Intellectual Poison

Another week begins, another weekend lost to the record books. But a good weekend and a super short, juicy week ahead mean that there really won't be too much hassle in the short term. Just a few projects that need to get run and then its anarchy in the streets for the weekend.

Another blog I came across that's not only got a killer name but is also pretty interesting to go poking through. I suppose I should put up a short blurb about all the sites I add to this one. Maybe later.
Why I Hate Life.

This was a good weekend for a couple of good reasons. The biggest is that I did another dump run and got rid of a whole truckload of crap that had been slowly disintegrating at the house for years. The best removal, by far, was the old couch that Paul and I absconded with one night many years ago in a fit of drunken mischief.

Speaking of which, there was definitely some of that going on this weekend. Louts on binges setting off large mortar shells in the street and leaving us to deal with the most irritated neighbors. But then, that's Santa Cruz during the week of the 4th. People party all week long and explode munitions as easily as lighting a cigarette. It was kind of funny but at the same time I was somewhat pissed that these idiots couldn't go to the end of the block. But then again, it was like 4 in the morning so why travel very far at all? I tried to apologize to the neighbors by telling them it was a World Cup thing even though none of the drunkards particularly gave a damn about the game.

In other news, Erin and I spent alot of time together Saturday night, Sunday early morning and then Sunday day. She's a very curious creature. And I wish I weren't so attracted to her because I can already see that if I get back into something with her, it will end badly again. And I'm just not in the mood to be trampled on again just yet. We'll see how this other thing that's not a thing goes. Should get together with her this week at some point, I hope. But you never know with the long weekend coming up, she may already be gone after tomorrow because I know she had a killer finale to last week because it was the end of the fiscal year for a lot of companies. But I'm getting a wee bit ahead of myself.

Today's commercial plug is for CostCo. Where I spent alot of time and alot of money on Saturday. Buying house stuff always makes me feel just soooo responsible and adult like that I had to splurge and buy some fun crap just for me. But I replaced one of my stupid desk lights that's been driving me crazy for about six months. Got a juicy cool stainless touch lamp with a dimmer dealie built in. And lots more goodies like a self coiling hose for my deck, a cool tree for my office (needs to be repotted badly but it'll work for now and looks good over there). The funniest purchase was a whim, I got a five pound sack of peanuts for the house. I hadn't even thought about it (who would?) but the drunk fools had a blast with them, opening them with their heads on the walls, smashing them into, onto and all over each other. After hours of mayhem there was still a half a sack left. And I didn't even touch that fabulous bottle of Bacardi, the first puzzle peice to rebuilding my alcoholic empire.

I do need to assess my money again though and see if I can afford to go sky diving this next weekend. I need to do while I can and time's a wasting. And then Johnny's taking me out long boarding too! Yeeha! Watchword for the next couple of months is Exercise! And that means busting it out all over the place. Maybe some softball this week again too! That'd be a good time again. I've got to talk to Patrick about a moto tomorrow morning.

Seems like there's never enough time to get even half of things done.

Presidential Colon Cleansing: Need to NO Basis

Okay, I understand that the world has changed alot and these days everything is up for scrutiny but PUHHHHLEASE! Bush to Be Sedated for Colon Test Saturday, I mean, is this news? Is this something anyone but Georgie Porgy needs to know about? Or is it more of a warning in the Al Haig vein. The Bush-is-out-cold-so-Cheney's-in-charge? I can see it from that angle but truly, who cares that Bush is getting knocked out to get a rubbered glove up his backside?

We truly are a most freakish nation.

In other news, President Bush describes the big ole' dooper he had the other day, downplaying his upcoming bout with the procotologist. "Sure was a big 'un," he was heard chortling after the press conference to announce the defecatory triumphs of our Commander-in-Chief.

SpiderMensch

Okay, so I went and finally saw Spiderman last night with a couple of pals. All in all I've got to say that it was pretty damned well done. Occasional time compression issues (wait they were in high school last scene and now she's waitressing in New York? What?) and some scenes where far too much is left up the viewer to intrepret. Like the whole scene where MJ kisses Peter Parker in the cemetery and he says he can't. I had to think for a little while as to why he would hose the woman he's been in love with forever. Of course it was because he didn't want to risk losing her to some freak with a grudge. But it wasn't so plain in the theatre and I heard several other people in the audience comment on it on the way out.
But yes, pretty entertaining and Tobey was an excellent choice. He also takes a pretty good beating and comes back for more. Though I think they wanted to get Freddie Prinz to play Harry Osbourne because they sulky guy they did get looks like a bad xerox copy without the talent (and yes, it does hurt to publicly recognize that Freddie Prinz is a good actor).

