It's the little things

I got a call a while ago from my boss. I was supposed to meet her and a job candidate for lunch today. She was calling to tell me that got canceled. So I don't have to go in to work early today.

This is a good thing. So, I'll work on a few more chores here before heading to work.

Oh God, how lame am I? I really need a life. Well, at least I'm meeting up with some friends this weekend.

In the meantime, check out some of the links in the BlogRoll. There are some lives well lived, or at least well told, there.

TGIF!

TGIF

Clues to Mystery Person 3000

In case any of you are wondering, I do know who the 3,000th visitor to the site was. Well, I don't "know" as in knowing the name, but I do have some details that could make this person known, at least to himself or herself.

So, in case you are dying to know what I know (and who wouldn't?), here's what I know about the official 3,000th visitor to this site.

• Lucky 3000 stopped by at about 7:07 a.m. PDT on April 28.
• Lucky 3000 came in from the Central Time Zone, were local time in middle America was 9:07 a.m. (already killing time at work, probably).
• Lucky 3000 was referred to the site from another blog, specifically the following page: http://diaryofabrat.blogspot.com/2005/04/how-gay-am-i_26.html
• Lucky 3000 visited 2 pages and stayed for about 3 minutes.
• Lucky 3000 (or his or her employer) is a Verizon.net customer, or accessed the site from that network somehow.
• And Lucky 3000 uses, or used, a Mozilla browser.

So L3K, your prize package, should you every come back to this site and actually claim it includes:

• A permanent listing in the Digital Fishwrap BlogRoll;
• Hyperlinks in this and the previous 3000th visitor post;
• Free access to Digital Fishwrap for as long as this blog shall last;
• And pretty much anything else you can think of as long as it has no intrinsic value; has no cost to me; takes no time, effort or energy on my part; and isn't illegal, immoral or otherwise cause me any more physical pain, discomfort or embarrassment than experienced in the normal spouting of mindless drivel that passes for this blog.
• Just post a comment with your URL (and requests that meet the above conditions) to this entry.

And for the record we cleared the 3,000 mark with room to spare today. To date we have tallied 3,018 visitors and counting. Thanks for indulging my little geeky, meaningless and self-centered blog count posts. And thanks to all of you who left comments today. That was fun.

And feel free to poke fun at Brat for leaving so many comments. I think she's bored, and threatening to show Dick her breasts over on Pheebs' site. But Pheebs sort of beat her to it.

We now return to our previously scheduled blogcast already in progress. And no, I won't be posting pictures of my seminude self here, so relax. I want you all to come back again.

Blogging

A new milestone

Congratulations! You are the 3,000th visitor to Digital Fishwrap. And as a token of management's appreciation you get this post in your honor. Please remember to sign the comment section to record this event for posterity and to get the recognition from all the other visitors, which you so richly deserve.

OK, so management is cheap, and has no budget. What do you people want for free?

And in the interests of full disclosure, not everyone visiting this Web site today will be the 3,000th visitor, but one of you will be, that is unless only 7 people show up to this site today, April 28, 2005.

I admit. I've become sort of a geek about the stats on this site. Not that 3,000 visitors over the life of this blog is anything to boast about. Some big blogs get more visitors than that in a day. But, it's a milestone here, none the less, and I am stunned that one person would come to this site, let alone 3,000 (or 1 person 3,000 times). OK, so I know that more than one person visits here, and I know far less than 3,000 have (or do) because I know some of you people come back more than once. You really should talk to a professional about that by the way.

But mostly, I'm grateful that people bother to take the time to read anything here at all (and some of those visitors don't, but I'm talking to those of you who've bothered to read this far, or read any of the links or any of the posts or comments here). Time is a valuable and precious commodity. So thanks for the gift of some of your time, today, and in days past.

The Fishwrap cranked up on Dec. 17, 2004. And we started counting who was coming here back on Jan. 5, 2005. I often joke that 5 people read this site, and that's probably not too far off. So, thanks, to the five of you who stop here with some regularity. And thanks as well for those of you who wander in of the cyberstreet. It's been nice having each one of you stop by.

A "real" post is below.

Blogging

Hoop diaries

As I was leaving the building after work three coworkers were shooting baskets on this hoop just outside the employee entrance. I wished them all a good night and was preparing to gleefully head for home when one one of them asks:

Want to shoot around with us?

Shoot around? I think to myself that I haven't shot a basketball since, well, my brain isn't quick enough to figure out the math in time to give some sort of appropriate response. And I find myself pulled on to the makeshift basketball court with three guys who shoot hoops on a fairly regular basis, and one of whom is like 6-feet-14 or something.

Needless to say, I was apprehensive and feeling selfconscious. So I'm thinking I'll watch for a while and just chat. Before that thought can even be fully formed in my brain, a leather Wilson Jet basketball comes flying my direction.

