Finally, my collection is finished!

Today, in the mail I got my copy of Nell Marr Dean's Circus Nurse and now I'm finally, after so many years, the proud owner of both novels called Circus Nurse. Right now I'm savoring the wonderful bacony flavor of victory.

Now what?

"Oh, crap! I'm gonna get it now!"

I guess it's time for a post despite the fact that nothing at all is going on in my life worth posting about. It's all really quite tiresome.

The image shown below is the front cover of a religious pamphlet I picked up when I was leaving the dentist's office. (Why are religious types always leaving these pamphlets everywhere? I once bought a camera bag at Big Lots only to find a pamphlet inside telling me I was going to hell.) I love the look on the guy's face. He's thinking, "Why did I have to look at all that porn? God's gonna kick my ass!"

A Survey

English lesson

The fun starts around 0:49. Maybe I'd be able to speak a second language if they had taught us this way.

Gobbleh

Turkey is a fairly bland and dull form of meat. There, I said it.

Six Long Years

On this date six tedious years ago, I started this tiresome blog. I don't even remember why I started it, I just started it. I guess I needed a hobby that didn't involve porn. Or something. I dunno. Anyway, six years on teh interwebs is positively ancient. The average blog supposedly lasts only six months. It's rare for them to last a couple of years. Mine is six years old, so you'd think that would entitle me to something, but I don't think it does.



I'm kind of tired of this specific blog. When I started it, Google didn't even own Blogger and it didn't have all the neato wizzbang features it has now. Also, if you go back and look at a lot of my old posts (and please don't do that), you'll see lots and lots and lots of dead links. I'd have a post that went something like Hey look at this. It's stoopit! And the word this would be a link. Naturally, that link is now dead and I don't have the slightest idea what I was referring to. And since it wasn't easy (or free) to post photos on Blogger back then (and because I was on dial-up), I didn't post pictures, I'd just link to them. Some of the photos are there and some of them aren't. Much of this blog's archive is basically a bloated wasteland of dead links and typos.

I'm thinking of starting a new blog, so I can take advantage of the spiffy features Blogger offers these days. I haven't decided if I'm actually going to start a new blog yet. Or even when. It's not like I have tons of amusing things to write about.

It’s almost over!

This tiresome election is almost over. Finally. Tomorrow after work I’ll go and vote. Hopefully, I won’t have to stand in line for three hours. Or longer. Also, I sincerely, desperately hope that when I wake up Wednesday morning, there will be a clear winner and the loser accepts that he lost and goes the fuck away. We don’t need a replay of the 2000 presidential election. If there’s no clear winner by Wednesday, then flip a coin. Draw straws. Wrestle. Something. Anything. I don’t care, just end this national nightmare.

Piggies

Today I noticed a full page Piggly Wiggly ad in the paper. (Yesterday's paper, actually.) At the top of the page were the words, "Savings So Low It's Scary!" And scattered across the rest of the ad were several instances of the beloved Piggly Wiggly cartoon pig in various "scary" Halloween costumes. My favorite (a skeleton suit) is shown below.



But far scarier than a happy cartoon pig in a skeleton suit is a slab of meat from a butchered pig.



I like to imagine the happy cartoon pig in his little paper hat and butcher apron selling chunks of own kind to humans to eat.

No humping zoo animals here

Really, I should just keep reposting that picture of the giraffe fucking the donkey just annoy everyone, but I won’t. Let’s move on from interspecies boinking, shall we?

I have nothing at all to add to any of this except that I’m using Windows Live Writer to write this post. Excellent free tool, if I must say. Anyway, when I was typing the above, the word boinking was flagged by the spell checker. I right-clicked on the word and looked at the list of correctly spelled suggestions. On the list was banking, and I almost chose that because the phrase interspecies banking was suddenly very appealing to me.

I’ll bet you’re sorry you even bothered to read this, aren’t you?

I really need to post something

I really need to post something, but I have nothing to post. So, I'm posting the photo shown below.

Hail Satan?

This morning I was at the Salvation Army looking for crap I don’t need. When I went into the cramped room with the books, the first thing I saw was a wheezing, disheveled old man who, upon seeing me inter the room, gave me a hand sign that was either sign language for I love you or the heavy metal devil horn sign. Either would strange, to put it mildly. Thankfully, he left, so I didn’t have to deal with him.

What about per joint?

The insurance people came to work yesterday, and one of the things handed out was a strange list. On it, body parts were listed by price; so, if you lose a finger, you get $750. But, if you lose two or more fingers, you only get $1,500. Are they penalizing you for losing more than one finger? It should be $750 per finger and toe. Or maybe less for toes, since they aren't quite prehensile. How about $200 a toe? That sounds reasonable. Even the pinkie toe has to be worth something.

A reasoned response to current events

OH MAH GAWD!!! AAAAHHHH!!! WE'RE DOOOOOMMMMMED!!! [Jumps through window.]

Strange scam spam

I know this should go on my old, unused scam spam blog, but I'd rather post it here because I'm funny that way. The bizarre language is a welcome relief from the usual scam spam stuff. All I want from spam is a little entertainment, is that too much to ask?

Madam Grace Wilson,

Here writes Madam Grace Wilson, suffering from cancerous ailment. I am married to Sir David Wilson an Englishman who is dead. My husband was into private practice all his life before his death. Our life together as man and wife lasted for three decades without child. My husband died after a protracted illness. My husband and I made a vow to uplift the down-trodden and the less-privileged individuals as he had passion for persons who can not help themselves due to physical disability or financial predicament.

I can adduce this to the fact that he needed a Child from this relationship, which never came. When my late husband was alive he dposited the sum of 2.45 Million (2.45 Million Great Britain Pounds Sterling which were derived from his vast estates and investment in capital market with his bank here in UK.Presently, this money is still with the Bank. Recently, my Doctor told me that I have limited days to live due to the cancerous problems I am suffering from.

Though what bothers me most is the stroke that I have in addition to the cancer. With this hard reality that has befallen my family, and me I have decided to donate this fund to you and want you to use this gift which comes from my husbands effort to fund the upkeep of widows, widowers, orphans, destitute, the down-trodden,physically challenged children, barren-women and persons who prove to be genuinely handicapped financially.

