The Wolfe Files

Your Daily Suck Schedule

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 23:07:19 GMT

6:30 am - Wake up, take shower
7:00 am - Eat breakfast, browse web
7:45 am - Realize that the right rear tire of your car is flat
8:00 am - Realize that you aren't getting the lugnuts off said tire without enduring one, possibly multiple, hernias
8:15 am - Drive to tire shop, call work so someone can cover your first class
8:30 am - Get in line at tire shop with all the other saps who had tire trouble over the long weekend
9:00 am - Call work to say you're still in line
9:30 am - Call work to say you're still in line
10:00 am - Get tire repaired, rejoice at the fact they didn't charge you because the tire happened to be one you bought from them and was under warranty.
10:15 am - Go to work
10:30 am - Teach and teach some more
4:30 pm - Eat dinner after school
5:30 pm - Return home, write LJ entry
6:30 pm - Go back to school for Open House
7:00 pm - Talk to parents and talk to parents some more
8:30 pm - Return home
9:00 pm - Zonk

So yeah, busy day today with unexpected business. Classes are going well. I have six this year, the most I've had since I started at this particular school. One of them is already pegged as The Loud, Obnoxious Class, for which I am countering with Loud, Obnoxious Marine Whistle. Working nicely so far. :)

The Week (and summer) In Review

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 00:01:24 GMT

Been a week since I posted. Here's what happened, as far as I can remember...

Last Thursday, DNA came down (or up, depending on your preference) and we hung out for the weekend. Saw Iron Man, which I hadn't seen, and Hellboy II, which he hadn't seen, and otherwise watched TV. My Freakazoid DVDs arrived while he was here, so we took those in, and we watched some of the Olympics, mainly swimming and volleyball. Finally got a lot of use out of the HDTV, which made everything worth watching, somehow. Looking forward to seeing some NFL games on it this fall!

Went up to school on Tuesday to see how things were. Got the room ready on Wednesday and did some moving around and planning. Tomorrow is the day the 6th graders come for orientation, so I'll be there during the afternoon. Thus, today is my last real day of vacation. I spent it getting a haircut, then watching the original Hellboy. I have to say that the sequel's actually better. It has much more of Del Toro's style evident in it.

As it's the last day of summer vacation, it's customary to look back at the past couple of months. This was a strange summer for me in that I spent most of it adjusting to being alone again. Hard to believe that it's been two months nearly since I had Max. I noticed on Petfinder last week that he no longer shows up, so hopefully he's been adopted out to his forever home, as they say. I have nearly gotten rid of the hives, hopefully, as the outbreaks are very very minor now and far between. We'll see when the stress levels go up again after school starts.

WoW-wise, our guild got down Azgalor, the fourth boss in Mt. Hyjal, last night, leaving us with just one boss to conquer there. We tried good ol' Archimonde for fun since we had a few minutes left before time to call the raid, and he laid waste to us quite handily. Still, a fun night. :)

Weird Al Concert

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 07:45:14 GMT

Just got back from a fun evening. FuzzyFox, his friend Joel, and I went to a Korean restaurant near Fuzzy's for dinner. It was the first time I'd ever been to a Korean restaurant, so I played it fairly safe and ordered the chicken teriyaki, which was quite yummy. This was apparently a pretty hard-core Korean place, as there was no silverware other than a spoon for the soup, and the three of us made up the majority of the non-Asian clientele. Fortunately, I can use chopsticks well enough to not have to starve to death. None of us really knew much about all the extra bowls of various things they brought out along with the meals, so we just kind of tried them all. They ranged from pretty good (big, flat noodles) to fairly strange (what looked like green beans with small fish carcasses intermixed), but overall it was good. Nobody laughed at us (that we could tell), so we must not have made complete fools of ourselves. It was a lot like going to a foreign country and being self-conscious about not knowing the customs, though. I'll have to read up on Korean cuisine.

