Kind of. At any rate I start my new job tomorrow. I’m a mix of excitement and apprehension. Looking forward to work with/for an old friend. Looking forward to being around people. A little hesitant about going back to the same company and into the same field. Didn’t get as much done during my time off as I wanted… but that would always be true not matter how much I got done or how long I had off.

I have orientation tomorrow – it must be the fifth or sixth time I’ve had to attend. Wonder if anything has changed…

Oh yeah… got a job. I start June 1st. After having been laid off for 6 months. It’s back at the same company. I’m conflicted. I want to work, but I’m enjoying my time off – mostly because it’s paid. Anyway, this basically mirrors everything that happened back in January 2002. Specifically check out January 2nd – 8th.

This isn’t about the swine flu – don’t get all ought 9 on me. This is about me becoming this guy. Yep, I’m having noisy neighbor woes. The thing is, I read that original post where I complain about the neighbor complaining about my noise and I’m conflicted. In that case I didn’t feel we were making excessive noise and that he was just a crotchety old man trapped in a twenty-something frame. In this case I feel like they’re being obnoxiously noisy… but only about once a week.

And usually on weekends.

Blech. So basically when Mr. Complainy moved out of the apartment below us, everything was golden. The people next door were fairly quiet and the people below too. And better yet, no one complained about us. Then a couple of months ago the neighbors two floors down moved up and directly underneath us. The only reason I know this is because of a sign on the door downstairs posted for the mailman. Again everything seemed okay. They seemed relatively nice – a head nod, or “How ya doing?” in the hallway on occasion. Then one night while M and I are watching TV this huge noise vibrates up through the floor, rattling glasses and freaking us out. It was bass. LOTS OF BASS. But only for a few minutes. Accidental volume adjustment? Maybe, happens to us sometimes when TiVo kicks out of pause. And everything was grand.

For two weeks. Then it happened again. For about 20-30 minutes. I got the idea that maybe they were covering up the sounds of love with sounds of early 90s drum and bass. Seemed plausible. And so life continued on. Until St. Patty’s Day when it went well into the night. I totally didn’t sleep. I left a nice note about keeping the noise down after 11pm (seemed more than generous) and things settled down. Till last Friday when they wents nuts and ran their little dance club until maybe 12 or 1am. And now again tonight… although we’re only at 8pm.

1. Is it noisy? Yes. Very. The floor vibrates, glasses shake and I we have a hard time understanding the TV or going to sleep.
2. Is it on a school night? Well… no.
3. Are they rude otherwise? No, actually they seem quite nice. I’ve had nice conversations with the girl.
4. Any other complaints about then? No. They seem – great. No trash in the hallway. We never hear them fight.
5. So what’s my fucking problem? I don’t know.

I think what was a minor annoyance caused by noise has now drifted into an almost phobia of hearing sounds drift up from below. And now I’m more annoyed that I’m annoyed in the first place. I’m turning into an old annoying neighbor upstairs. I’m having a hard time turning off this anxiety. But I’ll keep trying, because they’re really not that bad.

My friend T lived below a crackhead… DJ Downstairs really ain’t that bad.

Hey there blog. Haven’t seen me in a while, eh? Been busy. Suffice to say, 2008 sucked big, fat donkey balls. Let’s count the ways.

1. QZ killed everything in its path, including three developers, three project managers, the director of technology and ultimately me.
2. Sinus surgery. Sucktastic enough on its own, didn’t solve the original problem that well.
3. Mouse infestation
4. Good friends leaving the company voluntarily
5. Good friends leaving the company involuntarily
6. Nothing good on TV
7. Retirement savings obliterated
8. Six weeks of insomnia
9. Got laid off
10. Cat almost died

Fuck 2008 in its motherfucking ear. Suck it.

I’ve lived at my current place four years now… maybe more, but at least that long, and I’ve never had problems with the neighbors. Yeah the guys next door are a little loud, but only occassionally, and usually on the weekends, so no big whoop. I did have to ask them to move a futon out of the hallway that was blocking my door… but that’s it.

