September 2002 Archives

just heard on the news, in re: a small commuter plane (headed for the grand canyon) crashing into a hangar: "the pilot suddenly found himself faced with a decision, and instead, he crashed into the hangar". i think he should have made the decision, myself. "the hangar, a mass of twisted metal, and the plane only intact from the cockpit back". only. well, that's the important part, right? but that sounds scarier than "the nose got all bent out of shape" i suppose.

unintentional comedy at its finest, folks.

one way to judge a monday, is how many times you have to return home on your way to work. i'd say twice is a fairly severe monday. like this: leave, remember need to return tapes, get tapes, get all the way to blockbuster, remember the game's due today, make quick calculation of my hourly wage vs. late fee on game, decide to go back and get game, return game.

fine. that's done.

so i'm on my way to work and 'ride like the wind' comes on the radio. for some perverse reason i decide i have to listen to it until i remember who does it. michael macdonald? it is, isn't it. i can change it. but i'm uncertain. and then ole michael shows up in the middle of the song doing background vocals and damn. it really isn't him. i decide to clear my mind. focus on the entirely annoying driver in front of me who keeps letting people who *don't* have the right of way, have the right of way. lady, you don't have to stop to let someone back out of a driveway, on a wide street with only two cars on it. people in driveways can wait till we get past. bitch. deeeeep breaths. who's singing this song? finally the idiot-lady turns, after braking jerkily before signaling, and i'm having a semi-breakthrough. k - k - kevin? kenny? kenny! loggins! isn't it? maybe? no. (it's christopher cross. hey, i was close, at least phonetically).

still no word on why i would choose to mentally and emotionally torture myself with bad popsong memory games on a monday, of all days.

seen as i was pulling out of the driveway this evening:

shiny shiny new silver mustang pulls over, not even all the way to the curb in front of the house next door (where all the nuns live). old, hunched nun exits passenger side of shiny shiny new silver mustang and hobbles around to the back/side door of the house, which at 8:45ish is already quiet and dark.

sneaking in after a hot date?

Raising Hell's big relaunch is today! and it's gorgeous, with a kicky new design by Sekimori and Robyn.

how wonderful is it when your child comes home from kindergarten showing you ASL fingerspelling? *beaming with pride* very wonderful. you see, it turns out that not only is his school a California Distinguished School, but it has a hearing-impaired program with some 40 or 50 students enrolled. i'm very excited that, as they are learning their ABC's, they are learning them in ASL as well.

i'm just very pleased, and had to share.

switzerland is more than a pretty place with nice watches and good chocolate. for me, switzerland is a state of mind. and it's not free of controversy. switzerland, for instance, stood aside neutral during some of the worst atrocities in history. "But there is a still nagging question, and one that seems never to be asked: "How could a decent country remain `neutral'...?".

in this teapot tempest we call the 'blogosphere', there are mini-wars aplenty. and these sorts of questions arise when i fail to identify myself with one side or another, and continue to interact with folks on both sides. i have hurt feelings and confused people. i have caused brow-wrinkling and head-scratching. the 'how could you' question is often asked or implied, or simply remains an unsaid undercurrent.

it's mostly what's kept me from posting as usual these past few days.

i know i've been entirely inconsistent and admittedly, this is just the way i am: malleable, subject to shifts in opinion that are dazzling in their utter illogic, influenced by whatever influence i'm under, whether the weather, the phase of the moon, the time of day, the beer number, or whether or not i've had a good poop. i am cursed with the ability to read two posts that are arguing directly with each other and agree with both. i am defined by my indecision. i've even applied my indecisiveness unevenly, and that will probably continue, though not with any predictable continuity.

so, apology panties for everyone, and a round of hot cocoa (spiked, most likely) for those who'd like to hang with me in this lovely alpine lodge.

* * *

this doesn't mean i'm not going to have opinions -- that's another thing i've been notblogging about. the fact i am hesitant to say things about things (as in, outside the blogosphere things) for fear of pissing someone off. that, i'm going to do less of (hesitating that is). but i'm considering using Jason as my role model and asking questions, rather than answering unasked ones. however i'm not delusional enough to expect myself to stick with the question format. sometimes, i'm just adamant, and that's that. well, for awhile.

rest is good. good news from parents is wonderful.

in march of last year, i was up in oregon for three weeks, helping out while my dad had cancer surgery. large mass in the chest area, not lung cancer (one of those 'we've never seen this before' types of things). was too wrapped up in things to remove with open-chest surgery, didn't respond to chemo. radiation shrunk the thing finally, we had the good news about this back before they headed out on their big road trip.

talked to dad tonight, he had a cat scan when he got home, and the mass (probably scar tissue at this point) is even smaller. 'twas scary there for awhile, but he's going to be ok. he's a young man, 63 (as compared to my mom, who's 77), and though they both have serious health issues, they're getting out and about in their trailer, enjoying the whole retirement thing (they're off visiting one of my mom's older sisters right now). sometimes i wish i was genetically related to my mom, she's the youngest of seven and i think 5 are still kicking. anyway, i'm babbling, but happy.

it's tough when parents are very ill. i'm thinking of Lee and her mom tonight, i know these are tough times.

unless it is. pain wrecks your brain. teeth are back at it. had to bitch up a storm to get more better antibiotics, i've taken too many anti-inflammatory fever-reducing things to show symptoms i guess, and the only reason i know it's still an infection is the searing pain is the same i had before and i was going to stop bitching about this, yes?

considering ... options. swear to Zarquon teeth will drive you to a life of thinking about crime. i mean, the worst thing that could happen is i get shot (no more pain) or go to jail (they have to fix my teeth there don't they?). only problem is i'm incapable of doing anything except having these crazy thoughts and recognizing them as insane. not me insane. just my thoughts. that's ok.

somehow i have to figure out a way to install what amounts to a small car (runs, needs work) in the lower left quadrant of my mouth.

in the meantime i would like to note that at the point you have been on the phone for over an hour and it peeps like 'you haven't charged me this week, i'm going to die' and you fuss around finding the plug and plugging it and also at the time you are medicated, and already in a bit of a sweat, the phone will become pistol-hot in no time at all and you will end up with one funky, sweaty, wet phone.

and as the guide says, don't panic.

in respectful response to Dru:

though i do not disagree with the statements "all white people are racist", "...the same belief about men and sexism, heterosexual people and heterosexism, etc", i must express some objections.

i believe there is hope. i believe there has been progress. and i understand that Dru's statements reflect an absolute, a feeling that if we are not something, we cannot understand what it is like, and are therefore among the opressor's numbers.

i think this line of thinking is overwhelmingly negative, and therefore not conducive to healing and growth. i think if we are trying, and always willing to admit our mistakes along that path, we can be exempt from the namecalling: racist. sexist. etc. i think calling ourselves names in the name of progress is more hurtful than it needs to be.

i think if we are trying, and willing to admit wrongs, we can be exempted from the labels and free ourselves to move on to the ideal, in which no one is marginalized. admittedly, this is an ideal that is too extreme to ever be pure and true. however. i'm willing to say, intentions and actions toward change, are good things, and should be celebrated. without the negativism of accusations of -isms.

but then again i'm in quite the fuzzy warm mood this evening.

i say we give ourselves credit for the effort, continue on the path, and refrain from calling ourselves -ist, unless we've committed some egregious violation of our ideals. it doesn't mean we become complacent and think the struggle's over, oh no. but it might help make the journey more joyful.

just a thought.

