I just went roughly two days without the Internet being allowed into my home. Seems I did not have enough money in the bank when the provider tried to take the money out of the bank. A couple times. Like since January. So they cut me off. But it is all taken care of now, so I am back online and I will start making sure that I am keeping more money in my bank account, I think.

It’s weird how if I were to go away for a weekend or something I would not notice the lack of Internet. I mean, it’s only two days. That is really not very long. But when I am in my home and I am having nothing better to do and I have had several days of way-too-long shifts at work this week, when that happens, I notice the lack of Internet. After all. It’s Two Whole Days! That’s forever!

I’m pretty much all caught up on what I missed. I’ve two episodes of each of the Daily Show and Colbert that I am about to watch. And I had to clear about 900 spam comments from the site here. I suppose that could have been worse considering that I’ve had that many turn up in a matter of hours sometimes.

I guess it is worth mentioning that I made it to payday without running out of food. On the weekend my mother made a turkey dinner and I took home some leftovers which lasted for two days after that. And I also ended up buying a pizza with credit that I shouldn’t be spending. And today I got groceries and I am only, practically, out of money again instead of actually out of money again.

Haiku!

Deliver the mail
and you will be my best friend.
I’m quite pro-Mail Man.

I did not realize how much I liked mail men. Go figure.

Anyway, in a continuation of my thoughts from last week, it is still Winter here. We’ve been getting snow regularly enough that there are actual snowbanks as tall as me, which was the exact sort of thing I remembered from my youth that I knew we weren’t getting as much of lately. While it is somewhat reassuring to have things “back to normal” after several years of Barely-Winters, I still prefer the Barely-Winters because they’re easier to get through. Heaven help me if I ever actually have to go through a Heavy-Winter. When I got home from work last night my street was blocked off so that what seemed to be an army of plows could get rid of all the snow built up. It’s nice to be on an important street instead of some rural one who is lucky to see a plow.

But in spite of the Winter, I was awakened early today by sweltering heat in my apartment as the sun beat down on my windows. I was all dehydrated. Sigh. I can’t wait until I’m old enough that I can complain constantly about the temperature without feeling like I’m too young to be doing so.

“I think I have some Mentos around somewhere… No, I better save those for the weekend.”

This is something I actually just said to myself. I was wondering if I had anything to eat. Being poor sucks. To eat between now and next Wednesday (pay day) I have three microwave vegetable/rice deals, some oranges, some matzah and that one pack of Mentos I got for Christmas that has been sitting around since. Just call me Rich Uncle Pennybags.

And yes, I did say that out loud. I like talking to myself. As for those who like to say that talking to yourself is a sign of insanity, I make the same case for talking to other people, so shut it.

So, for Christmas I was given a Superstore gift certificate for 100 dollars. Then I noticed that I apparently had to spend it all at once because if I did not, I did not get another certificate that made up the difference. I live directly above a Superstore, so it is nothing for me to just go down what I need at any given time. I don’t have to stock up. I typically spend about twenty bucks on a shopping trip. A hundred dollars? I’m not confident that I’ve ever bought that much at once. But then I figured, I have a web site where I keep track of all PDR-related minutia so when I buy a hundred dollars worth of groceries, I should take a picture of it all.

And That Is What I Did:

So there we go. PDR’s Most Groceries.

Now let’s see how much of it I will actually use before I begin to fear that it is going bad.

On the topic of purchasing things, I did not buy any nails last year. That may seem like an even more unimportant detail than my previous groceries, but here’s the thing: Not buying nails was my New Year’s Resolution for that year! So I did it! Hooray!

I forgot to make a resolution this year.

I guess that is all for today.

And suddenly another year is gone. Too fast to be properly appreciated and the new one will likely wind up the same way. Everyone be sure to light a candle so that the Dark Lord Char’Nagh can see properly as he makes his rounds this year-end.

I feel that 2010 was a pretty decent year. Granted, I may just be feeling that way because the last few weeks have been pretty nice and the rest of the year was just mediocre. I mean, I’m poorer than ever and I didn’t get to do any travelling whatsoever in 2010, but hey, at least I didn’t have a computer die on me like in stupid 2009. I’m getting comic strips done at a rate that I’ve probably not met since the death of Contains2.

2011 however is going to be the year for the Book of PDR and its related endeavours. I will make this true. So bring it on!