i've recently just finished reading The Lathe of Heaven (Ursula K Leguin) which was a nice reality bending bit of sci-fi, have not seen either movie version yet but plan on it soon. currently i'm working my way through The Name of the Rose (Umberto Eco). The movie is like an abridged version of the book. the director obviously took some liberties in getting the ideas across to a mass audience. still a good movie. also, currently am in the midst of Killing Time (Caleb Carr). i really liked The Alienist and enjoyed The Angel of Darkness . however, i think maybe he should stick to period mystery novels and leave the sci-fi to those better suited for it like William Gibson or Phillip K Dick . i do profess an nodding interest in his book Lessons in Terror . apparently written prior to the war in Iraq (ie. "war on terror". i'll come back to this.....maybe). have just started with The Andromeda Strain (Michael Crichton) and am looking forward to getting int...
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helpful tip(s)
a good way to tell when you need new underwear is if while your out walking about you find that while your pants may still be up, your drawers are somehow around your knees. if after taking off your t-shirt you notice your vision is blurry, check to see if your glasses are in the pile of shirt. leaving the freezer door ajar, causes things inside to become soft and squishy. so if you grab an ice pop expect to eat it very fast or drink it. if you think it was a shart. it probably was. don't do it again.
as you may have noticed, i've become deliquent in my blogging. i blame the liberal media. oh wait, i don't have any media exposure anymore. alas, no tv, internet privileges revoked at work via threats of firings, radio is out because i may accidentally hear some of this new emo-esque garbage the world might end if i hear dashboard confessional. or is that out now? i'm so 5 minutes ago i don't even know what's out there not to like! i hear nickleback is out there ripping themselves off some more though. here if you haven't heard this yet. (it still makes me laugh) hopefully the carbon copy nu-metal phase has moved on too. so....one of the reasons i haven't kept up with this here blog is that my life is stagnating again. and i haven't the gumption to unstagnify it. there's only so much i can gripe about my work environment before even i feel the need to blast a handful of knuckles through my face. i haven't even had any more "my pants ...
egads!!
i haven't really had time/mental wherewithal to blog lately. you may have noticed this. then again, maybe you haven't. regardless, here i am because i had to share this with you. a few posts back, i put a link up that had something or other to do with witchcraft. now i never gave them my e-mail addr but each of their e-mails show up in my inbox addressed to 'monkey'. ie. "monkey, we're confused...." or "monkey, why are they so mad?" or most recently "i am looking for you monkey." (actual e-mail titles.) now, i know they are pretty much just spam. even though on their site, at the very bottom Note: We will never spam, sell or rent your email address. We hate spam as much as you do. but i was curious why they would be looking for me. apparently there is a very secret club that i can join where i will enjoy wealth (of the tremendous variety), health, power and love. currently it is in a beta-testing mode so my fees have been waived. ...
nothing is worse than finding out that for the past week your bedroom window was open a crack and in that time a swarm of angry hornets moves in so that when you go to investigate a peculiar noise there you manage to piss them all off and they start swarming in your bedroom, which stinks because that's the room with the ac. update: me-40 hornets-2 (one very painful sting in the noggin. DAMN, THAT HURTS!!!) update 2: tonight i discovered something. i'm allergic to hornet-stings.
while i do have a vast array of peculiar stories in my arsenal, there comes a time when the last hidden surprise must be revealed. i've fired off many of them here on this blog. today i blasted one across the lunch table. the air was of the solid sort and there was a hot pocket on my plate. it was agreed by everyone that i have "the weirdest things" happen to me. i'm always amazed by that. granted i've had a years worth of half hour intervals to share a few bits so they do have a shortened view of who i am. but i still took it as a challenge. some of you may remember a story i had started a long while ago. i never finished it here because in the midst of telling it, it started up again. but it was a tease and it thrilled me for a moment before dropping face first into absolutely nothing. some highlights of the story involved a rehab, some cops, a car chase, a stake out, some madness and a girl. so there i was rambling out this story, because for some reason i d...
today, yes today...it made me wish i was smoking again. but due to this inexplicable want for some sort of anonymity i will forgo (forego? it doesn't look right. what the fuck is wrong with this word?) explanations, that and my boss seems like the kind of guy who would fire you for talking about the workplace. some of you may have noticed that i have cleverly avoided any details about where i work with the exception of the halfwits i work with and the cubicles. god the cubicles, how i dream of rending them in a hulkish fury. and since i'm a creature of habit i will stick with this formula. today i heard someone mocking a (client? customer? poor sap who's money is being fleeced right out the pocket for items sold, services rendered, the pleasure of our company?) for using the word ' expediate ' instead of ' expedite '. what a fool, 'expediate', laughs all around. apparently, we're all a lot smarter than those quarterwits we deal with. links hol...