Why I'm Going to Hell: Exhibit B
Sex with Dr. Phil Mcgraw

i love her very, very much.

now go read that. got nothin' here.

so i hate ASP. and i might not hate it, if i could use the tools that it's meant to be edited with. but no. and for once, this is not a fault of management, i do have visual interdev. however the bozo who made the site, coded himself into a corner before he got fired for being a total moron, leaving me with no way of entering design view. this is no better than working on Cold Fusion with edit plus. which i also do.

you know, i might be a lot better at what i do, if i had access to these wonderful tools that all the cool kids get.

and i suppose it doesn't help that both CF and ASP are things i learned by inheriting abandoned, broken websites written in them (i have this motto: oh, i've heard of that. sure i can do it!). i am philosophically opposed to integrated design environments that cost thousands of dollars (probably because i can't have them). maybe i resent the idiots that abandoned these broken sites, for having better toys than me and *still* hosing the code. bastards.

and then i have to clean up after then, and i've been faking it since ... well ... forever. absolutely not a clue what i'm doing. my clients don't know this, and so they are perfectly content with having sites that work, even if the person working on them doesn't really know why.

um. are you bored all the way to tears yet? 'cause i could whine more. aw, no, i won't. i have to get back to work. dammit.

FOX
Sink Saddam: the game show

i would say rotflmao but this is such a serious subject *snorfle* and if we can't laugh at ourselves the terrorists have won.

ok. you can spank me for that cliche. please.

it's iffy (i.e., some of the events may or may not be exactly, exact) without a brain in my silly whole head. well no actually it's faded a bit, but when i arrived home from daughter errands, i had apparently driven through an airborne mass of histamine triggers, and i was in the grip of a violent allergic reaction. my eyes burned, i was scream-sneezing (actual conversation: him - do you have to be so loud? me - *mumble* AHHHHCHOOO. him - nobody sneezes that loud. me - *snoooooort* i'm not going to dignify that with what i happen to know about *mumble*. *manly burp*. him - nice.). anyway. i was thinking at the time of an ann landers or dear abby column about loud sneezers and it's like, a condition or something. ok? so we have that straight. it helps.

anyway. so i sit down at the computer and discover a solitaire game and remember oh yeah, lycoris linux has a way cool solitaire but he's got these cards that you have to recognise the characters on the face cards, and i'm all what? so i pick some cutie ootie widdle penguin cards, and proceed to play, sneezing madly and snortling and feeling for all the world like a mindless mass of snot. itchy snot. so i'm playing the solitaire and it's this mental feat akin to championship jeapordy. suddenly i'm all about the strategy but i couldn't strategize myself out of a wet paper sack with a sharp spoon, if i tried. and i did try.

and all i have to do is stay awake till 10 when i can call bobthecorgi who's in torrance. i ask him where's torrance? he says, past LAX. i say how far? he says hawthorne. i say, miles? he says, 120. i say LAX is only 50. he says it's further than that. or is it farther. anyway, less near. so i'm all, well, it's 50 minutes.

anyway. for a good hour i was verifiably braindead, but being home and having a beer and some breaths of fresh air, i'm nearly all nice and brained again.

how do people with constant allergies manage?

over at JeanNINE's, i found this great virtual model thing (permalinks not working for me, but scroll down, to the entry with the virtual model). this is something you can do at lanebryant.com. i'll quote JeanNINE, since the words fit me perfectly "But this leads me to a pretty cool thought. I think that "she" is really pretty and not at all fat. - So...what's my constant hangup about the "real" me, then?"

and i'm looking at 'me' (click more to see), and thinking, hmm, not bad. which is the exact opposite of what i felt looking at all those pictures of me from the santa monica blogmeet. being this big is a recent thing for me, happened in the last year, to the tune of an amazing weight gain. it's the sitting on the ass and the beer and the overeating. i know this. and i know that my continuing failure to do anything about this, well, anything except feel incredibly ugly and sorry for myself, means i should probably work on getting myself out of this self-pity trip. and i found, by playing dress-up with my virtual model, that some shopping is in order, and i need to get over the 'big baggy bulky disguise' thing.

maybe if i can get to where i'm living with how i look now, i can work on changing things. if i could go from fat, depressed, and badly dressed to just ... fat, well, that would be a good start.

men are from MT. women are from blogger. miguel is such a wise man.

also, i was up till, i think, four-ish (i try not to pay too much attention to the time when it gets that late, it only stresses me more). i feel surprisingly unshitty. that could change.

um. i forgot what else i was gonna say. maybe it was something about this exciting feeling i have about avocadogirl.com. if nothing else, it's gonna be utterly gorgeous (more about that later). (hint: i have one of the most talented designers in blogland doing the layout).

anybody know when MT 2.5 is coming out?

i'm not sure what the question is, but blogging is the answer.

the good: the bazima chronicles picked best blog by the new york press. way to go miss b!

(completely unrelated, something else from my inbox) (boy, i'm on some subversive mailing lists)

the bad: the hospice raid and the war on drugs -- "Last week, DEA agents armed with automatic weapons raided a hospice on the outskirts of Santa Cruz because it grew and used marijuana for its patients, most of them terminally ill. The founder and director, Valerie Corral, who uses marijuana herself to control debilitating seizures as a result of head trauma following a 1973 car accident, was taken away in her pajamas. Suzanne Pfeil, a paraplegic patient suffering from postpolio syndrome, was told to stand up and then was handcuffed in bed when she could not. All the plants were destroyed."

uh. way to go? woo, war on drugs? get those potsmoking paraplegics off the, er, well not the streets, but you know ...

