I forgot to mention this, but when I went to BestBuy last Friday, there was some moron and his GF admiring a Subaru WRX parked crooked in one of the spots. They both were wandering around it for a period that was too long for anyone over the age of 17. I pulled my Evo to the farthest spot away from them and every other idiot and started my 10 minute walk to the door.

When I was within 15 feet of the door, I hear the WRX fly up behind me and come to a fast stop within 3 feet of my right shoulder in a “I saw your car, and I’m showing off” sort of way. I just turned and looked at him like the fucktard that he was, and kept walking.

Then, from the passenger seat, his GF said “What’s up?” in that challenging way that only fat ass, tight pants wearing, wet curl bitches that get a cheap thrill from watching their boyfriends get punched in the face can.

Reaction 1: Put my fucking lug sole hard enough into the door that it dents it enough that he can’t open it and then either smile at him or punch him through the window.

Reaction 2 (too late): “Oh, you should dump her. She’s the kind of girl who gets guys like us punched in the face.”

Rection 3: “Cute Blue car.”

But, the funny thing was that the guy just turned to her and said “Don’t do that” really fast and wouldn’t turn back to me, completely extinguishing the situation.

For some reason, I felt like I won something.

Later, the whole thing sort of struck me. I haven’t been in a fight in years, yet 15 years of having to know how to deal with getting jumped or picked on have left me with instincts that are about as useful to an adult male as his appendix.

Sunday
Today, we got to go see #1GF!’s cute-as-a-button niece who is just crossing the age where children are wary of me. She’s still in that “pick me up and hold me” age where #1GF! is more appealing than climbing on the jungle jon. Soon, she will cross into the age of of “chuck me around the room” where Jon will dominate. Enjoy it now, auntie. The End is neigh.

I then somehow developed a motherfucker of a migraine and spent 4 hours hiding from light and sound, recovering just enough to go to a cookout with some of my friends. Even though I’ve known them for at least 15 years, no one hit me in the nuts once. That shouldn’t have to be counted as a benefit for a cookout, should it?

Friday
We went kayaking with my parents and I accidentally swamped my kayak while goofing off. A dry hold is where you store all the stuff you want to stay dry when you swamp your kayak. The air pocket that it creates also stabilizes the kayak while you get back to normal. When you treat a regular hold like a dry hold, you will have to drag all your wet stuff to shore before you can even think about emptying it out.

Thursday
We went to the beach all day. While walking around…
#1GF!: “Jon!”
Jon: “Huh?”
#1GF!: “You look like you’re going to kick someone’s ass.”
Jon: “Me? [guy sidesteps me] I think it’s just the way my face is.”

On the way out the door, I saved a worm from frying on the walkway. It took me a good minute to move it into the mulch because it was wiggling like mad. I was actually saying things like, “Come on, stupid” as if worms had ears.

That was probably the best part of my day.

After that, I agreed to attend a party which I is something that I rarely do.

Some notes:

• If you intentionally hit me in the nuts and spit water on me, you had better be a really good fucking friend of mine and we had better be 17.
• If you ask someone why they don’t drink in front of a group of people that they’ve just met, you will, nine times out of ten, force the person to reveal something personal that will make people uncomfortable.
• If you disregard the last rule and the person gets uncomfortable and says something like “Oh, I liked to drink, it’s just that other people didn’t really like me when I drank,” you are free to read “Alcoholic” between the lines.
• If you don’t read “alcoholic” and keep pushing the person to drink by handing them glasses of wine or saying things like “jussht shmell thish wine,” the alcoholic will inevitably assume that you are either stupid, an asshole, or both.
• If you missed the last rule, please don’t make “mmmmmmm” noises and waft the smell of your chocolate cake to a diabetic. They will assume the same about you that the alcoholic does. And they could die at your party. And nothing fucks up a party like a dead guy.
• If someone you just met is sitting quietly listening to a conversation, you will inevitably confuse the shit out of them if you break into the conversation and yell across the table, “You said people didn’t like you when you drank, and your personality sucks now.” This goes double if there isn’t a hint of jesting in your voice or demeanor. For this, you will probably not have the benefit of being assumed stupid.

