Birthday wishes

If you're reading this, head over to Tracy's blob and post a Happy Birthday wish! Today she turns 36!

I've known Tracy since I started at the county back in the 20th Century. In the beginning we didn't get along so well (she says it was because I hung out with an undesirable-type) and we even had a few fights. But once we each figured out that the other was basically honest and straight-forward, to the point of bluntness, we realized that we were much more alike than different, and it started us on a long road of friendship.

So, here's to Tracy! • 6:27 AM 1 comments

Smacky hates banner ads

Last night I was sitting at my desk, surfing, Smacky curled up asleep in my lap.

I was checking out my MySpace... uh... space (why are MySpace pages so ugly?) and found a bulletin from a friend. While I was responding, a banner ad loaded. It showed a cartoon kitten wandering back and forth, meowing loudly and robotically. I think the idea was to click on it, much like the evil "click on the monkey and win a million dollars!!!!" banner ads of a few years ago.

As soon as the meowing started, even though to my ears it sounded cartoon-y and false, Smacky woke right up. He looked around, and immediately started hissing. He tried to figure out where the sound came from. His ears went (further) back and his back fur stood up.

I started laughing at him. "There's no cat, it's a stupid banner ad! Go back to sleep, cranky!"

He paid me no mind and jumped up on the table and looked out the window. He was dead certain the cat was outside.

I turned up the sound on the speakers, still laughing. Smacky looked back at me as if he was trying to shut me up so he could figure out where the sound was coming from. When the volume went up he got confused and looked back at me and the laptop; circling around behind the screen, still hissing at the noise, he thought he was being sneaky. I muted the speakers; after a second he stopped hissing but was still giving off the body language of a cat looking for a fight.

I un-muted the speakers. I wanted to save this banner ad, but didn't feel like clicking through. But, hell, this was way too entertaining.

When Smacky started reaching around the screen and smacking at the speakers and display, I decided enough was enough. I didn't want him scratching my beautiul display. I muted it again, and picked him up and plunked him on the floor. He immediately started licking and cleaning himself and trying to calm down. Poor guy. He'd been pretty worked up...

I'm adding this to my "Things that make me laugh" list. If I ever come across that ad again, I am so going to save that sound. • 4:05 PM 1 comments

I sass that hoopy frood Douglas Adams

Tomorrow is Towel Day.

Don't be surprised if you see me carrying a towel all day.


• 4:36 PM 0 comments

Typos are a good thing

In a text message to me, Tracy had a typo that I have decided is worthy of being a real word.

She typed "ammuniacting" instead of "communicating".

I kept using it, and Tracy thought I was mocking her. I was not. I just liked the sound of this new word. But when she challenged me to use it in a sentence, I wasn't sure of it's actual meaning.

Until now. I present the formal definition of the word. Feel free to use it and link back to this post for (my and Tracy's) future posterity.

Am • mun • i • act: (uh • MYOO • nee • akt) - Verb - to appear to communicate, especially regarding ones' feelings or emotional states, but instead to actually confuse the target even further. vt., am • mun • i • act • ing; am • mu • ni • ac • tion

• 12:52 PM 1 comments

Sports photography

I finally updated my Picture of the Week (over in the left sidebar). Started to do it Sunday night but I lost my internets (probably due to the storm) and it had to wait until today.

The pictures I added have all been taken by my dad, and are from the races that my nephew, Max, and I have run together. The folder labels should be sufficiently explanatory...

The Picture of the Week features myself and Max, and is from the start of my second-best-ever 5K race, which I blogged about over on my running blog.

Thanks to my dad for supplying the pictures! • 6:17 AM 2 comments

Close but no aardvark

I was excited this week to learn that the Discovery Channel's "Mythbusters" had been added as a download to the iTunes Music Store.

Since I got turned on to "Lost", I've been missing Adam and Jamie (and Kari - rowr) since they're on opposite the survivors on the mysterious island (at least on my cable lineup). I looked forward to watching "Lost" last night, then downloading "Mythbusters" and watching it on the bus to work.

