TV - again

The cable guy showed up at 9am. Fortunately I woke up at 8:30. So now we have cable. The picture is not as sharp as it was with the satellite. And cable is much more expensive. But I do have some good news. Dish Network was nice enough to let us out of our contract because we had already been with them for a year. So I don't have to pay the $30 for a year that I thought I was going to have to. Dish Network rocks. As soon as we get out of this god-forsaken condo we are going back with them. This cable...even though it is digital....is archaic compared to what I am used to. TiVo helps a bit. At least I can pause (30 minutes compared to 1 hour w/ Dish), and rewind. And search by title. Still getting used to it all.

Rehearsals are going well. I am so ready to actually scare people. Going through it over and over again with just our stage manager and director are getting old. They don't react. And it really helps to play off of people's reactions. We have been going through 2 other mazes and they have been going through ours. But after a couple times, you know what's coming and are no longer scared. Starting tonight we will be in costume. And we will also go through the other 3 mazes so we can give them unjaded feedback and vice versa.

Thursday night is our Dry Run. They gave me 2 comp tickets and of course I had nobody to give them to. So I gave them to Matthew's sister-in-law and asked her to give them to someone. Depending on how well we do Thursday - we may be off on Friday. I hope so. Otherwise I will not have a day off until Monday. (I was off yesterday) Tonight I don't have to go in until 7:30, which is good cuz traffic is a bitch during rush hour.

I have an OJI. A big yellow purple ugly bruise under my ribs. It's from hanging (banging) over my wall grabbing at people. I must find some way to get padding around my middle. You'd think I would have enough fat for that purpose...but apparently not. My ribs are sore.

Today season 2 of The Osbournes is released. And yes I am a dork, I must rush to Target today and get it.

I need to call my attorney. It has been since.....oh...late July? since I have talked to him. Hello? Remember me? What the hell is going on? My life still sucks. You promised to help me. Remember? Hello? McFly!

I'm not crazy, I'm just a little impaired. I know, right now you don't care. But soon enough you're gonna think of me and how I used to be.

Tension headaches

God I hate them. Nothing makes them go away either.

Last night was my first rehearsal for FearFest. Last night was also the COA board meeting. Fortunately Matthew is home this week and was able to go.

Before I start, I must tell you that Tuesday night we received a letter from the board. Taped to our door. The letter stated that we apparently do not understand that we are Not Allowed to have a satellite dish and we have until Thursday night at 9pm to remove it. About a week ago (when they returned the first Dish they stole) they gave me a form to fill out to request permission to install the Dish. I even had to draw a picture of where the Dish would be placed. I guess I did all of that for nothing. They also bandied about the association's lawyer's name, liens on my condo, and threats that I WILL pay the $80 for stealing my Dish OR ELSE.

Whatfuckingever.

Needless to say, Matthew did not accomplish much at last nights meeting. My mother showed up too. She wanted to get nasty with them, but Matthew did his best to keep her quiet and drag her out of the building. But Matthew is right. They have the power. They can pretty much do whatever they want and we are powerless to stop them.

Let's see...I'm curious. Exactly how much extra money are we supposed to be paying.

$100 - the difference in what our contract says the move-in fee is and what the board says it is
$100 - parking fines for moving in
$50 - throwing carpet in the dumpster
$100 - paid to get Matthew's truck out of impound when it was towed
$500 - "special" assessment for repairs to water damaged walls and decks
$80 - fee for the theft of our satellite dish
$25 - late fee (????)
$30 - per month for 1 year that I will have to pay for breaking my contract with Dish Network
$200 - purchase of TiVo system to replace my Dish Network PVR

Grand total of.....$1515. PLUS they are forcing us to pay ANOTHER "special assessment" to build up a reserve. This $500 is due by Oct 31, 2004. But they are nice enough to split it up in 10 payments beginning with the Jan payment. Then..after Oct, our monthly fee will drop from $170 to $155. Somehow that doesn't add up or make much sense to me. But I have a math disability so who knows.

So now let's talk about something fun. FearFest. The official Web site is up.

