Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Such A Strange Combination Of Pity And Indigestion


You don't need a license to drive a sandwich.
~ Spongebob Squarepants


And the new diet started about two hours ago, and so far I don't feel the urge to grab a jagged knife and rob a KFC. That's a good thing, for me! I bought a 10lb bag of apples and 4lb bag of peanuts (they were half price!) at the store yesterday, and today have been dining on them quite extensively. Apples are good!!! Did you know that?!?



Sadly, neither one gets more than a 3/5 for weight loss, so I need to find something that's inexpensive, good for weight loss, and that I'll actually eat. Any suggestions> Also, www.nutritiondata.com is such an awesome website.


Monday, December 17, 2007

I Expected Singing And Dancing...


Out-of-town shooters. That's what I said. I remember hearing myself saying, "Out-of-town shooters." You know what? You don't pay a ho to fuck you. You pay her to leave. What you pay out-of-town shooters to do? You pay them to get the hell back out of town. That's why I asked for out-of-town shooters. What'd I get? In-town shooters. Someone decided to hire in-town shooters. You know what else I got for my money? In-town police. In-town trouble. Who's got to get in the ring with me on this?


Ok, I'm not really sure why I went with that line, but it's a good line anyways, you know? Anyways, first day back at work. A few hellos, a 'your e-mail doesn't work, I'll fix it in a bit', and a coffee, and back to the grindstone. Hey diddle diddle hey, welcome back, now get to work. Oh, by the way, we rearranged the network, and we didn't respost the new files that you worked on while you were staying home with your newborn daughter and your wife recovering from major surgery, could you take care of that? Thanks.

Still, it's oddly comforting to be back. It's my desk (until we move and I get a new one), it's my computer (until we move and I get a new one), and it's my big honking warm headphones (which they will have to pry out of my cold, dead hands). I'm hoping we move in January on schedule, since we were supposed to move at the end of October, and as of yesterday the new building is still composed largely of rotting siding and new plywood. I'm sure it's nicer inside.



Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Curse Your Sudden But Inevitable Betrayal!


So we'll integrate non-progressional evolution theory with
God's creation of Eden. Eleven inherent metaphoric parallels
already there. Eleven. Important number. Prime number. One goes
into the house of eleven eleven times, but always comes out one.
Noah's ark is a problem. We'll have to call it "early quantum
state phenomenon". Only way to fit 5,000 species of mammals
on the same boat.


Hee. Firefly.

It's 11pm, and I have to put together a building in Nelson I'll never be able to afford to live in. My newborn baby girl is asleep and meeping a few feet away, and I still have to do some laundry tonight, and tomorrow do the bulk of my Ecksmass capitalist sacrificing. I'm all... bendy...

*stretch*

*pop*

*crackle*

Much better. I need a dark chocolate crackball, only $0.88 for three! What a bargain! What a deal! What a twist!

Make people answer their gorram e-mail.


Saturday, December 8, 2007

Cold Diggitty Daffodil!


Every winter,
When the great sun has turned his face away,
The earth goes down into a vale of grief,
And fasts, and weeps, and shrouds herself in sables,
Leaving her wedding-garlands to decay -
Then leaps in spring to his returning kisses.
~Charles Kingsley

Winter is nature's way of saying, "Up yours." ~Robert Byrne


It's like Hot Diggitty Daffodil, but instead it's cold. It's the sort of cold where you go outside, and your skin says "Hey, this isn't that bad!" because it takes a few seconds for your skin's protective cushion of air to bleed off. However, you look around, think it's all right, and you take a deep breath. Your gasp of shock is drowned out by the death cries of your nostril hairs, and the wintry gust moves into your lungs, freezes the deposits of tar and polyunsaturated fat, shatters your alveoli, grudgingly warms up, and exhales in a cloud of vapor which soon solidifies around your skull, smothering and killing you.

This is why I'm inside right now.


Antisthenes says that in a certain faraway land
the cold is so intense that words freeze as soon
as they are uttered, and after some time then thaw
and become audible, so that words spoken in winter
go unheard until the next summer. ~Plutarch


Also, because of the cold, most of my other business ventures have ground to a halt. There's no more traffic at all over at ThinkTank Designs, which is my side job of creating environmentally housing for people who want an artistically distinct home that will keep them warm in the summer, cool in the winter, and last longer than any of the stick-built McMansions down the street. The Seniors Guide is also going very slowly, since it's too cold for the salesman to go out and actually get ads. He's old.

Right now, we're all huddled in our house, enjoying the Christmas lights hung from the crown moulding, and trying to teach our middle child that the new baby can't, in fact, withstand a full nelson, a throat punch, or a head-butt. Also, we have to teach ALL THREE kids that since my wife's C-section was apparently performed by a first-time resident, and five of the staples fell out on their own (while three just came loose and got snagged in her clothing, with agonizingly painful results), they should very VERY GENTLE with her. So far it isn't taking, and both kids keep trying to hug and tackle her with good intentions and painful results.

Enjoy the movie down below :) One of my favorite songs, and one of my favorite movies. MWAHAHAHAH!!!



Friday, December 7, 2007

Congratulations! It's A Baby!


If you are like me, and you certainly must be,
you are appalled and shocked at the weird,
unnatural things going on tonight. ~ Sam the Eagle


More specifically, it's a baby girl. Say hello to Ophelia.



I'm sure she'd wave back, but right now all she can do is cry, eat, sleep, poop, and gnaw on her own hand. If I didn't know better, I'd think she was trying to escape. *sigh* Babies.

Ok, now to start the work that I couldn't do this week, since my office doesn't like to hire competent CAD people (I don't mean you, Sim... you rock.)

I'm bored. Have a video.



Friday, November 30, 2007

The Interblogosphere Tubes Are Clean


Related to moral relativism, it states that ethics
become subjective only when you approach the
speed of light. That is, it's OK to be self-serving, steal,
and murder as long as you're going really, really fast.
(Note: This is why rap sounds better on the highway at 90 mph)


Hee. xkcd has a Wikiquote. Awesome.

Yeah, two weeks, I know. Everytime I think about blogging about something I came across on the tubes, I just think "You know, three people read this blog, and two of them don't care about the latest dust-up at NASA, or Gamespot, or Israel. All that's left is to talk about myself, and two of my readers don't care about that either (and given the third is there when stuff happens, I guess all three don't care to read about it.) I don't really hang out on YouTube so it's hard to find movies to wrap up my posts with, which might be for the best, because it also felt wierd trying to lure people to my blog with funny videos, only to ambush them with boring text first.

So, maybe I'll just try something new.


Newbie

Into December, you entered the world,
Small, squalling, pinkish and furious,
Ripped untimely, and into our lives hurled,
Pausing enough to be curious.

It's hard to say what to make of today,
You picked a lousy time to be born,
We got wars, genocide, DMCA,
You have good reason to be forlorn.

But I'm here to adore and protect you,
What fathers are supposed to do best,
I'm bigger than the problems in this zoo,
And you know that I will never rest.

Nothing will harm you while I am alive,
But I can't do anything until you arrive.


Thursday, November 15, 2007

It's A Big... A Big Hard Sun...


Once I dug an early grave, to find a better land
She just smiled and laughed at me, and took her rules back again

Once I stood to lose her, and I saw what I had done
Bowed down and threw away the hours of her garden and her sun

So I tried to want her, I turned to see her weep
40 days and 40 nights, and its still coming down on me


I continue to educate people that this song, the theme song from the movie "In The Wild" and sung by Eddie Vedder, is actually a Canadian song from 1989, from a man who calls himself Indio. The Eddie Vedder song is big on the radio, even satellite radio, and the YouTube videos are replete with posts saying "Eddie Vedder's best song ever!" I am against patriotism, but I nonetheless feel the need to tell people that it's not a Vedder song, but it's Canadian, which is why Vedder picked it for the movie. It just fits so well with nature.

Anyways...

Zalgite is, for better or for worse, off of his medicine now! His knees are doing good, his eyes are fine, and because the rashes present on his nose are actually indicative of a naproxen reaction, he's going off the meds. Yay! In 4-6 weeks, we should see how his body is doing, and we'll take him to the pediatrician here in town. I'm hoping it goes well!

