Quantum Mnemonics

The Sickest People in the World

2005-09-08T21:14:00.000-04:00

As the saying goes, disasters like N'awlins brings out the best in humanity... and the worst. I'm used to the usual suspects: the looters, the price gougers, the scam artists, etc. But Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the fine folks in the Majestic Oaks Homeowners Association (and those supporting them), my winners of the Worst Humans on the Planet of the Year Award. I am sickened to read these reprobates actually live in a state that survived 4 hurricanes last year in no small part to the aid rendered by our neighbors. They can point to covenants and deed restrictions all they want... blah blah blah. The bottom line is they're seeking to deny shelter to people who've had their f-ing houses blown away, presumably because they don't want their property values affected by the presence of undesireables.

They'd better hope there's no God, because He'll have a special place in hell waiting for them.

Blogging Spam-a-Lot

2005-09-06T23:52:00.000-04:00

Oh, for the luvva Pete.

I just blogged this little mini-entry not 10 minutes ago and noticed I had a comment. Thinking L might caught me red-handed, I checked it out, only to read a comment cautioning me against "blog spam". The nerve! A ten-minute beating with a sock of marbles for you, Mr. Anonymous!

(Update: This one got spammed too! Both spams have been, as Strong Bad would say, Deleted!)

The Hurricane Post

2005-09-06T23:41:00.000-04:00

I'm still trying to wrap my brain around the New Orleans disaster. I had to cut myself off from the coverage because it just saddened, angered and frustrated the hell out of me. (I was nearly in tears when I saw the video of Harvey Jackson...) I don't even really have it in me to make a proper commentary, other than express my disgust at how quickly this human tragedy has degenerated into partisan blaming (don't even get me started on Mr. West's "remarks").

Not surprisingly, it's taken a foreign media source to actually try to start asking all the right questions, not just those politically convenient (People with both D's and R's behind their name's got some 'splaining to do.). I recommend the article by the BBC's Paul Reynolds. I hope he stays on top of the story.

Oh, and in case you don't know about it, there's a blog out there being written by a guy holed up in some hotel in New Orleans. With the Police Department now declaring that they're really going to get everyone out, I don't know how long this guy can keep it up, but he has a unique perspective on things.

And yes, I ponied up what I could to my charity of choice. I did so last Tuesday. I'll be making another (and another and another) as the paychecks come in.

I Wanna Princess Leia in the Metal Bikini

2005-09-06T23:37:00.000-04:00

Ladies in skimpy Sci-Fi costumes? That sounds like everything I wanna be a part of!

(Oh, and I'm going to figure out a way to work "It was your unbelievably loose grasp on the world around you." into a conversation, preferrably some kind of insult.)

I Think He's Dead (No, I'm Not!)

2005-09-06T23:36:00.000-04:00

Yeah... it's been a while. Actually, L called me out, hence the title. I'm going to gather up my ramblings and try to give a meaningful post. Stay tuned.

Squirrel Soup, Anyone?

2005-08-23T22:38:00.000-04:00

Sit down and have a bowl while you listen to the tales of Saddy Dumpington

Anakin Skywalker, aka Smelly Boy

2005-08-18T22:44:00.000-04:00

Star Wars Episode III: The Backstroke of the West is out on DVD. I personally think it's an improvement on the original. L should especially appreciate the quality translation.

Hey, The Cheat. Did We Catch Anything in the Death Hole Today?

2005-08-15T22:34:00.000-04:00

I'm waiting for Cool Tapes Greatest Hits to be released on BitTorrent

A Birthday Ode to Dudette

2005-08-11T22:57:00.000-04:00

By this time tomorrow night, I will be in upstate NY, throwing down with my Best Friend of the Female Persuasion, aka Dudette, for her birthday festivities. (I checked and there are no tropical systems on the map, but I'm not taking any chances and calling in my karmic chits.)

A small word about Dudette. Ok, lots of them.

Of the many and varied reasons I believe in God, one of the most profound to me is the blessings of the friends I have in my life. Dudette is one of them. I'm not so presumptuous to think He uprooted her & her hubby TheBigGuy from her comfy upstate NY setting and dumped her into (in her mind) the living hell of 90+ degrees summers of Florida for my sake, solely or even partially. But had it not happened, I could most certainly been the poorer for it. Dudette has been friend to me for nearly a decade in just about every way I can imagine, and especially in the ways it matters most. I could ramble on about how, but, to me, one way says it best. When she asks "How are you?", she means it. Not in that faux way we ask people passing by in the halls where a "Good." and nothing more is expected. She means, "How are you?" And if you know me, then you know how much I treasure things like that. So, God willing, tomorrow night, I'll be making a well-deserved toast.

Buuuut, not get all warm & fuzzy, lemme toss out some little bits of whimsy she & I have developed over the years. They may be meaningless to you, but this is her post.

Favorite Dudette Quotes or Lines

"That's a very nice hat." ("You like it? Uh!")
"Chicken. Good!"
"In the pipe, 5 by 5."
"He's kinda funny lookin'..."
"It's my deal!"
"I think..."
"I'm just sayin'..."
"Giddyup!"
"Well, let's start the insanity!"
"What is the crab leg protocol?"
"Have you tried dividing image into quarters?"
"I want this bear, Dave. I want him bad."
"It's my couch! My couch! Don't they understand?!"
"The devil lives in deep river."
"And I should care because...?" (aka, "And this affects me how...?")
"Then we just slam out some code..."
"Right right right."
"You're worse. Much Much Worse."
"You know..."

(and last but certainly not least) "Geezamoli"

The "Progression" Chart (inspired by the Weschler Adult Intelligence Scale)

Incomprehensible
Incoherent
Meaningless
Pointless
Absurd (aka Ridiculous)
Ill-Advised
Dubious
Incorrect (aka Wrong)
Moot

Happy Birthday, Dudette!

I Bet He Was Playing Diablo

2005-08-09T23:33:00.000-04:00

So some whacko dies after playing a video game for nearly 3 days straight. I gotta tell you, this has got to be one of the... Er, hold on... My conscience is calling.

What do you want? Can't you see I'm blogging?
That's not nice, making light of his death like that.
Well, I didn't mean to... Oh, c'mon, 50 straight hours?
He's dead. Have some sympathy.
He had a heart attack from playing a video game!
Oh, right. Like you've never gone on a game bender.
That was different! I had to finish Final Fantasy 7 before I gave my mom that old PC.
And Diablo?
I didn't quit my job for it!
And he died happy...
Happy? He was curling up on a makeshift cot in the corner of the room.
And you have a better idea?
Damn straight! When Nicole Kidman massages my temples while Monica Belluci peels me grapes, then we can talk about checking out.

Ok, you know what? I'm going to have to skip the commentary on this so I can wrestle with my Id or Ego or whoever the hell keeps singing the Kenya Song up there. Damn voices...

I Never Knew I Had It So Good...

2005-08-09T22:34:00.000-04:00

With all this talk about identity theft, I figured I'd best check up and see where my identity had been running around whilst I doze. Naturally, the best way to find out anything is to google it (and thus the English language takes another step towards... well, I don't know where, but somewhere along the way, I learned to use Google as a verb. My elementary grammar teacher would be shocked. Shocked I tell ya!)

At any rate. So, I Googled my name. Well. It appears I'm quite the man about town. I never knew I had it so good. Did you know your favorite Time Lord is also:

- An esteemed professor at two major universities
- Quite the well paid athelete
- A reputable seller of fine foods and liquors
- A talented artist of paintings and sculptures

I'm quite pleased with myself, although no listings could be found for that trophy wife I'm in need of. (Monical Belluci still hasn't returned my call, I'm sure her cell phone just needs recharging.) At a minimum, these are going on my resume. You never know when the need for a career change will strike and figure my other me's have done all the heavy lifting...

A Simply Mahvelous Time, Part Deux

2005-08-09T21:32:00.000-04:00

L hosted yet another smashing suaree, replete with tasty meatless lasagna (oh, the cheese!) and a bundt cake. She says she'll post the recipe on her blog. I'm thinking of making the ability to cook such a lactose-rich meal a requirement for the future Ms. The Doctor. My only complaint is that she left out the onions. One of the attendees doesn't like onions... (Wuss! Yeah, I'm calling you a wuss! Wha'cha gonna do about it? Huh? HUH? You best step back, son!)

Everything's Better on the LaserDisc!

2005-08-08T21:30:00.000-04:00

I'm thinking of taking Strong Bad's advice on Lady-ing. I couldn't do any worse...

Bark Vader? Luke Skywoofer?

2005-08-07T00:25:00.000-04:00

If you have a dog and your dog's piddled on the carpet, chewed those spiffy new shoes, or otherwise aggravated the hell out of you and you want to express your displeasure, but mere negative reinforcement won't suffice. When you want to have your dog just begging for the sweet release of death (or you simply can't conceive of "dignity" to your animal), then have I got the solution for you. Ladies and gentleman, I give you Bark Vader.

Strong Bad Comes Home

2005-08-04T22:18:00.000-04:00

The lads at HomestarRunner have released the latest batch of Strong Bad emails on DVD, including the (in)famous "Crying" episode which, despite L's opinions' to the contrary, is the funniest thing on that site and arguably the internet. Order yours today! (And no, I don't work for them, but I gladly support amusements of this quality, especially without a banner or pop-up in sight..)

A Deeeeelightful Time

2005-08-04T21:54:00.000-04:00

I was treated to a slightly belated birthday gnoshing, courtesy of L We dined over tasty plates of mongolian barbecued seafood and vegetables, topped off with sinful desserts (she had some apple confection, I stuck with tried-and-true chocolate cake & ice cream). Conversation generally revolved around logical databases, Diablo, audial/visual learning patterns and Harry Potter. The subject of love lives was strictly avoided, at least by me, as this was to be a festive event. I was event treated to a freshly baked L apricot something-or-other. (She told me, but I forgot.) Thankfully I have a few months until L's birthday so I can acquire a modicum of baking skills to properly return the favor.

Go, Doctor! Go, Doctor! It's Your Birthday!

2005-08-01T05:16:00.000-04:00

So, like today's my birthday. I won't say how old I am, we Time Lords are a vain lot, only that I still (hopefully) have more years ahead of me than behind, so I'm not quite ready for the gold medalion and Ferrari... Though I could do with a buxom trophy wife... (is Monica Belluci available?)

At any rate, I'll be spending it sleeping in, then heading off to a local day spa so a delicate, yet skilled pair of hands can release me from the worries of this mortal coil for about an hour or so. Then I'll have some sort of meal with food I have no business eating, then off to my DJ friend's house so I can custom mix a CD of my favorite trance tunes. No cake specifically planned, don't need the candles. But L has promised to make me something yummy. Mmm....

But Can She Pass a Voight-Kampff Test?

