One Anothering with the Vacuum

I've now got a recliner in my room. That will open up some possibilities; I have a sitting problem with my legs, thus it's more comfortable to sit on a recliner than the edge of my bed. Recliners sometimes recline a bit too much. It's hard to tell, but the pitch may be so that it hurts either my neck or back. Perhaps that is fixable, perhaps it is not. So far, I noticed that this recliner- as opposed to "my" recliner in the living room- has better padding on the armrests, and the armrests are also lower. That's good.

Anyway, onto the point of the post.


As you'll recall, I got fed up with our vacuum. It's a Bissell, a Walmart special, and I forget why, but I got really bitter toward it. I think it went through a period where it developed clog after clog after clog and I went crazy and put it in the doghouse. (Come to find out, that doesn't make inanimate objects see the error of their ways. Truly, punishing inanimate objects is difficult, and it could be argued that you are the one who decides if it is suffering or not- thus it is not suffering- as it can't actually suffer personally, sentiently. Mr. dataDyne would probably have some proverb on punishing inanimate objects.)


The new vacuum failed on a plethora of levels. Hold on, let me make sure that's the right word. OK, it is. I don't know if I've ever used it before, and before I use any word, even if I know it, I always make sure. It's a failsafe, and it's saved me many times, believe me. You don't have any idea how badly you can jumble the word "narcissist."

Basically, I'm too tall to use the vacuum. And it has a really weird feel- some would say "cute," others, like me, would say "cheap." It's actually in a strait between cute and cheap. It was a little lighter, but it was at least five times as hard to push. If I was shorter, it would have been easier- but still harder than the Bissell model we have.

Additionally, the extension hose does not stretch, so the accessories were all but useless. Overall, it's a mishmash of cool elements, and horrendously idiotic ideas. The emptying method was neat, but encourages neverreplacethefilteritis. It's like having indoor plumbing; if you never see- and smell- where all the waste goes, you never have your septic tank emptied. Until you do see and smell it. Then it's too late.

So, after going through weeks of having my mom vacuum for me, I decided to enact a little one-anothering. Kindly affectioned. Tenderhearted. Forgiving one another as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. (Romans 12:10 and Eph. 4:32- not exact quotes at all.) I decided to put what's behind us behind us, and be pals with the vacuum cleaner. I named him Charlie. We're getting along great; he sucks all the dust and cat vomit off of my floor, and I push him so he can do it.

My room is currently still considered a Blue Zone.



In other news, I think I will begin playing the NOD campaign of Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars again. I actually almost completed it, but after that woman was executed, I pretty much couldn't take anymore awesome. I'm trying not to sound like a freakish, callused goremonger, but that was probably the coolest execution I ever saw. It was...elegantly non-graphic. That's a good description.


Oh, also, Samus Aran. Now I can give this the Samus/Metroid tag.

Zone cleared: Status: Blue

Yes, my room is finally cleaned. It took a valiant struggle, but the Tiberium (garbage/junk) has been removed for now. I swarmed on it with a large array of sonic resonance armaments (my hands and a vacuum), hindered only slightly by terrorist activity (the cats being annoyances). There are still small deposits of Tiberium left (the vacuum can't pick up a lot of things), but those should we wiped out within a day or at least kept to a minimum.

I have yet to set up full-scale harmonic resonance generators (i.e., a garbage can), but I'm in the process of transporting the sonic crystals (I need to buy a garbage can). I'll be submitting regular reports to command (posting weekly updates via my blog on Saturdays, assisted by Google Calender not leaving me alone if I don't).

Most of these reports will be very short.



I'll probably end up getting that guitar tomorrow. Nothing can go wrong!

Church This Week: Q3 of February 2008

Well, I'm still all in a teetotaler ...tee...tizzy, over the events of the weekend. I think it was mostly the 6 straight hours of brainwashing I received on the way back. "Hey, Kev, let's start us a choir. You and Bruce Bruckner figure it out. Also, let's start a youth group. You and Mick will be the firstfruits."

I'll need to talk to Bruce Bruckner to make it official, but I think we'll call ourselves the "Bruce Brothers." The Google Calender application is awesome cool; though I'm still not too sure what to think of it, nor what to think of Mark Nickosian (one of our resident cool guys). I like him, but he seems like he might be the ax murdering type...but maybe I'm not the best judge of characters sometimes.


Speaking of resident cool guys, Don Feldick was in church Wednesday night! Woohoo! We were so glad to see him; he missed church for two Bible studies and three Sundays. He has a new Bible, and it's a bit bigger than mine. He said he was worried that we might have thought he converted to Islam or something. If he hadn't shown up that night, I was going to go visit him. I owe him a DVD of the Bible studies he missed. I have that scheduled into Google Calender.

Kile II and Mr. Pinkerton were also there. I missed Kile II for some reason. Mr. Pinkerton was kind of quiet, as was the Hitman. I love our little group there. I told them I turned into Wild Man over the weekend due to my fierce surbibal instincts kicking in. Get it? Survival, surbible? Laugh, man! Bible humor!

Regardless, it was sure quiet. With the Fletchingbirds gone to Florida, where the wood is apparently in season (I know, I didn't know wood went in season, either), I can now go to church without my manhood being challenged. YES! GG!


I am in contact with two saints in California. One, Dan Corn, runs the website. The other, Mark Marker, uh, is a techie. He sent me two emails from his PHONE! I wish I could do that; I need a keyboard in my phone within the next 3 months.

He said that he would be at a keyboard over the weekend, and his thumbs were hurting. Funny thing; my laptop was out of commission. The AC cord broke right at the solder point where it connects into the laptop. Fun, huh?

Thus, I am going to email him back tomorrow, when it will be more convenient for both of us (my hands were hurting due to my mom's keyboard). I should have the AC adapter fixed by then. He seems interesting. I am also waiting on an email back from Jehoshaphat, who is advising me on guitar buying. I think I pretty much know what I want. The rest will be my pure, unmatched thirst and unrelenting quest for glory and honor just practicing hard to learn to play it with a spirit of humbleness. I'm a server. Let each esteem other better than themselves, as Paul says. (Philippians 2:3.)



Also, I think I got the karaoke version of the song me and Pastor will be singing. I may need to edit it some. Mr. Bruckner can't help us, because he is the sanctified singer. Me and Pastor will sing the heathen laughtrack songs. I'm planning to be a Sanctified Singer within the next 20 years. I figure if I scream really loud, it will "terraform" my throat to be able to sing differently. I love that word. Terraform. Terraforming.


Anyway, it's getting time to go. Oh, and my room is almost clean. I desolated it. I would use the word "pillaged," but that's a bit extreme. It just needs to be cavuumed, and vacuumed, and then have garbage cans placed in it.

I may have a few new readers. The Hitman demanded my email and blog URL, so I gave it to him and forgot the 'a'. Great work, Kev. Hi guys, if you're reading!

Assassinating Junk

As you may know, my parents have problems with hoarding junk. As they say, one man's junk is another man's treasure, but you know it works the opposite way? It's their choice, and I can't change their minds about it. I can only do so much, then I have to take a lesson from God, and give them up to uncleanness.

I've learned that, barring them giving it up on their own, we're not getting rid of the treasure. Thus, I have to learn to live with it. I am a human. Humans? We're very adaptable. Just look at Samus Aran. She's extremely adaptable. She is the embodiment of adaptability. And morph-ball prowess. And genocidally speaking, she's very good. And she wears red/orange really, really well. Did you know she did to red/orange what Princess Zelda did to pink? She also wears blue well.

I am going to transform my room into a sanctuary, a blue zone if you will. In Command and Conquer, the planet is broken into three zones of livability:

• Red zones (which are inhospitable)
• Yellow zones (which are livable but hellish) and
• Blue zones (which are clean and safe)

That's pretty much the breakdown of our house. Except that right now we have no blue zones. We only have walls/refrigerators (red zones), and junk (yellow zones.) (OK, it's not really quite that bad. Only impeccably clean qualifies as a blue zone.)

So I'm going to get out my sonic emitter (Command and Conquer humor, you wouldn't understand) and get to work. First things first, I am going to check out Google Calender. Mark Nickosian, one of our resident cool guys, mentioned that he uses a "scheduling program from Google." Apparently, you can set it to pop up and alert you to things.


So I cleared off the entire top shelf of my closet. Then I emptied out 4 of 6 drawers from my dresser. Everything on the top shelf, as well as in the drawers, was compiled into a large box that takes up 1/5th of my closet shelf space, and a box that's going into the Yellow Zone. If I don't care enough about something to shelter it lovingly (not grudgingly) in my room, I send it to be examined by my parents before I throw it out. Then it's out of my hair.

The rest, I put into stasis. I archive it; stasis is a cooler word. That's the box I mentioned that takes up 1/5th of my closet space.


I realized something.

If I find anymore useless knick knacks and either archive them or else throw them out (there are verses running through my head; "accusing or else excusing"), I'll soon have no more stuff. So I have a decision to make. I stand on the porcupine precipice of having a cluttered or a clear room. Do I get scared and back away, or push on with an unrelenting, dire campaign of destruction?




