October 29th 12:49PM
The weekend's shot
Tomorrow should be full of in-laws, and the next day much the same, when we drive to my father-in-law's house
Unrequited mischief
My attempts to stir up trouble were largely unsuccessful yesterday. My respondents were largely professional and mature. Damn them!
October 28th 12:49PM
Stirring the pot
I got to write some e-mails this morning to my associates in BNI that should stir up some low-level controversy, and generate interesting responses. I can only hope I've made someone uncomfortable.
<rubbing hands together> Muhuhahaha.
October 27th 12:49PM
Random thoughts I barely have time to note
- Every time I think I have a minute to chill, something comes up.
- I have made some meager progress with French lately, learning to conjugate "vivre," "to live."
- I am horrible at picking out gifts, and our anniversary is coming up. Candy, flowers - would it be funny if I bought her a vibrator for our anniversary? I think so. It may not sound romantic, but it proves I'm thinking of her.
- This morning I was gripped by positive thoughts, a state of mind that promotes exploration of things I can do, if only I have the inspiration and guts. I love moments like that.
October 26th 7:49AM
Screw the pets
I got rid of the links to our dogs (the site no longer exists), and the cat page. This place looks amateur enough without that crap. We love our pets, but really, who needs to see that shit?
October 25th 6:59PM
My dad broke our site
My dad has been working on the website I mentioned, "MantecaStuff.com."You can tell, because it's just as busted as a tricycle on the freeway.
He's learning to embrace graphics, and may someday learn to use color. I'm no Leonardo Da Vinci, but when I saw the latest page, the color was striking to say the least. I didn't tell him this, but I thought "If a pimp had an ice cream truck, this is the color he would paint it."
He checks this space, so I'm sure he'll catch this critique eventually. Ah well, I couldn't keep it inside.
October 25th 12:49PM
Some reasons to vote for Kerry
- Kerry is for developing alternative fuels to oil
- Bush is a diplomatic lightning rod, where Kerry is not hated on the level of Adolf Hitler
- Kerry is for stem-cell research
October 22nd 7:49AM
I am not as smart as Stephen Hawking, but I might be funnier
My company gave me my own voicemail box. My company also signed me up for an e-mail list that advocated doing something "different" with your voicemail greeting, to set myself apart from the same old zombie approach ("You've reached blah blah blah, leave a message...").
So, I used the MS Speech app to generate a computerized voicemail greeting that sounds like, and pretends to be, noted theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, advocating my equal intellect, and that you should leave me a voicemail. I've already collected one giggling voicemail message, and that's all the encouragement I need. It's at 209-340-2652.
October 21st 5:59PM
Tradeoffs and choices
On my way home, I stopped at an off ramp stoplight, and on the shoulder was a bum and a little black dog, with his stuff spread out on the ground and his cardboard sign that read: "HUNGRY."
Manteca has some genuine bums, and at least one fake one - some joker who hangs around intersections and on-ramps collecting money with a pitiful appearance and a cardboard sign, before heading home to a warm meal to count his loot from all the suckers. I hope he gets knifed for his shoes by someone who hasn't eaten in a week and coughs like a mummy with tuberculosis.
But this guy looked a lot more like the real deal - possibly my mummy. He was thin, had round-framed spectacles, 10-inch dreadlocks, teeth like a busted piano, and a layer of schmootz on him. He was picking through his junk like he was organizing it.
Maybe it makes me a sucker, but his dog was pitiful, and I could only imagine the way he lived, and his sign was simple, without some long insincere bullshit like "Vietnam vet with several children just needs just enough gas money to get to church and feed my three-legged cat." Brevity passed for sincerity today, and I called him over and slipped him a fiver. He moved quickly to my car and his mouth was instantly and rapidly in motion with gratitude and advocating my blessings from God. I'm sure he didn't give a shit what I said, but I told him the only genuine thing I could think of: "Good luck." As I drove away, I thought maybe I should have recommended that he "make sure the dog sees some of that," but I didn't, and anyway, he wanted some money, not financial advice, so maybe I should just hold my friggin' mud.