Also also, my mom just had her 64th birthday, I had my 26th, and my friend Porkchop had his... uhm, 32nd? Crap, I need to check Facebook... I don't know how old anyone is. Newbie will be born Dec 4th, right on schedule, so that's good! Christmas is coming, and a new baby and a month off work at severely reduced pay can only make things go smoother. I need to bloggy-blog more.

EDIT: I need to add this. This is just disturbing. For those who think it's tl;dr, I'll sum it up. Two girls are good friends. Then they're not friends. The parents of girl A work with girl A to make a MySpace account, pretending to be a nice, cute guy. They befriend girl B on MySpace. They get to know eachother for weeks and weeks and weeks. They then start to say horrible things to girl B. Girl B then kills herself. She went upstairs, and hung herself in her closet while her parents cooked dinner. Girl A and her parents do not apologize, and are not being charged, since they say it can't be proved it was their fault. They live a block away from eachother.

I fucking hate humanity.

Video time! What's something I haven't done before...

Thursday, November 8, 2007

I Blog! I Swear! I Think...


No more gold lights for the queen earth
To keep you warm in your kingdoms
High on the waves you make for us
But not since you left have the waves come
The bar is dead and the rocket's rain
Is keeping you wet in your deathbed
So high on the waves you made for us
And not since you left have the waves come...
Have the waves come...


Good song.

Yay, wireless! Now I can blog while I pee!

...

Not that I would. No, right now, I'm just using it to sit on the couch, under a nice, tasty warm blanket, so I can play Stars!, watch Farscape, and talk to you, the tumultuous masses! And by masses, I mean Lostie and Sleeping Kyle.

My laptop needs a better battery, so I really hope that supercapacitors finally make that final price breakthrough, replacing the wildly inefficient chemical batteries forever. They charge faster, they last longer, and they have two ingredients, both of which are considerably cheaper on a global scale. Yayyy!


You have such limited mental capacity,
and yet you have such an abundant will to prevail.


Good line...

I don't have much to say. Work was hellish today. I almost put my fist through the monitor, and had one of my bosses been here today, I might have forever lost my boot within his unplumbed depths. I don't think either would have really endangered my job, but in the short term might have made my main boss angry, since he seemed to indicate that he thought of me as one of his kids (I'm not sure how to take that.)

Coffee time!


Friday, November 2, 2007

16, 10, 7, 6... What Up For November?


FREEZE! You're under arrest! You have the right to the remains of a silent attorney! If you cannot afford one... tough noogies! You can make ONE phone call! I recommend Trixie: 976-Triple 5-LOVE. Do you understand these rights as I have explained them to you?! Well do ya, PUNK? No? Then I can't arrest you!


Hee.

Well, NaNoWriMo is well underway, and my wordcount is up to a MIGHTY.... four (4) words. Fear me, Stephen King... I've got you in my sights! RAWR!

Now, a lot of my on-line time recently has been tied up arguing about the three epic sci-fi series of our time... Farscape, Firefly, Babylon 5. Which is better overall, which has better writing, which has better production values, which is more interesting, which has better characters, etc etc etc. Unfortunately, most people are of the incorrect opinion that Farscape isn't the best, and they won't listen to me when I try to correct them! Why would that be? I'm just trying to educate them, and they ignore me... *sigh* Now I know how high school teachers feel.

Ok, but seriously, Farscape only slightly edges out Firefly, and Firefly edges out Bab 5. They're all pretty close. Imaging, though, what Firefly could have done if it had been allowed to reach 88 episodes like Farscape, or over 100 like Bab5? As it was, it died at 13 episodes, and despite the truly GAWDLIKE feature film (Serenity), the story was not epic. It was character driven, and episodic, and the finale approached epicosity, but the story never had time to bloom. Bab 5 bloomed, and despite some dragging and irritation, was an excellent and incredible story. "Get the hell out of our Galaxy!" may be one of the best parting lines ever.

But they still can't touch Farscape... and I just hope someday to get someone to see it the way I do.

But, to all the people who never will, here's Wash, in all his goofy glory.


Friday, October 26, 2007

They Don't Make Straitjackets Like They Used To

"One, two, one, two, and through and through the vorpal blade went snicker-snack. He left it dead, and with its head, he went galumphing back!"
- The Mad Hatter, Batman: The Animated Series

There will never be a cartoon as good as that, ever again. Now, I don't mean as FUNNY as that, since The Tick probably takes that trophy. I don't mean as VIOLENT as that, since Megas XLR clearly wins. I don't mean as INSANE, since Zim wins. I mean in every single regard, taken together... no cartoon will ever be as impressively perfect. The new Batman cartoons are pale shadows of... a shadow, ironically enough.

Sorry, random rant. I've got some things to say about Hallowe'en candy, and their relation to me birthday, but I'll get to that some other time.

I would like to share one awesomely misheard line from my son:

Son: The news is in porn.
Dad: It... what?
Son: The news is in porn.
Dad: What do you mean?
Son: It's in porn to know what happens in other countries.
Dad: OH! You mean IMPORTANT.
Son: Yeah. Watching the news is in porn.

Isn't he awesome?

Also, my friends have convinced me to get back into the world of Warhammer, so if anyone reading this is related to me... I need Plague Marines and Noise Marines, and generally anything from the Chaos Marines (but the first two in particular). Thank you!


Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Insurmountable Challenges Can Lick My Ass


Since I left home, I’ve been hunted, beaten, locked up, shanghaied, shot at. I’ve had alien creatures in my face, up my nose, inside my brain, down my pants. This is the first time, the first place, where I’ve felt peace.

There is a moment of sadness I feel when I watch that movie (see below), and I feel the same way when I watch the episodes. It isn't the sadness resulting from seeing something truly beautiful put to visible media. It isn't the sadness you feel when a character who has become possibly more real to you than the people you see on the street every day dies. It isn't even the sadness you feel when you know the only new episodes of their lives will exist only in your head.

No, it's the sadness of knowing that you (and by you, I mean me) will never write something as touching and poignant and perfect as that. This is not made any easier by the fact that my Major Story, the story I've worked on for ten years, the story I know backwards and forwards, the story that I want everyone to read... is in so very, very many ways virtually identical to that, and even though I thought of mine first, they go theirs out first, and I will be the plagiarist.

I dwell on this a lot. I understand that all ideas for literature are recycled, and it's more about the writer's take on a subject and the way the writer creates the scenes and emotions and conflict that makes a story great. However, I'm not THAT great of a writer, and even though I will someday put pen to paper (or phalange to keyboard) and get my story out of my head, I will always have that Damocledian fear hanging above me.

*burp*

Well, that was deep for a Wednesday. I'm gearing up to write pulpy crap for NaNo (isn't that just a peachy image?) It's not a story I love, and it's barely a story I like, but I need something I can't over-think, and it's almost impossible to overthink this (if I try, I keep wanting to call myself Dean Koontz). For now, though, I'm going to finish my hot chocolate, get a bottle ready for when my daughter decides I've slept enough, and then go to bed. Since my sleeping pills backfire when I'm sick, I'm on ibuprophen in the hopes that I'll just be numb enough to stay asleep.

That sums up more than I'd like it to.


Sunday, October 21, 2007

Awww, Muffin...


"You're walking on gallows ground, and there's a rope around your neck and a raven-bird on each shoulder waiting for your eyes, and the gallows tree has deep roots, for it stretches from heaven to hell, and our world is only the branch from which the rope is swinging."


No-one can fully say how awesome this book is... there will always be more to say.

Anyways, I've been meaning to write scads of stuff down here, but everytime I fire up the blog-in window, I either suffer from an attack of writer's block, or a case of the whities (MS Office users know what I mean), or some small human in my house wakes up, or I have to go for lunch, or... or, at that moment, I just don't care anymore. I swear, my brain is gearing up to make sure that I am full of fail for when NaNo rolls around. Stupid encephalon.

Anyways, the story is fleshed out in my mind, and I am looking forward to working on it, particularly since I'm not even sure how to do a lot of the middle of it. I've meant to work on it in the evenings, at least a basic outline / timeline, but for the past week, if it's not sleep, it's just killing time before sleep (sort of like now. MAKE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION FINISH DOWNLOADING, DAMMIT!)

