The Life of Riley is a weekly post that details my activities since I ended a thirteen year career as a corporate drone. These posts are usually long, personal, and geared more for my own memory than the reader’s entertainment.

Sunday (Day 315): #1GF! Loooooves Country

The weather was crappy, so we puttered around the house all day, with me giving up on showering. The biggest thing I did was create a classic country playlist on FineTune to prove to #1GF! that she actually likes country. She will solidly deny it, but she was singing along to a lot more songs than I could.

We ended the day by watching a Netflix recommended movie. It was so frustratingly bad, that I had to shut it off in just over 12 minutes. #1GF was asking for mercy in 5, but I kept hoping that it would pick up somehow. Sometimes, I hate Netflix for recommending movies that suck so bad it hurts.

Monday (Day 316): Don’t Be An Ultra-Douche

I called the contractor because nothing had been going on with the house for a week and then did the food shopping while listening to Valient Thorr. I took the self check line, and had to stand behind a woman who was writing a check. A couple of soft rules for the modern supermarket shopper:

Rule 1. Don’t write checks at the fucking supermarket. Use cash, a credit card, or beep beep boop your way through with a debit card if you have to. Don’t write a check. There are people behind you who, even though they look like they are really interested in the plethora of gum choices, they are just counting the number of packs so that they don’t reach over and strangle you.

Rule 2: Self checkout lines are for people who are trying to minimize human contact and race out the door. DO NOT FLAG SOMEONE OVER TO PAY BY FUCKING CHECK IN THIS LINE. You’re fucking up the system and porking everyone behind you.

Rule 3: If you forgot rules 1 and 2,and you’re paying by check in the self-check line, at least bag your fucking groceries while you wait. Don’t flag down the manager, write your check, wait for approval, and THEN start bagging. Fuck. Have that shit bagged up before the dude gets back. Not doing so will mark you as an ultra douche who doesn’t give a flying shit about anyone around them. Wait. Are you retarded? Of course not because even retarded people can follow simple fucking rules.

After standing behind a check writing ultra-douche in the self-checkout line, I ended up leaving the milk on the counter and remembered it only after I got outside. A woman picked up that something was wrong probably due to me bending at the waist and mouthing “shit!” as I walked out, so I had to pull off my Walkman, shrug, and tell her that I forgot the milk. I had been in a low mood for a week or so, but as I walked across the parking lot, I suddenly felt really awesome about not having to work. Maybe it was being free of the ultra-douche, or something else, but it was a great mood lift. Rather than lug my groceries back in to purchase some milk, I went to another grocery store on the way home.

When I got home, I did some research and wrote my Joseph Palmer beard post.

Tuesday (Day 317): Posters and Cabinets

Picked up a bill from the contractor, and went home to work on my FineTune Friday poster. It looks like the ending of a Warner Brother’s cartoon, but I was wondering if it was copyright infringement since I made it on my own without any copying. Maybe it’s some sort of trademark infringement. I don’t know. The poster idea took me a while to come up with, but I thought it came out ok.

Once #1GF! got home, we went out to both of the local home improvement stores to look at bathroom cabinets to fit in our layout. It took us a couple of hours, but we came up with some ideas to take back to the contractor. Unfortunately, our ideas would’ve been special order, so we decided we’d call the cabinet people to see if they could get us a better deal. By then it was 10, so it would have to wait until the next day.

Wednesday (Day 318): The Unimaginative Winnah

Called the cabinet people and told them I’d get them a rough sketch of what we were looking for. I didn’t want to turn on the PC, but it was the only way that I could work up something in Inkscape and send it through e-mail. Once that was done, I played with The GIMP and answered some e-mail. That killed a number of hours, which is why I didn’t want to turn on the PC in the first place.

When #1GF! got home, I made her dinner and we watched Lars and the Single Girl. Even though the movie was about a guy who falls in love with a sex doll, it was remarkably good and I would highly recommend it. During the movie, #1GF! swore that one of the actresses also appeared on a home improvement show called Clean House. I said that she was wrong. She offered to make a bet. As a gentleman, I asked her if she was sure, because she was going to lose.

She looked on the net for answers while I cleaned up. Oddly, she was still researching by the time I was finished cleaning (hmm) and couldn’t find an answer that took me 8.6 seconds to find with Google. She was dead wrong, but because I was unimaginative, I didn’t actually win anything beyond bragging rights. And then #1GF! tried to take my one win for the day away by turning the situation around like I wasn’t allowed to say things like “In your face”. Dude. I won. When I get a win, I take advantage of it.