Shit.

So I shoot, displaying the form of some dorky, short, non-athletic, um, dork. And I miss.

Do my companions take pity on my pitifulness?

No.

Instead they throw the ball to me again. So I shoot again and prepare for even worse humiliation. But something amazing happens. The ball goes in.

Nothing but net, baby.

And no one on the planet is more stunned than me.

So I spent the next 20 minutes or so shooting hoops with the guys, and I actually end up sinking several more shots. Surprising myself each and every time the ball swished, clanged, rattled or banked through the hoop.

It felt good.

Not so good that I'm going to go sign up for a 3-on-3 league or anything, but good enough that I wasn't completely humiliated, especially even given the fact that I was wearing slacks, dress socks and work shoes at the time, with my car keys jangling in my pocket.

I still don't really recall when the last time I shot a ball at a basket was. Whenever it was, it was probably at one of those machines they have in bars, where you shoot the miniature balls at a miniature hoop. Beyond that, it was years -- maybe even decades -- since I had so much as played h-o-r-s-e on anything approaching a regulation hoop.

Of course I did play basketball in high school. JV and varsity. Even went to basketball camp in the summer. I think I played three of my four years in school, and have the messed-up knees to prove it (I lost the letter with the basketballs on it somewhere in one of my many moves).

But before anyone gets the urge to be at all impressed by that, let me just say I went to a small school. A very small school. If you went out for the team, you made the team. I rarely played in an actual game. I may have scored in one game -- one point, I think, but I'm not really sure. I mostly sat on the bench, and ran lots of wind sprints in practice in some insane test of character that only served to prove I was short, slow and possessed no athletic skills, in spite of shooting a million baskets on the hoop I pestered my dad to hang up in his shop. I had the best indoor court in the area, but I had no game. And that was, as sad as it is to admit, more than 20 years ago.

But tonight, after work. I shot hoops with the guys. And I didn't suck nearly as badly as I should have.

It was a good thing.

Basketball
Memories

Someone left the metro out of my sexual

This whole metrosexual trend may be my undoing. Apparently I'm not even gay enough to be straight.

I found this quiz, via MJ at Friday Fishwrap.

And of course I had to take the quiz. I'm not quite sure I know what to make of the results. But as with all quizzes about live, love, etc., this one seems to indicate I need help.

It says: "G-Man is 33% gay! Loosen up my straight mate! These days women like a man with softer edges to grab onto."

Soft edges I've got. What I don't have is lucky underwear.

How gay are you?

Quiz
Blogging

Quotes heard online

"You're the witty one after all. I'm just the naked one."

-- Brat

"Blogger doesn't like me. I guess it doesn't like naked people."

-- Brat

Apparently some people blog in the nude.

Who knew?

Update:

"Don't write things that I say in our personal conversations on the Internet."

-- Brat

"I like being naked. Is there anything wrong with it?"

-- Brat

Update II:

"What? I make a comment and you update your blog? Shit. Good thing I wasn't saying anything bad like I want you to fuck me or something."

-- Brat

Blogging
Nudity
Online chat
Naked blogging

Under a blood red moon

Here it is, a little after 10 p.m. and I'm home. From work. Already. I don't know what to do with myself. The earth is not spinning on its correct axis apparently. Something is out of kilter. The universe is akimbo.

Cruising south on Gene Autry Trail toward hearth and home I was transfixed by a spectacular orange moon rising to the southeast. The lunar orb was nearly full and ominous, yet inviting, looming large just above the horizon. It was so large it seemed nearly close enough to touch. As I pulled up to the southeast end of Palm Springs International Airport, two jets, landing lights all aglow, were on final approach to the runway, staggered one ahead of the other. The moon hung behind them like a picture postcard backdrop of a perfect desert twilight with the outline of the Santa Rosa Mountains still visible against the deepening royal blue sky.

The warm glow of the moon washed over me. That was until I got home and couldn't turn down my street, because the turn lane was blocked by a police car, wreckers and mangled cars that had collided violently in front of my apartment complex. Maybe a driver had also been transfixed by the rising moon and ran the light. Three smashed cars, two wreckers, two TV trucks and two police cars had turned the intersection into an obstacle course. One car was up on the sidewalk, smashed into a light pole, which was now stood like a lazy drunk on the corner, upright, but not quite vertical.

Someone, or several someone's, were definitely having a bad night. But not me. I'm home early on a warm spring evening. The patio and cooling evening air are calling my name to enjoy them whilst I can.

Moon
Palm Springs
Twilight

I thought I had it beat

I thought I was on a roll. I though I had that whole sleepless issue whipped. But for some reason, last night I couldn't sleep. I tried going to bed early, after dozing off on the couch. But as soon as I was in bed, boom, wide awake.

