Intellectual Poison

I'm Remy LeBeau
What X-Men Character are You?

Interesting. I'd always identified with Logan, Wolverine, but am more along the lines of Remy, the sensual southerner. The link comes courtesy of mi2starsfan. Who also had some nice things to about Intellectual Poison.

Today also marks a new highwater mark for visitors to the site. And the 2,000 visitor mark is fast approaching.

Tomorrow will likely not be a big posting day but I'll probably get some time to write during my multiple flights and drive times. But by this time tomorrow night, I do hope to be safely in the midst of the family though they will likely be mostly or completely unconscious. Sunday will prove to be a lovely day, I'm sure.

Not sure about going up to New Jersey for the football game given my dad's condition. But we'll see how it all plays out.

I was thinking the other day about how one's mindset was a frame and how my own mood and behaviour followed the overall suit and tone of that mindset. But how about a frame in which there are numerous pictures separated by frame. There are so many different frames of mind to choose from. Its a take on Thich Nhat Hahn's Channel Changing essay. Whereas, if you are not in a good here and now then just change your perception of it.

Do not accept your reality for what it is at any given moment because it is all filtered through the lens of the ego. If its bothering you then refocus your ego in an alternate direction, give yourself another channel to flip to. Its nothing but an alternative interpretation of your surroundings.

That's why I'm able to function with some semblance of normalacy. I've got my mind broken up into individual compartments, there's a part of my thoughts that are given over to thinking and worrying about my father. But I don't really have a requirement to show that side to the world.

I just saw that ad for the South Park 5th Year Anniversary Special and I've got to say that Trey Parker and Matt Stone are among the most irritating losers there are. I like South Park but to make their special a Pay Per View deal? What utter and complete wankers they are.

They both need several good hard kicks in the balls to realize that being such short sighted idiots is just plain bad form. I'm done with them, done with the show and done with this prelude.

Nothing to major this morning but I did clean up a little more. Move some stuff around, added the Fav Quotes page, put my favorite animated gif next to my blog title and just made things work a little better.
The page should load up fairly quickly, even on dial up, which I'll be using all of this next week. I'll try not to complain about it too much.
And I am still in search of a less lag happy commenting system. Anyone got any ideas?

Well now, in the few minutes its taken me to write that last post up, they seem to have inked a deal and baseball will continue.

Not positive yet but that seems to be the gist of the news coming in. A good thing too!

Yep, its official, baseball will continute unabated. For the first time in the history of baseball they have successfully avoided a work stoppage. Maybe they aren't just big dumb jocks after all? Maybe they realized that the game is bigger and more important than their bank accounts?

It does appear that the players union is the one that gave the most ground in the end and that's an encouraging sign too. Baseball is America's past time and destroying it over labor issues would have been the height of arrogance and ignorance. Luckily that will not have to come to pass.
And now we get to look forward to the A's trying to extend their incredible hot streak. Sammy's run to 500 home runs, Rafael Palmeiro's run to 500. Barry's run to where ever he's going to get to. Baseball is on, sorry if that bothers some of you out there but BASEBALL IS ON!

And yes, I'm smiling as I tap this out.

I'm watching ESPNews this morning because its got a more compelling story than CNBC's stock and business updates (that and Maria Bartiromo isn't on until later anyway).
The death clock for Major League Baseball just clicked past 3 hours and 30 minutes left.
Will it happen, will they walk out and strike? Yes, if they cannot strike a new deal in the next tiny little parcel of time.
And then what? Then what do people who love baseball do?
Labor day without baseball? Not sure how that will work but I don't really like the idea of it very much at all. But I will attempt to remain optimistic until I can descend into a Major League depression.

And of course, there is more symbolism here. My father, yep, the sick one, has never returned to liking baseball except on the minor league level, after the last strike. He basically said, I'm no longer interested in a sport where millionaires are complaining about not getting enough to play a game. And he's stuck to his word pretty much. Gotta respect him for that, and much of the rest of his life. Tough guy, my dad.

Ive been blog surfing instead of trying to sleep, which makes no difference as I'm not going into the office tomorrow.

But I've realized several things. One is that I like quotes, I like reading what quotes people find poignant. From my incredibly stupid or incredibly funny (depends on your perspective) quote in my prep school year book, it was a Chiang Kai Shek thing that ended with using the word kill like fifteen times in a row. Wait, "Heaven produces myriads of things for man, man never does one good to recompense heaven. Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill and kill."

Yeah, I know that one thing almost certainly got a new page added to my watch file at the FBI/CIA whoever. Still makes me smile though because no one got the joke. I also love most of Robert Duvall's lines in Apocalpyse Now, from "Charlie DON'T surf!" to his speech about playing Wagner as the Air Cavalry comes in to decimate VC villages.