I guess I’m not 17 anymore. People party, and some party hard. That’s cool with me. What’s not cool is wasting my life defending why I’m not following you off the cliff. I’ve done my share of drinking, and corked that bottle 9 years ago. If you haven’t, have at it. In either case, make a fucking decision and follow it. Don’t waste time trying to garner me as support for your decisions. The day that you get up, pour the shots, and bang in sick to work for a 3 day bender is the day that my respect for you actually goes up. Because even though you’re making bad decisions, at least you’re standing on your own two feet and making your own decisions. And on that day, call me. I’ve been there and might be able to help.

So, I’m not a party animal anymore. So, I have to waste 4 hours listening to why that’s wrong. Big deal. I’m actually really happy that 99% of the time I’m surrounded by people who don’t believe that my sobriety is the problem. I’m a lucky boy.

This morning, I woke myself up early to see if the recovery worked. I joyously discovered that the program detected 65 Gb of lost data. Unfortunately, because my slave drive was formatted NTFS instead of FAT32, the program couldn’t find a place to put it. Fuckkity shit crap poop. Good Morning!

On the next run, the drive died while reading, leaving me sitting on a floor saying things like “Don’t you die on my, you bastard!”

Now, I have to see if I can get a $200 refund and the drive is going back to Western Digital for replacement. Once I get a hankering to go near a computer again, I’ll need to buy something with a nice racing stripe or speed holes to help re-ripping all that music.

But for now, it’s all over.

Day 4:
I think I can, I think I can, I think I can…

Day 5:
I can’t think, I can’t think, I can’t think…

Day 6 (today):
After 6 days, I finally found a trial program that could read about 65 Gb from my dead disc. It took 6 hours to do so, and then told me that I couldn’t save it and had to buy the full version. Fuck shit ass bitch nuts.

The full version of the program is $200, which is cheaper than sending the drive out to be professionally recovered, but wa-hay-hay more than a geek should ever have to shell out to save something he should’ve backed up in the fist place.

If you asked me 6 days ago to spend that kind of cake on the drive, I would’ve dismissed you with a wave of my nerd cape, but if you saw my clothing and hair style choices right now, you would agree that $200 is a cheap price to pay to abandon this kind of crazy. You can’t buy this kind of crazy from homeless Joe at the bus depot. And that’s a fact. I WHOOPED BATMAN’S ASS! Gagoulijibah.

So, when I wake up tomorrow, I might have blown $200 on a piece of software that wasn’t able to recover the months of music ripping and years of Perl scripts and web design on that drive. My hope, though, is that I wake up with a $200 backup that didn’t have to be sent to a lab.

In either case, #1GF! is completely done with me right now. I haven’t had a 10 minute stint without weaseling the words “hard drive” into the conversation, and I’ve spent more hours staring at the monitor than staring at her over the last 6 days. Plus, I blew off all phone calls and a cookout to work on this thing (Dear Geeks and Nerd, you may not see this as an issue, but that’s why you are reading this from a lab instead of from some naked woman’s apartment. In the relationship world, machine over human is a no no. Don’t attempt to explain the Matrix or the Borg, either. It will actually lose ground for you.)

It’s just that sometimes I lock onto a problem and won’t let go until it’s done. And sometimes, that’s just the way it has to be. Otherwise, I really won’t be wherever I’m standing until I’m standing where I think I need to be. In human relations, this is considered a defect. In problem solving it is an asset.

I solve problems. It’s what I do best. Humans, I’m working on.

Because we had a day off and no plans, we decided to revisit Cape Cod on our second day off. We drove alternate routes on the way down and back, traveling on the outside of the cape on the way down and on the inside on the way back. Normally the trip from bridge to tip is a couple of hours, but if you take alternate routes, it seems shorter because you see more than the typical highway monotony.

Do you seriously have any idea how many mini golf courses there are on the Cape? No matter where you are, you can’t throw a rock without hitting a giant whale par 3 or a lighthouse par 4. The number of mini golf courses is only topped by the number of friggin Christmas tree shops, which you can’t spit without hitting. Which I would if I didn’t think it would fly out the window and come back and hit me in the forehead. I hate the Christmas Tree Shop.

If you are unfamiliar with the Christmas Tree Shop phenomenon, it has nothing to do with Christmas at all. It’s simply a place where women go to buy things to clutter up their homes. And if your a man, stay the fuck out of there. I don’t care if you share an effeminate side, a penchant for ladies’ undergarments or a craving for cock. No common ground will save you. If you are not dripping with estrogen, they’ll eat you alive in there.

