20040730 
Okay, so domino's wins some points with me cause their website isn't all wanting to be something it's not. Hullo, you're a pizza place. Tell me the specials on your homepage. Gimme a link to find the closest store. AND THAT'S IT.
Fucking McDonalds. Why can't I see your current "deal" right there, on the main page? Fucking Burger King. Why isn't there a blatantly obvious "Specials" hotlink right there on your index? Fucking Papa John's... hullo! HULLO?!? I don't want a fucking piece of shit shitty shit DVD Weekend at Bernie's 2 with my pizza! I want ANOTHER free pizza with my pizza. Get with the fucking program.
Fuckers.
Is it so hard, Wendy's, to put a french link on your website? I mean, you find it necessary to put a spanish link. What are you trying to say? How hard is it.. I mean, really, how fucking hard is it to write your damn webpage in french? I hate the french and I can't imagine it would take me more than a few days.. goddamn.
At least pizza hut has coupons.. but who the fuck orders pizza hut delivery?
My ass hurts.
From my pal:
..by the way I listened to the message that we left on lisa's machine friday night before OHD [Old Hallowell Day] , its pretty fucking funny. There is one point where i am on the floor in hysterics and you are on the phone laughing. the next night I guess we called when Muffy was over and you kept on telling lisa to tell muffy that you were going to fuck her when you saw her in montreal.
rock on
I'm not sure if I've talked about them here before but Ogre has got to be my favourite local band here in the Portland, ME area. They're heavy 70's rock with influences such as Rush and Black Sabbath and damn, they're just good. I've seen them live twice and that's what really got me into them. Their shows are so full of energy and spitfire and I can't help but get into it.. even though it's not really "my type of music". It's the sort of stuff I have to be in a special mood for, but when it comes to Ogre, I'm always in the mood..
So.. check 'em out at their website here (looks to be down at the moment) and check out a great interview back in December, 2002 here. Then go buy their album, goddamnit!
It's called Dawn of the Proto-Man
You can find a review here and you can download a song off the album, Skeletonized, here
Everyone should probably have this font on their computer:
You can find it here.
This post @ the Lick Blog (the only thing that *is* updated on that sight semi-regularly, it would seem) is chock full of good stuff so you should go read it yourself, although I will provide a few excerpts for you here:
..avoid vegetarians, as they are all pussies, and will probably cry a lot in the future.
and:
Sure, you'll get rejected, but it's no big deal if you stay drunk enough... Also, never feel insecure, because boys who don't want to make out with you are gay, regardless of any real reasons they might have.
20040729
i feel really worn out. i'm just tired. tired of my knees hurting, tired of getting up in the morning. tired of doing dishes and going to work and doing chores and buying groceries and doing laundry and ironing and eating - even eating is sometimes a fucking chore. what's the deal with that?!
I'm tired of the future and how it's got a goddamn muckle-hold on my brain and how every waking minute it's like I'm snapped out of a daze, back to reality, and I'm all "oh fuck, can't forget to deposit that money, can't forget to pay rent, can't forget to register for classes, can't forget to tell roommate he got a phone call, can't forget can't forget can't forget.." and I fall into a daze, staring off into the distance.. and then I snap out of it, back to reality, and I'm all "oh fuck, can't forget to deposit that money, can't forget to pay rent, can't forget to register for classes, can't forget to tell roommate he got a phone call, can't forget can't forget can't forget..
I hate ironning like I hate getting pounded in the thumb with a hammer.
But mostly it's just my brain, the one that won't let any of it stop, that drives me batty. It knows, it's aware, and it keeps going.. like some sick masochistic bastard that wants to see the end of this horrible horrible movie.
Fuck you bastard brain. You're so fucking boring it hurts. I hate you.
So at our guys-weekend-camp-getaway did not only include laxative pranks but the famous one-gallon-of-milk-in-one-hour challenge. The legend goes that your body cannot process enough enzymes to digest that much milk in so short a time.. from my experiences most people can get approximately half-way through by the hour time limit and no one I know has ever gotten close.
So on Saturday my friend grabbed himself a gallon of 2% and headed down to the lake. He powered through 2 glasses in the first minute, and by the 5th minute he was down a good 1/3rd.
I fear he was too eager. By minute 20 he was complaining and had not gotten much closer to the half mark and by 40 minutes he crossed 50% by a few ounces. At this point he was in much pain..
At minute 43 he called the challenge off and sat still in a chair, despondently staring at the floor and holding his stomach. It was some time before he was back to his 100% self, needless to say.
Another friend, disappointed that he may not see some puke, dared me to try to drink the remaining 45% in 15 minutes.. Not to ignore a challenge I immediately accepted and a minute into things he reduced my time limit to 10 minutes.
Needless to say I was not able to finish either. I got close to 40% of the gallon down but couldn't finish that last bit and at 10 minutes, 30 seconds I called my end of the game off as well.
I was in pain.
Although my friend did not puke, I was not going to put myself through the painful time that I had been watching him have so I made it to the bathroom and proceeded to expel my morning breakfast along with the excess dairy. Eww.
The first mouthful was not milk at all.. it was more like milk, whipped into a gooey liquid-marshmellow type substance. It was not good.
Not good at all.
Although I did feel much better afterwards.
20040727
In addition to the picture of my ass (okay, upper thigh) that you can see at the top of the page where the dog bit me, I have added a few daily reads to the blog links at the top as well.. drum roll please.
When I was young - very young - so young I can't remember young (like, maybe 4) I made my first ever consumer purchase. I marched into Kmart - or was it Ames?.. Zayres? - and I counted out the roughly $2.32 (guesstimate) for a Princess Leia figure in her bounty hunter outfit from Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. It even came with the obnoxiously long gun she carried and her full-face helmet.
At the time I had a little wicker basket that I kept change in and I recall the purchase pretty much wiping me out.. $2.32! How times have changed, indeed.
Sometime during the day on Monday, July 26th, 2004 tony asked for money. He said:
today we will find out how long it will take
for the busblog to get an ipod
from its wonderful readers
click the ipod to donate $10 to 20.
A mere day later and he has amassed $170.33 in U.S. funds. Consider this for a moment. Consider how we use money and what it means to us. Consider how much different our perceptions about money and our reality with money is. Consider charity and non-profit organizations penny pinching and consider Enron CEOs stealing millions. Consider Bush's projected $477 billion dollar deficit.
It hurts me brain just to think of it.
20040726
Did I mention how cool I think you are?
I think you are soooo cool. I do.
+++++++++++++++++++++++
Too far and few between. I'm loosing my edge.
When you give your notice at work you automatically create a new dilemme: what to do for the remaining time you have at work. Sure, it's awfully tempting to just keep on working like you have been but, oh come on, that's not going to happen.. so instead it's just twiddling my thumbs and looking at porn and trying to figure out how to scam a new ipod without breaking the bank. Instead of working I get coffee and then a little more coffee, and then I veg-out for awhile in front of the computer screen not even looking at anything. Just staring forward at java code that does something for someone, somewhere.. and I think they actually like it. I'm not sure, I wasn't paying attention frankly.
So now it's to the point where I don't even cover up the dirty little peeks into other people's lives. I don't even stick my little pinky out to the edge of the keyboard to snap down upon the tab key as my thumb holds the alt key hostage when my boss comes around. He just looks at the screen and wonders about the pink text and buzznet photos and he shrugs.
Must be doing research for some java technology, he figures. Well, more like he figures it just doesn't matter. "You've always got your finger in something, don't you?" he asks. He doesn't so much mind since I end up getting some work done here and there and heck - what does it matter what I do with my time, longs as Ima doin something fer work, right?
Right?
Them politicians are upset these days because we're behind in broadband connections. There are other countries out there - *gasp* - that have a greater percentage of households wired up to the big innernector. They think it's gonna get in the way of new job creation..
Yah, new job creation cause every is sitting at work surfing the web and writing blogs..
I wish.. I really wish.. that we could just slack off a bit. Relax the work week. Increase vacation. We work more than pretty much every nation in the world - and to what end? Sure, we're number one numero uno superpower extraordinare, etc, etc.. but we're not exactly what you could call efficient, either.
No wonder we don't like trains. Sure, Europe has the great excuse that the landsize is relatively small compared to the wide-open expanse of the United States and thus trains are more effective.. but in addition to that they just have more free time. With close to a month of vacation, multi-hour lunchtime fiestas, and a sub 35-hour workweek, they can stand to sit on a train for a few minutes.. Time is not nearly the commodity there that it is here. We don't know what we're missing out on. We could be, if we tried, really damn chill.
