Hmm...

Moar wilderness, or not...

So of course after seeing a fox yesterday, I am looking for it. I'm looking around barely paying attention to the road on my way to work this morning. (BTW, it was friggin cold! People were scraping their windshield!) Anyway, so I thought I saw one. I'm staring at this red beast, going "aww" then realized that it was just a dog. As soon as that thought ran through my head, I felt guilty. Not just a dog. Dogs are my favorite.

Ann Arbor Wilderness

Today, I saw a glimpse of a red fox from my co-workers window! It was just wandering around between parking lots on the grass. I almost died of cuteness overload. I think this was the first time I've seen a fox here in Ann Arbor. For those of you who can picture this, yes, I did squeal, giggle, and jump up and down. (Lots of awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww's)

So I'm all happy google image searching "red fox". It was all good and cute for a while. But I'm stupid. And it's after 4:30 PM on a Monday and I didn't feel like working any more. So I kept looking...

WHY DO PEOPLE HAVE TO HUNT CUTE FURRY ANIMALS??????

All My Doggies

Some of you are intimately familiar with my doggies... So you'll understand.

One morning, I woke up and my doggies were in this formation. I swear I didn't do it. Not on purpose anyway...

Stench is gone

This morning when I left my apartment, the stench was gone.

So maybe my neighbor is not only a serial killer, but maybe he's also a spy. And he hears everything. So he heard me tell my friends over the phone that I suspect that he's a serial killer because of the smell of rotten flesh. And that's why he disposed of all the decomposing body parts... Maybe with acid in the bathtub?????

I <3 CourtTV.

I'm a Court TV Addict

Moment that made me think perhaps I watch too much Court TV...

I walked into my apartment building today and it stunk like rotting garbage (or flesh). I checked all the doors and there were no trash bags. The stench seemed to be emanating from my neighbor right across from me. OMG, my neighbor is a serial killer!!!

Old habits die hard...

I figured I'd kick back and chill tonight. I thought to myself, oh, I should make some tea and relax. I got up to boil some water and next thing I know, I was on the futon with a bottle of Guinness in my hand...

Horoscope Blog - NOT happening

Over the weekend, I was considering starting another blog. It would have been all about how I would live my life according to my Google horoscope (actually, it's tarot.com written by Rick). It seemed like a good idea at the time because I could have interpreted the horoscope to say "go masturbate all day" or "go drink instead of thinking about life". It was going to be accompanied by photos and everything.

So today when I didn't feel like working, I looked up my horoscope.

Your daily routine may be disturbed today by an unavoidable emotional drama. You are pulled one way then another and it's hard to tell what's really happening. Forget about attempting to use your common sense, for this is an irrational time and can be quite exciting if you don't get too stuck on being so serious.

Shit. Take common sense away from me and you just have a crazy person. This doesn't sound fun to act out and blog about at all. I decided this ain't gonna work out. So no horoscope blog for me. Unless someone can interpret this to say something fun???

My camera tracks Jesus' face

I call this "Self-Sufficient"

Stupid Insomnia

For some reason, I've been waking up really early lately. Not by choice. I just wake up. I don't really have to wake up until 7:30 AM to make it to work on time but I've been getting out of bed around 6:15 AM (after several failed attempts at going back to sleep.)

So I've been coming to work extra early. Like yesterday, I was here before 8 AM! I beat the old folks in! I had to unlock the doors and turn the lights on. I decided that's stupid. This morning I woke up at 4:30 AM. That was friggin ridiculous. I remember being really irritated for what felt like a long period of time but managed to fall back asleep. But I was still all ready to go by 7:30 AM. It only takes me 4 minutes to get to work...

I decided to do the dishes and take out the trash. Then brilliant!!! I decided to go grocery shopping. I felt so old. I feel like I official joined the AARP crowd today. I am a senior citizen. I still made it into work before 8:30 AM. But you know what's funny? It's 9:00 AM and I still haven't done a lick of work! :P

Yay!

Congratulations, DHL!

Hats off to DHL for making #1 on my "IF I DECIDE TO KILL MYSELF I'LL TAKE YOU DOWN WITH ME" list!


Seriously. They had tough competition like UPS and Comcast. But DHL just blew them all away this week!

So I ordered this camera from Sixth Avenue Electronics via Amazon. I ordered it Wednesday night (Thursday) around 1 AM. So I was pretty excited to find out that they had already shipped it on Thursday around 5 PM. I was looking forward to Monday when the camera was supposed to be delivered and whatnot. I live in an apartment community so DHL/UPS/FedEx/USPS delivery people know to drop off the package at the club house when we're not home. They can sign on our behalf and we can pick up the packages at the club house. I'm anal so of course I was tracking the package the entire time and set up e-mail notifications for exceptions and delivery notifications.

