Where did all this emo shit come from, and why is it contaminating alternative music? As most of my dedicated readers know, I mostly listen to the radio in my car, and I mostly listen to the alternative station, WBER. Lately, Aqualung (the alternative emo band, not the pedophiliac Jethro Tull album) is in heavy rotation, and it's emo. Thank goodness for the White Stripes, they may be derivative and nostalgic, but at least they rock.

We have 6-10 people living next door to us, it's hard to say how many for sure since boyfriends and girlfriends stop by all the time, so let's lowball the estimate and say 6 not too long out of college "adults" live next door to us. Our garbage day is Thursday, and the garbage truck comes by in the morning, so by Thursday evening their totes were empty, and all six of them walked by them on the way into their apartments without moving them back to the house.

Come Friday we had a front come through with horrendous winds, and we watched amusingly at the totes from next door got blown down into our driveway, then slowly blew down the street blocking it. It was even more amusing to see the people next door walk out and get into their cars and SUVs and go to work, completely ignoring their totes.

That is not the worst garbage tote thing they have done, no, that goes to tenants of about three years back who put hot woodstove ashes into these plastic totes. Oh yeah, the whole thing smoldered and melted, just a few feet from the Vasa. At the time I was mad they nearly burned down our car, had I known what I knew now, I would have been mad it didn't burn down the car so we could have gotten insurance money for it.

Speaking of people living with you, I got another call last night for Irish sister, and I quite enjoyed saying she moved out a year ago, I have no idea how to contact her, and I have no way to easily contact her sister, since she has no working phone.

The three following paragraphs are my tedious health updates.

My jaw is getting better, let's call it 85%, I tried some mixed nuts last night, they're still not enjoyable.

My cough is much better, pricey antiboitics and pricey nasal steroids work wonders. My coughs have decreased in frequency but have become much more productive, it's no longer a constant dry hacking cough, but more of an occasional juicy phlegm filled one, too bad I don't have a spittoon.

My feet are better, everyday. I can now sit in full lotus without too much pain, and do doggie pose without too much pain or bad form.

I have found that the supplements I have been trying for my arthritis have interesting side effects. The essential oils tend to be dangerous as I'm not used to them, it's sort of an Olestra affect. The MSM glu-chon capsule gives me terrible smelling flatulence, of the ancient rotting egg sort. I keep hoping the FSM touches my intestinal flora with his great noodly appendage and designs some new flora that handles those supplements better. In the meantime, I smell like a paper mill.

I am trying to update my flexible spending account to use direct deposit, so that I can get quickly get reimbursements for my medical expenses (let me translate for those in Socialist countries. This flexible spending account is tax free money which affects me net income far less than taxable income, and can be used for medical expenses that are not reimbursed by my medical insurance, so it's way to pay for stuff with far cheaper pretax dollars. I have about $1200 to be reimbursed for, so far). I used on of my normal user IDs, with many lower case letters.

The other day I had trouble logging in, I had the email me some particulars, and my user ID was changed to capitals. Either the server changes stuff to Caps, or their app does, but I'm really not happy about discarding a huge segment of possible solution space, and I have no idea what my password got changed to. It's 2006, case sensitivity is a fact.

It was a generally quiet weekend, though Mrs. Ha went into Buffalo early Sunday to see her mom after her shunt operation, which caused the usual sort of emotional turmoil. The latest Buffalo Beast is about those cartoons, along with all sorts of Christian and Jewish heresy. Nearly guaranteed to offend.

Easter must be late this year, as Ash Wednesday falls after my birthday, most years it falls before it. I'd make up a story of how a birthday in Lent sucks due to various pious deprivations, but it never really did affect mine. But when is the best day in February to have a bday?