Pointless New Post About Nothing

I keep saying that I'm going to do a new post, but then I don't. I'm too lazy, too disinterested in blogging, and I fell off the video game wagon a month or so back. After fifteen or so years of not playing video games, I'm now spending endless amounts of time playing Minecraft. And it's not even like the game's all that great either. My Minecraft life is about as dull as my real life, but at least I get to mine for stuff and build things.

Here's a clip of someone playing on YouTube if you aren't familiar with how this game looks.



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On November 10, this blog turns eight years old. All the blogs I read back when I started are dead except for Dooce. I feel like the old guy at the nursing home with no more family and friends because they all died years ago.

So, on that morbid note, I'm mothballing Volume 22. I have no plans to post anything else, but who knows what I'll do.

A Turtle

“Want to see my turtle?”

“Is that some kind of euphemism?”

“Why is it that when a man talks to a woman all of a sudden everything is fraught with double meanings? It’s not all about me trying to get in your pants.”

“So it’s not a euphemism?”

“No.”

“It’s a real turtle? And not something weird like you wearing a big fake turtle shell on your back and crawling around?”

“No, it’s a real turtle. Would you like to see it?”

“I don’t like turtles.”

That's the cover, huh? Yikes.

For six months I've been planning on posting some rather racist covers from old issues of Cracked back when it was a marginally amusing magazine rather than a marginally amusing website. I knew they were laying on my desk, but it was too much trouble to scan or photograph them, so I just left them there. Now with Gary Coleman dying today I figure it's a good time to post these since he's on both covers.

On the first cover, Gary Coleman and Sylvester P. Smythe are boxing. Smythe has a black eye and Coleman has a white eye. Yeah. This was 1982. On the second cover (from 1980), Gary Coleman and Todd Bridges happily smear shoe polish on Sylvester P. Smythe.

I was fairly shocked at these covers when I dug them out of an ancient stack of magazines months ago. I know that these were most likely unintentionally offensive, but I still can't fathom this type of stuff being published on the cover of a national magazine in the early 80's.

[Pointless explanatory notes: The white guy on both covers, Sylvester P. Smythe, was (is?) Cracked's mascot. He's no Alfred E. Neuman. (I didn't link to the Alfred E. Neuman Wikipedia page because you should know who he is. And if you don't, then you should be flung onto a huge anthill.)

Both covers were drawn by the legendary John Severin.]

I know I put it somewhere!

You ever lose money in your house? Isn't fun wracking your brain trying to figure out where you put it? Asking yourself, "Did I accidentally throw it away?" This is exactly what I've been doing on and off since maybe October or November.

My money got mislaid after I had to move several tons of crap during some quasi-renovations. What was so annoying was the shear quantity of money that I mislaid: $170,185,000,000,001. I'm totally serious.

Of course it was Zimbabwean currency, which is basically worthless, but I paid money for it on Ebay and I was pissed that I might have accidentally thrown it out.

Earlier, I took a book off the shelf and the bills fell out. There's only ten of them. Why I decided to stick them in a book I rarely look at escapes me.

Now maybe I can find that 8GB USB thumb drive that got lost in the same quasi-renovation.

Sunday Thoughts

A couple of weeks ago I was thinking about time travel and how if I went back in time to before the wheel existed I could invent it myself. Then I started to realize how difficult it would be to make a wheel, let alone an axle to put it on. I'd be completely useless back then. So, in conclusion, I vow not to travel back in time.

More Lurching

Here's a short story type thing I wrote last year that was based on a scam email I got multiple times. I was going to submit this some online literary magazine, but then I decided not to bother since I could just as easily have no one read it here.

From Mrs. Rebecca Williams

NO 112 Rue Des Martyrs Cocody

Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire

ATTN:

DEAREST ONE OF GOD

I am the above named person from Kuwait. I am married to Mr. Benson Williams, who worked with Kuwait embassy in Ivory Coast for nine years before he died in the year 2004. We were married for eleven years without a child because I don’t like children. He died after contacting a rare disease from illegally imported kangaroo meat. I know it was foolish to make a stew with something as potentially hazardous as illegally imported kangaroo meat, but if you’ve ever eaten kangaroo meat you would understand. The outcome was tragic, yes, but still, sometimes I think it was worth it. There really is nothing quite like kangaroo meat.