Quotes are shards of scenes, dialogues or events. A good quote can sum up one's entire outlook on life.

My current favorite is actually taped to my desk here at home, taped across the leading edge of the shelf. It's a Hemingway quote, "That was not true of Africa. In Africa, a thing is true at first light and a lie by noon and you have no more respect for it than for the lovely, perfect weed fringed lake you see across the sun-baked salt plain. You have walked across that plain in the morning and you know that no such lake is there. But now it is there absolutely true, beautiful and believable."

And on that note, I shall sleep perchance to dream of the deep, dark and mysterious continent.

And one additional note, I've added a bunch more New Words to that page. Mucho thanks to Erika, who's been making me smile in spite of myself.

This is a short scene I wrote about four years ago. Take it how you choose. I still like it and can remember that morning vividly still, the taste in the air, the sound of debris whooshing down the street in front of me. No other human beings out yet. A stranger in the strangest land.

It had been called Africa Reflection but I think I prefer,
One Morning in Africa
First written July 9, 1998 but based on an experience five and a half years previously.

There was a morning when I had no motorcycle and something was wrong with my bike so I thought about waiting for a taxi or a bus to take into the city for work. I had the opening shift at the gym, the CapeTown Health & Racquet in the Foreshore area of the small city, which made for a 4 a.m. wakeup to get to the club and open it by 5:30 because I had way of getting there and the taxis were an iffy proposition that early so I figured that I would end up walking a good portion of it. I started out of my door and smelled the charged air first. Then I saw the branches all over everything and realized that a storm had blown through my SeaPoint neighborhood during the night. It might not end up being such a bad morning for a walk or a run even.

A quick side note, I do not run, generally, for the reason that three operations on my right ankle have made it quite susceptible to high impact repeated use re-injury. In other words, I could run but it would make me lame for a couple of days afterwards and that was something I did not feel comfortable doing in the dangerous Aparthied country. Realize the situation of this nation for just a moment and one can almost feel the queer tenseness everywhere that pervaded existences there.

Regent Road loomed slowly into sight as I walked down Kings St. to it. Deserted as far as the eye could see, blowing gusts of chilled air across the numerous side streets and littered with the aftermath of the tempestuous little wind. I smiled grimly, knowing my destination was some 6 km off but much buoyed by the remains of nature's attempt at cleansing the spur of land that CapeTown clung to. The first half of the trip was fairly short with lots of debris from destroyed shop signs, branches, newspapers and shredded plywood sections from some construction area. Two cars passed me at high speeds and an off-road motorcyclist without a helmet wheeled off a few blocks in front of me. The air seemed happy to be wreaking damage or maybe it was just happy to be free. It was full of ions, I always forget which kind are the good ones, and breathing it in was like injecting oxygen directly into my cells. It invigorated me tremendously and sharpened my senses equally as well. Nothing was too much at that point and then I stepped out of the shelter of the buildings at the end of Green Point and caught the full force of the winds where they had straight runs in from the Atlantic off to my left.

The second half of the trek, as it had now become in the face of such wind borne adversity, was hard to work through and midway down Somerset I stopped to catch my breath next to the Scrapman's Shop. The wind was actually sucking the air from my chest, it was trying to knock back this tiny creature who defied its power. I felt the presence become menacing and I thought perverse thoughts while striding powerfully towards the looming dark skyscrapers on the edge of the city.

Possessed of the indomitable will of youth often has its advantages and forcing a path through Mother Nature's fury tested mine mightily but, in the end, as always happens in print and the rose colored glass of memory, I made it into the gym on time. Amazed by how much I had already experienced and the sun had not even risen yet. I felt somehow blessed by my sole survival of the morning and knew that the rest of the day would be similarly special in some way.

Some days aren't born bad, they just turn that way on their own.

I don't know why but I chopped out the only two meager graphics on the page. They just didn't seem appropriate anymore so I got rid of them. For the time being. I'd like to shake things up again, I guess.
The current incarnation of Intellectual Poison has been a nice spot but I think I'll spend at least some of my time away from home to think over site redesign issues.

Sorry though. Not enough energy to rant. Have only been outside once today and that was to toss a glider I got up at LinuxWorld around. Couldn't even generate disappointment when it landed up on top of the hedge between my house and the neighbor's.

Maybe later on, after a nap.

There are so many avenues that I could set off in with this post. I could discuss the light bulb that just went on as I wrote regain, saw Rogaine and had that instant advertising epiphany that I wonder why I hadn't seen it before.
Or about the Oakland Athletics 15 game win streak as baseball heads towards its 9th (NINTH) work stoppage since 1972. Which is, strangely, a .300 average, which is the line above which you are a much more feared hitter. Or I could talk about the stupid (in a good and funny way) mini bike that came in the mail today.