So a few weeks back M and I are watching some BSG and we hear a knock on the door. It’s our new downstairs neighbor (moved in like a week prior) who asks if we can turn the bass down. I was really suprised that he could hear it, but apologized and said no problem. Ever since then we’ve been really careful not to play anything too loud – not that we were anyway. We keep the bass set at -10 (it goes from -10 to +10) and sometimes turn it off altogether if we’re watching really late (usually we’re in bed by 11:30pm).

Things seemed fine. Every once and a while we’d hear banging from downstairs, but it seemed really random and never at a time where we were making excessive noise, so I dismissed it as him nailing stuff to the wall or something similar. No worries. It’s an old apartment building, you hear stuff.

Well then last week we hear another knock on the door. It’s downstairs dude again, who introduces himself. He’s really nice and mentions that this building doens’t have any insulation, and can we keep it down. He talked to his downstairs neighbor and promised to do the same for him. I said I thought we had been keeping it down, but we’d keep that in mind.

He kind of caught me off guard – I was in the middle of cooking dinner – so I didn’t really respond the way I wanted to. I ended up writing a little note and leaving it on his door the next morning. Essentially it went like this:

Hi Jeff,
Thanks for coming by and introducing yourself last night. Ever since you complained about the bass a couple of weeks ago M and I have been really careful about the level of noise coming out of our apartment. We keep the bass all the way down and have tried to minimize door slamming, etc. We have pets that sometimes jump from furniture to the floor – we can’t do much about that. I feel like we’re doing everything reasonable we can to reduce the noise. Honestly, we’ve lived here for four years, and never had a problem with a noise complaint before. If you continue to have problems, you might want to contact the management company – maybe they can come up with a solution. They did renovate your apartment before you moved in – maybe something was done that’s allowing more sound leakage. At any rate, here’s my phone number. Don’t hesitate to call me if something comes up, I’d like to make sure we’re both satisfied with our living arrangements.

And then we didn’t hear anything for a few days. I’m thinking – problem solved. I’ve let him know we’re being as quiet as we can. I’m being the good neighbor here. This morning we get a phone call.

“Hey, it’s Jeff. Is everything alright up there?”

“Yeah… why?”

“I’m hearing a lot of noise.”

“Well, I just showered, and have opened the bedroom door a couple of times, but other than that – nothing.”

“It’s like hammering. Maybe it’s your neighbors?”

So I stuck my head outside our door, and don’t hear anything. I tell him this… I also suggest maybe it’s the pipes rattling. I also let him know that they’re doing renovations on the 1st floor apartment (I’m on 5, Jeff’s on 4), I thought they were done, but maybe there’s still working going on. We both say goodbye, and I tell him to call if he hears anything else.

Of course on our way out the building right after that, we hear banging coming from the 1st floor apartment. So in my head, I’m off the hook… he can’t tell where noise is coming from. He can’t tell up from down. I just wonder if he’s ever lived in an apartment building before – especially and old one… they’re noisy. You hear your neighbors walk around. You hear them talk. Eat. Bathe. Fuck. Oy.

Now I’m just wondering what’s next. I feel like I’ve done all I can. I guess if he calls again, I’ll just mention the fact that the last thing he heard was coming from the first floor – to not always assume it’s us. I really feel like telling him to go find another building to live in… but I won’t.

Thoughts?

Yes I’ve lost my mind. But I’ve lost it for Jesus.

I got this amazing piece of spam today in ye ol’ inbox. Absolutely fascinating. I only edited in a couple of paragraph breaks to make it easier to read, and I pulled the links out… Seriously, a Pulitzer Prize category should be added…

Any plaintiff can be a big fan of the skyscraper beyond a cab driver, but it takes a real ball bearing to take a peek at a shabby razor blade. Sometimes a demon reads a magazine, but a light bulb defined by a skyscraper always operates a small fruit stand with the blithe spirit about a hydrogen atom! When a scythe living with a turkey is magnificent, a gentle fighter pilot competes with a stovepipe near a warranty. A vacuum cleaner about the bullfrog self-flagellates, and the minivan of the fairy beams with joy; however, a deficit for an earring makes a truce with the reactor about another paycheck. Most people believe that a grain of sand defined by the power drill laughs and drinks all night with a nearest freight train, but they need to remember how accurately another spartan reactor procrastinates. If a parking lot carelessly requires assistance from the feline bottle of beer, then a defendant around a minivan daydreams.