I took this decision because I do not have any child that will inherit this money and my husband relatives are bourgeois and very wealthy persons and I do not want my husband's hard earned money to be misused or invested into ill perceived ventures. I do not want this money to be misused hence the reason for taking this bold decision.

I am not afraid of death hence I know where I am going. I do not need any telephone communication in this regard due to my deteriorating health and because of the presence of my husband's relatives around me.I do not want them to know about this development. As soon as I receive your reply I shall give you the contact of the bank in uk.

I will also issue you a Letter of Authority that will empower you as the original beneficiary of this fund. My happiness is that I lived a life worthy of emulation. Please assure me that you will act just as I have stated Hope to hear from you as soon as possible through my private email madamgracewilson1@hotmail.com

This week's lackluster blog-post

Yesterday I was in CVS and saw Bill Clinton rubber masks on sale. I didn't notice any Bush masks.

"I graduated from the police academy, not art school!"

I think the above illustration is easily the worst police composite sketch I've ever seen.

Horror of horrors

Earlier today I was installing XP and, before I loaded the display driver, I got to see the horror that is the Windows XP desktop in 4 bit color. Imagine having to use the computer all the time with it looking like that. Sure fire way to cure you of your internet addiction.

Why morons shouldn't be allowed on the internet

I've been known to bid on stuff listed on Ebay. Sometimes I end up bidding on stuff that I don't really want. Almost always I end up winning the auctions of stuff I really don't want but bid on anyway because I'm insane.



The photo above is my latest dumbass Ebay acquisition. It's a Dell PowerEdge 2450 server. You know, one of those things the internet runs on. I don't need one, but for some reason, about a week and a half ago, I became vaguely obsessed with the idea of owning one. So I began looking on Ebay for a cheap, older one. I bid on one, not thinking I'd actually get it. Also, I totally overlooked just how frickin' HUGE a rack-mount server is. It's over a yard long. It's as loud as a vacuum-cleaner. It's ugly. But it runs. In the above photo I have the thing running a Linux live CD and actually got it online and was looking at some jerk's lame blog.

I don't know what I'm going to do with it.

Let this be a lesson! Or something. I don't care.

Huh?

WTF? I have a blog? Since when? 2002? Really? Can I go back to sleep now?

Kaboom

Man, I really hope that Large Hadron Collider blows up the universe when they crank it up on Wednesday. Stupid universe. Enough already.

Leave Tina out of it

Every time I see a mention of hurricane Ike in the news, the first thing I think of is Ike Turner.

Hair

This afternoon at Wal-Mart I saw a little kid with a mohawk. It was growing out quite a bit, but it was still a mohawk. Nothing else about him or his family seemed the least bit out of the ordinary, but I couldn't help but wonder how a little six or seven year old kid ended up with a mohawk.

Sometimes I get bored

Mystery Bulges

Sometimes when I walk across the carpet, there are disconcerting little bulges that feel quite strange under my bare feet. The bulges come from the ancient carpet coming unglued from the floor. Every time I step on one I think briefly that I've just stepped on a hamster or some other kind of little furry thing.

I think there's some good stuff down in the bottom

There's several big recycling dumpsters near my bank. This morning I dumped off some glass bottles and aluminum cans after hitting the ATM machine. The mixed paper dumpster caught my eye as I went past. I stood and looked down into it at all the various bits of paper, strangely desperate to see something interesting. I wondered how much porn was in there. The closest thing to porn I saw was a couple of Adam and Eve catalogs. I didn't touch any of it. Pulling a crusty porno mag out of a dumpster isn't really something anyone should in their right mind should ever do.

Antithesis of funky

The second in command of the machine shop said to me yesterday, "It's Friday! Going to get funky?"

"Yeah, I'm going to get funky," I deadpanned.

Laptop Redux

After too long a wait, I finally took delivery of my replacement laptop. So far, it hasn't died once. Yippee. I was even able to watch streaming porn on the couch like a real American!

So, what's my take on Vista Home Premium? (Or whatever the hell it's called.) Well, it works. The main annoyance I have is with the nagging. I know it's a security feature, but it's still annoying. The other thing that annoys me is that Microsoft went and renamed stuff that's been the same for many years. I don't like having to dig around for things that are suddenly called something else or have been placed in some other mysterious location. So my take on Vista? It works. But my main complaint isn't with Microsoft at all, it's with Hewlett-Packard for loading all that crapware on the system. Bite me, HP.

Tiny House

I want a tiny house. Of course I could never successfully live in one of these things for very long because of my pathological urge to accumulate useless junk, but I'd still like to try.



Also, I could just see the tiny house ending up on its side after I went berserk because I bumped my head on a cabinet door or something. Or someone would steal it while I was out shopping. Bastards.

Of course, my tiny house wouldn't be like the one below.

Horror of horrors

nice shoes!, originally uploaded by Veronica Belmont.

Just when you thought footwear couldn't get any more freakish. I don't know how the photographer was able to resist the urge to stomp on this guy's feet.

The website's even worse. ARRGH!

"Having eliminated the Nazis threat, Rita now faces the prosaic dilemma of earning a living."

Ah, spam. Mostly it's an annoyance, but on occasion it can be a genuine treat. Granted, it's a weird treat, but a treat still.

I used to keep a webmail account just for scam emails, but I got so much of that it overwhelmed me and I quit even logging in. Eventually, the account went dormant and I lost all the email in it. No big deal. I recently began checking the account once again and the scam email and other weird stuff is once more coming in at a regular pace.

My favorite subject line for an email ever is shown below:



Yes, it's just a quote from Futurama, but it's still funny. Sadly, the email was just the typical boner pill nonsense.

Even stranger are the emails that use random text to foil spam filters. Sometime this text comes from actual works of literature and other times it's just produced by a markov generator. The non-markov stuff interests me because I simply want to know where the hell it comes from. Mostly it seems to be public domain books from Project Gutenberg, but sometimes it's from someplace else. I often find myself pasting swathes of text into Google to find its origin. (What I'm trying to say here is that I have no life.)