The concert itself was awesome. We had pretty good seats at the front of the second section toward the left middle of the stage, so we could see and hear everything well. Weird Al's still got it, and he's still pretty limber for a guy pushing 50! He played a lot of stuff off the latest album - White & Nerdy, of course, and I'll Sue Ya, Weasel Stomping Day, Polkarama, and Canadian Idiot, as well as some chunks of a few more in the medley he always does. Other than that, it was mostly his best parodies, like Fat, Smells Like Nirvana, Yoda, and The Saga Begins. He didn't really do a whole lot from the older albums - Fat, Yoda, and a bit of Eat It in the medley was it. Maybe that's to cater to younger fans, but from what I could see the adults FAR outnumbered the kids there. Still, it was a great show - an amazing amount of costume changes, the always-hilarious interviews between sets, and he actually did the whole Albuquerque song as an encore. :)

After the concert, I went to FuzzyFox's for a while, and he showed me some Wii games. I'd never played one before, and I must admit, it was a lot of fun. We played bowling, tennis, darts, golf, and some of the Wario-Ware-type mini-games. I can see why it's so popular, though I still don't really see myself buying another console for the foreseeable future.

Dentist appointment tomorrow. Ugh.

I Can Laugh About It Now

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 21:57:53 GMT

I was just re-reading some of my journal entries from 2003, and I was griping about $1.69/gallon gas. Ha ha. Maybe there's a Moore's law where the price of gas doubles every five years?

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 21:40:42 GMT

WoW geekery:

Our guild downed Naj'entus on our second attempt last night, first boss kill in Black Temple! The Halberd of Destruction dropped, and I was lucky enough to win the bid. We cleared up to Supremus and did a couple of attempts on him as well, got him down to 40%-ish. It was the most fun I'd had playing WoW in a while. Making headway in a new instance is always fun.

The Mind Races...Or Idles

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 01:23:05 GMT

So, I rearranged the furniture in my bedroom today so that the headboard is underneath the large window in the room, and the bed itself is oriented so that its long sides are parallel to the longest walls. This makes one big space out of what was two smaller ones, and it gets my head away from the south wall, which I finally identified as the source of the annoying pulsing hum I'd hear at night.

I've always been sensitive to low-frequency noises. When someone drives by with their system turned all the way up and the bass thumping, it drives me absolutely nuts. It doesn't hurt or anything, but I can't concentrate on anything else until it's gone. At night, if someone's playing their stereo or TV loud enough that the bass frequencies are audible at all, I can't sleep. I don't remember always being this way, or maybe it was because it was never a problem before, but I spent a few sleepless nights in the old apartment for low-frequency noise of one type or another.

I thought that had disappeared in the new place with quiet neighbors and no one above me to supply thuddy footsteps, but about a month ago I began noticing a very deep, pulsing hum in my bedroom at night. It's not anyone playing music, as it's far too slow, regular, and long-lasting. It sounds like some type of machinery resonance, maybe the A/C of the apartment below me or something. It's not quite annoying enough to keep me up at night, but it's annoying enough to where my mind latches onto it for a while before I fall asleep.

Anyway, I found that the hum diminished when I got toward the center of my bedroom and was loudest toward the south wall, so I rearranged my bed a couple of days ago and found it much easier to get to sleep. Today I made it official with the headboard and some other furniture rearrangement.

Why am I explaining all this? Just to show what my mind is doing to fill the void of all the things it used to have to concern itself with. I may actually be bored enough to look forward to school starting again, as much as I hate to say it. DNA, you gotta come rescue me next weekend!

Movie Project Update

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 20:24:45 GMT

I've still been watching movies during most of my free time during the summer. I think the time doing nothing has been helpful, both mentally and physically - I haven't had a hives outbreak in a couple of weeks now, so here's hoping that continues into the beginning of the school year.

I've almost rounded out the top 20 with movie viewings. I still need to see Seven Samurai and Once Upon A Time In The West. I bought the latter last week, but the former is hard to find. I may have to get a copy from Amazon for $30-40.

