July 2002 Archives

AI: A performance art piece in 3 acts

*sniff* i share this award with all you who made me what i am today: my stylist, my publicist, my personal psychic, my phrenologist, my homies, my roadies, my minions, the grunions, and most of all, my kitty, without whom this blog would not be possible.

(thanks guys)

and congratulations to VASpider for best new blog.

so today, in the midst of a spirited discussion on copyright and intellectual property over at Jon Sullivan's site, an anonymous happy-fairy dropped in to spread sunshine and denial: why don't you all go take an ativan, a nap, or a soothing walk on the beach! seems to me alot of time wasted on Fear of the Unknown....take it a little easier, your'e going to wear yourself out!. and i thought, you know, it's a scathing indictment of our pharmaceutical culture, that there are fluffy hug-bunny types out there advocating sedatives and naps and bliss and ignorance, as a viable alternative to debating important issues. (alert: major digression ahead), and i remembered my denis leary:

"I'm just not happy. I'm just not happy. I'm just not happy because my life didn't turn out the way I thought it would." Hey! Join the fucking club, ok!? I thought I was going to be the starting center fielder for the Boston Red Socks. Life sucks, get a fucking helmet, allright?! "I'm not happy. I'm not happy." Nobody's happy, ok!? Happiness comes in small doses folks. It's a cigarette, or a chocolate cookie, or a five second orgasm. That's it, ok! You cum, you eat the cookie, you smoke the butt, you go to sleep, you get up in the morning and go to fucking work, ok!? That is it! End of fucking list! "I'm just not happy." Shut the fuck up, allright? That's the name of my new book, "Shut the Fuck Up, by Doctor Denis Leary. A revolutionary new form of therapy." I'm gonna have my patients come in. "Doctor, I.." "Shut the fuck up, next!" "I don't feel so.." "Shut the fuck up, next!" "He made me feel so much better about myself, you know? He just told me to shut the fuck up and nobody had ever told me that before. I feel so much better now." Whining fucking maggots.

now. i'm not saying people with clinical depression should ignore their symptoms and suck it up, no sir or madam. that's not my subject at all here. but at what point in our collective history did someone decide that we are supposed to be happy all the time? what kinda pressure does that put on us, leading ordinary average lives? lives that involve struggle and pain and difficulty and frustration? a life can be very good indeed and still include lots of stressful soul-searching and second-guessing. and that's not a bad thing. but feeling deprived of some unrealistic ideal? not good.

i feel fairly certain that our distant ancestors didn't spend a whole lot of time and energy searching for meaning in life, they more or less were kept busy not being killed. their lives consisted of long periods of intense life-or-death struggles, and brief moments of joy and celebration.

well, life is easier (at least in the developed countries) today. and so we have enough time to sit and ponder the meaning of life, and then we end up with all these pop-psychology fluff-purveyors, telling us that life is supposed to be a bowl of cherries in a rose garden. but it's not. it can be good, and feel bad, and there can be nothing at all wrong with that. and do *not* tell me not to worry. i know what i'm doing with this worrying, ok? ok.

disclaimer: this is a rant. when i hear those don't-worry-be-happy types, my head explodes, so, please consider that before you yell at me for this. thank you.

my brief sojourn into the horrors of dialup was blissfully cut short by the renewal of my DSL service, due in no small part to authorizing a debit that will surely send me into overdraft protection. it's ok. i'm fine with that.

i did indeed nuke an AOL CD last night, several cool pictures in my camera, some uploaded to the old windows PC sitting across the room from me. lurking, actually, all AOL'd up, probably never to see the network or the DSL line ever again. god knows what it's done to the TCP/IP settings, eh? i can't deal with it. i'm afraid to even try. i know that much madness that way lies.

batgrl dropped me some seriously cool linkage to CD art: glitzy garden globe and sculpture of 642 CDs. and stacey assures me that my crazy venture into letting AOL know i might be interested, will result in a flood of more CDs. i'm on a mission with this, i am.

Losing your job, quitting school, going broke and moving back home with your mother after living abroad for years would be tough on anyone.
It's even tougher when you're a former military dictator who once had the power to execute opponents at will.

Ex-dictator, jobless, lives off his mom

this morning, chris drives me to work so he and the kid can have the car for the day. on the way, we spot a very, very large lady. we're talking like four hundred pounds large. and from the back seat, kurt says, 'you don't wanna see that'. and chris says, 'no, no i don't'. kurt elaborates: 'too fat'. and i decide to seize the moment and remind the kid that we don't say these things when people can hear us, because it hurts their feelings, and that's mean. and we ask him how he'd feel if somebody said something mean about him, and he replied, 'i'm not fat'. so chris asks, well, what if they said you were short? and the kid says, 'i'm not short, i'm five'.

*sigh* five is such a literal age.

so. the spider and i were in the IM, scheming on what to do with all those AOL CDs. of course you could send them to nomoreaolcds.com, but hell, there are enough to do that and have some leftover to make art. so here we go:

first, go to CD-ROM's in the Microwave and read up on the subject. notice they don't recommend using older microwaves, and warn that if the inside of the microwave becomes coated with CD smoke, that it could be a bad thing. hooha.us, its associates and subsidiaries, take no responsibility for what you might do to your kitchen appliances if you acccept this assignment.

but you have AOL CDs don't you? of course. if you don't, wait a day or two, it'll come to you. do something artistic and wild with them. go in the backyard with a fireproof tarp and a butane torch. microwave them. smash them with blunt objects and arrange them artfully.

take pictures and post them. mmmkay? you know you want to.

no wait. i don't.

but when michele posted an apology for some of the content posted during her blogathon, namely boobs, i had this tremendous sense of deja vu, because it wasn't so very long ago that a small war broke out over another incident in which breasts were bared, and semi-bared, on the internet. i know, i know, what is the world coming to, who will think of the kittens, all that.

this is so un-switzerland of me, because i had friends vehemently on both sides of controversy number one, and i am directly involved in controversy number two, in that i was a little nervous the night before blogathon so i got quite tipsy, and the combination of (a) admiration for her choice of charity, the Daniel Pearl Foundation, (b) feeling bad about not being able to donate more than pocket change myself, and (c) a digicam and a dsl line and (d) beer, caused me to donate some cleavage to cause. as did any number of others. also, i confess that my frequent visits to the site throughout the long 'thon, helped keep me happy and awake.

so i'm going to go out on a limb and say, while i understand there are people that find this horrifyingly, um, exploitative or something? yeah, i think that's the standard objection. anyway, when madison avenue stops using boobs to sell everything from ... well, everything, when we can turn on MTV without being assaulted by boobs (and navels, lots of those too, it's like, all you see anymore), ... ok wait i see the flaw in that logic. because if boob projects on the internet are exploitative, then we should also be mightily offended by pretty much every magazine in the checkout line, every ... oh, never mind.

i know i've just pissed off and/or alienated some friends here. but every once in awhile even switzerland has to stand up and say, ok, i've thought this over, i've given it careful consideration and looked at all sides of the arguement, every side has merit, no one is wrong, and these are my boobs.

happy monday.

so. i got home. and i had no internet. why? well. i lose things. like ATM cards. so i ordered a new one, which i also promptly lost. and all those electronic debits? every single one bitched at me except direct DSL.

i meant to call and give them the new number (i have the paper the card came on, so i have the number, that's all). i really meant to call them.

so i had no internet. i laid on the couch feeling this odd tightening in my chest cavity, this strange and entirely unpleasant spinning in my head. and i came up with a plan.

first, find the modem. where is it? oh, there it is. untangle it from the phone, palm cradle, two phone cords (1 50' in length) and some other crap. plug it in. and ... brace yourself ... pluck a cd from my AOL CD collection, install AOL, and ... *sob* get on the internet on an ancient windows box with a 14" monitor on a 45333 connection. on AOL.

i don't know if i can get to my outlook express yet so i seem to have an AOL address, if you need to mail me. it would be kdblog at aol dot com. i think. how would i know? this is a fucking nightmare.

but at least i'm online.

so i took several dozen online tests...

i was never more happy in my life, to turn off a computer. through much of the time i was blogathonning, i was thinking, nope, i won't do this again, but by the end, i'd changed my mind, and i would definitely do it again. something about how everyone and everything came together, hard to explain, it was a great ride.

i'm still brain dead. but strangely exhilirated. however you spell that.

i think Jett said it best: ...the several hours after you wake up from the post-thon sleep session. It's like you were plugged into the matrix and you are allowed to come up for air...the world is a gentle assault on your somewhat raw system.

