Intellectual Poison

The Sad Saga of the Cat Who Pooped Too Much

Yep, that's about it really. But of course, I can't leave well enough there and there's plenty that should be explained and expounded upon.
And so I shall.

A little background information about the cat, the house and the arrangement. And then the fallout resulting in the cat's near imminent exile from our universe.

The cat is a housemate's little sister's cat that we took on because she'd gotten into a prestigious dance school in New York. And it was utter silliness to try and take the cat with her. Which turned out to be a good thing because she didn't ever really gel with Big Apple living and completed the summer course and came home. Which I think is a sign of maturity really. She didn't try to force a situation that wasn't for her. Maybe there's something to be said for stubborn stick-to-it-tiveness but I don't think it really applies in this instance.

Anyway, she returned to the west coast but not to Santa Cruz. Now she lives up near Lake Tahoe with her beau. Only thing is that she's been back out west for six weeks or more. With no inclination to collecting her cat.

The cat is a cool looking calico but that's about the end of her good traits. She's the loudest, most talkative cat I've ever seen. She's needy in the sense that you can pet her for ten minutes and the second you stop she's looking at you like you never started. It gets tiresome. She'll play revolving doors to go in and out of the house ten times in five minutes if you let her. Yes, all of these things are dealable and none of them are the reason she's got to go.

About a month ago she pissed in my closet, in fact, I think I wrote a post about it at some point. Ruined my backpack and was thusly permanently banished from my room.

Her newest trick is stunt pooping. Or maybe more properly, pooping to mark her territory.
Among her favorite places to leave stinky cat nuggets are two places in the garage, behind the second floor toilet, once on the dining room table, several times behind the bar, several times on one of the blankets we keep on the bench next to the bar, once on the door mat just inside the deck door on the second floor so that my housemate stepped in it and spread it all the way down the stairs. And the piece de resistance? Somehow this irritating ball of fur and claws figured a way to poop INTO a beer stein.

Think about that slowly. A big old German beer stein, at least 12 inches high and this cat target crapped into it. How? I've got no idea as the top of the stein was a good four inches higher than the cat's ass. Why? Who knows what makes a cat's brain work. But yep, that's just plain bizarre.

So the cat's GOT to go. Its no longer a livable situation and I feel bad because I don't feel bad at all about having to do this. Does that make any sense whatsoever? I think it does but then I know what I'm trying to say. Its a bad kitty.

New Section Added

Just finished my 100 Things list. Had a pretty good time writing it up even though I'm sure there's plenty more to add, some stupid ones to drop, some more things to add to the page maybe. Who knows? Its a start. And I've already come up with a half dozen other things to add. Its a never ending list.

I'm considering a broken down bunch of lists, a ten things list but a whole bunch of them. Like Ten Things Music, Ten Things Art, Ten Things Motorcycles, Ten Things Books. Whatever.

But for now this'll work.
And I'm sure I'll have plenty to post tomorrow as I ended up picking up Hardy's cold or flu or whatever. I'm definitely not feeling up to normal snuff. Oh well. I'll survive, or not.

One other note of news

The homeless drunk guy came back again this afternoon when we were not around. He ended up getting into something of a scuffle with another guy there. And the cops never did get out there to take the complaint. So there might be another chapter to this lovely tale coming up before too long.

Politically Incorrect but Its Gotta Be Done

I just came back from the coffee shop where I was backing up one of my housemates who works there but has today off. It seems that a homeless guy, who was obviously drunk, decided to take a piss out in front of the laundromat up the street. Whipped his wanger out in public and pissed all over the sidewalk. And then proceeded to head into the coffeeshop to harass and pester the employees and the patrons. All that while sitting and drinking his 40 ouncer in a bag on the coffee deck, the issue there is that if the cops happened by then the coffee shop would be held liable and fined (and not a penny ante fine, it would be five digits most likely).
So my housemate basically rousted him, called the cops and berated him into finding another locale to squat in. There are places in town where people can hang out.

