Yesterday started as a pretty good day, lasted as a pretty good day, stretched into awesome later in the evening, and then on the way home descended into a bastion of craptacularishness.

First off, I had the day off.  To use the vernacular, it was win.  Not having to wake up at insanely early times (for me, anyway) for the first time in quite a while was great.  The morning passed comfortably and after getting ready me and Tim hit the road to Myrtle Beach.

See, Dragonforce came to town.. well, that other town, not the Columbia town.  I did what I could to get a group together but due to school needs, work, or Nyquil, others weren’t able to come along, with Tuten bailing the morning of.  Hope he’s feeling better today.  Anyhoo.

I load up the Zune with a good number of Red Panda Adventures (awesome podcast, done as a classic witty radio drama) and we hit Taco Bell for lunch and got gas for the Neon (too?) before hitting the I-20 out of town.  Gotta love gas prices down near $1.50 a gallon.. now if it’d only get back to ~ $0.78 a gallon.. yeah.

So, hours pass as we chat down the road, not really getting any podcasts listened to on the way but that’s fine.  We make it to Myrtle Beach as the sun’s setting and wander around a little bit looking for the House of Blues, the venue d’jour.  After passing it only once we managed to get there and stand in line for the next period of time until they let us in to buy tickets and such.  It was a bit odd but I actually ran into someone from my work there.  Not something I expected but, obviously, not an impossibility.  I thought I recognised someone else there, too, but I wasn’t sure.  After milling about the floor for a bit the first opening band started, a group called Powerglove.

They did metal remixes of classic video game songs (and finished with a remix of the Power Rangers theme).  So yeah, awesome.  Next up was a band called Turisas.  They are a group that hails from far off Finland and brings an electric violin and an accordion to the party.  They rocked the stage with what they called Battle Metal.  Holy carps.  Each of the two opening bands only played for a half hour each but they shoehorned so much pure, high-grade win into their sets that it seemed like we’d been rocking out for a while!  After they finished up (no pun intended) the stage was swarmed by roadies moving things and setting stuff up.  At around 9:00 PM Dragonforce took the stage.

They played an excellent set, bringing in songs from all four of their albums.  The band also cavorted about the stage and generally seemed to be having a great time just having fun with it all.  I love seeing stuff like that; makes for happy.  After all was said and done they had played for about two hours which included two encores.  I bought a tour shirt from the merch table and we hit the road out to seek for food and sleep.  This is were things started to go downhill.

Now, it’s not a major downhill swing, more annoying than anything, but still.  Basically what happened was we were coasting back down the highway through Myrtle Beach the same way we had come in and busily scanning the surroundings for an open eatery.  Then a cop hit his lights.  What.  The.  Hell.  It turned out that I was doing the horrible crime of going 37 miles an hour.  On an empty four lane highway.  At 11 PM at night.  For some retarded reason the road drops from 45 MPH to a mere 25 MPH for a stretch.  There’s nothing that makes this stretch stand out other than, as the officer put it, there was a Chik-Fil-A.  I never saw a stupid speed zone sign or anything of the sort and the cop acted like a prick the entire time including refusing to give me directions.  For my trouble I get a $133 ticket.  Speed trap much?  Understandably, I was pissed.  Unfortunately, due to how SC writes their traffic laws, I have absolutely no grounds to challenge it.  Even if I did I would have to go to Horry county in order to do it.  The gas cost there and back would be bad enough for most likely no change in fine.  So after this I heartily recommend that people stay as far away from this parasitic community as possible.  It’s deplorable that an area driven by tourism would treat visitors in such a way.  They certainly won’t be getting any more revenue from purchases there from me any time soon, if ever again.  It’s a small thing, but it’s what I can do.

Today I managed to oversleep my first class.. again.  Yay.  I was up, sort of, this morning but just never really got the oomph to get moving.  I kept dozing off.  Admittedly this probably has a lot to do with getting home around 3 AM running on little more than energy drinks.  Meh.  I’m getting ready now (sorta) to get to my second class before heading out to work.  Got the Zune loaded up with two new Turisas albums thanks to that whole Zune Pass thingie and I expect it should get the day to pass.  If I can ever get used to these new ear buds .. old ones died, new ones don’t fit quite right.  But that’s another story (and a boring one, too!)

