Back to the present, thank you very much

I stole a "Way-back machine" from Gary Shandling, and took it for a whirl.

Here it comes... How's my hair? Something about virginity? Was that Tom Petty?

This is obviously Shandling's machine. Give it a few to adjust to my memories.

OK, here they come.

Dinosaurs.. oil... Mercedes Benz's.

I remember being taken from my classmates and tested on my colors and numbers. Since I remember the teacher, I couldn't have been more than 4 years old.

I didn't know what was happening at the time. I think I got them right.

But how stressful?

Forgive me, I must be having an epsisode. Why the hell would I bring that up without havning a follow-up story? I wouldn't. And so this never happened.

This never happened. Go to sleep

...And that's why ducks would vote republican. Crazy fowl. Is everything clear? Alles klar, Herr Komizar?

Jennifer Garner and all of that shit. Carry on.

Manilow, bugs and I

I feed the bugs.

Not as sexy as "I sing the songs," but I do.

And I don't make the "whole world cry," just my knees.

Now that it's summer, and I prance around in my short pants (prance, I do), I hit my knees on everything. Big globs of flesh go missing daily.

And I have no doubt that the "dead-skin" eating bugs see these strips of skin and think to themselves "Mana! Mana from heaven!" Yes, it's true. 40 bug-years in the desert of my office, and all that they have to eat are my discarded and quite painful knee-buffers.

I can see bug-Moses leading them to the bed, where my flesh it torn nightly by my cat. Talk about the land of milk and honey. Sometimes I think I'm nothing more than a giant hangnail on the finger of the hand of the arm of the Supreme Being.

But then I get a grip, and realize that I am nothing more or less than a big trough for the bugs that feed on my waste.

God bless America.

Something I found amusing

We went to a birthday party with a Hawaiian theme a couple of weeks ago. Kahlua pork, aloha shirts, you get the idea.

My wife had been saying that she was going to pick up a pineapple to bring with us. But when she returned from the store, she had a large watermelon in her hand.

"That's some pineapple," I jested.

"It's Turkish," she replied, not missing a beat.

Sunny day, blog away

Ain't no use in getting uptight,
Just let it groove its own way.
Let it drain your worries away.
Lay back and blog on a sunny day.

I got to drive up to Jenner to drop off an employee. Absolutely beautiful. Bossman can pay me to take that trip anytime.

But I can't get my head back into the paperwork. I've got serious spring (summer) fever now.

I'm going to leave early. Shh. Don't tell.

That time in Norway

My father worked as an engineer for an outfit that designed off-shore drilling equipment. When I was about 10, he was sent to Oslo to oversee a project in the North Sea. As it was summer, and he was going to be there for several moths, he flew my mother and I to join him.

I got to see the Viking museum, the fjords, the palaces, all of the tourist attractions. But what really excited me wass that I was able to read my Dr. Who Choose Your Own Adventure's by sunlight at 4am.

At one point I got it into my head that it would be funny to hide from my parents. I hid under the bed when they called for me, and stayed there as I heard them frantically calling my name around the neighborhood. Eventually I had to use the bathroom, and was caught by the flat-mate that was living in the same house. This was apparently moments before my parents were going to call the police.

To this day I don't know what posessed me to do such a thing. Whenever I get depressed, and think about the people that I've hurt, this memory invariably comes to mind. I couldn't comprehend until much later what a fucked-up thing it was to do.

Now I've got to call my parents to apologize.

Thanks a lot, Decadence. I'll accept your apology, but kindly stay the fuck out of my head from now on.

It wasn't me

I didn't start the fire.

No soy un perdedor.

I most certainly did not introduce olives on the fingers.

I had very, very little to do with gas prices.

I did not kill princess Die.

I did not introduce Paris Hilton.

I am not responsible for global warming.

Clouds, dirt and dreams are random. It wasn't me.

Gaflumption yagordel

Tim shoom bater vet clard, yeezit plonkt freel. Chezmit.

Troof mcfraint clipt noober trafleeger, jabagodernaturatulint. Bint youzer.

Yab, chi krowp. Typnirt, yakza. Kchendea guoubt.

Freep.

Open letter to Sony

To whom it may concern:

I received the Sony Dream Machine Alarmclock/Radio approximately 17 years ago as a replacement gift after the death of the world's first solid-state alarmclock that I had used in my youth.

As a radio, it has been a bit glitchy (please see my letter dated 4/15/99, titled "Why does my volume knob have an inverse relationship with the actual volume?") But as a timekeeper and faithful alarm, I could not have asked for anything more.

In the last 2 years, however, I have noticed some serious issues with the clock's accuracy. I will list my experiences from last night (6/26-27/05) as an example.

9:34pm - After determining that American Dad was a repeat, I promptly zonked out.
9:43pm - Awoke as wife came to bed. Tried to mention that as soon as I realized American Dad was a repeat, I had fallen asleep. Fell asleep before I finished sentence.
12:37am - Woke up, rolled over, noticed clock. Agreed that it was likely 12:37.
4:47am - Woke up, used restroom and returned to bed.
5:46am - Awoke after only 5 minutes, noticed that clock should have read no later than 4:55am. Shot dirtly glance at clock and pulled covers over head.
6:01am - Wife's alarm sounded. Seeing as only moments had passed, assumed wife's clock to be in collusion with the Dream Machine. Shot nasty look at clock from under covers.
6:46am - This time I know it was only a couple of seconds since I heard the wife's alarm. To think that 45 mintues had passed was absurd. Softly swore at clock from under sheets.
7:01am - Dream Machine alarm sounds. By my reckoning, it should be about 6:15am. I still have another 45 minutes. Pound snooze alarm with fist, swear loudly. Throw pillow over head.
7:10am - Alarm sounds again. I have barely put pillow over head, know that this could not be correct. Think about sleeping in further, decide instead to take a shower.

