It’s been a while since I’ve done a Random Crap posts and since I’ve had a very hectic and stressful week, I decided to throw one together. I have a lot of things to talk about, but not enough to make any of them a whole blog post.
First things first. Last week I did held a contest asking what real-life person most resembles a bobblehead. The winner will receive a copy of the book Bobblehead Dad by Jim Higley. The winner was to be chosen by Jim and by The Muse, however, because of some e-mail/technical problems on my end I wasn’t able to get in touch with Jim, so The Muse and my friend Liz chose the winner. My apologies. The three finalists were:
Kelly Osbourne (the slimmed down version)
Jay Leno
Amy Winehouse
Congrats to Carrie M. for her Jay Leno suggestion. Honestly, all three were good choices and I wish I had three books to give away.
Come back tomorrow for a great new giveaway. Fleshlight was nice enough to send me three of their finest products to give to my readers for Fathers Day. You’re gonna want to check this out. Now on to my regularly scheduled blog post:
DC Urban Dad is even cooler than I thought he was. I was in DC/Baltimore for a day and a half last week and had the chance to meet him in person. I knew he was a good guy and we spent an hour kicking back, sipping cold beverages and talking. It was awesome and I appreciate a dad blogging legend taking the time to hang with little ‘ol me and with The Muse. She said she was, “Honored to be in the presence of two rad dad bloggers,” but I think she was star struck at meeting DC Urban Dad. Fist bump bro. You ‘da man.
Canon makes bullshit printers. I have their MP620 printer and currently am out of yellow ink. I tried to print something in black and white and it won’t let me. I tried everything I could, but nothing worked. I spent close to two hours looking online and in the manuals, but nothing was there about how to print in black and white. Finally I found something.
Hidden in a random section was a blurb that said it uses small bits of the color ink, even in black and white printing, “to make sure the color cartridges don’t get clogged from sitting unused for long periods.” I call bullshit on this and say that Canon only does it so they can bend us over and fuck us for more money on ink cartridges we don’t need to use. If you’re in Buffalo and need a printer, look on Craigslist later in the week. Mine will be listed. If no one buys it I’ll probably take it out back and go Office Space on it.
My landlord is completely nuts. I haven’t talked about the problems with my house, but suffice it to say that I’ve had major problems almost since the moment I moved in back in September 2009. What kind of problems? Here are a couple highlights.
In December 2009 the radiator in my bedroom stopped working. You kind of need heat in December when you live in Buffalo. It took the landlord five days to replace the radiator with a small wall heating unit and when I asked what she was going to do for heat in the meantime, the property manager told me if I was cold I could go to Lowe’s or Home Depot and get a space heater. Seriously.
I recently found out that there were no legally required CO2 sensors in my house. My water heater crapped out in early 2010 and very well may have leaked carbon monoxide. If it did, it obviously wasn’t enough to kill us, but it could have. They put in a new water heater, but didn’t get a permit to do so and didn’t install the legally required CO2 detector near the new water heater. Oh yeah…it took four days to get me hot water.
I finally had enough and went to the Village and had an inspector come out to the house to verify there were no detectors and he found 12 major housing violations–four of which I had already pointed out to him.
When the property manager got the inspection report she went ballistic. She came to my driveway and yelled at me saying, “Your neurological problems are the reason all this happened!!!” (Oh yeah, I have some degenerative neurological stuff I’ve been dealing with for a few years. Nothing too major. We will discuss it another time).
I asked her how my health was the cause of any of this and she got in her car and stormed off in a huff. The next week I saw my neurologist and relayed the story to her. She laughed her ass off and said maybe the property manager needed to make an appointment.
The next day I saw the property manager again and told her I saw my neurologist and that the doctor was confused and needed some clarification. “She wants to know how my health caused you to not install CO2 detectors in my house before I moved in. She’s also puzzled at how my health contributed to you putting in an illegal water heater. But she’s most puzzled at how my health is responsible for the 50-year-old garage being ready to crumble at the the next strong wind. Especially considering I’m only 45.”
Her response? “Why don’t you go back to California? New York doesn’t want you here.” Wow. That was it? That was the best she could come up with? I found that to be kinda sad, especially since I thought people from New York could talk smack with the best of them. Clearly this chick has no game.
