A little heads up that my posting schedule may be on the erratic side this week as I work to finish up a project due next week at work and try to finish up painting my kitchen cabinets. Today, I will simply encourage you fellow men out there to continue to make regular financial investments in your penis. Your penis may be weak today, but pump in that funding, and it will grow over time. I recommend penis cost averaging to hedge against pussy market downturns.

Like other communities in the Twin Cities area, Eagan hasn't been immune to the spike of foreclosures. Granted, it is not nearly the epidemic that has swept north Minneapolis, but one doesn't have to look very far even in the suburbs. In fact, just a few doors down from me is one such property. The previous owners, who seemed like nice enough people based on the few conversations I had with them, apparently couldn't keep up with their mortgage. After an extended and ultimately unsuccessful attempt to sell their home to get out from under their debt, they ended up getting foreclosed on. That was well over a year ago. So far this spring, the yard on that property hasn't been mowed even once, and the grass and weeds have grown completely out of control, which is strange because the yard was maintained somewhat regularly last year.


I'm sure Ang has become sick of me commenting every time we've driven or walked by that yard the last couple of weeks, "You know, I should complain to the city about that. The bank is as responsible for maintaining their own property as anyone else. Look at this! It looks like total shit." Yesterday after the drive past the waving blades of headed-out grass evoked images of a field of spring wheat, I decided that enough was enough. I used the City of Eagan's website to verify that city code was being violated, and got the email address for their Code Enforcement department. I also searched on the Dakota County website to find that the property was owned by CitiMortgage, Inc, part of Citigroup. I knew the city would have access to the same information, but I wanted to know which bank was thoughtlessly shitting up my neighborhood.

Here is the bulk of the email I wrote to the City of Eagan.

...I'm writing to you out of concern over the property at [address removed] , a rambler at the corner of [intersection removed]. This property has not been occupied for a year or more, and it does not appear that any lawn or other maintenance has been done on the property at all so far this spring. As of this morning, the grass and weeds throughout the yard still had not been cut. Not only is this an eyesore in our neighborhood, but more importantly I fear that the appearance of an unoccupied home will be a target for thieves in search of copper piping, possibly endangering the residents of nearby homes...

I hoped reminding them of the widespread rash of copper theft of late would inject a little more urgency into the matter. I sent that email just before 9 am, and shortly after noon, a city employee responded:

"...Thank you for contacting the City of Eagan to report the condition at [address removed]. We already received a complaint regarding this property, and it is being processed by Code Tech [name removed] under case number [removed]. If no response is received within a couple days, we will contract to have the lawn cut..."

In other words, they will cut the lawn and bill CitiMortgage, Inc. I wonder if this is CitiMortgage's standard operating procedure? Instead of contracting out to have the yard regularly maintained and paying people to organize that mess for all of their properties, it's probably cheaper for them to just let the neighbors get pissed off, complain, then have the city come in to do the work for them and pay the bill (I'm also willing to bet some neighbors just give in a mow it themselves). Wait a month or two, and let the cycle repeat. Pay for about 3 mows, and the summer's over.

I'm curious to see how quickly the City of Eagan will follow through on mowing over there. Particularly since I'm looking to move next spring, I'd also like to know how quickly and thoroughly other cities and suburbs around here handle this type of situation.

Go over to Ang's blog for some snapshots from our webcam chat with puppets, people, monkeys, two-headed ducklings, and dongs (no dong photos there since hers is a my-parents-read-this-and-I-care-what-they-think-of-me blog).

And I find myself apologizing once again for my lack of attention to this blog lately. Our social lives have been frenetic the last few days, and I also am neck deep in a kitchen renovation (or remodel, whatever you want to call it) project. In the last couple of days, I have:

-Replaced the regular electrical outlet in the bathroom with a GFI outlet. It's recommended for safety reasons and will be one less strike against me during an inspection once I put my house on the market next year.