And no, this isn't some harangue against homeless people at all. Its against fuckos who mistreat my town, my neighborhood and my friends. This is where I live, this is where I plan on putting some roots down and that means its part of my civic duty to protect my neighborhood. And that means rousting disreputable types who don't have the basic manners to not piss in public, in an area where people with their kids might be walking by.

Its just nasty and completely avoidable.

And I know that in today's touchy feely happy society we're supposed to be nicer to everyone but that's crap when it comes to people disrespecting our 'hood. It may not be nice but if you've had to deal with the human detritus that litters our town then you'd eventually come to the same conclusion.

If we all live and let live then things are cool but when homeless drunks invade and disrupt honest businesses and make life less than easily bearable then something has to be done. And it will be. I'm sure my housemate is filing his complaint with the cops as we speak. Of course, nothing will really be done but that's alright. Its on file now and the guy's pretty well marked off another spot he can go back to.

I could tangent off and try to empathize with him but why? Nobody's forcing him to be absolutely shitfaced by 10 am. Nobody MADE him urinate in public. Nobody MADE him harass patrons at the coffeeshop.

Literary Sidenote

Not very many people have heard of one of Orwell's books about tramping, which is just a britishism for homeless. Its called Down and Out in Paris and London and I suppose if you're going to go hobo style then Europe wouldn't be the worst place to do it. But a few things to bear in mind. He did this more than 50 years ago, woops sorry 1933, almost 70 years ago. And the main gist is that it pretty well sucked to be without a home, though he did this voluntarily (sort of). But it is a worthwhile read. Actually almost everything by Orwell's a worthwhile read in my mind.

Salon.com Comics | This Modern World

Anybody who doesn't think Tom Tomorrow's This Modern World kicks ass is just not paying any attention. This is among the finest satire I've ever come across (and yes, that does include my four year subscription the National Lampoon).

Pertinent, pert and piquant! Bring it on, Tom!

Heavy Eyes, Hairy Thighs, Who's Got My Heady Skies?

Oh well, a poet I am not and that's just fine. I'm just sort of forcing myself through the afternoon, struggling to keep my eyes open (and no, I don't have heavy thighs, jeezo, not everything I write is based in reality for chrissake!).

Been a funky week and I'm ready to start next week with more or less clean slate.
Loads of fun, so long as I get my nap in, I'll be just fine!

More Funny Searches

Check this one out. Google Search: Pics of Joan Rivers Looking Plastic.

Hahahahah! I love being able to check those things!

Follow Up Irritation

Well now, this is a bit strange. When I try to check in on the blog, the page loads up but the web page itself stays completely blank. I checked the source and the page code is all there, its intact without breaks or dangling participles or whatever. And yet, I have nothing showing on the screen.

And people wonder why I so thoroughly despise Microsoft.

What Does it Mean When I Already Know the Word of the Day?

I've got several word of the day things going right now and lately I've known the words already. Exacerbate? Come on now, indigent? Puhlease.

Ach, anyway, I'm feeling a little smarter than I was yesterday. Maybe a little less bothered by my pal getting fired. Maybe a little less concerned for his welfare and more concerned for my own. Which means I'll have to make an effort to work more and post less here. Of course, actuality is a very different creature than intention so we'll just have to see how much of a difference there is.

I got a bunch of new music last night which is always good. Thanks to Layne I've found Prozzak and am starting to build up a small collection of their songs. Will try to find their CD later on when I've got some free time. Also got a few new The Coup songs which are, quite frankly, the bomb. And some Wilco which is alright but far overshadowed by The Apples in Stereo, which is excellent so far.

Only down side to the morning, aside from having to get up was that one of the housemates tracked in some crap and its all over the stairs, nasty and a bit unsettling first thing in the morning. And its not like I hate my job right now but its about the last place I wanted to come to today. Why would you fire someone on a Thursday anyway? Why not just wait until Friday and not have to deal with the emotional baggage until Monday when the vast majority of it would have dissipated by then anyway? Short sighted or just don't give a damn. Who knows? Who cares? I just want to fly low, get my time in and then get gone.

