Thursday October 10, 2002 at 03:55 pm

Hmm how to begin…how about this morning started out with as Mike put it the stupidest argument we’ve had in the 15 years we’ve known each other.

Mike and I grew up together, I’ve known him since the 7^th or 8^th grade, and ever since we’ve been friend we’ve always pissed each other off. Yeah I know eerie, best friends whom on more than one occasion want to kill each other. Now I’m not saying that it’s always Mike that pisses me off, especially since I took it upon myself growing up, to piss everyone off to brink of madness. Hell if You saw me and my other best friend Aaron back in those days you’d think we hated each others guts, since it stood a very good chance when were we seen together to either be cutting on each others moms or throwing blows. The other 30% of the time we were either scheming up some shit or covering our asses. Mike and I on the other hand were a lil different we just pissed each other off to no extent. Needless to say I became very good at my job, and could for the most part send anyone over the edge with a mere sentence or 2.

Basically this morning argument was over trash; yeah that stuff that builds up in the kitchen that everyone wishes would simply disappear on it’s on, yet, wants around the most when cooking, to get rid of the…well trash. Anyway, apparently Mike had the same plan as I did, but for very different reason. Mike believes taking the trash out should be split between doing the dishes. Meaning who ever does the dishes, the other takes out the trash. If I led a normal 9-5 life, I would agree, but I don’t so I don’t agree with that plan. And actually I sort of disagree in other ways as well, but to break that down would simply be useless. So for the last few days we’ve both been leaving the trash there to see who will take it out, and no I’m no I don’t mean weeks, just a few days, which is some what regardless since it was over full. So the week started out with it being half full within a day, I remember because Mike asked me if I wanted any of the papers that he was picking up. The majority of which was simply junk mail and ads from various papers and door flyers. These were then promptly put into the trash; I could already see what was going to happen.

So over the next few days the trash continue to build until Monday it was full, with a pizza box sitting on top of it. Now let me take a moment to clarify something before I write the rest. I work 2-11pm Monday through Friday, I usually leave anywhere between 11:30 and 1:30 depending on if I wanted to get overtime or not, and usually will stay until midnight, put me home at roughly 1am, and I wake up anywhere between 1hr to 15min before I need to leave the house, based on if I took a shower the night before of If I take one before I go to work. But for arguments sake I’ll say on average I’m out between 1pm and 1am, a full 12 hours. The other 12 hrs are split between sleeping and getting anything I need done in my room when I get home at night, usually deleting emails, checking on things I’ve emailed myself from work to look at, chatting with friends, watching Smallville, DBZ, and Enterprise, all whilst getting my laptops updated and customized as well as my desktop, consuming about 4 ½ to 5 hrs a night. Another hour is spent walking the complex, trying to build the strength in my leg back up, or any other random activity I’ve put off for the week, including the cleanup from this last weekends cable battle. On a normal day I sleep about 4 ½ hrs, of which only recently have I been eating when I get home, composed of 2 chicken pot pies.

Now Mike is completely different than I, Mike works something like 7am to 4pm, Monday through Friday, and usually wakes up between 4:30am and 5:15am, leaves usually around 6:15 or 6:30, it’s kind of hard to tell since all my clocks are slightly off in my room, and yes, I’m usually still awake when he wakes up and am still awake when he leaves. Mike makes breakfast every morning, 7 days a week, he gets home anywhere between 3:30 and 4:30 I believe, but is regardless, since he makes dinner 7 days a week, and the time he does has no relevance to the statistics at hand.

Now if your wondering why this is a big deal with me, is because my father used to do the same thing, and it pissed me off then, as much as it does now. When I was growing up, if you made mess you cleaned up then, if it was something that wasn’t that big, just make sure it got done before you went to bed. When you cook clean up as you go, or at least before you eat, obviously if you cooked it at 450 degrees you’re going to have to wait for it to cool down so why not clean up the mess created while preparing it. As far as the trash goes, if you top of the trash can take it out, it’s that simple. If you find yourself taking out the trash all the time, then look at why that is. 99% of the time it will be based on the fact that you are the one generating the majority of the trash to begin with, thus there is no reason why you shouldn’t take it out to begin with. The same can be said for dishes, if you find yourself, constantly without dishes all the time and having to wash them, then it’s stand a very good chance that you are the one using the dishes thus lowering the stock of clean dishes to be used. Basically it comes down to, if you spend in comparison to others, 95% of the time in the kitchen, then you are expected to clean 95% of the kitchen, why would you expect someone who only uses the kitchen 5% of the time to clean it 50% of the time.

