Life without television...

Moving into a new place without a roommate to split the bills with kinda puts things into perspective... (By "Things" I mean television and internet.)

I've never really been a HUGE fan of television. My television viewing has always in fact been pretty limited. (This is not to imply that the tv was on for a limited amount of time... quite the opposite was true.) But when the television was on, 90% of the time I was doing something else, like reading a book, sleeping, folding laundry, or as odd as it might sound - listening to music. (I've always had a thing for background noise.) When I was paying attention to what was on the screen, it's generally regarded as a safe bet that it was one of four things -

1. ESPN/televised sports programming
2. Re-runs of *M*A*S*H
3. Re-runs of Law & Order
   
4. Crime related programming on A&E

• (The two favorite show exceptions are A&E's show INTERVENTION and Bravo's show Project Runway)

Since the untimely death of my television I have found that tv is not the necessity I once thought it was. I used to fall asleep with the TV on a sleep timer, just so there was a familiar noise to drown out the goings-on in the alley, or the noises emanating from the apartment belonging to the lesbians upstairs as they did GOD ONLY KNOWS WHAT! I have found that this situation is easily remedied by playing music or movies on my computer.

Everything else has kind of fallen by the wayside... The re-runs were getting to the point where I was regularly catching re-runs of the re-runs I watched fairly recently, so that was unnecessary. The news has long been nothing but kidnappings, murders, war, and corporate raping of the world, so I can do without that.

And the sports? Well, to be honest, I miss the sports. But for big games I can make it to a bar, and for the rest, I get scores online and on my phone, so there's no big crisis there.

Internet is something I will not be able to do without... I think this is clear. I must have internet, if for no other reason than to entertain the few people who actually read MY daily contribution to the global-information-dump-site that is the internet. I also need SOME source of entertainment, as books get frickin EXPENSIVE! - If it comes down to paying 30 bucks a month for internet service, or buying one book (two if they are on sale) you can bet that I'm going to get WAY MORE value out of my internet connection! (After all, in addition to all the other fun things, there are full-text e-books online!) I am also semi-addicted to AIM, so, there's always that.

So that's that - I don't need cable. I do need internet. PERIOD.

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For those of you who don't already know, I am without my own personal automotive transportation, (as it is unnecessary and expensive in the city,) so I am reliant on friends and public transportation... Today I took a PACE bus for the first time in a long time. (The last time I took a PACE bus was damn near 4 years ago, and as I'm about to illustrate it was a very different experience.)

Most days I hop a train or a CTA bus to work - CTA busses and trains are usually littered with assorted grubbies, trash, bits of food people leave behind, graffiti, etc. The colors are drab, and the seats are molded plastic with stained bits of "padding" that would be regarded as short-pile carpet anywhere else.

4 years ago when I took the PACE bus, it was pretty much the same story as the CTA, but with an added stripe of yellow in places. Today was dramatically different!

Today the PACE bus happened by, and it happened to be running fairly close to where I was going, so I took a chance. I am quite sure that when I boarded the bus the driver thought there was something wrong with me... as my eyes widened in amazement at what I saw before me.

The bus was PRISTINE. No graffiti, no grubbies, no trash, no mystery smells. Nothing! And the seats were not only more luxuriously spaced, they were UPHOLSTERED! And I mean REALLY upholstered, with brightly colored fabric, genuine THICK seat-cushion padding and everything! And there were flat panel screens displaying news headlines, horoscopes, movie listings and info, and other amazing amenities you'd never expect on a public bus. - I felt like someone took this bus to X-Zibit and had it fixed on PIMP MY RIDE.

FRICKIN' AMAZING!!

I don't know why you needed to know any of this, but I thought I'd mention it.

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I got more of Marco's backstory today... apparently he was born with all kinds of medical problems, he was never expected to walk or be able to do much of anything for himself... and so that means he's doing like 80 times better than doctors predicted he should.

An ordinary person would take this into consideration ... Not me.

While it's all well and good that he can walk, the fact is that he sure as hell ain't doing much for himself, and lord knows he ain't doing anything to make my life easier, so as far as I'm concerned he's still worthless.

The fact that I don't give a rat's pink ass about his early developmental problems and current "miraculous" status, might make me more of an asshole, but my job is to sling flowers, not to babysit Marco, thus I am bitter.

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I am packing up all of my belongings into boxes to move them a grand total of 4 blocks north... Seems kinda silly if you ask me.

I mean really, I have a kitchen all set up here, I will pack it into boxes, move it north, unpack it and set up another kitchen with the same stuff.

I will do the same thing with my bedroom, closets, bathroom, and storage unit... just seems like a huge waste of energy, don't you think?

Anyone available to help me move in the next few days? (I'll love you forever, and I'll probably buy you dinner too!)

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I also need to find a "real job" to do once flower slinging ends. Mel sees me working in a laid back environment on par with the "Photo-Hut" - If it pays the bills and doesn't make me homicidal or suicidal, I'm all for it.

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This has turned into quite a lengthy post, my apologies if I bored you. I'll stop now!