If I were President the standard work week would change to four 9-hr days. Three day weekends. Three weeks of vacation would be standard and sick time would accumulate. By law.
Corporations would get tons of tax breaks but only if they took care of their employees. They would be held accountable for unsafe and poorly built products. Consumers would legally be allowed to bill companies for their time. Cable man never show up? Send Time Warner a bill. $40 sounds about right. I think that's what my dentist charges if I'm 15 minutes late. Well under my laws I'd be able to charge him for being late. Professional sports, being a monopoly of sorts, would be regulated. Ticket prices would be controlled although salary caps would not be.
Every year the good people of the country would be able to vote on which company was the most corrupt and evil corporation and whichever they voted... would be disbarred, disbanded, stripped down, and auctioned off - piecemeal.
Weed would be legalized and alcohol would be illegalized - but just enough to make it fun. Major diplomatic disputes would be solved by sending both offending parties years supplies of swedish fish labelled as if they had sent them to eachother.
Goddamn, I gave my notice. I almost think that gives my company the right to send me a bill for all the slacking-off I've been doing this summer. Luckily, they like me..
Telecommuting here I come.
So I wander off for a long weekend leaving this place looking like a pig sty what with all the broken links and whatnot.
As punishment, perhaps, I got bit on the ass.. by a dog. Don't get me wrong - if it's the right person biting my ass, maybe I'd be okay with it.. or at least put up with it. But a dog biting my ass, um no.
I was running the 5 mile loop near my camp early in the afternoon just minding my own business. I was listening to the tree bugs make their droning sound and just chugging along when up ahead I saw a man outside his house with his two dogs. Border Collie sized yap dogs, so I didn't even think twice. In general I don't mind dogs and they don't mind me.. we usually get along quite nicely. This dog, however, seeing me jogging along past his domain, decided that I was prey and he was predator and, barking with mad delight, he came after me. Like all dogs his tiny little peon-brain was not able to compute a future vector in which our paths would cross so he just galloped straight for me which caused his path, as I ran, to describe a sort of parabola. This, of course, left him directly behind my hindquarters by the time he caught up with me and he leapt in delight at my juicy piece of ass. A few teeth chomps later and I jumped like a mexican bean but thought it was best to stop and have a discussion with my assailant. The minute I came to rest the dog was friendly, sniffing me up and down and licking my hand.. he just got excited about the chase, that's all. I don't blame him.
I do, however, have to wonder about the owner of the dog who, while chasing his dog as his dog chased me, yelled out to me "Don't worry, he doesn't bite!".
Anyhow, small dog. I'm still in one piece.
Yet somehow that wasn't enough.. had to have a spill with the motorcycle and by spill I mean oil. Came home from camp and went to check the oil in the bike, topped it off, and then went inside. A few hours later I came out, hopped on, and started her up.. sat in the driveway letting her warm up to a nice purr and then off down the road I went.. 5 minutes down the highway I had one of those typical panic-attacks CRAP, I forgot to put the oil cap back on, didn't I??. Yup, I did. Damnit. I looked down at my right foot and groaned when I saw my entire pant leg below the knee and my shoe covered in a spray of nice, dark, rich, $6/quart synthetic. WONDERFUL.
Sometimes I can be a real asstart. I limped back home being careful not to lean the bike over too much, fearing that my rear tire was as lubbed up as Jenna Jaimson by this point, and I sulkily went and changed my pants, socks, and shoes. I sat for a second to appreciate that what they say about the Ducati 900SS engine is true - it's a solid piece of mechanics that doesn't break at the slightest glance - it truly is an anvil of an engine. Sure, maybe they don't always purr like a kitten, maybe they're finicky about watery gas, maybe they need constant adjustment and frequent valve-checks.. but at least when you abuse them they don't sieze right up on you.
I don't know how much oil I am down at this point but based on what I could see on my leg it's at least 3/4 of a quart. Maybe more.
So what do I do to relieve my mind of these (admittedly minor) woes? Drink, of course. Return from a nice long weekend and, when I should be climbing into bed to get a good night's rest in preparation for the first five day work week I've had in well over a month, I am off to another long long night of imbibment. Is imbibement a word? Well it is now.
Was asked if the blonde farmergirls were really what I grew up with and I have to say yes, that was one part of growing up in Maine. No, that post doesn't describe ever girl I've ever known to come out of Maine - of course not.. but it does describe a certain subsect of the population that I often admired - usually from afar - as I made my way through high school and college. Even still to this day, I guess. No they aren't the end all be all or the final choice or the only option.. just part of the greater whole..
Speaking of holes this weekend we purchased both Fleet laxative (medical-strength - for use before medical procedures) and Children's chocolate flavoured laxative. The odd man out, the man who had to show up late because he had to spend time with his wittle-meghan (insert lovey-dovey voice of a recently married husband here) - well he was the man to get stuck with the practical joke this weekend and from the minute he showed up at camp we had food or drink in front of him laced with the good stuff. First, as if the laxative was not enough, we had him chowing down on some Bush's baked beans with chocolate laxative drops. Then it was chocolate milk, simiarly laced. Then, during poker, it was some Moxie soda with the Fleet brand - strong stuff. Each time he sensed that something was wrong. He asked how old the milk was. He said the beans tasted strange. He struggled to finish the Moxie. Luckily he was not suspicious so when 3:00AM rolled around and he started complaining of cramps and a gurgling lower unit the rest of us were on the floor in fits of laughter. Another half-hour and he was finally in the bathroom sluffing off the remains of anything even resembling solid waste.. and then, for the next hour, as we all rolled around practically peeing our pants, we got a constant running commentary from the bathroom as he described his every gurgle and plop. It usually went something like this:
Scene: Zach sitting in easy-chair holding his stomach
Zach: "Man, I don't know what I ate.. This is awful. God!"
zach gets up and stands, pensively, starring off into space as if communicating with his inner self. "is it time?".. more silence, and then a hurried rush to the bathroom, door swinging closed, and then.. more silence
Zach (muffled from behind the door): "... oh shit.."
silence
Zach: ".. oh dear lord"
splatter
Zach: " oh my word... it hurts.. it hurts so bad!
The tears in our eyes were almost as painful as we busted our guts trying not to laugh out loud.
So maybe the motor oil and the dog bite were just karma swinging around on me, paying me back for putting someone else in such doubled-over intestinal pain. Who knows. I'm not sure if I believe in that crap.
Talked to someone this weekend about the girl and they had to say, about fate and dreams and belief, that it was all about communication in this world and that everything happened, all of it, because of language. They said they thought that action was a product of communication and that by talking about it, by believing in it and sharing it with others then I could, effectively, write my own future. Honestly, wish I could be so optimistic but I'm not. Wish I could have the sort of belief that everything works out in the end. Well, I do.. I do believe everything works out in the end - it just doesn't work out the way you plan it to.. the pieces of the puzzle that you start with are not the same pieces you end with but they fit together regardless.. it's just that, from here, I'd like to put these pieces here in front of me together.. I don't want new pieces. I have a vague sense of the picture these pieces will paint and I like it just the way it is. I want to see this canvas whole, the way it is right this instant..
But I can't. Can't ever see the real future, the one beyond the fog that works out but in a way you couldn't even imagine if you tried. The one where you've broken it off with the fiance that you absolutely love because you just can't do the fighting anymore. The one where you met the strangest stranger in line at the grocery store and his sister, his brother, they're cute and they meet you at a bar, at his birthday party - a complete fluke that you even ran into this same strange guy from the grocery store here in this bar, on his birthday no less, and you're talking with his sibling and there is this strange odd connection other-wordly like and it makes you forget forget forget you ever even had a fiance. It makes you forget about your car's repair bill and it makes you forget that you have to work in the morning. You just look straight into them, straight into their smile and you don't even know it but the pieces of the puzzle have just changed right there in front of your eyes.
I like the pieces I got right now, thank you very much, I'm just having a hard time putting them together. They don't want to fit and, unlike box-puzzles, I have no picture of the finished product to work off of. The greens, the blues, the pink splotches on the pieces.. I have no reference. I don't know what they mean. I don't know how they fit together. If they do then it will surprise me. If they don't then it will surprise me. What won't surprise me at all is when I wake up years from now, look down at my hands, and see a jumbled pile of puzzle pieces very very different then the ones I hold now. It won't be a surprise but, as good as those new pieces may be, I will be sad that the old ones are gone. I'll miss these pieces that I play with here, now. I don't want to lose them.
