I Feel Dirty

I mentioned in the last post (at least I think I did) that one of our cars has its check engine light on. Earlier today I went to the website for the dealership that sold us the car. I wanted to see if I could schedule an appointment to have that idiot light looked at. I found the link to their service department site and went to it, but when I got there…….

My only option for scheduling required me to… oh it’s too awful to even type it out… okay… here goes… it required me to talk to an AI chatbot. Disgusting!

I feel so dirty. It asked me for my name and I ignored it. I don’t want some random AI bot to know my name. To hell with that crap! It was just gross. Why would any company that respects its customers want to subject them to such bullshit? I would have preferred being asked to call them and then getting stuck in voicemail hell for half an hour. That would have been so much less demeaning.

At one point it even tried to tell me its name, as if it were pretending to be an actual human being. I feel so dirty! It was just icky and gross and dehumanizing. And the worst part? This was hours ago and it told me it was going to have the service department call me to book the actual appointment and I still don’t have a fucking appointment! Insert the grossed out scream of frustration here.

Fucking AI. Screw you, Skynet wannabe, poorly written, bug riddled code.

Random Thoughts

I am wrapping up my lunch break on this random Wednesday in March and I thought I’d jot down a couple of thoughts for posterity. Ready? Okay, let’s roll….

  • Want to know something that sucks? I brought two ounces of Planters Salted Peanuts with me for lunch today (14 grams of protein). I took a small handful (my gastric bypassed body can’t handle more than a small handful at a time without getting sick) and popped it into my maw. I chewed it up a little (again, part of the post-gastric bypass world means chewing the holy hell out of everything, which sounds silly and obvious [like, didn’t you chew the holy hell out of everything before surgery? I thought I did, but apparently not] but until you fail to chew something down enough you can’t really understand) and suddenly and without warning I had to sneeze. Know what’s gross? Sneezing with a mouthful of partially chewed up peanuts… that’s what’s gross. Worse? 20 seconds after you sneeze, when you think you’ve recovered and cleaned up the mess… you sneeze again. Ugh.
  • Elon Musk posted to his nazi social media site that he didn’t understand why people are out to get him. He said he sells things that are good and that he’s never hurt anyone. Never hurt anyone? Are you fucking kidding me, you fucking moron? This nazi fucker’s end can’t come soon enough. Deport his moronic ass to mars and be done with it.
  • We have a contractor coming tomorrow. We have two contractors coming Friday. March 2025 will go down in family history as the month of the contractors. We just can’t get away from them. Please please please let this be the end of it for a while.
  • We are one week and one day away from the start of the Boston Red Sox 2025 season. No matter what happens, they can’t be any more painful to watch than the Bruins were this year. Even if they come in dead last again it still won’t suck as badly as the B’s. I’m thinking about signing up for an online subscription to NESN (the New England Sports Network. The TV network that carries both the Red Sox and the Bruins). I think my days of being a radio-only Red Sox fan might be coming to an end. I haven’t decided one way or the other yet, but I think it’s going to happen… we’ll see.
  • I don’t want to buy a tenor saxophone. I don’t want to buy a tenor saxophone. Did I mention I don’t want to buy a tenor saxophone? Who am I kidding. I want to buy a tenor saxophone. Only if it’s a good one though. Aw, hell.

Okay. I have to get back to work now. This is all I have time for right now. I’ll probably write up some more brain droppings later. It’s one of those days, if you know what I mean.

Scary Demon Monster

I saw something scary in the cellar this morning. A demon from hell that is the scariest monster in the known universe.

I saw…

I can’t even type it, it’s so terrible…

I saw a house centipede.

Pause to give everyone some time to scream in abject terror for their very existence.

It was on the floor next to my pedal board in my music nook. I am pretty sure it was dead. It didn’t move as I approached it and if you know anything about house centipedes you know that they are the fastest muthas in the west. They don’t just let you walk up to them. When they see you coming, they bolt. This guy just sat there and even let my foot hover above him for a couple of seconds. Yeah, it was already dead.

If it wasn’t dead at that point though, it was certainly dead after I stepped on it. Squish, babie. One less demonic asshole in the world. Normally I would feel bad about squishing a little living thing, but these guys are so evil looking (and they scare the shit out of my wife) that I have sentenced all who enter my domain to death. Sorry, nature. I know they are actually good to have around because they eat all of the other bugs, but sometimes you cannot let evil like this exist, ya know?

Change of subject.

I am a dope. I also can’t tell time and I have a memory like a sieve. My wife is going to the office today. She told me she was leaving at 7:45. I made a note. I would make sure I got through my whole morning routine before then so that I could properly say goodbye to her.

I got up early and dashed down cellar to do my morning exercise. Success. I came upstairs and did a couple of things and then at the appropriate time I walked up to her office, where she was sitting at her desk, and was about to say that I was ready to wish her a good day whenever she was ready to go… and that was when I realized she said 7:45, not 6:45, and the current time was actually 6:45.