The mind is a funny thing. It doesn't just turn off like a light switch, as often as I've tried to make it do just that. I finally fell asleep around sunrise. Now it's off to get ready for work and start the work week routine all over again.

Ugh.

That-non-sleep-word-which-can-no-longer-be-typed

Nourished by friends

There is something weird happening right now. My refrigerator is a little freaked out. It doesn't know what to do because there is actual food in it. Normally I just the fridge to store beverages and condiments. That's about it. I don't grocery shop very often.

But today I have food in there. Last night I spent the evening with some friends who invited me over for a cookout, and they sent me home with leftovers.

The food was great, and I'll have leftovers for days, but the best part is of course the time with good people. My friend, M's, husband is a Marine and has been back from Iraq for about a month, after being over there for a year. One of his friends and fellow officers was there along with his their kids and M and B's two kids, all girls. Two of the girls are close to my daughter's age.

One of the younger girls was so cute. She wanted to go out side were all the older girls were and needed to put her shoes. I happened to be walking through the house at the time and was the first adult she came across. So she asked me for help putting on her shoes, which I gladly did. And I learned something from this girl, who is probably about 5 maybe. I learned that being bald has some benefits. Because I won't ever have to worry about lice.

Let the children teach us.

I have to admit, I'm a pushover for little girls. No matter who they are, they remind me of my daughter when she was younger. And I've missed so much of my daughter's childhood. I look at them for signs of what I know of my daughter and signs for what I've missed.

But most of the evening was spent in adult conversation with the rest of the grownups. OK, a lot of it was a lot of military acronyms and I had no clue what B and his buddy were talking about. But B was cool and explained things for the naive civilian.

And I also got to peak into how other people use technology, which was cool. I still haven't joined the iPod generation, but i may be a step closer now. M and B and their kids had these things called iPod shuffles, which are mini versions of the iPod. Plug the little sucker right in to your computer's USB port, and load it up. Very cool. I don't need an iPod with as much memory as my computer hard drive, but a shuffle could have uses in my life.

B and his buddy also used little portable memory devices to share various computer files. They both had little jump drives, which also plug right in to a USB port. I'm not sure if I have a use for one of those at the moment, but it is definitely handier, and holds more memory than a floppy or Zip disk.

So, it just goes to show, that the best things about dinner with friends isn't the food, it's what you take away from the experience.

Friends
Food
iPod
Technology

Ex! Why? And Zzzzzs!

I am pissed at my ex. Why? Well, she's been invading my dreams and I'm not happy about it. I thought, and pardon my language, but I thought I'd put that bitch behind me. And now she keeps showing up in my dreams.

I haven't seen this woman since the end of August. I haven't talked to her in months. Why doesn't she leave my subconscious alone?

Last night, while I was sleeping, minding my own business, she shows up. Unannounced. Uninvited. But there she is. In my dream. And I'm not sure why. She shows up at my place, and basically makes it known she's back. Now, I ask what's up, naturally, and she also makes it known that she's going to be also working at my place of employment.

And she also makes it known that we are once again sleeping in the same bed. This happens because we end up in the same bed. And I get hot, because I'm not used to sleeping with two people in one bed. And we are snuggled up, you might say. In a spoon position. So, I get warm and take off my shirt. Well, the next thing you know, we are both naked and spooning. Well, I didn't bargain for this. And somehow in the conversation she makes it known that she doesn't plan to stay. By this winter, she plans to be gone.

The dream doesn't go any farther really because shortly thereafter I wake up, because my alarm goes off.

But still, I'm a bit put out. How did this happen? Why is she there? I didn't invite her into my subconscious. In fact, I have tried to ban her thoughts and memories from my mind. But there she is. The fucking bitch!

I am not happy, and it wasn't a sex dream, so I am really not happy!

Women!

Dreams

Why do we care about celebrities?

Who do people get so enthralled with what is happening in the lives of celebrities? Yea, so Britney Spears is pregnant? What the hell does that mean to our lives? But just plug her name and the word pregnant into a search engine and, bam, there are sites all over the place offering tidbits on her, her husband (whatever his name is) and their unborn child.

Not today, I was hearing somewhere about the latest hot gossip about the new Bennifer, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner. Supposedly they are getting married. Hopefully, if it's true, the second engagement to a Jennifer will work out better than the first.

Speaking of the first Bennifer, what ever happened to Jennifer Lopez? She marries Marc Anthony and then falls off the gossip radar. Maybe that's what she wanted, and is living quite happily without the white hot glare of the media spotlight.

I don't get it. Maybe I got it better when I was a teenager. I couldn't live without the latest issue of Tigerbeat. Does that magazine even still exist? And how lame am I to admit I used to read Tigerbeat?

