Dunkin’ Donuts

     Some of you may remember that I was lamenting the lack of a Dunkin’ Donuts in my area.  That situation has now been remedied with the arrival of a Dunkin’ Donuts in Round Rock, TX.

     Personally, I’m ecstatic.  Even though I won’t get there very often it’s nice to know that the option is there if I ever feel like going.  The store is pretty nice and it has places to sit at.  It’s different than the one I used to go to in Parsippany, NJ, in that you can’t sit at the counter.  That’s kind of a bummer, but I suppose it’s the way it is here in the 21st century.

     I did get a donut, though.  I had to.  And it’s just as good as I remembered them being.  I’m not a big fan of Krispy Kreme (and their close-by store has shut down), and the donuts at my grocery store are pretty horrendous when compared to a DD.

     Some other changes, since the last time I was at one, are the inclusion of “value meals.”  When I went to DD the only value meal they had was, “bowl bread donut.”  Or, a bowl of soup, a piece of bread, and a donut of your choice.  Also, there’s specialty coffee (even though I think their coffee is good enough that they don’t need them).

     Now I have my pizza place, and my donut place.  Wicked.

The Moon Hits Her Eye Like A Big Pizza Pie

      I come from New Jersey.  That may not mean much to you, but it means something to me.  It means that since I am transplanted certain things that I have gotten used to are denied to me.  That’s right, I said “denied.”

     When you live in New Jersey you’re never more than 20 feet from a pizzeria.  Austinites may be thinking, “So what?  We have plenty of pizza places here, too.”  But that’s a lie. 

     Pizza Hut, Dominos, Papa Johns, Cici’s, Little Ceaser’s, and all those places that sell frozen pizza that they shove in the microwave for three minutes are not pizza places.  Real pizza’s do not have pineapple, or eggplant, or other weird and exotic ingredients. 

     A real pizza has a somewhat thin crust, but not thin and crispy like a cracker.  It’s thin and floppy.  You fold the slice so you can eat it, but first you hold it over your paper plate and let the grease just drip off, but make sure the molten cheese doesn’t slide off with it.  If you don’t get that grease drip, it isn’t a real pizza.  And if it ain’t floppy and foldable then you’re not holding a real pizza.

     I found another pizza place in Austin that makes pizza similar to what I’m used to.  The only downside is that it’s New York style pizza, not New Jersey.  There is a difference.  However, Nikki’s Pizza is quite passable.  I don’t care for the crust at the edge because it’s too thin for me, but the sauce is spot on.  It’s not made with a ton of sugar and way too sweet to eat.  And that’s important to me.  I’m so sick of this sugary crap that all these other places throw on their pizza.  I hate sweet tomato sauce.

     The only other problem I found was that their sausage pizza used some crumbled sausage meat.  That’s a shame, but I can live with it.  

     So now I have to pizza places I can order from and get an almost authentic NJ pizza.  Nikki’s Pizza and The Original Brooklyn Pie Company.

     By the way, size does matter.  Most of the chain places have small pizzas and they try and make it look like they’re normal by calling them “large.”  They’re not. 

     For instance, Dominos sizes are thus: Small (10”), Medium (12”), Large (14”), and Extra-Large (16”). 

     Nikki’s sizes go this way: Individual (10”), Small (12”), Medium (14”), Large (16”).

     Brooklyn Pie Company? They are: Small (10”), Medium (14”), and Large (18”).

     See that?  Domino’s (and probably Papa John’s and the rest of them) “large” is the East Coast equivalent of “medium.”  Brooklyn’s 18” large makes Domino’s Extra-Large look like a Personal Pan Pizza. 

     And finally, price.  A Domino’s X-Large (16”) Cheese pizza with the “Brooklyn” crust?  $17.99.  This is according to their website, by the way.  Which is a major pain in the ass to use when you just want to find out the cost and size of a pizza.

     A large cheese pie from Nikki’s?  $9.25.  And their large is 16”, the same as Domino’s extra-large.  And Brooklyn Pie Company?  The largest large with 18” will cost you $14.95. 

     I’m not sure what the point of all this is anymore, but I feel better for ranting.

The Big Four-Oh

     So, you’re sitting around one day with your friends, maybe.  Then some old clunker goes driving by.  Maybe it’s an old Cadillac.  One of those tan ones, with the rusted panels.  The trunk lock is missing, along with a headlight.  It bangs down the street past you, backfiring and spitting out brown exhaust. 

     You and your friends watch it, amused by the sight of such an old, dilapidated piece of crap rumbling along and you wonder how it manages to keep running because, let’s be honest, it’s almost 40 years old now.  Forty years old.  Wait, a minute, you think, I’m 40 years old!

     And your mind casts back to the things that are breaking down in your house.  The toaster is dead, at five years.  The curtains are ten years old and your wife is sure it’s time to replace them.  You have a 20 year old computer that your kids routinely laugh at.  All these things are crap now, garbage.  And the oldest thing is half your age!  And it’s considered ancient!  A car is generally considered a “classic” at 25 years.  Oh, me oh my!  Time for you to putter around the house shooting out exhaust.

     Today, November 2nd, is my birthday.  I was born in the year 1968, 40 years ago.  Four decades ago, I was brought forth unto the world.  Ten years shy of half a century.

     The world has gone through a lot of changes in forty years.  Computers have gone from the size of a warehouse building, completing calculations in days or weeks, down to being in tiny MP3 players and decompressing Britney Spears songs on the fly.  Televisions have become to dump the tube and gone LCD or plasma.  Cars have gone from being complex mechanical objects to hyper-complex mechanical objects with computer controlled bits.  Airplane travel has turned from a semi-enjoyable experience to the worst method of travel next to the bus.

     But, that’s all right, people tell me.  40 is the new 30!  According to who?  And how does that make much of a difference?

     Although, to be frank, I don’t feel forty.  I make goofy sounds to my bird.  I talk to my cats and believe they understand me.  I like most of the music my kids listen to.  And, in a little while, I’ll be booting the kids off my computer so I can play Fallout 3 (which I got as a gift from my mom; thanks mom!).  I don’t have aches and pains when I get up in the morning.  I could run down the street if I were chased by a dog.  Meh.  I don’t see much of a difference yet.  Inside, I’m still the young guy who wants to do a lot of stupid stuff.  The only difference is that I’ve been on this planet going around the sun 40 times.

     So, maybe it’s not so bad.

 

    

On Halloween

     Halloween was my second favorite holiday when I was growing up.  Halloween meant being able to dress up as your favorite hero (or villain) and not having to worry about people thinking you were nuts.  It meant eating as much candy as you could cram into your gullet.  It meant being able to walk around at night, in the dark. 

     A Halloween night in New Jersey was generally quite chilly.  Breezes caused the fallen leaves to rustle and fly around.  Wood smoke from fireplaces lent a certain taste in the air.

     It was a magical night.

     It also occurred two days before my birthday.  By the time I was over being sick on candy it was time to be sick on cake and ice cream.  But that was all right, because I’d have plenty of new stuff to be sick playing with.

