Of mice and a man

So, I have found use of these overnight shifts at work, plenty of time to work on my blog.  And with things that have been taking place recently, now seems as good a time as any.

First, for all of you long time blog readers, you are familiar with the concept of the change meter.  For those not in the loop, the change meter is basically an accumulation of the money and material goids where a definite value can be established, that i find on my forays to and from places.  On one of my not so recent posts i mentioned that I was going to add tips to the meter, simply because i do not view my job at Uncle Sam's as tip worthy, after all usually all i do is dress sandwiches and nobody tips the burger flipper at McDonald's now do they?  So in my eyes it is simply more free money I have come across.  That being said, I had little idea how much that decision would change things.  When we last left off, the change meter was sitting just north of $800, not even $100 a year for the existence of the blog (you have to go waaaaay back to the early days of Yahoo 360, then later Multiply to trace the blog's history) and the change meter was one of the first things i ever did with the blog.  Well, since our last update, back in Dec of 2017, we are adding a substantial amount to the total, $1832.49 to be exact and our new total is now $2655.79.

With that out of the way, a little fantasy talk is in order.  I dropped one of my fantasy football leagues this year (Pittsburgh Bloggers), not for anything they did, but just wanted to focus my energies on other things.  There are some fine people on Pittsburgh Bloggers, and I would highly reccommend checking out their work (there are usually links on the Friday entry on their Facebook page), they take blogging much more seriously than I do.  But then we all know that I view blogging as the illusion of work, writing when I should be doing actual work.  Anyway, the fantasy leagues I stayed in (one football, one hockey) are littered with people I used to work with, both at Smithfield News and at 1360 AM WPTT.

In football I am off to a 5-1 start, this week figures to be important given I am playing the only other team that has my lofty record.  Though no one hangs a banner for a regular season title, so I am content to finish with one of the top 4 records and get a playoff spot.  Right now I am in a good place to secure one of those.  The hockey league I have been less than successful over the years.  I have never gotten a handle on the scoring system, perhaps I should read the rules some day, but we don't play tor cash, just bragging rights, so losing is less painful, at least financially.  So far though I am off to a 1-0 start, which might be the first time in years I have been over .500 in that league.

But none of this explains the totle of the blog, now does it?  Rather it was something that occurred ove the last week and a half (other than hockey vids, which are almost up to date to this point), since my last entry.  I was sitting in ye olde apartment, just minding my p's and q's, I was probably on my laptop or tablet, when I saw a mouse run along the baseboard of one of the walls.  This is an event because, a) it is a mouse and b) i have not seen a single mouse in my place the previous 11+ years I have lived there.  Now it should be noted my apartment was carved out of a larger house, I live in the back in an efficiency apartment, my neighbors tend to change every school year.  During the down time, usually over summer, the landlord does all of the requisite repairs, updates to the unoccupied units.  Since I have never seen mice before, my best guess is they came in while fixing up the frontal unit simply because while working inside they would leave the door open for hours at a time.  I could be wrong, it could be another way the mouse found it's way in, but I am sticking with the most obvious.

Anyway, I decided to employ my trapping skills, (I know, you are wondering about said trapping skills, but as a youngster I used to get up early and walk with my uncle when we checked traps that he set along a neighborhood stream) and after work one Sunday when I made one of those notches in my schedule where I give myself some relaxation time, this time it was to go see Venom at the theater on a Sunday during a run where between both jobs it will be three weeks without a day off, I made a quick veer into Target to get some mouse traps.  I got the cheapies, the ones with the snap bar that breaks the mouses neck (fuck the humanitarian shit when deal with rodentia), went to dinner at Primanti's', saw the movie (which was okay, not great, not awful) I went home to set my traps.  I say traps because just because I had sen one mouse does not mean there was only one.  I baited traps with crunchy peanut butter, which was originally going to be for sandwiches for me, I guess this is what they call repurposing, i put one where i had previous had seen said mouse, and a few others around ye olde apartment.

I go to work the next day, come home and sure enough i had a mouse with a broken neck.  I started singing "Let's Get It Started" just for that break your neck line, but as with real life trapping, where you catch one, you want to reset as soon as possible because usually there is more than one.  Sure enough over the next week I have caught 4 thus far (don't doubt my trapping skills), but I am at the
point where I think maybe I should call an exterminator, rather than rely on my own substantial skills.

Anyway, that is all I have today.  Once again, another fine example why I don't use Twitter, who can keep me to 180 characters.