An email I got today had a truly bizarre chunk of text in it about Hitler:

Hitler gasped for air. His left handheld a glass jar over the head
of his penis. Hisbody suddenly spasmed againstthe plush of the
soft leather couch. A primeval screampartially suppressed
through clenched teeth resounded through the room. The sound
was deadened by the rich tapestries that coveredthe walls of
the semi-dark office.

Still breathing heavily, theleader of the ThirdReich held the jar
up to a light and studied the sticky substance slowly sliding down
the insides of the container. He stood, screwedthe cap into
place and set the jar on his desknext to the untouched
photographs of nude women in various provocative poses. He
forced his still semi-erect penis into his pants andbuttoned
his fly.

He looked down to see if his clothes were in proper array.
Satisfied, he bent over and picked up the picture of his mother
that had fallen from his lap during the final moment ofecstasy.
He slid the pictureinto the insidebreast pocket of histunic
making sure it was deeply seated. He then presseda buzzer
and left the room.

Moments later, Colonel Ludwig Schmidt, wearing the uniform
of the elite SS guard, enteredand gathered the photographs.
He placed them in an envelopethat had been lying onthe desk.
The envelope was marked "TOP SECRET"in bold red letters
across its front and back. The Colonel then took the jar and
placed it in an insulated steel cased boxpacked with dry ice.
He closed the cover andsecured it with a heavy brasslock.

From his pocket he removed a smallcandle and cigarette lighter.
After lighting the candle he held it so that the hot wax dripped
into the keyhole and the surrounding area of the lock. He then
pressed the face of a signet ring he was wearingagainst the still
soft wax. He then left the room taking the envelope and the box
with him.

THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE, ONEYEAR LATER

The submarine's periscope cleaved thewarm waters of the
CaribbeanSea exposing no more than two feet ofcamouflaged
metal above the lapping waves. It slowly rotated, scanning the
horizon through the splash caused by the mildtropical winds.
The bright moonlight made the lonefreighter on the horizon
stand out in bold silhouette.
 
"Down periscope," the Captain said,smartly folding the handle
bars. He turned to the young blondmilitarily erect >man dressed
in ordinary seaman's clothes and said,"Come Colonel Schmidt,
let us go to my quarters and go overthe plans for transferring
the personnel to the freighter."

Sitting at thesteel planning desk in the cramped quarters the
Captain faced the Colonel and said, "It is no secretthe war is
going badly. The Allies are dominating the sealanes and I have
grave doubts about myability to get this sub and its crewback
to the Fatherland. It is one thing to die for the Fuhrer inbattle;
it is quite another to play nursemaid to a dozenpregnant women.
Can you not tell me as officer toofficer what this is all about?

I promise you the informationwill go no further than within this
room. It would make our fate more bearable if I knew the
sacrifice was ofconsequential importance." The Colonelstudied
the submarine's Captain across the desk beforeanswering.
"The twelve women are pregnant with theFuhrer's children."


The Captain sat dumbfounded. Finally he said,"Gottimhimmel!
How is it possible? All twelve? Why arethey on this U-boat?
What is this all about?" As he startedto speak, the Colonel's
voice rose from low key to a hysterical crescendo."As you
observed, Captain, the war is going badly. OurFuhrer is a
brilliant man. He sees far beyond the immediacy of today's
battles—won or lost.

He plans only for the ultimate domination of this globe by pure
Aryans. The twelve women represent thebest of German
womanhood, each the purest Aryan. Each selected forbreeding
qualities of health and intelligence. Eachfrom families that bore
predominantly male offspring.
 
“Through the use of eugenic selection and artificialinsemination
it is the Fuhrer's plan to father achild in his own image.
A child who would possess his genius and determination.
That child will be raisedin America and ultimately rise to a
position of power. InAmerica he will plant the seeds that will
mature into the Fourth Reich. He will become—The American Fuhrer.

You ask, what the hell kind of crap is this? Well, it's a novel called The Jewess by someone named Jerome Parks. He has a website. It's quite something.

I know I've just quoted a ridiculously long piece of prose, but at the risk of angering Mr. Parks, I'm going to quote his insane synopsis of his novel:

Rita Adler, (The Jewess) working as a typist, develops Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. She enters a Worker’s Compensation Program and is re-trained to be a systems computer analyst.

She obtains a job in an optometrist office as the computerized records manager. Located in Washington, DC, the optometrist has senators and Supreme Court judges as patients.

During the course of her employment, the optometry office installs a high-tech eyesight testing device. Rita studies the workings of the device and realizes it simply combines the technology used by most cameras to measure distance with a computer that analyzes the physical change of the eyeball shape when focusing at different distances.

Rita finds a computer program that lets you act as your own psychiatrist. She gets the idea of combining it with the eye measuring device so that the eye’s reaction to various scenes used by the device can be interpreted as a psychological reaction.

Werner Schmidt, the leader of the neo-Nazi movement in America, is one of the optometrist’s patients. Rita tests Werner’s eyesight using the new testing device. She adds in a series of scenes to determine his psychological profile. She does this to satisfy her curiosity about Werner whom she finds physically attractive.

Werner and Rita go on a date. They both have deep-rooted sexual aberrations. Rita had a trauma as a child that left her unable to have sex—she's still a virgin. Werner also had a childhood trauma that left him unable to have sex with other than a virgin. Rita knows about Werner's sexual aberration having seen it in his psychological profile. This knowledge enables Rita to totally captivate Werner to the point where he obsesses over her.

Colonel Ludwig Schmidt, is Werner Schmidt’s foster-father. He had been commissioned by Adolph Hitler, to raise the infant Werner, in the United States for the purpose of Werner becoming the American Fuhrer. The Colonel is shocked when he learns of Werner's infatuation with a Jewess. He probes the acts that Werner had in Rita’s presence and figures out that somehow Rita learned of Werner’s sexual hang-ups through the use of the eye tester device. When Werner realizes that Rita had exploited his sexual hang-ups, he becomes infuriated and vows vengeance.

Werner embarks on a vendetta against Rita. He trashes her apartment smearing racial hate slogans in red paint over her walls and furniture. Terrified, Rita goes underground. The Colonel locates her in a motel where she's hiding and subjects her to an erotic lesbian experience that frees her from her sexual hang-ups. He does this so that Rita will become sexually promiscuous and no longer attractive to Werner.