     Back then, having a costume that was made was bette

r than a

store-bought costume.  It showed ingenuity, intelligence, craftiness, and creativity.  To buy a costume was a cop-out.  Of course, most purchased kids costumes consisted of a mask of some characters face and a plastic smock that announced who you were supposed to be, as if Casper the Friendly Ghost actually had his name printed on his chest.

     And it didn’t matter if the costume wasn’t an exact replica of whoever you were supposed to be.  Imagination filled in the gaps.  That Boba Fett rocket pack was a shoe box and a red “L’eggs” top, but to everyone that knew who Boba Fett was, it was a rocket pack.  Kids who had

parents that were really good had a problem.  While their costumes were wonders to behold, and everyone would admit that the costume was awesome, there would still be a hint of resentment in there.  It could be too good. 

     Why did it matter?  Because in the 1980’s and before, you were allowed to go to school in a costume.  You were expected to show up in costume.  Complete with mask, if necessary.  And everyone had fun, and there would be a parade so that the parents could see how cute everyone looked (God knows why, though; those same kids would be knocking on your door in a few hours anyway).

     Now, it seems that if you don’t buy a costume then you suck.

If you try and make one then you’re too poor to buy one.  And if your pre-teen daughter doesn’t look like a prostitute then you’ve got problems. 

     Does it matter, though?  To me, it looks like less and less kids go trick-or-treating every year.  Even in neighborhoods where kids are abundant, nobody seems to walk around that much.  Even to me, an adult who does nothing but pass out candy, Halloween has turned into a disappointment.

     So, what happened?  I would say fear got the better of everyone.  Schools don’t want costumes or masks in school in case someone goes nuts and shoots the place up.  We’ve all lived with the Halloween candy scares: apples filled with razor blades, candy corn and other candies injected with drugs.  Don’t eat anything home made, like popcorn balls or candied apples because you never know what’s inside of it.  Trust only candy that’s still in a big company wrapper.  And even then, inspect it for tampering. 

     But now we’ve reached a whole new level of fear.  Kids being abducted, kids shooting other kids, and other horrors that we’re inundated with throughout the years that just builds, and builds, and builds.  Maybe our communities aren’t as close knit as they used to be.  Do you know your neighbors?  Do you see them often?  Is the limit of your interaction a half-hearted wave while you’re mowing the lawn?

     It’s another piece of Americana that has slowly eroded.  Or maybe it never really was that way in the first place.  The problem with history is that the more you know, the less different everything seems to be.

How I Spent My Time

     It looks like I’ve been a bad boy this month.  I’ve hardly done any blogging at all.  I’ve done even less writing.  So, you’re probably wondering, “What’s he been up to, anyway?”  At least, I hope that’s what you’ve been wondering.  So, let’s go down and see what I’ve been doing.

     First, if you’ve ever read my blog before you know that I’m stuck in some melancholy loop that revolves around the 1980’s and the computers of yesteryear.  Well, I dusted off the old Atari 8-bit emulator and thought I could finish some games that I never finished before.  Then I remembered just how many games that I started that I never did finish.  And that’s a lot of them.

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Dunzhin – By Screenplay

     I am one of the few people I know that bought Dunzhin.  All right, I’m the only person I know that bought it.  I loved role playing games and the idea of running around a dark dungeon with a sword.  The graphics are, um, functional.  Even for the Atari 8-bit, they were a bit lacking.  But that’s not the important part when it comes to RPG’s.

     The premise of Dunzhin is that you’re sent into the Dunzhin to find an object and then bring it back.  An awful lot like the games Nethack, Moria, Rogue, and a few dozen others.  While searching different rooms for your quest object, which I must add was a randomly chosen thing with ridiculous names like “The Screaming Hand of Obyxx,” you could run into a variety of trouble.  Pits could open beneath your feet, you could fall flat on your face tripping on a trip wire, noxious gas could fill the room, or you could be attacked by enemies.

     Ten minutes after starting Dunzhin I remembered why I never finished it.  It’s insanely hard.  Your character is very weak when you start and, unlike many games, you have different body parts that can be attacked and each part has its own health.  While, overall, you may have 35 hit points, your right arm may only have two.  So, if you were unlucky enough to get scratched on your right arm, well, then it’s game over.  And that happens a lot.  If that weren’t bad enough you frequently get teleported all over the place.  Some disembodied women decides she doesn’t like you and bam!, you’re off somewhere else.  Usually deeper in the

dungeon where you don’t stand a chance of surviving.  And just when you think you’re getting a handle on all of it, bopping dwarves on the head, lopping off zombie arms, and whatever, you wade into battle and have your sword bust on you.  And that happens a lot, too.

     Don’t get me wrong, though.  Dunzhin really is a good game.  In battle you can target different body parts of the enemy, and some enemies have some nasty weak spots.  For instance, a zombie won’t have any armor on his right arm, so if you start fighting one that’s where you want to aim.  But if it wasn’t for the “Save State” feature of Atari800win Plus or Atari800 I think I would have given up a long time ago.  Again.

     Perfect example.  I just started it up so I could get a screen shot.  I walked about ten steps before being attacked by four zombies.  My first attack missed.  A zombie’s first attack hit my neck.  Whoops!  Game over.  Total time spent in game before dying?  One minute.

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Kaiv – By Screenplay

     Dunzhin was the first game in the “Warrior of RAS” series.  Kaiv was the second.  Since I actually did like Dunzhin, despite keeling over dead the moment I walked into it, I picked up Kaiv as well. 

     Kaiv is similar to Dunzhin in that the game play is nearly identical.  Some differences are that instead of walking through a dark dungeon, you’re walking through a dark cave.  The graphics for the walls are different, too.

     But it does have some interesting points that make it an evolution over Dunzhin.  For one, you can buy more than one sword.  So, when your sword breaks you can switch to a back up.  You also have to buy your own armor.  And, unlike Dunzhin, you need to buy torches.  You can probably guess that your torches have a tendency to be blown out frequently.

     There were two other games in the “Warrior of RAS” series: Wylde and Ziggurat.  I’ve never seen them for sale, though, or else I would have bought them also. 

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     There are a couple of other games, but I’ll get to them later because they’re much bigger and grander.

     Joost.com has a bunch of episodes of the television show, “Have Gun – Will Travel” starring Richard Boone.  I’ve been watching a lot of these and, despite the fact that I don’t care for Westerns all that much, I have to say that I consider this one of the best shows ever written.  The character of Paladin is just amazing: part scoundrel, part nobleman, part Robin Hood.  Some people may be surprised to know that Gene Roddenberry (Star Trek) was one of the writers for this show.

     The stories aren’t just “gun slinger kills guy” stories, either.  There’s a lot of subtlety in how he goes about his business.  They’re old, from the 1950’s, but I highly recommend them.

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     So, there you go.  A minor update into what I’ve been doing lately.