2005-07-31T22:21:00.000-04:00

Looks like the Japanese are working on their first Replicant, a chick naturally. So, which happens first? Terminator? The Matrix? Westworld? Ghost in the Shell?

And if you don't know what a Voight-Kampff Test is, shame on you.

Most Pointless Blog: Quantum Mnemonics

2005-07-25T21:43:00.000-04:00

I just gotta get in Count Longardeaux's book!

And the Winner Is...

2005-07-24T10:04:00.000-04:00

The results of the 2005 World Stupidity Awards are in.

Stupidest Government of the Year: Canada

Stupidest Statement of the Year: "They never stop thinking of ways of harming America, and neither do we." - President George W. Bush

Stupidest Man of the Year: Ann Coulter

Stupidist Woman of the Year: Paris Hilton

Stupidest Show of the Year: The Simple Life

Dumbest Moment of the Year: Ashlee Simpson's lip-synching performance on SNL

Stupidest Movie of the Year: Alien vs. Predator

Stupidest Trend of the Year: Crystal meth

Stupidity Award for Reckless Endangerment of the Planet: Kim Jong Il

Media Outlet Which Has Best Furthered Ignorance: Fox News

Stupidest Award Show of the Year: The World Stupidity Awards

[Addendum: Thanks to some oh-so-helpful comment, I've added the actual link to the news story reporting these. You can also visit the Stupidity Awards site.]

Two Steps Forward (Hands up!) Shake It All About

2005-07-22T21:51:00.000-04:00

In the never ending world of Top 10 lists (or bottom 10, if you're Stong Bad), CNET felt the need to release their "Top 10 Web Fads". Inexplicably the Hamster Dance topped the list, beating out Blogs and the Star Wars kid. I thought this was a list of fads, not blights upon mankind. (Ye-gads! They even have "Fresh Hampster Tracks!" Alvin, Simon & Theodore should sue!) Personally, my favorite version is here. I work out all sorts of stress through proper visualization of my stressors.

Cos'... You're Too Shy Shy...

2005-07-21T20:03:00.000-04:00

Oh, sweet fancy Moses, Kajagoogoo is reforming. They're working on a new album and performing.

That sound? One of those Seven Seals they keep talking about.

Happy National Diddling... What?

2005-07-21T19:32:00.000-04:00

[Ed note: If you're the hyper-sensitive type, go ahead & skip this one.]

Japanese culture has a rather interesting penchance for taking english words and mashing them into phrases uniquely their own. You're undoubtedly familiar with "anime", short for animation, but they've also got gems like Wap'ro (word processor), Rorikon (lolita complex) and L's favorite Cosp're (costume play). Well, I learned of a new one... one I wasn't quite ready for. In Japan, the day July 21 can be pronounced as "0h-na-ni-i" which, if you're the Biblical bookworm sounds loosely like our man Onan. Yeah, that one... Anyways, today, Japan has apparently turned this bit of wordplay into one of the ubiquitous National [insert silly pet cause here] Day we seem to enjoy. Read it for yourselves, but be warned. I haven't been assaulted with that many euphamisms since the famous "Nudge-Nudge Wink-Wink" Monty Python sketch.

And yes, we U.S. have our own version. Circle May 7, if you're so inclined.

The Stupidest Dog in the World

2005-07-20T20:29:00.000-04:00

When I was a kid, I had a dog. A stupid dog. We're lucky Pablov didn't have my dog because he would've tossed the whole "conditioned response" thing as a bad idea brought on by some milk gone sour. There was no cause & effect in my dog's world, just a bunch of random events. I'd catch him digging at the fence, scold him and he'd look at me like I had capriciously decided to harass him. I'd walk away he'd go "what the hell was that all about?", then go back to digging. Chase his tail? You betcha. Wave the end of his tail at him and he's "Oh crap! There's that thing again!" and around he goes until he falls over dizzy. Loveable, but dumb as a box of rocks.

I don't believe in reincarnation, but if I did... this, is my dog.

Could You Blame Them?

2005-07-19T21:24:00.000-04:00

So... some group's offering to beam our blogs into space. Certain endeavours like L's bits of whimsy notwithstanding, beaming the average blog (including mine) into deep space for alien perusal has got be the surest way to reduce our planet to ashes in a manner that would make Doug Adams smile.

I Just Don't Get It....

2005-07-14T00:14:00.000-04:00

That it. I can't wrap my brain around this one. Reports say that the London terrorists (not bombers, not activists... I'll settle for murders, thugs, bastards) were home grown from Leeds. That's bad enough, but what blew my mind was that one was apparently a teacher of disabled children.

How do you do that? How do you go from caring for young children one moment to blowing people up the next? I just don't get it...

The Obligatory Hurricane Post

2005-07-13T23:47:00.000-04:00

As you've undoubtedly heard (and I belatedly report) my state had its latest in a long series of encounters with a hurricane. I survived just fine, but I had some observations.

Dennis' visit only reconfirmed my opinion that TV reporters are idiots. At this point, I'm used to the local types going into histrionics at the mere whiff of tropical weather, the old "Omigawd!We'reAllGonnaDieeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!" But now we've moved up the food chain, thanks to cable news. I got a full diet of Andersen Cooper standing out there in Pensacola, just freaking out as a Ramada sign came crashing down at his hotel. It was like the Weeee! song, only without the squirrel.... No, really, that's what he sounded like. Flip the channel and Fox and MSNBC are playing the same stupid song. Morons.
Hurricanes like weekends. I can only assume this because the past 5 have all landed between Friday and Sunday. (And I checked!) I'm especially bitter about this one as Charlie foiled my plans last year to be with Dudette on her birthday (I instead spent the night at my parents as a mandatory evacuation had descended upon me). I had to reschedule for a month later, just in time for Ivan. I ended up not making it to Dudette's until October. In between, Frances screwed with my Miami trip to see Tiesto. (I saw him, but I had to play "race the hurricane" the next day...) Why can't a hurricane arrive on a Tuesday? I don't have plans on a Tuesday.
People have no sense of priority. Just on the off chance Dennis got too close, I had hit the store for a few odds-n-ends, topping of the supplies if you will. I guess they already done their supply shopping, because the other 4 "gentlemen" (quotes mine) in line all had 24-packs of their favorite beer, one in each hand. This happened last year too. Potential disaster lurks and they're more concerned about getting their load on. See my last sentence in item #1.
I still wouldn't live in Phoenix.

PS The Weee! Song is proof positive that the internet is a thing of beauty.

Apparently I'm Unclear on the Concept.

2005-07-12T00:11:00.000-04:00

Apparently the BBC thinks "terrorist" is a bad word or something. There's a report that they've edited the phrase out of some of their reports for not wanting to make "emotional or value judgements." Funny, I thought blowing innocent people up was a "bad" thing... I guess I'm being too judgemental or moralistic.

Idiots.

Update: I'm happy to report the Beeb found its backbone. Once again, terrorism is as terrorism does.

Keep On Hugging It!

2005-07-12T00:06:00.000-04:00

Strong Bad gives his Bottom 10. I personally liked #11.

A "Howl"ing Good Time

2005-07-11T22:46:00.000-04:00

Ok, so it was a bad pun, but it was an excellent movie.

I'm talking about Howl's Moving Castle, Hayao Miyazaki's latest masterpiece. I could gush over this movie for pages, so I'll save you the review... so long as you go see it. I mean it. Go see this movie. At 2 hours, it might be a bit long for wee ones, but if you're looking for something full of charm and wonder, that tells a tale of love and the human spirit, this is the flick for you.

Forget Norway!

2005-07-08T22:05:00.000-04:00

Kenya's got lions and tigers.

(Note: This site is suitable only for frazzled parents who desperately need to keep their toddlers distracted for some unspecified amount of time. Supposedly "sane" adults should watch the live action version.)

And remember: Free snorkel with every visit.

My Abortion of a Day

2005-07-07T22:53:00.000-04:00

I should've stayed in bed today.

No, wait. That's not good enough. Let me try again.

In a previous life, I was a professional puppy-kicker.

That's about the only way to explain off the massive amount of karma I burned off today. I'd say I had paid up for next year's membership in the It Socks to Be Us Club, but I've already run that tally and calculated I'm good through the sun going cold.

So my car was broken into this morning. Yup, life beech-slapped me around 8:30am when I walked out to my beloved RSX to notice... No, wait, there was no "notice". Notice suggests the presence of an odd and previously unheard noise registering in your audial pathways. No, there was only "walk to the passenger side to dump my work sack and behold the thousands and thousands bits of tempered glass on my roof, on the asphalt, on the passenger seat, just about everywhere you could imagine save for the window frame of my passenger door. All of them twinkling in the morning sun, mocking me.

You can choose your expletive of choice because I pretty much muttered them all. Flowers wilted, young tender ears burned, the earth shuddered. I had to call TheCompany and tell them I may or may not be in, call the police to get a report, call glass companies and get estimates, realize my deductible is more and even if it weren't, I dare not make a claim for fear of my insurance dropping for... surprise, surprise... actually using it, then try to find a place that could actually do the job today. (They say 24/7 service - that's just for some bubble-gum-popping nail-filing type to take your call. No one said they'd actually do anything...) I finally found place, naturally quoting me more, but I had to wait until 3pm. So, not seeing a point in sitting at home fuming, not to mention racking up even more hours of work lost, I headed into the office.

(I'm not even going to touch my day at work. I mean, the lone bright spot is that my immediate boss is indeed a Cool Guy who was "do what you gotta do", but there was one person there who was working on my very last nerve and I swear it was only my not wanting to spend the afternoon in HR (or be sent home on a permanent basis) that stopped me from telling said person what was really on my mind. )

And naturally it rained. One bubble-gum-girl tried to convince me it was ok to wait until tomorrow to have my window fixed because, "There's no chance for rain today". I wanted to snap back "What state do you live in? Because it's not the state I live in." The radio-weather man said "20% in some locations". Well, if you're me, and you have busted car window with a couple of trash bag duct taped over it, the rain forecast is Metaphysical Certitude. And I don't mean some wussy little shower. No, I'm getting Dennis' Warm-Up Act. I literally had to scramble out to the parking lot and find some canopy near another building and ride out the 30 minute monsoon. During this time, I called Dudette for an impromptu It Socks to Be Us meeting, full of gallows humor because I was brushing up against that "I don't know whether to laugh or cry" feeling.

Finally 3pm rolled around, where I was privileged to lose yet even more time and pay 2 1/2 Benjamins for a replacement window. The repair man was nice enough to show me the small "scar" on the window frame where the "inexperienced thief" tried to pry the window open. Oh, goody, not only am I a victim of a crook, I'm a victim of a newbie crook. I feel so much better.

Ok, so life could be worse. My car could have been stolen. I could've been in London. But, as the saying goes, all things are relative. And relatively speaking, My. Day. Blew.

Geezamoli.