The Colonel and Werner need the password to Rita's computer so that they can get the psychological profile of the senators and judges who had their eyes examined by the eye tester device. They plan on using the information for political gain. Believing that Dr. Schulman, Rita's boss, has the password they need to access the eye tester files, they viciously torture leaving him blind.

When Rita learns of this she feels an emotion that she’s never experienced before—an urge for revenge. Using the information from Werner's psychological profile, she creates a plan that will make him experience the most horrible terror imaginable. The result is that Werner is reduced to a vegetable state.

The Colonel, now seeking revenge against Rita, for what she's done to Werner embarks on a cat and mouse game to locate her. Rita sets up a counter plan to entrap the Colonel. It succeeds and the Colonel's entire neo-Nazi network is destroyed.

Having eliminated the Nazis threat, Rita now faces the prosaic dilemma of earning a living.

Rita contacts the CEO of the corporation that manufactured the eye testing device and induces him to give her a contract to service the eye testing machines being used by optometrists throughout the country.

Rita reunites with an old friend, Muriel who worked with her when she was a typist. Between the two of them they set up a service organization that nets them enough money to live a luxurious life.

Rita uses the files from the devices she services to gather information about people's opinions. She starts a corporation whose purpose is to take polls. Because she has access to the computer-generated opinions she is able to do marketing predictions faster, cheaper and more accurately than any of the existing companies.

Rita meets with the CEO of the giant corporation that dominates the poll taking industry. They become sexually and romantically involved. Then they become competitors during the presidential elections.

The CEO of the corporation that manufactures the eye testers cancels the contract with Rita, essentially putting her at a business. She is forced into bankruptcy.

Rita and Muriel have to live in a one-room dump and take jobs as waitresses to make ends meet. Rita goes into a state of depression. Muriel comes up with the idea to sell to their former adversary in the poll taking business, the secret of how she was able to outperform them. Rita takes the proceeds from the sale and plays the stock market. By leaking information anonymously she's able to control the value of the stock she has purchased. Once again she is wealthy.

Rita induces the manufacturers of the eye testing machines to sell franchises. She buys the franchise for Europe. She and Muriel now live in an exotic condominium on the French Riviera. Now experiencing all the material things that life offers, they contemplate; what is the meaning of life? Why are we here? Together they come to a surprising conclusion.

This is only a 60,000 word novel? That's short. How in the hell can someone cram so much convoluted lunacy into 60,000 words. I'm actually debating whether or not to actually buy this book. Hell, there's even a Kindle version available on Amazon.

This post is long enough, I guess. Bite my shiny metal ass.

Award-winning food

Today at work I got dragged to an out-of-the-way BBQ joint at lunchtime. While we were sitting there waiting for our food, one guy said, "You can tell a restaurant's gonna have good food when they have trophies."

I turned around and saw a display of a half dozen or more trophies each with a gold pig or chicken on top.

Strange jingoism

Today at work I noticed an odd t-shirt someone was wearing. It featured the word America in Germanic letters over a mounted deer's head with a stars and stripes motif. I guess whoever this shirt would appeal to would quickly understand and appreciate the dual hunting/patriotism message, but to me the design looked like someone had shot America and mounted its head on a wall.

Advertising

I found the above $20 bill last week. I know the Miccosukee are an Indian tribe, but I didn't know where. For some reason I wasn't expecting them to be in Florida.

Exciting, no? No.

ARRGH!

Why are the two new temps at work making fifty cents an hour more than I currently make? And I'm not even a temp anymore.

Please kill me

My computer's over four and a half years old. It works, but it's a bit long in the tooth and I wanted to get a new one. Some of you have been around long enough to remember what happened the last time I tried to buy a computer. Surely, nothing bad would happen if I bought a computer now.



I searched over a period of several months for a suitable replacement machine. For a while there I planned on buying my first Mac, but then decided against it because Macs are just too expensive. Even their cheapest model is too damn expensive. $400 and you don't even a get a keyboard or mouse? Bite me, Steve Jobs. Apple's clearly only interested in selling to yuppies. So decided to get another crappy Windows system (that I could run Linux on).

But do I get a Vista system or an XP system? Since I'd been using XP for over four and a half years, I wanted something new, but Vista had a lot of bad press. And do I get a desktop system or a laptop?

But enough of this palaver. Last week I ordered a refurbished HP laptop with Vista on it for $550. Yesterday, much to my surprise, the thing was waiting for me after I got home from work. My first new laptop!

Vista was kind of annoying, but I could use it just fine. Quickly I was wireless on the couch! Watching streaming video! And it wasn't even porn! Then the fucking thing conked out.

After a reboot I was informed by a very irate Vista that I'd shut the computer down wrong. Later it conked out again. And again. It didn't matter if it was running off batter power or plugged into the wall; the thing would just die. So I bought a lemon.

Right now it's in the hands of UPS. I sincerely hope they back a truck over it or something. Or accidentally fling it into a wood-chipper.

Who knows how long I'm going to have to wait for a replacement. Or even if I'll get a replacement. My luck they'll check it out and it will work perfectly. Then they'll just send it back.

The lesson I learned? Don't get out of bed. Ever. Better yet, go live in a cave and reject society altogether.

Why was this ad in the sidebar of my Gmail account?

Hooter Hiders? I thought the ads were supposed to at least be vaguely associated with the content of the specific emails? This ad appeared beside an email from Amazon about the two Joy Division CDs I'd just ordered.

Hey, get your own name!

I was playing with the new (somewhat crummy) search engine, Cuil, and found this while looking for my own blog. Grrr!

Crazy guy, we hardly knew ye

Well, no more crazy guy. He came to work high this morning and later ended up resigning. I don't know the details, I just know he's gone. It's no big surprise he fell off the wagon, but I thought he would last more than two weeks.

Now what am I going to write about? [Tears out what's left of my hair.]

Yesterday, the crazy guy was totally not high and exhibited some of his stranger behavior. At one point I looked around one of the machines and saw him standing in front of his tool box changing his clothes. He was just standing there in his underwear. I should also add that his toolbox is against the wall that separates the machine shop from the break room. Except that it's not an actual wall, it's just a five foot high room divider. And people from another part of the facility walk right by where he was on their way to the break room, but yet the only people that saw him besides me was the supervisor and second in command.

