Saturday: My sewing machine came, but no time to play with it. :(
Sunday: I named the machine Betty. After surveillance duty, I went to Rite Aid and bought a spool of Singer white thread for practice, along with some ice cream for sustenance.

I read most of the manual and first threaded a couple of bobbins. I consider this a major accomplishment, having never used a sewing machine before or handled a bobbin. I installed the upper thread spool, and set the bobbin in the base compartment to spit out the lower thread. I wasn't sure if Betty and I would really get along, but I discovered that she is pretty cool and easy to use!

http://www.amazon.com/Brother-CS6000I-60-Stitch-Computerized-Functions/dp/B000JQM1DE/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=home-garden&qid=1213039182&sr=8-1

I was sewing within an hour, and thats gotta say something about the manual/design of the machine... I sewed on an old teeshirt and practiced a few basic stitches, changing width/length, etc.

One of my favorite features is the foot pedal, because it feels like driving. hah. And the machine is really quiet too.

I'm only sad because I can't play with Betty again until next week. I can't wait to experiment with the other presser feet and the button hole maker! Hopefully I won't break any needles...

Ready for your afternoon dose of disgust?

A preface:
I recently gave into wearing earplugs to sleep so that my roommate's television doesn't keep me awake at night (or awaken me in the morning). They are colorful foamy nubs that I twist and insert into my ear, and which expand within a few seconds to provide a snug fit. On the very first night that I wore them, unaccustomed to the sensation of this pressure, I woke up screaming in the morning darkness and tore them out of my ears, before coming to my senses. While I can now sleep through the night, I have on occasion woken up in the morning with one or both missing, undoubtedly because I had pulled them out in my sleep. This is particularly annoying because they tend to get lost in my sheets or drop through the space between my mattress and headboard. However, I continue to wear them for the sake of sweet, silent sleep.

I had gone about a week without wearing my plugs, since the television was no longer singing my roommate to sleep. However, two nights ago, my roommate resurrected this terrible habit (*who* in their right mind would confuse their body so by waking themselves up in the morning with the same sounds that put them to sleep at night?). In any case, in went the earplugs. I was momentarily drifting to sleep, when in my lovely dream, I found myself with a candy in my hand. I immediately popped it into my mouth, only to find that, while soft like a marshmellow, it tasted awfully of rubber.

This is when I woke up to find an earplug in my mouth. :P

So I had to give the address of my new primary care physician today
when filling out some forms, but her address wasn't on my insurance
card. I looked her up in google and got this:

http://www.lcmhs.org/milcm/md21.html

So I try to save money by not parking in my building's lot, which costs me $7/day. Instead, I park for FREE, about an 11 minute walk away at the intersection of Sunset and Beaudry. Its a pretty seedy area, but I felt relatively safe parking there, since some of my coworkers park there too, and since my car is so old and I generally keep nothing of value in it. I used to purposely keep empty boxes in it to make it look extra un-valuable (and to hide stuff underneath). In fact, the most valuable things in my car are my stereo and a $10 roll of quarters.

That said, some bastard(s) broke into my car on Wednesday in broad daylight and took my stereo (faceplate) and my roll of quarters.

Yesterday, my best bud Juse helped me call up a bunch of places to replace the rear passenger window. Most o the places were $140 and up. Juse helped me find a place for $70, but it required me to go downtown. As a last ditch effort, we called up one more place with a full page ad. We generally tried to avoid those - Juse's philosophy is that those kind of places will pass on the costs of their ads onto their customers.

Anyway, Brothers Auto Glass Service quoted an impressive $50. *And* they do mobile service (serving West LA customers), which meant that they would come out to my car at no extra charge. The catch though, was that they only did mobile service on Mondays and Fridays. Not wanting to wait an extra day, I decided to take myself to the shop with the directions they gave me by phone.

Had I mapquested the area myself, I think I might have opted to wait the extra day for the mobile service. I must say that I've never driven through such a... colorful part of town before. Suffice it to say that I now understand how the shop can afford to have full-page ads and why they offer mobile service - the shop was so run-down, that I almost drove past it, mistaking it for a junk yard. The nice lady who managed the phone looked really surprised to see me. I guess I understand that, considering the other clientele. Doubt they get many West-LAers coming to Watts. But they were true to their word, doing the job for $53 total, and in under 30 min to boot.