PS Apologies if what should be primo ranting falls a little short. Today has so stressed me out that I don't really have the energy. Hell, the fatigue is the the only thing that'll let me fall asleep tonight because I'm paranoid right now about the next car-jacker honing his skills on my poor little car. I want to sleep in my car with a baseball bat and just hope someone tries it again.

Update: Apparently I was not the only one beset upon by the hooliganism. A neighbor told me someone else's Integra (love them Hondas!) was broken into and another was a would-be. He apparently interrupted their attempts and was last seen wandering the parking lot with a baseball bat. I'm tempted to join him. I'm not one to advocate violence on a minor, but I would like to introduce the ones to cost me my next hour-long massage to the fine solid construction of a Louisville Slugger.

Every Vote Counts!

2005-07-05T18:23:00.000-04:00

The annual Stupidity Awards are now taking votes. From the countless thousands of those bent on furthering mankind's ignorance, these select few can take the ultimate prize, but only with your vote! Don't wait! Cast your ballot now! Let your voice be heard!

It's Dazzle-mazing!

2005-07-05T02:07:00.000-04:00

Happy Birthday to my favorite country, Strong Bad style!

It's Freaking Hot!

2005-06-29T00:47:00.000-04:00

I'm out in Phoenix on busyness. Thankfully, no mooting, just software integrations. Real work.

Alas, I'm out in Phoenix on busyness. The temperature was over 111 degrees and the "breeze" was just God leaving his hair dryer on by mistake. No offense to the fine denizens of Phoenix, but do you think the fact that you have to paint the trunks of your orange trees white to keep the sap from boiling might, just might, be a sign they don't belong there?

Update: Arizona is officially on the list of places you couldn't pay me to live. My sinuses are going bonkers from the dryness... I can't get back to my steam-bath of a home fast enough...

Update 2: I'm currently sans voice, it having been stolen by "God's hair dryer" that is Phoenix. Just in time for the holiday weekend. Yippee.

Update 3: While waiting at the airport for my return flight, I apparently missed the show. You'd think they could have put it on the monitors for us...

Update 4: Just in time for my holiday weekend, that oh-so-special Phoenix air let a nasty sinus infection-type something or other into my system. Behold, the wonders of Omnicef!

I Say Lads, Is That Cape Cod?

2005-06-29T00:44:00.000-04:00

New Strong Bad Email

Poetic Justice, of a Sort

2005-06-28T23:09:00.000-04:00

As you've surely read by now, the 5th Amendment took a bullet to the head last week with the Supreme Court's (if not already, soon will be) infamous "Kelo vs. City of New London" decision. And surely it has been commented ad nauseum by those more (and some less) eloquent than I. Suffice to say I think this is one of the worst decisions they've handed down in my lifetime. In fact, I'm in rare company when the editorials of both my local mullet-wrappers agree in their condemnation.

At any rate, the universe, not being without a sense of justice, has seen fit to hoist Justice Souter by his own pertard. It seems his quaint & quiet New Hampshire abode may fall victim to a nefarious private developer. He may be well-connected enough to avoid the wrecking ball, but I hope not. I hope it gets smashed and the "little people" his decision (well, his contribution to it) put out in the street gather around, point and cry "Sauce for the goose!" And I'll cry with them.

Sorry, I get a little cranky when my constitutional rights get so blatantly trampled on. I mean, I expect them to get taken away bit by bit (And lets face it, do you really own something that can be seized for not paying your taxes on it? You more own your DVD box set of Gilligan's Island) But now even the illusion of ownership is shot to hell. Now the motto is, "A man's home is his castle, as long as Wal-Mart doesn't want to build there."

Wisconsin and Texas are already considering laws to reign in local goverments who are on the take from the big developers of the world. Hopefully my home state will follow suite. If not, time for a citizen-initiated amendment.

Update: To quote Kosh, And so it begins...

Update 2: Slate's got some great editorial cartoons on it.

A Simply Mahvelous Time

2005-06-26T22:41:00.000-04:00

L threw a little apartment-warming shindig tonight and graced yours truly with an invite. It's a cozy little place, quite agreeable with her, and her suaree was simply maahvelous. L had on her most appropriate Perfect-50's Housewife Attire, lacking only an apron to make it perfect. Too much of tasty food - the apple pie was to die for. Mmm... delicious pie... I managed to escape without taking some home. I had to. I've been slacking off the gym as it is, don't need no pie...

Anyanka's Recommendations

2005-06-26T22:38:00.000-04:00

My friend Anyanka sent me two links, both Star Wars related. Thought I'd pass them along...

What if Darth Vader were Teh Cute?

Dork Tower's new Sith Supplement. You've got to be a gamer to appreciate this one.

Die, You Little B@stards!

2005-06-08T23:44:00.000-04:00

This evening, my porch (as much as the entrance to my apartmented abode can be considered one) became The Killing Fields. I came home today and I kid you not, the outside wall and door was practically covered with these millipede things. Everywhere. I don't know if it was some mass hatching or an evacuation from recent rains. All I know was that I went Hudson: "There's movement all over the place!" You don't understand. These things had gotten inside once before and I'd spent the better part of a winter either killing the little suns-a-beaches or finding their dried husks in various nooks and crannies and I was damned if they'd breach my sanctus sanctorum again! This time, I was taking the fight to them!

So I did what any macho-macho-man would do. I entered my abode, threw everything on the floor, grabbed the can of Raid from my closet and turned my porch into a hazmat zone. I pretty much emptied the heretofore full can of insectide as I soaked the wall, the window, the door, everywhere I could find one of these little things. As liquid death oozed down, it carried the invaders with it. They struggled in vain to remain aloft before plopping on the concrete, where they thrashed, writhed and wiggled in agony before falling silent. And it felt good. I embraced the toxic moment, knowing I was committing "insecticide", that my quasi-porch was a mass bug-grave. I even took a picture of their little corpses as a warning to those who would think to follow their lead.

Behold! The Carnage!

Update: I just found one in my tub. Snap, it's on.

And Dat's Why I Like the Scroll

2005-06-06T23:11:00.000-04:00

Does it ever get Boring where you live?

Plus some Bonuses!

Where's the Cheat?

Need a Loan?

New from Galoob!

An Intermission

2005-06-01T23:28:00.000-04:00

I have a proper rant, a follow-up on my mail hut parkers, but lack the time to pen it properly. Maybe tomorrow. In the meantime, here's an article from Universe Today, which sounds like it belongs in an episode of Babylon 5 or Star Trek, but is actually a spiffy cool site. I like to read it, if nothing else, as a reminder that God isn't quite ready to give away all his magic secrets...

Come Check Out My Circumstance!

2005-05-30T23:11:00.000-04:00

Happy Senorial Day, everyone!

When Worlds Collide

2005-05-26T21:22:00.000-04:00

Somebody slammed Star Wars and Strong Bad together.

I thought I'd felt the Earth wobble for a second...

It's Official: "Lost" is My Favorite Show of the Year

2005-05-25T22:13:00.000-04:00

"We want the boy."

"I don't believe in destiny."
"Yes, you do. You just don't know it."

"Dude, you've got a piece of Artz on you..."

"No! Stop! The numbers are bad! The numbers are bad!"

B@stards! B@stards! I love this show! B@stards!

(Honorable Mention goes to Jack "Daddy" Bristow from Alias: "I'm trying to have more fun these days.")

He Was Grrrrrrrreat!

2005-05-25T20:46:00.000-04:00

We lost Thurl Ravenscroft, who not only provided my childhood icon, Tony the Tiger, but also sang one of my all-time diddies, the Mr. Grinch theme. ("You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch.") My inner 5 year old is in mourning.

Fluffy is TEH CUTE.

2005-05-24T22:58:00.000-04:00

Haven't had much going on post-worthy lately (remember, kids, it's a Chinese curse), so I thought I'd pump up the cute quotient of my blogs. I give you Fluffy.

My blog needs some TEH CUTE.

Today's HeadDesk Moment Brought to You by Bayer

2005-05-19T21:16:00.000-04:00

I don't normally take requests, but my friend Anyanka sent me a little exchange she had with her boss that just, well, as she put it, her pain needed to be shared. (Side Note: The term "Headdesk moment" derives from <\bangs head on desk\>. Over the lifetime of our emails, Anyanka and I have developed an XML-like tagging to describe various feelings and/or actions. As you might expect, Anyanka was referring to a situation that drover her so crazy, she literally wanted to bang her head on a desk. We have others such as <\waves pom poms\> and <\does Dance of Victory\> . )

Anyways, Anyanka's Headdesk Moment:

Me: The dll isn't working at Luna Station.
Boss: How come? I tested it yesterday here at the lab.
Me: So did I! <\looks at logs\> It's like this field here is null.
Boss: Oh, it does that sometimes.
Me: But the database you brought from the station only had zeros.
Boss: Yes, I updated it with zeros because it wasn't working.
Me: You... you... gah.. buh...
Boss: You didn't ASK me.
Me: How was I going to guess that? "Oh, by the way, did you happen to create the records by hand?"
Boss: <\glares\>

Anyanka transcended a mere "What the... Hell..?" moment by being rendered unable to form a coherent sentence.

I warned Anyanka that such little remarks might get one sent home on a long term basis and a card might not be enough. Her reply,

"Dear boss, I'm sorry you had a brain-fart."

We Gonna Pah-taaay!

2005-05-18T20:02:00.000-04:00

One of my all-time favorite DJ's is coming one sultry June eve to my little berg for the first time. Needless to say I'm thrilled. It's on a Wednesday night, I won't go to bed until after 4am (if not later - I wouldn't be surprised if there's an after party somewhere) and I'd be crazy to try to go to work the next day. This, boys and girls, is why vacation days were created.

Lord Ferry's a coming to town...

My Life is an Unending Stnank

2005-05-16T23:27:00.000-04:00

I've never felt closer to Strong Bad... except I don't have tall weird spotted yellow things bursting into my room... and I don't wear a lucha mask... and wish I knew Ali and her sister.

This Kid's Going to Have Issues

2005-05-14T23:04:00.000-04:00

I just read on fark.com (one of my favorite sites, not only for the links, but for the brilliantly snarky comments like "jailarity ensues" and "Duke still sucks"). Anyways, some horribly deranged couple decided to name their kid Sephiroth, after the Final Fantasy 7 game character.

I'm actually impressed. I never thought someone would top the couple that named their kid Valen (Babylon 5, which I love, but not that much). I'm sure Kirk & Spock are already done, so those don't count. But surely we can top Sephiroth! My suggestions for sure-fire ways to get your child into daily fights at school and/or to help that therapist pay for his new Vette:

-Jar Jar
-Cylon
-Krevlornswath
-Strong Bad
-David Hasselhoff

"Mr. Miyagi's Dojo? Uh, yes, I'd like to buy a lifetime membership for my son Sephiroth, please."