I think you know the answer. In other news, I am pretty sure I'm sleepwalking. Isn't that wiggy?

Walking on Eggshells

Lately, I have been walking on eggshells.

I get snapped at lately far too often, and for trivial reasons. Yesterday, I was yelled at because I cleaned the house. Yes. They want the house clean (particularly my dad; he lets us know the house is a horribly pigsty every chance he gets), and I have to do it because they work 13-hour days. That's very fair, indeed. The trouble comes in that they want the clean house, but they do not want the house clean. (Say what?)

They don't have time/ability to clean their own room. I understand...I don't want to clean my room, either. But when I clean the living room, it is required I take all of their valuables which can't be thrown away (and don't have a rightful home in the living room) and put them in their bedroom. I do the same with my things. But they...you know, let me stop using the word "they," and replace it with "my dad." My dad still seems to find fault because now the junk (sorry if this term offends anyone, I consider most of what I own junk as well, so shut your yap) is in their room instead of piled up in the living room. This happens to me, too. Let me say it again. This happens to me, too. It is common to all of us, and I am not picking on my parents unfairly.


My parents aren't pigs. They're good people. I wouldn't trade them for any other parents in the world. They're just really, really, extensively stressed out, and they don't know what to do with themselves. They also have horribly scarred childhoods (my dad's dad was a Satanist Christian...you know, like "[insert denomination here] Christian." I don't get it either, comrade.)


This puts me in a bad position; I'm damned if I do, and I'm damned if I don't. Me and my mom had a long, healthy (she said the term is "productive" or "rational," but I think healthy describes it better, as it denotes "productive" and "good") conversation about this. We came to the conclusion that we're both angry and upset about the same thing, and we need to have bean soup for dinner twice a week. Really, we have cans of beans piling up, and that's pretty much what the strife centers around. (We got in an argument about the pantry is overflowing with food we don't use and that should be donated. It's...part of the problem.)

My mom seems to understand that I can't do good except the good I can do. That complex sentence means that I can't do perfect, but I can do something. There's also another part; the plot thickens, as they say.

I am entering the stage of fetal development (uh, at my age, I guess it wouldn't be proper to call me a fetus) where I think I know everything. When talked to, I will realize I might be wrong; there are unseen implications in every action, is there not?

Regardless, this is a cause of endless strife between me and my dad. I am "contradictory"...for example, today, he was telling me about "chem trails." I asked him, "Well, why doesn't someone get a sample of the air up there?"

He said, "They have! It's aluminum oxide!" to which I replied, "Well then, why can't they figure out why they're doing it?" "Well, there's several theories...one says that it's to protect against an EMP blast." "OK, if that's the case, then why do they only blanket the entire sky with them once every 2-3 months?" "Uhh, I don't know, they also say it gives us cancer."

So I says, "Well, whatever...let the psychos figure it out, and once they figure it out, they can tell us." "Why do you call them psychos?!?"

"Because they're psychotic." I think he got up and left at that point, mumbling about "There you go again, being contradictory."


Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that somebody who devotes their life to believing in everything or the possibility of everything, and studies endlessly with no clear conclusion is psychotic. It seems that they just spin. Worse, if the psychos can't figure it out, why should we care? That's my basic point. And also, I do not want to fill my head about an "update" to something that even the psychos can't figure out. Another piece of the jumbled puzzle, I say. If they figure it out, OK, let's hear it. If not, shut up and toil with your group of spinning toilers. There I go, venting.


Honestly, and here I hold myself accountable, the root of most of this is greed and pride (on all our parts, but for now I'll focus on me); I could be a girl, and be going through fits of hormonal horror, causing me to turn on everyone and scream and yell then cry. And just to think...then I'd have no hope of exiting the "stage," short of the rapture or death. So I should be grateful, but instead of this gratitude I should be experiencing, I'm being prideful and greedy (I deserve "better.") I am...unsure if that's inappropriate; I tend to talk badly about men often, so I'll talk badly about women now, OK? No one be offended, OK? OK. Thanks. I said OK three times in that sentence, and this one makes four, and the word tends to calm people down. Calm down. That's right, humble fools...put away the pitchforks.






Pastor's doing a "series" on families. Last week he talked on the subject of slaves wives, and this week he's going to talk about easily manipulated fools husbands. I sure hope he does a sermon on hormonally-induced feelings of contradiction, and I think I have a case of the teenage angst coming on. Oogh. Woe is me...oh yeah, that's the teenage angst, for sure. Ah, wail wail, no one has it worser than I! Sigh. All is darkness. All is sorrow! Mournful bitterment...THAT'S IT, I'M GOING TO START WEARING EYELINER AND GET A BUNCH OF PIERCINGS




[so, in ending, I need to make it clear to him that just as he does not want to hear about video games, I don't want to hear about the newest conspiracy theory he's heard of...basically, I don't wish to waste my time on things he wastes his time on. I prefer wasting time in my own ways, which tend not to iffect my world view, TYVM. God help me, I can't grasp the difference between affect and effect, so from now on I'll use iffect. Go Kev!]

Welcome the new Vacuum

The last vacuum cleaner we got was a Bissell Powerforce Bagless- the base Walmart special vacuum. It worked fine for quite a while...over a year now, I think. Or more than a year. I am unsure of why it's not working now. We vacuum about once a week. So it was good for about 50 cleanings...so it cost almost $1 each time we used it, not counting electricity. (Insert "womp womp" sound effect here.) It's still good for, I don't know, something (maybe we can give it to Good Will), but I am personally sick of it, regardless of its ability. If it were brand-new I'd still be disgusted by it, thus would not want to get another of the same model.


I remember the day my parents brought it home. It was late evening. There was a movie on in my room...something to do with a train and a raging Hell beast- probably several of them- trying to break into it. They were creatures that moved about real fast. Anyway, at first remembrance I mistook this memory for the train in Splinter Cell (I forget which of them, except that it wasn't the train in Double Agent). I also almost mistook it for the train in Paper Mario: TTYD.

I think they also picked up a copy of Dragon Ball Z: Budokai. My brother finished it in a few hours...or I think. Those games are so confusing; maybe he just...I don't know. It was so very boring, playing the matches over and over, listening to some poor VA making a fool of himself. And every time you failed a match you had to listen to the "cutscene" again. Ugh. I hate Dragon Ball Z. Now I've gone and gone off topic.

I cleaned my room especially for the vacuum, so I could vacuum it. Now I will do the same for the living room. It is 1:11 PM. A walla, one shazam, and two botta-bings later...


...and after four and a half hours of laboring, my work is finished! Yes, I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the forces of filth away if but for a season. I only got one garbage bag worth of throwaway garbage; so that means the rest of the garbage stayed in the house, if you know what I mean. (That is to say, I basically just piled stuff on top of stuff in the corners! Ouch.)


My room is a total wreck now (it wasn't before?); I need to clean out my closet. Like a man. And throw stuff away. Like a man. I shave...therefore, I can do any manly deed. Including throw away useless stuff. My lack of use of my dresser is the main problem; I'll have to sort that out. But here I go, Carrying on Like A Schoolgirl. I'm also Pondering Plotting and Planning.

The new vacuum is a Dirt Devil Vibe Quick Vac. You can click the link for a picture. It looks kind of...weird. And it's very hard to push compared to the Powerforce...but it's a lot simpler, in some way. We'll see how I feel in a few weeks. It's got a cute, dandy little hatch at the bottom for emptying. Speaking of emptying, lookie what I got off of the floor!

Yes, 1 pound, 13.5 ounces of dirt and pet hair!
For good measure, I vacuumed a mint up along with the dirt. I don't want it to have bad breath. Or...dust.


My dad hates it when I clean (yet hates it when it's cluttered). My parents typically have a lot of stuff in the living room that should go in their room. "Oh, you're not my father, I don't even have enough time to properly defecate!" he says out of the blue. Really, if someone doesn't have enough time to use toilet paper, something is wrong. Though...it does explain why he always smells feces and no one else seems to.



Actually, I think I should erase that last bit. I'll get it in editing.

Like a man.



Tomorrow I will post about ice cream. Stay tuned. Or actually, just check back tomorrow at intervals. I guess staying tuned would be hitting refresh a lot, and that'd just be stupid, because I probably won't post until noon or something. Off I go to learn about...one anothering. Bleh bleh blah blah do this do that, be kindly affectioned "wah wah wah." UGH.

Pecan pie, my sweet -- Thanksgiving post #7

It is Thanksgiving! Rejoice, brethren! Accolades delivered on high to the Most High! Give thanks, stuff like that. Do good unto all men, yadda yada.


Today, I made two pecan pies. Recipe here (this is the first time I got to follow a recipe from my blog; I need recipe scribing classes, apparently; I did edit it a bit just now). Hahah! One is for my family, and the other is for me. Since they stay so long in the fridge- and taste so awesome chilled- I'll have pecan pie for weeks. My family doesn't really care for pecan pies. They're jerks.

