I forgot to post about Saturday

I forgot to mention that I had a fantastic time on Saturday at toughlovemuse's place, celebrating chibipunkdemon's birthday with cake, nibblies, and Beatles Rock Band. I sang waaaay off-key to "Back in the USSR" and then restored some of my credibility with "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," and then pasley and I rocked the house with "And Your Bird Can Sing."

We had a blast. ashforestwalker did a great job with "Yellow Submarine", and the_exclamation did a rockin' version of "Boys." chibipunkdemon naturally outdid himself with the guitar, and then actually sang. toughlovemuse said later that it was the first time she'd heard him sing in nine years of marriage. Good times.

I am omitting a TON of people, but everyone acquitted themselves well, we had a blast, there were announcements (I am not making them here because they're not mine to make), and by the end the last few guests were camped out in the living room talking books, manga, and comic books. We eventually threw ourselves out at just past midnight, and I went home and spent the next few hours not sleeping, since I'd had way too much caffeine apparently.

Yeah, good times, like I said. Two groups of friends in two weekends, and the two experiences couldn't have been more different or more wonderful, each in their own way. I'm just sad that I had to miss the Invisible gig last weekend, which was fantastic according to my trusted sources. Unfortunately, I have limited free time on my hands, and since Camel's Hump had been planned first, I had to miss the concert, hopefully the only time I ever will.

And now I am going to have breakfast. I suspect tea may be involved.

An exercise in not spending

With one exception, I have declared October to be Buy Nothing Month. (The exception is the first Friday, when fearsclave has generously agreed to take me shopping for a fishing rod and other equipment. Yay!)

So for the next couple of weeks I'm going to be doing some advance preparations for food and the like, so that I have enough to carry me through the month, as well as cat litter and the like. That's not a huge difference, since I try as a rule to have a month's worth of litter and food in the house anyway.

What ought to make a difference, however, is not buying books, a luxury to which I've become altogether too accustomed since I got this latest job. I have a reading list a mile long already, so this will force me to read the stuff I bought on a whim a few months ago and then never got around to reading, without succumbing to current whims.

I'm also going to not use my Communauto car except for one weekend, since I find I have begun relying on it for "frivolous" things that I could as easily do using public transport.

I'm thinking of turning 2010 into an exercise in frugality. After doing some careful math, and figuring out which luxuries I'm not willing to forgo right now (like my gym membership) and what obligations I have to meet no matter what (paying off my RRSP loan), I am going to try to live on 2/3 of my current salary. It would be tight, but I think I can do it. Some of the "savings" will go almost right away to a nifty toy from Lee Valley that I think will be very useful for the garden, as my house is too cold and doesn't get enough sun to start seeds with any success, but all the rest of it is going to go into a "house fund" for the near-ish future.

( Originally this was a quick paragraph about the house plan, but then it turned into a bit of a rant against credit card companies. Sorry. )

Angry Communications

I was just reading a post by bodhifox about people being nasty on the phone with him, and it occurs to me that everyone I know who works in a job that has them answering phones has stories about people who are horrible and rude and abusive. It seems that callers fall mainly into two categories: neutral and abusive. For every 100 callers, I'd say about fifteen to twenty are rude or abusive in some fashion, most range from barely tolerable to just polite, and maybe one (if I'm lucky) is deliberately pleasant with me.

I'd really like to know what it is that makes people feel it's okay to be that way with complete strangers. It's not just the relative safety of the phone, either. People are abusive with retailers and anyone behind a counter, too.

People just seem to be angry, a lot.