My Dating Version of Jeff Foxworthy

2005-05-13T23:24:00.000-04:00

You've probably heard at some point comedian Jeff Foxworthy's "You Might Be a Redneck", which goes something along the lines of, "If you ever [insert punchline here], you might be a redneck." I'm thinking of adding a regular feature to this space which runs along the lines of "Chances Are There Won't Be a Second". I'll skip the obvious ones like constantly looking at their watch, or mentioning something about having to wash their iguana. And of course, being a guy, I can only make "observations" from my cro-magnon perspective, though there's undoubtedly an enterprising female out there who's come up with her own.

Ahem.

-If every other thing you say on a first date is met with "What makes you say that?", chances are there won't be a second

-If on a first date, she insists on paying for her half of the meal, chances are there won't be a second.

-If you ever have the following exchange on a first date:
"Thanks for a nice time, I really enjoyed your stories."
"Well, there's more where that came from."
"Yeah, I'm sure there are."
chances are there won't be a second.

-If your date ever looks up and goes, "Oh, look, there's a dead bug in that lamp," chances are there won't be a second. (This is my personal fave...)

And in keeping with the season, I'll make my obligatory tie-in with the upcoming Star Wars movie.

The Good Times are Over!

2005-05-09T19:15:00.000-04:00

Bug in Mouth

I swear I don't know how the fine lads at homestarrunner.com keep up this pace...

Farewell, Ryan's, We Hardly Knew Ye

2005-05-08T23:51:00.000-04:00

I shed a small tear.

On Saturday, to execute a preemptive strike on the Mother's Day madness, my family had congregated at a Carraba's to treat MatriarchPrime to some much deserved foodings and praisings. This particular Carraba's, however, was located at an intersection I had not ventured past since before the turn of the millennium. As I drove down this particular avenue, shock and dismay as I saw the treasured sign of my once-favorite buffet establishment, "Ryan's" replaced with some who-dat red & white "skillet" sign of some sort.

You have to understand, two of my most favorite memories took place there. First off, while Ryan's as a whole was no better than your standard feeding-trough, its dinner rolls were, simply put, the yeast-based avatar of Nirvana. In fact, it's not even my own experience that cemented this, it was Dudette's. I will forever remember the happy-dreamy look that came over her one gnoshing eve. Look up the word "content" in the dictionary and you could very well have found:

con·tent (kən-tĕnt)
n.

The countenance of Dudette upon consuming a Ryan's dinner roll.

The second event was the infamous "live action Scooby-Doo movie" conversation. Taking place well before those horrid pieces of tripe ever hit the screen, this was a discussion between myself and my two friends TheBeefWhoWatches (don't ask...but it's not what you think) and MustardBoy. We had cast the following:

Fred - Jim J. Bullock (Oh c'mon, we've always wondered about Fred...)
Thelma - Janeanne Garofalo (she's perfect!)
Daffney - Various unnamed actresses who rotate from scene to scene. (There purely to help Fred keep up appearances.)

But the real star was Shaggy, starring Dennis Hopper, reprising his "bad things" Nike referee role. You see, Scooby wasn't a live dog, he was really stuffed with a steel pole shoved up his wazoo & Shaggy waved him around like a baseball bat. And that whole talking thing? Only Shaggy could "hear" Scooby, thanks to heavy doses of LSD. In fact, the whole Mystery Machine bunch was pretty much a rolling pharmacy, if you know what I mean.

So the whole gang would go from sleepy town to sleepy town, helping the locals "unmask" the monsters. Unfortunately, due to their chemical induced hallucinations, everyone in town was a monster and those weren't really masks they were ripping off.

And yes, we'd already thought of the sequel, which would've introduced Scrappy, who was in reality a small feral child they'd occasionally kidnap from one of these towns. Shaggy would "instill" Puppy Power into Scrappy with... ah.. Scooby's "help", until such time that Shaggy would yell "We need a new Scrappy!" (which translates into one of the few phrases in Spanish I know by heart, "Neccessitamo un Scrappy nuevo!")

Yes, folks, this was an actual conversation and one I know irrevocably changed one man's life - the poor old guy who was sitting not 2 tables away, hearing every word. I caught a backwards glance, he was quietly eating his meal and not taking his eyes off us for one damn second...

Ah, Ryan's, I'll miss you so...

We Got a HomestarRunner for Sale!

2005-05-02T21:55:00.000-04:00

You guessed it, new Strong Bad email!

Things You Might've Overheard at a Bennigan's at 10:45pm on a Saturday Night

2005-05-01T21:41:00.000-04:00

"No, his presence doesn't prove God doesn't exist. It proves He does exist, but He doesn't like you."

"OMG! Racecar! Bling Bling!"

"Did you know DEADBEEF is a legitimate hex value?"

"The Beef watches..."

"OMG! DEADBEEF The Beef! pwned! Bling Bling!"

"You sin. All your base are belong to me."
"Us."
"What?"
"It's 'all your base are belong to us.'" [pause] "Crap, I can't believe I just corrected you."

"You taking home all those fries?"
"He just wants to take them to the park tomorrow and throw them at the birds." [throwing motion, crusty old man voice] "G__ damned pigeons!"

"Poop pants..."

"Well, it'd be tedious to assemble the beltfeed, but you can get 500 .22 rounds for 8 bucks..."

Goatface Killa is on the Loose!

2005-05-01T21:39:00.000-04:00

Not a new Strong Bad email, just Marzipan's Answering Machine. Click around for the two easter eggs. (Goatface - Genius!)

Stinkoman!

2005-04-28T22:45:00.000-04:00

Looking to waste some time? Then look no further! The lads at Homestarrunner.com has the cure for what ails, ya!

It Sucks to be Dudette

2005-04-27T12:55:00.000-04:00

This one could have also been titled, "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished"

Apparently the Gods of Mootings have taken a very dim view of Dudette's recent attempt to help me with my mooting plight. Her punishment is, naturally, a mooting of her very own. Worse, this is a cross-continental mooting, scheduled well after Normal Office Hours, and the real insult to injury is that she may brought this upon her own head by simply being a good WorkerBee. (Verily, the Gods of Mooting are a vindictive lot...)

What follows is Dudette's lamention, scrubbed and paraphrased to protect, well, not the innocent, but Companies are always on the lookout for some disgruntled (as opposed to gruntled) WorkerBee sullying their good name by having the temerity to openly make a complaint about them. (Ungrateful peasant!)

Recent interactions with [overseas arm of Dudette'sCompany] had left me with more than one unanswered question. I was tired of the once per day email exchange that simile's to this:

Dudette: Could you provide details surrounding the [project]. (Which apparently was read to mean: Could you provide details surrounding the required functionality of a Minbari Hat-rack)
Comrade Overseas [Ed: apparently named Kosh]: Doors placed on the kitchen cabinets must be able to open and close easily.
Dudette [Ed: doing her best Corben Dallas]: Uh huh...

Anyway, I called the product line manager and asked him for an additional source of information - a document or perhaps someone local. And what do i get for my diligence? You guessed it, an evening, dial-in from my home, mumbling a prayer that the kids somehow squash the usual 17 requests for stories, re-tuck-ins and glasses of water, post litl'un bed-time, mooting!

Oh, Father, forgive my pomposity and disregard for the law of mootings which states: You cannot hide and you certainly cannot escape, the indelible schedule hogger, the mooting. [Ed: And you'd better not help your fellow It Sucks to be Us Club member with one either...]

Oh, Dudette! Such a price you pay! You're loyalty to me does not go unnoticed or unappreciated! When the day of your entrance on this little mudball arrives, we shall gather and celebrate its passing in grand fashion!

[Update: Ye, the Gods of Mooting are vicious indeed. Not only has Dudette suffered a cross-continental evening mooting, she was subsequently piled on with the dreaded Weekend Mooting, infinitely worse than the Evening Mooting. (Technically it was a seminar, or some such, but still a mooting in my book...)]

Oh, the Mootings You'll Have!

2005-04-26T22:32:00.000-04:00

I loathe mootings. Actually loathing isn't even good enough. They're the antithesis of my nature, the bane of my existence. Nothing in my TheCompany email fills me with weepings and gnashings of teeth like seeing an mooting "invitation" (as if I have choice), where I can be sure that large amounts of oxygen will be needlessly consumed and absolutely nothing will be accomplished.

Just so we're clear, a mooting is defined by a gathering satisfying any one of the following criteria
1) An pre-determined agenda or topic of any sort
2) 3 or more people in attendance
3) 15 or more minutes in length
4) If the phrase "action item" is ever uttered

Should you have all four in play, congratulations, you're in Hell. (And not that wimpy Fire & Brimstone kind, either...)

What's worse, this abundance of talking also deprives my brain of badly needed oxygen. As a result, I usually spend most mootings in a pitched battle to keep my eyes open, regardless of my previous night's sleep or the amount of caffeine coursing through my veins. Even Red Bull's much ballyhooed "wings" are no match for a good mooting. It makes the year 2004 even more forgettable in that while at my previous TheCompany (which was, not to put too fine a point on it, the closest thing to a "dream job" I will probably ever have... before it was wretched away from me by a merger... Damn you, Beavercreek, OH!) I had set a record of 6 months without a mooting (Me popping into the boss' office to bandy a few ideas around was it. It! O' Lost Nirvana!). My current TheCompany? They love mootings. They thrive on them. Some people's entire workday is nothing but going from mooting to mooting.

Dudette must have sensed my lamentations on my most recent narcoleptic adventure (Monday, trapped (like a rat!) in a 3-hour blather-thon). She sent me this pic, suggesting a possible way to camouflage my rendezvous with Senor Sandman. I'd have to grow a beard and dye my hair, but with future mootings already in jammed into my Outlook calendar, I'm seriously considering the look.

That's a capital idea, boss! Let me take an action item on that!

Everybody was Kung-Fu Fighting

2005-04-24T22:34:00.000-04:00

Your next movie to see should be... nay, must be Kung-Fu Hustle.

This thing was a delicious piece of work. It may not be the best movie I've seen in a long while, but it was certainly the most fun. Kung-Fu Hustle is where Jackie Chan meets the Road-Runner. The "dance" number by the Axe Gang at the beginning in nearly worth the price of admission alone. And the fights... this is what the Burly Brawls in The Matrix movies should have looked like, even if the CGI's a little rough around the edges.

Go see it with a big bag of popcorn!

The Lil' Brudder (and Sometimes Tendafoot) Show

2005-04-22T19:03:00.000-04:00

Ok, it's not a new Strong Bad email per se... but OMG, it um... well.. here. (And here's the Strong Bad email that inspired it, one of the funniest they've ever done... I'm going to hell for it, aren't I?)

Ramming Speed!

2005-04-21T23:39:00.000-04:00

To the jerks who - either because they're lazy slugs and don't have the energy to walk from the parking spot not 20 feet away or are so pretentious they think they're special and shouldn't have to sully froo-froo shoes with the same dirt trod upon by us worthless peasants - stop next to the mail hut to retrieve their postal deliveries, thus blocking my lane of travel and forcing me to go around them while hoping I'm not clobbered by oncoming traffic...

