CheezyOranges

So a week ago, April 3rd, I was laid off. I’m a web designer, and I was working for a company that predominately contacts clients through their online store – though most of their deals are brokered by sales people via email or over the phone. But their main conduit to the world – their only real conduit to the world is their website. And they fired their web designer. Bonkers…

What they don’t tell you is how it feels, when your boss comes into your office and closes the door and your stomach hits the floor, because you know you haven’t done anything wrong – you hope you haven’t – and you know this is serious. And then the words “we have to let you go.” God.

My boss was, at least, polite. But I didn’t get anything out of the deal. I get my last paycheck, and I have insurance through the end of this month. Then I’m on my savings, and if I don’t find another job in under three months, I’m packing up my stuff, breaking my lease, and moving in with my parents – which means my chances of finding a new job go from 50/50 to next to nothing (my parents live in a fairly non-metro area that most likely has few openings for web design).

What they also don’t tell you is that you are going to be pissed off. Not necessarily enough to burst out in anger or even tears, but enough that you feel degraded and wronged, and enough that your self-confidence (which you need most right now while trying to find a new job) will basically walk out the door the moment you leave your old office. Honestly, I am livid. They could’ve given me some notice – had they told me a week earlier, I could have at least finished the project I was in the middle of when my boss walked into my office. If they notified me a month in advance, I could’ve been religiously saving my paychecks and at least LOOKING for a new job when I got home. And I could’ve not spent a large sum of money on a new washer and dryer.

That is what has me right now – I was being responsible. I had money coming in, I felt that I could assume a small debt on my credit card. Now? I feel like an idiot. What – you can’t stand taking your clothes to the laundromat twice a month and feeding quarters to the machines? Noooo put yourself into debt! Go on! It won’t hurt, till you get laid off in a month… Glorious.

Also, if you have insurance now, you won’t be able to afford it after you are let go. Even with the new stimulus package taking the brunt of the cost, my current insurance coverage still costs $50 MORE than I was paying monthly with a salary… so how the HELL am I supposed to afford it on unemployment, which is something like 50-60% of what you were getting before? At least it isn’t the $400 I would have to pay otherwise. That’s just ridiculous. Truly ridiculous. Maybe that’s why they laid me off – they didn’t want to pay $300 a month to keep my uterus devoid of babies. Bastards.

So, lets summarize these first few points:

• Apply for unemployment THE VERY FIRST THING!
• You’re going to feel like crap, but don’t get angry at your boss until after you’ve left…
• If you’re given notice take your finances seriously and start looking for a job – if not, your job now becomes looking for a new job. Spend accordingly
• You are going to lose your medical insurance unless you get a nice severance package, so be ready for that too.

4 applications / resumes out. Nothing yet. Wish me luck.

2 albums in as many months! I was excited when Ghosts I-IV came out. I speedily downloaded the $5 version, but have been slow to listen to more than Ghosts I. I can tell already that Trent is trying new things. None of the sounds on Ghosts are quite entirely like With Teeth – Year Zero, or his earlier albums though they seem to stem more from that point in his career. I was super excited to find that he has GIVEN us this new album totally for free – The Slip.

The download is available in a variety of formats from http://theslip.nin.com and comes with a super spiffy PDF booklet that just screams “PUZZLE!”

Check out these samples, and then go download this thank you gift for yourselves!
NIN – Echoplex
NIN – Discipline

Why is it so hard for people to wrap their heads around the fact that I DON’T want kids. Ever. NO MATTER WHAT.

Hi. I’m a Wow Addict.