But everything looks fresh and pure in a way.".

i would have liked to say that, but i'm still not really awake. in fact, i fell back asleep, not all the way but a deep drowse, the sort of sleep you sleep on the couch with nicktoons blaring a dozen feet away, while listening to a five year old frolic through the house, tuned in to anything that might need some no-saying, but otherwise non-conscious. my body and brain wanted this sleep very much. and the five year old, not more than a couple hours from a big sandwich for lunch, decided he wanted a hot dog.

and he came up to me and with his face inches from mine, loudly informed me he wanted this hot dog. it felt like his voice entered through the forehead and was pulling and tugging at my brain, trying to ... i don't know. but it's different to be forced from sleep by a loud, insistent voice, than roused by other sounds not directed at you, or even an alarm clock. alarms have snooze buttons. five year olds are missing that function. a serious oversight, really.

ok, so now i really am awake. i thought i'd be sick of the internet and blogging, but i'm not. i'm just a little tired.

nothing to see here. i have my supplies, and am well prepared for a day of blogathonning for the cause:

ahh, the 'thon was grand...

chocolate ass

"The parties are advised to chill," Judge Alex Kozinski wrote for the three-judge panel.

so i made an appeal to Dan, in a rather direct and pushy manner. Dan had written me apologetically explaining he'd already sponsored bran (who is, herself, blogging for a damn good cause) ... and i whined that we were so close to four hundred ...

and now we are at four hundred dollars. this rocks.

total for all the blogathonners at this writing? $49941.67.

If 2002 NT7 crossed paths with the Earth, it would enter the atmosphere at nearly 64,000 mph and strike with the explosive energy of 1.2 million megatons of TNT, according to JPL estimates.

so why can't we all be nice to each other in the meantime?

the current totals: Currently: 213 Participants with 2023 sponsors, donating a total of $49628.67.

anybody wanna help push that puppy over 50K? hmm?

there's nothing better than a great excuse to indulge in one's vices. i went to get some lunch and got carried away with goodies. i bought some french vanilla french roast and set the grinder to between espresso and turkish. right now, it's sitting here next to me filling the office with the most mouth-watering aroma. i purchased a seven ounce hershey symphony bar, but that may not make it though the afternoon intact. i got not one but two rockstar energy drinks. i have the caffeine and sugar part pretty much handled.

i'm still undecided about whether or not to add a little alcohol to the mix. i am hoping to discuss a lot of eff-related issues, and those of you who know me, know that when i get to nippin' at the bottle, the only issue on my mind is informing people how intoxicated i am. that's the first sign of me being drunk, is me saying 'i'm drunk'. over. and over.

but it's a night to indulge vices for a good cause. or at least that's my excuse. i'll be wired, tired, and possibly a bit less than sober.

you know? i can hardly wait. this is going to be such fun!

so i was rummaging through the mess that is my desk drawers, and found this picture. it's a self-portrait my son took with a spy kids toy camera (happy meal prize, plastic, uses 126 film). i really need to dig that camera out of whatever toy box it's in now, it's a keeper.

now the fuzzyness is more of a lighting thing, the camera doesn't really leak light like that yet -- it actually takes decent regular pictures (see?), or it did. maybe if i drop it a couple times? i so envy people who have those cool Holga cameras, with those leaks that add artistic effects to regular old pictures.

anyway, that was my son, the camera prodigy, age three.

stolen directly from: Slacksonville (Xkot's new group venture)

There was once a young man who, in his youth, professed a desire to become a "great" writer. When asked to define "great" he said, "I want to write stuff that the whole world will read, stuff that people will react to on a truly emotional level, stuff that will make them scream, cry, wail, howl in pain, desperation, and anger!"

He now works for Microsoft writing error messages.

i've sat here staring at the glowy screen trying to come up with some coherent commentary about this, with the intent to send you over to read Ezrael's post. couldn't come up with any, so i borrowed some of his:

The identity of anything is a mosaic of associations, pasted together over the course of its existence, carrying charges of conceptual energy that can come together in a dizzying blizzard of forms. Any attempt to understand that does not take the potential of this multiplicity of orbiting thought into account is doomed to failure.

it's something i am going to keep in mind when i'm flinging myself argumentatively (is that a word?) to one end of some spectrum or another.

ok, i've been awake for nearly an hour. awake being a relative term, meaning, upright, eyes mostly open, and able to perform simple tasks not involving, you know, complex thought. and i'm thinking, in only two days, it will be saturday morning and i'll have to get up at six am. six. am. in the morning. and start blogging. and then do it for 24 hours.

and i'm happy to be doing it, really i am. because blogging is really the only thing i could -athon about these days, i'm in no shape to marathon or walkathon. so a sit-and-type-a-thon is right up my alley. and i've been wanting to do something for the EFF for some time now, since i first read about what they're doing in the LA Times sunday magazine and i thought, wow, there's a group that's fighting an uphill battle against some extremely wealthy and powerful interests.

i can do it. but i can't promise to make any sense at all for at least the first two, three hours. if i manage to express anything at all, it's gonna sound really, really whiny. hey, maybe i'll get the most tired but made it anyway award! i'm whining already!

my daughter has never driven my car. and i had a reason for this, beyond being an ogre-type mean ole mommy. basically, it was because i am living on a very tight budget with no margin for paying deductibles, should anything happen. she's had a permit for a year and a half, and the poor girl's had a helluva time getting people to let her drive their cars.

so she finally got to the point she's ready to take the test, and her boss agreed to let her use her car. i had to go with, as a licensed driver over 25 years old. have i ever mentioned that i'm a really, really nervous passenger in every situation? i have some control issues. in any case, i knew it was of paramount importance that i remain calm, not panic her on the way to get her test. here she is, ready to go. would have taken some pictures while she was driving, but i was busy holding on to stuff in a way she wouldn't see. not that she was doing badly, i'm just a spazz.

long story short, we get to the DMV after making damn sure we had all the paperwork in order and -- the registration on the car was expired. well, not really, but the tags hadn't come. *heavy sigh* so, we head on back to boss's place, dejected, return the car, she finds out her 5:30 cancelled (she's a massage therapist in training) so i'm going to take her home. wait. 'can i drive', she asks? and after all the saying, oh i wish we'd had my car when we were at the DMV, well, what was i going to say?

so i let her drive my car. and i was actually a lot calmer by this point, partly because she was more relaxed, and partly because a buick regal drives a helluva lot nicer than a honda passport, which for all its newness, drove like a big white box.

so, for the next test, we take the buick, which has all its papers in order. and we'll both be much less nervous. that's definitely the bright side of this, rehearsing the stress without having to take it to level of the actual driving test part.

and from now on, i think i'll let her drive, when we go places. she's quite good.

so. i was searching for lyrics to don mclean's song 'american pie'. and i found this, this majorly brilliant requiem for napster:

i am somewhere between two and three on this scale. i'm tired, headachey, and cranky, but i'm making it work for me. the dark mood and the pain around the edges of my brain -- it's the perfect psychic space for me to be coming from. i meant to do this, ok?

i know i'm not making an incredible amount of sense, but trust me i know what i'm doing here. it's all part of my nefarious plan.

lots of updates at the blogcon site, including a schedule of events now including two weddings! vegas, baby.

another reason you should go check out the site is to meet our spam-troll bernie. bernie wants to sell us wi-fi access, or geek cruises or something, and he figures he oughta make a comment on every single entry, just to make sure we don't miss it.

and maybe Kelly can add another species to her troll field guide. SpamTroll.

still thinking about the death penalty. enjoying the dialog between Lee, Shelagh, Tess, and myself, among others. and so this morning, i went off looking for some statstics, some facts, some major trend, something obvious...