But only Season One of "MB" is available yet.

Hurry up and add the actual new episodes, Apple! • 4:28 PM 0 comments

Basic assumptions

In a conversation with a friend today, I both explored and explained my basic assumptions about life. My friend was feeling uncomfortable and uneasy and didn't really know why - a painful place for someone not used to introspection, to be sure.

"I feel lost" was my friend's summary statement, after some verbal exploring.

Which I took to be a good thing. Being lost, in my mind, is the essential human condition (which I further believe has a basis in biological limitations we all share, but that's a side trail I'll follow at another time).

Admitting one is lost is an admission that you're in unfamiliar territory, and you're not sure how you got there, and how to get back to familiar territory. Right?

Well, since we're all making this up as we go (life as improv), isn't most of life unfamiliar territory? Especially if you're seeking improvements, of yourself or for others you care about. Improving is about seeking different ways to do the things you might do automatically... and if you don't find yourself in unfamiliar territory when you do that, you're still not trying hard enough.

Being lost is admitting that I'm probably never going to see the whole territory, and likely neither is anyone else. In fact, I'll probably never even see a map of the territory, or even the small area I'm in right now. But I still need to take action.

It's the folks who insist that they're never lost that worry me... or rather, the ones who were lost and are now found and therefore are gonna be OK. Those are the folks who have forsaken the terrain they're in and are focused on another, later, trail... one for which there is little evidence even exists. Those folk are asleep and dreaming. And not in such a good way, I think, because they've abandoned any responsibility for the region we share.

They've decided to not think of themselves as lost in order to prepare for a time when they'll be shown the map. All secrets revealed.

...sorry, friend, I'm not trading my current view for a possible look later. I'll just sit here and admire what I can see and see how it all connects to where I've been.

If this seems deep, it shouldn't. It all flows from my bedrock assumption about the universe, and that is: I don't know. And I'm OK with that.

...but while I'm here, why not try to find out as much as I can? • 12:49 PM 1 comments

It's the ears

Smacky must have had a horrible fight last week. One day, I forget when, in the wee early hours of the morning, he came limping back home after being gone for a day and a half. He immediately polished off all the food and most of the water I put out for him, and then curled up in a dark corner of the apartment and slept.

He would tolerate me being around, and occassionally would even climb up into my lap, but if I tried to pick him up he'd yowl and claw at me. I didn't feel any broken bones, though, just scabs across his chest. Bad sign, if an enemy got to his chest in a fight; it means he was on his back, probably. I'm guessing he lost that fight.

He mostly avoided going outside for a while.

Then, when he asked, I let him outside again Saturday morning, and he disappeared again until last night. Not limping quite as bad as the time before, but I still think he lost the fight. He looked... odd. I couldn't put my finger on what had changed, though.

He kept head-butting me, and pushing his head against my hand for petting - but if I actually touched his left ear, he'd shiver and shake his head and pull away. I tried looking down inside to see if there was any blood or something stuck in there but he simply wouldn't let me.

That's when I noticed that his ears were flattened out, almost pushed back, like a cat does when they're cornered or frightened. He wasn't acting scared, they weren't that far back, but flattened out like that it gave him the cat-equivalent of a scowl.

He was super hungry again, so I fed and watered him (it's been very hot so we're both going through a lot of water), and let him rest on my lap while I listened to the iPod and read for a bit. I felt sympathy for him and didn't shoo him off because it was too hot. I had to carefully move him aside when I had to get up to change the laundry (yeah, doing laundry sucks in the heat but it had to be done), and the second or third time I did that he'd had enough. He walked into the kitchen and fell over onto the linoleum, soaking in the coolness of the plastic.

That's when I realized that Smacky is looking more and more like Bucky Katt every day... the ears back expression is almost identical.

Be careful what you name your cat; it will affect their personality more than you will imagine. • 6:38 AM 1 comments

Another girl rides the bus

On Sunday afternoon, I found myself on the bus, as I often do. I felt scruffy and unwashed, unshaven, wearing casual grubbies for kicking back with the family eating BBQ and drinking and getting on each other's nerves, only now I was headed home.