It wasn't some great epiphany or anything, but on my way home I thought about my computer, my guitar and my warm bed. Now I'm thinking about how tomorrow he'll do whatever he pleases with infinite time and limited choices, and I'll spend 5/6 of my day in paid servitude with all of my teeth.
Tradeoffs and choices, certainly.
Ham'n it up
Slade Ham has a website and some rants pages that are every bit as sarcastic and clever and acerbic as I want and try to be. Great stuff. I got an eyeful of it, and it's encouraging to me.
October 21st 12:59PM
MantecaStuff.com
It looks like we've registered a domain name and are shopping for hosting, so this project may actually turn into something soon.
I wish there were more to write, but just now, there isn't...
October 20th 12:45PM
Manteca website progress
I've been working with my dad to discuss and begin work on a website about Manteca. Although I killed the version I had posted on this site, I moved it to his personal account area, so we can combine our files and work on the thing more cooperationally. We expect to garner a domain and hosting package soon, as well as add a moderate butt-load of content, too.
Letters from France
My penpal has been ill, and I hadn't heard from him in weeks. He wrote today, and I fired a reply back today as well. He's better, but not a lot better.
Tahoe, squared
My bro-in-law and nearly his whole family almost ate the big one on their way up to Lake Tahoe, in their Chevy Tahoe. Apparently, they mysteriously >ahemspeedingcough< lost control, and plunged over a 300-foot cliff, to be stopped and saved 50 feet down or so by a fortuitously-placed fencepost. I'm told they all emerged from the vehicle and crawled gratefully back up to the road, possibly to shake the shingles from their shorts. I'm glad they didn't all die, which as the story is told, was a distinct possibility.
October 17th 7:29AMYep - slippin'.
Another three days.
It's really paying off
I weighed 235 pounds this morning. That means after a week containing jogging, biking, pushups & situps - I gained 1.5 pounds. It's a bizarre, disappointing world I live in. Oh well, we'll see see how it goes.
October 14th 12:49AMSo busy
Wow, three days went by w/o blogging. I must be slippin'
Yesterday, while on a tech support call, my callee told me I should be a stand-up comedian, due to my animated speech patterns and frenetic responses. I don't know if God is tempting me, mocking me, or simply trying to tell something to one of his stupider flock members.
Work has been ridiculous. Stagnant one day, sprinting the next. I am realizing that one of my authority figures at work acts more like a fellow employee than a boss. Also, he can and sometimes should be treated as such.
October 11th 12:49PM
Oh yeah...
I forgot to note: On Sunday, I still weighed 233.5 pounds.
October 11th 7:56AMWhat a weekend
We went to "PGM Theatres" in Manteca. I was hoping for a scrappy young upstart of a business to upstage the existing erstwhile Manteca theater monopoly, "Stadium 10 Cinema," who have allowed their business to slack and wane, with shabby facilities and surly, teenage employees, among other drawbacks.
Well, clearly I expected too much. PGM offered stale popcorn, insufficient staff and we sat around waiting for an hour until the projectionist finally emerged to admit that the movie won't be shown because he cannot get the projector lamp to light, and we've been having this trouble with this projector for some time. How disappointing. I was hoping for more than that.
Plus, the final insult, their website doesn't work. And hasn't for weeks. And they know it. I left my card, maybe I can help.
Also, I put extra effort into housework and watched the baby early each morning, only to have my loving wife complain persistently that I haven't done anything special for her lately. I'm still trying to choke that one down.
It is my nature to bitch about that and hash it out, but I'm letting it go. Trying to.
October 9th 11:36AM
I am the shit. I am the man. I am ... the Shit Man. ("I am the Shit, Man"?)
I took my stilts out this morning for their first run in about a year, with their first run being about 40 seconds long and ending in a fall. I made three, 15-foot-round-trip outings, from my perch, out and back. I remained uninjured.
Today was much better. For one, I wised up and got knee and wrist guards, and a bicycle helmet. Smart. I also tried out the idea of taking along a walking stick, an 8-foot-long, 2" x 2" wooden staff (just barely long enough, at that) we've had laying around from projects past. It was just what I needed.