Celebrities

An aspiring, but uninspired, loser

Some months back, when newly single and a new resident of a new apartment I felt compelled to buy some new things for the new place.

OK, I had to buy some things for the new place because I didn't have some things I needed, like a shower curtain.

I've never been accused of being a neat freak, but there is just something wrong about lathering up in a shower with nothing to keep the water from spraying all over the bathroom. If nothing else, it would be a safety hazard. With my luck I'd slip and fall on the wet floor, and my nude bloated body would be found weeks later, sprawled out all over the floor, my head split open on the edge of the tub, and maggots doing their damnedest to aid in decomposition.

So, I went to the one store that has seemingly anything a person could need and that I actually don't mind shopping in -- Target. If truth be told, I made several trips to Target because I was also broke and couldn't afford necessary supplies and decorative amenities in one trip. On one of those trips, I picked up a bathroom scale. I'm not quite sure what compelled me to buy one. I haven't ever owned a bathroom scale. But in the newly single logic that played on my mind, I figured it would be a good way to inspire myself to lose a few pounds to get myself back in slender chick-magnet shape.

OK, for the record, I've never been a chick magnet. And I've never been slender. I have either been scrawny, or had a pot belly and scrawny arms. And I haven't seen scrawny (except for my arms) since about 1989.

So, I bought the scale, and I was not at all pleased with the numbers I saw on the little digital dial. I wasn't too fond of the digital dial either. It has an annoying habit of measuring precisely, down to the half pound. Come on, can't the damn thing just round the number down? I was used to the old scale we had when I was growing up. You know the one with the little dial on the back that you could turn to "calibrate" it. And it just had lines on the dial. There were only numbers in 10 pound increments. A bigger line every five pounds. And the dial was never precise. You got a rough estimate of your weight. "I weigh about 160 pounds." Close enough. That'll work.

Well, this frickin' scale doesn't do about. It does number-number-number-point-number. And that first set of numbers were a little too close to 200 pounds for my comfort. Well, the tight slacks weren't doing much for my comfort either, but they still buttoned damn it! I don't need abused for a digital readout too!

So, anyway, every few days, I'd weigh myself. And every few days I'd sulk. The numbers would bounce around a few pounds this way or that, but didn't really moved too much over time. I lost a few pounds, but that was about it.

But the last few mornings, the number have dropped again. One day the number had dropped to a number I had never seen on the scale before. I figured my eyes were deceiving me. So I stepped off and stepped back on. And the scale dropped 4 more pounds. Now, I know I hadn't been awake very long, but I wasn't seeing things. At least I didn't think so. And I was pretty sure I didn't lose 4 pounds in 4 seconds. At that rate I'd literally waste away to nothing in about an hour and a half.

So, I don't trust the scale any more than I trusted the old analog one that is still sitting beside the door in my parents' bathroom. But the odd thing is, the numbers are still creeping down. I won't be joining Kirstie Alley on a Jenny Craig commercial anytime soon, but I feel good about it.

I feel particularly good about it because I'm not doing a damn thing to make it happen. Exercise? Yea right. Most people wouldn't call my exertion method exercise. Well, it does get my heart rate up, but I doubt it qualifies as a true cardio workout, and I'd be kicked out of a gym workin' up a sweat that way. "Can someone bring me a towel please? Whew, rubbing one out is hard work. Sorry about the mess. Don't worry, I'll wipe off the bench."

The one lifestyle change that I have made is that I'm drinking less. It's not out of some tea-totaling aspirations. I'm just too broke to buy beer. So I drink water. And I'm too cheap (broke) to buy bottled water too. The bottle may say Aquafina, but the contents are pure Coachella Valley Water District baby, vintage 2005. And I don't buy groceries, so there is nothing to snack on in the house. If there's anything else in the fridge it means I took the alternate route home, stopped at the minimart, and I'm subsisting on chips, salsa and cheep cervesa, por favor. Lately I've resisted the urge, again because I don't need the ATM machine laughing at me when I try to withdraw cash. So I can't just sit on my fat ass and nibble while watching TV.

Hungry G-man? Have some water. Want a beer? Drink some water.

I'm sort of a modern-day hunger/gatherer. When I'm hungry I have to go hunt for a Carl's Jr. and gather in a Western cheeseburger. And I don't make it large (not because I don't want the big fries, but again, I'm cheap, and a large drink won't fit in the cupholder of my truck).

So, the couch potato water diet won't get me too far. But in the mean time I'm finding out that poverty does have its privileges.

By the time I'm homeless I ought to be looking pretty hot! The chicks in the shelter better look out.