Afterwards we went to the Palomar for beers. KMBY was there doing some promotion and I ended up winning a three pack of CD's so that was cool. Now I've got a copy of Kelly Osbourne signing Madonna's Papa Don't Preach all to myself! It is, by the way, horrible and she shouldn't be allowed to perform anymore until they surgically remove both the enormous chip on her shoulder and the pole that was shoved up her ass five years ago.

Lighter notes and less probing of nether regions.
From Watching MS Like a Hawk some good MS bashing humor (of course, he borrowed it from Valley of the Geeks)

I'm down to earth according to Kelly Moran. See what kind of soul you have.




I'm completely down-to-earth!

Find your soul type at kelly.moranweb.com.

And there's more.
You are the most in touch with knowledge. It's the tree of life from which you tap the sap. You know what you want and you know how to reasonably get it.

Virtues: You respect people with plans. When someone has their head on their shoulders, you know that they can see straightforward and keep their eyes on the mark. When it comes to looking at the future, you take a logical approach: what's within your ability? A fortunate attribute that you have is the ability to set a goal for yourself, higher than maybe you feel possible, but still keep yourself within reasonable bounds. You take the time to appreciate those surrounding you and they do appreciate you in return. Decision-making comes naturally to you when you take the time to consider each option. People only come to talk to you when they are looking for a logical, reasonable solution.

Aspirations: You have an idea of what you can do with your life, but you push it up a notch. You need a profession that you can enjoy, so work towards it. You want to live near your friends and family while being as far away as possible. You also want to settle down while working in excitement and variation.

Quirks: You don't appreciate drama queens and they don't appreciate you. When they need help, they won't seek you out because of your ability to see through their overly dramatic predicaments. You have leeway for humor, and sometimes love to participate in it, but when it becomes irrational behavior, others can count you out. Loud noises are bothersome, except when they come from you or your friends.

Factors: Reach for the sky! Don't decide to do something because you're merely good at it, but choose something you might like to do, despite whether you're sure you can master it or not. Don't only save room for a few empathetic friends, but open up to everyone.

Future: When looking for a job, if you work in all of your talents (logic, decision-making, planning, and definitely humor), you'll find yourself happy. Come to a compromise for location; live nearby your friends and take periodic vacations or live farther away and take frequent return trips.

Breakup Expectations

Perhaps thats why those relationships that sucked while you were in them, sucked after the break up and all your friends refer to her as the Harpy or somesuch like that, perhaps that's why they stay with you for so long when they don't dissolve as they should, in a hail of cheap Walmart ware dishes and shouting matches across streets and clothes being heaved out second story windows. But if the break up is wrong, somehow not the breakup that we expect/need/desire then there is less of a sense of closure. So some part of your heart will stay propped open by that event and person. Its like one of those pneumatic doors that swings closed quickly almost all the way and then that last five or ten inches takes about three minutes to finally settle back to shut, secure against the external world.

Junior Sized Gratification

Got a chance to go and play some softball yesterday afternoon for the first time in at least six or seven years and was struck by how good it feels to drill and I mean really put the screws to a softball. Hit it so hard that the next time you hear those magical words from the outfielders, "Back Up." Those two, tiny chest swelling words that mean power and ability to apply to a round ball in pretty decent kinetic fashion.
Anyway, I learned that I am more of a DH kind of softballer because quite honestly, I suck at fielding. Maybe its because I haven't done it in such a long time but calling me porous at third is being generous. The hitting's a blast, literally. We had a team of six, shared a pitcher and catcher, which meant that in three innings of hits softball we would all come up a whole bunch.
After surging to a 9-4 lead in the second, the other team had a major power outing and racked up a 17-9 lead. With two outs in the third, we started to hit, Singles and triples and home runs until we'd matched them at a football-esque 17-17.
All in all a great fun way to wait out the sunset.

Fun ways to make your self esteem jump. Check and see if you were a Gifted Kid. And yep, I was and still am because I'm Peter-Friggin-Pan and I won't grow up (just out, no wait, that's not supposed to happen, damn desk jockey jobs!)

Or you can check out where you rank in your political beliefs by going here. Political Compass Which was kind of cool, I ended up being rated as slightly less of a liberal leftist than Gandhi so I'm actually pretty happy with my placement.

Old Nympho Sluts

Yep, that's what greeted me in one of my in-boxes this morning. No wait, that was who it was from, the subject line was even better "Old Sex Crazed Women Fucking Non-Stop" Um, thanks but wrinkles don't really get me turned on, maybe I should add a yet on the end of that. But I'm pretty sure that even when I'm old and wrinkled and limp that I'll still lust after the fresh young hotties. That's what we're conditioned to do and I'm a product of my universe, we have to be. Though another question that comes to mind is what's wrong with these women that they feel the need, desire and ability to hump non-stop as the ad says? Are they drug addled opium freaks with overactive pleasure centers? Experimental women gone wrong and unable to turn off themselves or sate their rampant sexual desire? Sounds like more an issue for a good doctor rather than a 30 something guy to get his rocks off to. At least its not the crap promoting interracial violence! What's up with that?