So yeah.  Nightwish is playing at the Tremont Music Hall on Wednesday.  I have the day off thanks to finally having real vacation days and plan on heading up there after class.  All things are well and good, ya know, in the hood.

The strange thing is that, since my tastes in music are a bit .. let’s say ‘eclectic’, I’ll be attending the event alone.  Unless any of my loyal readers (hah!) out there (echo..o..oo…) wish to join me, of course.  I’ve never gone to a concert by my lonesome before.  Then again I haven’t gone to a whole lot of concerts at all, honestly.  But I don’t even like going inside fast food joints alone; I’ll go through drive through, sure, but not inside to sit at a table.  I dunno, it just seems wrong somehow.  But with Nightwish, them being a band from one of them foriegn countries and all, I’m not certain how often they make the trip across the great waters.

I am gonna print out my ticket later today from the website thingie and be ready to be there for the 8 PM show this Wednesday.  Should be a good time.  I should buy a t-shirt or something.  I’ll update something else on here later I guess.

Three days left of my work-a-thon.

So I was looking at my finances today; or rather I was mourning over my lack thereof.  Seems I’ve let my money get out of hand .. again.  I need to get better at keeping track of things like that.  Nothing new, of course, but just the same old complaint that I keep coming back to.  I know what the problem is; I eat out way too much for someone in my pay range.  And I’m a bit frivolous as well.  For instance, I have accounts with Netflix, Zune, and FFXI.  I have stuff from Netflix that I’ve had out since December and my FFXI account’s been idle since my Dell desktop stopped working sometime before I was removed from my last place of residence.  Zune I’ve gotten some use out of lately; been downloading all sorts of things from time to time to try out, listening to some things that I wanted to give a shot and enjoying the trip.  But things are looking up a bit at least: I may finally be getting my raise.

Sure, it’s only been ten months coming now; I’ve been doing the whole Level Two thing since last September, but later is better than never.  After my conversion takes place I should be much better off financially; which would be one hell of a switch from what I’ve been for quite some time.

I’m used to being thin on funds occasionally, but not constantly.  It’s difficult to live alone, but I manage I guess.  I’ve managed to make it a full year without having any of my services disconnected, though I have had Citi kvetching at me every now and then.  I always pay them more than they want each month, but I think I ticked them off when I told them that I had no interest in taking out further loans from them unless they could drop my APR by at least ten percent.

I guess that’s enough of a small update for tonight.  I’ll be out of the office in only ten more minutes and I am so looking forward to hitting the road.

Wall-e

In the future there are robots.  Cute robots and their cockroach pals.  Oh, and garbage.  Huge freaking piles of garbage.  But that’s ok, Wall-e’s here to clean it up while we’re away.

The movie Wall-e opened recently and I managed to get over to see it with my parents on Tuesday past.  To say that the movie was delightful would be a serious understatement.  The film follows the exploits of the little trash compactor on treads, Wall-e, as he follows his crush, Eve, while getting swept up into an adventure that places the fate of humanity in his little gaspers.

Pixar’s excellence in animation shines here.  No other animated film comes close to the quality that they consistantly offer forth.  The landscapes that are shown often look nearly photorealistic and the little extras that pop up from time to time, such as the camera refocusing, are expertly integrated into the film in such a way that to most people, unless pointed out by some sort of geek (raises hand), they might not even stop to think that such things as camera jostling or refocusing don’t exist in the realm of computer generated images.  There is no camera.  Instead these little add-ons give a deeper feeling of realism that makes the audience’s immersion even fuller.

All in all, I intend fully to deck out my area around my computer by picking up little Eve and Wall-e figurines to keep me company.  If you haven’t seen the movie yet.. what’s wrong with you?

I’m starting to try to take a harder look at my budget, or in this case a complete and total lacking of the same.  I realized after I got home last night that by eating out for all three meals yesterday that I spent somewhere around thirty dollars on food alone.  For one day.  That’s about a tenth of my take home pay.  That actually made me sick to my stomach.  Well.. I will go out on a limb here and guess that the McDonald’s, Taco Bell, and Zaxby’s had something to do with it as well.  Oh, and pro-tip: when eating a Rolaids from the roll be sure to remove the foil paper before chewing.  That can’t be good for my gastric system.  Anyway.  I’m currently looking at Mint as something to try and get my spending under control.  The site seems interesting enough; I like how it tracks and categorizes what sort of things you spend on.  Now, if it would only have a way to link to my actual checking account bank then things would be best.  They have a link to my bank.. but only the investments section.  I emailed their support group that adds institutions and am currently waiting on a response.  Another budgeting tool I’m looking into is envelope budgeting.