The only time I set foot in a Christmas Tree Shop was with my ex wife. Because her family made such a big fuss about the place, I could only assume that they owned a special plow with which to plow the merchandise directly into their cars. As a flea market fan myself, I thought that the place sounded interesting and figured, “Why not?”

I’ll tell you why not: because it’s not a flea market. It’s like a craft fare/fire sale bomb exploded in there. I walked about 15 feet into the store and was so inundated with low priced crap that I was completely overwhelmed. There wasn’t a manly item in the store. Hell, besides the elderly, broken down shopping cart slaves that some women tote with them shopping, there weren’t any men in the store. It was like accidentally wandering into the ladies unmentionables section and getting stuck there.

Within 10 minutes, I found myself staring into a basket of wooden apples.

“What are these, wooden? Who the hell needs wooden apples,” I asked no one in particular.

No fewer than five middle aged women lurking in the aisle simultaneously turned to me and berated me about exactly why people need wooden apples, why I had my head up my ass, and why if my ex wanted to buy wooden apples she should not be questioned on her purchases because I was a stupid, stupid man.

They didn’t explain wooden apples to me in a gently, “you poor man” kind of way. They were not kind. They were vehement. They defended a middle aged woman’s right to squander their poor bastard of a husband’s paycheck on whatever useless horseshit they wanted. They were on the attack. Over wooden fucking apples.

I turned to the ex wife standing outside of the gauntlet and just said “What the fuck? I’ll be in the car,” and walked the fuck out of that store never taking the stamp to allow re-entry. And since then, I haven’t been back.

After a long Friday at work, I usually unwind by visiting the music or computer sections at the local BestBuy, Compusa, or CircuitCity (It’s not a pretty fact, but it’s a fact). This past Friday was really no different, except that I had just gotten my EVO back after 2 weeks in the repair shop. I really didn’t appreciate the pure grandpa floatirion suckitude of the rental Camry (alignment problem included) until I re-acquainted myself with the EVO’s bone-jarring goodness on its maiden voyage to the local CompUSA.

While traversing the 10 mile hike from my ding resistant spot in the far reaches of the parking lot, I simultaneously reviewed the drive down and pondered the gigs and gigs of storage lining the shelves of the store. Just then, as if to drag me back to an unhappy reality, some guy walked up next to me and just started talking.

DumbAss: WR6.
Me: [ignoring the ramblings]
DA: WR6.
Me: What?
DA: WR6. WR6.
Me: WR6?
DA: Yea. WR6. It’s a WR6, right?
Me: Me? My car? It’s a Lancer Evolution.
DA: A Lancer Evolution WR6
Me: No. You mean a WRX.
DA: Oh, right, a Lancer Evolution WRX
Me: The WRX is a Subaru. Mine is A Lancer Evolution.
DA: Right a Subaru WRX.
Me: No. The Subaru looks kinda like it, but it’s not a Subaru. It’s a Lancer Evolution.
DA: ROCKET CAR!! [walks off]

I have stood for hours listening to insane people that I don’t know rattle off their life stories to me often enough that I usually deal with it without getting the slightest bit annoyed. The 30 seconds that made up this whole exchange left me so annoyed that I was on the edge of actually using the word “fucktard” and telling him to “just shut the fuck up and get away from me.”

Then, I visualized a key dragging across my new paint, and held my tongue to cut the stress level while I stared longingly at shelves and shelves of hard drives and other components.

Do you know why I don’t randomly walk up to strangers with baseball hats on and start shooting the shit about how the “Chicago Red Sox” or the “Cleaveland Cubs” are doing in the race for the cup? 2 reasons: I don’t bother people with questions if I don’t give a shit about the answer, and more importantly, I’d sound like a big, GODDAMNED FUCKTARD.

ROCKET CAR!

When someone gets their car smashed into, good responses are things like “No!” or “Dude, that fuckin’ sucks” or even “The next hooker’s on me, brother.” In no case where it is not your loss are you allowed to say something like “Well, at least no one was hurt.”

Ugh. I know you may not know what to say, but saying “At least no one got hurt” comes across like “It could’ve been worse, so look on the bright side!” And there’s nothing worse than a Professor Positive making light of your losses, when you’ll be spending the next month fighting the insurance company and driving a gray Chevy Impala that smells like ass and cigarettes.