And this amazingly beautiful girl got on the bus and sat down just a few seats away.

I couldn't tell if she was Hispanic or Asian or some exotic mixture or something else that I was too uncultured to recognize. Black hair, cut short and falling past her face and ears, showing off a graceful neck. Almond-shaped eyes with pupils like black pearls, if pearls were the size of quarters. Full lips, tastefully colored with a sensual and subtle red. Shorter than me. Curved and shaped in a slight exaggeration of the perfect ratio for the female form, shoulders flowing into breasts tapering to belly and flaring out again in hips and butt. Dressed, in spite of the heat, in a black long-sleeved shirt, black knee-length skirt, and tall black boots encasing her calves, the silver hooks delineating the ell-shape from the top of her foot folding upward along her shin. Just a touch of gorgeous brown skin showing between the top of the boots and the bottom of the skirt... and just a little bit more skin when she sat down and crossed one leg over the other.

I've been practicing. Practicing noticing these girls and practicing talking myself into saying something to them. All I need is one (or several...) to say yes and I'll start practicing the next step, too... but first I have to go talk to them, one at at time, and see if any of them are interested in what I have to say. Little Miss Dressed-In-Black-But-Not-In-A-Goth-y-Way was next.

Only my common enemy was busy interfering. That enemy being me. Or, rather, the negative voice in my head. I was too old, too dirty, too smelly, too shy, too geeky, too non-verbal, not classy enough... The Voice didn't use those words. It just sat in my brain and projected those feelings at me, paralyzing my legs and body and mouth. All I could do while under the influence of that Voice was sit and watch and wonder and fear.

Bah. I hate fear. I fought the fear, straining against it as if it were actual ropes holding me back. No go. Not working.

I tried a visualization exercise. I imagined myself getting up, moving up a few seats, moving around in front of her so as not to startle her, saying "hi, how's your day going?" and taking it from there. I pushed, and the images formed in my head... only it wasn't working.

All the while, I was talking back to the Voice, treating it like a scared three-year-old, telling it that everything will be OK, it will not be hurt, in fact, no matter what happens I'll have a story to tell Tracy and Ken and Christi and my other friends and blog about... Even if she screamed and yelled at me, or slapped me in the face, showing herself to be just a crazy scared woman... that shit would be funny, later, and as long as I was respectful and polite but interested, it wasn't likely that she's freak out that bad, anyway.

The problem was, I was watching myself do all that, and go through the consequences, from a third-person perspective. I, the one doing the viewing, was still sitting where I was, and watching this phantom-Brian get up and walk over, and talk to her. I was disassociating from myself, and admiring someone else much like myself do the thing that I wanted to do! No wonder it wasn't working.

I mentally shifted my perspective - and suddenly, I was the one moving over, and watching her as I did it, and sitting down in front of her and facing her and saying "hi"... I mean, I pictured myself doing it...

...and then, I did it. I was sitting there, in front of her, and smiling at her. She didn't smile back, but merely looked at me, interested but non-committal.

"Hi," I said.

"Hi," she said, carefully, smiling tightly, politely, but not invitingly.

"I just wanted to tell you," I said, smoothly but finding it hard to make full eye contact, "that I think you are very beautiful."

She smiled a tiny bit wider, and blushed just a little. "Thank you!" she said.

"You are very welcome" I said back, and realized that she seemed a little bit freaked out. My stop was approaching. Did I have enough courage to keep talking to her?

I didn't. Perhaps for some future girl I will. Perhaps I just wasn't getting the right, subconscious signals from this girl, but that didn't make this a mistake. In fact it was exactly the right thing to do, but I could tell that, either from her caution or fear, and my fading confidence, that the best action now was to end this on a high note and make my exit. I pulled the cord, rang the bell, requested the next stop, and got off the bus without looking back.

I hope that by leaving like that, deliberately but after a sincere (on my part) compliment, that I gave her a smile, and a story to tell. Just as she has given me a story to tell.