Ah, memories.

Mock duck

I won't rest until I get my hands on a can of mock duck.

How does that even work?

This morning I helped the crazy guy take some steel shavings out to the dumpster. As we maneuvered the pushcart, he took his phone out of his pocket and fiddled with it. I noticed that it was a flip phone, but it was only the bottom half.

"Where's the other half of your phone?"

"Huh? Oh, I broke it in half," he said with a straight face. And right after he said this, it started ringing and he answered it.

Shop 'till you barf

We've had (and are still having) lots of new stores opening in this area recently. Why, I don't know considering we have one of the highest unemployment rates in the state. But someone somewhere thinks we have money, so we get new stores.

Sam's Club opened in the past few months, but I never went there because I thought paying $40 for the privilege of shopping there was stupid; I knew they wouldn't have anything I wanted to buy. But, at work, I got a chance to get a business account card for $35, and, for some mysterious reason, I decided to get one. Well, Saturday I had my new card and ventured into the store for the first time. I was sorely disappointed.

The store has lots of stuff, some of it I would actually buy, but just didn't want any of it. Also, the prices on electronic doo-dads and gizmos wasn't anything special. Ooh, look, a PSP for $2 cheaper than I can get at Wal-Mart. Big deal. They didn't even have beef-flavored ramen. Bastards.

Next store!

Target just opened in the past week, I believe. I expected big things at Target. The store looked huge on the outside, but inside seemed cramped. They had lots of stuff, but nothing I really wanted. I can't see going back anytime soon because the place gave me the willies from all of the crowded crap and people. Maybe when the new store smell wears off it'll be safe to go back there and shop in relative peace.

Sweet dreams

I just remembered part of a weird dream I had the night before last. It was a long dream that was more or less like a movie, but luckily for you, I remember little of it. (True fact: no one gives a rat's ass about your dreams.)

The dream took place mostly in a ritzy hotel and a famous person had died in one of the rooms. The one scene that sticks out in my mind was the hearse carrying the body away suddenly looked like an ordinary station wagon and through the side windows you could see lots of food in boxes and cans stacked in the back. But as the camera pulled in for a close up you could see pale toes sticking up through the groceries. They had piled groceries on the body to sneak by the press who apparently were outside. It's all rather vague.

Jebus, it's 6:09AM on a Saturday; why am I awake?

How I spent my day

At work the crazy guy insisted on showing me pictures on his iPod of his drunken moron friends. One photo showed several attractive girls sprawled on a bed.

"You think they have sex together?" he asked.

"One can only hope," I said.

Jinxes? Jeepers!

A few days ago I found myself looking through old comic books again and stumbled across a bizarre full-page ad for something called Negajinx.



This came out of a war comic from 1981. Were the readers of war comics known for their fear of jinxes?

Just sit back and imagine the thrill when NEGAJINX starts to eliminate your jinxes. Its amazing powers will make you the envy of ALL your friends and relatives.

I have nothing else to add except a full-page scan of the ad. (And be sure to notice that at no time in this ad do they ever tell you exactly what this Negajinx thingy is. No, they just refer to it was a "Negajix replica".)

Still crazy after all these weeks

This morning the crazy guy was back at work after being off for a month on "medical leave". How he even still had a job after getting caught high off his ass by one of the bosses is beyond me, but they don't pay me to think.

So, you're asking, is he still crazy? Yes. Yes, he is. This afternoon I was meticulously using a drill press to countersink tiny holes in little aluminum rectangles when he came up behind me and went, "Waaahhh! Lookout!" My fingers were only an inch or two away from the 3/8 inch countersink drill. Ordinarily, I'm wound fairly tight and would've jumped out of my skin, but for some reason he didn't startle me. Maybe I've developed a sixth sense for crazy people.

I imagine he'll sort of be on good behavior for a week or two (or at least a few days), and then be back to his usual weirdo-crazed-stoned self.

I'm not taking that quiz

I've been contemplating the internet recently, which is why I haven't been posting. No, I haven't made any grand discoveries or come to any ground-breaking conclusions about the web. Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Also, I couldn't think of anything amusing to post.

I found the image below online sometime back and rediscovered it a few minutes ago while looking through a folder full of crap. (Everyone should have a folder full of crap.)



Is she supposed to be attractive? Am I supposed to go, "Wow, I wish someone like that was my secret admirer!"? She looks kind of stoned and skanky. Is she pulling her skirt down? Or maybe she's pulling it back up. I don't even think she has on underwear.

Rub it in!

I went to the dentist today to get drilled. Afterwards, when I was scheduling my next visit, I noticed my dentist was wearing a Rolex.

I helped pay for that, I thought.

Filth! (But it doesn't matter since no one is reading this.)

I learned a new way of communicating joy today. The second in command began a strange litany as he measured a part I'd just taken out of the CNC machine.

"2.190? 2.190! Titties! [Pause.] .198? .198! Titties! [Pause.] 2.120? 2.120. Titties! [Pause.] That's just beautiful."

Apparently, in his world, saying titties was like saying great or excellent. Very strange. Incidentally, he's the same guy who often uses the peculiar phrase, "you're shitting in the tall grass now" when he thinks you're doing something right.

Pointless side note: I think my least favorite word in the English language is titty. It just makes me cringe. Why, I don't know, but I hate the word. I have no problem with tits, boobs, knockers, jugs, or whatever stupid euphemism for breasts anyone cares to come up with, but the word titty simply makes my skin crawl.

I also loathe the word britches. [Shudder.]

When high tech trickles down to the riff-raff

This morning I decided to see if Radio Shack had any iPod armor. [Old guy digression: I remember when Radio Shack was a cool store with all kinds of fascinating junk, but now it's just iPod stuff, video game crap, home theater, etc.]

Inside there was a hot girl also shopping for iPod stuff. Naturally, they had exactly what Little Miss Yummybutt needed for her iPod, but mine is too old. I bought a refurbished 4th generation 20GB model for $90. Apparently those are junk now. No, the guy behind the counter didn't tell me it was junk, but he sort of behaved like he was holding an antique.