So I'll do my best to communicate about it. Talk about her and how wonderful she is and how I'd be so lucky to one day be somewhere, someplace that is even close to her - close to her heart. I'll talk about how much I want it, how badly I feel it, how much it means to me. If people will listen I'll talk about my secret fears - the loneliness inside that spreads like a virus through me, fearing, freaking, scared out of my wits that certain things, certain traits, certain facts of life - facts of my life - will make for me, an old old man, alone and sighing, alone and dying, alone and not so sure there was anything I could have done about it. Scared that even if she did come back it would be a false positive. Fearful that she isn't what I see, that I'm blinded by the beauty of the person - unable to see the flaws for the glare of the sunshine beam is directly in my eye, shining, shining, reflecting off the polished skin of the apple.. of my eye.
20040722
Okay so it's been a slow week here, I know. What can yah do? It's summer, the sun is out, there are things to do other than sit in front of the computer.
It has, however, been an eventful week in tech & science for me.. I found eMachineShop - they'll fabricate metal bits to your specs.. you can even use their easy CAD software to design parts you need. Neat.
Also, Pad2Pad will let you design, price, and order custom circuit boards.
Tempting..tempting. In other news, I finally installed Mac OS X Panther this week on the 'ol iBook and it has certainly put a big ear-to-ear smile on my face as it's simple Expose features have solved almost all of the major UI problems I had with the system before. I'll admit that when I first heard of Expose I was skeptical that it would be very effective but having seen it in action I'm impressed with both the speed and the usability of the thing.. Plus, I finally have a hotkey to my desktop.
Course this only makes me salivate at the thought of Tiger's new global search feature.
RSS is seen as DDoS - *gasp*.. really? Well no kidding. The problem with RSS is self-evident when you think of 100,000 RSS newsreaders all hitting a website to check for updates on the hour every hour. As the Slashdot article said: RSS ... is such a useful thing, it's unfortunate that it's ultimately just very stupid.
NASA has posted more photos from the old Apollo 11 mission here.
Stephen Hawking admits he is wrong about event horizons and black holes - geniuses can make mistakes too! phew.
SCO has finally told the world what they think linux stole from them (the ELF format).
IPv6 is officially added to ICANN's root servers.. but wait.. it will run along side IPv4 for 20 years to get rid of the bugs.. Shit. All in the name of internet-wired talking fridges.
And last but not least (to me), the FAA just approved a new class of pilot licence: the Sport Pilot License allows one to fly "Light-Sport" planes (sub 1500 lbs.) with as little as 20 hours of flight instruction under your belt.
And not a technical link, but man, funny stuff, check out the mpg video of a german commercial here @ agencychick's AD HOC. yes, they really are crazy.
Anyhow, like I said.. summer.. fun.. beer.. etc, etc. I'll be heading out this evening for yet another long weekend so this page will be ever so quiet till Monday.
That is unless you all start a comment war and I come back to pages and pages of debate..
Okay, like I said, it'll be quiet till Monday.
20040721
20040720
Here, on this day Tuesday July 20th in the year 2004 britcoal.blogspot.com received it's 10,000th page load at 11:15:07 am EST.
Bummer that a lot of sites get more hits in one day than this site has gotten in, oh, close to three years I guess.. but there is something to be said for quality, not quantity, right? right?
*crickets*
Right. Whatever. Anyhow, here is a little recap care of sitemeter:
As one can see, the highest month I've ever had thus far was in August of 2003 when I received well over 900 unique visits and over 1400 page views. This month corresponds directly to the month in which I met the girl (aug 9th) and she consequently discovered my blog a few days later and proceeded to read every entry.. for better or worse. Everytime I look at that month with it's peaking visits I get that bad feeling in my stomach.. the one where you know someone was once interested enough to look into you, who you are, what you're about.. and you know that they are no longer. Sure, when things are brand new they're exciting, interesting. Enthusiasm dies down.. yah, and I die down. The downward slope of visits from over 900 in August, ~650 in September, bottoming out at 400 in October just about mimics the sad and unfortunate tale of the sadly romantic Michael and his lossing battle against the dark force that is wrong place wrong time.
Anyway, continuing on with the nonsense data...
Time Zone Share:
45% EST
29% PST
08% CST
10% Asia
07% UK / Europe
Operating Systems:
70% WinNT Based (2000, XP)
12% Mac Based
07% WinXX Based (95, Mill, 98)
01% Unix/Linux
Browsers
74% Internet Explorer 6.x
22% Netscape 5.x
04% Internet Explorer 5.x
Traffic Predictions
Based on the last months worth of visits (a mediocre month, by the looks of things) the predicted traffic for the upcoming month is 678 page views, 546 unique visits. Extrapolated out over 12 months that accounts for 6552 unique visits over the next year.
Take it for what it's worth.
Ain't nobody out there wants to hear about all the chicks I've banged or how many girls are all giggling on my couch at 2 AM so I won't even bother telling you at all. See? I respect your position. No problem.
What I can't respect sometimes is my own apathy about the whole deal, as if disinterest and lack of motivation were symptoms of anti-chauvanism and respect for women. Ain't saying I don't have either of those but I am saying that you can't sit around doing nothing, getting nowhere, and saying "Hey, I'm not a womanizer! Look, I've been on this couch here bombed out of my mind for the last three months. I haven't disrespected any women at all!" Yah, well, I'm no murderer either. Do I get a cookie?
And so it is, I fear, with the whole politics issue. Apathy, disinterest, disenfranchisement.. I got it.. you got it.. heck, I'm heading to Montreal and I might - yes, I say this knowing I seeth pure liquid hate from every pour whenever I hear the Bush name - I might not get around to sending in my absentee ballot in November. Can you believe that? Me... someone so sure about who needs to NOT be in office come Jan 1st yet I might not do a goddamn thing about it.
What scares me is the people who are going to show up at the polls.. and I'm not talking about the politically active or politically aware - heck, if you're aware and you wanna vote for Bush? It is a free country last time I checked so go right the goddamn fuck ahead and vote for that fucker, if you'd like.. I might not like you for it but I won't fault you for excersicing your right as an American. What really scares me, what freaks me right out are those uninspired sheep following along in the herd - the conservative catholics, the republican raised, the non-thinkers who could probably care less themselves but are so brainwashed that they will dutifully show up at the polling station, scratch their mark next to that awful awful name, and stumble back out into the sunlight no more aware of the fate they've just sealed themselves to as they are aware of what they ate for breakfast cause it's all a numb blinding fog to them.
Freaks me right out.
But back the women.. I Don't give a rats ass right now about being with one, especially in my transitory state, and the thought of some skank-ho in my bed turns my stomach, frankly. I'm almost sick of it all.. the bad breath, the awkward moments, the sleepless nights, the snoring, the mind questioning the soulless body.. gack, I'm sounding as if I have morals. Forgive me. What I mean is I just don't care sometimes, if it ain't gonna be for real.. and by real I mean real hot. That's just it. Most hookup sex is nowhere close to good sex and that almost makes me wonder if it's worth the bother. If, going in, I could see the future - could see the amazingly hot girl performing amazingly hot acts and pleasing me amazingly.. well, okay then. But they never do. I grab the sexpots, too.. the ones I'm pretty sure know what they are doing, are experienced in the ways of the world, have a sort of confidence in them that inspires haat sex (that's hot with an emphasis on hot).. and you know what happens? DO you know what happens when you pick a stranger up at a bar?
They're never what they seem. The most outwardly confident are often the most inwardly insecure and the most attractive the most shallow. Sure, exceptions, I know, but play the numbers my friend - what are the odds?
Any given day,
On any given night,
Everyone going home from a bar for a one nighter is probably holding hands with the same date: Insecurity.
It's an ugly beast, too, insecurity, which is why you always feel horrible the next morning when you wake up, roll over, and see Insecurity staring you back in the face. It's an unruly bed companion no matter how good it looks the night before with your large thick bud-lens'd beer-goggles. Insecurity doesn't walk you home the next morning, Insecurity doesn't make you breakfast in bed or kiss you good morning on your skanky-morning-breath-mouth just because.
Insecurity sneaks out at 5AM when you're snoring in your pillow. Insecurity kicks you out at 8AM, probably cause their significant other is on their way home. Insecurity probably takes your number but probably never calls you ever again because if there is one thing Insecurity is really trying to do.. it's trying to rally the troops. It's trying to increase it's army's numbers. It's trying trying trying to recruit you, too.
Uncle Insecurity Wants - YOU!