Envelope budgeting is a more old fashioned way of going about things in a somewhat backwards fashion.  Rather than looking at how much you can’t spend you pay attention to how much you need to set aside.  It’s essentially the same thing as your basic budget of knowing that you have to keep at least blah amount in the bank for bleh amount of bills but you take money each payday and set it aside into envelopes (real or virtual, depending on what works for you) for future spending divided into categories like bills, groceries, et cetera.  I’m looking at setting up a system where I have this envelope thingie set aside, one for each of my major bills and one that will be for the combined amount of my smaller bills and then one for food and one for gas.  When I look in my envelope for food and see that until I have more put in (at the next pay day) that I only have say fourteen dollars well, that’s all I have left to spend on that till payday.  I acknowledge that the entire process is a purely mental exercise in doing the same thing as spreadsheet budgeting but somehow parceling everything off ahead of time makes more sense to me.  It’s actually an idea I’ve grappled with before sort of.  I have considered in budgeting before on how to set aside each paycheck the amount I would need to be able to pay upcoming bills.  For some reason the whole idea of dividing it up evenly for each paycheck within a period just never stuck.  Probably because I’m not the most financially wise person on the planet.

Only two semesters left of my undergraduate work at USC and I will receive my Bachelors in English.  That will be good.  Then in the summer of 2009 I think I’ll prep up and take the GMAT so I can attend graduate classes for linguistics.  If everything goes as I want I should be teaching English somewhere overseas in a few years.  If I have my Masters or PhD in linguistics then who knows how far I’ll be able to get.  I’m also considering taking the culinary classes that USC offers.  The price isn’t too bad and I think that being a better cook can only help me out in life.  We all need food, might as well know how to do it right, ya know?

We return again to the turning of the year; another RoundCon is upon us.

I attend the convention most years; it’s a good chance to kind of cut loose in a gamer aspect and enjoy a weekend for about the only thing I get close to a vacation from work and school.  I’ll be staying at the hotel this year, splitting a room with Martin and Adrian.  Maybe I’ll post something from the room.  Knowing myself as I do, I rather doubt I will.

I’ve been busy lately, though it doesn’t much show I guess.  With the end of the semester creeping up I have three more major tests at least, two papers, three projects, and anything else I may be forgetting.  All this over the course of the next four weeks.  Crunch time again.

Still eagerly awaiting the raise and bonuses that should be forthcoming at work.  As of yet we’re still in a hiring freeze which equals out to me and the other level two contractor not being converted for easily a few more weeks, months, or years.  OK, so maybe ‘years’ is a bit much.  It hardly seems so; I’ve been with the corporation for going on two years now and have been a level two technician for over the last six months, as has the other contractor level two.  We’re both chomping at the bit for our being hired on as actual employees and getting the pay and benefits that would actually come more into line with the level of work we put in every week.  Beyond the pay increase for being an employee there is yet another pay grade that level two techs are eligible for that, as our manager tells us, we won’t be able to receive for at least six months after we become real employees.  Yup, we’ll have been doing the work, underpaid, for over a year.  We’re thrilled, let me tell you.

My budget is starting to tighten around me again.  I am very much looking forward to that economy booster shot that should be arriving in the mail some time next month.  I rather believe that I need to rein in my excessive spending on, primarily, eating out.  Cooking at home is somewhat more economical except for the fact that I live alone.  Most recipes don’t cater to the single type.  And, in the same vein, most packaging doesn’t either.  So I either spend too much on something that I may not use in time, or I go out for convenience.  You can guess which one usually wins out.  It’s really amazing to me that I’ve managed to live alone for over a year already.  You’d think I would have been thrown into debtor’s prison or something by now.

Anyway, I need to run some laundry so I don’t contaminate the room when I’m at the convention.  Wouldn’t want to offend anyone with my presence or leave a less than stellar impression in my wake, so to speak.

