On saving money, and the word "also"

I gained cred today in two major areas!

First I got in a bike accident, which really doesn't count, because traffic was pretty much stopped, and I only just clipped the door of the Comcast truck with my brake lever, but I did fall to the ground! And I do have a bruise from it! And the Comcast dude was freaked out!

And then I cursed everyone in Georgetown for sucking, because everyone in Georgetown sucks.

EXCEPT JAVIER AT THE MAC STORE.

Because he helped me learn how to install a hard drive! He was all "No no, don't do it here, it'll cost you so much, let me write down everything you need to know and then go to Best Buy and get the stuff." So, I bought Snow Leopard for $30, and then went to Best Buy in Tenley and bought a 320 gig hard drive for $60, and ALSO 2 gigs of RAM for $80. Because of math, I spent $170, but if I hadn't done the RAM it would have been $90, which is awesomer than the $250 at the store, which only would have been a 160 gig hard drive and no RAM upgrade! And then I went home and did it myself, with a quick pause for a trip to ACE to buy a tiny Torx screwdriver. I was kind of freaked out and my hands were shaking but I did it with all the tiny screws and everything. Then I just reformatted and installed Snow Leopard and then I took an old copy of Microsoft Office 2004 from BB's family, and now MY COMPUTER IS AWESOME.

The one thing I am sad about as a result of doing it myself is that I was looking forward to the Mac store cleaning my computer, which they always do no matter what problem they are fixing. Now I have a dirty but fast computer, for cheap! So I am not really sad.

Also while I was at the bike shop I ordered toe clips, and then while I was at Best Buy I bought Serenity, Fever Pitch, and Whip It, and then while I was at the hardware store I bought that torx screwdriver and shower cleaner, so I did end up spending a bunch of money today, but it wasn't all in the direction I thought I would spend it when I woke up this morning!

Oh also I did all these things while wearing my Old 97s shirt, so I HAVE SO MUCH CRED LOOK GUYS AT ALL OF IT

ALSO IT IS ALMOST SHARK WEEK

SHAAAARK WEEEEEEK

Leave it there for safekeeping

Certainly one of the greatest nights of my life.

(my new bride)

Themselves in Rockband / Guitar Hero? version. They made jokes about how AC Newman was only 85% of ... himself. On the song that he wrote.

(The New Pornographers at DC's 9:30 Club - June 23, 2010)

Contra

I will get back to posts that are not just giant lists of stuff ... shortly. Now things are starting to feel settled and I think this will be the first week of real normalcy? So that's pretty great!

So here is a list of Things That Have Happened.

I graduated from college! That's fun. It was really stressful but nice to see everyone.

I moved across town! This is a big big big thing. The chaos started a little over a month ago, when I was hung out to dry by some folks that I was potentially going to live with, and then I wasn't sure if I was going to have to move back to Oregon, or what. Then, I got freaking lucky and two of my new roommates found me, and then some more chaos happened regarding my old apartment, and then I moved into my new house, and then my new roommates moved in about a week later, and now our fourth roommate is in, and everything is fantastic! Actual moving really sucked, but packing was not terrible, and unpacking was also not terrible. I had lots of help from really great friends.

More on the new house and new neighborhood forthcoming.

Somewhere around moving time I got a bunch of new jobs, and also a new phone, and all of those are great.

Then it was my birthday! I turned a different age than I was before. That was fun. I got drunk and busted my knee on the balcony of my old apartment, and it's almost all better now but still kind of gnarly.

Then I helped clean the house of my friend, whose other housemates left him totally screwed and responsible for cleaning the entire house where seven boys had lived. That was fun, because I like cleaning, even though it was gross. I miss that house a lot, it very much defined last summer for me. Now I have a new definition.

And then today! I bought a bike! It looks a little something like this:

the green-looking bit is more blue than what it looks like in this photo, more like in this photo. It is pretty freaking rad. I have to switch out the pedals for regular platform pedals but the pedals (clipless? I need to learn a lot about bikes quickly) that are on it are not too terrible to ride with. The front brake needs aligning, which some random bike co-op folks that I ran into showed me how to do, and they also filled my tires which was so nice of them! Bike is super '80s and very rad. hardxcore rad, even.

