Monkeys, Possums, Baseball, Records, and Other Crap

Lately, my day-to-day life has been largely routine. The addition of regular exercise to my schedule is eating into some of the time that I used to spend on my hobbies and projects. Yes, that still leanves me most of the weekend, but my weekends are often unproductive. Who can say why? But since you're all dying to know, I will share a few little things I've done or that have happened recently.

A couple weeks ago I received my recent Random Crap (aka Bag of Crap, BOC, etc.) order from Woot!. You might recall how awesomely crappy my last Crap was. Or the usefully crappy first crap. Or maybe not. This crap (my third crap) was not nearly as awesome or useful. While my previous craps were consisted largely of second-hand crap, this crap was (almost?) entirely new. So while condition-wise it was less crappy, it was, in the end, crappier crap. [Sigh]... Crap.

crap: blank brown tee, pink Lego brick style iPod speaker,
mini tripod, Jonas Brothers branded PMP case

This was, to my recollection, the only crap I managed to get by non-riddled methods. I got it fair and square in the latest Woot! off. Thanks Growl! Maybe my crappy success has gone to my head, but this is actually not the item I anticipated most during the Woot! off. That honor belongs to the much rumored Glow-In-The-Dark Superfly Monkey With Woot! Cape. Phew. That's a mouthful. Er... a keyboard full? But alas, it was not to be as the Woot! off came and went sans monkeys. But, mere days later the albino idol popped up in the entertaining Woot! Your Own Adventure, and through wise decisions and internet-ty perseverance, I scored a few. "In for three" as the Woot!-ers say. If you missed 'em, they can be had on eBay or the like at a significant mark up (very non-Woot! behavior).

GITDSMWWC hanging out on my desk with
gnome and hula girl (get it? hanging?)

doing what GITDSMWWCs do best on my dresser

Perhaps the growing collection of caped primates are attracting other wildlife to my apartment because as I stepped out of my truck early one evening last week, I was startled by the hissings of a baby possum. I'm sure he was rabies-laden (Myth! Rabies kills three people every year!), but he was kinda awesome-looking nonetheless. Had a real nice look going with that crazy white spikey do.

with my iPhone after i got out of my truck

went into grab my big camera, but he decided to run off

then he changed directions and ran into the pile of crap in my car port

I caught my first baseball game of the year. Erik and I drove out to Irvine to see the first game of a 3-game series with CSU Fullerton. We sat out in the General Admission lawn (parking was more expensive than the game ticket) and saw a back-and-forth battle ending in an Anteaters walk-off homer. Since Emily and Jack were out of town, I also managed to get Erik out to a Pinkie's beer dinner and other bachelor activities.

UCI vs CSUF: earth bleachers

Saturday I jumped in the way back machine and strode in the doors of my local audio purveyor for National Record Store Day. (What? You didn't know?) And, yes, I actually threw done a few bones for actual vinyl. I've been wanting to get some more after Kelsey got me that sweet Tom Petty Live anthology for Christmas. I grabbed The Best Of The Band (by The Band, duh) and Wilco's Sky Blue Sky. Now all I need is an actual record player. Anyone know when that holiday is?

like a real record store, man

fresh wax (is that lingo right?)

Funny thing about this record store is it's on the corner of a street that is only about a half block long in its entirety, but somehow is home to what had to be at least 10 hair-related shops. A salon oasis of sorts. Very odd, but I enjoyed it.

see?!?!?!

I typed this entire blog while watching the Cardinals game with my new MLB.TV subscription. I bought it this weekend and was really pumped until I tried to tune into Saturday's game. Apparently due to national TV contracts all weekend games are blacked out online. Ridiculous. Sure it's right there in the fine print, but who reads that? This bummed me out for a couple days, but I talked myself into it tonight, figuring if I can get 30-40 games this summer it will be money well spent. The streaming quality is much better than last year's postseason, except it stalls completely when I upload pictures to this here blog, so I put all that off until..... now.

Remembrance Of Things Crappy

Remember when it used to be fun to get mail? For most of us this period of our lives coincide with that of virtually no responsibility and, perhaps more to the point, no utilities in our names. You see, what was once a rare exciting event (Hey! The new issue of Boys' Life!) is now a daily occurence filled with credit card offers and Pottery Barn catalogs (thanks, Dawson). As adults, we are filled with a special sadness that comes only with a love turned wrong. That is... Unless...

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...we are returned to our innocent, joyous child-like state with the discovery of internet shopping sites like Woot! and SteepAndCheap. And if we order enough junk, we can even be caught by an unexpected package that we had forgetten was on the way. This is precisely what happened to me this evening.

I returned home from work to see a Woot! box sitting outside my door. It only took a few seconds to recall that I had been one of the lucky wooters recemtly to get a bag of crap along with his woot! off lights.




And Woot! you really outdid yourself this time, as it is even crappier than the last. A rundown:

Left column - 3 Yankees dry erase boards (total crap!), 3 more Sansa MP3 players (1 is missing a button - what crap!), woot off! lights (not official crap), 3 international outlet adapters? (but to adapt to what? unclear. but clearly crappy!), iPod dock cable and accessories (iCrap!), a battery (to what? who knows. probably to something crappy.)

Right column - SpongeBob SquarePants backpack (kid crap!), Leatherman wannabe multi-tool (knock-off crap!), blood pressure monitor (crap for a healthier you - or just more aware of the unhealthy you), refurb Microsoft Zune (clunky crap!), not sure, weatherstripping? (unknown crap!), EyeTV tuner, antenna, and software - without required tuner! (literally useless crap!)


And my personal favorite: install CD for Polaroid camcorder (no camcorder), blank (?) CD, and a manual for a Kodak digital picture frame (frame not included). Honestly there were also little bits and chunks of other things as well. I imagine Woot! headquarters having a large crap bin, and come bag of crap time, workers just go over a pull a lever emptying an appropriate bag size of crap into a box. Similar to a soft serve ice cream machine. Thanks again, Woot! It was crap. But I liked it!