Loitering
I spent my evening hanging around in the Osco parking lot with the bums, eating ice cream and pizza and letting the time slide by as slickly as the beads of sweat trickling down the back of my neck.

i could seriously hang out with ruthie

Jon has the (un)official BlogCon schedule posted at his site. he's been in Vegas, researching the different things there are to do.

1. don't have to worry about retirement -- just work right up to death
2. no losing ass in stock market
3. unaffected by luxury car recall notices
4. shopping at goodwill = timeless fashion
5. don't have to balance annoyingly large bank accounts
6. low, low tax bracket
7. don't have to take stressful, tiring vacations
8. pesky relatives don't ask for money
9. burglars break in, look around, leave
10. cheap beer still gets you plenty drunk

well. the good news is, they like me, they really like me. the bad news is, they can't afford me. oh, they like having me around, my clients (when i have them) love me, and i build nice websites, this is certain, and they can afford to keep me there, at my current salary which is horribly inadequate and well below my skill level. the good news is they are willing to be very supportive if i want to work part time elsewhere, ease into another job; they'll give me great references. the bad news is, i don't wanna leave.

they put up with me. i work from when i get there till when i leave (uhm, dependability would have been my lowest mark on the review, but still, that's ok with them). i don't have to dress for work, basic jammies are fine, and if my car ever died i could still get there in minutes on a bus that goes right from my house to work.

i've been there the longest of any job in my life, or pretty close to that. by this time in any job i'm the company's pet weirdo, after my usual stellar start my true self in all its idiosyncratic glory has come out, and it's time to go. well, they still want me around. but they feel guilty i can't afford to live.

oh well. i think it's better to have a job i'm pretty sure i'm still going to have, month after month, than go risk it somewhere where i might end up out of work. the last time i made a move for money, i regretted it for ... well i still regret it.

anyway, does anybody know of an opening for a badly dressed, fuzzy-haired web site making person that usually shows up for work eventually?

didn't think so.

so i've always had trouble getting kitty to like me. maybe because when i moved in here, i had major allergic reactions, and it's possible that sneezing, sniffling, whining, and wheezing, freak a cat out. i'm not really affected at all anymore, unless i pet the cat and stick my finger in my eye (did that the other night. not recommended. not at all.) anyway, all this time, kitty was just much, much fonder of chris, than me.

and my dreams of getting a kitten or a nice girl-kitty of my own are on hold while my financial life gets nice and scary again for a little while, and i begin to doubt my ability to be a proper catparent to more than just this guy here.

so i invested in some kitty treats. i keep them here by the computer, and feed kitty out of my hand whenever he comes in. and now, he knows the sound of the treat pouch, and comes to me. it's been a few days of that, but he still only rarely allowed me to skritch his chin or behind his ears, and then he'd go curl up on some unfolded laundry, or on a shelf he could knock some stuff off of.

until just now. i'm sitting here in my usual, crosslegged by the computer on the coffeetable, and i feel kitty by my feet. he licks my toes a little, then settles down so i can just feel fur against my leg. a little time passes, and i feel a small chin resting on my foot. sweetness indeed.

i just hope my feet don't fall asleep anytime soon. this is nice.

look -- polar bear! aww, he looks cuddly, doesn�t he? (oh, i know that�s silly).

and -- the Mighty Geek�s photo/blog entry made me giggle madly today.

i am trying to cheer up. these things help me.

it's barely two in the afternoon. i actually thought it was a different day today, i didn't intend to strand myself at work with no cash and no hope of lunch. oops. i'm not starving, but still horribly unprepared.

and i am ever so tired of driving through jackinthebox for the two tacos for 99 cents. and paying them with ashtray change.

last night/this morning i dreamt of the Osbournes, which is interesting since i've never actually watched them. keep meaning to get around to it. along with all the other things i keep meaning to do. i live such an ineffectual life, but that doesn't make it any less exhausting.

Dr. D wrote about 'Doctor Death', the individual now known as the most prolific serial killer of all time, who killed 215 people with drug overdoses over a period of 25 years. he asked how i would feel if one of my relatives were among the murdered, if i thought justice had been done (he's doing life, because there is no death penalty in the UK). and i thought, what is justice?

i oppose the death penalty. i oppose it because the justice system is so inherently flawed, with punishments meted out so unevenly, and so many innocent people sent to prison, and even to their deaths. but that's not all. i oppose the death penalty because if killing is against the rules, it should be against all the rules. because in order to occupy a moral high ground one must refrain doing the thing one condemns.

and yes, recently i have been quoted in many comments sections saying i would happily toss Alejandro Avila off a cliff in a sack, or hold Charles Benoit's face in a bed of hot coals. would that be justice? or is it a rage inside me, a quest for revenge? what is justice?

1. The quality of being just; fairness.
2(a). The principle of moral rightness; equity.
2(b). Conformity to moral rightness in action or attitude; righteousness.
3(a). The upholding of what is just, especially fair treatment and due reward in accordance with honor, standards, or law.
3(b). Law. The administration and procedure of law.

so that would not be justice. and it would not be an expression of moral rightness. it would be vengeance. i do not like the rage inside me. i do not want to lower myself to the levels of these monsters, and do unto them as they did to innocent, helpless lives. i want to be civilized and just.

as i commented in Dr. D's blog, there is very little justice in this world. life's not fair, and humans have only the thinnest veneer of civility over our barbaric urges. read the news, it's obvious. we're a bloodthirsty and vicious race. look at history, it's obvious. if there ever were peaceful and passive tribes, i'm sure they were killed off quickly, and their land and resources taken. the gene pool is filled with killers and takers.

and inside myself, i long to rise above this. i long for a truly civilized and enlightened society. not very realistic of me, is it?

i have been doing so much thinking i can't even focus my mind on this beer here. i had a quiet day of laying around staring at one thing or another: walls, kid playing crash team racing, internet. almost blankly. overload? hmmm.

i need to link find some links to rude inappropriate humor. or tell you about that sicko dream that so far no one's made the effort to drag the details outta me. no, well, you're right, you really don't want to know.

maybe i'll play some linux tetris. or another nap? no.

Kelly has the address of the DA in Clay County, MO, and a great suggested letter to send, re: the kitten-burner, Charles Benoit. there should be a great outcry from the public, asking that this crime be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and that the investigation should be extended to find the individuals who stood and cheered him on.

let's let the DA know that the whole country, the whole world in fact, is outraged and demands that this monster and his accomplices be brought to justice.

a moveable beast: when men cry

go on now.

maybe the weird mood is from the dream i had last night (well, this morning really, i more or less slept or dozed till 11) about Elvis. i was back in time, young, but with the mind i have today, and the knowledge i was back in time. that was good. there were islands, probably off Hawaii, and a strange sort of bridge thing and the standard weird house with many rooms and strange passageways, all built over water. and then there was the other island, the tourist place that was often flooded.

oh, it was weirder than i can describe, and the dream i had after, when i fell back asleep, was about trying to remember the dream so i could blog it.

it also featured perhaps the grossest and most bizarre dream sequence that i've ever experienced. way too gross to post here.

but the mood today is excessively bizarre. kidlet is playing digimon rumble arena in a tshirt, undies, and fuzzy slippers, and dancing around as he battles the digimon battles. kitty is twitchy and alert on the porch, who knows what he might be wanting to pounce on and bring in to play with *shudder*. everyone is a little crazier than usual today.

i would have thought, chicken. everything tastes more or less like chicken. but apparently, it tastes like fish

forget the TIPS vigilantes, i have nuns next door and a paranoid ex-catholic in the house with me. me? nothing to hide. willing to live my life right out loud. but chris? still shellshocked from the knuckle-rappings he received in parochial school, apparently.

new nuns next door came by to inform chris that they could hear *everything* from our house. went on to tell chris, oh, we've heard of you, sister mary anita told us about you (yes, chris is famous among nuns). apparently this sister mary anita is fearsome ruthless nun that did something heinous to chris as a child, i think, made him confess to doing something he hadn't done? anyway he's still really, really mad. so chris tells me we have to be quiet and i'm all, why? what are we doing wrong? and he repeats that our life isn't their business and that's that, i'm supposed to now just sneak around, whisper and tiptoe, or else the nuns might hear ...

hear what? who cares? well, chris does. and he's inflicting his paranoia on me with all this SHHHHH!!! stuff. well fuck that. i will continue to live my life out loud. i'll pull up in the driveway with the bloodhound gang blasting out my windows hell yeah** if i have to. shocking nuns doesn't bother me a bit. what are they gonna do?

and i do not like being shusshed. oh, no, i don't. it makes me want to crank up the volume another couple notches, yes it does.

side note: i'm all big talk, and this is mostly hot air. don't worry, no nun's delicate sensibilities will be harmed in the near future.