A jersey cow about a corporation is resplendent. Any parking lot can secretly admire a photon inside the fundraiser, but it takes a real class action suit to derive perverse satisfaction from the annoying paper napkin. A diskette non-chalantly learns a hard lesson from a polar bear from an ocean. The cantankerous pickup truck learns a hard lesson from some CEO near the tape recorder. When a hockey player is geosynchronous, the photon goes deep sea fishing with the precise blithe spirit. A psychotic wheelbarrow makes love to a pickup truck. When the pathetic grand piano is feline, the tornado overwhelmingly makes love to the crank case of some traffic light. An impromptu nation trades baseball cards with the tuba player inside the parking lot. An abstraction of an umbrella laughs out loud, and a slow abstraction hesitates; however, the support group behind the insurance agent buys an expensive gift for a skinny vacuum cleaner. Some judge from the cyprus mulch finds subtle faults with a seldom obsequious jersey cow.

When a microscope leaves, a power drill rejoices. A parking lot borrows money from a tuba player defined by some dust bunny. A gratifying food stamp hibernates, and a line dancer procrastinates; however, the paper napkin single-handledly figures out a hole puncher. A bowling ball beyond a cough syrup figures out the globule. Indeed, the steam engine has a change of heart about a mating ritual. Some carpet tack Most people believe that the gentle umbrella often satiates a football team of another ocean, but they need to remember how seldom the geosynchronous light bulb takes a coffee break. If the cheese wheel sanitizes a spider, then an umbrella daydreams. A fundraiser goes deep sea fishing with the fundraiser over a bowling ball, or a blood clot buries the geosynchronous briar patch. Another girl scout related to a photon starts reminiscing about lost glory, and the shabby hole puncher writes a love letter to a defendant. Some single-handledly worldly pork chop reads a magazine, and the diskette hides; however, a mysterious fairy competes with the college-educated photon. The microscope has a change of heart about a globule beyond a support group. If another industrial complex trades baseball cards with the federal pig pen, then a line dancer toward the grizzly bear hesitates.

Now and then, a molten abstraction underhandedly gives secret financial aid to the usually optimal buzzard. A burglar for a class action suit tries to seduce a familiar chess board. When a prime minister is eagerly surly, a traffic light gives a pink slip to a dust bunny. Any vacuum cleaner can non-chalantly make love to a chain saw around an eggplant, but it takes a real mastadon to teach a temporal roller coaster. A bowling ball inside the tape recorder hesitates, and a smelly apartment building feels nagging remorse; however, the feverishly cosmopolitan avocado pit brainwashes the fashionable bowling ball. A blithe spirit over the blithe spirit is hairy. Furthermore, the plaintiff living with a demon earns frequent flier miles, and a tripod of the defendant inexorably brainwashes the bowling ball over an oil filter. If the senator gives a pink slip to a Eurasian fundraiser, then a rattlesnake from a carpet tack hesitates.

Another load bearing short order cook Furthermore, a short order cook beyond the bartender wakes up, and a college-educated blithe spirit secretly admires a traffic light. For example, the treacherous dolphin indicates that a mating ritual can be kind to a linguistic mating ritual. Indeed, the federal crank case makes a truce with a girl scout. Most people believe that a skinny polar bear dances with another wheelbarrow beyond a short order cook, but they need to remember how almost a twisted submarine gets stinking drunk. A CEO from the ball bearing avoids contact with a skyscraper from a jersey cow

SONG OF THE MOMENT: Poster Children – “Dead Man”

Courtesy of the Consumerist I found a great blog from a Wal-Mart courtesy desk associate. Way back in the way back, I worked on the service desk at the local Wal-Mart. These stories all sound familiar. Good readin’.

I saw the saddest thing today… one of those messenger guys pushing his scooter across the intersection of 8th Ave. and 48th street today with a blown-out rear tire. He looked really sad. And tired. I wanted to take a picture as I’ve never seen a flat tire on a scooter before, but I didn’t want to make his day any worse.

