Thursday, January 20, 2005

Link Below: Best Article of the New Year?

Thief learns lesson in do's and doughnuts

I'm sure a lot of you are wondering and really give a darn about the daily life of TomServo0: the things he does, his yearnings, where he comes from. Today is your lucky day.

Many of you have the misconception that I sit around on the Internet all night and sleep all day. This is partially untrue. I end up on the Internet at the end of the night, but I am not "on" it for the entire evening and I usually lie down to use it. I do not sleep "all day", but rather during the daytime. There's a big, fat, hard-to-discern difference.

Today, for example, started when I went to bed around at 4:30 AM the other night. Usually it is impossible to get 8 straight hours of sleep because of commotion in the next room by people with normal schedules. Also, we have a dog that has to go outside every several hours. I was awakened at 7 AM, 10 AM and 11:30 AM (respectively) by the dog to take a walk in the snow, in my shorts, which I sleep in. It's bloody cold but my pajama bottoms are in the hamper. Schoolwork, chores, and the freaking dog took up the next couple of hours, and my sister and I had lunch together, even though eating at 2 PM for us is breakfast, or a really, really late dinner. (She works the night shift at a convenience store.)

At about 5:30 someone finally came home to watch the dog full-time (it's only a few weeks old). I took a shower and headed out to Buffalo to buy a textbook for class at Talking Leaves, which is the best indie bookstore in the area. My professor, who apparently thinks it's cool not to give out the reading list to the store at school, could have made things a bit more convenient. Talking Leaves is great, but they don't sell used books. I bought everything on Amazon and saved about $30 picking out used texts, but needed this one book immediately. Talking Leaves had a Textbook section, but I found my text in the Stacks for cheaper than it was listed under Textbooks. Strange, and indie store trying to maximize profits? Couldn't be. It was still $8 more expensive than getting it from Amazon, and I had to drive 90 minutes total--in a snowstorm--to get it. I should have used Amazon Express Shipping instead. Anyway, I went to the cashier and she said "I'm trying to see how crazy I am." She had her thumb pressed against one of those novelty pads that changes color, like those battery testers. I tried it and got nothing. She said either I'm not crazy or my hands are cold from being outside. I said it didn't read because I might be a vampire. She said the theory was worth considering.

I decided to make the best of my trip by studying at the University before heading home. I called my hetero buddy for life Joe but he was leaving the school and didn't want to meet up, so I went straight to the library. There were some articles I needed to print out for another class. The articles took about ten minutes to print out and fifty minutes to find. UB has a pretty good system: papers from the entire computer bank come out randomly, in stacks, from four printers. Then you look for something with your name on it. After that, I started to read my new overpriced book as well as some others due next week. My sister called sometime during that, but I didn't return the call until midnight. She was wondering when I would be home (because I owed her money for lunch) and before I could say I'd be there in a few hours, I realized my car might not be parked in the Overnight lot. Before I hung up my sister warned me that driving home would be nasty, and that's when I looked outside. The path I had taken to get from my car to the main buildings was now a one-foot snowdrift, still drifting. I decided to get home sooner rather than later.

But wait! This fascinating story gets even more detailed! I had a coupon to Taco Bell (buy one gordita and a medium drink, get a second gordita and medium drink free!) and felt peckish. I drove to the restaurant in second gear and literally slid through the drive thru. The Guy told me he could just put the two medium drinks in one large, which was fine with me, but he put ice in it, which wasn't. Like all cool night shift people, he gave me another large drink and told me to keep the first. I've been peeing all night because of it, but it's all good. The drive home involved a lot of work for my anti-lock brakes and a couple looooong slides part-way through some intersections.

I stopped by my sister's work to pay up, but found out she wasn't working that night. She was in the parking lot, however, hanging out with the manager of the McDonald's next door. A village cop car drove by about then, at which point my sister and the McDonald's manager started yelling and waving their arms. The manager ran out to the street and tried to flag him down. There was no way I could have guessed that the cop had recently been in the store and forgotten his bulletproof vest while running out to answer a call. Apparently he really hates wearing that thing all the time and feels safe enough at Uni-Mart to take it off. This town is a lot like Mayberry sometimes. The cop also knows my mom from church.

That takes us to about 2:30 AM, where I came home and read some snail mail. And here I am, rock me like a hurricane. The sun will be up in a few hours, so it's time for bed.

Based on the titles you must think i'm 45, but these are the albums I heard today (for the very first time):

The Band, "The Band": Excellent musicianship throughout many subgenres. Highly recommended.
Bad Religion, "The Empire Strikes First": Not a big fan of the band, but this is really solid. Check it out.
Bob Dylan, "Blood On The Tracks": Excellent of course, but sonically richer than most Dylan records I think.
Rolling Stones, "Their Satanic Majesties Request": Sucks. As if someone wrote their term paper while drunk, still AT the party.
Rolling Stones, "Sticky Fingers": Much, much better, and a good groove. Too back this disc skips a little.
Black Sabbath, "Technical Esctasy": I listened to "Vol. 4" and "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath" the night before, but this is right up there with those two.

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