April Foolz

I always consider April Fools jokes one step below Surprise Parties, and this one was no exception. Imagine my surprise when I turned my calendar to April and it's essentially an advertisement for THIS blog—which I haven't written anything in since March—of LAST year. I was content to let this particular online journal die a quiet, undignified death, but now it's Miss April in some asshole's calendar. I mean, it was bad enough when this Russell guy told me he used my name for his calendar (Ray Speen's Online Empire, or something), but I didn't feel like I should be a hardon about it—especially because he didn't tell me until AFTER he had them printed. Fine. I don't mind helping a guy out who is obviously struggling. But now I feel like I have to write something here, just in case someone who has this calendar decides to look. Not that that's likely, but... whatever. I probably should write something every day this month, or so. No... forget that. I'll write something else though. It's not like I don't have anything to complain about. Though, life here in Mount Erie is generally pretty mellow, uneventful, and uninteresting. That last post I put up is surprisingly long, and I can't remember what possessed me to carry on so. I'll try to get-to-the-point from now on. Also, I noticed that there are no less than 34 comments after it! I glanced at them, and every last one of them is in Chinese—or at least I think it's Chinese—one of those languages that you can't even kind of figure out if you don't read it. Probably talking about how good looking I am, but I'll never know. Maybe I should delete them all. Not that I'm one of those "English only" fascists—but come on—if you can read the post, why not comment in the same language? Well, whatever. I guess that's why they call it the World Wide Web. Or maybe they don't call it that anymore.

Bally Total Ripoff

I have refrained from writing anymore about my gym because it just sounds like complaining. It sounds like complaining because it is. No one has patience for that, not even me. But apparently I was the only one who didn't know when you went in to a gym for one of those "free trial memberships" they turn you over to the car salesmen who manage to rope you into a two year contract you can't get out of without a lawyer. I knew I was being swindled, but I guess I didn’t care-- though I’m not sure why I didn't care. I guess that's why they’re car salesmen. Because they can sell you something you know you'll be paying for even after you don't have it anymore. In my case it was that swimming pool. I wanted to swim! He said, "No one's ever in the pool." I guess that was the truth if you didn't count all those swimmers, and the dozen or so Russian ladies who are ALWAYS in the pool, and the fraternity splash parties.

Still, I was optimistic. When I saw the guy eating the sandwich and loaf of bread in the shower, I was thinking things would go well. And if the pool was busy and the hot tub was being cleaned (and you were GLAD it was being cleaned) you could always go in the sauna. Except the sauna was colder than the room outside the sauna. That simple observation is usually a good sign that something is wrong. A sauna may be a lot of things, and come in a lot of varieties, but one constant is that it's supposed to be hot. If you can store meat in it, that's usually a bad sign.

Anyway, I've moved now. I'm still paying for the gym, but I have the option to chose one here in Mount Erie, where I've moved to. We'll see. I haven't found one with a pool yet, but seeing how the transit system here is good-- I mean it has to be-- up and down the mountain, endlessly-- I'll keep looking, when I'm not looking for a job that is.