I Should Not Check My Oil Ever Because I Can't Tell

So about a week or two ago I checked the oil level on my parents' minivan.  It wasn't drastically low, but it was low enough that at some point I would out some oil into the car -- not a whole lot, but enough to where I think it would make it a difference.

At some point earlier this week (or was it late last week?), when the weather was relatively warm, I put in, oh, a quarter to a third of a quart of oil -- enough, like I said, to make a difference, but not so much that it would ruin the engine (since Father put in oil less than a month ago).  Then, before I left the library (where, to update my last blog post, I spent about 90 minutes total), I checked the oil level again.  Frankly, if the level rose, I couldn't tell.  If the dots on the dipstick are only measuring a quart of oil (at least according to the websites I have read), there should have been an appreciable difference.  But if I go by the dipstick, it's as if I didn't put it any oil at all.

I remember once when my old car, the Lexus, was nearly empty of oil, and I was warned by the mechanic about it.  So I became obsessed with making sure oil was in the car ... to the point where I was told by another mechanic when I brought my car in that there was too much.  The van is working fine, so I think I am putting in too much oil.  In fact, I think I'm overthinking all this.  Maybe I shouldn't fool myself into thinking I need to add oil, because by the looks of it, what the hell do I friggin' know whether it needs it?

Should Be My Free Day. But It Won't Be

I should be able to sleep in today/Saturday.  But dammit, Mother wants me to really, really deposit these checks at the bank in the morning.  Then, come to think of it, it is time to type up that letter regarding needed to change the timing chain at the library.  And then, while I'm there, I might as well print out those real estate renewal certifications for my parents.  And really, I should finally fill out that dental claim form for the check-up I got a couple months ago.

And that's not counting buying groceries at Target and some alcohol at Total Wine.  And I should put some gas in the car.  And I wanted to exercise too, but considering all the other stuff I have to do, I no longer think I have the time.

I have to cram all of this in today/Saturday because I am working the Vikings Game tomorrow/Sunday.  It's a big one -- vs. the Packers, and both teams are good, and the broadcast is going national.  I am kind of nervous over this.  But, since the kickoff time got shifted from noon to 3, I get to come in three hours later.  In fact, I should be able to sleep in and get to the production truck well on time.  Ironically, it's today/Saturday, a day where I don't have work, where I nonetheless have to wake up early.  And that's why I am kind of in a tizzy right now.  And I should go to bed now.

How In The Fuck Does This Happen?!?!?!

I just sent a dispute letter on behalf of my fucking parents regarding a rental car they may or may not have reserved.  It was from September.  They say they didn't do anything.  I think they fucked up somehow.  But once again, the middle child has to clean up his parents' goddamn mess.

I sent a sternly worded e-mail.  Second time.  I tried to be polite the first time, but they have kept sending invoices once a month.  I am no longer being polite, not after I saw My Fucking Mother's credit card statement stating that that charge is considered resolved.  So why in the hell is this rental car company still bothering them?

I poured out my displaced anger in that e-mail.  (It's mostly about my mom, for whom I writing this e-mail, but hey, irony!)  I attach the image of the credit card bill, which I scanned at the library.  I send it.  Just in case, I go back to the sent e-mail and click on the attachment.  The credit card statement is there ... and so is the eyeglasses bill I scanned in order to send it online to the company that handles my vision insurance.  Now, this goddamn rental car company has both.

How in the fuck does that happen?  Yes, I scanned both the statement and my receipt at the same time.  But I made sure that they didn't get saved together.  I'm sure of it, goddammit!!!  And now I sent my receipt for fucking eyeglasses along with the credit card bill???

I'm worked up about it because of the tone of voice I injected into the e-mail.  I wasn't just not being polite.  I accuse them of harassment, and threatening legal action if they don't stop with these (truly) bogus bills.  And so the person handling this will be threatened (like I intended), and then they'll see this superfluous receipt which contains all my contact information.  If they can fuck me up, they now have the means to do it.

HOW IN THE FUCK DOES THIS HAPPEN?!?!?!