-Masturbated in the basement with enough voracity to cause stress lesions on my shaft and taintal areas.

-Replaced my 70s-era, craptastic dining room chandelier with a fancy ceiling fan light with a thermostatic remote control.

-Wrote my name in poop on the neighbors drive way. With my neighbor's own poop.

-Removed all 18 cabinet doors from the kitchen cabinets and removed all of the handles, hinges, and strike plates. All of the cabinets, doors, and drawers will be painted, and all of the hardware (handles, hinges, etc) will be replaced. I then plan to replace the slides for all of the drawers so they open and close more easily. This is a pain in the ass, but it's much cheaper than replacing all of the cabinets, and hopefully it will be a better return on investment when I sell. After that, I'm applying the same cabinet treatment to the built-in china hutch, taking down the chicken weather vane wallpaper, and painting the dated-looking wainscoting. After that, I want to do something with the counter tops, but that will probably be a fall or winter project.

I've been doing a lot of work around the house lately. Since we cleaned everything up, I replaced the light fixtures by the front door and either side of the garage door, replaced the rotting mailbox post with a brand spanking new cedar post, and made preparations to replace my long-dead water softener with a whole house water filter. Yes, that's a bit of a downgrade, but fuck if I'm spending another $800 (or whatever it would cost these days) to replace the one I had put in 8 years ago when all I want is to remove the minerals and shit that are hard on my pipes and appliances.

In addition to those improvements, I've also made some security upgrades. I hope you like them.

July, 2000


May, 2008

Prior to leaving for Omaha from my house, Max asked if he could use my bathroom. As he walked toward the hallway, an object fell from his jacket pocket and hit the floor with a loud thud. I recognized it immediately. "Oh, you've got boob cream!" I exclaimed. Apparently he had planned on slipping it into my medicine cabinet for me to find upon returning from the trip. It would have been a delightful prank, but alas, it was spoiled by gravity. He really did have to use the bathroom though (or so he claimed), so he continued on his way. Before leaving, I made one last pit stop and found something slightly amiss. For a moment, I couldn't put my finger on it.


Wait, what is that on the shelf above the toilet?


What the fuck? Crystal Gayle and Jeff Foxworthy circa Charles in Charge? The poor guy. He is gazing at her with the truest, most heartfelt love, and she can hardly stand to breathe the same air as him. The forced not-quite-a-smile, not-quite-a-frown look on her face says, "God, stop breathing on me. You smell like hot tuna melt and piss. I only tolerate you because I all of the girls are jealous that I date the guy with the foxy polo shirts. Well, let me tell you, pal, if they knew what was under that polo shirt and down those pants, they wouldn't be jealous of shit."


And he still went through with the Breast Friend cream. I suppose he figured why let it go to waste. I won't go into detail, but I can tell you that my penis skin is much more smooth and supple now.

Project Make Shit Go 'Way Now is actually in its final stages. I can't believe it. We did it, people. It's like we sent a down syndrome kid to the moon or some shit. We're proud of you, little buddy! God's handiwork, you are. Go with His love, friend. Go with His love. *sniffle*

As we started cleaning out the garage, it soon became apparent that I had no fucking clue just how much useless junk I had accumulated in the 8 years I've lived in this house. Making things worse, I found caches of junk stowed away by the previous owner in the garage rafters and nether regions of the basement. Now I'm going to prove to you just how much shit there was. Keep in mind that I've already thrown or given away a couple hundred, if not more gallons of junk up to this point. This is end game. Time to get a dumpster.

Not even fucking around this time.


Rubbish, I say! Pure rubbish!


This is nothing. By the end of the day, we had this thing completely full.


This was left in the basement by the previous owner. It is gold-flecked, mirrored tile. When I moved into the house, this shit covered the dining room wall. I wish I had the forethought to take a photo back then.


Looks great with giant blush brushes in plastic water jugs and even better with a hanging macramé plant holder.