I could avoid even mentioning my father but I don't really see any reason not to. Though it'd be less for cathartic effect than anything else. Imminence is a very subjective term. Earlier today it felt so close that I could taste it, cold and metallic, like that phantom burn of when you were a kid and licked the frozen lamp post or jungle gym in my case. That tear as you pull away leaving your tongue's top layer, a lesson almost never having to be taught twice.

Work's not a great option these days, it seems incredibly stupid and trivial though I know its not. But I won't justify my work, since its not mine, I'm just a hired hand.

Conditions improve or degenerate, statis is only a temporary stop in the constant ebb and flow of our lives. In all things, health, wealth, physical capabilities, mental capacity, every thing that we are is never the same thing from one moment to the next. Of course, it is a losing battle from the first moment we are yanked kicking and screaming into being. No one gets out of here alive.

Its a small but important thing to remember about being alive. Its not going to last forever, we are finite (ohhhhhh, irony kicked in and Women Are Smarter by the Grateful Dead came up on my geek jukebox, ironic because much of my currently eased-of-mind state is due to having spoken with both my stepmom and sister at length). Comfort with death is a strange consideration but knowing what I know and realizing more and more about my father that I'd thought but never knew, I understand things and accept them for what they are and must, in the end, I have to learn how to absorb, reflect and react to my changing universe. No matter its short term outcome, my father will probably not live a whole lot longer.

Don't get me wrong, I would be absolutely thrilled to see and spend more time with my dad. And it can happen, and at this point, I expect him to show at least one good fight before he does pass on. I will see him and be with him but I guess that on a pyschological level, I've been sort of preparing for this since I was his driver when all of this began a decade ago. (And now, Fight Like a Brave by the Chili Peppers?, interesting).

Ahh, okay, enough musical symbolism. Whatever point I was making is lost now, we just had a raccoon attack and now the cat's gone. Oh well. Why DO they say cats have nine lives anyway?

And I can see by the tumbler on the side table that its time for me to do something else. Who knows what tomorrow will bring but I'd best make the best of it. The clock is ticking.

....about much of anything aside from my own tiny corner of the universe. In which, my father is very, very sick (I know, I know, find something else to write about already) and the whole world is in a state of flux.

Of course, I can't help blogging now. Its a compulsion to vent, to release the pent up impotent rage inside me regarding this wholly unfair turn of events. This theft of my dad that's occuring right in front of us all and yet we are powerless to stop it. There may not be enough will to out fight it but if there is, then my dad's got it. He's a fighter with that indomitable genetic German stubbornness.

There's an old joke that comes to mind. "You can always tell a German but you can't tell him much."

And here I sit, waiting to hear news, word, plans, anything. Something. Nothing.

The conversation with my sister was difficult because she's so very close to it all. She's in Florida now, with Judi, my step mom, and dealing with not only my dad's world but also with cleaning out Omi's, Omi is a German familiar term for grandmother the formal term is GrosMutter with umlauts and a pursing of the lips, apartment. She's been moved into a nearly full care facility but has bounced back from her most recent setbacks and is eating again and alert again.

Which is why I don't think the fight's out of my dad, not yet. I don't think he's ready to cast off this mortal coil, he's alert, asking (well writing, its hard to talk with a tube in your mouth) about medicines they're giving him, settings on the machines and more. He's not out of it yet.

And so I sit and wait, eating my salsa and chips, waiting for the next call or for the next time I can get in touch with the family and get updated. So I can react and make my plans to get there, to be with him.

The word for the day is
flagitious \fluh-JISH-uhs\, adjective:
1. Disgracefully or shamefully criminal; grossly wicked;
scandalous; -- said of acts, crimes, etc.
2. Guilty of enormous crimes; corrupt; profligate; -- said of
persons.
3. Characterized by enormous crimes or scandalous vices; as,
"flagitious times."

How appropriate is this in today's news of corporate thievery and corruption? Yep. I thought so too.

Ellen Feiss Fan Club: beep beep beep

Ok, this is a fan club for a woman who appeared in one of Apple's latest ad campaigns talking about how her PC ate her paper so now she's switched to a Mac and couldn't be happier. And now she's got a fan club because people want to debate whether she was stoned or drunk during the taping?

I'm sorry but anyone who really gives a damn is a complete waste of space. IT WAS AN AD! Have people forgotten that we're on the brink of another war against Iraq, that our business leaders are corrupt greed head thieves stealing BILLIONS of dollars while running their companies into the ground, that the church continues to allow their priests to sodomize their flock, that there are dozens of other things much more worthwhile considering and caring about then whether or not some dippy chick was high for her Apple commercial?