As you can see, the better part of 2 and 1/2 hours had been recored by my clock in the space of perhaps 30 real-minutes. This is completely unacceptable, and has been slowly robbing me of my sleep.

I have noticed that there are several nice new models of the Dream Machine. One even has a CD player. I recommend that your company replaces my current model with a properly working Alarm clock with a CD player.

And in chrome.

Sincerely,

KOM

PS - Some of the above facts may be innaccurate. However, any inaccuracy has been caused by my inability to get a full nights sleep due to your faulty chronometer.

--------- Update 6/28/05

PPS - Please disregard my previous request and replace my Dream Machine with this alarmclock.

The land of flat and plenty

So.

We were sailing across the mirror-smooth ocean that is Kansas. I remember saying to Aaron that "this is the closest that I've ever been to the sky." The clouds seemed to be within reach - there was not a single vertical distraction to put the sky into context.

Aaron and I were on our way to see Monte in Tennessee, via Boulder, Colorado. Via I-80.

One enters Kansas from east Colorado, and you know immediately that you have entered the "low country". The signs help: "Pull over to see the world's largest prairie dog!", "One night only - the fistulated cow!", "You think your ball of twine is big - check this shit out!", "Remember that thing that you thought you saw on the highway, then decided that you were high and just let it go? -- we have the world's only female!!"

As near as I can figure, Kansas is approximately 400 miles of desperate one-upmanship.

Aaron and I were cool, man. We had our half-ounce of bud hidden in a Crybaby Wah-wah pedal. Oh yeah. The cops would never look there, man. The dogs would never sniff there, man. It would be totally invisible, seeing as we didn't also carry a guitar, man. Yeah, we were cool.

I was able to take about 5 minutes of Kansas before I told Aaron "Open up that wah, and let's get us high!"

Dude rolled a wrist-thick joint, I tell you. Then he put "The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking" on the CD player. I had never heard this album before, but kept promising myself that I would, one day.

That day was now. Err, then.

One can drive pretty fast in Kansas. Even when one drives a Festiva. The terminally stagnant, flat "landscape" sped past our windows as we accelerated from giddy, to high, to baked, to balls-out stupid. Eyes quarter-mast, we grooved to the Clapton and Waters. Something deep was happening - the music entered my soul.

On the other hand, I have not listened to that album in 10 years, and I don't remember a damn thing about it. But I digress.

I think that it was cotton-mouth, what made us stop. We needed something to drink. Luckily, before we lost the ability to read, Aaron noticed a sign that read something to the effect of "Historical site - all the brass replicas of shit that wasn't actually in the Civil War and that you've never heard of, anyway." It seemed as good a place to stop as any in the Star-Trek extras and locations that is anywhere, Kansas.

"Dude, heh. Let's pull over here. Heh...uhhh."
"Hunh? What? Heh."

Yup. That's as concrete a decision as one can expect from two guys who are balls-out, stupid high.

Imagine a Viking long-house. Now populate this house with brass knicknacks. Rows of them. Stories of them. Dewey-decimal-'s of them. Let's now zoom to the visual abuse that is the bathroom gauntlet. Let's follow KOM as he snickers and weaves, trying to find the restroom. Slowly, he has found the trail. He opens a door and finds the urinal. KOM shuts the door behind him, and expects the next few seconds to be non-eventful, at best. Non-intrusive at least.

Halfway through the oh-so-sweet, liberating pee, he came. I don't know how y'all grow your boys in Kansas, but he was 12 if he was 80. Kid had a squeegee and he leapt into the room like a fucking circus midget and screamed "Whatamayayafolrumstiolskin!"

I screamed myself, and turning while still pissing said something like "Whatthefuckdidyoujustaaahhhwhatareyoutryingtodo?!!"

Crazy frog-boy promptly back-leg leapt to the counter top and squeegee'd my piss off of the "looking glass". Eyes wide like an Anglican grotesque, he perched on the faucet and waited for me to make a move. I tried to head-fake a couple of times, but it was to no use. I finally ran screaming from the bathroom like a banshee, knocking over any pregnant woman and brass civil-war chess set that was in my way.

Aaron had just about fueled up the Festiva.

To this day, I have never smoked grass in Kansas again. I have never stopped in Kansas again. I have never been in Kansas again. Fucking X-files, man. I'm shivering as I write this. Crazy shit, man. Crazy shit.

An old soul

The following is from separate interviews conducted when I was in 10th grade for an english class. I love C's answers:

The people that I interviewed included a friend A, my niece C, and my brother-in-law J. A is my age, C is about seven years old, and J is about 30. For convienence, I will only use the first letter of their name when listing their replies.

What do you feel is your purpose?
A: To be happy.
C: To do things.
J: To be happy.

Is knowing what life is about neccessary for happiness?
A: No, life is random. But what you know gives you purpose, it can
take the place of meaning.
C: No.
J: No. I still haven't figured it all out, and I'm happy!

What makes you happy, then?
A: Job security. Though you may get bored and want to change later...
it's an on-going process.
C: Reading, TV, playing with my friends.
J: My family, my good friends, and when I have money.

What is life?
A: A bunch of experiences.
C: Not being dead.
J: What we're always doing.

A, is there then purpose in experience?
A: No, experience is for a purpose

For what purpose?
A: There is no answer. You have to be happy with ignorance.

Do you think anyone knows about the meaning of life?
A: No, their viewpoints might be good for them, but less for me. In a
nutshell, no one knows what's going on.
C: God does.
J: I don't know... no person, I don't think.