When I go to buy these movies at Best Buy, Borders, or wherever, I'm still a sucker for picking up several others in the bargain bins for $5. I've been going for '70s sci/fi horror of late, it seems. I got and watched Tales From The Crypt and Vault of Horror (both Amicus studio titles) earlier in the week, and I watched The Andromeda Strain last night. One thing that struck me about Andromeda was the scene with the monkey succumbing to the Andromeda organism. Looking on IMDB, they apparently filmed it by introducing the monkey to a room full of carbon dioxide, so it basically suffocated. They immediately revived it with an oxygen mask after filming, but man, that would so get a studio in trouble these days.

Today, I picked up City of God (saw once a long time ago) and a few cheap titles: From Dusk 'Til Dawn (haven't seen), Good Will Hunting (haven't seen), Sixth Sense (saw several times), and Zodiac, a David Fincher film about the Zodiac killer from a few decades ago. That series of crimes always intrigued me, especially since they never caught the guy, and I like Fincher's films, so I thought I'd give it a shot.

Now to watching!

Wolf Days Of Summer

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 02:25:02 GMT

It's now that time where you need a shower after going for a 30-minute walk, even at 9:00 pm. :P

Dark Knight

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 21:02:32 GMT

Holy crap. Go see it. Heath Ledger is a perfect Joker, and you realize what a loss his death was after seeing this movie. The man could act.

This is what the first Batman movie should have been.

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 15:13:02 GMT

Two things from the '70s that I found online today that might be of interest to those of you of similar age to the dirt that I am:

1) Quasi At The Quackadero, a bizarre cartoon I remember seeing on Showtime as a kid that probably had a hand in warping my mind. This further bolsters my belief that EVERYTHING that has ever been on TV will end up on YouTube or a DVD set.

2) Someone posted the 1979 Sears Wish Book catalog on flickr. I remember practically memorizing these every year before Christmas. :)

The Ruins

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 20:46:24 GMT

Argh. I bought some more cheap DVDs at Best Buy today. Vacation, Forrest Gump, and American Beauty were all $5 each, and I also picked up 12 Angry Men for $15. Rounding out the selection was The Ruins, a movie that I meant to see at the theater but missed.

I should've kept missing. This is the first "new" horror movie I've seen in quite a while, and it wasn't what I was expecting at all. When physical pain and the gross-out factor became substitutes for suspense in horror films, I'm not quite sure. Maybe the Saw series and films like Hostel are to blame, but at least the first few Saws had interesting stories. This was just watching the suffering of five people. I was never scared, just uncomfortable in places. Hopefully this phase will pass. When Rob Zombie has to remake Halloween, that should tell you something.

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 19:18:29 GMT

Just being silly. :)

adopt your own virtual pet!

Changes

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 06:24:09 GMT

I looked at my school mail for the first time this summer, and I found that our principal resigned to take a job at one of the local high schools. He'd been trying to move up for a while, so it was no big surprise, but it's just the latest in the seemingly never-ending series of changes around here lately. He'd been principal there for the past eight years, almost since I started working there. Having a new boss is always a bit scary - something new to get used to. Hopefully this one won't tinker too much with things, as we have one of the highest TAKS passing rates in the state. I'd be OK with him dropping the block day scheduling, though, but we'll see. The old principal is taking his secretary with him, though, which is a definite improvement. I'm sure other staff members had parties when they heard that news. To sum it up in a few words, she had the "I know better than you" attitude to a stifling degree, and she probably knew she wouldn't make it without her boss' support here.

Movie-wise, Kylee and I watched The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly on Thursday. I've never been really big on Westerns. I grew up in that sort of environment (location-wise), and they just never seemed that exotic to me, I guess. GB&U was a bit slow getting started, but the ending was definitely interesting. As with the Godfather movies, I'm not sure I would put it in the top 5 movies ever, but that's me.

I watched Casablanca today for the first time, and I was very entertained. It held up remarkably well for a 65 year-old movie and had a riveting story. Plenty of famous lines were recognizeable. Not at all the long, arduous sappy love story I was dreading after seeing the pacing of some of the previous movies. This one deserves its spot up amongst the greatest, in my opinion.