Also also, some of you may know I'm a fan of xkcd. For those of you who might not be in the know, here's some of the best comics from the history of xkcd (it updates thrice weekly): Schrodinger, Names, and A Way So Familiar. I like the third one :) Anyways, xkcd has an annual meetup in Boston every year (I was invited, and even had my ticket paid for by people on the site, but I couldn't go), since the comic is unofficially based out of MIT, since the comic is drawn by a former NASA engineer (that's right... he IS a rocket scientist). I have been trying to organize a West Coast meetup, but I can only get about ten people. Then it hit me.

I can have a meetup for more than just xkcd! I need ideas for other meetups to have... I'm thinking NaNoWriMo for the region could do a meetup there, or maybe other webcomics, or... I dunno! I need ideas! Now, the reason more people is important is thus: I want the meetup to be in Field.

Field.

Field, BC.

The town has a population of 300, and is nestled right in the middle of the Rocky Mountains. it has unbefuckinglievable views of the mountains, and is walking distance from the Burgess Shale, but the major part is population: 300. With enough people, we could outnumber the locals. We could take every single hotel room, bed and breakfast nook, and camp site. We could OWN that town.

Feel the love, dammit.

Anyways, here's a movie. Don't be like Jon... love the song.



Saturday, October 13, 2007

Me, Grimlock, Not Nice Dino! Me Bash Brains!


# Stop, thief! No welcome-wagon "Hello Stranger" with that new coffee flavor for YOU! Offer expires while you wait. Operators are standing by. Don't look behind door number 2, Monty! It's time to play "End of the line, my valentine!" Ger-roni-do-ron-ron-roni-mo!!!

Ok, so I've now seen the new Transformers movie four times. Once with friends, once with my son, once legally on a legal website (with legality!), and once more with my son today as a twoonie matinee. Maybe it's because I was with him, or because I've let it percolate, but this time, I really liked it. I did.

What's WRONG with me?

However, nothing will quite match the epicosity of the first one. Ever.



Tuesday, October 9, 2007

It's Like Fighting A Gopher On Crank


Weapons-Grade Stupidity: Tech-support slang for customer intelligence that is so low it poses a severe hazard to those who come in contact with it.

Oh, man, do I have a lot of shit to cover today...

First off, I'd like to talk about the economy, or more specifically, the American economy. Even more specifically, I'd like to talk about the people who are at the mercy of it and who have a poorer grasp of money than friggin' Rainman. There are some terrifying things in this here article, namely:

Consumers have boosted their borrowing at the fastest pace in three months, turning increasingly to their credit cards to replace home equity loans as a source of ready cash. The increase was led by an 8.1 per cent jump in revolving credit, the category that includes credit card loans. Consumer have been using their credit cards more to finance purchases now that home equity lines of credit are becoming harder to obtain.

Now, by itself, this isn't terribly frightening, right? Watch this.


Terrifying, no? Well, I may be over-reacting, but it seems to be one of the major hurdles with advancing a society is the perpetual desire of that society to be living just beyond their means, forever miring them in mediocrity.

A great industrial Nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the Nation and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the world ~ no longer a Government of free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of small groups of dominant men.

* Woodrow Wilson, 28th US President


Smart man.

NEXT on my list... ok, to sum it all up. Bill to extend medical coverage in the states to 10 million kids who can't affording, by placing a $0.42 tax on a pack of smokes. Vetoed by Bush, because "it would cost the underprivileged too much", and because it's one step closer to socialism. In the discussion thereof, I am one of the few people on the side of "maybe it wouldn't be a bad thing to extend medical coverage to 10 million kids by asking smokers to pitch in a little of their disposable income."

The conversation has become about two things: one, it's not the government's job to help poor people, and two, poor kids deserve to die if they can't afford insurance.

...

Yeah, you wish I was kidding, right?

Never argue with an idiot. They will only pull you down to their level, then beat you with experience.

I have to admit that is so very, very true. *sigh*

Ok, uplifting video time!

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

This Hour Has Seven Days

Remember, remember the 5th of November.
The gunpowder, treason and plot.
I know of no reason why the gunpowder treason
should ever be forgot.


So very, very many of you are probably too young to understand the title to today's blog post. Any of you who do get it are probably to old to be on the internet anyways. However, all of you should know the quote above, and I love that Guy Fawkes picked my birthday to try to blow up the seat of corrupt power. Something poetic there.

However, the reason for the title of today's blog is... I've gone a week without pop. Pop of any kind. Sure, I've replaced it with a few hot chocolates at home, but I make the powder myself, and there's less sugar in that than in a Coke. Also, I picked the quote because I've watched V For Vendetta five times in the past week... and it just keeps getting better EVERY TIME I SEE IT!

Anarchy means “without leaders”; not “without order.”


I believe in few things as strongly as I believe in that. This movie is helping me to refine (my internal sandblasting process) my own opinions about government, governance, and the rule of mob. Sure, the movie has a few problems, but as a dramatic representation of a comic book by people better known for action movies and obtuse philosophy, you can hardly expect the celluloid Renaissance. Nevertheless, it's gotten me thinking. Oh, not enough to post here, now, yet... but ideas that will be refined further come this NaNoWriMo. I've picked my story, I've picked my dramatis personae, and I've picked the protagonist (hint: it's not who you think), and very little is as good for lengthy rambling exposition than two people trapped in a car, with one holding the other at gunpoint. Don't you think?

The management is terrible! We've had a string of embezzlers, frauds, liars and lunatics making a string of catastrophic decisions. This is plain fact. But who elected them? It was you! You who appointed these people! You who gave them the power to make your decisions for you! While I'll admit that anyone can make a mistake once, to go on making the same lethal errors century after century seems to me nothing short of deliberate. You have encouraged these malicious incompetents, who have made your working life a shambles. You have accepted without question their senseless orders. You have allowed them to fill your workspace with dangerous and unproven machines. You could have stopped them. All you had to say was "No." You have no spine. You have no pride. You are no longer an asset to the company. I will, however, be generous. You will be granted two years to show me some improvement in your work. If at the end of that time you are still unwilling to make a go of it...You're fired. That will be all. You may return to your labours. Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.


It's fucking poetry.

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Colon Blog Website For Interwebs


It's OK, Shake, because whoever you decide that you are, I still gonna love you. But just not in a gay way, because God makes all people in different sizes and shapes and problems, but he only makes the people he hates gay. That's you. You it, boy. You gay!

There are no words to describe this...... well, describe what I saw. See? I can't even find a NOUN to describe it... "it" is the best I can do. Impersonal pronoun. Now, officially, "it" is called Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters, but after watching it on Joox, I've decided that that name isn't even up to the challenge of describing it. It's even moved beyond "good" and "bad"... it just is, and it... is... ow. Truly, it is a marvel of modern technology that I can be paid to design fancy buildings and resort developments, and be able to watch it simultaneously, without detracting from either activity.

Either that, or am I finally acquiring a dual personality.

...

About fucking time, I wanted one years ago.

...

Moving on, this is my first of what will hopefully be many pop-free days. Yesterday, I enjoyed a coke, and two ginger ales (what? I was thirsty, and it was the House season premiere). Today? Even though I put a full tank of gas in the car, and I was at the Petro in Dallas, which has the nice selection of Jones.... I resisted. Shut up, that's a big step for me!

The walking yesterday, by the end of the night, took a lot out of my legs... which is really, really sad, since I used to walk double that, on a much steeper slope, every day when I was in college (before I got lazy and started taking the bus). Much like Rufus, the 13th Apostle, I used to walk everywhere, before the advent of money and convenience into my life. Now, I like my convenience, and in a lot of cases it's necessary for me to park this close to my office (emergencies, and whatnot).

However, I am going to be instituting a new policy in my life, wife-permitting (of course). I'm going to go to work half an hour early, and park in my usual spot at the back of the building. I am then going to take my new edible iPod shuffle and my headphones, and walk for half an hour at a good clip, and just... just see what's around here. I'm right next to the Heritage Hills area, which is chock full of wicked steep roads, old houses and beautiful landscaping. I'm right near all of the various riverside parks, including Riverside Park. I'm right near the train yards and the coliseum, and all sorts of fun downtown things I've never seen (at least when I wasn't drunk).