Shortly after I met my boyfriend in 2005, I became more and more interested in online gaming. He would spend hours playing CounterStrike, and though I was not a huge fan of the online gaming scene, I was interested. I had heard about World of Warcraft, but had never played. He told me about his experiences playing in the beta and after release, but he had stopped playing some time before. So one day in early 2006, I went to the video game store and purchased a copy so we could both begin playing again.
I was currently enrolled in college at the time, and so I never had much time to absolutely dedicate myself to playing. At that point, I had just gotten a new job and most of my time was spent in class or at work, away from home and my computer. If I recall correctly, it took me the better part of that year to level my character to the higher levels. I’m sure I didn’t hit 60 before I had to cancel my account temporarily in August to finish my final semester at College and graduate in December 2006. During this time, my boyfriend was extremely active in his guild and raided almost every night. Unfortunately, that also meant he stayed up almost every night raiding, and we’d only really “see” each other between the time I got home from work and the time I went to bed. If we did anything, it was pressured for time because MC or BWL was more important. He was playing on the computer which *I brought home from work for him to play on.* It broke, and I fixed it, even though every night I would go to sleep alone hurt more and more. I enabled this, and thus enabled my own downfall into the WoW universe.
After graduation, I reactivated my account and played sparingly until the expansion was released. I finished leveling my character to 70, which was the new highest point. Somewhere between 60 and 70 I changed from my old server, a pvp server called Mal’Ganis (which incidentally is one of the best and most progressed servers out there, housing the ever-so-famous “Elitist Jerks” guild) and moved to the PvE server Undermine. Here I joined a raiding guild, something I had never experienced before. This guild quickly exploded, though. I had moved to the new server at the behest of my boyfriend, who had also moved his character to play on the same server as our upstairs neighbors. They got us into the guild that exploded, and after that expedited our acceptance to another, more progressed guild. This was sometime in May of 2007. My boyfriend was still playing almost every night, and I was getting desperate to do something together with him. We were living in the same house, but it felt like we were never seeing each other.
During the summer, I got a gym membership, began running, and attempted to diet. I was having great success, working every day, but not playing WoW every night or all that much. My boyfriend went to the gym with me, and it was really motivating, at first. In July, I accepted a new job which also came with a 40 minute commute. My boyfriend and I began carpooling from our apartment every morning. In September, I attended my first raid, and the downward spiral began.
It was easy enough, at first, to come home from work and, every other day or so, attend a raid. It meant I had to speed through dinner, or that we picked it up on the way home, but it worked. And it was only a few days a week. As our guild quickly progressed through higher content, we had our ups and downs – attendance became more important as the gear we were fighting for was getting better and better. It didn’t help that I was obsessed with being on time every night and trying to be the best I could be. This meant any delay in getting home shortened the time I had to make food for the two of us, or even eat food my boyfriend had prepared. The stress was mounting.
In October and November, we surmounted some huge hurdles by downing some extremely hard end-game bosses. Everything was looking up. We were still calling raid nights mostly on time, around 11:30 or so every night. Still, this only left me with 6 or 7 hours of sleep before I had to wake up and drive to work. One night I took off in November for my boyfriend’s birthday, I missed a HUGE upgrade for my character. I didn’t get over this. I played harder and more often then ever before.
Christmas and New Years holidays came around and everyone took a break from WoW. Suddenly, I had nothing to do. I moved to a new apartment.
For about 10 days, I came home from work, watched television, read books, and walked – something I hadn’t had time for once I began raiding. I had canceled my gym membership months before as I wasn’t using it. When I had to go back to raiding in January, the sharp contrast in free time was realized.
We continued to progress, and I could’ve played less if I wanted to but I was hooked and obsessed. Trying to be better than others in my class, I convinced myself I had to show up every day or else I would fall behind. For a while, this strategy worked. But then, bad luck and timing made me miss some really amazing upgrades. This made me even more obsessed. This continued, I saw people come and go, but the guild continued to make progress. We advanced into the absolute end game material, finally on the coat-tails of the best guilds on our server. It was absolutely enthralling.
In February we went up against a new boss and the night went sour. Tempers were hot, people were frustrated. It was a bad night. Several other events that week had everyone on edge with everybody else. Then we had some amazing boss-kills and the drama was pretty much just dropped. We’re killing each other then we’re all peachy. But tempers were still high and tolerance was thin.
One of our best and most seasoned raiders suddenly quit. In their farewell post, they listed their grievances – not enough sleep, the game was becoming more of a job then their real job, and they were beginning to feel the impact of it in their day to day life. It wasn’t fun anymore. I read this, and it was like a light came on inside. I realized I felt the exact same way.
It had gotten to a point where I would play until 1 or 2am almost every night. Then I would stay in bed as absolutely late as possible, and still show up to work 5 minutes or so late every morning. I would zone out at work until lunch, and then maybe I’d get some work done. There wasn’t much for me to do, so it wasn’t noticed, but I felt more and more miserable every day. Reading this raider’s post on our forums was like a revelation. I decided I had to make a decision.
I played for a week more, and on Tuesday I told my boyfriend what I planned to do. I couldn’t believe it had gotten to this point. For a time, I played only for the sake of doing something with him, since all his time was absorbed with raiding MC and BWL. But now I felt as if I had no time to myself and even less time to spend with him. I was a slave to my computer, sitting in front of one all day at work, only to come home, scramble for some form of food and spend the rest of the evening sitting in front of my computer at home. I played out the week’s raids. I didn’t get any new gear; I tried to see the fun in it. We did well that week. No new accomplishments, but we breezed through most of the stuff we knew. But on Friday, I said “Alright guys, see ya” and I haven’t logged on since.
I can’t say I haven’t been bored at times, but I’ve finished a few books, walked more than I have in a year and actually enjoyed being alone and playing with my cat, who I had been mostly ignoring when at home because I was busy with the computer. My cat is acting more normal and loving, and I’m hoping to lose some weight by walking more often. If anything it gives me time to evaluate my day and listen to some audio books on my ipod.
Was playing WoW a bad decision? No. I met some really cool and interesting people. I don’t think I’ll ever forget some of the fun nights we had killing virtual monsters. The fun comes from the social aspect of the game, and it was something I will never forget. But when it got to be too much and when it began affecting my real life, my job, I’m glad I made the decision to quit. I’m a Wow Addict and I haven’t logged on in 19 days.