Happy Friday! Sorry, no inspirational quotes today. Just a fervent wish to slide through to Saturday sooner rather than later. Though who knows? Perhaps tonight will prove to be a reasonably good time. I did get a new toothbrush in the mail today, its at home charging up as we speak. A full review to come later.

Until the next news story shakes my world, we have, by the way, decided that Scientists Grow Pig Teeth in Rat Intestines may be the best headline of all time. But who knows what today will bring?

Mini Rant on Munging Up the Language

I just came from a little side work surf to check out some random blogs (I do really love that link down there). And it re-highlighted to me a pet peeve of mine. People who take to reinventing the language they use. No, not making up new words here and there. Its the process of writing Neways instead of Anyways or people who alternate every other letter with a capital as in SaNtA cRuZ.
I know why the latter bothers me (because its damned hard to read anything written that way) but I'm not so sure why the former bothers me so much. Maybe because its a sign of laziness? You can't take the time to tap out Any so instead you go with Ne? No, that's lame, sorry not buying it.

But then there are also emoticons which I also think are a bit stupid and refuse to ever use them. A sideways smiley or a winking smiley? And that means what precisely? Whatever. I guess I'm just a bit peeved off right now.
Hey, at least I'm not lapsing into a litany of sailor styled curses. Though I certainly can. Maybe I'll save that for later when the A's toss another game in the crapper in the late innings after excellent starting pitching performances.

Side note:
Checking how people got to Intellectual Poison is among the funniest parts of my day. Someone found me by doing a Google search on Cape Town sluts. And because I've written about CapeTown numerous times (and still owe an explanation from my long passed Four Truths and a Lie about the CapeTown police action I witnessed) and hasn't just about everybody written about sluts at one point or another? Nah, probably not but it makes me wonder just what else came up when they do the search. Thanks SiteMeter!,

Scientists Grow Pig Teeth in Rat Intestines

Now if that ain't news then I just don't know what is. Of course, I didn't really read the article, just the headline and the first couple of paragraphs. The background concept is valid, creating new teeth to replace those that fall out of people's heads.
But damn, it sounds like last place at some southern cook off.

And Then There Were Eight

We lost a co-worker today, he got fired for a variety of reasons and maybe I shouldn't be writing this from work but the day's pretty well tossed as it is already.
I'll write more about this later on but he's a good friend of mine and worked in the sales department. Had put up reasonable numbers, better than any of his predecessors but didn't get along with the boss well and that's like a knife in the back. You just can't function like that.

Sucks to be here today now.

An Inspirational Quote and then An Attempt to Recapture What Blogger Hath Voided

"That's what it takes to be a hero, a little gem of innocence inside you that makes you want to believe that there still exists a right and wrong, that decency will somehow triumph in the end."
- --Lise Hand, describing Irish journalist Veronica Guerin, who was killed as a result of her investigations of Irish organized crime.

Gotta go with the good quote to start the day and yes, this one may just get into my quotes page, haven't updated that one recently. And it deserves to be updated just like all the other pages I've been working on when I should have been cleaning my room or working my lists.

What I'd been writing about when Blogger decided to erase the post was the latest book I've been reading. Its called Advance, Retreat by Richard Rive, a now deceased South African author.
The book deals with issues and people during the apartheid rule of the country, how a simple act of sitting on a Whites Only bench led to the beating and imprisonment of one character. How another drunken character harasses people on the train. How a white woman so irritates a coloured college student (which was a more unusual sight back then and yes, it is good to say back then when it comes to a policy like apartheid).

The book's stories run together though they are meant to be read and allowed to stand alone on their own. But the scenes meld from one to another smoothly and without problems. He writes from the trenches, inside the bodies and minds of his protagonists so that you can feel their worry, fear, fright and elation (that last only on rare occasions). This is a somber book punctuated by moments of brilliant clarity. Quite good reading too.

In other news, I'm somewhat torn this morning about whether I want to go to the Buffett show tonight. Torn from several angles. The biggest is that it'll be my first time going with Melissa and while I don't miss her anymore, I do feel her absence when I do go to those things we once did together. And I know part of this comes from the fact that she's getting married next week. But yeah, its on my mind and I'm not sure if I have any real desire to make the journey over the hill. The other side of that is that I just don't FEEL like doing much of anything right now. I want to sleep, ride my bike, workout, go to the beach, read and write. Well, I guess those are somethings but I don't have a whole lot of desire outside of that for now.