The journey of almost an entire year is at an end.  This is the final line of the poem that has been titling my posts since last April.  I can move on to something else!  Maybe “The Waste Land” by T.S. Eliot.. nah, that poem is very long and, well, frankly I don’t really feel like doing it again.  The post titling in a pattern, that is.  I love “The Waste Land”; good times, but from here on I think I’ll go back to something a little more, well, I dunno.  Something.

For those in the know, I recently acquired a rather large video display device.  I was torn between a couple of rivaling models, specifically the LNT71F series by Samsung or the KDL-XBR4 series by Sony.  I decided finally on the Samsung, 40″ no less, due largely in part to the two hundred dollar price reduction I was able to get the other day.  I do see that, like what some reviewers have noted, the high gloss finish of the unit does lend itself towards glaring but happily my abode doesn’t really have a light setup that would interfere with the picture at all.  All I have to do now is pick up an HDMI cable to connect the cable box to the television.. I might need a new cable box (again) as well: I picked up the HD-DVR unit from my local Time Warner Cable outlet and I asked for the grey one because, well, I think the kinda gaudy golden one looks stupid.  I asked the sales representative if there was any difference other than visually with the units and she assured me that there was not and in fact gave me a set of component cables to run from the box to my new set.  I think the picture is good with these cables but not nearly as nice as the connection from my PS3 to my TV.  So, we’ll see.

I’ve been somewhat of a bad student this week; I’ve missed a good number of classes.  Luckily I don’t think I’m over the limit yet on the ones I was close to, I’m just making it such that if I take off additional days I’ll be doing myself a disservice.  I really need to delegate time more effectively towards study and school work so that I don’t fall behind in my classes.  I feel like I’m struggling a little bit in some of my classes and I think that it’s because, as I noted before, that when I get free time I’m all too willing to give it up for the first opportunity.  I’ll be taking Saturday to myself to work on an essay for my Modernism class; it only has to be three to four pages and I was not entirely correct in believing that it was on material I had not taken time to cover yet: I have a choice between two sources, Mrs. Dalloway and Malenctha.  Now, I never actually finished either work, but I got to the last few pages of Dalloway before I had to move on to new reading so I think I should have ample ability to compose such a short paper in the next day or so.  It’s due on Sunday at five in the evening; a time when I will be at work, so it’s best that I get it done between tonight or tomorrow.

I continue to be one of the two escalate technicians in my department that is still a contractor and hence only receiving contractor pay.  I heard the other day that the office is in a hiring freeze as well.  My manager assures me and the other like person that he is doing his utmost to get us hired on as actual employees but it’s going on half a year at having effectively an at least double workload for the same pay range as those who only take calls.  I am, of course, looking forward to my upcoming raise when it does finally go through.  Maybe then I can afford a better apartment.

See, I have a studio apartment, as many of you know, and it’s got somewhat of a dearth of space.  My parents have visited twice in the past couple of TV toting days and my mother in particular has been pushing me to move up to at least a single bedroom apartment.  As things stand currently I only somewhat squeeze by living alone in a studio.  In fact, due to some poor spending on eating out at work lately that I forgot to account for, this next week is going to be rather tight monetarily.  I’ll make it through, though.  I always do.

Well well well.. August, huh? I never promised to be fast ..

I guess I have a bit of everything to attend to here and since it’s Sunday, I’m mostly cogent, and the workload is currently tepid I figure I will finally get around to putting something down for posterity. I really need to get better at this whole blogging thing.. something I am mostly certain that I say about every other post or so. I have never been able to even keep up with a journal; which, as an English major, I should excel at.. maybe. In all honesty, while I am heading towards graduate work in Linguistics, I do, occasionally, fancy myself able to put pen to page in a fashion that does not merely end in disappointment. Of course, if I were to stack up the amount of actual writing I have completed (discounting all the essays I’ve had to do for classes over the years) against those things which will probably never be finished it would be rather simple to see which one outweighs which (psst; it’s the unfinished ones). But! Here I am to write something at least, however brief.