Before his death we were both born again Christians. Since his death I have come under the influence of a necromancer named Steve. I have decided not to remarry or get a child outside my matrimonial home which the Steve is against. I asked why he was against it, but he just shrugged and said he didn’t need a reason. I guess that’s his business, but I would kind of like to have a reason. Sometimes Steve is so obstinate. Don’t you hate that kind of behavior in a person? I know he has a lot on his mind what with raising the dead for his own nefarious purposes, but he doesn’t have to be so uncommunicative and brusque.

When my late husband was alive he deposited the sum of $2.5 Million (Two Million Five Hundred U.S. Dollars) in the bank here in Abidjan in suspense account. After he died he no longer deposited any more money in the bank. Some of my fondest memories of my husband are of him rolling naked in piles of money, screaming, “It’s all mine! It’s all mine!” Everyone has their curious peccadilloes and rolling naked in money was my husband’s. The funny thing was I never grew tired of watching him rolling and screaming while flinging armfuls of cash into the air. And he also never grew tired of rolling and screaming in piles of money. You would think it would get old after a while, but I guess it didn’t lose its appeal for him. The odd thing about all of this is I never had any real desire to roll in the money myself. Now I kind of regret not at least trying it out, who knows, I may have enjoyed it, but it’s too late now.

Presently, the fund is still with the bank. Recently, my Doctor told me that I have serious sickness which as far as can be determined wasn’t caused in any way by the illegally imported kangaroo meat or by my activities as an apprentice necromancer. The doctor thinks that I have what’s called psychic monkey fever, which is a rare condition where the infected person can communicate psychically with primates. I know it sounds exciting, but I tell you it’s no adventure having to psychically communicate with monkeys whenever they are within a 100 meter radius of me. The monkeys think only of food, sex, and territory. There’s no romance among the primates, so you can leave your sentimentalism about the animal kingdom in the First World. The one thing that disturbs me most is my knowledge that the monkeys know I can communicate with them psychically. I don’t think the monkeys like the idea of someone being in psychic communication with them, but it’s hard to tell what with their obsessions with food, sex, and territory.

You may ask why I don’t simply get my friend Steve the necromancer to reanimate my corpse after I die of psychic monkey fever. The answer is that I don’t wish to spend all eternity on earth as a member of the undead. No, it is best that I simply be allowed to die.

Having known my condition, I decided to donate this fund to an individual that will utilize this money the way I am going to instruct herein. I want a space ship built so that underprivileged astronauts can leave the earth just like those rich NASA people who think they’re so special. Also, I want enough of it set aside so that my corpse can be launched into outer space. It has to break the bonds of the earth’s gravitational pull. I won’t settle for being shot into a low level orbit only to reenter the earth’s atmosphere and burn up like so much space junk.

The Bible made us to understand that blessed is the hand that giveth. I took this decision because I don’t have any child that will inherit this money because I don’t like children and my husband’s relatives are not progressives and I don’t want my husband’s efforts to be used by unbelievers in affordable space travel for all. I don’t want a situation where this money will be used in a ridiculous way. Those relatives of his will use the money to pay for vaccinations for the poor, I just know it. This is why I am taking this decision. I am not afraid of death hence I know where I am going--into space! I know that I am going to be in the bosom of the galaxy. My dead body will be my space ship and it will travel for all eternity. Well, it will travel for all eternity unless it crashes into another planet or gets hit by an asteroid, but let us hope such a thing does not happen.

