Rockin' in the USSR

Got another letter from my betrothed today.  Got a short one yesterday, she was basically apologizing for not sending a longer letter because she got called to work an extra shift and didn't have time.

So the letter today was telling me about how she thought about me at work all last night, and how she even dreamed of me and we were on the beach.  Now her english kind of broke up here, but I think I might've scored in the dream.  Woot!

She also said (in reference to something I asked her) that yes, she would miss her friends and family if she, as she puts it, came to me.  But she says that its more important to have a loving man and since the men in her area all suck, she's willing to travel.  I paraphrased the last part of that.  She claims her mom supports her and understands what she's doing.

Now I gotta ask...what does anyone make of this?  I mean, if its a scam then wtf kind of sickos come up with this stuff?  If its somewhat or even all legit, how do you not feel bad for someone so desparate to get out of their current situation that they would leave all they know behind and do something like this?  And even worse, with me?

I was pondering these questions to myself when I came to the end of the letter, and to the most recent pic she's sent me:

I'm sorry...what was I saying?

Oh, right...the letters.  So yeah, got another letter today...

And the dance continues

Still getting letters from my Eastern Bloc girlfriend.  More pics too, but none of the "bathing suit or less" ilk. 

I'm sort of losing interest in where this is going, not so much because I'm afraid its a scam but because I'm afraid it might be legit and I might wind up screwing with some poor girl's head.  A head that may already be on a bit of a swivel, if you know what I mean.  No, there's no chance for actual repercussions I suppose...but its beginning to make me feel kind of wrong.  I dunno.  We'll see what tomorrow brings.  Would someone be that desperate to leave all they know behind and shack up with some ogre just for the chance to live in our country?  She works as a nurse, she sent some pics of her at work in scrubs.  She looks good in scrubs, btw. 

On another note, today was the first day of the company I work for being under new management.  We still have no idea what our future holds, but we were gifted today with enough M&Ms to make your head spin (always a good thing), some Uncle Ben's, and they bought us pizza.  I just hope thats not our severance.  And btw yes, we were bought by Mars.  It could be an amazing opportunity if they allow us to remain under their fold.  Let's keep the fingers crossed.  On one hand it makes me want to charge dead ahead full speed and do a great job for them to show them what we're about.  On the other, I'm afraid it may be for nothing.  I went through this earlier this decade, when 12 years employment at Helene Curtis went belly-up after Unilever bought us and decided they wanted only our brands.

Remember my neighbor?  Not the noisy illegals upstairs, the stoner guy across the hall from me.  Well, my landlord called me last night to let me know he tossed out the illegals and in the meantime mentioned that my other neighbor died the other day.  He was younger than me and had really bad asthma.  I mean, this guy made Darth Vader sound articulate when he talked.  But he kept smoking that weed and it messed him up I guess.  I feel bad because I felt so poorly about him, that I had severed our friendship and avoided him like the plague.  Like someone else pointed out to me, its not my fault he made me have that opinion of him.  But I still feel bad he passed away.

Speaking of those trash illegals living upstairs, its amazing now that they're gone.  First, I can sleep through the night...no more dance parties at 2am.  Second, they must have been taking up half a dozen parking spots because now there's empty spots everywhere.  I know my landlord said he busted them the one time with 9 people living up there.  He gave them their eviction notice on the spot and I guess they called him back a week later and said they got rid of everybody.  So my landlord called me to ask if they had gotten rid of everybody.  No, of course not.  Not only were there tons of people coming in and out at all hours, but now they all seemed to have keys.  So out they went.  There's even hot water in the morning now.  Its nice and peaceful.  For now.

Other than that, quiet day.  Lots of training going on at work, with me doing the training.  Add that to regular duties, plus some other projects I lend a hand to, and boy the day goes by quick.  Been practicing bass, the finger felt better the next day.  I've got 3 originals down pretty well, and by the time we play out it should be a snap.  I still have a couple more originals to learn and we have to work on some covers, and that should give us our hour set.  I learned parts of some other songs last week and have been practicing those bits, adding what I can to them.

Saints Row 2 coming soon.  One week.  I loved the original, better than GTA4 even.  I expect more of the same from this title.  Thats about all.

8 days

Thats how long it took, beginning on a Sunday, for my 360 to come back replaced.  So...yay.  Its a new one too, mfg date is just 5 weeks ago.