This chapter of my continuous existence can be summed up as the search for the brass snake. Candlestick holder, that is. My folks sent it to me from Europe some years back and I guess during my last move it got shunted into some edifice that I have yet to uncover. I only have one box that’s never been unpacked at my apartment; though I can’t say for certain why it has continued as such. The afore mentioned box is mostly empty, containing an old copy of the BESM rules and those wire templates that Steel Sqwire created amongst a brief menagerie of papers. I’ve been through the box numerous times, along with my bookshelf, the entertainment center, and a few other spots to no avail. Considering that my particular apartment has very few spots in it to begin with I’m starting to get a bit distressed. This leads into my current predicament: clutter.

My studio apartment has a notable dearth of free space within it that you would think that to find a single object would not require a herculean effort. You’d be correct if I hadn’t throughly coated every available surface with sundries of various sorts. My kitchen alone has so little room that my wok has taken up permanent residence on my back left stove burner and my somewhat recently acquired slow cooker, coffee maker, and microwave vie with my toaster and rice cooker for counter space. The rice cooker, after being fed up with the situation, has retired to the top of the refrigerator. The area to the right of my sink, including the bar like region, was coated in old mail and bags of random cards and miscellany. So began “Operation: Usable Kitchen”.

I am happy to report that the operation is well underway, all the dishes are in varying states of cleanliness and the counter beside the sink has been by and large cleared off making a new home for the slow cooker to reside in, unfortunately it is nowhere near an electrical outlet which makes it difficult to use, but it can be moved closer to one when needed so that’s somewhat of a solution. The fridge still needs cleaned out; it currently contains a few objects that require suitable time with the garbage disposal and a healthy amount of air freshening to get back into check. My current ministrations on the tiny roomlet have also produced a decent sum of garbage collected into one overflowing garbage sack and one somewhat full sack. These, of course, require some consolidation and beyond that I need to venture further out into the wilds of the studio, tracking old mail and crumpled receipts, straightening up as I go, until finally I can actually move as freely as my current furniture layout will allow .. which is, admittedly, not a whole lot. This, however, should be rectified somewhat soon. I’m going to get a new TV.

Or at least that’s the plan.. see, the old TV seems to have received some damage to it at some point, most likely during its lengthy incarceration in storage, and has blurring, discoloration, and a terrible geometry issue. I’m going to switch to LCD. As soon as my tax returns arrive. I’m going to get as nice of a set as I can swing with the money. I do have some bills that I need to pay down but I’m making progress on those with plodding gait and, generally, figure them into my monthly budget (presupposing, of course, that what I do monetarily could be considered budgeting). What I’m hoping for is to acquire a decently sized flat panel model and, apartment management allowing, wall mount the unit. The entertainment center currently in place in my abode is somewhat in shambles due to repeated dismantling for moving purposes of a unit that was never designed to be taken apart after it was built. The glass doors sit atop it and the sides are held on by what might actually be magic or the dreams of children. And it’s too small for the television sizes I’m looking at anyway. So out the door it goes when the new TV enters the scene. With that cyclopean structure removed from the geographic center of my studio I should be able to increase that three foot walking space between center and love seat to an easy 5 foot space between love seat and wall with the small console table moving from beside it to against the wall where the love seat currently rests and the bookshelf moving to the wall beside my bed. Sure, my bed and all its horrors will be visible to the general public (if they happen to be inside my apartment), but the area will be so much more open. I dream of the day. A bonus would be the possible ability to watch television from my bed. A dangerous proposition, to be sure. The only thing left to accomplish with this future furniture format would be to find a new home for my dressers.

The dressers are somewhat of a misnomer anymore. While the occasional clothes item ends up somewhere near one or the other (with the other being placed somewhat anachronistically within the walk-in closet in such a way that has mostly removed the ‘walk-in’ portion) they generally are nothing more than repositories for stuff. And considering that the dressers have moved multiple times in the past 10 years or so with their contents more or less intact due to clever use of lawn bags as something to portage the drawers around in, they’re full of many items that I haven’t even given a passing glance towards in years. Not that there is nothing of interest within, but that the items are not of pressing enough nature to warrant going through them on any sort of regular basis. This lead to my discovery last year of a cache of manga that I had forgotten I had. Happy times. I’ve sifted through the dressers a few times now for my snake candlestick holder (which is a cast from a cathedral somewhere in Eastern Europe) to no avail. I’m hoping my folks will find a place for my dressers for the time being; while they’re of little use currently in my minuscule lodging once I upgrade to actually having a bedroom again I plan to start being a bit more organized with my clothing.