 

Just the BASICS

** Nerd Alert **

    Yes, this post is quite nerdy.  Feel free to skip it or read it as you see fit.  We’ll be going back in time again, so if you can’t handle that you may want to move along peacefully.

     Turn off your computer, disconnect the hard drives and floppy drive (if you still have one), remove any bootable USB keys you may have.  Now, turn on your computer again.  What did you get?  Nothing, right?  Maybe a bunch of errors?  But you certainly didn’t get anything even vaguely useful.

     You may as well hook all that stuff back up.  Now, back in the old days the majority of home computers were still useful, even if they didn’t have any devices (except for the TV or, if you were rich, a monitor) attached.  Most home computers had some kind of BASIC programming language built in so turning on the computer brought you to some kind of prompt.  While this may not be quite as useful as being able to check your email or listen to an MP3, it’s a lot better than nothing.

     On every computer I have, I have an Atari 8-bit computer emulator.  Every one of them.  You wonder why I do this, right?  You think, “Geez, the guy has a 64-bit, 2.2GHz processor what the devil does he need an emulator for an 8-bit, 1Mhz, 48K of memory computer for?”

     And the answer is simple: BASIC.  See, sometimes I just need to write a quick program that doesn’t do much.  It may be a one-off thing that I need to do.  Simple, short, ready to go.  Modern computers, for all their speed, complexity, and bullshit lack in this area.  I mean, really lack. 

     If I need a quick program to calculate something, I don’t want to spend hundreds of dollars on a developer kit.  I don’t need it to run in its own window with menus and crap.  I don’t want to have to write headers and compile the stupid thing.  I just want to type it in, type ‘RUN’ and press the Enter key.  But, while my computer can run Oblivion in all it’s 3D hardware accelerated goodness, it can’t do the simple task of running a BASIC program.

     The irony is that there are many computers from the “Golden Age” that have BASIC built in and their BASIC was written by a guy named Bill Gates and is copyrighted to Microsoft (sometimes Micro Soft) in 1982 or earlier. 

     It would be lovely if Microsoft could include a Microsoft BASIC with Windows.  Even if it’s the same version from 1982.  Just something simple that can be quickly typed in and run.  No sheet designers, no labels, just good old line numbers and GOTO’s and GOSUB’s and stuff. 

     Until that advanced day reaches me, I’ll keep my emulators for the sole purpose of having a simple BASIC around in case I need it.

     I guess I’m the only person who feels this way, though.

Booger & The Dr Pepper

     I got my bottle of Dr Pepper this morning.  Checking the cap, I saw that it was a winner so I hurriedly plugged the code into the website.  I wondered if I were going to win another screen saver?  Maybe the same wallpaper I’ve already won?  Would it be a ringtone I couldn’t use?

     No!  None of those things.  I won a Dr Pepper keychain!  Now I have to wait ten to twelve weeks to get the thing.  Sheesh!  I want it now!

 

    For anyone interested, my Pet Society pet, Booger, has hit upon some sad financial times.  He sure could use your help, if you were so inclined.  Could you let this poor dog bear animal live on the street with nothing more than a tin can, a tire, and a rubber ducky?

     It looks like Playfish has a new game out now, too, called GeoChallenge.  I’ll have to take an in-depth look at that one, too, pretty soon.

Facebook Games Review III: Pathwords

     Pathwords is one of those games that’s great if you have a good vocabulary and a pretty good eye.  It also helps if you’re playing with friends that don’t have a good vocabulary or good eyes.

     When Pathwords starts up you’re greeted by a hexagonal grid that’s covered in letters.  The object is to start on a letter by clicking on it and then dragging your mouse over the other letters until you form a word.  The letters you have selected are also reflected on the bottom of the screen and are colored red, if you don’t have a valid word, or green if you do.  When you release the mouse then the tiles you used are destroyed and new blocks fall to take their places.  It’s a timed game, too, so you have five minutes to find as many words as possible. 

     Overall it’s a pretty good game.  There’s nothing spectacular about it.  Really, it’s quite utilitarian.  I

can’t recommend playing it on a laptop with a touchpad, though.  Sometimes the cursor can go all over the place and you end up trying to spell a word just to get gobbeldygook out of it.

     Like most Facebook games, Pathwords keeps track of your score and taunts your other playing friends with how great you are. 

     There is some strategy that comes into play.  If you see a big word coming up but you can’t quite get to it yet then you will need to settle on lesser words to let the other letters fall into place until you can get your big word complete.

     So, grab your dictionary and try it out for some interesting times.

Facebook Games Review II: Pet Society

     Pet Society is another SIMS kind of game.  Or maybe more like Little Computer People that’s more interactive.  It’s a side-view game where you make a “pet” and name it then let it loose in a house.

     And this is where a grown man should stop if he wasn’t totally

crazy.  I, of course, pressed on. 

     If Pet Society has a goal, that goal is to amass trophies.  You get trophies for visiting friends, playing ball, buying clothes and other things.  The secondary goal is to amass money so you can get the trophies for buying things.  Along the way I suppose you can also buy furniture and flooring and stuff to personalize your house.

     Essentially, Barbie with quasi-animals.

     Your pet isn’t just stuck in his house, though.  He can wander

around town.  Passing through trees can net you an occasional coin.  There are stores to visit, like a grocery store and furniture store.  There are also empty lots where, if you’ve got friends and invite them to play, a construction marker marks there spots.  If they actually join then the spot turns into another house.

     Walking into a friends house gives you a menu where you can engage in activities with your friend’s pet.  Dance, tell a joke, or whatever and you can earn points to level up (giving you money and different goodies) and money. 

     Also in town are two areas that aren’t active yet.  One is a coffee shop which, I guess, will be a place where you can interact with other players.  The other is a stadium.  I’m hoping this is where pets can battle to the death for fun and prizes.

     There are a couple of things I don’t like about Pet Society.  One

is that it’s harder than Hell to make money unless you have a lot of friends or cheat somehow.  The easiest way to get serious coinage is to buy it with your PayPal account.  Even in Yoville, you can “work” for $200 or so every six hours. 

     The other thing kind of disturbs me.  If you hold down the mouse button and rub the cursor over your pet, they make some weird purring noises.  If you keep rubbing then a coin pops out of their head.  Ummm…  Kind of phallic, you know?

Random Crap

     I’m using the new Windows Live Writer Beta now.  I’m not seeing much of a difference and I still can’t figure out how to change the default font.  And the ‘tab’ key still puts it into block quote mode instead of giving me a damn indent. 

     It’s actually sometimes raining today!  I haven’t seen rain in forever.  I’ll have to write it in my journal so that future archeologists will know what the weather was like today.  Yeah.

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     Despite the fact that I’ve been using computers forever, sometimes I just never get around to figuring out what stuff is on the internet.  I’m still not totally sure what a “podcast” is supposed to be.  I’ve only recently gotten around to using Twitter.  You know, stuff like that.  My photo albums on every site that use is an absolute mess.  I’m afraid to see what my Picasa site looks like.  It all makes me feel so behind the times.  But at least I have a Facebook and MySpace account. 