Why is this? I don't know, general unhappiness as the season starts to change over and summer slips into the past. Yeah, yeah, I know summer's been over for a few weeks but not here in Santa Cruz, here its been gorgeous with sunny days, fog enshrouded nights and a delightful lack of tourists.

But I've got to go and get some breakfast in me before a call with one of my analysts later on this morning. One other note before I roll though. I'm increasingly disturbed by the other Melissa's lack of response from emails to her since I saw her in New York. And I'm wondering just what I could have possibly done that would have so disrupted our friendship so that she would write me off completely. That seems a little excessive but who knows, maybe she took my jokes about Derek Jeter a little too seriously? In which case, get over it. He's got zero interest in you so why have much of an interest in him? Eh? Oh you like idolatry? Yeah, that figures.

I'm tempted to write her a slightly less than wholly polite email and more or less demand some sort of explanation. But what would truly be the point? I'm not interested in her aside from her friendship and even that small token seems be denied. Oh well, I'll live and I'll get by just fine out here.

F***ing Blogger

Damnit but this service pisses me off sometimes. Every so often I forget that I've got to highlight and copy my entire posts before publishing them because it will, on occasion, just erase the whole thing. Blogger takes the Post & Publish button and thinks its an erase and delete button.
Which means that alot of nice good writing disappears forever.

Thanks! Makes my day start off just right.

A Parable from intellectual properties

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. "A fight is going on inside me," he said to the boy. "It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. This same fight is going on inside you - and inside every other person, too."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather,
"Which wolf will win?"

The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."

***************************
Thanks Amy, always nice to get a little perspective going. Dang but I munged that code up first time through.

Came across petulant scream earlier today. It'll bear a deeper examination but might be an addition to the blogs down the side.
Oh yeah, and I joined the Suzuki Blog Ring and Great Brain Ring. More to come as I ferret those buggers out.

And apparently there will be no comments until the Klink Family site is back up and running. Anyone know of a comment system that DOESN'T depend on an outside server? I'd like to be able to host and run my own comments right here. Speed things up a bunch too, I'd bet.

MidWeek Malaise

I don't know, there's something about Wednesday's. In some ways its the toughest day of the week because you're just halfway done with the week, there's still more to go. Not like Monday because you've just come off the weekend and should have some war stories to relive. Not like Thursday which is almost a weekend night already.
I don't know.
Still sleeping like shit which is impacting the rest of my life. And I made an effort to get to bed last night before midnight. I tried but it just barely missed.
I do get to cross off a few things from my list I wrote up last night. Tossed up another couple of auctions on Ebay. Got some organizational stuff taken care of. Secured my house for another year (which is totally bitchin'!) and made myself a pretty wicked dinner (skirt steak, a crazy mushroom medley thing and some mini shells with a sharp cheddar sauce and baby peas).
But I'm still feeling kind of empty, like I need to stop into some cosmic gas station and get my soul reinflated.

Erika asked me a question that's repeated itself to me at least a dozen times. Am I going to Melissa's wedding out of a sense of obligation, closure or for some other reason (revenge?)? And I truly don't know. When I think about her getting married I don't feel any sadness or regret. I don't want to be marrying her. Part of my desire to go might be rooted in the fact that I'd like to run into Rob, the guy who I blame for a good portion of our issues. Run into him just so I can break his nose and keep walking. You might think that's a bit extreme but its only a miniscule fraction of the depth of my dislike for this predatory loser.

I should explain more about him but I don't really want to give over any of my time to him anymore. I think, instead, I'm going to run some lovely multiple response cross tabs and get them all cleaned up for our next survey. Sounds like fun, doesn't it? At least I've got my iPod to crank music at me all day.
Maybe I should set it to Buffett and let it roll?

