Early Bird at 7:49 PM

Let me first say that I do enjoy living in Indiana. That having been said, there is one main thing about this place around which I have trouble wrapping my brain: Why don't we observe daylight savings time? It screws everything up. We're on eastern standard time for half the year, then we're on central daylight time for the other half (which is still eastern standard time technically, but since the east is on eastern daylight time...see where I'm going here?). There are many problems with this. Most, if not all of these problems are ones that I personally have, but those are the most important kind, right?

1. It's bright outside at 4 o'freaking'clock. You think I'm kidding? I'm not. When the days get long for everyone else, the nights get short for us. The sun still goes down at the same time, but if you don't have curtains that make your bedroom darker, be prepared to wake up at 4:00 thinking, "HOW IS THE SUN UP RIGHT NOW?".

2. My family and many friends live in the east, and when we suddenly move to a different time zone, everybody gets confused. I'll probably have to explain twice a year for as long as I live here that we don't change with the rest of the free world (other than Arizona, our partners in idiocy) when daylight savings rolls around, while the person I'm talking to says "Oh right, I always think you're on (eastern/central) time!".

3. I missed xbox live night with the fellas the other night because I got online an hour late. This will also probably happen twice a year for as long as I live here.

4. Some people around here think they're bucking the system, or that Indiana is being it's own state by not observing daylight savings. It's like they see it as the equivalent to dyeing their hair purple, getting a bunch of piercings, and saying "I'm going to be myself, and I don't care what anyone else thinks!", when really they just want attention.

5. Every time daylight savings time comes around, it's all over the news that "Well, the rest of the country will be (springing forward/falling back) on Saturday night, but we Hoosiers will only have to be sure we know what freaking time zone we're in." Then they talk about all the people who want to keep things like they are, and all the people who want to change to be with the rest of the country. Then they talk about all the times the State Senate has tried to pass daylight savings time and not been able to. Granted, I've only been here for 2 time changes, but I can't imagine this is a new phenomenon.

Yeah, so I'm kind of annoyed with that.

This week we had our first run-in with animals in the house. On Wednesday, Jessica called me at work saying that she was hearing all kinds of crazy scratching noises in the ceiling above the bathroom and it was creeping her out. I don't know what she wanted me to do from work, but I tried to use my mind powers to make the scratching go away. When that didn't work, she called a few exterminators. They don't deal with birds/squirrels/non-mouse-or-insect type animals, so we had to call the wildlife department people. So she called them on Wednesday, but they said they couldn't come out until today. Well, last night the bathroom started to take on a foul odor. I couldn't help but think that it was of the deceased animal type smell, because no one had used the bathroom with all the scratching going on. Also, if your crap smells like dead animals, you've got a whole different set of problems.

So needless to say, we were anxious for the wildlife guy to come and get whatever it was out of there. He came today and climbed up in there, and informed us that a couple of birds had infiltrated a heating duct for the purpose of fornicating and gotten caught in the bathroom fan. So their day started off with some pending excitement and ended probably not the way they were expecting. I should insert here that I was willing to pay this guy to go up there rather than do it myself, not because I am a wuss, but because I was not about to go up there and get some kind of bird flu. Also I'm glad I didn't see it, because that would have been pretty gross. Yeah, it cost me $50, but it was money well spent. I'll put a new cover over the duct myself, thank you very much, but get the ickiness out of my bathroom fan first. I saw the tools he used to get them out of there, and I'm not sad that it wasn't me doing it.

Song of the day: "Hail Caesar", by AC/DC. This is on their Ballbreaker album--a track that they never released, but a great song to see in concert. Actually, most songs by AC/DC are great to see in concert. To tell the truth, I hated AC/DC until I saw them live. Now I think they rule. Go figure.