Anyway, once these furniture issues are arranged such and so I should end up with my love seat in a somewhat central location, no longer located almost directly behind my computer desk, pointed at the wall where the TV and its varied accessories will be located. My bed will be in the same spot as before, as will my computer desk. The addition of another power strip or two should make it easy to have my end table and lamp over beside the love seat and by the window (which will actually be able to be opened fully for the first time since I moved in). The bookshelf will be against the opposite wall from the TV, beside my bed and nightstand. The way I envision this makes the apartment much more open and livable. We’ll have to wait and see if it can actually pan out to be such. It’s said that clutter causes stress, and with work and school both bearing down hard upon me stress is the last thing I need.

I would be remiss in saying that this particular semester or my current work situation is really all that much different than they have been before except for a couple of notable differences. At work I was “promoted” somewhat to an essentially level two position. To my dismay, though the increased workload began at the end of September prior, I have yet to actually get the pay increase that generally goes with it. I have been assured, however, that certain gears are turning and hopefully this situation will change for the better in the future. That could make my move up to bedroom owner (er, renter) much easier. School is, seemingly, easier this semester: I only have four classes. This sounds great until it’s revealed that two of the classes are three hundred plus level Literature classes (Modernism and Realism), one is sixth semester Japanese, and the last .. well, it’s an introductory Linguistics class that doesn’t check attendance. One out of four isn’t bad. Still, the literature classes seem to require around one novel a week apiece and the Japanese class I really should be spending a good three hours of study on nightly to both practice and keep up with new material. With working now at least forty one and a half hours a week I find this somewhat difficult to say the least.

I have two days off, of course.. but they’re both school days and further more are days that I have standing plans with my parents and friends depending on which of the two days it happens to be. I have recently been moved to first shift on both Saturdays and Sundays on what seems to be a permanent schedule which gives me two more afternoons off a week but in general I have people requesting my time those days as well and, due to having to mobilize relatively early for one such as myself those days, I am generally exhausted each of those evenings. For example, last night I fully intended to get some work done on an essay due on Tuesday. My folks called me before I was even off work and left a voice mail that did not ask if I could come over, but rather simply asked that I tell them when I would be over. Now, I have to admit to being overindulgent when it comes to visiting with people. In general I have a very difficult time in turning down a request to spend time with others. I had started to agree to a Rock Band get together with some people from work that same night until I remembered all the school work I had to do (the essay mentioned above, a Linguistics test on Tuesday, reading for both my Literature classes, and general studying for Japanese) and begged off. So, when my parents called and, without asking, essentially told me that I would be coming over that night I was, at first, a little annoyed. Beyond that I did go and spent a pleasant hour and a half having spaghetti and conversation before I rushed home to dive into my homework. I sat down with my book for my essay and promptly fell asleep on the love seat. That chair is too comfortable for my own good. I did agree to come over again tonight for dinner but I made them aware that I would only be able to stay for a little while tonight as well. On my way back to my studio afterwards my current plan is to gather caffeine for its wonderful properties. That essay will get finished tonight.. at least, that’s what I intend. Sometimes I know I need to be a little more firm in requesting time for myself, but I never do. Kind of like with my job; when I’m sick it’s highly unlikely that I’ll call out. If I’m expected to be somewhere I generally do my best to meet expectations.

There’s only one line left in the Blake poem I have been titling these posts with, I guess I’ll need to try something else afterwards. Hopefully it will require less than half a year to come into fruition.

Pay day has come and gone once more.  Like the cycle of the seasons each spinning of the wheel brings birth and renewal.. of course in this instance it would be my financial standing that sprouts once again.

I’ve been somewhat bummed out lately about my flagging monetary footing as anyone who has been around me more than a couple of seconds should be able to attest to.  After paying for dinner last night at the excellent Red Robin my remaining funds stood right around two dollars.. and not even of my own money.  I’ve been relying on my credit cards to see me through far too often this past month and pretty much maxed both of them out.  This month, due to it being an extra paycheck month and my overage next week (if all goes as planned), I should move on ahead financially.  The only big purchases that I’ll be making are my books, of course, and any supplies that my art class will require, I’m planning to completely pay off my love seat that I bought back in .. March I think, and then I’m going to buy a PS3.  Gotta give some love to myself.  I’d rephrase that but ..eh.  It’ll suffice.

