contact has been made

^^^
That may possibly be the awesomest email subject line spam has ever provided me.

I’m going to go on vacation, hopefully in September or October, if it kills me.

Here are the ideas of places to look into:

SWEDEN: I could stay with Mårten & Hanna possibly. I haven’t seen them in ages! It’s close to Copenhagen and stuff.

ISRAEL: Probably not the best place to hang out close to a presidential election, but I could visit Saki; and I’ve always wanted to see the Middle East. He’ll be busy most of the time probably, but whatever. I can certainly entertain myself in Jerusalem!

PRAGUE: This has been my #1 destination for like years. Laura & Jack live there for a couple weeks out of every month because of Jack’s job, so I could stay with them potentially… I know Berlin is not close, but as long as I’m in that part of the world, I may take extra time to go there… I hate imposing on people, though.

GREAT BRITAIN: Though I’ve spent tons of time in Ireland, my time in England has been a total of 2.5 non-consecutive days. I’d really like to go to Wales and Scotland too, and check out some nerd-related King Arthur or other archaeological sites. Pros: Doctor Who Museum. Cons: shitty dollar rate (that’s affects everywhere though…), nobody to crash with

Other places on my hot list are Peru, India, Australia, Egypt, East Africa… but they are so not in my budget right now!

So I figured out what happened with my inspection, the dude at the gas station told me. If you take your car to get it inspected and it fails, you get a 60-day temporary sticker. If you let your car go longer than 60 days before you get it inspected, your sticker will say “1″ (January) of the following year no matter what. The guy explained, you could get your car inspected on December 31st, and you’d still get a January sticker and would be forced to get your car inspected AGAIN before January 31.

That is SO Massachusetts! It’s like when I got a resident parking permit in December, but got a ticket in February– apparently resident permits are good for a year, but they all expire in February, so it doesn’t matter when you get it, you have to renew in Feb. You’d think it would be easier to have them staggered, so there wouldn’t be a giant rush on renewal applications all in one month, but that’s Mass for ya.

So I’m out $40. Massachusetts has so many stupid laws you’re just supposed to know…

for example, take riding the Green Line (this may have changed), but for a while:

1. inbound service at above-ground level stops cost the same as a bus fare and you could use your bus pass (didn’t need a subway pass)

2. all underground stops pay the same as any other subway line (no bus passes allowed)

3. All outbound service starting on above-ground stops on the B line is free.

4. All outbound services starting on above-ground stops on the C line is free until you get to some station… I think it’s Brookine village, then it’s the same price as a bus ticket UNLESS you go farther than a certain stop, then you have to pay a surcharge in order to get OFF the train.

5. I think the D line is the same as the C line, only with different stops you need to pay extra for.

NOWHERE were these fares posted anyplace! You just had to know. That’s the thing about MA, you just have to know, and people are such assholes that they are douchebags to you if you don’t know the rules.

Here’s another example:

There is an unwritten rule at the Porter Square T stop that if you are riding the escalator, you stand to the right so you can leave room for the people who want to walk up the escalator on the left. If you disobey this rule (which isn’t actually posted or even hinted at ANYWHERE), people will shove past you (probably not even because they need to save that 5 seconds you get by walking, just because they can) snarling “WALK LEFT, STAND RIGHT!” in your direction. It doesn’t matter if you are a tourist with a million bags who is trying to wrestle with 5 kids. It doesn’t matter if you are blind and need to stand next to your seeing eye dog. No exceptions are allowed.

However, nobody cares at the Sullivan Square station. Nobody stands or walks or anything in any kind of organized fashion there. Of course, Sullivan is where all the immigrant riff-raff lives, and Porter is more for snooty white people who are often associated with either Harvard or Tufts. You may also factor in that the escalator at Porter is about 4x the length of the one at Sullivan, but COME ON, PEOPLE! Do you really need that extra 50 seconds in life? When do you get the opportunity to spend 50 seconds doing absolutely nothing with no expectations and no guilt that you should be concentrating on something? you are most likely listening to your iPod or futzing with your PDA or reading the paper anyway!

I didn’t get a parking ticket for seemingly no reason every now and then. I got my car inspected last SEPTEMBER. You have one year before it needs to be inspected again… but for some reason my inspection sticker says “1″ on it, which means it expired in January and thus I got a $40 fine. WTF?!?!?!? something is really fucked up here. I’d like to contest this ticket, but I know I’d lose because I always do when I try to prove my point. In fact, I’ll contest the ticket, and they’ll probably end up slapping a $200 late fee on or something just because they can, and then make me pay the $100,000,000 ticket or whatever they think I owe in Brookline that I actually already paid but can’t prove I did.