We were at the emergency room at the soon-to-be-closed St. Mary’s the other day (don’t worry – everything is good). While waiting back in the exam rooms we noticed that they had a TV at the nurse’s station, and lo & behold they were watching ER. It was odd at first, but somewhat comforting at the end, because no matter how bad we were feeling, it wasn’t as bad as the dude in that episode.

Of course I’m kidding. Old people rule. But I’m serioulsy never offering up my seat on the bus ever again. Tonight on the way home the bus filled up fairly quickly. I’m looking around and there are no pregnant people, just yuppy boys and girls typing away on their Blackberries or reading an Oprah Book Club selection (don’t get me started). Then a older gentlemen got on the bus and was standing. Now for the longest time I didn’t offer him my seat (should’ve kept to my original plan), but he kind of looked around as the bus started to pull away, like he was looking for a seat, so I pulled out my earplugs halfway and tapped him and said softly “Would you like to sit.” A nice gesture I thought. Now the guy wasn’t ancient and was dressed fairly preppy, so I figured he’d probably decline. No harm, no foul. I was also thinking that he looked about my Dad’s age, and I’d like someone to offer him a seat if he was standing.

Well either I caught this guy on a bad day, or he’s just bitter, useless, piece-of-shit, but he responded with a “Why. Do I look too old.” And mumbled something else. I was kind of shocked, so I just smiled and said, “Just thought I’d offer” and put my music back on. He said something else that I couldn’t make out so I just smiled. A girl a few rows back gave me the “Oh well shrug” – and thank god for that because I was fucking pissed. I almost wanted to yell as he got off the bus later, “Careful getting off the bus, don’t break your fucking hip,” but I didn’t.

WTF. I tried to be nice, and now I’m all fucked in the head because old dude was a dick.

This is officially the last time I offer up my seat to anyone who doesn’t have a noticeable fetus growing inside of them. And those better start smiling and saying thanks, or they’re up shit creek too.

Fucking breeders.

Mondays are never much fun, particularly when you’re not entirely in love with your job to begin with. I had a meeting this morning that was supposed to be a brainstorm about the future of the site I work on. For the most part it was a fun meeting, and exciting to talk about the future, but it was also annoying and slightly depressing.

The way my company is set up, there isn’t a specific online department. There are a couple of technology guys, and a group of producers in one department, and then just me in another department. I’m always kind of feeling caught in the middle. My boss doesn’t really know what I do. The other department quite often doesn’t keep me in the loop on projects, so I feel constantly out-of-touch. I’ve tried numerous times to insert myself in their world, and I’ve had some success with it, but on big picture stuff, I totally feel left out. And it gets tiring having to beg for info. Really, really tiring.

So in this meeting it comes across that they’ve already put a lot of thought and planning into the future – a lot of it is already decided. And of course I haven’t heard any of it before. It’s really exciting stuff, things I would have liked to have contributed too, but they didn’t include me. Come to think of it, I had to kind of beg to be put into this brainstorm meeting. At one point I even said “Wow, this sounds really great. I’d love to be involved in it. It sounds really fun.” I kind of got the head nod that really is just an eyeroll/patronizing glare.

They did ask me to keep my department from fucking up the names of projects (there was a conflict of a “their” department project name and an “our department project name). When I said, “Sure, I can try to help out there. But doesn’t the editorial director come up with all these names anyway? She’d probably be best suited to clear names,” I got the same head nod.

Eh.

Then to top it off, the current gf tells me that she’s going to the movies with her ex-bf sometime next week. I know I’m just being jealous and a guy, but it really makes me feel like I’m not giving her what she needs if she has to go out to a movie with the ex.

Double eh.

SONG OF THE MOMENT: The Soundtrack of Our Lives – “Ten Years Ahead”

Okay, so I’m still dating M and it’s been quite wonderful (hence the lack of posts – I’ve been busy wooing her). We’ve actually gone on a lot of trips too (some day I’ll post pix). Around Labor Day weekend we headed up to Niagara Falls and Toronto to hang. The week before Halloween we went out to San Francisco for the weekend. So it’s been pretty serious… so much so that we spent the week of Thanksgiving together, and met each other’s families… yikes!

Actually it went really well. Everyone seemed to get along.

No I’m not getting married anytime soon.

Yes I’m happy for once.

I’m also tired as all hell, so I’m off to bed.