Which is why it's always amazing when, on that off-occasion, you find someone - maybe an acquaintance, maybe a friend of a friend, maybe even a strange. It's amazing when you're just feeling right about it and you realize that hey, two adults can have a nice time together and it doesn't necessarily have to mean anything and it doesn't necessarily mean you're a skank-ho or their a skank-ho. It's amazing when you realize you can treat that person with respect because they're treating you with respect and you're both on the same page so no harm, no foul, gotta get to work by 6AM - no problem, get up, go, leave a nice note, they'll be fine with it.
I was told once, by a wise man of the world that in life decisions you should always do what is the hardest. Always look life straight in the face, make eye contact, and be secure in your choice of the harder less travelled path. When it comes to one's security on the entire matter of decision-making, he had this rather pertinent thing to say:
Go to your local pub, have a pint, chat up a nice looking stranger, tell her your dilemma, have another pint, get her to toss a coin, and the first choice that jumps into your head while the coin is in the air is what you should choose. It's simple and it might get you laid - which is always a more immediate struggle, deserving of our utmost attention and respect. In other words, the easiest route is never the most rewarding and (to be very Buddhist here dude) your decision in this matter is largely irrelevant - rather, it is the manner in which you struggle to embrace your reality that really counts.
Well said, chap. Well said.
20040719
Honestly don't know what it is about the Maine girls but they do it to me every time. Maybe it's cause it's my roots - the real me - where I come from but gosh if the blonde hair doesn't tumble around the shoulders and the cut-off jean shorts wrap ever so sexily around the round bottoms and the bosoms peek just-slightly-not-so-subtly out from beneath the threads of another spaghetti strap tank top.. It's the skin, too. The golden tan juxtaposed beside the bleached out 'locks and the swing-swing-smile-swing of the hips and the mouths and the..
Goddamn them Maine girls. They can be as skank-ho as your average NYC slut but it's in a totally different way. Somehow it's more innocent and naive though they'd still eat me for lunch and spit out the bones.
Every once in awhile they're is a keeper. A nice as-yet-undisturbed young one or maybe one that's older - old enough that she's been around the block once or twice, knows where the crack houses are, and knows enough to avoid them now. It's those one's the hit me right in the solar plexus, takes the wind right out of my pipe and I'm smoking from a vacuum until I can get my senses back.
Never is there a better place to see the sights and sounds of seductive Maine girls than the beer garden at Old Hallowell Day where people come out in droves to celebrate the simple things in life: Maine, Fireworks, Beer, and Summer. I honestly can't imagine better things to be celebrating and so it's these girls that I can identify with so well without even exchanging a single word with them. I can watch them off across the patio talking in high-pitched chatter, running around exclaiming excitement when they discover yet-another-friend has shown up at the bar, and just generally glowing under the twinkling stars of a clear sky, lighting up the night with their laughter as if it were dawn.
Like most lights these girls attracted the bugs. Guys in swarms drinking their beers pretending as if the event was all about hanging with their bros and drinking some brews when in all reality every last one of them is looking, out of the corner of their eyes, as the lights go dancing by. Sometimes you can see, as if a big mosquito lamp, a girl draw in one - maybe two guys.. the friend following the friend. A joke my father once said was that everytime you hear a mosquito lamp zap it comes in pairs cause one bug goes in and it's friend follows him to try and save him. And so it is with the women of Maine trailing men behind them and sometimes, occasionally, if you're lucky, taking a liking.
They aren't always the most well travelled or the most wordly or the most educated. They aren't always the smartest or the quickest or the brightest. But what they are is often down to earth and normal with common sense that only comes from living in rural America where girls are sometimes known to change their own brake pads and, gosh, know where to find their dipstick (on the couch with a beer watching football).
The beauty in this world comes in it's variety and the one type you find in Maine is one type I will forever be enamoured with. I can't say why, maybe it's just in the water, but they are some of the most beautiful women in the world through their simple smiles and the sass of a knowing smirk.
And gosh I love 'em.
20040716
@ evhead: a story about the Webshots founders selling to Excite@Home in 1999 for $82.5 million then buying it back for $2.4 million when Excite@Home went bankrupt and now.. now.. they just sold it to CNET for $70 million ($60 in cold hard cashola).
It's not like it's new news to hear about someone getting a traffic ticket from a camera but everytime it's someone I know - or someone I kinda know, like jaime, just cause I read his stuff all the time.. well it creeps me out.
I can read 1984 and it's all dandy cause it's a book.. you know, fiction. I can hear about new FBI cameras at sporting events that scan the crowd with face-recognition software looking for terrorists and that's dandy too, cause, well.. I don't go to too many professional sporting events and.. I'm actually not a terrorist - despite what some of you might think. But the thing is, I'm a traffic violator. No, really. A misdemeanorist at heart. On occasion I'm even a criminal speeder... gosh, imagine that.
A new Real Life story - The Misdemeanor Report - starring Michael Batchelder - in which Michael is caught red-handed (or red-signed, as the case may be) doing a rolling stop at Park and Main. Follow Michael's tumultous journey through the seedy underbelly of traffic law and the local police station. See Michael sign his name a dozen times. See Michael handcuffed and led to an overnight stay in the country jail. See Michael pay fines. See Michael step from the dank darkness of the prison system 24 hours later, having perservered through all his trials and tribulations.
This movie is bound to tickle your heartstrings and please your senses. It's a heartwarming look at the day to day life in Americana.
Blah
.. is now behind me in my rearview mirror as if I had hardly noticed it passing at all.
Once upon a time a long long time ago I was looking forward into this summer from the sad drippy eyes of a wallowing springtime and thinking thoughts of beaches and sunshine, beer and wine. I planned - gasp, planned.. you know, like, ahead of time - hiking with my sister deep into the woods of Maine. I planned Montreal Jazz Fest trips and Connecticutt beach house trips. I planned long weekends at camp and I planned weddings.. weddings - the most fleeting of all weekend journeys.
And now, here on the eve of Old Hallowell Day (a traditional small-town Maine celebration of summertime and spirits) I can sit and look backwards into the past like an old man flipping through a book of ancient history, nodding every now and then in a knowing way.
Yup..yup.. drank some beer that weekend.. way back when on the last weekend of June. Drank a lot of beer and did some sailing and saw some good friends and gosh, that was a long long time ago.
Spent a whole three days at camp in early July, uhuh. Went into town and oogled at the girl behind the deli counter, swam in the clear waters of a chilly spring fed lake, drank beer and played cards and watched old spaghetti westerns on the old tv.
Or was it June? Early June? July?.. it was such a long time ago.
And as if I could see, down to the microscopic level of my cells, I could feel my cells breaking down, getting older.. DNA strands unravelling at the ends like so many split ends on an old woman who, once beautiful, is now simply "elegant".
There isn't anything wrong with being elegant. Brian Greene called his first book The Elegant Universe because, as you look out across the microscopic landscape of this earth - for it is truly microscopic in the realm of this universe - you can see beauty - old beauty - everywhere you look. You can look up at the stars and every one of them, twinkling through space and time just to say hi to us, they are more ancient and regal than even the highest Incan priest, even more so than the longest ruling pharaoh.
And here in this petri dish of earth we sit, looking upward, outward, into the laboratory of the universe and what we always always see - we see ourselves. We see a hunter, a string of stars his belt. We see Leo, the lion lying in wait. We see, in the stars, our very own existence.. twinkling like a tiny candle that could, at any moment, blink out.
This is beautiful in an elegant sort of way.. as if we know, deep down, we are here for but a brief second yet we would desire, hope, wish, that maybe - just maybe - there is something of our lives left out there in the stars, there is remnants that prove that - YES - we were here, we existed, and once upon a time..
..a long long time ago we were young, foolish, drinking beer every weekend all weekend living life to it's fullest as if bills and responsibilities and old age were not a factor at all, as if we would live quite literally forever in that tiny corner of the petri dish playing out our fantasies as a party animal, a raver girl, a midnight dj, a lone-star-solo-around-the-world-sailboat-racer, a hiking fool.
And in these thoughts, these prison cell words inside our heads, we every once in awhile find the point of it all - briefly, like the wink of an eye - yes, YES, there is sense in it. There is meaning. There is no meaning and in that there is meaning. Somewhere, something references us - our existence, like a footnote at the bottom of a graduate thesis and in that brief mentioning lies our right to life, our proof of existence, our handle we might grasp, with knuckles white, for all eternity...
until someday in the middle of the night when the tv is playing static and we are snoring with our tv dinner set off to the side and our hands crossed on top of our large full belly of life .. we, with very little pomp or circumstance, will blink right out of existence.