I don't really understand how all of this is going to work. I thought there would be an "A" and "B" cast as in most shows to accomodate breaks. But nope. It's just us. About 25 people in our house. We have 5 or 6 "swings" who I guess work breaks for people who's parts can be easily replaced. I am a gargoyle. At one point in the house you walk down a hallway filled with scary looking knights. Above the knights on pillars are 6 gargoyle type creatures with scythes. 5 of the gargoyles are fake. I am #6. I get to scare people from above. I am the only "overhead scare" and I am toward the end, so people will be surprised.

The only sort of bad part is GETTING to my spot. There is only about 12 inches between one of the knights and some boards nailed to the wall which serve as my ladder. There is a small swinging door opening on to the tiny platform. The walls come up to about my waist so I can bend down and grab at people. (but no touching allowed!) I am in a pretty safe place - protected from being punched or kicked. (which happens alot) But I suppose somebody tall could reach up and grab me. One of the guys in my house had my position last year. He gave me some good pointers on how to scare people. He also told me that last year he scared some guy who then got pissed and wanted to beat him up. The guy found the ladder and the door and came toward it. The door then "accidentally" found the guy's nose. Oops!

So for right now...all I want is to live in peace. Even though thoughts of revenge keep creeping into my mind.

Look, if you had one shot, one opportunity to seize everything you ever wanted. Would you capture it? Or just let it slip.....

Irony

Or maybe it's actually "Alanis irony". I don't know. Either way - it sucks. And I am very upset about it.

Most people know that one of my favourite TV shows is "The Amazing Race". Matthew and I have been hooked on it since the 2nd one and we have always thought we would totally kick ass if given the chance to compete in it. So when the casting process started for the 3rd one, I was totally excited - UNTIL - I printed the 20 page application. Needless to say, it never got filled out. Too damn lazy. Or perhaps busy. After all, back then Matthew and I were both working 40 hours a week, we traveled alot and it just never got done.

When casting started for the 4th one, I missed it completely. It was about this time last year and well.....I had other problems. (Delta drama)

So now...the 5th one. I checked the CBS page as I do every week or so and saw the Application Download for The Amazing Race 5!!! Yay!! So I printed it. Even started filling it out! You have to make a 3 minute video to send along with your application, so I was scanning the "small print" for guidelines for the video. I came across the following paragraph:

"Employees, officers, agents of Jerry Bruckheimer Films, yada yada, CBS, Touchstone Television, yada yada, Viacom Inc, and all subsidiary companies yada yada yada , are not eligible to be contestants on the Program or to participate in the application process."

Yes you guessed it folks. After almost 1 year without a job - I now work for Viacom. In fact, I just received my first paycheck! A whopping $19!

Paramount Parks is low on the totem pole of companies that Viacom owns. But it's there. (this rule will also prevent people who work at Blockbuster Video Stores from being contestants) How do ya like that?!?

Even though after Nov 2, I will no longer be employed by them, I could only enter if the application deadline was well past Nov 2.

It's like ray-eee-ain on your wedding day.

Twinkies anonymous

I just returned from Dillard's where I spent entirely too long deciding between a chocolate brown or deep orange corduroy purse that I don't really need. As a typical girl - purses and shoes are my weakness. But my closets are not overflowing because once I decide the item is out of fashion, I usually hand it down to my mother or give it to Goodwill. Anyway...I decided on the chocolate brown. I have been watching these purses for weeks and liked the orange one initially. (Ever the bargain shopper I knew that since they were the first of the fall line to come out, they would be marked down soon.) But in the end, I decided that the brown with the orange interior was the better looking of the two.

I love fall so much. It is unfortunately rather warm today, but by next week it is supposed to cool off again. I love shopping for fall clothes. But of course I refuse to wear them before the fall equinox - which is easy to do here since it is usually too warm until then anyway. This makes the 3 weeks between Labor Day and Sept 23 difficult though. Too late for summer clothes, too early for fall. Oh well. Not much of a problem for this unemployed schlump. I spend most of my days in my ever so comfy Eddie Bauer elastic waist khaki shorts and T-shirts. Oh I must get out of this.

