Two Bad Neighbors Part 1

I've been out and about for awhiles now so I feel I owe it to everyone to post a long one. This might be broken into a 2 parter. After two awesome/relaxing vacations (Pittsburgh and Chesapeke Bay) I am back in the real world and am already angry again. That didn't take very long. One day.

But first a brief story about this past weekend.

So I'm back from the Chesapeake Bay. Went down there for the weekend with a group of friends (17??) for my buddy's birthday celebration. 17 is a lot of people for such a tiny place on the water but we for the most part made it work. The only real downfall was the tsunami that hit us late Saturday night. More than half the group were spending the night out in tents and it just started pouring! Tents trying to blow away, the whole yard turned into a muddy swamp in less than 5 minutes. It was cool at first to be outside in (I love when it gets REALLY windy) but then people's shit was getting soaked and we had to find a way for 17 people to sleep indoors with only 2 guest beds and 2 couches.

I got no sleep that night on the floor. But it was an amazing day anyway.

Then I come back home and the first thing I do is walk my dog. As we're strolling through the grass I almost slip and kill myself on a big ol piece of crap. How do you not pick up your dogs shit? I live in a condo development so none of us really have backyards and have to walk around the neighborhood letting the dogs do their sinful business on the few grassy areas. When I first moved here I was so used to just letting my dog out in our backyard that I was completely oblivious to picking up my dog's doodie. Until some lady yelled at me. That was all I needed to hear. I realized my mistake and since then I always pick it up. And on the occasions that I forget. I will go back inside my house, get a grocery bag, and go back out and get it.

But not everyone is as super awesome as I am.

But here's the real kicker. The condo development was kind enough to place these dog droppings containers and bags. It's basically a stand with a doggy bag dispenser and a small trashcan underneath. Not only that, I think they put up MORE than they actually needed to! I guess the development realized just how fucking lazy these people are. It doesn't hurt to walk another 50 feet. I should know, I need to shed some pounds myself! So when I see the development go out of their way to help keep this neighborhood clean and make it easy for everyone, only to notice that I am still stepping in SHIT infuriates me to no end.

What else have the condo people done for us lately? They put speed bumps in my neighborhood. There's only 2, but I feel it should help. For you see the 4 speed limit signs in my neighborhood were not enough to get people to actually drive 15 miles per hour. Yeah 15 can be pretty damn painful but there are children in this neighborhood! 2 years ago I had one of those tv/movie moments where the rubber bouncing ball went out into the street and a small girl went running after it. Since I was going about 15 miles per hour I was able to stop in time. She was still about 20 feet away, but someone doing about 30 down the street like they normally do might have had a problem.

But the speed bumps don't seem to help much either. My favorite person in the world "Scottie LeDouche" as I refer to him still does 30-40 down the road. I have downstairs neighbors (that actually talk to me and call me by name) that have a 4 year old and a 7 year old. They like to play outside and ride bikes and scooters. But that doesn't stop Scottie LeDouche. He'll come flying down that road likes he's trying to win The Kessel Run. It's sad that most of the people in my neighborhood drive a lot like him and it won't be until they stike a child or maybe even a dog to learn their lesson. But apparently that's the world we live in. It's cool to drive fast. I wouldn't know, I never thought I was cool and I never will. Scottie LeDouche is a sad pathetic late 30's early 40's dude desperately trying to hold on to whatever youth he has left. When I called him out on his actions awhiles back he referred to me a "some dumb punk" Coming from the jerkass who drives like a speed demon, throws a beer bottle at me and my dog(that was from an old blog back on Facebook), and in general is just a plain douche (hence the name) his words don't seem to affect me that much. But sadly, I see him every day. I walk Kenobi around 3:15 when I get home from work. Halfway through our walk Scottie gets home, flys down the road, I stare him down the whole time, he walks into his house, grabs two little white terrier dogs, lets them pee once, then drags them inside. All before Kenobi and I get back up the street to our place. He must really love those dogs.

But at least I know it's not his dog poop I'm stepping in since he doesn't even give them a change to go...

Next time I shall discuss more why my brother and I are considered the bad neighbors and what prompted them to hang this banner from their balcony!

Hey all!

I have to apologize again for the absence. First of all I was on vacation for 5 days. I think my first night in Pittsburgh is when I posted my last......post. Then it was 5 awesome days of hanging out with friends and drinking! Normally when I go visit my friends in Pitt I usually see the same few people. But this time I got to see several old friends that I honestly had not seen since I moved back home in 2005. I had an amazing time and I'll hopefully be going to visit a lot more often than I have been.

But when I got home on Monday I was treated with walking in the door to my house as a sauna. My brother told me that the AC was broken. To me, that is a nightmare. I live off of my AC, and the whole time I was in Pittsburgh I had no AC. My friends bought a fan that was pretty damn sweet and that enabled me to sleep well while on my vacation. In the back of my mind, I was so excited to be able to come back home and sleep in my bed and cold ass house. Boy was I in for a surprise.