Now I suppose there will be those that will say what is so hard about just splitting the work 50-50 and each doing the equal amount of work. Well the reason why this can’t be applied is simple, it’s not 50-50, the only way it will be 50-50 is if everyone cleans up behind themselves. Mikes solution however was to simply get another trash can and we’ll each have our own. Granted this would possibly solve the issues, it seems a little more extreme, and flat out fuckin stupid, and my point will be proven simply based upon the fact mentioned earlier.  A viable solution would be to have the person who generates the majority of the trash, take it out the majority of the time. I don’t expect people to do my laundry after I’ve worn the clothes, why would you expect someone to clean up or remove your trash after you’ve used/consumed the products. Now it would be understandable if we both used the kitchen somewhat, hell even close to remotely the same amount, but the fact remains we don’t. Mikes buys his groceries and I buy mine, why, because I’m never home when I eat so what’s the point in buying half the groceries if I’m only going to eat 1 or 2 things once or twice a week.

I have simple ways that I live by

1)     Clean up after yourself, and expect other to do the same

2)     If on a budget, by what you need 1^st, then what you want, and only if you can afford it.

3)     Pay for what you use, not what is available

4)     Don’t make your priorities others, and don’t makes others yours

5)     Always look at your options, and be open to ideas

6)     Compromise, just because something works for doesn’t mean it works for everyone else

Now the next issues apparently at hand is my computer being on 24/7, apparently Mike believes my computer alone, reduced Tom’s electric bill by $80 once I moved out. Now granted I’m sure it did contribute to it, however Mike is stating that it alone constituted roughly 25% of it. Because of this he is stating that I should be responsible for 25% of the electric bill. Obviously I don’t feel the same, simply because, at the time Liz was home with Kid all day and the ac, 2 TV’s and Tom’s computer were running. At about the same time I moved out Kid was in school and Liz was usually out as well. Now I did some research the other day on the amount of power used by a computer versus other household appliances and found that you monitor uses more than the PC itself. Not really a problem, I have power management on both my monitor and motherboard. My motherboard also has a wake on LAN, and wake on keyboard feature, which means after a set time the system will back itself up and power down, almost completely. The power that it uses is the same amount used by any other appliance with a LED display, i.e. and alarm clock or VCR. The power that it uses to turn on is stored on the motherboard, and the fact that it is simply plugged in other words it uses the exact same amount as any other devices when in hibernation, which is as close as possible to being completely turned off, that little bit of electricity is just like the LED to tell you what time it is on any digital clock.

The issues with this is simple, Mike original argument was for the computer to be off, whereas mine was to turn the ac off when we left. Mikes response to this was, I’m paying for the luxury of coming home to a cool apt, and in turn mine was that I was paying for my luxury of having my computer on while I’m at work. But since this argument will fall on deaf ears, I’ll resolve to turn my computer off, which in turn makes it pointless for me to have cable running to my computer, therefore completely pointless for me to pay for a cable TV service I won’t be using. This resolution is not based off choice, but simply based on schedule. There’s nothing on TV when I get home from work other than infomercials, and on the weekends I’m either at work, out of the house, or simply doing something else, and the fact that Mike watches his games and the Soprano’s the majority of the weekend. So yeah I’ll power my system off, when I go to work, but I won’t be paying the cable bill any longer, simply because I won’t use it. Simple problem simple solution, Anything I want to watch I can simply download from the net.

*updated*

~Everything seems to be cool now, I agreed to observe more stringent PC power use, and the rest of the bills n stuff are still split 50-50, and i fyou think about it the amount of electricity spent his TV watching and my pc, pretty much offset each other. So now all that’s left is to make room for Steve. Expect a rant tommorow about work, cuz some crazy ish went down, and definatley pissed me off, but since it’s 5am now, even though xanga thinks it’s like 9am, either way i’m crashing~

BTW if anyone knows how to change the time stamp, leave me mssg so i can fix mine