H

iamtheh@gmail.com — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 16:13:12 GMT

Yay! I've been approved for fostering cats. We're going to start a mission to find Odinn a replacement rental cat in a few weeks.

iamtheh@gmail.com — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 05:37:53 GMT

Hey! LJ's figured out what time zone I'm in! Why won't it do the same for comments?

iamtheh@gmail.com — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 05:36:41 GMT

I have now survived living in Asia for 1 week. ...or the Bay Area, I can't really tell the difference.

In honor of that, the theme for Google Wednesday this week (now back to Wednesdays!) is the Lucky Cat. He's frickin' everywheeeerrrrrreeeee. Even in places that aren't supposed to be Japanese.

World's largest lucky cat

of course there is a Hello Kitty lucky cat

Lego lucky cat

Solar powered lucky cat

Jack-o-Lantern Lucky Cat

Obligatory fuck you lucky cat.

Yeah, so if anyone has some craving for weird and usually disgusting food, let me know! Like lime milk (tastes like chapstick)...or aloe that you drink (it does actually taste like moisturizer)...There is absolutely no shortage of that stuff here.

iamtheh@gmail.com — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 06:47:30 GMT

Double Youtubesday post. I really need to post at least ONE stupid Michael Jackson thing and Justus found this one.

iamtheh@gmail.com — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 04:41:06 GMT

Youtubesday is back and better than ever! Thanks to my brother.

Yeah, my thing's going to claim it's Wednesday right now. It's still Tuesday here, so it counts. I don't know how to change the time zone on LJ.

Michael Jackson tribute of some sort should be this week, but will have to wait 'til next week. I still don't have time for things.

iamtheh@gmail.com — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 06:00:14 GMT

I have officially failed my third driving test. Did you know you can fail a driving test when you've been a licensed driver for 8 years? In order to get a California license, you're required to take this batshit retarded multiple choice driving test that's seriously a guessing game to all who take it. Grimey also failed the first time, but he passed his scooter test no problem even though he's been driving a car for 8 years and has never driven a scooter! Go figure. I only have 2 more times I'm allowed to fail and then I don't know what happens. I'll take my time so I can keep my license longer. I don't want the damn government taking away my hard-earned license just because I'm not an expert on fucking California smoking laws.

Our apartment is still in shambles, but we finally have a full set of furniture.

Here is Odinn helping Grimey build bookshelves:

Here is Odinn discovering the couch:

Here's that city:

Need to start acknowledging that I own a tripod...

iamtheh@gmail.com — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 18:26:44 GMT

I'm so excited! We're going to have furniture tomorrow! We haven't had furniture in a month! We can finally stop living like white trash. Odinn's going to be psyched! He'll have a whole new (used) couch to destroy. But it's an IKEA couch, so every time he rips it up we can just replace the couch cover. It's good because I get sick of things real fast and getting a new IKEA couch cover is like getting a new couch because of all the fun varieties to choose from! It's great to have an evil menace cat that gives me an excuse to splurge on new pretty couch covers every so often. :)

I can't wait to have furniture again! It will be so convenient!

iamtheh@gmail.com — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 01:00:00 GMT

By the way, I'm moved and we have internet. The flight was the worst ever. I felt like death the whole time because I'm sick, which made the air nausea about 10x worse.

My flight was delayed and so I was stuck at the airport with Odinn for 5 hours, of course due to Massachusetts' never ending supply of shitty weather. Poor Odinn had to suffer in his tiny microscopic airline-friendly carrier for almost 14 hours, except during a couple of brief moments while stuck at the airport where we hid out in a baby changing room. I had to keep him on his leash though because the doors were fake and didn't even lock. He didn't really like it. I felt so awful for him the whole time, but I think he handled the flight itself better than I did. He acted like nothing happened when we got to the apartment, whereas I was grumpy as hell and exhausted. I didn't get to our apartment until almost 4 am, so that's like 7 am my body's time. It sucked. All I asked was for a smooth, problem-free flight just this one time and I tried so frickin' hard to make sure that happened! Grrrr! Why can't I ever seem to get to or from California successfully?

