I’m an ubergeek, duh, and have been spending much of my Monday nights watching Sci-Fi’s four-hour Enterprise programming block. I watched most of the first season when it first premiered, but couldn’t keep my schedule free to keep up with the show in its later seasons. This is something I’ve regretted: Enterprise is such a neat show, and I enjoy a Star Trek where the good guys don’t have the best tech, and are afraid of the transporter, and aren’t getting along well with others.

Anyway, so today I stumbled across the Enterprise NX-01 Deckplan Project. Geek heaven! Make sure to check out the project website, where almost the entire ship’s layout is finished. A lot of it, of course, is almost certainly conjecture, but I can’t deny my fascination (particularly as I spend time trying to design a starship to build out of Lego).

(I think I’ve blogged more about Star Trek in the last two weeks than I have in the last two years).

So that fucking dog is barking again, despite nearly weekly phone calls complaing about the yapper. I’ve called to complain about the damn thing to the leasing company before — like I said, damn near weekly –, but this was the first time resident services bothered to tell me that I had to put my request in writing to management! Anyway, I tracked down a different phone number, called them, and they immediately connected me back … to resident services.

Maybe I should start calling the police.

Anyway, they want a fucking letter? They get a fucking letter. This fucking letter, sent through their contact form, and soon to be in the US Mail:

Dear Management,

There is a dog in 1-D XXX XXX Ct. . I have been calling in nearly weekly complains to Resident Services since early December, but was just informed I need to place “pet complaints” in writing, to Henderson-Webb management.

There is a dog in apartment D of 1 XXX XXX. It will not shut up. This is supposed to be — or at least, was when I moved in here — a dog-free complex (has this changed?). I don’t particularly have a problem with dogs, and wouldn’t be writing this if I couldn’t hear the fucking yapping throughout my entire fucking apartment.

Please do whatever it is you need to do to shut the dog up or get it out of the building. I’ve been listening to this yapping for two months, and pretty soon, I’m going to start expecting money off my fucking rent.

By the way - the clothes dryer is broken too.

By the way II - pretty soon, I’m just going to start calling the police. And when they ask WHY I’m calling the police, I’ll tell them it’s because you guys aren’t doing a fucking thing.

Assholes.

(I’m probably so vitrulic because I’m channeling Khan while watching my snowday movie: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan).

One of the nice things about being in college is that you can, if you choose, give yourself the day off. It isn’t something I like to abuse now that I’ve returned to college, but I will admit to giving myself many days off in my first college run. I didn’t take, I think, an entire day off last semester, although I did leave early once or twice because I didn’t feel particularly well (I’m proud of myself for never skipping my usually extraordinarily boring night class).

I didn’t wake up intending to give myself the day off, even with a light blanket of snow across the landscape revealed from my front window and more descending. I listened - of course I did! - to the Kirk and Mark show on 105.7 (my mornings are complete now that they’re back) in the hope that Towson University would be closing early, but as yet, no such luck. So I jumped out of bed (and by “jumped out of” I mean “reluctantly dragged myself while moaning and kicking myself”), showered, dressed, packed my backpack, and head out into the cold, dreary day. I turned on my car and then began cleaning it off (I can’t stand people who only clear a little 1′ x 1′ “view hole” in the snow and expect to be able to operate their motor vehicle). As my little Celica warmed and became blue again I felt reasonably confident about two things: 1. I’d get to school safely. 2. Towson would close before my first class at 11am.

Then I got in the car and, coincidentally, the regional accidents were being listed. One, on the Warren Road bridge, is right around the corner from me. Another was in Towson. And the Beltway is apparently shit, too. Now, mind you, I don’t know what caused these accidents, but in inclement weather, I tend to believe the weather has something to do with it (not, mind you, that the involved drivers couldn’t stand to slow down, pay attention, and clear off their fucking windshields), so my mind processed the accident report as this: Snay, you’ve got to get from Timonium/Cockeysville, where the roads are shit, to Towson, where the roads are also shit, and you’ve got to pass the Beltway, which is apparently a big road of shit (so, what’s different about the Beltway?), and all of this while somehow not being hit by drivers who you already well know are shit drivers with shit brains.

This was followed by a lovely thought: “Hmm. Why not stay home, crank the heater, and have some hot cocoa?” Can you say “Winner!”

Now … if only I had marshmellows for my cocoa …