Grouchy Random Rants

Apparently about 1.3 inches of rainfall is too much for Comcast because our internet was down most of the day (read: playing catch-up on blog-reading/commenting). Actually, 1.3 inches is pushing it, since that is what the approximate rainfall total is as of 9:30pm…it was probably only at 0.5-0.75 inches at the point the service went down earlier today. Losers. Can you tell I don’t like them? I can’t wait for FiOS to come…obviously Justin and I are nearly foaming at the mouth, waiting for service to be extended to our area. But even for those folks who are too stupid, short-sighted, gluttons for poor internet service and worse customer service, excited to have their rates raised every month, not interested in changing providers should theoretically see a reduction in their rates (or at least a slow-down in the crazy rate hikes). Competition for consumer services is always a good thing.

Since Earth Day is in a few days, folks have been getting all “green” and the cable networks have “green” programming, and there’s ads with a representative from the Left and the Right talking about how they’re coming together for the Earth (my fave is the Al Sharpton/Pat Robertson pairing…goes back to my Religious Studies background, I guess). I recycle…in fact, I force Justin to recycle (although he likes to vex me with tossing stuff in the trash). We’re lucky that our area recycles nearly everything and it gets picked up on trash day. What’s killing me is the conversion from incandescents to fluorescents. I am soooooooo cheap that it is hard to want to pull out a working bulb and replace it with a fluorescent. I went and bought a bunch of the compact fluorescents when they were on sale for the multi-packs, so in the next few days I will be replacing working bulbs (inner monologue: I can do it, I can do it, I can do it). Maybe I’ll just have Justin remove the working bulbs so that all I’m doing is putting a new bulb where we’re missing one. But that’s not my biggest problem…my biggest problem is that we have at least 7 “builders special” lighting fixtures that each contain three decorator bulbs with the tiny candelabra bases (I didn’t build this house so I refuse to take responsibility for those brass atrocities). Each of those bulbs costs $9. Each light fixture will cost $27 to replace the bulbs…times six equates to about $189 (before tax…add like $9.49 more!). Really, people..that’s just crazy! So in light of my resistance to invest an obscene amount into lights I don’t particularly care for, I’m now on the hunt for replacement fixtures that have standard bases. It seems the only light fixtures with chrome/nickel/silver tone that are below $30 are either the ones you find in your grandma’s bathroom, or those fixtures that look like nipples. I just can’t put nipples up on my ceilings. I already have a complex about my magical shrinking breasts…I don’t need large breasts taunting me from above. Does anyone have any reasonably-priced flushmount fixtures with a silver tone from this millenium that will not give me mammary nightmares?

As I’ve mentioned, Justin has been working out for a good 4 or 6 weeks. I’m very proud of him…it’s not easy getting up close to 2 hours earlier than normal to go work out, or to turn away favorite foods, and eat those funky protein bars. Despite all that, he’s been doing well and chugging along, and the results have shown on his body and on the scale. What has been driving me crazy is the friggin’ abandoned water bottles (usually in some state of not-quite-empty) ALL over the house. I tend to leave them because I figure he’ll come back to it. But by the end of the day, I’ll often find several all over the house. Since it’s late, I usually dump them in the plant (can’t make myself dump it in the sink), and leave them on the counter above the kitchen trash can (my recycling staging area). By morning, they are gone, and each time I naively think hope he put them in the recycling bin on his way out. Nope! I pop open the kitchen trash and there they are! It makes me crazy to pick them up; it makes me crazy to dump out the undrunk water; it make me crazy to dig them out of the smelly trash (often from under the old coffee grounds) to put them in the recycling! Crazy. REALLY CRAZY! Like I’m-gritting-my-teeth-typing-about-it-now kind of crazy. And know what? His parents recycle…like really really REALLY recycle…like break-down-the-cereal-boxes-and-toss-in-the-toilet-paper-rolls kind of recycling. HARD CORE! His mom has composted eligible food garbage as long as I’ve known her…yet her own flesh-and-blood can’t put his twelve-hundred-bazillion partially-drank water bottles into the well-marked recycle bin. OMG, people, we don’t even have to separate our recyclables…nope…just toss them all in and they’re separated at the center. Maybe I should go all Ed Begley on him for a week or two so that when I go back to normal, he’ll be so relieved that he’ll comply. And before you ask, I did buy him a reusable water bottle, especially since most bottled water lacks fluoride and doesn’t have the same standards imposed on it as drinking water. He refuses to use it. Says it’s easier to grab a bottle out of the fridge; he refills the bottle a few times during the day (so has 1 bottle of bottled water and like 3 bottles of filtered tap water). But I think he refuses to use the reusable bottle just so he can watch my head explode each morning.

Know what else? PMS is a bitch (as I sit panting in the corner like Animal from all my ranting).