I bought One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest and episodes IV-VI of the Star Wars movies when I got Casablanca, and they're next on the agenda. At that point I'll have seen the top 10!

More Movies

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 05:23:15 GMT

So, I realized the other day that I haven't seen very many of the top-rated movies on IMDB, and I've set out to rectify that, buying some movies on the cheap. Currently, the top 5 are:

1. The Godfather
2. The Shawshank Redemption
3. The Godfather, Part II
4. The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly
5. Pulp Fiction

I own 2 and 5 already, so I went and bought the two Godfather movies, the Good/Bad/Ugly, and American History X, which is further down the list and was super-cheap ($6).

I watched The Godfather today for the first time. It was interesting finally seeing where all the references to it came from, but after seeing it, I have to question its "best movie ever" status. It's a good story, but wow, the pacing is really slow in places. I don't think it's aged very well - the scenes of violence are mostly tame by today's standards. Since that's a big part of what the movie was about, the ruthlessness of these gangsters, it sells the story somewhat short in that respect. I'd probably have enjoyed it a lot more viewing it back in 1972, but since I can't have that unjaded perspective, I can't really put it above a lot of the movies listed under it.

I also saw Wall-E today, which happens to currently be movie #6. I found it very enjoyable; the characters are endearing even though there's no real dialogue for almost the first half of the film. The environmental moral is there throughout, but I didn't really find it overly preachy. Going by the group behind me in the theater, this may be a confusing film for very young children as the story is shown through the actions of characters that may be hard to grasp for a 3 or 4-year old mind. I guess this because of the near-constant stream of questions I heard behind me for the first 20 minutes of the film, and after that, I think most of them had gone to sleep. If you like Pixar movies, though, this one is pretty much what you'd expect quality-wise. The short cartoon shown before the main feature was hilarious as always, and this one happily feels more like Warner Brothers than Disney.

So, in short, a lot of movie-watching today!

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 23:43:03 GMT

Woohoo, beat Guitar Hero '80s version on Medium today. I'd had it a long time but never opened it until I got the PS2 set up a while back. Final encore song was one of my favorites, and I managed to three-star it sight-reading it, so I won. Now to go back and try to five-star everything. Some of those licks are pretty rough!

Boom!

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 03:56:09 GMT

Very good night tonight raid-wise in Serpentshrine Cavern. Our guild got Morogrim Tidewalker and Fathom-Lord Karathress both down for the first time tonight, and both were one-shots! We even went and zerged Vashj just to see what the fight was like; got her to 70% and Phase 2 just screwing around. Very fun night - we're almost up to a full SSC clear!

On the home front, things are getting back to normal here. I miss Max, but I still believe I made the right decision - there is less on my mind and I am enjoying the summer. Went to the gigantic Goody Goody liquor store in Highland Village and bought some Boddington's pints and some Southern Comfort and St. Brendan's Irish creme. Probably last me for months, as much as I drink!

The Happening

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 20:56:40 GMT

Yeah. Don't go see it. Can we all just acknowledge as a group that M. Night Shyamalan peaked with Sixth Sense and then move on and give some other people money to make movies, maybe? Not even a twist in this one, just a confused movie that fails at being science fiction, thrilling, suspenseful, and well-acted. When you want to beat up the main character through almost the whole movie, that's never a good sign.

On a lark, I checked the IMDB Ratings of M's movies. Sure enough:

Playing With Anger (1992) - 4.9
Wide Awake (1998) - 6.2
Sixth Sense (1999) - 8.2
Unbreakable (2000) - 7.2
Signs (2002) - 6.9
The Village (2004) - 6.6
The Lady In The Water (2006) - 6.0
The Happening (2008) - 5.5

Downward slope ahoy!

Saying Goodbye

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 17:29:01 GMT

I just dropped Max off at the PetSmart, where his previous rescue group has their monthly adoptions. It was very hard to do when it came down to it, but I feel in my heart I made the right decision. Max is a wonderful dog, I couldn't have asked for a better-behaved one, especially a husky, and I know it. He will make someone an excellent pet. I donated all the treats I had, as well as his bed and crate and brush to the rescue group; I know they will put them to good use. He is going back to his previous foster, which is good; I'm glad he won't be in another strange environment right away.