* * *

updated: in response to the raid, which destroyed the crop for many ill people, city officials handed out pot right in public, as the DEA looked on. rock! (thanks to Jilly for the tip)

sexism. oppression. inequality. general assumptions made on the basis of gender -- these are bad things, yes? of course.

can we, should we, take gender out of every equation and interact with each other in an androgynous void, one where we cannot acknowledge the obvious, physiological, hormonal, neurological differences between us? in a word, no. because men and women are different. and with the wide variety of sexual orientations, there are any number of ways the hormones might fly. and fly they will. try and stop them. go ahead. i'll wait.

see? unstoppable force of nature. sex. sexuality. sexual identity. sexism. where do we draw the line? the problem i have with hard line feminism is that it wants more than just equal pay and equal opportunity, it also quite frequently involves reacting to any sexual overture, overt or otherwise, with outrage. how dare you? pig! if we remove all sex-based interaction from inter-gender** communication, how the hell are we going to partner, or reproduce? at which point does it become ok to have a sexual thoughts about another person?

of course i don't mean outright sexual harassment or assaultive behavior like public asspatting or boobgrabbing. i'm talking about the the hormonal subtext of every interaction between sexual beings. it's there because we're different. and you can try and erase this, try and try and try again, and you're not going to succeed. you can search out and anazlyze and look for instances of inequity in everything, and there will always be something, because you just can't sterilize the difference out of existence.

you can fight clear instances of prejucide and discrimination, but why fight the id?

** taking into consideration gender is not a binary thing, this covers just about everybody.

so Marcy posted about how she thinks of my daughter as 'the Avocado Girl' because, at the restaurant in santa monica, Amanda whipped out an avocado and proceeded to share it, along with her philosophy on the raw food diet.

so this gets me to thinking. so i call her up and i fudge a little and instead of 'Marcy asked if you have a blog' i may have said something more like 'Marcy wishes you had a blog' (sorry Marcy, it's in everyone's best interest that this comes from someone other than just the pushy mom). and i'm on the phone and i'm on godaddy.com and what do you know? avocadogirl.com is available.

my daughter doesn't do computers much, doesn't even have one where she lives (but, there's always mom's house and computers, till Francois moves here and she'll have internet at home). it's totally impractical and she's not even sure she'd blog, but i have the feeling my kid would make a great blogger. just got to drag her kicking and screaming into it. or do i?

i don't know. i haven't registered the domain yet, i have ... enough domains. and haven't even setup kurtwood's photolog yet, though the domain's registered and pointing here at my webspace.

i could easily fit another kidblog at kdblog, but it's one that may never be used.

so do i register the domain?

Yahoo! News - Shoes Spare Gays from Nudity Charges

"The law is very straightforward if someone is absolutely and completely bereft of clothing...however things become a little more complicated if there is a scrap of apparel anywhere on the body and the Crown has to show that the person is indecently clad which gets into what the current Canadian legal test is for indecency," he said.

"Because everyone wore at least footwear the Crown had to prove indecency and it couldn't."

...

"Besides the fun of marching in the parade, the marchers did have some serious intent as well, addressing issues of body shame and also what is regarded in the gay community as 'body fascism'," Simm said, adding that the men arrested ranged in age and size -- the youngest was 25 and the oldest was 61.

via jill matrix

as i type this, i get the feeling that it's old and trite to bitch and whine about spam, that it's been done to death, so, i'm sorry for this. but.

i have an email addy i have never ever put in a non-protected form in public. it's less than a month old. it's been used as a comment addy, but only in MT with spam-protect, and displayed in a page with a javascript that writes the link client-side, so unless the spambots are set to parse javascript commands as they crawl a page, that's not it. can the bots do that? don't know. this addy has been used to sign up for exactly one thing (a tracker) and that site has a privacy policy that seems clear enough, they claim they do not share email data.

so we have a virgin email address that has only been used in ways that are supposed to be safe.

and it's getting spammed.

oh yeah. and another thing. my cell phone email address, which was used (other than just to send email) once, long ago, in a little form that would send me a text message and is no longer in use, is getting spammed. started very recently. my cell phone. spam. i've had to set it not to alert me when i get wireless emails.

i think i must be in a post-fun funk, because this is getting to me a little more than it really should. i mean, i'm pissed.

wasn't it shakespeare who said, first, we kill all the spammers? wise man, that will.

ok. first we have mikey at the mall, with skits and Lynn in the background. this guy knows how to have the fun. except, well, both he and Jason were ignoring me at the restaurant. how much fun is that? heh. and here's Keith, Amanda, Kurt, Emperor Norton, and Francisco at the restaurant. at least my own kids don't ignore me in restaurants. and my daughter is epic. and not afraid of bugs. well, caterpillars. we found bunches them on an anise plant overlooking the beach. if you pet them, they had little orange horns that came out of their little heads, but i didn't get a pic of that (sorry). the sun was setting as Amanda, Kurt, Ratty and i walked to our cars. oh and of course, Kurt played in the sand, so we brought plenty home.

great day.

ahhh. santa monica. lovely place. note to self: get babysitter next time. oh, he's a good kid, but it's not fair to him to give him a glimpse of the rides and the whole pier/carnival atmosphere, then whisk him off to go find grownup food and sit still.

what a great day, though. people i saw again: Skits, Francisco, Mikey, Marcy, (companion of Marcy whose name escapes me), Keith. people i met for the first time: Ratty, Jason, Emperor Norton (Joel) and his wife Lynn, (lovely girl with cute glasses who sat next to me at lunch, whose name and URL escape me entirely at this point). did i miss anyone? oh yes, Yvonne (sp?) who showed up just as i was making my exit, hyper kid in tow (bounce bounce bounce). did i miss anyone else? possibly? knowing me, probably. like i said, next time ... well, next time will no doubt be the queen mary shipwreck, circa halloween, which may or may not be more satisfying from a kid perspective, but i fear it will be too scary for him, so we'll see. and batty comes in november, must get to that one.

because these so-cal blogger gatherings are happening. and they're going to be regular things that get my butt out of the house, which is good. and i'll tell you what, that buick may not be running the greatest, but it's a blissfully comfortable highway car, for the short road trips like this. and i do love to drive, and i don't get to do this often enough.

i have a few pictures, not many, and not sure i'll have the energy this evening. i would recommend skits and fransicso, for all your pictur-y needs, though i 'm way lazy to type URLs at this juncture.

great day.

list, courtesy of Joel

• Alan
  
• Francisco
  
• Jason
  
• KD
  
• Keith
  
• Lynn
  
• Marcie
  
• Mikey
  
• Rannva
  
• ratty
  
• Wendy
  
• Yvonne
  

it's really today. it is! skits's site is back up and she has an animated pier and i found a link to the pier cam. looks foggy. fog's cool. it's today!

you know, i was ok with the good review with the 'we can't afford to give you a raise' at the end. sort of. i dealt with the no you can't have the $29.99 to upgrade your FTP client. i have always been ok with working on cold fusion sites using a (shareware) text editor. i'm dealing with all that. but you know? when a 2 gig P4 comes into the office, and gets appropriated by the retired boss so he can sit back there and play Real War, when goodies come through here and nobody thinks, hey, we're not paying this girl, we can at least throw her a bone here and there, well, ... i'm about done with this shit. they just don't fucking care.

and does he have to sit back there and gloat and chortle over it? i'm really glad your video game is all 3D looking with your fancy ass humongo video card. now shut the fuck up.

no wait -- hops? grains? it's already cereal, in the bottle! and beyond that, PETA says that beer is better than milk. i'm not all that fond of their methods, but this is a campaign i can really get behind. beer! beer! it's not just for breakfast anymore. or it is just for breakfast or ... well you know, beer! yay!

