I finally preformed a DSL exorcism and fired Qwest last night. It only took 30 minutes on hold and then another 20 talking to a clueless agent in Tucson. Internet should be shut off today! The kicker to this is that even though I am free from a 3MBps cap, Comcast won’t be able to come install the cable until next Tuesday. What’s a feller to do in this situation but take advantage of the small growing WiMax companies offer for a free 7 day trial? And yes, I feel bad…but I’d feel even worse with no internet for 7 days. Sorry, Clear.

This guy who I work with is letting me try out his Roku player that he bought a few months ago. If I like it, then he's going to sell it for me for $25.00. Which is really good for me, since they retail for $99.99 and shipping is $20. He's also given me a vegetable steamer for free. I choose to believe that he's just a nice guy, but I think he goes home and beats off thinking about me.

I'm really excited about the Roku. I never can seem to remember to return my Netflix DVDs, so this seems like the perfect idea for me. Hopefully they will release better media than The Net and Facts of Life: Season 1. But, I still have a shit load of movies to explore before I get tired of them.

Although I am a die-hard Apple fanboy, I really want the Google G1. If anyone would like to buy it for me, please email me for arrangements. Thanks!

In a span of a minute, he went from xtube.com to disney.com. wtf!

I'm drinking boxed wine, watching Death Becomes Her, and wondering why everything needs to be closed tonight. :(

Being in the Eastern time zone, it is now Christmas day by 11 minutes. I'm trapped in my parents basement because the streets of Grand Rapids are too dangerously slippery for travel. Fuck it - what is there to do anyways? Go back to Throwbacks and watch the fundamentalist christian stranglehold that has blanketed this city subdue freedom of expression? Pass. However, yesterday I did see the dude that gave my ex herpes there though. I felt like buying him a drink, but thought maybe that'd be a little weird. I mean maybe a gin and tonic isn't the best way to say: "Thanks for teaching my ex a lesson in a way I never could.". Mean? Yes.

So, yeah..I'm sitting here in the basement bedroom (which is has been craftily decorated with ornate christmas decorations - courtesy of my mother (queen of midwestern crafts)), watching the fluffy snow slowly sink lazily down to earth, supplementing that by listening to Britney Spears' new album, bopping around the bed with my wine glass in my hand, and trying to recover from all of the christmas foods I've eaten today (poison).

I miss my life back in Portland, but I'm trying to survive on the sheer fact that I feel like I'm trapped in a temporal nexus of reality in which I never left Michigan, I buy snow tires to get around, I shovel snow, and I think Applebees is a treat.

Save me.

Let me just preface this by saying that I'm sorry for whoever finds this posting offensive, but Dallas, Texas must be the most disgustingly tacky place I have ever had the displeasure of visiting! On a scale of 1 to 10 on the fucking gross factor, i would give it a 13.

As many of you know, I have really really bad luck flying. From being stuck in a blizzard for 3 days in Cincinnati to being stripped searched in Newark, I'm always scathed in someway through my air travel. This time was no different. After a battle to get to the airport w/ my boyfriend, the lovely Danny O'Connor, I ended up waiting on a plane for seven hours with the minute possibility that we could get out of the record-setting Portland blizzard in the twenty minute window of when we got deiced and when the runway got plowed to safely get off the ground. Through sheer luck (or unluck), we did manage this feet at 7:40P PST (Originally scheduled to leave 12:45P PST). Two hours and fifty minutes later, I'm in Dallas TX.

The airline did as much as they could to faciliate a smooth transition in this turmoltuous time for it's valued passengers. They gave us hotel vouchers for the Ramada Lovefield and they arrainged a shuttle to this destination as well. Nice. We were all pretty grumpy and disoriented, but all managed to be on the shuttle at 12:45A CST. Unsurprisingly, the shuttle was cramped and smelled like old socks. I was smooched between a pretty midwestern girl and a fat man who never spoke. I may have been a little less cool with this if I hadn't been through one of those ordeals that strips people of their will to maintain individuality, but we could have been on our way to Auschwitz, and I probably wouldn't have cared. I was grumpy, hungry (they did not feed us at all on the 8 hour wait on the plane), relieved to be out of the tin can, and tired. I rested my head on the plexy glass window and watched the neon sign jungle grace pass me with all it's electric glory.

It wasn't until we got into a part of Dallas that I would label the..less..family oriented before my haze let up some. I mean, it's not every day you see a liquor store the size of a full on grocery store and with the sterile whiteness of a doctors office called "Big Daddy's Liquor". It was massive. How many different liqours are they that this specialty item can fill and entire stripmall full of shelves? All I could think is that being the fattest state in the union, it takes more than the average amount of alcohol to get shitfaced. More liquor stores passed, none with the zeal as Big Daddy's though. After a miracle mile of intoxicants, I came across probably one of the weirdest and trashiest stores I'd ever seen: Condoms to Go. I mean, seriously? How in a rush are you that you need a drive through for condoms? Now, I know that these Texans have an animal-like urge to get sexy that creeps up without warning, but I mean c'mon dude...plan ahead a little. The pretty midwestern girl on the shuttle exchanged glances with me before I mouthed "where are we??" she just shrugged and starting laughing at the surreality of it. We turned a corner and I was then assaulted by a strip of fast food establishments. Whataburgers, McDonalds, and Wendys were the top dominators, but there was also a Burger King and a Mr. Meaty (or something) all vying desperatly for the business of the denizens of Dallas. And then it hit me! I was just a spectator in the timeline of what makes Texas Texas. Liquor, sex, and fast food. I mean, what makes a Texan feel more alive than intoxication, fucking, and gorging? I'm sure that racial descrimintion, nascar, spousal abuse, and traditional family values are somewhere in that rubix cube of their society but I think I just found the core of what makes this state so...Texas.

I am now sitting in the airport biding my time before I get back up to the North. I'm already getting stares and for having an Apple product, like I'm some sort of freakshow. I guess in this environment, I happily am.

In two days, I make my exit out of Portland back to Grand Rapids, MI for (what I'm just realizing) is eight days. I haven't been back for about a year and a half, and I realize how overdue this is. I need to juxtapose life now and life then for my own mental health.

The air here resonates a strange aura.

Today at work, during a temporary sugar high from ingesting two rolls of smarties, I told a cute (but true) little anecdote about my luck (or lack there of) with
contests and raffles. I never win them. I've even not won the "everyone gets a prize" raffles people give to make sure everyone feels included. Not just once but on three separate occasions...and I also didn't get my "everyone's
a winner" participation trophy in jr. bowling when I was 12. All of these were due to some oversight or technicality, but I've always found it a bit odd that I'm always the one singled out. Secret Santa is the same way. Of the three times I've participated, only once have I actually received something. One person quit the day before the event, and the other was mislabeled and disappeared. So there I would stand: empty handed and the center of pity for those around me. It was really an amusing story, and most everyone was laughing due to my humorous execution....
until a crazy coworker of mine shouted out.."You think you have bad luck?!? Both of my parents are dead and my mom died on Christmas!" The room went silent. I expressed my condolences to her and told her that in no way could
I even compare my insignificant quirks with something of that magnitude. The atmosphere became a little surreal afterwards as people awkwardly fumbled back their tasks in avoidance of the issue and all I could think was "Damn, Joanna, you really know how to suck the fun out of the room."

You’re always like “why do you have to see your friends so often, are they more important than me?
You spend so much time on your computer, but you shouldn’t, cause your eyes are getting red. Or maybe it’s the… whatever.
Are you really going to eat that pizza? It looks ’so’ greasy!
And your bathroom, it’s more than disgusting”