And I'll keep trying, until I find that girl (or girls) who react a little more openly and interestedly. Or until I can project enough confidence for both of us and lead her through the encounter.

Just need a little more practice... • 9:10 PM 1 comments

Tears

My sister almost broke down into tears when she discovered my Mother's Day present to her.

My brother-in-law had a BBQ yesterday to celebrate their new deck Mother's Day. The steaks he grilled up were delicious and tender and awesome.

Shortly before the food was due to be served, however, I discovered that, even though there was plenty of booze, there was an absence of mixers. Since I hadn't (yet) been drinking I offerred to drive down to the store and pick some up. I collared my nephew to help me carry stuff and borrowed my sister's car.

Of course, my sister's car was running on fumes - the needle on E and gas light on steady. So I filled up the tank.

Ouch! No wonder she doesn't fill it up often. The car required premium, even. I might just skip getting my sister a birthday present this year... sheesh.

So even though I told my sister that she was over-reacting a bit when she found out later what I had done... Down inside I think it was an appropriate reaction. Holy crab! That shit's expensive! • 6:38 AM 2 comments

Channels vs. ruts

I don't know if this is a real pattern, or if I'm only noticing the hits and ignoring the misses... but it seems that whenever I'm thinking hard about a problem or project or otherwise obsessing over something, random solutions turn up.

One of my projects with the website is to add a list of my recently-played tunes. I turned to Last.fm, which would seem to be ideal... but was disappointed by their stock solution.

I poked around with RSS feeds a bit, which is on the edges of what I want to do with my recently-played music, but became a little bored with it all.

Today, surfing around, Jason Kotke has a post about exactly this issue. Of course, he's an actual programmer, not an over-achieving nerd like myself, so it was easy enough for him to whip something up. But he didn't re-invent the wheel; he links to a PHP script from Andrew Kirwin.

So, now I have a different starting place... like on the shoulders of giants. Or at least taller people. OK, maybe this metaphor isn't the best.

Do great minds run in the same channels? Or are we just stuck in the same ruts? • 6:29 AM 0 comments

Decision

I've decided that "deleting entirely" is not the same thing as "editing".

If any of you saw my previous post, now gone, know that I've saved a copy of it for myself but decided not to make it public.

If you're dying to see it, email me and I might send you a copy. More than likely I'll just tell you about it, instead... • 11:48 AM 0 comments

Don't tell me what to do

I was on the bus today, a full bus, so I was standing near the back door.

A tall, cute brunette almost-punk-rock girl got on the bus and was standing just in front of me. Her hair was short and hung down longer in front than in back; she wore a black tanktop and a denim skirt over black leggings and canvas Chuck high-top sneakers, and a bike messenger bag slung around her thin shoulders. She was almost elfin and pale.

As we hung on to the bar and swayed back and forth on our feet, I noticed that her bag/purse was decorated with a single, black, button. It read:

Don't fuckin' tell me I'll be OK!

I wondered what her reaction would be... she seemed more of a fashion punk than a hardcore punk.

As my stop approached, I tapped her on the shoulder and said, softly, gently, "Excuse me, miss.".

She turned, a little startled, and moved aside as if I was trying to get past her. "Sorry..?" She said.

In my calmest, most reassuring, most sincere voice (and, having worked in phone support for years and years, I can be very calm, reassuring, and sincere when I want to be) I said, "I just wanted to tell you... You're going to be OK."

She smiled, puzzled. "What?" she finally offered into the pause between us.

The bus was stopped and the door to my side was opening. Maybe she hadn't heard me? I am a very quiet person normally. I raised my voice a little but tried to keep oozing calmness and sincerity. "Really. You're going to be OK." I enunciated carefully. I still hoped that she'd get the joke but it looked as though she wasn't making the connection between what I was telling her and what her button said. I turned and stepped off the bus, her puzzled grin framed by the windows in the bus door the last thing I saw of her.