Words of the day

Gride \Gride\, e. i. [imp. & p. p. Grided; p. pr. & vb. n.
Griding.] [For gird, properly, to strike with a rod. See
Yard a measure, and cf. Grid to strike, sneer.]
To cut with a grating sound; to cut; to penetrate or pierce
harshly; as, the griding sword. --Milton.
That through his thigh the mortal steel did gride. --Spenser.
Like unkempt nails griding on a chalkboard. --KOM


Gleet \Gleet\, n. [OE. glette, glet, glat, mucus, pus, filth,
OF. glete.] (Med.)
A transparent mucous discharge from the membrane of the
urethra, commonly an effect of gonorrhea. --Hoblyn.
Look, ma, I can gleek gleet! --KOM


Trot \trot\, n.
1: a slow pace of running
2: radicals who support Trotsky's theory that socialism must
be established throughout the world by continuing revolution
3: Singular of what I have. I might see you all after the
weekend if I can get over the DMC trots -- KOM

What a fucking waste

I've wracked my poor brain for an amusing story that didn't involve drugs or alcohol, and have come up woefully short. This is very, very sad.

So sad, in fact, that I no longer wish to tell an amusing story. So I'll tell this one.

When I was younger, I worked as a server in an Italian restaurant.

I had been there for several years, and I was often called upon to train the new servers. One of the servers that I trained was particularly interesting. He had a degree from Princeton - if I remember correctly, it was in psychology. And he was not above dropping that degree like it was a phone-line to God.

We got on well enough, but it always seemed that he was a bit... odd. He had a strange smile, a strange manner of speech, a strange way of holding himself. He was pretty good at what he did, but became the object of some ridicule within the restaurant for his behavior.

I saw him outside of work occasionally. I would be drinking a cup of coffee and writing in my journal, like a good 90's poseur, when he would appear out of nowhere and join me. Or I would be at a bar, laughing my ass off at some vulgar display, and he would slide in almost undetected and queer the mood with his mannerisms.

It got to the point where I actively ignored him. If I knew he was coming, I would leave. If I suspected that he was looking for me, I would make any excuse. From my persepective, it seemed like he was stalking me. One time, while I was being arrested for god's sake, he happened to be walking down the same street and saw the whole thing. He even pushed his face against the cruiser window and asked me what was going on.

Several months later, the authorities cut his body down from a tree-limb. He left no suicide note, but the word on the street was that he may have been gay, may have been abused, may have been plain fucked-up. The one consistent aspect of the story was that his father was a devout catholic, and somehow his son never could live up to the ideal.

I was the first to tell my cook about the situation, and his response was both astute and arms-length revealing.

"What a fucking waste," he said.

Why I hate commercials

Probably the best known lines of the "New Colossus" by Emma Lazarus:

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Compare with the advertisement I keep catching for the 2012 New York Olympic bid:

Give me your tired, your swift,
Your brave, your dreamers.
Send these, the strong, the driven, the unyielding to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

This bastardization turns the meaning of the lines completely upside-down. Liberty now welcomes the the powerful, the sure, the secure.

Forgive me as I weep for the America that I was taught to love.

Good boy, bad kitty

Taken 7/13/04

Play us a song, you're the guitarra man

It's approaching 2pm as I write this, and I have done almost nothing productive all day.

I did manage to take a shower and drive to work. But nothing since.

(Yawn. Belly scratch.)

Short weekend. Who decided that Father's 'Day' was only one Sunday a year? Shouldn't it be a week-long festival like an Italian wedding? And don't even get me started on Mother's Month!

Do you get an additional day for each kid? No!?

(Yawn.)

Yep, yep yep.

Let's see. What else? Oh, I had mentioned that I saw Desperado over the weekend. I've got to say that I didn't like it. Somehow over the last 10 years since its release, I had gotten the idea in my head that it was supposed to be a good movie. I don't know where I got that idea, maybe I made it up? First, Cheech got killed. That's just wrong on so many levels. Then some kid got shot. Was I supposed to care about the kid? Maybe the movie should have let me know.

So Mr. Guitarra had such a strong love for his slain woman that he was willing to kill everyone to exact his revenge. He would gladly die for the chance to punish those responsible. And what was the first thing that he did as soon as the opportunity presented itself?

Yep, he slept with Salma.

Don't get me wrong, it's not that I can't sympathize to some degree. But am I supposed to believe in the purity of his love? It seems less likely to me that he avenging her death, as avenging his property having been taken from him. When you're Banderas, women come and go; but nobody better fuck with your stuff.

I think I just wrote the one-line Cliff Note for the movie. Or maybe the trailer voice-over.

And the damned ending. With the brother secret. If you're going to pull that kind of shit, at least make it interesting.

"Luke, I am your brother."
"Yeah, I figured it out this morning."
"Er, uh. Ok. Join me, we'll run the drug cartel together!"
"No... you seem to be a pretty unwholesome chap, and I'd rather not."
"Then I guess I'll have to kill your new girl."
"I told you not to fuck with my stuff!!" BLAM BLAM BLAM.

And then we visit the kid in the hospital, then Salma gives us a ride, then we throw the guitar case out of the jeep, then we pick it back up.

Salma, you're such an enabler.

I should have stuck to my usual Saturday afternoon fare - giant bug movies on the SciFi Channel. Sigh.

A brief dream - Father's Day Edition

Last night I dreamed that I was Antonio Banderas. More importantly, I was goalie for our soccer team. Salma Hayek kept telling me hysterical jokes to make me miss her goal attempts.

The wife told me that I woke her up laughing in my sleep.

I finally saw Desperado on cable TV yesterday.

Shameful while educational

I remember the concert like it was yesterday.

Keep in mind that I remember yesterday like it was several years ago.

Since highschool, when I first picked up the electric bass, I've considered myself a fan of the musician. Ergo, I'm a fan of Rush. Blues Traveler. Traffic. The Eagles. Mr. Bungle.

Mr. Bungle?