So I haven’t posted here in a while.

Been busy. Work was very busy with lots of websites to make and edit. Now I’m working on a completely different website that hopefully will be huge and popular and useful. Its a site where people can go to download and submit specifications, manuals, and brochures for test equipment and other things. Hopefully it’ll take off when its launched. I hope I hope.

And I’m trying to get back into the librivox.org stuff. If you don’t know what Librivox is, its a bunch of people who read chapters from books and short stories that are in the public domain. So you might get an entire audio book read by 30 people. Its really awesome. I’ve read poetry and some chapters and short stories so far, but I took a big hiatus when I moved this holiday, and I have started playing Wow more, so I have gotten behind on my obligations. I need to finish half a chapter of Don Quixote and read a few more sci-fi stories I offered to read.

But the big thing today is that, since its supposedly going to be 90 degrees tomorrow — maybe — I went to Home Depot and purchased another programmable thermostat to replace the old manual one in my apartment. I’m assuming, since its a fairly basic thermostat, that the wiring will not be complicated. Hopefully. Though I think I figured out after having the AC in the old apartment replaced that I purchased the wrong thermostat (it supported heat pumps, and I think I just had an AC/furnace instead). But this one I know is an AC/furnace so I purchased the less expensive “universal” model. Looks and is programmed just like the other I bought, just without the heat pump features. Yay. I’ll install that tonight hopefully. My electric bills haven’t been bad so far. I think the highest yet was just above $40, but I didn’t have the heat on much at all when it was cold, and even then it was only up to 65 if it was on. Seeing as I’m out of the house half the day, I don’t want to have to remember to turn my thermostat up in the morning and down in the evening. Much easier to just set it and forget it.

I’ll update when I’m done how it went, and if I broke anything in the process. Yay.

Greg’s Birthday party was fun – we went to Straub’s and he got a filet mignon (actually they ended up ordering 3, his mom and dad got them too) and Greg had a lobster tail with his so it was even more expensive. His parents got him a jacket and a shirt, and they look really nice. He enjoyed the Headphones I got him for our anniversary too. He got me an ipod alarm clock!! Yay! So we woke up to ipoddyness, but I set the clock wrong so it woke me up about 20 minutes early. Bleh.

