We went to AAA the other day for the sole purpose of getting me maps with which I could decorate my office.  I think it looks pretty nice.  I still need Colts and Reds pennants, some hard-to-kill houseplants, an endtable with lamp, and maybe a little beta fish.  I think I will name him Harold or something like that.  Maybe I'll host an online contest or poll?

One of our gouramis died the other day.  It's very sad in a way, because that gourami's been with us since before we were married, I think.  It was around three years old, and it had survived an initial tank set-up, two moves and a major ice storm.  Not bad for a little fish, right?  Our fish tank is starting to need some assistance.  It's been set up for nearly three years with the same chemistry and bacterial culture.  I personally think it's time to completely hit bottom and start (mostly) over.  I'll discuss this with Amy, since she knows more about dealing with fish.

Amy's been bumped up to five days a week at the motel.  This is a good thing, because we always need more money.  We're too much of a consumerist family.  I wish we could stop.  In American society, it seems like we're stuck.  We can't get anything without giving someone money, and it seems like we need more shit than anyone else in the world.

I mean, we put $50 of financial aid into printer cartridges this past week!  That could, like, feed an African child for like weeks, right?

Weird random trivia: in the episode of the Sopranos were Artie Bucco tries to commit suicide over owing Tony money, the French guy that ripped Artie off for a "business venture" had a framed picture in his crappy apartment that we feature in our living room.  We did up our living room (sort of) in a travel theme.  This includes a poster in French that is advertising a steamship line called the Normandie.  That very travel poster, which we acquired from Value City, was hanging in this French scumbag's house.

And let me tell you, one of the happiest moments of the series (besides cracking a gut about Paulie Walnuts and Christopher freezing all night in a van after getting lost in a city park) was at the end of that episode.  See, Artie was not a gangster, but a gangster friend.  He was so worried about this loan from Tony that he had used for a shady business venture with the French dude (the one that had our poster) that he tried to kill himself.  Tony forgave him in the hospital.

It was a happy happy moment when Furio, Tony's imported Italian professional ass-kicker, showed up at the French dude's door with a getting-ready-to-kick-ass smile.  Nothing else was shown, because it was effective as-is.

I guess you had to be there.  You should go there: go to your library and rent the Sopranos, because it's better than I ever thought it would be.  We've worked through most of the first four seasons in three weeks, and that includes a week-long hiatus while we were in Indiana.

I've got a song by The Shins stuck in my head.  "Do I listen to pop music because I'm miserable, or am I miserable because I listen to pop music?"  Maybe both, but the latter is true right now.  One of the inherent problems with pop is the catchiness.  It's a blessing and a curse.  I love pop and the catchiness, but when it catches and won't go away, that's bad.  Especially when it keeps you up at night.

Sometimes I think I am mentally ill.  I wonder if I border on Obsessive Compulsive or others.  I get strangely repetitive and habitual about odd things.  I mean, I've been diagnosed as manic-depressive and one of the milder types of bipolar. 

Pills are for losers and people with insurance.  I pride myself (sort of) on being neither.