Mr. Bungle is the one band that I profess to love, but to which I seldomely listen. Let me give you a few reasons why:

Travolta -
With his mouth sewn shut he stll shakes his butt
'Cuz he's Hitler and Swayze and Trump and Travolta!

Squeese Me Macaroni -
I wana lock Betty Crocker in the Kitchen
And knock her upper during supper
Clutter up her butter gutter.

Stub a Dub -
Chase a tail that isn't there
It's time to wipe your butt
Sliding down butt hill

Love is a Fist -
I feel strongly about violence
Love is a fist

Dead Goon -
Too happy - a jerk beyond a smile
An axphixiophile
I'm the humper; stop hitting me
Walking the plank, swallowing dirt

So why do I sometimes listen to this band? It goes back to the concert that I mentioned earlier.

Mr. Bungle traverses seamlessly from metal to jazz to carnival music to drunken garage band to 50's quizshow tunes, and back again. They opened for Primus on New Years Eve at the newly named Bill Graham Civic Auditorium. And it was a show for the ages. Primus was awesome, as usual, but I specifically remember Mr. Bungle. I had just come back from a bathroom excursion and I distinctly saw Michael Patton pissing into his shoe and drinking it on stage. I'm telling you, it was magicalirific.

But most importantly, they were spot-on in their musical cues. With the exception of Traffic (read: Steve Windwood), I have never seen a band as tight as they were. They could accurately reproduce their sound even while live with 5000 moshing kids. You may have to hear them to understand what I'm talking about.

Shout to my better half

So.

The wife has started a blog.

This actually came as a complete shock to me; I had no idea that she was even interested until I got an email at work, the subject line reading "I did it!"

Be a good neighbor and check it out.

I'm not sure what I think about the title of her blog. Would I marry anyone less than a genius (though nerd she may be)? It's self-deprecating in the one way that I definitely don't think applies. But it's fun watching a blog form from the ground up, with no previous experience. Remeber the first few months of your own blog, when you had no voice, no direction? Yeah, I'm still living that. But it's fun to watch, too!

R is my better half, no doubt. Why she decided to go slumming for a boyfriend, I'll never know. But you certainly won't hear me complain. Much.

I've been mostly mum about my family; initially because this was my little get-away hobby, but increasingly because I didn't want to involve my family with the predators and crazies that lurk in the shadows and corners of the online community.

But since we're here, let me tell you a bit about R.

First, she's the salt of the earth. You only expect these kind of people to come from the mid-west. I don't think I've ever met anyone more forgiving, or more likely to see the positives in any situation.

Second, she's the biggest dork that I've ever been attracted to. I'm talking the most renaissance festival attending, Star Trek wearing, Civil War reenacting, Star-Wars reading, MST3K watching dork that looks sexy in a skirt. She floats like Yoda, stings like a Borg.

Last, but not finally, she's my best friend and world's greatest mom.

I've gone on too long. I'll let her explain herself if she chooses to continue with the blogging.

Help keep your garden clean

I use Firefox almost exclusively, except for a very few work applications that work better with IE. So imagine my surprise when I did a quick check on my blog from IE, and noticed that all of the contact info, links, etc. were buried at the bottom of the page.

I tracked the problem back to an update I had posted 6/13 which had some text-rollover that confused the sidebar. For IE. Firefox was happy to keep showing me what I expected to see.

So my question is, why didn't anyone let me know? I know that 75% of you out there are using IE. Were you all thinking "Interesting, bold choice in layout. Not for me, but what a trend-setter!?"

On the other hand, I probably wouldn't go check out my favorite blogs and say "Hate what you've done with the place. If I were you..."

I just wanted you to know that I know that you know.

Beans, beans, the magical fruit...

Here it is: KOM sums up millenia of confusion, doubt and embarressment in one short post.

Women fart, too.

Except for R. Of course.

Can we move on, now?

Anyone else think it's "cool" that I now refer to myself in the 3rd person? You know what? KOM doesn't care.

Bushism II

Yet another quote from our education president.





Nalle Elementary School; Washington D.C.; February 9, 2001.

Google ads

Displayed ads, last time I checked in:

Shower Curtain
Curtain Rods
Shower Rods
Shower Rail
Fart Spray

What's shower rail doing in that list?

Devil's advocate

People, my people, my fine people, my fine, fine people. I thank you for giving a cacophonous shout-out to Blog Jesus.

I was born Episcopalian, raised Lutheran and married Catholic. I have read the Bible twice, I have spent time in bible-study, and I have watched CBN.

My father is ordained, my wife has a "golden ticket" to heaven, and I've seen pictures from the Holy Land of the hole where Christ was born. I even have a prayer personally inserted into the Wailing Wall.

But living in our secular society, I wonder at the fact that one is able to receive a degree from an accredited university in Metaphysics or Theology.

Isn't it a bit like receiving a degree in Santa-ism? Tooth-fairy-ism? Hamburgalar-ism?

On the other hand, one can still receive a doctorate in philosophy.

Crazy fucking people. Next thing you know, someone is going to tell me that their infantile belief is better than mine. What a world.

Hell has frozen over

Roger Waters to reunite with Pink Floyd for the Live 8 concert at Hyde Park.

I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry. For all the shit Bob Geldof takes, he does seem to radiate some kind of perverse magic.

KOM gets a haircut

The wife took the boy and left for a family reunion this last weekend.

So I had the booze on IV, which left my hands free for the PS2 controller. I gave up and just plugged the modem line into my ear.

Saturday morning, square-eyed and hung over, I thought briefly about what chores I should do. The weeds needed whacking, the drainage ditch needed digging and it couldn't have hurt to do laundry or dishes... I finally decided that I could probably, just barely, squeeze a haircut between a craptastic Saturday afternoon TV movie and going to bed early.

