Author: Jason Haberman

My day, the finish…

I would have to say the day finished sucessfully, although not exactly smoothly.

I started the wiring and hooking up of the surround sound. Of course, I ran into some snags. First, I had a bunch of speaker wire left over that I was using. Unfortunately, I don’t have a handy dandy wire stripper. I did at one time, but gee… I don’t seem to have it any more. *sigh* So, I’m trying to strip this cheap ass wire with just regular old needle-nose pliers. Needless to say, more often than not, I cut the flimsy little wires as I was stripping them. But, eventually, I got them all hooked up. Wait, check that. I had enough wire to wire all but one of the rear speakers. So, I had to go to target, yet again.

I also bought a new digital optical cable to connect the cable box audio to the receiver, but once I had it connected I finally found my old one. I just love buying crap I don’t actually need. Plus, my receiver is old and cheap, as it only has 2 digital audio inputs. So, I connected the cable box and the DVD player. That leaves the xbox high and dry in just using the TV speakers. Well, we can’t have it all.

It’s also a bummer to have to keep the volume low on the deal. Goddamn apartment living. Oh well.

Other events today. I watched Tiger finish off his fifth tourament win in a row. That guy is a machine.

I whipped up a hamburger caserole for dinner (and had to go out to the grocery store to get the goods too). Amazing how much you use your car when you’re trying not to.

Finished the day by watching ‘Glengarry Glenn Ross’. It was ok. I didn’t love it. Thought it would be better.

So, coming up I have to figure out how in the hell to take care of my car. But, to balance that out, I have a second date tomorrow night.

It’s always something.

So, I forage out for grub.  In addition, my plan for the day was to get my surround sound system setup.  So, I stopped at Target to get a few cables I needed and some speaker stands.  As an aside, maybe there will be some day when I can walk out of Target without spending $100.  I have probably spent a thousand bucks there since I moved here.  Anyway… I get my gear, then head down the hill to get something to eat.

All of a sudden, I notice my temperature gage going thru the roof and steam coming from under my hood.  Oh shit.  This can’t be good.  Luckily, I’m right near a gas station, so I pull in and turn off.  After some adimittedly rudimentary troubleshooting, I realize that my radiator is bone dry.  Not good.  I was able to purchase some coolant, and after spilling half of the bottle all over the place (I had no funnel) I finally get it in.  I was ingenius enough to use an old magazine I had in the back as a makeshift funnel until I had poured enough out of the bottle so I could tip it easier.  It still got all over though.

Being labor day, there aren’t any car repair joints open.  My regular trusted mechanic (the only one I’ve ever found) is all the way downtown.  I guess I will take my car down there first thing in the morning, and rent a car.  See, this is where being single is a giantic pain in the ass.  When you’re married and have 2 cars, it is a minor inconvenience.  Now, it is a huge hassle.

Now, I’m off to hook up surround sound.  If something goes wrong with this, I’m giving up and going back to bed.

Wish me luck.

When I got my apartment, I was really only concerned with getting in as soon as possible, and living close to where I work. I live a 4 minute drive from my office (or a 20 minute walk from my door to my desk) and I was able to move in in less than a week.

Though I was really not keen to be back into an apartment again, the situation was dictated to me. Frankly, I really lucked into my situation here, although I was unaware of it at the time. I have many advantages here. First, my apartment is on the third floor, which means that there is no one above me stomping around. Second, my apartment is on the far north east corner of the building, meaning that I only have a neighbor on one wall, and I don’t get any sun directly heating my apartment to sauna like proportions every afternoon. Plus, I’m on the far back side of the complex, which means if you look out every window I have, you don’t see any other apartment buildings. So, I can almost imagine looking out over the tree filled corporate parks behind me that I’m in a high priced condo or something.

I also lucked out with the parking situation. Any of you who have lived in a large complex knows that parking is always a pain in the ass. In this place, each apartment gets one covered parking spot. Pretty standard. However, my spot is directly at the bottom of the stairs to my apartment. I didn’t realize how good that was until I saw my neighbor leave his apartment the other day, and have to walk clear across the parking lot to his assigned place (about 60 yards away). I guess its not a huge deal, but when you’re lugging bags of groceries or something, its nice to park close.

However, the most amazing and perplexing ‘feature’ of this apartment is my apparently magic fridge. Let me explain. I am obviously a re-newly formed bachelor. Yes, I do fall into some of the stereotypes. I admit it.

Long time readers might remember my early eating/cooking adventures after the bomb was dropped. The first meal I cooked was 5 weeks after I moved in, I whipped up some tacos to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. Well, I had all the fixin’s. Meat, lettuce, shredded cheese, refried beans, tomatoes, salsa, etc etc. I think you can see where I’m going here. The cheese and beans have remained in the fridge since that very day. Unused. Uneaten. Not even looked at. Needless to say, when you only have beer, pepsi and ketchup, you aren’t hurting for extra fridge space. So, they just hung out. I finally did something about them this past week, nearly 4 whole months later. Normally, these things should have sprouted legs and made a break for it long ago. However, something magic happened. The cheese, I bought one of those pre-shredded bags of ‘mexican’ cheese with the zip close top. When I pulled it out, it looked as fresh as new. Not one speck of green anywhere in there. If you were to put it back on the shelf, you couldn’t tell the difference. I was astounded. You would think it was never opened. Of course, I still threw it away. I wasn’t taking any chances.

Perhaps even more astounding was the refried beans. They were in a pyrex bowl with plastic wrap over them. Not exactly hermetically sealed or anything. As they literally ‘chilled’ pressed to the back of the fridge for about 110 days, I figured the mold would eventually blast through the plastic wrap like the eruption of Mt. St. Helens. But, it never came. I pulled it out and except for some slight discoloring of the surface, again, not a hint of mold. Astounding. Granted, these beans certainly do not look like new and I definitely wouldn’t eat them. But still…

The only answer is that the fridge is magic. A bachelor’s dream. Throw stuff into it, and forget about it. Instead of forcing one to remain ever vigilant against the insidious spread of noxious fungus, you can continue to go in for beers and gleefully let things sit for months on end. Perhaps I’ll only have to clean it out come spring. This is really making me want to try some experiments. Although, now that I’m in the dating pool again, that might not be the best idea. Something like that might be tough to explain away.

So, next time you’re pulling that 6 day old mold encrusted leftover from your fridge, think about me. Footloose and fancy free. Storing perishable food with no concern of spoilage. Of course, the real danger here is that I will forget just how long something has been in there and mistakenly eat it. When that happens, I’ll probably freak out as the walls burst into showers of pink elephants chewing on my toes, that for some reason have the faces of the Brady Bunch on them.

See ya in the emergency room.