new blog

No world, I am not leaving you. This blog will still be active.

Why is it that whenever someone says they're making a new blog, everyone automatically assumes that the old one is dying or dead?

Yeesh.

I've decided to create a new blog, born out of the frustration of reading reviews from so-called "experts."

Fuck. Them.

Experts. Pft. What exactly does one have to do to become an "expert" at something? Who gets to decide what qualifies an expert? Not that there's no value in an expert review. I'm sure there is, somewhere. But I often get the feeling that experts are writing to other experts, which usually leaves out 99 percent of the population.

Hence the birth of Purchaser's Review.

I plan on doing a post every day, rain or shine.

Some might call me stupid for starting another blog when this one is so new. I don't care. It's my blog and I'll do whatever the hell I damn well want with it.

:) Have a nice day!


(Duty-free shops are a wonderful thing...as I found out at Dublin's airport. This is about half of what I bought.)

Writer's Block Sucks.

I think I'm experiencing this thing called "writer's block."

It sucks. It sucks major donkey dick.

So far I've started half a dozen posts for this thing, all of which have ended up in the digital dumpster.

I mean, it's not that hard, right? To just write a post. Step one is picking your subject matter. Step two is writing. Everything else falls into those two categories.

Apparently, this is too difficult for my brain to handle. It's a novel sensation. Anyone who knows me in "real life" (what does that make this? An "unreal" life?) will tell you I'm pretty much a chatterbox. Seriously. I have verbal diarrhea.

And yet I got nada. Jack. Nothing. Zip, zilch, and zero. My writing even sucks tonight.

I thought I'd be able to write a post about writer's block in some sort of effort to unblock myself.

I don't think it's working. But, I'll post this anyways, as a reminder to myself. Someday I'll laugh about this. Just not now.

Have a good night ya'll...hopefully I'll manage to fix myself soon.

9/11

I had another blog I've been working on to post here for today.

And then I looked at the date.

9/11.

I remember where I was on this day eight years ago. I was sitting in Mrs. Jones classroom, paying attention to everything but she was telling me about algebra. I was counting the ceiling tiles. I was doodling in my notebook. I was shuffling my feet and trying to ignore the person in front of me - he had an aweful habit of farting, and had chosen that moment to let loose.

And then it happened, and I was doing exactly the opposite, trying to listen and absorb every piece of information. I was sixteen at the time, and hardly cared about worldly matters. Or any matters, really.

Sixteen year olds have a habit of being self-absorbed. I know I was. Still am, if I'm being honest with myself.

I couldn't understand what had happened. A plane had hit one of the Twin Towers? At first I didn't believe it. It had to be some sort of sick joke. Nobody would attack us like that. I looked around the classroom and saw that my classmates had much the same reaction as I did. We sat there, in our yellow classroom, perplexed. The bell rang, and we shuffled off to our next class.

And then the second plane hit.

I clearly remember everything in my mind going blank. The teacher was rumbling something about how he wasn't going to be teaching today and he wanted all of us to be quiet.

I didn't hear a word he said. His words were hardly merited - all of us were silent, eyes tranfixed on the television mounted in the corner of the classroom. At sixteen, I don't think I quite understood the magnitude of what had happened. I just knew that someone had crashed some planes into the Twin Towers, and many, many people died.

I remember watching people jump out of the building. I remember seeing the ugly black noxious plumes of smoke coming from the crashes. I remember hearing that there had been a plane that hit the Pentagon. That the south Tower had collapsed. That someone had crashed a plane into a field in Pennsylvania.

I remember it all.

I had no connection to the Twin Towers. I didn't know anyone who was killed. Hell, I didn't even know anyone who helped volunteer. And yet, there was a sadness in me, like a little tiny black hole that had eaten up all my other feelings.

School had dismissed for the day. Nobody cared.

My mother took me and my sister home. I remember switching on Cartoon Network - it was the only channel not covering the Towers. I didn't want my sister to see what had happened. She was only ten years old. I sat there, numb, watching brightly colored characters and their misadventures.