I've had my hair short now for the better part of 3 years, but I'm still wary about people coming at my head with stainless steel blades. For the 10 years before I chopped my locks (for my wedding, incidentally), I could count on one hand the number of professional cuts I had received. I'm pretty sure I got one for senior prom. Then... ummm... I don't remember. Someone probably got me drunk and told me that we were going to get a tattoo.

So I folded myself into the Civic, and headed for the local chain hair place.

I'm 6' 2". Not one of the women in the whole outlet were over 3' in heels. So of course the shortest one, the one that I needed field glasses to even notice, shouted "my turn!"

Crap, here we go again.

After she had finally ascended her ladder to my height, she tsked my shirt collar and tucked it into my shirt, untucked it, tucked it back in, tsked again, tucked it in, sighed then wrapped 5 feet of that toilet-paper like "neck gauze" around my throat until she was satisfied that I couldn't breathe.

Then came the usual litany of all my haircuts. "Lower." "Lower." My feet up against the wall and my shoulders barely on the chair, my head sat at an impossible 90 degree angle to the rest of my body. "Good," she says.

The woman took 45 minutes to trim my neck-line. She would buzz a single hair off, back up, set her chin in her hand, squint, come closer, back up, squint, then cut another single hair with the clippers. Repeat. Approximately 40,000 times. Just for my neck line.

I won't even tell you about the great ear-leveling fiasco.

While she was working, she would hound me incessantly about my zodiac sign.
"So, you're a Capricorn? Capricorns make money. Do you make money?"
"No."
"Tsk. Just like my son. He's so lazy. But he's a Sagittarius. He's just lucky. But my other son is a Capricorn. He works very hard and will make a lot of money."
"Mmm."
"He's quiet like you. Why don't you talk more? You must be thinking about how to make more money."
"Uhh-"
"Did you know Howard Hughes was a Capricorn?"

So on top of everything, she compared me to a man who collected his fingernails. Only lazier.

"Yeah, I'll Spruce-goose your tip."
"What?"
"Nevermind."
"You don't want to tell me about your money?"

On the plus size, she believed me when I told her that I didn't want any gel. Most stylists laugh like you said something funny and before you can head-weave out of the situation, they've greased you up like the deaf man on Family Guy.

Yep, it's time to grow my hair out again. Then I can tell my son I'm Jesus and Santa.

I'm a vulgar man

And I spell atrociously.

But let's agree to be both vulgar and to spell correctly.

It would seem to make sense to spell the word dammit with an 'n', since "damn" is spelled with an 'n'.

But this is English, people. Sense has no jurisdiction here.

Just remember: Hell has double hockey sticks. Dammit has double golden arches.

Class dismissed.

My unresolved issue

I ran across this post, and it made me again take a serious look about my feelings on gay marriage. I can't seem to give this issue up, at least not until I come to some personal decision.

I'm certainly not interested in limiting another human's chance at happiness. In fact, I'm not interested in almost any social limits. I've always believed that your right to swing your fist ends at my face. Do whatever the hell you want, as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else.

And I can't find a good reason to believe that two men or two women getting married will somehow directly tarnish my marriage, my parent's marriage, or anyone else's.

Yet I can't get over the feeling that "gay marriage" would somehow cross a line. Not a moral line (although I acknowledge that many people believe this), but a nebulous, barely defined idea in my head that makes sense of words, definitions and the relationship between the two.

I believe that I have made this comparison before, but when I was taking philosophy in college, my prof helped define "a priori" with a simple equation: unmarried male = bachelor. In other words, the idea of unmarried male is inherent in the word bachelor. It does not need to be proven, it is. This stands in relation to a posteriori, which is empirically provable, but does not contain the proof in itself.

I would argue (and please tell me if I'm wrong - not anecdotally or emotionally, but with proof) that marriage = culturally recognized union of a man and a woman. Marriage is a priori the union of the opposite sexes. That a man and a woman (and not two of the same sexes) are joined is inherent in the definition of marriage.

So fucking what, you ask?

Well, that's a fair question, and hence my problem with the issue. We could all throw up our hands and call the sky the ground. We could decide that TV means cow, and cow means shelf, and shelf means wallet. Why can't we decide that marriage means any union between two people? Or, off subject, why not make it any union between any several people? Polygamy is not a new phenomenon, and has been practiced in many different cultures around the world.

In this light, my hang-up seems to be that a minority of the population is pressing for a change in definition to an ancient practice, ostensibly because of disenfranchisement. I have the same issue with transgendered people calling themselves the opposite sex. Let's be honest, surgery does not a man or a woman make. At the most fundamental biological level, they are still the sex to which they were born. You're either XX or XY, and the rest is just window dressing.

I'm white. Should I be able to declare myself hispanic or african, just because it would fulfill some personal need? Should I expect other people to go along with this fallacy, despite my near translucently pale skin? More so, should I be legally defined by whatever I feel like being?

If we fall into complete relativism, then there is no reason to speak further; there is no reason to try to describe abstract ideas and thoughts, because they become meaningless. If we are legally required to recognize whatever some people want, then we are inviting a revisionism that will completely blur the lines between any concepts that can be understood in relation to eachother.

So here comes the disclaimer. I have no problem with the idea of civil union, with all of the benefits and penalties that it entails. In fact, if we decide to scrap "marriage" altogether and make any joining a civil union, then so be it. It took my wife over 5 years to talk me into registering with the city for a piece of paper that "officially" states our union. In my mind, we were joined long, long before the day that we annually celebrate.

But now (and without my wife's permission), I declare us to be foreign diplomats, and exempt from US law. I feel disenfranchised by the fact that simply because I am not foreign-born, I can't be a political diplomat from another country.

At least, this makes as much sense to me as gay marriage.

The Depeche Mode Cowboy

Holy crap, folks. I'm on a roll.

