New Blinds! Tomorrow a person will arrive at my house at 9am to install new 2" white faux wood blinds in every window! I ordered them last month from Home Depot, and I am very excited about the window re-do. The current blinds I have look like they are from 1986: beige, dirty and metal. In order to save myself about $115, I opted to remove the old blinds myself the night before the installation. I have to go to the dump anyway at some point so it seemed like a good way to save a day's pay. The experience of removing cheap blinds from said windows left something to be desired. The screws were cheap (go figure) so they got stripped within seconds. Every screw took about 8 minutes to remove, very, very slowly. What's more, when I was removing the brackets in the guest bedroom on the south side of the house, I discovered my 70 year-old next door neighbor, Howard, was watching porn in his office. I pulled the blinds all the way up and was given a clear view into his office. With his back facing me he was busily toggling through a huge quantity of porn stills and some videos. Meanwhile, I am standing on a ladder at my window no more than 20 feet away, trying to remove the brackets without making any sudden movements. By the skin of my chin he didn't notice me. That would have been pretty awkward. Did I mention this is a neighbor who I have NEVER seen without his shirt off?

The LONG awaited album from Dirty Projectors is now available. Enjoy. So far I like all of them.... Album for sale next week, but available online for a limited time. I am looking forward to going with some admired company.

Youth Lagoon, Wonder Ballroom, Portland, OR, July 22!!!! Dirty Projectors, Crystal Ballroom, Portland, OR, July 25!!!!!!!

"Premium" messaging ain't so premium

Like most everyone out there, I hate scams, and I intentionally try to avoid them. Technology is hardly helping us. With the evolution of personal telecommunications devices, sadly, you can't easily avoid getting embroiled in a scam or two. In fact, you have to get involved at the start in order to save yourself literally hundreds of dollars a year.

A little background: In the last year, like many of you readers out there, my cell phone has started to receive spam text messages. They typically say the following kind of things:

"Impress ur friends with Amazing Facts 2 ur cell from the brainbender.com. Text HELP for help or call 8002357105 $9.99 STOP 2 quite Msg. & Data Rates May Aply." (spelling mistakes are actual, not mine!)

These kind of rambling incoherent messages are the kind of messages I will always ignore. My first instinct is to delete them. However, such precautions cannot protect you anymore from robbery. Apparently, one actually has to reply to the message with "STOP" to avoid being charged $9.99.

These SMS scams are called "premium message services" and they allow so-called companies to bill your phone company the subscription fee so it shows up automatically on your bill. Even if you have an unlimited data plan, you still get charged $9.99 due to some loop hole these crappy scam outfits have found a way to manipulate. These messages will come into your phone as a 4, 5, or 6 digit number. So when you see a text come in from a weird short number, make sure you reply with STOP. Better yet, call your wireless carrier and have them put a block on premium messaging services.

I called Verizon to contest the $9.99 charge and ask what the hell was going on. The customer service lady on the line, although ultimately helpful, sounded like she'd been hearing the same call all week long:

Verizon Lady: "Yeah, I got charged for something similar last month myself. You got to be really careful these days. Have you downloaded any games recently, or trivia feeds? It says on my screen that on 4/02 you received a message from something called Voodoo. Do you recall that?

Me: No, I would never download anything called Voodoo. I want to contest the charge.

VL: Well, I can meet you half way. I can refund you $5.

Me: I want to contest the entire charge.

VL: Well, I can meet you halfway myself, anything more I have to get permission from our supervising manager.

Me: Go ahead and do that.

(8 seconds passes while I'm on hold)

VL: Well, I got permission, you will be credited the $9.99. That doesn't happen very often.

Me: Yeah, I am pretty lucky.

It's official, I can park my car.

"
1980s garage door opener for my "new" old house

Spring forward shows in Portland...

3/23/12, Sharon Van Etten, Aladdin Theater
3/30/12, Carolina Chocolate Drops, Crystal Ballroom
4/11/12, Andrew Bird, Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall
4/30/12, Washed Out, Doug Fir Lounge, 9PM
5/18/12, Ramona Falls, Doug Fir Lounge, 9pm

Pop a shot at my bus stop...

I got a text message from my mom today that read: "On the news they reported bullets fired at NE 33rd and Prescott."

First thought through my head was, "Hey, that's where I catch the bus. The corner with the green house where the creepy kid that watches me from his 2nd story window. Hmmm."



Turns out the bullets may have been intended for that creepy kid. There are bullets through that window tonight. I wonder how the kid is doing? Maybe this means he'll keep his distance from that window. Before tonight, I just thought the household was composed of a grandma and her two underachieving grandsons. The older brother smokes pot out on the side porch in the mornings, while the younger kid peers out the window at people waiting for the bus, often smoking as well.

The Oregonian wrote that the shooting was involved with some rather clumsy sounding hit and runs. This is where the story starts to not make any sense to me. They sound like separate incidents. Why would a 42 year old woman want to shoot a gun into the room of a reclusive 18-19 year old kid? The Oregonian has GOT to get its reporting under a tighter standard.

30 Year Relationship, Social Media Fumble

A few hours ago I submitted my second offer this month to purchase a piece of residential property in Portland. This time, thankfully, it's a better match for my income and need to be close to a bus stop that takes me downtown in 25 minutes. Plus, there's a tattoo parlor across the street, good coffee, and a $4 movie theater a 4-5 minute stroll away. Living at the foot of Mt. Tabor (okay, the far northeast foot) sounds like a good thing right now.

I'm glad there's an extra day in February - I would like to wrap this up by the end of the month. Let the painful waiting begin, and let's hope a scourge of Buyer's Remorse can be avoided. I don't want any teary nights over something as simple as where to live.

Post script annoyance: After 5 years of success in preventing LinkedIn from exploiting my Gmail address book, last Friday I fell a victim of clumsy social media management. Apparently I gave permission for this website to contact EVERYONE I ever wrote an email to and request a connection on LinkedIn. Ridiculous. Sure, there are quite a few invitations that were overdue or a victim of oversight. However, a healthy share of the invites went out to folks I've all been happily avoiding (purposely). These particular folks? Definitely not Facebook acquaintances. Lots of them are people that a) didn't give me a job I applied for at some point b) people I went out on one or two dates with c) people I don't even know. LinkedIn has attempted to get me to allow this mass transmission of invites for years. It has failed until now, and for that I do not forgive it.

Lesson of the week: don't trust LinkedIn's pre-populated dialogue boxes. They are intentionally designed to have people do exactly what I did.

Totally in the doghouse

I can't imagine what I did. Or didn't do.....

Okay, I can. Still, the fact that I am in the doghouse is so disturbing.

First time for everything.

Songs are easy to post

I've failed to regularly post as I have promised time and time again. Something I have done in the past is mention songs and artists I've been listening to that express my mood. It doesn't take a lot of poetic language or thought to do this. So I will continue.

Youth Lagoon, 17

Menomena, Wet and Rusting

Laura Gibson, Skin, Warming Skin