There's something strange about having death hovering above you, it makes everything more poignant, more meaningful. From a song lyric I heard on the way to the shower this morning, Scapegoat Wax's line, "I hope we meet in the end. And all I want to do, is share it for a minute or two." to commercials of children and their dad going shopping at Staples for school supplies.

Its enough to make me want to declare a media boycott, my own version of going on strike, I suppose. And the looming, pending and seemingly unavoidable baseball strike has its own share of symbols to me. Like a freight train that they are trying to keep going but cannot, the brakes were applied weeks ago when they strike date was set. And they must see and know about the incredibly heavy toll that will be inflicted against the sport if they do strike. This year is not like other work stoppages, this is an incredible slap in the face to all of us, striking a week and a half before the first anniversary of the worst terrorist disaster in American history?

ARE YOU FRIGGING NUTS? I'm contemplating my own reaction and am attempting to temper it against my subjective mindset, I know I'm not thinking normally these days. How could I? I take things too personally and cannot seem to be on time for anything anymore. I sleep like shit, wake up exhausted, even when I take a sleep "aid" (read that as a mickey, knock out drops) I wake up in the middle of the night, cold and hot and sweaty all at the same time.

My father's hanging on and that's truly my mind's main occupation right now. I could give a damn about other things but I'm just not able to generate any desire to care about anything else.

And now I'll be late for work again.

Men Missing Since 9/11 Found Alive
Now don't go getting all freaked out. These guys weren't living in the rubble of the World Trade Center and just got dug out. They were nowhere near the tragedy. One was a more or less deranged homeless guy who hadn't been seen since the event and people just assumed he was gone. The other, a little more nebulously, has been in an area hospital, for what the article doesn't say but it seems more than slightly fishy that they were found 15 days before the first anniversary.

If I were a conspirationist, I might seriously question what the heck is going on. But as I'm not and refuse to become one, I must guess that there's a reasonable explanation.

But then the article goes on to talk about at least 5 other cases of people listed as missing turning up now, all this time later. I don't understand how that can happen, how can you be missing for an entire year and not know it?

Still the death toll stands at a horrid 2,819 (that's twenty eight HUNDRED and nineteen people) killed for symbolic reasons alone. I do hope Osama bin Laden's caught alive so he can attempt to defend himself in a world court. And then, when he is drawn and quartered by huge, freakishly strong horses, then and only then will even a modicum of justice have been served. And then the hunt for those who funded the attack shall begin.

One thing I've thought that I can do is put together some music for my Dad. Music that reminds me of him, that he likes and that provide me solace and strength in times of need.
Several songs leap to mind right off the top of my head. Don't Give Up by Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush, I Will Survive by Cake, Take A Giant Step (Outside Your Mind) by Taj Mahal, By Your Side by Sade, Burn One Down by Ben Harper and more. Anything I can do to make myself feel like I'm helping, that I'm adding my power and strength to my father's battle, it is all catharsis.
Anybody got other suggestions? Add them into the comments. I'm open to music with special signifigance.

I suppose not hearing anything is a decent sign to start my Tuesday. I know that things may not stay quiet for all that long but for now, I can live with just my little tunes player and the bliss of ignorance.

Tangental side note, just spoke with one of my best friends, and one of the co-authors of several of the words on the New Words page, and we came up with a new phrase. Or possibly an old one that we'd not heard before. Karmic Boomerang - sort of a mix between an eastern philosophy and an Australian hunting weapon meaning, your actions now, whether good or bad, will come back to revisit you and impact you. I'll add it to the New Words page before too long.

Its kind of a nice and comforting thought if you've led a decent life. And a reason to sweat your sheets through every night if you've been a horrible bastard. Cosmic payback for being a scum bag. I'm all for it.

And in domestic goddamned terrorism news, this story I heard about on the radio and found the write up on Tom Tomorrow's site This Modern World. What the hell is going on when this sort of crap happens?

I'm going to vent some because that is my want, that is why I created this forum. A place for me to release whatever demons I have that want to well up from inside.
I'm pissed off, I'm scared and I'm furious at the world without knowing how or what I can do about it.
The next couple of days will be extraordinarily trying for me and for my family. And there's not a fucking thing I can do to help or support or anything. I'm stuck on the other side of the country.
Yes, I could leave work and go east immediately. I could go and be by my father's side, try to give him some of my strength or say good bye. I don't know. I'm paralyzed by impotence, by the unknown, by the weight of the probabilities, by my own family's desires.
It saddens me no end to think of myself here, healthy and well and attempting to live my life as normally as I can. To not dwell on the machine that is pumping life into my father. To not dwell on the thought of him suffering and being scared that each forced breath could be his last. Of all those thousands of things he might have wanted to do before this happened.