So help me, one of these days, I'm gonna snap. When that day comes, I'm going down to Billy Bob's Rent-O-Rama and get me the crappiest, rustiest, nastiest POS that will still turn over. I'll max out the no-fault insurance options. When you pull your Pretentiousness-mobile/Slug-Sedan next to the mail hut, I'm gonna line that hunk of junk up, gun the engine for all she's worth and plow that sum-beech right up your tailpipe (having first loosened the brake lines just enough so when I make my token effort to stop, the brakes fail, thus achieving my desired goal of rendering into your vehicle into an abstract work of art while providing me plausible deniability. I did, after all, rent a POS.)

And if you're really unlucky, I'm going to arrange for a semi to have half-unloaded plywood, just so I can get proper hang-time. Beware horns playing "Dixie"...

Adding Insult to Injury

2005-04-20T23:04:00.000-04:00

As if on cue, I received my renewal for my apartment insurance, replete with updates to the policy (read: things they don't cover anymore)

You'll never guess what's no longer covered?

Did you say fungus/mold/mildew damage, costs due to related repairs or even related detection/cleaning services?

No fair. You peeked.

My latest online wooing...

2005-04-20T18:40:00.000-04:00

I love online dating.

I can always count on it to provide me some amusement when I'm down. The latest in my Inbox was from "Susie" in L.A.

Hi!!! I am glad that you have considered my structure and have decided to choose me from thousand other girls. It is very pleasant for me. I as have considered your structure and would like to learn you on better. Please give me e-mail the address that we could correspond. I shall send you the photo. Or write to me [deletia!] I Shall wait for a prompt reply.

So. Who wants odds she's a Valley Girl from Pasadena?

And she's persistent, too! She wrote before saying "I have considered your structure and it is liking me." I promptly had a long talk with my structure about its activities while I'm at work. We'll be having no more of that.

"Some People Just Don't Never Loin...."

2005-04-19T23:36:00.001-04:00

That's one of my favorite Bugs Bunny lines, and it's so apropos here...

I read somewhere that since its opening in April '03, iTunes has sold 350 million tracks. At about a buck a pop, that's a lot of dough for something just 2 years old. Apple's certainly happy, and you'd think the recording industry would have smelled the coffee, the birth of the new paradigm is at hand.

You'd be wrong, of course.

In a classic "kill the golden goose" move, these recording execs, in their infinite wisdom, are considering raising their prices to iTunes and others. They do it, it'll almost certainly push the retail per-track price over that magical $0.99 which, for some reason is a breakpoint in our heads about what we're willing to pay for the latest Britney or Julio Iglesias. Marketing research says so.

Can you just imagine the RIAA nitwits, all scratching their heads when sales drop and people flee back to the nefarious file-sharing back alleys? Why, whatever for?

Idiots.

(Note, I'm referring to studio execs. I continute to await the day artists seize their own digital destiny and start cutting deals with iTunes and the like directly, leaving the RIAA-types in the dust where they belong... I'm already seeing some movement like this on the EDM scene...)

Can You Hear Me Now?

2005-04-19T22:36:00.000-04:00

If you have Verizon as your cell phone provider, read this little gem then consider switching. Maybe then they'll get the message... (Me? I use Mr. TrenchcoatMan's... and feel about it the way Churchill felt about democracy: "It's the worst form of government, except for all the others.")

Indiana, No!

2005-04-17T23:05:00.000-04:00

Real quick. I just read that Indiana is considering adopting Daylight Savings. This would render Arizona as the last bastion of sensibilty, especially given that Congress is considering extending their chronological meddling even further. The proposed bill would have Daylight Savings 8 months out of the year, and Standard Time 4 months. Standard - ha. They should change the names too. There's no way you can call something on the short end of a 2:1 ratio "Standard".

"What the... hell?" Goes Shopping

2005-04-17T22:29:00.000-04:00

Ok, this one might be a little... um, well, let's just say that it might be a little South Parkian and to avoid offending easily offendable sensibilities, I'm going to black text this one. If you wanna read it, just highlight the text below.

So, where were we?

So I was in the mall, doing a little shopping and having had a bite, I went where one might go to do what one does after having consumed food and drink. So I'm standing there, doing my thing, minding my own business, when a fella of nondescript description shows up and begins his own process.

With me? Remember, I did warn you.

After a moment, he starts... well, he starts thrusting his rear to and fro. Not in a major way, but enough to catch that corner of your peripheral vision designed to catch movement. So he's wiggling, gyrating or whatever you want to call it. And my first "What the... hell?" trickles through my mind as I wonder if he's not doing something that might be illegal in some states.

And then they start.

Poot. Poot. Poot. Poot.

Apparently his motion was to encourage... the release of methane into the atmosphere. Cue my second "What the... hell?". And apparently he'd done this before because he didn't as so much bat an eyelash at his activities. That or he's so "secure" with his fellow self-scratching flatulent male brethren that he's perfectly happy to let a few fly in whatever manner the situation calls for.

For fear of meeting him there, I am Never. Ever. eating at Taco Bell again.

Belated Wishes Are Better Than None at All

2005-04-12T22:38:00.000-04:00

This goes out to my Best Friend of the Female Persuasion, Dudette. It would have gone out on time if not earlier, but that's what she gets for not cc'ing me on the memo.

Dudette was a bit under... well not under the weather, but when the tale was originally told to me, my reaction was "ow!". Thankfully all is well with her, but as one can never have enough of this sort of thing, heartfelt prayers and positive energies are flowing northward, just to cover the bases. The "It Sucks to Be Us" Club just wouldn't be the same without her.

Hm... though now that I think about it, this is a perfect time to challenge her to a match of Kung Fu(!). I think I might actually have a chance...

The Tax Man Cometh

2005-04-12T20:53:00.000-04:00

I did my taxes tonight...

The next clown that tells me I'm not paying my "fair share" is getting clocked upside the head.

That's my rant on the matter, because otherwise you'll be reading this blog entry for days.

The Quill, The Page, We Wreck, Rampage!

2005-04-11T23:20:00.000-04:00

New Strong Bad E-mail

A Reprieve from Hell?

2005-04-08T17:03:00.000-04:00

Ok, so they didn't hire Harry Potter, just his ne'er do well cousin, Henry.

As of 4:30pm, I have a new shower wall. Looks like "Henry" came in here while I was fetching new antibiotics for the throat infection I picked up from the miasma unleashed when the Tile Towers fell. To be fair, it looks like he ripped out the entire wall section and replaced all of the drywall, tile and grout and did a decent job at that (though he forgot to replace the soap dish, not that I care, never used it anyways).

But, of course, the entire fiasco begs two questions:

1) How quickly would this have been done if I hadn't raised such hell about it?

2) Wouldn't this have been avoided altogether if, when I had repeatedly (this being the operative word) complained about a water stain and "popcorn" peeling off the ceiling above my shower head, which suggested a water leak, they had properly investigated the problem instead of taking the easy was out by just spackling on new popcorn and declaring victory? This is the maintenance version of me complaining about an a leaky radiator hose and the mechanic just adding more water until the hose blows entirely.

Still, the mold has hopefully been sealed away. I'll do my meds, saturation-bomb the domicile with Lysol and begin a search for a new abode...

My Hellhole of a Bathroom

2005-04-07T21:32:00.000-04:00

I recently blogged about the subpar "service" I receive at my fine Camden establishement, but even I wasn't expecting the special hell unleashed upon me today. (I'll spin as best I can, but my brain can only convert so much into black humor...)

I was attacked by my shower this morning.

No, really. I was reaching for my bottle of shampoo when I noticed about 4 tiles bulging. I thought to myself, in my best Seinfeldian inner-voice, "Well this can't be good..." and made a mental note to call the maintenance promptly upon their opening. I was rinsing my hair when the tile version of "He's onto us! Make a break for it, boys!" erupted by a cascade of 30+ tiles (and one soapdish) crashing off the wall and into the tub. (At the risk of offending some, it was kinda like the Twin Towers. Once one tile went, the entire thing collapsed.) God or Someone was looking out for me because my only injury in this ceramic storm was a small thump on an (now bruised) ankle. If I had been standing two feet further up, as is my wont when letting hot water loosen stiff back muscles, I very well could have had some broken toes from the soap dish.

My mental note is now an immediate crisis. I call up PropertyManagerWoman (the same one who made the brilliant decision to remove the postal lockers) and relay my tale of woe. Her first question is "How did it happen?" with a tone that smacked of suggesting I had a hand in this. I had to restrain myself from firing back "From taking a sledgehammer to the wall... How do you think it [bleep]ing happened????" I reminded her that I had asked them to check for a water leak from my upstairs neighbors based on them having to repeatedly fix an area above the showerhead where the roof popcorn would fall away, leaving an ugly stain that eventually ate through altogether. She seemed to back off an suggest they'd take care of it.

I got a call this afternoon from PropertyManagerWoman saying they were On Top of This. I'd just have to sacrifice "showers" (sit down baths were ok). I figure they were already working on this. But no, upon my arrival late this evening, the tiles were all there. In fact, more came crashing down, and I suspect even more will. As you can see in the picture, the drywall behind the tiles is rotted and more mold has been unleashed into my environment than in my Ionic Breeze's worst nightmare. My nightmare too, I have dosed up on every prescription and OTC medicine I have to keep my allergies from blowing my head completely off my shoulders. Tonight's gonna be a bitch. If I had any brains, I'd rent a motel. As it is, I'm going to have to go to the gym just to shower for work. Can you f-ing believe it?

Why am I paying these people rent again???

Update: As of 12:30 on this fine Friday, the repairmen are nowhere to be found. Done by today? Yeah, right, if your name is Harry Potter.

Where are you going, Jack?

2005-04-07T00:05:00.000-04:00

"To find John Locke..."

If you don't know what I'm talking about, don't find out now. You'll just spoil it for yourself. Wait until the first season of "Lost" comes out on DVD and then run to get it (this means you, L).

If you do know... OMG! Is this show great, or what?

In Case You Were Wondering Where I've Been

2005-04-06T23:52:00.000-04:00

Spent a few days down in Miami at the Winter Music Conference. Partied hard (but responsibly!) Sleep schedule was completely inverted. Wore these not-so-young bone out. Wouldn't have had it any other way. Someone I know wrote up a report about his time there (yeah, I know, swiped the pic), posted it for the local mullet-wrapper. Read about it here.

Daisy Dukes From Hell

2005-04-04T22:33:00.000-04:00

New Strong Bad email. (The previous two were marginal... plus, that whole Hadn'tPostedInAWhile thing)

Plus, a nice little April Fool's bit.

Meddling with Time Should be Left to the Professionals.