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     Tomorrow is Talk Like A Pirate Day.  I don’t think I’ll be able to participate on account of me not being good at talking like a pirate.  It would probably be a good day to release future “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies, though.

A Daily Dairy Diary

     Are you one of those people that keeps a journal?  An adult version of the diary?  If you do, do you ever write in it while thinking that someone in the future, like a thousand years in the future, might read it one day?  Does that affect what you write, like make things clearer and document stuff better or do you sanitize it just in case some futuristic academic decides to judge your life?

     Or are you one of the people that does keep a journal but doesn’t give a hoot who reads it or when?  Or maybe you don’t keep a journal at all.

     During those times in my life when I do keep a journal (which I never keep up on and abandon at some point) I can't help but think that someone is going to read it in the future.  Like, some archeologist in a few hundred years is going to dig up my notebooks and read through them.  I wonder if the language will still be the same, or if it will change significantly that my writing is unreadable (which it would be anyway because I've got sloppy penmanship penpersonship). 

     So, I think should I put in a bunch of details about the weather is stuff, just in case the future would find it interesting?  Should I explain any idioms or let them try and figure it out?  Will my diary journal be a Rosetta Stone for future generations?

     In reality, though, they'll probably all end up in the dump.  Or, more scary, be recycled.  Why would recycling be scary?  Think of it this way, if the ancient Egyptians or Greeks were keen on recycling, what would we know about them today?

Attending Mass.

     Since the infamous events on 9/11 I haven’t been very keen on flying.  It’s not because I’m afraid something is going to happen to the plane, but because I hate going through all this security stuff they have in place.  I remember what it was like to fly in the late 1970s and 1980s. 

     But my nervousness about something going wrong was mostly in vain.  Sure, I had to nearly strip down to get past the metal detector but the people in Austin were quite pleasant about it.  For some reason we weren’t allowed to bring our $2.00 Dr Pepper bottles through the checkpoint.  I didn’t know they were so dangerous.

     We flew on Jet Blue airlines.  After reading about the things a lot of airlines were doing, I wasn’t very keen on flying at all.  But Jet Blue rocked.

     The flight took off ten minutes early (sucks to be you, Late Guy!).  The seats had TV’s in the headrests, which also had XM satellite radio (which I don’t like as much as Sirius but I guess that won’t matter much longer).  They didn’t give away headphones, but you could use your own or buy theirs for $1.  They had free snacks (blue potato chips being the company mascot, I guess) and stuff to drink.  Oh, and it only cost $15 to check your first bag.  The crew was awesome.  It was easily one of the best flights I’d ever had.  Oh!  And the seats were nice and roomy. 

     So we land, wait in line for 45 minutes to get the rental car, then puttered over to the hotel.  As soon as we got the keys to the hotel room, the fire alarm goes off.  We waited outside the place for another 45 minutes waiting for the police and Fire folks to show up.  45 minutes!  Thank God the place wasn’t on fire.  Scuttlebutt has it that someone was microwaving popcorn and left it in too long.  Anyway, all that got sorted out.

     The room is great.  Because of all the inconveniences we got upgraded.  We’re now in a two bedroom suite with a full kitchen.  Sure, that sounds awesome, but there’s only two of us and we’re only staying for two days.  Still, it’s pretty cool.  But their wi-fi coverage SUCKS!  I’m lucky to keep a connection at all, and it’s really slow when it is connected.

     Now that I’m on the East Coast, there’s some things that I’d like to do.  One of them is to go to Dunkin’ Donuts.  Oh, for a donut!  And coffee!  There’s a store right down the street.  Everything is stupid expensive around here, though.  Dinner ended up being two expensive bowls of soup. 

     Time to get this day rolling.  There’s a lot to do, and most of it needs to be done early. 

Tragedy In Trailers (movies)

     Anyone who reads my blogs should know that one of the reasons why I love going to the movies in a theatre is because I really love watching the movie trailers.  One of those reasons is because I more or less grew up listening to the guy who reads them.

     Sadly, Don LaFontaine, the guy that did all those movie trailer voice overs, has died at age 68. 

On Shopping

     I have a long history with shopping.  When I was a youngster, back in my formative years, most of my shopping time was spent in the company of my mother, my sister, and my grandmother.  Three females.  And me – a boy.

     At an early age I learned to cope with traveling in a band and hanging around clothes stores, and shoe stores, and the like.  Most of the time it involved using my mind to go to a happy place, filled with candy and video games.  If I was very lucky the store would have a toy department.  You’d be surprised, though, how many clothing stores don’t have a toy department.  Or video games.

     So now I’m an adult male and while I don’t get ecstatic over the idea of going shopping with the woman-folk, I go along because it’s not that bad.  Do I look like the harried husband, dutifully following his wife carrying shopping bags and boxes?  I sure the hell do.  But, thanks to my early training, it doesn’t bother me and I can carry a handbag around without feeling like everyone in the store is laughing at me.

     See, it’s not all bad.  For one thing, there’s the lingerie department.  Any man who feels embarrassed walking through a lingerie department or Victoria’s Secret or the like is a fool.

     But I also go because my wife makes me feel important.  She constantly asks my opinion, you see.  And I learned, long ago, that not having an opinion is a Bad Thing.  Not having an opinion means that you don’t care.  While the male brain has a ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ not caring mode, women always see it as the negative version.  You need to care, to have an opinion, and to be able to provide some kind of input even if you’re spreading around the bullshit.  That may sound bad, but you never know what you can find in bullshit. 

     Women’s shoes are a world in themselves.  And this is my horrible secret:  I don’t know what makes a pair of shoes ‘cute.’  To me, they’re foot wear.  They come in different colors, materials, and styles.  Show me two pairs of shoes and I may think they’re identical only to find out that one pair is hideous and the other pair is cute.  What makes that difference?  I have no idea.

     But every once in a while I’ll point out a pair of shoes that’s acceptable.  Or find a pair of earrings that match the target ensemble.  Sometimes I can even find the shirt that matches.  And, strangely, that’s a pretty good feeling.  An “I done it right!” feeling.

     Oh, yes, one more thing.  Thanks to my dad, of all people, I can also do things that might be too embarrassing for other men to do.  My dad has been known to do some pretty traumatizing things to me in the interest of fun.  Things like, buying play sand and telling the check out girl that he’s making a sandbox for me (at 19 years old) and would she like to come over and play sometime.  Or having me pay for training bras for my little sister at Bradlee’s while he was “in the bathroom.”  You know, stuff like that. 

     Yesterday I was asked to go through a table full of panties.  I don’t know if she meant it as a joke or what, but while she was trying on clothes I was going through the panty bins looking for undies.  Was I embarrassed?  Nope.  I just rooted through the stuff looking for the right size.  I did get confused as to which way was up on a few items, but I managed to get through it.

