I’m sure you’ve heard the expression: “That kind of thing only happens to other people.” Turns out that I am “other people” because all the stuff that happens to “other people” is the stuff that happens to me.
I’m only writing this post because Travis told me I should, BTW. Of course he said I should put it in a book. I would do so, but given the fact that so many ficticious autobiographies (think: Million Little Pieces or My Life for example) exist, I know that no one would believe it. Not that it ultimately matters, but still…
Anyway, by nature I am a very optimistic person. This is probably the only reason I haven’t killed myself, because of all the stuff that happens to “other people.” In fact I’ve heard Dawkins claim that the universe looks exactly like it would if there was no God and it was instead governed by pure chance. I disagree completely with that sentiment, of course; but I do have to admit that I would understand someone who instead said that the universe appeared to be governed by a God who hates us. (As I said, I would understand this notion, not agree to it.)
In any case, as I said I am by nature an optimist. I always look for the bright side of everything, because it’s much more fun being happy than being gloomy. I know this isn’t true for everyone. I won’t name names (but they’re running for president), but I know a few dour people who cannot find joy in anything except their own suffering.
So anyway, I was talking to Travis this morning. I got onto the subject of everything that has happened to me since 2001. More specifically, since September 11, 2001. Because 9/11/01 was when I had my pre-op for my surgery on the 12th. I got a 9 pound cyst removed from my adrenal gland.
Yeah, a 9 lb cyst. You know, the kind of thing that “other people” get.
Anyway, after surgery I went through two infections, so I was hospitalized three times. I was actually out from work from 9/12 through 11/5 of that year. My only saving grace was that our fiscal year ends 9/30 and the new one starts on 10/1, so my sick time “reset” then. That meant that although I was “in the hole” by November 5, I had enough sick time to cover it as long as I wasn’t sick at all the rest of the year.
After that I moved to a new house. Why did I move? Well, I was promised a lower rent rate. I moved to the other house knowing that another friend would be moving in after about three months, so for the first three months I had to pay the extra rent for both of us until he arrived.
But after he arrived, the landlord (who was–note the past tense–a friend of mine) decided to keep my rent at what it was. Since I didn’t have anything in writing…well, you get the picture. Instead of saving rent from my old house, I had to pay extra rent.
Then my friend moved out. I got a new roommate, and a second one after that. Turns out the third roommate started stealing from the second roommate so we had to evict him. Lotsa fun.
Anyway, then I moved to a different apartment which was, in a word, possessed. I can’t prove it, but I know it was demon possessed. After a few months (and I don’t correlate these two things), I ended up with sleep apnea without knowing it. If you’ve read my blog, you’ve read some of the tales of that already. Needless to say, two and a half years later, with just about 0 REM for that time, I was diagnosed with severe depression, etc.
Long story short, I eventually got through that and moved to a new house. There, my roommate turned out to be a pedophile who surfed for child porn on my computer. Thus, my computer is still in police custody right now (I’m not sure when the trial will start, but hopefully it should be any day now–it’s been almost 11 months).
And just for fun, let’s just fastforward to March. I got tickets to see an Avs game and invited a hockey gurl to the game! She said yes. But then, as you know if you read the blog, I got stood up. I did find out why, finally. She had a car accident. Thankfully, she survived, but she pretty much dropped off the planet after that, quitting her job, etc. I’m assuming that she probably moved back to L.A. where she was originally from, but of course I don’t know that for sure. I’m just like, Okay, well that wasn’t meant to be. But on the other hand, I can’t really say I’m surprised…you know, given past history and all.
Anyway, after that I ended up with my staph infection just a few days later. And then, while taking antibiotics, I got an ear infection. Again, I’ve blogged about most of that.
All I can say is that my life is most certainly “interesting.” But I’d rather be normal. I mean, how many people do you know who had a roommate at one house who was stealing (who, incidentally, turned out to be skipping parole at the time too, but we didn’t know that), who then moves to another house and has a roommate who’s a pedophile? How many people get stood up because the girl actually wanted to go with them but ended up in a car accident? How many had both of the above, as well as once having a 9 lb cyst and 2 and a half years of sleep deprivation in a demon-possessed apartment?