Diet

The Palm Springs accent

I was born in Nebraska and lived there until I was about a month shy of my 8th birthday. Then I lived in Oregon (pronounced Or-ee-GUN for those of you from points east) until I was 29. Since then I've lived in California, which is not pronounced Kal-LEE-for-nee-a by anyone but body builder-turned-actor-turned-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

I have always assumed that my Midwest roots have had a profound effect on me, that being my formative years and all. But according to this quiz I took (completely scientific I'm sure) the Midwest has been largely battered out of me, or my speech anyway.

I guess I've been Californicated, or something, somewhere along the way. Oh well, that's no big shock. I'm too impressionable with dialects. One time in college I traveled with a friend back to his home state of Texas and spent about a week there. Within a few days I was saying y'all and speaking with a twang. My friend through I was making fun of his fellow Texans (he did not speak with a twang, the legacy of being a military brat I think). I wasn't I was merely an accent susceptible dufus.

So, without further ado, here are the results of my linguistic quiz stolen from Dave Morris.

Your Linguistic Profile:

75% General American English

10% Upper Midwestern

10% Yankee

5% Dixie

0% Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

Language

Accents

That didn't take long

The Catholic Church has a new pope. There was white smoke and the bells rang at the Vatican.

The world can now return to its regularly scheduled programming.

Pope

Be careful what you blog about

OK, so I am going to try giving this sleep thing a try early tonight. Because I don't want to make many more blog posts about i-n-s-o-m-n-i-a, because it apparently can make your blog a target of blog-commenting spammers trying to sell sleep medication (or not trying to sell it, but including links to places where you can buy it anyway). Yea, it was confusing.

So, I'm going to try to get some shut eye, maybe trying out some of the other tips, sans drugs, suggested here. Well, after I remove the spam comment from the previous post. (And yes, I realize that by removing the comment, the comment I made about the comment will make no sense. Them's the breaks folks. The hazards of sleep-depriving blogging.

Don't worry, if the sleep thing doesn't work, I'll be back, to either read more blogs, or make more posts. OK, maybe I'll be checking out porn. But that's our secret, right people?

Blogging
That-non-sleep-word-which-can-no-longer-be-typed

Elusive sleep

My body clock is all out of whack. I can't seem to sleep at all at night. Didn't fall asleep until nearly 7 a.m. today. And now, I've got to go to work. Ugh! Fortunately, I don't have a job that requires me to go to work at 9 a.m. But still, I'm tired and lethargic. But watch, when I get home tonight around midnight or so, I'll be wide awake.

Maybe it was just too warm in here last night. Maybe I should try closing the windows and turning on the air conditioning to cool the place down. But I don't need to start paying sky high electric bills in April.

I hope I can get out of this pattern soon.

Insomnia

How dare we love the people we like?

What is it about us, as human beings, that makes us seek love? Are we hardwired for it? Is it part of the root command on system's motherboard? Or have we been conned into it by previous generations? Do our parents think to themselves, "Yea, we've had our share of pain and misery, let's make sure or kids are just as fucked up as we are, let's tell them that love is the best thing ever."? Perhaps its too convenient to blame our parents, but I'm not ruling it out. Not yet.

You would think we would learn something from all of music, poems, books, plays and movies that document the pain and the heartache of love lost, thrown away, used, abused, abandoned or misplaced.

But we just keep going back. Moths at least have the decency to die when they get too close to the flame. Not us. Unless we pull some melodramatic Romeo and Juliet shit and off ourselves, or worse, get melodramatic and psychotic and whack each other. Sometimes we go back to the same person in the same circumstances and expect a different outcome. This time it will be different. But, is it ever really different, even with a different person? We may change roles from time to time, but someone is always the ass, someone ends up as the victim, and heartache ensues.

You may be asking yourself, what the fuck is up with The G-man? Did someone shit in his Cheerios today or what? Well, no not exactly. But I did just get done watching the movie "Closer" with Julie Roberts, Jude Law, Natalie Portman and Clive Owen. If you haven't seen the movie, I won't spoil the story for you. But it does not necessarily have a typical Hollywood ending. It has a real-life ending, where things are ambigious and unclear and we don't necessarily know where the characters lives go from that point, just like we've each experienced in our own lives.

I was compelled to buy the DVD of this film when I saw some promo piece about it prior to the DVD release. This is the first DVD I've bought in a long time, if ever, for which I had not seen the movie first. I like buying DVDs of films that I like, particularly movies that I find particularly moving. This movie, certainly fits in the category of moving. But I didn't know if I would like it or not before I bought it. I merely had to have it. Well, I also bought Apollo 13 too, so at least the trip to the store wouldn't be a complete bust in the event I had to chuck the "Closer" DVD into the nearest Dumpster. For the record, I won't be pitching it. And maybe I bought it in part because it was one movie of recent vintage that I had not seen with my ex. This movie watching experience would be mine and mine alone.

