It's a long way to the top...

So I started a list of movies I've seen recently, thinking of the surely dozens that have crossed my way. I was puzzled when I could only come up with four that have been released into theaters since May, but then I remembered that the bulk of new movies has been via the magical wonderland of Blockbuster. So much for movie commentary.

I can't wait for my housemates to come up to Austin. Even with a security system and a great neighborhood watch program, I still get jittery about unknown noises and odd occurrances. I had to call my BM at 5 AM one night(he was awake, pulling a night shift, fyi) because I heard an odd beeping sound, much like a security system going off. I was scared out of my wits thinking that maybe someone had tried to break into a neighbor's house or perhaps had broken a window in MY house (causing a sound different than normal?). But then I realized that I had knocked a travel alarm into the "ON" position when I was rifling through a box of yet un-sorted junk in the pantry. The alarm was set for 5 AM. Ridiculous.

However, I did recently have a horriffic discovery. It seems that in the process of painting, a gallon can of blue paint didn't get the lid put on fully. It was sitting in my livingroom until a magnificent and semi-impromptu Rock Band occasion prompted a quickie cleanup. During said cleanup involving some of my guests, the can of paint was moved onto a pantry shelf and either leaned over or laid on its side. You can guess what happened next.

Yes, the remainder of the paint (probably a quarter-gallon, at least) trickled out of the can (without my knowledge) over the next few days. I saw a couple small spots on my pantry shelves and righted the can a few days later, thinking that there just hadn't been much left. I found out just how much had been left this weekend when I went to retrieve said can from the pantry to do touch-ups. It was perfectly aimed so that the bulk of the paint poured off the shelf into an open box that happened to be filled with photo albums I hadn't gotten a shelf to store on yet.

Probably my two driving artistic passions in life are photography and music. Thankfully the photos were all inside plastic sheaths (though I haven't taken the pictures out yet to determine how much damage was done to them, I have opened everything up to let the paint dry on the exteriors). There were two picture CDs, but it seems that only the case got hard-hit and the CD's should clean up easily. Thank heavens I didn't have (or at least didn't find) any negatives in the box. It could have been a lot worse, but it still was a hard hit. The albums ended up sitting in about a half-inch depth of paint which ended up destroying some of the outer album covers and I can't say right now how much I'll have to replace or how much I'll have to live with photos with distorted edges.

At least the good thing is that I can't pinpoint the blame on any particular person (i.e. - no grudges or resentment). I don't know who was responsible for the loose lid, and I don't know who was responsible for leaning the paint can, but I do know that over the course of the week in which the can was spilling out I should have moved it to the floor and hung up a shelf to put my damn albums on. Such is life. I just wish it didn't pull crappy things like that, though.