Let me take a paragraph to also praise the 311 service. I believe it was instituted by mayor V. Not knowing who I was supposed to call to report the incident, I tried it. It took a few minutes to get through, but it was an excellent service. I told the operator my situation, and she gave me very clear instructions, and connected me to the proper police station. Apparently, you must contact the station that covers the jurisdiction in which the crime occurred. The officer I spoke with was also cordial, encouraging me to come in and make a report.

Which brings me to the find of the day. Ignorance is bliss for alot of people though, so you might not want to try this, but I was curious.

http://www.lapdcrimemaps.org/

Thank you to Juse for helping me clean out the glass in my car without my asking, and for being so nice about the whole thing. :) And thanks to my mom too, even if she doesn't read this thing.

Haphazards lost by one run. We were down 7 runs in the last inning, and scored 6.

The Dodgers took over first place in their division today, however. I have followed the Dodgers for, cumulatively, a few months. In the beginning, my participation was voluntary verging on obligatory, largely stemming from an effort to better understand my best friend's interests. However, the Dodgers team two seasons ago was so interesting, so full of chemistry, and so full of heart-pounding last-inning underdog-team-come-back wins, that I soon became sucked into watching almost every game of the second half of that season. This borderline obsession was largely helped along by Juse, who was very kind in answering all of my knuckleheaded questions about the game as we went along. It is a strange thing, but over time, I think I truly came to appreciate the team and the game for myself!

And then last season happened. After the team I had gotten to know was decimated, and replaced by a team that completely lacked chemistry (both interpersonally as well as in their performance), I stopped watching all together. This was probably a blessing in disguise, because you have no idea how time consuming it is to watch 3-hr ballgames almost every day. Secret: I even had the damned games going on my computer sometimes when I couldn't watch them on tv. Anyway, they were so disappointing last season, and trade decisions so frustrating, that I didn't even want to watch *this* season, despite (according to Justin) a much more promising roster.

However, a few weeks ago, I made the mistake of occasionally tuning in a few times with Justin, and wouldn't you know it, I'm watching again (although definately not as consistently, since school and work are making watching really bad ideas). They aren't Izzy-Cora, and Gagne-LoDuca, but their strong offense and surprisingly talented rookies and other newcomers are fun to watch.

Truly, baseball is one of the best things about the US.

tonights was the first softball game i was ever in in which the team i was on won (and not by like forfeit or something). go haphazards! :)

On my bus ride to school, I noticed the gent in front of me secretly perusing a page of the girly magazine the lady sitting next to him was flipping. Bored and curious, I looked to see what interested this young man so much. I saw a woman in a towel shaving her legs, and the headline:

"Secrets to a Perfect Bikini Line:

[some intro paragraph in print too small for me to read]

1. I have my guy help me."

This was portrayed as a sexy and fun activity for couples.

No offense to anybody that actually participates in this, but I can't help but think that I'm missing something. This is very different from putting shaving cream on your guy's face, or on your girl's legs. If you ask me, the idea of putting sharp objects around someone else's genitalia seems more terrifying than erotic.

Start planning now for that romantic 50th anniversary:

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_1715462.html?menu=news.quirkies.heartwarmers

Today was the first Haphazard's game of the summer season. I batted first, and got a hit! Since the first baseman was having trouble picking up the ball fielded to her, I ran for second. I ran my hardest (inspired by Furcal) and was sure that I was going to beat the throw, but I was wrong. I got beaned in the back of the head.*

The outcome of the game? We lost pretty badly. But it was still nice being able to play softball again, even though I felt queasy through much of it - not because I got hit, but because I had the jitters. My trainer has high expectations for me!

* I am okay, except for a little headache. The church team we were playing against exhibited some very Jesus-like manners and not only were very apologetic, but gave me a cold-pack, which came in handy again, when I tried to barehand a ball someone fielded to me. What a fool!

This wasn't supposed to be a journal about hamsters, but heres more:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060519/ap_on_fe_st/human_hamster

and a sort of lame picture from the original article:

http://159.54.227.3/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060519/NEWS/60519002

(Thanks Cyn)