But on the other hand, I know the man as well as any other I've ever known. He's an incredibly strong willed man, unwilling to bend when the original prognosis put him squarely into the unlikely to survive category. But he did, he beat those odds and treated every single day and moment since like the true gift it was. I tried to take the lesson from him and not waste my life, not spend it pursuing stupid and small dreams, to not break my back working for someone else's dreams.

You know what? Fuck it all, I'm not going to write anymore tonight. Its going to make my brain spin off into an overdrive that I don't want at all. I don't want to spend the whole night tossing and turning and having the vivid dreams that I've been having but focused on my father. No, that would just mangle my already disrupted and disturbed nerves.

I think I'll be making a chemical cut from consciousness shortly. No reason to put my body on spin cycle all night when I'll need every ounce of my strength to deal with the coming days. And to be able to send as much of my strength as I can to my father and to Judi, my step mom, who must be badly in need of support. My brother will be there tomorrow, I may follow later on this week depending on what happens.

What I do know is that our coming gathering next week will take on a much more somber tone, if it happens at all anymore.

In a completely insignificant side note, I did update my pics pages. I don't know why, I just did. Put up an album of pictures of myself. I will find pics of my family and post those as well. It seems important to have pictures of my dad up, so that (in Peter Pan fashion) people out in the internet world can send him those vibes, the silent claps of a thousand hands wishing him well. In fact, yep, I'll have a pic up in a second. Here, this is a picture of my father a couple of years ago with my sister's son, Andrew (a miracle in his own right). I have more pictures of Dad but none are available to me right now. But he's much the same, a distinquished and intelligent looking man with a serious zest and flair for life and living.

It makes me sad
It makes me mad
To hear 'bout the lad
Who is my dad.

Laying in a bed
Face all red
As his breathe is led
By a machine next to his head

He's my dad
For which I've been glad
The best I ever had
He tried his best to be my dad.

It came so fast
He's got to last
I don't want to cast
The ashes of my father's past.

The impotent madness
Could be replaced with gladness
If only the within badness
Can go to ease our sadness.

We all live in fear
For the man so dear
Everything seems so clear
Good news is all I want to hear

I want to say so much
To tell you such and such
Like I love you, I need you and more.

Given recent events, I just don't want this last post up here right now. I'll put it back when the sun's back out in my universe.

Interesting web poll I just took on Excite just a minute ago. The question was whether I thought Martha Stewart took part in an illegal stock trade based on insider information. I do think she did and answered yes. The number tally stands at 76% of respondents finding her guilty. We shall see just how guilty she is once all the facts are found out.
But yep, I think she's a cheater. Which is lame considering how much this gaffe is costing her company. Her stock is down something like 75% since this all began.

Was it worth it Martha? Hell no, you should have eaten the loss and not been such a greedy fashion nazi. Oh well. Better luck next time.

Try Georgia peaches, cut into half inch cubes, with lime juice squeezed over them, add cinnamon and then some ginger ale. Pretty good really. I need to get some cayenne pepper because I think that would have been a nice addition. Mango juice would also have added something else to the whole works.
I think I'll have to actually a regular recipe page in addition to the drinks one. I like to cook, its an interesting combination of activities. From prepping the foods, slicing vegetables and pulling things together from their component parts, mixing them together, creating something altogether new.

It is something to take pleasure from, appreciation for creation.
I've got some things in mind for foods I'd like to make for my family next week when we're altogether. A week from tonight as a matter of fact. We'll be gathering together in Delaware. I'm curious as to whether we'll have bike week coming into town the next weekend, the last couple of days before we leave again.
A very curious experience for someone like myself who thinks that Harley's are overpriced and underperforming. But then I like to move, I don't like to cruise very much, I'm just not very good at it.
But I am working on lists, things that I need to do before I get gone.

And maybe try to make sure that I've got some things lined up that I want to do this time around. Last year I sort of went with the flow, I had to, having just been laid off I felt as if I was adrift. And besides. its so much easier to just cruise and let the family dictate what we did together. This year, I think, things will be slightly different.

But I do have a big and gnarly week ahead of me right now and must not only fend off my bosses occasionally peculiar work requests but also fashion a decent plan for launching our wireless survey during the week that I'm gone. Though I'm thinking it may make as much sense to wait to launch it until the week AFTER Labor day. We shall see. One strange thing is that I will be able to communicate with my office if I want to. Though I think I'd just as soon be doing other things.