Averaging 1.33 steps per second, that's about 2400 steps, which will... almost double my current number of steps in the average day.

...

That's very depressing.

Enjoy the movie!


Tuesday, September 25, 2007

The Bother With Bloggers


BEAUTY: An aesthetic radiance that delights the soul; a quality much admired in women, landscapes and tropical fish, but curiously out of favor in art throughout the modern era."


Like with everything in life, if I go long enough not doing something, it becomes easier to... not do it. I didn't blog for two days, so it was easier to say on the third day "Well, I haven't blogged in two days, three's OK." Then four... nine... thirteen... what's it up to now? I don't know, I'm too lazy to scroll up. Whatever the duration, I'm breaking it today. Go me.

I'm breaking it today because, well... ok, I'm not totally sure, but there was a few atypical events today, and I figured I'd talk about them here, to try and get back into the blogging.... thing. Everything's a thing, so it's just a matter of finding the things that make good things happen inside.

This morning, I had to drop CarCar off at Rapid Radiator, and then hoof it through the North Shore, accross the Overlander Bridge, and then downtown to my office. According to Google Maps, it's 2.5km, so doing that in 25 minutes isn't that bad for me. I love walking early in the morning, or late in the evening... in the middle of the day, the light is too bright, too harsh, and unflattering to everything except shade trees and deep caves. The sun is not beauty's friend, but the sun at 8:40am, rising between the slopes of a valley, sure is, and it's amazing what, seen for the first time, can be beautiful. (Boy, that was a lot of commas, huh?)

There was an old wood-tie retaining wall just past a closed down auto sales shop by the railroad tracks that was valiantly holding up the soil around a Russian olive tree, and it was beautiful. There was the space underneath the end of the bridge where a water pumphouse was located and being smothered by weeds , and the sunlight was coming from behind me and the cruddy gray large-aggregate concrete tilt-up slabs was dappled and golden, and it was beautiful.

"The moment one give close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself. Through light and joy is the world opened up, revealed for what it is: ineffable beauty, unending creation."


I know it probably seems silly, especially to the people who read this AND know me, but I just felt it was something worth saying.

I'm going to blog tomorrow, hopefully, about yet another reason for me to lose weight... while walking, I saw my profile reflect in the glass of the closed down auto shop, and reminded me that I saw a profile of me in the living room window last night, and it occurred to me that I actually didn't know that's how fat I was. To people who know me, that's probably even stupider, but I think it's a good thing that I know.

Now watch the fucking movie and shut up.



Monday, September 17, 2007

Giddy-Up Go!


Well I don't want to be some puppet on a string
And I don't want to learn of things you can't explain
And I don't want to have your views on everything
I just want to scream


Fuckin-A! Thanks to my friend making me burn her a copy of MST3KTM, I found a CD I had been looking for for two years! See, I had to find her a case for the disc, so I open up the Irish Drinking Mix case, and pull out the Irish Drinking Mix CD... and there, underneath it, is this!


Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket


Now this album has TONS of great songs on it, particularly Shine and Sister Don't Cry, but I was so happy to find it because then I could listen, in high quality, to the song featured at the bottom of this post....

Enjoy!




Saturday, September 15, 2007

The Raptors Of Penzance

So, just on a wierd sort of a whim, I started editing the words to the Gilbert & Sullivan play, The Pirates of Penzance, when someone on the forums said "I am the very model of a Moderator General". It's a forum joke.

Anyways, this came out.

I am the very model of a Moderator General,
I've information intertubal, real and ephemeral,
I know the kings of forum, and I quote the flames historical
From General to Serious in order categorical;
I'm very well acquainted, too, with matters mathematical,
I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical,
About binomial theorem I'm teeming with a lot o' news,
With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse.

I'm very good at integral and differential calculus;
I know the scientific names of forumites fantabulous,
In short, in matters intertubal, real and ephemeral,
I am the very model of a Moderator General.

I know our mythic history, Belial's and Randall Munroe's;
I answer hard acrostics, I've a pretty taste for zombie toes,
I quote in elegiacs all the crimes of hellish Anfurny,
In conics I can floor peculiarities that are furry;
I can tell undoubted Jalapenos from SpitValves and Owijads,
I know the croaking chorus from the frogs of Aristophan-as!
Then I can hum a fugue of which I've heard the music on iPod
And whistle all the airs from that infernal book all about God.

Then I can write a washing bill in COBOL or assemb-a-ly,
And tell you ev'ry detail of the Windows flaws security:
In short, in matters intertubal, real and ephemeral,
I am the very model of a Moderator General.

In fact, when I know what is meant by "Okita" and then "Meaux Pas",
When I can tell at sight a newbie from a seasoned great-grandpa.
When such affairs as meetups and get-togethers I’m wary at,
And when I know precisely what is meant by "commissariat",
When I have learnt what progress has been made in modern gamery,
When I know more of tactics than most World of Warcraft lamery
In short, when I've a smattering of intertubal strategy—
You'll say a better Moderator General has never be.

For my military knowledge, though I'm plucky and adventury,
Has only been brought down to the beginning of the century;
In short, in matters intertubal, real and ephemeral,
I am the very model of a Moderator General.


Some of the references might be a bit obscure if you're not a forumite, but the cadence follows. Even more incredible, I got these replies:

MightyJalapeno, I'm filing a lawsuit against you for an attempt to break my brain with AWESOME.

That is not just awesome. It is not even just awesome AWESOME. It is AWESOME awesome AWESOME.

It is, in fact, an awesomeburger pattie covered in awesomesauce and placed on a fresh sesawesome seed bun.

...Hopefully by this point the word "awesome" has lost all meaning to you after seeing it so many times.
Somebody definitely needs to record that. I wish I could sing so I could do it myself but alas, I can not. But if somebody records the vocals I could add instrumentals and polish.

*brain melts due to pure awesomeness*
You'll be the death of me!

It's official, MJ has won the internet. We bow before your peppery might.

ZOMG. That was awesome. I think if MJ isn't a General, he should at least be Major Kong or something. That guy rode a nuke! And had a cool hat.

I'll have mine with a side of win, and a 60-ounce Un-Frickin'-Believable.


If it's any consolation I thought it could've been a lot better.


The last guy's a jerk, though...



Sunday, September 9, 2007

That's Wiggity Wiggity Whack!

Excuse me, everybody. I have an announcement to make. Jesus was black, Ronald Reagan was the Devil, and the Government is lyin' about 9-11. Thank you for your time, goodnight.

Thank you, White Jesus, for bringing this show back. New episodes of The Boondocks starts next month, and... and I'm just so damn happy. One of the greatest cartoons of the modern age, and despite the subject matter, more than transcends the apparent cultural barriers. People need to watch this cartoon. Most of the episodes deal with serious issues in a very frank manner, but some of them have to rely on amazing animation and tremendous hilarity to get by (I think they manage it.)


And the winner of the "Black Artist Most Likely to Commit a Sexual Offense Involving a Twelve-Year-Old" award is... y'know, it's bad enough we even have to have this award, but this year it's a tie!


Watch the damn cartoon. I had some other stuff to say, but.... but I don't have anything else to say.


Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Farmers Are SO 10,000 Years Ago....

Man is the only real enemy we have. Remove Man from the scene, and the root cause of hunger and overwork is abolished for ever. Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals. He sets them to work, he gives back to them the bare minimum that will prevent them from starving, and the rest he keeps for himself.

This was a creepy article, I have to say. As reported widely in business and mainstream press, the ILO recently released world market employment statistics. Most outlets focused on US economic competitiveness vs. China and Europe. However, there was an important and often-overlooked bit of info in the report: for the first time since the invention of agriculture, farming is not the biggest sector of the global economy — services is. Workers are now moving directly from agriculture to services, bypassing the traditional route of manufacturing, since manufacturing is now directly a robotics process and indirectly a service industry.