Lot Of Staring At My Phone

Maybe I usually do this anyway, but I have noticed lately that I have just laid on my bed and have gone through my phone for up to an hour at a time.  I could be doing chores or taking care of my hygiene, but instead I am just staring at my phone.  I am sapped of energy by the time I get home; it may be because of work or because of the end of Daylight Saving Time, I don't know.  But I don't have the juice to do something else.  But when I'm on my Twitter, or I'm reading something on my cell, I'm ... transfixed by it.  I feel as though I don't have the energy to wash my clothes or do the dishes, but I do have the energy to just scroll or doomscroll or what have you.  And while other people may feel rejuvenated after doing something they like, I get no energy boost after I am able to jerk my sight away from my phone.  I am still as tired as I was when I laid my eyes on my screen.  My body was just telling me I needed to go eat, or pee, or something else.

Tonight was a perfect example.  I had to go to the library, I needed to go grocery shopping, and I wanted Taco Bell for dinner.  Once I did all that, I went into my bedroom, looked at my phone, and just veged for an hour or so.  Meanwhile the blender and cup is still in the sink and my stuff remains bagged up in the living room.  But those things can wait.  They can always wait.  Because these days, I don't want to do anything else except stare a lot at my phone.

Fucking Driver's License Change

So my parents and I went to the bank this morning because they want my name on their security deposit box because ... they're gonna die soon, or something.  Don't tell them this, but that's when I remembered that my middle and last names are transposed on my driver's license.  Never bothered me, so I didn't feel as though I needed to tell anyone or, uh, do anything about it.  But when the bank rep (who, I have to admit, I was rude to) put in my name wrong, I then realized that this was a problem that needed to be fixed.  So did my parents, who didn't take a breath yelling at me all the fucking way home.

So now I'm at the library.  Well, I'm at the library now, but there's a license center attached to the library.  Spent a goddamn half-hour getting in line in order to get an application to change it.  I wonder, though, if it'll make any difference to them that the center got the name wrong and not me.  Is the difference responsibility in changing my license?  In other words, do I have to pay this?  I mean, this isn't my fuck-up, it's theirs.  Goddamn -- if I have to pay for someone else's mistake. ...

DNS Server Isn't Working My Ass

First time Comcat Internet has really gone down.  Worked till about midnight, and have tried resetting and flushing caches last night, this morning and after I came home from work, to no avail.  (That's why I'm blogging so late.)  Father thought it wasn't working because I hadn't paid my bill.  I scoffed at that idea ... then came here to the library to pay it, even though I did check my bill and it's not due until the 22nd.

I have no goddamn clue what it could be.  The only concurrent thing that has happened with this outage is the rise in heat and humidity, but I thought Internet cable was invulnerable to the heat.

So now I have no idea how to fix it.  And I have to -- fuck -- talk to Comcast about this.  One of my worst fears in life is to go into that rabbit hole called Comcast customer service.  I have heard horror stories from that circle jerk, and now I have wrestle with the beast.

Inconvenient

Tuesday: Not working.  Want to go to a movie, but for some reason they stopped opening up in the early morning, such as 11 or noon, and instead has first screening starting at the 1 o'clock hour.  So instead of immediately going from the coffeeshop to a flick, I have a couple hours to kill -- way too much to go to the theater, but not enough to go, say, exercise.  But I do it anyway.


And then I had to worry about which movie to go to.  I initially wanted to go to the sequel to Blade Runner, which was going to start at 2:45, which would give me a little more time to work out, but that means I would come home a bit past 6, which is a little too late to come home for dinner.  So I saw Only The Brave instead.  It's a good movie, at times a great movie, but that started at 1:30, so I really only had about an hour to exercise.


One other downside to the timing of Only The Brave: It let out early, a bit past 4, so I had all this time because I didn't want to get home too early.  I'm working, you know, wink-wink.  So I went to the library.  But not the one closest to me, because the frontage road to get there is still being paved, for some reason.  So I went from Caribou to the gym to the movie to the library to home.  (Plus I went back out to the library to work on a letter for my folks.)  A lot of driving that could have been cut down if I could have done some things at a different time.  Inconvenient.