I did build an awesome sandcastle today at Nantasket beach– Patty and I went there today. My sandcastle rocked… until the torrential downpour. It was amazing. One minute it was slightly cloudy, and the next minute it was like a hurricane! We hit torrential downpours like 4 times. I’m not sure if it was the same storm and we just kept getting ahead of it by driving until it caught up to us, or if it was a bunch of different storms. It was pretty cool, though. I love thunderstorms.

Bacolet– an omelet made with Bacon salt (also feta and some Parmesan because I don’t have any other kinds of cheese)!

Last night I saw !!! at the Middle East– they were awesome as usual. However, I really hate the Middle East. It’s impossible to see anything if you are under 6 feet tall– the stage is really low, since the ceiling is so low. So, if you’re short, you either have to be exactly up in the front row or way in the back where you can see over peoples’ heads because they’re so far away. Plus, it was super wicked hot and sweaty. I know that most shows are hot and sweaty, particularly when you’re seeing a show with lots of dancing, but this was out of control! I had to go to the back because I was breathing in too much hot sweaty air; I felt like I was drowning! It didn’t help that there was this tall girl with sticky-outy dreads that kept smacking me in the face with them. I had to watch her every move so I didn’t get an elbow in the face or my feet stomped on. Eventually I fought my way to the back because it took too much effort to constantly get out of her way, and the floor was so packed there was no other place to go.

Maybe I’m of another generation; but I think it’s rude to dance wildly, flailing your arms in all directions and jumping up and down in a place that is packed with wall-to-wall people. I’m just old and cranky I guess. I let the environment dictate too much how I feel about a show. I should learn how to block all the extraneous stuff out.

Anyway, the music was awesome. They played some brand new songs, including one that they had never played live before! That was pretty cool. The opening band was called Dragons of Zynth, which I thought sounded a lot like TV on the Radio. Surprise! They’re buddies with the TVotR people, and have collaborated with them as well. They were good, but a little too cerebral and experimental for me.

Yay for shows!

Right now it’s about 90 degrees in my apartment, which really sucks. The fan only blows the hot air around. It’s a little cooler outside, but I can’t open a window because I don’t have screens and the cats will escape. I REALLY HATE THIS WEATHER! I’ve been kinda cranky about it all week. I can’t function when it’s hot. I should move to Antarctica. However, I also hate endless winters. I live in the wrong climate– it’s wintery, grey and shitty here for 10 months out of the year, and then for 2 months it’s obnoxiously hot and humid. Isn’t there someplace that’s just kind of 65 degrees all year round with occasional mild temperature spikes and drops allowing for sun or snow? When I am Overlord of the Universe, I will outlaw bad weather.

the store where I used to work in Government Center is moving to a new place. It will now occupy a huge spot in Faneuil Hall, right smack in the middle of all the tourists and such. Now when you are browsing for a coffee mug with your name on it featuring a picture of a lobster, you can also pop into Newbury Comics for all of your grow-a-penises, Tool t-shirts, $500 limited edition Spiderman statuettes and Boney M CDs. Anyway, the current location is having a giant sale to sell off their inventory before moving, so I bought me a webcam. A DALEK-SHAPED webcam, no less.

Wow, I haven’t had a webcam since the mid-90s when they were giving them away with every single thing you subscribed to. I think I got one for signing up for Earthlink way back when everyone had dial-up.

Here’s the first picture I ever took with it (ca. 1998?):

Here’s one I took today with the new dalek-enabled one:

Notice anything unusual? How about the fact that I am wearing the same dress? Damn I’ve had that thing a long time! It wasn’t even remotely new in 1998.

So anyway, i can now have a Dalek-related strip show that you can stream live… or not. Maybe I’ll have my Dalek action figures put on a strip show. Wouldn’t that be… amusing to only me?

Seriously, my stupid fucking cat can’t keep his bodily fluids to himself. When he’s not finding new and interesting things to pee or barf on, he’s licking my bed. Yes, he’ll lie there and lick a giant wet spot on my bed, probably for hours on end if I’d let him. He also enjoys licking my pillows.

WTF?!?!?

This cat is wack, yo.

Just when I thought there was no reason to live, Krustee brought this product to my attention:

I have long tried to thrust my opinion on the world, which is that everything tastes better with bacon. These fine souls agree with me! In fact, their motto is “everything should taste like bacon.” OF COURSE IT SHOULD!!!