"At a time when doom-sayers were hopping around saying everyone was going to starve, Norman was working. He moved to Mexico and lived among the people there until he figured out how to improve the output of the farmers. So that saved a million lives. Then he packed up his family and moved to India, where in spite of a war with Pakistan, he managed to introduce new wheat strains that quadrupled their food output. So that saved another million. You get it? But he wasn't done. He did the same thing with a new rice in China. He's doing the same thing in Afica -- as much of Africa as he's allowed to visit. When he won the Nobel Prize in 1970, they said he had saved a billion people. That's BILLION! BUH! That's Carl Sagan BILLION with a "B"! And most of them were a different race from him. Norman is the greatest human being, and you probably never heard of him."

I've learned a lot from my wife, and from her parents farm. With the current world population, did you know that it works out to 4.2 acres of land surface per person... that's man, woman, AND child? The average family would have 20 acres to themselves. A person can produce all the food they need for a whole year on less than once acre, CONSIDERABLY less if they work it well. Taking into account that roughly 50% of the world isn't arable (mountains, deserts, New Jersey), that still means that if everyone used half of their 2 arable acres for food, everyone would have all the food they could possibly eat, as well a 3 acre lot with excellent views of the family garden. It's simplistic, but it gets the point across.

I think we risk becoming the best informed society
that has ever died of ignorance.

Well, that's my global opinion for the day. We now return you to your regularly scheduled video.



Monday, September 3, 2007

Hell Of A Weekend


Kazakhstan is the greatest country in the world!
All the other countries are run by little girls!
Kazakhstan is the number 1 exporter of potassium!
All other Central Asian countries have inferior potassium!
Kazakhstan is the greatest country in the world!
All other countries is the home of the gays!

I couldn't think of a quote to start this off with.

So, the weekend starts off with me wrangling both kids while the little woman goes to stay with her mom so they can go to the Farmer's Market early the next morning. No problemmo. Throkette, my lovely one-year-old daughter, however, elected to spend most of the night tossing, turning, and kicking me in the face after the 1am feeding (where we usually crash on the futon so she'll stay asleep). Not my best night for sleep.

Saturday, we head to the IPE... the Interior Provincial Exhibition. 20,000 people descend on a carrot-and-cheese town of less than 5,000 people. There's cows and horses and clowns and lumberjacks and baking and giant vegetables and ferris wheels (which my son is ONE INCH TOO SHORT TO GO ON, YARG!) and there's tractors and chuck-wagon races and food booths and lots and lots of people. I was almost dead by the time we headed home.

So Sunday, I head to work while the family heads to the farm. I work with my boss for hours and hours on Plans B, C and D for several projects which are in the process of being FUCKED, and then I head out to the farm. I'm not there for an hour when my father-in-law walks into the living room with a loaded shotgun and says to me "Hey, I got an idea, wanna come outside for a minute?" Now, he's had lot and lots of chances to kill me over the years, and during those first few years I wouldn't have blamed him for it, so I trusted him this time. He used me to flush out some starlings in the cornfield so he could shoot them (one round of birdshot, four dead starlings, THATS cool...) When I come back inside, my wife and mother-in-law are both laughing, and saying "I can't BELIEVE you went outside with him like that. 'I've got a gun, wanna come outside?'"

Then home, laundry and dishes, bed, midnight feeding, face-kicking, shower, and I'm back at work. A long weekend, and I work two of the three days. Yippie-ki-yay, motherfu*blam*! Had a great thing happen this morning... some sort of prefrontal burst of Soundgarden-induced creativity, but I finally wrote, in my brain, the end of Book 2 and nearly all of Book 3 of one of my stories, New World Samurai. Been trying to end Book 2 properly, and been trying to muddle through Book 3, and it all happened this morning.

YAY BRAIN!

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Perfect Moments

Happiness is a warm puppy. ~ Charles M. Schulz

Happiness is a warm gun. ~ The Beatles

Perfect moments are rare, but they happen more often than one might think. I don't mean a perfect day , or a perfect hour, or scarcely even a perfect minute... but a perfect moment. (Yes, I know I haven't blogged in a week, shut up.)

But perfect moments can happen often enough, if you're of a mind to notice them. Last night's perfect moment came in the kitchen. I was trying to cook dinner, managing to get everything on pretty much at once. I was getting some 'help' from my son to set the kitchen table, and trying to mitigate the 'help' from my daughter as she tried to un-set the table. I was enjoying the cold, burning sweaty chills of my delightful cold, which has now progressed to my throat, left nostril and frontal lobes. I was wondering why I was feeling so Monday on the Tuesday, since usually Tuesdays are reserved for feeling better than Monday.

As far as I'm concerned, if something is so complicated that you can't explain it in 10 seconds, then it's probably not worth knowing anyway. ~ Calvin

Yeah, yeah, I'm getting on with it. Anyways, in the midst of all this muddled sickness and annoyance and stress and whatever, a cool breeze came in through the open kitchen window. The lacy drape, which really doesn't shield air or light, was blown partly aside. It was humid outside, almost rain, but not quite. The kitchen was dark, the yard was lit, and the moist gust of wind felt really good on my oven-and-germ-baked skin. I leaned forwards, put my hands on the cabinets, and levered my body over the sink, and just... looked out the window.

And that moment... the breeze, the hot, the cool, the trees, the yard... it sort of made the whole day. It was a moment I could have stayed in forever.

I'M SIGNIFICANT!

...screamed the dust speck.

It probably seems juvenile and silly, but I like my moments. I get a few of them a week, I enjoy them for the span of a breadth, and then it's done, and the pot boils over, or some child hits another child, or the light turns green, or I fall asleep, or I wake up. It's not even about a breeze, or a window... it can be anywhere, it can be anything, and it can strike and fade like a bolt of lightning.

I should keep track of them.

Maybe it means something.



Friday, August 17, 2007

Procrastination Is.... Eventual


"Waiting is a trap. There will always be reasons to wait - The truth is, there are only two things in life, reasons and results, and reasons simply don't count."


I'm fat.


"Procrastination is my sin. It brings me naught but sorrow. I know that I should stop it. In fact, I will--tomorrow!"


Hehe, yeah, I figured for the whole first paragraph, that one up there would sum it up pretty good. For THIS paragraph, I'm going to mooch a previous blog post. In truth, though... I've been diagnosed with a fatal disease. It has been kinda depressing me for the past few days. I mean, I always suspected I had it, but I've never been able to get a doctor to confirm my suspicions, mostly since doctors hate it when you think you know more than they do, which, in most cases, I am finding out is true. Ingravesconimis Morbus is a serious and dangerous disease, but fortunately, it is easily cured. Ingravesconimis Morbus is more commonly known as You're Too Fat Disease.

You're Too Fat Disease can strike anyone, even perfectly skinny people such as myself. My normally chiseled good looks have been obscured by puffy, fleshy growths. My ripped abdominal muscles are nearly completely encased in layers of adipose tissue, and their removal is a very costly medical procedure. The manual method of removal is a very long, often multi-year process, and it is very difficult for people who have been stricken with this disease for long periods of time. I myself have been living with for over nine years. I urge you, good people, who are reading this. Get yourself tested for Ingravesconimis Morbus, known on the street as Fat Bastarditis. You may be suffering from this horrible affliction, and not even know it, as it has been known to affect the brain and the vision, actually preventing itself from being discovered.

"To be always intending to live a new life, but never to find time to set about it; this is as if a man should put off eating and drinking and sleeping from one day and night to another, till he is starved and destroyed."

Did you see the humor there? Huh? Didja? If not, go back and check again. I'll wait.

You saw it? Good. Moving on. Weight bench, check. Bars and free weights, check. Resistance bands, check. Punching bag, check. Exercise bike, check. TV, VCR, and stereo within easy reach of all those things, check. Lots of room, check. Motivation to actually use ANY of them (other than the TV?)... not check. I've used several perfectly reasonable and excellent excuses and justifications to get out of exercising, most recently: Throkette won't sleep through the night, and I can't get up early enough to work out [b]/[/b] when she does sleep through the night, I want to sleep in sooo badly to catch up on sleep [b]/[/b] when I'm up early and she's sleeping through the night, I can't go downstairs because I won't hear her when she wakes up. At night, I'll vow to get up and work out, and in the morning, nothing, absolutely NOTHING, is more important than just getting a little more sleep.