· · ·

**for lyrics, click more. but not if you're easily offended. no, scratch the 'easily' part. just don't click more. i swear, it'll just upset you.

or, the story of a thursday evening, in three pictures:

one: the kid sees something outside, wants us to take a picture. i bravely hand him the digicam and tell him to go ahead. he comes back with this. tell me the kid doesn't have an eye for composition.

two: i am wandering through the kitchen and see the porch tomatoes on a napkin on the counter. (porch tomatoes are a special sort of tomato that our neighbors grow for ... the reason people grow stuff. they're smaller by far than cherry tomatoes, and, no plans to actually eat the things, but...) they are pretty, eh?

three: i am sitting at the computer and hear a loud rustling in the kitchen. i say, 'who's in the kitchen?'. no response. i say, more urgently, 'who's in there?!?'. nothing. i investigate. kitty has brought a moth the size of ... a really big moth in, and it is flailing behind the food dish. i freak. chris is slow on the getting in there to defend us from the bug (his job), so i take action. i squash him bravely with my colonel sanders cup. i squash him repeatedly. he does not die. chris finally shows up to escort said moth outside.

kitty is pissed. that was the floor show and the appetizer, and we went and threw it outside. sorry, kitty.

so in the wake of the tragic kidnapping/murder of a 5 year old in southern california (in spite of the fact she did know about stranger danger, the stranger just grabbed her), i decided to talk to my son about strangers. first i started by saying, what would you say if a strange man came up to you and said, i've lost my puppy, will you come help me look for him? and he said hmm... and then he said 'umm, yes?'.

and i told him no, that there are bad people, yadda yadda, you know the drill. i said bad people make up stories like that, and you never, ever go with a stranger. you come running to mommy or daddy. and then i asked him, what would you do if a stranger said he'd give you candy to help him find his puppy? and he grinned and said, 'yes!'. so, ok, he wasn't taking me seriously. i will have to wait for a more receptive mood, to get this across.

so, when daddy came home, he told him 'it's ok if i go play with the big kids down the street, because they don't have a puppy'. *sigh* i don't know how to get this through to him. and i don't want to let him outside till i do.

i know they've had tests, where kids who answered all the questions correctly in a teaching setting, were confronted in a real-life situation with a person with a picture of a lost puppy, and many of the kids just went right along. how do you prevent that?

my son is obsessed with color. no, it's not what you think -- we're talking, primary colors here (for the most part, some secondary colors are involved).

his first favorite color was blue, because blue is a boy color. and he was fiercely adamant about having blue things to complement his boyness. if there were any things that had to be split up amongst members of the household, he was always very insistent about making sure him and his daddy were given blue things (think, m&ms for instance).

and then things changed. suddenly, blue was no longer his color. it's red now, and oddly enough, pink as a second favorite (because it is like red, you see). so, any gender-identity through color coding has fallen by the wayside of his obsession with red. he is, in fact, upset that another kid at daycare also has red as a favorite color. he would like Mando to get a different favorite color, even though, as i told him, there's plenty of red to go around. but no. he's very possessive about red.

oh god. something about typing this just got seventies-era sammy hagar singing 'red' in my head. red, red, i want red, there's no substitute for red...

... you were to vote, and, perchance, you were to be voting for me, well i wouldn't mind atall. :)

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in my tipsy haste last night, i neglected to point out that VASpider has a best new blog nomination, Shelagh is up for blog of the month *and* best design, Miguel of surreally for most humorous, ... lots of good sites to vote for.

skarlet found this awesomely meditative quote:

"Now what is the message there? The message is that there are no "knowns." There are thing we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say there are things that we now know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know. So when we do the best we can and we pull all this information together, and we then say well that's basically what we see as the situation, that is really only the known knowns and the known unknowns. And each year, we discover a few more of those unknown unknowns."

well, last night in between shameless bouts of self-promotion, i did manage to work on the blogathon blog. it's at thon.hooha.us, and i did this little thing with the style tags and the MTAuthor variable, so that the posts will be color coded by who wrote 'em. tomorrow, we'll be featured in the EFF's email newsletter, (woohoo!) so i put up a little introduction for the visitors, that's what you'll see when you go there.

also, notice the total! doing pretty well with the donations. (i visited the blogathon blog last night and there are over $30K in donations - does that rock, or what?)

i am getting pretty excited about the blogathon. it's going to be lots of fun -- even the part about (get this) me getting up at six in the morning on a saturday. you *know* this means something to me if i'm willing to do that.

eh. you post something that has you all frothing at the mouth, and nobody froths back. oh well, i guess i have deeper verisign issues than most...

in any case, according to this quiz, my blog is blossom. which is probably perfect, from the description. [via Jessica] yes, i say probably perfect, because, well, i don't really know anything about the ppg.

you see, i *cough* don't get cartoon network. hearing about them on the net, is all i know of 'em. i've never had the opportunity to watch them. i feel so deprived.

also i have never seen an episode of buffy. although i did see the movie. i think. unless i saw the karate kid movie with the chick, and got them mixed up. but i'm pretty sure i saw buffy the movie.

this comes to me from the Linkmeister, who found it at Tara's site:

Verisign has made a proposal to ICANN, in which they would set up a waiting list service for domains. the service would have a trial period of one year and -- guess who is the sole registrar responsible for this list? got that right, verisign. the waiting list would allow people to 'subscribe' to a domain, so that if it becomes available, it automatically transfers to them.

there is a great deal of protest against this, of course there is. the consumers hate it. the length of the list of Verisign/Network Solutions horror stories demonstrates that. Dotster hates the idea too, since this would allow Verisign to provide an exclusive service, one that no other registrar is authorized to provide.

it's monopolistic, of course. it also smacks of desperation. Verisign, sinking under the weight of its own failings, grasping at anything to keep from going under. asking for a complete monopoly on the waiting list business. (and as a side note, i'm forced to wonder just how lucrative this would be? the demand for domains has gone down, and there are so many domains right now being relinquished because speculators aren't willing to keep buying something that won't sell). i think that any hugely inflated income projections based on this proposal that Verisign management may be presenting to its beleagured stockholders, are just more sleaze and lies, from a business that has given us heaps and gobs of that already, along with a steaming helping of incompetence.

what can you do? register your opinion here, or just read the opinions of others. a quick scan of the current comments shows an overwhelming majority in opposition of this proposal. also, there is a petition at petitionsonline.com.

you know what would be really funny? if it went through anyway. i have serious doubts over the fitness of ICANN as a governing board. but, we'll just have to wait and see, now won't we?

because Michele has the greatest ideas. S.P.O.R.K. is dedicated to doing reciprocal spying on people who join TIPS or Citizen Corps.

i shall be installing the graphic in my sidebar as instructed, and await the delivery of the alien detector for my tinfoil hat.

· · ·

ooh! ooh! go read this too!. all the really good stuff about this is being written by people other than me. i appreciate this, since i'm more or less speechless about the whole thing.