Three out of three turtleneck wearing users of Crest agree -- gold-flecked, mirrored tile is the fucking shit rocket.


Fleck my world with gold.


The best part of the whole process is busting this shit up in the dumpster. I already had the pleasure of smashing some gaudy lamps and window panes in there, so I let Ang have the fun this time around.

Dear ABC's Extreme Makeover Home Edition,

For years, I have endured numerous hardships. When I was 5 years old, I slipped at the pool and fell on my ass in front of all of the other kids. Then the swimming instructor yelled at me for running around the pool. Another time I took the license plate registration tabs for all of my dad's grain trucks. Thinking they were stickers, I stuck them on the walls inside of my cardboard playhouse. He yelled at me and spanked me! Then another time my grandma got mad at me for telling her to shut up, a girl turned me down when I asked her to the prom, and I ripped my favorite Helmet shirt. I had surgery on my balls, had to wear braces on my feet for a year or two, then had surgery on my throat, and later two surgeries on my ears to fix a congenital defect in my ear drum. Then I was rubbing one out; it shot under my desk, and I never found it. I got a blister, I stubbed my toe, I got angry about traffic, and yesterday I didn't shower and smelled bad. So as you can see, you totally need to give me a new house, pay my mortgage, and drop free shit on my ass like hot donkey piss from the sky.

The sooner the better with the free shit.

Tickles and nuzzles,

-Jeremy

In August, I will have lived in my house for 8 years. As I often say, my home is the place where I keep my things when I'm not using them. Oh, and the clothes that I'm not wearing (unless I'm at home, in which case the clothes that I'm wearing are also being kept in my home). Last summer I realized just how cluttered my house was with these things and clothes (even the ones I was using/wearing). It wasn't a matter of not having enough room for putting everything away, it was a matter of having too much crap and too little organization. Unfortunately when it comes to order, I'm reactionary. Things have to get so messy that I can't stand it anymore before I'll do something about it. I'll clean and straighten, and a month or two later, I'll be right back where I started. I knew it was time to go beyond my normal tidying jags when I became weary of having to sort through seemingly every single fucking item I own to find anything that's been out of my sight for more than a few days.

Phase I of Project Make Shit Go 'Way Now started early last fall and mostly involved sorting through my personal documents (seriously, why the fuck did I still have pay stubs from 1995?). I hauled a disturbing amount of trash to the curb, burned some particularly sensitive personal documents (I did not want those photos of me giving the thumbs up while eating an ice cream sundae out of a tranny hookers butthole to get out and ruin my rep), and took items of use to Goodwill.

I'm now in the middle of Phase II and am still amazed at how much useless crap I've accumulated in 8 years. This week's focus has mostly been clothing. As Ang will tell you, clothes are probably the worst clutter issue for me. For starters, I hate folding laundry. I'll clean and dry all the live long fucking day, but I hate sorting and folding it almost as much as I hate cucumbers (any vegetable that women stick up their vaginas that already tastes like 'gina juice before they ever stick it up there is not cool). So I had piles of clean clothes covering every square inch of the floor of my bedroom, strewn across a ping pong table in my basement, and all over the floor of my laundry area. Once I found a well-mannered Kenyan living in one of the piles of sweatshirts. He told me he had been subletting it from a widowed foley artist, which would explain why I used to hear metallic thunder and clopping horse hooves all of the time. I really didn't have the mental energy to sort that out, so I let him stay through the remainder of his lease.

Tonight I plan to take eight 13-gallon trash bags full of clothes to Goodwill, along with a couple boxes of other items. Phase II will come to a close when I have examined every single item occupying the main floor of my home. Phase III shall be the garage and my storage shed. Who will I find living there? My money's on a lovable cockney chimney sweep. But if you think I'm letting him stay too, you're wrong. Dirty soot-covered motherfucker's on his ass at the end of the driveway by sundown.