Years later, here I am. I'm twenty-four now, not sixteen. That little black hole is still there, surprisingly. Every year I think I've gotten rid of it, until this date comes and everything rushes back to me. I cannot imagine how those who actually lost loved ones feel. I cannot imagine how those who volunteered and saw first hand what malice can do feel right now.

Life's not fair. Nobody ever said it was. But what happened on this day eight years ago was an atrocity that should never have occured.

We will never forget.

Labor Day

Ah...Labor Day.

A day where everyone (except for people who work at a certain mega-million dollar petstore chain) can sit back and roast weinies on the barbeque.

I have many memories of this day.

I remember visiting my Nan's house on this day. I remember that we'd have a barbeque, with burgers and hot dogs and baked beans and potato salad. The menfolk would spend the day watching sports (any sport, so long as it featured a Philadelphia team) - until it was time to cook. Then they argued over who would man the grill, and how well the burgers should be cooked, and how much cheese to put on. They argued over whether or not it was better to serve hot dogs charred to brickette consistancy, and if they should throw on some potatoes wrapped in reynold's wrap (even though we already had potato salad). The womenfolk would putter in the kitchen, trying to get their own dishes done to perfection, if only to gloat about how easy it was to prepare later. Then they would yell at their men to come in and give them a hand, or to be a taste-tester, or to watch whatever screaming child had hurt himself/herself.

My dad's family gets things done by yelling. Loudly.

I remember sitting down with my paper plate that had too much food on it. I remember unwrapping my potato from the shiny foil surrounding it - only to eat half of it, and give the rest of it to whoever's dog happened to sniffing around.

I remember watching the birds all flock to my Nan's neighbor's birdfeeders - she had at least six feeders in her yard, along with a great many yard decorations that fluttered in the wind. Nan's neighbor was an elderly woman who seemed to get great pleasure out of giving us kids unholy amounts of candy.

It was stale candy, but hey. I was thrilled anyways.

Mrs. Fae was her name, and I thought she was entirely beautiful. In an old, wrinkly sort of way, of course. She smelled like a cross between formaldehyde and gardenias, and had the prettiest hydrangeas on the block. She said that she used to put a few nails in the ground near the bushes, and that's what made them that brilliant blue hue.

Anyways, her husband had died some years previous to my birth, so I had never met him. I'm told he was a nice man, just like I've been told my Nan's husband was nice.

Pop-pop died of colon cancer a few weeks before I was born. He was the type of man whose life story was so great it could have been published and become a best-seller.

I don't think Nan ever really recovered from his death - there was always an air of sadness about her that I never quite got until I was old enough to realize how much she loved my Pop-pop. She now has Alzheimer's disease, and often wakes up during the night looking for him.

I cannot possibly even begin to imagine her heartbreak.

All of this, of course, completely passed by me as a child. Usually a few of my cousins would get some sort of sport going (there were twenty-something of us, so it was feasible), and I'd wind up injuring myself somehow. Klutziness and projectiles apparently don't mix well.

So, I usually stayed out of the games and read a book, or talked to a few of the aunts or uncles. I watched as my cousins grew up and my aunts and uncles greyed. I watched as various pets passed away, as did Mrs. Fae. Her children now own her home, and the hydrangeas aren't nearly as pretty as they were twenty years ago.

Labor day was never about a day off of work. It wasn't about some governmental fuckup that resulted in a few deaths during the Pullman strike in 1894.

No. Labor day was always about hydrangea bushes, stale candy, noisy relatives and Philadelphia sports. It was about foil-wrapped potatoes, dogs, and getting hit in the head with a football.

That was Labor day to me. We don't get together that much anymore - Nan's in a nursing home, and so the house in Philadelphia hasn't been in use for some time now. Everyone kind of goes their own separate ways, celebrating Labor day with their own families (Nan usually spends Labor day with my uncle).

However, whenever someone mentions Labor day to me, I can still smell the hot dogs burning on the grill and hear my Uncles screaming at the television.