I rarely make nice purchases for myself.  This year the only other thing I’ve bought has been my DS Lite.  I’ve racked up a robust DS game collection of 7 games so far.. or was it 8.. but other than that I’ve just purchased the odd book here and there.  I know what my main problem is: eating out.  The once a week thing with the guys is fine for the most part .. so long as I avoid Outback on most occasions; damn good food, damn big bill.. but at work it basically destroys my budget.  Spending an average of seven dollars a meal for five days a week comes to an average of .. carry the one.. or load calc, more like.. around one hundred fifty two dollars a month for just eating at work.  And that’s without counting the same amount regularly spent on picking up food on the way to work as well.  So.. over three hundred dollars a month was going just to feed my feeding habit.  That’s pretty patently unacceptable.  So, I’m trying to fix that up.

I saw this spifftastic little Excel sheet that was scripted on Lifehacker sometime earlier in the year (or last): PearBudget.  It’s pretty simplistic and actually looks like something I should have been using for years.  Let’s see if I can stick with it for more than a couple weeks!  It’s a process.  If I can limit my food budget to something that doesn’t run me broke on a monthly basis I think I can easily get on top of my debt woes.

Today I paid my Citi Financial bill as part of this whole debt reducing policy.  Not that it’s really a new part; I’ve been paying extra on it every month since I started it back in November of ‘05.  Last month I paid my usual two hundred but, as I was already aware, my next bill wasn’t due until this month.  Regardless, like always, I wrote on my check to put the extra against the principle.  Kinda covering my anterior region in that respect.  So last month my pay off was around fifty five hundred remaining.  This month (not counting my current payment) my pay off amount is now around fifty three hundred.  So.. I’m making a dent.  Last month was a large dent.  I can only assume that at this point I’ve essentially crested the whole interest and will now start eating chunks out of my loan debt each month.  If I can pay even more than the little extra I have been paying (only around twenty dollars extra to be honest) then I can only assume that I’d be tearing down that wall even faster.  With trying to spend less on food, say around a hundred or so less, each month I could put that money against the loan and really destroy it with even handed shredding.  Who knows?  By this time next year I may have no more debt.  ..That’s pretty unlikely, but I may have gotten rid of a good portion of it.  I can’t expect anyone to keep me motivated in the right direction, I see people only a couple of times a week, so this is gonna be something I have to push along myself.  Kinda prove to myself that I have it in me.  Or find out that I don’t.  Negative thinking.. yeah, probably something I need to avoid.

On a positive spin I did some minor cleaning recently: I cleaned off my computer desk.. ya know, mostly.  It’s not a finished job, of course, I still have some papers and cords on it.  And Flonne is there cheering me on, that’s nice.  I moved some of the things to my nearby manga shelf that need to be moved right back off to more appropriate places.  I still need to get better at my habit of actually folding my laundry when I’m done with it.. free up more floor space and the like.  And I have to get things situated to get rid of my dressers and, eventually, the entertainment center.. unless Tuten wants to take it, we did both go in on it, the television, and the DVD player.  When I get the PS3 the DVD player (and my PS2, for that matter) will be kind of moot.  And next spring when I get my next overage check and my tax return I’m going to jump headfirst into a HD LCD TV.  Acronyms ahoy!  The one I’m tentatively looking at is a forty inch Samsung beast that would suit me just fine.. but it won’t so much fit into the entertainment center according to Martin.  I can see he’s right, though.  So, away it will have to go.

The way I see it this will free up more of my apartment to actual living space.  I’ll get that gone and the bookshelf behind it will be transferred to the wall on the other side of my bed where one of the dressers currently lives.  And with the other one no longer taking up space in my closet I’ll have extra closet for my things.  I need to trim down my ‘things’ collection too, though.  Don’t think I really need an ancient keyboard these days.. and my double bass is somewhat of a dusty space hog.  I still have a PS1 sitting in my Q-Bit (also no longer required) that I should divest myself of as well.  It, like my budget, is a process.  I’ll finish eventually.

