My Love For You Is Borderline Pathological...

Poor Scott. He had a rough week. On Tuesday, his day off, the Ducati blew up. There was blue smoke, oil, and frustration. He looked like this:

Many beers were had by Scott and friends, as is evidenced by our unusually full recycling bin:

There are Ducati fairings in the spare room:

Scott can only wait for the prognosis. By Friday, the technicians still aren't sure what happened. They need more time, more tests. I start thinking...

Scott lost his wedding ring a couple weeks ago. He was pretty bummed about it. Maybe a new ring would cheer him up? I looked online, and found something perfect. I went to the store near our house, and asked if they had one in stock. They did! They put the new ring in a handsome box. It might not fit (I don't know his ring size) but he could exchange it for the right size later. When should I give it to him? After work, we ate pizza, and watched an old movie. We were about to go to bed, but I didn't want to wait until tomorrow, so I pulled it out from behind a pillow on the couch. "Will you marry me? Again?"

He was surprised, and he says he loves it. The ring is black titanium, and will last forever. He is happy, and I am happy. We agree that we would marry each other a million billion times over again.

iPhone Posting

This is my first attempt at blogging from the iPhone! It's sort of a pain, honestly, but work is incredibly slow and I'm bored and the Internet connection at the office is incredibly slow today.

Anywho, things are much less hectic and Scott is settling into his new job nicely. Our schedules conflict, which is sort of a good and bad thing. The bad part is that we have less time together, since we don't have the same days off. I estimate that there are about 24 hours during the week that we can spend together- meaning time when neither of us is working, commuting, or sleeping. On the plus side, I rather enjoy solitude, and not having to cook dinner (or feeling like I have to).

Life without the tv is actually less productive than it was with the tv. I seem to remember this happening last time too, but it went away after an adjustment period. But right now, I spend a ridiculous amount of time on the computer. Hopefully that won't last too much longer.

That's all for now. Typing too much on this thing makes me nutty. :P

My New Friend

Now that Scott has left his job, we had to go out and get phones like normal people. Scott used to work for T-Mobile, so he had several employee lines, and paid next to nothing for 'em. This was especially nice for my stepdaughter, I think. I bet not many of her friends had a Sidekick in junior high, and never once had to worry about going over minutes or texts or anything. Frankly, I was a little worried about what our cell phone bill was about to entail, but as it turns out, I was pleasantly surprised.

I knew right off that we would need unlimited texting. I'm not sure how, but Cass sends over 1500 texts steadily each month, and receives about the same. That's a lot. Or maybe it's not. I don't really hang out with any high school chicks, so maybe it's par for the course. Anyway, that was a priority- texting. Luckily, (I assume because of all the texts) she uses about the same amount of minutes as Scott and I each do. With these things in mind, I started shopping around a bit.

I won't lie. I chose our new carrier for one reason, and here it is:

Yup. The iPhone. I had been nudging Scott for a Google phone, but in my heart I always really wanted the iPhone. And I'm so glad fate landed us in this situation, because it really is freaking awesome. All three of us got one, each with our own snazzy case. I went with orange. I'm thinking about naming mine The Viceroy.

Three iPhones on a plan with unlimited text and 700 minutes will run you about $200/month. Plus AT&T has those great rollover minutes, so if there is some sort of crisis, we hopefully won't have to worry about some extra phone usage. But the ability to not only check email, but tweet, blog, check any website, get directions, and always having my iPod on me? Priceless.

My Blackberry Pearl looks like a worthless POS next to this sweet thing. My HTML emails are readable, the camera is better, no more phone delay, internet is nearly flawless, and it's way faster. Hooray for 3G! And I hate to break it to T-Mobile, but AT&T is killing them with better 3G coverage.

So far I've only found two things I don't like about it.

1)It's not compatible with the iPod-through-the-car-radio cord we have. Scott's iPod touch worked with it, but not the iPhone. Which also means not having a car charger. So we have to get a new one of those, or a new car stereo with a MP3 jack, or something.
2)Email isn't automatically updated. To see if I have new email, I have to physically go in and look.

Neither of these is a big deal by any means. And my god, the applications! There are more than you could possibly go through in a lifetime. So far I've only gotten a few freebies, but I see more in my future.

Now if I could just put it down long enough to get some knitting done...

Tricksy Comcast and Some News

Scott and I decided to get rid our cable last week. We generally hate Comcast and the TV sucks up a lot of time so we just cancelled it. Some might remember that we tried this a couple years ago- we went about a year without it, and it was mostly good. There are some downsides (like a major feeling of detachment from society, and never knowing what movies are out) but mostly it's pretty great.

Unfortunately, when the Comcast guy came to disconnect our service, he wiped out our internet. It's partly my own fault for letting the guy leave before making sure all was well, but mostly I blame the Comcast guy. My rage really boiled over when I called them- not 5 minutes after the guy left- and they said nobody could come fix it for four days. Doucheknockers. I swear my hatred for Comcast grew exponentially each day. The worst part is that they have a total monopoly on high speed internet in our area. I'm hoping weekly calls to Verizon, begging them to expand their service, will change this.

But for now, my bubbling anger has been reduced to a simmer as the internet has been restored. And those tricky bastards sent out the nicest, most competent men (yes, two men!) to fix the problem, nullifying my plan to shoot the messenger. Nonetheless, I still despise Comcast and plan on dropping them as soon as possible.