Happy Labor day ya'll!

A lesson in strikethrough

Dear annoying esteemed Customer,

We here at our mega-million dollar chain little community want you, the customer, to know that we care about your money feelings.

We are so very sorry that we had to refuse you one of our iguanas. As was explained by the overly annoyed and frustrated sales associate, iguanas need a large habitat. The shit encrusted 10 gallon aquarium terrarium that you described to our slave employee was not suitable for such a magnificent creature of this earth.

We're so very sorry that you didn't believe the overly qualified and vexed employee when she said that iguanas can grow to six feet long. If you would still like to purchase one of our animals, please don't hesitate to stop in and harass ask our employees for help in selecting the appropriate size habitat, lighting, and nutritional requirements that iguanas need.

We dread look forward to having you come visit us again for all your pet needs!

Sincerely,

Your local mega million dollar chain pet community favorite, (insert name of petstore here)

Lili

So world, this blog has been a month in the making. If you don't want to read angsty saddish stuff, I suggest you ignore this one.

If you've read my other posts, you may have come to the conclusion that I have a bit of an animal obsession. We'll just say it's a job hazard.

Thus far, I believe I have spoken about the cat, the bird(s), and the fish.

I also have a dog.

A month ago I had two dogs.

We got our dog Rusty from a breeder. And before ya'll start harassing me about getting dogs from breeders, I know. Given the choice I wouldn't have gone to a breeder, I would have rescued. But I was only thirteen or fourteen at the time, so it's not like I had much of a choice in the matter.

He was a hyper little monster. So, we decided to get him a friend to play with.

Enter Lili. For all of Rusty's friendliness, she was opposite.

Rusty was the dog who walked up to people and whored himself out for a few pats on the head.

Lili was the one who tried to bite their fingers off.

We didn't find out until later that the breeder's son had abused Lili, hence her aggression towards those of the male persuasion.

Needless to say, we weren't happy. My father wound up suing the breeder for her breeding practices (there was no proof that Lili was abused, other that the rumor on the streets and our own personal observations, so we went after her for something we had proof of), and won. She is no longer allowed to breed. A minor victory.

The two of them became my two best friends. Lili eventually got better with her social issues, and towards the end of her life she began to learn to accept.

I find myself at a loss of what to write at this part. How am I supposed to describe a being as inherently complex and deceivingly simple as a dog? I mean, ok. I realize it's a dog. I realize that this is not a person. This is an animal. I got that.

That doesn't make the loss any easier.

We were so focused on Rusty - he has a rare form of cancer that's localized on his snoot (snout...nose...facial protrusion...whatever it's called), and he has a different type of cancer on his paw. Both of them are localized, so they aren't spreading. Much.

We're paying out the nose for his treatment, naturally.

So we've been focused on him. We never imagined that Lili would have cancer as well.

She showed no signs. We're good pet owners - obsessive about our animals' health, so she just got X-rays of her chest last year (I forget why she needed them at the moment).

Somehow between last year and now she grew over twenty tumors inside her.

Over 80% of her lung was compromised. She started throwing up, and then coughing and wheezing. Within a day we had decided to put her to sleep.

Everyone seems to wonder why I don't seem saddened by this.

I find their concern interesting. Why should I be sad? Don't get me wrong, I do miss her. I'll always miss her.

On the other hand, had she continued to live then she would have been in agony.

One way or another everything dies. It was her time. It's sometimes difficult to accept this, but hey. Nobody ever said life was easy or fair.

I love ya Lili.

Truck Day

Hey World.

So, I'm exhausted. Literally and figuratively. Today was truck day at work - those shelves don't stock themselves!

Although, why a cat needs fifty billion different flavors of Fancy Feast is beyond me. If I were up to it, I'd write a blog about that.

But we'll save that one for a later date.

So, here's a few cartoons depicting my day today (I gots the paintshop skillz).
















So yea. That about sums up my day. More Nyxy fun tomorrow. :-D