All posts by notalwaysaboutmonkeys

*$#)@&!!!! (or why I'm going to flunk out of school and get fired from my job)

So we received  a notice week before last that S & N Contractors would be here “upgrading” the fiber optic network in Henrico County.  It was a notice, not a request.  They said they’d be digging on county easement that was “on or off private property.”  I thought for sure that couldn’t mean that they would be digging in my yard.  Wrong.  As it turns out, any private property within 8-10 inches of a county road is considered “easement” property – meaning that the county can come dig up your darn yard any old time they want to.  So they’ve dug three large holes in my front yard (and to be fair, the front yards of my neighbors) in order to “upgrade” this fiber optic network.  I’m all about improving technology, but come on, guys.

Somebody asked us, “Well, are you getting Verizon Fios?”  Thing is, we already have it.  It’s been working just fine.  So I need to be patient and understanding that with this new, “upgraded” fiber optic network things will be better for more people.  That’s great.

But here’s the thing, Folks.  I work from home.  I am in graduate school.  My office (on the front of the house, facing the front yard) is my high-productivity place of awesomeness.  So how am I supposed to be awesome with this going on outside my house?

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And this is the infernal noise it makes.

Dreadful.  As a result, I’m unable to get any reading or writing done.  And yes, I did try going to a different part of the house.  No better.  The dining room is on the same level as the noisy drill, and the family room is underground, so the whole room is shaking like a dog pooping razor blades.   I hope it doesn’t hurt the large TV.

So, since I luckily have some work to do that does not require my whole brain, I’m submitting articles (and of course one of the article submission sites is being an utter pain in the patookis) and watching horror movies on my office DVD player.  The kitty is hanging right in here with me, curled up in the circle chair in my office.

I started with the original Halloween, which is (as far as I’m concerned) one of the most awesome horror movies of all time.  It has the right amount of terror, a strong heroine, and a horrifying bad guy.  Halloween II was next, which gives us a little background on Michael Myers, and shows us that he is, in fact, invincible and evil.  Invincibly evil.  Evilly invincible.  Is fantastic.  My favorite parts are when Laurie’s wanna-be boyfriend finds the nurse that Michael Myers had drained all the blood out of, and he totally does a slapstick-type slip up and lands flat on his back in all the blood, and when Michael gets shot in the head and the blood runs into his eyes, making it so that he can’t see and therefore just swipes blindly at Dr. Loomis with the knife.  I know.  I’m a weirdo.

I skipped Halloween III, because it’s completely unrelated, and I don’t have IV, V, or VI, so I skipped straight to Halloween H20:  20 Years Later, because it pretends that those other ones never happened, either.

I haven’t seen the Rob Zombie remakes.  If someone wants to send them to me for free I’ll review them.  Otherwise I have to wait until they cost less than $20 each.  My horror budget is depleted.  I also bought Nightmare on Elm Street I, II, III, and IV all in the same little package.  I don’t like those as much as the Halloween movies, but the third one is quite fun.

More about that later.  Back to the work I can accomplish with this infuriating noise going on, and when they finally stop maybe I can get some copy written and some schoolwork done.  Or, I might have beat my head against the wall until I’m blissfully unconscious by then.

Exciting News

So, following in the footsteps of some of my favorite bloggers, I pulled out the old Mastercard and paid $9 whole dollars for a real domain name today.  It was a big step.  I had to sit down for a moment.  I also have a benevolent backer who has offered to help me with hosting, so it looks like www.notalwaysaboutmonkeys.com is going to be up very soon.  Until then, I will enjoy WordPress while I have it, because it is so very lovely.

I will now amuse you with badly-taken photographs of a dog I met recently.  I can’t remember his name, because it was an odd, exotic name, and I didn’t really hear it the first three times the dog’s owner told it to me.

Meet Whats-His-Name, the adorable French Bulldog:

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Cute, huh?

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Brain Dump

It’s been a while, and I apologize for that (to the two readers who actually care – you know who you are).  I’ve been super busy, for one, and for two, I haven’t felt all that effervescent and clever.  That usually makes for some pretty “blah” blogging, as you can tell from some of my older entries… “Gee I have a migraine again” or, ” I hope I’m not getting sick”  Not very interesting, I’m afraid.

So here are a few snippets of things that have occupied/amused me in the past few days that I thought I’d share with you:

1.  I saw some real Gideons.  They were giving out tiny green Bibles on campus on Tuesday.  The tiny Bible has the New Testament, and also Proverbs and Psalms.  It’s like a “best of” compilation…all the important Jesus stuff plus all the highly quotable and frequently quoted stuff.  The man handed it to me and said, “Keys to the kingdom?”  I thanked him and smiled.  Later, walking to a class, I saw one of the tiny green Bibles on the ground in Schafer Court.  Its cover was slightly crumpled.  That made me sad.  I picked it up (it was slightly sticky) and carried it to my next class, and put it on a bookshelf in the conference room.  There.  That was better.

Incidentally, I’d like to admit freely that in retrospect I really wanted the Gideons to be wearing fezzes.

2.  Speaking of fezzes, Hubs and I went to the Pork Festival at RIR a few weekends ago.  I was DD, because the guys fully intended on abusing the “all you can drink” portion of the event.  Hubs didn’t really believe it was “all you can drink” and hightailed it over to the beer truck asking the attendant “can I really come back as many times as I want?” to which she replied, “Yep.”  He wasn’t so much asking for himself, but for our friends who might have incited a riot if told that there was a minimum.  Hubs didn’t get housed, but friends got pretty toasty and sang hymns on the way back to the car (which, even with  me sober, took 20 minutes to find).

Right.  Fezzes.  The Pork Festival was put on by the Acca Temple, who are Shriners.  I was expecting lots of fezzes and maybe even some tiny cars.  I was truly hoping for the opportunity to ask a Shriner where they buy their tiny cars.  Do they come in kits?  This is a question that I’ve wondered about for a long time.  Alas, there were only two Dudes in Fezzes and no tiny cars.

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This tiny picture represents my very favorite part of the festival.  These guys are the Acca Temple Country Western Band.  As you see, the upright bass player is one of the two fez-wearers I could find.  They were awesome.  I would seriously go to a Shriner event to see them play again.  I want to write them up on that Richmond website I write for.

So that’s just two, Folks.  I have to go finish this crazy project I’m working on (crazy because I got WAY too in depth on it) and then write some articles, go make copies of the crazy presentation, and head myself down to VCU.

I won’t be such a stranger.  Promise.  Plus, I should have a guest blogger coming up sometime soon.  Won’t that be nice?

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