I can tell you that after my house burned down, people would to say that all the time. And I’ll tell you, there’s nothing that incites the urge to burn someone at the stake than telling the story of how everything you owned was turned into a smelly, black pile of crap, and having people offer that pearl of wisdom to cheer you up. I mean this was only a small fender bender, and not a huge deal, so I was lucky that only a couple of people said this to me today. Being gracious, I only offered to light only one of them on fire, which was politely declined.

But, at least no one got hurt…

The next time you find yourself playing the Professor Positive card, just skip it. Instead, show the person a sympathetic furrowed brow and pony up the cash for the free hooker.

I had about 10 things that I wanted to write about today, but it was all trumped in fifteen seconds by a Q-Tip in a Buick. Being the wonderful employee that I am, I stayed a little late to fight a new virus that had come out. This put me in my car later than usual. You know my car? That black thing with the huge wing that I bought last November and I’ve parked insane distances away from anyone to prevent even the slightest ding or scratch? You know, the car that I really love driving with the tinted windows that didn’t have a fucking mark on it?

Yeaaaa, that one.

Well, while I was driving down Adams Street in Quincy as I normally do, a little old lady in a big old Buick decided that she didn’t like being parallel parked, didn’t feel like checking her mirrrors, and desperately felt like meeting a nice young man.

There wasn’t another fucking car on the road. Not one. And the distance of wide open road that she had to view my car coming down the street, had she checked any fucking mirror in her car, was 50 yards. Yet, the moment that my front bumber passed hers, she hit the gas and pulled out…right into the side of my fucking car.

Even though I swerved, she still managed to run the nose of that Buick right down the fucking side of my car. So, it’s not like she gently inched out just a wee granny inch. No. I was trying to get away from her like Hansel running from the old witch, and she was still stepping on the gas like Granny fucking Amphetamine.

That’s about the time that I think I just started yelling FUCK! at the top of my lungs. At one point I actually yelled it so hard that I bent forward at the waist. Then, I calmed down, and listened to the lady say little old lady things like, “I just don’t know what happened.” Well, I do, you fucking dumb ass. It’s pretty simple. You didn’t look, and you pulled out into the side of my car and kept going like it wasn’t even there.

I calmed the lady down, explained that these things happen, and even apologized for all the swearing. Then, I just drove the fuck home with no way to even get in touch with an insurance agent or a body shop tonight, which should be keeping me awake. I really should be stewing about this, but I’m not. I think all the yelling and the fact that I’m going to put some driving game into the PS2 to smash the fuck out of some Buicks is keeping me pretty calm.

I wonder if this will become so common as the baby boomers age that we’ll all just start buying crappy, Mad Max style cars to avoid the two weeks and twelve headaches that accompany dealing with the body shop.

But at least she smashed into my car rather than my apartment, right? Right?

Number of “fucks” in this post to this point: 11
To round it to a nice dozen: Fuck.
A Baker’s Dozen: Fuck.
And a few for the road: Fuckitty fuck fuck fuck.

Last Sunday, I attended an open house by the William Raveis real estate company. When I walked in the door, I was told that I must present a photo ID before I could see the house. Now, I have large enough issue with authority that I foolishly give the TIS gorillas at the airport shit for making me take my shoes off, and I’m paranoid enough that I don’t show my ID to anyone without a big, fat fight. My options were that I was either going to see the house or I wasn’t, but this woman was not going to see any ID from me. On seeing my indignation, the realtor was smart enough to cite an article from the Boston Globe that said that people were casing open houses and robbing them as her proof that her policy was acceptable and for the greater good. What she wasn’t bright enough to comprehend while abdicating responsibility for this bad policy was that she was insinuating that I was not a potential buyer, but a potential criminal.

Even if this house was being lived in, or was finished enough to have a sink, a kitchen, a bathroom, or even fixtures on the walls, I think I still would’ve been angry enough that steam poured out of my ears, but the complete and utter emptiness of the house made me even angrier. There wasn’t even a fricken floor for me to steal if I wanted to. The house wasn’t even close to finished.

I was so insulted by the request for ID, that my brain failed to provide me with even a slightly witty response like, “Oh, I don’t want to party, babe. I just want to see the house.” All I could do was lock up and try to contain the fuming. While I stood teetering on the edge of a flag waving, authority-hating meltdown, my GF was handing over her ID. Instead of protecting her with an identity-saving, yet embarrassing tackle and a 20 minute tirade on “What America Means to me as a Consumer,” I caught a look that said that it would be better for me in the long run if I choked it all back so that my GF could simply see the house.