Last summer, my workhorse of a Maytag dishwasher, the only original kitchen appliance that came with the house that I haven't replaced, finally died an excruciating death. Initially I noticed that the dishes on the bottom rack weren't getting very clean. Then one day I fired it up and came back later to find it had leaked a couple of gallons of soapy water onto my floor. I opened the door to find that the water wasn't draining. I tore down the inside of the dishwasher, cleaned all of the parts, including the filter, and ran another load. Water on the floor again. Motherfucker! I checked the drain hose -- clear as a bell.

After a couple of weeks of dicking around with it, I finally got sick of having a dishwasher full of stagnant water and poured in an entire bottle of Drano. A day later, the trapped water ripe with the stench of rotting food remained. I poured in two entire bottles of Drano, fully aware that this couldn't possibly be very good for the dishwasher, but I knew I'd rather buy a new one than pay $100, $200, or even more to fix one that was likely more than 20 years old. Unfortunately, it appeared the former option was going to be forced upon me, as the motor on the dishwasher eventually died entirely. I surmise it was from straining to push the sprayer through a tub filled with acidic water.

The old dishwasher. It suffered greatly, but it is finally out of its misery.


After removing the dishwasher, I discovered a delicious sample of the carpet which apparently had originally covered the kitchen floor. This is carpet different than the wool carpet that was in the kitchen when I moved in. Thick wool carpet trapping every particle and splash of food. Wool carpet that steam cleaning only brightened the gray by one shade. Wool carpet that was gritty with sand, salt, and dirt no matter how much I vacuumed it.

I also found an entire piece of whole wheat toast I must have accidentally dropped between the fridge and dishwasher a few years ago.


This shit is straight out of the 70's.


Aw yeah... a quarter century of dust, hair, and dropped food.


Cobwebby!


Why do I keep licking this? WHY? Ungh-nunghhhh *sob*


I've only used the new dishwasher once, but it's about a 1/10th as loud as the old one. You could barely carry on a conversation in the living room while it was running. Plus it's more energy and water efficient. I can stuff a dead hooker in it, pour in 2 tablespoons of Cascade, and after running the Pot and Pan Scrubber cycle, POOF! What dead hooker, officer?

Dear crack jockey who installed the original plumbing in my house, did it not occur to you to install so much as a single cut-off valve? And no, the main water supply valve for the whole house doesn't count, jackhole. Thanks to you, various simple projects in my home have resulted in me going without running water for days at a time. I've taken whores' baths in the restroom sinks at Cub Foods, showered in mildew-encrusted basement locker rooms at a previous job, and desperately shat into a waterless toilet overflowing with loosely packed and processed meals. Now you are making it impossible to remove my dishwasher without risking the same scenario all over again. If I ever meet you, I will cave your skull in with a pipe wrench. Then I will insert a cut-off valve in the wound.

As some of you already know, I recently put ceramic tile down in Ang's bathroom (with much help from Ang, of course). This was part of a Christmas gift to her. We started last Friday evening by tearing out as much of the old stained, peeling linoleum as we could and worked on it piecemeal over the ensuing days, as we had a lot of other things going on. I finally wrapped it up last night by sealing the tile, caulking the edges, and putting the toilet and sink back in. We still need to put in a door threshold and some molding or trim of sort, but here is the finished product. And let me state for the record that after touching the disgusting wax seal for several toilets during various projects over the years, that toilet wax, even straight out of the package, is the most vile substance known to man or beast. Scrub all you want, but that shit won't come off of your hands until you've sloughed off 2 layers of skin. If you ever want to piss off a pair of newlyweds, write "Just Married" on the trunk of their car using toilet wax. People will think they just got married until they trade the car in or plunge it off a cliff in a suicidal fit after myriad prolonged, desperate attempts to wash it off.

