The first was replacing my 5-year-old free cell phone with a new iPhone – my first foray into smart phones and into Apple products I actually own. So far fail. My wonderful girlfriend and I decided to add a line to her family plan for me and just pay with my credit card. The sales rep ran it through and everything seemed fine but a day later there was still no confirmation email. We called back to find out using my credit card wasn’t working and myriad other things were screwed up. Hopefully the phone arrives by the end of the week.

The second purchase is my own reseller hosting account so that I can provide hosting for my clients. Once again, there seemed to be a problem with using my card and the process was delayed a day. Now that it’s clear all of the login links they sent me seem to fail.

I may make a third major purchase soon – a new bike to replace the one that insists on breaking down on me every single week.

To start the day I took my bike up to the grocery store for some unhealthy snacks for tonight’s video game marathon. I was way too exhausted for such a simple task and that only made the return trip with the awkward off-balanced groceries that much worse. As I was finally approaching the home stretch I noticed I was barely moving at all and then I heard and awesome flump-flump-flump sound. Totally flat tire. I take the bike out once every two months and it seems that nearly every time I do I get a flat. FAIL.

I finally made it home and just decided I’d take the bike to the nearby bike shop and then pick up booze from the liquor store a few blocks away. Well, I walked all the way over there to find out that both are closed. Awesome. I walked about 15 blocks for nothing and will have to repeat the walk again in an hour.

At least I’m getting exercise?

When the bus nearly t-boned me in March I thought I may have been at fault by blowing through a 4-way, but repeated trips through that intersection verify my suspicions that the bus driver was a jackass.

A month later when a car dashed out in front of me forcing an incredible screeching stop I once again blamed myself at first. I confirmed a day later that I was not the one who missed a large, red, octagonal sign.

A few more similar incidents passed within the last few months, slowly opening the gas valve on my pilot light of rage but overall being suppressed and shoved into the dark corner of my mind where bad thoughts go to slowly eat away my sanity. Today, however, when a dippy pedestrian waltzed across the street, looked and saw me coming from a block away, continued to slowly shamble, then flipped me off, screamed, waved his arms, and pointed at the stop sign as I got close I nearly committed vehicular homicide. Yes, he actually made a point to gesture at the stop sign, his stop sign, the stop sign he was supposed to stop at, the stop sign I didn’t have.

So kids, if you see a green Buick Skylark rumbling down State Street at around 8 in the morning, please take the time to actually stop at your stop sign and we’ll all be a lot happier.

So, if you’ve read any past posts you know that I’m living in half the space I was last year, that I wanted to avoid the annoyance of moving but instead spent three weeks boxing and moving other people’s possessions, that I sat with the old roommate’s furniture clogging up my living space for a few weeks after the first of the month, and that I am actually paying more per month for all of this. Well, it turns out those were just the few cars in the shit train.

The Back Room

Well, the next piece of shit I found stinking up my once peaceful house was the sun room off of the back stairs behind our kitchen and bedroom. This room was completely torn apart and unusable since we moved in 2 years ago and I never really cared. This summer, however, our lovely fat, chain-smoking, incredibly slow Russian handyman was back there nearly every day blowing smoke into our house, shouting on his cell phone, and occasionally sawing a board or something. We naturally asked the landlord at our lease signing if this room would finally be available to us but he said “No, it’s still under construction and it will be for a while since we found some problems with the ceiling. It’s uninhabitable.” Less than a week later my landlord had a home-office set up in there where he would stay until 2 in the morning shouting on his phone. It’s tough to even begin to describe how truly awful this was for him to do, so I guess I’ll just make a bullet list:

1. Well, he told us nobody could use that room at all and just a few days later he’s using the room. It doesn’t get much more dishonest than that.
2. His mother lives on the first floor and has 3 bedrooms to herself and he lives on the third floor yet he conducts business until 2 am nightly on our floor. Thanks.
3. The windows at which he sits for his international shouting matches (god damned Russians) are less than 5 feet away from where I sleep at night. Even if he was in there but silent it’s just incredibly disturbing having someone that close to your bed while you sleep.
4. The room is on our floor, that means on our electric bill. He’s in that office more than he’s in our house, so yeah, I guess we don’t mind paying your bills for you.
5. He’s actually advertising a law office from that address which means we’re actually paying part of his business expenses for him. It’s pretty awful to sit in my own room and listen to him swindle clients out of money. I overheard the other day “Well, the reason I can’t give a refund is… (bullshit about types of bank accounts).”

Kids

Since we’ve lived here we’ve been flanked by annoying neighborhood children which was bothersome but tolerable. Now we have kids to deal with in our own home. It’s sure awesome to have to hear teenage boys shout at each other about who’s turn it is next on the Xbox while trying to enjoy dinner. It’s also awesome to listen to their pathetic father trying to assert his manliness by shouting fail-dad catch phrases like “You WILL listen to me!” It was too quiet and peaceful sharing a house with a kind, late-middle-aged woman, so let’s bring in a bunch of shouting teens and their screaming dad. The more the fucking merrier.

Russian Confederacy

My landlord used to work and live in Russia and met his wife there. Because of this, her entire family now lives in the States and are always hired as the cheap labor for simple repairs that need to take 3 months around the house. Seeing one slow, chain-smoking Russian poking at some piles of wood in our backyard every time I came home for the first 3 months I lived here was bad enough, but now that the landlord is back in town their numbers have quadrupled and their visits are more plentiful. It’s not too rare to come home and have to walk right through a crowd of 6 Ivans shouting at each other about Lord-knows-what or to look step outside to see what the Saturday weather is like and inhale a dense smog of second hand smoke.

Trees

Sadly, this is what set me off. My blood had returned to a mere simmer after getting used to the back room and the kids, but then I woke up yesterday for the second time since I’ve lived here to a man in a tree right outside of the house with a chainsaw. The first tree to go was last summer when my asshole neighbors cut down a giant pine tree that was right outside my office window. I loved that tree as it honestly made it feel like you were sitting in an Alpine resort and not in the middle of a city block in Milwaukee, and it also blocked my window from the neighbors. Since that tree was felled I’ve had to deal with twice as much sound coming from their hooting and hollering son and I’ve been barked at by their dog anytime I approach the window. It’s awesome having a rottweiler threatening you every time you go to a window in your own house. I am currently listening to top 40 hits DJed by Ryan Seacrest as they have apparently decided 9:30 am on a Sunday is an awesome time to blast “music” in their backyard.

Yesterday a tree was merely trimmed but it still ticked me off. This tree is in the front yard and was actually the first thing that attracted me to this place when apartment hunting 2 years ago. The huge maple sat in between the house and the street and blocked the porch and living room from any incoming gazes. Now,  in fairness, this tree did need to get cut back a bit as it was getting within a few inches of windows in spots and had completely blocked all sunlight from the porch even in July. Well, instead of getting a trim the poor bastard ended up with a buzz-cut and now it might as well not be there at all.

I Quit

So, anybody want to sublet so I can just move back home and end this misery? Living at home is the only way I’ll save money in this sham of a city anyway, so let me know if you’re interested in being assaulted with sound from the left, right, above, below, front, and back, if you like paying for a 45-year-old’s business expenses and mortgage, and if you don’t like having any money left over for yourself.