Wednesday: Not working.  Big thing today is going to my psychotherapist.  Was supposed to see him Monday, but ***a* wanted to reschedule our fucking time, so we did that Monday instead, and I rescheduled this afternoon.  Got work inside the MRI in the morning, but there is a yawning gap between that and my session with my shrink.  So after I get done doing this (hopefully it'll be quick) I'll eat, work out, then see him ... in the same city where I'm typing this.  My gym is 16 miles and 22 minutes away, so I'll be going back and forth when I know I really shouldn't have to do this.


Oh, and I plan on going to the Dylan concert tonight.  Have no idea if I'll get a ticket, or if there will be decent-priced parking in downtown St. Paul.  Inconvenient.


Thursday: Not working.  Parents leave for their trip in the afternoon, but I will tell them I'm working out in the morning.  (I'll be drinking coffee instead.)


The problem comes in the afternoon.  I take them to the airport at 1.  I thought about going to My Favorite Stripclub (Cover Edition) to see my All-Time Favorite for the first time in years -- she works part-time and the early shift nowadays but they open at 3:30, and these are strippers, so they might not be at work right at 3:30.  I could also hit Hooters at the Mall Of America, but only for their Happy Hour, which is from 4 to 6.  On top of that, Ramsey Lewis is playing in downtown Minneapolis in the evening, either at 7 or at 9.  But I have at least two hours, if not three, in the afternoon to kill.  But I have all this shit I could do at night and I don't know how to arrange it.  Now, if my ATF isn't working that alleviates a lot, but that still means I have nothing to do in the afternoon.


(sigh) Inconvenient.

The Concert Ticket Game

I just returned from the library where I printed out a ticket to tonight's U2 concert.  I went on Stubhub, saw that one ticket was going from $59+, saw that with fees the total comes to less than $75 ... and after using half of my five-minute allotted time, I bit the bullet and charged it to my credit card.

And yet, from the time I started looking online for U2 tickets right through the moment I bought it till now, I wonder if I should have gone the scalping route.  Whenever I look for a ticket, be it for a big concert or a big game, I torture myself with the question: Should I buy it online or on the street?  I have two competing interests in that choice -- getting in while getting in as cheaply as possible.  If I buy through Stubhub or SeatgGek or any other scalper site, I risk buying a ticket for much more than could be available just outside U.S. Bank Stadium.  On the other hand, if I don't buy on the Internet, there's a chance that the tickets I get on the street will be more expensive -- or I risk not seeing anyone selling any tickets at all.

For the past week or so I've been monitoring the prices for the U2 concert on both Stubhub and SeatGeek.  There wasn't any rhyme or reason to them other than the fact that the cheapest seats (the ones I was looking for) was falling in price, but slowly, like a feather hitting the ground.  That makes me think that there would be tickets available on the street.  I could have waited another hour or two and purchased them cheaper online, maybe.

And yet I remember a case where I hesitated and I lost, and where I did not hesitate and I did not lose.  It was early August when US Bank (pronounced "oooos-bahnk") Stadium opened, and the first-ever event was an International Champions Cup friendly between Chelsea and AC Milan.  I wax long about it here, but in summary, I saw decent prices, thought I could get a ticket for dirt cheap through a scalper, went, saw only one selling one ticket for $300, then quickly went to the library where 600 reasonably-priced seats vanished at both scalpers sites.  To this day I still can't comprehend how in the heck that happened.

I remembered that when the Ryder Cup rolled around in early October.  I don't remember the timeline, but at some point before the week of the tournament I bit the bullet and bought a Grounds Pass for the Sunday singles.  The price was kind of floating down, but at $200 I purchased one.  The week of the Ryder Cup those tickets were going for $300, and I tweeted with a local sportscaster who said his friends were seeing tickets for that price as well, thus they couldn't go.

I don't remember the last time I bought a ticket on the street.  It may have been a college hockey tournament game the spring of last year.  But the experiences trying to buy tickets for both that soccer friendly and the Ryder Cup may have steered me into buying tickets exclusively online.  I may now be gun-shy, though, and I sometimes wonder if I'm just a sheep going along, taking the safe route when I could get as good of a ticket (the one I bought is to the side of the stage, and is partially obstructed) for cheaper if I were more patient and haggled with a scalper.