But on a bad note, missed raid last night and they did down a boss and something REALLY REALLY REALLY good for my character dropped and the only other enhance shaman got it. So now thats 2 nights in a row that he’s gotten really nice gear that I could’ve used. I’m being replaced bit by bit

I was there first. It isn’t fair.

This week is amazingly busy… I suppose though, that this week will always be crazy so long as I’m with Greg.
His birthday is today, the 19th of November. Our anniversary is the day after that, the 20th. This year, thanksgiving comes the Thursday after both of these, and my parents get here on Wednesday. Crazy.

But Greg was really excited about his present. He asked for a mouse and headphones and I got him one of each for his birthday and then our anniversary. He went crazy about his mouse because its really spiffy and came with “tuning weights” that let you personalize the weight and balance of the mouse. Its “tuned for gaming” and it really looks it too.

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16826104191

I got him the same headphones that I have, because I know they are comfy and I enjoy the microphone quality.

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16826265009

I bought mine at UCF.
I don’t know where we’re going this evening, but last night we went to “Boston Fish House” which we hadn’t been to in a long long time. Only bad thing about fish house is that unless you get a filet of fish somethingrather, you inevitably end up with a plate full of fried food. I got some crunchy breaded salmon with coleslaw and “onion nuggets” which are basically the middle bits of the onion fried up like onion rings. Greg got scallops and fries and baked beans. Mine was yummy but I couldn’t finish half of it. Tonight I “think” we’re going to Stonewood.. but I can’t be sure. Greg said its where we went 6 months ago, and i don’t remember.

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Now playing: Brad Meltzer – The Millionaires (Unabridged) Part 1 of 7
via FoxyTunes

So, this past week I’ve started trying to jog on a regular basis. I’m still paying for my gym membership, but since we get home and Greg doesn’t want to go out again – and really I don’t want to 1) waste the gas to go to the gym after work (I’d rather go on the way home, but I doubt thats going to happen) and 2) go alone… I’ve taken to running up the street and walking back, or walking both ways or something like that. I suprised myself by being able to jog to the top of the street, which is about a mile. So last night I ran to the top, walked for a bit (basically stopped at the target to get a drink of water) and jogged back. I did at least 1.75 miles. I’m happy ^_^ But it HURT.

But, if I do this on a regular basis, I should really see some progress soon I hope. Though I really should stop paying money for YMCA if I’m not using it.

You’ve ever ended a sentence with the word “PSYCHE!” – Yup done that.

You can sing the rap to “The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air” – Yep.

You remember when Kurt Cobain, Tu Pac, River Phoenix, and Selena died. – I remember, but not that it mattered to me.

You know that “WOAH” comes from Joey from “Blossom” and that “How Rude!” comes from Stephanie from “Full House” – Never watched them but ok.

You remember when it was actually worth getting up early on a Saturday to watch cartoons. – YES! REBOOT!

You got super excited when it was Oregon Trail day in computer class at school. – OF COURSE! And carmen Sandiego!

You remember reading “Goosebumps” – Almost all of them

You know the profound meaning of “Wax on, wax off” – Waxing your car?

You have pondered why Smurfette was the only female smurf. – Hasn’t everyone?

You took plastic cartoon lunch boxes to school. – ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS BAYBEE!

You danced to “Wannabe” by the Spice Girls, Females: had a new motto, Males: got a whole lot gay-er. (so tell me what you want, what you really really want.) – Yep.

You remember the craze, then the banning of slap bracelets and slam books. – Stupid! I <3′d my slap bracelets.

You still get the urge to say “NOT” after (almost) every sentence…Not… – LOL

Where in the world is Carmen San Diego? was both a game and a TV game show. – BEST SHOW EVER

Captain Planet. – He’s our hero!

