Untouchable, Bitch

At work, I get a half-hour break every two hours or so.

During breaks, all casino employees are pretty much required to go to the break room, which is connected to the cafeteria.

The break room is really a series of rooms, so while I might not have a choice of where I go during my breaks, I still get a choice of where I want to spend my thirty minutes in the confines of those few rooms.

I can go on the outside deck, which is above the Atlantic City Boardwalk and overlooks the ocean.  I typically only do this on my first break during my 6:30AM shifts, and watch the sunrise* with a cup of coffee.

My Eye: Part III (Thanks, Ladies)

Part I -- Part II

My dad showed up three hours later, and we set off to the eye doctor.  I was now able to open my eyes for longer segments of time without wanting to die, but only while wearing my darkest pair of sunglasses.

Once we got there, I had to fill out two pages of paper work.  Naturally.

Fortunately, it was no longer a breathless Baywatch type of scenario, but more of an I’m-on-the-top-of-Mount-Everest-and-its-constantly-much-harder-to-breathe type of situation.  Honestly, it was much harder to endure listening to the people on The Chew talk about puddings as I waited for half an hour with my eyes closed.

My Eye: Part II (Thanks, Dad)

Missed Part I?  Click here to go back and catch up!

My dad called me a couple hours later to see how I was doing.

I was doing the same: not well.

He told me to schedule a doctor’s appointment.  He was going to leave work and drive two hours to take me to the eye doctor, seeing as I lived in a ghost town and also could not drive myself – me being blind and all.

I was touched.  A tear of joy/pain/gratitude/my eye’s self-survival fell from my eye.

All I needed to do was schedule an appointment.  The only minor problem was that I couldn’t go to my normal doctor since I was currently out of the area, as I was currently staying in New Jersey.  My insurance is based in Pennsylvania, but has a fairly far-reaching network, allowing me to go to a doctor in New Jersey. 

My Eye: Part I (Thanks, Mom)

Last month, before going to bed one night, I felt a slight discomfort after taking my right contact out.  There was very little pain, but just enough that I said something along the line of “owchies!” and took note of it before going to sleep.  Nothing out of the ordinary.

I woke up at 6AM and could not open my eye, which was not ordinary.

I actually couldn’t open my left eye either.  When I forced my left eye open to try to see, it felt as if a thousand piranhas were eating away at my right eye. 

My eye!

It was not pleasant, to say the least.  I said many things, much much worse than “owchies!”

There Goes the Harvest (A "Poem")

Crop circles:
Merely graffiti
From unruly
Punk aliens.

If I Should Die Before I Update

A little while ago, I wrote a post about a girl from my high school who died, and how her Facebook page lived on.  Essentially, her friends and family continued to write on her wall (and still continue to do so), and I found it to be an intriguing concept.  I concluded that if and when I die, I want someone to change my Facebook status to reflect the fact that I am dead.

Many of you might have thought me to be macabre, and perhaps I am.

But apparently I could have made money off of it.  For whatever reason, I didn’t have the foresight to actually turn my morbid idea into a real product, like I have tried to in the past.

It is called the “If I Die App,” and is pretty simple. 

How To E-Mail A Professor

Yesterday, I read a post from J Ben Deaton titled, "How to E-mail A Professor (And Make Them Want to Help You)".

In the article, he describes how students should write an e-mail to a professor in a professional manner.  It is advice that should certainly be heeded:

If you want to get awesome help, here is how to write a professional email to a professor:

1. Write a descriptive subject line.
2. Write a salutation: “Dear Mr. Deaton” or “Dear Ben” is great.
3. Give some succinct context. “I’m a student in your MW COE2001 course. I’ve been working on the homework and am stuck on problem 3.14 (on page 56). I’ve tried methods A, B, and C.”
4. Ask a clear question with a direct call to action. In other words, make it obvious what you want from me. Do you want to set up a meeting? Do you want a pointer on how to set up the moment equilibrium equation?
5. Thank me for my time. I’ve got plenty on my plate, so this is common courtesy.
6. Sign your full name.

This is a great list.

I Hate My Neighbors: Part II (Stomp Stomp Armageddon)

"Wahhh! Why must my childhood be ruined by Nicholas Cage movies?"

Read I Hate My Neighbors: Part I (Kaboom).

Thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump…THUMP.

Each morning, in my groggy state of wake, I sleepily envision one of my little next-door neighbors running down the steps, really working on her form.

It makes sense.  Being in the Witness Protection Program, she is unable to join any extracurricular activities at school.

This is her gymnastics.

She gets to the third-from-last step, then leaps high into the air and does a half-lutz triple-axel thunder-dive.  Sticking the landing, she raises her arms in the air like a Y, smiles, and then rotates ninety degrees and reestablishes her stance and smile.

I Hate My Neighbors: Part I (Kaboom)

My neighbors’ door goes KABOOM.

It is unfortunate.  I mean, a door is supposed to go SLAM, right?

Theirs doesn’t, though.  There are two distinct syllables to this earth-shattering ear-bombardment: KA and BOOM.  It is clear as day.

Or night.  Whenever it is that they are slamming the door.

For the life of me I can’t figure out the physics of it.  I mean, if the BOOM is the actual slamming of the door, then what is the KA?  And if the KA is when door bangs shut, then what the hell is the BOOM?

I think about it a lot.

Red and Blue: An Ode to Kim Jong Il

“Breaking News,” the TV said, interrupting whatever crap I was watching.

“We are getting reports from North Korea,” the reporter said.  He then said a bunch of other stuff about North Korea.  Specifically about Kim Jong Il.  But he didn’t say what the breaking news was.

“Be dead,” I said.  “Be dead, be dead, be dead.”

North Korea scares the shit out of me.  Mostly because Kim Jong Il is a scary dude with some potentially scary firepower.  Like Hitler, Stalin, and Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong Il was evaluated to be antisocial, paranoid, sadistic, narcissistic, schizoid, and schizotypal.

And he had nukes.