· · ·

oh, and let's not forget operation RATS, no offense to dear rattys that we adore.

oh yes i do. i not just want but actually *need* this: one of those PA systems like on cop cars so the other drivers can hear you. you know, the ones they use to yell 'pull OVER' right before they switch on the sirens and call for eighteen backup units and follow you through three counties. you know. or something like that.

i need to be able to pick up my little microphone, and inform people when they are being idiots, in a way they can hear me, because it's obvious to me they do not know. they have not even the tiniest fraction of a clue what complete morons they are. totally oblivious. and how will they find out? when they run into someone less observant and defensive than i am. yes, i may be able to avoid them, but i'm good, ok? i used to drive a taxi, and idiots are just drawn to big yellow cars with black writing on them (so are bees, but that's another story). what about the hapless folks who are just minding their own business, and never see the morons coming? someone has to protect the hapless.

i would be good at doing that.

Robyn, formerly of blogblogbaby.com, can now be found at tampatantrum.com. and, Robyn? a spiffy new URL is better than changing your haircolor anyday. new URLs just feel so... well, spiffy.

sometimes, it's just confusing. there are people called Bill and Bob who are really ladies (and in this case, both named Susan or thereabouts). and there are men named Stacey and Kaydee (the latter of which may be very commonly a man's name in Germany, i don't know that much, but i know i did think he was a she for at least some period of time). and then you have me, kd, rather androgenous -- i've been called a guy a couple times, which (since Kitty prompted me to make an about page), just means somebody didn't read the page before deciding.

and you know, without reading the about pages or any other identifying blurbs, it's really not easy to figure out who's what. you could go read Bill talking about her passion for computer gaming and assume, male geek, or you could read Stacey posting about where to find shoes (yes, straight men do look for shoes), and you could get confused.

i like it. i'm thrilled that gender roles are less confining, and that you can 'meet' people through their weblogs and not be immediately able to discern those things you'd be struck by, in person. most people don't have pictures of themselves on the very first page -- and it gives you time to get to know them, words first, from the inside. i like doing that.

for instance, the first time i read Melly i had no idea she was a tall gorgeous redheaded hottie with legs up to there. i just thought she was funny and brilliant. she could have been a typing shrimp, and i'd have admired her words first, other stuff later.

i also like the internet because i can be, you know, matronly, and have that not be the first thing people see of me.

i'm not sure where i'm going with this? but i like it here. i like it that blogs tend to present life from the inside out, rather than the other way around.

ok, so that candy? on the receptionist's desk? well, it's out there on its own, we've been receptionistless for some time now. so there it sits. unattended. but i have to walk down the hall to get the candy. either i go lots of times, and i do mean a lots, or, well, i have to get a bunch of the iddy-biddy candies at a time.

fine. who wants to look like a fat pig? bad enough i have the fat part going on. let's not have people looking at me and going, ok, well that explains it. oh hush. i am too. that's not up for debate at this point, alright?

so i resort to behavior that feels almost criminal. lift candy jar lid with right hand, holding lid so it shields left hand digging amongst the dum-dum pops for the desired snicker-ettes. collect 4-5 candies, slip all but one unobtrusively in a pocket, and walk back down the hall, obtrusively eating the one i haven't hidden. arrive at desk and surreptitiously slip the pocketed candies into my desk drawer, then take them out and eat them, one by one, half by half. finish one batch, hesitate, realize what am i waiting for, get more, repeat.

think i'm kidding?

question: how many teensy-beensy bite sized snickers bars does it take to pacify a PMSing woman?

answer: i don't know, but it's more than five

what would a blog be without cat pictures? well, yes, i do know the answer to that. however, this is a catpicture kinda blog, so, here we have:

obligatory blogger catpicture

and since i have already been 'out-side' once today, well, i may not get out too much more. luckily i have a goodlooking cat.

what you see here (below) is a photo, every hour more or less on the hour, for Patti's Photo Day.

*yawn* i'm beat.

goodnight

standard sunday stuff: sitting here at the computer, with kid playing crash bandicoot. he's quite good, he's completed two levels and is now facing the monster at the end. in the beginning of this battle, a penguin comes waddling around the battle arena. penguins are so adorable. the monster is pretty fierce though:

the monster at the end

i stayed while they hooked up the trailer, mainly following my dad around and asking pointy questions about if you took the cost of buying an RV every five years or so (he said, you don't have to do that and i said, but you do) and add the maintenance and gas, you could stay in five star hotels and have room service, and never have to disconnect sewage lines and do all this work! and he said, it's not work, as he got down on the ground and scooted under to unhook something damp. it's not work -- i had my answer.

here, i got a rather nice shot of him hooking up the trailer fifth wheeler. i remember my mom having to back him up over and over with the old style hitch. this is a do-it-yourself thing:

making the hookup

note: the 11am pic has just been taken and will be up momentarily. whee, this is a fun ride.

this morning i got right up (highly unusual) because my parents were leaving this morning, and i needed to go say bye. we don't see each other enough. the RV park by the beach is always damp, of course (lovely 65 degree morning weather there when i was there, and foggy. lovely fog), and there were:

mushrooms in the grass

you would think i'd staged this, but no. it's just an ordinary average shelf in my house, infact, it's in my living room. that stuff ... sits there. i like it there.

and i was holding the camera straight, really, i always do -- it's the world that's crooked, ok?

shelf life

i felt like a peeping tom taking this one -- even though it was my own front yard i crept out into, to stand quietly with flash off, and take this picture. the camera peeps when it takes a picture, and the window is open, so i did scurry a little faster on the way back inside.

nun's window

well, not a thrilling sunset, so, i sepiatoned it. first picture i've put up that's been messed with in any way -- i tend to resize and optimize only -- no futzing with color balance, no cropping. am i a sort of digicam purist, or just lazy? eh.

bleached sunset

for this i went as far as the backyard. please note that this is not my fountain or my -- that's mary right? my mary. they came with the house, courtesy of chris's mom who used to live here, and she used to insist the fountain be kept running. which is just silly -- waste of water and place for buggies to breed. so it stands, on the stump, empty:

the fountain of oldness

so chris took us out to get wendy's burgers and we stopped on the way back for cigs, me sitting in the pasenger seat thinking, wow these stickers have been here forever! you can't see in this photo, but they say 'kurwood mandi'. we had a sheet of alphabet stickers, and my daughter put her little brother's name on in stickers, but she couldn't find enough a's to make her name, so she went with her childhood nickname. that was when the car was new to us, approximately a year ago.

the stickers are still there

so, it was almost time for daddy to come home, and i thought it would be best if we were dressed, also i had to do those dishes, anyway, i told the kid to go get himself dressed. and he did. and he did a darned good job of it! however when i tried to take his picture with the camera sideways to get a full body shot, he thought that was funny and turned his head like the camera.

it's hard to take a picture of a kid twisting gleefully from side to side.

a sharp-dressed boy

oh my, how the time goes by. i've been busily making up templates for the blogathon for the eff page, attending to the kid, and of course taking pictures, optimizing them, and uploading them on the hour. do i have time to get out of the house? no. lucky me, a sinkfull of dishes makes for an interesting composition:

dishes i need to do

so, i haven't done enough with macro mode to be screwing with it now. apparently, the focus capabilities are ... not good enough to get up right in a rose's face and get some definition on the petals. so i'll just say this one's an artsy-type flower picture, k?

blurry rose

and, guess what? going to have to go harvest some less-dead batteries now. shoulda thought of this beforehand, you know?

my son decided to hang up his pokemon backpack on the wall and shoot rubberbands at Ash (it was important to him not to hit pikachu,he loves pikachu). i think he feels very competetive towards Ash Ketcham, who is a fierce pokemon trainer.

rubberbands and pokemon trainers

i refuse to admit i'm running out of material and may have to leave the house again. and this one is not the most wonderful photo. my camera is old and not feature-rich, and this is beyond its limitations, i fear. it is, however, a very very strange thing:

my eye

this is not the first time i've uploaded a picture of a cup for say-say. she likes cups. and so do i. so do i. i like the multicolored curvy coke cups with the matching lids quite a lot, actually.

