New j-o-b, new links, new digs

Last Thursday I went up to PT to borrow my mom’s truck, which is a ’63 GMC, and quite rocktacular. I needed said vehicle to move the whole of my possessions into a storage unit, which was accomplished with no lack of effort over the weekend. It’s strange to see all your stuff packed into an 8’x10′ room. Granted, it’s just stuff, but it’s MY stuff. And actually, I’m fairly happy to have little enough stuff, for now, to be able to stuff it into an oversized locker and forget about it.

If only I could.

Instead, I’ll most likely be moving all the stuff OUT of this obese pantry and into a tiny apartment sometime around the end of this week. Granted, the tiny apartment is cool, and it will be solely my own. I can’t begin to tell you how excited I am about that.

On the flipside, between cleaning costs, carpet repair, and a general sense of “we-can-charge-you-whatever-we-want-for-anything”, our previous land rental agency, and for purposes of confidentiality I’ll hereby just refer to them as the Rants Group, has estimated we’ll owe them around $1000. After depleting the entirety of our deposit, we’ll still owe like $200. Yippee-fucking-tra-la-la.

So we didn’t clean, and I was prepared to buckle down and pay their $15/hour cleaning costs. The woman they hire evidently takes about 8 hours to clean an entire house, which I think is perfectly reasonable. That they think they have to replace carpet on the stairs, and that they want to charge like a gazillion dollars to do so, seems more unwarranted. Bear in mind that to live in this house for a month, for three of us, was $950. So they want to charge more than a month’s rent to clean the place, which I think is more than slightly absurd.

The man is keeping me down, man! Damn the man!

But you know, whatever. I’ll be happy when it’s all over, and I’ll laugh about it as I sip scotch on the balcony of my new apartment, with my furniture in it, which will be clean, and watch the sun set behind the distant mountains.

I be mad chillin’, yo.

But anyway, I’ve been reticent about personal stuff, and y’all have missed a lot. Most importantly, I suppose, is the fact that I have a new job. Yes, that’s right, a solid year of applications enough to decimate an old-growth forest, and lots of finger-crossing, and finally a pay-off. SMU hired me for a second half-time position, which they then spliced into my current position, to create a new breed of super-position, which will allow me to take over the world. At the least, it means I’m full-time now, with good benefits, and working in one place. As for taking over the world, I’d settle for taking over the University first. If you know anyone who is cool, and would like to work at an academic institution, send them over. We hire for new positions fairly often. One day, I figure, Theo will run the business department, I’ll run the Library, and Emily will be the VPAA or something. Then we’ll mold the school to our will, and use it as our base to subvert the dominant paradigm. Join us now or we’ll throw pygmy monkeys at your head.

MONKEY. HEAD. NOW.

As for the links:

Tweep is what I read when I want to read Tweep. It kind of reminds me of QC, but the guy and girl actually date a bit, thus relieving some of the romantic agony in which QC excels.

Flipside is an entertaining and original fantasy/adventure comic, with good art and some amazingly beautiful covers. Make sure you go back and read Book 0, which is the bulk of what he has published so far.

Buy Olympia is a local business without a local outlet, but you can purchase all sorts of cool stuff from them on their website. I particularly like the “Reading is Sexy” t-shirts.

Brennx0r is the blog of Brenna, who is cool, and lives up Seattle country, and works on library software. I met her my freshman year at Evergreen, and she takes good photos.

Hurricane Prairie is the appropriately-named live journal of a gal named Prairie, who was my first girlfriend, like, ever. Now she lives in freakin’ Alabama, but she’s still cool. I guess. Alabama!?

I’ve been lurking on Friendster and MySpace a little, tiny bit lately, despairing over the fact that I have so few friends, at least as far as these two services are concerned. So if you get the urge, add me. I’m listed on both with my gmail address, which is bavaenfin … you know the rest.

Kung-Fu Hustle on DVD, August 9th.
Sin City on DVD, August 16th.
Layer Cake on DVD, August 23rd.

I picked the wrong friggin’ month to spend all my money on moving…

[WATCHOUTFORFLYINGPYGMYMONKEYS!]