I had to be honest with myself why I wanted a dog, and I came to the conclusion that it is still too soon after my time with Tasha to have another one just yet. I needed a friendly, outgoing dog, and Max just wasn't that way. He needs someone to be there most of the time, and I will not be able to be that person come August. On the other hand, an outgoing, social dog would probably just fare worse come that time. I don't want to put another dog (or myself) through this, so I'm not going to try to adopt again, at least while I'm living in an apartment. Perhaps when I get a house eventually, I can get two, and they can keep each other company when I'm away.

I will look into maybe volunteering at the husky rescue group or elsewhere. Having dogs I can go see and take care of part-time might be ideal for me, and right now I have lots of time.

Max, I love you and wish you the best of luck finding your forever home. You're a good, good dog and deserve it. I missed you already when you weren't there to greet me when I came home. Goodbye.

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 01:19:18 GMT

TV and DVD are here and working, but the HDMI cables aren't due to even ship for a few days, so I guess I'll have to go to Best Buy and get some. The ones I got from Amazon were super-cheap, so I'm not too worried about it. I was really impressed with all the new channels the TV can pick up off cable, though. The HD stuff is crystal clear! It looks like I'm going to need a small TV stand/table to house everything, as the mantle isn't quite deep enough to accommodate the TV like I'd planned. It will still fit in front of the fireplace, which I hadn't really planned on using much anyway. I guess I could mount it over the mantle, but those mounting sets are about as expensive as a simple table would be, and I'd rather not take the chance of it not being sturdy.

More money to spend!

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 18:46:48 GMT

While waiting for stuff to arrive, I made an imdb list of my movie collection so far. Check it out. Thing most surprising: no Star Wars or Star Trek movies at all. I guess Moon had all those. Also need to pick up the Indiana Jones movies when the fourth one comes out on DVD.

Hulk Smash?

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 13:32:46 GMT

Went to see the Hulk yesterday afternoon. It was OK, better than Ang Lee's production a few years ago in many respects. I don't think I would ascribe summer blockbuster status to it, though. Ed Norton did a great job as Bruce Banner; I kept finding myself wanting to hear him say to someone, "I want you to hit me as hard as you can." I'm not sure what about the movie fizzled with me -- it seemed like the pacing was a bit slow, and at points it seemed like the movie didn't know whether it wanted to be an action film or a love story and kinda dabbled a little too thinly in each. Ang Lee's film at least had no delusions about being anything but action. Tim Roth's character was a bit too shallow as well, his talent was wasted on the part. Special effects were OK -- the images that stick with me in the film are all of the village in Brazil with all its buildings stacked in seemingly random combinations. That should say something about the effects in the rest of the movie. Or maybe I'm just getting old, who knows. :p

TV and DVD should arrive today, looking forward to entering the world of HD!

Movies!

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 23:44:41 GMT

In an ongoing program of training Max to be OK on his own during the day in the apartment (which is working fairly well, I came home today to find he was back in my room in his bed instead of waiting at the door), I'm going to be hitting a movie every day for the rest of the week. Tomorrow will be the Hulk, Thursday will be The Happening, and Friday will be Iron Man.

I saw the second Narnia movie last week. It has been a while since I read Prince Caspian, but I did remember a lot of the scenes as I saw them, so they stayed fairly faithful to the book from what I can recall. The Spanish accents of the Telmarines were a nice touch, considering their origin, though as someone mentioned, you can't help thinking of Inigo Montoya toward the end if you've seen The Princess Bride. Effects were good as always. This one is a bit more epic than the first, more LotR-like. Enjoyable diversion, not really a must-see unless you're a big fan of the books.

I saw the new Indy move two weeks ago. Quite an enjoyable movie, but it just doesn't have the punch of the first three, and it borrows a bit too heavily from them, especially in the chase scenes. The one in the jungle particularly goes on a bit too long. Still, it was good to see the franchise back on the screen -- it survived the hiatus much better than the Star Wars series did, at least, though I don't really think they should try to squeeze another one in.

