woke up today to watch ask aida on the food network. why her show doesn't get more airtime i'll never know (instead it's relegated to the viewerless timeslot of 12:30pm saturdays). she's certainly presentable enough, pretty like giada but not in a fake way i find unappealing. maybe it's a question of seniority and rising through the ranks. i thought when they finally got rid of emeril it'd free up the schedule for better programming, but the network remains stale. i think there should be another food channel, one with more ethnic cuisine. or at least change the cooks periodically, sort of what MTV used to do with their veejays.
i left the house to buy more digital timers when i found out the christmas sale at rite aid was still happening. i still want to get some despite the fact that the one i previously got resets itself after a few days (it might be related to the surge protector, i'm still testing it out). i was going to do the old switcheroo, put the old timer in the new packaging and return it, telling them it's broken (which it is, but i don't have the original packaging anymore). i just like controlling things with timers. my two fish tanks are already on a timer system, that's one less thing i have to do everyday. and whenever i'm not at home for a few days, i like to set up a timer or two to control the lights inside the house. anyway, i went to the store on somerville avenue but they only had one digital timer left. i then visited the rite aid on mass ave next to hollywood express but they didn't have any in stock.
back at home with my new timer, i decided to set up the only strand of christmas lights that i own. i got them late last december during a fit of holiday cheer (actually, i got them because i was ordering red/blue LED's for my indoor growlight project). i haven't really noticed too much christmas light activity on my street, but i haven't really been going out at nights either. of course my roommate didn't notice, or if he did, he didn't say anything. i'm actually offended when i do something different with the house and he doesn't notice. i'm a complete psycho, aren't i?
my roommate woke up late, 2pm. he went to a dinner party with his MIT friend last night and they came back together and hung out in his room. i didn't mind, but i was really afraid that his friend would sleep over and my roommate would sleep on the couch. my roommate has epic body odor and i don't want him to ruin my furniture (he already ruined my pots and pans and i can't use the bathroom anymore without seeing phantom piss on the floor). once in a while i wonder how many scented candles i have to burn in the guest bedroom after he leaves in march in order to cover up all that stink. i don't think it's my place to tell a 40-year-old man about proper grooming technique. he wandered around the house all day in his long underwear, said he was up late last night (i was up late too, but i still woke up at my usual time). later he took the bicycle to the supermarket to get a gallon of milk.
by nightfall, i was in my room, slipping into an early evening nap, when my phone rang. it was my roommate's MIT friend, who calls me when he needs to talk to my roommate because my roommate doesn't have a cell phone (and i don't have a land line in the house). i crawled out of bed and gave my roommate the phone. 15 minutes later, when i was about to fall asleep again, my roommate knocked on my door. "why are you sleeping so early?" he laughed, but i didn't answer. "can you help me with some computer problem?" he said. can you help me with my roommate problem? i thought to myself. i tried to disguise the fact that i was deeply annoyed that he was twice responsible for disturbing my sleep. when i returned to my room i wasn't sleepy anymore and decided to watch some more drive-in cult classics. my roommate's friend came to pick him up later, they went out for peking duck i found out later.
hours later my roommate and his friend returned to the house. i heard the clinking of beer bottles as they both disappeared into my roommate's bedroom. i was back in the living room at that point, but returned to the bedroom by midnight. once again, i just hope his friend will go home by evening's end, because i don't want my roommate sleeping on the couch. he already did it once and i had to flip over the cushions to hide the smell.
2 more cult classics tonight: the pink angels (1971), which i thought would be a movie about nubile coeds, is actually a low-budget comedy about transvestite bikers. the humor is pretty dumb even with my low standards, 
and scenes are laced with reaction footage of unsuspecting bystanders watching the actors either play tough bike gang members or effeminate queens. the camera follows them around, having a food fight at the A&W stand, shopping for a dress, or waiting for a gang member to return with a spare motorcycle part. their final destination is a drag ball but along the way a rival biker gang is looking for them following the aftermath of an outdoor orgy where the sleeping bikers had makeup applied to their faces (i think that's the ultimate insult in transvestite biker speak). and for some reason, some military government agency is out to stop these drag queens as well. the ending is especially abrupt and disappointing, almost like they just ran out of ideas and picked the most WTF conclusion.
the strangely named blood mania (1970) features better production value and reminds me of those hammer house of horror films. victoria (maria de aragon) is taking care of her sick father in his mansion, but schemes to kill him in a misguided attempt to win the affection of her father's hunky doctor. 
when we first see victoria, she's painting in her studio, ignoring the rings from her father's sickbed. she slips off her frock to reveal an extremely form-fitting knitted dress (seeing that dress alone is worth the price of admission). here's another piece of trivia: maria de aragon is actually one of the actors who played greedo in star wars! think about that the next time you watch the mos eisley cantina scene. 
after some chit chat with her father (father and daughter don't seem to be getting along), victoria then notices the pool boy and attempts to seduce him, only to have him scramble out of the pool because he's all business. it's obvious victoria has the hots for doctor craig cooper, but he already has a hot girlfriend and doesn't want to get involved with victoria, 
whom he can tell might be a psycho. but when an old acquaintance of doctor craig shows up to blackmail him (apparently the good doctor used to be a practicing abortionist), he suddenly needs $50K. victoria doesn't take no for an answer and eventually beds the doctor, who then reveals his "tax problem" as he calls it. 
she goes ahead and kills her father, hoping to score big on the inheritance, before the audience learns that she has an estranged sister. when the will is finally read, the father leaves almost everything to the other sister, sending victoria into a fit of rage. with victoria no longer the recipient of the father's fortune, doctor craig makes his move on the sister (their first date: a renaissance fair). without revealing too much more, somebody gets murdered. how "blood mania" comes into play i don't know, unless it's a clever way of saying "homicidal rage."
4:30am update: my worse fear has been realized, i went to the living room and guess who's sleeping on the couch? mister body odor himself. i was so livid i went back to my bedroom and slammed the door as hard as i could. there's a case of empty beer bottles in the kitchen and i have these two k's snoring in my house. barbarians have invaded my home! if my roommate thinks he can use my living room as his bedroom for a month when his wife arrives in boston, he has another thing coming. he can start looking for a new place to live. i'm going to have another talk with him tomorrow. how many talks has it been?