I had my last (at least for a long time) Boston cream donut from Dunkin' at the airport. I left the empty bag near my carry-on and this little toddler comes over, and I knew he had to be from Massachusetts and not the bay area because he was searching the empty bag frantically for Munchkins. That kid rocks. I hated to disappoint him.

iamtheh@gmail.com — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 00:39:46 GMT

I got my speeding ticket verdict. This was a lot easier than I thought it would be. I sent them a letter explaining why I can't appear in court, so they just reduced my fine to $125 and finally informed me what the original amount was even for: $1200. Are they fucking serious?! For speeding on a HIGHWAY?! There were people passing me! For a crime so heinous to warrant a $1200 fine, why the hell didn't they just take my fucking license away! Holy shit! So very glad I didn't plead guilty.

So yeah, word of advice: never ever plead guilty on a traffic ticket from New York. They won't tell you how much the ticket is for until you plead guilty, in the hopes that they can completely fuck you over. They're slime.

iamtheh@gmail.com — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 03:59:12 GMT

Ugh I feel a nasty cold coming on. Why does it have to be now??

iamtheh@gmail.com — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 20:50:17 GMT

Easthampton

Easthampton

Easthampton has a mostly abandoned village known as Fomer. There is nothing there except for a couple of random modern yuppie houses (really weird) and a couple of random small farms. If you go down a REALLY long dirt road, in the dead center of nowhere is this really old graveyard. You can also find some foundations of stone houses here and there.

More of the sweet graveyard.

One thing I will not miss about the valley are all the fucking dirt roads...

Easthampton

Hadley

Amherst

Amherst

This is the alley I like. Amherst.

Amherst

Amherst

Amherst

Amherst

Amherst

Amherst

Amherst

Amherst

Amherst

Amherst

Hadley. I drove by this scarecrow every day on my way to work. I love that scarecrow. The sun was going down when this shot was taken and it was too dark out to get a decent shot. I went back to retake it when it was sunny, and the scarecrow was missing. So the crappy shot will have to do.

Hadley

Hadley

A Collier in Hadley

Sunderland

Sunderland

Sunderland

Sunderland

Amherst. My now extinct office.

Northampton

Northampton

Northampton

Northampton

Northampton

The End. If only western Mass had jobs and no weather, it would come very close to perfect.

iamtheh@gmail.com — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 04:59:41 GMT

I want to say that driving in/around Boston is one thing that I will absolutely not miss...but then I remembered that in San Francisco they have these massive walls that you're expected to defy gravity and drive up. And in Oakland they have these massive gangs that will shoot you for wearing the color red. Maybe I will miss Boston a little...

iamtheh@gmail.com — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 15:28:31 GMT

I just realized I forgot about Youtubesday yesterday.

With that said, I think I'm going to have to put Youtubesday/Google Wednesday on hold for the next couple of weeks because I'm just going to be too busy for it, with the whole moving across the country thing going on.

iamtheh@gmail.com — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 13:32:42 GMT

Funniest thing found on a relocation forum so far:

"Not to nit pick but Plymouth is nearly as large as LA."

Umm, what?

iamtheh@gmail.com — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 16:34:42 GMT

Cool sand bucket I found at a fair:

iamtheh@gmail.com — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 02:59:57 GMT

Google Wednesday is cancelled this week because I spent too much time playing Sims.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

iamtheh@gmail.com — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 21:06:13 GMT

We're getting rid of our furniture tomorrow. If anyone needs furniture that can fit in a tiny hatchback, let me know quick! I may be able to provide.

iamtheh@gmail.com — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 01:12:38 GMT

iamtheh@gmail.com — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 00:22:48 GMT

You haven't heard from me in a few days because Sims 3 came out and I fucked up and purchased it.

It's pretty much the same game as Sims 2, only it works on my computer. And you can customize all the colors, which I take full advantage of. You can also catch cockroaches. Yeah...those are the main differences. If Sims 2 had ever functioned properly on the Dell allowing me time to get completely sick of it, I'd probably be disappointed like everyone else. Fortunately that is not the case, so goodbye life!

Amy and Collier live in a duplex. Amy lives in what's essentially an office, and Collier lives in the tackiest most amazing place in the world:

They both hate sunlight, so I did not give them any windows. They also don't have money to paint the walls.

Amy's half of the house:

Collier's half of the house...well, some of it. I took another picture from a different angle, but it seems to have not made it to the desktop.

Amy staring at a bookshelf:

Amy hates people and won't get naked. They didn't have her green sunglasses, which is kind of a shame because they had perfect ones in Sims 2. So she has to wear regular glasses and pretend they're sunglasses.