      So, while I wish I was like James Bond or Jason Bourne (huh, I never noticed that the two fictional Super Spies had the same initials – how original) and could assess a woman’s proportions and accent her make up professionally, I just muddle through the best I can without the help of government training.  And even if I don’t get it right, she makes me feel like I did.

Move Trailer Reviews

I’m too busy to link everything, so I’m not going to.  I got all these from Apple’s site, though.

Knowing (Nicolas Cage) – This is a movie trailer that looks interesting.  Kid finds a paper full of numbers in a time capsule and Cage matches ‘em up with disasters that happened then begins looking at the new disasters.  Kind of “23”ish in a way, but it looks good.

Stealing America: Vote by Vote – This looks like another scary documentary about the US government.  This time it’s about how YOUR vote doesn’t matter, after all.  Probably a must see.

Fly Me To The Moon – Computer generated movie about a trio of flies who go to the moon and end up saving everything.  I probably should not have mentioned that, but it’s in the trailer so I figure it''s fair game.  I'm not sure why they're giving that away in the trailer, but there ya go.  Also in 3D, but the trailer isn’t.  Looks okay.  I could probably wait until it hits DVD.

Yes Man (Jim Carrey) – A guy who says “no” to everything learns to say “yes” to everything.  It looks all right.  Kind of like Liar, Liar I guess.  Again, I could probably wait for the rental.  By the way, Jim is getting a little old these days.

Appaloosa – Vigo Mortensen and Ed Harris are roving marshalls who help take back a town.  Oh, it’s a Western.  The trailer is filled with violence so the movie should be pretty good, in a violent kind of way.

High School Musical 3 – I refuse to even watch the trailer.

Max Payne – This might be the best videogame to movie conversion yet.  The trailer looks decent.  Seems to keep kind of true to the game, from what little I can tell.

Television

     It’s time for school to start around here.  The kids start earlier here than in New Jersey, where I went to school.  There, we started in September; the fall.  The weather turned cooler, the trees began to change color, and one of the ways to cope with the impending doom of  a new year was to check out what new shows were coming on TV.

     Fall is Spring when it comes to television.  Script ideas burst from the cocoon to emerge as a new show.  It may not survive, but at least it had its shot on the boob tube.

     I used to know what all the new shows were.  I used to have my favorite shows picked out and I would make time to watch them.  Many times the entire family would sit down to watch a particular show.

     Now, I barely know what’s on.  Entire shows have come and gone and I never knew about them.  The Pretender ran from 1996 to 2000.  I just started watching it the other day, in 2008.  Eight years after the show ended! 

     I don’t even get to watch my favorite show, The Simpsons.  Either something is going on and I can’t catch it, or I just plain forget it’s on.  And that’s a show that I made sure I was home to watch.

     Lately, though, I’ve been trying very hard to watch Eureka and Burn Notice.  I have to try really hard to remember that they’re on, though. 

     I still don’t know what’s in store for the new season.  Hell, I’m not even sure we have “seasons” anymore.  Now there’s half-seasons and replacement shows and stuff.  Is Fall still the time for new shows to really shine?  Or does it matter anymore?

     I used to love reading TV Guide, or the newspaper, and seeing what new shows were coming up.  Now, it doesn’t really impact my life at all.  I suppose I should be happy about that.  My time is chained to one less object, but I miss having that feeling of expectation.

    

Letter To Sandy

Dear Sandy,

     It’s been a long time since we’ve written back and forth.  There’s been a few changes in my life, so I figured it was high time to write another letter. 

     I moved down to Texas, finally.  I was living in the city for a while, right downtown, but it turned out to be too much of a distraction.  So I decided to scrape up all my money and buy a large piece of land out in the middle of nowhere.  In Texas, it can be easy to be out in the middle of nowhere and still be close enough to something to not feel like you’re completely isolated. 

     During my time here, I have driven around quite a bit.  When I was looking for my land and stuff, or going between cities.  Sometimes I would drive on a long stretch of straight road, looking at flat grassland dotted with stands of trees, sometimes a watering hole, a bunch of cows and fences.  When I say fences I don’t mean white picket fences, or chain-linked fences.  No, I mean, back to the basics “shove a stick in the ground and wrap barbed-wired around it” fences.  Sometimes I wonder just how old they are.  Are they from the 1800’s or whatever, or did someone recently grab a bundle of sticks and make a fence?

     But this is the amazing part (amazing to me, anyway):  sometimes I’ll be driving and I’ll see some land and there’ll be a house on it.  I know, a land with a house!  Big deal!  But it’ll be an old house.  A ramshackle shack, with a deteriorating roof, crumbling porch, peeled and faded paint.  Sometimes it’ll have windows, sometimes they’ll be busted.  The front door might be on it and closed, or it could be gone completely, or hanging open, on one hinge, in a lonely kind of way.  I wonder, then, do the people that own the land know that there’s a house on it?  Does anyone own the land?  If they know the house is there, why do they keep it? 

     Anyway, I bought a big piece of land.  Not to sound like I'm bragging (I'm really not, I'm just in shock), but the land is big.  Large.  HUGE!  Jack would say it was "Fucking enormous!" if he saw it.  And then he'd say it again once he realized he was only looking at a part of it.  The real estate agent wanted to know if I was going to raise a large contingent of cattle.  I laughed and said I was just going to write.  He shook his head.

     So we took a tour of the land, but we didn't go over all of it.  Just a piece of it.  It's got a modest (I swear!) house set pretty far back from the road.  My driveway is a long dirt road!  And you know what?  It's got one of those fences made of sticks and barbed-wire, too!

     I know you're itching to make fun of me so let me tell you right now that, yes, I did buy a pick-up truck.  Go ahead and fall over laughing.  I'll wait.  Just so you know, I kept the Lincoln, too, but now I also have a big ass pick-up truck.  I also bought an ATV to scoot around the "estate."  Hell, I might need to use the pick up.  I could run around my yard naked, and nobody would ever see me unless they were in a helicopter.  I did not, though, buy a cowboy hat.  Or boots, either.

     The other day I was working on my new project, the book about the man who's haunted by his dead wife, and I just hit that writer's block, you know?  I just couldn't work for anything.  So I did what I normally do, which is unpack a few boxes, re-arrange some furniture, straighten up around the house, have coffee on the back porch, anything to shake that block loose. 

     Nothing was working, so that's when I decided to take the RAM into town and buy the ATV.  I figured there was a lot of land I hadn't seen, so I was going to ATV my way across it.

     When I was a kid, even a small yard was a kind of adventure.  There'd be the one corner I don't ever remember being in, and I'd go there.  In a very small way it was kind of exciting.  Not that I'd expect to find anything, but I could just think to myself, "I've never touched this fence post until now!" and it would be an amazing thing.

     Well, imagine that on a much larger scale.  I took the ATV and zoomed off in one direction, figuring I'd drive a straight line to the edge of the property. 