So, I'm not taking it work.



The above image is a scan of the sticker that was on the screen of my ultra-cheap Coby 1GB mp3 player I bought last month for $20 whole dollars. This is what I've been taking to work over the past few days so I could listen to podcasts. I was amused by the "VOL 22", but I'm sure none of you find it the least bit amusing. As a retaliatory gesture, I've infested all of your homes with termites. So there.

Naming products is hard

How difficult can it be to come up with an appealing name for a camera? What possessed a Chinese manufacturer to name a camera Five Goats?



It's a real camera made back in the early 70's which I read about in Cameras of China by Douglas St. Denny.

Yes, I know none of this is the least bit interesting to any of you, but humor me or I'll go to each of your homes and spy on you while you use the bathroom.

Another Acursed Meme!

Cindy tagged to do one of those damnable meme things all the kids are doing on the internets these days with the Facebook and the blogs and the Google. I don't really understand these things because I don't do the internets what with all the viruses and the hackers and the MySpace. I just put my manual typewriter in front of my TV and pretend I'm online, but enough about me.

The meme:

* Write a six-word memoir.

* Post it to your blog including a visual illustration if you would like.

* Link to the person who tagged you in your post and to this original post if possible so we can track it as it travels across the blogsphere.

* Tag 5 more blogs with links.

* Don’t forget to leave a comment in the tagged blogs with an invitation to play.

A six word memoir? How arbitrary and infuriating. No, that's only four words. Let's see. I was born, then got bored. Yep, that's six words and it pretty much sums up the tedious travesty I call my life.

Now to tag five other people who have it coming. How about Sherri (as revenge for tagging me for every meme online), my sister (just because she's a jackass), Dr. X (because he has a cool name), Jammies (because she needs a break from tearing Snopes a new one), and Jeff (so maybe it'll get him actually post something new).

Surnames

I saw a guy on a website earlier and his last name was Clodfelter. That's not as great a name as Snodgrass or Hunsucker, but it's still pretty good.

Shameless! Tawdry!

The unspeakable sister has a new website which will be updated madly for a month or so, but then she'll drift into ennui, letting said website fall into disuse. Sad, really.

Breaking News!

It's official, the iPod is no longer cool. Nope. Not even a little. How did this sad fall from grace happen? Well, I bought one. And not only did I buy one, I bought a refurbished one because I'm poor. Now that's about as uncool as you can get. Take that Mac hipsters!

Of course, I don't really have much use for an iPod outside of work. But I work in a machine shop, so I'd terrified to even bring the thing in there for fear it would get broken. Also, if I was seen listening to it, then everyone would want to know what I was listening to. Once they found out, then I'd really be labeled a weirdo.

But is it art?

Yesterday after work, while moping around the internet looking for signs of life, I found myself at Ebay perusing the "Weird Stuff" category. Oddly, despite my deep and abiding interest in weird stuff, I rarely look at Ebay's selection. Most of the stuff wasn't what I'd call weird (so maybe that's why I never look at it), but an abstract painting caught my eye. The artist had apparently painted it using her breasts. Now I was interested.



The painting didn't really impress me that much, but I loved the description of how it was painted.

The paint is applied directly to my breasts, which are then pressed onto the canvas. This process is repeated several times, using different color combinations, until I like the final composition. This series is intended to be intimate, whimsical, and fun (and an interesting conversation piece). This is a 100% original creation that was painted entirely with my (real) breasts.

Please don't bother asking for photos from the painting process. I am a real collectible artist with real knowledge of color & composition. My feedback and the photos speak for themselves.

Then I scrolled down the page and saw a photo of the artist wearing a skimpy top that showed off her enormous knockers. Yep, that's art.

Her Ebay store has many more paintings, and most seem to be done by mashing her paint-covered boobs on a canvas (or whatever she paints on). She also has a website with more descriptions of her painting technique. Also she has paintings done by her turtle. Yes. A turtle. That paints.

Anyway, the interesting thing about all of this to me is that basically only a reasonably attractive woman with biggish boobs could get away with this. A guy definitely couldn't do it. Who would buy a painting done by a guy using his dick? I'm sure someone would (and probably already has), but they just wouldn't be as the artist said above, "whimsical, and fun (and an interesting conversation piece)". Nope. It would be icky, creepy, and totally messed up.

So, as an experiment, I drew an abstract piece using only my penis. Yes, really. You don't want to know the details, just trust me.



Do we have any bidders? No? Thank god.

Grrr!

I had an actual post all planned out for today, but then I didn't get the thing I was hoping I was going to get in the mail. And tomorrow's a holiday, so there won't be any mail. I may not get it until Saturday or Monday. So my lame, but well thought out, post will have to wait.

Exciting stuff, huh?

Dulled by dullness

Remember when the internet was exciting? No? Just play along. Remember how every day was a new miracle? There was just loads and loads of fascinating junk out there on the world wide interwebinet superinformationhighway, but now, despite the fact that there are billions of web pages, the internet is a wasteland of dullness. Or at least that's how it often seems to me.

Every day I read the same websites. I won't list them here, but few of them are linked on the sidebar. These few websites can keep me entertained for a couple of hours after I get home from work, but ultimately they leave me bored. Where's the cool stuff? Where's the amazing information? Typing random number/letter combinations in search engines doesn't get me there.

How do I get there, people?!

Archeology, pt. III

Yes, it's time for more scans from old comicbooks.

In old comicbooks aimed at males, I noticed that hypnotism was a regular feature of ads from the 60's until at least the early 80's. I remember reading these types of ads when I was little and wanting to learn how to hypnotize people. My guess the reason these types of ads appeared in comics aimed at males and not in comics aimed at females is because of some weak nerd fantasy of getting those mysterious, frightening women to do what you want them to do. Afraid of women? Hypnotize them! BWA-HA-HA!

YOU can make people cry, laugh, shout, stop smoking, recall childhood memories, act like an infant, make water taste like vinegar, get folks to sing, dance...do 1001 things they would never do when not UNDER YOUR POWER. [Like take their clothes off.]

That quote came from the ad shown below. Notice the drawing of a guy hypnotizing a woman.



