Big Exciting Sunday

I headed out to Home Depot today to do some more refrigerator shopping now that I’m (reasonably) sure that I have room for a new one.
After looking at what was available I’d narrowed it down to two choices: a fairly nice but basic stainless steel model from GE, and a larger, nicer, more full-featured stainless steel model from Amana.
What I liked about the GE was that it was relatively inexpensive.
Of course, that’s “relative” to the ridiculously expensive nature of such things. Seriously, there have been big developments in the field of keeping stuff cold that necessitate passing along R&D costs to the consumers? It’s a fucking refrigerator. There’s no justification for having a price tag comparable to a high-end PC or an HDTV or something.
Anyway, what I liked about the Amana was that it was larger, had the freezer on the bottom, and hat all kinds of cool little storage options, like a shelf designed specifically for deli trays, or, as it would have been used for in my case, pizza boxes.
I didn’t like the higher price tag, or the fact that, bafflingly, per the Home Depot associate, it was not Energy Star compliant.
Still, I kept going back to it, and looked inside and saw that, in fact, it was Energy Star compliant, despite the lack of a sticker on the outside.
So I decided to go with that one, but was informed that despite the fact that it said “Free delivery and haul away” on the sticker, that service wasn’t actually available, as it was a clearance item.
It was possible for me to get that service, but to do so I would have to order a new one and pay the full price (the sale price was 10% off), and given that it was already over $400 more than the GE – which did have free delivery and haul away – I wasn’t willing to pay another $150.
So I went with the less fancy – but still an upgrade over my old apartment-grade refrigerator – GE, which will be delivered on Friday.
While I was at it I decided to pick up a Bissel carpet cleaner, as I’ve been meaning to get one for a while.
And that’s pretty much been my big exciting Sunday.

The Non-Euclidean Geometry Of "The Room"

Oh hiiii, Threshold readers! (Inappropriate and baffling laughter)
Last week Scott pointed out this post on Topless Robot about the movie The Room getting the Riff Trax treatment.
The movie looked dreadful, so naturally I had to find it.
Sadly, it’s rated R, which means I couldn’t share the pain with Scott, so, in a fit of self-loathing, I decided to watch it by myself last night.
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I’ve mentioned before that sometimes odd things happen when I don’t get enough sleep.
Stay up all night, and at some point I’m going to start feeling anxious, as though I’m caught in a low-level, all-day panic attack.
Once, when I went nearly 40 hours without sleep – it’s a long boring story – I discovered that at around the 35 hour mark I begin to get paranoid and start having auditory hallucinations.
As I didn’t get home from seeing Transformers until around midnight, and had too much caffeine in an effort to ensure my wakefulness on the drive home, I didn’t get to sleep until close to 2 AM, so I was pretty tired on Friday.
I tried taking a nap when I got home from work, but that just ended up giving me a headache – I’m really annoyed by this recent development; every time I take a nap I wake up with a headache – so I was still pretty tired for the rest of the evening.
So fatigue coupled with the sheer awfulness of The Room led to something of a mental breakdown within the first half hour of the movie, as I found myself engaged in a painful fit of something that was somewhere between hysterical laughter and soul-wracking sobs.
Sure, the Riffs were, as always, hilarious, and the movie itself was so unintentionally hilarious, but really I was laughing only because it seemed like the only reasonable response to the black, nihilistic, existential despair that The Room engendered in me.
Seriously, the movie is like some Lovecraftian horror, the merest exposure to which destroys your sanity, and leaves you an empty, hollow shell of what you once were.
Anyway, the point is that I think that Scott should be forced to watch it, as its awfulness transcends any principles or religious beliefs and supersedes any and all rules and mores.
Beyond that, watching The Room – even with the Riffers – is like some form of penance. If you can get through it without denying the possibility of the existence of a loving God, you’ll come out the other side cleansed, purified, distilled, and you’ll be guaranteed entry into whatever perfect afterlife you believe in.
Of course, mostly I just want him to suffer as I’ve suffered.
As is the usual way of things, this morning I headed out to the comic shop, gassed up the car, and went grocery shopping.
In addition to groceries I picked up an automotive tool kit with jumper cables to keep in the car, and also bought a new drill. I didn’t necessarily need a new drill, but decided to get it because it uses the same battery system as all of my lawn equipment.
Stepping outside of the usual way of things, I ventured out into the world again later in the afternoon.
Home Depot is doing a no payments no interest for a year promotion (on purchase of $299 or more), and I’ve been thinking that I should take advantage of that, but I didn’t know what buy.
Then it occurred to me that I really could stand to have a new refrigerator. My current one works okay, but it’s old and kind of small, and I have plenty of room for a bigger one. I’d also like to get one that has the ice and filtered water dispenser on the front.
So I took some measurements and headed off to Home Depot, where I soon discovered that I’d completely mis-measured the height of the available space in the refrigerator niche, or at least written down the wrong measurement.
All of the fridges I saw looked as though they would fit, but were 7 inches higher than what I had written down, so I knew that something was amiss.
So I ended up not buying one, but I did buy this lawn repair kit in an effort to deal with the damage done to my lawn by the Scott’s Turf Builder Killer.
I hadn’t been that interested in fertilizing the grass when I bought the stuff; I was more interested in its weed and dandelion killing features, but I also hadn’t been interested in – or expecting – killing huge patches of grass, which is what ended up happening.
So I’m hoping this stuff can undo the damage. It’s supposed to be an “all-in-one” solution to bald and thin patches – a sort of Rogaine for lawns – because even though it’s nice to have less grass to mow, the lawn, especially in the back, really looks like crap.
Once I got home I re-measured the refrigerator niche, and any of the fridges I looked at should fit – though I may need to shave off a little of the underside of the cabinets above the refrigerator – so I’ll probably head back tomorrow and pick one out.
And that’s been all of the excitement so far this weekend.
I should probably do some drawing now, and in theory I’ll be back tomorrow to fill in some of the blanks since my last substantial update.