two dolla

I took Riley to the vet on Friday. He’s had some weird scab on the inside of his right thigh since sometime before Memorial Day and it hasn’t shown any sign of clearing up at all. I’m pretty sure if anyone - human or otherwise - has a scab that sits around for that long, they should probably get it looked into. And, plus, he’s a spoiled little puppy and say things like, “Hey, this scab hurts, woman!”

His favorite doctor was there and looked him over. She tried to scrape some of the scab off onto a slide, so she could check things out under the microscope. Turns out, she could only get blood and that wasn’t too helpful in determining what was going on just by magnifying it eleventy billioin times. Since he’s a boxer and boxers are prone to neat things like mast cell tumors, she wanted me to be aware. And, yes, when someone says “tumors” and “Riley” in the same sentence, it kinda makes me throw up. It could also end up being just some inflammation of allergies, etc.

The doctor gave us some super strength ointment of some sort and some instructions to come back in two weeks if things haven’t gotten any better. After just a few days of using the medicine, the spot’s starting to decrease in size and look a whole hell of a lot less menacing. I’m not considering him out of the woods just yet, but at least it’s a good sign.

I went to my 3rd Twins game of the year this afternoon, thanks to some tickets I got from work on Friday. I didn’t do anything special, other than putting my name in the drawing, but the email I sent to do that did take a lot of work.

We were in row seven, but there ended up being two rows in front of us and it was the section where someone comes to take your order during the game. We had to hike up the stairs to get our sundaes that come in baseball caps, but the people below us? They got their Dome Dogs and $4 bottles of water delivered for free.

Francisco Liriano pitched six shutout innings in his first game since being brought up from AAA. The Twins won 6-2 and the Royals beat the White Sox 14-3, which means the Twins are leading the division.

And here are some pictures I took during the game:
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I finally got my insurance card yesterday. It came with a letter talking about a 12 month waiting period for pre-exisiting conditions, but the letter had way too many words for me to read the whole thing. I’ll have to delve into that a little deeper once I decide I need to go to the doctor. I opted for the cheapest insurance plan, and turned down dental and vision insurance. Probably not my best decision on the dental side of it, but I’m sure I’ll re-enroll for that once that time of the year comes around.

The vision insurance didn’t make much sense. A couple of years ago, I had my exam and a new pair of glasses for maybe $140 at Wal-Mart. And those stinkin’ eyeglasses have lasted me, well, maybe two years. They adjusted pretty bad right now, but I kind of like seeing things even if it means pushing them back up my nose a little more often.

ZenniOptical.com has gotten some pretty stellar reviews and enough frame choices that I’ve already picked out three different frames I like before I even figure out how I’m supposed to make them work with my lenses. Once my current frames bite the dust, which may be sooner rather than later, I have a pretty good idea of where my next specs are gonna come from.

I had a goal of posting every day this month. I was gonna give it another whirl. But then I stayed late at work yesterday, had to take Riley to the vet, have dinner, and then head out to the Doomtree CD release show. I was busy, meaning I’m off to a horrible start.

Today, however, I was up bright and somewhat early with Jenni and Cindi, so we could attend the “Ready, Set, Crew” event for the 2008 3 Day. Yeah, I’ve forgotten about it too from time to time. This morning is kind of what I needed to get myself back in 3 Day Time Mode. Not participating in the constant fundraising this year has kind of pushed the whole thing to the backburner while I adjust to my new apartment, new job, and new relationship (+ kid). I guess if any year was going to be the year I didn’t walk and raise an assload of money and shave my head, this would be the year.

Jenni and I are going to be driving a sweep van this year. Yes, we are in charge of a 15-passenger van, and yes, we did have discussions this morning about the ramifications that would take place should it somehow flip over and land on its roof. We’ll be in control and posession of a vehicle that will look much like this one for four days:

Right now, we’re planning on a Mardi Gras theme, complete with strands of beads flying out the window to walkers we pass by and music from the Jack Brass Band blaring over the stereo. But we also want to wear capes, because why wouldn’t you want to wear a cape? We’re just trying to figure out how to fit superhero capes into a Mardi Gras theme.