Thursday (Day 319): Checking The Plot Plan

On the way home from dropping off a check to the contractor, I decided to check out how much it was to have my car detailed so that it will be in prime shape for selling it. I love rocket car, but it seems so lonely out there in the parking lot. I don’t really go anywhere, so it’s a total waste of torque for me. Very soon, I think it will be replaced with something that comes with a wool grandpa hat with a feather in it. I think one of my bones turned to dust while typing this.

Once I got home, I dug up our plot plan, plugged it into Google Sketchup, and did some measurements to figure out where the property lines on our house are. Once I got it as accurate as I could, I went over there to measure off my calculations. Amazingly, the property line was exactly where my fence currently is. I don’t know why I thought that I would find a treasure trove of missing land, but the disappointment made me angry at the fence and I tore half of it down. Mess with me, will you, fence?

Now, I can’t decide if the yard looks crappier or better, but I’m hoping that all the leaves that were piling up against the fence will blow away before I have to do anything about them. If they blow away: better. If I decide to park three cars with eight tires next to the rolled up chain link: worse.

When I got home, I answered some e-mails to help some people out with their WordPress problems.

Friday (Day 320): Wasted!

It was 70 degrees and although I intended to leave the house, I didn’t have a destination, so I ended up surfing the web all day.

Saturday (Day 321):

I started the day off by going out to breakfast with #1GF! because the girl has a serious love for breakfast that she doesn’t have to cook. Afterward, we headed over to a sustainable living festival, which had all the typical green energy products that you’d expect, but also had a bunch of people bumping into each other and standing in the way, making it more annoying than informative. #1GF! was hoping that this would be something I’d enjoy, but because I don’t work, I’ve already looked up all the green technologies and came to the conclusion that 99% of them are priced for rich people who can afford to get a good feeling, rather than regular people who want to save money. I pretty much followed #1GF! around until she got fed up that I wasn’t into it, so we left and bickered a little.

Since a former co-worker (Thanks, Ralph!) clued me in that it was Record Store Day, I headed over to a local record store that was selling its used CDs for 35% off. #1GF! refuses to go into this particular store, so she went to the mall promising that she’d return in an hour. I raced through the inventory and most of the discs were coming in under $5, so I ended up spending $50 for 7 death metal CDs, 1 punk CD, 1 soul CD, a Christina Aquilera CD, a free compilation 12″, 2 free compilation CDs, a sticker I’ll never stick, a Red Sox DVD that has already been given away, and a comic book that I’ll never read. As for the Christina Aquilera CD, I’ll say this: I picked it up for $2, because there’s only so much decapitation you can listen to before you need something completely opposite to musically throw a wrench into things.

57 minutes later, I was done and my Slayer ringtone announced that #1GF! had indeed returned to get me. I love that ringtone, and although I raced to grab it so I didn’t look like a dork, no one even looked up. WTF record slaves? No one recognizes the power of Slayer anymore? I have no idea what cool is, because if I heard a Slayer ringtone go off, I would high fucking five that dude for being so awesome. These kids today are lame, man. Lame.

I paid for my purchases and the record store people are too pissed and busy to care that Christina Aquilera looks a little out of place jammed into a bunch of death metal, so the checkout went off without any funny looks or invites to secret gay dance parties. Once I got outside, I realized that I bought an edited version of Cannibal Corpse, which made me run back in to make an exchange. Both the clerk and I seemed to be confused that someone would put out an edited Cannibal Corpse CD. I mean what words can be bleeped out to make a song like “Orgasm through Torture” seem Ok for little Kenny to hear?

From there, we went over to babysit #1GF!’s niece and nephew. Everything went fine for most of the day, until one of the kids had a complete meltdown over putting their pajamas on. Traditionally, I’ve had the attitude that if I have kids, great, if not, great. This was so unexplainably overblown, that it was the first time in my life, I saw not having kids as a good thing. I’ve never had that feeling before. It wasn’t the kid’s fault. Kids get tired and throw nutty fits. It’s natural and it happens, but this was the first time that I appreciated not having to deal with the drama and responsibility for eighteen or so years.

We got home at 9 and crashed on the couch, wondering how parents find the energy to take care of kids full time.

What I Learned

• There are benefits to having no kids.
• There’s a day called Record Store Day.
• CDs that cost less than $5 just seem like finding treasure.
• People make edited death metal CDs.
• People still write checks.
• I learned a lot about Joseph Palmer.
• #1GF! loves both kinds of music: country AND western.
• Kids today are lame, man. No one cares about Slayer anymore.

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Posted in Leisure