2005-04-04T22:08:00.000-04:00

[Doctor's note: Yeah, I've been offline in way too long. First I didn't have anything really rant worthy, I lack L's talent for spinning the most innocuous of events into a proper tale of action & adventure. Then, when I did have something, I simply didn't have time to sit down and write it up. But thanks to the magic of blogspot, I can retro-actively post my rants into their proper timeframes. I'll try to keep up from now on...]

Now, where was I?

Ah, yes. This entry is dedicated to Dudette. Normally I'd just email this to her directly and keep up one of our most treasured traditions. But I figure I'll share it with all of you too.

Ahem.

The onset of April has once again been hallmarked by the Federal Government's semi-annual meddling with my sense of time. Unsatisfied with intruding on every other aspect of my life, they want to impose their mastery of the clock on me as well. And its not even a long standing tradition, don't let them fool about that nonsense about Ben Franklin being its "inventor". He may have thought of the idea, but aside from its usage during WWI, we only embarked upon this bit nonsense during the "energy crisis". Mind you, I kinda like Daylight Savings, if only because I can leave the office with a slice of daylight remaining. But unless we plan on reverting our networked-global-24/7 society back to its agrarian roots, Daylight Savings has long outlived its purpose... which can be said of just about every modern federal program out there.

Fixing What Isn't Broken

2005-04-04T22:04:00.000-04:00

My apartment complex is run Camden, the same Camden whose name is plastered on the home park of the Baltimore Orioles (which I'll never go to now. Granted, it's not much of a boycott, but I gots me principles). My apartment complex is also run by Idiots. I don't mean just lacking intelligence, any jackass can pull that off. No, I mean a stream of breathtakingly bad service, each instance begging the question "And I'm paying you people rent because...?"

Their latest bit of stupidity has unnecessarily complicated my life. Not in some dire sense, but if you want to push one of my buttons, make my life just that much more of a hassle without a good reason. In this case, my nearby mail hut used to have these spiffy little lockers in which Mr. Postman could put my various and sundry parcels (I'm a frequenter of Amazon and deepdiscountdvd.com). Its beauty was in its simplicity. Put parcel in locker, leave key in my mailbox and voila!, I could get ready access to my goody whenever my day permitted.

You know where I'm going with this, right?

So you can imagine my displeasure when instead of a key, I get this poorly photocopied note that says a parcel of mine was delivered to the cadre of incompetence. That's it. Not who it's from or any kind of indication what it might be or the like. The lockers are, of course, nowhere to be seen. I had to sacrifice my lunch hour to scurry back there during their bankers hours to retrieve it. While there, I channel for Taz when he asked Bugs, "What for you bury me in the cold cold ground?" by inquiring whose decision (as opposed to "bright idea", I was trying to be nice) it was to remove the lockers and when, pray tell, they might return. Well, DingBat #1 tried to give me some party line about it being a mutual decision, which I wasn't buying. So I finally dig up PropertyManager Woman, who happily informs me that it was HER decision. You see, Camden has been undergoing "beautification" efforts in order to increase the property value (I *pray* in lieu of selling it to someone else) and well, those lockers look rather unseemly and since our poor public sector wasn't willing to pay for new ones, she decided to have them removed entirely.

So there you have it. Aesthetics trumps basic functionality. Fix the parking lot drainage so it's not a lagoon every time it storms? Nah. Fix the drying machines so they don't moan like damned souls? Eh... We'll get around to it. Upgrade the so-called exercise room so you don't feel like you're in some bad remake of Rocky 4 (you know, where he was in Siberia "training"?). Not a chance. But, hey, slap a fresh coat of paint (thus gumming up the keyholes) of the mail boxes in some vain effort to make the place look prettier, and she's Johnny-on-the-spot. (Speaking of such, when said paint was slapped on, we were kindly requested to refrain from getting our mail that Saturday because the painter would be working. Now, I may be wrong, and correct me if I am, but wouldn't there have been a more convenient day, a day when the mail isn't delivered? They must not have been able to find an atheist or Jewish painter...)

Well, I wasn't going to put up with this. Nosiree. I have a note on my door instructing UPS/FedEx and the like that under no circumstances are they to leave any parcel of mine with the front-office boobery for a reason. The Leasing Orifice once lost a $400 piece of electronics of mine and their only dealings with me regarding it was to remind me that they aren't liable for lost packages. (Long story short, I got my money by going to war with UPS and reminding them they were unable to prove that *I* signed for my package... oh, they know not to make that mistake with me again.) In fact, I specifically have a clause in my lease forbidding them to accept my packages. (Should I consider this a violation of lease terms?)

So I go to the post office to deal with the problem at the source. The Nice Postal Man there just had that knowing nod, handed me a form to fill out and said from now on, they'd hold my parcels for me to get, just like UPS & FedEx. Apparently I'm not the first person to lodge this complaint and said Nice Postal Man wasn't too pleased with this move either, for it completely screwed up their "delivery confirmation" system. They're about to inform all Camden residents that they will no longer be dealing with the Den of Dundery.

I may follow suit.

I Got Yer Standard Load Right Here...

2005-03-21T22:00:00.000-05:00

If you ever hear the phrase "standard load" at your company, make peace with your maker for you are about to enter a special kind of IT hell. When I first joined The Company, they had their own IT department. Not the most efficient or talented in the world, but they tried and were amicable enough. But in the name of the bottom line, someone up the food chain decided that what they really needed to do was outsource it all to some other Company.

Obviously I can't specify who this nefarious OtherCompany is (goodness, it sounds so tawdry!) but I associate the OtherCompany with quality IT work about as much as Zaporozhets make me think of hot rods. A co-worker who has to deal with these "people" on a regular basis best summed it up when he said "they use a hammer to fix a watch." And their hammer of choice is the "standard load", basically some corporate pre-approved configuration, which is great, so long as you don't have to do any real work other than read email and or make spreadsheets. Install "non-standard" software, such as, oh, say that C compiler you need to write your code, and you've gone off the reservtation their tidy little "fix-it scripts" can handle.

Oh, wait. My bad. That implies that calling their 888 number will result in any actual tech support. It won't. You're simply routed to a call center somewhere (I assume in the US, I haven't been able to detect any foreign accent) where an agent will dutifully write up a "work ticket" (another phrase signaling your entry into the 666th layer IT Hell) that'll enter a queue in which it languishes for some indeterminant amount of time before eventually trickling its way down to the local people, the ones across the hall you're not supposed to talk to directly anymore.

And they mean it too. They've gone so far as to tape cut-up Dell boxes all over the glass windows, presumably to keep out prying eyes, because, you know, that hot game of online chess they're playing is highly sensitive work. A rogue stare, broken concentration and the game is lost! Oh, and the obligatory "Authorized Personnel Only" sign is now prominently displayed on the door. I guess I wasn't the only one who isn't amused by their make their little hovel the IT version of Isengard, someone had cleverly taped an "Un" onto their precious little sign - it took them a week for them to notice.

To give you an idea of the quality of service the OtherCompany provides, it took me nearly a month to have a new printer installed on the network, something I could have done myself in about an hour. I had made my call, had my work ticket written, where it sat in the queue while the desktop people waited for the network people to do something, who were waiting for the desktop people to do something. I finally had to dig up one of my few contacts in their bowels (having been transferred to this other Company during the Great Assimilation) to beg him to Do Something. Suffice to say, the next time I have an IT issue, I'm willing to risk getting dinged for following the addage of "If you want something right..."

"What the... Hell...?" Road Trip Style

2005-03-19T21:46:00.000-05:00

I spent the weekend making a long overdue roadtrip up to see two friends, friends who clearly need to get out of the house more. Now. They have 3 cats, all female, two being new arrivals. One of them had just gone into estrus, complete with rolling around, meowling and fanny waiving. I'm checking some email on their PC when one picks up the poor hard-up kitty and says to the other, I swear I'm not making this up:

"Smell her armpit, it smells just like Fritos..."

Cue my favorite phrase signifying my brain's inability to parse what my ears had just reported.

And no, I don't care whether it was true. Determining what snackfoods kitty pheremones smell like interests me about as much as Fran Drescher's latest sitcom. (Ok... you got me. I'd rather smell the kitty hormones.) But really, I could do without the unending assault upon my poor brain's cognitive pre-parser.

Mustard!

2005-03-07T22:19:00.000-05:00

I can't compete with "We Are Zogg", but I have a friend who bears a striking (and disturbing) resemblence to this picture, though he denies it. But I know... I've seen those jars of mustard in his pantry...

Mustard!

Miasma!

2005-03-03T13:00:00.000-05:00

The CleaningCrew may be onto me.

As I type, my nasal passages are being assaulted by some sort miasma. No, this isn't a redux of the Microwaved Vinegar and Cabbage Incident. This one's of an ammonia/chemical nature. There are no obvious CleaningCarts in the immediate locale, and two others I asked sense only something of a vague nature. (One says it smells more like strong cologne, perhaps someone who hit the gym during lunch though Old Spice or Chanel #5 would do in lieu of a shower. It doesn't.) So, I must either commence a hard target search for the source, or take short shallow breaths and hope the miasma passes quickly. If Arvin Sloan's CleaningCrew is involved, I'll kindly ask them not to unleash miasmas without prior warning. If it's a Skip-the-Shower type, I'll discreetly leave a bar of Irish Spring on their desk.

And a Very Happy Gouranga Day to You Too!

2005-03-03T09:30:00.000-05:00

Got this in my Spambox this morning from Neateye. Don't know who sent Mr. Neatai is, but at least he meant well...

Call out Gouranga be happy!!!
Gouranga Gouranga Gouranga ....
That which brings the highest happiness!!

Maybe I've Been Watching Too Much "Alias"

2005-03-02T22:20:00.000-05:00

I think the CleaningCrew at TheCompany is stalking me.

Not in the classic sense, they're not standing around every corner holding jars of mustard or peering over my cube walls with longing looks. But it seems like whenever I go to use the facilities, there they are, with one of their damnable little carts blocking the entrance. At first I thought perhaps my post-Morning-Chocolate-Muffin hygenic fixations at the restroom closest to my work hovel were just running afoul some carefully crafted schedule of theirs (which already strikes me as odd - you'd think the optimal time to clean a restroom is after everyone leaves, not during that odd hour between 9-10am when the first batch of coffee has raced through everyone's systems.) . But no, they're up to something. I know it because today, anticipating this conflict of schedules, I opted for a less conveniently located facility, only to be confronted by one of their damnable carts, as if they knew I'd try to outthink them.

And that was in the morning.

After lunch, I wanted to clean up before heading into the lab. Downstairs. Across the building. Guess what was blocking the doorway of the facility nearest the lab?

But I'm onto them now. Tomorrow, I'll tell my boss I'm working on software, but I'll really be bulding a Disgronificator to sweep the restrooms for whatever nefarious devices the CleaningCrew are implanting. I don't know what their agenda is, but I'll stop that Arvin Sloane, no matter what the cost.