Glad I got it back before Saints Row 2 came out.  Can't wait to get my hands on that sucker.

Today's response from my future ex-wife

So I get another response (and another picture...woot) today.  This time she actually did answer (more or less) some of my questions, or at least tried to vaguely give some semblance of a response.

I'll cut and paste some of the letter, those parts will be in italics, then post a pic or 2.  Heh, then I'll sit back and wait for the "hey, she sent me an email too!" responses I know will come. 

Its an exact copy of the text, broken english and all:

I do not think that the distance is a problem. I like you and I want
to learn you better. I shall come to you when I shall be sure in that
that we shall be happy together. I hope that you not leave me one. I
want to learn you and your heart.

Now I shall answer a question, why I single. The choice of loved man
is very serious decision in life of each person. You see on light
there is only one person who is intended to you by destiny. I yet have
not met that person with whom it would be ready to lead the rest of
life. Many men here think only of beer and vodka. I do not want that
my loved man came home drunk every day. Many men here drink every day
and at all do not know when it to stop. I not against that if mine
loved man will sometimes drink alcoholic drinks, but it is necessary
to know when it is necessary to cease to drink. Men here do not know
it, they drink so much that from alcohol cannot go and it happens
every day. Sometimes men drink so much and then also come home and hit
there wives. I search kind sincerity for the man which will love me
and I will love him. I hope has answered for your question?
 

Anyway, thats the parts where she answered (or attempted to) some of my questions.  The other parts of the letter I didn't paste were just her talking about stuff she likes to do with her friends and stuff she did the previous day.

So it seems that she will come to me.  Woohoo.  And all the men in her town are alcoholic wifebeaters.  Woohoo.  Here's a couple pics:

So now I await her response.

Aches and pains

I think I'm just prone to injury anymore.  It seems no matter what I'm doing, at some point I wind up with a freak injury (not always serious) that could happen to no one but me.

My most recent?  What seems like either a sprain of my left (fret hand) index finger, or some nasty tendonitis in there.  This just flared up this morning.  I'm thinking it was a case of poor warming up Friday night when I practiced with my band and even worse warming up when I was practicing yesterday.  I would think at this point I wouldn't need to warm up for 15 minutes, that a good 5 minutes would get my old joints limbered up.  Guess not. 

This is frustrating because right now I really want to play.  I've been making strides in improvement over the last month that you can almost see week to week and I want to keep it going.  Right now I'm afraid to play today in favor of resting the finger, but I'm also afraid 1 day wouldn't help, or even 2.  I don't want to go more than 2 days without playing.  Ah well, we'll see what happens I guess.  It just sucks anymore that I get these dumbass injuries seemingly out of nowhere.

Speaking of band practice this past Friday, wow did that go well.  We've been focusing on original material and I came up with a couple twists on the bass lines for the songs I learned already.  When I played them for the guys Friday, they absolutely loved them and were actually quite enthusiastic about my playiing in general.  Considering my lack of confidence in general with playing, that was quite a boost for me.  Then they taught me parts of a couple other songs, including a ballady type song, and right off the bat I was coming up with bass lines that fit like a glove and even did some runs that sounded badass.  I was surprising myself, to be honest...it was like it was just flowing naturally from my fingers without thinking about it.  So now of course my finger is hurt.  Bah.

It was fun too because I had the kid in tow, and he was set up in another room playing XBox but he could still hear us and he was even going on about how good we sounded as a band in general.  Fun times ahead, it seems.  We're looking right now at 3 originals we have down plus there were parts of 3 others we went over, probably 2 of those we're going to add.  We're going to do some covers too and that should give us about an hour set, give or take.  Right now I think 2 of the guaranteed covers we're going to do are Megadeth's version of Anarchy and Back in Black.  We might do Keep on Rocking in the Free World as well, thats up to the guitarist.  I think he was leaning in favor of it though.

Oh, and my buddy at work...the drummer who convinced me to get back into playing...is going to have some free Saturdays coming up for me and him to jam, just the 2 of us.  I'm kind of excited about that because we haven't played together since March, when I had been back playing less than 2 months.  I'm looking forward to it because I've improved a lot since then and it should be a good time.

Anyway, back to my Sunday...the kid is getting ready to go back to his mom's and the White Sox will be playing in a minute.  Time to go.