And then I bought a fan for my room and a ton of Otter Pops from Rite-Aid, which is two blocks from my house, and a bunch of summer clothes from oldnavy.com. I am done stimulating the economy for a while.

Leslie Knope

I think I scare people with how much I love DC. A few weeks ago I gave one of my roommate's family friends a tour of AU's campus, and what was supposed to be about 30 minutes turned into 2 hours of blabbing about AU and DC, and 2 skipped meetings, and one jilted professor. Sorry, Linda.

Today I found out that one of my friends from high school is moving to DC in the late summer to work for the JVC. She'll be here for a year. I'm pretty jealous because she gets to live in Columbia Heights, where I wanted to live (instead, I'll be living in the Atlas District, which is "painfully hip"?? also, awesomely cheap), but I'm super excited that she'll be here! We were corresponding a bit on the bookface today and then she got bored with that and called me, so I talked to her for THIRTY-EIGHT MINUTES about how awesome the District is. I'm pretty sure that about 10 minutes in she was like "ohhh man who is this crazy person and is she going to try to be my friend when I get there I should have never told her I'm moving there"

In other news, I have just ordered myself a Motorola Backflip, I guess as a birthday present for myself? It is supposed to be wicked awesome and I wanted a phone that runs Android without having to switch networks to get an HTC Droid. But, it's essentially built for the purpose of social networking, which freaks me out. I didn't really need to be further enabled. Also I just realized that if I activate it before the 26th, when our billing cycle rolls over, I'll probably be charged $30 for a full month of data, having only used it for 8 days or whatever. Blerg. Might be worth it to play with the new shiny.

Am in the midst of moving?? But will be getting back to blogging more again. Yay! I've missed it. Stupid finals and graduation.

Happy birthday, Maegarooni, don't die. Punbot is broken.

I leave that to your discretion

Further inroads have been made towards the singularity.

Here is my cat.


There is a rumor that I may guest-DJ on my friend's radio show in a few weeks. I have to brush up on my indie. I feel like this is just going to make my urgent desire to be in a band even worse. I have to make up for lost time! Quarter-life crisis!

(this kid I know started a band once, and it was called Quarter Life Crisis, and it was really shitty and it lasted for about 10 days because everyone in the band sucked. SO, if any potential future bandmates are reading this, this is me putting on the record that I don't want to be in a shitty band.)

I wore my HRC polo today, totally forgetting that it is March 3, and therefore anyone who wants to get gay married in DC can now go stand in line and pay $35 for a marriage license, just like everyone else! so that is FUCKING RAD. Happy gay marriage Wednesday, District!

Wednesdays are always good for me. they are going to stop being so good, though, because in 2 weeks I have to start going to class again on Wednesdays. Blerg. so what I can say is that things are happening, and that is better than no things happening.

Tomorrow is Stellina day! it is still so cold at the park. I cannot wait until it is warm out, because during the time when it has been cold, she has grown almost big enough to do stuff that bigger kids can do! Someday she and I will go to the National Building Museum, which I am going to have to talk Mamma Stellina into allowing, because there are germs and stuff there. I went once over the summer with Captain Bananio and Prince Philip and it was such an excellent time, and then after, both the boys slept for many many lengths.

welcome back

So, as you see, I've been on a New Pornographers kick. I don't know what took me so long to come back around to them, but Holy Macy, where have I been.

I should join a band. I can sing, and I am excellent at brainstorming excellent band names. Future band members, hello. Nice to meet you.

So my latest project, other than school school and more school, has been embracing my indie/hipster destiny. For crying out loud, I was born on 34th and Hawthorne in the 1980s, how much more fate can you get? Anyway, life. it will be awesomer after graduation, right? it's going to be so awesome?

anyone who is not dating me right now is so missing out, let me tell you.

Because I am named News From the District, I should tell you, THERE IS A FUCKTON OF SNOW HERE.
and that's the news from the District, where all the women are lame, all the men are huge jerks, and all the children are spoiled.