My domain is not there at the moment. You may have noticed if you were dropping by to say hi or to see how your Sim is doing or to find about the Santa Monica meet tomorrow (it's still on, btw!).

kd, the goddess of all blogs and bloggers, has kindly offered to let me hijack her blog so I can vent/whine/update. She rocks beyond anyone's wildest imagination, but I think most of you know that already, don't you?

So...the venting and whing comes later, but for now, here's the Santa Monica Meet info:

We're meeting in Santa Monica at 2:00 PM, directly in front of the carousel. Directions are below:

Take the 405 to the 10West. Take the 4th street exit. Go right (north) on 4th Street. Go straight until you reach Colorado. Make a left on Colorado. There's a big parking structure on the right side. When you reach 2nd Street, make a right turn. There's a parking entrance right after you make the turn. Enter it and park your car. Exit the parking structure onto Colorado Street. Walk West past 2nd Street. The next street will be Ocean, and you'll see the big Santa Monica Pier Sign (at the corner of Colorado and Ocean). Walk to it and over the bridge. We'll be at the foot of the bridge. The carousel is on the left hand side.

My skittish.org emails are all down at the moment, but you can reach me here if you need my cell phone number. I can't wait to meet everyone--it's going to be a bright spot in an otherwise shitty week. And I could really use a bright spot right now.

ooo! Now for the venting....Why is my site gone?? Well...it's a long story...wanna hear me whine?

everywhere you go in blogland these days, you see bloggers talking about gathering. and there are some very established groups, the DFW bloggers, the DC bloggers, there's several groups of NYC bloggers who regularly meet -- these are just the examples off the top of my head. and it's a natural outgrowth of the sense of community we've established here, and goes along with one of my many theories -- this one says, if you want to find really interesting people to hang out with in this world, the internet is the place to find them. expand your boundaries, geographically and otherwise. i'm not a particularly social person in r/l, but that doesn't mean i don't want to have friends. i've just had to look beyond ventura to find them.

and so i am absolutely giddy about saturday. skits is the master planner, she of the wonderful work on the blogcon plans. go to that link, for directions and such. me, i just head down through oxnard and take the blissful coast highway all the way down. going to be an incredible day. bringing my 5 year old and my 19 year old, going to see some cool people again, and hopefully meet some new folks too. i would love to list the list here, but i'm a bit tired and yes lazy, and ... ok, how 'bout i do it without looking up all the links? Skits, Francisco, Mikey, (friend of mikey), Marcy and hubby (bad with names, sorry), hopefully Jason and Emperor Norton, Ratty, Eve, possibly Jon, Keith for sure, ... ok, so i'm tired and forgetful. bunch of other really cool people.

and we will fear no roofrats.

hey, if you're coming, and are listed or not listed here, drop a comment. for one thing, it would be good to have an idea of our numbers, because we might just want to bring beach-picnic type stuff instead of descending en masse on an unsuspecting restaurant (or we might want to think about reservations). and rides? you guys wanna ride the rides on the pier? that would be fun too.

ahh, i'm just blissfully happy thinking about this.

oh! cell phone numbers! email me and we can exchange them, kd at kdblog dot com.

so. i can't say i never win anything now -- last sunday, at blockbuster, they had this special deal where you buy a 10 rental card for $25, already a deal, and you get the monsters inc. video for free. well i said what the hell? chris rents the hell out of movies, and it's my philosophy if you're going to spend, spend wisely. so i got the card.

picked up the movie tuesday, free.

yesterday, got a call from blockbuster (message on voicemail) with news! i called and found out that by buying the card, we were entered in a drawing for a monsters inc. giftbasket. and ... yes, we won! i'm such a girl, i burst into tears right at my desk, i did. just thinking about the awesome surprise in store for the kid when he got home. actually, we saved it for when i got home, with the camera. you know i had to record this on digital media.

the kid was soooo happy. and grateful. i think he said thank you about forty, maybe sixty, seventy times, this evening. he was happy, happy, happy.

and in other picture/stories, we have this skateboard-hosted rock collection i found in my living room: skaterocks. and you can never have too many cat pictures.

so i lay down on the couch, turned to the wall. the light from the screen went from the bright blue jon sullivan daytime moonpic to the dark screen with odd bright green charachters falling like rain, the lycoris/redmond linux screensaver. the shadows darkened but did not disappear.

and i could see my shoulder shadowed against the wall, the shoulderbone a bit higher than the arm. i breathed deep and saw the bones move and suddenly there was the image of bones. i felt the bones inside my skin and imagined them encased in dirt and ten thousand years old, unearthed by some future archaeologist, wondering about couchsleepers.

and then i got up and flicked the mouse and got the screen back, answered shelagh's email, went potty, and got one more beer and lit a smoke, 'cause sometimes its best not to fight unsleep. best to just go ahead and be awake, if it comes down to bones.

a couple months back, one of my favorite clients had a kind of disaster/miracle -- you know the type, where something awful happens under damn near miraculous circumstances, and everyone lives through it. in this case it was a serendipitous decision to not work late as usual, that meant no one was in the office when the following pictures happened. (however, we are talking a margin of five whole mintues, between the leaving, and the crashing). in picture number five, you'll see where the owner's wife's 19" monitor was flung from her desk, against the wall (some 7' up the wall and 10-15 feet away) from the violence of thie impact, which consisted of a guy at the other end of the parking lot, crazy guy, driving someone else's car, who had a fight with his girlfriend. 'i'll show her' said crazy guy to himself, floored it, and drove into a building. no skid marks. probably hit doing 60.

crash1
crash2
crash3
crash4
crash5

five minutes, man. five minutes.

poor skits is having horrible issues with her hosts, who installed suexec and suddenly nothing works. oy. so she asked me to post the meet info, so here it is:

2:00 PM, Santa Monica Pier, in front of the carousel, on this Saturday the 21st of September. a whole buncha people are going, i am bringing Kurtwood and Amanda both, i'm very much looking forward to a great time.

melly finds this great place where you can make movies. so i made one, last night it was. then i made another one, and i may make more.

best. flash. app. ever.

especially when Toxiclabrat asks for pictures.

here is amanda and francois on the night i first met them, i was driving them to the airport for a romantic jaunt to new orleans.

and here they are this july, when my parents were in town.

it's not going to be anything fancy, you know. just something simple and small, i'm still pretty darn happy about it. it's going to be a lot bigger than i thought, sometime between the rather nervous announcement she made last night and today, she turned into a happy girl bopping around town looking for rings, which she was doing when i called to tell her i had a lady at work who's mom does beautiful cakes, and i'd spring for it, and she's talking about 80 people? that's not that small. oh, this is getting exciting!