I am going to Jazzercise tonight. And my mom and I started walking around my grandma's neighbourhood. Well...we've done it once so far. But I did go buy a pedometer and we are going to walk again tonight. Seriously. I love walking through that 'hood. In the fall it will be really nice. Old houses, falling leaves. There is a house back there for sale that I like. And it has been marked down! From $515,000 to $439,000! What a bargain.

Another agonizing decision of the day concerned an afternoon snack. Do I have healthy organic carrots with low fat organic ranch dressing and overpriced Fiji bottled water that I try to save because the bottles are so damn pretty? Or will it be a Twinkie and chocolate milk? Damn those discount bakery stores. Damn them for sending me coupons for "Free Family Size Box of Hostess Snack Cakes with ANY purchase". Which means a loaf of bread = more Ding Dongs than one person should consume.

Saturday is going to be a busy day. I am going to try to stop by the Pagan Pride Day festival in Covington on my way to my costume fitting at 1pm. After the costume fitting I will stop back home to pick up the Bij and then we are on our way to Nashville. I'm sure Nashville is a boring place, but I will try to make the best of it.

Taking a break from the tube

Matthew is busy switching back and forth between about 3 or 40 football games, so I will use this opportunity to write. So yes, we got our dish back. But not without more drama.

On the good side, we called Dish Network again and they were nice enough to replace our dish for free! They just set it up like we had moved. We didn't even have to pay for the pole, which they usually charge for.

The day the dude came to install the Dish was the first time in a week that I had seen the guy who has been working on the decks. So I asked him if he saw anybody messing with our Dish last Friday. He sheepishly said "ORP". (the management company) He doesn't work for ORP directly, but they are paying him to fix all the decks. So he quickly added "But you didn't hear that from me". No problem.

I immediately went inside and called ORP. I talked to some girl named Michelle and ended up in a screaming match with her over the semantics of "stealing" vs "taking or removing something that belongs to someone else". I told her we had permission from Whitney (the other property manager) to install the Dish. She told me that Whitney does not have the authority to give that permission. Whatever. That's not my problem. She said she would talk to Whitney and call me back later.

5pm quickly approached and no call. It is very rare that someone from ORP will call you back. If you don't get someone on your first call, you might as well forget it. But lo and behold, Whitney called at 5pm. Matthew answered the phone and spoke with her for about 20 minutes. They were both very calm, which is a good thing because it would have been a different story had I answered the phone. Matthew is so diplomatic and patient. I do love him for being every thing I am not.

Whitney informed us that Rob (the guy who had Matthew's truck towed) and Doug (the guy who cussed out the old ladies at our last meeting) called ORP and DEMANDED the Dish be removed. Whitney told them that there is an FCC regulation that states a COA board cannot prevent someone from having a Dish. (good to know) They then said that we had the wires attached to the building, which is against regulations and therefore they are justified in removing the Dish. Whitney had to go along with that. ORP is paid and employed by the COA board. Now, the only reason we attached the wires to the building was to keep them out of the way of the lawnmowers. But whatever. We will take them down. Matthew even offered to bury them. ( the wires, not the board members)

So...as of right now we have TV and I can once again get my Pacey fix every day. They better not start messing with it again. GOOD SHOWS are about to start. Survivor. Carnivale. Angel.

This morning I went to my orientation at Kings Island. Typical safety video stuff. But I got my ID and every thing is taken care of. I wonder if they contacted Delta at all. For employment verification. I kind of doubt it, but I would be interested to know just what information they were given. I am really looking forward to working FearFest. It should be a lot of fun. Matthew is totally bummed that he won't get to.

I also Volunteered to work Tall Stacks in October. I have never been to it before, but it will give me something to do during the day. Matthew being gone all month is going to really suck.

I picked up some books at the library to start planning our trip. Yes the Germany trip that was supposed to happen last year is going to happen in 2004. I will either go in February or late March. I know Feb will be cold and snowy, but that could be very pretty. I am just concerned about transportation hassles and the possibility of some things being closed. I am also extending the trip from 11 days to about 17. Adding a side trip to Prague and spending more time in the Alsace region of France. The trip is all mapped out, I just have to change the dates. I don't think I am going to book any hotels in advance this time. I will just carry a list of a few in each town and find something when we get there.