I don't think I could have watched this movie when it was released in theaters back in December. Although I like to think I was emotionally in pretty good shape back in December, I was probably still unduly under the influence of the breakup of my engagement just six months earlier. And maybe I'm still unduly under the influence of it, I don't know. But I do know that I was able to sit through this entire film, with all its depicted emotion of relationships growing and dying and did not shed a single tear. As unmanly as it may be to admit, last year there were a lot of tears. Little things could bring on big tears. Maybe the tears for this failed relationship are gone for good. In fact, I find myself looking forward to the next relationship.

I may already be in the next one as far as that goes.

I said I wouldn't give the story away on "Closer" and I won't but I don't think it gives too much away to say that one of the themes in the film is about relationships interrupted by other relationships. I could certainly relate to that theme, as this current relationship was interrupted, by me, twice, in order to pursue other relationships. Now, in my defense, this current relationship I speak of has never been consummated, in no small part because we live two time zones apart and have never got our shit together enough to fix that.

So, why do we put ourselves through the turmoil of love relationships? Because there is turmoil. The people best equipped to hurt us are those who profess their love for us and for whom we feel what we label as love. Oh, sure, harsh words from a stranger can cut, but it takes a lover or a family member to do permanent damage. Yet we still risk that pain. Time and time again. We see it in people of all ages, socioeconomic levels, sexual preferences. We seek this thing called love, like it is a drug that we've been hooked on and can't kick. Stopping smoking is less gutwrenching than giving up on love.

Are we all fools? Fools for love?

I think we are. It's fun to be footloose, foolish and falling in love. So fuck it. Let's all hop in. Group swim!

But the irony of it all is that we may only learn the depths of our emotion in that pain of loss, due to betrayal, breakup, separation or death. I don't believe that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but it does tell us how much we miss our fix. We don't know we are hooked until we can't have it. So, here I just got one monkey off my back, which back in June and July felt like it had a deathgrip on my spirit. Now, there is only a slight twinge of phantom pain left on the heart. And what I learned was that I'm willing to risk that pain yet again for the boring drudgery of an average ordinary day in love and loved by someone.

Crazy shit Maynard, that's all there is to it, complete with straightjacket and staff shrink. Love is not rational. It's not logical. It is just sheer lunacy.

Where do I sign up?

Love
Movies

We can do better people

The following was posted by Hoss over at Old Horsetail Snake:

Somebody tipped me to a site that lists the frequency of use of 86,000 words on the Internet. "The" is No. 1. "Fucking" is No. 3048. Which means there are 82,952 less important things than fucking. But 3,047 things MORE important? Not likely. (This site is G rated. The paragraph above is for educational purposes only, and any Government Agency seeking to deny Ol' Hoss clearance can go to Hades. I didn't say "Hell," because that's a dirty word. And while you're in Hades, go fuck yourself.)

Come on people, we can do better than that. Let's get out there and fuck up the Internet. Fuck it up! Fuck it up. Let's get the fuck on top!

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

And now for something completely different.

I was reading a blog site tonight by a blogger who has decided to hang it up. I'm not sure why, but it sounded like people were getting a bit personal in their comments to the blogger. Which is such a shame. And it got me thinking of this saying that we used to have hanging up in the dark room of the college newspaper office. I used to love the saying. I haven't thought about it in years, but I think I need to resurrect it into my life. The saying is:

Illegitimi Non Carborundum

Here's a link that explains the origin of the phrase.

I have often thought about getting a tattoo, but wrote it off long ago because I could never think of anything I would want permanently emblazoned on my skin. But this might just be the tattoo phrase. Those are indeed words to live by (particularly if fucking is down around No. 3,000 on your personal hit parade).

Blogging

Bastards
Fuck
Tattoos

Been there, done that (x)

This was stolen from geeekgirl's site. I thought it was a cool idea, so I decided to play along.

(x) - I've done
( ) - I haven't done

(x) been drunk
(x) been high
(x) kissed a member of the opposite sex
(x) kissed a member of the same sex
( ) crashed a friend's car
( ) been to Japan
(x) ridden in a taxi
(x) been dumped
( ) been in a fist fight
( ) snuck out of my parent's house
( ) had a crush on someone of the same sex
(x) dated someone of the opposite sex
( ) dated someone of the same sex
(x) had feelings for someone who didn’t have them back
(x) been arrested
( ) made out with a stranger
(x) stole something from my job
( ) celebrated new years in time square
( ) gone on a blind date
(x) had a crush on a teacher
( ) celebrated mardi-gras in new orleans
( ) been to Europe
(x) skipped school
( ) cut myself on purpose
( ) been married
( ) gotten divorced
(x) had children
( ) seen someone die
( ) been to Africa
( ) Been to Canada
(x) Been to Mexico
(x) Seen the Rocky Horror Picture Show
( ) Thrown up in a bar
( ) Purposely set a part of myself on fire
(x) Eaten sushi
( ) Been snowboarding
(x) Met someone in person from the internet
( ) Been moshing at a concert
(x) had real feelings for someone I knew only online
( ) been in an abusive relationship
(x) gone to college
(x) taken painkillers

Meme

Taxing on the system

Well, at least I don't have to scramble today to finish my taxes, or rush to the post office to get the forms filed. It would not be completely out of character for me to file my taxes on April 15. But not this year boy. I'll have you know I filed my taxes on April 14!