Please feel free to send hate-mail to Vennessah for the following:

Once upon a time I finally moved out of Kevin's flat. George, Heather and I moved into a quite nice little 3 bedroom pre-fab. Being the female, Heather somehow got the master bedroom with the attached bathroom. I bet she wishes she hadn't.

On a night not unlike this one, not unlike any evening, we had a party. The keg stood in a bath of ice outside the front door; chips and barbeque were available... all was well.

That is, until he came.

I don't know where the Depeche Mode Cowboy came from, but he was a friend of someone's. After the sun had set we crammed into my bedroom to smoke a little pot. DMC followed us, and told us a story about how he had been sent to California to avoid the drugs that were causing him troubles. Apparently his folks in Houston thought it best to send him to California to avoid drugs. That bears repeating.

So we passed the pipe around, and DMC took a hit the first few times. Near the end of his "rippin' shit up and come hell or high water" story, he was turning ghost white and his hands shook. We should have known better, but it was funny. Plus, this was the DMC, straight out'a Houston. Arrested for white drugs, sent to live with we pions for his own benefit. Surely he could keep it together?

Here's where the account grows hazy. I was not around to check on him, so it all comes second-hand. But the continuing story has been faithfully reproduced by all involved.

DMC somehow found himself in Heather's bathroom. Ostensibly, I'm sure, to take a shit. But it must have been some kind of defa-fucking-cation. As nearly as we can piece together, somewhere in the middle of the bowl-sit, he decided that he needed to puke. Gripping the Poo-Bear shower curtain, he gave it all he could - and ripped the curtain right off the rings. But not to be outdone by mere legend, he shit all over the floor at the same time.

I imagine a garden sprinkler, with his stomach as the fulcrum. Spinning, spewing shit and vomit in a roughly circular pattern all over the bathroom. The plastic curtain shedding the ejectorate onto the floor. More spinning, more mess.

After some time, DMC tried to help the situation. He grabbed all of Heather's hand towels out of the sink cupboard and smeared his chunks'n'crap onto the walls. Not satisfied with this, he fed the used towels into the toilet and repeatedly flushed until it overflowed, spilling human waste into Heather's room.

I never heard the rest of the story - I was laughing too hard. Sometimes I wonder what ever became of the Depeche Mode Cowboy. Karma would have it that he cleans a gas-station bathroom every night. Whatever.

For some reason, Heather decided to move shortly after the incident. I'd like to throw it in her face, but I'm not sure if DMC was her friend, either. Ya know, sometimes people just show up. We should have kept some kind of register - to this day, no one claims to know where this guy came from.

Damn transients.

Die by my hand

I read a recent post by Heartless, and had to scramble through my archives, because I thought that I had earlier posted something related.

I guess not. I must have left it as a comment on someone's blog. Let that someone grant me a bit of leeway, now, because I have just a bit to say.

I used to feel very strongly about stupid people. Waste of money, waste of education, waste of fucking space, etc. If there were a club devoted not to intelligence (Mensa... J, what ever happened?), but to hating stupid people, I would have been the first in line.

But one night I had a dream.

I dreamed that a plague had covered the Earth. The mortality rate was outrageous, and no one knew how to stop it. But before the last of the scientists died, it was discovered that some aspect of the mentally retarded, which in dream-logic also applied to people that could barely write their letters, was somehow immune to the plague.

In some way, that which made them "special" also made them special.

Evolution is a harsh mistress, and she cares shit for our "ginormous" brains. There's no way to predict what's around the corner, so there is no way to prepare. We've been lucky so far that intelligence has gotten us to the moon. But should we trust in it to preserve the species? It's all a crap-shoot - we should embrace as much diversity as possible, because any trend toward specialization only makes us more vulnerable.

What price, DSL

Poor KOM operates at home from a dial-up, 56K modem.

So I left a little skid mark in my shorts when I read about a special deal from SBC/Yahoo. Per the ad, I could receive basic DSL for $14.95/mo. There were asteriks, of course, but no explanations of the asteriks.

So I called SBC, and informed them that I was interested in the deal. I just had a few questions. My helpful CSR told me that SBC is divided into two seperate companies, "live" and "internet". He was not only unqualified, but unable to answer any questions relating to an on-line offer. He suggested I send an email to the happy, friendly folks at SBC "Internet".

I've erased (my) name to protect the innocent, as well as editing out quite a few superfluous "help" links:



Dear KOM,

Thank you for your recent email. It appears as if you have already resolved the issue at hand. SBC California records indicate you spoke to a service representative on 6/6/05.

If this response does not address your concern, please reply directly to this email, or you may get additional information by clicking on the links below. Another option is cutting and pasting the links into your browser (see safety note below):

Additionally, you may reach us by phone. Visit http://sbc.com/contactus for a list of customer service numbers.

Regards,
Lori
Your SBC Customer Service Representative


On Mon Jun 06 16:12:41 PDT 2005, KOM wrote:
> To: ONLINECA@txmail.sbc.com
> Customer Name: KOM
> Email Address: {my email address}
> Street: No Street
> City: No City
> State: CA
> Zip: {my zip}
> Phone Number: {my phone number}
> Alternate Phone Number:
> Customer Code: ---
>
> Email Tracking Number: 3730903
>
> Message:
> To whom it may concern:
>
> I am interested in the dynamic DSL line offered online for $14.95/mo. However, I can not find any information on this website that would explain how much the service will cost after the initial offer expires.
>
> Also, under the terms/conditions, it states that a local sbc connection is required. Does this reference an SBC telephone connection? In other words, will I need to change my local provider in order to receive this offer?
>
> Thank you for your time,
>
> KOM


I immediately sent a reply stating that nothing was resolved, and that I still needed my questions answered.