One thing I do with pecan pies is cut slices (at random) in the crust before I add the filling. It lets the filling seep out and then caramelize. Below is a picture of how it looks. It becomes all chewy and good and adds a huge world of texture. Thanks to the Pyrex pie pan for...letting us see through it.



Note that the puddle of filling in the bottom was most likely caused by the very thin pie crust and NOT because I cut into it to cause the filling to crystallize. I fused together 3 pie crust rounds to form the shell; sometimes, I get a craving for "poptarts," but the ones you buy taste ...well, terrible, so I made up a batch of pie dough, rolled it into rounds, made myself a few "poptarts," then froze the rest of the dough (Alton Brown provided the inspiration with his recipe for "poptarts"). I fill them with apricot preserves or strawberries boiled with sugar or whatever.

Since it was so thin it (most likely) bubbled up and created a pocket of air during the blind-baking, which filled with filling. Also note that since it was old (at least 3 months) and frozen, it didn't seal properly. I would not make slices that big for the caramel crystallizing...stuff. It just didn't seal. So don't make ugly 3-inch slices in the crust. Please. Use a light touch and don't make the cuts too wide. 1/2 to 1 inch.




...well, that was exhaustive. Aside from make the pies, I cleaned the kitchen (including the oven! That thing was DIRTY! I've never cleaned a fireplace, but IT WAS LIKE CLEANING A FIREPLACE!), went shopping with my Mommy for Thanksgiving stuff (we went by a Fry's I know of that is typically abandoned, and I was right; despite it being the night before the big T, there were few people there).

Then we went home. We also visited a Waffle House and sampled their food. They have...well, their waffles need to be thicker, more golden, and crispier. They're very good in that they're airy, but they're not crispy enough. And the color is bad. Sorry, waffle house. Don't feel sad. You've still got good hamburgers. Or, patty melts, I think.

Happy Thanksgiving! As for me, I am going to go die for 10 hours. My Brother just let out a demonic growl from his room. Great. This should...I should get out of here.

Cleaning my Room -- Thanksgiving post #3

It's that time again. Time to clean my room. It isn't too bad. There's just a bunch of sparkling water cans and stuff. The biggest problem is the cat food spilled everywhere. Cats. Also, I'm still oblivious to the method of clothes management. No one has taught me how to handle clothes. I mean, I was 8 or 9 when I first got the idea that I should always wear at least shorts or underwear.

The reason? I'm preparing for Thanksgiving. I need a clean room with which to play Metroid Prime 3: Corruption in on the big day. Yee!

I had to clear out some tapes which were in my way. I threw out Out for Justice, Waterboy, Above the Law, The Day After Tomorrow, Scrooged, Home Alone 2, An American Tail 1 and (presumably) 2, The Matrix Revisited, The Great Outdoors, and Elektra, among some others, such as Top Gun. I am not a movie fan. In any definition of the word. Movies suck.

Then I ran into a problem. I have stuff in my room that I...don't necessarily need, but don't have reason of space constraint to destroy. One of those things is the Left Behind series. I have books 1-11 of the main series (it's got 4 prequels, I think, and one more "mainquel" that I do not have), and some 10-15 books of the "kids" series. The kids series is 40 books long if memory serves.

While I don't dislike the series entirely, I feel no need for it. Only half of the books are in good condition, and it would be difficult to sell them one by one. I now see how my parents feel. Except, I don't have the 40 years of mental conditioning to hoard everything. Poor guys. They've really raised me and my brother well, all things considered. He (my brother) had 95% of his belongings thrown out a year ago and he still doesn't care. My Dad had 10% of his jun-...belongings thrown out several years ago and it caused mental deterioration to the point that he is unable to remember where anything is or if he still has anything.

So, I suppose I'm going to box them up, then send them to Savers.

OK, they're boxed in an oatmeal box and ready for transport. Now, my room is vacuumed and cleaned. Not necessarily in that order. Instead of cleaning my room, from now on I should just blog about cleaning it. Then it'll get cleaned twelve times faster!


I'll be curious to see if I really have been sleeping badly because of my room; my bed hasn't felt this comfortable for a long while. A long, long while. I am so sleepy. Also, I am catching my Mom's flu or cold or fever or what have you (I am not a mom, so I cannot tell what it is). So tired...now my Mom is having a breakdown and needs me to stay up with her for several hours. I really dislike that darn chihuahua. No one likes him. But he's too pathetic to hate...


My Mom did the Thanksgiving shopping- or at least the brunt of it- today. I can't believe Thanksgiving is 5 days away! And it's almost tomorrow, then it'll be 4! She got cranberries (fresh), canned pumpkin (not "pie flavored"), two pie shells (that's OK, we have two more in the freezer; I have to make two pecan pies to accompany the pumpkin pies), one graham cracker crust, one "shortbread" crust, potatoes, canned yams- fresh yams- and marshmallows, and the turkey.

We aren't sure if we need canned yams to use the marshmallows on or not. We don't want anyone to die...so we'll counsel with a recipe book. I really like the idea of baking marshmallows onto, basically, a potato. And a potato, is, basically, an onion. So it's like spreading marshmallow creme between two slices of onion and calling it a sandwich. I dare you to try it.


She also got the ingredients for the "salad." We call it the "salad" side, but it is a vegetable dip plate (salad's way too much to worry about on Thanksgiving, a veggie plate is not!). Cucumbers, carrots, cauliflower, and celery. We also make a "pickled" plate, which has green olives, black olives, and Clausen pickles. Sadly, in recent years, the black olives...have severely deteriorated in taste and texture quality.

Oh, eww. I got a can of Early California black olives the other day- like the best black olive on the market (that is, for a halfway reasonable price; this is for macaroni salad, people)- and they tasted like olives you get off of a tree uncured. Yuck. Missing was the distinct, sweet, sweet taste of sodium hydroxide.

If you didn't know, sodium hydroxide is "codename," let's say, for "lye." Caustic soda is my favorite term. How...sinister.


...just talking about lye makes me want to not sweat and feel all paranoid and such. If you get a flake of that on your skin...it will react with any moisture on you...and burn the hell out of you, and it feels like a sting. Fun stuff to work with. Your mind plays tricks on you and makes you think you got some on you. My Dad doesn't really mind lye all that much; he worked at a chemical plant (what else would he do with his Master's Degree in pouring?), and I guess lye is nothing compared to some chemicals.

One time, he got some stuff on him that was so bad, apparently he is still irritated by it. It's something to do with what it does to skin cells, I think. I'll interrogate him about it later.

Also, apparently, there's a certain chemical that completely eats up the oxygen from a room. I wonder how easy it would be to kill someone with that. I suppose, this year, since the black olives taste like pure horror, perhaps we should spend a little extra and get those ones in the deli. Because the normal black olives are so bad I reckon soon they won't be able to sell them.


So many tags. 5 days to Thanksgiving!

Kev's "Home" Improvement Project

I have adopted a part of our yard. Sort of like adopting a highway. Only it's dirtier than a highway. OOH, BURN! To wit: I adopted it and am going to clean it up. Why? Well,

The reason for cleaning up this area of the yard is that flower garden I've always wanted. Nothing says, "Wow! This guy is NUTS!" like a flower garden! Plus, I peddle flowers at church. I'd sell them for like, $2 or $5 a bundle, and people would donate it, sort of like buying it for the church.


Additionally...the area... it... looks terrible. I'd like one clean area of the yard to relax in. I'm not saying it's filthy. It's filthy by my "I wish it weren't so" standards, but you should see the real "junkyards" we have around here. The Frefallows down the lane, our drug-using neighbors, have so much junk in their yard they could trigger the Second Coming. Want to know the best part? It's all worthless! Hah, hah, hah! Seriously- they couldn't sell any of that stuff if they shot themselves!


So, I've spent five-to-six days so far (spread out over two weeks), getting 2 recycling-can garbage cans full of junk and one very full F-150 truckbed of tree trimmings (here is the somewhat-hollow tree canopy I'll be paying a lot of attention to):


It's real nice in the mornings. Casts shade forever, it seems. Lots of garbage there, but that's only one fourth of the junk in the area. LJ, my Mom's dog, ripped apart a couch (like pitbulls do), and it floated underneath the branches. So I'll have to figure a way to get that fluffy stuff out from under there, as well as devise a plan for removal of this junk. I can fill an entire garbage can in about 40 minutes.


Funny thing is, it is stuff we brought from our old house. Lesson of the day: When you're moving, take that time to throw your junk away! Seriously! Don't screw around; this is your chance to make a clean start. You'll only shamefully throw it away some years later, so cut yourself the shame. And the suffering.

Plus, you can acquire new, useless-worthless junk at that point, if you so desire. I mean, you'll never use the old useless-worthless junk, anyway, so get some new useless-worthless junk you can't use: a stroller with two wheels... a door that's broken in half... a TV with a broken screen (to be frozen until they can figure a way to fix broken screens?)... a washing machine which is probably just missing a belt... a microwave you're not sure works...all will be yours for the taking with your newly found space. Or you can look on the space and go, "Wow, this doesn't look like...like a pile of junk. This is GREAT!"