I don’t need any telephone communication in this regard because of my health hence the presence of my husband’s relatives is around me always I don't want them to know about this development. They will for sure foil my plans to launch my body into outer space if they found out about it. Why they’re so against space travel I will never know. With sufficient rocket power all things are possible. As soon as I receive your reply I shall give you the contact of the bank here in Abidjan. My happiness is that I lived a life of a worthy space-traveling necromancer. Whoever that wants to travel in space should be able to do it affordably, be they pauper, necromancer, or even electrician.

Contact me on the above e-mail address for more information; any delay in your reply will give me room in sourcing another individual for this same purpose. Please assure me that you will act accordingly as I stated herein. Hoping to receive your reply.

Remain blessed in the quest for affordable space travel.

Yours truly,

Mrs. Rebecca Williams.

Lurching Down Memory Lane

Here's a collage I made back in the mid 90's.

Burn it! Burn it, I say!

Last year while digging through a bunch of old crap I'd written, I found what's probably the oldest extant short story I've ever written. It was written circa 1985 in pencil on notebook paper. I was sixteen years old. I've typed it out for your pleasure rather than burning it like I should have done.

Murray’s Freezer

     Joe’s truck pulled into Murray’s yard. Murray didn’t have the five thousand dollars he owed Joe. Joe stepped out of his truck, he had large pipe-wrench in his hand. Joe didn’t bother to knock on the door, he just knocked it down. Joe was a large man, about seven feet tall. He weighed about five-hundred pounds. Murray was five feet eleven inches tall and one-hundred and ninety pounds.
     “Pay or die, Murray!” he said.
     “AAAAHHH!!” said Murray.
     Joe picked up Murray and threw him across the room, knocking him out. Joe picked Murray up and put him in the big freezer Murray kept in his garage. Joe then drove away in Murray’s new car.
     And for the next 40,000 years that freezer hummed on through great wars and famines. It was a good freezer.
     Two archaeologists dug up the freezer and were amazed it was still running, and that a guy named Murray was inside of it. Later at the University of Quau, some doctors thawed Murray out. After he was completely thawed and received electric shock a few times, he came around.
     The doctors asked him a few questions. He was confused at first, but then finally awoke.
     “Do you know that you have been frozen for 40,000 years” they asked.
     “I have? Like, wow, man. What a trip!”

Driving Around in Circles

A few days ago, through my job, I got an opportunity to go to my first ever NASCAR race. It was all free; all I had to do was chip in for the rental vehicle we used to drive up to Richmond.

Honestly, I'm not that into auto racing anymore. If this had been 1995 I probably would've been excited beyond control, but since it's 2010, I was only mildly excited. On the drive up my body decided a good substitute for excitement was car sickness.

About 25 miles outside of Richmond we had to pull over so I could throw up. As I barfed my guts out one of my coworkers got my camera out and took pictures of me. My own camera. Bastard.

Did anything else interesting happen? Not really. My coworkers tried and failed to get me drunk, I saw Darrell Waltrip, and sitting in the grandstands just below me were not one, but two girls with that stupid Kate Gosselin reverse mullet.

Here's Flickr links to big photos of Waltrip and the reverse mullet girls.

Yeah, yeah, scam, scam, blah, blah... Wait, what did you just say?

I've mentioned in the past how I like scam emails, especially ones with convoluted stories about someone needing help getting millions out of a bank in Nigeria or someplace. (In fact, I used to have a blog about such emails, but I got tired of it.)

Lately I've been collecting these emails for reasons that remain mysterious, but I haven't really been reading them. I just slap them into a Word document and get on with my dull life. Well, I should really read some of these things. Today I got one that ordinarily I wouldn't have bothered to read, but for some reason I read a little of it--and it's completely nuts.

Dear Friend,

How are you? I hope all is well with your family, friends and pets. I hope this urgent mail meets you in a perfect condition. We have no time to waste regarding the information I am about to tell you, it is an urgent and serious matter.

My name is Professor FRANK, senior data analyst here at the CERN institute based here in Geneva (http://public.web.cern.ch/public/) CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is one of the world's largest and most respected centres for scientific research. Its business is fundamental physics, finding out what the Universe is made of and how it works. You may have seen on the news that, in recent days, our Large Hadron Collider machine has been colliding high-speed beams of energy in order to explore new physics and understand how the universe began. CERN have been adamant that this is safe, however I KNOW THE TRUTH.

The truth is that this experiment that CERN are conducting is extremely dangerous, and could cause global disaster. This experiment has a 95% of causing a black hole, thus swallowing a large area of the planet. The scientists do not want you to know this as they know it will cause panic. However, I can help you.

I am arranging for a number of selected people to be evacuated to a safe location on an island in the South Pacific via aeroplane. You have been selected from random to take part in this evacuation, thus continuing the survival of the human race.

Please, if you are interested, email me back immediately with the following information:

Full name:
Age:
Contact number:
Country:
Email address:

Please send all emails to my private box:>
european_organization_nuclear_research@hotmail.com
Regards, and God bless.
Professor FRANK

Why can't most of my email be this wonderfully insane. I don't ask for much in life, decent food, good porn, a comfy bed, and insane email. That's not too much to ask, is it?

Take that, Mr. Nosey!

This morning I went to a depressing semi-pawnshop and bought a 4GB SD drive for $10. As a lark, I decided to run a free data recovery program on it to see if I could find something interesting.

This data recovery program (called DiskDigger) was able to find loads and loads of images on that SD card. The problem? It was almost nothing but pictures of naked super morbidly obese women and grannies. Yes, grannies. These were all images gleaned from the web, not pictures they had taken themselves. I'd basically bought someone's secret porn stash, and to put it mildly, their tastes in porn differ significantly from mine.

I typed this with a braille keyboard since I had to pull my eyes out and fling them across the room. Sadly, I'll never be able to wash the images of granny porn out of my head.

Now I need to find out if it's possible to clean an SD card with rubbing alcohol without ruining it. I'm almost positive it has residual spooge on it.

Sparkly!!!!111

Supposedly this Text Space thing is used by all the kids with their My Spaces, Facebooks, Yahoos and whatnots. I don't understand the internet and new things frighten me, but I did manage to make a sparkly text with this thing.

It's supposed to be an animated gif, but Blogger seems to have broken it. And it just ain't that funny without the animated sparkly stuff.

I want one

Feel it up

I've been reading about this supposed book of porn for the blind that's been all over the news, "with explicit text and raised pictures of naked men and women", so I had to find these raised images of naked people to judge for myself, seeing as how I'm an expert in the field of porno.

The image included on the link above isn't sexy at all. In fact, it's creepy as hell. What do the other images look like? Surprisingly, they aren't that hard to find online.

Tactile Mind [NSFW!], the name of the book/magazine, has its own blog. But right away I can see that this isn't what the news articles said it was. This isn't a porn magazine being launched, it's an expensive art book. Also, the images (which is what I wanted to see in the first place) are not exactly what I would call arousing, they're more creepy and arty.

I could drone on at length about how the media lazily misrepresents things such as art for shock value and yucks, but I won't because I don't feel like it.

Great post, huh? Glad I'm blogging again? No? Ha-ha.

Print is dead

Hmmm... Somebody emailed me an experimental poem. It's good to see the avant-garde spirit alive and well in these dull times. And email is a far better method of publishing and distributing literature than print.

Ake another cake for you. [_She makes a very, very small cake and puts
it in the oven._] BEGGAR. I thank you, good woman. [_The woman takes the
cake from the oven._] WOMAN. This cake is too large to give away. I will
give you a slice of bread. [_She cuts a slice from a loaf of bread._]
BEGGAR.
I thank you-- WOMAN. A slice is too much to give
away. Here
is a crust for you. [_The beggar shakes her head._] BEGGAR. May you
never taste cake again! May the very cake in your mouth seem to be
crust!
If you will not give, you shall not have! WOMAN.

Go, go! [_The beggar throws off her cloak; a_ FAIRY
_is seen._] WOMAN. A Fairy! You are a Fairy? FAIRY. I am the Fairy
of Good Deeds. You would not give--you shall not have! [_The Fairy
goes._] WOMAN. As if cake could
ever taste like
bread! 'Tis impossible--impossible! (_She

eats a cake._) What is this? I see

Yeah, I know it's just spam, but I like it. Well, sorta.

NaBloIgMo?

Today I found out there was a NaBloPoMo, which is the National Blog Posting Month where the challenge is to post something on your blog every day for a month. I wonder if there's something for people who ignore their blogs for a full month because I would totally rule at doing that.

Incidentally, I'm not that impressed by anyone posting something to their blog every day for a month. It's not that big of a deal. I think that the first year of my blog's existence, I posted something on all but two or three days. Go look. On better thought, don't look because that crap's embarrassing.

News from my hometown

Here's a clip from a newspaper in Richmond, VA that concerns something demented that happened months ago down here in Danville, VA. (My sister found this and sent it to me before Christmas and I forgot about it, but such is old age and memory.)

Links? You want links? Huh? Well, here's one and here's another. And on reading these links, I don't see anything about the guy thinking the opossum was a weiner dog. I'm inclined to think this is a joke by one of the writers on the Richmond Times Dispatch that references the shooting of a miniature dachshund by a Danville cop last summer.

I had a new post planned

This new post I had planned would've been great. Funny even. Painfully so. But I couldn't get it together enough to even think about writing it. So, it didn't get written. And I should probably feel a lot worse about not writing it than I do, but I don't. I guess that makes me a bad person.

Hang on!

Toyota Simulator. Doesn't need any more explanation.

You really have no idea. None at all.

In addition to the tea, Helen also sent some other stuff. Snack food type stuff. Kinda. I think. I was going to write about the little Japanese cookies, but since I actually thought they tasted good and weren't particularly weird, I'm having trouble thinking of anything to say about them. See, this is why I could never be a critic of any kind because I'm apparently only inspired by awfulness or strangeness.

Awfulness. Strangeness. Yes. Which brings me to the topic of today's post and third thing in Helen's package: fruit flavored beef jerky. I'll let that settle into your brain a bit. Just ponder it a little; I'll wait. It's beef jerky. Beef jerky that tastes like fruit. Hell, maybe I should just show a picture of the package.

Yes, I know it looks like a cow patty, but trust me, it's meat. Meat that tastes like fruit.

Judging by the Chinese on the package, it's aimed at Chinese folks, but it's made in the US. There's a Dept. of Agriculture logo on it and everything. But despite all of this seemingly normal information I still can't force my brain to process the concept of meat that's supposed to taste like fruit. If I think about it too long I begin to ponder other possible products: fruit that tastes like meat, fruit that tastes like other fruit, meat flavored soft drinks, meat scented shampoo, flavored clothing, etc.

There's a peculiar statement on the back of the package that no matter how many times I've read it, still makes no sense: "The meat contained herein is for personal use only and not for sale it is derived from animals that received ante-and post-mortem inspection and were found sound and healthy and has been inspected and passed as provided by law and regulations of USDA." Yes, that's one sentence. OK, most of it makes sense, despite the clunky syntax. But what most worries me is the part that reads, "The meat contained herein is for personal use only and not for sale". It's not for sale? But Helen bought it at a store. And if it's not for sale then tahtih aiht [oakfw[ oeih ifjw ci[owhc[oihvlkjvn; ;lk

Sorry, I my brain can only take so much.

"But when is he going to get to how it tastes?!!!" I'm getting to it. I'm getting to it. Actually, I've already gotten to it. I tasted the stuff about an hour ago and I've been avoiding the memory of it ever since.

I really thought it would taste like fruit. I really did. I guess there was a fruitiness to it. Maybe. What I can dimly recall is an overpowering sweetness and acidity. But in the background fighting to get in the foreground was the unmistakable taste of roast beef. After I put it in my mouth and began chewing I immediately went to the bathroom because I was pretty sure I was going to have to spit it out. And I couldn't just spit it in the floor, could I? Maybe at your house I could, but I live here. But I didn't spit it out; somehow I managed to swallow it.

For the sake of science, I have to taste it again.

Oh, god, the smell. It's like meat, but with something else. [I should write advertising copy for a living.]

The taste? Chemicals, horrible sweetness, and meat! Gak!

People mail me things sometimes

A couple of weeks ago in a comment, Helen brought up something called "grass jelly tea" and offered to send me some because it was so horrible. I had never heard of grass jelly tea, so I looked it up and found some information about a strange gelatinous substance made from a type of plant. It looked positively vile (imagine black licorice Jell-O, except worse), so I couldn't wait for Helen's package to arrive. I imagined a jiggling glop that would slide repulsively down my throat leaving a vomit-like aftertaste. (She said it tasted like vomit.) But, today her package arrived and it contained (among other things) a simple box of tea that looked not that different from what I would find in a dollar store, save for the Chinese on the box. Hmmm... Clearly not gelatinous.

The lable on the box reads "Chrysanthemum & Puerh Tea" and doesn't say anything about "grass jelly". I looked at the other things in the box (more about them in time), but there wasn't anything gelatinous. The first sentence of Helen's included letter read, "Here is some delicious Chrysanthemum tea, also known as grass jelly tea." Ah-ha! So the regular looking tea is the grass-jelly tea, but what the hell was that gelatinous crap I saw online?

The teabag smelled a little different than typical tea, but that's nothing unusual. I was intrigued by the fact that this was supposedly Pu'erh tea. I've got some Pu'erh tea I got straight from China off Ebay which are little hard pucks of weirdness that brew up to smell vaguely like manure, but taste not quite like manure. Actually, it's not that bad tasting, but I'm not crazy about it. Is this stuff Helen sent me going to be the same, I wondered, except not pressed into a puck? Wouldn't it be funny if I actually liked it? [Pictured below is the Pu'erh I got off Ebay.]

I brewed up a cup and what I ended up with was something that smelled objectionable (but not like manure) and tasted strange and vaguely unpleasant in ways that I can't even describe other that to say it's peppery. Of course peppery isn't bad, I like pepper, but this stuff is nasty in mysterious ways that I'm not able to articulate. I will add that it doesn't taste like vomit. The idea of trying another cup makes want to vomit though, but I'm going to have to try another cup. The first one was sweetened, but the second cup won't be. I can't imagine it will make a difference.

OK, I've made a second cup and it still stinks. How can describe the smell? Dirty wet dog? No. Anyway, it's a musty, vile reek that I find difficult to deal with since I'm supposed to be drinking this substance. The taste? Oddly, it's far more palitable unsweetened. I didn't say it was good, mind you, but it's not quite as repugnant. It's sort of bland, actually. And down the drain it went.

I'm going to save the other two things Helen sent for posts in the next few days because I don't want to blow it all at once.

Funny but harmful

The image below is a screen capture from Ebay.

It's about time someone catered to the market that demands jokes be both funny and harmful.

And I guess the beating you'll get after tricking someone into drinking this crap will also be funny but harmful.

Finally, my long wait is over

Handerpants are underpants for your hands. Yes. Underpants. For your hands.

Juvenile, yes, but amusing

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I've been drinking tea quite a bit lately. I've also been checking out various online sellers of fancy tea. Yesterday I followed an add link to some tea outfit in Taiwan and I began to look around. I know I'm not twelve years old, but the picture below amused me.

 

Ding Dong Fields. Yes. It's lucky the people who work there speak Chinese or they would be giggling and snickering like schoolgirls all day.

Jiz!!!

Back in the mid-80's my sister and I started watching a stupid cartoon called Jem about an all girl rock group called Jem and the Holograms. We were supposedly watching to make fun of it, but I think we were also a little caught up in the plot, such as it was. (This is the kind of thing people did in olden times before they had the internet.) In 1986 my sister went off to college. My first Sunday morning alone, I changed the channel to Jem like we always did. I sat there watching it for maybe five whole minutes before I asked myself, "Why am I watching this crap?" Needless to say, I didn't watch Jem ever again.