I kept my calm poker face until the bus pulled away, then burst out laughing. At some point in the future, maybe in an hour, maybe longer, she's going to see the button on her bag and realize what I was telling her.

I hope she gets as much a laugh out of it as I did. It wasn't meant to be at her expense... • 3:55 PM 2 comments

Inversion

What to do, when the playlist of songs you have that are supposed to make you happy...

...doesn't anymore? • 6:34 AM 2 comments

Tax Update

I mailed off my tax forms for tax year 2001 and 2002 (as mentioned previously). I sent them Certified Mail so that I can verify that the IRS has recieved them. Just a simple precaution.

My first pass at what I owed for 2001 was the fear-freighted amount of $666.00. At least, it scared my friends.

But then I discovered (it pays to keep complete records, and I am so glad I did because this would be a very scary proposition otherwise) that I earned a total of $18.00 in interest income that year, which raised my total income just enough to bump me up a line in the tax charts, bringing my owed tax to $674.00.

Digging back into the recesses of Quicken, I found that I had sent the Feds a check for $601.60 in '02, meaning I still owed them another $72.40.

Then, going over my form for tax year 2002, I found that I owed them $35.00... however, I can't find any record of paying that amount, so I may still owe it. Ugh.

Luckily they've got my $686.00 refund to take all this out of (I was guessing at the amount in my previous post), but I still want to figure out what kind of penalty I'll be paying. It'll likely be small, sure, but it's better knowing in advance. I turned to the page on the IRS website...

Could it be any more confusing?

I found another page on About.com that explained it more simply. Plugging those numbers into a spreadsheet, and my total penalty and interest comes out to $87.63. If you add in the owed tax the total comes to $164.91.

That could be higher or lower, depending on if they calculate the interest based on the current rate, or if they use a different rate for each 3 month period, and how they compound it. I just wanted a ballpark figure.

The hardest part is that I'm not going to hear back from them for 6 to 12 weeks or more. Ugh. I hate waiting.

But at least my part is behind me. • 11:36 AM 0 comments

Spring garbage toss

I've been feeling very bogged down and tired and heavy-hearted lately. I'm not sure why, it's just a seasonal thing (I hope). But I've had a growing list of to-do items. I don't normally even keep a to-do list so that shows you just how deeply in to-do debt I've been getting, if I feel the need to start keeping track I've got too many to-do items, baby.

And the list just gets longer and longer and I just keep ignoring it and ignoring it... and I get tired-er and tired-er and I avoid thinking about why I'm so tired...

It always comes as a surprise to me, then, that actually tackling some of the higher-priority items on my to-do list can make me feel better. Why would that suprise me? The psychic weight of all those things on the list tugging at my brain, waiting for me to give them the (usually) minor attention they require and then move them off the list... it only makes sense, right?

And why do I avoid the items? Perhaps an example will help. Number one on my list is filing my Federal tax return... for 2001.

Before you say I'm crazy (I am, but not because of this) for ignoring the Internal Revenue Service, hear me out. In tax year 2001, I owed both the Feds and the State of Oregon money. I filled out the forms early, even, and knew how much I owed. When Tax Day, April 15, rolled around, I dutifully mailed off a check to each taxing authority... and filed an extension.

I don't know why I didn't just go ahead and file. My mental state back then is murky to me now. I do know that I at least sent them the money I thought I owed - I knew that filing an extension didn't mean you didn't have to pay. Maybe I thought I could find more deductions or something, and reduce the amount I had to pay? Whatever, I didn't. And since they didn't complain right away, I assumed that the IRS's were OK with that.

Except this year, when I was expecting a nice big $650 refund (which will help pay for my new sexy thing), the IRS puts a hold on it and ask me to file my return for 2001. Ugh.

I have all the paperwork for the past several years. It's all just jammed into a big box and stored in the bottom of my computer room closet. Which explains (maybe) why I've been putting off digging out the paperwork (mostly my W2 forms), filling out the forms, and mailing them off, so I can get my refund finally.