so i get to the dentist and find out they don't do gas. 'because it's like marijuana, you just want more'. look, lady, if i wanted some damn nitrous for fun i'd be over there in von's huffing the whipped cream, i'm not in this for the fun. so, i have determined that i will not be able to work with this dentist. should have done this shopping around before i settled on one, but live and learn, eh?

so i'm going to pick up my records and see another dentist that gives you good pills beforehand. the nitrous would be nice, but as long as i'm on drugs when the tooth gets pulled, i won't be picky about the particular kind of drugs.

as a person that has an infinitesimal pain threshhold, i've developed a pain philosophy -- if pain can be relieved, it should be. period. i'm not one for toughing it out, and as such i've learned that i need to seek out doctors and dentists that understand this.

i'm sorry if this is getting boring, these toothy troubles of mine, i just gotta vent.

tonight my beautiful daughter informed me she is getting married. and you know? i told her so. i did.

you see, she and Francois were very happy together, though she would claim they were just friends (that lived in the same one bedroom apartment). they broke up, but still lived together (i don't consider this weird, done it any number of times myself). anyway, Francois' internship was up and he had to go back to france. and i told her, 'beat the system! get married! then he can stay!'. but no. she said marriage should be when you know it's the one.

well guess what? in the month or so he's been gone, i noticed her cell phone mintues were through the roof. hmm. turns out he calls, they talk for hours. *sigh*

well, they're done pining and are now making plans. it'll be late november, early december. either here or vegas (ooh! another excuse for a road trip!). probably here though. and as much joy as i have at this moment, how much of it is because i was right? well, some. i'm also extremely happy that my little girl found a great guy. he's a geek too! opposites do attract, it seems.

she says no grandbabies for a long time. 5, 10 years (which is fine, she is young). however, she is extremely mature for her age, she's more of a grown-up than i am, she could be a good mommy.

my baby's getting married. oh my.

sometimes, one comes out just perfect, no fine tuning necessary:

kd at hand, i face
that these are alright. This medication
in touch
releasing animosity and
there was my blogging metafilter,
snarky
elitist bastards or anything,
i find
the stalls. open. i find
the second or the
bottom
and stuff, mortgages,
penis/breast enlargement, toner supplies,
viagra ... annoying, but
bloggers kept
crashing, but anyway.

* * *

Monkey and i have been the only ones contributing to poemgen recently, but we're certainly keeping the place busy.

so i decided enough's enough, it's time i finally installed the release version of NS7. you know, if you're not using NS7 or Mozilla, you're not seeing all the cool things that i do just for NS/Moz. the rounded corners. the favicons that match every skin. certain transparency effects. really, you're missing out. anyway, i try once and, having forgotten whatever it is you're supposed to do at the command line to launch the installer, that plan gets shelved a few days. finally, i look up the instructions, and oh, easy! i get it installed (after poking around endlessly trying to figure out where in the hell to put the thing) and launch the new email client and ... it's empty.

it's empty. oh joy. (it's where i keep emails with login info and passwords. i just now got all that back together after the last big computer switch. just now). (and take a minute to imagine just how many domains i deal with, and how annoying i would be telling my hosting company i mislaid all their emails ... again and have to get this and that reset and ...). suffice to say, i had that sinking feeling. in a big way.

fortunately, i still have the old mozilla beta, and it for some freakish reason points at the same place as the old NS beta. go figure.

and there are ways i could tell this email client to look there for email, but i've decided to leave it the way it is, mostly because there were probably 5000 emails in the various accounts (not an exaggeration) that needed to be gone through and figured out what to keep and what not to. so i'll have those around just in case, but for now i have that fresh, new email smell. sometimes it takes an accident.

i'm going to keep it clean this time. really. i am.

please. vote here for Christine to win the big blogger all-star, (you need a yahoo ID, but that's easy enough). the competition is fierce, but i think our Christine can do it.

how often do you get to see an official pace car from the '72 indy 500 in the supermarket parking lot? i remember seeing it once before, but didn't have my camera, so i made up for it this time. plus, the owners had just gotten out, so i didn't face that awkward possibility that they would discover me avidly taking pictures of their car. which if you think about it, would seem kinda weird. but anyway. here's kurt with the car, the back of the car, and, it still has the original (laminated) window stickers. gotta love a piece of history being driven to the market.

and i've seen these around town, here and there - one of those 50 cent goody machines outside the grocery store -- except this one was selling homies. iiiiinteresting.

Lee posted about conflicts, and about forgiveness. this is a subject that i've been doing a lot of thinking about. and i think about not only the combatants, but the warring factions who have aligned themselves with one side or the other. i sense the uneasiness as these folks make their rounds in blogland, leaving comments here and there, including pointed yet vague references to the conflict, in case they need to deny meaning what they meant at a later date.

but it's there. the unease in the oblique comments, the angry resentment in the words.

and this adds to the sadness of the original conflict, magnifies it; it increases exponentially every time people take sides with the warring factions. it's not just the aggrivated parties that lose friends and associations, it's everyone that sides with them, and they tell two friends, and so on, and so on.

i suppose it can't be helped. i don't know that we, as adults, can approach these blogwars with the innocence that Lee's daughter and her friends approached their own childhood conflicts, say 'that was yesterday', and move on.

life's short, folks. stubborn grudges hurt everyone they touch. releasing animosity and moving along in our lives is a good thing, and i'm not just a spokesperson for this beer here. let's all have a big group hug, and forget the ugliness of the past. ok maybe the hug thing was the beer. but still.

by now we've all heard about the three arab-american men who were detained in south florida as terror suspects on the word of a vigilant eavesdropper. i remember hearing some of the early coverage, in which it was reported that explosives and trigger devices had been found, and phrases like Attack on Miami were bandied about. and by now we know that none of that was true. there have been allegations that the students deliberately made suspicious-sounding comments, but i find it highly unlikely that an arab-american would be foolish enough to make a joke about terrorism, in a public place. they claim that they were talking about having enough money to bring one of their cars down, which is plausible, and fairly easy to substantiate.

so we have a witness who heard them talking about 'enough to bring it down'. we're on high alert, so these things she heard out of context sounded menacing. she reported this, and law enforcement acted accordingly. and appropriately. no problem there, we do have to be vigilant, right? and there was an extremely thorough investigation, which turned up nothing. the men were released.

and now they are losing their internship opportunity because of this incident. " Since Friday, the hospital has asked the students to transfer somewhere else after receiving numerous threats. Hospital president Dr. Jack Michel said Saturday his hospital has received an overwhelming number of e-mails and phone calls that he described as 'threatening, ethnic, racial e-mails directed at Muslim-Americans.' "

the students don't have a problem with the woman who reported what she heard, or the actions of law enforcement following that. they understand. that all went well, aside from the tremendously sensationalized news coverage. and i'm sure that it's best that these students do their internship somewhere else, for their own safety.

however i find the thought of an overwhelming number of racist threats directed at these students, who did nothing wrong, incredibly disturbing.