     I know that when you think "Texas" you equate it with flat, barren desert.  That's so untrue, though.  My land has hills and grass, at least one pond, and a fairly large number of trees.  They aren't big trees, like up North, but small and stunted trees.  But sometimes they grow thick.  I headed for a stand of these trees near a pond and over a small rise so it can't be seen to easily from the house.

     As I got closer to the trees I saw that there was -- get this -- a house!  No, I didn't get lost and circle around to my own house.  This was different.  Smaller.  It was, in fact, one of those ramshackle shacks I mentioned earlier!  What amazing luck!

     I stopped the ATV a fair distance and stared at it.  It was obviously old.  The once white paint was peeling off and showing gray wooden boards underneath.  Actual wooden boards, not particle board or sheet rock.  There's a porch.  The windows looked whole.  I guess since it's so far back from the road, and hidden by the trees, no teens ever came by to vandalize it.  I got excited, I could feel my heart beating a bit faster. 

     I went closer to it.  It looks so lonely, sitting there by itself.  The windows were all dark and the front door was closed.  I have to admit, I got a little nervous.  I half expected some crazy old coot with a shotgun to come out blazing out the front door.  Some old guy who had no idea that he didn't own the land he lived on anymore.  You know, like those Japanese soldiers that got lost on deserted islands for years and were never told that the war ended.

     Luckily, no old armed men came storming at me.  I carefully walked onto the porch, which I thought would collapse.  It held, though.  The door wasn't locked.  It's one of those old locks, which the keyhole underneath the knob.  I would've peeked through it but, being a horror writer, I could just imagine something poking through it into my eye!

     I just let myself in.  My God, it was beautiful in a horrible kind of way.  No electricity runs out there.  No water.  No anything.  It was dark inside, especially coming in from the bright outdoors.  Everything looks intact, like someone lived in it and then just up and left.  Or died in bed, never having relatives come and check in on the occupant.  I worried about that, actually.  But everything was there, even if it was rotting and falling apart. 

     Heavy curtains still covered the windows.  There are old end tables and chairs.  A big, green, velvet covered couch with big ornate carved wooden legs.  I wanted to sit on that so bad, but I'd rather check to make sure a family of rats or something isn't living in it first.  The kitchen has a wood burning stove!  It's fully furnished.

     Mold climbs up the walls and my allergies, which I never had until I moved here, kicked into high gear.  I figured I should come back and explore at a different time.  Maybe get a mask or something.  The house has two stories.  There's a very narrow staircase that goes up (or down, if you're already up, ha ha).  There's a  bedroom on the ground floor, with an iron bed.  Thankfully, the bed is not occupied.  I suspect there are more bedrooms upstairs, though.

     It's really neat, but also kind of creepy.  I poked around for a bit, even though I didn't get very far.  There's lots of stuff still in that house and I wonder why.  I'm definitely going back there.  It's my house, right? 

Your good friend,

Austin

 

    

Professional Blogger

     I wonder what it would be like to be a professional blogger.  To sit and write about stuff.  Important stuff, I bet.  And how would one become a professional blogger?  Are there job advertisements in the paper for bloggers?  I understand that there’s even some kind of blogging convention in Las Vegas, or someplace.

     My blogging is done for fun but I wouldn’t mind getting paid to do it.  Actually, I wouldn’t mind any job that would get me to write more often.  Most of the time I have a problem with coming up with things to write.  I used to think I’d write a lot of fiction, but then I thought what if I wanted to sell it in the future?

     I do come up with some good article ideas but they take time and a lot of effort.  My “Nostalgia” series is put on hold because there’s a lot of pictures and research that I need to do, and I don’t have time to get it done.  Now, if I were getting paid to write it, then it’d be done already.

     But those are the joys of having a hobby I suppose.

     Right now I have web logs on five different sites.  They’re all the same right now.  I write it once, then I send it out to different ones.  I have a sixth one, too, that’s supposed to be dedicated to gaming things.  Let’s see: WordPress, Live Journal, Blogger, Microsoft Live, and Xanga.

     I like WordPress the most.  I get to see all kinds of stats on what’s being searched for, which pages get the most views, how many people are visiting a day, and I can preview all the porn spam before anybody else gets to see them.  Xanga is also pretty good, in that I can see who is visiting, not just a number.  I’m not keen on Blogger at all.  I see no stats at all.  I don’t even know if anyone’s ever seen my Blogger page.  I have a soft spot for Live Journal, too, even though it’s not easy to navigate or tell what’s going on with it. 

     Sometimes I think I shouldn’t just mirror one blog and send it out to the different places.  I think I should dedicate each site to a different blog.  Like I do with the gaming site.  But I really can’t think of that much to write about, and I don’t have the time to figure out what should go where.  So, for now, everyone gets the same.

     And sometimes I think I should just stop.  Am I doing anybody any good?  Am I providing people with something worthwhile?  Am I just a rest stop for a search site’s web spider?  Do I fulfill a purpose?

A Football Themed Dr Pepper Contest

     Dr Pepper has a new contest going on.  Something to do with football, evidenced by the football motif on the label.  And I won my first prize today.  A cell phone ring tone.  I haven’t bothered collecting it yet.  I’m not even sure if it’ll work with my phone.  Or what kind of goofy ring tones they have.  I wonder if they have that old “I’m a Pepper” jingle?

     Normally I wouldn’t even mention it, but I see that Dr Pepper contests are poised to knock orange kittens off the most searched for item on this blog.  And I’m all about catering to my adoring public.

     So I’m watching TV in the Garden here, and this commercial comes on.  Some lady was going to tell me how to make these groovy nachos after another commercial (a commercial in a commercial, is there anything TV can’t do?).  I sit through the commercial and the lady tells me how to make these nachos.  I’ll share the recipe with you, but make sure you write it down because it’s really complicated.

1. Open a bag of Tostitos and put ‘em on a dish.
2. Open a bag of shredded cheese and pour it on the chips.
3. Pour some Tostitos salsa over the chips and cheese
4. Microwave it, presumably until the cheese melts.
5. Garnish with, well, whatever you feel like.

     I thought my recipe for the budget Thanksgiving Dinner was simplistic.

     Anyway, now it’s your turn!  Leave a comment with a great recipe like the one above.  I’d make it a contest, but I can’t afford any prizes so it’ll just have to be for Kudos’.  Not the candy bars, though, because they cost like $1.00 or something.

     Well, it’s late and I reckon I better find my way to Dreamland.

California Rules

     I don’t have very much to write about today, so I figure I’m just going to “wing it.”  I’ve got some updates and stuff that need to be installed, so they’re going to take some time.

9:25am

     My updates are done.  That didn’t take nearly as long as I thought it was going to.  I even installed a version of Open Office so I could check some results.  I’ve also got The Cars playing on the speakers.  Usually I wear ear-buds, but since I’m deaf in one ear still I decided I was going to treat myself.

     Now I remember why I don’t change fonts with Windows Live Writer – they don’t always stick.  Okay, so where was I?  Oh, right, today I’m working in French.  No, I’m no working in France, I’m working with Windows in French.