In the end, my love of U2 and of The Joshua Tree album (which they will perform in full) convinced me that I would regret not seeing them (and opener Beck, which is a factor) more than overpaying.  I still won't like it if I see a bunch of scalpers with fists full of tickets in their hands, and if I hear a "$60?  Sold!" I'm going to stick my fingers in my ears and run towards the security line.  But, well, it's too late.  I bought it, and so I'm going to the concert.

By the way, I saw U2 the last time they blew through here, at TCF Bank Stadium in late July, 2011.  Then, I was determined to get a ticket from a scalper.  And there were many tickets available on the road up to the stadium.  And so I got an OK floor ticket for $40.  Does a U2 ticket on the street double in price in six years?  For my sanity, I have to hope so.

What really gets me now?  I fear coming home.  Right now, I am typing this in the library.  Why?  Well, to blog post my thoughts, for one thing, and I do need to do some things that are better done with the faster connection of a library network.  But I want to forestall coming home and seeing My Fucking Father's fucking face.  He did say that he knew I wasn't going to listen to him, and I'm not.  But there really is no telling what faces me once I get home.  Will he have moved out my stuff?  Will Mother be at the front door with a pamphlet for an apartment she checked out today?  Fuck, I don't know.  And unfortunately, I'll have to find out soon.

Expenses Without Receipts

Starting from Saturday, October 29:

• After raking leaves (and being stymied from mowing and seeing the lawn because it started raining earlier than I anticipated) and before I went to the library to print out some real estate stuff for my parents, I went to this place whose brand new opening was mentioned on City Pages: Fat Chance Foods/Sandwich Shop, located very close to the brand new library down the road from my gym.  If it's mentioned in City Pages, heck, I have to try it.  I had what's called the Conveyor Belt, which is a sub sandwich with a bunch of meat, fries and a can of Coke.  Oh my God, that goddamn hoagie was so fucking big.  Had a whole heaping of fries, too, like I said in the last blog post.  Plus the cash register broke down.  But what the really nice lady did as they were waiting for the register to boot back up was put my order in and allow me to wait, and let me pay after I got my food.  Now that's customer service.  And therefore I rounded up my tip to: $12.
• The stuff I needed to do at the library was re-type an invoice and add a letter to it.  Printed those out: 20 cents.
• This night was the last-ever regular-season game for Minnesota United at Blaine's National Sports Center, and so I made sure I bought a ticket for it (on Stubhub) well before the date.  United have not played well in the Fall Season, and with their upset 1-0 loss at Carolina, they gave up control of their own destiny in reaching the NASL playoffs.  Well, they finished their collapse with a 1-0 loss to the New York Cosmos, and so this match was the last-ever game period for MNUFC at the NSC.  I walked to my car and intended to sit there to wait out the traffic, but then I realized: This may be the last time I'm ever at this place.  It's about ten minutes away from me, but the first time I went -- in fact the only time I'd ever go -- to this stadium was when the soccer team that achieved the highest level in the United State Soccer Pyramid, whether it was the Thunder, the Stars, or United.  And after, what, nine years of going there, it's over.  Minnesota United are going up to Major League Soccer (ironic that this franchise was eliminated from playoff contention and yet they were "promoted," in a way), and they're moving to TCF Bank Stadium to accommodate major-league crowds, and the National Sports Center will go back to exclusively hosting amateur sports events.  With that chapter closed with the defeat, I ran back inside to snap a few photos before they shut the lights out and/or I was told to leave.  Because it was The Last Game (at least The Last Game I Would Go To, even though I didn't know at the time that MNUFC would lose), I bought a hot dog and chips from the in-house concessions instead of from food from one of the many food trucks allowed to sell there.  I also got a can of Strongbow because I was thirsty for a taste of apple.  I was going to give a tip, but all the food server did was pop open the can.  And I don't mean to be cheap, but ... he just opened a can.  The total: $12.
• Thursday the 27th ... we were/are in the middle of donations for food made by company workers, and I couldn't pass up getting nachos with cheese and chili and sour cream and salsa.  The farting was worth the: $5.
• I then went to the closest car wash from work.  Been months since I got it washed.  Charged the wash on my credit card, but I tipped with money: $2.
• On Wednesday the 26th I tossed in some dough for a buffet of baked goods: $5.
• That evening I went to Robbie Stadium to watch the final regular season game of the season from the Gopher soocer team.  (Aside: What the Big Ten and all college conference should do is line up all final regular-season matches at the same, like what the World Cup does for the final group matches in each group and what all pro leagues do for the final matches of their years.  Makes it more exciting.  I actually spent that afternoon at work writing down conference results from teams tied in the standings to see what was at stake for each team.  I'm a total nerd like that.)  Hot dog, small Coke, program: $9.50.
• Let's hurtle back to Monday, October 24, where I was in kind of a tizzy over what chore I should tackle after work.  I thought about finally getting my car washed, but then remembered that it was going to rain the next day.  No matter even if that's what I wanted to do; I was on the highway when I had to turn around and head back to the office because I forgot my phone.  Still, there was enough time for me to go to the library and print out the United ticket, a Groupon for a massage I'll be using in fucking April (don't get me started on that), and this claim form for defective brass fittings that my parents might get some money for.  I told Mother I would be coming at 6:30 and even after that I got in late, at 7.  The cost of the printouts was: 60 cents.
• On Saturday the 22nd I also went to the library to print stuff out, but for what, I right now don't remember.  I do remember the cost, however: 20 cents.
• After that I went to *a***'s house, the Moroccan, for a massage with a happy ending.  I wonder if I should turn this into a blog post.  Nah, I'll probably forget, so here's a summary.  I was late by ten minutes or so from leaving the library; I spent another ten minutes knocking on the door; just as I getting into the door I saw *a*** coming out; from all the bottles strewn across her place she probably was just waking up from a party; before we began I walked towards her in the dining room with my dick hanging out of my pants, to which she elbowed it and then grabbed it for a bit; she told me to go to her bedroom while she took a quick shower; the whole thing took 30 minutes when she promised me 60, but I didn't care, because after asking her, *a*** sucked my dick!  And then she said goodbye to me.  Eh, I would see her again if only she didn't live so far away.  But she was so valuable for her oral pleasuring -- only: $100 (!!!)
• Friday, October 21 ... went to Glam Doll.  Want to patronize it still, but with night coming on and me still staring at my gut, I'm not sure if I can make this a weekly thing anymore.  I feel sad, but I have to cut back.  Two donuts and tip: $10.29.
• On Thursday the 20th some bitch at work short-changed me on soup.  It's supposed to go up all the way, goddammit!  I think she has something against me.  I might elaborate on this some other time.  But I had to make a donation for this: $5.
• And on Tuesday, October 18 they were selling donuts, and I grabbed a few and I paid: $2.

