I really need to stop existing outside of the Leafs viewing area, if only because I miss games like this. Apparently, we rocked socks. Yeah, in spite of the fact the Isles were kind of in a goalie predicament of the highest order–hey, is Telqvist still playing? You guys could use him. Still, I’ll take the 2 points. Now where’d I put my playoff predicting machine? Ah screw it, we’re still nowhere close.
I’ve officially managed to date Jessica‘s computer. Its official age, as of right now, is older than dirt. Yesterday was an adventure in the upgrading of RAM. After finally figuring out this thing cannot keep its various periferals attached while it’s being worked on, I got to playing around with a couple 1 GB sticks I punked from Kyle while I was over there. In so doing, I think I did both Jessica and him a favour. Before me, he wasn’t sure if one of his sticks went south on him. That took all of 10 seconds to determine for absolute sure–it’s toast. As for the other? It might as well have been, at least so far as I’m concerned. This machine just plain ain’t supporting. It’s DDR2 RAM, for starters, which apparently this motherboard predates by a couple years. Add to that, I think this thing only goes up to PC2700, which well, do they even make RAM that slow anymore? So that was a fun excuse to throw open the case.
Now, it’s off to a valentine’s get together with a few friends, one of the 80 million things I love about Rochester. Mockery? Snarkery? General geekery? Yeah that’s still coming. As for now? I see food in my near to immediate future. Catch you on the flip.
This weekend’s interesting way? Attempt to teach her html. The challenge was provoked when, while preparing to write a blog post of her own, she realized her attempt to incorporate something into it would go a few times easier with those particular skills. So now I have a weekend project. Which may have the added side-affect of also adding more content to her blog. See? There is method to the geek’s madness. Or perhaps it’s just madness. Either way, she learns html and I win. I’ll take it.
I never know what I’m getting with this team. Sometimes, we actually play. Sometimes, we don’t and still manage to win. Sometimes, we play enough for 3 games and get smoked. And sometimes–like, for example, that last game–we just get smoked. But hey, these are always nice.
Oof. I didn’t even bother so much as glancing in the general direction of this game’s recap. Score says it all. Or at least says enough. Once again, just oof.
Okay, we need to stop doing this. I’m seriously starting to see playoffs. No, seriously. It’s February, we’re just about kissing 50 points, and Ottawa’s still doing laughably. We don’t soon knock this off, I might actually have to start regretting not being able to watch these games. Shhh, I said might. Don’t push me.
If we keep doing this, I might just become a fan of the shootout. On the other hand, we’d have to win a shit ton more of these. Could happen, right? Right? … Right?
I’ve been on ODSP’s case for, like, ever about not escentially drumming us out of the running financially, for what little my being on them’s managed to accomplish. For those just tuning in, ODSP is the Ontario Disability Support Program, also known as those folks what pay me because no one likes to hire the blind guy and I still have bills to pay. I’ve done everything from harass folks locally to write the folks who actually make the decisions, most of which eventually ended up documented on this thing calling itself a blog. Adding to my reasons for harassing folks at both ends of the food chain, my recent attempt to save money has prompted ODSP to attempt to save a little on its end. Thus, not doing a whole lot on mine to make actually saving money worth my while.
Let me bring you up to speed. I live in a fairly cheap apartment, rent-wise. It’s $550 a month, plus your electricity. For most places, that’s cheap. For Pembroke, I’m surprised it was even vacant. I’ve lived there since 2009. At the end of 2010, I decided it would be in my best financial interest to do the roommate thing. Yeah, that would eventually require a bigger apartment, but two bank accounts are almost always better than one, so the math should have worked out. Then I got a phone call. I’d forgotten there was actually two different types of math at play, here. There was actual math, as in that stuff you were forced to sit through before they’d let you get out of highschool, then there’s ODSP math. That, apparently, follows an entirely different, much more nonsensicle, set of rules.
We ran the math out, figuring we could probably manage to free up an average of roughly $250 between the two of us, which could easily be realocated into bills we otherwise would have had a difficult time paying had we decided to be stubborn about it and forego the whole idea of a roommate. Those numbers in hand, we actually planned our month of January figuring if things changed, they wouldn’t change by a whole heaping lot, so we could optionally minus 50 from here or there if we needed to in order to cover off something else. We played with it until it didn’t hurt our heads, then left it there. The month rolled over, and shortly after, the phone rang. It was ODSP. They’d decided they’d be cutting a nifty little slice off each of our monthly allowances, to the tune of very nearly what we were figuring we could just end up reusing. On top of that, a letter showed up in my name 3 days after that wonderfully heartwarming conversation, escentially telling me they believe I was overpaid for the month of December and they’d be collecting that back, kind of now like. And they did it in the form of slicing off what they were going to, plus what they thought would be an awesome magical number to just sort of start at for repayment. Yeah, just how I wanted to start my 2011. While dealing with that, we were also looking at the possibility of said larger apartment, and trying very hard not to laugh at the prospect of them arguing with us about our attempt to save money just long enough that they wind up being forced just by way of our expenses to reverse themselves anyway, and we’d still wind up not having actually managed to come out any further off the financial ropes.