As for what I did today, I went to Best Buy to get a power strip for the upcoming TV and DVD delivery. I also unearthed the PS2 from its storage box and got it ready to hook up. I even found my old SNES, which I might also hook up for grins. That thing got the hell played out of it when I got it; I probably logged more hours on it even than the Atari 2600 I had growing up. Super Mario World, Starfox, and Castlevania IV were all well-loved time sinks. Need to play them again soon.

Spending More Money

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 21:55:23 GMT

Today, I bought what are hopefully the last major purchases for the new apartment: a Toshiba 32" HD-TV and a new DVD player. I did a little research online, and everyone seemed happy with their Toshibas, so I went with a Toshiba 32AV500U 32-inch 720p LCD HDTV I just mainly wanted a low-end TV I could watch in the living room when people are over. Most of the time I watch movies and TV in the computer room. Likewise with the DVD player. I was going to get a Blu-Ray player, but almost every product I looked at had people saying they were slow and needed constant firmware updates, as they're basically special-purpose PCs. It doesn't look like the technology is quite solid yet, so I went with a cheap $75 Sony that upgrades a normal DVD to near-HD quality. I figure I'll wait and buy into the next generation of Blu-Rays since the discs themselves are still comparatively expensive, and normal DVDs aren't going anywhere just yet. Amazon, as always, rules for not having to pay sales taxes, and if you're not in a hurry, you can even avoid shipping charges. Stick it to the man!

Max is still doing well, but I'm beginning to become a little concerned about his complete lack of willingness to play or show affection. He accepts affection just fine, and he has never showed any aversion to being touched when I was petting him, rubbing lotion on his footpads or while I was brushing him, but whenever I try to act playful with him, there's no response whatsoever. If I put my face down near his, he will simply look away until I stop. Maybe he had issues with someone in the past about that, not sure. He is still a really good dog, but I find myself wishing he were more demonstrative. Calm dogs are great, but is there such a thing as too calm?

Finally getting into the summer mentality, I think. Yesterday was the first day since school ended where I haven't been constantly noting the time. It always takes me a few days to decompress, and it looks like that process is finally in gear.

A few notes about the past school year: God, it seemed to last FOREVER. This was my 13th year of teaching, maybe that's significant. ;) Why was it so bad? Two reasons.

1) Two lunch duties, every day. Middle-school lunch duty is in the one of the circles of hell, pretty sure, I'll look through my Dante later. Doing it twice every day was the low point of my work day, hands down. I can handle middle school kids fine in groups of 20-30 in a classroom, but 300 at a time, all eating is...bad. The specific bad part was that my job was to make them clean up after themselves when it was time to be dismissed. I never want to hear "But that wasn't mine" ever again. Thankfully, my schedule next year won't allow to be off when lunch duty would normally occur, so at least I'll have some respite from that.

2) 7th period. Every time I've had a trying class in my career, it's always been 7th period. Even if I have an 8th period, 7th is worse. Why is that? This group of kids was a mixture of jocks and socially-awkward nerdy types with one really pretty girl they all tried to get attention from. Gah. It was the first time I've ever had to deal with overt bullying since I started teaching here. The first semester was pretty bad; there were a lot of office referals and talks in the hallway and just plain yelling at them. The second semester was bearable after I'd beaten them into shape somewhat, but there were still flare-ups occasionally. Not necessarily bad kids in there, but a really bad mix of personality types. Each group got on the others' nerves, and they all got on mine. Still, I was proud that I didn't kill any of them. If I'd had that group my first or second year, I might be in jail right now. :)

One last thing: I never knew how much I ate tomatoes until now that they've practically disappeared due to the salmonella scare. My Whataburger chicken sandwich on Saturday had no tomatoes. My salad at Olive Garden today had no tomatoes and wasn't nearly as good because of that. I hated tomatoes for years and now I'm going through withdrawal. Can't buy them at the store, either. So that's what I've been reduced to...tomato junkie. At least there's still ketchup!

