By Wednesday evening, we had purchased a Nintendo Wii from eBay and (luckily, and really by chance) gotten one located in Massillon, a mundane little burg just to the west of Canton. We met the seller at "The Strip" [a really long shopping center consisting of nothing but gigantic big box stores like Best Buy, Barnes & Noble, etc] in North Canton and viola, a Wii is ours.

Weird. Viola (as in, wuuah-lah) is the same as an instrument I play, the viola (vee-OH-luh).  [Edit: boy, am I a dumbass.]

Tomorrow is a dinner at our place with Kory & Amy. They mentioned something about wanting to eat children-type food, though I'm hearing this sixth or seventh hand. The first thing I thought of was grilled cheese, hot dogs and jello, but alas, they are vegans and we are trying to be that way, so none of these would work. The menu is still up in the air, but the after-dinner entertainment (the Wii, of course) is set.

Hopefully the second controller, purchased over eBay but shipping from California, will arrive in time. If not... Meh.

In case you were wondering, the Wii is great fun. I'll write more about it when I have experienced it more.

Getting financial aid is a good way to feel wealthy for a day. Once we pay everything we need to, we're back in poverty though most things are mercifully taken care of. We paid for rent for the semester and a pile of other bills. Then, we went to the grocery, after some careful planning by myself, to buy exactly two weeks worth of meals. The total was around $300, but this is having us eat well. I kinda felt like we needed it, because it's been nothing but pasta and canned vegetables and things like that for a couple weeks. It sucked.

I also took Pedro in today to get his rear brakes fixed. I can't complain too much about him because he's been generally a good car. I've almost had him two years and he's been in the shop three times, which is not so bad for a 30 year-old car. He'll be paid off in February, saving us another $100 bucks a month.

We also are going to build shelves in our kitchen (for more food storage area), put a light over the stove so we can see how things are cooking, and get some parts to (finally) build our bed upstairs. We've been sleeping on the floor in our room for, well, 18 months now because the uncompromising queen sized box springs wouldn't fit up the steep stairway, while the mattress would bend enough to do so. With a little wood, a little hardware and a little good ol' hillbilly ingenuity (I didn't know I had it in me! Wait, I probably don't because I'm terrible with my hands!) I'm going to get us off the floor and on to a "proper" bed.

A couple other "cool" things we're doing with the cash: I'm getting my substitute teaching license (specifically for spring break, when we'll be too poor to go anywhere, and May when I'm completely idle but local schools aren't). Rumor has it that Akron Public Schools only have 27 certified subs for a system of 40 some elementaries (plus middle and high schools) and pays more than $100 a day. That could be a very productive spring break. I even looked at my schedule to see if I could free up Mondays to supplement our income in this way, but it didn't work out. Either way, I have enough education that I can be certified as a long-term sub in social studies, earth science and music, and with a long-term sub license comes short term certifications for all levels and subjects.

I knew those degrees would eventually pay off!

We also got some carpet cleaner fluid, because last Christmas, Amy's parents bought us this awesome carpet cleaner. So, during last Christmas break, we cleaned the kinda crappy carpet in our living room. Since it's been more than a year since that cleaning, and since we have dogs and take most of our meals in there, the carpet is disgusting again. That's my day for tomorrow, I think. That, and building the shelves after Amy gets home.

This weekend is a grand trip to another mundane burg, Muncie, for a brief business trip. We're going to pick up the Impala, which was getting some body work done by the people my parents use, pay for that, and then take it to the dealership and turn the bitch in. That will be an expensive venture, but certainly cheaper than keeping it and running up the mileage. Fucking lease. Never-the-fuck-again! The good news is that turning that piece of American-made-automotive-shit in will save us around $350 a month, when accounting for insurance and everything.

It just hurts to pay it off right now.

We're also (hopefully, if we can figure out a way to secure it from the resident hoodrats while we're in the house) going to show off the Wii. Maybe, just maybe, we'll be able to get a trip down to Fry's in Indianapolis to pick up the cheap memory and hard drive upgrades that my poor iBook so desperately needs.

And, last I heard, we're going to take at least one meal with each set of parents. I'm sure the guilt trips about the shortness of the trip will start soon after we get there, but they can deal with it. We're only going to turn in the car, and seeing all of them is a lucky fringe benefit.