Old people are funny. I was sitting at my desk around 10:30 on Sunday night when Drama Queen came bursting into the room. “Aren’t you going to answer the doorbell?” She asked with more than a hint of annoyment. “What are you talking about?” I asked. Then I heard the doorbell. “Shit,” I said. “Who the hell is banging on my door at this time of night?”
It ends up that it was my 85-year-old next door neighbor. The house next to me is an upstairs/downstairs apartment and the 85-year-old lives upstairs. The downstairs is occupied by a 64-year-old Kanye loving woman. The older one is from Croatia and speaks with a heavy accent.
I answered the door and asked what was wrong. “XXXXX is laying in the backyard and she’s not moving,” she told me. I asked if she was sure, because Drama Queen and I had been out there with her until around 9:30. We had a fire in her fire pit and were making s-mores and she seemed OK then. I was assured that she was unresponsive and was urged to hurry up.
I told her to hang on while I grabbed my phone and some flip flops. She implored me to, “Come right now.” I told her politely that I needed to grab my phone so I could call 911 and that it would take me about 20 seconds. I grabbed the phone, dialed 911 and headed to the backyard.
By the time I arrived in her yard, the police had already been dispatched and they were preparing to call the paramedics. I saw her laying next to the fire pit and I called her name. She rolled over and groggily asked what was going on. It was at that point that I saw the two empty wine glasses on the edge of the fire pit. Keep in mind that I was still on the phone with 911 at the time.
“Jesus Christ XXXXX are you fuckin passed out?” I asked. (I swear to God I heard a snicker from the 911 guy). She wanted to know what I was doing in her backyard and about the time I started to explain what was happening, the 911 operator told me the police were pulling up to the house. I thanked him and hung up.
Apparently she was tired and was simply taking a nap. I apologized to the officers and they said it was perfectly fine and that I did the right thing. When Drama Queen burst into my office I was worrying that I wouldn’t have enough to talk about in this blog post. Ten minutes later as I walked back across my yard, I thought to myself, “Problem solved.”
Hey! Hey! Hey!! @Chopperpapa – NEW YORK rocks…upstate NY well, that’s a different story!
Nothing to write about? Damn, an old geezer taking a nap…that’s some good stuff!
Deanna, we’ve had this convo before. Buffalo is Western New York, not upstate. Not that it makes a ton of diff.
Ha legend. Not even close man. Glad it worked out and the bonus was definitely the Muse. I love it when my two worlds collide in one. It’s like finding leprechauns.
Congrats to Carrie for winning! Jay Leno really is a living bobblehead.
I really had hopes someone would have said Giada deLaurentis. Her head is way too big for her little body.
J- starstruck? you’re too cute. I was just happy to spend time with you *swoon* and meet another really cool blogger dad as well. That cracked me up about your neighbor… I hope when I’m as old as she is, I am still partying til I drop too!
Carrie–I’m moving back at the end of June. Right now you can wave your magic wand and find me a house (has to be a house because of Lucy) in Long Beach with reasonable rent that’s not in ‘da hood. Short of that, just some good thoughts that I don’t go crazy during the next few weeks.
When are you moving back to CA? Is that still in the works? Is there anything we can do to help you out??
Too funny about the person passed out…OMGosh I would’ve died laughing!!
BTW – thanks for the win..I LOVE reading your blog…you crack me up.
It’s time to mover fix it yourself and deduct it from your rent…or you could move back to California…I hate new York.
Chopperpapa–that would be a great idea, but with the garage that’s structurally unsound, the illegal electrical work and the basement windows that leak intro the middle of the basement during the most average of rain storms, the kitchen window that leaks and the roof that is in horrible shape, I’m easily looking at $40K. That’s a lot of rent! I think I will just head back to CA.
First of all, you gotta love it when life hands you stories like this.. or at least we, as your readers do.
Second, nice to know I’m not the only one with insomnia, judging from when your facebook update hit.
Evil sheep…I have not been sleeping well. Last night it was almost 5 AM before I could crash. I’m glad you enjoyed it.