not actually registering the pain. I'm weird like that, I've experienced that before. Instead of pain, I get lightheaded or nauseous, or shake uncontrollably. This time I'm just lightheaded.

I'm taking it easy tonight, and I'm going to have my chiropractor give her opinion when I see her tomorrow, because I'm pretty sure I messed up my knee in the process, too. It's not feeling right. If she thinks it's a problem, then I'll go get an x-ray. I really hope not, because I know World of Beer isn't going to let me work in a cast. I have to be able to run around way too much for that. I hope I just bruised the fuck out of myself and it'll be ok. I don't get paid time off.

Sigh.... Carl started calling Darkie, one of our cats, by the name of "Turducken"... and she comes to it.... Now he wants to call her that all the time....

The following ad is running (I think) in next week's Sarasota Creative Loafing publication, a local paper that has about 48,000 readers.

One of my photographers is going to take a b/w photo of an orchid so I can hang it on my wall in a stupidly large size. WIN! His work is here: http://www.facebook.com/photos.php?&id=1561467250&s=6&hash=fec44bdf2d22ecf2cf0843cb53372515#/album.php?aid=36053&id=1561467250&op=6

I think this is totally awesome, because I have a crapload of orchids around my house. Love them!

Guess who I met last night!!! Audrey Landers. For those of you who don't know, she was in Dallas(played Afton Cooper) and Love Boat. She's the one who designed the clothing line I was modeling at a fashion show last night. There are pics on Facebook.

Carl came down to the World of Beer last night to hang out and have a couple of beers while I was at work. He sat near where us servers pick up our beer orders, and one of the regulars that comes in all the time came in and sat down next to him and chatted for a while. He's military, and works 6 months, then has 4 months off. I got him a beer and was chatting for a couple of minutes, then went off to go take more orders.

I find out later that he then leaned over to Carl and said, "That girl is hot! I want to get her number."

To which Carl replied, "Oh, that'd be cool."

Later, I ended up introducing Carl to this guy and a couple of other guys who were there hanging out, and they sat and chatted for the rest of the evening til I got done working. Apparently the guy went up to Carl and was like, "Dude, you're an ass!" totally laughing about the whole thing. Carl just laughed.

I am amused. A lot.

That is all.

"I have a dream. And in it, something eats you."

For amusement, I'm also including one from the other day: "Time to go, gross people. You know who you are."

I need to get the 2010 page a day....

EDIT: I also need to get new Happy Bunny tshirts. I have about 8 or 9 of them, and almost all of them are loose on me now.

Pro: I'm getting a lot of hours at World of Beer, and having fun. It's good exercise too.

Con: I got home from work at 4:30am on Saturday morning after an 11 hour shift, and got home at 5am Sunday morning after a 14 hour shift. Thus why my status message on Sunday was "I r tired cat, hear me snore."

Pro: I made a shitload of money.

Con: Something I ate while at work really didn't agree with me. Probably the barbeque pork from Lee Roy Selmon's. FAIL!!! It tasted really good, but I felt sick to my stomach on Sunday and slept til 1pm, then sat around all the rest of the day and did nothing of value.

Pro: I got sushi. The Lobster roll, which is full of win. While it didn't make me feel better physically, it also didn't make me feel worse. And it's tasty, which made me happy.

Con: I still feel sick today. My plans for today were as follows: Photoshoot in Tampa from 2:30pm to 6pm, then work from 9pm to 3am.

Pro: My shoot cancelled, so I can stay home and procrastinate about getting my place ready for the shoot taking place here on Thursday.

Con: My shoot cancelled because the photographer can't reach the other model I was supposed to shoot with, and I was supposed to get paid $100 an hour for it.

Pro: The photographer is so upset about it, he's paying me a $50 cancellation fee, plus $200 towards a future shoot, in advance. I think he's worried I won't want to shoot with him because he's had to cancel on me three times now because of other models flaking out.

Pro: I can stay home and wait for the new bed frame Carl and I bought to be delivered, so he can go to the chiropractor instead of having to sit at home. He needs to go, badly.


So, statistically speaking, even though I feel like crap, my day is going pretty freaking good. :D

Carl is a nympho. I don't think this shocks anyone. We were having a conversation today about that, and the fact that my four car accidents and a crazy work schedule aren't conducive to a nympho lifestyle...

me: Hun, I think when I hit my peak in my thirties, you'll be perfectly balanced and getting all the sex you want.
Carl: Nuh, uh, cause you'll be cheating on me by then.
me: What? No I won't!
Carl: Yes you will.
me: Carl, you're nuts. That makes no sense --
Carl: (crazy voice) DON'T LIE TO ME! I'VE WATCH DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES!
me: *laugh and then sigh* You knew I was about to tell you you weren't funny, didn't you... but that was funny.
Carl: *evil grin* Yeah...

I'm considering making another PC. I know I keep saying this, but I'm indecisive on exactly what I want to do, and I lack any real time to commit to it. I think it's going to be either Crone or Unaligned, and either Gangrel, or Galloi. Either way, it's going to be bloodthirsty.

Sigh. Why can I not get this out of my head, when I lack the time for it?

Now: I'm planning to hit the 4Winds game next Wednesday. Yay for RP!

Later: I'm trying to decide what one con I want to hit with Carl next year, if I only hit one. Right now, GLaRE(Indianapolis, IN) is at the top of the list, especially because I haven't been to that part of the country for over 15 years, and I have family nearby that I hardly ever see. My priority is making it a con that is during my slow season so I don't lose out on much income, which means July/August/September.

Questions: What other options do I have? And who else might be able to make it to GLaRE if we do go?