Chicago: They paved a fetid swamp/and put up a parking lot

I'm down with that. That will also keep me from being too knee jerk about it.

apparently i am the victim of debit card theft/fraud. fortunately i'm only out about $100 and the fraud prevention people at my bank caught it right away and it sounds like getting reimbursed shouldn't be too hard. what's weird is that apparently the money was taken out at an ATM, but i still have my card - not sure how someone took money out of my account without my card, at an ATM i hadn't been using.

for dinner i made flying saucer's breakfast bowl - brown rice, black beans, homemade pico de gallo, scrambled eggs, and cheese - so delicious.

Dinner for breakfast is one of the best things ever.

I'm sorry about the fraud but I'm really happy your bank caught it!

That's so weird, Nick! How the hell does that happen?? Do you have any idea?

Chase refused to reimburse me for the $350+ that was stolen from me in New Orleans b/c they said that the thief used my PIN, but they also wouldn't let me keep the $1,500.00 from the check that the thief deposited into my account using my PIN.

Point is, how the fuck did the person get my PIN?? It was not written on my card and I hadn't made a PIN transaction in New Orleans, so no one could have seen the number.

can i brighten your day by suggesting that you listen to this fantastic morodery disco song from the film "foxes" starring jodie foster and cherie curry

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTNqwk_mlLs

if not, carry on

From what I understand, people don't need your actual card to use it. They either "skim" the information from your card (by accessing the magentic stripe on the back, usually by either sliding it through something when you aren't paying attention or by attaching a fake scanner over the top of the legit card swipe at a public ATM) or there are apparently ways to essentially pull the information wirelessly (this is why you should be a little wary of stores with dudes sitting out front with laptops open). Once they get your info, there are ways to essentially encode it in these blank cards, then use them until the cardholder realizes/finds out and the card gets shut down by the bank.

This is an oversimplification, but stuff I learned after this happened to me last summer.

NB, I'm not sure exactly how all of this actually works, my guess is MAGIC, but these are the general techniques people use.

hmmm. well i called my bank this morning, they were supposed to email me claim forms and i still haven't gotten them.

i bought a bag of "canada peppermints" at cvs and now i'm compulsively eating them.

I've done that with "spiced gumdrops" from CVS.

Oh god spiced gumdrops are the devil's candy.

candy is the devil's candy

Yikes. Spiced gumdrops sound disgusting, but also kind of appealing. Like violet gum or black liquorice.

Has anyone tried horehound? My mom has always talked about how disgusting it is. I imagine it tasting like bitter-ish rootbeer.

Spiced gumdrops sound good to me, I dunno.

They're delicious. Instead of just sugar crystals along the outside, they've got something that tingles.

when i was a kid, my dad tried to make homemade horehound candy; it was disgusting. basically the malort of candies. i think he threw it away.

Malort candy… or candy with a Malort center. That would be even crueler than durian fruit candy, which is like eating a fart.

so...how long should i expect this cold to last? be honest.
i don't remember the last time i had really bad one, but i think it was 2009?

Durian hard candy with a creamy Malort center that has been sitting in a candy dish so long it's all stuck together in a stale, sticky clump = the devil's candy

xp two weeks is what they usually say, right?

follow up q: is it possible that i have been fighting this off valiantly for weeks, and one late night* did me in?

*at the trusty old hidden cove

The bad part of the cold I had lasted 2.5-3 days (aches, completely stuffed up, hot/cold flashes, all that shit). Now it's just a cough.

ok that is good to know

Uh, I think I'm starting to get sick, too. Mostly feels like a chest cold at this point.

Yup, that was me a week ago today.

this cold is total bullshit

otm

The high today is like 72, though. It's going to be a gorgeous afternoon.

Goddamit you sick people stay away from me!

durian fruit candy, which is like eating a fart.

Now I've never actually eaten a fart, but this is still OTM. Christmas 2005 or 2006 was ruined when Jeff put a piece of durian candy in my mouth. And we were drinking Red Bully margaritas, so it was all around a bad time.

someone brought actual durian fruit to the tailgate at the last Fire game, but I missed out :(

I think you meant to hit Shift+0.....

nopes, I like to try new things

I tried to eat a durian popsicle once, got about 20 seconds into it, started looking for a trash can. Jaq's husband said "wait a minute, let me give it a try," so I gave it to him, but he didn't like it any better than I did.

Durian seems like it was bred specifically as a dare.

it's a weird-looking fruit too.
http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/cityofate/Durian%20Fruit.jpg
it's a big deal in hong kong, you'd smell it everywhere walking around.

looks more like an alien egg

i've been having crazy complicated/detailed dreams the last couple of nights. on sunday night i had to wake myself up because i was concentrating too hard in my dream (don't remember what it was about anymore though). last night someone made me a crazy huge fretless guitar and then i was eating desserts, which i could taste in my dream.

It smells like hard-cooked alien egg. It is the fartiest of fruits, that is for sure.

Jeff consumed an entire durian shake which is amazing to me. I don't remember if the durian burps were something J/J told me about or if I'm just imagining that they would be awful.

IIRC he didn't finish the whole thing because I made him throw it away outside since it smelled like rotten onions in the middle of a gas leak and kept triggering my "Something is wrong in the kitchen!" panic response.

I would have. But I got durian blocked.

rotten onions in the middle of a gas leak
loooooool

drain onions

I recalled that he threw the cup in the trash and it was stinking up the kitchen.

And then you made him throw it in the Dumptser.

And then you made him throw the Dumpster in the river.

Its kind of nice to work right in the middle of all of the Columbia buildings down here, every walk to lunch is like a living lookatthisfuckinghipster tumblr!

Also, while eating lunch, the two otherwise normal appearing grad student types sitting at the table next to me had a lengthy conversation in which they kept referring to their "human friends".

People are weird.

what? who are their human friends?

For some reason that reminds me of one of the last times I ate lunch out while at work. I was at Salonica cafe and across from me there were two guys, one of whom was complaining about his food. He had a gyro and said it was too greasy... like OK YOU ARE EATING A GYRO THIS IS THE WAY THEY ARE. DUDE.

what? who are their human friends?

I was more concerned with figuring out what THEY were then. The way they were saying that made it sound to me as if they believed (or were pretending) that they themselves were not human and needed to differentiate between their "human" friends and their "whatever the hell they were" friends. Vampires? Aliens? LARPing nerds?

wow, that's truly fantastic i guess

It was like, "oh yeah, that guy I was telling you about, Peter. Yeah, he's one of my human friends", so casual.

The first thing I thought was that they might be very into animal (non-human) rights and they were avoiding specist language.