...llamas go bad.

i don't know, this is something my son just said as he was playing with his two matching spyro happy meal toys. kid has an imagination.

i have been awake since 5:30am. not on purpose or anything, i guess i'm just caught up on sleep.

i have a total of four mix cds that i've been meaning to get to, and i've just now fired up the stereo. 'bout time. musical horizons being broadened broadened even as we speak, or i type, i suppose. the blue intel guy is dancing with the green intel guy (my son is helping) (i'm really glad because if he wasn't, i'd seriously have to rethink this medication) (in any case, i'm pain-free at the moment) (it's wonderful).

many thanks to Aaron and Jhames for the music. 'smarvelous.

warren zevon is dying of cancer.

The dying cancer patient with a dark, dry wit met one of his doctors for breakfast last week and handed over his two most recent CDs, one titled "Life'll Kill Ya" and the other "My Ride's Here." In his familiar baritone, Warren Zevon explained the gifts to the physician: "These are my last two albums. Maybe now you'll understand that eerie acceptance of death you keep asking me about."

he's 55.

i'm in the number 1 blogging sims house. i'm having way to much fun with melly, mikey, hoopty, and waistdog.

thanks to skits for the cool roommates!

oh, he's a nice little guy, and i do mean little. i tower over him and his little wife/office manager. they're cute though. lovely russian accents and all. and they've worked on chris before, we trust them.

however no actual dentistry will be done till monday. and i'm shook enough from today to be working from home, since i can. besides i've discovered if i don't eat at all, it doesn't get excruciatingly painful. i figure i can live on lukewarm liquids tilll monday, it's not like i'm going to waste away to nothing.

i'm going to have them pull it. i can't justify paying more than twice as much to save a tooth that is in the back and on the bottom and nobody can see it anyway unless they're peering into my mouth, and that's their problem not mine. someday i'll be less poor and i'll have fancy bridges built and all the work that i need done, but for now, i'm going to stop this whining and get on with 'it' whatever that is.

sorry 'bout the whine.

it just gets worse and worse. my personal email accounts aren't that bad, the standard stuff, mortgages, penis/breast enlargement, toner supplies, viagra ... annoying, but easily shrugged off, deleted, and dismissed.

not so my work address. for some reason it's been largely overlooked by the 'normal' spammers, and instead, targeted by the most disgusting spammers on earth. look, i'm an open-minded person. but this stuff is beyond beyond. it involves ... violence. and. and. animals. for awhile it was just a few lines of text on a bright background, and a link, but the last few days, they've started to include pictures. i know, i know, just don't look, right? but it's the sort of thing that catches your eye in a way that stuns you and you can't help but see. in the split second or so before you manage to avert your eyes, things are burned into your brain, incomprehensible things.

i just don't understand. does sending this stuff out get responses? do people go, oh, look, isn't that hot, a dog and a girl? who the hell would find that sort of thing anything but repulsive? am i just a horrible prude, thinking this is beyond sick? what the hell is wrong with this world today?

go here and look down at the evening pick three numbers for the new york lotto yesterday.

whoa.

dentist. tomorrow. 11:30. (yes, finally) it finally got so bad i have no choice but to go.

i know i'm lame for waiting so long.

i'm going to go curl up in a little ball and whine now.

there is a list.

and here it is. if you are in need of a good, cathartic cry, this is the place to go. it is a carefully tended memorial, honoring all who were lost on this day one year ago.

the size of the list speaks for itself, and for those who endeavor to maintain it.

much like the vietnam memorial, something about the listing of names, somehow manages to convey the overwhelming loss, while keeping it a very personal expression of that loss.

well, i've found out how to get a five year old to suddenly lose all his energy and need to go to bed early -- homework. yes, they do give homework to kindergarteners. mostly it consists of the things parents should be doing with their kids anyway, but maybe it's come to this, that the school needs to send out instructions, just in case we 'don't get it'. lather, rinse, repeat, you know?

didn't watch a mintue of tv today. not one. kinda wanted to, but, no time. maybe best that way?

it's nice having work and clients and stuff, but having to actually work all day at work sure cuts in on my blogging time.

giving my daughter a ride from work to the bank to home this evening, old guy standing on the corner by the mall with a sign, 9-11 never forget, standing there waving a big flag with great energy. would have loved to stop for a picture but ... no time.

sleep is such an inconvenience. if i didn't have to do that, i think i'd have enough time.

i'm very tired.

much as i try to focus on the work at hand, i am drawn back again and again to read the ever-growing collection of personal stories over at michele's. picked up a recommendation there too, to read dichotomy. it's the personal stories that get me. as i read them i sense just how urgently these stories needed to be told.

i'm very glad michele's providing a forum for the telling.

so i came home from work and took a quick nap. woke up, went out for dinner and smokes and stuff, came home, ate my potato, and passed out.

dreamt about bathrooms. the girls' bathroom had a long line for one stall but other stalls open. i wondered what was wrong with them, but hey, when ya gotta go, so, went in another one, toilet was really low to the ground, i sat on it then realized i didn't know if there was something else wrong with it. turns out it was full of those seat protector papers, still, creepy enough. i wandered into another bathroom, it was all steamy because there were showers going too. i went into a roomy stall and was ready to sit down when a chubby, dripping wet asian man walked by, naked except for a towel that he was just holding around himself, it didn't go all the way around. i apologized profusely for being in the wrong room and he just shrugged. back to the girls' bathroom, where there was a bomb in one of the stalls. i quickly ducked into the next one and had this awareness of what it would be like to have the metal walls of my stall explode towards me, and how it would probably kill me. then i woke up. 11PM. went potty, answered some email, now going back to bed, wondering what will happen next.

i know there are some people that will be closing down their blogs as a sort of moment of silence, in honor of the tragedies, and i have great respect for this. i even thought of doing so myself, but then i realized that one of the things i'd like to honor, is blogging.

i woke up early that morning a year ago, out of one of my postapocalyptic dreams, to find chris had come home from work (he was in the taxi, got the news over the radio, and came immediately home). he didn't wake me up (it was six-something, way early) just put on the tv, and that's what woke me up. i remember sitting up in bed and watching the second plane hit in new york, dazed, going from the dream to the apocalyptic reality.

the news coverage at that time was still of the speechless, we-don't-know-what-we're-seeing-here variety, and all of a sudden it occurred to me, blogs! i ran to the kitchen, booted the puter, and headed for bad samaritan. i remember reading this comment from another new yorker, on that entry: "I touched the ashes, those of the fallen, those of the innocent. People were walking in droves, to the north of my position, 29th st and Park Ave. I do not feel well right now. I am glad that I got in touch with everyone I could think of to make sure they are alright. This city will never be the same."

in those first few hours and even days, blogs were, in many cases, better online news sources than CNN.com. the major news outlets kept crashing, but bloggers kept on blogging. metafilter, snarky elitist bastards or no, was my best news source in those days, because a rumor would come up and either be substantiated or refuted by the crack(smoking) investigative bloggers there. oh wait, that was irreverent. anyway.

it was shortly after september 11 last year, that we began to see the mainstream press saying things like 'blogging comes of age'. the way this medium stood up to the tragedy and the information overload, was a major source of connectedness and comfort. i don't want to imagine what it would have been like facing that day without these connections.

