Now this is a catfight!

I'm seriously sorry about not writing recently. School hasn't been overwhelming, and all of my free time is split between Marco and Peggle, so what can I say? But I was weeding through my Bookmarks and came across this gem that somebody linked on a forum once. I've never seen this "Generations" show, but WOW! And I thought Dynasty was bad-ass.


P.S. - I do have a substantial post that just needs editing. I WILL get to it this week. And all of the blogs I have been missing. I'm keeping up on Reader, I swear.

Saturday Night Live

Mary Poppins is a slut. Perfection.

Frustrations from 43201

Now that Marco and I have been in the 43201 for two months, it's time for the bitching to begin. Bitchfest 2008, as it will be called from this moment onwards. And what would a Bitchfest be without actual bitching?

Where shall I start? Marco and I were willing to give Columbus the benefit of the doubt for the first month we were here, but then things start to sour. For me, it came right around the time I was WITHOUT POWER FOR 5 DAYS due to a FUCKING 2 HOUR WINDSTORM that American Electrical Power called UNPRECEDENTED! UNPRECEDENTED! Like the end of the world! Aren't there fucking tornadoes in this state? Hey, AEP, I'm from Nova Scotia. Wind is a way of life for me. I thrive on wind, especially the bitterly cold North Atlantic winds that only February can bring. The remnants of a hurricane don't faze me in the least. So why did they faze you? Anyway....

• It's Sunday. Marco and I want to do something. We've already ventured to German Village. What else is there to do in Columbus? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. The city is completely dead on Sundays. For a metropolitan area of 1.7 million people, it's rather shocking. So instead, we go to Wal-Mart. Along with 1.7 million other people. And after picking through the remains of the vegetable and fight off some old bag for the last pair of 99 cent socks, we go home. And do more of nothing.
• The 43201 is filled, and I mean chalked full, or ugly, screaming people. Neither Marco nor i have been able to discern what they're screaming about, but all we know if that they do it all the time, every single day. If they're not doing that, they're peeing on the corner store across the street. How do I know this? Well, during that blackout, besides throwing out expensive food and boring myself to sleep by listening to CNN on Sirius out in the car, I sat on my front porch and read novels by the street light. In clear view of the corner store. And yet, people would still pee on it.
• Wal-Mart has one aisle of vegetables, but five of chips and other assorted candies. not that it matters - fruits and vegetable are so expensive here that nobody bothers to eat them anyway. $2.49 a pound for apples at the Kro-ghetto? Are you fucking kidding me?
• On a related note, I think I am developing rickets.
• It's utterly impossible to get anywhere in Columbus without a car. And even with a car, things are so spread out and far apart that it's pointless ot bother. Interesting factoid - London, a city I once so loathed, a city of just 340,000 people, has more sky-scrappers than Columbus - by a large margin. Thanks skyscrapper.com!
  
• Lighting ones house on fire seems to be all the rage here in the 43201 as fire-trucks zoom past our apartment every five minutes.
• The cost of living, outside of $1.99 orange peppers (no, not by the pound), is pretty good. Electricity rates are outrageous, though.
• The Buckeyes? WTF is a Buckeye? I still have no idea, but I do know that fans of whatever this is take up all of the parking on our street every second Saturday.
• Land of big hair and fat asses. Enough said.

But on the upshot, I've only got 47 more months here!

Witness the following: (via Ugly Betty)

Willhemina: I love that dress, girlfriend!
Betty: No you don't. You hate it.
Willhemina: You're right. It's hideous, like driving through Ohio.

And there you have it. Ugly Betty perfectly sums up our Ohio experience thus far. There must be some good points, right?

Next time, something positive, I swear!

Delayed from 43201

Marco's gone for the week, there's no school until the 23rd and I have a car. It was supposed to be the perfect week. Lots of cleaning, organizing, blog posting and calling friends.

The Hurricane Ike happened. Or whatever was left of Hurricane Ike by the time it passed over 43201.

So now I have no electricity. I've had no electricity since Sunday. So no blog posts. No phone calls, no refrigerated food, no organizing and certainly no cleaning. Just lots of gentle sobbing in the dark corners of my house.

Well, not quite. So pity me if you must, but pity the people in Texas more. Or better yet, make a donation to a relief fund. Because as much as it sucks to have to throw out three pounds of chicken breast that I just bought on Saturday, at least I still have a roof over my head.

Live from 43201

So it's very early on a Friday morning and I now have two cursors on my screen. Trippy. Did I mention my growing antipathy towards Windows in general? Quiet, Jess.

I'm sitting here, hungry and bored. Bored because Marco is already asleep and for some reason I decided to take a nap when I came home from school this afternoon. Silly me, I thought he'd wake me up when he got home, which is usually around 5:30. But he did not. So now I'm hungry because, instead of waking me up, he ate dinner by himself and took my nap time as his relax time. Am I really that much of a chore? I'd rather not have answers on that one.

I don't even really know what to eat because all I hate is shitty Aldi bread that costs 79 cents a loaf. Aldi, the store that proclaims itself as the place where you can do "90% of your grocery shopping." Really, Aldi? It's more like 40% on a good week because all you carry for spices are black pepper and garlic salt. Whatever shall I do without cinnamon for my bath?

