What's going on with me?

5-21-07 - After a long nine months, I finally got my new computer working nine days ago. I knew that whatever the problem was would be a quick fix, and it was. This is why I refused to pay Best Buy, CompUSA, or anyone else upwards of $130 to tell me what the problem was. I’m lucky to have my friend Christine who just happened to have all sorts of spare parts lying around that we were able to use to determine the problem. In five minutes, we’d determined that not only was the processor bad, but one of my sticks of RAM was, as well.

Being the nice person she is, she let me borrow her spare processor and brand new heat sink while I wait on my return parts. She didn’t have any spare RAM, but that’s what Best Buy’s return policy is for. I got the bad parts shipped off on Friday. Now, we play the waiting game...

I don’t understand how people can actually convince themselves of some things. So some girl that I met at swing dancing a couple months ago sent a MySpace bulletin asking for female makeup advice, wondering about mascara, etc, that won’t get in her eyes halfway through the day. I replied by saying that a lot of guys prefer no makeup and added “food for thought.” She replied with, “If God didn’t want me to wear makeup, he would’ve given me darker eyelashes. Food for thought.”

Unfortunately, that wasn’t much of a meal. How on earth does she “know” that her god wants her to wear makeup? That’s gotta be one of the worst arguments I’ve ever heard.

So this past Thursday was a free Gin Blossoms concert downtown. I was talking to my friend Kate about halfway through it when I felt two hands on my butt. I had no idea who it was, but it was obviously meant to be a surprise. I kinda paused and said, “I’ve got hands on my butt,” but I wasn’t about to turn around right away. Whoever did this was gonna commit. It just turned out to be my friend Andrew. And yes, he committed for the ten seconds or so I made him wait.

On Friday, I was “caller X” on the radio, meaning that I won a prize. I won Tool’s new CD...which I’m not gonna listen to. I won a free day-long Harley rental...which I’m not gonna use. And I’ll be entered in the drawing for the big “X-venture,” which is a trip to Bonaroo and some camping gear...which I’m not gonna attend or use. Awesome. Andrew heard me on the radio, though, and sent me a text message asking me if I was caller X while I was still talking to the DJ giving him my information.

This makes my fourth radio win since moving up here. The first two were three and six months after I moved up here, and they were eerily similar. They were looking for caller 9. I was caller 4 and caller 9 both times. Both were on a Saturday. Both were at around 3 pm. Both times I was at the same intersection, heading the same direction. And both were for tickets to an advance screening of a movie I wouldn’t have seen otherwise (“The Exorcism of Emily Rose,” which sucked cuz it was just about a trial, and “Fun with Dick and Jane,” which actually ended up being ok).

The third and the fourth were kinda similar, too. They were useless prizes. The third one was for tickets to go see Leon Redbone (huh?) downtown, preceded by a poetry reading.

The third win kinda cracked me up cuz I had just turned to the radio station and they said, “Caller 5, right now, wins tickets to the concert.” It’s an independent radio station, so I knew it would suck, but I had no idea what I was trying to win. I knew the number, so I called. The DJ asked if I was excited about the concert and, feigning knowledge of what I’d just won, I affirmed excitedly. Then I asked for confirmation on when and where it was. I looked it up and saw that it was crap. Oh, well. I’ll win the biggie some time.

5-3-07 - So I read this story today:

A New York City educator is in hot water after sending out a scathing note to parents riddled with spelling and grammatical errors.

Michael Levy, a health academy dean at Markham Intermediate School in Staten Island, N.Y., sent home the letter to around 100 eighth graders on Monday after a rowdy food fight in the cafeteria, the Staten Island Advance reported.

In the letter, Levy used "unexcecpable" for "unacceptable," "activates" for "activities" and "caferteria" for "cafeteria."

The letter was also filled with contradictions. Levy wrote that the students would be collectively punished and prohibited from attending the prom and the year-end class trip, according to the Advance. He then wrote that the students' punishments would be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

The note also promised to bar students from the prom if the letter was not signed by parents and returned to the school.

The school's principal, Emma Della Rocca, said the letter was unauthorized and that Levy would be evaluated at a conference on Friday. But parents are still scratching their heads over the error-filled note.

"I'd be worried that somebody was educating my son that doesn't know how to spell," Lucy Farfan-Narcisse, a parent whose child attends the school, told WCBS-TV. "That would be a great concern."

Seriously, Lucy, you should hope that someone is educating your son that doesn’t know how to spell. He’s in eighth grade. He should be fairly far along in spelling and vocabulary by now. Why do you think he’s attending school, anyway? To be educated.

Oh, wait...you meant you don’t think someone that doesn’t know how to spell should be educating your son. My bad. Your lack of basic knowledge of sentence structure threw me off. Whew! I thought you were a moron there for a second!