Well, crap. I'd gotten up early to go for a moto with Patrick but woke up with a swollen left hand after going and playing softball last night. Which, I'd written about earlier but forgot to post from my laptop at home and will get it up and online later on tonight when I'm home. Basically, I took a hard grounder off the meat right under my index finger and got a stinger that seems to want to twinge me out. Its even a little bruised though the bruise could easily be mistaken for a smudge (though the pained look on my face as you try to wipe it off might tell you otherwise).

So, faced with such a horrifying image I'm also struck by the notion that there are people out there, and not necessarily old people at all, who get into wrinkle porn. And that sets in motion a whole series of questions about the sort of circumstances that can sexualize a person's thoughts towards the geriatric set. Or it could be the whole niche fulfilling thing in Darwinian law, best characterized by the lemurs on Madagascar. Without a full set of natural niche fillers the lemurs evolved into each niche themselves. There are a crazy variety of species of lemur out there, check out theCIA World Fact Book on Madagascar or PBS's What is a Lemur?. I like the word prosimian, brings to mind a monkey in a baseball uniform though I know full well that that's not the case. Anyway, I just found out that there are only 32 species of lemur endemic to the island.

And let's just see if that little bugger comes up.

Marketing for Morons or is it To Morons?

Here's another mini-rant for those in a hurry. What's with invisible advertising? Like on Yahoo sports, there's a few invisible fields that, if you happen to click in them, transport you off site to some garbage. Who is the marketing genius (note my sarcastic tone) who thought of this? And by what rationalization do they do this? Do they think that hijacking people will make sales? By mistake?
Like if I accidentally trip and fall on a rake and think, wow what a great rake, I think I'll go and buy one?

And these idiots have degrees in marketing?

Its not a browser issue or a platform issue either because I use Explorer on a PC at work and iCab, Omni and Explorer at home on a Mac. This is how they meant to do it and its among the dumber tactics I've come across lately, the pop-under excluded. But I suppose, in this new era of anything-goes-if-you-make-a-single-sale-from-it marketing, that they'll do just about anything to get consumers to even look at their ridiculous products.

This just in from Jim over at Foppery. What's your pirate name, ARRRR?


That and I truly wish nothing more for spammers to self combust. They continually piss me off now. I got the same stupid, shitty spam from some nimrod 5 times in a half hour! And its always the same crap. Now what kind of a moron would buy a college diploma from a "prestigious non-accredited" university? Perhaps the same morons who don't know that prestigious and non-accredited are mutually exclusive terms. That and I can't believe how much retarded Korean spam I get in one of my email boxes. Literally a dozen completely unreadable spams a day. Why? Because Iname had to make money off of me somehow and because I wouldn't buy their stupid "upgrade" they sold my information to global marketing companies. I think I'll just add them to the ever-growing list I keep called "People Who Need to be Kicked in the Nuts".

Probing Martha Stewart

The further probing of Martha Stewart continues to make me chortle like a junior high schooler hearing the word penis in school. I loved her interview and the fact that this whole thing is continuing to expand rather than contract. This may become one of the biggest PR blunders in recent history. Stay tuned as the events unfold for us.
And yes, it does smack of some alien conspiracy. Does Duchovny know about this yet?

This is a bit of an eye opener (oh yeah, I meant that one!). Caffeine Content of Beverages & Medications

The shoe drops, the foot fell, the paper ripped, the game ended, the deer leapt into the trees and vanished, its white tail bobbing once, twice and then poof gone into the dark interior of the wood. Its over, my muse wrote, it ended up painfully but not badly if that can make any sense while the world spins out of control around her. My muse is in pain and I cannot aid her, cannot run to her side and make her better. My friend hurts and there's not a damned thing I can do about it. A difficult and distressing situation for someone like me who likes to be able to fix damn near anything, physical, emotional or intellectual. Of course, I reserve the right to have an electrician come in and deal with that sort of stuff because I learned as a wee lad that electricity and I aren't the most compatible pair. Nearly electrocuted myself and ended up merely fusing the tip of a screwdriver into what must have passed for a tool's death pose back then. Twisted and charred metal, just from a massive surge of electricity coursing through the tip.

When I think about the danger we sheathe ourselves in everyday, the power lines with easily enough voltage to deep fry a man inside his own fat (and yes, that is a most disgusting image to conjure, thanks!). Two ton rolling death machines with enormous powerplants and teenagers at the wheel. Hell, crossing the street's a life or death decision some days.

