I bought an electric skillet yesterday. As I was walking home with it, a girl gasped and excitedly shouted "Home Shopping Network". I didn't buy it from there, but she had no way of knowing that. This incident reminded me of my own addiction to watching HSN.

I discovered the Home Shopping Network at an electronics store in Chinatown. It was a small store and didn't even have cable internet to show off their televisions. I noticed that one of them was on channel 68. This greatly amused me, because I was not aware of the existence of this channel. I spent several weeks watching only this before I forced myself to stop. I never bought anything from them, but that was only because I knew that I would become bankrupt from buying stuff that I didn't need.

I still watch occasionally, but it's not as mesmerizing anymore.

A client asked me to help her fill out a visa application. I was wondering why she didn't do it herself, but the reason soon became clear. https://ceac.state.gov/genniv/ is one of the most horribly designed websites I have ever seen for the following reasons:

1) It caused Internet Explorer 8 to crash several times. When I switched to Firefox 2, I got an SSL error and could not add an exception until I upgraded to Firefox 3.

2) There is a ridiculous time limit for activity. If you take too long to answer a question, the session terminates. This happened several times while answering questions at a slightly hurried pace. I don't know the exact time limit, but I estimate round 4 minutes per page. This is ridiculous for some pages.

3) There is an option to save your work to prevent total loss when time limits are exceeded, but saving can only be done after all items are filled out on a page.

4) There is an upload size limit of 240kb for the photo and the minimum photo resolution is 600x600. In my first attempt to upload, the file was 255kb. This was easy for me to remedy by changing to 90% quality, but it is ridiculous to expect the average person to understand how to do this.

My landlord's son is the property manager for my apartment. He slipped a note under my door last night stating that he had to come by today to look at my tub. I have no idea why. He was here around 7 this morning. I stayed in bed and did not check his work until I got up at 9. I didn't see any changes to my tub, but the cap on the bathroom sink's faucet had been popped off. He came back a few hours later and reinstalled the cap. I still don't see any change to the tub and I have no idea why he was making adjustments to the faucet.

I heard a loud crashing sound outside around 6:30 yesterday. Children screamed and I lost internet connection immediately after the sound. Before going out to investigate, I tried restarting my computer. When that didn't work, I checked my modem and noticed the flashing light which indicated a lack of DSL signal. When I finally went outside to check, around 10 minutes had passed since the sound. The screaming children were gone and I did not see anything fallen or damaged.

I wasn't sure if it was a coincidence or if the damage was somehow concealed. I contacted my ISP and spent 30 minutes talking to a guy in India. The test utility that he normally uses was malfunctioning. After three attempts, he decided to authorize a technician to visit me despite not having evidence on his side that there was a problem with the connection. I was told that I would get a call within 72 hours to schedule a technician to visit. Service was functioning again this morning.

For my sister's 16th birthday, my father decided to celebrate with pizza. It was the only time that this had ever been done. Most birthdays were completely ignored, except for my grandmother's birthdays, which were celebrated with cake. I was 5 years old at the time, and I still recall this event very clearly. Everyone ate the pizza except for me.

My mother had decided that I was too young to eat it. I'm not sure if she thought I would choke on the cheese. It didn't make sense to me then, and it still does not make sense to me now. I was irrationally excluded from many family activities with my age being the excuse, but the ones relating to food are most vivid in my mind. I was also excluded from eating noodles once because my mother was convinced that I would choke on them. I was four at the time. I don't recall if I cried, but my mother eventually gave me some that she broke into small pieces. I didn't want it anymore at that point.

My family had pizza together yesterday. We got together for our annual visit to the cemetery. After the event, my mother decided to get pizza for us. It was the first family pizza event since my sister's 16th birthday 29 years ago. I seriously considered eating the pizza despite knowing that it would make me ill, but I decided against it, because I did not have lactase with me and I did not want diarrhea during the long journey home. The reason that I wanted to eat the pizza was because of a psychological theory which is highly questionable. The theory is that reenacting traumas with a different outcome from the original can have a significant therapeutic effect.

I often think about how much of my relationship with food was shaped by the psychological traumas. Some of my food sensitivities most likely have a physiological basis. My lactose intolerance is very common among Chinese people. Some reactions are less clear, and do not necessarily manifest in a physiologically observable form. Since I started cooking for myself, I have always felt terrible after eating my mother's cooking. This could be mostly or entirely psychosomatic. She doesn't use certified organic ingredients, and she tends to be less hygienic in her food preparation, but my reaction is mostly just a very bad feeling inside. I don't hurt and don't consistently get diarrhea from eating her cooking. I just can't think clearly and feel very weak. Most "bad" foods do this to me.

During my journey home, I took a brief detour to buy pizza. I considered getting the regular kind, but I had already been poisoned by my mother's cooking earlier, and I didn't want to do much more damage. I decided on certified organic pizza with no extra toppings. That was dinner last night, along with lactase, probiotics, and a multitude of other supplements. It just wasn't the same eating it alone. I had mild diarrhea this morning, but I feel fine.

http://newyork.craigslist.org/brk/cpg/1671296078.html

I need some to travel back in time with me 20 years. this is not a joke. i did something bad the first time i traveled, and i need someone to help me fix it. they must have extensive computer skills, moslty windows 7. the task is difficult and you may not return. again this is serouly not a joke. only serious inquires need aply. the reward will be paid upon our safe return.

This is my reply:

I am from the future and have extensive experience in time travel. I am
now stuck in your present time due to irreparable damage. During my stay
here, I have acquired extensive knowledge of contemporary computer
systems. I will assist you on your mission if you agree to help me to
return to my time after we are done.