Today is a day that we, my neighborhood of friends, misfits and consistent liver abusers, play on the beach. We play volleyball until everyone's had their fill or the sand gets too hot to walk on.
I woke up good and late because we finally succumbed to sleeping at around 5 this morning. After spending a good portion of the day up at Brady's getting into trouble and trying not to suffer too badly for it. And I didn't, we had some good fun all night long, and yes, I'm slowed and stupid by it even now all these hours later.
Which is why this post sucks but I'm really not all that concerned.
Just thought I should blog some ideas out maybe and then get myself some decent quality rest.

In I'm-a-geek news, I picked up an Ipod over the weekend, I went for the 10 gig version because I've got plenty of songs to load on the bugger. The pull, the lure of the machine just kept calling me and I knew that, eventually, I would give in. Two things combined to make it happen right now, one, the best deal I could find on the internet or in the real world was in town here, well Capitola but close enough. And two, I came home to a nice juicy 401K pay out check. Which just begged to get spent some. Actually there is a third reason and that's my fast approaching trip back east. Must be able to listen tunes when I travel, it is among the best idiot repellent there is. But I've no worries about chatting up with interesting and/or beautiful people. But I NEVER get that hottie to sit next to me on the plane. I invariably get the obese stinkie bugger with a chronic hack making sleep all but impossible.

**Updated 12:04 am** Back to the Ipod, its a much more elegant machine than I'd first known. Quite well engineered and thought out. Especially being able to have my address book in there because now I can pretty well ditch my Palm most of the time though I cannot change the contact info yet. I'm sure there are busy little beavers working on that aspect. One other thing I've yet to figure out about the little unit, which is about the size of a deck of cards, is whether I can and how to move songs around in the playlists. It would seem that it should be editable from the separate unit without having to use the laptop to do it. But who knows? I'll have to mess around with it more. And I need to find some small speakers to take east with me. Or pick up the little FM transmitter they make for the iPod, a very slick solution to how to get the sound out without needing connecting cables. Ahhhh, I love the smell of fresh technology!

There's an amazing sort of smugness in walking around with 1400 songs in your pocket. Especially when its so easy to connect it to a regular stereo and jukebox it through the evening.

Which is what I did last night. The bars shut down at around a quarter to 2 in the morning. Enough time to go and grab a twelve pack or extra bottle of poison from the store. And last night it was my turn to host the fun back at the house. Ended up being a bit of a sausage fest but I don't care, there were a couple of womens there and one was more or less mine for the night so why struggle? Anyway, I got my car cassette adapter, loaded it into the boombox in the bar downstairs (ah the Lighthouse Bar and Grill rides again!), hit shuffle play on one of the playlists I've already got in there and then stashed the Ipod itself under a blanket. People never had any clue and the music played for hours and hours without an issue. Kind of cool really.

Hey, I think I just came up with my latest web poll idea. I've got a nice little firewire web cam. Maybe I should see if people want me to actually use it and get a live cam going on the blog. Not that what I do is of any greater interest but at least I do it naked at least some of the time (which can be a good or bad thing depending on whether you're my housemate and reading this or just a random surfer who happened over my little blog).

But for now, I think I may go and make some edamame (pronounced ed-a-mommy). Something light sounds right, especially with the sea salt and lime, yummy! And for those of you scratching your heads, edamame are soy beans in the pods usually. Steamed or boiled, hit with some citrus juice (they use lemon at sushi houses but I much prefer lime) and then salted. Its like healthy popcorn or something. And yep, it is a California thing though I know its out into some of the other enlightened states.
So I'm off to steam up some beans, maybe crank some music in the bar. And clean up some from last night.

Here's a link to a brilliant and humble Zen Buddhist monk named Thich Nhat Hanh. With some quite superb thoughts on how to live well. I studied him several years ago in school and his teachings are superb without being pretentious (quite a difficult accomplishment).
I found the link for Layne but liked it so much that I had to add it to my own blog.
Everyone could stand to learn from him.

Supremely Stupid Marketing Tactics

Yes kiddies, its time for another installment in the incredibly narrow minded lengths that people go to market their product or service.
Today's discussion is about good old, dead in the ground and buried for 30 years L. Ron Hubbard's Scientology. I won't even begin with an apology to these fools, I don't give a damn about them or their cause. What I do care about is the overpoweringly, mind numbingly stupid means they use to try and bring people back into their flock. Paul, my housemate, went through a rough spell a few years ago and gave them a shot as his dad and step mom are into it and they seem like happy well adjusted people.
It did serve its purpose at the time but it is not a lifelong thing for him. And he attempted to make that clear to them. Yet, to this day, at least once or twice a month he is deluged with handwritten letters from dumbasses in their program. These are letters written en masse, in rooms like homework or something, that describe how wonderful Scientology is and what its done for these individuals doing the writing. Most have horrendous hand writing and misspell at least a third of the words with more than five letters.
And we will get somewhere between five and twenty (yes, 20!) of these at once. All "personalized" but each and every one with a plea to come back. "We miss you, Paul, and we think you're making a terrible mistake but not coming to session (or meeting or whatever the fuck they want to call their brainwashing sessions)." Its both sickening and incredibly sad that all these lost souls have been harvested up by this evil group of people.