I CANNOT sleep in the heat. I just can't. I toss and turn like an infant that needs to urinate. It's quite sad.

I ended up getting no sleep the night before I had a 9 hour shift at work. Halfway through the work day I was barely able to stand and was a tad delirious. I remember spending several minutes trying to lock up the store when we closed, only to notice I was using my house key to do so.

Normally I don't need much sleep but I think that coupled with the fact that I slept on a couch in Pittsburgh and was partying so much, I didn't get a lot of rest those 5 days. So I was ZONKED at work. It was terrible. But did I have a great time? Hell yeah! So it was totally worth it. Plus, since my AC is broken I ended up going to Home Depot and buying the exact same fan my Pitt friends bought. It's pretty sweet!

I'm going to see The Hangover tomorrow which is supposed to be amazingly funny. Can't wait.

Pittsburgh

I haven't posted in awhile.....again. But I have been working more to make up for the fact that I was going on "vacation" to visit old college friends in Pitsburgh.

So here I am! I'm in the Burgh and it's late. I'm staying at my buddies house for the weekend but he has work tomorrow so he passed out. I figured I needed to blog about something so I will just be rambling on from here on out.

I decided to drive up a night early since the weather was supposed to be really shitty today. Boy I'm glad I did. The weather in Maryland was rainy and unpleasant which is not very fun to drive in. My favorite part of driving to Pitt is being able to roll down the window and listen to my latest J-pop/rock mix on the way there. Driving through the rain ruins said experience. So I left the night before and while I did hit a bit of rain it was the fog that really hurt me. Once I reached the mountains of Pennsylvania is was literally engulfed by fog. It was about 15 minutes of terror. I couldn't even see 50 feet in front of me and the few cars around me are trying to do 80 mph on swervy, foggy, mountain roads. Very dangerous. Driving through the mist giant trucks would appear out of nowhere in front of me. It was a pretty amazing experience when I wasn't fearing for my life.

Today while my friends were at work I spent my time playing video games. Played some Uncharted which is a pretty slick PS3 game. Might be able to beat it sometime this weekend. Tomorrow my friends will be at work again so I will probably be doing the same thing I did today. Though I'd like to probably get some reading in and maybe some anime episodes. I think I'm about due to watch the new Haruhi episode again (Natch).

I shall probably also spend my time unlocking characters in Bleach: Shattered Blade and Naruto: Clash of the Ninja.

Anyway, that's all I got for tonight. Tomorrow night is going to be awesome seeing old friends.

Later!

Sushi

Oh lordy how I love sushi. I think I've almost become addicted to it because I've been getting it at least 3 times a week lately. Then again, I've also had more money lately so that probably helps.

It wasn't until a few years ago when I realized how much I loved it. But it wasn't always like that. I've been told I have some of the strangest tastebuds on the planet. I do not like fruit (except maybe limes and lemons), but I do like most vegetables. As a child my mom would chop up little onion pieces for me, but if you gave me apple slices I would not be having that. Strange indeed.

A lot of it is also in my head. Would you believe me if I said I never once in my life had a Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich? Cause I haven't. And not because it doesn't taste good (how would I know?) but because jelly looks gross to me. The sight of jelly makes me feel sick. Though I have no problem with peanut butter. I'd say about half of the things I say I don't like I actually have never tried. So very, very stubborn am I...

So back in high school a group of friends and I went to get some sushi. Being the stubborn mule I am I was really not excited about trying it. It just didn't look appetizing to me. But like any normal teenage boy, when a girl asks you to try something, you fucking do it. I tried it and it made me feel sick. Looking back on it I'm pretty sure it was the caviar. As much as I love sushi now I will still avoid caviar because of that past experience.

I also think there are several other factors for my new obsession. One key reason being that once you go to college your tastebuds change. I'm sure this doesn't go for everyone, but I noticed that once your in college trying to survive on your own you learn to eat whatever you can afford. If you have little money, you will buy whatever you can with whatever you have. I was eating things I never thought I would in college. Ha. So I think that's a definite factor.

The other being my new found interest in Japanese culture. Ever since I got REALLY into anime/manga about 5 years ago I've also become really interested in their culture. It's so much different then ours and that fascinates me. My friends will give me a hard time about it sometimes "If it's Japanese, Sean will like it" and that's fine. But it's kind of hard to watch a lot of anime (especially with Japanese subtitles) and not also learn a lot. Which I think is cool. Now when I go to get my sushi, I know how to properly thank the chef Nakazima-san with an "arigato gozaimasu". The polite way of saying "Thank You Very Much". He doesn't speak very good English so I feel super awesome when I thank him. Yes, I am that big of a dork.

And now, I'm going to pick up my sushi for the night!

Mail call!