One other thing that's driving me nuts and I know I shouldn't complain about it. I burned the roof of my mouth like three days ago and its still painful today. Sucks to have a face that actually does hurt. Hey, maybe I should pop some painkillers and have a groovy day?
And where'd my stupid comment system disappear to? I didn't give it the day off, or at least I don't remember giving it the day off.

Minor Rant

I know lots of people out there really care about the Emmy Award's and the Oscars and all that crap the rich and pretty give to themselves. But I'm most definitely not one of them. All of those award shows actually bother me. These are people who are getting paid to pretend and yes, some of them are quite talented at pretending to be someone or something else. But they aren't heroes or role models or athletes or firemen or cops or anything of any real value. They are icons, symbols and beyond the thin layer of gold on the outside they are hollow and meaningless on the inside. Do you think they care about you, the fan, at all? If so then let's talk terms on a bridge I own. But then, I've always had a harsher stance than most. I just hate watching them congratulate themselves on how great they all are. And then having Joan Rivers, the queen of idiot plastic surgery (remember Botox, the woman's insane), rip people apart for what they wear? What the hell is that all about?
Maybe if she were still marginally attractive to look at. But she's turned the corner and is now a side show freak. Its like "Hey kids, lets go see the 100 year old woman with skin so tight if she gets a cut, it'll run up half her side like a run in some pantyhose." Give it up, you're old. Age gracefully because this chemical and surgical battle merely highlights your shallow vanity. But then, if that's all you've got..........

He Spins, He Shoots, He SCORES!

Sometimes its good being a PR guy. Sometimes its nice to be able to schmooze a little bit and grease the path of what I want. Sometimes you just catch people in the right mood and it all cascades down slope from there.
Whatever the cause, the conclusion is that we'll have a place to live for another year, another year in the house in First Ave. Another year of BBQ's, beach parties, football parties, of after parties from the bars, of having a garage to keep all of our bikes locked up safely in.

An Interesting Quote from Nerve.com

Came across this during the day's travels, kind of resonated with me some.
"It is essential that we realize once and for all that man is much more of a sex creature than a moral creature. The former is inherent, the other is grafted on." --Emma Goldman

I'd be curious as what the female equivalent of this quote would work out to be. Anyone want to take a stab at it?

Slow Migration from Slumberland to Land of Regretful Wakedness

Well this morning was a tough one to roll out of bed for. It feels like someone stuffed my head with wool or something. We'll see if that clears but I've been feeling a bit run down lately and maybe this is the tip of first flu of the season. I hope not because this is a busy week for me.
My old buddy, Jay, and I are going to this show on Thursday. And then I'm meant to head up to Northstar over the weekend for some serious riding. But as that gets closer and closer and I've still not gotten my SV's rear brake changed over, I'm not quite sure that its a happening thing yet.
That and the concept of a four hour plus motorcycle ride over super slab highway on a bike like Therapy isn't all that appealing. But we'll see. What I want to do more than anything is take a six or seven hour nap which is a little strange since I just barely got up a couple of hours ago.

And I'm split between lots of work tasks to take care of and the pull of housing duties. I need to make sure that we're staying for another year or we'll need to start the process of finding other digs to settle down in. And that would suck because we've got a really good house pulled together now. Just need to get through this hurdle of the new lease.

I'm also looking for my first review at work as I've been here well more than the 6 month trial period. And I'd like to have some sense of how well I'm doing and what I need to work on to improve my value to the company. Sounds like fun? The upside is that, assuming I'm doing my job, I should get a raise and that makes everything more fun. Oh yeah. I'll keep the universe posted.

But I'm tired, my body's tired, my brain's tired, my emotional center is tired. A sick day would have been just the ticket.

Smart AND Sexy?

There's a great new commercial on TV where Mr. Happy's chatting with three cute girls at a party type bar. They're all harmlessly flirting with Mr. Happy (and Available), asking him why he doesn't have a girlfriend when none of them want him at all. And then Mr. Tall Dark and Brooding comes up to be halfway introduced before cutting Mr. Happy off with a brusque "Whatever, I'm going home." And the girls ALL want him. Because he's more mysterious (and substantially better looking) than Mr. Happy.
I identify with both male characters, Mr. Brooding by nature but Mr. Happy by outlook.
What's the point, you ask? Maybe there isn't one this time.
Just pointing to something and saying "Lookie!".

pop culture slut just might be worth a gander or two

Pimp for Hire

Here's more help to the HotorNot guys.

