Moving Day

One of the few regularly scheduled posts that I've started in the few months that I've been writing this blog is "Take the Edge Off," but Mrs. Grump and I took the three day weekend to move into a new apartment. Apparently, she can't take living in a one bedroom apartment with no air conditioning, on-and-off hot water, and carpeting that looks somewhat like vomit. What a prima donna. As I look around at our new place, thanking God that I met someone who forced me to get the hell out of my "bachelor pad," I also realize that I'm way too fried to write up to my usual level of professionalism....God I can't even type that with a straight face. Basically, I can't think of any good life distractions to talk about so "Take the Edge Off" will be postponed until next week.

I would like to mention, however, that this is my first time taking part in a major move that involved actually renting a U-Haul, compiling some friends and family, and setting several days aside for a mass exodus of people, pets, and belongings. And I have to be honest with you......moving really sucks ass. I doubt I'm telling folks anything they don't already know, but I really just needed to point that out. It's just so mentally and physically draining.

It all starts on the day that you officially get the new place, as you start a mental inventory all of your shit and figure out just how much of a pain in the ass it will be to get from point A to point B. You even start getting pissed off at yourself for all of the unnecessary purchases that you've made over the last few years. You just had to buy that oak bookshelf with marble detailing and built-in cast iron safe, didn't you? Now it will take five of your strongest friends just to make sure you each only get a minor hernia while moving the bastard.

Then, about a week out, you realize you already need to start packing, which is actually meant to make things easier come moving day but it has the side effect of making your life a clusterfuck as you try and figure out what items you can do without so that you can have them packed ahead of time. But of course you don't need anything until you can't get to it anymore. You could have a copy of Teen Wolf that you haven't watched in 12 years, but as soon as you get that little fucker in a box buried with a hundred other movies, you'll suddenly get the urge to watch a werewolf dance to the Beach Boys on top of a van mid-transit.

Finally, it's time for the actual move. You have things boxed up, disassembled, and ready to go, because if your Dad is anything like mine he'll throw a temper tantrum if he shows up and you don't have everything from appliances down to stray sheets of toilet paper put into a proper moving receptacle. So you get things moving, making trip after trip downstairs and out to the moving truck, hoping that the wet feeling in your ass is just a lot of sweat and that you haven't shit your pants, until finally everything is loaded up. You admire your work and are just about ready to breath a sigh of satisfaction until it hits you that now you have to take every piece of junk back out of the truck when you get to your new place. Then, you have to spend the next day and a half (minimum) to unpack your crap to the point where your new place looks like more than a fancy storage facility.

Now, for me, this was only a move of about 3 miles, thank God. I don't know how people even survive a move cross-country. I'd need to take the next month off from work just to sleep if off after the move. Plus, I'm told that we have a relatively small amount of belongings that had to be moved. Therefore, I've decided I'm never buying anything ever again unless it's replacing something that I've worn out or lost, because frankly I don't have the energy to move anything more than that. In fact, I've actually managed to exhaust myself just by rehashing the whole process, so I'm going to go find a place to be as stationary as possible for the next 24-48 hours. However, I can never let an opportunity pass to connect something to George Carlin, so I leave you with his fairly well-known take on our society's fascination with stuff.

Stephen Hawking Claims That Aliens Are Just Like Us...

In that they are willing to screw over other civilizations in order to acquire resources for themselves. In an interview with the AFP, Stephen Hawking likens aliens landing on Earth to "when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out too well for the Native Americans."Now, no offense to Dr. Hawking, but it's quite an assumption to think that any race of aliens is likely to want to clear us out for all of our top notch air, water, and other natural resources. Isn't it just as likely that any race landing on Earth would look down on us as being a bunch of self-serving pricks? This weekend I Netflixed District 9, and somehow the movie's vision of stranded aliens being forced to live separately in run-down slums just doesn't seem too off-the-wall given our track record as a species. As is generally the case, my viewpoint on the matter has been shaped by George Carlin, who sums up the awkward relationship we'd have with advance alien life in the clip below (starting at the 3:05 mark, but if you're at all like me you'll want to just watch the whole video).