Once my brain sweetened the deal by slipping in some hidden subsections promising some future glancing at the GF’s naughty bits in exchange for my silence, for the remainder of the 3 minute tour, I rolled around the house as silently as a grenade with a loose pin. So, although I never showed I.D. and left completely irritated at the realtor, I did the mature thing and later sent the following limp, little letter to their corporate e-mail: contact@raveisre.com. I’m learning to pick my battles and becoming such a fucking adult. But, I’m a fucking adult who gets to see boobies. High five.

To Whom it may Concern:

I was thoroughly disgusted when I went into an open house this weekend in Hull, Massachusetts, and was carded before I was allowed to see the house. Not only was the house so unfinished that there wasn’t even a floor down, but I was told that I was being carded in case I stole something. There weren’t even fixtures on the wall to steal, even if I had the inclination.

When I go to a restaurant for an expensive meal, I expect good service. When I buy an expensive car, I expect the dealer to at least pretend that he respects me. If I am spending over $XXX,000, I absolutely do NOT expect to be treated like a criminal.

I’ve sold a home and attended hundreds of open houses without issue. I am trying to find a home, and have a price range that bumps up on $XXX,000. After I was carded, I can say that I didn’t see anything in the house. I was disgusted. The house fell off my list immediately, and I can say that I won’t be attending any of your open houses in the future.

The realtor who carded me, said that my information would not be written down, but unless she has an iron clad memory, there is no way that she would be able to retain this information in a crime investigation. Given this, I can only determine that the ID check is merely a tactic to intimidate potential buyers. If you continue this policy, you may want to extend it to have the realtor carry a hand held metal detector, as it has been shown to be an effective deterrent to potentially armed criminals that might do harm to your personnel. You may even want to go the route of armed guard if your client’s safety is as important as it seems.

I hope that you understand that I’m being facetious, but the policies that you have enacted to protect your clients have taken that protection to a new level and completely alienated a potential buyer. And if you’ve alienated one buyer who’s upset enough to write a letter, there are hundreds that have silently written you off without action.

If you decide to change your policies in the future, please drop me a line so that I can write this matter off as a mistake and continue attending your open houses like a normal consumer.

Thanks for your time.

Jon Dyer

On re-reading this, I really should’ve added “Lick Balls” to the end. Ugh.

I am unsatisfied. My beard is getting on my nerves, but not enough to shave it off. I’m not happy about my complete decline in muscle mass, but not enough to go to the gym and do something about it. I do nothing more with the weeks than count the days until Friday. It’s a winter rut, and I’m too lazy to do anything about it.

I think this must be some dumbed down, leftover form human hibernation.

It’s all over
The relaxation that I stored up over that nice, long vacation was expected to last me at least two weeks. Unfortunately, I used up all my calm on dipshits and side tracks in a mere 2.5 days. At one point somewhere near the end, I think I actually referred to someone as a “stupid dick,” in a pretty matter-of-fact way that surprised my co-workers into a burst of laughter, but could probably be construed as “not very professional.” At least no one construed it as some form of pseudo-sexual harassment. So, I got that going for me…which is nice.

And it Tastes like Poop
Even though making a drink called Mexican Hot Chocolate sounds exotic, the smell of chili powder and cinnamon in your hot chocolate gives the distinct impression that you are drinking a steaming hot cup of poop.

Interestingly enough, after I made this connection, I took two more sips. And then left the rest on the counter for my GF to try.

Say You

To whom it may concern,

The lanes shifted when you were next to me, and I just didn’t feel like shifting with them. As a member of the rotary club, I feel it is my prerogative. I mean really. Could you imagine if Mr. Cuddles were to shift his pure bred form to the right? It might not only muss his coat, but send him to several more sessions in doggy therapy.

Next time, remember who rules the road, so you don’t have to slam on the brakes in that winged monstrosity that you call a car.

Stop ruining my drive home.

-Mrs. Margaret Gladstone-Williamson

Say Me

Dear Lexus-driving Uber bitch,

When the lanes shift to the right and you decide not to, I’m not the one who is a fucking asshole, so save the dirty looks for the butler. When you pull that shit, I have to refrain from reciprocating by giving you the finger or merging into the side of your overpriced, rebranded Toyota.

Refraining takes effort that I’m really not willing to expend on you these days, plus it blows Newton’s Third Law.

Stop fucking up science.

