Not much going on around here at the moment. Haven’t made my daily rounds of the various websites to have found anything to write about, though I may end up writing a couple of reviews later on some stuff I got recently via folks buying me stuff off my wish list. So I thought I’d take a moment and once again thank everyone for your generosity with the donations. More than just helping to make ends meet it has also proven to be very beneficial to my psychological state of mind. My optimism was fading fast and your efforts went a long way to restoring it. I’m often struggling with the conflict between my inherent optimism that mankind is generally capable of so much good and my tendency towards cynicism that too many of us are fuck ups so the generosity you guys displayed went a long way to making my optimistic side feel like it was vindicated. So, thanks. A lot. It’s been helpful in more ways than you might think.

I contacted the unemployment office on Thursday because the checks still haven’t started coming. Found out through the automated system that I was eligible for 26 weeks, but that 0 weeks had been paid out yet so I got a hold of one of the service reps and found out that it was because my previous employer hadn’t responded to the inquiry on why I was unemployed as of yet. I explained what happened and the lady on the phone said she’d get a check for the last four weeks out to me by today or Monday at the latest and that I would just have to call in every two weeks to keep them going.  As it turns out my unemployment check is roughly half of what my normal paycheck was. When combined with the donations that have come in so far it adds up to just a little under what I would have brought home for the month had I still been working. This means the next month is taken care of and I have an additional five weeks to find a job.

Hopefully that will happen soon because life is going to become more complicated soon. We have two vehicles at the moment, my 2000 Grand Prix and my wife’s 2002 Saturn which we had a three year lease on. The lease on the Saturn is up at the end of next month and we had planned to try and buy the vehicle because it’s only got 16,000 or so miles on it (barely over the one year’s worth of mileage according to the lease terms) and only a few dings and scratches overall. Whereas I haven’t driven my Grand Prix in almost two months because I need desperately to get it an oil change and have the tires looked at. I just put the spare on the passenger rear wheel because the tire that had been on there went flat due to a manufacturer’s defect. Honestly, I need to put the Grand Prix in the shop and tell them to check it out completely and fix whatever the hell is wrong before it dies on me. I’m pretty sure the fan belt needs to be replaced just for starters. The end result being that if I don’t have a job soon I won’t be able to buy the one car out of the two that’s in really good shape and I won’t be able to afford getting the other one fixed like it should be.

It’s stuff like that which makes my life feel like a weird novel or soap opera at times. I mean, that’s a pretty good plot twist there. Well Les manage to land a job before he has to give back the ONE DECENT CAR HIS FAMILY HAS?!?!?! Or will he be stuck driving to job interviews with his fingers and toes crossed living in FEAR THAT HIS CAR WILL DIE BEFORE HE GETS THERE?!?!? TUNE IN NEXT WEEK TO FIND OUT OR YOU’LL GO CRAZY!!!!

I would’ve made a great TV Network Announcer.