"Telling someone who procrastinates to buy a weekly planner is like telling someone with chronic suicidal depression to just cheer up."

The major drawback is that at 6am (or whatever), I'm not in the best mindset to make important decisions. The rest of the day, I wish I had gotten up early and done something with my life, but when the alarm goes off and my eyes blearily open like discount garage door openers, I don't care about the decisions made the previous day by my predecessor (the 'waking' Marble). Thusly, the waking Marble (me, now) needs to start making some stronger decisions, ones that carry some weight early in the morning. I need an alarm in Throkkette's room so that I can wake up if I had to crash in there due to a midnight feeding. I need a baby monitor so I can hear her from the basement. I need to find some time to work out at night, between putting the kids in bed and actually relaxing and checking my e-mail.

Hey.... it's worth a shot.




Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Anger vs Hate vs Violence


Anyone can become angry — that is easy, but to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way — that is not easy.

Yesterday's post left a few questions unanswered, but it didn't occur to me until I'd gone to bed and had time to think about it. Fighting can be positive, violence can be excellent, and anger is one of the primary driving forces behind humanity. Anger is responsible for nearly every positive (and negative) social change in history. What sloth hath wrought in slavery, anger doth take away. What disease hath wrought on the family of men, anger hath cured. Love and hate are the emotions, anger is the means to resolution.

When you are angry or frustrated, what comes out? Whatever it is, it's a good indication of what you're made of.

Now, there's a good chance I'm off my cracker with this, but if I am, I'm not off it very far. Anger's closest relative is passion, and passion is the link to love and hate. You can hate something, but to hate with passion leads to anger. You can love something, but to love passionately leads to anger, but it is the sort of anger that is directed at the world, the sort of anger that desires to fight off anything that could hurt that love, deprive that passion. With hate, however... the anger seeks to FUEL the hate, INCREASE the passion, until fervor overrides thought, and actions are merely responses to an emotional impetus that one does not understand anymore.

Oh, you hate your job? Why didn't you say so? There's a support group for that. It's called EVERYBODY, and they meet at the bar.

Because anger is linked so strongly to passion and love, anger's good neighbor is our friend, Mr Humor. Hatred fears humor, precisely because humor robs hatred of it's passion, leaving it baseless. Humor can harm hatred, but hatred can only be defeated by understanding, and understanding stems from a DESIRE to learn.

The Native American grandfather tells his grandson that there are two wolves inside of him, fighting for control. One wolf, is the wolf of love, peace, and kindness. The other wolf is a wolf of greed, hatred, and corruption. The grandson asks "Which wolf will win?" The grandfather replies "Whichever wolf I feed."

People think that anger is something that needs to be suppressed, needs to be controlled, but any psychologist (and indeed any well-adjusted adult) with the slightest sense of reality will tell you that suppression is not good... suppression is fear. If you fear your anger, you hide it away, bury it down, and hope it will suffocate and die. No matter how deep you bury something, though, it's still somewhere inside you, and it can draw nourishment from anything. Anger should not be buried, not be killed, but be cultivated, be allowed to grow, but now grow wild and out of control. Any gardener will tell you that many plants can suffocate and choke out all the plants around it.

A guy says, "I hate Jews," and I said, "Why?" He goes, "Because they killed my God." They believe that. If I believed that the Jews killed my God, I'd worship the Jews, 'cause shit, there's some badasses on that team, man. I haven't seen God ever, I see Jews all the time – go figure!




Monday, August 13, 2007

Monday Morning Melancholia


Don't get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, and let it grow, be like water. Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless — like water. Now you put water in a cup, it becomes the cup; You put water into a bottle it becomes the bottle; You put it into a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend. A fight is not won by one punch or kick. Either learn to endure or hire a bodyguard. Forget about winning and losing; forget about pride and pain. Let your opponent graze your skin and you smash into his flesh; let him smash into your flesh and you fracture his bones; let him fracture your bones and you take his life. Do not be concerned with escaping safely — lay your life before him.

It has to be some sort of cosmic Monday rule that I have to be all wishy-washy and irritated. Maybe it's a lunar thing, maybe it's from sleeping on the futon, maybe I had too many drinks on the weekend (four!), but I was all fighty and punchy this morning. It's been a long time since I've really thought about why I like to fight, why I like violence so much, and since I can't find my Hippo-Jutsu notes, I'll just have to sort of improvise this.

I like fighting. I like to hit things. I got a few minutes to whale on my punching bag yesterday (after hearing about a certain nephew who bit my one-year-old daughter) and despite the twinge in my wrist that hasn't gone away, I felt really, really good for about twenty minutes after that. Now, if you Wikiquote "Violence" or "Fighting", all you get are "Fighting is bad! Violence is hate!" quotes, which, on a general, societal level, I agree with. Now there's also the great Heinlein quote of "Naked force has resolved more issues than anything else in history, and thinking anything else is wishful thinking of the worst sort". This is also true... violence sucks, but it works, for a number of reasons.

Now, I don't want to fight another country for any issue of mine or theirs, and I don't want to fight anyone on the street for any issue of mine or theirs... but I want to fight someone else who wants to fight me, for the sake of fighting, so that we can fight, and still be friends, and nothing more. Maybe it's hard-wired into humans, maybe it's something wrong with my brain, but I like to fight, I like to hit things, and I feel no animosity for anyone, because of or in spite of this.

People need to differentiate fighting, differentiate VIOLENCE, with hostility. They are separate things. Fighting is destruction and creation at it's most base level, whereas hostility is a developed, evolved concept that is solely about destruction.



Friday, August 10, 2007

Langstrom's Viral Joy


You don't think there's anything amiss? I'm sitting here wearing a red and white checked gingham dress... and army boots... and you think that's un-amiss? I was just doing a little test... a little test to see if you'd gone crazy... If there's one thing I can't stand, it's crazy people. So... let me get this straight. You want to fly on a magic carpet, to see the king of the potato people and plead with him for your freedom, and you're telling me you're completely sane?



I think I've made a huge psychological breakthrough... this is the sort of thing that should be in all the papers. Psychiatrists all over the world need to know this, and I feel that it could save millions of people... but you can read about it here first. You ready?

...

Talking about problems helps.


Today has been one of the best days in all of recent memory. It was a good day at work, I got to go for lunch with my buddy at the KICKASS Mexican place downtown, I had more of a good day at work, I picked up my family and went to the farm, and I picked corn with my son, actually hung out with my father in law (who called me "buddy" three times, bringing the sum total through all time to... three), cooked dinner on the barbecue, watched football with my son and father-in-law, had a tasty dessert, drove the kids home (where they fell asleep instantly), and then got to chill in front of the TV for a little bit. Nothing individually amazing, but I've just felt... really great.

Ever since my post this morning. (See below). I still feel dissatisfied with the world, full of rage and anxiety, but now they're stuck between Smirnoff and corn and donuts, and that's all right with me.




You Have To Fight


If you are reading this then this warning is for you. Every word you read of this useless fine print is another second off your life. Don't you have other things to do? Is your life so empty that you honestly can't think of a better way to spend these moments? Or are you so impressed with authority that you give respect and credence to all who claim it? Do you read everything you're supposed to read? Do you think everything you're supposed to think? Buy what you're told you should want? Get out of your apartment. Meet a member of the opposite sex. Stop the excessive shopping and masturbation. Quit your job. Start a fight. Prove you're alive. If you don't claim your humanity you will become a statistic. You have been warned .......



Now, except for the "quit your job" part there, my Fight Club kick is messing with my head again. Like many dissatisfied and disenfranchised men (and I suppose a few hormonal and confused women), Fight Club strikes a chord with us, but like all truly disenfranchised men, we can't do anything about it. It's sort of like being trapped at the bottom of a well, and if you don't get out of the well, you'll die. Now, there's a ladder which leads out of the well, but it has a little sign on it saying "Do Not Climb The Ladder", which may be the last thing that we see when our eyes close for the final time.