Monday at 1:52 PM, I received this message from DHL: October 8 2007 1:28 PM - Consignee premises closed. Will attempt again next business day. - Romulus,United States Of America

WTF. I get home, nothing at the club house, and not tags/notices at my apartment. Hmm... Ok... I was pissed, but I let it go because I was preoccupied with something else (probably drinking beer).

Tuesday, 3:51 PM: October 9 2007 3:25 PM - Delivery attempted. Recipient not home - Romulus,United States Of America

WHAT? Again, I go home, nothing at the club house and no tags or nothin' at my apartment!!! So I called them up. They transfer me to the local field station or whatever. Ring, ring, ring, ring.... NO ANSWER. I mean I let that sucker ring for a long ass time too. So I call their general customer support. I bitched and bitched about how for TWO days they haven't taken the package to the club house and they didn't even leave a single missed delivery tag. I mean if I wasn't anal and wasn't tracking this stuff online, I would have just waited for the fucking thing to arrive and they would have just returned the shipment to the seller. I bitched so much that they actually filed an official complaint for me, and I apologized to the person on the phone and told him that I know it's not his fault and I was sorry for yelling at him, but I'm just frustrated. "Of course, ma'am".

That's not it. So he said if I'm not going to be home to receive the package, I have to have the sender give an authorization to re-deliver the package to a different address because the club house has a different address from my apartment!!! Duuuude. I never had to do that before! So I contacted 6Ave.com and they told me that Amazon has to change it because they technically received the order from Amazon. So I contacted Amazon and they told me they can't do anything because they didn't sell/ship me anything so I have to contact 6Ave.com. I contacted 6Ave.com AGAIN and told them the situation. No response...

Wednesday, 11:47 AM: October 10 2007 11:23 AM - Consignee premises closed. Will attempt again next business day. - Romulus,United States Of America

At this point, I'm fearing for the life of the next DHL person I see. I was already having a frickin' bad day at work. But before I go home, I decided to check the tracking information on the web. This is what I saw!

Delivered? Really? Where's my delivery confirmation e-mail? I went home and went straight to the club house. Apparently the people at the club house told the DHL delivery person that I've been waiting for this package for a long time. His excuse was that something about how he didn't have time to stop by this area so he gave it to someone else to deliver here and that person must have been new.... That doesn't even make sense. Aren't you like assigned delivery areas? WTF.

So that was my frustration experience with DHL. You bet the seller is not going to get a very good rating from me on Amazon. You already lose 1 star for using DHL. I've had issues with DHL before. (Just not this bad.) And another star or two for not knowing what they're doing, and another for not responding to my last attempt to contact them.

Another thing that bugs me about their tracking site is that fact that it has "Why is this?" by the Shipment delivered action. I'm not going to question WHY it was delivered. That's their fucking job. I EXPECT them to deliver. What I want to know is why are they inept at their job??? Turds.

The Verdict

I set three traps to rid my apartment of these annoying fruit flies last night.

1. Banana pieces in a glass sealed with saran wrap. A tiny hole at the top.
2. Top of the 1L bottle was cut and placed upside down (like a funnel). Apple cider inside the bottle.
3. A glass of wine. I touched the surface of the wine with soapy (dish detergent) finger.

The wine got 4. Apple cider current has 1, and 2 hanging around on the top. But the obvious winner was the banana trap!!! There's gotta be at least a dozen of them in there. I only noticed 1 flying around today. Here's a picture of the best trap.


Pretty sweet!!! The only thing is that I don't know what to do with it now. I guess I'll take it outside to the dumpster and throw out the bananas. The fruit flies can go. I feel kind of bad for them now that they're not flying around and bothering me. So I don't want to kill them if I don't have to. :)

Fruit Flies... I kill you!

I HATE FRUIT FLIES. That's right I said it. I hate Drosophila melanogaster!!! (I'm sure all my genetics friends are all muttering reasons why Drosophila are scientifically beautiful specimens and I shouldn't hate them so much.)

Partly because I like fresh air, and do care a little about the environment; but mostly because I'm cheap, I've been living without AC for most of the summer. Therefore my windows are open most of the time when I'm home. I leave the balcony door cracked open at night too. (I do use a stick to keep it from opening too much. But now that I look at it, I can probably get through... Shh, nobody has to know.)