Good through October 29.

Man, I Don't Even Care

So this job was supposed to last until Labor Day, and then we were told that it was barely going to last two weeks, and then oh, by the way, it ends on Thursday, and also by the way, don't come in on Monday, and remember that we'll probably end early on Thursday.  With the rug being pulled out from under us so utterly like that, why in the fuck am I going back to work?

Seriously, I could just go to Caribou tomorrow morning and listen to Charlie Pierce on Stephanie Miller, then go eat lunch at some fast food joint, then go to the library and burn through my e-mails, then go to the parking ramp and sleep, then work out, and then go home, and I would be as productive as I would be as I would at the test scoring place.  And hey, since it's only going to be three days of work (and more like 21 hours, if that), why not just stay in unemployment?

Oh, well.  I think I'll just masturbate through this Pleasure magazine and then go to sleep.

No Stadium-Christening Soccer For Me!

I didn't make it to the AC Milan-Chelsea International Champions Cup match that was the first-ever event at U.S. Bank Stadium (which I want to call "ooo-sss-bahhhnk stadium") last night.  I'm kind of pissed, to be honest, but I got blindsided.

For a couple times in the past three weeks up to last night I was looking at Stubhub, the website where I'm more frequently purchasing tickets in order to avoid dealing with scalpers.  I had seen many tickets available there.  They weren't great; they were in the upper level and they cost $55 including taxes and fees, way more than the base price of $40 in those sections.  But there were plenty of them, and so, even though it was the first event ever there, I didn't think it was going to sell out.