But back to my friend, my muse. She and her paramour have had to call it quits after his conscience made up his mind for him. Sadly, he chose loyalty to his loser wife rather than running away with this delectable and delicious muse of mine. I know because, like the song goes, she used to be mine. Now she's my friend and a very, very good one at that. I'm sure that what few readers do get to this will gasp at the thought of taking the side of a mistress in this instance but that's solely because you don't know the extent of a waste of space his wife is. Bitchy, useless and mildly hot in good light. And mother to children being raised in her image rather than his. Yes, even with the kids involved I would have gone off with the mistress. She's everything the wife is not, could not be.

I'm sad for her, my muse. Sad that she is in pain and there's not a damned thing I can do about it.

Workout Philosophies

I've come to realize that there are many differing ways to look at working out, lifting weights or circuits or cross training or whatever gets your blood pumping. And it may make some sense to detail my own evolved sort of workout thoughts down into the blog. Credentials? We don't need no, wait a second. Yes, I was a personal trainer all over the US and overseas while I was in Africa. I've trained top level athletes from body builders to special Olympians. So yeah, think I've got a reasonably good set of credentials.

And along the way I've picked up some tricks to make the workout better and easier to get through. Or just more effective which means, in the end, that you work out less and get better results and that's never a losing proposition.

The best and easiest trick I know is the half count. Basically its the idea of counting up until you've reached half your target reps for the set, from then on you count back down. Set of twelve, count up to six and then back from six to zero. If the weight's correct then the last few reps are tough and you have to grit them out. But the reverse counting does several things, among them it distracts you slightly by having to think about what rep you're on. It also gives you a much better sense of the end approaching. Its not perfect because it can lock you into a set set of reps and that's not a good idea, so think of going into negatives if you're not there yet when you're back to zero. And next time, use more weight.

The second best trick is take your time. Not between sets, the intra-set interval should be two minutes at most unless you're doing maximums and then the whole workouts different. No, the idea is that you take your time with the weight so that at no time are you allowing momentum to do your work for you. Four seconds on the contraction and four seconds on the negative (lowering the weight back down again). And that works out to almost a full minute for a 12 rep set. The fools who use their chests like springboards to bounce barbells off of to put up more weight than they can safely lift, they will suffer badly for it in the form of a depressed solar plexus, torn shoulders, rib muscles and all kinds of other maladies. Slow and steady means that the weight is in control and you're muscles are getting the entire benefit of the exercise. And as my old, old Scottish soccer coach, Mr. Merrill, would say "Yer only cheating yerselves lads and lassies, yer not ahurting me". And I take that to mean that, if you're going to put the effort in to go to the gym (or get on your bowflex, soloflex or other home version) then you might as well get the most out of it. Otherwise you're just wasting time looking at shapely asses going up and down on the stairmaster, which, granted, isn't a bad way to spend time but there's no rule that says you can't enjoy the view and get a great workout in at the same time.

My third and final tip for the day is to increase the weight after each set and decrease the number of reps. Usually its a factor of 5 or 10 pounds per side up and two reps down. So that, if on set #1 you benched 160 (after a good warmup, of course) for 12 good clean, no bouncing reps then on the next set go up to 170 or 180 and reduce the reps to 10. Next set up some more and down a few more reps. If you're still popping with energy after three sets then reduce the weight to a notch or two below your starting weight and do another full set as slowly as possible. Concentrating on the muscles you're working (and you DO know which exercises work which muscles, right? Right?).

One last no-brainer that doesn't count as a tip but more of a reminder. Drink water! Drink a good amount of water during your workout and your recovery the next day (or two in the case of my leg workouts) will be that much easier. Water helps to flush out the lactic acid in your muscles that is the by product of the burning of ATP (basic unit of muscular energy, adenosine tri-phosphate or something like that, can't spell this morning, or type for that matter but that's why I have a backspace key).

One other thing to consider is that working out in the morning elevates your metabolism for the entire day before sleep resets it again (though it will be slightly faster than before the workout) so morning workouts give you a better long term return, all other things being equal, than night time workouts.

And this endeth the sermon for this morning. I'm sure I'll find more stuff to vent on later on today though. Oh yeah, I loved the Martha Stewart non-interview this morning. She's so tight right now that she might just burst and that would make for some fabulous television! I'm sure she'd explode like a pinata with beautiful little boxes wrapped with home made ribbons and pine cones glued on. Ahhh, the imagery!

Here's a nod to the further expansion of niche markets everywhere. UK's First Online Sperm Bank for Lesbians Launched.

What the?

Okay, another short rant. This time about the stupid pop ups in browsers. Yes, some of them help to pay for the sites you are surfing instead of going to a straight pay for play revenue model (which would cause the vast majority of them to fold like a house of cards in a tornado). But I'm specifically speaking about the blank pop ups, they serve no purpose, irritate me and don't even convey any product or other information. Just another stupid window to close.