So, I went in search of this mythical powder. According to their website, it is available in Stop n Shops across Massachusetts. Thus I rode my bike to the SnS in Ahlington. Alas, the store was closed for remodeling. Still on a quest, I went to the one in Allston, but to no avail. I couldn’t find anything resembling a baconizing agent, and the one native English speaker I could find to help me there just gave me a weird look and mumbled “spices” trying in vain to disguise her “DUH!” voice before walking away. So today I drove out almost to Assembly Square in search of Bacon Salt and lo and behold, there it was! They had 2 different flavors, so I chose the regular one.

What did I have around the house to test it on? First I tried it straight out of the bottle. It tastes like bacon bits… so far so good…

Next I sprinkled it on my leftover Macaroni and Cheese. It has a slight sweet taste, which clashes with the oddly sweet after taste of the Market Basket brand Mac & Cheese, but it did improve it. Bacon can only improve everything!

Next I dosed some Tater Tots with the wondrous magical bacon dust. They were transformed into puffy bacon nuggets!

My favorite way to eat tater tots is with sour cream, with garlic salt mixed into it (I know it sounds gross, but it’s actually pretty awesome). Instead of garlic salt, I added bacon salt and lo and behold! A creamy bacony wonder sauce!

1. Bacoroni and Cheese
2. Bacor tots
3. I can’t come up with a punny name for this (sour cream with Bacon Salt)

I think I am a convert.

My next projects: bacon poutine and bacon scrambled eggs…

Saki says that there are a few things that bacon can’t improve… like cake. It’s my goal to make delicious Cakon– bacon-flavored cake. The sky’s the limit!

In other news…

Sunday I actually went to the BEACH. Yes, Patty and I went to um… a beach on the south coast of MA whose name eludes me. Horseheads beach? no, Horseheads is in NY. Something with a horse. Anyway, it was awesome– big waves, nice sunny day… I got sunburned in the white farmer-tan patch where my wrist brace normally lives and all over my neck and back. Those Asian genes haven’t kicked in yet this year. Damn you, lack of melanin!

I still hate my job. I spent 10 hours today working and didn’t even get to one of the accounts I’m supposed to. I feel like I’m working for Mom now– it doesn’t matter what I do WELL since I’m guilty until proven innocent. I could personally nurture every single plant to lush green beautifulness and it wouldn’t matter because I’d only get graded for the one small piece of dried up leaf on the ground I’d forgotten to pick up. How do I know? Because when my overseer saw 2 plants that were healthy and nice-looking, she kept saying “well these are new, aren’t they? They must have just gotten installed.” No matter how many times I tried to convince her that those plants had been there since I started, she didn’t believe me. Anything good I do obviously has nothing to do with me, and is a fluke. I have been relegated to the Suck category. Oh well, it was bound to happen. Every job I have I manage to get put on the Incompetent List sooner or later. It doesn’t matter how hard I try; it is inevitable.

Basically, I’m sick of being a blue collar wage slave.

What else can I do?

Why can’t I be interested in anything PRACTICAL? How come everything that gets me excited career wise is either impossible (being an onomastics expert), improbable (i.e., being a movie set designer. How does one even go about doing this?) or involves time travel (i.e., a WWII-era jazz singer). Why can’t I find an intense desire to, like, be an auto mechanic or even a stock broker? I wish I could be hypnotized into thinking that being a secretary (i.e., white collar wage slave) is fascinating work, because that’s pretty much all I’m qualified to do. Any hypnotists in the audience? Anyone? I’ll make you bacon-flavored cake!

There was a group of people waiting to cross the street downtown the other day, and all I caught was “I got an electric shark.” I instantly got really excited– electric sharks? Where? Did they emit electric charges, or did they just run on electricity?

Ok, so this is how Massachusetts I am: they were actually talking about getting an “electric shock.” With their midwestern accents, “shaaaaaak” sounds exactly like “shark” over on this here coast. Dammit! I want an electric shark!

It’s like when someone called the record store where I worked and asked for “Common” and I thought they were asking for “Carman” (Carman being a really cheesy Christian rapper). I was like, “Carman? the Christian rapper?” And the dude said, “well… I’m not sure he’s Christian…” Luckily that tipped me off, because the only point of Carman is that he’s a Christian. He has numbers like “The Resurrection Rap,” and another one whose title I can’t remember which includes the lines

And Satan said, [in evil satanic voice] YOU’RE DEAD MEAT, JESUS!
and Jesus said, [in heroic guy voice] go ahead Satan, MAKE MY DAY!”

Yeah, that’s not exactly what you would expect from Common.

Anyway, I think I need to get out more.