Damn, I keep finding black specks in this Aldi bread. Should I take it back? I'll just eat around them.

Anyway, it's been several weeks since I posted, so I wanted to give an update of what C-bus is like. But that's really boring, and I know you all only care what kind of slum I've pigeon-holed myself into this time, so here it goes.

The outside (courtesy of Google Street View):


Yes, the random guy crossing the street comes included. In fact, there was a random guy in a wheelchair screaming at random passing people just yesterday.

Get out of my neighbourhood, whitey!

Quite literally. So much neighbourhood flavour! But besides the insessant noise, the drag racing down the main street and what I'm pretty sure are crackhouses on nearly all sides of us, I like it!

As for the rest of it, the pictures are not uploading, so I shall leave you in suspense until tomorrow.

So yes, I am alive. And yes, I have been busy. And yes, I'll return to blogging. And yes, I will have another shitty Aldi bread sandwich and probably get the diarreah. The third main ingredient is HFCS! In bread?

Obesity, here I come.

Miscellany from a hammock

It will come as no surprise to those who know me that one of my favorite summertime pass times is sleeping. There's nothing I enjoy like a good, long nap to sleep away those dreary summer afternoons. Well, dreary if you're in Nova Scotia, because all it does here is RAIN.

My second favorite summertime pass time is, as it has been since I bought it in Mexico in 2002, napping in the hammock outside. But during those times of lucidity, in between dozing off for the tenth time, dodging the variable showers and reading the Globe and Mail, I like to think. About random things. So here it is:

• Marco and I are officially DINKS! Yes, we were DINKS before, but in giving up half of my yearly income to take on the punishment of the Ph.D., I never thought that things would actually get better for us. But boy, was I wrong. Thanks to Marco securing a nice job in Columbus, we shall never struggle for money again. Thank God. I was so tired of shopping for off-labels.
• I've been struggling with a cold, likely brought on by visiting Chantal and her 20,000 cats. Well, it's probably closer to two than 20,000, but seeing as how I hate them so, it certainly felt more like 20,000. Although it was really two.
• Congrats to Team Canada on finally winning a medal. We're no longer tied for 83rd! Instead, we're in the 20s, tied with Turkey, Georgia (who, yes, is currently at war), Spain and Austria, the birthplace of Hitler. We're still behind Zimbabwe, what with their trillion percent inflation, Indonesia, who had to pull their athletes away from the Nike factories and North Korea. North Korea?!?!?! Maybe Canada should engineer a famine to get the team going...
• I have developed a fondness for cookies. The scale groans.
• CTV is currently rerunning "Murder In The Hamptons." I've seen this movie at least 7 times. Sigh.
• I was dreading not having internet at home, but so some reason, I was able to pick up wireless from one of the neighbours. I was cruising reader one day and noticed that Loralee's latest post was written by "von Loralee." Strange, I thought. Loralee never mentioned taking on the title of a German Princess. Suddenly, Jess was "von Jess." "von Kristopher." "von Katherine." Had the world gone mad? Was everybody taking German royal titles? Is there even a German royal family? Then I discovered that every internet variable was in German. It seems that the internet I'm stealing is indeed in German. I don't even know the logistics of this, and so long as I continue to get free internet, I don't really care.
• Following the trajectory of her life, my sister has run away with the circus. For real. Or what passes for the circus around here, anyway. Yes, my sister is now a carny. Jerry Springer should do an on-location with my family.
• I love fresh plums. Especially those from the tree in our backyard.
• Columbus is pretty nice. I'm going to take some pics of our fantastic apartment when I get back.
• Want your computer to look like a Mac even though you're too cheap to buy an actual Mac? Try RocketDoc!
  
• The blogging hiatus is nearly over. One I get back to Columbus, look for old hell to break loose on the blogging front. Or at least minor heck.

Things to appreciate...

Hiatus, I know, but whatever.

• Finally shaving my head, because then I will appreciate having hair once again.
• The smell of skunk lessening (one sprayed my window Saturday night), because then the smell of non-skunk is so much more refreshing.
• Having the heartbreak of psoriasis on my elbows, because it's finally migrated away from my head.
• Finding lip-balm under the coach, because then my lips don't burn like the fires of hades.
• Finishing the latest bottle of Diet Coke, because I know there's another one in the fridge.
• Somebodies sink backing up into my bathtub, because I will later know what it's like not to have to scrub it everyday.
• Ripping off my toe nails (odd habit, I know, so don't lecture), because they will later grow back and I can do it all over again.
• Roger's charging me for an extra month of cable (it's in the CONTRACT!), because then I will no longer have to deal with them. Ever again.
• The rain, which washes away the aforementioned smell of skunk.
• The heat and humidity, for winter shall be so much sweeter.
• Being away from home, so I actually like my family when I visit them.
• Having Marco be away for a week-and-a-half, for the reunion shall be much sweeter.
• Still being 27, which means I'm not yet 28.
• Having $500 more in my savings account than I anticipated.
• And finally, having wonderful readers who still track me even though, like clockwork, I go off the deep end every single summer.

And to hiatus again...