acSlater.com

Read More »

Happy New Year everyone! Anyone got any big plans for this evening? We’re just heading to a house party in the city, nothing too extravagant. We did the bar thing last year and it was fun, but also kind of annoying/expensive although we do have to pay to go to this house party tonight. At least tonight it will be more close friends and much better food/drinks… and of course no line or crowd to push through to get to said food and drinks.

Happy New Year, have fun, be safe!

So my brother lives down in Wrigleyville in Chicago, about a block from Wrigley Field and this is what he woke up to the other day. That’s one big ass rat!

It started a couple weeks ago, my brother was at work during the day and came how to find a bunch of stuff had been knocked off of one of his shelves. Things like a bottle of windex, paper towels, some other cleaners, etc, not really small things, so he assumed they had a rat. He went out and got traps and apparently the only traps he could find were mouse traps, which clearly weren’t big enough for the rat, but he set them out anyways. So with peanut butter baiting the traps he went to bed. The next morning there was nothing in the trap so he went to work hoping that the rat would get hungry during the day.

He got home that night and there was nothing in the trap so he left them there. Later that night he was in the kitchen doing something when he saw the rat scurry across the floor and into some hole in the wall. So now they knew where the rats were coming in and out (they think there was more than one). So they moved the traps near the hole and re-baited them with some leftover hoagie meat instead of peanut butter hoping the smell of meat would lure the rat out of it’s hiding place.

Once the trap is set they (my brother and his roommate) go into the living room, turn off all the lights and sit quietly waiting for the trap to go off… And sure enough he came back out and tripped the trap. So at this point my brother requested a video chat with me through iChat so I could see the size of the rat. The video pops up and it’s my brother carrying his laptop into the kitchen, he has a golf club and his roommate has a golf club. Apparently the wireless doesn’t work so well in the kitchen so I started losing them, but I could hear the yelling when the rat sprung back to life and ran back in the hole. It was pretty funny.

So the rat got away and the reset the trap. And sure enough the next day they woke up and the rat was laying next to the trap. They didn’t want to just run up to it since the last time the rat jumped up and ran away, so they made some noise, poked it with the golf clubs, and it was really dead this time. So I made sure that he took a picture of it and sent it to me. And that’s the picture at the top.

Look at the size of that fucking thing? How the trap killed it I have no idea, my brother said it wasn’t even in the trap when they found it so maybe it got scared to death, who knows. But they are sure there are more of them in the apartment, so if they catch anymore I’ll make sure he has pictures.

Well, my holidays are anyways. I believe that Hanukkah starts this week, but seeing as how I’m not Jewish it doesn’t really pertain to me. And for those of you saying to yourself, “What about New Years?” Is this really a holiday? I mean sure we get a day off of work and I’m grateful for that, but it’s just another day in my mind. The holiday symbolizes the start of another day… Most holidays are usually religious or commemorative, like memorial day, labor day, veterans day, etc. New Years is just a Thursday this year… and it will just be another day next year. It’s just an excuse to drink I guess, even though I won’t really be drinking too much this NYE.

But anyways, for those of you that did celebrate Christmas last week, was it a good one? We got together with my dad’s side of the family the Saturday before Christmas and had a good time. Almost everyone from out of town made it and a few kids got shot with modified nerf guns, which are pretty fucking cool (I’ll have a post about them sometime soon). Then Christmas Eve we got together with my mom’s side of the family and got drunk and gambled. Well I didn’t get drunk, but watching your uncles try to put their shoes on after a few shots is pretty amusing. And I didn’t win any money in Left, Right, Center, but I didn’t lose a whole lot either. After that I went over to the g/f’s family friends house and saw all of them before heading back to my parensts house to sleep on the couch.

Christmas day we all woke up and opened presents, it was weird having everyone back in the house again since everyone moved out, but it was good. Got some good stuff then headed down to the g/f’s condo to have lunch with her and her family and exchange gifts. Then I headed back up to my parents house since we have family and friends over on Christmas afternoon/night and then it was back home.

All in all it was a good Christmas. I enjoyed having 5 days off of work, but wish I could take off more time. Especially since I got here this morning to find the power out at work, the generator is currently powering the building, but the worst part is the generator is right outside our window and is loud as hell. I had a headache when I woke up this morning (I think I need to stop sleeping in my contacts), so this constant rumble isn’t helping. Ugh, shoot me.

So what was my holiday, how was everyone elses?

Came across this video over at failblog.org which is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a blog that posts those “FAIL” pictures or videos, basically things that fail at life. I thought this one was pretty interesting. A bunch of people are waiting for the train in some asian country, when the doors open everyone starts to pile in, apparently nobody needed to get off…. and just when you think the train is too full and the train cops(?) are going to step in and ask people to step back, they start pushing people from the back as hard as they can. How packed to these trains get, this is just insane. And I thought the L in Chicago was bad during rush hour. I think if people started pushing people from behind like this, here in Chicago, there would be a lot of dead bodies outside of the trains.

Who else lives in Chicago and had the worst commute ever yesterday? I work about 20 miles from where I live and it’s normally about a 30-35 minute drive using the highway on a normal day, without the highway it’s about 40-45 depending on which lights I catch. Yesterday though, it took me 3 hours to get from work to my parents house, which is 8 miles from work! The highway was a parking lot so I took locals which was fine until I hit Waukegan Rd which was backed up through at least 3 towns due to down power lines in the town furthest away from me, but it was the way I needed to take home… Needless to say I didn’t make it. At the 2 hour mark I decided to just go to my parents house instead of going all the way home and either wait out the traffic/snow or just stay there for the night, but it still took another hour to get there. I ended up just staying there, hopefully today won’t be that bad.

It took my co-worker 4 hours to get from Work to the North side of Chicago using locals. Took another friend 2 hours to get back to his work from a job site, then another 45 minutes to get home (Northbrook to Wheeling). And his roommate got home in about 4 hours (not sure from where) but his windshield cracked on the way too! A friend of a family friend said it took her 5 and a half hours to get from Congress (on 94) to the junction, that’s insane.  What a shitty, shitty commute yesterday and I heard that we’re supposed to get more snow/ice starting tomorrow afternoon/night… ugh, I hate Chicago weather. I’m leaving work at the first sign of snow tomorrow, I don’t care if it’s just flurries, I refuse to sit in 4 hours of traffic to get home.

So how was everyone elses commute yesterday?

I don’t know what to say about this, it’s just weird and creepy and involves a cat.

I saw this video last week but never posted it up for some reason and now it’s spreading like wildfire. Check it out, if you have stuff you need to store, give them a call down at Jones BIGASS Truck Rental & Storage. They will store anything for you for $10.99 a month, but act fast, he won’t stay drunk for long.

How does ones owner even allow their dog or cat to reach this ridiculous weight? The bulldog in the middle is my favorite, look how small is fucking legs are!

It’s not like it was my only credit card, if it was they wouldn’t have closed it, but it seems that Chase decided that since I haven’t used this particular card in over 2 years they were going to close it. It’s not really a huge deal, I know youre credit scores are affected by how much credit you have available and probably how far back you’ve had good credit, so that part kinda sucks. But over the past year or so Chase has been moving my credit limit away from that card and onto my other cards, so my overall credit limit hasn’t changed too much by this card closing. So just a warning to those of you out there that just keep cards open for the credit limit on your credit report, use them at least once a year just so the bank knows you still use it and they don’t close it on you.