That's why I've been digging on Icab for the Mac. Its got a setting in the preferences that easily and elegantly defeats this stupid and short sighted marketing tactic. Turn off the ability for websites to spawn new windows and ta-da, no more stupid poppers.

On another note, Layne is actually digging on spam these days. Which tells me that she's not getting the horrid crap I get. I mean honestly, who has any interest in animal sex or animal bondage (no lie)sites? These idiot spamming morons are sending out millions of emails to people who are thoroughly disgusted by this sort of depravity. I send emails to the abuse desk at the server that sends them through with no slowdown of nastiness to deal with. Maybe if my spam were less repetitive and more inventive I might like it a little bit more, though I seriously doubt it. Spam is like a hair clog in the shower, just a pain in the ass to deal with. Especially when I've got hair that's no longer than an inch ever.

Long weekend that wasn't a long weekend. Good fun that ended up being great fun. Unintentional bonking (not the sex kind, that was intentional and came later) and getting tossed out of the local pub. Yeeha, we had a good one this time around. Not too much serious damage but enough to be memorable and a good time. Perhaps a touch too much of the fire water but oh well, it won't be like this forever and if you don't live while the living's good then you're just taking up space.

Fixed a friendship/love interest that had been broken several months ago which was a good thing to fix up. I hadn't realized how much I'd missed her until we started talking and then went for a walk on the beach. You know what? There's almost no better place in the whole world than Seabright beach at sunset. It was quite gorgeous and romantic and all that. Man oh man but I love and live this town. Its like summer's starting to really get ramped up. There are plenty of delicious babes all over town and parties pop up everywhere! Its like being back in college again but with money (okay, I don't have any now either but I've got better toys to play with).

I suppose that I should take a few minutes and pass along some pearls of wisdom gleaned from a weekend of fun, nudity and good times. but you know what? I don't have any. I enjoyed myself and that's all that really matters these days. As I was quite fond of saying over much of the weekend, its all about me. Its ALL about ME. But then again, in your world, its all about you. To live for someone else is about the worst waste of a life I can think of. But then, I'm not a subservient kind of person. I'm more of an out in front, battle charge leading nutter. And I think I like it that way.

Okay, now that I've actually watched a fair amount of the World Cup, the last couple of matches. I was up this morning for a while. I guess my over riding sense is that soccer is as much a sport for thugs as it is a sport of thugs. They cheap shot each as a regular part of the game. "Hey Dang Jui She, here's a bonny forearm for yer troubles." Its bullshit really. Blindsiding people isn't a sport, that's just plain stupid. A game I gave up when I was like eight or something.

What's the point of a game where you can get elbowed in the face for no reason, with no warning? Why not put a few random mines in the field too? There is no honor in this sport, there is no dignity or justification for such a bad idea. Yeah and then the Spaniard just had a fabulous drive through the Korean defense, beautiful and graceful and really what the sport should be about. Not this lame ass, we-need-to-be-tougher crap with tossed punches during headers and leg sweeps. I suppose that if it were truly without any honor then the injuries would be more severe but I don't know, getting bashed in the side of the head while jumping in the air by an amped up genetically enhanced German ubermensch's elbow or hand or shoulder or head (those are ooooh so pretty, the blood is some kind of international symbol or something).

I like the sport but I don't dig on the cheap side action. Hell, if you want to be able to fight in your sport then take a lesson from hockey and let the bastards get at it. Hands only of course, don't want to give the nin-has any added advantage. And cleats would cause serious and permanent injury. Not a pretty image.

I think I'm rooting for Spain. But you know what? I could truly give a rat's ass about the winner of the World Cup now. I'm just glad that I've got baseball to watch and follow. Sorry but I know what I like, you're welcome to like more or less whatever you want (laws do restrict some likes).

Microsoft is EVIL!

Apparently Bill Gates IS above the law and so is his company. Man, this is almost better than OJ's parade of freakery! Not to mention the fact that my co-workers are incredibly tired of listening to me bitch and moan about how awful Word is, how shitty to the whole OS is and how much better my Mac is than this trash.
Of course, I know the world runs on Windows so it MUST be better than Mac or Linux or whatever. But that's a retarded argument really. That's like saying that because we used to all use leaded gas in our cars than that must have been better but its a false assumption when it was pretty much the only gas available (unless you wanted to pay alot more for unleaded which was less combustive and cars weren't optimized for it yet so they ran badly).

What it comes down to is market share and being dominant enough to control most software development. MS owns the PC market, its stupid to think or say otherwise. Linux is showing signs of strength and Apple's always been strong in certain niche markets like graphic artists and education. But there's a sense of use your Apple while in school but get ready to graduate to the adult computer world when you get a job when, in reality, my Mac can do damn near anything the PC can do, but faster, smarter and with less hair pulling frustration (OS X aside as I'm still figuring the new OS while awaiting the Jaguar release with great anticipation).