Oh yeah, did I mention that each temple or office has an office space reserved for L. Ron himself? Its a rumor but I believe it about these dingbats, the guy has been dead for THREE DECADES. Do they truly think he's coming back? Or is this just a little extra freaky idolatry?

Here, here's an excerpt from an actual letter rescued from the trash. Actually its the whole letter, this is a quick and fast one. "Dear Paul, Hello, my name is Leslie and you should come on course!" and her signature. We got a dozen of these same vacuous retarded things today. Again and again. This has been happening for at least 4 years! Hundreds and thousands of letters written by strangers to a stranger who ONCE went there and saw what it was about. Its not just weird, its downright creepy. And are people supposed to be moved by such obviously gang written tripe? How? Why? What's the point of this campaign? I can't truly believe that it is effective in any way save it keeps the new recruits busy while the powers that be are busy scrubbing their brains free of any desire to run away.

The side effect is that other people around Paul also see what these freaks do with their mailings and cryptic invitations to sailing on some sailboat of light and adventure or some bullshit. I see how utterly rabid they are when they get their hooks into you just once. And I would never in this lifetime have anything at all to do with these fools who waste their resources like this. Flood marketing to people who just wanted to see what it was all about? Um, how much faster could I run away had this stuff been coming to me?

You think spam is bad? Try coming home from a long and tiring day of work to a pile, a pile of this garbage and knowing that its never, ever going to stop. And having assholes like John Travolta and Tom Cruise as pimps, er, I mean spokespeople, is pathetic. I have virtually zero respect for either of them when they start going on about this shit. Sure, I like their movies (except for that Scientology shit that Travolta did a few years ago, a thinly veneered two hour marketing piece for Scientology whose name escapes me right now).

If any of you Scientologist monkeys are reading this then please stop the mail campaign. Its just stupid and rude and a waste of money and trees (oh yeah, didn't even think of that one until right now, how many trees have been cut down to make the paper for this insane campaign?) and completely and totally ineffective, in fact it has the opposite effect. It drives people away, makes them run away screaming.

And thus endeth today's lecture about bad marketing. I do, of course, welcome any and all discourse regarding today's lecture but recognize that I'm not about to change my mind on this. They are insane and beyond any rationality that I can understand or access.

I could veer off and hit the Carrottop tangent but that's a whole other universe of stupidity and bad marketing that I will save for another evening when I'm too tired to go out but not quite tired enough to go to bed yet. So I blog.

SuperFresh New Words!

The update to the New Words page is done. Only four new words today but still pretty good. Let me know your favorite. Or suggest a new one.

My Fucked Company Sporadic

I've got to give some props to Pud from Fucked Company because he's among the funniest writers I know.
This is a short excerpt from today's sporadic (so named because they have no schedule, they just arrive)
(snip)What else...... oh yeah I'm thankful for being able to sleep in this hotel room cuz the bed in my Manhattan apartment HAS FUCKING BUGS. BUGSBUGS BUGS. I wake up and it's like I have dozens of little mosquito bites (no obvious West Nile jokes here please...). It got to the point where the bed is just so damn itchy I have to sleep on the couch. I bought an air mattress and tried to sleep on it but I'm scared of being that close to the floor because of the mice. It's like I live in the fucking jungle, except it has hardwood floors and costs $5,000 a month.
(end snippage)

He's well worth the effort to sign up for the sporadic just for the commentary.

In other news, there will be another couple of words added to the New Words page either tonight or tomorrow. Erika, one of my closest pals who lives in AZ, came up with a new one and I remembered an old one that's awesome. I'll changed the updated to updated again or something like that.
Back to the salt mines!

Who Replaced My Head with WOOD?

Oh man, oh man, oh man, oh man. Today's going to be an extended period of suck mixed in with some yawns and fervently whispered wishes of a place to crash for a few hours. Nothing like a long night out just before the weekend starts up.

We played cards over at Brian's last night and I am sad (not really but somewhat) to say that I stopped my experiment at 22 days. Not that I've totally falled off the wagon but yep, I broke the beaker and that's just how things go. I have promised to explain it all later on, after the full disclosure to my family. No real worry though, its not like I'm shooting smack or anything seriously detrimental like that.

But we ended up having a good night of cards. Though about half the boys who intended on showing up did. But that's all good, we had five for a long time and then six for a little while. I was up and then the stack slowly but surely migrated over to Big Ugly's side (no, he's not really ugly, its just an inside and long standing joke that I'm incapable of dropping). In the end, I paid $20 to play cards, drink V&T's (of which Brian is an excellent mixologist) and chill with some of the guys. Well worth the minor investment. But I'm suffering for it today.