Therefore I was at a crossroads: Do I buy online then or buy on the street later?  If I do the former I take the risk of paying more for a ticket when there could be plenty more that scalpers would be offering at closer to face value, and for a guy who's not working now, I need to save as much as I can.  If I do the latter, I run the risk of paying a lot more money after passing up so many seats.

In the end, I decided to take the risk and buy the day of.  There were so many seats available, even on Ticketmaster, which I checked on Tuesday night, even though they were the crappy seats on the corners.  I took the tour of the stadium during its open house a couple weeks ago and I figured that at worst I would pay as cheap as I could and stand in the upper-level concourse, which actually is a great vantage point to watch a game.  And I trusted that I could use whatever scalper savvy I had to bargain down for a ticket that I thought was going to be available.  In short, I felt like a stooge to take the sure thing when I knew I didn't have to.

Well hell, I guess I had to in retrospect.  First of all, I heard from a spokesman on the news last night that the stadium would sell out, and that floored me.  Then, as I was walking from the west side of downtown towards the east, it seemed like everybody was making a pilgrimage to the stadium.  That stadium can seat a lot of people, but I still thought tickets were available.  But then I realized I didn't see something: scalpers.  Well, I saw one, and he was offering one ticket -- at $300, I think.

This can't be.  So I fell back on my Plan B: Going to the library downtown and printing myself a ticket.  I do want to get in, so if there were no scalpers, I figured that I would get back on Stubhub and buy one, assuming the prices didn't skyrocket.

Now, this is where things went sideways on me.  I got on Stubhub.  The multitude of tickets that were there narrowed all the way to three batches of tickets.  Cheapest price: $125, and that's not including taxes and fees.  This can't be!  So I refreshed like the screen froze.  Amazingly, the cheapest price went down to $115.  I didn't know Stubhub had dynamic pricing.  Plus I could instantly download the ticket, so I figured I'd buy one, print it out, and just walk to the stadium in time for the game to start.  It's a hell of a lot more than $55 or even $60 I would have paid for if I bought it just the night before, but I could stomach the, oh, $125-130 for a memento ticket.

You need to register for an account to get a ticket on Stubhub.  Then, when you want a ticket, they make you logon.  And it took me three minutes before realizing I was putting in the wrong e-mail address.  Stupid me, especially since I had used Stubhub last week to purchase Atlanta Braves tickets and I didn't idiotically use the wrong e-mail.  When I finally corrected it, which was a bit after 8 p.m. (the match started at 8:30), all the tickets were sold.  I want to think that even if I put in the correct e-mail address I would have been too late, but I think I'm thinking that to myself to make myself feel better.

I moseyed on back to the stadium to make one last-ditch effort, just in case all those tickets that were available less than 24 hours before and that were somehow sopped up in the hours since were for the taking on the street, and that the scalpers got in over their heads at a surprise ticket glut.  Didn't work out that way; the other loiterers holding up one or two fingers demonstrated starkly that demand outstripped supply.  There was one other dude there that had a ticket to sell, and he did not budge from $250.  So shortly after the match kicked off, I kicked out.

Look, I just didn't think the game would suddenly sell out.  A guy who works at the Nomad was also there, and he swore he would not buy a ticket for a friendly between AC Milan and Chelsea for $250, partially because he didn't think the price for a ticket like that would ever get that high.  I still don't know how in the hell that happened.  What, a bunch of supporters from England and Italy looked the prices of the tickets, said what the hell, and flew into the Twin Cities?  About a hundred tickets on Ticketmaster and almost 500 tickets on Stubhub, all taken up in a matter of hours?  No.

I'm disappointed, but not bitterly so.  At the end of the day, you have to look in the mirror and be OK with what's looking back at you.  You don't have to be happy, you just have to be able to live with yourself.  And I can.  I thought that my familiarity with the area (though not with the stadium) would help me and that tickets available the night before would still be available.  Logic led me to decide what I decided.  Nothing wrong with that.  Now, I was wrong and I missed out on a landmark event (even though I heard that the concourses were sardine cans), but hey, I saved money.  Still having money and my principles?  Not the worst thing in the world.