And to celebrate the fact that I didn't have to pay (with money I don't have) and the fact that chore is done, I stopped off after work last night and picked up some beer.

I may have overdone it on the celebration though. My head is feeling like the neurons in my brain are lubed with molasses.

Good thing it's Friday. I think I need a nap. And a couple of aspirin.

Taxes
Hangovers

It's the principle of the thing

So, I made this decision when I started blogging that I was not going to write about work, for various reasons, and I've been able to stick to that. But when life becomes consumed with work, that doesn't leave much else to write about. So, there hasn't been much to post about.

Work has been kicking my ass. It hasn't necessarily been bad, just busy. All that vacation bliss is pretty much gone.

I miss the bliss.

Blogging

A quick note - Updated

Sorry, haven't been able to post today. I've been busy spanking a lady friend's bratty butt. OK, you filthy minded people, I'm talking about at online games on MSN. I won't post her bratty name because she would probably never admit it anyway. She's such a brat that way.

Anyway, I'll write again soon. In the meantime. There is more victory to be had.

Updated, 12:25 a.m. Sunday, April 17, 2005

In the interests of full disclosure and equal time, Brat thoroughly trounced me at the same game last night and early this morning. She won 13 games to my pitiful 6 victories.

I guess it doesn't pay to boast.

Blogging
Games

A fine farewell

Catholics know how to throw a funeral.

I watched part of the funeral of Pope John Paul II because I was up and because, well, it seems like one of those events that should be witnessed, even if on TV via satellite.

In typical Catholic fashion, it was solemn and full of pageantry, ceremony and colorful vestiments. But the most striking thing of this service was not the official aspects, but the emotions of the crowd. There was applause for John Paul, several times. Love and reverence and tears, to be sure, but applause, and signs and flags and chants from the crowd calling for the pope to be recognized as a saint.

Pope as rock star.

Thousands upon thousands, million perhaps, offering ovation after ovation. For I while I forgot that this was an event attended by heads of state from around the world in expensive suits and dresses. It was the people in blue jeans and T-shirts that left the most lasting impressions. The people's pope got a rousing sendoff from the people of the world gathering in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican.

Now I know what they mean by celebrating a Mass.

Pope John Paul II
Religion
Ceremony

Toe deep in the big muddy

No one ever says, thank God it's Thursday. Not even when NBC's "Must See TV" was all the rage in the eras of "Cheers" and "Seinfeld" and "Friends."

Most of us work Monday through Friday. We want Friday. We want the weekend. I want the weekend. It doesn't feel like I just got back from vacation. Or, maybe it does. Maybe I'm not used to working every day.

There are all those bloggers out there commenting on the fate of the world, the environment, our souls, politics and such greater themes. Today, I just want Friday to hurry its slow ass up and get here. The depth of my mental ocean is merely a mud puddle today.

Weekend
Blogging

Daylight Savings Time

Before we get too far into this whole April thing, and time has passed, I want to take the time to talk about time and go on record as saying I love daylight savings time.

Two of my favorite non-traditional "holidays" on the calendar are the first day of winter (because the days start getting longer) and daylight savings time. Long days, with daylight into the evening hours, is bliss!

I think my passion for daylight savings time has to do with the fact that I am a weird combination of night owl who loves evening light. I could sleep until noon every day of the week. My day doesn't get started until at least noon. Lunch is my breakfast. I usually say I don't eat breakfast, which is true, in that I normally do not eat a meal in the early morning hours. My stomach does not wake up until noon. But if my body doesn't wake up until noon, they are suddenly in synch, and I can have my breakfast over lunch, and my lunch over dinner. Then, I can skip dinner (which would probably be sometime around midnight, or later, in my day, although I'm not opposed to a midnight snack now and then).

I think our friends in Arizona have the right idea, only backwards. Arizona doesn't do daylight savings time. They refuse to change their clocks when most of the rest of the country does. So, from now until October when standard time resumes, Arizona, which is in the mountain time zone, and California and Nevada (and Washington and most of Oregon for that matter are on the same time. It's now a little after midnight in Palm Springs. What time is it in Phoenix? Same time! I admire Arizona's pluck!

I want to take that same stubborn spunk and individualism and refuse to return to standard time. Think I can get the rest of the Coachella Valley to go along? California even?

