nanovivid

I had a bit of an odd experience this morning. I was sitting on the couch enjoying Act III of Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog when the doorbell rang. I was a bit disoriented because, hello, who rings doorbells at 10:30 on a Saturday morning? At the door I found a woman who was probably in her forties and a girl who was probably 10 or so and I guess was her daughter.

As soon as I saw them, I had a gut feeling that I was about to get “witnessed” at, and was I ever right. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as entertaining as you might think. It was mostly awkward, since she just handed me a tract titled “What Hope for Dead Loved Ones?” and then, for some reason, felt compelled to read 2 Timothy 3:16 to me (which was rather confusing, considering that it has nothing to do with the subject of the tract). Her daughter just stood there the whole time, looking like she’d rather be somewhere else.

If it had gone on for longer than about a minute, I might have figured out some way to get rid of her, but she apparently just wanted to read a random bit of the Bible to me and give me a tract about dead people. It was really rather surreal.

♫ Frankmusik - In Step

It turns out that after freaking me out with the news that profiles were being removed, Netflix has changed their tune. It’s nice to know that they’re listening to their customers, and I’m glad that I’ll be able to keep all my ratings and my queue!

♫ MGMT - Electric Feel (Justice Remix)

Tonight we got an email from Netflix saying that they’re eliminating account profiles so they can “continue to improve the Netflix website for all our customers.” How considerate of them. This means that I’m losing all my ratings that I’ve spent time building, and Bryan and I can no longer have our own separate queues. Up until today, I’ve always been very impressed with Netflix and pleased with their service, but I am not a happy camper right now.

Update: It’s hit Hacking Netflix now, and there’s a Netflix Community thread.

♫ Massivivid - God Away

Last night, Bryan and I were sitting outside on the porch swing watching the thunderstorm (which had some quite impressive lightening) when a beagle came trotting up the driveway… and right onto the porch. She proceeded to jump up on the swing and make herself at home, staying for the duration of the storm. When we went back in the house, she really wanted to come inside with us and refused to leave the porch. I finally had to gently escort her to the sidewalk, after which she headed off (hopefully) back to her home.

Today, I asked one of our neighbors if they knew anybody with a beagle, but unfortunately they didn’t. We were almost hoping that a dog had adopted us, but she seemed too well-groomed to be homeless. I guess she was just a little scared of the storm and wanted somewhere to stay dry. Maybe we’ll figure out where she came from one day.

♫ TV on the Radio - I Was A Lover

Last night’s downtown bowling outing turned out to be quite an adventure. An adventure where we learned that apparently Tuesday nights are secretly no-bowl nights at most places. Let me explain.

We set off in high spirits for a night of bowling, following Aurda’s directions. First, to get to the parking lot, we had to pull around the back of the building between some run-down warehouse-ish places. As we were rounding the corner, a minivan parked in front came into view. A minivan with all four tires flattened (and maybe a broken window or two). There was a grand total of one other car in the parking lot. I immediately noticed the two signs in the entrance’s front window - “Closed July 4″ and “Closed July 15 through Aug. 8.” Um, ok. Nothing about being closed last night, even though it didn’t look very open.

Audra went to investigate and returned with news of yet another sign in smaller print saying “closed Mondays and Tuesdays beginning April 18.” Right. Awesome. As we started to pull away, a guy came to the door looking like he wanted to invite us in but we were all a little creeped out ready to move on at that point.

We figured that this place must just be weird (and scary and run-down), so we decided to go back to Ambassador Lanes where we had bowled before. Ambassador Lanes, which happens to be on top of a parking garage. This time, we weren’t even greeted by signs, just locked doors. Apparently there’s a secret law that no bowling is allowed in Cleveland on Tuesday night?

The only other bowling alley anyone knew of downtown was The Corner Alley, which had been described to Audra as “martinis and bowling.” That prompted the following exchange:

Megan: That sounds like a recipe for disaster. Me: No, no. It sounds like a recipe… FOR AWESOME.

We did a drive-by to make sure that our last hope was actually open, and shockingly enough they bucked the trend. In addition to being open, the place is really cool and they have nice comfy couches for sitting while bowling instead of those uncomfortable plastic swivel chairs. They also have a hell of a martini menu, with forty choices. In short, it is indeed a recipe for awesome.

Unfortunately, we were far too sensible and only bowled one game and didn’t have any drinks, what with it being a work night. But we have promised to go back and partake of the full experience. Because that cajun martini? Has my name written all over it. But not, apparently, on a Tuesday night.

♫ Feist - Honey Honey

Days spent moving: 7

Hours spent shoveling on the day after we moved in thanks to a lovely April snowstorm: 4

New washers and dryers: 1 of each that are amazing and make cute noises when you turn them on

New (very cute) lawn mowers: 1 (seriously, it’s so small and awesome and battery-powered and cute)

New rugs: 2 (”Phoenix” and “Matisse“)

New vacuum cleaners (needed for cleaning said rugs because they shed like a german shepherd named Captain Sheddy): 1

Hours spent cleaning two bathrooms: 5 or 6

Fluorescent light bulbs installed: 14

Terrifyingly ugly gold chandeliers replaced: 1

Drawers/shelves re-lined with new contact paper: 8

Drawers/shelves yet to be re-lined: 18 (or maybe more)

Rooms painted: 2

Rooms left to paint: 4 (for now)

Ceilings painted by me: 1

Ceilings I hated painting: 1

Fingers mashed in windows: 1

Cuts on hands: I’ve stopped counting

Times shocked while changing outlets: 2 (damn badly-labeled breaker boxes)

Money spent at The Home Depot and Lowes: I don’t want to know

Money not yet spent on new furnace and maybe a new roof: You don’t want to know

We own a house now!

♫ Major Swellings - Flavoursaver

procreation documentary - n. pl. procreation documentaries

The most awesome euphemism for porn ever.

Though on second thought, I guess it really doesn’t work so well for gay porn. Maybe that’s a recreation documentary?

♫ The Maccabees - X-Ray (South Central Remix)

We got a Wii and it’s soooo much freaking fun. I haven’t even gotten around to trying Zelda yet because I’ve been having so much fun with Wii Sports. Let me know if you want to be my Wii friend and I’ll send you my number!

♫ Arthur Russell - Lucky Cloud

Tonight I decided to actually stop being a total recluse and sign onto the Adium. Can you believe it? I barely can. It’s been… a while. I even videochatted with Ryan! As if that alone wasn’t enough sexy excitement, I also talked to Martha and Jeremiah!

It just dawned on me (how’s this for random) that I’ve never mentioned my love, nay, ado-fucking-ration of Arrested Development. And that, my friends, is a great tragedy, since it is easily the funniest show ever.

But wait! Maybe that wasn’t quite as random as I thought! See, this past weekend, Courtney and Jenni came to visit. Since Courtney always brings bad weather to Cleveland, we ended up spending most of the day Saturday watching the whole third season. Which, of course, is amazing.

Even when we weren’t watching Arrested Development, we had fun with Courtney and Jenni, between the shopping and the eating and … dirty girl scouts? They even brought me a bottle of wine with my name on it (though they sadly couldn’t find a Bryan wine to go with it).

So, yes. I am still alive and well, and will hopefully prove that fact slightly more frequently.

♫ The Beatles - Because (Shiloh's Just For Annie Remix)

it only takes me ten minutes to drive to work holy awesome cakes, batman!

♫ The Knife - The Captain