I am an idiot.

Well, at least I am ready to say goodbye when she is ready to go. I’ve got that going for me, right?

Ugliest Thing Ever

I saw what might be the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen.

It was during this morning’s drive in to work.

It was a Tesla cybertruck. It was not silver/chrome colored like all of the uggo’s I had seen before. It was worse. It was this awful orange/rust/blood filled vomit color. It was heinous.

At first I wished I could have grabbed a photo of it (I was driving and couldn’t pull it off safely) but now? Now I’m glad that I can spare you the horror of its grossness.

You’re welcome, but also… it’s still out there. The ugliest thing on Earth.

Beware.

Gross Out Coming

There was an episode of The X-Files that grossed me out so much when I first watched it that I very nearly threw up. Honestly. I wretched when I watched it.

Season two, episode two. I know that because my current re-watched just got to that scene. I looked away through the whole thing.

The other day I actually stumbled across a blog entry I wrote when it actually happened. It was from one of the myspace posts I pulled into wordpress.com a couple of years ago. I’m glad I did because it reminded me what happened in the episode and I was able to see it coming today.

Whew! Bullet dodged!

Mom’s Second Day

My mother’s having another rough day. She’s still in the hospital. Last time we went through this it took five days before they discharged her. My sister was with her yesterday, my brother today, and I’ll be there tomorrow. I had to juggle some things at work but everyone is being very helpful. I appreciate it. I work with good people.

The contractors are working like crazy in the kitchen. The end is in sight. At least for the stuff we contracted out. There’s stuff that we’re planning to do on our own and we haven’t been able to start yet. That should be fun and chaotic and fun.

I have two Record-Every-Month songs ready for car vocals. One of them is pretty bad. The other is really bad. I also started on volume seven of the ol’ Great Re-Recording Project of 2015 today. Bass and drums for one song. Bring on the guitar.

I learned something about the protein shakes I’ve been having for breakfast. Normally I make a shake in the morning using my little single serving electric mixer. When it’s done I put the mixer and the glass I drank it out of into the dishwasher. The next morning they are both sparkling clean. With all of the kitchen fun, we currently don’t have a hooked up dishwasher, or a hooked up kitchen sink, or a hooked up kitchen faucet. So I used the mixer on Monday and then didn’t get around to washing it until this morning. I tried washing it in the bathroom sink, but I couldn’t. The dregs of the protein powder had morphed into a cement like solid. Note to self, get that thing into the dishwasher each day, Stat.

Okay, back to work.

Gore

Last Friday I burned my hand on one of the racks in the oven. I posted a picture. That night the burn blistered over. It wasn’t too gross, just a little unpleasant to look at. Jen said to me, “don’t pop that blister.” and I said in return, “no, I won’t pop that blister.”*

The next morning the shower had other plans. I took the band aide off, got into the shower, and next thing I knew the water had ripped that blister right off. Well that’s too bad. It looked pretty grody after that. I tried to keep it covered but somedays the band aides just wouldn’t stick. Yesterday was one of those days.

When I woke up today it had blistered over again. Finally. Heel, you sucker! Then I took a shower. Once again the water pressure ripped it off. Once again I didn’t see it happen. This time though… I looked down at my hand and it was covered with blood**.

I cleaned it up. Reverted to Boy Scout training and applied direct pressure until the bleeding stopped. I put some medicinal goop on it and got a new band aide to stick. All is well now.

Come on, you stupid injury. Scab over and heel, ya creep.


*Those may not be exact quotes. I tried to capture the spirit of the thing.***

**When I say covered in blood, that’s probably an exaggeration based on the fast approaching end of September and the imminent start of the month long Halloween season. Halloween is getting all like Christmas these days. Every year it starts earlier. HoHoBooHo.

***That is a direct quote. Dickie Dun, sports journalist covering the Charlestown Chiefs in the movie Slapshot.****

****Yes, I did put footnotes into my footnotes.

One of the Worst Things

This isn’t the worst thing ever, but if Billboard ever put together a top 200 list of things that suck, this would surely be on it.

You’re scooping out the cat’s litter box at the crack of dawn because it’s trash pickup day and you want to get it out before the truck arrives. You take a giant scoop full of nasty, go to dump it into the trash bag and… miss. Damn it!

I don’t believe in omens, but that sure feels like one, right? It’s going to be one of those days, isn’t it.

Classical Kitty

Patches, our cat, would have felt right at home in ancient Rome. Specifically, she would have been a natural in the vomitoriums.

Yeah, that specially-designed-for-sensitive-stomachs cat food we’ve been giving her has really worked well. She only barfed twice yesterday, and the pile of puke the second time weighed nearly as much as she does.

G-R-oss.