good things that happened: one, i did not get squashed by a semi-truck. although one did try. my usual reaction when i see one of these things coming up the entrance ramp is to check for escape routes, because you never know. i wasn't too happy with the space in the next lane, mercedes even with my back bumper, and by then mr. truck is weaving, no, veering into my lane. so i punched it and got well ahead of the shiny black mercedes in the next lane, no problem. the only weird thing was the total lack of panic. not even a flutter, in spite how close a call that was. but then, i love to drive, and this is why - i'm damn good at it.

so that was on the way to good thing #2, my real doctor. nice guy, really. i told him what i wanted (well, made the shape of a disk-type inhaler with my hands and he said, 'Advair' and i said, 'ok, sure!'). and it came to pass that there is a study, and i'm now i'm in it! it doesn't pay for the medicine (one hundred thirty six bucks a month, but with insurance, twenty-five, woohoo!), but it will pay me to fill out a form every three months.

and i will have wonderful things to say about this stuff. last night, though i woke up about the usual number of times, i did not have to use an inhaler once. this is like one puff every twelve hours and breathing the whole time. easy breathing. this is an amazing thing, really, if you haven't been, then you are. i love my pretty purple new inhaler. adore it. cherish it. it rocks.

and dinner! i cooked, and it was ... not bad! nothing caught fire, no one got sick, and we had a lovely evening. took my dad a few hours to get all the spam cleaned out of his hotmail account since he's been away from the internet (over 900 of them) but i showed him how to 'block' the bad ones, that will help.

and look, they brought kurtwood a buzz lightyear blaster, which he then pointed at his grampa, much to his own, and his gramma's delight.

their first and really only remark about my house: got enough computers? and i'm all, well, nooooo... but these will do. or something like that. it was kind of a geeky evening, really, with the kid showing off his video game prowess, my dad checking his email, and me surreptitiously commenting on my own blog (which i did show them! they were most interested in how i posted their pictures and a bunch of people made nice comments about them! maybe someday they'll start reading this thing!)

mmm-hmm. it was a good day.

w00t w00t! the Photo Day blog is up and i've posted and am now (yes, you guessed it) pinging myself! that sounds almost ... naughty, doesn't it? now, go there, and look at the list of participants! this is going to be a great project.

some folks have set up a separate gallery, but i'm just going to blog my first photo there, then the rest of them here, pinging the original post over there.

Patti rocks so hard, for doing this. it's a great, great idea.

in the dream, the ship would crash, and thngs would get really messed up. so, i would kind of rewind, i guess you'd call it that, and do something different, but no matter how many times i did this, something would still be messed up. crash, crash, crash. couldn't get it right.

and in reality, i've invited my parents for dinner tonight. my parents can't eat almost everything. my dad's a type II diabetic and my mom has celiac sprue which means if any gluten gets in anything i feed her, she gets horribly ill. and if it's one thing i learned when i was up in oregon with them last year, it's that gluten hides in the most unlikely places.

also, i can't cook. and chris was bitching that i should move the computer, scanner, printer, stereo, and various other crap off the nice dining table so we could show off how nice it is, (this will not happen, but i will have the stress of knowing he'll stress because it's not), and i will have to do some cleaning before they get here, as well as cooking ... something. but what?

i work till five. they get here at seven. crash, crash, crash.

and i feel fine. however we interrupt the new 'lite' version of kdblog with the suggestion you read choire. be sure to click all the links, they are at once enlightening and disturbing.

unless you can. but me? no.

it's about wanting what you can't have, more than what you can. for instance: in the morning, i'm sitting at the computer and trying to get through the morning email, and i have to potty. but i'm sitting at the computer so i put that off. and then i hear it: the ominous sound of the door shutting and the fan going on. he's going to be in there for awhile -- and in an instant it goes from a vague urge to an urgent, squirming and whimpering urge.

another for instance: in the house in the morning, having coffee till i break a sweat, i'm not hungry to the point of being a little queasy. i mean, no way i could eat, and the food is right there. i sit at the computer rather than construct a lunch, because, well, i'm not hungry. at all. actually anti-hungry. but somewhere between the door to home and the door to work, i suddenly become ravishingly hungry. pretty much as soon as the food's out of reach, i want the food.

this is either a weird psychological observation, or a clear indication that i spend too much time on the computer and not enough handling my own input/output requirements.

but i want a kitten.

yes, i'm allergic, but i've discovered through years of living with a cat, that the way to get unallergic is to have cats. new cats do require a bit of an adjustment period, but with the help of Jessica's suggestion to try Allerpet, well, i'm confident that my histamine production won't go too haywire.

and i want a kitten. what started this is the knowledge that there were feral kittens, just born, right in our neighborhood. they've gone to live under the nun's house next door, and since, well, they're nuns of the franciscan order, it's kinda their job to minister to the small furry things. and i went to feralcat.com and read the suggested instructions for taming feral kittens and that gave me serious pause. i do not know that i am capable of doing such a thing right.

so i've spent the last couple of days surfing around here. scroll down to CJ. she's not a kitten, but there's something so appealing about those eyes, and the fact she's just perfect for our home (and our kitty, who's also declawed).

i want a kitten that i can raise that will like me. our kitty likes chris, i think they have the whole male-animal thing going on, i don't know. i want a little girl kitty to be my little kitty. so there's the kitten possibility, or, well, CJ. CJ is such a perfect little kitty. i bet she'd like me.

*sigh*

chris brought me a big sandwich lunch from hudson's grill. i took a picture, the sandwich was that impressive, but it'll have to wait for later. so, i finished half the sandwich and was fishing around in the box for more curly fries, and i found a pickle! well, a fourth of a pickle. what's that, a pickle spear? yeah. i was so happy. a pickle! i love pickles. there was a little mayonnaise on the pickle, so i licked it off, and thought, mmm, dill! and then i laid it down on a napkin, and i sat and admired the pickle. then i ate it.

later i may write about haircuts or something. i'm not getting a haircut, but maybe i'll write about haircuts anyway.

so i took that personality test, remember that? it said i was a self-absorbed drama queen codependent in, like, denial or something. which is just silly.

oh, i took some madonna test too. it said i was blue madonna. which is just silly.

if my disorderly personality interests you, click more.

and why i hope the fashion police never come here:

it's cold in here. the air conditioning is set to 74, which means 74 in the actual office parts of the office and shivery cold in this storage-closet, computer-building-room thingy here. and it was so hot outside that i wore sandals to work. they're big ole man-sandals, with lots of tread and velcro. sport sandals. not that i'm sporty. but there they are.

and now i'm going to put some socks on. i cannot stand to have cold feet. if my feet are cold, i must whine miserably.

which explains the -- actually, two pair -- of socks in my purse. it doesn't explain the other five pounds of crap in there, but it does explain the socks.

doesn't that sound like it would be a really bad movie? yeah. so before we get to the livestock and wildlife, let's get the sandwich up here. ok. oh - my parents came to see where i work, so of course i took their picture. they seem to tolerate with my little camera fetish pretty well.

but what about the fish? and the goat? you might ask. as well you should.

meet Lil' Dale, the marketing goat. "How couldn't she be something to NASCAR or auto racing?" Pierson asked. "All you have to do is put an oilcan in front of her and it'll sell.". via skarlet, who has also been following the snakehead fish story, which has CNN engaging in an interesting bit of journalism. headline: "predatory fish can walk on land". later in the article, this: But it is not quite true that they can walk on land, Schwaab said: "We would sort of characterize their mode of transport more along the lines of wallowing." what is it then? walking or wallowing? and wallowing doesn't sound right either. isn't that something you do in misery, or beer, or both? if i remember my spongebob correctly, fish flop. so the alien snakefish thingy actually probably flops from puddle to puddle. but, that would make a lousy headline now wouldn't it?