Now, I know my wife is reading this and thinking bad thoughts at me (yes, I can hear them, no, put the knife down), but no dear, this isn't about you or the kids or anything like that. Well, it is, but in the same way that me cracking a can of Coke is causing global warming. EVERYTHING contributes, but you and the kids are the things that keep me sane in a crazy world (and, ironically, make me crazy the rest of the time. Throkette, get off the kitchen table.) I work these many jobs and sleep these crazy hours to keep you all safe and give you the life you want.

But the fact that I have to almost kill myself to do that is one of my central issues with the world. The fact that ANYONE has to do that proves that the world is not right. I have tried, and tried, and tried to understand economics and the forces that control the ebb and flow of money, and no matter how many times it's explained to me, it's all just a solid wave of white noise and fiction.

This is probably just the lack of sleep and highway-driving seizure talking, combined with a YouTube inspired re-watching of Fight Club (see below!), but I know that, for the past week, I've been trying to find a way to take some time off work. Like... six months, preferably somewhere near a year. I have a new baby on the way soon, I have a ton of house renovations to do, and I know that the time is slipping away for me to ever write anything important to me. I have two kids, soon to be three, that I almost never get to see, and all I remember from my childhood is that on those rare occasions I ever saw my dad, he made me wish he wasn't there, and I know that I'm ending up the same way. I want to be there for them, be there for my wife. I can barely make it through the days now with enough spare time to play a little Stars! or Diablo, something just to give my day some solitude and amusement, and even that's not enough to get everything done that I need to do just to maintain my life the way it is, let alone improve it.

I'm picking up thoughtwaves... can't make it out, but "whiny bitch" seems pretty prevalent...

Anyways, it's back to work, where I watch incompetent but better-educated men get paid more for doing less work.



Thursday, August 9, 2007

I Need To Stop Looking Like Me


I met him fifteen years ago. I was told there was nothing left. No reason, no, uh, conscience, no understanding and even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, of good or evil, right or wrong. I met this six year old child with this blank, pale, emotionless face, and the blackest eyes, the devil's eyes. I spent eight years trying to reach him and then another seven trying to keep him locked up because I realized that what was living behind that boy's eyes was purely and simply evil...He's been here once tonight. I think he'll come back. I'm gonna wait for him.


More specifically, I need ideas for a Hallowe'en costume. Some friends of mine are going as Transformers, and my son is mad at me for not having a costume for the past two years. So far the suggestions are:

Captain Planet


and

Jason Voorhees


I rather think the second one is more likely...

Tuesday, August 7, 2007

The Unreality Of Reality

Reality is a term for people who refuse to see things as they can be,
so that they might be, instead seeing things as they are,
and lazily assuming that's how they'll always be.

~ Walter White

The persistent illusion of the Universe is finally starting to push me over the edge. Hmm, those words don't quite adequately capture the force of feeling I experience... ah, I know how to fix that.

The persistent illusion of the Universe is finally starting to push me over the god-damned Christ-punching edge. There we go, much better. The above quote sums it all up, really, but I feel I should go into some stuff, just so that the people who think they know me whill have something to do on their coffee breaks (or, if they forgot to make coffee, they can read it while waiting for Mothering to load.)

On my fora, there are several discussions about the American political 'system', and organized religion. Against all reason and logic, these threads have gone for hundreds of posts without degenerating, which makes me as happy as a little girl. I feel so... so at home on that board, and kin to many of the people there, what with all their little nooks and crannies (I'm not not licking toads). However, I am reminded of a little essay I wrote years ago, eloquently titled "Why It Sucks To Be A Writer."

We look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression — everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of everyone to worship God in his own way — everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want - everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear - anywhere in the world.

* Franklin D. Roosevelt, America's Last President

The jist of the little essay, which was written while I was stoned and recovering from a seizure, is that literature exists to show people other worlds, worlds of future potential and wasted past chances, entire galaxies of what might have been and what could be. People lose themselves in the literature, in the stories, and if we've done our job right, they've thought thoughts they would not have otherwise come across, and their lives have been bettered. This is the goal of the writer. The world of the writer, though, is to see the whole of reality, and then pretend that somewhere better, or even somewhere worse, exists. The reader's life is improved, whereas the writer is, by their very existence, continually reminded of the shortcomings and insurmountable problems and infinite futility of the world of reality.

And there is a creeping fear of doubt, doubt of what we have been taught, of the validity of so many things we had long since taken for granted to be durable and unchanging. It has become more difficult than ever to distinguish black from white, good from evil, right from wrong.

* Edward R. Murrow

But that quote doesn't go all the way, does it? There's one further step, the step that we in the Western world took twenty years ago. The validity of so many things that we have long since taken for granted to be durable and unchanging is a false validity. We have long since taken for granted the true ineffectiveness of government, the indifference of humanity, the casual hatred of those around you for those not around you. The fear I feel is that the decline of the world will not be stopped, since the decline has been happening for so long no-one even notices anymore. Imagine a bacterium on the Titanic. Bacterium A, for the whole of his existence, has known that his world was half underwater. Bacterium B, for the whole of his existence, has known that his world was two-third underwater, despite what his progenitor may have said. Bacterium C, for the whole of his existence, has known that his world was nine-tenths underwater, whereas his child, Bacterium D, is born into a world that he can watch vanish with his own eyes, because no-one before him had the slightest clue that it was changing. Clearly I am referring to human attention-spans, not life-spans, but the results are the same. I can only hope that the ship sinks slow enough that my grandchildren can grow up enough to hate me for what I didn't do.


Friday, August 3, 2007

God Is Dei-licious!

This is a fictional conversation between Thematic, a guy on my forum, and Belial, another guy on my forum, and writer of the conversation. Behold!


Thematic: There is an alligator in that room to the north.
Belial: Is there?
T: Yes.
B: How do you know?
T: I just know.
B: Have you been in that room?
T: No.
B: Have you spoken to someone previously about the room?
T: No.
B: Have you read something about the room?
T: Yup, I found a really old scrap of paper saying "Alligator in there".
B: Huh.
T: Yup.
B: Is there some way of seeing into the room that I'm unaware of?
T: No.
B: Can you hear the alligator?
T: No. Do alligators even make noise?
B: They bark sometimes. Or hiss, if they're angry.
T: Huh.
B: Yeah.
T: Learn something new every day.....
B: So you didn't hear any of....
T: Nope.
B: Do they maybe have a specific sme-
T: Listen, Belial, Shut the fuck up. We could do this all day. I don't have any way of gathering information from that room, either. I just know.
B: Uhh...huh. Okay.
T: You don't believe me.
B: Nope.
T: You think I'm lying
B: That's the long and the short of it, yes.
T: Well, that's not fair.
B: You just admitted you have no way of knowing there's an alligator, and then you're telling me there's an alligator. You're lying.
T: You can't prove that. You have no way of knowing there *isn't* an alligator in the room.
B: Even if there *is* an alligator in that room, and I severely doubt it, you'd still be lying.
T: Wait...so even if I'm telling the truth, I'm lying?
B: Pretty much. Because you have no way of knowing you're telling the truth. Even if there's an alligator, you just got lucky. You told me something with full knowledge that it may very well be, nay, that it was probably a lie, and you just happened to be wrong.
T: But I *do* believe there's an alligator in that room.
B: If that's true, it's an interesting experiment in self-delusion, but it doesn't change the fact that you have no way of knowing you're telling the truth. You don't even have a good reason to *think* you're telling the truth. So even if that door opens *right now*, and there's a goddamn alligator sitting there, you were still lying.
T: Hmpf.
B: Whatever.



I love these guys.


Wednesday, August 1, 2007

ZOMG! Stress != Good?!


That's what some researchers in the UK think!

Almost all men are over-anxious. No sooner do they enter the world than they lose that taste for natural and simple pleasures so remarkable in early life. Every hour do they ask themselves what progress they have made in the pursuit of wealth or honor; and on they go as their fathers went before them, till, weary and sick at heart, they look back with a sigh of regret to the golden time of their childhood.


The super-Einsteins behind the study determined, all on their own, that 45% of new cases of depression and anxiety were attributable to stressful work. They defined a highly demanding job as involving a lack of control, long hours, non-negotiable deadlines, and a high volume of work... which is to say every white collar job out there, pretty much.