Love,
Jon

End on a High Note
Last night I searched the web for something to entertain me. Anything. I like my job, but after 8 days straight, I start to get a little tired of it. It starts wearing me down, and without any fun time, I start to remember that all this work is going towards a raise or promotion that the company isn’t in a position to give.

I’ll tell you though, even though it’s stressful and I’ve done it a ton of times, successfully planning, coordinating, and executing a 16,000+ machine rollout worldwide is pretty cool. And even though it wears me down, and no matter what crumbs fall of the table again this year, I am proud of my work and I feel accomplished in it. It’s a stupid ideal, but it seems to be the only reward available these days.

End on a Low Note

1. The world of technology is vast. As technical folks, we all have our areas of expertise, and I don’t expect you to know as much about my particular area of expertise is as I do. What I do expect from you as a technical person is that if you happen to get an error message that says “Error: See c:\windows\temp\errorlog.txt for details,” your intellectual curiosity will compel you to do the bare minimum and at least open the fucking log before you fire me an e-mail to look at the issue.
2. If my server is pegged because it’s pushing out installation after installation, don’t ride me about reports being slow. I know that they are slow. You know they are slow. We all know they are slow. There is no need to compound the problem by taxing the server with additional reports or taxing the administrator with additional troubleshooting just to provide proof that he knows his shit.
3. Whenever the administrator sees the little mail icon pop up in his system tray, he feels compelled to check it, lest it is an important question from his boss. When it turns out to be a Republican vs. Democrat flame war that incessantly interrupts his troubleshooting, and he asks you to take him off the thread, he’s not being anti-social. He’s really, really busy and needs all the time he’s got right now. So, grant him a small courtesy and take him off the fucking thread.

Optimism
The warm weather and rain in the last few days have caused moths all over the South Shore to assume that it is now spring. Their unbridled optimism has sealed their fate.

Pessimism
I heard on the news that some cheerleaders got drunk and did some, as one newsman said, “salty” cheers before being suspended from school. I found it surprising that although there was no criminal action, the kids’ names were given out on the air. What was even more surprising was how vehement the female news anchor was about a 10 day school suspension not being enough of a punishment for the behavior. She actually went on to say that the kids should be “banned from cheerleading for life.”

Seriously.

My questions are these:
Since when did simply getting drunk become enough to put a kid on the morning news in a major metropolitan area?

What the fuck is wrong with us as a society that now when kids make a mistake, we feel that the mistake should follow them around forever?

What made that news anchor so angry? Does she hold the sport of cheerleading in the highest esteem? Is she so bitter or beyond reproach that she has completely and utterly forgotten what it is to make a mistake? Or, is she regularly attending AA and wishes she could sit down with Johnny. Jim and Jack and throw some salty cheers at that unloving prick of a corporate suit she married. Man, she should’ve married Arty. With that motorcycle and fringed jacket, man, he knew how to live…but I digress.

When people feel the need to puritanically punish others(i.e. the punishment is much larger than the crime) or have extremely hard line views, I have to wonder how many hookers they lived with in that coke den before they found the “right” way to live, or how many they secretly want to live with now.

When you’re rushing to get to wherever you’re trying to get to this year, remember that general traffic speed increases if you avoid fighting for position and allow people to merge. By giving a little leeway, you increase the greater good.

So don’t be a fucking asshole this Thanksgiving.

Movie reviews #226458322
Man on Fire (action): Tired story of the washed up mercenary that turns himself around and saves the day. C (as in crap).
triggermen (action): 2 hours went by and I had no idea why. P.S. Donnie Wahlberg sucks. C- (as in crap minus).
Harold and Maude (drama): I’ve heard people love this movie. I didn’t really get it, but it had a lot of funny quotes and some funny parts. B- (as in not that bad).

Jay
My friend Jay came in to Boston from Sweden for 23 hours on his way to visit his parents in Georgia on Saturday and didn’t tell anyone that he was coming in except me. I think it was payback for having been in the U.S. for three weeks the last time he was here and not having more than 2 hours for me. It was unexpected, and nice.

While waiting at Terminal E and sipping my Dunkin Donuts coffee, I remembered why I like being at the airport: everyone is happy, hopeful, and well, huggy. I can stand and watch people come in for at least a couple of hours without getting the least bit bored. This goes double for the international terminal because the varied cultures of the happy greeters, and the high proportion of exotic looking people coming through the gates.