Unfortunately, I picked a support staff with a serious knot and kink about 18" from the bottom, and didn't realize it until I got up on my contraptions, and stared down the length of it to the ground. From the view of the length, the absurd joint in the stick was obvious, but it proved just barely sturdy enough to do it's job. At one point, I had to lean on it pretty heavily, and I saw the troublesome joint bend frighteningly, but I relented and averted disaster.
Not only was it tremendously helpful in distributing my weight and assisting in a three-point tripod balance, but when I clumsily wheeled back (the worst way I can think of to fall, backwards), I picked up on the stick. It's weight and that of my arms out in front of me, helped me regain my balance.
By the way, my perch, my launchpad, was a kiddie slide with a platform about shoulder-height, where I could sit, lace up, and take off from.
I'd show you pictures, but I didn't get any. Unlike last time, I went solo, leaving my wife at home to wonder what kind of a nut she get herself hooked up with. So, no one was there to take photos, video, laugh, or call 911. Next time.
October 8th 7:49AM
Open mic night, a bust this week
My wife and I went to the Main Street Cafe and Coffee Company last night, to listen to the amateur exhortations of the local creatives.
Unfortunately, there were no takers for the open mic, so we didn't get exposed to any local culture. A bunch of hippie-types wandered in, and word had it that they were the regular open mic'ers, but they soon wandered back out again, so nothing came of it. Ah well...
October 6th 7:49AM
Rodney's gone
Rodney Dangerfield passed away last night, how sad. As is widely known, Dangerfield gave a lot of now-famous comics their start at his New York club, Dangefield's. He was also a master of self-deprecating humor, a favorite style of mine, allowing the jester to be as cruel as he likes, and nobody gets hurt.
What a guy. The world will miss him. Here's to ya, big guy, with respect, and a big "OK."
October 6th 7:49AM
I feel better
As I blogged recently, I have been feeling intellectually stagnant lately. I'm happy to say it's getting better. I suspect it's tied to the little squib of creativity I used in creating a new design, but I am feeling more like my old self in the last day or two.
I even got on a roll enough to write out my opinion of "Real Time with Bill Maher," an HBO show that has been beating one side of the political drum to death. Anyway, it got under my skin, and I couldn't keep it in anymore, so I got up at 3:00 a.m. today and let it all out in black and white. I'll post it below. It's long, but screw it, this blog needs content anyway. Here it is:
I just finished HBO's most recent installment of
"Real Time with Bill Maher," and had to write about it. It's either
this, or kick the Hell out of the cat, and he's been through enough. What
kills me is Bill Maher's enormous talent, and what a waste of that talent
this show has become. While in the recent past, Maher could lacerate any
political android in sight and pry up the floorboards of all but the tightest
arguments, "Real Time" has gotten Real Bad, mainly because it's
devolved into a Liberal Lovefest, and should be more accurately renamed
"Kick the Republicans In the Nuts."
To start off, the entire monologue at the outset of the show was 100% Bush-bashing.
I don't even think Kerry's name came up, much less in a skeptical light.
And the jokes were limp and sickly. I think fired writers from the Tonight
Show are sending their throwaways to the Maher crew, who are apparently
running them happily.
The so-called discussion period, involving Bill Maher, George Carlin, some woman from the BBC and the token grinning idiot Republican apologist, was even more one-sided than the monologue, and was a 40 minute discussion only of just how stupid/evil Republicans are in general, and George Bush, specifically. To call this an even-handed political discussion or even a humorous discussion, is to call Ralphie May a svelte, well-balanced young comedian. It is ludicrous on its face, and demonstrates a grim determination to ignore reality.
Most of the round table portion was Maher teeing up suppositions on the idiocy and sinisterness of Republicans in general, and the Bush administration specifically. Just like every other edition of "Real Time," the one Republican defender spends all of his time defending conservative viewpoints, often because no one else in attendance will, even though often he doesn't agree with the policies they're defending. He's stuck with it by default. And Carlin, who is there every other week anymore ...
Okay, let me just stop here and get something off my chest about George Carlin. I have loved George Carlin's humor since I was a little kid when I was maybe 13 - I still remember listening to "Class Clown" on a hand-me down 33 vinyl record, until they took it away from me. I loved it with a fervor bordering on religion.