In brief bursts, I've spent the last few weeks clearing my house of clutter. The seven years in my humble home in Eagan have been the longest period of time I've spent at any residence since I moved away from the farm when I was 18. Living alone in my three-bedroom rambler, I haven't exactly been wanting for space, which hasn't given me much incentive to get rid of shit I don't need. Pay stubs from my minimum wage job in college, boxes from computer peripherals I threw away or sold years ago, gas station receipts from 1997 -- I have no fucking clue why I've hung onto any of it, and the growing collection disorganized boxes and chaotic piles of junk have made it nearly impossible to find the things I actually need when I need them. I'm tired of living in my own (non-biological) filth.

Phase I of Project Make Shit Go 'Way Now was to drag every overflowing box and drawer from my master bedroom and office and sort through every last scrap of paper and loose screw. That phase resulted in the disposal of an estimated 60 to 90 gallons of trash at the curb and 10 to 20 gallons of financial and other sensitive documents burned in the fire pit over beers and booze. The small percentage of items I wished or needed to keep were sorted into several piles in my living room. Financial documents, house-related documents and receipts, insurance and medical documents, photos and keepsakes, tools, computer parts, adapters, and cables, office items, and other assorted shit stayed in these piles for several weeks. The other day, I finally started putting these items into several stackable plastic drawers, folders, and other items purchased to aid in organizing my whatnotteries and bric-a-shit.

In addition to the trash, there are a lot of perfectly useful items for which I no longer have a need. These will all go to Goodwill. The most useless of these items are the boxes and boxes of toys I have collected over the years. Some I compulsively purchased, foolishly thinking they would increase in value. The following is a small but shameful sampling of unopened Star Wars toys that I took to Goodwill yesterday. Most of these items are worth exactly what I paid for them -- or far less-- in 1998 and 1999. These do not include the toys I opened and used for the purposes of interior decorating until I came to in a rush of snap maturity -- at age 27. Since then, these toys have accumulated dust in my closet.

Bear witness to my shame, bitches!

Every single night this past week, including last night, I collapsed in bed, utterly physically exhausted from head to toe. With the exception of taking a break for musical bingo with Alie, Jen, and Amber on Wednesday, every night was filled with hour after hour of picking up branches, chopping up trees, throwing and stacking logs (real, tree-related logs, though I did stack some logs of the poop variety as always). Last Saturday night, after awaking at 5:30 that morning to find the tree resting on my house, I was fast asleep by 9:30. Sunday, after spending some quality time with my mom (fortunately she was staying with my brother down in Savage), brother, and sister-in-law walking around the area near the Stone Arch Bridge, checking out the new Guthrie for the first time, having a fantastic meal at Spoonriver, and going on the Mill City Museum tour, I returned home to rake and haul more branches to the curb then drove back to Savage for dinner with the family. That night I was fast asleep before 10:30.

I had already taken Monday off from work with Mom in town, but spent the morning waiting for an electrician to fix my electrical mast so I could get Dakota Electric out to hook up my juice. Amazingly, the first place I called, Citywide Electric in Eagan, had an electrician calling me back within 5 minutes. Two hours later, he was on my doorstep, and I soon had an estimate. My mom, brother, and his wife brought lunch over, and we ate and talked as Lee the electrician plugged away. They left after a couple of hours, and that's when S & S showed up in force to remove my tree. Half the neighborhood showed up to watch these guys and their mesmerizing, lightning-paced work. Funny how heavy equipment makes it ok for random strangers to wander into someone else's back yard, but I didn't mind one bit. In fact, I was openly inviting people to come on over and get in on the fun (insert your own joke about inviting strangers into my "back yard" here). Incidentally, S & S is headquartered in South St Paul on Hardman Avenue. I say without shame that each and every time I drive by the Hardman Ave exit on 494, regardless of whether someone else is in the car, I say aloud, "hard MAN!" and giggle maniacally. In fact, I'm chuckling to myself as I type this. Hee hee... hard. That night, we saw Mom off to her flight home, and once again, I was asleep by 10:30.