     The best part is that I don’t speak French.  Or even read it.  That doesn’t make the job difficult at all.  I guess it gives me a chance to learn the language.  Pretty soon I’ll be able to go to France and tell people how to change their broadband settings.  I’ll be a hero.

10:52am

     I’m hungry :(

10:58am

     According to this article in the San Francisco Chronicle, it’ll be illegal for pharmacies to sell cigarettes. 

     I know there's a lot of people ready to cheer that bit of information.  For them, here's my advice: move to Russia or Libya or something.  If you want to live in a dictatorship where everything you can do is mandated by the government, then you need to leave this country behind.  America, "Land of the Free," isn't the place you want to be.  You want to be in a country where it's acceptable to micro-manage every portion of every person's life.  So go ahead and pack those bags and please, please, please, leave this country so real Americans can live their lives in peace.

     And if you're a smoker that lives in Austin, TX, then you can rest assured that what happens in California is going to happen here because there's not one person with an original brain in Austin.  All the California imports are still connected to the Hive Mind out West.

     Oh, if you think you're safe because you're not a smoker (and smokers suck and you hope they all die, die, die!), guess again.  San Francisco would also like to charge a city-wide fee to retailers that sell sugary soda.  Guess who's going to pay that extra fee?  No, not the smokers.  Not this time. 

     It's just going to get worse, too.  Once the government gets their fingers into your life it doesn't end.  Do you eat at McDonalds?  Don't get used to it because it's not healthy for you and you can bet your sweet ass that fast food will be put on the chopping block pretty soon.  It's already started with the trans fats, but it's going to get worse. 

     Everyone is concerned with your health, and yet we don't have a national healthcare system.

1:45pm

     Still no rain yet.  It's beginning to look like a Mad Max movie out there.

     I suppose I should package this up and send it to the sites.  Happy reading!

Weekend update turns into Challenger Rant

     So I’m back from the Houston area.  For the first time in years I went into the swimming pool.  And I swam.  And swam, and swam, and swam.  Because I love swimming and I love being in the water and I spent way too much time out of it.

     I don’t hurt nearly as bad as I thought I would, and that’s a good thing.  What is bad, though, is that my right ear is clogged and it’s driving me insane.  I can’t hear worth a damn.  And it feels like I’ve got an ear plug in it.  My head feels heavy on that side.  Yep, it’s going to drive me stark raving mad.

     I didn’t get to drive the Viper this weekend.  Or even ride in it.  I did gaze longingly at it for a few minutes, though.  I also saw a new Dodge Challenger sitting in someone’s driveway.  I really wish I could get one.  I know everyone that knows me is sick of hearing it already, but a man has to be able to dream about something.  And I dream about zooming up and down I35 listening to the thunder of a 6.1 liter (372 cubic inches) Hemi V8 using up natural resources.  Sue me.  Anyway, on Dodge’s site I determined that the car I want would cost over $44,000.  Can I get a “Yoicks!” out there?

     Sure, there’s going to be someone who will say that I can get a lesser V8, or even a V6, and lose some options and bring it down to a more affordable price.  To them I say: What’s the sense in dreaming if you can’t dream big?

     Then there’s going to be the people that read this and decide that they, too, would like a $44,000 2008 Dodge Challenger that’s fully loaded and they’ll go out and get it.  To those people, know this:  I hate you.  It’s nothing personal and it’s not your fault.  I just hate you.

     Even if I hate you, if you’re able to get one I think you should because I’d like to see this car be a roaring success.  Plus, ten years down the road I’ll buy it from you used.

Parrots in Houston

     So, here we are in Houston.  Sorta-kinda.  We decided to bring the birds along because they don’t like to be cooped up in the cages all day and we’ll be here overnight.

     Both birds have a travel cage, so we thought that would make it easier.  Tooka is ok in his cage, but Zoey’s in new and I don’t think she likes it very much.  She spent quite a bit of the ride over here on my shoulder.  But she was good.

     Now that we’re at Daniel’s place, though, I can’t get her off of me.  If I put her on her cage so I can go outside then as soon as I come through the door she’s off that cage and trying to climb up my leg.

     She’s so spoiled.

Ghosts in the Machine

     Back in 1985 there was an episode of the New Twilight Zone called “Dreams for Sale.”  I had seen it, remembered it wrong for a few years, and then wrote a story fragment based on it. 

     My story fragment had to due with a man who was fed up with his life, went to Tibet, had himself locked in a meditation cave, and then meditated on the nature of reality.  This meditation led him to a point of raised consciousness and made some pretty funky things happen.  For one, the cave disappeared and the man found himself laying on a bed with wires connected to him.

     After disconnecting the wires and wandering around for a while, he made contact with a computer which explained to him that he, and several million other people,  was on a gigantic spaceship.  The Earth had suffered some great cataclysm and the plan was to colonize another world with as many people as possible.  Since space travel still wasn’t up to Star Trek or Star Wars standards, it would take time so people were put into suspended animation and hooked up to a computer.  The computer would network everyone together into a common world so they could all interact together.  For the purpose of keeping everyone sane, nobody was allowed to know what was going on so their memories were wiped.  And, since the trip was going to take a very long time, when people died in the computer they were re-incarnated.  The computer started at the dawn of known history and worked up until the Earth cataclysm.  It then would start over.  This cycle had happened several times.

     The man was then placed back into a sleeping chamber and re-joined the world, with his memory wiped, at a point before he went to Tibet.

     This, I thought, neatly explained some questions of today.  It explained reincarnation, the “cycle” of history that the Hindu religion speaks of, and some claims of déjà vu. 

     My pride requests that I mention that I wrote this long before The Matrix was released.

     Today, I ran across a paper that puts forth the idea that we may, indeed, be living in a computer simulation.  I haven’t had a chance to do an in-depth read, but from what I glanced it appears that the author, Nick Bostrom, has the same ideas I do but with a lot more math and stuff.

     Since I do a lot of thinking about useless things I still wonder what would be possible if we were all living in a computer simulation.  Namely, would it be possible to change your life or the past?  Most software has bugs in it, could the universe we live in also have bugs that could be exploited to our advantage?

     For instance, people often say that positive thinking influences your life (as does negative).  Have you ever read about that thing you do where everyday you write down a life affirming sentence and it ends up coming true?  Like, if you write, “I, Mr Entropy, will win the Lotto next Thursday” a hundred times a day, every day, then you could win the lottery.  Or if a bunch of people pray for granddad to be healed of his gout.  Or if a bunch of kids spend Sunday night falling asleep to the idea that a massive snow storm will hit that night and school will be canceled for Monday.

     I had a friend, once, who maintained that more and more sub-atomic particles were being found not because theories said they should exist, but because scientists believed so much that they should be there that they popped into existence when they were looked for. 

     Could a bunch of minds, concentrated on one idea, influence reality?  Maybe not if we lived in a real, physical, universe but if we lived in a simulation with a few bugs I’d bet that it’s a lot more plausible.