Microsoft IS the evil empire. It assumes that its beyond the power of the states and the government. And I would love nothing better than to watch the company get shredded in the courts. Or better yet, dismantled altogether. How did we come to this? Stuck using lame computers with bad OS'es with worse applications and being shafted for it all the time? And now MS wants to own my personal information on their servers to keep it safe for me with this whole .NET bullshit? This is a company that can't produce a single peice of bug free code to save their lives (though they don't have to because stupid sheep-like corporate America will buy and "upgrade" to whatever Microsoft tells them too, how yawn inducing).

Yep, now I'm glad I didn't stay up all night to watch the English lose to Brazil and the US lose to Germany. I woke up at half time, turned on the box for a minute, found out the score and went back to bed. Can't say as I'm all that surprised but I am saddened by the loss. It sort of felt like it was our year to go all the way. But nope, I was wrong.

Luckily, I've got baseball to rely on and its been a stellar season so far and tonight I get to watch my Giants play against my Orioles. As the O's are already pretty well out this season (Yankees and Red Sox in the same division means they would have to have the best second half in the history of the game to get to the wild card spot) I'll be rooting for the Giants to continue swinging the hot bats and whacking other teams. But the most amazing thing lately is the Rockies/Yankees series that ended last night at a football like 14-11. Previous game was 20-10 and the other game was a similarly high scoring affair. Average of 23.3 runs scored in each of the three games. There are lower scoring football games. I thought the humidor was supposed to keep the balls in the park?

Anyway, other inviso stuff added to the site today. Maybe it'll make a difference. But I've come to realize that this writing is largely unseen, unread and undone. Oh well, it'll be floating in cyberia forever so maybe in a decade or two someone will find it. I would like to get more feedback from what I write but its not the driving force behind the writing. Its more of an internal zen thing, a new style of writing that begs the soul baring of a journal but is a public exposition that requires some level of restraint. I mean, I never know when my mother's going to log in and read it, or my brother or sister or that guy I got in a fight with in high school or the girl who hated me becuase we dated for a little while and then I realized that I was much more into her best friend or any number of crazy Korean spammers who spend all day everyday surfing the web looking for random email addresses to send more bad spam to.

And yes, my spam count has been going up lately. Awful garbage that bears no repeating anywhere. I'm one of those people who forwards it to the server that sent it out and Yahoo seems to be falling waaaaaay down on the job. The same disgusting spam for the last three days from the same email address at Yahoo. If I ever do find a genie in a bottle who gives me three wishes, one will be spent on curing the world of spam. Something like, may every spam email sent out by a spammer be returned upon that spammer with a thousand fold increase. Of course, semantically it would have to be much better thought out and spoken otherwise all makers of that delicious food product of the same name would be buried in little tins of meat products.

But I digress and must be running cross tabs this morning for one of my editors at Computerwire. Hasta for now.

Hey, if you want to see a stark difference in how a movie should be made as compared to how it shouldn't? Go watch the original Ocean's 11 with the Rat Pack (those hard livered bastards). The movie is slow and plodding and stupid really. I had to get drunk while watching it to keep myself entertained which did nothing for my date at the time.
But damned if the new one with the uber blockbuster cast isn't excellent. Its tight, its fast, its funny, its entertainment! It left me laughing until the final scene of the two bruisers from Andy Garcia's casino following Brad Pitt, George Clooney and Julia Roberts. I'm not sure what to interpret from that, yes they knew about them but didn't do anything or give a damn.
I don't know, movies with bad endings or danglers just leave me sort of pissed off. Don't get me wrong, I liked the movie quite a bit but the aftertaste isn't sitting quite as well as I'd expected. Good stuff though, damn well done.
Of course, I realize that my little review is far too late to mean a damn thing but so what? I write for the writing. In some ways its more process and less substance sometimes. Its good to pour your mind out onto a page every once in a while, shake out those boogeymen that hide in the recesses and folds.

But not now, I've got to sleep for tomorrow shall be another day of working and toil. Much stuff to get wrapped up before the return of the boss. And then there will be some hell to deal with most likely. And I'm no longer a PR guy, I'm a project manager for the next three weeks while our main guy goes off on a damned retreat. Not damned for him, I'm pumped for him but not excited about shouldering his burden for most of July.

Ach, bump it all to hell, I'm getting into bed to dream off US goals against those Germans. Or does anyone truly care? I guess the rest of the world does but I just can't all that into soccer. I'm too American in my sports appreciation and need more action, more scoring, more fighting, more something. Bigger goals, smaller balls, fighting zones and smoke bombs might help.