I got my heatlh insurance card in the mail today, which means I got to agree to this statement when completing my online check in: I also acknowledge that I may be hurt or killed during the event not only from injury, but due to the level of physical exertion necessary to complete the three-day walk, and that these risks of injury or death cannot be completely eliminated.

I’m pretty out of it when I walk from my back door up maybe one block and to my bus stop. I hate mornings and don’t function well. When I see things I want to remember, I tend to take a picture, upload it to Flickr, and then I’m instantly reminded when I look at my Photostream over the course of the next day or so. Sometimes, though, I go through days where I don’t exactly read much on the internet except Pereze Hilton, because I need to know if Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are having new babies yet.

Tonight, I was reminded of the picture I took at the bus stop Tuesday morning, thanks to Minneapolis Metblogs.

It’s not like my bus stop is on a major street. I suppose Bryant Ave has it’s fair share of traffic (like the four cop cars in a row this morning), but it’s not really full of traffic that gets stuck at the stop sign long enough to read some PSA about a flesh eating disease.

Now that I’m perfectly aware of what necrotizing fasciitis actually is, I’m excited to be able to wish it upon people I see on a somewhat regular basis. Not people at work, though. No, not at all.

In the meantime, I’ll continue to ride the 4 (sometimes sprinkling in the 4B just to spice things up a bit) and I’ll do my best to spread such pubic service announcements such as these. And, you know, this might very well explain why that man from several days ago was so vigorously adjusting his junk.

I’m pretty much jonesin’ for the ocean right about now. My last vacation was in January, and it’s going to be October before I even have any vacation time to use. Thank you, internet, for providing me with places to dream about and taunt myself with until I’ve got something else that involves driving more than two hours to fill my vacation time with.

After Jenni and Matt got back from their extended weekend in Mexico, I’ve been considering something like that — a few days in a tourist-type area, within walking distance to the beach, and lots of rum within easy access. Something like rocky point rentals would probably work just fine.

Some of the pictures of the rocky point condos involve a back porch so close to the ocean that I’d be scared of sleeping walking right in. If that’s the biggest fear in my vacation, I’d say it’s an awesome one.

An added bonus? The rocky point houses website gives driving directions from Arizona. For some deranged reason, the idea of driving through remote Mexico to get to a resort is extremely appealing. Until I think of that movie with Brad Pitt’s nanny takes his kids across the border and then they end up lost — was that Babel?

You know I’m a WNBA fan. We’re hitting up two games this weekend, just so I can get my fix in before the Summer Olympics start up putting the season on a break for most of August.

Chris Baker, the man I will now refer to as The Largest Douche in All the Land, isn’t so much an WNBA fan. At all realy. He’s a local talk radio host. While I’ve never listened to his show (and never plan on it at this point), I think it’s safe to say he’s a gigantic turd.

The topic of his show on 100.3 KTLK (which will never be turned on in my presence) was about things that never lived up to their hype. (Chris Baker’s radio career might be one I’d throw out!) One caller suggested the WNBA should be added to that list. His response?

“You know what [the WBNA] is? That’s a place for lesbians to make out when they score,” Baker said.

Thanks, Chris Baker, for making something so exciting to any female athlete seem like the cheap fantasy you’re too scared to tell your wife about.

I’d like to invite Chris Baker to join me at the Lynx game Friday night or even Sunday evening. And anytime the Lynx scores, I’ll just punch him square in the neck. Or the prostate.

Gratuitous video of WNBA players in a bench-clearing brawl can be found right here. Take it as a sign, baker. When the players aren’t busy making out after they score, they’re busy beating the shit out of grown ass men like Rick Mahorn.

The General and I went to go see The Dark Knight tonight. I wanted to see it last weekend, but I also didn’t want to end up punching myself in the face repeatedly by trying to fight crowds like that. Another advantage of working downtown is the most awesome convenience of being able to walk a few blocks to the theater after work and not have to deal with parking!