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Of course, one thing I have to mention is this "Armed and Famous" business. On CBS, there has been a reality show the past couple nights in which some D-list "celebrities" [Jack Osbourne, Wee-Man from Jackass, LaToya Jackson, Erik Estrada and Trish Stratus] become cops in my glorious hometown of Muncie, Indiana. Yes, they are "real" cops with guns and powers to arrest and everything.

How could a city stoop so low? Well, let me tell you a little bit about Muncie. Muncie is an old rust-belt city. It's peak was in the 1960s, when there were more than 25,000 manufacturing jobs serving a city of nearly 90,000 people. If you know anything about economics, that kind of vibrant basic manufacturing sector can make a city prosper, and Muncie did.

Fast forward to 2007. The city's down to about 65,000 people, nearly a 30% loss of population. The reason for this is the pathetic economy. Now, there are only about 6,500 manufacturing jobs in the city, and many of these are slated to end in the next three years. Had it not been for the growth of Ball State University corresponding with the Baby Boomers going to college and the Vietnam veterans coming home with GI Bills, the town would be a smaller version of Gary.

Still, those folks that used to count on the manufacturing, they've got troubles. They went from unionized $35/hr jobs to Wendy's or worse. By worse, I mean they either left, or stayed behind and became absolutely worthless. Drugs, particularly crack, coke and meth are big problems to people in Muncie who have no hope. And yes, I do mean no hope, because there are basically no jobs. When Amy moved up with me, she tried for nearly a year to get a job and failed. She had plenty of retail experience and even management experience. She even applied to shovel alpaca shit, and was in competition against 30 other people at a group interview.

That is the Muncie economy.

So why would Muncie let D-listers actually join the police force for a reality television series? Because the Muncie leaders know that the town needs something. They've been trying for years to figure out how to get the town what it needs to go back to what it was "back in the day." In this TV series, a little bit of publicity, they hope, will go a long way. And maybe it's true... maybe people will think more (or less) of Muncie, but at least they're thinking something about it, right? That's the logic.

Remember, this is the town who gave Tom Green a key to the city and declared it Tom Green Day for an episode of his show. Unfortunately, the show was cancelled the week that episode was supposed to run.

That is Muncie's luck.

So now, they've got a short-run reality TV there and are in the national spotlight. And yes, I watched the damn thing. But I must admit, I didn't watch the episodes live. Last night, I watched "Friday Night Lights" instead. Tonight, it was "The Office" and "Scrubs." I recorded "Armed and Famous," because I needed to watch something on national television that took place in my hometown.

Remember, this is the decaying rust belt town which was once featured on national news because a lady got really really drunk and tried to remove a wart from her toe with a shotgun.

So, a couple of highlights I have to mention. On the first episode (Wednesday's) episode, the "celebrities" (I have to put it in quotes, because they're lame-os) were each paired with a veteran cop for patrol. Two of the veterans, Scott O'Dell and Kyle Temple, went to my high school and hung out in the media room with my dad a lot.

Okay, so in the first episode, one highlight was Erik Estrada. He's generally a joke, right? Well, he was taking himself way too seriously, talking about how he had experience from being in a cop show. Then, in training, he farted loud and on camera as he was being pinned. That was funny, seeing some former "sex icon" farting on camera.

Second thing in the first episode was the first traffic stop, done by Wee Man. He pulled over a guy (who I swear I recognized) who was wasted. When he came out of the car, he immediately said something about having been sleeping in the Red Dog parking lot, of course referring to the Red Dog Saloon out on Cowan Road. The Red Dog used to be a shift-change bar back when ABB actually employed people (and they used to employ thousands). Now that the factory is abandoned, the bar has devolved to a place of mostly somewhat hopeless drunks. This clientele is key, because they are the only ones who don't care about the dozens of health code violations that occur there. The only cool thing about the Red Dog is the 20 foot shuffleboard table. Anyway, the cops searched this guy and found two crack pipes, several wrenches and several knives. He went to jail.

Third thing from the first episode was the arrest of good old Evelyn. Evelyn was the old biddy who flirted with Estrada as she was placed in the cop car. They used the footage for the promos during the football games last week. Anyway, old Evelyn is kind of a Muncie celebrity of sorts. A couple years back, she made the news because she gambled away her life's savings (eight grand or so) in illegal (and hence, unregulated) video poker machines in a Muncie bar. This wouldn't have been a big deal, but she tried to have charges pressed because the bar owner encouraged her to keep gambling, saying that a big jackpot was coming up. On the show, she was arrested for trafficking cocaine. She is around 55-60 years old, and she looks 100. Estrada thought she was 75.