Or, at least, part of the refund. If there's a difference between what I actually owed and what I sent in, there will be a penalty to pay. And, somehow, I suspect that there will be a difference. Problem is, I don't remember exactly what I sent them four years ago - that information is locked away in my Quicken data files, from back when I used Quicken on Windows. Of course, now I can dual-boot my new sexy thing, install a Windows-version of Quicken, dig out my backup CDs and find my old Quicken data file... meh. Too much work. I'll just send the forms and let them figure it out.

So... tick, tick, tick... my $650 refund is draining away, and all I have to do is clean out my computer room closet, find my old forms, fill out the form and send it in, and optionally dig through my data backups and install a program I'll only use once.

See why I've been putting it off?

And in the meantime, while I've been stalling on re-filing my 2001 taxes, I've gotten another notice from the IRS saying that they've lost never recieved my 2002 forms and I need to resend a copy of those. Which is starting to seem like harassment but OK. Not gonna fight the IRS. I'll just have to find those, too. I know I have them.

At any rate, yesterday I spent most of the day organizing my computer room, including cleaning out the closet, digging through my box, properly filing away all my important paperwork, tossing out the stuff I don't need, looking through old photographs... I did way more than just find my old W2 forms. It was a happy/sad day. I found notes from old classes I've taken, pictures of friends lost and found again, reminders of past mistakes, reminders of past battles...

But this morning I feel better. Not only because I'm one step closer to finishing up this tax thing, but because now my computer room is organized and neat. I tossed out bags of papers and garbage, I have a pile of stuff to sell either on craigslist or at a garage sale, and my to-do list has gotten smaller, not larger, reducing the mental weight holding me down. • 6:29 AM 2 comments

Lazy tech-y posting

It's raining in Portland, OR today. Dreary day. My allergies are kicking up, and I figure it must be the mold rather than the pollen.

I breakfasted at Starbucks. Delicious soy chai and cinnamon roll. Times two. Yes, I had two of each. It's a double-serving kind of day today.

Worked a little on my site. Added two new feeds to the sidebar down there - in addition to the standard Blogger Atom feed, I've got a generic RSS feed and a link to add my site to your Bloglines page. I can tell from the webserver stats that some of you are using Bloglines and figured I'd make it easy for anyone else to try it, too.

It was easier than I thought it would be to add those. I started out investigating using PHP and PEAR to parse the RSS feeds, but it turns out that Atom is different enough that the script I found didn't work. So I had to find a way to add a standard RSS feed to my pages... and that led me to Feedburner, and that gave me simple code to copy-and-paste into my template... easy-peasy. • 11:18 AM 0 comments

Do Brians Dream?

I love Powell's City of Books. Some may only know it as a kick-ass online bookstore, but book lovers in Portland, like me, know it as a giant warehouse of dreams. It may not be the largest bookstore in the world, but it's up there, taking up a full city block and four floors, each filled to the ceiling with stacks and stacks of new and used books of every genre. Each section has a better selection than some whole bookstores.

I love this store even though they fired me. That's how much I love it.

An example is my experience last night. One of my favorite authors is Philip K. Dick, and I consider myself a collector of his books and novels. His most famous novel is "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" which was made into the movie "Blade Runner".

Now, don't get me wrong, "Blade Runner" was a great movie. Ridley Scott directing, Harrison Ford and Rutger Hauer and Sean Young... But there's so much more to the novel it originated from, that the connection in my mind between movie and novel is thin. And... I've read the novel but I don't own a copy of it.

I don't own a copy of the novel because... well... I want to own a copy that doesn't have the words "Blade Runner" on it. I want to own a copy printed before it became a hit movie.

I fully admit that this could be an elitist, or faux-elitist, idea. Like "I was cool before everyone else was cool". Hopefully I'm puncturing that faux-elitism here by calling myself out. I just want to keep the novel and the movie separate. Is that so wrong?

Now, I've been looking for a copy of "Androids" that pre-dates "Blade Runner" for, literally, years. Maybe a decade and a half. Whenever I'm in Powell's I'm looking for one. Haven't found one yet. Have, several times, almost given up and bought a copy branded with a picture of Harrison Ford.