Now I just have to figure out what to do about those jars of mustard.

The Funniest Thing I've Read in Months

2005-02-22T22:13:00.000-05:00

I'm easily amused, but it actually takes something to get me laughing so hard that an actual tear comes to my eye. To date, the following managed that list:

The French Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Strong Bad Email: Crying
The "Trumpy Can Do Magic!" bit from MST3k's Pod People
Critter Christmas from South Park

Last night, a new member joined this exclusive club. I found it on Random Speak, who apparently found it on another blog, so I'm just following suite. (Click on the children's book link.) Read it and enjoy, but you have been warned!

SBEMAIL! is Better Than a Goat!

2005-02-22T21:59:00.000-05:00

What this? Oh raptuous day! A new Strong Bad Email!! Rock Opera

And as a bonus, you can watch the new King of Town Special. Be sure to watch the old version and click on the sheep at the very end.

A Grand Day at the Racquetball Court

2005-02-21T21:32:00.000-05:00

I blame L for this one... it's that damnable, yet utterly fashionable, picture she has as her avatar on Random Speak.

So I'm wandering about outside yesterday, preparing for unimportant doings and goings one does on an uneventful Sunday afternoon. There's a racquetball court nearby and up drives a car. Out pile Mummy, Daddy, Grandma and the precocious children. Granted, the amenities in my complex aren't exactly kid-friendly, so maybe the parental units felt only the racquetball court was safe for their offspring. But this wasn't just some simple "let the kids play with a ball" adventure. No no, this was A Grand Day Out. A gala event! All they lacked was the picnic blanket and kite. (At which point you have to wonder why they didn't go to, oh, say a park with trees and birds and slides and all sorts of neat outdorsey naturey goodness?)

So how does L come into all this? Well, watching this... production unfold, that oh-so-fashionable avatar of hers suddenly pops into my head and the next thing I know, I've mentally recast the entire event into some 19th century English countryside setting. It'd go something like this, though better if I knew the lingo of the day...

Papa: What's wrong, my precious? You look positively crestfallen.
Collette: I'm bored Papa...
Papa: Bored? Tut-tut! We shall have none of that! But what to do? Ye gads, I know! We shall have a Grand Day Out!
Collette: Oh, papa! Can we really? That would be so heavenly!
Papa: Oh, mama! Oh, Benjamin and Winfred! Gather round!
[all] Yes, papa?
Papa: I have decided we shall have a Grand Day Out!
Mama: Oh, wondrous day! But where shall we go?
[all] Oh, yes... where shall we go?
Papa: Gadzooks! I know! We shall go to yon racquetball court for a fine afternoon of cavorting and ball throwing.
[all] Oh, what a simply delightful idea!
Papa: Now everyone, put on your outing fineries and gather your festives. We shall all load into the motorized horseless carriage and proceed hencewith to the racquetball court!

Something like that... (darn you, L!)

"What the... Hell...?" Dating Style

2005-02-19T20:27:00.000-05:00

When I started this little experiment in online venting, I made it a point to myself not to delve into personal things, dating especially. At the very least, it's rude and unfair to the lady involved and I won't be party to that kind of thing.

But there are always exceptions to every rule. This one's choice... another "What the... hell...?" moment and I don't think it even really counts as I don't know who she is and certainly didn't ask for this. Today, in the Inbox of my online profile (oh, right, like you don't have one), I received the following from somewhere in Nigeria... (quoting via the magic of cut & paste)

Hello,
Although you may not know me as i do,but in the other hand i think we will knoe each other soonest. Don't think that I tell you enough how much you truly mean to me and how much I love you. I am proud of your achievements and impressed by your strong will. Although I don't constantly say it, I am proud to see you develop into who you are becoming. I love you dearly and you constantly remain in my sweetest thoughts.... Never doubt how much you mean to me and nevertheless how much I love you. I will remain faithfully yours until the end of time.And i will like you to tell me more about you.Hope to hear a good reply from you.

I could spend paragraphs picking this part, but I'll just ask a simple question to my reading audience: Am I wrong to be completely creeped out by this? And where's my $78 million? She's supposed to have some relative with $78 million. If she really loves me, show me the money!

What the... Hell...?

2005-02-17T23:30:00.000-05:00

At 6pm today, I was actually lamenting that I really hadn't some interesting bit of whimsy to blog about. I was considering something about my Stalking Cleaning Lady who may work for Arvin Sloane (she keeps it up, I may yet still), but it just wasn't flowing and darn it, I take pride in my efforts.

But at 7:45pm the Universe heard my pleas and delivered this boon. Granted it's not much, but when you can actually get a "What the... hell...?" out of me, you've got someting.

So I'm sitting in my steakhouse of choice, reading the latest issue of "Madara", awaiting yet another fine sirloin (medium, hot pink center, please) when, from behind, I hear a mom say the following to her kid (and I quote):

"Don't eat that or you'll smell like onions and I'll have to stick you in your room."

Cue my muttered "What the... hell...?" Does she find onions so offensive, she'd sequester her son at the faintest whiff? If so, what were they doing on the table to start with? If her son's digestive system is so suspect, what about baked beans or broccoli? (I'd bet there aren't any smokers in that house...)

Unfortunately, since I had my back to them, I couldn't turn around to see exactly what the kid had before him to elicit such a comment without being spotted by Grandma who was sitting across their table. (Curse my social considerations!) This must've happened before or something to that effect because ol' Granny didn't challenge the comment in the slightest. Maybe she was just stunned... Or maybe "Mom" was her daughter and Granny had stuck her in her room when she'd eat turnips...

It's past bedtime and my brain still can't wrap itself around this one. I've heard odd comments before, Dudette will testify I'm the source of a great many of them (For my money, nothing beats dropping "So I went to the store for a bucket of gravy..." into a conversation to get your very own "What the... hell...?" moment. It's bullet-proof, I tell ya!) But to the best of my knowledge, I've never considered making them a part of my child-rearing philosophy.

I shudder to think what "Mom" thinks of garlic...

In A State of Trance

2005-02-16T13:08:00.000-05:00

I love the internet. For all the sp@m and pr0n that pervades it, the internet has got to be one of the neatest things since sliced bread.

This week's reason: the return of Armin van Buuren's "A State of Trance"

As you loyal readers might recall, ID&T radio in Holland cancelled Armin's show, wanting to change their format to more Pop-40 and hip-hop (and thus the Creeping Hordak claims another victim). But thanks to the internet, Armin has returned on etn.fm in his splendor and glory, in English no less. There's supposedly still talk that "A State of Trance" might still look for a new broadcast radio home, but I'm just happy he's once again providing this lowly trance addict his weekly fix. In the grand scheme of things, it's a small victory to savor. But sometimes, the smallest ones are the tastiest.

Strong Bad May or May Not Have an Uncle Pawdabber

2005-02-15T22:04:00.000-05:00

You know the drill... new Strong Bad email.

Buy the Girl Some Flowers? Brilliant!

2005-02-15T13:25:00.000-05:00

Is it over?

I'm talking about Valentine's Day, the greeting-card/flower-industry created day of relationship flagellation. If men's hair loss is accelerated by stress, then VD is probably the greatest thing that ever happened to Rogaine. All those poor schmoes, standing in card shops and other such establishments, all furrowing their brows in desperate attempts to make the appropriate sacrifices at Cupid's Altar.

Insanity, I tell ya.

It's not that I'm not a romantic guy, I'll put up my notions of and inclinations to romance up against anything Hallmark or FTD has thought of on their best day. (I'm not sure about Harlequin - I'll give it a go, but how do you compete with people whose job it is to think up phrases like "heaving alabaster bosom"?) But, frankly, I somewhat resent being told by a bunch of companies that I have to buy their flowers/cards/chocolate (ok, maybe not the chocolate) just to participate in a "holiday" created mainly for their own benefit. And let's face it, if you really need such an artificial day to prompt you to express your feelings of affection and love to your S.O., Via Con Dios because you've got a larger set of issues at play... I'll make the obligatory gestures too, but I'd much rather take that time, effort and moola and roll it into something deliciously creative, deeply touching and totally unexpected.

February 14th? What are you doing on April 23rd?

Congratulations! You've Won a Submarine Screen Door

2005-02-15T12:26:00.000-05:00

Can someone explain to me what the point is to having a contest with prizes that one can't collect?

For some time, Coca-Cola has been stocking my company's vending machine with special 20oz bottles Diet Coke, where 1 in 12(!) bottle-caps is an instant winner of a free 1 litre bottle of the Coke product of your choice. There's only one teensy catch - I can't find a store that actually sells these rumored 1 litre bottles. Not my grocery store, the local inconvenience joint or any other beverage-selling establishment. Moreover, none of these places will take the caps for even the 20 oz kind. Thus, I am the proud owner 6 of these stupid and uterly useless little bottlecaps. I have until this March to redeem some of them, so I'm half-tempted to drive to Atlanta to Coke's headquarters, hand them to some unsuspecting secretary, demand my 1-litre bottles, then, when told I need to go to a local store to redeem them, defy said secretary to tell me where I might do this.

Still, the submarine-screendoor bottlecaps notwithstanding, Coke is still ahead of Pepsi. That's because at least Coke has grasped the most basic of business tenants: In order to sell product, you must have product to sell. Based on how well Pepsi keeps their fountain and vending machines stocked here at The Company, I can only assume the totality of Pepsi's management team was asleep during Business 101 when this little insight was handed out. When the Diet Pepsi fountain ran out, it took Pepsi 10 days to trundle over new tanks of their syrupy goo. And I kid you not when I say there are Pepsi machines here that have gone weeks without being restocked, much less stocked correctly. (Currently the record stands at 6.) And if you call their 800 number to kindly request additional product, you get the obligatory bubblegum-popping nail-filing type who's just thrilled with her job and will Get Right On It, as soon as the hangnail she's been working finishes growing out. Perhaps they're just too engrossed in the running of their may-contain-taco-like-substance and possibly-fried-chicken establishments...

The Newest Member of the "It Sucks to Be Us" Club

2005-02-13T11:52:00.000-05:00

After much consideration (and a hastily assembled tele-mooting with Dudette), I am pleased to announce that an official invitation into the "It Sucks to Be Us" Club has been offered to and accepted by ZeFräulein. ZeFräulein has demonstrated enough of the requisite oddities and skills to be worthy of this exclusive group. (She needs a little work on her pithy remarks/gestures, but even those took time for Dudette & I to develop.)

I suppose this means we need some sort super-secret intiation ritual. (No, wait, the universe has already provided that). Maybe just a nice certificate or decoder-ring. Thoughts, Dudette?

Sing Blue Silver

2005-02-13T09:52:00.000-05:00

Last night was my town's annual night parade, also known as Exhibition Night for the, ah, looser standards if not outright encouragement of people, women in particular, to expose not-normally-exposed-at-least-legally body parts to gather the previously mentioned worthless plastic beads. Normally I would have gone if only to have my second helping of being a rock star.