Now, I had a conversation about this last night, with a friend of mine (over several vodka-based drinks). He owns his own business now, he sets his own hours, and he makes all the profit. Now, I consider his job just fantastically easy compared to mine... I design the buildings, and he cleans them. We discussed stress of jobs, and pay's effect on stress. Years ago, I worked a CAD job, but it was so MIND-NUMBINGLY DULL that I decided to quit. I then got a really busy, high-stress job, and I loved it for two and a half years, but now it's really, really grinding me down, despite my much improved pay. Had I been given THIS pay amount, with the BORING job, I wouldn't have quit, whereas I would need a LOT more money now to ease the stress and keep me doing this.

Stress and depression is not so much a byproduct of work, so much as stress is a by-product of improperly-rewarded work. But that's just my opinion, and I'll bet there's about 9,000 CEOs who disagree with me (and 9,000,000 workers who agree whole-heartedly).

Ok, back to work...





Thursday, July 26, 2007

Hell Of A Day...


No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun — for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax — This won't hurt.



Hell of a day today, doctor... hell of a day. Starts off in the usual manner... trying to get my son ready and out the door, with his constant heel-dragging and teeth-gnashing, and I almost expected him to actually dig his nails into the door jamb and make me pull him out while he tried to watch some random minutes of George Shrinks. I got him to gymnastics on time, no problem.

Long-assed day at work. Very long. Very busy. I'm necessary.





Then I brought the family home, and since my son had has his television privileges taken away today for his (lately, typical) behavior (he got into a fistfight because some kid was screwing with him and giving him wedgies), he sat on the recliner and pouted for two solid hours, ate his dinner, had a nice bath, and went to bed with no fuss at all. Half an hour later, he comes out and says he isn't tired. Well, ok, I go to put him back into bed...

... and he bursts into tears, crying that he doesn't want to have any more birthdays, because if he does, he's going to die.

...

This isn't the first time he's done this...

Son: When my fish die, I can get new fish?
Me: Probably, yeah.
Son: When my dad dies, me and mom will get a new one.
Me: Uhm... your dad?
Son: Yeah, when you die, we'll get a new one.
Me: Oh.


Or...

Son: When did she get sick?
Me: Well, a while ago. She was very old.
Son: Old people are sick?
Me: Some of them.
Son: When did she stop being sick?
Me: Uhm... when she died, I guess.
Son: When will we see her again?
Me: Uhm... we won't.
Son: When is she coming back?
Me: Uhm... she's not.
Son: Oh. That's not nice.
Me: I know.
Son: I can get new fish, from the Pet Store.
Me: Yes. Yes you can.


Or my favorite...

Son: We'll go straight home?
Me: That's right.
Son: We'll go in a straight line?
Me: Almost.
Son: We won't turn left or right?
Me: No, we'll have to turn.
Son: Why?
Me: Well, because we'd crash.
Son: Then we'd have to go to the hospital!
Me: That's right.
Son: Then we'd have to go to the church!
Me: Well.... yeah, I suppose that's true.
Son: No, we wouldn't go to the church.
Me: We wouldn't?
Son: No, other people would go to the church, people who wanted to see us one more time.
Me: ..... Yeah. Yeah, they would.


These are excerpts from my previous blog over the past year, where my son explores the wonder that is death. Tonight, though, was a sobbing breakdown in bed, crying that he'd have to learn how to get along without us when we died, that he'd have to get a new family and a new dad and a new mom and a new baby sister when we died, and if he kept having birthdays, then he'd die and he didn't want to die. I tried to reassure him as best I could, explaining that there was nothing on the planet that was going to hurt him as long as I was alive, because there's nothing on this planet that's scarier than me when it comes to my son.

Eventually he got calmed down, and chuckled when he told me a knock-knock joke. Now, two hours later, he's just finally fallen asleep.

...

Try as I might, and my son is turning out just like me.

I couldn't find anything funny tonight.


Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Think Of The Fucking Children!


"The Internet treats censorship as a defect and routes around it." ~ John Gilmore


US Senators call for universal Internet filtering. Outstanding. You know, it always bugs me when the people the least mentally equipped to deal with the ramifications of modern social technology are in charge of controlling said social technology. From the article: "Commerce Committee Chairman Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii) and Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee Vice Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) both argued that Internet was a dangerous place where parents alone will not be able to protect their children." This is the same Ted Stevens who has been forever immortalized in the following movie:


"Don't join the book burners. Don't think you are going to conceal thoughts by concealing evidence that they ever existed." ~ Former Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower


It's utterly sick and ridiculous to think that they can actually censor and regulate "the Internet"... the Internet is no longer an object. It is no longer a single entity. It is no longer something that can be accurately described in terms of physical nouns, any more than love or literature can be described. The Internet is, and it simply will not be censored.

"Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure way against bad ideas is better ideas. The source of better ideas is freedom." ~ Alfred Whitney Griswold





I hope this has been fucking enlightening.

Monday, July 23, 2007

I Have No Strong Opinions!

I can't live the button-down life like you. I want it all: the terrifying lows, the dizzying highs, the creamy middles. Sure, I might offend a few of the bluenoses with my cocky stride and musky odors - oh, I'll never be the darling of the so-called city fathers, who cluck their tongues, stroke their beards, and talk about what's to be done with this Homer Simpson?!


Man, I post fourteen times this month, and what do I get? Three comments. Dammit, you people are all up in my grill about me not blogging, and when I do, what happens? NOTHING! Yarg! You're just lucky I feel so high and mighty about myself that I've deluded parts of my brain into thinking that, someday, this will be important text, possibly the basis for a religious work. My God BLOGS!

It's late, and I'm trying to think of baby names. ME! BABY NAMES! Everything I think of gets shot down by my internal censor, and if it somehow makes it past that, it gets shot down by Throkky's censor. That's too much censoring! The beeping is driving me insane!

On the advice of my lawyer (Throkky), I will now blog about her being pregnant. SAVE ME, JEEBUS!!

WATCH THE MOVIE! It's Rumsfield, their best work since Whale Tears.



Friday, July 20, 2007

God-dammit, I Just Swore!


What's the big fucking deal bitch? It doesn't hurt anybody..... fuck fuckety fuck fuck fuck!


You know, I spend a lot of time on my blog ranting about the news, so I'm going to start this one off with something that is, unfortunately, real, and then I'll try and unwind everyone with hilarity, and if you don't fucking laugh, don't come crying to me.

US Senate Commerce Committee today passed a bill that would allow the FCC to fine broadcasters for slip of the tongue expletives, negating a ruling by federal appeals court in New York that commission's policy on 'fleeting expletives' is arbitrary and capricious. 'A mandate by Congress that a "fleeting expletive" can now be found indecent will create a vast chilling effect on broadcast speech, the advocacy group Center for Democracy and Technology claims. CDT points out that prior to this bill and the FCC's policy change, the FCC exercised discretion in determining which utterances were indecent, and consistently found that one-time uses of curse words were not indecent.'

Now, the accidental curse on the radio can be fined by up to $10,000. The accidental, 'incidental' obscenity has always, when found to be truly accidental, been allowed to slide. Now, not so much. At the reason? You guessed it... "think of the children".

Some comments from Slash echoed my beliefs: See, it's not the inappropriate words that are the problem, it's the inappropriate behaviour. There's no difference between your seven year old telling to the teacher to 'fuck off' and the seven year old telling the teacher rudely to 'go away'. Until people see that it's rude and inappropriate behaviour that is the problem, not words, we'll always be stuck in the 1950s. This is entirely a matter of parenting. Period, the end, thank you! Most parents swear inappropriately and so their children learn to do so as well. And most parents use fear, not respect, to keep children in line. They use an appeal to authority, not one to respect, to guide their behavior. On the other hand, kids might think it is okay to swear, and think of the chaos if the curse word is accompanied by a nipple. Surely we can't have this as it will lead to all kinds of promiscuity, etc. Apocalyptic. Catastrophe! Better the kids see people getting their legs etc blown off. It's good clean wholesome fun that will prepare them for living in the modern world.

F***ing Americans, I... aww, DAMMIT! Who bleeped me?!

BEAN CUP!



Allrighty, that was one distraction... here comes another..

BABIES!!!