.just like that.
20040714
since I never feel like typing anything in them.
If I were a newspaper, I'd have no headlines.
If I were a box of macaroni and cheese, I'd be a no-name brand.
So it also occurred to me just now that I could save this post for another time and then I thought - who am I kidding? I'll forget it or be too lazy to post it or have time to realize how dumb it is. That's the thing with blogging - instant gratification.
I can post this now and ten minutes from now or one hour from now or sometime in the next day, someone will read it. Doesn't mean it's good or worth reading or interesting, but someone will read it.
continuing on with the post:
During my brief hiatus in the woods I managed to come to terms with a few things in my life. One of them is that I am a HCI (Human-Computer-Interaction) zealot. A critic. Whathaveyou. I despise poor UI design. I can't stand perfectly good programs with unusable frontends. It drives me absolutely batty.. which is why I've been writing an awful lot about Apple, Mac OS X, and iTunes.
To all my readers who don't give a flying fuck I apologize with all my heart. I feel your pain.
For me it's sort of like reading tony and all that political mumbojumbo that I don't give a flying fuck about just for the other good tidbits, but, you know what? God forbid - I sometimes learn something over there. Sometimes I pick up some news (cause frankly I can't stand mass media). Sometimes I see a new viewpoint. Sometimes I get angry like I even, *gasp*, care. Is that the worst thing in the world??
Would it be horrible if I turned one or two of you onto good UI design? Would it be horrible if one or two of you actually started to care if your programs, VCRs, iPods, PDAs, sneakers were actually usable? Would that be a bad thing? If all the companies that made complete crap started to see sales slumps and companies who spent the time that should be spent on these sorts of things started to see some growth - would that be bad.
Okay, so I'm not going to effect an entire market's economy.. but one small step at a time kids.
So that all being said I have an announcement to make right here and now:
If she runs, I will vote for Hilary Clinton in 2008.
Yes. Me. I. You heard it here first.
Why? Because as fiscally conservative as I may be, as much of a insensitive clod as I may be, I do believe in advancement, innovation, and I believe it's about time to get something done around here. Let's let the Clinton wearing the pants in the family actually run the place for a bit. Why not? Just for fun.
Thing is, I'm pretty sure the hardcoats in the democratic party are sweating really badly right now. All they need is a lose to the republicans in November and they'll have a dilemma on their hands: A Hilary ticket in 2008! Gosh. Gasp. Oh no! For real.. I think these chauvinist democrats would love to see Kerry win if only so that they can insure an incumbent dem in 2008... so they won't have to see Clinton on the ticket. If Bush wins again, they're screwed. If Kerry can win then he's in for 4 and at least running in 2008 and that makes the next option for Clinton in 2012 - not likely as she'll be in a wheelchair by then. Okay, so she isn't that old but do the math. It'll either be Kerry till 2012 at which point America will be sick from the social programs and they'll be voting republican in swarms, or Kerry will be beaten out in 2008 and if he is then it'll be a smooth operator who can manage the re-elect in 2012.
Plus, 2012.. that's a long time from now. If I was Clinton I'd be sick of it all by then.
That's my opinion, I'm sticking to it.
I stink. I have the sweats. I'm incapacitated to the point of not being able to think straight.
Okay, so I did it again. Went to the wedding and sure, everyone loved the leisure suit (well - loved it in that "eww, that's gross, you're funny" sort of way.. except my friend's dad who collects old macintoshes and books about the vietnam war - I think he actually liked it).. sure, I was looking pretty pimpin' in my 4-weeks worth of beard scruff and my long hair and my rockin' heineiken suspenders. Sure, I was the life of the party (okay, maybe stretched that last one) but.. BUT.. I got to the bar - the one that was supposed to be open - and it was only free beer, free wine, or free margehritas. I hate margehritas so much that I don't even mind that I might be spelling the word wrong. It's not that they taste bad or anything, they're just way overrated. So when I got all excited to wet my whistle early with some jimmy beam on the rocks - you know, beer before liquor and all that - well, I was sorely disappointed. The beer was Sam Adams Summer or Bud Light - BUD LIGHT. Oh my fucking word are you kidding me. Don't even get me started on that FESTERING MAGGOT PILE of a beer. Don't even ask me what's wrong with it. Don't. The tirade will never end.
So I drank a lot of Sam's Summer and, again, I got plastered beyond belief. Lately I've been consuming far too much alcohol and not puking, which is a bit of an oddity because I've historically had a stomach that'll toss the cargo and the slightest hint of alcohol poisoning. I dunno, tolerance? It's a bummer though because I used to be a devout believer in the drink-lots-of-water-before-bed-and-you're-fine school of thought but now I get so drunk I can't even find my own name, let alone remember to drink some water.
And, and. I hit on my friend's younger sister mercilessly. So much so that I had to warn my friend -
"watch out, I'm drunk and your sister is adorable. I am about to get much drunker and hit on her A LOT."
My friend seemed to think it was fine. "You're only six years apart."
Thing is, I just dug her style. Sweet and nice and cute and I didn't have any real desire to jump her bones or get her in bed. Too young and too far away and too real for me - I'm not a relationship guy at this point. I'm a wreck, quite frankly. I just wanted to hang out with her and enjoy the company.
Which I did..
While hitting on her mercilessly.
So when my other friend pulled me aside and told me, candidly,
"Don't waste your time, dude"
I told him right back that it didn't matter. I told him I was so piss drunk I was going to do it anyway and I told him it wasn't a representation of my true self and that I was just happy to be alive - happy to be among friends - happy to be in a puke green leisure suit under a wedding tent on the Kennebec River with cute girls, a dance floor, an open bar, and him around me.
But I don't think he believed me.
Which is fine cause it turns out it was true - he was warning me because the fine looking young sister had, in fact, let him know that very night that she had a long standing crush on him and maybe they could do something about it. Beautiful. Dude deserves it far more than I do and he actually stopped drinking when he had too much, whereas I just kept going and going and going.
Somewhere in there I got a ride back to my parents house with a bunch of people and someone had the forethought to grab some 7-11 frozen pizzas and a 12 pack of Coors Light and we kept the party going a little later. The cute sister came with us. I was about lights out at this point but I tried to muster my third wind as I knew my parents were (okay, they were just at their camp) so we had the house to ourselves and it was - indeed - a beautiful night.
Gosh I love weddings. I think it's just because it's a huge party with booze and somehow my friends let their guards down and drink and have fun and there isn't any other event that brings them together - all the disparate groups - for such a fine fine fun evening.
So it's not the weddings I like - I guess it's the receptions.
Got up ass-early the next day and dragged myself the few hours up to the hiking spot - middle of nowhere in Maine - and had to hike in the burning sun with the mosquitos buzzing about following you wherever you step. Thunderstorm ran through in the afternoon dropping a bunch of rain on us and making the muddy trail even more so. Got into the shelter to find it full of young kiddies and bugs bugs more bugs galore. Got eaten alive. Finally fell asleep around 7am on Monday and Woke up around 9.. hiked some more.
Finally got home last night to a quiet apartment and slumped on the couch. Roommate - friend - came home and informed me that he'd hung out with the young sister once already since the wedding and would probably do so again today. Happy for him - happier than I've been for anyone for a long time. Really happy. Want to tell the girl not to take any shit from any guy ever because she is truly a sweet and nice girl - and beautiful to boot - but at the same time have that nasty tick in the back of my mind reminding me to let people live their lives - don't preach - don't sound like the old wiseman on the mount because - because - because - frankly I don't know shit.
Had thought the entire hiking trip about how I would find her phone number or email address and let her know how wonderful she was - not in a try-to-date-her way, because I knew that was not the right road to go down, but in a gee-if-someone-thought-such-nice-things-of-me-i-hope-they'd-tell-me way. Thought of the exact words I would type or say and was excited to maybe make someone else in this world smile, for once.. hoping that I could make it come across uncreepy and unassuming - probably not. Then got home and realized all of the actualities. Realized the friend/roommate and his situation. Realized everything and anything I could do now at this point would be out of line and realized she was - gasp - not so much upset or worried about my obnoxious behaviour at the wedding but was more embarrassed for ... for me.
I think that's a sign.
Oh ho hum, this life, it's a chore sometimes.
Going into it I knew it would be obnoxious and, in my mind, pretty funny.. which is why I warned people ahead of time as I saw the world starting to slide sideways each time I raised the beer cup to my mouth. I saw the writing on the wall and wanted to let everyone know ahead of time it was a big joke because jokes, well, jokes are funny and if no jokes what else do we got? Can't a guy get drunk at a wedding and have a little fun?