Tuesday, Grant and his wife came over to help me clean up more branches from the back (S&S hauled away the tree that fell on my house, but there was another smaller tree that had fallen on my shed out back. With his chainsaw, my reciprocating saw, and a lot of manual branch snapping (I think I just found a new euphemism for masturbation!), we got everything cleared from my property and stacked against the shed. As we took turns running the chainsaw, cries of YEEEEEEEEEHAWWWWWW! echoed from my yard throughout the neighborhood. That night, I knew I had to own a chainsaw of my own. BRRRRRRRRRRRRZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!!! YEEEEEEEEEEEHAWWWWWW, muthafuckahs!!!

On Thursday, after having done quite a bit of research after work on Wednesday, I picked up an 18-inch electric chainsaw from Mills Fleet Farm in Lakeville. Thirty minutes later, I was in an elderly neighbor lady's yard buzzing through tree branches bigger than my entire body. All evening, I struggled to resist the urge to hold the running chainsaw high above my head and scream, "There can be only one!" then slice a fence or dog in half or something. But I managed to restrict my newfound saw lust to the tree. That night, I was so tired that I nearly fell asleep mid-sentence in a phone conversation. I knew it was time for bed.

On Friday, I resumed my work in the neighbor lady's yard, removing all but a few branches. Any logs of note from our yards, I stacked against or inside my shed to use as firewood (with her eager blessing). The small branches and brush I started burning in earnest in the fire pit, cranking my way through about a quarter of the massive pile over the course of the night (the fire must have burned hotter than hell because it was still steaming as rain pelted the yard this morning). That night, I dozed off on the couch around 11 pm and later moved to the bedroom. It's a good thing I didn't stay up late because at 7:30, I awoke to the sound of the S & S guys returning to grind the tree stump left in my back yard. I never thought I'd be glad to have guys grinding on my stump, but I made an exception this time.

As of yesterday afternoon, I have electricity. After more than three days with out it, having it back is glorious. I giddily flipped light switches on and off and aired out my junk over the air conditioning vent. I even took a dump, stood up, and actually saw it, harsh bathroom lights highlighting every glistening nook and cranny. This is how kings live.

This morning, I awoke and decided I would cook breakfast. Usually I just eat a banana or apple and hit the road, but today I fried up link sausage, bacon, and a couple of eggs sunny side up. I could feel my arteries hardening, but it was fantastic. I am a man. I have electricity. I deserve the meat of pigs and chicken younglings.

Sorry again for the raw stream of photos, but my time and connection are limited. They got the tree out of here yesterday, and I've never seen a crew of guys so Johnny on the cocksucking spot with their work. They were expensive but knew what they were doing. And since the tree rested directly over my built-in gas grill connected straight to the natural gas supply, all parties involved were glad they had the proper equipment to lift that huge motherfucker up in one piece. We don't need any dead, 'sploded people or houses 'round here. Slide show below and a link right to the pics here.

The tree is gone daddy gone. It's down to the stump. They're coming tomorrow or Tuesday to grind the stump out. The insurance adjuster comes tomorrow, so we'll see how badly the insurance company dicks me over. They said they'd cover removal of the tree, or at least the portion that was resting on my house. The rest of it comes out of my pocket. I could have left the standing portion be, but the tree was old, obviously unstable, and it would have looked like shit back there. I wanted the whole fucking thing gone.

And I still do not have power. A tangled mass of branches had come to rest around the mast on my roof where the overhead power lines connect to the house (our neighborhood is one of the last in Eagan that still has overhead power lines coming to individual homes). Dakota Electric was in my back yard yesterday connecting all of the other homes back up, but couldn't do mine until that tree was gone. I just left a message on their outage hotline, and hopefully they can get out here tomorrow.