Pete's developed a remote trackback feature, it's basically in the concept stage but you can see it working at trackback.blogspot.com. this means that folks using blogger can have a remotely hosted trackback popup, just like they have the remotely hosted comments!

so i'm sitting here on the floor by the computer, which is on the coffee table. he comes and sits behind me on the couch and starts getting handsy. so i'm all, alright, i'm going to the dmv. and he starts humping my back and says, mmm, the dmv. what are you doing at the dmv? and i say, standing in line, and he says, oooh, how long? and i say, about an hour and he ....

oh never mind. the details are too sordid.

Mayor Calls For Firing Of Inglewood Officer Videotaped Hitting Teen

Outside, dozens of angry protesters shouted, "No justice, no peace.", emphasizing the point i was just making in the previous post's comments, which is that while the incident itself may or may not be racially motivated, the public will not separate the combatants from the context, and say, this was just a teenage child resisting arrest, and an officer of the law subduing said juvenile. the public sees an act of violence by an extremely large, angry, white cop against a black child perhaps half his size. and the public reacts more viscerally than logically, and this is a fact that needs to be dealt with.

and the question of 'what happened before the tape' is really rather moot, isn't it? we know logically that hitting a cop means the cop will kick your ass. but it's against the cop's rules (that's why he did it on the trunk and not the hood, where the dashboard camera could see). it may be standard practice, but it's wrong, and he got caught. he should lose his job.

i'll start with some pinching judy lyrics*:

there's a hole in the bathroom
my knees they chitter and chat
aw, come on pain
you can do better than that...

and no, that's not a prelude to some sort of whine about pain. it's about the hole. in the bathroom. behind the toilet. there is also presumably a leak, of some magnitude. the plumbers are coming tomorrow, finally. but i've spent the last few weeks in which we had to track down our vacationing landlords, being majorly creeped out by my bathroom. that's a big hole. in the wall. there are bugs and things on the other side, i'm sure.

it'll all be better tomorrow, unless it's much worse, in that we might not have a bathroom. it's the only one. scary.

and speaking of creepy, there's a whole display of these things in the grocery store. can't go down the cereal aisle without them ... looking at me. very creepy.

*reminds me it's been awhile since i did a pinching judy feature -- mp3s and lyrics of a former local band i love very much

well, what have we here? michael jackson plays the race card. umm. hello? even if we accepted the 'skin condition' as the reason he's turned whiter than my ass, the plastic surgery to erase any trace of ethnicity from his features pretty much excludes him from claiming discrimination based on race. michael, honey, you're in a minority of your own making. freak.

i found the jackson story while i was browsing local news websites for this story about a black teenager, who was a passenger in a car that was pulled over for traffic violations. he allegedly 'resisted' and was pinned down by five cops. after he was handcuffed, he was picked up bodily by the collar and by his cuffed wrists, slammed on the back of a police car, and beaten some more. fortunately, there is videotape. a young black man today has a much greater chance of getting pulled over based on 'fitting the profile' and being beaten for 'resisting', than he has of being discriminated against by record companies. record companies screw everybody, it's equal opportunity.

the jackson story was all over the news sites -- front page stuff. the other story, well, i had to do some digging.

and, ironically enough, when i was viewing the jackson story linked above, there was a banner ad in the top of the page: join the LAPD!

you probably already knew this but i feel the need to engage in a little hero-worship. my goodness. first he made like, the coolest site skin ever - check out his 'demotivators' skin, based on the wonderful images from despair.com. and then, on his homegrown blog tool, he has -- get this -- created an MT-compatible trackback feature! i'm amazed.

and he points out that there is a monthly bloggy award site here - what a great idea! i think we should all go nominate Pete right now.

an MT-compatible trackback feature. that just rocks.

'i woke up this morning' is a classic first line of a blues song. now if you were to look at morning on the bright side, the glass is half full side, you'd say, well here i am, awake and alive, now isn't that good? and you would not relate to the concept of the blues getting up with you in the morning. i understand completely. even on the weekends, even after four days off, even going to bed at a reasonable hour, morning still hurts. it does not feel good. it in fact feels bad.

no matter how much sleep, i still wake up wanting to sleep more. leaving sleep is maybe the worst part - sleep is interesting, what with all the spacy dreams. lots of dreams. maybe that's why i'm so tired in the morning, i'm so busy having adventures in my sleep.

at least my son is with the program here. he sleeps in too, and when he does get up he's likely to crawl up on the couch with me and get under the blanket, although his motor starts up quicker than mine, after that. and he starts to talk. and he natters on, and i realize what's missing: coffee. nothing can be right before coffee.

i've been conscious a whole hour, and i'm still not really awake.

well, as a result of my suggestion that the folks i've installed MT for consider donating to Ben and Mena for their hard work, and to get recently updated keys, a rather unexpected thing happened -- twice! first ratty donated enough for two keys, one for her, one for me (!), and then Dan sent in a donation (even though he's only used MT to make a site for one of my hostees, redesign announcement pending), which gave me another key. it's being used over at surreally main site right now, but i'm open to transferring this key (which causes your blog to ping MT's site when updated, so it shows up in their recently updated list) to a blog on these servers, so, you know, if you are a surreally hostee, let me know if you are in need of such a key but without the resources to donate yourself.

(i'm not awake, my sentence structure isn't the best here. had to get this posted though).

we know how addictive blogging is, right? well, an friend of mine who quit blogging and managed to stay away for months and months, is back. his name is Zuchris, and by way of introduction, you can go meet Barry the Chihuahua, who Zuchris and a friend met at the beach. Barry was having a good time and -- oh, go read!

and Zuchris has a really cool looking MT blog with pinging enabled, so, you know, pinging! fun!

so i went down to the local RV resort, to visit my parents in their trailer. the RV resort was packed full, and in full-on holiday party mode, including an outdoor karaoke setup complete with a really good p.a. system and disco lights. i am here to tell you that the words 'outdoor' and 'karaoke' do not go together. it's not fair to impose that sort of thing on people who don't choose to be karaoke'd at.

amanda, francois, and kurtwood were there too. isn't my daughter gorgeous? isn't her boyfriend cute? isn't my son a small maniac? yes, yes, and yes.

my parents like to collect magnets from all the various places they visit. this is about half of the magnet wall, and the collection has spilled over to the range hood. they used to collect spoons, i imagine they still have a about a bajillion of those too. as i've said before, they love to roam the west in their trailer.

they brought my ex-bird, the former wigbasket (now known as b.j., after b.j. thomas). wigbasket had that name for a reason - he was mildly insane when we had him, and is now completely insane. the only human he tolerates is my dad, everyone else (including my mom), if they are in his view he shrieks incessantly till they are out of sight. i mean, he doesn't stop. hates people. hates them. you can see in that picture he's all ruffled, and screaming at me. that's all anyone but my dad ever sees of him.

and speaking of pictures, i'm going to participate in Patti's camera day next weekend, kind of a camera-thon, actually, but just an all-day thing. it'll get me out wandering the neighborhood on an hourly basis, and i'll probably see things i wouldn't otherwise, in that whenver the hour changes, i stop then and take a picture. there will be great fun, next sunday.

more news of the parents as it unfolds, i still have to try to get them interested in the fact i have a weblog (efforts thus far have been less than productive).

so yesterday, i got to sit around thinking various happy thoughts about how i was making money just sitting around drinking beer, and it was good. it was very good. and today, well, i'm basically spending my salary to be home, every hour, i'm out another -- well, hell, it's not very much money! i can afford this! not. but then again i couldn't afford not to give myself the four days, four whole beautiful days. it's such a refreshing feeling, already into day two of this weekend, and two whole days to go. and as a courtesy to everyone who's suffering through floods and heatwaves, i'll refrain from telling you just how beautiful the days are.

it's quite lovely. the parents are in town, we're heading over there this evening, expect pictures (i'll also have all the three kids in one place at one time, a rare occurence, and yes, lots of pictures later on!)

hmm. perhaps a nap.

my parents do not think they are rabbits. they would never dress up for a monarchy intervention. but i do love them. since they moved to oregon, i've seen them twice -- once about nine years ago, for a week, and last year, i went up to help out while my dad had surgery. i was such a good little helper, i even got them a new paint job on their new truck! long story.