No, nobody was hurt. Nobody offended. Nobody slighted. Nobody wishing things weren't so.. whatever they were... but to know people thinking what they thought, maybe - gosh. Lighten up a little.
In bed before 1 AM last night for perhaps the first time in months and woke up this morning and my usual time. Body still not happy to get up. Body still not happy with the go-go-go of the summer and yet, three day work week and another heavy drinking weekend coming up. Hopefully that's it. Hopefully I'll be able to slow down real soon and just sit. somewhere. just sit.
Would like to just take a break from it all and just sit. Like a country time lemonade commercial, counting down the days till the end of summer - only the days would be endless, like Rainman rattling off the names of a phonebook - an almost neverending task.
Would like to hear someone, somewhere, a nice girl perhaps to tell me I'm a decent guy and maybe I shouldn't take any shit from any woman because I, too, don't deserve it. Would like to hear this so I could have proof that maybe this box I am living in - this prison cell inside my head that I am stuck in with hardly any room to breath or move or stretch out in - maybe this box's holes - eyes - maybe they're not just for looking out at the world but maybe, just maybe, someone somewhere, a nice girl perhaps, can see in and realizes my existence. Maybe, just maybe, I could find out that I exist on someone else's prison cell wall as part of their mural that is their perception of the world.
Forgot to talk about The Girl. Not the young sister or the bartendress but The Girl. Forgot to say earlier last week that she called, out of the blue after a few months of silence and she said
"been seeing all kinds of things this week that made me think of you."
and I had to bite my tongue not to say "I don't need to see things because I think of you every day."
"Oh, I gotta go, my roommate needs the phone but I'll call later this week because I didn't get to tell you everything I wanted to," she said ten minutes later as if words imply truth.
- of course the call never came -
and I had to bite my tongue not to say "I've come to terms with the fact that your words are like dandelion pollen on the wind - so ethereal as they float away that I don't even know if they really did exist, do exist, will exist. They mean nothing to me now as dandelion pollen means nothing to me. Once I was allergic, now it's just a sniffle."
I had to wonder, to myself, what it would be like if my words were like dandelion pollen to other people. Had to wonder what it would be like to have no one believe you and if she knew - realized. Had to think how much how very much it would hurt - right down to the core - if people did not feel my words because it's all I have to give.
Tried the guitar but there ain't a musical bone in my body.
Tried to sketch but I got club-foot in the hand.
Tried to be art in motion like Pelé on the soccer field but.. well maybe I have a club-foot too.
Tried to write and once, a long time ago, someone said "you write beautifully - don't ever stop, never.." and though they never came back I believed them and so now I just write about the allergies and dandelion pollen.
But heck, I guess in the end it's nothing a little drugs can't handle.
While the annoying picture of Chaka Khan still unfortunately remains, Michael Genrich's site is back in working action and .. and... funny, too!
Office Depot will recycle your old electronics. From July 18th through September 6th they'll take one item a day per person - VCRs, Cameras, TVs, Computers.. you name it. Just a note to you freaks out there who have broken shit just lying around.. better to recycle than just trash it, right?
It is sort of dumb to only take one item a day, though.. I guess they're trying to get you into the store as many times as possible.
Scam artists.
There is a site I used to go to almost everyday, but I stopped a long time ago. I don't know why. Every once in awhile I return and it's still good, I still enjoy it..
why don't I visit more often?
20040710
but it's gonna be a long weekend. Already half dead from this summer and it's barely three weeks old and here I come upon another rough one. The bachelor mentioned a few posts ago is getting married today and it's an open bar. ya'll know what that means. I'm sporting the 70's style green leisure suit, a full beard, and the 70's wave haircut that I've been working so hard to grow out for the last three months. Should be good times..
But tomorrow is hiking into the Maine woods, getting bitten by mosquitos, getting poured on, getting tired and wet and eating freeze-dried food. Should be a good time..
..Course that means no posts till Wednesday. Apologies up front, I just can't do it from the trail (wouldn't it be neat if I could).
So in the meantime why not check out some other interesting blogs of note?
the other white meat - some great stuff for a brand spankin' new blogger : tales of ordinary madness - talk of relationships : jaime - has been on a role this summer : and from jaime, the Queen of Williamsburg... huh?
.. and kittyb is just damn funny.
20040709
I can't try this right now because I'm at work and if I started swinging my leg around and drawing things in the air people would think I was really weird.. so, that being said.. why not give it a whirl and let me know what happens, mmkay?
@ The Digital Pimpress: while sitting down move your right leg in a clockwise circle get up a decent rhyme to it. after about 5 or 10 seconds with your right index finger (the one next to your thumb by the way) draw a number 6 (six) in the air. you will notice that your right leg has reversed direction. keep trying if you want it will keep reversing direction you can’t stop it. weird.. now on with the update..
I will be 40 some day.
It's a fact. Provided there is no death between now and then, I will be 40.. at some point.
The scariest part about all of it is that it really isn't some day - it's a specific day. I could tell you to the hour, to the minute, when I will be 40.
Some how that makes it more real. Scary. Or something.
The worst part is that, 20, 40, whathave you - I'm not sure she'll ever want me. I'm not sure, to be honest, anyone in their right mind would. I'm not sure anyone in their right mind would want anyone, nevermind me.
I stink. I have the sweats. I'm incapacitated to the point of not being able to think straight. seriously, took me a few minutes to write that last sentence. bummer.
I can't imagine anyone thinking that I'm a good idea for them. I can't imagine that, seeing me right now, anyone would consider me a good idea.
And I'll be 40 some day.
Must.... stop...... headache.
must not drink so much beer. must not race 230 pound fucker at his bachelor party. must be more "responsible". must take a breather sometime this month. must get some reasonable sleep, eat well, and do some excercise. must stop pounding in my brain.
must struggle with coffee and swallow it down. must struggle to finish this post so that I may continue to drink the coffee. must go to the bathroom to expel liquids from one or two or three orifices.
must recover soon
or
might kill myself
20040708
I gotta say the newest version of Apple's Mac OS X (not yet released) is looking to be a pretty sexy sexy beast. Despite the fact that it's preview release was distributed on a DVD and it reportedly requires a DVD drive (obviously) as well as 2gigs of free space, it seems to pack some interesting new features...
Most importantly being the new search feature: Spotlight.
Spotlight takes the type-ahead search feature from iTunes and incorporates it into the entire operating system. As you type, spotlight searches through folder names, files, applications, you name it. They are ordered into categories and a simple click gives you extended information on each item. The best part is that, as in iTunes, it is advertised as being blazingly fast:
Spotlight blazes through more than one hundred thousand files and displays the results literally as fast as you can type in search words. Instead of waiting to see results after you’ve hit Enter, you’ll see results as soon as you type the very first letter.
Conformation of these claims can be found at appleinsider's recent preview:
Overall, sources said that this first developer preview of Tiger was very snappy and responsive, even while running on a G3 processor
This is absolutely awesome because, as I've mentioned before, the one true reason I use iTunes now is not for it's iTunes Music Store integration, not for it's organizational or window layout, and not for it's ripping or burning capabilities.. there are certainly programs out there that can do better at each of those tasks.. it's for it's simple type-ahead searching which reduces my listening habits into one easy-to-use feature.
I believe I have stated before that my largest two gripes with Mac OS X is it's speed and UI responsiveness, and it's lack of a hotkey to get to the desktop (ala Windowskey-D in Windows). Late last night while I should have been sleeping I researched some possible fixes for my Jaguar install (I'm working on getting a copy of Panther which I gather is a right bit faster) and found a few good apps:
1) ShadowKiller - while the shadows around OS X windows are kind of neat, they apparently slow the system down significantly. This little app will turn the shadows off and make for a much snappier UI. I tried it out and was pleasantly surprised by the speed increase.
2) Monolingual - while some people have a need for multiple language support, I certainly don't. This little app will clear out any and all languages you don't want to use, reportedly freeing up anywhere from 200 to 600 megs.
3) Desktop Manager - while Panther has the nifty Exposé feature, some don't quite like it - especially those coming from a linux or unix gui where they are used to a windows manager that allows them to run multiple desktops at once with application windows open on different ones (although it solves my desktop hotkey problem). Desktop Manager solves this by giving you a windows manager. I haven't actually tried it since it requires Panther but I've read only good things. Amazing things, actually.
