Things that are annoying me

I promise more substantive posts this weekend, but as Huan pointed out its tough to blog when life is routine. To tide you over, here are some things that have been annoying me recently:

1. My desk chair. While living in my old apartment I struggled to find a desk chair that had no wheels. Finally I bought a simple chair from Crate and Barrel made for dinner tables. It worked great on the hardwood floors. Now the chair is on a carpeted floor, and it is miserable. I need wheels.
2. Noodles. I love noodles. I remember pestering my parents to go to a wholly mediocre place in Springfield called the Pasta Peddler because I knew they would have pasta, and with a witty name like that the food would probably be good too (I was 10, give me a break). Now I work in the International District, so my choices during lunch are Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, and wholly mediocre "other." Thus for 5 weeks my lunches have consisted of pho, ramen, soba, lo mein, etc. And my backup "quick/easy" dinner is spaghetti. So I'm sick of noodles.
   
3. My cellphone. First, it takes at least 15 seconds between pushing a button and getting a reaction. Second, people keep calling me at 6:45am thinking I'm on the East Coast.
4. Buses. Trains only go where there are tracks. Buses, at least in Seattle, seem to go wherever they want. Before 7:00pm the #2 bus basically takes me door to door. After 7:00pm the #2 doesn't come within 2 miles of my office. Although neither the King County Metro site or the street placards inform you of this fact. Buses also change numbers with seeming randomness; imagine if you got on the Red Line, and two stops later you found out you were on the Orange. It's disconcerting.
   

New to the 403

We've got some new additions to Apartment 403. First, I greened up the place on Saturday by purchasing a pygmy date palm at Home Depot (which is just blocks from both the Starbucks headquarters and a Krispy Kreme). (And the answer is two glazed.) (And if you're really dumb, the question was "Did you get any donuts.")



I have a very mixed track record with plants: either they live forever, or die within two weeks. My Aunt Linda once bought me a plant for Christmas. She described it as "indestructible." It didn't even see February. If the pygmy date palm can make it to the Derby I feel it's in the clear. (There will be an upcoming post as to why the apartment is perfect for warm weather plants. It will also explain why I'm already missing A/C.)

The second addition is the dining set I bought online a couple weeks ago. It finally showed up this morning. First, look at this picture and try to spot what's wrong:


You probably don't see anything other than styrofoam. Well, that's the whole problem. That's just packing material for two chairs and the table (less the table box, which I threw out before taking the photo). There are still four more chairs to unpack, each with more styrofoam and cardboard. I'm pretty sure the two delivery guys could have pushed the boxes to the apartment and not worn through the various layers. I'm astounded by how much packing material there is, especially considering this isn't high end furniture. This would be less annoying, but our building/city is psycho about recycling.