and they will be in town starting tomorrow, for nine days! i'm pretty excited, as is my son (who's never met them). they're staying at the ventura RV resort in their palatial fifth wheeler (thing is way nicer than my house, and almost as big). my parents are simple people who live very frugally, well, except for this little trailer fetish they have. they do love to roam around the west in their RV.

so i'll have bunches of pictures to post, and hopefully some fun stories to tell, though i don't think i could top the rabbit thing even if my parents lived to be a hundred.

so, i stood in the entryway and watched the fireworks that were high enough to be seen over the tract homes between me and the celebration. i stood with my back against the mirror/wall, with the boys (ages 5 and 42) seated in the chair in front of me. i stood behind them, which was a good thing, i naturally get sappy seeing fireworks. i come from a long line of marines (ok, my mom married two of 'em and my aunt was one) and i tend to be easily carried away by displays of american spirit. patriotism's gotten a bad name these days, as it's being confused with blind loyalty, and not the original meaning of the word, the original spirit that gave a people the energy to cast off the government that oppressed them. but i digress. i always digress.

the boy and his dad walked out on the driveway during a break; the two men, having man-communication, sharing the fourth of july. i watched them interact and reinforced my decision to keep the family together in spite of the recent conflicts. we can do this, i thought, and i leaned hard against the mirror/wall, pressing my sore back against the straightness, taking deep breaths.

and this is a small and minor display of pyrotechnics. new york (as i'm watching now, in replay) had a production that makes ventura college's look like kids with matches. still it stirred me, not the intellectual me that examines the issues these days and objects to much of this governance, but the me that grew up a marine's daughter, with the easy tears prickling my eyes at pictures of a dad in uniform, at the idea of a dad defending this country.

i stood with my back to the mirror/wall, with everyone in front of me so that they could not see, and i saluted my dad, and all the patriots that put it all on the line for their country. that's what being a patriot means, you know, putting your life on the line for what you believe in.

happy fourth of july, fellow americans. others? i'm sorry if we seem assholes sometimes, but please know that at least some of us, mean well.
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now, go read Ezrael. thank you.

so in the dream i was crossing a pit on a saggy piece of plywood, over some sort of construction zone. there were little mini-guys (not midgets, just miniature men) on little mini-horses, dressed like movie mexicans as portrayed circa the turn of the (twentieth) century, big wide hats and multicolored saddle blankets and bandoleros (they were cute, really). they were crowding me, and i was bitching at them to get away from me, and they were taunting me by not getting away from me. so when we got to the other side of the pit the little guy in front of me jumped off his little horse and was getting all feisty with me and i was just trying to hold him off. i didn't want to hurt him, he was just a little teeny man. and then this huge guy, like eight foot tall and half as wide, comes up and stands in front of me, arms crossed, blocking my path. and i said, hey, this is my dream, who are you? i've seen you before, but what are you supposed to symbolize? and he said, what do you think i'm supposed to be? he wouldn't tell me. even though it was my dream, and when you identify it as such, it's supposed to do what you want, right?

and then kitty puked and woke me up.

so i was reading this over at mena's blog and i got to thinking. you know that MT is provided free of charge to personal websites, with donations optional. well, ben and mena have done wonderful things for this blogging community, and at this point their server traffic is so heavy that they're having occasional CGI outages, and are looking at upgrading their hosting -- that's expensive.

i cannot donate at this time, and i feel bad about that. but for all you folks for whom i've installed copies of MT (and there are a lot of you!) i'm asking you to consider sending along a little cash to the awesome coding team that's made all this bloggy goodness possible.

and did you know, if you donate $20 or more, that you will receive a 'recently updated' key, and when you post, your blog will be listed on the recently posted list on the front page of MT? in fact, for each $20 donated, you'll receive a key (if you're running multiple blogs, for instance).

i think it just rocks that such a great tool is free, for those who are in too much of a bind to donate. but if you're able to do this for ben and mena, go here.

thank you.

the irony is almost too much for me -- two forest service employees being arrested for starting two huge, devastaing fires (one to get work - can you believe it)? guy starts a fire so he could get a job, and over four hundred homes were destroyed. four hundred homes. it boggles the mind.

it always blows me away when people who are charged with taking care of something precious, are the cause of its destruction. or by extension, when a mom does something like leave two babies in a hot car to get her hair done. and then you have pilots that go out drinking before work. the common theme: people who should know better.

i don't have anything constructive to say about this, i'm just venting a little frustration.

Kelly found a story about a controversial new George Michael video. controversy, you ask? what has the naughty sexy bad boy done now? well, he's produced a bit of politcal satire. and good for him.

she also mentions a segment she watched on MSNBC, where concern was expressed over questioning our government during wartime, and this is where i started to get upset about things. there are pundits pondering the inappropriateness of a music video which pokes fun at our leaders?

we're being told that we're either with the government, or for the terrorists. this makes George Michael a dangerous terrorist sympathizer because he is expressing his objections to the way we've handled this undeclared 'war' against a concept, how we rather arbitrarily picked a place we felt harbors terrorists, and bombed the shit out of it. he's also concerned that PM Blair is under dubya's influence. and yes, he's just a pop star, and this is just a video and what the *hell* are people worried about?

i'm not a George Michael fan, per se, but i certainly support his right to make his opinions known, and truth be told, the things he said in the BBC interview were fairly close to my own thoughts on the subject. which makes me a terrorist sympathizer too, as it seems i'm supporting his (and my own) right to free speech in the matter. i am terribly concerned that this freedom of expression is fast becoming a thing of the past. or, as Ashcroft is quoted as saying, “To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: your tactics only aid terrorists.”

and the bottom line is, it's just a pop song.

Super-clean kids get asthma, eczema, more often. i've always objected to the whole concept of living in a sanitized environment. and in a related story, getting rid of cats is not a good way to deal with cat allergies. i discovered this personally, after living my whole life violently allergic to cats, and finally getting to the point where i moved back in with chris, and the house came with our kitty. at first, yes, i got sick. but now, i have a cat, for the first time in my life.

i know there are exceptions, people who have become sensitized to things in the environment, mostly chemicals (probably things we use to sanitize our homes and pets, eh?). but as it turns out, we've oversanitized ourselves to the point of making ourselves sick. who knew, huh?

kitty: hack hack hack urp urp hack
him: [rushes into room] it's that cheap food you've been buying him!
me: no, it's bugs**.
him: no, my mom always bought him the name brand food.
me: safeway select is just as good. it's bugs.
him: [indicating cat puke on floor] that's just his food!
me: [getting down close and pointing at points of interest in the puke] see? bug bug bug *wing* bug...
him: [looking more closely] ok, you're right.
me: i've been buying him whatever's on sale for months and months, and he never puked then, and...
him: i said you're right, ok?
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that's right. i'm right. get used to it.

**kitty eats june bugs

not just any pen. you see, sometimes good things come to those who ride bikes. and so it came to pass that someone dropped their nice pen, and chris found it. there are no 'lost pen' ads in the paper, so i'm figuring this baby's mine (i refuse to run a 'found pen' ad and deal with all the potential lies 'oh, that's my mont blanc, it's, umm, black, right?'). suffice to say if you have such a pen and you are careless enough to drop it in a parking lot, well, well...

i feel a little guilty, still. (maybe my troll will pop in to lecture me about karma? who cares). but i also feel nervous. i was thinking these things cost, like oh, maybe fifty bucks, a hundred bucks tops. no, no, this is a basic model, but the retail price is still one hundred eighty dollars. for a pen. sure, it's a really nice pen. but... but...

it freaks me out because i've owned cheaper cars (1970 chevy vega, $100). it freaks me out because i love pens in general, and it's the coolest thing, pen-wise, that's ever happened to me. it freaks me out because i want to keep it in a box and only use it for special occasions. on the other hand, i want to get a nice paper journal and scribble stuff in it now and again, just because i loved the old paper days so much, and i've almost let them go. maybe this pen is a sign.

or maybe it's just a really nice pen.