You knew that Kimberly, the pink ranger, and Tommy, the green Ranger were meant to be together. – No, Tommy wanted to be with me!!!

When playing power rangers with friends you fought over who got to be who…………and still all ended up being Tommy. – No! I made up my own.. I’m a geek

You remember when super nintendo’s became popular. – Yes! I remember the NES!

You remember watching home alone 1, 2 , and 3……..and tried to pull the pranks on “intruders”

“I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” – heehee

You remember going to the skating rink before there were inline skates – Yup

Two words… Trapper Keeper. – Fivestar, too!

You never got injured on a Slip ‘n’ Slide – Nope!

You wore socks over leggings scrunched down – Only at dance class

“Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack, all dressed in black, black, black, with silver buttons, buttons, buttons, all down her back, back, back” SHE ASKED HER MOTHER MOTHER MOTHER FOR FIFTY CENTS CENTS CENTS TO SEE THE ELEPHANTS PHANTS PHANTS JUMP OVER THE FENCE THE FENCE THE FENCE he jumped so high high high he touched the sky sky sky and he didnt come back back back til the forth of july ly ly he jumped so low ow ow he stubbed his toe toe toe and thats the end end end of the elephants show show show – woooo!

You remember boom boxes vs. cd players – Yes! and our first CD player was awful!

You remember New Kids on The Block when they were cool – Yeh.

You knew all the characters names and their life stories on “Saved By The Bell” – No, sorry.

You played and/or collected “Pogs” – YEP!

You had at least one Tamagotchi, GigaPet or Nano and brought it everywhere – A MILLION OF THEM!

You watched the original Care Bears, My Little Pony, and Ninja Turtles – <3 carebears and little pony!

NANCY DREW AND THE HARDY BOYS WERE THE BEST MYSTERY BOOKS – Isn’t that our parents, tho?

Yikes pencils and erasers were the stuff! – Yes! I forgot about those!

All your school supplies were “Lisa Frank” brand.(pencils.notebooks.binders.etc.) – Lisa Frank!!!

You remember when the new Beanie Babies were always sold out. – Yes!

You used to wear those stick on earings, not only on your ears, but at the corners of your eyes. – I had my ears pierced, but I remember decorating stuff with them!

You remember a time before the WB. – Yep

You’ve gotten creeped out by “Are You Afraid of the Dark?” – Many times!

You know the Macarena by heart. – Yes!

“Talk to the hand” … enough said – hehe

You thought Brain woud finally take over the world – Indeed!

You always said, “Then why don’t you marry it!” – lol

You remember when everyone went slinky crazy. – Slinky A slinky!

You remember when razor scooters were cool. – Bit late in the 90’s but yes.

Saturday, we celebrated Greg’s Mom’s birthday. We went to Mount Dora and ate lunch at the British Tea shop, which had some awesome mushroom & brie soup, and we all had tea which was fun and the soup was excellent. Afterwards, we looked around in the various shops. There is a doggie bakery there, and they also sell some kitty treats. Thinking it a *great* way to get some real meat into Sylvanis for a change (seeing as even though I picked the best I could, her food still contains an exorbitant amount of corn, meal, and wheat instead of MEAT) I bought some freeze-dried salmon treats. I fed her one as soon as we got home and she gobbled it up. I was happy.
Fast forward to last night. Kitty is trying to pee all over everything, and I look and there’s mucus in her urine again, meaning she’s starting to get another UTI. I hit myself stupid over the head. SALMON IS ONE OF THE FOODS THAT CAUSES PH IMBALANCE AND MAKES CATS HAVE UTI! AUGHGH! So I threw them away, ran to the store for some fresh kitty litter and fancy feast. I got the really really expensive kind with meat and eggs and no fish! She ate quite a bit of the white meat and egg florentine last night. She got turkey and greens this morning. Hopefully, the extra liquid and total lack of fishy requisites will clear up her system like it did the last time. I’ve come to the realization that she’s just touchy on these things, so as long as it doesn’t persist/get worse, there’s no need to see TED. *bangs head on wall*