This is simply too cool to not post to the blog today.
Franco Sbarro's Moto Art. But be aware that the site loads really, really slowly even on broadband connections. Nice pics and drawings though.

Also check out his own site. Its got motorcycles and incredibly cool looking wheels and all that.

Nevermind, it doesn't exist there anymore.

Anyway, its the night of the biggest game in US soccer history. Is the country poised on the edge of its seat waiting for the game to begin? Hell if I know but I do know that the 4:30 start out here in the west makes it damn difficult to get too excited about. But I am thinking about getting up stupid early to watch it for a while. Maybe I'll wake up, check the score and if they're getting their asses kicked I'll just go back to bed. That mightn't be a bad idea.

You know what I need to do? I need to get some pics of the house up and online, pics of Paul's project single speed Klein, the neighborhood, everything. I need to see if I can swing a new digi-cam. I know the one I want, or ones. Not sure of the actual functional differences between the different model number Elphs, great tiny little cameras, amazing really. I suppose I should try to not be so materialistic and need and want all the toys I do, perhaps I'm attempting to satisfy some unfulfilled desires as a little boy. Who knows? But I don't really have any desire to delve there right now.

Well damn, no epiphanies last night or this morning aside from the fact that I'm an idiot who can't sleep past 7:15 unless I go to bed at like 4:30 in the morning.

That and its interesting to watch as Martha Stewart's fabulously decorated kingdom is beginning to unravel because it turns out that she cheated by having insider trading information or some such. Why do the rich get so stupid and greedy? Its like a money disease, the more you get the more you want. Oh well, I'll leave it up to you to decide if this is a Good Thing or not.

Blogging Well or Not Blogging at All

I need to think about the reasons why I blog. Its not a place where I can actually bear my soul nor would I. I'm not that type of a writer or person. I've got places that I put those sorts of things, write them all down and then burn them letting the ashes disperse themselves how ever they so choose.

In reading Layne's blog over the last couple of days I've realized that I could be doing so much more with the blog than just chronicling the retarded shit I do every day or on the weekends. Or tossing up links of cool web stuff (which reminds me, this is really, really cool TouchGraph Google Browser). I don't know, I guess I should figure it out sometime. But there's plenty that needs to be figured in my life and for some reason or another, I just haven't been able to bring myself to do it.

Without a plan I feel like I'm sailing in big circles, enjoying the journey but essentially going nowhere. And where is that going to leave in ten years, twenty years? Fucked, that's what. So yeah, that'll have to go on my short list of things that must be undertaken. Maybe this weekend. And certainly not with a hang over.

This just in from Jim Rome about The Greatest Golf Course in America.....No Really.

Yahoo! Its Wednesday and I'm completely hunged over and sucking at life right now. But I was the smart one and went home before things got far too out of hand. Nothing like waking and looking at the clock and going "Wait a second, where'd 7 am go?"

Oh well, today's has been set to suck so I'm going to suffer and not whine about it if I can help it.

And I AM a Menace to Sobriety. Ouch.

In other news, the Zip disk with the disc golf pics appears to be blank. I'm going to head over to Johnny's later on today and see if we can fix it somehow. Maybe use a recovery tool to see if the pics somehow got erased and are restorable. But I do have some pics from the disposable roll that I had burned onto a Photo CD (shits and giggles mostly).

Holy shit! I totally forgot about it until right now! I foiled a cat-napping last night, well we foiled it. I saw a Toyota 4Runner stop at the cove last night while we were on Rhett's deck having some drinks. A girl got out, walked over to the cat on the stone fence, scooped it up in her arms and got back into the truck. They started to drive away but we yelled at them, they stopped and we told them not to steal our cat. The truck was filled with teenage girls, lots of giggling and all of sudden the cat slipped out the back of the truck. They waited for another few seconds and then Ms. Andretti at the wheel mobbed it through the stop sign and off onto the next adventure for the coolest teens in America.

So, to you Cat Napping bastards out there, you be careful or you'll get yelled at by drunkards on balconies and shamed into returning the animal!

Oh yeah, here's a link to a cool band you all need to check out. OPM: Menace to Sobriety

Continuing with more Escher. One of my favorites and about the only critter I've ever thought about getting a tattoo of.

Dragons

Sorry, the image won't come out on its own so you have to click it. If I had better HTML Mojo then this wouldn't be a problem but alas, my mojo (my Ibis Mojo that is) is at home today. I brought Therapy in today so I can run a few errands during lunch.