As of 6/9/05, 10:50pm, I have yet to receive a reply.

Fucking SBC/Yahoo. Obviously they don't want members that know how to read. I can't tell if it's simple ineptitude, or if they are really trying to dissuade people that think before they buy from participating in the program.

Sit and spin, you unholy fuckbags. If you were the last IP on earth, I would be forced to read the newspaper.

I invite you all to send nasty emails to "Lori" with SBC and let her know that I am pissed.



--------- UPDATE 6/13/05

After a particularly nasty email that I won't post out of embarresment, I received the following reply:

Thank you for your recent email.  On behalf of SBC California, I apologize for
the trouble you have encountered.  SBC Yahoo! DSL requires an active phone line
from your SBC local telephone company.  SBC Yahoo! DSL is treated as an
additional feature on your phone line, like Caller ID or Call Waiting.

SBC California records indicate the rate of $14.95 for SBC Yahoo! DSL is a
promotional rate good for a period of 12 months.  Once  you have successfully
fulfilled this term, the DSL rate will automatically converted to a month to
month price plan, which is currently $49.95.

We thank you for choosing SBC California, and hope you'll look to us in the
future for all your telecommunication and data needs.

If this response does not address your concern, please reply directly to this
email, or you may get additional information by clicking on the links below.
Another option is cutting and pasting the links into your browser (see safety
note below):

Regards,

Crystal
Your SBC Customer Service Representative

Someone give Crystal a raise. But I still won't be joining up for this service. New phone line, $50/mo for 300K?? You've got to be kidding me.

Choppin' Broccoli

"When I was at the store today, I noticed that broccoli spears are, like, 30% cheaper than chopped broccoli."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah," (getting excited) "and I thought it would cost more. I mean, with chopped broccoli, parts are parts. Who knows what you're eating. But spears are mostly whole."

"Mmm."

"So I checked the bag to see if maybe it weighed less? But there's the same amount in it. Then I checked the price per ouce, and it was significantly less!"

"Oh."

"I wonder why it costs more for chopped broccoli? It doesn't make sense to me. Maybe I should write Safeway?"

"Hmfrbronsad..."

"What?"

"Nothing."


My wife went to bed early last night. I wonder if I bored her?

Cryin' over spilt work

Notice: This post is work related, and will be very, very boring. Please check the archives for more "interesting" material. Check back later, and we'll be back to either the political or situational funny - too early to call.

Please, God, do not make me go back to work tomorrow.

The union audit barely over, and I get a call from our workers comp carrier that it's time for thier audit. All that they need are the payroll files.

Oh yeah, and separate, per worker, per job, breakdowns of payroll for 15 different jobs since mid-march 2004. I will be spending the next week and a half sorting through hard-copies of invoices, looking for job codes that are never provided, hoping to find some link in the thread. For 15 separate jobs.

Thank god, as Kaci has mentioned, I'm not human - I'm HAL 2005, dammit.

I may have mentioned that I do outside billing for a competitive company. We have a good relationship, and they throw us a lot of work, so my boss has decided that it would be best for me to do the competitor's AR as well. This is all and good, except when the sub-contracted companies call me and ask why they haven't been paid? Just yesterday, I received a manilla folder, stuffed to the max with overdue invoices from one of these sub-contracted jobs. I assume that I am supposed to compare these jobs to what has been billed, and let both of the interested parties know what has been billed, and what is in limbo?

Did I mention that the MFer that I bill for sends random batches of work orders, which are always out of order, and usually run at least 5 months out of date? And this same asshole tells his creditors to call me to investigate?

I told my boss that this will take me the better part of a week, if we're lucky. He doesn't give a shit. As long as I'm in the office, he's happy. Okay, boss. Guess I won't have time for payroll. No AP. Maybe the lights will get turned off? No AR? Our employees may be upset to not receive a paycheck. But fuck it, you're right. Better to worry about a competitor's billing issues.

Shit - I forgot. Union wage changes are due. Of course, these changes couldn't possibly coincide with actaul paroll dates. Let's make everything take effect on Wednesday! On two separate payroll changes! How am I supposed to reconcile a union payroll report with at least 3 separate changes in June? I'm thinking that I can fudge it, and be gone before the next audit. Holy fuck.

On top of everything, contract jobs change every day or so, and my boss doesn't bother to tell me until it has been billed. He is in the office for a total of 2 hours per week. Which is a blessing as much as it is a curse. But shit, man, tell me what's up!

In a nutshell, my job is like the scene in Brain Candy:

"You mean that thing you just mentioned, just now? Oh, we are right on top of that, Don."

Vader built my hotrod

Cheez-It in conjunction with a galaxy far, far away, in their infinite wisdom, have offered me what I can only imagine they believe to be the coolest prize ever.


I wish that I could tell you that I had doctored this photo


That's right: "Get your own Star Wars Episode III POS."

I'm imagining Luke's old speeder. I picture it stripped and primered, but non-painted, with the words "4 sale!" written in house paint on the doors. I suspect the right-front fender is rusted out.

I chalk this up to Empire cut-backs. I don't want to look a gift-tonton in the mouth, but I have the force power to turn a perfectly good vehicle into my own personal piece of shit in less than 12 parsecs.

Han Solo, eat your heart out.

Thank you, salty processed cheese-food product, but I recently got rid of my Festiva. I don't need another POS.

Divine Sisterhood of the Green Fried Yaya Pants

Nothing to say - the title just cracked me up.

The Unfriendly Skies

It's time to come clean.

I'm a video game junkie. Or at least I would be if I had more time.

(Yes, I'm sure that you're all shocked. You may can the act and continue to read.)

Do kids even say "video game" anymore? Would they know an arcade if Pac-Man and Joust both slapped them?