Anyway, I do have a screen and everything but these damn little creatures still get in. I wouldn't say my apartment is infested but when I'm drinking beer, the little fuckers drive me nuts. It's really annoying because I don't have fruits sitting out, and I take the trash out every morning. And I rinse all my bottles before I put them in the recycling bin. And my sinks are clean... WTF!

So I had to go to the tubes for a solution. I ran into this article on wikiHow. I decided to go with method # 5: the wine trap. They said to use sweet wine but I don't have sweet wine. So I used wine that went bad. Probably tastes like vinegar by now. But it's working!!! 3 down. I have no idea how many more to go. I think they keep coming in from outside so probably infinite. I should probably just set the trap on the balcony...

So here's my plan. Such a sad Friday night. But whatever. I'm going to set TWO more traps (different methods) and see what works best. :) hehe. This is going to be fun. Scientific experiment all on my own. Maybe it's the 5 beers I had that makes this so much fun.

To be continued...

No prize for me.

I went to this Oktoberfest event with a few people from work yesterday. It was held at the "Holiday Inn Near the University of Michigan", which happens to be behind the building I work. I guess it was some sort of a customer appreciation thing. We were invited because we refer a lot of our visitors to that hotel. (BTW, I think I'm supposed to say Friendliest Hotel in Ann Arbor.)

I didn't really know what was going on, but I decided to go. And it's a good thing I did! FREE FOOD AND BOOZE. All you can eat and all you can drink. For food, they had bratwursts, käsespätzle, sauerkraut, German red cabbage, German warm potato salad, pretzels, and 3 kinds of mustards. They had apple strudel and doughnuts. They had two types of beer: Warsteiner (I think pilsner type of beer) and some sort of Oktoberfest ale. They had hard liquor but I decided to stick with beer.

When we got there, we each got a ticket. It was like a raffle, except I didn't have to buy the ticket! It was free! There were several gifts that were given out. Our group had 2 winners! VN won a $50 gift certificate to Metzger's and AB won a 2 nights stay at the Holiday Inn Cambridge, ON! Me? Nothing. I was 4 numbers away from the grand prize: Lufthansa round trip ticket to Germany! But instead, Kenneth Gunther is going to Germany. I don't even know him. I just thought he has an awesome last name.

But that's okay. One of the prizes was a 1 hour hot tub gift certificate from Oasis. And I definitely don't want that!!!

Here's the good news. I got lots of good food & beer all for free!!! I had 2 dinner plates, a plate of desserts, and 5 beers in the course of about an hour and a half. But the beer glasses must have only been like 8 oz. (It's like drinking a 40!) The bartender guy was pretty close to giving me a pitcher of beer but he didn't because he didn't want other people ask him to do the same. So I just double fisted. Good times.

--

There's nothing like burnt frozen meal from Lean Cuisine. Mmmm.

Creepy Amazon Find!

I didn't have anything to blog about until I went to Amazon.com to look at the Camera I want to purchase. This is one of the search result items!!!

Obviously you have to click and see the larger view... But WTF!!

I don't know. I thought I would share my disturbing find. This is how I lose sleep. Just when I think I've reach the end of the intertubes (I really do feel that way sometimes when I REALLY don't want to do anything (at work) ), I find crap like this that pulls me back to the dark side.

BTW, I'm like a polygon. I have many sides. (I had to throw something random in there.)


You can only read ahead if you looked at the picture.
----
Another random note, I've been spelling highlight "hilight" (not hi-light either) to see how long it takes certain someone to correct me. So yes, certain someone, I'll be disappointed if you STILL haven't noticed. I'm just keeping you on your toes. Or am I just that retarded? To another certain someone, I guess you'll never know because I have many sides. To the rest of you who are reading this: yes, I only have TWO friends.

Random... Boring... Thought...

I don't have anything interesting to write about. I guess that's good. There's been a lot of drama lately that I don't care to discuss (ZOMG, you really don't want to know anyway). Today's been pretty drama-free, I must say.

You know it's a nice, short commute when you don't even have to get out of second gear for most of the time! (Unless you're stuck in traffic then that SUCKS, dude.) My commute takes about 5 minutes door-to-door. Turn right out of my complex, the street will bend left, make a right at the stop, pass park, take left at the end of the street, take another left and go to the end of the street, make a right. Then you turn right into the office park where my work is located. I usually only get to hear 1.5 songs on the radio.

So yeah. That's about all I have to say. I will leave you to this song. (Only 2 of you know why I put this up here today. Sorry, everyone else.)