Poor Collier's blind as a bat and she has to get around a house that's hard on seeing persons eyes. Collier in her kitchen:

Collier steals things and wants to be a spy. She is also giant and jacked.

Here's a weird green troll named Colonel who is imprisoned in the attic:

He made an even weirder green monster with Collier while I was playing me and Grimey's house. There is an option where you can stop things like this from happening, which I had checked off but apparently it doesn't work. I invited Collier over and found her knocked up. Collier and Green Troll were barely friends, so I don't quite understand how this happened! Thank god for social workers.

iamtheh@gmail.com — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 02:47:51 GMT

For Google Wednesday, I did not surf Google image search, but Google Earth instead. Theme today is places you don't want to go...

Area 51:

Alien formations.

Darfur. A couple of destroyed villages:

Factory Farm. I think this black mess is supposed to be cows.

Iraq:

Burning oil field.

Bombed airbase.

This is what you get when you type in Malaysia and zoom in most places. People think Malaysia is covered in rainforest. Well, it's not! Malaysia is nothing but one giant fucking palm oil plantation and it's totally disgusting. Palm oil is now being used in a ton of food ever since the government made the mistake of requiring food companies to state how much trans fat their food contains on their labels. So now they're using palm oil to replace the trans fat so they can put "no trans fat!" on their packages. Palm oil is at least as bad for you as trans fat! It causes just as many heart attacks! They're also using it as """biofuel""" tricking hippies with claims that it's better for the environment. UMM NO. I THINK GOOGLE EARTH BEGS TO DIFFER. >:(

Here is Malaysia in the year 2000:

Here is Malaysia in 2009:

APPALLING!!! This is precisely why one of our closest relatives, orangutans, are going to be extinct in the wild likely within the next decade.

iamtheh@gmail.com — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 13:56:19 GMT

When I turned on my Nomad this morning, this started playing:

Hold me, like the river jordan
And I will then say to thee
You are my friend
Carry me, like you are my brother
Love me like a mother
Will you be there
Weary, tell me will you hold me
When wrong, will you hold me
When lost will you find me?
But they told me a man should be faithful
And walk when not able
And fight till the end but I'm only human

HOW THE HELL DID THAT GET ON MY NOMAD???

OH MAN. IT'S SO AWESOME. XOXOXO

I like it because orcas aren't whales.

iamtheh@gmail.com — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 02:35:45 GMT

In honor of Up, I have a Pixar short film for Youtubesday. It's impossible for me to pick a favourite Pixar short film, but this is one of them. Supposedly it was shown before Cars, the one Pixar movie I haven't seen...

iamtheh@gmail.com — Sat, 30 May 2009 04:11:15 GMT

Up was really good. Though HEARTBREAKING seems to be a trend with Pixar nowadays.

It works.

iamtheh@gmail.com — Thu, 28 May 2009 22:34:20 GMT

The other frequently asked question I get at least a few times a week is, am I going to sedate my cat.

NO. Hell no. Odinn's not a sissy. He's been through far scarier things than a plane ride! Plus half the time you sedate a cat, they freak out. Most airlines don't allow it for that reason. I don't know what JetBlue's policy is, but I don't really care. Drugging up a perfectly mellow, laid-back cat like Odinn is completely unnecessary. He's not going to like it, but he's going to be fine! I'm actually a lot more concerned about getting him back in his carrier after we get through security than the plane ride itself. He hates his carrier and fights it, and I won't have anyone with me to help in case he is being a pain. I don't want him escaping my grasp and running away at the airport.

iamtheh@gmail.com — Thu, 28 May 2009 22:28:35 GMT

Why the hell do people keep asking me if I've started packing yet? I feel like I get asked this absurd question by someone like, at least once a day, and have been since we found an apartment. We still have A MONTH. Who wants all their stuff in boxes for a month?! I live in a one-bedroom apartment, I don't live in a mansion! How long do they think it takes to pack?! Even my hippies haven't started packing and they have an entire house of stuff to pack!

The funny thing is, I've moved on average, about once a year since 2002. No one's asked me this question absurdly in advance in the past! But now since I'm making a huge move this time (as opposed to the 20 minutes-2 hours away moves in past years), it's somehow supposed to take over a month to pack? If anything it will take less time since we got rid of a bunch of stuff.

Since people seem to think this is some big deal, we are packing the truck on June 25th, so I will start packing sometime like June 24th.