Despite the generous offer from my brother and his wife to let me stay at their house until the power is back, I decided to sleep at home last night. Perhaps it was paranoia about having the only dark house on the block or some macho man and his castle bullshit, but it's my house god dammit. That's where I sleep. I opened up all the windows, and slept quite comfortably. Even today it wasn't too bad in there. Thank God that 90-some degree muggy shit is gone for the time being. I will do the same tonight.

One disadvantage of not having electricity is that when you have to make a duke at night, you have to do it with candles lighting the way. So I took a romantic candlelit dump last night. Unfortunately the only way I could tell I was done wiping without lighting it on fire near the open flame was to smell and taste it.

I have a shitload of photos and video of the tree removal and some snippets of the fire down the street, but I'm too exhausted to fuck with that tonight. Regular blogging will resume once I have power and internet back at the house. I love you like autumn chipmunks.

After receiving my passport and a couple certified copies of my birth certificate in the mail last week, I decided it was time that I had a safe place to store my theftables. I was keeping my social security cards, title papers, and other important documents in a small fire safe that I've had since I was in high school, but it's small and would be extremely easy to walk out of my house with. Then there's the little issue of me losing the keys for it and having to drill out the lock a few months ago. I could be mistaken, but that probably nullifies any fire or theft protection it once offered. Now Steals McBurgledick is yanking my identity, opening credit card accounts in my name, and claiming to own the equity in my house and trying to set up a domestic partnership with me. Well you might be painfully attractive and engaged in lucrative thieving endeavors Mr. McBurgledick, but this is my house. You hear me?

Now some of you are probably tsk-ing at my paranoia, but you'd be paranoid too after watching two seasons of It Takes a Thief and seeing how much of your life a single thief can walk away with in 5 minutes. You would also be bored out of your skull and stop watching it since every episode is the same formula -- break into a volunteer's home, steal their crap, tell them what they did wrong, give their crap back, and shore up their security with prohibitively expensive security systems and equipment you can't afford.

One of the few relatively affordable items given to the homeowners in each episode of the show is a combination safe that can be bolted to the floor from the inside. I thought that was an excellent idea, so on Friday, I dropped $150 on a big ass fire safe that, thanks to a little sweat, a drill, and a socket wrench, is now securely affixed to the skeleton of my abode. What they do not mention on the show is that these safes are so heavy and unwieldy that no lone wolf thief could possibly abscond with it. Maybe that's why it was clearly marked on the store shelves with a sign screaming "Team Lift!" featuring a pictogram of a guy with what appear to be lightning bolts coming out of ass. I wish I had known that means that you will prolapse your rectum carrying the fucking thing into the house. Here I thought it was just a motivational sign for store employees. Lift those spirits! And your ass is carrying high voltage for some reason. Go team!

For some reason, during the warmer months, I get a hankerin' to do indoor projects that I probably should have done during the colder months when it made more sense to be stuck inside. Perhaps it's my typical winter lethargy, but I never seem to get much done in the house until spring rolls around. Over the weekend, I fixed a leaky faucet, replaced the broken sprayer for my kitchen sink, and finally ordered a replacement reservoir to fix an issue with my fridge that has prevented me from using its water dispenser and ice maker since January. I've been forced to fill my glass from the tap like a damned caveman. Maybe the rest of you savages like to use both hands when getting a glass of water, but much like jerking off, I like my ice water procurement to be a one-handed process, thank you very much.

I also tried to replace my fried dining room dimmer switch, which is a special kind that can accept commands from my home automation system, but I must have wired it wrong. The old one was a cheap 2-wire affair, and the new one has about 24 wires coming out of it. I read the installation instructions, but must have misidentified the hot wire. I'll have to see if I can borrow Mary's multimeter this week. Actually I should just buy one since it's a useful thing to have around the house. Or I could just install a regular non-computery dimmer switch like a normal person. Hmm... nah, technogeeky it is.