Apple is being funny about their OS. It's been a migrational process and each change or added feature gets it's own branding, gets it's own hype. First it was AppleScript back in the day.. then came Sherlock, Exposé, and now Spotlight in Tiger. Some of these features are just added functionality, not truly applications of their own, yet Apple insists on marketing them as such.. Wrong? Heck no, I think it's working for them. From a non-technical-user's point of view it must look like Apple is making innovations by leaps and bounds compared to the sluggish progress of the MS Windows series. And in the end, the non-technical-user may be exactly right.
Not everything in computers is about faster processing. Sometimes it's about a better user experience. Sometimes it's about workflow. I would say that well over 50% of my productivity is how well the applications I use are put together and how well I can move among and between them - not how fast my CPU is.
sidenote: I happened upon a mac os x hacking website that had some suggestions for reducing the boot time by at least an order of magnitude. i have been unable to find that sight again but i'd still like to reduce my boot time.. if i recall correctly it had something to do with turning off networking polling or something.. if anyone knows what i am talking about please please please point me in the right direction
20040707
Been asked over and over about the upcoming move - "are you excited to be going back to montreal?" the locals here ask me - "are you pumped to be coming back?" the montrealers inquire.. Yah, and frankly, it's just a big dark cloud right now.. the moving, the dealing with address changes and vehicles and furniture. The disruption of routine, the juggling of dates and times and setup fees and cancelling services and signing up for stuff. It's all a big hassle.
Feeling excited, at least, to be back in the city for the pure sake of taking pictures. Montreal is a great town with a load of history and a ton of events. I dare say it's one of the most amazing towns in the world, but that's coming from backwoods-boy so what do I know? I think LA is a mindtrap, New York is a dump, and Boston is over-priced. I think San Fran is way too uber-hipster-gay-maybe-not-gay-take-me-home-and-find-outish.
I think it probably rains too much in Seatle and Chicago is too spread out. I think Houston, Austin, Dallas - fuck it's hot down there, and don't even get me started on St Louis. I think Tokyo is too crowded and London is overrated and Paris is snobbery at it's best. I think Rome is grimy, Rio is slummed out, and Hong Kong is just too much..
but I'm a small town Maine boy so what do I know?
Caught the Chapelle show for the first time last night and he did a parody of the Real World.. He had a house full of badass african americans with one naive whiteboy. When the girlfriend came to visit, she came from Maine..
I think that was a joke about Maine.
But regardless, Montreal is as international as you can get and a fun town to boot so I shall be taking as many pictures as I can think to take when I get up there.. just for you. Cause, somehow, there is shit to see. I don't know why there isn't here.. I love the woods but I guess if you've seen one tree you've seen them all. Plus, taking a camera out of your bag here in Maine.. it's like ruining the tranquil moment you had with nature. It's like trying to preserve a moment that is only beautiful because it's a single moment no longer obtainable. I dunno.
So right now I'm just taking my inspiration from, of course, jaime.. Maybe I can get my ass in gear enough to capture some cool grafitti and some crazy shop signs.
20040706
having trouble at work.. probably because I'm leaving it behind like an old unfinished art project and, really, once you know you're leaving you stop trying - don't you?
Sometimes the stubborness gets me like I have something to prove to someone so I'll stay all afternoon, all evening, all night, whatever it takes to get things done and I'll be sweaty and tired and ready for bed when I'm done but I can say, yah, it's done. done. done.
done.
done.
But I can honestly say there is no done here. no finish line. no cheering crowd, that's for sure.. and if there is anything my life needs (everyone's, no?) it's more cheering crowds.
plus it doesn't help that i'm not really leaving - only physically for the time being and trying to keep it going, remotely, telecommuting, briefly each week, like a bad long-distance relationship wilting dying drooping on the vine.
Isn't that more realistic, in a way? More for me, I guess. Nothing is abrupt like that in life - not my life. I've told you. Things here happen like in a blessed little town out of a cheery little fairy tale. It's all slow and steady.. getting older like molasses running down hill.. seeing death up ahead like a giant tractor-trailer barreling down on you at 100mph only, yes, it's 100mph - you've checked your speedometer - but it's allll in slowwww motiioonnn.
So you know what happens.
And just like I see the giant tractor-trailer I also see the cars, the SUVs, the motorbikes, the sedans, the wagons. I see the job right now for the next few months and I see the lousy lazy job I'll do but sporadically, like summer sprinkles from a clear blue sky, I'll have bouts of intense production.
I'm just hoping they'll make up for the rest of it.
I like summer sprinkles.
Then we fucked, violently, and he told me that he loved me, and I hit him in the shoulder and told him to shut-up, and I cried again.
Am usually not so afraid of age. At least not in the opposite direction - down, not up. The young-uns don't scare Buddy and he tends to feel some sort of serenity around them, as goofed as they can sometimes be, because;
honestly
;Buddy is in love with innocence.. Maybe because it's lost for him and he is forever searching for it ever again searching for his lost childhood? Still feel young. Still feel independant and free and loved and cool and with lots of friends. Still feel varied and interested and excitable. Still feel like Buddy felt in 4th grade - shy, hopeful, excited, fun, nervous, scared, powerful.
So somehow it comes across terribly strange to the budster that the simple age of 24 - really a mere 1.3 years difference from him - seems so far far away.. seems scary, really, in this lost sense like being in the dark forest and having that bloody muscle inside pump pump pump a little faster as your mind puts together the puzzle pieces one by one by:
You're lost. Buddy is lost.
Been lost for close to a year now. Been looking in all the hidden corners and far off places thinking maybe would find an alice, a wonderland, a tiny door to the outside - to the real reality.. at least the one Buddy imagines to be real.
It's not. None of it.
But she is 24 and it petrifies me. Mostly, probably, because Buddy has no control. Like trying to hold on to a very large and strong fish - not so hard due to the size as it is due to the slippery slimy skin squirming through your fingers.
Hard to grasp.
Hard to grasp the space she's come from. Can see it, like a book, written down in words on paper. Can understand it as a concept, a theory, an idea taught in a college lecture somewhere. Can almost almost reach out and touch it - but can never go in.
Buddy is scared of dark places like that.
Can't come to grips probably all because she can't come to grips, or doesn't seem to. Like anti who hates his father only she hasn't figured out who she hates yet and it's keeping the wound raw..
as if hatred was a bandaid that seals up the cuts you bleed through.
Never liked bandaids even as a kid and usually just sucked and sucked till the blood stopped coming and called it good.. Lost out on the war of hate, just got irritated and annoyed instead. Real hate is like currency. Annoyance is like monopoly money -
a cheap imitation of the real thing.
So Buddy can go out and find the cheap imitations - there are plenty out there.. A few girls he knows from way back when, the kind that were always out on the peripheral and they've been waiting to come back into the picture. Can see what happens with that yet he'll only realize that monopoly, while fun, holds not a candle in the wind to the real firestorm: Life and the real identity it creates is where the action is at. Life is the end game. Life - the one where the emotions are uncontrollable truths, not constructed lies. Life - where you weep to know the world. Life -
the one that sucks it all out of you.
Am turning in my grave as we speak as if on a fire spit, dripping grease and smiling happily with apple-in-gapping-mouth, and with each turn I am more ready to go to the dinner table, one more year older, one step more, one epiphany closer to the end of the game, the end of the end game where the end, you realize..
It's only the beginning.
It's not whether you win or lose.
Fuck you Buddy wants to win so badly I'd do some awful things for it, right now.
Luckily the end is not right around the corner so Buddy has a few ephipanies waiting for me yet. Buddy is prepared for the long road ahead. Buddy has some incredible staying power. Buddy is a stubborn ass motherfucker and doesn't plan on giving up till it's time to give up and then even then he won't give up. Not buddy.. Oh no.
He'll just keep on.
Yes I will.
Buddy's blog posts have been getting eaten alive lately, even when they say they've posted fine. Buddy keeps trying to visit his blog only to find that his computer can't find the location. Buddy is getting frustrated typing the same stuff over again, and then over again, and buddy isn't even sure if anyone out there is even still alive.
Hello? Hello? Is this thing on?
Buddy's internet is acting all weird here at work.. first loading cannot find server error messages and then, on second try, loading webpages but titling them cannot find server.