Jay came in at 6PM Saturday, ate at Grumpy’s, met some friends, and hung out, leaving little time for sleep before heading for the airport at 6:30AM Sunday morning. I give the visit a harried thumbs up.

On the way home from dropping him off at the airport, I encountered the exact opposite of the friendly, hopeful air of the airport at the tolls. There was a fat middle eastern guy with a grey moustache and not-blue-blockers-but-might-as-well-be-sunglasses in the booth. I pulled up, and handed him a $5, and fully expected $3 back. Not only was I surprised to find out that the toll had been bumped up to $3 for passenger cars, but that I only got $.50 back.

When I stared at him in dismay he barked, “4.50″ in a way that typing cannot do justice (but, of course, I’ll try).

I just stared confused and eeked out a confused, “What?”
“Dillehd pletts. Fwad fifteh!” he barked.
“Dealer plates?” I said confused.
“Dillehd pletts. Fwad fifteh!”
“I’m not a dealer, man, this is a loaner while they work on my car at the dealer.”
“Dilled pletts. Fwad fifteh!”
“I’m not a dealer. This is a loaner.”
I stared. He stared.
“Jeem! Check cahd fod dillehd pletts,” at which point Jim came out of the booth and said something ingenious like “Yep. Dealer plates.”
“Dillehd pletts. Fwad fifteh!!”

At that point I realized that this guy was happier with the letter of the law than the spirit, and that for me, the price was not the problem, but this guy’s attitude. It was at that point that driving away was well worth $1.50. Once I had gotten a mile up the road and all the fantasies of perfect snappy responses and choking had faded, I hoped that this guy’s attitude somehow bit him in the ass. Then, I left him behind.

Mouse
For the last couple of weeks, I refused to believe it, but we have had a mouse in the house. I don’t feel good about killing small animals that I don’t intend to eat, so neck snapping traps were out. I mean, it wasn’t the mouse’s fault that he was searching for food in a place that I claimed as my territory. Due to my lack of urinating in every corner of the apartment, the mouse had no idea that I claimed this area as mine. It was merely occupying some small portion of an area that I arbitrarily claimed as my own based on an arbitrary monetary system that it knew nothing about. So, how could I kill it?

My GF bought these clear plastic traps that only open in. Each had air holes, and could be emptied by simply flipping the trap over allowing the door to swing inward fully, releasing the mouse. I stuck a piece of peanut butter coated Wasa (Swedish mouse trap!) in there, and set it in the laundry room overnight.

While I was out with Jay, the ingenious little invention trapped our mouse. Although it was only an inch long, my GF really, really, really harbors some serious issues against mice. As she slept behind closed doors, I released the little thing into a field near my apartment. I think that she closed the door to be as far removed from that mouse as possible, while I, on the other hand, stared at it in wonder, and thought it was really, really neat.

I wonder if my propensity to move mice from the house and snails off of the path is an indication of a big pussy or if it’s more big-heart Buddhist. Then again, in trivial matters, “why” is inconsequential, so who cares?

This year I didn’t vote, but I don’t think it matters. For the last 12 years I’ve written in Ross Perot, as I see it as a vote for entropy. This year, with Kerry set to win Massachusetts, I thought a vote for entropy was a waste of gas.

I was surprised that middle America is retarded enough to vote King George the Religious into office for a second term, but not that surprised. I was surprised at how many people who seemed devastated by the loss.

To those people who find Kerry’s loss devastating, I have this:
1. Politicians lie for a living.
2. Don’t pin your hopes and dreams on a professional liar.

Chase and J.P. Morgan merged. Another large merger: whoopdeedoo. As a result, the newly formed megaglobal corporation sent me a new “privacy policy” and allowed me two ways to opt out of having my information shared with other companies. I was all set to call and opt out, until I read this paragraph right below the options:

“Even if you tell us not to share, we may share other types of information within our family. For example, we may share name and address, information about transactions or balances with us, as well as survey results.”

My first question is what information don’t they share, and how exactly do they define “opting out?”

I’ve been spending the last 2 weeks getting dicked around by car dealers and the corporate fates, so I have no real desire to write anything. Instead, I spend my free time playing Iron Stomach and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, and acting like an idiot until my GF laughs.

Bah
Kerry sucks, Bush is an idiot, and Nader is insane. Does anyone else feel that actually going and pulling the lever in the voting booth is going to do anything better than pulling it at home?