Hive Mind

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 16:56:42 GMT

The allergy post:

I've never really been affected by allergies, ever. I could breathe all sorts of stuff, eat all sorts of stuff, and never have any sort of reaction. My dad has pretty bad allergies, to the point of needing shots/medication for them, so I always wondered if I'd develop them at some point in my life.

That time may have come.

About a month after moving into my new apartment, I realized I had a roommate: a small, furry one of the murine variety. I caught a glimpse of him one night while in the computer room, but he zoomed away so fast I couldn't be sure if he was a mouse, lizard, or really big cockroach. A few days later I noticed some food I'd left on the counter had been nibbled on, so that's when I decided on mouse. I looked online for mouse traps, and I came across this blog. It seemed almost like something Wile E. Coyote would dream up, but it also seemed humane (a plus), and easy to set up (a much bigger plus)., and free (super-huge plus), so I decided to try it. I set it up one night and went to bed. Sure enough, next morning there was a mouse in the trash can. :) So yes, that idea really does work!

I decided to go release the mouse out in the wild, far away from my apartment, so I put the trash can in the car with me and headed to work. Before getting to school, I pulled over in a woodsy/meadowy area and tipped the little guy out of the trash can, then headed on. A few moments later, my left arm started itching on the crook of my elbow. I looked at it and saw a bump that looked, felt, and itched exactly like a fresh mosquito bite. I thought that's exactly what it was for moment, but then a few more of them appeared, and a few more, and a few more. Not seeing an army of mosquitos in my car or bugs of any other sort, I watched with some concern as they continue to spread all the way from the base of my hand to almost my shoulder on the inside of my left arm, dozens and dozens of red welts. They stayed there for about an hour, then started to fade.

Unfortunately, they started coming back every few hours, usually in a different place each time. Other the next few days, I had them on my neck, chest, stomach, legs, arms, hands, and feet. I looked up the symptoms on the internet, and it looks like I probably have hives. I looked at the causes, and I saw a few that applied to me: animal dander (the mouse), chocolate (I'd gotten a huge basket of chocolate for my birthday a few days before and had sampled a good chunk of it), and stress (between moving, saying goodbye to Tasha and Katja, and school winding down). So, I don't know which was the cause, probably a combination of the three, and something may have wafted in from that meadow to set it all off. It's a month later now, and I still get little "attacks", though they're usually small in area and not very itchy, more like a warming of the skin.

I hope it's a temporary thing, though, and not a prelude to having allergies for the rest of my life. I saw what my dad went through every year, though his symptoms were more of the runny nose/tired all the time type. That would definitely suck. At least I can feel for Max and what he was going through with his paws and stomach. He's scratching and biting much, much less now, and the redness is continuing to go down. He can relax and sleep for more than a few minutes at a time, which is also very good.

Lunch awaits!

Furniturrific

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 04:49:28 GMT

New furniture is here today! The RoomStore people were here at 9 am sharp to haul it up the stairs and put it all together. I gave 'em each $20 for being prompt and fast; everything was set up by 10. I like the dining room table and chairs a lot, they make a cozy corner. I probably should have gone with a 5-piece living room set instead of 7, as the living room borders on being crowded now, but at least the place looks lived-in.

Max has had some accidents this week, unfortunately, after I bragged on him for being perfect. I attribute them all to his meds, though - he drinks tons of water and just can't hold it as long as he did before. He has two more days of twice-daily steroid pills, and after that it goes to once a day, then once every other day. Hopefully things will get better then.

I mentioned Katja yesterday and said I was glad she'd been adopted out -- turns out she's back at the rescue today. :( There's an addition to her profile that says "best in an all-female home". That would explain some of the run-ins we had if they mean women instead of female dogs. I hope that new piece of info finds her a good home.

Guild got down Void Reaver today, woohoo! Two new boss kills in one week, not bad.

I was going to tell about my allergy experiences of the past two months, but it's getting late here, so I'll put it off until tomorrow. But before then, here's a picture of Max with his hedgehog in his bed in my room. :)