Or maybe not. After trying to add the HotorNot search engine to the site I'm struck by two things. Either Jim and James are bad programmers who publish very, very wonky code or Blogger likes to cheese up even code posted in messages and not just in the template itself. Two, why in the hell do I want a search engine to their site on my blog?

Ex that crap code and things should return to what passes for normal.

Ever See "Enemy of the State"?

There are some scenes in Enemy of the State that left me a little freaked out. I knew it was a movie and they had license to stretch technological bounds to propel the plot and all that. But check this out, this is MapQuest's satellite picture of my neighborhood. No, you can't dynamically follow me as I ride my bike through the streets but I'm sure the government can.

A little strange but also a little cool. My brother showed me this when we all in Delaware a few weeks ago. Finally got around to checking it out. Punch in your own address and see your house from space.

Do A Myriad of Smaller Aggravations Equal One Giant Explosion?

I've been happy, overall, things in life are progressing at reasonably good rates. Heck I'm such a good person that I increased my loan repayments on my motorcycle!
But I'm severely unmotivated about certain things and I'm not quite sure why.
Like really going through and cleaning my room from top to bottom. Putting away, throwing away, donating unworn clothes, culling the useless, shelving the useful. All that crap. And maybe reorganize one of the closets, or move my bed around in the room again.
Now, I know why I'm not doing that right now. I'm still unsure about whether we'll get a renewed lease.
Or the realization that, damn it, missed a patch of whiskers while I was shaving this morning and then settling into basically not caring about it.
Or spending a minute or so every ten, killing ants as they scurry across my desk on some important mission or another. Nothing they're feasting on in or on the desk, they're just using it as a short cut from the wall the other wall.

I know where a portion of the melancholy comes from. Its the realization that as each weekend passes, I draw nearer to another chapter of my life closing forever. Melissa's wedding is the weekend after next. It ought to be interesting (and by interesting I mean emotionally trying) but on the same token, I know she's not the right woman for me. But she's been the closest in a long time.
I drive myself nuts sometimes, having a virtual checklist of qualities against which any and all potential mates must cross. I don't know how it all works or what but its there and I know that there are checks that must be checked off before any possibility of any future come about. Is this making any sense, does it matter one way or the other? Its my mind, let me be as cluttered and lame as I need to be.

I do know that I need to make some changes of some kind and shake the malaise that's settled over me again. Too easy to let the day drift through me instead of attacking it and beating into submission.

Hope I've got a place to live in three weeks but if not I need to check in with the Santa Cruz Housing Authority and find out what my rights are if the lease isn't renewed. Is it bad that there's a part of me that wants to shake up the housing situation again? I love my room and love my house but it hurts to be paying so much for rent, its just plain wrong. Its like setting fire to a third of my paycheck every month. Poof, gone without any equity build up.

Oh well, looks like I've rambled on long enough for now. I'm sure something'll set me off before too long and I'll have to rant out at length.
To Kim, welcome to the blog, thanks for taking the time to say hello. Hope you like what you read. If not then let me know or tag it.

My Laptop, the Comedian

You know how some people don't know when to shut up and go away?
My Powerbook's decided, lately, that it knows better than I do when it needs to go to sleep (i.e. so I can sleep or go to work or go outside and not burn my eyeballs to my eyelids by staring at the screen for hours upon hours on end).
Its marginally funny the first time.
I'll go to the file menu, scroll down to sleep and immediately the whole system begins to power down, the screens dim, the hard drive begins to wind down.
And just before its out cold, it'll spin all the way back up, screens un-dim and it acts like its ready to play some more.