The movie? Fantastic. So fantastic. Heath Ledger, just like every site on the internet has said already, was amazing. After his first scene, I leaned over to The General and was pretty much speechless; all I could mumble out was “Holy crap. He’s amazing.” or something equally as lame. There wasn’t a single part about the movie I didn’t like. While I’d heard from several people that it was about 30 minutes too long, I didn’t think so at all. Most 2.5 hour movies tend to make me restless, but the only squirming around I did was when I couldn’t wait to see what was next or when the asshole thug that smelled like cheap booze had to walk in front of us at least a half dozen times.

Sadly, my scene got cut.

Jenni took this picture of me last July when they were filming The Dark Knight while we were in Chicago. Matt, Jenni, Bill, and I were wondering around downtown Chicago and noticed production vans all over the place with signs talking about RFK/Rory’s First Kiss. A production assistant kicked us off the set and told us we should google Rory’s First Kiss since none of us knew what it was, but what that douchebag production assistant didn’t know is that the security guard a block down had already told us they were filming the new Batman movie.

There goes my plans for royalties and getting rich off DVD sales.

I’ve never been a hardcore believer in horoscopes. Of course they’re extremely entertaining and there were some days at my previous job when I’d find one that said something like “your boss will be hit in the nuts repeatedly tonight when he stops to get gas on the way home from work”, I’d vow it was going to come true. It might have; I don’t really know.

When I started learning more about the astrological signs, I started to get A) a little creeped out and B) completely amazed. I’m totally a Pisces! Wishy-washy, can’t make decisions, extremely loyal, gets to invested in the emotions of others, and gets way too invested in the problems that belong to other people instead of my own - pretty much me in a nut shell.

Riley? He’s a Gemini. His pet horoscope this month? (Yes, I did find pet horoscopes on the internet, thank you very much!) It indicates he’s been a little lethargic so far this July (absolutely true!), but he’ll regain his energy on the 23rd of the month. This means only one thing - tomorrow, you might just get a video of us playing LION TAMER. Seriously.

For quite some time, I’ve been having some issues with my external hard drive. I’ve written about them before. I was getting pretty desperate, mainly because that hard drive held every digital picture I’d ever taken since 1998. Every last one. And while those pictures of me drinking beer from a plastic Bud Light picture while sitting in the middle of a pole barn that had been converted into a club/bar approximately 10 minutes from Whiteman Air Force Base may not be all that important to the next person, those gems of photographs are certainly not ones I want to lose.

I’ve been avoiding the thought of the faulty hard drive for quite some time, because it made me really sad. When we were at Pride, we talked to a lady who runs a computer fixin’ business of her own. She let me know that it’d cost abuot $75/hour to retrieve the data I wanted, and it’s likely that it could take an entire day for it to finish. I think I threw up in my mouth when she told me that and decided to stop thinking about it again for a while. And then I’d want to look at a picture or, you know, listen to music, but I couldn’t because all of that? On the hard drive.

One night, I got tired of thinking about it, so I did some looking into things on the internet. Surely if it’s on the internet, it’s gonna work, right? The internet suggested taking the external hard drive out of the casing and plugging it into my computer. I did the first part, and then realized I didn’t have an extra ribbon cable to plug it in. Luckily, The General’s ex is kinda smart with these kinds of things and suggested I just unplug my CD drive and use those cables instead. So I did.

And you know what? It worked. And as soon as I saw my computer recognize it, I collapsed onto the floor with happiness. No kidding. And now I can bring you little gems like this:

Why, yes, that’s me sitting in The Cuz’s old house, partaking in a little 4th of July celebration in the year 2000 while drinking a can of Dirt Cheap beer and downloading songs through Napster. The Cuz had high speed internet and I was amazed at how quickly DSL could download Busta Rhymes’ “Woo Hah Got You All in Check” compared to my 28.8K connection I had back home.