Last thing from the first episode was the gathering in the SunShinE Cafe. SunShinE is a well-known spot to dirty Muncie kids, scenesters, theater majors, and anyone wanting to stay up late and smoke tons of cigarettes. I'm not sure why they went there, but it was weird to see anything filmed in the SunShinE Cafe. I hope they talked to locals enough to know a good Muncie rule-of-thumb: never, and I mean NEVER eat meat from SunShinE after dark. If you do, you have a 75% chance of paying for it in the morning. The staff typically doesn't worry much about hygeine, sanitation, etc. This adds to the charm. That, and the bottomless coffee, 24/7 status, and a generous smoking section. Though, isn't indoor smoking banned in Muncie now?

The second episode disturbed me a bit.

Sit down for this.

One of my former sorta-bosses (from the Dollar Movies) was arrested for prostitution! Yep, this girl I originally hired (as assistant manager) and then supported when she was promoted to the manager position was blowing some guy in his truck for 20 bucks! And this was someone I considered to be a decent friend a while ago.... during the Great Flush, she and I talked a lot because she had broken up with a long-term relationship around the same time. She even offered (at one point) to sleep with me, but I turned her down. Hell, had I known she was good enough to be a professional.... well, I probably still wouldn't have. Not that she wasn't cute, but... you know. But WOW, what a weird thing to see on national television. It definitely prompted a "NO-FUCKING-WAY!!!!!" from me, as I rewound the tape three or four times to be sure as a terrified Amy looked on.

A couple other kinda funny moment from the second episode: the police responded to an apartment complex for a domestic dispute. Still reeling from the fact that my boss/friend/could've-been-sexual-partner was selling herself, Amy and I noticed that the police were going to apartment two of White River Apartments, a basement unit just to the right of the stairs. Um, I lived in an apartment two of White River Apartments during my single days. At first, we figured this had to be my apartment and that this show was somehow out to get me or something. After a little more observation, we found out that the door was 2555, not 2560 (the door I lived in). So, one door down from my old apartment was featured on national television.

The abuser in the situation was a Mexican guy (and everyone in White River Apartments were either college kids with pets, drug addicts or Mexicans... and I'm not kidding. It was a cheap but decent place that allowed pets), and none of the cops could talk to him. That is, until Erik Estrada arrived! Sadly, despite a rapidly growing Hispanic population, Muncie's police department had no one besides this celebrity who could speak Spanish with any fluency. Really, that is very sad.

The other laugh-out-loud moment was when police responded to a "suspicious person" described as a "white male wearing a cowboy hat and carrying a pool cue." This fellow, whom I know I have seen around before (he couldn't possibly be the guy that Jon and Carl and I saw doing some girl in the shadows at the White River plaza, could he?) was an eccentric who had strayed from Breakers billiards hall, down White River Boulevard (and through the aforementioned White River Apartments) to the Village Pantry on Tillotson and White River to get a drink or something. He got a ride from the cops back to Breakers, but wasn't drunk and didn't cause trouble.

For the most part, the show really gave no problems in the representation of Muncie. There are a lot of kinda scary people living there, and some of them are scumbags. I think people are intelligent enough to know that those appearing on a cop show aren't necessarily the cream of the crop anyway. It's a strange little town, but weirdos like these people would be in any town. I know, I know, it makes the people look like "hicks." But, I've seen several of these people featured, and I've been in Muncie a few times myself (okay, like, 24 years.) And... it's not offensive to me. I just hope this does SOMETHING (anything?) positive for my hometown. As ambivalent as I am towards it, and as much as I would do to avoid ever (EVER) moving back, I am allowed to root for it, and I do.

It does drive me nuts, though, when you see them driving down Memorial to a call on nearby East 13th Street, and they patch in a shot of the car passing the Wendy's and Fazoli's on McGalliard, which is like 20 minutes away, and through downtown, which is 10 minutes away, and then (POOF!) back on to Memorial. Geographical editing is a skill they need to learn.

I am available for consultation, and it's a job, strangely enough, for which I would be exceptionally well-qualified....