As I said, its funny (or something like funny) the first time. Imagine being told the same joke every ten or fifteen seconds for ten minutes. How funny is it on the last hearing? Not very.
I'll try to put the system down five or six times and each time it'll spin down almost to being down but then, bam, it'll spin right back up.
The only thing I can equate it with is how dogs and cats will be basically out cold but then a sudden noise will jar them back to sitting up and looking around again, fearful that they'll miss out on any fun.
But this kind of fun, I don't need. I wanted to throw the damned laptop into the street (which is a failing of frustrating devices that are small enough to hurl into a wall or oncoming traffic). But it eventually settled down and behaved for the time being.

So a part of the day will have to be given over to trying to figure out just what the fudge is going wrong. Wish me luck or maybe stand outside my window waiting to catch the laptop on its way to extinction. I'll yell first if I feel the further need to pump a few rounds through the carcass.

Another New Blog to Poke Through

In my continuing efforts to cull the lame blogs in my regular clicks, here's one that doesn't suck. I'll try to get rid of the ones that do.
mecawilson holds good fun stuff

Fabuloso Friday Night Updates

Well, instead of going out and getting stinkity again tonight. I opted to stay in and write, alot. I updated two pages from the blog.
Another new recipe on the recipe page, this time for my take on bruschetta.

And this, on the About page

I'm not exactly sure what to write about myself. Part of me likes the idea of being my own PR pimp. Well, let's start there. I'm a PR manager for a small research company located in Santa Cruz, California.
My name is Erik and I'm 33 years old, look 27, act anywhere between 12 and 50 at any given time though I tend to being more playful than anything else.
I come from Northern European stock, German on my dad's side and a combo meal of Welsh, Scottish and some Polish on my mom's. I've been able to trace both sides of my family history back several hundred years. My middle name is Carl, a name that's been passed down through my father's family history for a few hundred years.

Read the rest? But I will warn you now, I'm not capable of a short post or background. And I'm still only maybe hitting a tenth of my life. but then, aren't we all?

Think You Have Crappy Neighbors?

Check out this guy's long story about his Redneck Neighbor.

I'm glad I live nowhere near this moron.

Thanks to The Fabulous Mint 400 for the link. The Mint 400 is, by the way, the race that Hunter Thompson was going off to cover outside of Las Vegas when he wrote Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, possibly one of the most entertaining books of all time.

Happiness is......

Knowing that there's a pair of fresh McQueen DVD's waiting for me at the house when I get off of work. Steve McQueen has slowly grown into one my personal heroes because of how he carried himself through his life. He was a no bullshit kind of guy, tough as nails when he had to be and cool under pressure. Lots of traits that I do make an attempt to emulate (sometimes notably less successfully than others, see the post for proof. I've got Papillon and Hell is for Heroes waiting at home to go with The Great Escape as my little McQueen DVD collection grows. Ebay rules!

And in response to Amy's question about who said the unexamined life is not worth living, I humbly submit my Google search but also agree that Thoreau used much the same philosophy in his life. Though the original quote comes some time before Thoreau's time. Go So-Crates! Oh wait, that's Socrates, hehehehe.
the unexamined life: googlized.

The Examined Life On-Line Philosophy Journal
Another spot to examine and learn. Very interesting site and I plan on going back when I've got more time to explore it fully.

An Era of Animosity and Hatred

I don't how many of you out there witnessed the utter stupidity of the father and son at the Chicago White Sox/Kansas City Royals game last night. They jumped out of the stands and assaulted the first base coach, an older man who they'd decided needed an ass kicking. But in the end, after they'd blind sided him like cowards, the entire Royals team dog piled on them and proceeded to beat the holy pooh right out of them.
They were then escorted down into the bowels of the stadium and (hopefully) beaten up some more for their incredible stupidity. I say hopefully because this sort of behavior is among the most easily preventable and is also a sign of how poorly people are raising their children.
This man is obviously a person filled with hatred and anger, maybe a drinking problem tossed in for liver hardening fun. And he is raising his son with his same moral character. That its okay to attack someone you don't agree with, that beating up older people is permissible, that hating IS a family value, that its okay to go through your life being angry and taking it out on whoever pisses you off next.
I want to see what happens to this idiot, I want to see him go to jail, I want to see him suffer for his idiocy. I want to see him be made an example of, a harbinger of things to come for those that raise their families to hate. I would very much like to see some sort of mandate passed that people cannot raise their kids to be haters, to use aggression as a means to resolving issues. We're a civilized society, why do people think its okay to debate with their fists and feet instead of their wit and intellect?