so, what exactly is intelligence? is it academic? is it a 4.0 avg? is it 1600 SAT scores? what i remember of my highschool and college years was that to get a good grade you simply needed to parrot what the teacher had already said. in fact most of my papers were simply rewordings, paraphrasing of what the teacher had said early on. is that knowledge? if so then, isn't it subjective depending upon what one is exposed to? can you develop intelligence then simply by exposing someone to more? or is it inherent within the person already? say you took Tesla from birth and left him to be raised by wolves, would he no longer be intelligent? maybe intelligence is analytical, the ability to take what is given and formulate new ideas, to draw connections between things. if that's the case couldn't wolf raised Tesla be just as smart, just as able to make connections to draw ideas? or maybe it isn't inherent and must be fostered. then could not anyone be able to be Tesla , give...
new pet peeve
if you share conjoined driveways with your neighbors and you live on a busy highway, don't f#$%ing park your car at a 45 degree angle taking up 3/4 of the driveway entrance!!! i had to freakin' back my car into the highway during rushhour traffic to get the proper trajectory to enter my driveway without damaging either vehicle and that involved a small portion of lawn. i like my neighbors, they are generally nice people, you know for someone who speaks in tongues and has a log cabin inside their house (yes inside. i have not been able to get in there to verify it but that's because i value my health.) sure they have a mountain of garbage piled in front of the rusted metal barn, but who doesn't these days. but sometimes the creative parking they do really pisses me off. we already let them park in our back yard so why do they keep leaving their cars smack in the middle of the driveway keeping anyone from coming in or going out? why?!?? WHY, BANJO,WHY!?!?!???!
i was just at Wendy's eating a healthy meal of frescata club sandwich and baked potato when i looked out the window from my 2 feet of table space and saw someone get out of his truck and walk across the parking lot to throw his trash out. nothing odd there. perfectly natural and possibly even environmentally concious. but then when he got back to his truck he threw his cup out of the window into the parking lot. why would he even bother pretending the first time?
Last night I recieved a mass e-mail. Within was a "heartwarming" story told from the viewpoint of the mother of a soldier. The setting involved a check out line in either a grocery store or some equally mundane retail establishment. It regaled us, the mass, with a story of a woman in a burkha who accosted the cashier who was wearing a pin with an american flag. The cashier responded "I'm proud to be an American and will always wear this pin." To which the burkha wearing villain replied "Why won't you stop bombing my people." Here we come to the crucial part of the e-mail. The part foretold by the title as being "the best reponse". A man put his arm around the soldier/son and declared loudly that young men like this one were dying to fight for her freedom. That she was in our country to escape something from hers. That if she was so willing to speak out now they would be glad to ship her right back to Iraq right now. Cheering all around!! ...
it's time to come to terms with the fact that i am clumsy as shit.....but really deft. first it was the dropping the soap in the shower and catching it while it was on route to the bottom of the tub. now i've managed to trip up the stairs with full glass of iced tea in one hand, a book in the other while chewing a piece of bread. and i managed it without spilling a drop. i know you're all jealous of lack of inner balance and my adroit handling of said lack of balance. many of you wonder how to go about walking into walls and still looking cool and impressive. and i wish i could teach you (and then market it on all late night cable channels and earn a lot of money) but it's simply something you have to be born with. so to all of you out there wishing to whatever lords of judgement you happen to wish at. don't fret, some day you will find your calling as well.
some thoughts i had today included: What the heck? Why is everything on my screen blue? I wonder who will cut the grass. X-files rocks. and finally, i'm a hard worker, it's pretty much accepted by everyone i've worked for and worked with. i've earned my bonuses (which to date is the monetary equivalent of umm...say about $150, give or take a few tax dollars....yeah...i know) so, where was i....oh right, i work hard and i'm good (for the most part) at what i do. now, while i don't particularly like him i'm sure tom cruise also works hard and he's very good at what he does, which is essentially, well...act like tom cruise. (don't tell me you haven't noticed that he plays the same character in every movie) but i look at my $150 in bonuses and compare it to the $100,000,000 he made for acting in War of the Worlds and well....i see an imbalance here. i know his supporters will point out things like he bought coffee for the crew. what's that abou...
As I sit here and type this two EMS vans are backing into the conjoined driveway between my neighbors' house and mine. To be quite honest I don't know them very well and most of what I know is heresay. But this is the second time they've been by in a week. Apparently, this past weekend they made a stop. This weekend I also saw their cat lying on the side of the road. Half of it anyway. I suspect whatever gripe I may have* should sit quietly inside my gullet since I can hear them yanking one of those gurneys out of the back right now. If I was a better person I might go out and see if everything is ok. But then, I know it's not and there isn't anything I can do, so I would just be sticking my nose into their business. *i don't mean a gripe about them. just any gripe in general.