But think about it! It makes sense, especially here in the Palm Springs area. If you've ever been here, you would know that we have this big mountain range to the west, which means we lose the afternoon sun about an hour or so before the sun actually sets. So during standard time, our mountain sunset would be at roughly the same time as the sun would be setting in the rest of Southern California (well not literally the same time, but the same time on the clock).

OK, so I concede that the rest of the valley or the county or the state, let alone the nation, probably won't sign off on my idea. Maybe I'll have to go it alone. Start my own time zone, which can travel with me when I go on the road to Oregon or Illinois or Timbuktu for that matter. I'll call it (when here in Palm Springs and on the West Coast) PGT, or Pacific G-man Time. If I travel to Arizona, it will be Mountain G-man Time (or MGT). A trek to the East Coast would be a voyage into Eastern G-man Time or EGT.

It's an idea whose time has come.

Time
Spring
Daylight savings time
Palm Springs

Want fries with your ketchup?

It's time to play a little catch-up. My routine, including my blogging routine, has been off since I returned from vacation. Everything is out of whack. But I have been fairly productive and got a lot of errands done when I wasn't sitting here typing much ado about nada.

So, here are some of the highlights of the last week for the smartasses (yes, that include you Brat) who left comments on the last post on here. But the rest of you can feel free to read along as well.

With this ring, I thee pawn

The good news is that I found a local jeweler willing to take a slightly used engagement ring on consignment. The bad news is, a buyer has still not been found, so I still don't have any cash in my meager coffers, otherwise known as my checking and (ha, ha) savings accounts. And the depressing news, though not surprising, it that the jeweler said he would probably only be able to sell it for about somewhere around a quarter of what I paid for it.

The moral of the story, don't buy your jewelry from a large chain retailer. Or is it never buy expensive jewelry symbolizing undying love for a woman who only hold onto it long enough to invalidate the 90-day moneyback return policy. I can't remember which one is the real moral, but when I figure it out I'll let you know.

Strange dreams

Speaking, indirectly, of the ex, for some strange reason (and maybe it's the whole attempt to sell the ring thing) she has been making periodic co-starring appearances in my dreams lately. I find this quite annoying since I have actually got to the point where I have been able to go days without even thinking about her. Now, she's back, if only to haunt my dreams. OK, well one of them was not bad, since it was a sex dream. Hell, we only had sex once in the entire 6 months of our engagement, so I got as lucking in a dream as I was for all of 2004.

Working vacation

The last couple of days of my vacation were spent running errands. All the mundane things of like that I pile up when I'm working.

I got the oil changed in my truck and got it washed. So it's looking decent for an aging gal. Not that I can afford to drive her now. The price of gas has hit $2.50 a gallon here in Palm Springs for the cheapest grade at the cheapest stations. Premium grades and some stations are even higher. I think I should have grabbed my old 10-speed bike out of my parents' garage when I was there to visit.

I also did some shopping for my daughter's birthday presents and got those shipped off in time to arrive for her birthday, which was Saturday. I also bought a couple of DVDs and computer games for myself.

And yes, I have wasted untold blogging hours this week playing a new computer game. But you will all be glad to hear that I have saved the world from neo-Nazi terrorists, but please don't tell anyone I told you. This was all covert ops, and I was sworn to secrecy. So, shhhhh!

Work, the pope and missed birthdays

I don't talk about work on here, much if ever. I have no desire to be Dooced, thank you very much. But I will say this, the days back at work after been gone for a week-plus have been long. And to top it all, the pope's dying on Saturday meant I got to work Saturday. I wasn't a follower of his or anything, and I didn't care much for his fashion sense, but I wasn't too keen on having to work my first Saturday back in town. And to top it off it was also my daughter's and a good friend's birthday. Well, at least I got to call both of them. Oh, and if you bother to check out Gene's blog, I'll be curious if anyone else thinks there is some irony to the pope of the Catholic Church dying on Gene's birthday. There is a metaphor in there somewhere Gene, I just haven't completely unearthed it yet. By the way my 14-year old daughter is attending a Catholic school. Oh, and the last time a pope for the Catholic church was selected, I was about her age.

Misc.
I'm sure I'm leaving something out. Some witty observations I intended to post, some salient details that would give insight or share wisdom. But maybe that time spend lounging by the pool in the warm sun Sunday afternoon bleached the thoughts from my brain. Or maybe I'm too tired to think straight at the moment. I got up early to write my column this morning so I could make a lunch appointment with a former college professor today before work. And now, I'm running on fumes. So, anything else will have to wait for later.

Yea, I feel a little guilt for not posting more the last week or so. But I'm sure I'll get over it.

Blogging

Bad blogger

How lame am I?

I posted more while I was on vacation than I have since I've been home.

Would you believe that it's been a busy week?

Anyone buying that?

Anyone?

Blogging