No one, of course. Because that’s what happens to “other people.”
April 30th, 2008 at 10:46 am
Wow, and I thought I was the one breaking the curve for everybody else. You win.
If three friends come over to commiserate and start telling you that this has happened because you haven’t repented for sin… well, there’s a book about that.
*smiles*
April 30th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
*lol*
On the plus side, everyone else should have much better luck since I’m sucking up all the bad luck :-) Statistically, it should average out, right? :-P
May 22nd, 2008 at 6:57 pm
wow. you ought to write up the story explaining how you didn’t get busted when the guy was using your PC. that has to be an entertaining story.
May 23rd, 2008 at 6:48 pm
Well, there were a couple of reasons.
1) I called the cops on him in the first place.
2) He has a previous history.
3) I can prove I was at work for at least one of the times my computer was used to access child porn, so I definitely didn’t access it that time.
All of that tells the police there’s no reason to investigate me.
This does remind me though that I’ll need to see when the trial starts. As far as I know, they still haven’t finished with forensics on my computer :-( I just can’t wait for it to get over, for him to be sentenced (because he’s definitely guilty and the case against him is so strong only an LA jury would get him out of it), and for me to get my computer back so I’m no longer stuck with this ancient piece of junk I have to use now!
May 24th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
That certainly explains it.
Did you catch him in the act, or find the evidence he’d been kiddy-porn-surfing on your pc when you were using it?
May 27th, 2008 at 10:34 am
Actually, I found out because he’s an idiot. He forgot to sign out of his Yahoo e-mail account so when I logged on to check my e-mail, I was like: “What is THIS?”
The subject lines of most of the e-mails were quite disturbing. At first I thought it was possible that maybe someone had hijacked my computer since I normally left it on all day, and even with software protection it’s still possible someone could have exploited a hole in it or something like that. But then I noticed that one of the e-mails that was sent to the address that was signed in was actually FROM my room mate. (He used his work e-mail to forward something to this account.)
Reading through some of the e-mails there I also discovered that the owner of the account that was logged in on my computer had just been fired from his job because he had printed out one of his “stories” at work and had left it on the printer. (As you can see, this guy was a real genius!) Anyway, my room mate was SUPPOSED to be moving out from our house since he was being transfered by his company…but he had recently been “let go” from his job. I put 1 and 1 together, got 11, and concluded: “The guy on the e-mail is definitely my room mate instead of a random hijacker who got to my computer.”
Anyway, the detective investigating the case was really glad that I saw my room mate’s name linked to the account. After I told them what the login name was and all that, they did get a search warrant, and later the detective told me that my room mate had accessed that account twice using our internet connection. I’m pretty sure the other time was right before I got home and had to spend six hours trying to recover from a virus my computer had gotten, but the detective didn’t give me any dates on it so I can’t prove THAT one.
One other thing I guess I can point out is that my room mate was already under investigation for something else, and they were able to find more links to the other stuff (which is what he was actually arrested for–I’m being somewhat vague here because this comment is on-line and anyone could actually use this to find out personal information about me if they were so inclined–for instance, looking up this guy’s name on the sex offender registry used to give *MY* address since he was there, although now it correctly shows he’s in jail).
Anyway, my portion of the case didn’t make the news (thankfully), and it’s possible that they might try to use it as a plea deal (”We’ll drop this part if you confess to that part”); but the detective also said this guy already did Federal time for child porn (which is rare, since the FBI usually lets the local police prosecute in those cases) and this would be his third conviction so he’s looking at a looooong sentence and therefore has nothing to lose by fighting it as far as a he can.
All that to say…once the trail is over and he’s convicted and sentenced, then I probably have enough material to write an article about it. It certainly has been about the least fun I’ve ever had with the judicial system. Even wasting my time in jury duty before being non-selected is preferable to going through this again.