But now I don't have to. Last night there were a bunch of old pulp paperbacks, each carefully wrapped in cellophane, in the "D" section of Sci-Fi in the Gold Room of Powell's... Including the picture you see to the right.

I've finally got what I've wanted! Let's hope that's an omen... Not that I believe in those, of course. • 9:10 AM 1 comments

Overheard

As I was leaving my apartment tonight, I overheard my next-door neighbor lady say to someone else in her apartment,

"When I die I want to come back as my own dog."

...which makes no sense to me.

...if she's dead, she isn't going to be spoiling her dog. Right?

Is there some way that that statement makes sense? I'm so not finding it. • 10:34 PM 0 comments

Mis-posted

Well, I've been doing the three blogs for over a month, and today was a milestone for me.

I posted something to the wrong blog. Damn.

I posted about not running to my political blog. Oops.

Glad I noticed tonight. And, no, this wasn't a cheap stunt to get people to click through to the other blogs... probably. • 10:39 PM 0 comments

It doeth good... or something

There's nothing that affirms the bonds of friendship as hearing from a friend who is going through some troubles, and having that friend say:

I'm having a shitty day. Call me. I need to hear you laugh at me. That always makes me laugh.

...and knowing that that friend is actually serious.

The power of cynicism... Heh.

After that phone call, I walked around in the sunshine in my neighborhood, watching people, thinking about how silly all this seems sometimes. People take their toils so seriously. They see doom and gloom at every opportunity. They fall in love, they fall out of love, they get mad or are filled with sadness...

My view of the base nature of humanity, the absurdity of corruption, the bonds that are forged by a lack of perspective, all that combined in me and came out as a cosmically-inspired laugh.

It didn't hurt (or help, I suppose) that I encouraged and extended this feeling by queuing up Bad Religion on my iPod, no doubt inspired by the gravity with which I've been experiencing life. The brutal, cynical straight talk of Greg Graffin and Brett Gurewitz always cheers me up. Or should I say Doctor Graffin? How many other punk frontmen have advanced degrees? Not many!

The absurdist humor in the advice given in "Slumber" is a perfect example. The narrator is attempting to cheer up a sad and isolated young man by pointing out how close death is, so why not choose to live as well as possible in the meantime?

so, you're feeling unimportant,
'cuz you've got nothing to say,
and your life is just a ramble,
no one understands you anyway

well, I've got a piece of news, son,
that might make you change your mind,
your life is historically meaningful,
and spans a significant time

slumber will come soon,
and you are helping put it to sleep,
side by side we do our share faithfully
assuring that slumber will come soon

well, now do you feel a little better?,
lift up your head and walk away,
knowing we're all in this together,
for such a short time anyway

there is just no time to parade around sulking,
I would rather laugh than cry,
the rich, the poor, the strong, the weak,
we share this place together,
and we pitch in to help it die

I'm not good at giving morals,
and I don't fear the consequence,
if life makes you scared and bitter,
at least its not for very long

Even the rueful self-awareness of the narrator in pointing out their own failure in delivering good news in such a dark way underscores the humanity of the message.

What else can I say but "Fuckin' right". • 7:06 PM 1 comments

New Sexy Thing overheating?

If the info in this thread in the Mac Ach forum at Ars Technica is correct, then I'm going to be mighty tempted to carefully pry open my new sexy thing and gently apply a new layer of thermal grease.

Also, if it's true, then Apple had better update their technicians on how to properly apply said grease before I ever have to send mine back for any kind of repair, 'cause it's not something I'm going to want to re-do. If I ever get the courage to actually do it.

Mine runs warmish, and the area right above the F-keys in the middle gets almost too warm to touch, but I rarely put a huge load on it. If I ever do get some games going, or some software compiling or anything heavy-duty, I might see the "too hot to touch" temperatures. And if that broke my new sexy thing I'd cry real tears and my heart would break into thirty-seven pieces. • 6:44 AM 2 comments