* * *

a year ago right now, it was such a different world. today, mg muses about the post he made the 'day before', about his ameriBLOGs webring. i think i might just go join up, it's about time.

oh, and two years ago today, i made my first ever entry on the blog that would become surreally.

well. i'm not even done. have to finish up early tomorrow morning. what a weekend.

i love it. and there are cool otherworkly prospects on the horizon.

so tired probably not gonna sleep.

work is good.

there are any number of newsy-type social issues that i could rant on, and on, but i'm tired. i have more work-stress right now with this weekend-deadline project, and just no room for outrage. instead, here is something entirely fun and happy that's happening:

the epic skits has started (another) new blog, one for her Sims. this started, i believe, when she found a Keanu Sim and thought of Krix, of course, and Krix and Keanu Sim were having the best time (she puts them on full autonomy. the first time i read that i thought it said, 'full anatomy' and i thought, woo!). anyway, this idea has evolved into the Blogger Sims House, and i'm looking forward to following along, becuase this is the sort of cool, thoughtful, simple pleasure type of thing that is a perfect distraction from being too caught up in some of the stresses of the world. and there's something that just tickles me, about the concept of vicariously enjoying the virtual exploits of some imaginary characterizations of real people. just tickles me.

without further ado, i present Skittish Sims. enjoy.

the dawn of civilized man.

woke up this morning early thinking it was sunday. it felt like the last day of a weekend. i searched my brain for memories of a saturday, if any, and determined it probably wasn't sunday. probably.

went back to sleep and dreamt of terrorists. i'm not sure we had him hostage or he had us - we were in a hotel room and he had a missile and we were afraid to call the FBI because they'd think we were harboring him. he looked like an aging rockstar still sporting the 80's big hair, though it was streaked with grey. he was very vain about his hair, kept brushing and teasing it, and kept wanting to sleep, but you could never tell if he was really sleeping, we worried. finally we called the FBI, and they chased us out of the room so we wouldn't see the special instruments they were using on the missile. i think the terror rockstar guy got away, but we had to get to the 24 hour picnic. there was going to be a beer concession selling premium beer in small cups and i had this great idea that we should bring a kegger of cheap beer and sell it in BIG cups for the same price. there was general excitement about big cups of beer. but i forgot the cups. the end.

it is saturday right?

working a little of that at-home overtime, had some pictures, and this feeling i oughta post something. randomly, i like hudson's grill because i think that is an actual front end of an actual car sticking out of that there wall. one time it occurred to me that i should take a picture of the inside of my old glitter candle -- it was lovely while it lasted, clear pear-scented wax with glitter. and not sure i ever got a good picture of my parents' rig, so here one is.

back to work now.

this could take all day, but in an incredibly soothing and theraputic way.

* * *

and those lazy pervs continue to crack me up -- the pool boy, indeed :)

* * *

one more thing: i'm taking the day off from having any opinions (well, that's debatable, and could change any second, but ... anyway) for the time being, i'll refer you to Neal Pollack's if you're looking for opinions.

who needs a pepsi instruction manual? is it that complicated?

so it was parental indoctrination night at school. we sat on tiny chairs with bright tennis balls on the feet, i suppose that keeps them quiet? kindergarten classroms are such great places, so bright and hopeful. i was a bit stressed, having had to park two blocks away, being a bit late, and still needing to get to the dentist (i know, i know, i'm going), and also discovering that i was wearing some neon-bright hot pocket cheese on my shirt so feeling unkempt, i didn't pay close enough attention to anything. it's ok, there were handouts, i can read up on this when i get my mind back from my teeth.

thing that struck me: i understand they need classroom volunteers because teachers aides cost money. this is ok, and a good way to keep the parents involved. i understand there will be fundraisers, it seems the lifeblood of any sort of extracurricular programs, to have to scrape up the money first. i understand that.

but when they mentioned the items they will be needing donated all year long, i felt somewhat distressed. bottled water for the dispenser? little 3oz paper cups for the water? film for the school camera? the teachers have to pay for the developing out of their own pocket? these things are no longer part of a school's budget?

when they instituted the california lotto years and years ago, it was promoted as 'helping our schools'. you'd think that that would be extra money, i'm almost certain it was supposed to be, but just as some pessimists wrote on the 'con' section of the ballot measure (i remember reading this), the money will just end up replacing current funding sources, not augmenting it. and sure enough.

well, it's heartening to see that parents are willingly chipping in to make sure schools have adequate supplies (and water! water!). we'll make do with what we've got. and maybe this is the only way to do it, with strong community support. but this is a fairly affluent area -- what about places where the parents can't help as much as they can around here?

ever look back at something that you posted (say, last night) and read it in the light of day and think, my god that is the biggest hunk of flame bait i've ever seen? me, implying that liberal is openminded and good while rightwingers are arrogant and bad? ever want to say, look, what i really meant was ...

no, i meant what i said. ever since a little while back when my very first comment troll called me a 'liberal' as if that were synonymous with evil, deviant, criminal, ... ok, here's an example: after he lambasted me for my liberalism and was summarily spanked by me with the revelation he was surfing form work, he stated "now. since i'm at work, i need to get back to doing so since break time is over. need to generate some tax revenue so california can get you your child support and dependent family check this month." [link]

and all i could do was be wildly giddy-happy that i wasn't anything like him.

and the fact he called me a liberal, as in, his opposite, is probably what made me embrace that label, even though i'd rather not be labelled.

back in the dawning of the age of aquarius, what i knew of the hippie movement, i identified with strongly even though i was what, like 7 at the time? and now here i am, a latter-day peacenik flower-child lookin' for a love-in kinda gal. i try to be practical about it, peace isn't always the answer, but that doesn't stop me from thinking about it wishfully.

the menagerie atop the monitor continues to grow. yes, at random times during the day, i do take some time out to play with my toys. i adore them all. sometimes the elephant wraps his trunk around the giraffe's neck and does unspeakable things to him, but today was a better day than that.

today, the official company baby did his first major crawling. one two. quite the moment.

a combination of a hurricane off the coast of baja and wildfires in the saugus area, gave us quite a marvelous sky, and a rainbow: one two

Aaron likes to float, kite, and bounce. and i say, what fun! three checking accounts, now that's a man who is serious about his bank float. me? well, i keep it a little more simple, infact i'd have to say i'm into the zen of banking.