How was your Turkey Day?

So I get a ton of comment spam here, but hardly any actual comments, probably because I don’t have any readers – don’t really blame you. All I do is whine. Anyhoo, I was cleaning up the comment queue when I came across this crazy piece of spam…

Mexicans replenished! Skyhook comprehend horrendous?

I mean, it almost makes sense. If Mexicans were replenished with a skyhook, then there would be some kind of horrendous thing happening, but not sure I’d comprehend it…

I’m taking classes again this semester. Flash, which I’ve been wanting to take for a while, is really fun – and I totally dig the instructor. He’s moving at a great pace, and won’t let slower students take the class hostage, which is really refreshing. I feel like I’m really learning something, and I’m really enjoying this type of work so far. One of my friends has recently changed careers paths from online producer, to web developer to Flash/Actionscript programming and he’s really liking it. That totally has me thinking, especially considering how fucking miserable it is at the office lately. I swear, sometimes in my weekly meeting it’s all I can do to keep from jumping across the desk to shake my boss and yell, “Do you realize you’re destroying your own department?” Anyhoo, the class I’m taking for fun, I’m really enjoying.

The other class I signed up for, MS Project is actually a good class, with a great instructor, but thorougly boring subject matter. I decided to take Project for two reasons. In my current profession, a lot of people manage their projects with Project, so to better prepare for another gig – thought I’d beef up. Also, I read about project management certification, which can get you extra money and better jobs. Well, what’s become abundantly clear with this class is that I have no real desire to dive into project management as a career – it’s not for me. So in that regard, this class was priceless. I still don’t know exactly what I want to do with my life, but I can definitely add PM to the “no” column.

SONG OF THE MOMENT: The Twilight Singers – “King Only”

I’ll just say this: terrorist warnings tend to put a damper on karaoke attendence. I had tried to organize a group outting to a favorite local sushi/karaoke place last week for this week… there seemed to be interest among the diehards, so I put out a big e-mail to the whole work group. And there was even more interest. But today at 7ish, it was two of us… Yeah, I canceled.

Terrorists: 1
Drunken karaoke: 0

SONG OF THE MOMENT: Nothing. Didn’t you see the rant above. Sheesh.

I haven’t written anything in a while. I suck. But I’ve been having fun. Updates later. Still alive.

So rather than post the obvious link to the Red Cross (oops!) for Katrina donations, I though I’d point over to Gizmodo were former editor Joel talks about his forthcoming trip to the Gulf Coast to establish wireless communications networks to help supplement the infrastructure that was destroyed by this royal cunt of a hurricane. It’s an interesting read, and he’s looking for help, so check it out.

Also, I got reminded on another blog to check with the company you work for before making blind donations to the Red Cross or other organizations… some companies are doing corporate matches, meaning they’ll double (or more) your personal donation as long as you report it.

Personally, I’d like to challenge all CEO’s of Fortune 500 companies to donate their entire salaries for the year (minus bonuses of course) to the cause — I’m sure it won’t make a dent in their nest egg, but it’ll sure help everyone else who got fucked.

You finally pull out your iPod to listen to some tunes, and it takes a while for it to cycle on because it’s been sitting unused all weekend.

SONG OF THE MOMENT: Eric Weissberg & Steve Mandell – “Dueling Banjos”

Ninjalicious from Infiltration.org passed away August 23, 2005 at the age of 31.

I never met the guy, but I was a fan of his Zine and the accompanying website, and he pretty much single-handedly got me interested in Urban Exploration and all things underground and hidden. There’s a nice write-up on him at the Torontoist.

From his wife Liz:

But most of all, Jeff would have wanted people to take a new knowledge and understanding of the importance of organ donation from his incredible experiences. Without a transplant, we would have lost him years ago. Organ donation is an incredible gift that saves lives — in North America, countless people waiting on transplants die every day because the amount of organ donors is just so embarrassingly small. For people who are not already registered as organ donors wherever they live, they can find some information here:

Canada
http://www.givelife.ca/index2.cfm

USA
http://www.organdonor.gov/signup1.html

BTW, I want my organs donated. Just an FYI.

SONG OF THE MOMENT: Zwan – “Of a Broken Heart”