After one night of pizza for dinner I slept poorly and had weird dreams.

After two nights of pizza for dinner I slept quite badly indeed and had nightmares, which woke me up several times. Oh, and some schmuck was walking around near MLK yelling obscenities loud and long enough to wake me up. Oh, then there was the guy whose car wouldn’t start. Oh, let’s not forget the random coughing spell shortly before midnight. I think I spent more time awake than asleep last night.

Add a tepid shower to all of this and it’s a wonder that I’m in any kind of halfway-decent mood at all…

Let’s see… Arthur C Clarke is gone, the Killer Death Flu Of Death has made merry havoc for everyone I know over the last couple of months, fuel prices keep going upward, taxes are hitting me (and a few others) harder than they did last year, I rarely see more than a couple of my friends anymore, I’ve lost touch with several others entirely, I still can’t find comfortable sheets for my bed, I’m getting older and creakier, every one of my computers has some kind of annoying problem getting in the way of my doing what I actually want to use them for, nearly everything worth watching anymore is old stuff, let’s not even go into the fact that there hasn’t been a movie worth seeing in the theater since mid-2007, and, and, and…

2008? You can go sit in the corner. Don’t come out until you can play nice.

Because I said so. That’s why.

Year of the Rat, my ass.

With apologies to the venerable Monty Python, what follows is a barely-embellished account of my experience a few minutes ago at Ye Olde Purveyors Of Hot Stimulating Beverages…

“Hello, what can I get for you this morning?”

“Hmm. How about a chonga bagel?”

“Sorry, we’re out.”

“The other one, the Hawaiian bagel?”

“We’re all out of bagels.”

“Right. Sandwiches, then. I’ll take a sausage breakfast sandwich.”

“Ah, we’re out of those too.”

“Well, that’s a bit disappointing. You know, I’ll try something new and have the ham sandwich.”

“Actually…”

“Wow. You know, I’m starting to feel like I should turn and shout at the band to stop that bloody singing. But there’s no band here.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind. What sandwiches do you have?”

“We have the pepper bacon!”

“One of those, then, thanks.”

It then took several minutes for the girl to make my cocoa, not because it was particularly busy but because she stopped down for a while to… dink around, as near as I can tell. I wish the Evil Coffee Empire outpost nearest my home wasn’t staffed with such dingbats. I also wish they’d get their food deliveries on time!

The suffering I endure for your amusement…

I’ll make this quick because I’m tired…

As of last Saturday, I’m thirty-six years old. Hurrah! I enjoyed quality time with my daughter (mostly spent playing Heroes of Might and Magic V) and dinner out with Kyla and a bunch of former coworkers (during which I tried lamb kabobs for the first time, which I rather liked) and received birthday presents of a water bottle (don’t knock it, I’d mentioned getting one) and a gift card useful for buying DVDs (I’m not an addict, I can stop any time, honest) and the door to my room has been repaired so I no longer have to wrench my arm to latch it (seriously, I spent part of Sunday just going in and out of my room to enjoy how easy it is to operate the door now).

I am also, as of some-time-late-this-weekend, pretty much over the Killer Death Flu Of Death, Wot Kills. Finally. Our long national nightmare two-week ordeal is finally over. Now to try to get caught back up on my life…