one checking account. no check register. no written or electronic balance-keeping at all. a dozen or so automatic debits, an atm card, and checks, both paper and electronic, used at different times to achieve different desired results. i only open my bank statements to see if they've raised my overdraft enablement.

revisiting some of the things i posted in the immediate post-9-11 rage. i was such a different person then, as always malleable, and at the time ranting with the prevailing sentiment to the tune of 'kiss my fat american ass' (surreally dot com::09/12/2001::patriotic pissyness). yeah, there i was waving my little flag frantically. there i was, my country right or wrong.

and miguel was there with his liberal views, and i was at that time and for days and even months after, diametrically opposed to those views in a 'how dare you' sort of way. it was touch and go for awhile. i could have gone over to the warblogger side. there would have been comfort in the arrogant punditry and self-satisfaction that comes from taking the hard line.

but i listened, and continued to listen. blogging for me has been a journey into thinking, rather than reacting. and i've become quite the peacenik liberal, because i've discovered that within my self. something i never knew before, and not something i'm entirely comfortable with.

sometimes i envy (for lack of a better word) those who've taken the hard line, they seem so secure and strong in their views, where my liberalism involves so much questioning and introspection. it evolves constantly, and requires a very deliberate effort to set aside the way i've always thought and take new and different paths. it requires stepping outside of my own experience and admitting how little i know, in order to learn. and i'm not entirely liberal, it would be hard to really label and quantify what i am. indecisive, that's for sure; all else is uncertain.

constant doubt. hey, i could be wrong about everything. but at least i'm listening.

in the days following 9-11, i joined (and became co-moderator of) an e-group called no-hate: " For anyone interested in dealing with, and fighting against, the wave of anti-Arabian discrimination and prejudice in the wake of the NYC/DC tragedy. We're open to anyone who is willing to help, with time, stories, ideas, etc."

the group's gone quiet lately, and i'm about to mail out a message directing them, first, to jogin.com, to read an entry called "Little Green Racists". Tomas has done a great job in gathering material from various blogs, in reference to the way the site littlegreenfootballs has become a platform for hatred and racism. LGF is a very popular site, with some 10 - 15 thousand hits per day. so many people seeing this message. so few protesting.

please, go read Tomas's post. he's done the research.

also, somebodydial911 has a great post on the subject. as does anil dash.

ever find a site that you related to, and then felt vaguely like you oughta be ashamed of yourself? this is just the sort of fun stuff i needed this morning (not particularly work safe) -- lazypervs.com. i'd explain it to you better, but i'm having a delayed monday reaction and must go snicker and titter at the site some more.

found through hoopty, who else?

Neal Pollack:

This, then, is my blog. I welcome you, friends, to nealpollack.com, your one-stop Internet shopping source for news and opinion. My vast experience, both journalistic and sexual, has qualified me well for this task. I will take the news and make it my own. I will take other people’s comments on the news, mock them, deconstruct them, and titty-twist them until they cry uncle. I will do so without political allegiance, because politics, like Play-Doh, is malleable. I remember that there was a time in America when liberalism meant something more than fealty to the outdated notion of progressive taxation, and there was a time when Republicans smoked pot in the House antechamber.

now, go read the rest. go on now.

[found through Oliver Willis]

labor day is a big favorite of mine, because i'm selfish. and lazy. other holidays, you're supposed to be honoring presidents or veterans or historical figures' birthdays, or being thankful, or some sort of religious observance -- all that effort and energy, and none of it about me dammit! but today? labor day? it's all about me. the american worker. i mean, just because i get paid to do something i enjoy, doesn't mean i can't seriously appreciate a day in which i get paid to sit on my ass and play on the internet. oh wait. ok, sit on my ass, play on the internet, and have a foster's for breakfast! there you go. because as much fun as it is to play on the internet for a living, beer drinking is frowned on at my place of employment.

and yeah, it's all about you, the other american workers, too. i'll admit that. i'll even drink to that!

cue classic Steve Martin routine: 'i get paid for doin' this'

in the 'ping' section of my individual entry pages, there is now a link that will go out and list entries that have pinged the post, and entries that have pinged those entries, up to three levels. it doesn't work unless it's a very active discussion, but for those it will be very useful, i think.

installation is easy as can be, go here for information. the standard install gives you a page that you have to input the URL of the post, but if you configure the link like this, it works automatically (like mine)

http://yoururl.com/mt/mt-thread.cgi?url=<$MTEntryLink$>

as an example of a heated discussion that really benefits from this, check this out.

not that i'm wanting to be whining like this, but here it is, so ... huh? anyway, i'm having a hard time finding balance between the pain and the medication. there is one happy medium, it only lasts a little while, and then i'm either on the owie side or the drowsy side. picture a sine wave bisected by a couple lines running across it defining a midpoint in the peaks and valleys, within which is the good zone. if i even expressed that correctly. and this is my big three day weekend to fix up websites and make the windows box dual boot (though last night i almost locked myself out of the thing trying to make it accessible over the network, so maybe i'm less competent than even i think i am) and other geekly tasks. i very much want to go dual boot and i have this cool beta build of Lycoris that we installed at work and it does seem to rock, yet i fear it. oh, but i want it. and the websites! so much could be being done. so little actually is.

why am i posting such boringness? gotta whine somewhere.

first, some comments about the Joe Boxer commercial with the black guy doing a goofy dance in his, what else, boxers:

"On the first viewing, I was just uncomfortable watching it." - Jason

"I am seeing a smiling and dancing black man in his boxers, and I am feeling ... shame." - George

and so i thought i'd share with you a commercial (don't think they are running these anymore, but they were very popular in my adolescence) that used to make me wish i could crawl in a hole and die of embarrassment. i'm talking about the FDS commercials. Feminine Deoderant Spray. the commercial would usually be a mom and daughter, walking on the beach, having 'the talk', and it went a little like this (i've repressed these memories, so the dialogue may be paraphrased):

daughter: mommy? does your coochie ever reek like eau de low tide?
mommy: take a bath, you skank! naah, i'm just kidding, sweetheart. of course it does! all coochies stink. when i find i am odiferous in the crotchal region, i just spray some of this down there (holds up aerosol can with pictures of flowers on it).

if this commercial came on while there were males present, the humiliation i would feel on behalf of myself and my gender was overwhelming. i would tend to do something stupid and foolish and loud in the other direction so that no one would see the commercial and start sniffing around me to see if i, too, had 'intimate odor problems'.

and i always felt ever so bad for the actresses. i mean, who wants to be the poster girl for that? have people recognize you on the street and start snickering as they back away slowly?

this isn't to minimize any of the discomfort and anger that you guys felt watching Vaughn do his dance. i'm not trying to compare my experience with yours, or say mine's anything like it at all except that it's related to watching a commercial, please don't yell at me. is it time for my pills yet?