...so uh, this area should be clean just in time to start planting. When that happens, don't say you didn't see it coming!


Then I'll need to devise a way to repel birds, bugs, and dogs.

But we'll burn that bridge when we come to it.

Kev the Destroyer: Kitchen

Well it's been 2 long weeks since the Kitchen laid its mess at Kev's feet
And it burned inside its cupboards the way it suffered that defeat
In the darkest of its bowels the Kitchen hatched an evil plan
To tempt Destroyer's brother for he's just a mortal man
"His brothers hunger," the Kitchen cried is what will do Kev in
"I thought we had this settled, why're you dirty again?"





Welcome the 'Things I Like' tag!
Man. There's this Asian chick on GOD TV (this channel seems like it pwns!), and she's PSYCHO. I mean, like, just her style of preaching is psycho, but not in a bad way. She seems pretty sharp, unless she uses the same routine every time...

I like her pants. They're awesome. Kinda like, I think cargo pants, but they're not as loose as cargo pants. Halfway between cargo pants and jeans, with jeanlike pockets (5 pockets instead of 50), and an elastic band at the bottom of the pant leg, and they go 1/3rd down her calves.


A few hours later, I continue writing, and now Joyce Meyers is on. Eww.


Me and my Mom had a fight (not so much a fight, but an 'argument'). She says I'm turning into a jerk, I used to be a nice person, etc. etc. Blah blah blah on and on!


...me and my parents have an arrangement, any time I have to cook dinner while they're gone, I make $20 (seeing's how dinner takes some hours, then usually the rest I am 'watching' Matt). So today I made $20, and made some more money earlier this week. I haven't yet decided what to spend it on. I already donated $40.00 to Les Feldick, and I am considering getting a BB gun (Blowgun isn't that accurate up to 200 feet I guess?!), and I need a curtain. I should at LEAST pay for the materials (thanks for agreeing to make it Mom!). I want it big, and bordered and held up by Velcro- that way I can completely remove it when it rains.

Also, for some strange reason, I don't want an LCD TV anymore. Oh... wait... maybe it's because the use for a computer screen and for a video game screen is moot because I can't use either.


Now onto the subject of this post!

Today I realized the kitchen is a mess. Not good. It took me three hours to get to the point where I could begin washing dishes. It wasn't as bad as it was last kitchen post, but it was pretty bad. I got the sanitizer and off I went...I threw an entire garbage bag of pans out. And a crock pot. The only thing I could justify saving for a Goodwill was an electric (plug in) ice cream scoop.


I used two cups of sanitizer. Sprayed from a spray bottle. I love this stuff! It seems to loosen grime better than normal water. Joyce Meyers is off now. It's Battlecry. This channel seems to be geared towards radical, cool teenagers, of which I am one! This appeals to me, most definitely! LET'S GET READY FOR BATTLECRY!

Oh my gosh! It's so dark! Now some lights. Humming. More humming. RED FLAGS OMGWTF NAZISOVIERT DUUDE OH NO IT'S AN INVASION OH NOES NOW THERE ARE RED DANCING BALLOONS!!!!!11111 GOD HELP US, THEY'RE COMING TOWARDS THE CAMERA! OH NO! OH NOOOO! THEY'RE AIMING THE RED FLAG OF DEATH CANNON!!!!!

Now some teenagers are screaming for mercy! I think, but all I can hear is cheering! OH NO THEY'RE DANCIGN IN A CIRCLE

NOW THEY'RE SUMMONING A DEMONprobably! NOE! THEY'RE GOING TO KILL ALL THOSE CHRISTIANS! THE MUSIC IS OH NO IT'S GETTING LOUADER!

Okay, the glags OH MY GOSH


They're doing kicks!
Now they PUNCHED THE GROUND CAUSING VOLCANOES TO ERUPT THOUSANDS OF MILES AWAY KILLING BILLIONS!!!!1one OH NOOOOO

THeY'RE

OH NO THEY GOT THEIR FLAGS AGAIN OH NO

They're.... CASTING AN DEMON SPELL!


NOW THEY'RE CIRCLE DANCING AGAIN! OH NO! All right! They're retreating! GO BACK TO WHERE YOU CAME FROM YOU DOPPELGANGER WANWAIRS!

OH NO THEY JUST SHOT SOKME KINDA OF


OH NO A GIANT RED FLAG! AND THEY HAVE SOMEONE CAPTURED! HANGING IN FRONT OF IT!

OH NO NOW SHE'S UPSIDE DOWN! wow is she a pole dancer or what? THEY'RE NOW BOWING TO HER! SHE'S THEIR QUEEN!!!!! THE RED QUEEN OMGWTFWarp


There they go! They're going to eat the audience memebers!!!

SHE'S GIVING ORDERS BY THE TWIRLING IN THE AIR SHE'S DOING! Pointing out targets!

OH MY GOSH THERE GOES A RADICAL SOVIET CHaNT!!!! She's .. ON THE GROUND RUN OGM!!!!!11111


It' OH NO THEY JUST BLEW THE WHOLE PLACE TO SMITHEREENS!!!!!11 A NUCLEAR BOMB DOOOD


NOOO! IT'S THEIR VICE-PREMIER, VLADIMIR SUKOWA! He is demanding they ................oh...........................

oh...no wait, he's a preacher. Ohkay. That makes sense, 'cause they didn't look particularly evil...


So uh...yeah, I cleaned the kitchen. Then I made Salmon, baked with butter, and some rice and green beans. Then I made a sour-cream, horseradish-caper dip. It needed more capers. Like a fancy tartare sauce I tried unsuccessfully to invent...I will try it again, maybe with beef though. Yeah...I'll make it with beef!

So anyways, I am tired. I am going to read this thing about the human skull then go to sleep. I'm gonna study one body part at a time until I read about all the body parts, then I'm moving on to how they uhh...operate. And go into detail, from skull to eye/ear/nose/mouth. Pretty soon, I'll rule the world! People will come to me and be like, "Hey Kev, how many eyes does a skull have?" and I'll be like, "two dude." And they'll be like, "wooow, you're s'cool kev!"



No Song of the Day. Not listening to enough songs to have one...because I'm listening to KLove, and I rarely post SOTD's for songs I don't own. I try not to at least...

Kev the Destroyer, Pantry. Pantry, Kev the Destroyer.

Kev the Destroyer strikes again. Once more, Righty and Lefty and Scabber assisted. This time, some garbage bags joined in, and my Mom was at work, so I took advantage of the clearing she had made in her room.

I was gonna say some things about my parents in this post. It came to my attention that the things I would have been saying are unfair, things which people should not be told without their consent, or without it being after the fact. You're welcome, rascally parents. You're welcome.


Basically, they have a problem throwing things away, and I am fed up with it. I am put into this world for several reasons. One reason I am here is to get their stuff thrown out. It will be a long and ah, fearsome battle, lots of tears (from them). I may sound mean, but I am doing them a HUGE favor. It'd be like someone coming up to me and saying "Hey Kev, I am a Flash cartoon designer. I am very skilled, just...man, I have no good ideas. I wish I could do a longer series, honestly. Say uh, do you know anyone? Who like, has a good idea?"

...actually...that's kinda what the commies said. "Oh, we're doing everyone a HUGE favor- they just don't know it. Yet."


So today, I cleared out the pantry. I opened up cans and poured them into a bucket, old expired cans, amongst dinged up cans and overcooked, outdated green beans. I got two and a half gallons...sheesh. Chickens are gonna love it I hope. It rained some more. So much in fact that we lost about $200 in hay and feed...the perks of our small farm life...

You can see here all the stuff my Mom pushed away from the corner she cleaned. She has the ability to move it. Me, I move it into a trash bag. Then throw it away. She will thank me for it. Kind of like the world thanked Israel when they bombed Iraq...



I dunno how long it took me. Hours. Under four, I think. Probably three.

Here is the after picture. I moved the filing cabinet there to my parent's room. Also...okay well most of the stuff went to my parent's room. Poor fools. It was their stuff though, you reap what you sow. I sound mean to myself. Am I being mean? I think I'm being mean.

You can see Precious there smelling the floor, as she has not smelled that part of the floor for at least ten years- and we've lived here only five. HA! Damn fly. First fly that has bothered me for months. Got him good. The jerk...anyways, X-Files is on, and I sometimes like their lame style of lameness.
This one is about aliens abducting two people (of course teenagers), then themselves being abducted. I think everything involved got raped, but I'm not sure yet, as this is the beginning of the show...

Did you know Live Long and Prosper is a Jewish saying? Weird. Or, Jeweird! Ahaha! Alright that wasn't too great. GOODNIGHT!

Kev the Destroyer, Dirty Kitchen. Dirty Kitchen, Kev the Destroyer.

I apologize for the following use of capital letters, it won't go on too long. It is there for easily digested emphasis. Also, I will make a post about the new layout tomorrow. I dunno why I didn't see this one to begin with...