The next ad is for the really nifty looking Hypno-Coin, which I remember in ads back in the 70's/early 80's. And they show a woman being hypnotized. Big surprise.



The next ad is from the early 80's comes off as considerably more sinister than the two ads above.



So now we're not just hypnotizing girls to take their tops off, no, we're getting people do our bidding. Of course the bidding probably involves girls taking their tops off, but it sounds more frightening.



Those jocks and cheerleaders won't make fun of me anymore! They'll do my bidding!

That's extra fiber

On lunch break, I went out with a couple of guys to a little Italian place that's nearby. Afterwards, when we were driving back to work, the red-haired guy told a story about something that happened at this same restaurant in the past.

"Billy picked up his steak and cheese sub and big wad of hair fell out of it. They didn't even give him his money back, they just brought him another sub," he said.

Guess what both the red-haired guy and I had for lunch? Yep, the steak and cheese sub. Why the hell would anyone go back to this place after witnessing a big wad of hair fall out of someone's food? And not only return, but eat the same thing you saw the hair fall out of? Well, it was a good sub, but I don't think it was that good.

Crud

In Celebration of Crud: The Charlton Comics Story.

Archeology, pt. II

Yes, it's back to the ancient comics again. One of the comics I dug out was a copy of First Kiss from 1964. I like how wildly different the ads are in comics aimed at a female audience. In comics for boys the ads are for body building, whoopie-cushions, etc. In comics for girls the ads are for things like these spiffy pillow cushions shown below.



Let hunky Dr. Ben Casey smirk his way into your heart as you sleep.

Or, if you're a little older:



How happy that woman looks as she uses the amazing Vacutex to suck blackheads out of her husband's neck.

Technological Breakthrough!

They finally hired me on Monday, so now I'm a full-fledged employee of Spacely Sprockets instead of just a temp. Yippee. Anyway, now that I'm an actual employee, I have to start punching the clock. But really there's no clock to punch, instead they have a hand-scanner. I was really impressed when I heard they had a hand-scanner instead of a typically bland apparatus so the employees can punch in and out.

Today, I got to actually use the thing and get instructed on how to use it. You don't simply stick your hand in it, get it scanned, and then go to work. No, you have to punch in your I.D. number, press ENTER, and then scan your hand. If I have to punch in numbers, then why do I have to have my hand scanned? And if I have to have my hand scanned, then why do I have to punch in numbers?

The 21st century hasn't impressed me so far.

Archeology

For much needed inspiration, I dug deep into my closet and into my much ignored comic book collection. (My mother never threw mine away.) What I wanted to look at was the ads rather than the comics themselves. And I didn't want to look at just any ads in just any comic books. Nope. I wanted to look at the strangest, sleaziest stuff from the shoddiest of all the comic book companies. Yes, folks, I dug out the Charlton crap.

This first illustration is from a war comic from 1981. That was back when you could actually go in a drugstore and buy comic books. Now you have to go to some snooty comic book store run by nerds and pay way too much money for something that's been elevated from trash to art, but is still trash.

Skinny men and women are unattractive. Take that, skinny people! Get off our beach with your freakishly elongated bodies!



The second illustration is from a war comic from 1964. Skinny people don't despair, you can develop spaceman strength and endurance. Of course you might just end up looking like the freak in that ad, but that's the risk you take. You should've been born beautiful instead of skinny, you skinny bastard.



By 1968, the company that promised you could develop "spaceman strength" was now telling you could make yourself "astronaut tough". I like to think that they changed the ad because they didn't want people thinking that "spaceman strength" somehow referred to alien lifeforms.



All three ads are reproduced in all their blurry, demented glory below. Just click on them. I dare you. Actually, I double-dog dare you. No, on second thought, I don't care.



And I just noticed that the company from the first two ads is in Great Neck, NY. Spaceman strength and a great neck! Bow before me, skinny earth-man!

Musical

Masterpieces of American Cinema

Something I haven't written about here is that for the past several weeks, I've watched at least one movie every single day. Sadly, since I'm a cheapskate, the movies tend to be schlock I find in the dollar DVD bins at the discount stores.

I've watched three movies today (so far), but I'm only going to mention one of them: Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. This is one of the classics of bad cinema and something I've sort of wanted to watch since the 80's.



What can I say about it? Well, it was bad, but no where near as bad as I'd thought. And I didn't have the overwhelming urge to bludgeon the director, writer, and cast to death with a table leg, which is how I felt after watching I ♥ Huckabees, so that's a good thing.

One thing I will mention is that the Martians had green makeup on their faces, but the print was dark at times the movie looked like a bizarre minstrel show. (Incidentally, that's Pia Zadora as the Martian on the left.)

I told you I wasn't

The MySpace woman from yesterday who thought I was her ex-husband actually wrote me back.

ok good I didn't want to find that mean bastard anyway.

I'm in the clear! But, wait, I thought she had something important to tell him.

No, I'm not

I keep a MySpace account specifically to read one person's blog. I hate MySpace, always have. Mainly, having a MySpace page is just a nuisance because virtually every day I get friend requests that are just porn spam. I know hot girls in thongs don't want to be my friend and I'm OK with that.

Anyway, today I got an actual message from another MySpace member. I read the message and went to their page, but couldn't find a single link to a porn site or see a photo of some woman in a thong bending over. Could it actually be a real message written by a real person sent specifically to me? Apparently so, but it's a strange message:

ok so this is odd. I did a search for you and wanted to see if you are my ex husband. scary how things start falling out of the past. I needed to talk to you so if you are my ex please send me a line. to know its if really you please tell me the month or date we were married.

So, for the first time in my life, I sent a woman an email explaining that I wasn't her ex-husband.

Lack of crazy

It's been pleasantly quiet at work this week without the crazy guy, but, strangely, I'm starting to miss him a bit. I think other people are missing him too. A couple of guys came over to where I was working and began talking about how quiet it was for me without the crazy guy constantly bothering me. Then they began to tell crazy guy stories. One guy told about how he had a friend dying of emphysema and how the crazy guy tried to talk him into getting drugs from the dying guy so the crazy guy could sell them. "I'll give you half," the crazy guy supposedly said.

We live out our insanity vicariously through the crazy guy.