I remember, barely, the day that my dad brought the Atari 2600 home for the family. Sweet, sweet Christmas. I remember crying in the face of my other toys, awaiting the magic machine to be hooked up to our TV. I wanted to play Pac-Man so bad I gleeked ghosts and power pellets.

My Mom and I used to play Super Breakout together. Remeber the Atari paddles that stopped working after 2 months? Remember when you finally got the ball on top of the formation?

My vengeful sister, 10 years my senior, used to love playing Star Wars with me - the first Atari adaptation of the game where you are a Snow-Speeder, trying to shoot ATAT's. She was so smug, and she always beat me.

Remember Megomania? Pitfall? Adventure? Combat?

On another Christmas, the Nintendo 8-bit system was waiting. My sisters were all grown up and gone - I could enjoy Mario, Zelda and Metroid alone. But I was still infected with their music. I remember Zelda more by Falco's Vienna Calling than by the supplied soundtrack.

The Crash Pad. Those of us that had not gone to University moved into a low-income, roach-infested town house across from Juvenile Hall. There were only 2-3 stabbing deaths in our compaound monthly, so it seemed safe enough...

But one of my friends bought the N64.

Words can not express the absolute shock that I experienced when I first saw Mario 64. It was amazing, engrossing, and totally addictive. We used to play Mario Cart until the wee hours of the night. Turok? Shadows of the Empire? Golden Eye?

As Emeril might say, "Oh yeah, baby!"

I bought myself the original Play Station, because there was an Activision game that emulated many of the best Atari games. Slowly, I added to the library and became a fan of games from Ape Escape to Abe's Oddessey.

Then, the Christmas that must live in my wife's infamy, she bought me a PS2. I still see her from time to time...

That's actually not true. I don't have time to play the damn machine any longer. I have dozens of games, but most of them I have already beaten or don't have time to further pursue. I get to play maybe 3 hours or so a week. But I still enjoy it!

Actually, this whole post was a precursor to a cry for help. I had hoped to gain the audience of the few gamers out there that might read my humble blog, and could help me with a specific task:

The Ace Combat series is amazing, and I nearly creamed my panties when AC5 was released. But since the day that I first played it, I have not been able to pass level 15, "White Noise". I've gone so far as to consult internet "walkthru's" for the title. Still, I can't do it. I simply don't have enough time to keep playing the same level over and over, hoping to pass on a fluke.

So I ask you, oh humble reader, to let me know what to do (Squishi, I'm looking at you - I know that you play video games).

Anyone?

Your gift for reading this far? Are you actually so selfish as to expect something? Fine.

First, download Jnes, an 8-bit NES emulator. This little program will happily play all of your favorite NES titles, provided that your computer is at least a Pentium 3. If you have some kind of joystick, it's easy to set up. Otherwise, we're just talking about the NES, here. Define a few keyboard controls for the A and B buttons and you're good to go. Next, download the following ROM files - these are direct ports of the original games. Enjoy! (Oh, and no one turn me in for some kind of copyright infringement, eh?)

Metroid
Super Mario Brothers
The Legend of Zelda

The Blog Alpha & Omega

I don't generally like to post articles or blog entries directly, but this one amused the hell out of me. See the Life Cycle of Bloggers.

Education and Racism

Two things are on my mind, and I am going to try to bring them together.

First, the recent post by Fruit Fly got me thinking again about college. Growing up, college was always a long-term goal instigated by my father. I am the youngest, and only male, of my siblings. I think that my poor dad may have, at one time, put a little bit of "last hope" pressure on me.

You see, both of my parents are college graduates. As were their parents. But while I was growing up, my sisters were free spirits. It was not until the last 10 years or so that they "got their (collective) acts together."

Actually, I had planned to go to a four-year college, but my "money" slipped away when my grandmother passed. She had set up a trust-fund for her grandchildren to attend higher education, but that evaporated when she died. I was stuck half-way though my local JC with nowhere to go.

While attending the JC, I took a sociology class. We were actually in-class when the OJ Simpson verdict was presented over radio. We had around 15 white kids, 5 hispanic kids and 5 black kids in the class that day. We listened to the verdict, and discussed.

If you've never been through Napa, 5 African Americans in a class of 25 is extraordinary. This is the second thought on my mind, brought to light by Reese. Reese mentions the lack of black people in the desert. I hope that she doesn't care about the score if she ever visits the Napa Valley.

Anyhow, the division of opinion was particularly interesting because it was during a sociology class. The black students started cheering, the white and hispanic students caught their collective breath and wondered who bought off the jury? Civil lawsuit aside, it still seems obvious that OJ was (is) guilty. To all (5) black students, it was obvious that he was innocent, and should be completely exonerated.

Can simple skin color so profoundly change the way that we think about things?

Was it racism that caused us (non-black students) to believe that OJ was guilty? Was it racism that caused the black students to assume that he was innocent?

I could have finished college, but I'm basically lazy. All of my friends that went to college eventually moved back to town, many of them to their parent's house. Having been on my own for at least 5 years earlier I asked myself what they were doing wrong, and why college cost so much when it could not provide real-world experience? While I was trying to find a way to subsidize just another semester, my friends were coming back and buying me beers on their parent's credit.

Again, I've always been lazy. I could have taken a 3rd job to put myself through college. But Yuck. I tell you what, I make a hell of a lot more than my college friends.

Perhaps innate intelligence is worth something, after all.

Wow, this post was a mish-mash of random posts and comments. I was not able to come to any kind of stasis. I think that I meant to discuss the importance of college, and the increasingly non-issue of racism.

But I failed on both fronts. These topics are far too big for me.

DeMille. Yo. Closeup.

They grow up so fast...



Here we are today at 9 weeks. My wife informs me that this is a girl. She just knows.

I'm thinking of the future boyfriends that just have been, or soon will be conceived. It reminds me that I'm low on ammunition.