But anti (aka cannot find server) says:
being abusive to someone has lasting after effects. especially when they were a depressed nutcase to start off with. interesting fun fact of the day.
and he's never been more right.. maybe he just wrote that cause he was being an ass to someone and he stopped to realize it.. maybe he wrote it cause he is a depressed nutcase and someone else was being abusive to him.. or maybe he was talking directly to me and giving me a hard time for essentially being a huge prick to my high school girlfriend because she was, no doubt mister, interesting-fun-fact-of-the-day: a depressed nutcase.
sometimes you punish yourself because it's all you got.
Yah.. sometimes.
Behind every magnificent storm there is a trail of disaster..
Or so I am told. On my way up through the Eastern Townships of Quebec I got nailed by a big thunderstorm bumbling down 10 East. Probably the biggest of the year for me, so far. The rain came down in first little droplets then in ever increasing sizes until large sheets of jelly-bean sized water dollups came crashing down on my windshield. This in itself was not so much a problem but then the windows started fogging like mad, which, again, was not so much a problem in and of itself until I discovered that my climate control was stuck on cold.. the same cold that the rain was pelting onto my windshield on the other side of it causing severe condensation on the inside of the car. So here I was on the 10 with no view, no way of sticking my head out the window (try that with a downpour at 70mph), and I have a pair of extra pants in my car that I am viciously wiping the windshield's innards with. I consider, briefly, stopping on the side of the road but the idea gave me nightmares of the blizzard I had hazzarded only a few years ago in which I rode side to side on the highway at 3 mph so as I could follow the rumble strips. Angle left for awhile, hear a rumble, turn to the right, repeat. Slow moving. But this was no snow we are talking about here, not on this trip. This was just good old rain and coming down mighty hard. I inched inched my way through inching inching ever so carefully inched inched myself into a clearing among the clouds, long enough to catch my breath anyway, and it was brilliant.. until I hit the next batch of storm clouds - the ones who would pelt down with m&m-sized hail.
It was a magnificent weekend regardless and now, on a Monday night (tuesday morning, i know) we're sitting here happily finished with our green thumb project, repeing the benefits as we speak, and otherwise... I'd be out like a light.
20040705
It was a show-stopper of a weekend out of many summer weekends up in Montreal this July 4th and I can only begin to describe the craziness that is a city on fire.
Not only did the Montreal International Jazz Festival start last week but the International Fireworks Competition is ongoing, the Carribbean parade ran through the city, it was Canada Day weekend (as well as U.S. Independance Day), and and and it was the Euro2004 soccer finals that had the underdog Greek team beat out host team Portugal to cause quite a ruckus on the streets. Greek flags flew from every vehicle as the streets clogged up with honking horns and screaming fans. Even Porteguese fans poured into the street.
Montreal is a city that is unafraid to block off major traffic arteries for the sake of art. Montreal is a city with no fear of large crowds - so much so that they'll serve beer in the streets with nary a hint of underage drink control.
So when the Funk Brothers came to town - a group of musicians that backed practically every hit to come out of the motown scene - they set up a special stage (in addition to the 6 or 7 that already existed in the 4 square block downtown core), a few big screens, some emergency exit corridors along the edges of the streets, and about 150,000 people showed up to enjoy the good times.
And enjoy they did.
100
and
50
Thousand.
Afterwards people poured up onto St. Laurent street and filled the bars and although it was a Sunday night you wouldn't have known it to look at Montreal, the true city that never sleeps.
Montreal was warm all over with a nice breeze to cool your skin so that when you got home at 5am you were feeling nice and clean and you could climb into bed without a need for a shower.
And as if nature knew about the show the clouds rolled in over night so that Monday it could rain, thunder, lightening, and wash away the mess..
And then Montreal remembered.. The jazz festival just started. We've a whole 'nother week to go.
Plus the St. Laurent street sale..
Plus the Just For Laughs comedy festival..
Plus the International Film Festival..
As if the list had an end in sight.
20040701
Another three days of work, another long weekend, another seven days with hardly any sleep, and my body is getting tired..
but I just gotta do it, get in this one last suicide ride.
Off to Montreal, find myself an apartment, get drunk, party hardy..
wedding next weekend. ugh.
(Open Bar!)
seeyah, folks.
Sometimes no matter what you say or do people will read the worst into it and there is nothing that you can do.
Sometimes it's your fault - or the fault is at least related to you and your relationship with the other person. Past transgressions become current barriers will soon be future loses.
Not saying that past loses are any indication of guaranteed future loses, but hey, history is repeating.
The worst, the absolute worst, is when you make a point of trying to be thoughtful. When you leave a little morsel or nugget of wisdom and in doing so you know - you know you will be misunderstood and
... lo and behold you are misunderstood.
It's a bummer in the true sense of the word.
So this month I had a secret correspondence with the ex (spoken of below) and I was happy to hear from her - truly - because we certainly left on bad terms (rather, she was on bad terms) and I don't really like leaving anyone on bad terms. Thing was she was determined to make the terms bad no matter what and there was nothing I could do about it so I let her go. Let her move on, talk trash about me, and do her thing..
Truly no skin off my back.. even when she thought it was necessary to tell the world that I was gay.
Gay. Yah, I'm gay alright. I'm gay at the world. I am gay just to be alive. I won't lie, I'm a happy guy.
So when she contacted me this month it was interesting to see her try to tip-toe around the fact that she essentially up and walked away 4 years ago only to spend all her time berating me to people who weren't even acquainted with me - complete strangers, even. It was interesting to see her be all polite and wish me a good summer and act like we're both civilized people.
Fact is only one of us is civilized.
Crazy mental issues aside, she was a nice girl so I politely responded - I mean, I'm certainly not the bitter one. She said she wanted to meet up sometime soon, she had questions, she was feeling nostalgic, she was homesick.. I dunno. Fine, whatever. I'll get a cup of coffee and sit with you and listen while pretend to tell me you're happy (when in fact you're trying to tell yourself).
Cripes, it just makes me sad. Some people just never learn to read their own book right side up. Maybe they're afraid of what it really says? I don't know. Wake up and smell the coffee, the bitter beans brewing in the pot. Smell the roses wilting in the sun. Smell the morning breeze that can carry you away to ANYwhere you'd like to go..
.. the world is your oyster, if you can only see it.
So why, what is the point in lying to yourself? Does it work? Can you be happy knowing you're living a lie?
Can't tell you these answers - never tried it, I don't think.
So when she wrote me back saying that she had thought things over, thought that maybe it wasn't a good idea to go for coffee (in a tone that suggested this farce was all my idea) because it wouldn't be fair to her husband, wouldn't be "what married couples should be doing".. I said alright, that's cool.. In fact I responded that I agreed with her, I said honesty is the best policy, I said I respected her decision if she felt she didn't think it was right to meet. I told her that if she felt it would hurt her husband in anyway that it was nice of her to consider those feelings and do her best not to tip the apple cart.
Of course it was not meant to imply that her husband didn't have a right to those feelings.. I mean, to each their own.. I personally have less issues with jealousy than most but that doesn't discount those people who do. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, it's just a character trait.
 I wasn't even the one who hinted that it was an issue.
So was I surprised when she wrote back, seething, to tell me not to push anymore of her buttons and to never belittle her marriage or her husband again? Nah.. I sort of saw it coming.
Some people will always read between the lines - even if there is nothing their to be read - and they'll come out fighting with fists clenched just because. Some people will always see the bad, always take offense, and I don't know if there is anything that can be done for them.
It still makes me sad, though.
In this day and age of corporate culture is it really any surprise to see companies start to act like inviduals? This whole online music store thing has been about as close to a fashion trend as I've ever seen.. and now even good 'ol Commodore is jumping into the fray with the Commodore World - Music store.
So, right off the top of my head that's
- Walmart
- Apple
- Sony
- Napster 2.0
- RealNetworks' Rhapsody
- MusicMatch
- Dell
- BuyMusic
- Microsoft
Can you say saturated market? Perhaps the real war is just beginning but I fear that they just can't all survive for a very long time. Even Apple, at 99 cents a song, has admitted that the iTMS is more a plug for the iPod than it is a revenue model. And that's at 99 cents a song!
Perhaps.. maybe.. someday.. if the record companies pull their big fat asses out of their heads they will decide to create their own online record stores which could potentially have a lower unit cost ratio than the others, since they would not have to license their own music.. maybe?
I'm not so sure the monolithic record companies that we know now will survive into the next wave of music entertainment. I'm not sure they can compete with such narrow minded attacks on the music market. Recent history, however short, shows us that when technology is involved you must innovate or die. I don't see the record companies innovating too much.
Course I'm still waiting to see what happens to Microsoft, too, so what do I know?
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the guys: philogynist jaime tony - the gals:raymi raspil