Olde Tyme Reading

     On a lark, I went to Chronicling America, which is a Library of Congress site that has newspaper articles.  It’s also free, which is why I was reading it and not the New York Times, which charges like $3.95 an article. 

     Anyway, I was reading the January 1st, 1900 edition of The Sun, a New York newspaper.  And there’s some interesting things in there.

     For instance, on the first page there’s an article about a Filipino terrorist attack being thwarted.  So even back then there were terrorists throwing bombs around.

     Also in there, on page 10, is an ad for the Hotel Gerard.  I noticed it said “New and absolutely Fire-Proof Steel Construction.”  So I looked it up on Google, perversly and morbidly hoping that it had burned down at some point.  But, no, it appears the building is still standing.  As near as I can tell it’s an apartment building now, but I could be wrong.  So, how cool is that?  Built in 1894 and it’s still standing in 2008. 

     Finally, in the April 26, 1903 edition of the New York Times (it was free), there’s an article about an automobile club setting up a long-distance drive from Chicago, IL to Mammoth Cave, KY.

     On the first day, they were expecting to cover a whopping 40 miles (with a stop for lunch).  The other legs of the journey are roughly 70 miles long.  They were expecting to make the trip down to Kentucky in 8 days, but really push themselves on the way back in six days.

     If you check Google Maps you’ll see that the distance is 391 miles.  A trip you can make today in 6 hours and 20 minutes. 

     I’m figuring that they averaged somewhere around 10 miles an hour for the trip, allowing for not having their faces ripped off due to speeds in excess of 25MPH.

     At least they had the opportunity to drive 64 miles on the “finest gravel roads in the country.”

     The next time you feel like bitching about how long it takes to drive downtown, you might want to keep that in mind.

Another Comic Aside

     Speaking of comics, I find myself curiously attracted to the history of different comic strips.  Especially the long-running ones, like Blondie, Charlie Brown, Beetle Bailey, and the like. 

     I would love it if there was a place that showed the original, first published strip of these comics.  I think it would be nifty to see how much they’ve changed over the years.  Blondie is a really good example of this since it’s been running since the 1930’s.

     Perhaps other people don’t share my curiosity about these things, though.

     For anyone who’s curious, my other “comfort comic” is Bloom County.  Normally when something I like is discontinued I feel disappointed, but when Berke Breathed retired Bloom County I actually felt hurt. 

The Charlie Brown Factor

08:50am

     I’ve been at work for almost two hours now.  I’ve gotten everything prepped, new software has been downloaded and is now installing.  My laptop is pissing me off because it keeps pausing and stopping every few minutes.  I’ve turned off everything that’s running in the background, all the groovy things that I use in my day-to-day operations, and it still keeps doing it.

     Usually during this time I’d be checking the news sites and stuff.  Keeping up on what’s going on in the industry.  Seeing what kind of new disasters are striking the world.  Aside from a tropical storm off the coast of Texas, I’m not aware of much.  I don’t actually like reading the news because it’s depressing.

09:23am

     Time to stalk the vending machines and see if I can’t hunt down something to eat.

09:36am

     An Apple Strudel Pop-Tart.  Yum.

12:38pm

     I have opted not to eat lunch today.  Not a normal lunch, anyway.  Instead, I will be trying to whittle down this four pound bucket of Red Vines.

12:52pm

     Eating a bucket of Red Vines is not a good idea, no matter how hungry you are.  Moderation is the key.

14:06pm

     Part of my job is doing a little bit of web surfing here and there, to make sure everything is working correctly.  Usually I do a round of established sites that I normally visit.  Sometimes I get creative.

     Today I thought it would be amusing to read some articles about candy bars on Wikipedia.  Chocolate bars led to the York Peppermint Patty, and that led to Peppermint Patty from the Charlie Brown comic strip.

     While I could read and write well enough when I was a young child, I never really exercised the skills.  While my older sister was reading through books like a wiz, I would spend my time reading comics.  Not comic books, like Spiderman, but comics like B.C., Wizard of Id and, most importantly, Charlie Brown.

     I collected Charlie Brown paperbacks.  I knew what I had, what I had read, and could even tell you which book a strip came from if I were shown it.  I would also choose the books carefully because the paperbacks were collections from other, larger, books that I had never seen.  I would try and pick books that didn’t come from a larger work that I already had books from.  I was a Charlie Brown paperback expert.

     This annoyed my dad to no end, because he thought I should be reading real books.  My older sister would snort derisively at my choices, as we left the bookstore, clutching the newest Anne McCaffery or Alan Dean Foster novel.

     As I got older and the strip grew older I came to like it less, noting more of a religious flavor in the strip.  And, like any kid, I didn’t think it was “cool” to like it very much.  But even now, if I’m not feeling well, I would like to just curl up in bed and read Charlie Brown strips all day long.  Sadly, it’s nothing I can do now because I no longer have all of my books.

     It’s unfair, though, to look down at this.  I’m mostly happy with the person I am today and I couldn’t say with confidence that I would be this person if I had not read so many Charlie Brown strips.

     It was in those strips that I got an introduction to philosophy, religion, manners (specifically, other characters made Charlie Brown feel like crap – why would I want to make people feel that way?), the meaning of different holidays, that people should open their hearts more to kids who may be less privileged.

     At a young age I knew what depression was, because C.B. would often say he was depressed.  This, in turn, helped me deal with depression as a child because I knew what it was and could find a way to deal with it. 

     Charlie Brown, and the rest of the gang, helped me get through life.  Not in a drastic, dramatic way but in a long, slow, helping period.  It’s when I read the old strips and remember things that were going on when I read them previously that I remember just how it was that they were helpful.

     Of course, I picked up a few negative qualities also, I’m sure.  A lack of confidence here and there, although that could be attributed to other circumstances as well.  But maybe, if Charlie Brown had been a bit more assertive, I’d be a bit more assertive, too.  We’ll never know.

     Either way, Charlie Brown has made an on-going impact on my life, and I don’t know that I would want to give that up.

Checking In

     I’m back from my vacation.  It wasn’t actually a vacation, just a couple of days off.  It seems like I’ve been gone for ages, though. 

     Now I’m ready to get back into the swing of writing things.  A bonus for all you lucky people!

     Unfortunately, today isn’t the day for that because I can’t think of crap to write about.  Just the usual nonsense that I sputter on about.  Just more random crap.

     I did some checking and the Dr Pepper/Indiana Jones contest doesn’t end until 8/31/2008.  You all still have a little more than a month to drink tons of DP’s and hope you win something better than a screen saver and desktop wall paper.  I’m really disappointed because I should have a bunch of free Dr Peppers by now.

     I did get to see Wall-E and Hancock, though.  It’s a lot cheaper to go to the movies when you don’t have a gaggle of kids with you.

     Wall-E is good, Hancock is okay.  I could’ve waited for it to come on video before seeing it, but I don’t feel terrible about seeing it.  It wasn’t bad at all, really.

     So what’d you all do over the weekend?