Other News

I'm quite over the house issues. Its just not anywhere near important enough to me to give a damn about it anymore. If people want to get their panties twisted about it then that's fine, but I don't care. I just want to have a nice little harmonious universe again. And it certainly doesn't help my boy, my housemate, to have explained all his shortcomings and then have this tossed on top like a 300 pound offensive lineman.

But, it does appear that the right-on-brothers have it so far. And the condescending comment post probably didn't help much. We're all intelligent people, no reason to talk down to any of us. And really no reason why we, the house, need to address an issue with you, a guest, when its much more sensible to talk it over with our housemate. The extra loading that happened isn't my issue but it does bother me. Maybe I'll hit that later on tonight when I'm NOT out drinking with the kids.

Grease Bombs!

Nothing like starting to day with a serious grease bomb, a McSlack's bagel with steak, egg and cheese that soaked through the bag in the half mile from when I got it to when I got into the office. Yoiks! I should be out cold in about an hour. Maybe the Starbucks will save me, or maybe it'll make me have twitchy dreams? Who knows? Who cares? Just don't come and knock on my door tonight, I'll be out cold and not into dealing in any way shape or form.

I can predict the future though and I know there are some spark.com tests in it. I'm already addicted to them because they are SO TRUE! Hehehehe.
Have a lovely Friday, kiddies!

TheSpark.com - Internet Like Burning.

Tests, tests and more tests. Link courtesy of intellectual properties. Thanks Amy! I love taking tests to find out who and what I truly am!

First test,

The Percentage of Bastard I Am

Apparently I'm just over a third bastard.
The results are in. You are certifiably:

34% bastard!
19% of which is Tard
The worldwide average is 44% bastard.
How others compare:
3% (same as you)
31% (less bastard than you)
66% (more bastard than you)

Of the 3,597,857 test takers so far:
72% like to drink
56% gamble
52% will lie for sex
46% have cheated
17% would have sex with a relative
7% hate homosexuality, 100% of whom will die stupid and alone
7% like childporn
Interesting Results:
The most bastardly age group so far is 27 year olds. 27 year olds average 46% bastard.
Guys who like the taste of coffee are more likely to cheat on their girlfriends.
Men who have been with prostitutes have more smelly armpits.
Catholics are more likely to spit on you.
Dirtbags who like childporn should burn in hell.

A Sticky Wicket in the House

Now, I know this is going to rub a few of my readers in the wrong way but its something that's been in need of addressing for a little while and last night, it was addressed.

I suppose that I should pose a question first to test the waters because it is entirely possible that we, the house, were off base and things shouldn't be any sort of issue whatsoever. But really, regardless of how the rest of the world sees the issue isn't much of an impact on how we, those denizens in our house, view things. We have our own microcosm of society and things progress or digress according to our personalities, needs, deeds and desires.

So here's the background in a nutshell. I've got a housemate with a fairly new girlfriend. She's very cool and I get along with her well and am glad for my boy that he's got a woman he's really and truly into. The issue is that she's been sort of using our house like a home base, which isn't an issue really aside from the fact that she'll be hanging out there when the housemate (i.e. her original reason for being there in the first place) isn't there. Sometimes for most of a day it seems. She isn't rude or nasty or anything like that but she also isn't a member of the house, she's a guest there and when her host isn't there, it just seems to make sense that she wouldn't be there.

But that hasn't been the case.

And yesterday was just plain strange. I came home from work and went out for a little pedal around the neighborhood to see folks and catch up with friends. When I got home, I was doing stuff in the kitchen when the door buzzed. It turned out to be (now stay close here) my housemate's girlfriend's housemate. I knew my housemate wasn't around because his bike was gone so I asked her who she was there for. It turns out that she had come over to hang out with the girlfriend which struck me as incredibly strange that they live together but hang out together at my house when my housemate isn't there.

When one of other housemates, Paul, came home we were talking about the day while watching the Giants game. And I asked him about his take on the whole situation. His response was that it was strange and on some occasions she'd had several people over when my housemate was gone out on the town. Entertaining others in somebody else's house is just outside the bounds. And I may be wrong (set me straight if I am, Miss Sage).

I'd wanted to talk it over with the housemate in a controlled and equal environment but he'd gotten out of the shower and overheard us talking and it all came out then and there. And while I know it upset him some, he was also glad that the matter had been aired. Of course there are plenty of mitigating factors, such as her impending departure for two months but this has been happening since the get go. But the fact is that its not her home, its ours and we, as the folks paying the rent, have an entitlement to our house without issue.