Now for the news: Scott is back to tattooing. He had enough of the office scene, and an opportunity presented itself, so that was it. The next few weeks will be hectic as we adjust, but all in all it will be much better.

Honestly, I was debating holding that little tidbit back, but it would probably have come out sooner or later. My hesitation was purely due to the fact that now nearly every conversation with every person I meet is going to be about tattoos. I mean, when someone asks what my husband does for a living, and I respond with "He works at (insert telecom company here)," that's it. Sometimes there's a follow up question, but rarely an entire discussion. But if I say, "He's a tattooist," it's inevitably followed by a discussion about tattoos. I won't lie- it gets old fast.

Perhaps it's the anti-socialist in me, but I just don't care. I don't care what you want, or what you have. I don't care to show you all of mine. None of mine have any meaning whatsoever- really. It really doesn't matter if you like mine, or if I like yours. If you ask me more about my tattoos than you'd ask about a haircut, I'm going to start looking for escape routes. I can't tell you how much "something like that" would cost, and I definitely can't tell you how much it will hurt you. Them's the breaks.

BUT if you want to talk tattoos, go talk to Scott. He's at Exposed Temptations in Manassas. He's really quite awesome, and can answer all your questions (except the pain one- seriously, how can anyone else know your pain tolerance?).

Laziest Day Ever

Scott left on a camping trip this morning, leaving me on my own for most of the weekend.* A moment ago, I reflected on my day thus far, and decided I really should not be left on my own with no direction. Apparently, this is what happens:

Around 7 I woke up and showered. The next couple hours were spent assisting in making breakfast and coffee for 6 biker friends of the Husband. Around 10 they all left on aforementioned camping trip. At that time, I whined via Facebook status about having to clean up the bacon grease splattered all over the stove. Afterwards, I may have had a drink to cope with the recent stress of having many people in the house so early, and the prospect of cleaning.** From 10:30-11:30 I cleaned said grease, did many dishes, and vacuumed the layer of dog hair Spencer unleashed at the excitement of having company. Afterward, I ate a brownie as a reward.

Around noon, I decided to check out Wonder Books. For those not local to this area, it's a bookstore that sells new and used books, DVDs, VHS, CDs, etc. I think they rent movies, too. It's supposedly a great place to go if you're looking for something out-of-print, or if you still have a functional VCR. Thinking they may have some rare knitting books, I go, only to find their knitting/crochet section is pitifully small. I guess knitters don't let go of their old books... I did find a book with some general patterns in it, and picked up a paperback copy of Red Dragon. When I got back, I more thoroughly examined my purchases while eating an apple. So far this isn't too bad, but then I rapidly sank into boredom:

I spent the better part of the afternoon taking quizzes on Facebook, wandering aimlessly around Ravelry, and watching TV. I followed a fly around the house with a spray bottle set to "mist" for a while, thinking that if I got him wet he wouldn't be able to fly around, and he'd land so I could catch him. I have a thing about smooshing bugs. And cleaning up smooshed bugs. Unfortunately, he was clever enough to go under the couch, so that was the end of that. I made an iced mocha, and went back to screwing around on the interwebs. Later I was suddenly struck with the feeling that I was developing a fever. As I put down the laptop to go get a thermometer, I realized that it was only the heat of the computer making me hot. Feeling stupid, and still bored, I went to the kitchen to procure a snack. On the way, I tripped over the abandoned spray bottle. I ate a banana while pondering compost heaps and wishing we had a backyard. By that time it was nearing 7:30 and I noticed the whole day had been a wash, due to my own laziness. Eventually, I decided to blog in an effort to redeem myself and that's where I sit now. Somewhere in there I did manage to get 4 rounds of a sock done, but that's it.

A bit of sock, a couple of books, and a clean kitchen- that's all I have to show for the day. One of these days I'm going to figure out this whole "productivity" thing. And learn how to eat like a normal person, with regular meals and all that.

*Would-be rapers and killers beware: I am alone but armed.

**I'd like to point out that I almost never drink, but have an affinity for Disaronno and a rebellious attitude toward social mores (like drinking alone in the morning).

More Things I Like

21. Lists, apparently

22. Edamame (mostly I like picking it out of it's little pods)

23. The Venture Bros.

24. Pockets. Pockets in bags, pockets in pants, pockets everywhere.

25. Slip-on Vans

26. Skulls

27. Breakfast, especially toast

28. Snarkfests (as an observer, not an active participant)

29. Virgils Root Beer

30. TV shows about ghosts and haunted stuff

31. Cast iron skillets (we've recently acquired a second one!)

32. Little Britain

33. Space phenomenon such as shooting stars and comets

34. Thai Tanium (best Thai food ever)

35. Solitude. I really just love to be alone.

Whew.

It's been a busy month! We made a lot of progress on the house (or at least it looks like we did):

We painted the living room a reddish-orange, with a yellow accent wall you can see in this photo:

And then we got some new curtains up, bought a better bookcase (to replace our two Ikea monstrosities), and got everything back on the walls. It's like a whole new place. I can't tell you how much I love the color we chose. In the shadows, it's a cozy, earthy, red; and when the light hits it, it's warm and bright and wonderful.

And we got all this done in time for a visit from Bryan (Scott's brother) and Celia (his wife). We had oodles of fun cavorting around DC, Frederick, and Gettysburg this past weekend.


There were many good times to be had, and of course, a filthy cake: