Where's the exit?

I found out I have to work Saturday. Naturally, I really had other plans. Anything will do. The air show, shopping, haircut, etc. I'm open. I think I'd rather scrub the mildew off my shower than go to work. And we have to work from 6:00 AM until 2:30 PM, which means that I have to get up at 4:30 AM. The usual time is 7:30 AM until 4:00 PM, which is still interminable, but at least it's normal.

Next week I may start on third shift. I'm not looking forward to this either.

My stapled head isn't hurting that much, but it's annoying having something fragile on me I have to constantly watch out for. I keep worrying I'll tense the muscles of my scalp suddenly and the staples will start popping out. (Incidently, trying to take a picture of the staples in my head is ridiculously difficult. I had to shoot close 35 pictures today just to get a couple of decent shots. Yes, I could've gotten someone else to do it, but there's no challenge in that.)

Staples

I was having a fairly miserable day at work this morning. For some reason I was more leaden and bummed out than usual, and the idea of having to slog through the whole day doing something I hated in a dirty, hot warehouse was almost unendurable. Then around eleven o'clock my day got worse.

The entire facility has conveyors going in every direction. Some ten or more feet in the air. I went to cross over from one side of a conveyor to the other and whacked my head on some big piece of metal underneath it. The next thing I knew I was on my knees. There was blood on my left hand after I pulled it away from my head. So I went to tell one of my supervisors I'd just about cracked my skull open.

Head wounds bleed a lot and mine was no different. Soon I had blood running down the side of my head. "Looks like you'll need a stitch or two," my supervisor said as she held a wad of paper towels to my head.

I ended up with not a stitch or two, but eleven staples. Yes, staples.

I also had to get a tetanus shot and take a drug test to make sure I wasn't wacky on the junk. Fun.

You'd think getting a eleven staples on your head would be good at least for getting the rest of the day off, but you'd be wrong. I had to work the last two hours. Later someone told me that if you get hurt you tell the bosses that you don't feel good and that you're going home. "They won't offer you anything," she said, "you have to take it." Ah, it's a lovely place to work.

No change of address (yet)

I've had this blog since November 2002, which is ancient in the blogging world. Ever since the beginning I've thought of moving it someplace else, probably to my own server space and using something like Movable Type or WordPress. Since last year I've tried installing and fiddling with various blogging platforms on some server space I have. I've also tried who knows how many free blogging services over the past few years and haven't really liked very many of them. And why would I move from a stable outfit Blogger to use some off brand blogging service that will disappear in the middle of the night?

Sunday I decided to try out TypePad, which I guessed would be a good compromise between doing it myself with Movable Type, WordPress, etc. and letting someone else have the headache of dealing with the database problems and other crap the way I do with Blogger.

For some reason I thought TypePad would blow me away with all of its features. And there are lots of features. For almost fifty bucks a year I thought it would be better than a free Blogger account. But from what I can tell you can't even get yer grubby mits on your own HTML unless you get the "pro" account, which costs nearly $150 a year. And the templates available are fairly dull. So you'll be stuck with a bland looking blog unless you spend more money. Feh. All the other features don't seem so cool if you're stuck with a dirt dull varient of the old default Movable Type template.

Long story short (or at least a little shorter), I'm sure TypePad's fine for most situations, but I'm just not that impressed by it and I'm canceling the account before my credit card's $50 lighter. So for a little while longer at least, I'm sticking with Blogger.

Fascinating, no? No.

Working for the weekend

I spend pretty much the whole week waiting for the weekend so I can get a day or two (depending on whether or not we have to work on Saturday) where I don't have to force myself out of bed at 6AM to face another miserable workday. And then on the weekend I don't do anything at all really except vegetate. Fortunately, I got to do something a bit more different than usual yesterday.

Cindy and I went walking down by the river where we saw geese (and few little goslings). Then we walked into the little tunnel where the road goes under the railroad tracks. (Sometimes big trucks ignore the height limit and get their rigs trapped.) Inside we examined the pitiful state of local graffiti. (Cindy has a better shot of the graffiti at her blog. [And, yes, I know I need to get a better digital camera.])

Later we ended up back at her place for pie. (I like pie.) And I must say that spending a while sitting with Cindy on her couch eating pie and watching TV was far more enjoyable than what I'd ordinarily be doing which would something lame like sitting at my computer comparing webhosting companies like a big dork.

Further embarrassment

The state of my book collection is almost as bad as the state of my CD storage options. I ran out of shelf space a while back and now the overflow ends up in strategically placed piles in the floor. But yet I still keep buying books.

My secret shame

Today's subject: the sorry state of my CD storage choices. Instead of having a spiffy CD tower or some other fancy holder that gives the user convenient access to whatever music in his/her collection, I've opted for what amounts to a junk pile.

I started with a nice wooden box I got out of a big garbage bin at a snooty rich girls school (long irrelevant story, sorry). It's perfect for CD's. The problem is I only have one of these boxes and five times the CD's that will fit into it. I do have a couple of those cheap CD holders with the drawers that I got at thrift stores over the years, but I hate them because I can't see what's in them unless I open the damn drawers. I tend to put stuff I don't play that often into these.

Anyway, back to the wooden box. Instead of procuring another wooden box of similar size, I just got a raggedy-ass cardboard box and piled in a few CD's. The collection grew and I just kept the cardboard box. It began to sag and I put a strip of duct tape around it to keep it from suddenly exploding. Later I put a piece of twine around it to further shore it up. The sagging continued. I should also add that the sagging monstrosity is fairly heavy and somewhat unstable. I have to physically pick it up and move it to get at two-thirds of the CD's in the wooden box beneath it. Eventually I added a board for the cardboard box to rest on to squeeze a little more life out of it. There's no more room in the cardboard box, but I keep buying CD's.

On top of the cardboard box I have an ancient 5 1/4 inch floppy disk box that I keep CD software in. That blocks my view of what's in at least half of the cardboard box. And I should also mention that the floppy disk box is jam-packed to the limit as well. I see no easy solution. Soon there will just be a big pile of disks there and no boxes in sight.

Hot

It's so hot. So damn hot I can't concentrate. Actually, it's the humidity that's making it so maddeningly miserable here of late. I should be used to high heat and humidity by now after living my whole life in the south, but I'm not. And this year we didn't even get to properly ease into the miserable heat and humidity. It was cooler than normal last week and much of the time prior to that. Then suddenly, whoosh, jungle-like heat and humidity. It's almost as if Mother Nature was sitting around watching TV when she suddenly glanced up at a calendar and said, "Oh, hell! It's June already!" Then she jumps up and starts screwing with the weather controls to quickly get things back to normal. Meanwhile, on Earth, we get launched from April straight into July.

Cactus

My sister sent me this stupid photo yesterday. (Not quite safe for work.)

Bring out your dead

At my crummy job I have to deal with pallets all day long. If you don't know, and you probably don't, pallets are typically 48 inch by 48 inch square wooden platforms that are used for shipping things. If you work in a place like I do (and for your sake I hope you don't), you get to see many, many pallets up close every workday.

I've always been fascinated by the origins of the various pallets I come into contact with. (I need something to pass the time. It's sort of like stamp collecting or train-spotting, I suppose.) Many have the names of various companies on their sides. I see all kinds of things: Chiquita Guatemala, Return to Eastman Kodak, U.S. Mail, stuff in Chinese, and once I saw one made of Russian wood.

Today I saw perhaps the Holy Grail of pallets. Or maybe just the oddest pallet slogan I've ever come across: Treated for Plague. Yes, plague. As in bubonic. I guess having it treated for plague is better than getting pallets that are contaminated with plague. That would suck. In all my years of doing crappy, low-paying work in warehouses where I dealt with pallets, not once did it ever enter my mind that I could come into contact with plague.

And before some sad sack leaves a comment saying something like, "There's plague in New Mexico and it's a serious health hazard!" I know there's plague in some Western U.S. areas. This pallet probably came from someplace where plague's more widespread. Possibly India.

I wish they'd let me have a digital camera at work. Seeing interesting stuff I can't take a picture of is really annoying. It's kind of like shaking bigfoot's hand and not having any proof. Well, not really, but you know what I mean.

Found

This quasi-abstract image is a blown up scan of a skid mark on an envelope. I guess the mark was made by a rubber roller in some kind of mail-sorting contraption. The smudge looks a little like the African continent and the bit at the top looks kind of like the Sphinx.

That's all I have today. Sorry.

Different than usual

Last night Cindy and I went to dinner and a movie. Dinner was fine (great hamburgers), except for that one horrifying moment where I came within a hair of knocking my Coke over into her lap. I'm still vaguely freaked out by just how close it was, but the gods of dining (for once) smiled upon me and let the glass stand upright after I accidently hit while flailing my hands like a spazz. Note to self: stop gesticulating so damn much.

The movie, the remake of the Amityville Horror, pretty much sucked. Thankfully we were in the cheapo theater that only charges $3.50 a ticket. I'd seen the original movie a long time ago, but I didn't remember anything much about it. I think spent much of the movie wondering why they chose the goofy guy from Two Guys, A Girl and a Pizza Place to play a man being driven murderously insane by the evil house. I thought Cindy had gone to sleep at one point (she denied it) and wondered if I catch a nap myself since I hadn't had one in a few days. I decided against attempting a nap because god only knew what would happen while I was asleep. I'd hate to wake up on the floor with old popcorn stuck to my face.

I hadn't been in a movie theater since 2000 and had vowed never to go to one again. Ever-shrinking screens, people talking, and big guys trying to sit on me had soured me on the whole movie-going experience. Thankfully no big galoots tried to sit on me last night, which was a nice change of pace. There wasn't even that much talking. I did notice a big smeared stain on the screen that was kind of annoying, and the theater itself was, I swear, only slightly larger than my living room. (In the very near future people going to the movies will be in tiny rooms with a TV set.) And why are movies so damn loud?

All in all it was a nice evening despite the crummy movie. I really should get out more.

---------------

I dug up some interesting Amityville links because I wanted to find out some more about the case:

The Real Amityville Horror: The Tragic Murder of the Ronald DeFeo Family

Amityville: Horror or Hoax?

The Amityville Horror Website: Hosted by George Lutz

The Amityville Horror Truth Website

Beetle Bailey

Yesterday while looking for something in a big box of junk, I ran across the 70's vintage, unopened Beetle Bailey rubber band gun that my sister found at a flea market several years ago. I don't know what I find odder about this thing, the inappropriate suggestiveness of using it to shoot a woman in the ass, or the fact that Beetle's friend, Killer, has inexplicably been transformed from Caucasian to African American. And if you want another picture of Killer to confirm that he's actually a white guy, here's a scan from yesterday's comics section. (He's third from the left.)

Update 1/20/07: I've gotten an ass-load of traffic over the past two days because this post was mentioned in the comments over at The Comics Curmudgeon.

Sorry I'm linking to the images rather than posting them, that's just the way I used to do things here. My reasoning back then was that I hated waiting forever for image heavy blogs to finish loading on my hillbilly two cans and a string dial-up connection. Actually, I still hate waiting for image heavy blogs to finish loading, but I digress. And no I'm not going to go back and post the images for everyone's convenience. Really, it's all I can do these days to even drag myself out of bed each morning to face yet another deadening day at work as my life lurches ever forward to its inevitable pointless climax. It's not going to kill you to click a link.

Appalling

This is the most appalling animated .gif I think I've ever seen. (And of course it's not quite safe for work.) Someone was using it as their Live Journal avatar and I ran across it by accident yesterday.

Bees

This photo was on the front page of the newspaper last week.

(I should get a photoblog. Oh, I remember, I have one, but I abandonded it. Never mind.)

Contortionists

Yesterday, at a thrift store, I bought a used book on target shooting. (Don't ask.) It's an old British book from the early 70's. As I flipped through it, I saw several strange-looking photos. At first I thought they were battlefield photos of dead WWI solders. The pictures were of men lying on their backs or sides, contorted in odd positions with rifles. One man had a strap around his head to hold it up. After I read the photo descriptions I saw that these were some kind of competition shooting positions. I don't know much about competition shooting (or shooting in general), but these weird positions don't look like they would help you shoot more accurately. Maybe they're not intended to help them shoot more accurately. Prehaps the positions are to make it more difficult. Maybe they should take this line of thought farther. Why not have them stand on their heads, wear blindfolds, or brace the stock against their forehead while a trained parrot presses the trigger?

Again with the porno-gourd

I took a new photo of the porno-gourd. Now, appropriately enough, it's surrounded by honey-suckle.

At home he's a tourist

Yesterday morning I finally met Cindy. I've known her in cyberspace for a year and a half probably, but even though we live in the same small city, we've never met in meatspace. (That was mainly my fault since I'm a hermit, misanthrope, and all around stick-in-the-mud.)

We hit a couple of yard sales. (I'd never been to one, believe it or not.) And she pointed out three or four Lustron homes in the area. (I'd never seen one before; they're fascinating.)

You'd think I knew my own home town, but after a few turns I was completely lost. I don't know if I could've easily found my way out of there by myself. It was a good thing she was driving.

Meat

Finally, Photo References of Meat!

Why

I don't qet MySpace. How is it different from Blogger? Why should I join? Why, I ask, why?!

Boring

I was supposed to be blogging more these days, but I fell back into my old non-blogging habits. Sorry. But since I didn't have much if anything to write about, it was no real loss. Even when I deliberately did something I hoped would end up making a good blog post, it ended up being a fairly dull episode not worth writing about.

Example: going to my town's newest dollar store and buying a little bottle ginseng royal jelly. I'd hoped this strange Chinese substance would be really awful or make me sick or something, but it just tasted slightly odd and there were no noticable effects. (Someone told me it tasted like dirt; it didn't.) All very boring.

Yum

This morning I was in bed dreaming of eating something like roast with gravy on it. I bit into a piece on the end of my fork and the taste was odd enough to wake me up. It seems I had part of my bed quilt in my mouth. Luckily, I didn't swallow.

Progress?

I hate phones, always have. I don't have a good telephone voice. When I get too nervous I stammer a bit or talk really fast. At other times I'm weirdly silent making the other person on the line say, "Scott, are you there?" I have the personality of a cinder block and the social skills of an opossum. Anyway, earlier in the week I finally got my very first cellphone.

When I went back to school a few years ago I was oddly surprised that most everyone seemed to have cellphones. Most of the people where I work seem to have them. I dreaded the day when I'd have to own one of these damn things because that would make me reachable at virtually any time. I don't want to be reachable at virtually any time, I'm a misanthropic hermit!

I got the cheapest phone I could get. And, much to my surprise, I actually like the thing--despite the fact that I haven't gotten it to work yet.

Why'd I get it? My car's been breaking down a lot over the past year. At least three times in the past five months I've had to walk long distances. A few Sundays ago I walked about four miles home. (I found a perfectly good goldfish bowl in a ditch on the way.) And I have a thirty mile round trip each day because of my job. If my car breaks down out there in the middle of nowhere, I'm screwed pretty much. So I got a phone.

Now that I've joined the rest of society in the 21st century with my spiffy new phone, maybe I should make an effort to be sociable. I can actually call people and they can call me.

Now I'm beginning to wonder if this is all such a good idea.

Sick

You'd think the human body would be able to ward off the common cold by now, you know, what with it being so common and all. Well, it can't. I've caved into peer pressure and got me one of them new fangled warm weather colds.

I hate being sick. I did get to go home really early from work today, but I can't enjoy anything when my ears are stopped up, I have a headache, my nose is running, and my throat is dry and sore.

I took three naps today, but I dread trying to sleep tonight. Last night I woke up periodically trying to swallow or breath clearly. At one point, I just got up and ended up sitting on the floor beside my bed reading a book on winemaking. And I don't even drink. Why do I even own this book? And why was on the floor? I have chairs.

Why blog?

I tend to stay far, far away from the various memes that are bouncing around other blogs. I never seriously did the Friday Five thing (or whatever it was called), nor have I traded interviews with another blogger. Partly it's because I have some pathetic notion that paying attention to said blog memes isn't that original, but mainly it's out of pure laziness.

Anyway, Sherri has posted an interesting list of questions about blogging, so I thought I'd answer them.

1) Why do you keep your weblog/blog/online writing thingie: for fun, for fame, for money, for popularity, or for another more obscur reason? What about the weblog gives you what you want?

I started it as an alternative to a handwritten journal, but I quickly realized that blogs and handwritten journals aren't that similar at all. And after two and a half years of keeping a blog, I think I'm mainly doing it out of habit.

I like it when people have a positive reaction to things I write. It's always surprising to me what kind of post will spark people's interest and what kind will be completely ignored.

2) Imagine that your weblog becomes wildly popular: your hit counter skyrockets, your comments are overflowing, and everyone is emailing you about everything you post. Name 3 positive things that could come of this, and 3 negative things.

The good:

1. Book deal!
2. Ego trip!
3. The fleeting internet version of fame!

The bad:

1. I hate email. Having to answer loads of email would be hell on earth.
2. I hate people. Having people bothering me all the time would be hell on earth.
3. People I don't know wanting to meet me in meat-space. But I guess that would be connected to the answer above.

3) What's the worst possible result you can imagine (short of being electrocuted or having your computer take over your brain, and who says it hasn't already?) from keeping a weblog?

My parents start reading it, then all my other family members start reading it.

4) What do you do to prevent that worst possible result from happening?

Deny the existence of any web page/blog/etc I may be asked about. Deny! Deny! Deny!

5) List 5 reasons that would make you stop keeping your weblog for a period of 6months to a year.

1. Depression.
2. No internet access.
3. A total disgust with blogs and blogging.
4. Work.
5. Alien abduction.

6) List 5 reasons that would make you stop forever.

1. Death.
2. Boredom.
3. No internet access ever.
4. Someone paying me not to blog. Kinda like those farmers who get paid not to grow crops.
5. My parents reading my blog.

7) Describe your definition of a "successful weblog".

A blog that the author clearly enjoys writing and is interesting to read on a regular basis.

8) Is yours successful by your definition?

Ha-ha.

9) What pisses you off most in other weblogs? What pleases you most?

No capitalization and the widespread use of instant messaging slang. Seriously, we're doomed as a civilization if this sort of thing continues.

10) Make a list of 10 weblogs/journal style websites that you wish your weblog/website/writing site was like.

Ten?! Jeez, that'll take forever!

1. Diamond Geezer has to be the work of a group of a dozen or more people. I've read this blog on and off for two and half years and it's never gone on hiatus that I know of and there's a fresh, well thought out post virtually every day. It's maddening!
2. A Girl Named Bob is probably the blog I've read the longest. It's well written and very funny. Bob doesn't write as much as she used to, but it's still a favorite.
3. The Magic Short Bus is almost a companion piece to the above, but it stands on its own as one of the better written and funniest blogs I've ever read.
4. J-Walk is pure industriousness. How he comes up with all of these odd and sometimes useful links so regularly never fails to amaze me.
5. The Presurfer is the king of oddball links.
6. Giornale Nuovo makes me wish I read more and read cooler books.
7. The Leptard is literate and funny. Why he hasn't written a novel escapes me.
8. For Myself and Strangers isn't on this list because its author wrote these questions, but because she walks it like she talks it. And she writes! Also, it's probably the most thought provoking blog on this list.

OK, that's eight. Deal with it.

(And English really is my first language, even though it doesn't look like it sometimes.)

Yee-ha!

Just for Sherri: Dukes of Hazzard slash fiction! (Scroll down on the second link.)

Potter

My sister just told me that her Harry Potter fan fiction is online.

It's a parody, but I don't know how funny it actually is since I've never read a Harry Potter book.

UPDATE: My sister sent me an email today after I told her I'd post a link to her Potter thing in my blog.

So you don't think the dinks who read your blog would think unicorns drowned in baked beans, hitting Potter characters with sticks, and Fosgood the Flatulent was entertaining at all?

Farty.

I just discovered that they deleted all my semicolons making all sorts of run together words, making me look like a complete moron. Cripes, that means I have to go back and FIX this crap.

It was peeeerfeeect!!!!

Not sure what "Farty" is all about, but since my sister's an artist, it's no doubt something really arty and creative. Or farty. Not sure.

Dodgy todger

I forgot to mention that when I was in the little room getting ready for the pee-test, the nurse made me empty my pockets. She didn't frisk me to find a hidden piss-bag or phoney schlong, but it was still odd. At least I got to whizz with the door closed, but she told me not to flush.

Wee!

I've been recommended for that third shift job, so today I had to go in for a drug test. I purposely didn't take a leak before I left the house so that I'd be assured of easily producing a sample. (I'm a bit pee-shy.) I ever filled up my car with gas, drove across town, and browsed in two different stores so that when it came time to pee I'd be ready.

The last time I did one of these tests, I just went in and did it. Today I had to wait. And waiting with a full bladder isn't enjoyable at all. It's also not enjoyable when you're an irritable misanthrope like I am. Just the sound of the other people's voices annoyed me to no end. Deep-voiced men and little kids particularly grated me this morning for some unknown reason.

There was a guy one seat down from me wearing tan saddle-shoes with shorts and white socks. Yes, tan saddle-shoes. These would be appropriate to wear if he were a girl in the 1950's who needed something to go with her poodle-skirt, but not something a grown man should be wearing with white socks and shorts.

Why do people let their children roam all over the waiting room? Why do people talk so loudly on their cellphones in waiting rooms?

This post's going nowhere, so I'll end it.

Feh, again

It's time for another blog post, since I haven't written one in who knows how long. I can't say that nothing's been going on around here, but I just don't feel like writing. I haven't even been writing in my journal that much.

I'm on new medication. So far I feel a little funny every now and then, but not "ha-ha" funny. This odd feeling is, I believe, either a side effect of the new medication or withdrawal from the old. Whatever.

I may actually get hired to do something useful at the place I'm temping at. But it may be a third shift position, so if I get it, I'll be walking around in an even bigger daze than usual until I adjust. And who knows how long it'll take me to adjust to working at four o'clock in the goddamn morning.

I'd like to thank the asshats who ruined the Extreme Tracker thingy by clogging it with referrer spam that makes little sense. I'd like to thank them each personally with a flying kick to the nuts because I'm the type who likes to go that extra mile.

This post was going to be longer, but I can't think of anything else important to moan and groan about.

Mystery face

Tonight I was shocked to find a face appearing on the top of my chocolate pudding. Surely it's a miracle! I thought of selling this amazing puddling on Ebay, or maybe calling the media so that people can come here to view what may be a holy image. But instead I just ate it. And it wasn't even that good.

Pointing

Today this photo was on the front page of the only newspaper in my city. In context it's a little strange, but out of context it's bizarre.

Vintage

Last week I got a book in the mail with an ancient air mail stamp on the package.

That's all.

Porno-gourd revisited

I know all of you have been clamoring for a porno-gourd update, so here it is. The porno-gourd is still nice and hard and doing quite well as you can see by this photo I took about an hour ago.

Things

Just thought I'd write a post to let whoever's left to care what's going on with me right now. Below are the main categories that seem to be prominent in my life these days.

Blogging: I'm still sick of blogs and blogging right now. I wish I wasn't sick of them, but I am, and I don't how much longer I'm going to be sick of them.

Employment: I'm entrenched in my crummy job. It's become a habit now, and even though I don't like the job that much, I don't have anything else going on at the moment employment-wise, so I'm sticking with it. Money is nice to have. I can buy books with money. Books are good.

Depression: My medication doesn't seem to be working; I'll have to get it changed.

Journal: Keeping a journal is more interesting to me than keeping a blog.

Writing: I want to write a novel, but not the kind that makes money. No, I want to write an obscure experimental novel of the sort that no one wants to read or publish. I've been trying on and off (mostly off) for 15 or more years to write a novel and never have gotten more than a dozen or so pages done in any attempt. Obviously, a change in technique is called for.

Car: I need to buy another car before mine falls apart.

TV: Why isn't there anything interesting to watch on TV anymore?

Gourd

I went for a walk a few days ago and found an old gourd that had grown through a wire fence. Odd. So I took a picture of it. After I looked at it a bit, I realized that not only was this gourd very unusual, but it was also not safe for work, nor suitable for children.

Huh?

You ever start poking around your computer files and find something you vaguely remember but don't really know what it is? No? It must just be me. Anyway, I found the following in a folder of other texts:

The Planet that Hates its Name

There once was a planet named Ralph. Planet Ralph hated its name. The other planets had interesting names like Saturn and Jupiter. Why was Ralph burdened with this terrible name? So one day Ralph got an idea. Why not legally change its name? Four days later Ralph went to court and legally changed its name to Linda.

I don't know what it is or even if I wrote it. I don't think I wrote it. Maybe I just took some found text and substituted various words. Or maybe it came from one of those sites that randomly generates stories. I really don't know.

Something else

I'm still on hiatus. I'm just not in a blogging mood these days. For several months now I've wanted to do something else besides a blog, something sort of blog-like, but not a blog. I thought of doing a wiki, but I don't know how I would do it so that it doesn't end up being a blog.

Anyway, these days I'm tired from work and don't have much enthusiasm for sitting in front of a computer for long hours the way I used to.

Scary

Holy crap, my blog-hating sister now has a Live Journal. This is, I believe, one the signs of the apocalypse.

Sort of like a blog

In the years before I had a blog I kept journals. Lots of them. I have several thousand pages of crap in a milk crate under my bed. Twenty-one volumes, actually. I stopped keeping a journal a few months before I started this blog, and I thought the blog would sort of be like a journal, but I quickly realized it wasn't really like a journal or diary at all. Anyway, last month I started keeping a journal again. It's odd sitting at my desk scrawling away in a spiral-bound notebook with a fountain pen and suddenly wishing I could link to a website. It doesn't quite work the same as with HTML.

When will I come back from hiatus? I don't know.

Tired

I don't feel like blogging these days. My job sucks rocks, I'm tired all the time, I'm tired of the internet, and it's too cold where my computer is. So I'm going on hiatus for a little while. I don't know how long.

Feh

Why didn't someone tell me I'd double-posted the spam entry from a few days ago?

Sick

What can make a crappy job even more crappy? Catching a cold. I have the first cold I've had in over three years.

God, I hope I don't have to work Saturday.

Spam

I don't typically pay that much attention to my spam because it's always the same old boring, lame drivel, but once in awhile I'll get one that's worth keeping:

dangle in greenwich is hexane of riggs
comanche your cuprous is cottrell are bat

****************************************************
****************************************************

@re You a quali fied pr0fessional but simply
l@ck the req uested cred entials after your name?

Ti red of being turned down because you do not have a C0llege back gr0und
We can help you Today.

Call n0w and one of our rep resentatives will ass!st you and the l0ved o
nes,
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I wonder if the diplomas will have the school name spelled something like H@rv@rd.

The 501 country code in the phone number is for Belize, by the way.

I also like the near Dada gibberish at the beginning and ending that's supposed to foil the spam filters.

Groan

I hate my new temp job. I really hate my new temp job. I really really hate my new temp job. Need I go on? My feet are sore and blistered, my left leg hurts, I'm shivering even though I'm not cold, and I keep gritting my teeth. It's almost like it's 1996 all over again.

The only marginally amusing thing I can think of about this job is that it's in a warehouse of a company that sells party supplies. One of the boxes I heaved onto a pallet had the words "UGLY TEETH" on the label. I think that was the only box I encountered that I wanted to open.

We're stacking boxes that have been returned by a big discount department store that shall remain nameless. The boxes have to have their bar codes scanned and if they scan correctly, we hear Homer Simpson scream "WOO-HOO!" And if they aren't scanned correctly we hear Homer Simpson scream "D'OH!" So all frickin' day it was "WOO-HOO! WOO-HOO! WOO-HOO! WOO-HOO! WOO-HOO! D'OH! WOO-HOO! WOO-HOO! WOO-HOO! WOO-HOO! D'OH!" I'm serious. There were several groups of people scanning these boxes, so I could hear Homer constantly in the background. It was funny at first, then it was hellish.

I have to work tomorrow. I'm not looking forward to waking up.

Employed

Got a temp job this afternoon. I start tomorrow. I'm over-qualified and will be grossly underpaid, but I need the work. I'm not looking forward to it, but at least I get the weekend off.

Grumble...groan.

Housekeeping

Today at the thrift store I found a dual-text English and Japanese book called The American Way of Housekeeping. The English is on the left side pages and the Japanese is on the right. The subtitle of the book is of the Women of the Occupation/by the Women of the Occupation/for the Women of the Occupation. It was published in Tokyo in 1948 and was intended for "women who are maintaining Western households here in the East."

It makes me wonder if an similar book is being prepared in English/Arabic.

Cold

Saturday morning I went to this asinine job fair held by a new company that moved into the area. Apparently every other person in town is unemployed because for at least an hour I stood in the longest line in recorded history. And it was cold. So cold in fact that the guy in front of me arms broke off and shattered on the sidewalk. Darndest thing I ever saw.

OK, that last part didn't happen.

Firbank

Why can't I read Ronald Firbank? I've been trying for years to read his very short novels and have failed every time. After a few pages I don't have the faintest idea what's going on.

(Oddly, inside my Firbank volume, was a notecard with some numbers written on it and the word flagellator. What any of this refers to escapes me.)

Job

I've been reading actual books over the past week or so. I used to read the things all the time, one after another, but eventually I got burned out on them. Then I started spending all my free time online reading those damnable blog things. Well, now I'm back to the volumes made from dead trees. First it was my Oulipo Compendium, then Caradec's Raymond Roussel biography, then Roussel's odd play Dust of Suns, and now I'm reading Apollinare's Amorous Exploits of a Young Rakehell, a very short pornographic novel he wrote for money in 1907 thereabouts.

The thing about the Apollinare book that most struck me is the biographical piece on him printed inside. He wrote this novel while working as "curator of forbidden books at the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris". That's my dream job right there: curator of forbidden books.

Vacant

I've been discovering a new world over the past week or so. Or perhaps I should say I've been rediscovering a previously discovered world I'd sort of been neglecting for the past few years. Anyway, this new world has little or no internet access, but it does have satellite TV and a damn good library. Oh, there's also a couch for me to lie on.

Old

Yesterday I went to Goodwill and spent way to much time going through their antique book section. I looked at every single volume until I got dizzy. Naturally the bulk the books were on low shelves, so my knees and lower back took a beating. I'm too tall and too old to be hunkered down for any length of time. And I didn't find what I was looking for either. Feh.

Fried day

Is it Friday already? Weekends are meaningless when you're unemployed and have no life. Bleh.

Feh

Don't feel like writing in blogs or reading them right now. The closest word to describe how I feel is blah. I think I'll spend the day on the couch rereading my Oulipo Compendium.

Happy Gnu Year

The first thing I need to do this year is get a new calendar. Why do I always wait until the last minute to get a damn calendar?

Good riddance, 2004

I certainly hope 2005 is better than 2004.

Codex Seraphinianus

My sister came down for Christmas and brought her copy of Luigi Serafini's Codex Seraphinianus. I hadn't seen a copy of this book since the 80's when my sister checked out the two volume edition from her college library. She finally broke down and bought a copy earlier this year. It's the single volume Franco Maria Ricci edition from the early 90's. Exquisitely weird. I have to get my hands on a copy of this book, but I dont really want to spend $250-plus to get it.

Holiday heck

Ugh, the holidays are over. Well, almost. That whole New Year's thing is still around the corner. Anyway, most of the main holiday chaos is over.

Festive feh

I'm going to use Christmas as an excuse not to post for the next few days. We don't even celebrate Christmas anymore. Nope. Every year since '97 we sacrifice a goat to Odin and dance naked around a bonfire. It's keen.

What the hell?

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Cold!

Why is it so damn cold? Oh, yeah, it's winter. Yesterday, I got up and looked at the temperature and it was eleven degrees. That's Fahrenheit, not centigrade. We're not used to that kind of cold down here. It was even too cold to spend more than a few minutes online, since my computer's in the coldest room of the house. So I spent the whole day under a blanket on the couch. I plan on doing the same today, even though today it's probably thirty degrees outside.

No, no! A thousand times, no!

"The purpose of ClownResourceDirectory.com is to share, educate, and act as a gathering place for people, who want to be clowns."

Be afraid, be very afraid.

News you can't possibly use

Breaking news! There's a drunken moose alert in southern Norway. So stay the hell out of southern Norway if you can.

Folklore?

With a URL like Folklore.org you'd think they'd have lots of...you know, folklore, but, oddly, it appears to be mainly tons of stories about the original Macintosh.

1-2-3-4!!

The arizona hardcore punk rock flyer archive 1982-1984 has darn near a gazillion gig flyers from bands like Black Flag, Dead Kennedys, Minutemen, Husker Du, etc.

The ugly internet

The Browser Emulator lets you look at websites using emulations of a variety of ancient web browsers like NCSA Mosiac, Hot Java, and early versions of Netscape and IE.

Les Femmes au Pinocchio

I don't quite understand Pinocchia.com. It's lots of pictures of beautiful women with Pinocchio noses added with Photoshop. Apparently it's a fetish site. [Safe for work? Search me.]

Groundhogs

There's a big groundhog that I see occasionally hanging around in the backyard. I'd love to have it for a pet, but that's unlikely. Imagine sitting on the couch with a nice big groundhog curled up in your lap. No?

The best groundhog website I've seen is HogHaven. Make sure your speakers are on.

Holiday Wookiees

Last week I downloaded the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special that originally aired in late November 1978. (I got it off the Shareaza network, and it took forever since I'm on dial-up.)

George Lucas reportedly wants this travesty banned, which is understandable considering how bad it is. The first twenty minutes are nothing but untranslated Wookiee jibber-jabber. Seriously.

I thought it would be humorously bad, but it's not really. Other than the occasional bizarre moment that makes you wonder just how much drugs everyone was taking, it's just boring and/or embarrassing.

Odd audio

Clay's Oddities Wav Page has a bunch of .wav files of various strange things like scary fundamentalist preachers saying stupid things, a drunk John Wayne giving a speech, and a dumb (and very unlucky) guy trapped in a phone booth calling 911 for help.

An observation

Why is it that the cars on the street with the loudest, most hot-rodded exhaust systems are invariably the slowest damn vehicles on the street? And why are they almost always in front of me?

Dang it!

I was at a thrift store this morning and saw an old accordion for $35. It was a small one, maybe a foot high. Of course I didn't have $35, but, more importantly, I don't have a job, nor do I know how to play an accordion. But I want it!

Story time!

I wish these deranged childrens' books actually existed; we need them now more than ever.

Update: This link doesn't work anymore. I think the owners were getting too much traffic, so they're now denying everyone access.

Huh?

A few days ago I was watching TV and a during a commercial for Citi, there was some familiar music playing. Then it hit me, it was The Feelies, of all people. The song: "Slow Down" from their 1986 album, The Good Earth (which I have on vinyl).

Of course none of you know what I'm talking about, so I'll stop here.

Do they even pay attention?

Saturday afternoon I was watching a documentary about children with a rare genetic disorder called progeria that causes them to rapidly age and have to suffer the same types of things people in their 70's-90's face. During a commercial break, there was an ad for Oil of Olay. The voiceover mentioned things like how it would make your skin look younger. To put it mildly, I was shocked they would let such an appalling juxtaposition occur. Do they even pay attention to what commercials run during various programs? It's almost as bad as seeing weight loss commercials during a program about a famine.

Mundane

I'm back to blogging. I feel better, but but not substantially so.

A break

I think I'm going to take a blogging break for about a week. Maybe my new brain tonic will be working by the end of the week and I can once again stand the idea of blogs.

Monk Time!

A few years ago I found about a weird band from the 60's called The Monks. They wore only black, had ropes around their necks, shaved the tops of their heads like some monks do (did?), and played particulary crazed tunes. I never could find any of their music, but recently I found The Monks Official Website, which has a biography of the band, reviews, photos, and a few songs available for download (unfortunately in RealAudio format). Strange stuff.

And how was your evening?

I've felt very leaden over the past month or so. At times all I want to do is lie on the couch and watch TV, the problem is there's nothing on TV. I have a satellite dish and get around 100 channels, but there's little on that I actually want to see.

Last night I found myself stretched out on the couch like a zombie, mindlessly flipping through the channels. And there was nothing but garbage on: home improvement stuff, sports dreck, shopping channels, stuff I've already seen, etc.

There's ten or so religious channels, most of which are fundamentalist ranting of the sort I was raised with and am quite sick of. I zipped through those channels quickly. I paused on the Mormon channel for a bit, but didn't have the slightest idea what they were talking about. Then I hit a Catholic channel with an elderly nun doing Hail Marys or whatever (I'm not Catholic) to a room filled with younger nuns. As she droned on, the camera would periodically scan the room and show the faces of the younger nuns, but mostly it was frozen on the very old, very dull nun. An attractive younger nun's face briefly appeared on the screen and I perked up a bit. Perhaps a bit too much because I ended up lying there thinking, "Show the nuns! Show the nuns!"

Smashing Boutique

Early last year I came up with an idea for a business where people could go and relieve stress by smashing things. Today I found out that in Spain there's a scrapyard that will, for a fee, let stressed out Spaniards take a sledgehammer to various items.

All my bizarre ideas end up existing. I should come up with something really stupid like edible furniture. [Link via The Presurfer.]

Found photos. Free pie

Big Happy Funhouse is a photoblog made up entirely of found photos. Weirdly hypnotic.

Breaking wind

Breaking Wind: Legendary Farts collects "folktakes about flatulance". Seriously. My own personal favorite is General Pumpkin.

Strolling down the highway

Time Has Told Me collects a bunch of Nick Drake .mp3's. As far as I can tell, it's mostly covers, but if you like Nick Drake, worth digging into.

What?

Solipsistic is a peculiar assemblage of old photos and Dada randomness. [Link via Monkeyfilter.]

Every working day

Honey, Where You Been So Long is a yet another one of those new fangled .mp3 blogs all the kids have these days. This one features pre-war (as in WWII) blues. [Link via The Leptard.]

Not in my lunchbox

Cock O'lada is "the first drink out of a cocktube." What's a cocktube, you ask? Do you really want to know? (Not safe for work.) [Link via Fleshbot.]

Old cameras

The Yashica Electro 35 & Rangefinder camera user Homepage would've been really useful to me seven or eight years ago. Back then I found a Yashica Electro 35 in a thrift store for $20. It was my first "serious" camera, but the camera was so battered it looked like someone had used it to hammer nails. But it worked. It also had sand in it. I still have it and it still works. They're great cameras.

Legendary Lester

A few days ago I found an old interview with guitar legend Les Paul from 1977.

Odd music

Oddmusic "is for anyone interested in unique, unusual, ethnic, or experimental music and instruments."

My favorite section is the gallery where they list various weird instruments and have sound samples.

Emulators!

EMU-Russia is a site with darn near a gazillion questionably legal old video game ROMs to download and play on your PC in your favorite console emulator. Now I can play Super Mario Brothers again.

Sock blog anyone?

Niqkita's Sock Journal is a blog about socks. Really. Socks.

A few days off

Since my two year blog anniversary a few days ago, I've been taking some time off from the blog. Since I'm elderly, I need my rest, as does my very elderly blog.

Two Years!

Today's the second anniversary of this blog. I'm surprised it's lasted this long. And I have no idea how much longer it'll last.

Two years is a huge amount of time in the blogging world where blogs typically only last a few months before the owner gets bored. It took me a bit longer to get bored, but I was too stubborn to stop.

If you're curious about what Volume 22 looked like in the early days, here's a link to earliest version at the Wayback Machine. (And, yes, I did post these same two links a few weeks ago.)

Thanks to all of the people who've read, commented on, and linked to this blog over the past two years.

3-way collision

Yesterday I was in a discount department store and found myself in the toy isle. But on the other side of the isle was pet products, and a little further down, rat poison. Call me crazy, but these three types of items strike me as things that shouldn't be together.

Spanking Machine

Finally, someone has invented a spanking machine: "Robospanker is the world's first robotic spanking machine. Created by DD Machinery, Robospanker is one of the most unique and fasinating adult toys on the market. DD Machinery was founded in 1997, and has for years been the pioneers in the research and development of fine new bondage products." (Needless to say, this site isn't safe for work.) [Link via Fleshbot.]

New Invention

I came up with a new invention this morning: the hovercraft toilet. It's not a hovercraft that has an onboard toilet, it's more of a toilet that's also a hovercraft.

How long have we have had indoor plumbing and flushable toilets? A hundred or more years, right? Well, it's just not that impressive anymore being able to flush stuff away. Going to the toilet is boring. You sit there, do your business for awhile, and eventually you get up and flush it away. How dull. Of course, you can read, but that's still a bit boring as well. No, it just won't do. Going to the toilet needs some excitement. We need the hovercraft toilet. And we need it now more than ever.

Ideally, the unit will be about the size of a rowboat or smaller. Naturally, it will be enclosed for privacy because you can't have people zipping around their yards on a toilet for everyone to see. What would the neighbors think? It will also need safety features such as seat-belt, roll-bars, airbag, headlights, break-lights, turn-signals, rear-view mirrors, and possibly even a parachute.

What I need to do now is draw up some plans and see about getting some investors interested so that we can build a working prototype.

Proto punk aquatic lifeforms

A band I've been curious about for at least ten years are the Electric Eels. They were an obscure early to mid 70's Cleveland proto punk band that were supposed to be unbeliveable. I first read about them in Jon Savage's excellent, England's Dreaming. I never found anything by them, nor did I ever make any huge effort to look.

Anyway, yesterday out of the blue, I decided to look online and found out there's an official Electric Eels site with photos, a history of the band, and even an album for sale. Suddenly they didn't seem so mysterious. They also have .mp3's of "Cyclotron" and "Aggitated". "Cyclotron" is glorious, genuine punk before there was such a thing. "Aggitated" sort of reminds me of a slowed down version of Black Flag's "Wasted" circa 1978. (Oddly, these two songs were released on a 45 in 1978, three years after the Eels had broken up.)

Strange tales

The Anomalist features links to news stories from around the world on various unexplained phenomena, strange discoveries, etc.

Ruins

Modern Ruins Photographic Essays has at least 20 different galleries of different abandoned sites. My own personal favorite is Hospital X, a creepy old hospital that still has lots of old equipment in it. [Link via Metafilter or Monkeyfilter and I don't feel like digging around to find out which.]

Shrunken heads anyone?

Head Hunting: History of the Shuar has pretty much all you'd ever want to know about shrunken heads. Lots of gross pictures, too.

AARRGGHH!!

OK, that's enough! I'm done with civilization. From here on out I will live my life underground in tunnels I'll burrow in a secluded site in the woods. My life will be like that of a giant mole. I'll have no more truck with your silly above ground laws and your crude sky-god. Do whatever you want, it has no meaning for me anymore.