I am off strike apparently. I have been on strike since Tuesday, March 13th. It is now Wednesday night, March 21st. I am not off strike really though. KRCLADD (Kev's Ruthless Cruelty Law Against Dirty Dishes) is in stage red-purple, or bleeding and bruised. No one gets ANY DISHES, SO STOP YOUR WORTHLESS

SISSY

LOSER

WHINING! I don't care if you're hungry- there is canned roast beef, canned tuna, canned chicken breast FOR THAT VERY REASON! There is chili, there are beans! Peanut butter, jelly, bananas, AND TONS OF SANDWICH MEAT, INCLUDING SALAMI AND PEPPERONI. There are SEVERAL LOAVES OF BREAD and SEVERAL QUARTS of Mayonnaise. There is chocolate milk, lots of cheese for snacking on, there are pecans and peanuts- salted AND unsalted peanuts mind you. THERE ARE CRAISINS, and TEN RISING CRUST FROZEN PIZZAS THAT CAN BE BAKED WITH YOUR ALLOTTED MATERIALS! STOP YOUR LOSER WHINING I DO NOT CARE! I am allowing myself, I declare this very moment, TO NOT GIVE A DAMN.

There are two VIRTUALLY NONSTICK CAST IRON SKILLETS for MAKING EGGS IN for BREAKFAST! You can make anything you like in the three-cup pan allotted you, I suggest you choose wisely! There will be no other dishes to even be in the sink so you can soak that pan good! Also, there are tons of HIGH QUALITY paper plates and high quality, 12-ounce bowls. SO STOP YOUR DAMN WHINING, I REFUSE TO ALLOW YOU TO FORCE ME TO WORK CLEANING THE KITCHEN ENDLESSLY WITH NO THANKS. That is SLAVE LABOR punishable by THREE SLAPS ON EACH WRIST.



...that was so I can not feel bad about them "starving" while I prepare to prepare the feast I have planned for when my Dad gets back home. Oh yes, what horror- having to eat delicious roast beef, chicken breast, and albacore tuna and salmon. Poor poor them. Oh, woe is them. Jerks.


So it really scares me to post pictures of a filthy, horrific, disgusting kitchen. This is what happens to the kitchen in three days time. It is a little worse since it's been about a week- it seems to go downhill fast in the first three days, then really slow the downhill descent. First off, my team mates. Love you guys. Picture at right.

KLove bumper sticker, representing KLove.
Two bottles of dish soap, one has PWNT written on it I guess.
TWO sponges. New out of bag.
Righty, my right hand - he twists the lids off of jars, and his index finger goes on top of Lefty's when entwining my fingers.
Lefty, my left hand - he holds the jars which lids Righty twists off, and his little finger goes on the bottom when I entwine my fingers.
Also, Scabber, the scab over the cut on my thumb. He won't be with us too much longer.



The bumper sticker is cut off because I could only take one picture, and I had to hold the camera with my mouth. So yeah...anyways...MY MOM STILL HAD THE SD CARD. You know, she has two of them, sheesh. She cleared one off for me- then compulsively, uncontrollably I assume- she put it back into her camera and started taking pictures. SNAP SNAP SNAP went the electronic beep of the camera. Curses. So I finally took the SD card from her. It is corrupted. Funtime merriment.

Luckily, I found the USB-to-IEEE1394 cord. It is designed for cameras, as it has a 4-pin connector. Firewire/iLINK/IEEE1394 cords are I guess standard six-pin, which my laptop has...so if I wasn't able to find that cord, I wouldn't of been able to post the pictures. First is above-right, and the text says "Rated too hot for Kev's Blog! by the Kev Doesn't Want His Ideas Stolen Foundation."

Yes, that is a pair of pants...also, a flashlight and a hair brush. And a plug-in electricity timer thinger. Wiggy.

Here you can see the, I assume very necessary K-Mart bag. Where did a K-Mart bag come from? We don't go there. Strange, it must be THAT important to their rituals.
You can hear them chanting at night...my mom and brother...chanting...distant chanting distant chanting distant chanting. (No one will ever get that.)

So that is the only burner that is used, seeing's how well my family only has two clean pans, and one of them is always in the sink.





Below are two pictures. One contains a wooden picture-looking thing given me by my Granny on my best birthday ever, my Sweet 16. Hold on, let me do some research on that. (Kev learns it isn't inherently sissy to have a sweet 16). Alright, but I STILL don't like calling it my Sweet 16. I'll call it...uhh...Best Birthday Ever 16 Four Years To Live? Ahright. 'ill work.

It says "You may not know all the details of your journey, or clearly see where the trail is leading, but God will always give you enough light to take the next step." Nice present for a 16 year old, don't you think? We always keep it above the garbage can. Don't ask me why, cause I don't know myself.

















You uh, will probably also notice the ladder in the same picture with the birthday gift. Like I said...previously...it is a little worse seeing's how it has been a little over a week, but yeah...also, you'll be wondering, like I do looking at these pictures, how the hell does it not all fall down?

So that is the mess I have to clean up. Let me go put away some dishes and stuff, and I'll be right back soonish.

KEV the DESTROYER!


OK. A bit longer than I expected. I had to wash milking jars, which I will not be protecting. My Mom will have to ensure my brother doesn't use half-gallon jars to get water in and not drink, not me. I am not fighting that losing battle. No sir. Dunno why I even washed them really. Like a ...an olive branch or something.

So, here is the new kitchen! It took me, let's see...three to four hours. I only washed an eighth of the milking jars, so I don't know what's wrong with the milk jar population? Here are the after pictures. I am really sorry if you have dialup and all these pictures are messing with you. So,

HERE THEY ARE!
































And there you have it. Quite impressive, huh? The counters have sustained various burns over the years. We have Cast Iron and are stupid, so that explains them. Also there are smudges, I didn't like, deep-down clean. I should...anyways, I have all of our knives (even the SHARP ones!), spoons, forks, and utensils in a drawer in my room.

I have all the bowls on top of the refrigerator in such a configuration that they are too heavy for my Mom and Brother to remove.

Now all I need to do is find something to eat. I am very hungry. Whew...seriously though, if I die, I want my dead Gamecube to be buried with me. OK? Alright. Also, say a few words about it; Metroid Prime was great for it, and Super Mario Sunshine was very pretty. Lots of memories about that system, man. I ...you know, it's a worthless pile of junk right now. I still have it. I am going to put it on my wall like a painting! Tell me it doesn't mean something to me why don't you?!


Good night- I will be staying up a few more hours. No no, you go on ahead...n- hey! Aren't you gonna stay and keep me company?! Drat!

The New Couch

Today my Mom found a new couch at a Goodwill for $50. I think I mentioned we got rid of our old couch. It was falling apart, and had dog all over it (that's my Mom's mutt for you). I learned that getting a couch OUTSIDE is MUCH more difficult than getting one in.

For the old one, I had to use a sledgehammer on it, and a razor blade, and a cat's paw, and I had to break it's back (which left me sore for days, that was a pretty strong couch), and it took like an hour to do. Then I tipped it out the door and let it crash down into the junk pile, which is the stuff we will take to the dump. We want to do that before my Dad gets back from jail.

Which means I have until the 24th to clean, after that I need to climb back down the mountain and get back to my life...or the lack of said life. So I will make myself a schedule. First off, I NEED A CAMERA DAMNIT MOM GIVE ME A DAMN SD CARD!!!



...
So uh, I need to make a list of things that need doing, then just portion them out to days. Like today the turkey birds need feeding, so I will not be able to invent the car which works off of oxygen. Thanks alot, turkey birds.

To clarify, 'turkey birds,' are a joke referring to the chickens. My Mom is dumbfounded by things like that. Like if I say "the Milk Cows," she starts rolling on the ground, frothing at the mouth until I explain that I meant 'goat.' And if she is dumbfounded by things like that, then others will be.


My goodness, the cats just LOVE this couch! Precious is sleeping on it, and so is Tiger. Precious enjoys sleeping on the back of the couch, but that's hard to do when there's no couch, so she's now happy. I can use my laptop on it. Speaking of which, my battery is getting low. Here we go!



Oh my oh me oh woopdedee. My Mom is out of options- OOO. "Hmm," she thinks to herself. "How will I clean mine room? It is filthy; behold, filth drops from the walls, the ceiling is aflame in the bright turquoise flame of wretchedness; to wit, it is unclean, and I have not the time for removing the filth."

In steps Kev...

"BEHOLD, thus says Kev thine son, who proceeded from thy womb: Dear Mommy, I wilt clean thine room. The only thing I ask in return...is for your permission to throw out anything I have to. Signe Thoue Heree."


"And in that day, Kev shall bring forth both garbage cans, and place them in the way of the door of the room: He will utterly destroy all which be, whether they be gold records from the fragmented yellies*, obsolete videotapes, or unused linens; none shall be spared his much wrath. In that day ye shall plead, "Kev, please don't throw that out.", yet Kev shall not hear you, neither cave to your demands: and shall cast they the unprofitable into outer darkness: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth."