Damn I'm Old

Went down the street to a party at Rhett and Paul's last night. More a bbq than party but it was cool, low key with thumpedity bass beats to eat to. Had a good time chatting with not so strangers anymore. But damn if I didn't feel old as the hills after talking to a really cute and articulate brunette named Hallie (Hay-lee, not Hal-lee). We'd been talking for a little while and it sort of slipped out of her that she was only 17. Yes, seventeen years old! And I thought to myself, Self, you are an old and dirty bastard.
But I hadn't even been really thinking along those lines. Just that she was a very pretty girl and spoke very, very well. And her family owns one of the coolest houses in Seabright which is, sadly, going on the market this weekend after being in her family for more than a hundred years. Quite a bummer but I think I'll take a walk through this weekend to see what its like in there.

And spring has sprung in Santa Cruz in a very big and very beautiful way. All of the local hotties are all out and about these days and its tough to go more than a few feet before crossing paths with yet another gorgeous California Girl. Which makes going for a walk so much fun. Hard to be unhappy in this town right now. Now comes the hard part, finding the beautiful woman who's also got personality and brains to go along with the physical. I do know that it should be one of the best summers ever! Too bad I have to spend so much of it inside working but paychecks are their own reward.

And speaking of which, I've got to get to earning mine.

Monday On The Bay

Well I suppose that, since its a fresh week, perhaps I should be posting some fresh insights into the ways and whys of the world but I don't have any new insights. I have old insights that continually rub up against others creating friction and anti-desire for socialization. Does such a thing exist? A disincentive to go and hang out? Well, I had it this weekend.

Party for a friend leaving town? Nope, couldn't muster up the desire or motivation to get my ass across town to the west side.

Ooops, quick side note and then back to the weekend wrapup. Today is M. C. Escher's birthday. Born in 1898 and certainly one of the most fascinating artistic minds of our time. He remains one of my all time favorite artists. This site is actually pretty interesting to read and look through too. I can't say you should expect incredible special effects but you can take a tour through a couple of his more famous pics. Kind of neat.

Back to the weekend. I didn't really get too much accomplished although I did get to Trader Joe's for some lunch stuff and other goodies. Its damned hard to get out of there without dropping a large amount of coin some days. I love the place and it certainly didn't hurt that I saw one of the most attractive brunnettes I've seen in a long time. Just very well put together with beautiful legs and everything. Made shopping fun!

Not too much else to really report in on. Didn't see any need to add my mildly hard earned cash to the local pub coffers. That and I just had no interest in drinking. Happens that way sometimes. I'm sure it'll be back before too long.

On a health note, I made a cool new smoothie last night with a can of tropical fruit, a frozen banana, some coconut milk, some honey and some cinnamon. Tasty and good for me all at the same time. Oh yeah, I used my hand blender to mash it all up but not too much so as to make it totally smooth. Gotta have chunks!

And on that note, I'm going to walk down to the mailboxes and drop some late stuff in. I'm sure that more things will need to be posted up today so fear not, there's more on the way.

Shawn Estes continues to be possibly the most mystifying picture I have ever seen. He whooped the shit right out of Roger Clemens. This is a bizarre story if there ever were one.

New York vs New York

�� NY�Mets 8, NY�Yankees 0
AP�Recap

FLUSHING, NEW YORK (TICKER) -- Shawn Estes failed to hit Roger Clemens, but he sure hurt him. And so did Mike Piazza.

On a day when the New York Mets were seeking payback against Clemens, Estes pitched seven scoreless innings, matched a career high with 11 strikeouts and hit a two-run homer off the six-time Cy Young Award winner in an 8-0 rout of the New York Yankees.

Clemens (8-3) was branded as public enemy No. 1 by the Mets for beaning Piazza in the head in a July 8, 2000 game at Yankee Stadium and then throwing the jagged edge of a broken bat at Piazza in Game Two of the 2000 World Series.

The Mets were clamoring for redemption, but had to wait nearly two years for the opportunity. Last season, Yankees manager Joe Torre altered the rotation and did not allow Clemens to pitch at Shea Stadium where he would have been forced to bat.

When Clemens stepped to the plate in the third inning, the sellout crowd stood on its feet in anticipation. Estes (3-5), who is in his first season with the Mets, attempted to appease the crowd with a fastball aimed at Clemens' hip, but threw the ball behind him.

Home plate umpire Wally Bell immediately issued a warning to both teams and Clemens stood at the plate and stared at Estes with a wry smile. Although Estes misfired, he would more than make up for it.

Along with mesmerizing the Yankees' hitters, Estes struck the most stunning blow of the day with a two-run homer off Clemens in the fifth inning.

Piazza increased the lead to 4-0 with a solo shot in the fourth, his fourth home run in 15 regular season at-bats against Clemens.

To make the day sweeter for the Mets, Clemens was forced to leave the game in the sixth inning with a bruised right foot.

Now what the hell is going wrong with the page? All of a sudden there's just a big blue box where my previous posts should be.