Since I hadn’t yet figured out exactly how much they’d be snagging from me each month to compensate for having paid me more than they’ve decided I’m worth, I went with their usual practice and left things as they were for the time being. Then the roommate fled to see his girl, and I came down here. I wouldn’t find out until a few days later, when I both had time and wasn’t at too much a risk of losing a lung to actually do the month’s finances on my end–belatedly, but hey, they got done. Their definition of a repayment plan leaves me with less money at the end of it than I had pre-roommate. All told, I actually ended up losing most if not all of what I was kind of aiming to put towards the actual paying of bills.
Look, guys, I get you’re cheap. Really, I do. I get you measure your $10 annual increases in the context of millions of dollars combined. Again, I really do. But not even you can comprehensibly wrap your heads around this attempt at math, as evidenced by the fact no one I’ve spoken to on this file’s come anywhere near close to an explanation that doesn’t try very hard not to trip over itself and fall flat on its face. Just what actual sense does this make? Seriously? Not only does ODSP want to not actually give you more money, but if you actually try and save yourself some of the money they do give you, that only serves to invite them to claw it back whether they actually should or not. And of course, the system is designed in such a way that they decide you can live on this amount, and you get to provide them 80 metric tons of documentation on why you can’t, then wait for them to maybe or maybe not–usually not–change their minds.
ODSP is here to foster independence and help recipients to actually function on their own without needing to spunge off family/friends. Just don’t actually try and avoid spunging. Turns out ODSP math doesn’t allow for it.
We discovered completely by accident over the weekend that Rascal Flatts is coming to Rochester at the end of the month. Not normally being ones to make plans that far in advance, and looking for an excuse to cellebrate neither of our having been confined to the bed for the majority of this week, we thought we’d take full advantage. So yesterday, while the fiance worked her ass off, I punked a couple tickets for the event. If you’re in the Rochester area on the 24th of this month and don’t have anything else to do, they play at the Blue Cross Arena. There are, last I checked, still decently priced tickets available. If you’re going and want to sneak in a quick hello pre-show, give a shout out. For the interested, the show starts at 7:30–bring your love for country music and optionally some booze.
Yeah it’s still 2 weeks early, but to get us in the mood for it and, well, to interest anyone else who may be considering, have a random RF video. Readers of the RSS and/or LJ variety may need to click over to the actual site to watch it. Sorry–limitation of technology. In the meantime, bring on the party atmosphere. Where’s my vodka?
So this has been a very entertaining week content-wise, hasn’t it just? Yeah, about that. Sorry. Those curve balls I kind of made reference to on Friday? They just keep comin’. In this week’s latest curve, hi, sick days a-plenty.
Some of you will probably recall Jessica spent most of last week sick, starting on Sunday. This includes the entire first week I spent here. She took Tuesday off, but that was about it for reasons related to the fact her bosses are personifications of different aspects of Satan. Fortunately she had Friday off anyway, so after we got our running around done that needed to happen, she could get her rest accordingly. Friday was also apparently my turn to have whatever it was she was having–that’s one meal order I could definitely live without, next time. So that thing what laid her out flat on her ass on Tuesday snuck up on me Friday, and laid me out flat on mine. So now, Friday afternoon/evening consisted of her trying very hard to get over what she had, and me trying very hard not to die from what I just picked up. I spent parts of that weekend in a sort of zombie state, which made going to visit friends on Saturday an adventure in Dayquill to be sure–sorry about that, Candi/Kyle. Next time I should be less likely to infect the little one. Still, we had an awesome time on Saturday even if we were both in various stages of recovery, and Sunday while she returned to work, I returned to being vaguely close to human solely with the assistance of Dayquill.
Monday was pretty much the easiest day so far. Even though once again it was a pill popping day. And by Tuesday, I only had to take one in order to go take in birthday cellebrations with friends at Sugar Mountain, a local cupcake place that, just for the record–and I don’t do a lot of the whole cupcake thing regularly, owns your soul twice and calls it a warm-up. I’d actually began to look slightly less like death warmed over around then, so going out–even though I was popping pills to do so–was actually enjoyable.
Today was a personal moment in admittedly short history. For the first time since this thing had knocked me on my ass, I was actually upwardly mobile at a reasonable hour this morning. And more fun, even, was I was doing it without the assistance of drugs. Not that I didn’t have any, they just for a change weren’t actually needed. I actually felt relatively close to human all day, which took some doing to say the absolute least. Unfortunately, it means the blog’s kind of sort of been lacking in updates again, but I’ve yet to perfect the android version of me who can take over things like this while I go attempt not to misplace a lung. However, now that I’m back to something vaguely resembling normal, hopefully this time I can get back to something that resembles a regular update to this thing–including, apparently, 3 or 4 hockey games I’ve up and ignored, and a whole crap ton of mockery of various shapes and sizes. Oh, and hey, Murphy? God gave you 1 day. You didn’t have to take the other 80 million. Knock it off with the curve balls already. That’d rule.