Commentary: Now, here it appears Kev is indicating that when his Mom is forced to allow him to clean her room, she will be signing a... sort of a metaphorical pact with the devil...and "none shall be spared his much wrath." Then he goes on to explain that his Mom will ask him to spare something, and this brings us to reference another writing:

42 And now I (Speed the movie, a tape) ask one petition of thee, deny me not. And Kev's Mom said unto him, Say on.
43 And he said, Speak, I pray thee, unto Kevin the Destroyer, (for he will not say thee nay,) that he spare me from his much wrath.
44 And Kev's Mom said, Well; I will speak for thee unto the destroyer.
45 Kev's Mom therefore went unto the Destroyer Kevin, to speak unto him on behalf of a tape. And the destroyer rose up to meet her, and bowed himself unto her, and sat down in his recliner, and caused a couch to be set for the destroyer's mother; and she sat on his north-left.
46 Then she said, I desire one small petition of thee; I pray thee, say me not nay. And the destroyer said unto her, Ask on, my mother: for I will not say thee nay.
47 And she said, Spare the tape to be given to Matt thy brother to watch.
48 And the destroyer Kevin answered and said unto his mother, And why dost thou ask Speed the tape for Matt? ask for him the kitchen also; for he is mine elder brother; even for him, and for Mochi the rat, and for noodle vomit, the offspring of Satan.
49 Then the destroyer Kevin sware by the LORD, saying, God do so to me, and more also, if Matt has not spoken this word against his own right to cook.
50 Now therefore, as the LORD liveth, which hath established me, and set me on the throne of David my father, and who hath made me an house, as has occured, Matt shall have his cooking privileges revoked this day.
51 And the destroyer Kevin sent by the hand of Napoleon the son of Kev's imagination; and he fell upon him (Kev's brother, Matt) that his cooking privileges were provoked.

Commentary: You see, it appears that when his Mom does indeed agree to have her room cleaned, all hell will break loose for anything in there. Also, Kev is apparently already partway to removing his brother's cooking privileges. I have to plead with you this day, my heart goes out to you. If you haven't removed anything precious to you from your room, do that now; don't wait until it's too late. I must go now, and I leave you with a parting verse. Goodnight, and Godspeed.

Romans 8:37

Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.

Song of the Day is Mercy in Me by Todd Agnew on his Reflection of Something CD. I haven't yet had the chance to listen to the Rebecca St. James CD that got here today- Wait For Me- The Best Of Rebecca St. James. Got here really fast (shipped from Tempe, AZ)

It has one good song on it so far, and I've only listened to one song. The uh, I forget what it's called. K-Love played it back when though.

Back when is like a year ago. I Kings chapter 2 verses 16-25 are the verses I altered.

Sorry About That Evil Thing I Do

Edited and updated Saturday, June 16th, 2007



Today I cleaned my room. It took one hour, it would have taken about thirty minutes, but I had to clean out the tissues. You ever see the Matrix? When Neo touches that mirror? Or, my preferable scenario, in Metroid Prime 2, when Samus touches that crazy sticky mirror-like shield thing? Well, that's what my TV screen is like. Sticky, flexible, and it blocks dark energy when energized by Light Energy.

Except my TV screen "set" with tissues in it. So they're embedded into the glass. Also, I was surprised to see that the tissues had formed a militia, and ripped the stuffing out of my pillow, hiding it under my bed, and took up residence. I was really wondering why my pillow is so lumpy and uncomfortable lately, now I know. Curse those tissues.

The cat litter pan was in desperate need of changing. I dumped the litter into the garbage can and replaced it with some litter from CostCo. Precious isn't quite sure if she approves yet, seeing's how that filthy woman (my Mom) got it for her. Precious hates my Mom, by the way.


On the Brother Front


Welcome to the brother front. Two days ago I decided to stop caring about the kitchen. I am on strike. I have not washed dishes in two days. Whoo, what a whirlwind. I discovered the cure to AIDS, wrote TEN screenplays which all won gold medals at the Olympics they were so good, and also I solved world hunger AND a Rubik's cube AT THE SAME TIME, many consider me to be the anti-Christ at this point.

Yet, still, the dishes are piling up. I salvaged all that I could and sheltered them on top of the 'fridge. Not many. Four bowls, two measuring cups, a fork, a potato peeler. Go forth, and multiply upon the face o...sorry. You're...you're inanimate.

I tried just taking away the noodles at first, but I got tired of his moping.

He is alternating between two different tunes:

Mope to the left, Mope to the right, Mope mope mope it brings me delight!

and

MOPE MOPE MOPE, MOPE MOPE MOPE, MOPE YOUR BOOTY,


He would just sit there, for hours, and hours, one time, I timed him at ten hours 53 minutes, a...wait sorry no no, like twenty minutes. I mistook minutes for hours. The solution is we all suffer- no matter how much he mope, mope, mopes, there's no helping him. Today, he used the last clean pan, a one-gallon pan, to heat up a can of beans (dip).

It was a nice can of beans. Good kid. Never caused trouble, wouldn't hurt a fly. (detective voice) Yet still the forces of fate arrive to strike down the best of us, and he was no exception. It's n...ahem, it was a 16 ounce can of beans.

Do you know how many ounces is in a gallon?

Well, there's two tablespoons in an ounce.
Six teaspoons in two tablespoons.
Three teaspoons, one tablespoo OH MAN, I'm going the wrong way.

Okay, there's 8 ounces in an 8-ounce cup.
There are 4 cups in a quart.
There are 4 quarts to a gallon.
8 * 4 is most probably 32.
So, 32 ounces in a quart.
32 * 4 is 128 ounces.


My family can't seem to get this down. I don't know why. They're always asking me, "Kev, what the HELL is this?!...WHAT THE HECK! KEV! WHAT IS THIS!?", and I'm like, "Dude, there's FOUR quarts to a gallon." then they're like "Oh, right. Thanks Kev!" Really, I had to explain to them, sloooooowly:


Kev: Listen, guys, a Metroid is like a space vampire- in space...

Family: (scribbles notes)

Kev: It...ALRIGHT, YOU CAN WRITE THEM BUT YOU CAN'T PASS THEM! READ THAT OUT LOUD MISTER! ------->

Family: (sigh)...Metroids suck!

Kev: Very good you're learning! So...

Kev: Onto our next topic, "The Second World War in Two Minutes," then onto "The First World War in One Minute..."







So uh, I got a little off course there. Sorry. So like I was saying, a 16 ounce can of beans, being heated up in a 128+ ounce pan.


I created a visual aid to help you out if you're having trouble envisioning this. Let it all sink in...yes...see how small the can is...see how big the pan is...

Beans, the San Francisco Treat!


Now consider to yourself why one would use such a big pan for such a small can of the San Francisco Treat?

See, the pan is so big, there was more left on the side of the pan from pouring it into a serving dish than what there was in the can to begin with. So he basically had to open a second can just to get the first can out, and the first can got left in there. Probably most of the second can, too. I think he might of eaten out of an electric juicer's juice bowl...it's none of my concern though.


Not today.



Song of the Day is Where Were You by Todd Agnew on his Reflection of Something CD.

Arby's for dinner. Yeesh, they're expensive...also, I didn't get a chance to upload the picture of the Challah vegetable sandwiches yet as my camera has no memory card as my Mom can't share any of her three! AND AFTER I PUT HER THROUGH COLLEGE!

Righteous Fury

I seem to not have a problem starting posts. I just jump in. Today I thought it was Wednesday. I also had a dream that my Mom got arrested, and my biggest problem with that was that I would then have to milk the goats. Oh, what a twisted web we(I) weave.


Anyways, I think I've mentioned in passing, man this is a good song. It's the Song of the Day. Anyways (doubleways!), I think I've mentioned the raging that goes on in my heart whenever the kitchen is dirty. It's such an injustice, and it's my place to put it right. It is like the waters of the ocean are welling up inside me, with nowhere to go, displacing the peaceful freshwaterfall of love and happiness usually taking up residency in my heart.

Well, I experienced that same fury today, gazing 'pon the grassy plains of Li'vin'Groom. Well, I assume the plains of Li'vin'Groom are grassy, I could not see them. Tissues everywhere. Plus clothes. My parents have a problem with clothes. Their problem is that they have about 20 shirts and 10 pairs of pants that they don't ever wear, and due to their severe Inanimate Separation Anxiety (ISA), they can't get rid of them.

Thus what ends up happening is there's always a remnant that doesn't get cycled, you know, worn then washed, then worn again. So it piles up on the couch...which is fine for me, as I don't use the nasty couch. I have a Lazyboy Recliner I scored from a Savers for $20. It's oldish, and has a flower pattern (though not an entirely lame one), and it's neat!

I assume it's inconvenient for them. I mean, I hear occasional whining, but I can't be sure what it's for. Maybe they're hungry, or maybe they knocked their water dish over. Why, if I listened to every whine and slobber that came out of my parents mouths, I would be dead under my own inflaming heartstrings.