But I had to keep a 20 year old promise to myself instead. For last night, 80's New Wave icon Duran Duran came to town.

As I think I've mentioned before, I'm a big trance fan. But Duran Duran was my first band the way you have first loves. And unlike some of my female friends at that age & time, for me, it really was about the music. They had a really infectious synth-pop sound, and I'm not talking about just their big hits. Some of my favorites are "Lonely in Your Nightmare", "Careless Memories" and "Hold Back the Rain" (or as my best friend (of the male persuasion) MightySteve likes to call it, "Warp Factor Eight"). And it was Duran Duran's "The Reflex" that introduced me to what a remix really sounded like, not just the same song with just some extra stanzas thrown in.

But back when Simon, Nick, John, Andy and Roger came through on their "Arena" tour, it was a Tuesday and in my house, that was a school night, no ifs ands or buts. And as you might know, the original 5 broke up after that. So while I've seen them any number of times since, I'd never actually seen the original Duran Duran and it was always one of those "if I ever get the chance" things.

Needless to say I had blast. They had a great open stage so there were no truly bad seats, the sound-mixer needs to be given a medal for so perfectly balancing the sound (Tiesto could learn a thing from this guy) and I don't have to tell you what a weird rush it is to hear a song you might not have heard in years, yet know every word to, especially when you walk into the forum going "Gosh, I wish they'd play Hold Back the Rain" and it's the 3rd song... Oh, and the screams, there was some serious ear-piercing going on... "We love you, John!" and so on. But I was surprised by the age mix. I expected to see mainly 30-somethings trying to relive that moment of teenagery (and the "reviewer" in my local mullet wrapper must've sat in a section of them). But I saw plenty of kids who probably were only in their diapers when the Fab Five were last together. (And there's apparently a goth element to Duran Duran I've never noticed, based on these youngins' style of dress. )

In fact the only drawback were the two KnuckleHeads next to me. They simply would not shut up. At first I thought maybe they were just two terribly confused guys who thought they had come to see an arena football game (that was last night) and were trying to compensate by doing some sort of bizarre play-by-play on the concert. But later, I had to wonder whether they really liked Simon because at one point they couldn't stop going on about how Simon had changed his shirt and whether it was a good color for him. Now I don't particularily care if they like Simon or how much, that's their business, but I do care when I pay serious coin to make good on a 20 year old promise and have to listen to them cluck away like a pair of hens. My attempts to quiet them with classic silent "Do You Mind?" gestures were ignored, so I just moved to the other side of my BratSister (who is somewhat more "in your face" about that sort of thing. At one point she's staring at them and making the "yap yap yap" gesture with one hand... I love her brazen willingness to tell people to Shut the Hell Up like that... she's great for parties!)

So, having to choose between a silly parade and keeping a 20 year old promise? A no-brainer. I'd do again every time.

We Hold These Slogans to Be Self-Evident

2005-02-10T13:45:00.000-05:00

During some errand running today, I had stopped by a local inconvenience store to acquire a caffienated beverage to help me get past the post-lunch Nappies (where all the blood rushes to your stomach to aide with digestion - leaving you with this light-headed desire to crawl under your desk. I'm convinced the world would be a happier place if people took more naps.)

I damn near had the front of my RSX cleaved off.

I had followed some goomer in some hideous gray work-type truck (lots of panels and racks for hoses and what-not) into the joint, he pulling to one of the gas pumps, me going around to the store proper. Only he must've decided at the last second that he really didn't need gas, because he shoots out of the gas island like, well, like he was shot out of a cannon, and into the parking spot I was just about to turn into.

Like I said, damn near took my front end off.

I didn't say/do anything because let's face it, if you're willing to gun the engine and launch a truck of that size into a parking spot regardless of who might be trying to get there first, then chances are you don't much give a damn what that other driver thinks of your Dale Earnhardt impression. And I didn't have time anyways, I needed the caffiene to be in full effect for my mooting at 1pm.

So I proceed to the fountain drink area and acquire a satisfactory amount of carbonated beverage. But by the time I get to the cashier's counter, there's GoomerBoy, standing there in his grungy blue jumpsuit and white rubber boots, having a fit about the store being out of his preferred brand of unfiltered Death Sticks. He was muttering something to the effect of "I don' want none of that gawl-damned filtered sheet, gimme some of those [inaudible] Camels." Apparently his griping had gone on during the entire time it had taken me to acquire my carbonated beverage, because the cashier had a look on her face that suggested that she was about to take the nearest carton of Death Sticks and plant them in an orifice of his known more for having smoke blown up it, than out of. I shant elaborate.

It's at this point I finally glance outside at his gray work-type truck, and to my surprise, it's not some sort of sewage service establishment. It's in fact a pesticide service and I'm struck by the perfect symmetry. Unsatisfied with simply working with and rolling around in toxic chemicals, GoomerBoy wants the complete experience. It made me wonder whether he was trying to outsmart the Grim Reaper by saturating his tissue with all sort of compounds to make them immune to decay.

But what really struck me was the slogan that was emblazoned on the side of the truck: Scientifically Directed.

Leaving the grammatical issue of a sentence fragment aside, the slogan begs the obvious question: As opposed to what? A wizened 200-year old Feng Shui master from the Rozan Mountains determining the pesticide lay-lines of the yard? The most recent crop-circle patterns? A cross between a drive-by and carpet bombing? Or perhaps you just like getting up close and personal with your varmits, ala Bill Murray's groundskeeper from Caddyshack.

Now, I don't blame GoomerBoy, he's far more concerned with his self-embalming experiment. No no, there was a Marketing Decision behind this. Admittedly, not as egregious as Nike's short-lived shoe "Incubus" (a male demon who rapes women in their sleep) or the utterly infamous Chevy "Nova" fiasco. But still, imagine if major enterprises advertised with that kind of creative thinking:

Ford Motors - Engineers design our cars
Taco Bell - We sell tacos
Dell Computers - We're faster than the abacus
American Airlines - 100% submarine free

If I'm wrong about this, someone please tell me. The Apprentice is holding open auditions here tomorrow and I could always try my hand at a career in marketing.

The "It Socks to Be Us" Club

2005-02-08T23:35:00.000-05:00

Recent events over the past 24 hours have prompted me to call a "mooting" of The "It Socks to Be Us" Club for some consolation and commiseration. To date, there are two members: myself and my best friend (of the female persuasion) Dudette. (It's actually called the "It Sucks to Be Us Club", but whenever I issue a meeting call by its proper name, Dudette's over-eager mail filter at her place of employment gives my email the proverbial bum's rush if there's even a whiff of a naughty-word. So I have to be clever how I word it.) The club was founded during those heady and dreary days of grad school, when Dudette & I were not only good friends, but foxhole buddies trying to survive the PhD program. Co-commisseration was a necessity.

Past mooting topics have included:

1) The Microwaved Soy-Sauce Miasma Incident
2) The Devil Who Lives in Deep River and Teaches Engineering Tools (a.k.a. Ice Sucky)
3) The Black Horse in Kentucky
4) Got an Image-Processing Problem? Divide the Image into Quarters!
5) The Obnoxious Sparc-Station Power-Toggler
6) How "Meetings" Became "Mootings"
7) The "You Know" Counting Game
8) How Everything in California is Suspect
9) The Best-Buy Boycott (a.k.a., Trifle Not with the Boycott Gods)

Due to our geographic dislocations, Dudette & I have been considering opening local chapters. I have some potiential members in mind, but the Executive Board (i.e, Dudette & I) are still finalizing membership requirements (aside from our arbitrary and capricious approval). The current draft is as follows:

1) That "Stupid Things" happen to you. This is a subset of Bad Things, which happen to everyone. Stupid Things are best described in some surreal or Seinfeldian context, e.g., "I had a Mulva moment today." Your own Stupidity should not be the cause of said Stupid Thing.
2) When a Stupid Thing does happen, you must have the ability to rant about it in an amusing manner, with the special proviso that you build it to where you can close with "And why does this happen to me?" so the other members can nod knowingly and reply "Because it sucks to be you!"
3) The ability to recognize when a Stupid Thing is in actuality a Really Sucky Thing and move quickly from commiseration to consolation & support. All members must be able to show genuine compassion and empathy to their fellow members when called for.
4) The ability to reduce Stupid Thing narration or commentary into a single gesture or phrase. Example items include the Selfosophy "Turn that Frown Upside Down" hand flip, Kramer-esque"Levels" finger stair-walking and box-pushing and the Celiene Dion Roman Salute.
5) Judicious use of the secret word, "Geezamoli". Because once you've said "Geezamoli", there's nothing left to say.

When the membership requirements are ratified, I'll post them to consider local members.

Geezamoli.

In Praise of Massages

2005-02-08T22:29:00.000-05:00

Today, I took my weekly advantage of one of the few perks my company provides... well, it's not really a perk since I pay for using it. Every Tuesday, two licensed massage therapists come into the building for some stress relief. "Tiny", the husband of the duo, is a classic gentle giant who specializes in laying me on a table then, using his telephone-pole sized forearms, lengthens my spine a centimeter or two. I can feel all sorts of tiny muscles between my vertabrae being stretched.

What is that song Bernadette Peters sings in "Young Frankenstein"... sweet mystery of life or something?

I've been hooked on massages ever since my best friend (of the female persuasion) Dudette dragged me to one during our grad school days. It was literally one of those "where have you been all my life?" moments, and that was before any theraputic aspect came into play thanks to a back injury brought on by a moment's carelessness during a workout. (Let that be a lesson to you gym rats - it takes only one mistake to screw yourself up but good.)

And of course, the only thing better than the 20 minute sessions I get on the worksite are my semi-annual splurges for the full 60 minute slices of heaven. In fact, one of (if not the) best Christmas gifts I got last year was a gift certficate for that slice of heaven, courtesy of the aforementioned Dudette. (And how have I repaid such sweetness and kindness? By coaxing her into watching "24" on a weekly basis, rather than letting her save up the eps until it's almost over so she and TheBigGuy can go on some sort of bender. The suspense of having to wait a whole 7 days to see how ol' Jack Bauer works his way out of the current cliffhanger is killing her. Aren't I a terrible friend?)

It used to be the chief domain of frilly-girly spa things. But, thankfully, "real men" are waking up to this too. Trust me, you have no idea how good it feels to have someone with a skilled set of fingers find and unkink "trigger points" you didn't know you had. I'm considering taking a class on how to give one properly, just to add it to my resume of why I'm a Great Catch. What sane gal wouldn't want a guy who could find and melt away all those nasty little kinks and knots? I ask you...

A Sad Day for Science

2005-02-08T22:05:00.000-05:00

NASA has apparently decided the risk/reward ratio isn't enough to save the beloved Hubble Space Telescope. You can read the depressing news here.