EVOLVE PEOPLE! Evolve or get out of the way.

Urgent Appeal - Amina Lawal Must Not Face Death by Stoning

Yeah, this is completely and totally messed up. Thanks to intellectual properties for the heads up and the link.
Horrible concept and story. Made all the worse because this is happening right now, not a hundred years ago or five hundred years ago. And even worse again because the supposed father of the child has already walked free because there's not enough evidence to prove the child is his.
Its incredibly frightening to think that this can happen now, in this day and age. And all she did was have a child out of wedlock, for that they want to bury her in the ground and then smash stones into her skull until it fractures and she dies. Why? To scare other women away from sex forever? Is this the same place that performs female circumcisions with rusty razor blades and mutilates a woman's genitalia, effectively chopping off the parts that make intercourse feel good? Good lord, and we're trying to protect our oil interests instead of protecting these sorts of outright human rights violations.
Procreation isn't just a right, its our true and sole purpose of existence and as such is genetically hard wired into us. Because she didn't have a husband before creating a child, she should die? That's ludicrous.

In Other News

Bush-Hitler Comparison Colors German Vote Run-In
This is just plain sick. However true or untrue it may be, to have a US president likened to Hitler is wrong, no matter how bad Bush may be.

Off to see the Wizard

Today ought to be an interesting day of meetings to discuss and codify our PR strategy. I've got my English PR/marketing rep in and our Florida-based PR guy. But the downstream effect is that I'll be unable to post much today.

Does Being Agnostic REALLY Mean Anything?

I've been thinking about this for a couple of weeks now, ever since I went back east and visited a friend. A friend who's since pretty well ex-communicated me from her life. No idea why really but the only one I can think of that makes any real sense is that I told her I don't believe in God. I even had the chance to tell her why (a long and involved story). But ever since, she ignores my emails. Yep, its lame and silly. I thought friends were able to accept and move past minor issues (of which I truly think religion is one). And I don't think its because I was harping on Derek Jeter, that would be incredibly stupid of her. Which she is not.

But can it be that the main problem is the fact that I refuse the leap of faith argument? That I cannot force my mind to accept that there are beliefs that should JUST be held without examination? I'm sorry, no wait, no I'm not, but if you require me to be illogical then you'll be sadly and sorely mistaken. I cannot make myself believe something in absence of real proof, its just not in me. My parents raised me properly and well, I have a scientist (cum businessman but a chemist during my formative years) for a father and a social scientist for a mother. My grandfather was a physicist and my other grandpappy was an electrical engineer.

I'm a trained philosopher, an empiricist actually. That means I need to see the proof before it becomes real and possible to me. Belief outside of evidence is opinion and is, as such, untenable. Oh well, her loss, not mine. I can't deal with narrowmindedness. Though perhaps I'm as guilty of it? But at least I write the emails and that's gotta count for something. The attempt rather than the stoic silence which is, truthfully, infuriating. But whatever, I live in California, she lives in New York, what's the point anyway aside from the fact that I had her as a friend and now she's just another existant creature.

War Humour

This is for Amy at intellectual properties. It came by way of my favorite desert rose, thanks EB. I'll change it to a link in a day or two but its well worth the few moments it'll take to load up inline.

Another Cool Toy for the Blog

I was checking out FoodTV.com and saw that they have a random recipe link that I thought would be a cool addition to Intellectual Poison. I'll post it on the side with the other links. Maybe I should start a random links section for these as I find them? Yeah, yeah, that'd be cool!

Making an Old Mac Hand Happy

One Man's Retro Mac Revival is a great story about another Mac-head (sorry Layne, I'm all about Macs) who trucks old macs to raves and other spots and sets up game lounges.

Rock on, Devan! The world needs more guys like you.