The other night I looked behind my mismatched tv stand and realized that now was as good a time as any to get rid of the mass of cluttered wires behind it, have of which weren't even connected to anything. I disconnected my receiver, speakers, soon-to-be-replaced Tivo Series2, cable box, and television, and set them all aside to sort through the mess. I made a pile of trash to be thrown away, a pile of cables I need to use, and a pile of good cables that I don't need now, but would be handy to have around. Two problems resulted. First, my living room is now a cluttered mess. Second, I discovered that my 9 year old tv stand has become quite wobbly in its advanced years, and I do not trust it to hold my new LCD tv, which will be delivered early next week. So now I'm scanning craigslist for used furniture.

Regardless of my lack of entertainment-related furniture, I had to get the new Tivo Series3 configured and ready to go so the cable guy could install the CableCards today. It was the first time he'd ever configured them in a Tivo. He was a little shakey on the menus, and I had to point out to him that he'd installed the first card in the wrong slot (the slot label and the menu screen both clearly said to use the bottom slot first, but he must not have noticed that). He did just fine in the end though, and everything is now up and running smoothly. I can now record my shows in HD, but will have to wait until next week to actually watch them in HD.

Friday - I arrive home, habitually go to get a glass of water from the dispenser in the fridge door. It does not dispense water, but I hear a distinct spraying sound from inside of the fridge. This can't be good. It appears the water reservoir in the fridge froze and cracked. I'm just glad it happened inside the fridge and only sprays when the pump is running. Regardless, shitty city.

Saturday morning/afternoon - I toy with the freezer and fridge thermostat settings to see if I can figure out why the top half is in the upper-30's, while the bottom half is a frosty 27 or 28 degrees. That would explain the water reservoir freezing. I attempt to seal the crack and realize I'll need better sealant or will have to replace the damned reservoir entirely. In either case, once it's fixed, I plan on insulating it somehow to hopefully prevent it from freezing again.

Saturday evening - I pour a bowl of cereal, make my way to the living room, trip on a dirty dish left on the floor. The bowl does not spill. It EXPLODES in a shower of milk and Raisin Nut Bran all over my couch, coffee table, and carpet. Fuck me with razor wire! I remove the covers from the seat and back cushions, throw them in the wash on gentle, and set about cleaning up the clusterfuck that is my living room. The cereal on the floor I leave to dry to vacuum the next day.

Sunday morning - I check the two thermometers I placed in my fridge, one on the top shelf, one on the bottom, and am concerned that the temperature is nearing 50 and 45, despite the thermostat being set only one notch lower. I turn down the temp and hope. Is there a patron saint of fridge thermostats? Well then YOU pray to him. I'm a non-practicing Lutheran. He'll listen to me right after Hitler and people who talk during movies.

Sunday afternoon - Having transported several metric tons of dirty dishes from the living room floor to the kitchen the night before, I realize I need to actually wash these dishes. I fill the dish washer, run it, and fill the sink--twice--and wash those dishes, as well. No wonder I haven't a bowl or spoon in the house.

I also realize this is my sign to begin earnestly cleaning the filth I have amassed since being dumped back in late November. Self pity? No, just lazy, thank you very much. The prospect of getting laid is a powerful cleaning agent. It's ten times more powerful than Mr. Clean and boric acid combined. I sprinkle the living room carpet with some flowery smelling carpet powder and set Roomba to attack mode. I then fill the Scooba with water and cleaning solution to clean the kitchen. And we all know how that went.

I check the fridge. It's warmer. Fuck sake! I pull several ice packs from the freezer, put them in the fridge to mitigate the warming, and unplug the fridge. It did this once before, and the last time , I had to let the motor rest or reset or whatever the hell it was doing, then plug it back in. As of now, the temperature has come down 10 degrees, so it must be working. By morning, it should be plenty cool enough to refreeze the water line and get me to where I was Friday. Hooray!

Oh, and I saw Children of Men tonight. Good flick. But don't go if you're looking to be uplifted. It's a dismal, but very action-packed film.