I'm torn

Last Thursday, the crazy guy was high on the job again and acting exceptionally goofy. So goofy that they're making him take the whole week off. And, he might get fired, I think.

On one hand, the crazy guy is quite annoying, especially when he's high, but on the other hand, he's provided me with quite a lot of blog content over the past few months. With him out of work, more than likely I'm not going to have one interesting thing to post this week. And if he gets fired, what am I going to write about?

I may have to get a life.

In lieu of actual content

So instead of posting something relevant to everyone (like a cow comic), I'll post a very short animation experiment I did last year.

I'm peculiar

Apparently, I eat peanuts in an odd manner. The second in command of the machine shop saw me in the break room eating peanuts and laughed because I'd poured the peanuts out on a paper towel and was eating them one at a time. I'm just glad he didn't see me eating M&Ms. There's no telling how hard he would've laughed if he'd seen me arranging them according to color before I ate them.

It's about cows

Marked that one off my list

I have a tendency toward procrastination. For example, back in January of 2001, I taped The Blair Witch Project. I finally got around to watching it this past Saturday. It only sat around for seven years. That's not bad, is it?

That doesn't go in there.

Today at work I was working beside the crazy guy again. He was relatively quiet for the most part, but at one point I heard him using the air hose and it didn't sound quite right. Instead of just a few blasts of air to clear the coolant and aluminum chips off the part, there was a single, long blast of air. And the blast had an odd quasi-vocal quality to it. I looked over and he was shooting air into one side of his mouth. The right side of his cheek was inflated and his mouth was stretched out.



Yes, I know that's a supremely lousy drawing, but I thought it might better illustrate the sight I witnessed. (I once got an A in a college drawing class: strange, but true!)

"You know oil comes out of those," I said. (Microscopic droplets of machine oil come out of air compressors, not just air.)

"Yeah, I know," he said, smiling.

Another exciting episode of Cow

I know the economy's bad, but this is ridiculous

This morning outside of Dollar General, a little girl holding some papers stopped me. I thought she was going to give me a sheet advertising some kind of fund raising car wash or similar. Instead, she asked me if I wanted to buy a picture for 10¢. The pictures turned out to be crudely torn out pages from a coloring book that weren't colored particularly well. I bought one.



I don't know why, but the whole transaction left me feeling depressed. She'll never make any money selling them for 10¢. She should at least sell them for a buck apiece. Don't underestimate the power of guilt, little girl.

A comic

WARNING!!! Filthy words spoken by the insane

The crazy guy outdid himself today in being annoying. I preferred it when he was simply walking around brandishing a snake. I'd been spared most of his annoyingness [I don't even think that's a word] by simply not working around him. He was on one side of the row of CNC machines and I was on the other. But today I had to be on the same side as he was.

At first it was simply things like talking too much, which is typical for him. Later it degenerated into farting. Lots of farting. He was lactose intolerant, he said. Even though he didn't need to be anywhere near me, he stayed close to me. And farted. Multiple times. Then he started touching me.

I should point out that I don't like being touched. The only people allowed to touch me are close family, hot girls, doctors, and my barber. All others should keep their hands off me, especially if it's more than a passing touch. No grabbing. No poking. No caressing.

The crazy guy touched me on the back as he ran by. I shrugged it off as an accident and kept on working. Then, as he went by again, he touched my arm. Actually, he squeezed my uninspiring bicep and admired it. Then he asked me if I'd been working out. No, I don't work out, I said. But he kept on yammering about my "guns". The only thing I can figure is that he was confused by me actually wearing a short-sleeve for the first time ever at this job. Or maybe he's just insane. I don't think he was coming on to me, but, honestly, I don't know.

Eventually, he got off the subject of my upper arms, but what he did next made me wish he would go back to admiring my flabby arms.

As I stood at the drill press, working with an aluminum piece, the crazy guy got right up next to me and began dancing. And then, in a high-pitched voice started saying, "Fuck me up the ass! Fuck me up the ass!" He was practically screaming. A few people walked by, but oddly, most paid him no mind.

I was so glad when he disappeared for an hour and a half at lunch. And, strangely, after he got back, he was very well behaved.

My Record Collection

Nothing interesting happened at work today, so I can't regale you with tales of the crazy guy running around with dynamite strapped to his chest while brandishing several Fleet enemas. No, that'll probably be next week.

Instead of tales of work dementia, I'm posting a scan of a record I bought at the Salvation Army on Saturday morning. It's a Liberace seven-inch 78. No, I didn't know they made 78 RPM records that small either.



My favorite thing about it is that it's a giveaway from the Star Furniture Company. Also, the orchestra was directed by Liberace's brother, George. Remember when Bugs Bunny would imitate Liberace and go on about, "My brother, George"? No? What the hell, people? Didn't you watch cartoons when you were growing up? No? You were watching Meet the Press instead? Madness. No wonder you all turned out like you did.

Where'd you say you found that?

Around eleven or so, I looked over from the CNC machine I was running and saw the crazy guy showing the second in command an odd-looking black rubber coil. I wondered what it was and tried to get a better look. It had scales. At first I thought it was a very realistic rubber snake. I walked over and saw it was a real snake that was quite alive. The crazy guy was walking around the machine shop with a goddamn two foot long black rat snake.

"Where'd you find it," I asked.

"It was way over there on the other side of Billy's desk."

He was holding the snake around the base of its head, the way the herpetologists do on TV.

The crazy guy then went to the machine shop office to show the supervisor. I followed. I doubted I would ever have another chance to follow someone carrying a big snake into an office, so I didn't want to squander the opportunity.

"Hey, look what I found," the crazy guy said to the supervisor.

The supervisor looked up from his computer and said, "What is that?" His reaction disappointed me. You'd think he would have jumped up and screamed, "Get that fucking snake out of here, you lunatic!" No, he just looked at it.

The crazy guy said he was going to take it outside to let it go. Then he went around the machine shop showing it whoever hadn't seen it yet. He was careful not to show it to the women.

Later at lunch I heard someone say that he had actually gotten the snake outside and brought it in. I have no idea if that's true or not, but considering how the crazy guy is, it's not entirely out of the question.

A Day with Grandpa