Remember back in the day of childhood innocence trying to find out what came in the mail was one of the greatest moments in the day? "I wonder if there is something in that pile for me!!" I would always wonder. A time where anything with your name on it was either a card (which usually meant money was inside), a magazine, or some sort of package. I fondly remember reading as a child My Big Backyard and Zoobooks magazines at first, then moving towards Disney Adventures when I was a little older, then going on to Gamepro, EGM, and Star Wars Insider by middle school. I couldn't wait to get home to see if any of these magazines had arrived.

But those days are long gone. The mailbox is no longer your friend when you reach my age. It is your nemesis. After a long day of work opening that mailbox is the last thing I want to do because there is practically nothing in there that is going to make the day any better. While I do still get Star Wars Insider and now Otaku USA, anything else in that box is bad news. And that bad news is normally bills.

Bill, bills, bills. Once you thought you'd paid them all, a bunch more show up in their place. It never stops and it never will until the day you die unfortunately. Sad but true. Lucky for me though I am all caught up on my bills and have nothing to worry about for awhile. And once I stop using my storage facility (who just recently upped our rent from around $280-$310) thats a good chunk of change right there that I get to keep for myself once again.

But I'm tired now and wanted to rant about something before I chill out for the rest of the night. I saw Star Trek tonight and was not really impressed at all. I shall spend the rest of the night playing Final Fantasy X.

Live long and prosper...

Absense

I have to apologize for not posting as much as I normally do. I get pretty depressed around Mother's Day and normally try and keep to myself. I lost my mom 3 years ago to terminal brain cancer. I have been able to move on with my life, but when Mother's Day comes around it's like it's shoved in my face. Mother related things EVERYWHERE. I try not to let it get to me too much and I do think I handled it a lot better than last year so that's something.

Around this time of the year I will usually purchase something for myself to keep my mind occupied. Last year I bought my DS and this year I was going to trade in said DS at Gamestop for the new DSi. If you turn in your DS Lite you can get the DSi for $70. Fuck yeah. But I decided to hold off on that. Instead I purchased Rock Band 2 and have just spent the last 2 hours beating the hell out of those drums. So addicting. I was happy to see you could download Blink 182's Dammit and that the drums were really hard. Since I am rhythmically challenged it's all very difficult for me but I have fun doing it anyways. I like a challenge. I''ve already got pretty good on the Medium setting of Dammit which is pretty sweet.

The other thing that has been occupying my time is Final Fantasy X. But I will save that for next post. For now I'm going to watch some Battlestar before bed.

LOST 2 hours season finale tomorrow! Cannot wait!

Cars

I love my car. I loved the cars I've had in the past as well. Well, most of them I should say. The Geo Prism, not my favorite, but I totaled that car good!

But I do not understand the obsession with cars. Like, at all. Keep in mind I am one of the rare ones. I am a guy who not only doesn't get excited over pictures of cars or cars in general, but I also don't care much about sports. *gasp!!!*

"He is no man! He's some sort of crazy person!" I'll take that. I don't friggin care.

I grew up knowing kids my whole life that would practically masterbate over car magazines. Talk about how they couldn't wait to own cars like the ones they saw pictures of. And all I could do was laugh to myself. All that was going through my mind was "If you want a car like that, you might wanna get your grades up so you can actually keep a job as an adult." You can't afford a Lamborghini unless you make money. (On a side note, I had to google how to spell Lamborghini and I am absolutely astounded that it's spelled that way).

The other day while I was at work this woman parked her car over the white line so she was taking up TWO spaces. When one of my collegues at work pointed this out I had to ask "Why do people do this?" He told me it's because some people drive super nice cars and don't want anyone to scratch them. So they take up two spaces.

At first I thought "That's a load of crap. Get over yourself" But then I really thought about it. OK, if you are REALLY paranoid about you car getting scratched then park it in the far end of the parking lot! There are more spaces open there. This woman had parked her car in THE FRONT TWO SPOTS. And she was going to do Yoga for an hour and 1/2. To me it's extremely rude to not only take up the first two spots in the parking lot, but to leave it there for almost 2 hours? Bullcocky. I should also point out that this woman was not driving a Lam-borg-hini or anything, but a Cylon.

Excuse me, a Scion. Which looks like a fine car, again I have no friggin idea what cars are good, but I don't think it justifies what she did. A Hummer! That I could understand. That needs several spaces. But then again, if you are worried about someone scratching your Hummer, perhaps you should look into something a little bigger. Like a tank.

I am one of the lucky ones where I have basically been given my cars as hand me downs from my parents. Sadly, I live in Montgomery County Maryland which is right outside of DC and one of the richest counties in the USA. It's a place where children are spoiled. I know kids who have sold the car that was litereally given to them, to take that money and save up for another car that was FASTER. A faster car?? Really? What are you in NASCAR? Your parents give you a car so you can drive to and from work and school and you aren't happy with what they gave you? Makes me sick. A high schooler doesn't need to be "doing 150" on the highway. I'm sorry, they just don't.

Blah. Sorry, I've had a REAL crappy day and I'm venting.