You know, it seems my brother is more mature than they are sometimes. You should hear them. "Oh, blahby wah wally ollie too too!" they sing. It's whining too, though. 'Swhineging.' "Lahdy Wahdy holly woo woo!" they swhineng. "Solly jolly folly volley hoo hoo!" IT'S INCESSANT SHADDUP!

Alright...sorry about that...I mean...well, you understand. Come on, some times they swhineng it like Oompa Loompas. You know, "Oompa-Loompa, doomp-a-de-doo" thing. It's annoying as hell.

So, I guess I got a bit off-topic. I cleaned the living room today. It was pretty bad...it took me two hours. I spent one and a half hours trying to get some music from my Mom's computer to mine (then the additional two hours on the living room). Apparently, it's possible with Media Player 9 and 10, but not with 11. Curse you, Microsoft, CURSE YOU TO PARISTINE!

You have to contact Walmart tech support. I don't roll that way. So I'm going without the song "Redeemer," which made me cry like a sissy whilst I was sick. "My Deliverer is coming, My Deliverer is standing by." Damn-, unfair-, me-, damn, chorus thing-, wi-- unisen bastards. *clenches fist*

I got some old Jonathan Richman songs, though. 'I'm a Little Dinosaur', 'Here Come the Martian Martians', and 'Abominable Snowman in the Market.' Not sure if those are the exact titles. Man, I can(could) just feel the evil radiating off of them. Not so much Adominable Snowman, but man, they don't fit. I removed them from the playlist. Cake's 'Short Skirt/Long Jacket' stayed. So uh, that should tell you what is acceptable...it's like throwing out a 'filthy' issue of Education for Societal Betterment Monthly and keeping the issue of Naked Chick Bi-Monthly. Just for the record, I came up with NCBi-M in the context of TA before the context of my blog.

Part of the time, like 15 minutes, was setting up some comp speakers. Man, they are shrill speakers. Not too loud, but MAN they hurt your ears if you get within five feet:

My cat, Tiger, was sleeping within three feet of them for over an hour. Finally, as I was doing dishes, he came out of my room (he had retreated there to attempt to escape the pain) and layed on the floor and looked angrily at me. I noticed his ears were down like he was angry. I thought, "Hmm, I wonder why he looks like he's angry. Could something possibly have angered him? Hmm, I wonder what would make him angry. As a mental note, 'angry' seems to be some form of 'aggresive.'"

Then it hit me that his ears were hurting. So, to test my theory, I picked him up and carried him to the speakers. As I got closer he got more alarmed, so I turned the speakers off. Precious, my other cat, then came out of my room, like she wanted to just make sure she hadn't gone deaf, and infact the speakers were off.

Let me reiterate. They weren't too loud (they WERE pretty loud though), they are just shrill. I went and got his blanket, and put it on my Lazyboy (he loved that), and about an hour or so later he seemed to be OK. He was having balance issues up to then. Poor guy.


So the living room is clean now. Well, in loose terms. As I mentioned, my parents can't let go of things, especially my Mom. My Dad is in jail, so I can/have throw/thrown his stuff out. It's just my Mom's stuff. I call them MomThirds. Her sowing machine is one island of filth, then the clothes she can't throw away are another, and then her desk is another, the third island of filth.

It's midnight. I am fortunate to not hear any howling or screaming and flesh ripping.

And her room, I call that the Middle House. You know, like the Middle East. A sprawling expanse of filth, infected with a death cult religion of brutality and violent dominion over women and dhimmitude. Her bed is Israel. Knicknacks fortunate enough to migrate there are said to have more rights than knicknacks that live in surrounding areas, despite the fact that Bed is not part of their death cult religion. Or maybe that's why.

Unfortunate knicknacks that are removed from Bed live in a demeaning and unfair environment, simply for not submitting to their death cult religion. Any knicknack for any reason can kill them and suffer no punishment, and they are forced to pay a very high tax designed to keep them in poverty and shame continually.


Believe me, if my Mom can't remember what a Metroid is, she will have no idea the kind of hard-core ah, what would it be, referencing or parodying?...that I just did.

I'll make another post real quick about what we had for dinner tonight, along with recipe and Song of the Day.

That Dead Rat Again

On the brother front, today he heated up some dip in one pan, then transferred it to another pan to eat out of. He used a slotted spatula and fork. And a knife. He opened up a can of beans, added some already-shredded cheese, and heated it in a pan. Where does the knife come in?!


He used the counter as a stirring-utinsil rest. By that I mean the counter is covered in bean dip. All didn't go according to plan for him today, though. As he merrily messed up the kitchen, probably humming to himself, probably the theme to a classic anime I wish were still on but would never admit I've ever watched except under one context which I would still not readily or proudly admit to and especially would not admit that I would watch it if I had the chance, his rat died.

Actually, I'm pretty embarassed about anime. I don't know why. I think I might want to do anime-type animation, leaning more towards Avatar's more realistic type, and avoiding the giant-head-when-angry type. It's actually easier to draw than it seems...and it looks terrific. I think you'd need to frame-by-frame it, though. That'd be the real unrelenting challenge. Flash tag!


Back to the dead rat:
I resisted the urge to say "If only you had loved him more..." this time. He doesn't care much. If we can stand it, we won't be buying him any more rats...hey, I wonder if he'll stop delusionally knocking to go into his own room now? Or if he'll decide that the rats are still around in ghost-form. I need to sneak into his room and quiet his TV. It's so loud I can hear it from my room...I can hear it from the living room, too.


Ideally, I should order the Whistleblower magazine subscription, seeing's how it's on sale for 'totally cheap' ending tonight at 10 PM pacific time. Hmm.

Steak for dinner. Please God, may we have enough propane left for the grill. I will make, oh, I don't know, Spinach and Noodle Casserole as a side, I think. Oh yes. My poor, poor mother.

Hey, here's the recipe, courtesy of my Mom's website. I will post a link if she says it's OK.

Spinach Noodle Casserole

1 lb. extra-wide noodles
1 lb. package frozen spinach or 2 10 oz. box packages frozen spinach
8 ounces longhorn or cheddar cheese (you can use more if you like)
5 cups milk
1-10 tablespoons butter
10 tablespoons flour
salt to taste

Start water boiling for the noodles; if desired preheat oven to 350F.

Put the spinach in a pan and begin warming it, put in microwave according to the directions, or run hot water over it in a colander. Melt the butter in a saucepan. Add flour and stir until combined, then while stirring constantly, slowly add the milk.

When the water for the noodles begins to boil, put in the noodles and cook for ten minutes. While the noodles are cooking grate the cheese (skip if already grated). Drain the spinach when it is done cooking.

When all ingredients are ready, butter or spray with non-stick cooking spray a glass casserole dish (you could also line with aluminum foil). Ladle about one cup of white sauce into the bottom of the dish. Then layer in one-fourth of the noodles, one-fourth of the spinach and 2 ounces of the shredded cheese, then another cup of white sauce, continuing with the layers until all ingredients are used up.

Turn the oven on to 350F (not necessary to preheat), cover the casserole dish with a lid, or aluminum foil (Kev prefers both!) and bake for 30-45 minutes. You can tell when the casserole is done when the cheese is melted and the sauce is bubbling.

My Mom's commentary: "If you are in a real hurry, you can toss all the ingredients together and mix. But I really recommend trying it first baked in the oven. This was my very favorite meal as a child and remains one of my favorite comfort foods. The recipe comes from my paternal grandmother."

Thanks, Mom's Paternal Grandmother, and Mom for preserving the recipe. Enjoy the recipe, which my Mom should post on her blog most assuredly!

Song of the Day is Baruch Hashem, 'cause it's got Jew-words in it. By the Reach Out Singers, composed by the late Zola Levitt peacebeuponhim.

I wonder if Zola would find that a funny joke...

This Time He's Gone Too Far!

Almost as if my Brother could read my blog (he has downsyndrome; he's smart for having it, hasn't learned to read yet though), he has made a mess in the kitchen.

Not a normal mess, though.
By 'not a normal,' I mean not extraordinary, but rather, unconventional.

Apparently, it seems, he didn't have a bowl. So this time what he did was he used my precious...beloved...innocent...9 x 13 Pyrex pan. He used Cleery. Cleery is spelled with two e's because Greany, the green-tinted-see-through Pyrex pan, doesn't like his name spelled with two e's. Cleery is clear and see through, like a glass.

Cleery's been AWOL for two days now...

Today I discovered Cleery...on the counter......with stuck on...dare I say it...SUNBURNT-ON NOODLE VOMIT!

Oh my gosh! d00d1 To my shock, my brother has moved on to more elaborate messes. He's like one of those people who carve swans out of giant blocks of ice!

You see, you can't soak these pans. You have to run them under water. What you do is run water over them every 2-3 minutes, and it simulates the 'soaking' process. If you're lucky it won't take too long...it goes faster if you whisper sweet nothings to them.