Anyway, a few days ago (via somebody's damn Twitter account) I was introduced to Jiz, a crudely redubbed version of Jem. Be warned that the audio is totally not safe for work.



The sequel isn't as funny as the original, but it's worth watching.

Why am I Always the Last to Know?

This is an old blog. A very old blog. An ancient blog. A blog so old that it was originally done on a manual typewriter connected to a long string and a can. Blogs I used to read have come and gone, mostly gone. And I don't even bother to read that many blogs these days. So it was easy for me to miss a post the recently reactivated Sherri put up about the commenting system we ancient bloggers use because our blogs are so old that Blogger didn't even have a built-in commenting system way back in the olden days when dinosaurs roamed the earth.

What am I talking about? Haloscan, the commenting system I've used for over seven years is ceasing to exist on February 13th. Which means all the comments this blog has accumulated for over seven years will be gone. I can back them up, in fact, I've already done so, but they won't be accessible any longer unless I subscribe to this new service called Echo or some shit. So I can either pay money for this new unproven thing or just dump it and go with Blogger's built-in system. I think I'm just going to cut my losses and stick with Blogger.

Something Pointless About Tea

I've been drinking tea quite a bit lately. I tend to prefer Earl Grey varieties (Stash is my favorite), but I've been drinking other types as well.

One of the most easily purchased tea brands in my area is Bigelow. Their most popular variety is something called "Constant Comment". I got three bags of this in a Bigelow variety pack I bought yesterday. I tried this tea for the first time this morning; I even looked forward to it. But, after a few sips I imagined the "Constant Comment" this tea elicited just had to be, "This is awful!" Imagine, if you will, a tea that combines mediocre black tea with orange rind and several sticks of Dentyne. And when you burp you can still taste it an hour or more later. But yet it's Bigelow's most popular kind of tea.

Why am I telling you all of this? Mainly because I look forward to my cup of tea at the nine o'clock break at work and I ruined it with this vile substance. Well, it wasn't completely ruined since I did get to go home not long after because it was snowing and sleeting so hard.

And I'm annoyed because for the second weekend in a row I won't be able to go buy any good tea because it's snowing. I wish they sold better teas in stores near my home, but they don't. I love Stash Earl Grey, but I'm not getting killed driving all the way across town in a vortex of frozen doom just to get it.

I don't like Bigelow's Earl Grey either. So there.

Boring things about a dead guy

J.D. Salinger died a day or two ago. If this was 20 years ago I'd be bummed out about his death, but these days I don't really care.

The only reason for this post to show off this ancient copy of Catcher in the Rye I got a thrift store several years ago. (I think I paid 25¢.) It's unusual in that it actually has an illustration of Holden Caufield on the cover. Or at least it's unusual to me. The only other copies I've ever seen are the stupid burgundy one everyone and their grandma has.



And here's the back.



This post was so great in my head, but it just died on the screen. Maybe I should go back to not posting since I do that so well.

I'm on the internets

I guess it's time for a new blog post. Sadly, I have nothing at all to write about. What have I been doing lately? Working at my crummy job mostly, but when I'm at home I've been camped out in the living room under a blanket. My office is cold enough to store meat, so I don't spend much time in there anymore. I'm waiting for the spring thaw. The laptop keeps my junk from freezing and breaking off.

Also, here's a video of a really fat cat. Listen the nice THUD it makes when it falls over.

New Year, New Bleh

Finally all the holiday crap is over and things can get back to normal. The problem is normal sucks. But at least Grady is gone.



The filthy beast was jettisoned from my life a week ago, but I still bear the physical and mental scars. Horrible! Next Christmas I hope he's discovered the wonderful world of laziness, a skill I thought cats were born with. I dread the thought of another holiday of that furry terror going behind the TV, charging the doors at full speed, climbing the walls, attacking people, trying to eat my cookies, etc.

Note: this is an eight month old cat, but he's already ten pounds and huge. Next year he'll be twice that. I dread Christmas.