My parents bought me a little microwave that fits perfectly beside my rice cooker and toaster.  I have the best parents evar.

We’re nearing the end of this months long Blake extravaganza.. so there’s that.

I’m increasingly aware of my low status in my department.  The funny thing is that I haven’t the slightest clue as to why.  And no one has any intention of enlightening me on the subject.   We have multiple people leaving the department in the steps above my level over the next month or so and the powers that be are looking for people to fill those slots.  Turns out I’m not even in the running as best as I can tell.  Some people who started a little before I did have already moved up and some that have been here less time than me are being looked at for a rise in status.  What I don’t get is that I don’t do any less than these other people.  Heck, I do more than some who are being looked at from what I can gather.  Needless to say, I feel a bit slighted by the whole matter.  My current priority is to complete my English degree and see where things go from there but that’s a couple years down the line.  I’m just not sure how happy I’ll be with this position if I get stuck in it for too much longer.

I’ve been here since the beginning of May last year.  That’s nearly fifteen months ago; a year and a quarter.  If I haven’t even been transitioned out of contractor status by the time my second year rolls around I can be fairly certain that I’ll be a good bit less than satisfied with my lot.  The problem is that the work isn’t bad for the pay but the pay is cut due to being a contractor.  Because I’m a contractor I make a dollar less than regular employees and an additional dollar and change less than second shift is alloted.  So it totals out that I’m making a good two something less than I could be.  I was led to believe that the whole contractor thing would not be a permanent status here at my work and that I’d be switched over to being a regular employee after some time had passed.  While the system works for some it seems to be passing me by.  I guess what really bugs me is that there seems to be no reason that I can see for this singling out.

The only thing that’s ever been a problem since I started here was a handful of tardies from the time that I had to move earlier this year.  Except for the odd problem (like my car on Tuesday) I’ve been on time each day.  I get no complaints for my performance and none for my statistics (I had the highest statistics of all contractors for a couple months after I started).  The only thing left is the possibility that someone along the line has decided to not like me all that much.  Sure, it’s a bit paranoid, but eh.. I keep having the feeling that I should be particularly aware of any sort of knife/spine convergence.

The truly depressing thing in all of this is that I really don’t have much else I can do.  So even if this place never has any intention of transitioning me I have to stick with it.  I can’t afford to go back to a lower paying job due to the whole living alone thing and I need something that can work with my school schedule.  In those respects this job is perfect.  It’s just this bleak pall that rests atop it, a boundary between me and the favored employees.  It’s frustrating.  And I am increasingly doubtful that it will ever change.

Other than that spat of whining my week has been only moderately eventful.  I’ve been living off of Michellina’s microwave meals at work and Pizza Pals and peanut butter sandwiches at home.  I’m down to around $10 left till payday due to poor budgeting on my part.  And then Monday happened.  On Monday I left my apartment around the same time I always do, 2:40-ish, and upon entering my car noticed that it had no power.  I checked under the hood and saw that it appeared that my negative battery cable had corroded clean through.  I IM’d my work through my phone and managed to get someone to come pick me up.  I stood beside my car waiting for my ride till a little after 3:30.  So, on Monday, in 100+ degree heat, I’m standing out there in my work clothes.  By the time my ride arrived the gel heel insert built into my loafers had melted.  Only the right one, though, so it’s a little odd feeling to walk around in.  So I hop into the ride from work and buy him a milkshake to compensate (and I was somewhat sun dried myself) and in the process ripped my slacks.  It’s not a big hole but it’s still there, right inside the thigh.  So here I was: beginning of the week with ripped pants, melted shoes, burned out battery cable, and all in all an hour and a half late for work.  Great.  I had made sure management was aware of my problem with my car and I was assured that it wouldn’t be held against me.  See above for about how much I believe that.

Tuesday I have my father look at it and with some minor tinkering and tightening of my positive battery cable my car is back up and running.  All except the air conditioner.  In the middle of the hottest the summer has been in ages.  Record breaking (or tying) highs.  Only two more days before I get paid.  All I have to do is make it till Friday.. or so I’ll keep telling myself.

Tomorrow should be a hanging out day.  That could be fun.