Pennsylvania local news is great. A teaser featured an anchor asking, "gas prices got you using regular instead of the recommended premium?", thereby portraying a wildly inaccurate idea of what you're supposed to put in your car; their intro to a piece on the $100 cheesesteak actually referred to its purchasers as "suckers"; and an elderly woman being interviewed about a watermain break noted that during a surgery she had died on the table twice. "So how bad could it [the watermain break] be?"

All of this within the first ten minutes. Awesome.

Okay, not really. But things are fine here. The job is manageable, the food is cheap, and the clients are pretty nice. The guy I'm working with is particularly cool -- lots of tattoos, piercings, and pictures of his cute six year old daughter in various vaguely punk-rock poses.

The hotel's not too bad, either, as these things go. The clerk seemed awfully upset at us for callously having forced his coworker to misbook our room, but they were ctually handing out free beer when we came in. That's a pretty good pace to set for yourself. Unfortunately, I eschewed the beer in favor of a trip to the hotel gym. Obviously this was a stupid, stupid mistake. The ancient rusty all-in-one machines in these places never work anything except my rotator cuffs. They, at least, got put through the paces.

The only really noteworthy thing about this place, though, is the smell. Or smells. Okay, sometimes they're predictable -- the wing with the pool stinks overpoweringly of chlorine. And frequently they're variations on a theme -- the hallway smells like old people; the other hallway smells like another, different old person; and the bathroom smells like feet (possibly a pair belonging to an old person). But there are odd wildcards... was someone baking oatmeal cookies in the gym? And did Mr. Kool-Aid drink fruit punch wine coolers in my microwave until he got violently sick? It's all very mysterious. But seeing as I have to be at work by 7:30 tomorrow, I don't have much time to investigate.

well, well, a weekend report. i haven't done one of these in a long time, primarily because there has been crapall in my life lately to report, unless you want to hear about me constantly being stressed and bitchy - who doesn't want to hear about that?! - but i did a couple of things this weekend that were kind of fun. so onwards, blogging soldiers.

my ATM has a limit of a $500-a-day withdrawal. i did not find this out until today when i tried to get more than that to get a money order to put down the deposit on my apartment in chicago. wah. hopefully the delay won't be a problem, but i'm a little stressed. for the voyeurs, you can see pictures of where i'll be living with my 367 cats all next year here.

the small matter of the kitchen being in the bedroom: i'm not really sure what to do about that. this is how it's set up: there's one large room off the entry hall. a small room is to the side, and the kitchen is also part of that smaller room. the previous tenant used it as a bedroom, but the thought of having my bed two feet away from where i cook sort of weirds me out. i might just turn it into a den and keep my bed out in the main room. we shall see...

A billboard in baltimore, visible from 95 north:

Are we being insulted? I honestly have no idea.

PS: overturned greyhound bus north of Charm City. Not something you see lying in a ditch every day. Hope everyone's okay.