That said, George Carlin went off his meds about 15 years ago, and nobody noticed. Somewhere, there are two guys with butterfly nets searching in vain for a skinny guy with a white beard in black clothes, like some shriveled, ninja Santa Claus. I am confident they will find him, because he's completely out of his Goddamned mind. And what is it with the all black clothing? Is Carlin turning into a French mime act? He's like the second coming of Johnny Cash with this "Man in Black" shit.
And another thing, and I apologize right up front to my betters here, but if I see the words "Carlin" and "genius" together in the same sentence one more fucking time, I'm going to kick in my monitor's screen and slit my wrists with the resulting shards. It just isn't true - he's turned into the ranting insane Grandfather that people talk about while he's still in the room.
...Anyway... this poor excuse for political discourse shambles on. Bill M. treats the Republican cardboard cutout like some kind of retard, absolutely disrespectful of the guy and the role he's forced into in the first place, at one point accusing him of being "on the pipe." All the while Maher's either lapping up or patiently tolerating Carlin's rehashed, pseudo-intellectual bullshit, this tired "bourgeoisie vs. the proletariat" 60's rant that doesn't make any fucking sense whatsoever, and never did. Never was Carlin's simplistic, mouth-breathingly shallow "Big man/little man," "rich man / poor man" horseshit rhetoric challenged, not once, even though it was achingly, shout-at-the-television stupid.
You wanna convince me that this was A) honest political discussion, or B) funny? Forget it, there's no way - I double-dog dare you. Anyone who's seen Friday's program cannot assert with a straight face that this was either. The only way it could be considered humorous is to try and view it as straight political discourse - that's the only time it's funny, but in a sad, "why did Comedy have to die?" kind of way.
Like I said earlier, Bill Maher is a huge comic talent with the ability to skewer those with any political bent. He just doesn't seem willing to use his ability to do so. It's like he only sharpens one side of his comedy knife anymore - and the thing's gone burred and dull.
October 5th 12:49PM
Manteca, continued
I have built a new design from scratch (copying one I saw somewhere), and am applying it here. I like the new design, and will keep it.
Debates tonight
The VP debates are on tonight, and after last Thursday's spirited upset, I am hoping for (but not expecting) a no holds barred, WWF (old school, baby!)-type rhetorical brawl, complete with low blows, eye gouges, and the dreaded DDT. Hoo-yeah! Let's get it on!
October 3rd 7:16PMManteca
I spent some time late this morning taking pix around town, and used them to put together a sub-par header graphic and plagiarized my own 3-column layout to create this.
I know it's fairly weak, and the header graphic needs help, but I have to say it is a little rush putting something up. Defecating one little nugget of something feels so much better than constipating volumes of nothings.
Did I mention I've been drinking?
Ye Gods, what a disgusting metaphor. I got some of that Kelly Bros. Four Towers IPA I mentioned in the recent past, and it is some serious, heady beer.
I've never been entirely comfortable with the term "heady." It makes me think of oral sex, and not in a positive way, if that's possible.
Please excuse my frank vulgarity - I just finished watching Howard Stern's "Private Parts," and I fear I've been compromised. It's fun, though.
October 3rd 8:16AMP.S.
I need to be more positive, about my life and my options.
October 3rd 8:15AM
Stuck in a rut
Some sales guru whose newsletter my boss signed me up for sent me this saying: "The difference between a rut and the grave is depth," or something pretty close to that. He's (the guru, not my boss) got a lot of chuckle head, self-help, quasi motivational speaker hooey like that. No matter how hackneyed, it can be true.
Although I am more learned and capable than I have ever been, I feel a defeatism that borders upon brain damage. I have the resources and ability to make video, music, web designs and writing, and I feel a leeching apathy towards all of it. How wasteful, how ridiculous. Maybe I've learned about these things without actually creating much, teaching myself the how's without actually making anything, however imperfect. Maybe I need inspiration, maybe I need a project.
There's this website idea I've discussed with my dad, maybe I could get behind that. I should, you know. I half talked him into it, and haven't done anything about it since. I feel guilty, like I've tricked him. I'm confident he's made much more progress than I have - he couldn't have made any less.
Hm. Maybe I'll start that today. I'll let you know how it goes.