For some reason, I will make sure to ask God when I see Him and report back if He has DSL, he ate out of Cleery. Why is this so strange? Well, he NEVER eats out of the pan. I don't eat out of pans, either, granted- but I don't have the pan filled to within 1/2" of the top, so it's a bit inconvenient for me.

So he ate out of Cleery then left him to die on his bedroom floor. I have a suspicion that, for some reason, he left him in the sun, and moved him along the floor as the sun's 'shadow' moved, effectively sun-drying the mess. To what end, I do not know. Maybe he was hoping it would turn into gold. Or maybe he was hoping a fairy would pop out and he could make a wish.

Mayhaps he thought it would turn into an ice-cream sundae, or a box of baking soda. A snake-infested pit, or a book on all things, of all things, pink. It's unclear just what his intentions were, but this much I now know.

*goes into the kitchen, and makes a speech to the various pans and pots. Opens the refridgerators and freezers so all will hear*:

Kev: You all listen! And understand! Matt is out there. He can't be bargained with! He can't be reasoned with! He doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And he absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dirty!
Pan: What will we do?
Kev: Nothing! You are an inanimate object!
Bowl (yelling from top of 'fridge): How will we survive?
Kev: You can't! Not on your own!
Pot: Then will you help us?
Kev: Yes! I have a plan! I will throw out all of the reasons for my Brother to cook and eat out of you!
Noodles (yelled from pantry): Don't like where this is going!
Kev: I WILL THROW OUT...THE NOODLES!
Noodles (yelled from pantry): NOOO! Dude! That's unfair!
Kev: UNFAIR is having to live in a rat-infested, bleeding ice-swan infested bleeding hellhole, from which there is no escape EVER!

(awkward pause; Kev exits kitchen)


Anyways, I figure it will take a few days for the noodles to hydrate so the chickens can eat them.


In other news...


I'm still dreaming of the day I can use that one joke...

Imagine, in a grocery store, you're walking along, then your buddy says "Woah! DUDE! Look at the silicon on that rack!"

Your first thought is going to be, well, of course...silicon bakeware on a store shelf. What?! See, thus is the brilliance of the joke. You know, the words 'silicon' and 'rack.' Bakeware on a shelf. Get it? It's so clever. Then of course before the person can react, you have to rush over there.



TobyMac's CD, Momentum, got here yesterday. I did not know TobyMac used to suck. I mean, I thought he kinda always rocked. He was more into his racist songs back in '01, apparently.

Seriously though, I don't know if he's talking bad about black people or white people. I mean...maybe...something about something...maybe both? Next post up has a recipe for Salsa!

Burnout? Not the car game I haven't played!

First things, for my personal log, my cellphone got stolen today. I don't want to talk about it, let's just say that 'stollen' is a word that fits in describing what happened to my cell phone.

--

I read an article in Reader's Digest about burnout a week or so ago. I am not currently a 'fan' of Readers Digest, so don't label me just yet. I'm not sure if I want to get a year subscription, as it seems to be a bit boring. It IS only $13.98 for the year subscription, though. Isn't that worth a few laughs and lameass jokes and weak articles?

I digress. I read about burnout, and now I'm suffering from delusional parasitosis. Except that these parasites aren't imagined- they're real!

Okay wait, maybe not. My point is, I have to clean the kitchen every day. You wouldn't think that's so bad, except that you don't know my brother. Let me tell you about his cooking habits. And keep in mind, he never does anything positive in the kitchen. So I can't very well think, "well, he DOES cook dinner every once and a while. I guess I don't mind cleaning up after him so much" like I can with my Mom.


-----------------------------------------------
Brother's cooking habits



What he does is burns pans with stuff in them, purposely, then CRIES when he has to wash them. Come on, he's 19, and he cries when he has to clean up after himself. Maybe that's because he so skillfully burns the hell out of the pans until there's half an inch of burnt food on the bottom. Burnt.

And I can't just not wash them, either. He'll resort to using the one and a half gallon pot to cook it in. Also, he doesn't just use one pan- he uses three. One to get the tomato sauce burni- er, heating up with tBURNT-ONhe ingredients in it, one to cook the noodles, then one to combine the two. I don't know why he doesn't just use the one he heats the sauce in to combine them...oh yeah, cause he already burnt that one.


The stuff he burns in the pan is filthy, disgusting noodle-soup. It's one bag of egg noodles, three cans of tomato sauce, three cups of milk mixed with an undetermined amount of water, ham, pepperoni, cheese, 1/3 cup of crushed chili peppers, canned mushrooms, and pepperoncinis.

It looks like vomit. It's nasty. It's disgusting. It's wasteful, and I don't know why, but he has to use five different ladles/stirring devices on it. Plus the strainer. So my to-clean list, after he's been in the kitchen:

• Pan with 1/2" of burnt residue burnt in BURNT
  
• Pan he boiled the noodles in
• Pan he heated the sauce in and also burnt
• A strainer with dried-on starch from the noodles
• GOD FORBID, a cutting board if one has been left on the counter for him to molest.
  
• Ladle
• Strainer-ladle
• Another strainer-ladle
• A spatula (?)
• Two spoons (then another later)
• 1-2 forks
• A 1-gallon bowl (with dried-in, rotting filth in it)BURNT
  
• A countertop
• The stovetop
• The floor, although I don't clean the floor, so it doesn't matter. Poor Mom.
  
• Several knives

Fun times, fun times. His messes are enough to piss off my Dad, and my Dad isn't someone who gets angry at his children. I mean, Matt slapped him in the face once because my Dad made a comment about Matt's rats. And that didn't piss off my Dad. Yet, cleaning up Matt's noodle-vomit every single day...whoo-boy.

I think I've found a solution. Get rid of all the noodles, and buy no more noodles. His other favorite meal is crackers with cheese and ham and crushed red peppers.

He sprinkles the crushed red peppers from three feet above the food, thusly getting more on the floor/counter than his food.



...actually you know, I think my brother needs his ass kicked.

---------------------------------
Back to burnout


So, I do believe I'm suffering from burnout due to repetitive actions. It's the whole 'doing the same thing over and over and getting no results' thing. Clean the kitchen. Cook. Clean the kitchen. Cook. I have nothing to show for my work, and that can drive a person mad. I'm not quite sure how to solve the problem.


One thing I could do is clean the house; that shows progress. See, what happened, is I was sick for two weeks, and so was my Mom and Brother...there's tissues everywhere...and I mean everywhere...coating the top of the ceiling fan blades...in-between the window blinds...behind pictures, INSIDE sealed canned goods that we haven't bought yet, in toothpaste tubes, peanut butter, between pages of books we've never read, in the mailbox, inside AAA batteries, in the car and trucks tires, embedded between the halves of sealed cans of unsalted peanuts, in light bulbs, the breaker box (behind the fuses), the list goes on.



Oh my gosh. I just figured it out...how long has it been since I've played a videogame...man, weeks. And it's been like, two months since I've played a Wii game. The last game I played was more work than fun, what with the memorizing...plus all the stress I've been going through lately...

It appears Wii games are still around $30 on Half.com. Man, I love my money, but I love my sanity and functionality as a fuctioning, functional member of society, too...see, ideally, I would get back the $60-$100 my Mom owes me, and I'd be set for Wii games for life!...ish.


Okay, on the bright side, I just discovered that my brother has, in fact, cooked today. Oh, I also discovered that, contrary to popular belief, we only have one clean pan. A 3-cup, miniature pan.


I'm throwing the noodles to the chickens. At least for a month. I will save a few bags for spinach noodle casserole; I don't know if there'll be a dinner tonight. Maybe chinese fried rice. Okay, I'll start the rice...luckily, we have ham we can cube.


I ordered 2 gallons of coconut oil yesterday, so we'll be good on that once it's here; I should use the last half cup tonight. I order it from Mountainroseherbs.com, apparently they have organic this and that...REALLY cheap coconut oil. I am going to brew some iced tea and throw out some egg noodles and spaghetti noodles and fettucine noodles and macaroni noodles and, well, I could go on.

Actually, I might make the fettucine noodles to accompany the rice. That's just how I roll; chinese rice and pasta. I am on my last half cup of sanitizer. I do believe I need Santa to come save me.


Uhm, welcome the TA tag. Didn't I already have the TA tag?

I got some comp work done on TA. I use Celtx, which seems to be neat enough; I haven't really used anything except the profile bit and some scriptwriting. I just did some character development; added a last name for Jamie, edited all their profiles a bit, reflected on the chapter 'titles' I have written down, and off-comp, I am struggling for last names for Dan and Ness. Steverinson seems a dumbass-enough name for Dan, lol


Song of the Day is Shine by (not the Newsboys?!) Matt Redman, from his album Beautiful News which I should buy. Speaking of albums, CDs, sheets, and gargle-bargle tune-from, I wonder when the TobyMac CDs will arrive!

I can't believe it's only been three months since I played Metroid Prime 2. Man, the first time you use the magnetic track to get away from the Ing Hive fortress... I mean... there are certain times... in a man's life... when you...uhh, anyways... I can't believe it's only like, seven and a half months away!

I am already shaking.








On the inside.